Warlord of Azatlan

Lyons changed into a uniform with a bullet hole in the left chest pocket. 'How many of his meres have you put down?'

'Count the uniforms. Plus many I could not strip.'

'You do Mr. Bones?' Gadgets asked him.

'What?'

'The skull on the rifle.'

'Yes. He was a Frenchman who raped and tortured. I made a joke of him.'

'And what was their response?' Lyons buckled on his web belt and bandoliers, then bounced on his toes to test for metal tapping against metal.

'They patrol. They try to ambush. But they are not good soldiers. They do not fight, they murder.'

'And what about the weapons?' Lyons pointed to the stacked uniforms, then the three that Able Team wore. 'Fourteen sets of fatigues and gear, but no rifles, no pistols. No ammunition...'

Nate stopped the questioning. 'Time to go, tourists.'

A few minutes later they emerged from one of the thousands of crevices and caves that pitted the mountain. Rocky hillsides sloped down to a narrow valley. Unomundo's road slashed through pine and deciduous forest. The few cleared fields had been burned.

Beyond, perhaps two miles from where they stood, the black wall of another mountain rose into the clouds. Nate pointed out the path they would take.

'There is the road to Azatlan. It goes around that mountain. Unomundo's base is on the north side. We will cross the valley and go into the mountain. The caves will take us to Unomundo.'

Carrying only the weight of their weapons, the four men moved quickly. Able Team labored to maintain a steady jog despite the thin air. Nate allowed them to rest every few minutes while he ranged ahead in the forest. They crossed the dirt road without sighting mercenaries.

Distant rotorthrob drifted to them from time to time. They stayed under the cover of the trees.

Once, as they approached a clearing, their eyes searching the sky, they heard metal clanking in the rhythm of steps. Nate turned to signal Able Team, but they had already disappeared into the grass and brush.

A line of fifty gray-clad mercenaries passed.

Minutes after the voices and footsteps had faded away, Nate saw Able Team rise silently from cover. With hand signals, he directed them to double-time. A five-minute run took them to the mountain.

Once they had entered the darkness of the subterranean passages, Nate finally spoke.

'You have been in the jungle before. Where?'

Blancanales numbered the wars and countries on his fingers. 'Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia...'

'Bolivia, Brazil...' Gadgets added.

'Los Angeles,' Lyons added.

Nate smiled at Lyons's joke. 'I wish I had ten friends like you. We could have killed all the mercenaries.'

'Doesn't say much for the quality of Unomundo's men.'

Leading Able Team through the darkness of the caves, the ex-Marine answered with a sneer. 'They are the best money can buy.'

'What about you?' Lyons asked him. 'Why aren't you working for Unomundo? Won't he pay your price?'

Lyons's question offended even the tolerant Gadgets Schwarz. 'What an idiot thing to ask,' he said. 'Leave it to a cop to ask a question like that. Why don't yousign up with that Nazi warlord, Lyons?'

Nate spat out an answer. 'Unomundo has a bounty on me. Ten thousand quetzales. That is ten thousand dollars, United States. And this is for me. A man with no country. But you, you are special.

Tres huevos de la Cia. I think he will pay a hundred thousand dollars for you. What do you think? Should I take top price? I take quick hundred thousand Q. I will never again need to cut wood or plant corn or shear sheep. My wife will not live in a cave, my son will have school...'

Blancanales interrupted with soothing words. 'Our friend asked the wrong question. It's just that we can't understand your one-man war against these invaders.'

Despite the questions and the argument, Nate never broke pace. He led them relentlessly upward through the cold darkness of the caves. 'What is there to understand? I live in this beautiful place, these mountains, in the forest. If a thousand murderers and rapists with machine guns came to your home, you would fight, yes?'

'I'm sorry,' Lyons apologized. 'Sometimes I don't understand the obvious. I only wondered why you hadn't just left like all the other people.'

'Someone must fight.' Nate ended the talk by striding far ahead. From time to time, he flashed his light back to guide them.

Gadgets hissed to Lyons: 'Be cool, will you? He's got real sensitive feelings. Besides, I think he's got a grudge against the CIA.'

'I cannot figure him. He's an American, but he's been up here for years. Maybe he'sCIA. Maybe he's an agent who went crazy and disappeared.'

'I don't care who he is,' Gadgets snapped back. 'He's our ticket to a quick hit. Don't piss him off.'

'Until I know what his game is, we aren't secure. We don't know who he's working for.'

'Dig it, dude, I too am a paranoid, but there is a limit.' Gadgets jogged away from Lyons, leaving him to walk alone.

A few minutes later, they saw daylight.

'Wait here,' Nate told them. 'I check for men watching the cave, then I come back. It has happened before.' He left the cave for the open air.

Lyons unholstered his silent autoColt. 'I'm following him. He could be putting an ambush together.'

Gadgets stared at Lyons for a moment, then turned to Blancanales. 'Think we could kick his brain straight?'

Blancanales shook his head, no. 'He was a policeman too many years. Go, Lyons. Go out there. Satisfy your suspicions.'

Pistol in hand, Lyons slipped from the narrow cave mouth. Blinking against the afternoon glare, he pushed a wall of pine branches.

Rotorthrob shattered the quiet. Squinting against the light, Lyons looked up.

A gunship swooped down on him.

13

As the Cobra descended on him, as he sucked down the last desperate gasp of his life, Lyons pointed the silenced Colt at the gunship's armored underbelly. He knew the slugs would not even scratch the armor, but he would not die without...

A hand knocked the weapon aside, the burst of .45-caliber hollowpoints flying harmlessly into the distance. Nate pushed the autoweapon into the dust and rocks. With the weight of his body, he held Lyons motionless as the Cobra dropped past them. He shouted through the rotor roar, a storm of dust and leaves flying around them: 'It is nothing! They do not see us!'

Waiting until the noise and rotorstorm faded, they crawled through a tangle of brush and pine branches. The mountainside dropped away. Looking over the cliff, they saw trucks.

Hundreds of feet below them, gray-uniformed soldiers loaded heavy military trucks. The Cobra floated down. But the soldiers did not clear the area. As the gunship's skids seemed to touch the trucks, it veered sideways into the cliff face.

'What the...' Lyons started.

'There is a cave under here. A big cave. Many helicopters and trucks in there. Many buildings.'

'And nothing's visible from the air.' Lyons's mind raced ahead. 'Munitions?'