A metallic clink broke the silence. Lyons heard water slosh in a canteen. Someone cleared his throat, then the clink came again.
Lyons eased back. He squat-walked back twenty yards, the MAC-10 pointed into the darkness. Then he moved fast, walking as quickly as he could without betraying himself. A hundred yards down the mountainside, Blancanales' hand stopped him.
'What's the rush?'
'Ambush up there.'
They returned to the column, told Pardee.
'You sure?'
'Postive. We could go around it, but I say we go up with knives and silencers. If we can get a prisoner, we can rush the top. Otherwise, it's crawl along looking for booby traps and more ambushes.'
'All right, Morgan. You volunteering?'
'Me and you and Marchardo could do it.'
* * *
Leading the other two men up the mountain, Lyons left the trail a hundred yards from the gravel road. Crawling on their bellies along a rabbit track, they kept a rise between them and the ambush. They crept across the road. In the brush again, they searched for a trail or animal track paralleling the road. They could not find one. They crawled again, staying high on the mountainside.
Pardee stopped Lyons. Lyons stopped Blancanales. Below them, voices muttered in Spanish. A penlight flashed on a map. The sudden squawk of a walkie-talkie broke the silence. Blancanales crept down the slope. Pardee and Lyons waited.
They heard a grunt, then thrashing. Silence. A voice called out softly in Spanish. Another voice answered in Spanish. Silence returned.
A pebble hit Lyons' arm. 'Hssst!' A second pebble bounced off Lyons. Lyons nudged Pardee. They went down the slope.
In dry grass and rocks, Blancanales lay next to a Mexican gunman, his knife at the gunman's throat and his hand over the man's mouth. Blancanales motioned them close, whispered: 'This'll be my game. He's told me there's three more out there. Sit on him while I take them. If I throw a rock, it means I've got another prisoner and I want you to...'
'We've got one,' Pardee interrupted. 'No more. Use your Spanish, then kill them.'
Blancanales hesitated. 'Whatever.' Then he slithered through the weeds.
Thumbing forward the MAC-10's safety, Lyons touched the bolt to make sure it was back, then kept his trigger finger alongside the guard.
Ten yards away there were whispers. A soft laugh. They heard only a quick gasp when the man died. Blancanales returned five long minutes later.
'Like he said,' Blancanales muttered. He kept his voice low, but no longer whispered.
'We need to make time,' Pardee told Blancanales. 'Put the questions to him.'
Blancanales spoke in quiet Spanish. The gunman answered questions without hesitation.
'They thought we were the Mexican Army, coming in to lean on the gang for another few hundred thousand. He says they've got two or three other ambushes on the mountain, plus booby traps. A total of ten or twelve men out here. Another twenty up at the airfield. He'll lead us up if we'll let him live.'
'Sure,' Pardee replied. 'Promise him anything.'
* * *
At the end of a twenty-foot rope, the bound and gagged gunman led the column the last few miles to gang base. On a rise overlooking the landing strip, Pardee halted the column.
He cut the gunman's throat, then called his squad leaders together.
'Mr. Morgan is our sniper,' Pardee said, pointing at Lyons. 'He will shoot from this hill. Stockman...' Pardee gave his binoculars to a squad leader '...one of your men will stay to spot for our shooter. Marchardo and I and squad number one are going to improvise a little surprise. We're going in the front door. You others take your places. Everything as planned. Go.'
As squads two and three crept down the hillside to their positions, Pardee briefed squad one. 'Marchardo here's got real talent. He's going to take us through the front door. If things go right, we'll get most of the dopers before we need to use the grenades. But keep those things ready. Move fast and kill everything. Ready, Marchardo?'
Blancanales nodded. Pardee took up the MAC-10 that he had loaned Lyons. With a mock salute to Lyons and his spotter, Pardee led Blancanales and the squad toward the gang's buildings.
'I'm Carl Morgan,' Lyons said, extending his hand to his spotter.
'Jimmy Lee Payne.' A tall, square-shouldered black man no older than twenty-one or twenty-two, Payne pumped Lyons' hand like a long-lost friend. 'You're tight with Captain Pardee, right? Never heard him call anyone Mister, not even old man Monroe.'
'We get along.' Lyons nodded downhill. 'Put the glasses on those buildings down there. We got maybe ten minutes to get very familiar with our targets.'
While Payne studied the doper installation through the binoculars, Lyons slipped the M-14 from its case, extended the bipod legs, and scanned the buildings through the Starlite scope.
The gravel airstrip ran north to south. Approximately midpoint on the east side of the strip, there was an old adobe and rock ranch house. A patio opened to the airstrip. At the north end, several prefab steel hangars, much like those at the Monroe mercenary base, obviously housed planes and trucks. Behind the hangars, there were fuel tanks. Lyons spotted a sentry pacing near one of the hangars, used the man's height to estimate the distance. Three hundred and fifty yards. Judging by the height of the patio doors, the ranch house was only two hundred and fifty yards away.
After the firing started, Lyons waited. Muzzle flashes lit the interior of the ranch house.
Men from the hangars started a dash across the landing strip. Bursts from squad two on the south end of the strip dropped the men.
Automatic weapons fired wild from the hangars, spraying the darkness. Through the Starlite, Lyons saw the soldiers of squad three creep up to the rear of the hangars. Several bursts inside the buildings ended all resistance there.
The sharp crack of grenades came from the ranch house. Windows exploded outward in a white light. Several gunmen ran from the house.
Two men threw open a car's doors, died on the front seat as Lyons squeezed off two rounds to kill them, two more to disable the car. Another man sprinted across the strip, automatic fire throwing up dust all around him. Lyons put a round through the man's chest. Even as he fell, other riflemen targeted on him, several bursts tossing the man into a death-spin.
'You got a man up against the patio wall,' Payne told him. 'Think he's trying to...'
Lyons fired. 'He
Brass showered Lyons as Payne sprayed a magazine from his M-16 into the night behind them. When the action locked back, Payne dropped the rifle, threw a grenade. Before the grenade exploded, he had a second grenade in his hand, the pin already pulled free. He let the lever fly. 'One, two, three, four...'
An instant before the grenade exploded, Payne threw it. Bits of steel wire showered them. But the airburst had shredded the brush thirty yards behind them. They heard a low moaning. Payne grinned to Lyons: 'Think I got 'em.'
Below, the firing died away. Lyons' hand-radio buzzed. 'All over down here. What was that shooting up there?'
'I don't know. Payne handled it. Blew them away. The man is qualified.'
'Don't waste any time up there. I'm calling the helicopters right now,' crackled Pardee.
'Time to go,' Lyons told Payne. They gathered up their equipment and hurried down the hill.
'Thanks for saying the good things to Captain Pardee,' Payne said. 'A commendation to Captain Pardee really makes my night.' Payne skipped a step, slapped the stock of his M-16. 'Oh, yeah, makes me feel
Lyons was up, too. Combat alongside this open-hearted youth had made him think back on Flor.
