joined them.
Blancanales questioned the second Cuban. The man ignored the questions, said nothing. The first Cuban, the knee-shot Canero, sprawled on a vinyl padded bench, a field splint stabilizing his shattered leg. White-faced with pain and blood loss, Canero argued and bantered with Blancanales, interrupting the questioning of the other prisoner. Blancanales turned to him, repeated the questions to him. Canero talked over the questions, forced Blancanales to repeat the questions several times. Canero laughed when Blancanales lost patience, shouted.
Lieutenant Silveres pushed a pad and pencil at the Cuban and shouted in Portuguese. Blancanales repeated his questions again, tapping the pad of paper. Canero spat on it.
Both Cubans laughed. Lyons had seen enough. Hurrying around the cabin, he shoved through the door. He brought up the muzzle of the Atchisson.
'Don't! Don't kill him!' Blancanales lunged to grab the auto-shotgun.
At the sight of the black-and-red painted demon rushing at him, Canero screamed. The other Cuban threw himself backward, trying to scurry to safety. Lyons jammed the steel muzzle of his weapon into the soft flesh of Canero's throat. The scream choked off.
Lieutenant Silveres kicked at the Cuban on the floor. The Cuban crawled into the corner to stare in silent panic at the painted madman.
Lyons said nothing. The shotgun did not waver. He picked up the pad of paper with his left hand, dropped the pad on Canero's stomach. But he didn't reach for the pencil.
The click of the Atchisson's thumb safety echoed in the cabin. Lyons held his gaze steady, half-lidded, reptilian, serene, infinitely cruel. Canero looked from the face of the demon threatening him, to the black-painted finger on the trigger of the oversize auto-weapon. He gagged, his throat spasming against the steel muzzle. Lyons did not take the muzzle away. He held it steady as the prisoner dry-heaved with fear, then vomited, sickly yellow fluid bubbling from his lips, spilling over his immobile face and chest. Lyons held the weapon steady.
Canero groped for the pencil, finally scrawled on the paper.
Only then did the 12-gauge muzzle drop from the prisoner's throat. Lyons leaned forward, grabbed Canero by his curly hair, wiped vomit from the barrel of the Atchisson with the crippled prisoner's perma-pressed fatigues. Then, without a word, Lyons left the cabin.
Lieutenant Silveres laughed, watching Canero sketch a map of the city of slavery and plutonium.
Blancanales went to the door and saw Lyons pacing the cruiser's troop deck, his blackened body glistening in the moonlight, his hands crossed over the Atchisson. Blancanales keyed his hand radio. 'Wizard. Be advised that the 'indigenized' member of our team is behaving in an erratic manner. Keep an eye on him, okay?'
'Can see him now,' Gadgets answered from his perch on the radio mast of the patrol cruiser, where he had been scanning the silvered landscape with binoculars. 'He's all the way at the back on the deck, talking with some Indian guys. Can Lyons talk their language? I didn't think he even knew Spanish.'
'He doesn't. I can't figure it, either.'
Gadgets called out across the boat. 'Hey, Ironman. How can you talk with those guys? When'd you learn the local language?'
With a wave to the Xavantes, Lyons crossed the deck. Blancanales ducked into the cabin. He heard the steps to the bridge creak. He buzzed Gadgets. 'He's on his way up. Be careful with him.'
'Think he's flipped out?'
'He came in here, put that monster scattergun up against Canero's Adam's apple. Totally successful, of course.'
'Threatening a defenseless prisoner with death? That's cool. That's the Lyons that Mack knows and loves. Sounds like he's returned to normal.'
'Watch out...'
'Hey, Lyons! How's it going? Saw you jiving with the locals. How'd you learn the lingo?'
Lyons stood on the half roof of the bridge, looked up at Gadgets. 'I don't know the language. Not yet. But they're teaching me. Numbers. Simple things. Hello. Goodbye.'
'Hey, great. How d'you say 1984?'
'They don't use numbers over 100.'
'Lights!' Gadgets put the binoculars to his eyes to see a boat round a headland. Spotlight beams illuminated the river's surface.
'A slave boat?' Lyons asked.
'Can't tell.' Gadgets kept the lenses fixed on the outline of the craft a mile away. 'Get below, keep them all quiet down there. Maybe we can drift past...' He looked down. Lyons had slipped away without a sound. Gadgets keyed his hand radio. 'Politician! Boat ahead showing lights. Looks as big as this one.'
'Lyons just told me. We're blacked out down here, staying quiet.'
'Carl's moving real fast nowadays. Very spooky, in those moccasins and war paint.'
'Come down to the deck, Gadgets. In a few minutes, it might not be safe up there.'
'Down in a flash.'
On the troop deck, Lyons gently woke the sleeping warriors, cautioned all the men to silence. Some of them went to the rail to watch the blazing speck of light approach. They spread the leafy branches screening the boat; they laid their rifles and shotguns on the rail. Gadgets came down the steps from the bridge.
'Can't get a good look at them,' Blancanales complained, squinting into his binoculars. 'Glare of the lights.'
'Then maybe they'll tell us.'
'What?'
Gadgets went into the cabin. Making a face at the stink of the vomit, he opened a window. Both Cubans sat tied, rags stuffed in their mouths. Gadgets switched on the radio, spun through the frequencies by the dial light, finally stopped on a band marked with a scratch. Only static came from the monitor.
'Lieutenant Silveres,' Gadgets called out softly.
The Brazilian slipped into the dark cabin. 'Yes?'
'When you were the prisoner of these scumholes, did you hear any of their radio calls? Was it Portuguese? Spanish? Did they talk in the clear?'
'Spanish and Portuguese. Once, a few words in English. Do you want me to impersonate their voices? I don't know if...'
'Not impersonate. You don't need to fake anything. Get on there, put out a distress call. If they answer, get their position.'
Silveres nodded as he sat at the radio. He took a deep breath, flicked the transmit switch. His voice came in gasps, as if he were wounded, suffering. He spoke a few halting phrases, flicked off the transmit. Gadgets slapped him on the back.
'Supercool! You must be an actor.'
'When I was in college, yes.'
A voice blared from the monitor. Lieutenant Silveres listened. He held the map up to the radio's dial light. He nodded to Gadgets. 'That is the boat of criminals. They called out the name of this gang boss, this Cuban.' The radio voice called out again. 'They search for the Cuban's patrol. Do we fight them now? I want a rifle. Or am I a prisoner? Tell me, gringo.'
'Just stay here. We'll talk about it when we cross into your country.'
'Then I am a prisoner.'
Gadgets rushed out to Blancanales. 'That's a slaver patrol. The lieutenant helped me pull a fake on them.'
'They haven't spotted us yet.'
Searching through the crowd of black-painted, heavily armed Indians, Gadgets found Lyons and Thomas at the extreme end of the cruiser. Thomas watched as Lyons loaded the boat's second machine gun, an M-60 on a pedestal mount. Lyons sighted on the distant spotlights, clicked up the M-60's rear sight.
'Mr. Iron! Down! That's most definitely the bad guys out there. Thomas, we have to keep everybody quiet. Maybe we can drift by in the dark.'
'We fight?' Thomas asked, stepping down from the machine gun.
'Only if we have to. Maybe they won't see us.'
