by Dick Stivers
An embankment sheered into the river water. The aluminum gangway spanned a twelve-foot gap between the vine-tangled riverbank and the camouflaged cruiser. Blancanales pushed through the mass of growth lashed to the rails. On the deck, he heard the gangway flex. He looked back again and once more saw Lyons a step behind him.
“I’m here, Pol. Still here.”
They pushed into the cabin. Gadgets looked up from his electronics and locked eyes with Lyons. Gadgets burst out laughing, reached into his backpack. His Instamatic flashed.
“Hey, man,” Gadgets said to Lyons, “you are spooky.” He stepped back to snap a full-length photo. “Hope you had a good time today. Now it’s time to work.”
“Wait.” Blancanales held Lyons’s shoulder, studied his eyes, his face, his breathing. “Are you okay? You’re looking weird, you’re talking weird, you’re moving weird. What’s going on with you? What happened out there?”
Like a shadow of the street-cynical, rude Lyons they knew and loved, he looked at them with eyes serene, showing a half smile of amusement. “I am a changed man.” He paused. “But we’ll talk about that some other time, when we have the time.”
Gadgets pushed a coffee mug into his hand. “Here. Caffeine. Get agitated. Then we’ll know who you are. There’s the map of the rivers north of here, where this branch joins the Mamore. And we just got a confirmation and arrival time on the good stuff. An amphibious plane will come at dawn. Whatever our position is then, we radio them, they offload the goods and take the Cubans away.”
“A spotter plane crisscrossed the river today,” Blancanales told Lyons. “We don’t know if they saw us, but we should be on our way downriver.”
The weight of many men crowding on board swayed the patrol boat. Thomas called out, “We are ready! All men are ready!”
“Are youready?” Blancanales asked Lyons. The black-painted loinclothed ex-cop nodded. “Then why don’t you get dressed? You look radically indigenous, but it’s time to work.”
Unrolling his bundle of fatigues and boots and equipment, Lyons slipped on his shoulder-holster Magnum. He buckled on the web belt carrying the Beretta, hooked his hand radio’s case to the belt. Opening his backpack, he put away his fatigues and boots.
Gadgets and Blancanales stared at the spectacle. Gadgets grabbed his Instamatic again, snapped yet another photo.
“I cannot believe it,” Gadgets laughed. “Lyons, the Commando in a Jockstrap.”
As the boats floated north with the slow current, Lyons watched the pale dreamscape of riverbank and rain forest pass. Above the jungle and gentle hills, stars swirled. The white fragment of the moon slashed the violet of endless space. The Xavante warriors around him sprawled on the benches or leaned against the railings, some sleeping, others listening, staring into the darkness for the lights of a slaver boat. But no lights broke the night whatsoever, not electric or wood fire.
No Indians lived in this area now. The slavers had depopulated the forest, taking tribes for slavery, killing whoever resisted, all the survivors fleeing their age-old homes.
Purified by the hallucinogen and the rituals he shared with the other warriors, the warrior from Los Angeles longed for the battle. He felt loathing for the foreigners who raped and killed and enslaved. They violated the peace and beauty of this paradise. Now he went to kill them. He felt honored that the Xavantes had accepted him as a warrior and friend. He was thrilled. He would not fail them.
He paced the boat, the new Atchisson hanging by its sling, his hands folded over the carrying handle. Machete-hacked branches and saplings lashed to the rails broke the moonlight into slivers on the deck. He looked back to watch the airboats, also camouflaged with branches, trail behind them on the end of lines. A plane might mistake the boats for a cluster of small islands.
Spanish voices came from the cabin. Blancanales was continuing with the interrogation of the prisoners. Two Indians peered through, the side windows to observe the civilizadosinside. Lyons 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 permapressed 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.”
“But they slavers, yes?”
Gadgets nodded to Thomas and to Lyons, returned to Blancanales. The approaching spotlight stayed fixed on the water ahead of the bow. Binoculars revealed lights in the cabin, silhouettes moving against lights on the bridge.
“We’re going to make it,” Blancanales sighed. “They’re staying over on the other side of the river. As long as we don’t…”
Lyons stood behind Blancanales. “When do we hit them?”
“We don’t have to. Luck’s with us. We’re going to make it past them.”
“No,” Lyons shook his head. “We stop them now. Here. There’s only three or four men and boys with the village. If we don’t fight now, the Xavantes’ wives and children and parents are slaves, or dead.”
“We can’t,” Gadgets protested, “go up against trained soldiers and machine-gunners with Indians and shotguns and some liberated G-3s. Brave, but not very smart.”
“It’s their families.” Lyons glanced back to the Xavante warriors. Weapons left the rails, swiveled toward Gadgets and Blancanales. “The decision has been made. You with us?”
They looked into the muzzles of autorifles and shotguns.
11
The spotlight of the slaver boat swept over the water, found them.
