Into the Maze

6

Forested mountainsides stood like a wall against the clouded sky. Davis took the helicopter higher and higher, the turbine whine becoming a shriek, the rotor blades slashing thinner atmosphere with every meter of elevation. The helicopter entered the clouds, mist swirling through the interior, the forest suddenly gone. For a moment, enveloped in the clouds, the noise of the turbine overwhelming their thoughts and senses, they floated in a cold, gray void.

Flashes of daylight came, then the helicopter broke from the clouds. A brilliant blue sky domed the Valley of Mexico. Vato shouted over the turbine noise and pointed to the southeast.

"There." He pointed to the two snow-topped volcanoes. "Popocatepetl. Iztaccihuatl. We are near la ciudad."

But a gray pall denied any sight of the world's largest city. In the center of the valley, a point of light flashed as sunlight blazed from the polished metal of an airliner descending into the pollution generated by millions of autos and trucks and factories in the distant Mexican capital.

Lyons spoke into the intercom. "How much farther?"

"We're there," Davis replied.

"But it looks like we're still thirty or forty miles away."

"We are, specialist. But I know Mexico City. Take my word for it, this is as close as we'll get with the Huey. As soon as I spot a road, I'm putting this thing down."

"Make it somewhere isolated," Lyons told him. "We might have to leave it parked for days."

Blancanales spoke through the intercom. "This is it for the helicopter. Miguel and I will go into the city and rent cars."

"We can't abandon this helicopter," Lyons argued. "It could be our ticket out if we fall into a bad situation down there..."

Davis interrupted. "Then you fly it. This thing's done fifteen hundred miles without servicing. Flying it one more minute than we need to is chancing a very sudden descent. I want to park it and walk away."

"This is a million-dollar machine!" Lyons protested.

"Yeah?" Davis retaliated. "Isn't that what I said when you burned the Lear jet? Listen to me. This million-dollar machine is trashed. The joyride is over. Let the Mexicans repossess it. There's our road — no villages, no farms, just canyons and trees. Looks good."

Below them, trees covered steep hillsides. A gravel road followed the curves and folds of a mountainside. They saw a trail along a ridge line. On another ridge line, tire ruts led from the gravel road to a wide clearing. The mature trees had been harvested, then the cleared ground replanted with seedlings among the stumps.

"Miguel!" Gadgets called out. He plugged a second set of headphones into the NSA secure-frequency radio captured from the International Group. Coral slipped on the headphones. He listened as Gadgets plugged in a cassette tape recorder.

"What's going on?" Lyons asked him.

Gadgets motioned for him to wait.

The helicopter banked. Gaining altitude, they flew over the ridge crest. The road disappeared in the trees. They saw flat stone slabs and low brush on a hilltop.

"What do you think of that place, the rocks down there?" Davis asked through the intercom.

"You're driving," Lyons told him.

"One last look," Davis said.

Davis took the helicopter in a quick orbit of the hilltop. Lyons and the Yaquis sat in the door. In the valley beyond, more than three kilometers from the hilltop, they saw the geometry of farms: rectangular fields, the lines of cornstalks, the circles of ponds. Smoke drifted from trees concealing houses. But they saw no fields or trails near the flat hilltop itself.

Seconds later, the skids scraped rock. Dust and leaves swirled around the helicopter. Davis shut down the turbine. Only the rush of the slowing rotors broke the silence. Then the rotors stopped.

Wind carried away the odor of burned kerosene. The Yaquis straightened their uniforms and stepped from the gaping doors. Glancing at Gadgets, Miguel and Blancanales listening to the NSA radio, Lyons followed the Yaquis out.

Birds and insects broke the silence with their sounds. FN FAL paratroop rifles slung over their backs, the Yaquis walked into the forest. Jacom and Kino searched downhill, Ixto uphill. Lyons followed Vato. Staying two steps behind the slight young man, Lyons watched him move silently through the brush, listening for every sound, his head pivoting to scan the trees and lush foliage for any sign of observers.

Tropical trees blocked the sun. Spots of light glowed on ferns and flowering plants. Vato moved effortlessly through the foliage. He stopped. Lyons saw Vato watching something. Then he too saw it.

A hummingbird, resplendent in shimmering emerald-green feathers, hovered only an arm's reach from Vato. When the bird moved, flashing from shadow to sunlight, the young man followed. Vato and Lyons wove through the trees and ferns, around a clump of bayonetlike maguey cactus, and stopped at a sheer wall of rock overhung by trees.

Hummingbirds chattered. Lyons looked around and saw more of the tiny birds, hovering and darting around a flowering tree, their wings blurs, their bodies like jewels floating in the shadows and light.

Vato reached into the tree to pick a round yellow fruit. He passed one to Lyons.

"Zapote."

They sat among the ferns and grasses, eating zapotes. Inside a thin skin, a zapotehas flesh that tastes like mango, but with the consistency and texture of pudding. Vato smashed a zapoteon the rock beside him. He and Lyons sat still. Hummingbirds flocked to the zapotepulp and took the juices through their needle beaks, emerald wings blurring against the gray stone, the brilliant red of their breast feathers vivid against the soft yellow of the zapote.

Vato broke the peace of the moment. "You fear death?"

"I would if I thought about it. But I won't get the chance to think when it comes."

