Amazon Slaughter

5

All through the afternoon, Blancanales floated in a green world. The Indians — one man at each end of the narrow canoe — paddled without pause for hours, leaning deep into each stroke, alternating their strokes from side to side. Blancanales sat low in the boat, reclining against his pack, only his knees and face showing above the sides. He had offered to help row, but the Indians pointed to the jungle, touched their eyes, pointed at Blancanales. Blancanales nodded his understanding, radioed Lyons and Gadgets to stay low and unseen.

They passed riverbanks tangled with roots, shallows choked with fallen trees, mud slopes crowded with crocodiles. River birds startled from the water in sheets of winged color. They passed unending walls of jungle. Often, the outspread branches of the huge trees closed over the narrow river, creating a hundred-foot-high tunnel.

Abraham rode in Lyons's boat. He played bamboo panpipes from time to time, the fluting melodies drifting over the water to Blancanales, who also heard the boy's laughter as Lyons tried the panpipes.

Lyons buzzed Blancanales on his hand radio. "Hey, Politician. You know what? This kid knows the Gettysburg Address by memory. Word for word."

Shadow claimed the river as the sun fell in the sky. Blancanales pushed back the camouflage-patterned crush hat he wore, looked up at the sky, checked his watch. Sundown would come in two hours. He keyed his hand radio and said to Gadgets, "Mr. Wizard, ask Thomas Jefferson when we'll make camp. We're losing daylight."

After a pause, Thomas's voice answered. "Soon. Maybe hour. Then we stay at village. I like this radio. Maybe we get radios. Is possible?"

"We can work out a deal."

A whistle came from the shore. The Indian boatmen stopped their rowing. The whistle rose and fell. Blancanales's radio buzzed: "This is Thomas. We go to shore now. Please, I speak with men..."

Blancanales and Lyons held up their hand radios. The boatmen had heard radios before, but never the broadcast of words in their own language. They recognized Thomas's voice, listened to his instructions. They kept looking across the water to Thomas, then looking at the radio. After his voice cut off, Blancanales and Lyons acknowledged.

"Got the message here," Lyons told him.

"These men heard it, too."

The boatmen saw the foreigners speaking, then tried to speak, also, all four chattering and shouting into the microphones. Thomas had to shout at them across the water to stop the noise. After checking their shotguns and putting the weapons at their feet, they paddled for the riverbank.

Blancanales did not see the waiting warriors until the boats touched the weeds and knotted roots of the shore. Black with body paint, the men left cover and helped pull the dugout canoes onto the bank. They carried bows and arrows, spears, old single-shot shotguns. There were no greetings, no friendly chatter. Some of the men and boys stared at the North Americans, but the others spoke quickly with Thomas, gestured to the north with their weapons.

Thomas turned to Able Team. "I am not chief. Molomano is chief. Fight soldiers many times, lose men. Much sadness with women. Children hungry. When soldiers near, Molomano no fight. Always run. But soldiers find village this day, attack. Take some men for slaves. All other people run away, hide here. This good chance for you to make many friends, make Molomano strong chief again. I tell him three civilizadoscome from United States to help fight soldiers. That good story, yes? We fight soldiers?"

"We want prisoners. Soldiers to question."

"Question, then kill, yes?"

Groups of Indians clustered along the trail. Voices greeted Thomas and his men. But when the tribespeople saw the foreigners, they went quiet. Children ran behind their mothers, young boys gripped their stick spears. Nursing mothers covered their babies.

In a glance, Blancanales spotted malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies in many of the people. Like the warriors with Thomas, the men wore loincloths. Children wore nothing. Most of the women were dressed in shapeless handwoven robes belted with braided fibers. One pregnant teenager wore a faded red football jersey, her seven-month belly stretching the number 10. Many of the people had running sores, spindly arms and legs. The babies of women with shriveled breasts cried continuously, always hungry for milk their mothers didn't have. Older children had the distended bellies of malnutrition.

Thomas strode through the gathered tribe, calling out to the people, pointing from Lyons to the loads of crocodile meat his men carried. Flies and insects covered the meat, buzzed in swirls as Thomas pantomimed Lyons shooting the reptile. The people turned to Lyons, stared at the shirtless white man with the blackened body and face.

Blancanales leaned to Lyons, spoke in a low voice. "Notice that he left out the screaming and crawling."

"Hey! You look down the throat of a crocodile and keep your cool."

"Pol!" Gadgets hissed. "Catch his act. You could learn something."

They watched as Thomas described in words and sounds and pantomime the DC-3 coming out of the sky. He slipped the Remington 870 from his shoulder, presented it to Molomano.

