Shouting instructions in Portuguese, he pointed at the bleeding officer, then to another captive. One soldier held the officer upright, another jerked a captured Brazilian soldier to his feet. The teenager wore a single stripe of rank on his sleeve.
The dandy in the ascot shouted at the captured officer. The officer shook his head. The dandy unholstered a black auto-pistol, put the muzzle at the head of the teenage prisoner. Again, he shouted his questions.
The captured officer spoke quickly, strained against the grip of the gunman behind him. He repeated his words over and over again.
A blast rocked back the boy's head, threw him down. The captured officer stared at the dead teenager. He said nothing as the auto-pistol went to his head. The dandy shouted more questions.
'Is there anything we can try?' Gadgets whispered.
Blancanales shook his head. Keying his hand radio, Blancanales warned Lyons, 'Don't. There are twelve prisoners we've got to get out of there.'
'Pretty boy is on my shit list...' Lyons hissed.
They watched the bleeding, silent officer shake his head to more shouted questions. The dandy kicked the officer's feet from under him, kicked him again and again. Finally, the slaver holstered the auto-pistol, strode away. He straightened the knot of his ascot.
Gadgets punched Blancanales in the shoulder. 'Let's go before pretty boy comes back.'
Blancanales led the way between the mounds of ashes that had been the shelter and possessions of the tribe. Checking ahead of him with a grass stem, he stayed on the footstep-trampled path. He kept his belly to the dirt, moved with slow caution. He saw the glistening mono-filament of a booby trap. He didn't pause to dismantle the weapon. He unscrewed the fuse and dropped it.
A shadow lay on the path. Even with the light from the lanterns, Blancanales could not make out the form. Was it a soldier flat on the path, watching for Indian raiders? Blancanales flicked a stone at the shadow, then lay without moving for the count of fifty. The form did not shift or turn.
He thumbed the fire selector of his Beretta to three-shot auto and crawled forward. Passing a knot of weeds singed by fire, he spotted the small rectangular outline of a claymore. There was no trip line. But he did see a wire trailing from the back. This one was command detonated. Not stopping, he continued to the form. Finally, he saw a face staring at him.
Blood crusted the child's face. Blancanales saw no breathing. Crossing the last few feet quickly, he reached out to touch the child.
He stopped his hand. A fast wave of the dry grass stem found no wires or monofilament. Blancanales did not move the body as he felt for a pulse. Nothing moved under his fingertips. He raised himself up slowly and looked at the child. The opened lung and guts of the boy indicated a point-blank burst to the back.
As he crabbed backward over the path, a hand caught his boot top. Blancanales whipped the Beretta around.
'Pol! Be cool!' Gadgets spat. 'What's up there?'
'A dead kid.' Blancanales controlled his emotions. He started past Gadgets.
Gadgets grabbed him. 'Why you going back?'
'Command-detonated claymore,' he whispered.
'Forget it. I pulled the fuse.'
Blancanales advanced again, skirting past the dead boy. Only ten feet separated them from the bound-back hands of the prisoners. Past the Brazilian army officer and the line of Indians, two green-fatigued slavers shouted Spanish obscenities at each other. A third gnawed on a roasted hot dog, watched the other men, grinning when the men shoved and grappled.
One man threw a punch. Blancanales slipped out his Beretta, waited an instant until the other man countered. A 9mm subsonic steel-cored slug punched into the first man's temple as a fist hit his jaw. The gunman eating the hot dog went over to the fallen man, stood looking down at him. The other gunman rubbed his knuckles, laughed. Then both men stooped down to help the fallen man.
Rising to one knee, Blancanales shot them in the tops of their skulls. They fell on their faces, thrashed. Blancanales rushed to the captured Brazilian officer.
'
'Sure can. Keep these people quiet. Don't let them move. My partner and I have to get all of you out of here before we can take care of these slavers.'
'You're a gringo!' the bloodied officer exclaimed. 'What are you doing in Bolivia?'
'Long story. Be still, we'll try to get you out alive.'
At the other side of the burned village, Lyons stripped off his Atchisson, the bandoliers, the shoulder- holstered Python. He took off his shirt and spread it out on the mud. An Indian an arm's distance away watched as Lyons laid out his equipment on the shirt. Then he took off his boots, smeared mud on the white tops of his feet.
Two layers of genipap black made Lyons's face and body invisible in the night. He slipped his hand radio into his pants' left thigh pocket. Taking only the silenced Beretta — no web belt, no extra magazines — Lyons started away.
The Indian hissed something in his own language. Lyons glanced back. The Indian held out his hand. Solemnly, they shook hands, then Lyons continued away.
Light from the pole-mounted lanterns shone on the river and the ripple-lapped sand. But the slight embankment above the beach cast a shadow that paralleled the water. Lyons eased over the lip of the muddy riverbank and down to the shadowed bench.
Rocks and weed stubble scraped at his skin as he snaked closer to the two soldiers lounging against the windshield of the air-cushion boat. They laughed, argued. One man drained a beer bottle, threw it far into the river. Lyons crawled until only twenty feet of sand separated him from his targets. He took the Beretta in a two-handed grip and raised its luminescent night-sight dots to the head of a soldier.
Something tickled his nose. He reached to flick it away with his left hand, felt a slick, stretched strand of monofilament. Lyons backed up, squinted around him. A scratch of light crossed the shadow, continued ten feet into the river shallows. A large rock secured that end of the trip line.
One more inch forward and his nose would have triggered a blast of six hundred screaming lead pellets.
Scanning the shadows ahead of him, he saw the suggestion of a claymore's rectangular outline aimed parallel to the embankment. At his nose.
He had no knife. Testing the tension of the trip line, he bet his life the detonator was not spring loaded, that is, set on fire if an intruder cuts the monofilament. He reached toward the river end of the monofilament and pulled it. He slowly dragged the rock from the shallows. He crawled over the slack line and unscrewed the fuse from the booby trap.
Now, one soldier sat on the air boat, the other stood in the lapping water, throwing rocks at the bottle floating in the river's slow current. Lyons sighted on the heart of the sitting soldier. He squeezed off a single shot.
The soldier's mouth opened, his hand rose to his chest as he slumped off the prow of the boat. The other soldier turned to see his companion in the sand, not moving. He went to one knee beside him and shook the dead man. Then a muffled pop and the second soldier fell dead.
Lyons waited, listening, watching what he could see of the camp and other boats. He heard no one call out. The soldier sitting on the forward deck of the patrol boat still watched the river and the stars.
Emerging from the shadow, Lyons stood upright and walked calmly to the airboat. He dropped into the shadow beside the boat to drag a dead soldier to him. Blood drained from the death wound in the soldier's head as Lyons pulled off the man's shirt.
He donned the shirt and the equipment belt and slung the auto-rifle over his shoulder. A floppy hat pulled low on Lyons's head helped to hide his blackened face.
