Thirty yards from the camp, a fallen tree four feet in diameter blocked their approach. Blancanales did not want to risk hopping over. He felt along the trunk until he came to a gap. He moved infinitely slowly, carefully. This was a perfect position for a sentry or a booby trap. For a minute, he lay still, listening. He flicked a bit of wood into the ferns, listening for the click of a rifle safety or the noises of a soldier shifting his weight. He heard nothing.
He waved the blade of river grass across the gap, from the earth up. At knee height, it snagged. He pushed the dry grass against the snag, slid the grass from side to side. He reached out with his left hand, felt the slick monofilament.
'Hsst! Thomas!' Blancanales called him forward. The Indian moved silently. When Thomas touched him, Blancanales whispered, 'Bomb here. Wait. Don't move.'
Blancanales slithered under the trip line. Touching the monofilament with the grass blade, he followed it to the left. He found it knotted around a branch. He went to the other end. He found the claymore by the slightest touch, waved the blade of grass everywhere around it. A smart soldier would have put a second booby trap on the first to kill an intruder attempting to defuse the claymore. In fact, Blancanales thought, a smart soldier would have placed the claymore so that it killed not only the first man through the gap in the fallen tree, but any other men behind him.
In the darkness, he touched the outlines of the antipersonnel weapon, his fingers tracing the outlines of a thin rectangular block. He felt the convex face, the concave back. He touched the raised letters on the face, reading the words by memory: front toward enemy.
An M18A1 Anti-Personnel Mine. U.S. Army equipment. Blancanales found the fuse with his fingers. More American equipment — an M-l Pull-Firing Device.
This is a trip down memory lane, Blancanales thought as he worked. The soldier who placed this claymore wouldn't have made it out of Fort Benning. He would have had his ass kicked up to his shirt collar. Leaving the safety pin hanging. Makes it just too easy.
Blancanales slipped the cotter pin through the striker housing, then cut the rope lashing the claymore to a branch. He took the claymore and wound up the mono-filament, then placed the claymore in the gap in the fallen tree where he could find it later. He and Thomas continued forward.
Close now to the river and the soldiers, Blancanales and Thomas heard voices. They smelled burning wood and meat. Fragments of light broke through the trees and ferns screening them from the camp, smoke swirling in the light. Shafts of light flickered above them as they searched for the next booby trap.
They cut east, toward the riverbank. In the next hour, they zigzagged through the darkness and found and defused three more claymores.
Finally, Blancanales keyed his hand radio, whispered, 'No real problems so far. Completed half circle. Will now check out village.'
Leaving the jungle behind, they crawled through tree stumps and low brush. The burned village still smoldered, cloaking the area in smoke. Blancanales and Thomas no longer had to find their way by touch. The smoke above them glowed with the lights from the boat and from the soldiers' camp.
To their right, they saw the river. A fifty-foot patrol craft floated a few feet from shore, a gangplank extending from the boat's side to the sand. The craft also served as a troop shuttle. Behind the cabin and bridge, a canvas awning roofed a deck. Blancanales spotted a soldier manning a forward machine gun. The soldier sat on the small deck in front of the cabin, his back to the village. He stared out at the shimmering water, smoked, raised a bottle to drink. No one manned the machine gun at the rear of the craft.
Two air-cushion boats were parked on the sand. Two soldiers sat on the snub bow of one boat, smoking and talking in loud voices. That boat carried a machine gun. The other boat, a few steps away, carried a blunt- muzzled heavy weapon that Blancanales did not recognize.
Again, the two silent, patient warriors slithered in zigzags, searching for claymores. They found two more trip lines, dismantled the booby traps. With the aid of the diffuse illumination, Blancanales gave Thomas a lesson in defusing the antipersonnel devices, silently demonstrating each detail in the deadly and meticulous work. When they finished with each claymore, they set it aside to be retrieved later.
Finally, they completed the second semicircle around the camp. They had swept the booby traps from the south end of the village. Lying still for minutes, they listened to the activity inside the camp. Piles of ash and smoking debris separated them from the soldiers.
Silhouetted against the lights, they saw rows of heads, shoulder to shoulder. The forms shifted and turned, but never stood. Soldiers with auto-rifles in their hands paced in front of the seated people. A baby wailed.
'Indians,' Thomas whispered. 'Will be slaves.'
Soldiers walked to one of the forms, jerked a man to his feet. The man was not an Indian. He wore olive drab, the fatigue pants tucked into the tops of his boots. As the prisoner passed a light, Blancanales saw the man's light skin, his mustache, his hands tied behind his back. His uniform shirt had unit patches on the sleeves.
'Army of Brazil!' Thomas whispered quickly.
'Interesting...' Blancanales said, keying his hand radio. 'We're twenty-five, thirty feet from them,' he reported. 'I count thirteen captives. One of them is a Brazilian army officer.'
'No doubt about it?' Lyons asked.
'He's got the uniform on. Stand by, we're coming out.'
They continued the crawl, double-checking for booby traps. They left the lights and noise of the soldiers behind them and entered the darkness of the trees. The two men inched along a worn footpath, Blancanales waving the dry spine of a fern frond ahead of him. He found one more trip line and defused the claymore by touch.
A half hour passed before they rejoined the others. Blancanales gave his report in a whisper. 'We cleared this trail straight into the village. You got intermittent jungle and logs, then a cut-and-cleared area around the village. The huts are burned down. Clean lines of fire from the edge of the village to the soldiers.'
'How many soldiers?' Lyons asked.
'I counted eight in the open. But there must be more, maybe sleeping, maybe in the patrol boat.'
'So you got a plan, man?' Gadgets jived.
'Just like we talked. We three first. Thomas and all the other men deploy on the south side.'
Lyons turned to Thomas. 'Tell your men no shooting unless we call for it. Understand? We'll be in the camp. Your men shoot, they'll hit us.'
'Understand.'
As Thomas instructed the other Indians, Blancanales slipped on his equipment. Then Able Team led the force into the village. The Indians crept to their positions. For minutes, Able Team watched the soldiers in the camp.
Lyons nodded toward the boats. 'I'll slip in along the riverbank, trying to get on the big boat.'
Gadgets pointed to Blancanales and himself, whispering, 'We get those Indian people out of there...'
'And declare a free-fire zone,' Lyons concluded. Blancanales and Gadgets nodded. With a mock salute, Lyons crawled away.
They watched the soldiers. A fire burned in the center of the camp. A soldier held out a stick skewering a hot dog. He wore green fatigues without rank or unit identification. A Heckler & Koch G-3 automatic rifle hung from his shoulder.
A few steps from the fire, a gas lantern stood on the end of a ten-foot pole, its unnatural white light searing away the constellations and swirling galaxies of the southern hemisphere's night. Another light on a pole was placed at the riverbank. The lanterns lit the camp like streetlights.
Two soldiers with G-3 rifles pulled a man from the cabin of the patrol boat. The prisoner staggered to the gangplank, steadied himself before descending. In the lights' glare, Gadgets and Blancanales saw blood on the man's face. Blood on tanned skin showed through rips in his uniform.
'That's the officer I saw before,' Blancanales whispered to Gadgets.
Lurching down the spring aluminum gangplank, the bleeding officer staggered across the sand beach, then up the slight embankment. The two soldiers followed him.
A third slaver soldier left the patrol boat's cabin. He carried no rifle. He wore an ascot at the throat of his permapress camouflage fatigues. No rank or unit identification marked his uniform. A military holster hung from a web belt.
A dark-featured Latin with curly hair, he strutted down the gangplank, one hand on his holster, surveying the scene. He followed the prisoner and the other soldiers to the line of captives.
