one another in drunken quarrels. The guards died in riverbank mud, ambushed by Indian bows and shotguns, sometimes died on stakes in the villages, mutilated, impossible to recognize as human. Death everywhere.
And now death within him. The cancer pain throbbed in his chest, always present. Abbott would die. The cancer ate at his lungs. He had no hope of treatment. The Chinaman would never allow him to leave for surgery and treatment.
So Abbott would die. Surrounded by walls of jungle and by death and by unlimited heroin.
Ah. The heroin.
10
Lyons returned from the jungle after dark. He wore a loincloth and black body paint patterned in red. He carried his fatigues and boots in a bundle under his arm.
As he crossed the clearing where the tribe camped, the women looked up from their cook-fires at the transformed
The boats had been moved. On the riverbank, webs of woven branches concealed the airboats. The patrol cruiser was now moored under the overhanging branches of a tree that leaned over the river. The branches screened the boat from any observation from the sky. During the day, the Indians had lashed hundreds of branches around the rails of the cruiser. It looked like a sandbar overgrown with small trees.
On the beach, by the light of a battery lantern, Thomas continued distributing captured weapons and packs to his men and to the warriors of the tribe. Two of his men gave up their Remingtons, took Heckler & Koch automatic rifles. Blancanales sat off to the side and watched as Thomas and one of his men argued. The Indian gripped his Remington, pushed the G-3 away. Finally, Thomas spun to face the shimmering expanse of moonlit river, impressively fired burst after burst of .308 slugs into the night. He offered the smoking auto-rifle again to the soldier. The man accepted it, passing his pump-action shotgun to a village man.
Lyons walked into the glow of the lantern and squatted with the others. Except for his size, he looked like one of them. Blancanales stared for a minute, studying the transformation of the blond college-educated ex-LAPD officer. Lyons, still affected by the narcotic, wore his hair cut like Thomas's men, his sideburns shaved away, the nape of his neck shaved high. Genipap stained his hair, his face and his body black. Red rectangles marked his shoulders, like an officer's epaulets. A braided band of natural fibers held up his loincloth. Braided bands circled his ankles. He wore custom-made Indian sandals, new but already black with mud and body paint.
The Indian men glanced at Lyons when he joined them. Four men, who Blancanales knew had taken the hallucinogen with Lyons, grinned to their friend, then returned to assembling their gear. One Indian spoke with Lyons, and the two men bantered back and forth.
Blancanales watched with disbelief. Did Lyons speak the local language? Lyons even moved like the other men. He reached out, touched one of the G-3 rifles, his motions fluid yet deliberate. He ran his fingers over the cocking lever, the foregrip, the receiver, his touch on the plastic and steel looking as if he stroked a living thing.
'Lyons! Are you okay?'
Night-faced, his blue eyes like neon in the electric light, the blackened Anglo turned. 'I'm great. How are you, Pol-li-tician?'
Studying his friend's face, Blancanales saw no obvious signs of drug intoxication. 'You want some coffee? We need to talk about going downriver.'
Lyons nodded. 'On the boat...'
Striding through the darkness to the boat, Blancanales followed the trail up the riverbank. He glanced back for Lyons, looked directly into his face. Lyons walked only a step back, silent in his thin sandals. Continuing, Blancanales heard only his own boots on the trail, the rustling of his Beretta's holster against his camo fatigues. He heard no one behind him.
An embankment sheered into the river water. The aluminum gangway spanned a twelve-foot gap between the vine-tangled riverbank and the camouflaged cruiser. Blancanales pushed through the mass of growth lashed to the rails. On the deck, he heard the gangway flex. He looked back again and once more saw Lyons a step behind him.
'I'm here, Pol. Still here.'
They pushed into the cabin. Gadgets looked up from his electronics and locked eyes with Lyons. Gadgets burst out laughing, reached into his backpack. His Instamatic flashed.
'Hey, man,' Gadgets said to Lyons, 'you are spooky.' He stepped back to snap a full-length photo. 'Hope you had a good time today. Now it's time to work.'
'Wait.' Blancanales held Lyons's shoulder, studied his eyes, his face, his breathing. 'Are you okay? You're looking weird, you're talking weird, you're moving weird. What's going on with you? What happened out there?'
Like a shadow of the street-cynical, rude Lyons they knew and loved, he looked at them with eyes serene, showing a half smile of amusement. 'I am a changed man.' He paused. 'But we'll talk about that some other time, when we have the time.'
Gadgets pushed a coffee mug into his hand. 'Here. Caffeine. Get agitated. Then we'll know who you are. There's the map of the rivers north of here, where this branch joins the Mamore. And we just got a confirmation and arrival time on the good stuff. An amphibious plane will come at dawn. Whatever our position is then, we radio them, they offload the goods and take the Cubans away.'
'A spotter plane crisscrossed the river today,' Blancanales told Lyons. 'We don't know if they saw us, but we should be on our way downriver.'
The weight of many men crowding on board swayed the patrol boat. Thomas called out, 'We are ready! All men are ready!'
'Are
Unrolling his bundle of fatigues and boots and equipment, Lyons slipped on his shoulder-holster Magnum. He buckled on the web belt carrying the Beretta, hooked his hand radio's case to the belt. Opening his backpack, he put away his fatigues and boots.
Gadgets and Blancanales stared at the spectacle. Gadgets grabbed his Instamatic again, snapped yet another photo.
'I cannot believe it,' Gadgets laughed. 'Lyons, the Commando in a Jockstrap.'
As the boats floated north with the slow current, Lyons watched the pale dreamscape of riverbank and rain forest pass. Above the jungle and gentle hills, stars swirled. The white fragment of the moon slashed the violet of endless space. The Xavante warriors around him sprawled on the benches or leaned against the railings, some sleeping, others listening, staring into the darkness for the lights of a slaver boat. But no lights broke the night whatsoever, not electric or wood fire.
No Indians lived in this area now. The slavers had depopulated the forest, taking tribes for slavery, killing whoever resisted, all the survivors fleeing their age-old homes.
Purified by the hallucinogen and the rituals he shared with the other warriors, the warrior from Los Angeles longed for the battle. He felt loathing for the foreigners who raped and killed and enslaved. They violated the peace and beauty of this paradise. Now he went to kill them. He felt honored that the Xavantes had accepted him as a warrior and friend. He was thrilled. He would not fail them.
He paced the boat, the new Atchisson hanging by its sling, his hands folded over the carrying handle. Machete-hacked branches and saplings lashed to the rails broke the moonlight into slivers on the deck. He looked back to watch the airboats, also camouflaged with branches, trail behind them on the end of lines. A plane might mistake the boats for a cluster of small islands.
Spanish voices came from the cabin. Blancanales was continuing with the interrogation of the prisoners. Two Indians peered through, the side windows to observe the