Xenon white light splintered by the screen of branches cast patterns of searing brilliance and black. Shadows slid across the faces of the men as they watched transfixed as the gunboat approached.
“The mutiny over?” Blancanales asked.
Lyons took the binoculars and focused on the slavers. He squinted against the spotlight, then passed back the binoculars. “How can it be a mutiny? We aren’t leading them. We’re with them. Period.”
Slugs punched into the cruiser. Impact threw an Indian across the deck. He groaned, sucking in breath. Someone put a hand over his mouth to prevent noise. Other men raised their weapons. Thomas hissed a command to them. They lowered their weapons.
Bullet-chopped branches and leaves settled on them. A long burst sent streaks of tracer red over Lyons’s back. This was the slavers’ recon-by-fire. Bullets punched holes through the cabin, breaking glass.
Silence. They heard the motor of the nearing gunboat and voices. Lyons saw the spotlight sweeping from end to end of the camouflaged boats. Not one of the black-painted Xavantes moved. The wounded man stayed quiet, only his gasping breaths betraying his pain.
On the deck of the slaver gunboat, soldiers held coiled ropes and boarding hooks. Other soldiers crowded the siderails. Two men on the bridge kept sweeping the spotlight back and forth.
“When they’re up against us. Right up…” Lyons whispered to Gadgets and Blancanales, then crabbed away to Thomas. “All the men to the rail,” he whispered to Thomas. “Keep them flat. Wait for me to fire.”
With whispered instructions and shoves, Thomas and Lyons moved the men into line fast. Shoulder to shoulder, the warriors kept their shotguns and autorifles within the tangle of branches. Lyons took a position behind them and sank to one knee. He put an extra magazine of 12-gauge rounds for his Atchisson at his side and waited.
A steel grappling hook crashed through the branches. An Indian pushed it away from his leg. It hooked the railing. The cruiser’s wood and fiberglass creaked as the soldiers pulled in the slack.
The cruisers bumped together. A slaver officer shouted instructions to his soldiers. Lyons put the Atchisson to his shoulder, screamed, “Now!”
Lyons swept a seven-shot burst of 12-gauge fire across the slavers, in less than a second four hundred double-ought and number two steel balls traveling at 1200 feet per second punching through the camouflage branches to shred the soldiers only ten feet away from him. At the same instant, fifteen other shotguns and autorifles roared from the cruiser. Lyons jerked the spent magazine from his auto-shotgun, jammed it back into his bandolier. He slapped in a second mag, snapped back the weapon’s actuator. He held his fire as the continuous wave of flame from the Indians and Gadgets and Blancanales smashed into the gunboat.
Branches fell away, gaps in the camouflage screen letting in the blaze of the xenon spotlight. Lyons saw movement on the foredeck of the slaver craft. Suddenly the spotlight went black. The
indistinct form of a soldier was swiveling the pedestal-mounted machine gun around. Lyons brought up the Atchisson and sighted on the man’s torso. He popped a shot at him. Arms wide, the soldier fell back.
A single burst of auto-fire from the gunboat started up wild. Several Indians found the rifleman, hit him.
Weapons fire died away as warriors emptied their shotguns and G-3 rifles. Hands pulled 12-gauge shells from bandoliers, fed the tube magazines of Remingtons. Men with G-3s slapped in box magazines.
Charging from the deck, Lyons crashed through the sticks and leaves, his eyes and the muzzle of his auto-shotgun searching for movement. He hit the gunboat deck, slipped sideways and fell in the blood and shredded flesh.
A burst roared over him, muzzle flash lighting the gunboat’s cabin door. Lyons pressed himself flat on the blood-slicked deck and with one hand pointed his Atchisson at a form crouching behind a flashing autorifle.
Recoil slammed the auto-shotgun’s plastic stock into Lyons’s forehead. He saw stars, but no form remaining in the doorway. Bracing his weapon, but staying flat, Lyons swept the cabin with a series of semiauto shots. Supersonic steel balls saturated the interior.
Fists hammered at Lyons. His Atchisson empty, he rolled away, pursued by one of the soldiers. Flat on his back, Lyons snatched the Colt Python from his shoulder holster and double-actioned a slug into the man. The muzzle flash froze the image of the crawling soldier lifting an autorifle from the deck, reaching for its pistol grip. His hand never closed, the .357 hollowpoint flipping him backward. He flopped on his back, his legs tangling beneath him. An Indian stooped over and put the muzzle of his Remington against the chest of the dead but still-moving man. The Indian fired once.
Walking carefully in the gore, the Indian continued past. Other Indians helped Lyons up, then spread out to search the gunboat for surviving slavers. Lyons crouched to change magazines, again carefully stashing the empty mag in his bandolier. Men called back and forth in the Xavante dialect as they searched the decks and bridge. Somewhere on the enemy boat, a man sobbed.
