clanked as the driver shifted into reverse. As the bus rolled back, the engine roared to make torque.
The gears clashed again and the bus lurched forward. The wheels rolled through the ruts, splashing water and mud. Lyons and Blancanales prepared to grab the rear bumper. Ricardo stared around him, panicked, his left hand in the mud, his right shielding his face from the hot exhaust blasting into his face. Lyons elbowed Ricardo, jerked his left arm up. He held the boy's wrist as the undercarriage moved over them. Lyons felt a tire brush his shoulder.
Rain struck their faces as the rear bumper cleared them. Lyons slapped Ricardo's hand onto the slick steel of the bumper, then clawed for his own handhold. His fingers hooked around the sharp inside edge. The bus pulled him to a sitting position and he stood.
In the red glow of the taillights, Lyons saw that the bus had two roof access ladders, one on each side of the rear emergency door. He grabbed a ladder and stepped onto the bumper. He stayed low, below the level of the rear windows. The clouding diesel smoke swirled red in the rain.
Blancanales moved as quickly, grabbing first the bumper, then climbing hand over hand up the first three rungs of the ladder.
But Ricardo desperately held the bumper. He let the bus drag him. Lyons hooked an arm through the rungs of the roof ladder and reached down to grab Ricardo's left wrist again. As soon as Blancanales had secured his own handhold, he took Ricardo's other arm. The two men jerked the youth up and steadied him until he braced his sneakers on the bumper.
Whining in first gear, the bus rocked over the cornfield. The three uninvited passengers clung to the rain- slick ladders.
Hundreds of meters down the road, the taillights of the troop trucks disappeared around a mountainside.
Lyons looked over to Blancanales and pointed up. Blancanales shook his head no. The Puerto Rican held up a hand and made the Mexican gesture of 'wait a moment,' his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. Lyons nodded.
The bus turned onto the road, dropping down a slight embankment with a final violent swaying on its springs. They heard equipment on the bus roof crash from one side to the other. Straightening the wheels, the driver shifted and accelerated over the flooded road, the bus throwing waves of muddy rainwater into the fields.
Blancanales made a thumbs-up gesture. Lyons pointed to himself, then pointed out. He wiped his palms clean of mud as best he could before easing his head up to the window.
Inside the bus, soaked militiamen sprawled in the seats. Several cigarettes created a gray pall. Lyons saw the beak-nosed youth and another man standing at the front, examining a map by the light of an electric lantern. They talked with one another and the driver.
Mist formed on the window. Lyons noticed a drop of condensation coursing down the inside of the glass. The sweating men, in their soaked uniforms and boots, had heated the interior with their bodies. The superhumid air condensed on the rain-cooled windows.
Lyons eased down. He signaled Blancanales with the Mexican 'wait a moment' hand gesture. Blancanales nodded. For another minute or two, they squatted on the bumper, swaying as the bus low-geared through mud and flowing streams. Ricardo crouched, stricken with fear, close to the ladder that held Blancanales.
In the light from the bus headlights, Lyons watched the roadsides. They passed burned-out shacks and the ruins of small farms. Unharvested corn and vegetables rotted in the fields. A cluster of small whitewashed crosses had been placed in front of a charred house.
A dead family, Lyons thought. Maybe they made the mistake of talking democracy, maybe they talked socialism. Maybe they didn't talk at all. Maybe they only wanted to live and work their fields without ideology. So they died.
As the pathetic vignette of tragedy returned to the night, Lyons eased his head up again. He saw the window had fogged over. He signaled Blancanales. Lyons checked his nightsuit and bandoliers for any loose gear that might strike the ladder's steel rungs. Then he went up, his neoprene-soled boots squeaking faintly on the slick steel.
He crawled onto the roof, forcing himself to move slowly, to distribute his weight on the sheet metal without the roof buckling or popping. He turned slowly and looked down to Blancanales and Ricardo. Blancanales whispered a last instruction to the teenager, then prodded him up.
Ricardo moved quickly and silently, his teeth clenched now with determined courage. He scrambled onto the roof. Lyons motioned him flat. The teenager obeyed instantly. As the bus swayed, he sideslipped down the rain-slick enamel of the roof. He reached out with a hand and a foot and braced himself against the cargo rack's side rail.
A moment later, Blancanales followed.
'No problems?' Lyons whispered.
'I had my ear against the bus. No noise, no questions.'
'All right! We're on our way.' Lyons crept across the roof to bundles of gear. He checked the bundles by touch. He felt plastic and cloth in one. Tents? Camouflage tarps for the bus? His hands found heavy boxes — perhaps boxes of ammunition. Leaning against the bundles, he hooked his boots around the cargo rail.
Loosing the sling, he eased his Atchisson off his back. He checked the safety, then dropped out the magazine and pocketed it. He pulled back the actuator to eject the chambered shell into his hand. The action locked back. He put a finger in the chamber and felt gritty mud.
He turned the autoshotgun muzzle down and shook it. A plug of mud plopped out of the barrel. Hinging the weapon open, he held the receiver group to the sky, letting the rain wash the mechanism. Then he turned the chamber upward. With his cupped hand, he funneled rainwater into the chamber. Rain poured into the barrel and flowed out the muzzle.
In instants of lightning white, Blancanales watched, smiling. 'Not the way to clean a weapon, mister.'
'Then pass me your cleaning rod.'
'Didn't bring one.'
'I suggest you check your own barrel for obstructions.'
'Next time you go for a roll in the mud,' Blancanales instructed his partner in a whisper, 'use a rubber band to secure a bit of cellophane or plastic over the barrel. Trick I learned in the monsoons.'
'You got cellophane over the barrel of your two-oh-three?'
'No.'
In a flash of lightning, he saw Blancanales cleaning mud out of his M-203 grenade launcher.
With a low laugh, Lyons snapped the Atchisson closed. He slipped the shell into the chamber and eased the bolt closed. Slapping in the magazine, he slung the autoshotgun over his shoulder and checked the auto-Colt and Colt Python. He continued his preparation by touch-checking his bandolier of ammunition and the grenades in his pockets.
When they went through the gates of the plantation-fortress, he would need all his firepower. No doubt about it.
Beside him, he heard Blancanales whispering into his hand-radio, 'Wizard. Wizard. Political here.'
Lyons monitored the transmission on his own radio.
He heard Blancanales's voice. But only snatches of static answered. Blancanales tried key code.
Static-distorted clicks answered. Blancanales keyed out a series of clicks. A series of clicks answered.
'The mountain and the electrical storm are breaking up the signal,' Blancanales explained. 'But he knows we're okay.'
'What happens when we go in?' Lyons asked.
'You suggested this. Don't you have a plan?'
'Haven't had the time to think that far ahead.'
Blancanales laughed softly. 'Then give it some thought. You're running out of time.'
'The radio down there. This is the gang the Wizard monitored, right?'
