Into the Maze

2

Below them, the shadow of the troopship skipped over hills and desert, the silhouette of the fuselage circled by the shadow of the spinning rotors. The shadow flashed over pale, windblown sand and colorless earth. Sometimes the shadow disappeared when the helicopter passed over canyons, the shadow lost within shadows for an instant. Once they passed over a road, but they saw no trucks, no farms, no villages.

Four Yaquis — Vato, Ixto, Jacom and Kino — sat in the doors, their feet dangling into space, a rope across the door serving as a safety restraint. They pointed out landmarks to one another as they passed over the familiar territory. Behind them, Able Team struggled to read a map as the slipwind from the open doors flapped and tore the map. Colonel Gunther — tied, blindfolded, wads of rags taped over his ears — sat in a doorgunner's seat, the safety harness buckled around him.

Blancanales held a compass out at arm's distance, away from the metal of the bulkheads. He watched the needle, then looked down to the shadow of the helicopter to confirm the bearing. He shouted to his partners.

"Davis is taking us due south. Wasn't the plan to stay away from the coast?"

"That's where the army is." Lyons spoke into the intercom microphone. "Davis, where you going?"

"I'm paralleling the mountains."

"Our compass tells us you're going straight south."

"Got to, for a while."

"Got to, nothing! You run us into the army, we'll never make it to Mexico City."

"Hey, specialist, I'm the pilot. You see those mountains to the east? The charts say those mountains go up to eleven and twelve thousand feet. If this aircraft were empty, I couldn't get in higher than ten thousand feet. And we're overweight. That means we stay low in the foothills."

"Yeah? If the Mexicans pick us up on radar, they're going to wonder who we are. And that could lead to very serious problems."

"Don't worry about the radar," Davis countered. "Worry about the questions when we refuel. A gang of Indians and gringos shows up in an army of Mexico helicopter and asks for a fill-up?"

"They're all in Mexican uniforms."

"What about you?"

"No problem. We're tourists. The army's taking us sight-seeing."

"Uh-huh."

Lyons turned to his partners and shouted, "He says we're overloaded and he can't get the altitude to stay in the mountains."

Blancanales spoke into the intercom. "Any way we can lighten the helicopter?"

"Throw out the prisoner," Davis answered.

"We need him..."

"Then jump out yourself.''

"No, thanks."

"Then instead of asking me questions, do something. Try unbolting the cargo doors and dropping them."

"That'll have to wait until we land."

"Then get together with all those passengers back there and work out a way we can onload two hundred gallons of filtered, unadulterated Jet A kerosene without any questions asked."

"Avidn!" Jacom yelled.

"Dande?" Coral yelled back.

The Yaquis in the right-hand door pointed to a glint of light in the west. Lyons scanned the sky with his binoculars and pointed to another speck.

"A light plane and a helicopter," he said.

Blancanales relayed the information to Davis. "We got a helicopter and a spotter plane to the west-southwest."

The troopship dropped. Lyons and Blancanales grabbed the safety rope across the door as Davis took the troopship down. The skids seemed to touch the ridge lines.

Davis shouted through the intercom, "Get on their frequencies. Listen for an alert..."

Gadgets interrupted. "Already on it, fly-boy. Me and Seflor Coral have been on it nonstop, all day long."

"What're they saying now?" Davis asked.

Gadgets laughed. "What they've been saying all day. 'Colonel Gonzalez, where are you?' The helicopter and plane are on the way to look for their little lost colonel."

Lyons took the intercom microphone. "Just make distance, Davis. Get us out of here before they get serious."

As Sergeant Castillo banked the Piper in a slow circle of the destroyed helicopters, Lieutenant Lopez focused his binoculars on the scene. He saw the ashes and blackened metal that had been four helicopters. Knots of vultures fought over the corpses of dead soldiers.

The lieutenant spoke into the radio. "We are above the hill. I count four helicopters. They are burned, nothing left. There is no one alive down there."

After a moment, questions came from the radio. "This is Colonel Alvarez. You see only four helicopters?"

Lieutenant Colonel Alvarez, the International Group's second-in-command, directed the search for the missing Colonel Gonzalez from the safety of the communications office of Rancho Cortez.

"Only four."

"Is there evidence of fighting?"

The lieutenant exchanged glances with the sergeant. The sergeant shook his head at the question. Suppressing a laugh, the lieutenant answered, "Yes."

"Continue searching. We must determine the whereabouts of the other helicopters and the bomber plane."

The sergeant pointed to a scorched hillside. Straightening the Piper's flight path, he crossed the narrow canyon, then circled again. Below them, they saw a tangle of heat-distorted scrap metal. Burning fuel had denuded the hillside, leaving only ashes and black rocks. A rotor blade identified the wreck as that of a helicopter.

On a hilltop above the wreck, vultures fed on the bodies of soldiers in gray uniforms. Two corpses lay on the top of the hill. Others sprawled in the brush on the steep hillside. Vultures had found them all.

Studying the hilltop through the binoculars, the lieutenant saw no weapons. He reported his observations to Colonel Alvarez.

"We see another helicopter. And the bodies of the advisers from Mexico City. All dead. And their rifles and equipment are gone."

"They are dead? Incredible. I cannot believe they fell into a trap also."

"It is very strange. It is as if they were ambushed. But they died on a hilltop. Ambush would have been impossible."

"They are highly trained, veterans of many wars."

"But someone killed them all."

"Find the others," commanded the voice from the radio. "Perhaps Colonel Gonzalez escaped somehow. Perhaps the pilot of the plane survived. We must learn exactly what happened. Has the helicopter carrying the soldiers arrived yet?"