"You're not Christian? You don't believe in heaven?"

Lyons shook his head.

"Don't fear death. Look." Vato pointed to the brilliant blur of a hummingbird. "A warrior reborn. That is what the Nahuatls believe. The reward for a life of courage is rebirth as beauty."

Lyons thought of his lover and fellow warrior, Flor Trujillo, reduced to scorched bones and ashes in the desert outside San Diego.

He reached out to one of the birds with a hand that had caressed Flor, and the bird hovered around his hand. The needle beak touched him. A tongue flicked the zapotenectar from his fingers.

Flor had been Catholic. She had worn a crucifix and attended mass and gone to confession. Unconsciously, even though he rejected her beliefs, Lyons had thought of Flor's life and death within the tenets of her religion. He hoped that her God had granted her forgiveness and an eternity of peace. But she had made love without being married and had fought and killed — all sins to her church. Vato's Nahuatl mythology comforted Lyons. Instead of thinking of Flor condemned to an eternity of suffering and torment in the Catholic hell, now he would always imagine her reborn as one of these living jewels. Lyons laughed at his sentimentality.

"You laugh at what I tell you?"

"Thanks for telling me it," Lyons said, smiling, "but they're only birds."

Davis and the Yaquis carried cut branches to camouflage the helicopter. Sitting in the door, Gadgets and Coral and Blancanales listened to the NSA radio. On the other side of the troopship, separated from the radio by the transmission housing, Gunther still sat in the doorgunner's seat, tied, blindfolded, wads of cloth taped over his ears.

Lyons and Vato had returned from their patrol. Lyons went to Gadgets's side and asked in a whisper, "What do you have on the radio?"

"Voice of the Reich," Gadgets answered, his voice low.

"What's the plan?"

"I'm going into the city," Blancanales told Lyons. "Miguel will go with me. Davis's Spanish is good; he'll stay here with Gadgets to monitor. When we come back, maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, we'll have cars. And clothes for Vato and the others. Then we'll do the DF number on the colonel."

"Vato's just told me he wants to try a chemical interrogation first," Lyons reported.

Blancanales looked to the Yaqui leader. "Chemical?" he asked him. "You mean drugs?"

Vato nodded. "Ancient drugs. There will be no marks on his body, but he will reveal everything."

"How long will it take? And what are the aftereffects?"

"A day. And maybe he will be confused and dizzy for another day. Like taking pills."

"It could help us," Lyons said, lowering his voice to a whisper. "We get what info we can, then let him escape. If he's disoriented, he's more likely to make a mistake and go straight to the International."

"What?" Vato asked. "Why will..."

"The plan is to release him. We'll put direction finders on him, then when he runs, we'll follow him."

"Electronic devices? What if he finds them? What if there is interference from the electricity and the radios and the buildings in the city?"

"That's a risk. But I think it will work."

"He'll expect a trick and take precautions."

"Best we can do, under the circumstances."

"No!" Vato protested. "You will not!"

Blancanales intervened. "So we'll try your drug interrogation first. There will be no torture? No physical damage?"

"When I joined my people," Vato told them, "the achaigave it to me. To learn about me. There is no harm."

Voices came from the NSA radio. Gadgets turned to Lyons and said, "Get Gunther out of here! He could hear this."

Coral motioned Lyons to stay put. "I will take him away," he said.

Leaving the others, Coral went around the helicopter. He untied the ropes securing Gunther to the doorgunner's seat. Then he untied one of the ropes binding the prisoner's ankles. Gunther required help to step down to the rocks. A second rope around Gunther's ankles served to hobble him.

Able Team took no chances with the six-foot-five, two-hundred-twenty-pound Gunther. When they had seen the karate-caused calluses on the striking edges of the fascist colonel's hands, they had known they could never allow Gunther to free an arm or leg.

Leading the blindfolded prisoner to the far side of the clearing, Coral tied him to a tree. Then he removed the wads of cloth covering Gunther's ears.

"We are near Mexico City."

"Where?"

"In the mountains. Southwest of the city. There is a problem. It is something I cannot stop."

"What?"

"They will interrogate you with drugs. They are talking about it now."

"The blond one suggested this?"

"No, one of the Yaquis."

"What does the blond one say?"

"He says he will release you and then follow you to your organization."

"He does want the gold! He did exactly what I suggested. This is very good for the International..."

"Forget the International!" Coral interrupted Gunther. "This endangers everything. When you talk, I go to prison. And there will be no escape for my family. My wife and children are with the Drug Enforcement Agency in the United States."

"We have friends in the American agency. They can arrange for the release of your family."

"But what of my freedom? My life? If you say anything under the drugs, I'm dead. Or in prison. We must escape now."

"Do you have a rifle?"

"No."

"Where are the others?"

"The North Americans are in the helicopter. The Yaquis stand guard."

"Then it is not possible now. We will wait."

" But we must escape now!"

"Do not panic, my friend. There is nothing to fear. Drugs will not break me. We will wait until a better time."

"Are you sure? Absolutely sure?"

Still blindfolded, Gunther turned to Coral's voice. "What is the problem? Listen to me. They trust you. When they question me with the drug, they will crowd around me. You will prepare to strike. Be near a weapon. If, under the influence of the drug, I speak, then you kill them. Except for the American who works for us."