Puzzled by the unfamiliar weapon, the chief pointed it at the sky, pulled the trigger. It was unloaded. He looked for the latch to hinge the shotgun open as if it were a single-shot. Thomas pointed to the foregrip, moved his hand in a pump motion.

Jerking back the pump, slamming it forward, the chief chambered a round and aimed at a tree. The weapon didn't fire. Thomas reached out, pushed the safety across. The chief aimed again, fired.

Leaves and twigs showered the trail. Chief Molomano grinned. Thomas made the pumping motion again and again. Chambering shell after shell, the chief fired five more times.

Jumping with excitement, Molomano flourished the shotgun in the air, shouted to his warriors. They shouted, waved their spears and old shotguns.

Thomas called out to Able Team, "Shoot your guns!"

Gadgets and Blancanales fired three bursts from their auto-rifles; Lyons pulled out his Python, fired an instant later. The pistol's deafening blast brought laughter from the tribesmen. Thomas held up his M-l carbine, pointed to the north. All the men shouted, waved their weapons.

Thomas went to Able Team. "It is agreed," he told them, slinging his M-l over his shoulder. "Tonight, we kill soldiers."

An hour before dark they were heading west. Three tribesmen — Molomano and two warriors — accompanied Able Team and Thomas's fighters. They carried only weapons and ammunition. For the first mile, the line moved at a steady, jogging pace. Point men sprinted far ahead to scout parallel trails and check possible ambush sites before dark.

Lyons realized Able Team slowed the Indians. The black-painted men ran effortlessly and unconsciously, their sweat-glistening legs flashing in the fading light. From time to time, they forgot the North Americans, leaving the three men behind. Then they glanced back, slacked their strides until the clothed and weapons-heavy Able Team closed the line.

Counting in pounds, Lyons totalled the weight of the weapons and ammunition he carried. The Atchisson, almost ten pounds loaded. Four extra magazines of 12-gauge, five pounds. The Beretta and two twenty-round magazines, four pounds. And then the weight of his Python.

Behind him, Blancanales and Gadgets carried almost as much weight. With every step, their boots shattered the silence of the ferns and hardwoods. The Indians' feet skipped over the bedding of dead leaves and wood and living vines without a sound, the tribesmen barefooted, Thomas and his men in water-softened leather sandals.

Miles later, as night closed on them, they reached the point men. The paths had taken the twelve men from one side to the other of a fold in the river. Thomas, Molomano and the point men huddled in a whispered exchange for a minute. Thomas then took the information to the three foreigners. "Soldiers camp in the village. They have boats. Big boats with lights, machine guns. Big for many men. Two boats that fly..."

"What do you mean, 'that fly'?" Lyons asked.

"I do not know the word. They have propeller in back end, two men, maybe three ride. It not touch water."

"Air cushion!" Gadgets told them. He asked Thomas: "They spray water out the sides?"

"Yes, yes. And some shoot machine gun. Some bombs. Fly over water, over sand..."

"And the soldiers?" Lyons interrupted.

"Many. Some on boat, some in village. They have many Indian people for slaves. Some of this tribe, some of other tribe."

"And did your men see the guard around the camp? What are their positions?" Blancanales asked.

"Many. They saw soldiers putting bombs around village. Bombs with long string, if touch string, boom. Like a hundred shotguns. Other bombs with electric wire. If soldiers see Indian, hear Indian, turn on bomb."

"Claymore," Gadgets concluded.

"No fun," Lyons said. "Going up against claymores in the dark, in the jungle."

"Who says we have to slip in on land?" Gadgets asked.

"Get boats, float down on the current," Blancanales nodded.

Gadgets completed the plan. "Take their transportation away, we can come back for the soldiers in the daylight. Or ambush them if they try to escape overland."

Thomas shook his head. "Boats in village."

"Could we swim?" Blancanales asked.

"Crocodiles!" Lyons answered.

"We call caimans." Thomas told them. "And piranha. Snakes. Very dangerous. Sometimes caimans attack, like Ironman."

"I'd like to avoid the river," Lyons stressed.

"Hey, man," Gadgets joked. "Me and the Politician could do it. We're not wearing any of that lizard-attracting lotion."

Blancanales and Gadgets laughed softly. Lyons didn't think it was funny.

"All right," Blancanales said finally. "Looks like we crawl. Thomas, you and me go in first. Then we'll lead Gadgets and Ironman in..."

"We'll use the Berettas," Lyons continued the planning. "Maybe we can do it ourselves. But if shooting starts..."

"Only us?" Thomas asked, incredulous.

"Molomano and all the others can circle the camp and give us backup if we need it," Lyons added.

"Against many soldiers?" Thomas questioned. "How can only four men attack many soldiers?"

Gadgets slipped out his Beretta 93-R and held it up against the last gray light of day. "With silence."