"In a few minutes, Colonel."

"They will search the area. Assist them."

The lieutenant switched off the microphone. He said to the sergeant, "We will assist them. We will tell them to stay away from this cursed place. And perhaps they will live."

Landing in an arroyo outside Culiacan, Davis switched off the turbine. He turned to his passengers.

"We still got some fuel, but not much," he said. "How about if we get volunteers to hitchhike over to the airport? There's a dirt road a couple hundred yards that way..."

Davis pointed to the south. In the afternoon glare, the men of Able Team saw only heat-shimmering desert.

"How far to Culiacan?" Lyons asked.

"I guess we're about five miles outside city limits," Davis replied. "You can catch a bus on the highway."

"I have friends in the city," Miguel Coral told the North Americans. "I will go. Who will go with me?"

"We have no clothes, only uniforms," Vato answered, pointing to the camouflage-patterned Mexican army fatigues he and the three other Yaqui fighters wore.

"I can't," Gadgets answered. "I have to stay with the radios. And if you're going, the Politician's got to stay here to translate. So that means the Ironman goes. You still got your civilian clothes?"

Lyons pulled his wadded slacks and shirt from his pack. He found his sport shirt. As he dressed, Vato and the Yaquis spread out into the desert around the helicopter. In their uniforms, with Mexican army boots and gear and weapons, they looked like young soldiers on maneuvers.

"How much money you got?" Lyons asked Gadgets.

Gadgets took a plastic box from his pack. The stenciled word Moneymarked the lid. He took out stacks of crisp greenbacks in bank wrappers. "Ten thousand... twenty thousand... thirty thousand total. How much will two hundred gallons of kerosene cost?"

Davis stared at the money. "You always carry that much cash around in your backpack?"

"Nothing like pictures of Benjamin Franklin to expedite solutions to difficult situations," Gadgets jived as he counted out ten one-hundred-dollar bills. "Will a thousand dollars cover a fill-up?"

"Make it two thousand." Lyons buttoned up his sport shirt.

Gadgets laughed at Lyons's wrinkled, dirty clothes. "Look at that dude. He's so mean he even wipes out Perma-Press. Here's a thousand more. Buy yourself a new shirt."

"Yeah, yeah. You think you're funny. What if I take this money and buy an air ticket back to L.A.?"

"You won't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because the goons you want to kill ain't in L.A., that's why."

"You got it. Adios, amigos."

Lyons and Coral hiked out of the arroyo. In the distance, across the rolling desert, they saw a gray smear: the smoke and auto pollution of Culiacan. Lyons checked his watch.

"Four o'clock. Think we can walk into town before night?"

"We will be there very soon. We could be done before night, but it is probably better that we come back with the truck after dark. To avoid questions."

They followed the dirt road toward the highway.

As they walked, Coral tutored Lyons in basic Spanish. The Mexican gangster taught the North American justice warrior numbers and directions and distances. He taught him nouns and the present tense of common verbs.

After a half hour's walking, they came to a sprawling dump. Plastic bags and broken glass littered the sand. Along the road, several families lived in jacals— shacks made of discarded sheet metal and plywood. Teenage boys looked up from sorting scrap metal and saw the two strangers. Children watched from the doorways of the shacks.

Coral called out to the teenagers. A boy pointed. A young man wearing oil-stained coveralls walked out to the strangers. He talked with Coral for a minute. Coral turned to Lyons.

"We can hire him to take us into Culiacan," he said.

"Sure," Lyons said.

Coral negotiated the price and then the young man left.

"I told him our truck broke down in the mountains, and we're going in for some parts. He wanted to repair the truck, but I told him it was a new American truck with computerized ignition and that's what went wrong."

A battered Chevy pickup, assembled of mismatched body panels, rattled out. Lyons saw packing cases in the cargo bed. Each box contained different metals: aluminum, copper, brass, iron. A chicken fluttered about, finally flying off the truck.

Coral sat in the center, Lyons against the passenger door. The teenager leaned across the seat and introduced himself to his riders.

"Alejandro," he said.

"Carl." Lyons gave only his first name.

"Miguel."

Then Alejandro accelerated the truck down the dirt road. It shook, the springs squeaking. Bumping and lurching on the seat, Lyons tried to follow the conversation between the teenager and Coral. Failing to understand the Mexicans, he stared out at the passing desert. Soon they turned onto the highway.

Alejandro instructed Lyons in Spanish dialect during the ride. Lyons understood nothing. Finally, Coral interrupted the lesson to give Alejandro directions. Alejandro left the highway and drove through the suburbs of Culiacan.

Late-afternoon sunlight blazed from the turquoise, pink, aqua-blue colors of the stucco houses. American and European compact cars filled the driveways. Cinder-block walls topped with jagged broken glass divided the lots. Coral motioned Alejandro to stop.

Coral scanned the neighborhood. Lyons started to open the door. Coral caught his arm.

"Wait. Something is not right."

"What?"

"No children. There should be children." Coral spoke quickly with Alejandro. The teenager shook his head. Coral turned to Lyons again. "There is no festival, no parades today. There should be children in the street and the yards."

They waited. Coral spoke again with Alejandro. The teenager started up the truck. They drove through the neighborhood, scanning the parked cars. After a few minutes of driving through the streets, circling the blocks, they parked again. Coral went into a house.

"Que pas la problema?" Alejandro asked Lyons.

Lyons shrugged.

Tires squealed. An engine roared as a four-door sedan spun around the corner. Lyons saw the forms of men in the front and back seats. Then he saw the muzzle of a weapon come out of the side window.

Grabbing Alejandro, Lyons threw open the pickup's door.