by Dick Stivers
A storm of death engulfed them all.
20
From the safety of concealment on the hillside overlooking the motor home, Floyd Jefferson watched as the three "specialists from Washington" prepared for the death squad. Though he did not know their real names, he already thought of the three men as friends. No, more than friends—brothers.
He knew their assignment: Protect the young American reporter who may be the only surviving witness to an international Fascist conspiracy of murder and mutilation.
Protect Floyd Jefferson!
After they had left the highway, they found this isolated canyon. While the plane circled overhead, they went through the pretense of repairing the motor home. Finally, after the plane disappeared to the north, they took their positions. The "specialists" refused to allow Jefferson to participate. To force him to remain safe, they had tried to take away his sawed-off shotgun. He refused and argued until they allowed him to keep it. From the hillside, he watched their hurried preparations.
The man he had heard the others call "Pol," who had identified himself to Jefferson over the phone as Rosario, moved through the low weeds. He paused from time to time in the thickest tangles of brush, then moved on to the loading ramp of heavy timbers.
The "Wizard" assembled a device and placed it on the hillside. Jefferson had never been in the army. He had no idea what the "Wizard" had devised.
"Ironman," the rude blond bastard, buckled on the heavy black body armor that Jefferson had worn during the freeway pursuit. Weapons and ammunition overlay the armor. With his "machine-gun" shotgun and two pistols, the man looked terrifying. A pair of sunglasses and a crazy grin made him look like Mr. Death himself.
These three "specialists" knew their job. They had parked the motor home in a V formed by two steep hillsides. Rosario and Ironman took positions at each side of the opening. The Wizard waited at the point of the V. Jefferson knew the death squad would have no chance.
These men were true warriors, not farmers with machetes for self-defense. Not students. Not nurses waiting at a bus stop. Not teachers at a blackboard.
The Salvadoran monsters faced qualified "specialists": death squad against death squad. Except this death squad of North American soldiers fought for justice.
Finally, three trucks arrived. As dust clouds swirled across the clearing, squads of men spread out. A Salvadoran from the third truck directed his men with a walkie-talkie. One of the Salvadorans shouted out: "Putos comunistas. Venimos con muerte!"
In a roar of automatic weapons, justice struck the Salvadorans.
Gadgets fired first from his position on the hillside. Sighting over the short barrel of his CAR, he put three-round bursts into the chests of the two nearest Salvadorans. They fell back and writhed in the dust, blood fountaining from their hearts. Gadgets put his commando-rifle sights onto another gunman staring around for the source of the auto-fire. An Uzi in his hands, the gunman stood exposed in the kill zone. A three-round burst punched through his head, his questions and indecision suddenly a red mist in the midday glare.
The other Salvadorans scattered. Bursts of 9mm slugs from their Uzis whizzed into the sky as they sprayed fire. Dust puffed on the hillside. Glass broke in the motor home from the wild, unaimed auto-fire.
Aimed bursts from Lyons and Blancanales knocked down Salvadorans, every burst throwing dead and wounded to the gravel.
A wounded man screamed, his cry rising and falling, auto-blasts drowning his agony. Gadgets ignored the thrashing man and searched the area for men still firing. From his position above the clearing, he looked down on the Salvadorans. They had no shelter other than the motor home and the shallow gully at the base of the hillside.
Two gunmen sprinted from the clearing and plunged into the gully. Gadgets watched them cower behind the rocks. He suppressed a laugh.
Who were these goofs? They could write an encyclopedia on how to die in an ambush. Then again, they wouldn't have time.
The Stony Man electronics technician extended his hand for the radio-trigger. But he did not press the button.
Why blast only two? Wait for a crowd…
A Salvadoran ran for the road. Something snagged on his ankle. He glanced back, saw a grenade bouncing after him. Shrieking with panic, he sprinted. But the grenade, secured by a loop of monofilament to his ankle, followed only a step behind.
The sharp crack of RDX stopped his shriek for a moment. Stumbling, dropping his Uzi, the gunman attempted to get to his feet. He no longer had feet.
Screaming, the maimed Salvadoran thrashed on the hard-baked earth. Blood gushed from the stumps of his legs, blood loss plunging him into shock. His scream died to a whimper, then a gasp. Finally he lay silent and motionless, flies buzzing around the exposed knobs of his tibias and fibulas.
Lyons wanted prisoners. Therefore he aimed low. He sighted on running Salvadorans, tore their legs apart. Though most of them would bleed to death, perhaps one or two might live for interrogation.
Another Salvadoran dodged through the cross fire to the gully. There, the other two gunmen aimed fire at the hillside brush that concealed Gadgets. Lyons snapped two blasts from his Atchisson at the men in the gully to keep their heads down, then he returned his attention to the clearing.
Two Salvadorans took cover under the motor home. Shielded from the downward directed fire from Gadgets and Blancanales, the two gunmen sought out Lyons with their Uzis. Other Salvadorans scrambled under the protection of the motor home.
The Salvadorans formed into fire teams, one man aiming a quick short burst, then another firing, then another. A continuous stream of slugs kept Lyons down, Uzi-fire tearing the brush that concealed him.
Sprawled on his gut, the 9mm slugs from the Salvadorans passing only inches above his back, Lyons keyed his hand-radio.
"Pol! Do it!"
On the opposite hillside, Blancanales sighted his M-16/M-203 over-and-under hybrid assault rifle /grenade launcher on the motor home's shot-out rear picture window. He flicked down the M-203's safety. As he squeezed the trigger, another Salvadoran crawled under the shelter of the vehicle.
A 40mm high-explosive grenade flew through the window of the motor home. Inside, the explosion sent high-velocity steel razors through the floor, piercing the fuel tank in a hundred places. Gasoline sprayed the Salvadorans.
Drenched in gas, the gunmen scrambled from under the motor home. Blancanales reloaded and fired again, the second grenade hitting under the rear bumper. The nearest Salvadoran died instantly, steel wire razors slashing simultaneously through his lungs, heart and brain. The others did not share his good fortune.
Bursting into gas-fed flames, screaming, thrashing their arms wildly as if to shake away the agony consuming their flesh, the Salvadorans ran blindly in all directions. A wounded gunman, unable to crawl from under the burning motor home, wailed for thirty seconds, then sucked down a breath of fire and died choking, his lungs seared shut.
The burning men ran through the cross fire. Blancanales sighted on each suffering Salvadoran and gave them the mercy of a bullet. Lyons saved his steel buckshot for the Salvadorans still firing their weapons.
A gunman, his expensive suit torn, filthy, darted for the loading dock. Lyons followed him in his sights. He fired as the gunman dived. The blast of double-ought and number-two shot almost missed him, the majority of the fifty steel balls only tearing into the dust beyond him. But a few projectiles at the shot pattern's edge ripped his legs with through-and-through wounds, their impact twisting him in the air. He fell hard on his shoulder. Crabbing for the shelter of the loading dock's heavy timbers, the gunman left streams of blood on the hard-packed dirt and gravel.
In his desperation and pain, the Salvadoran did not see the monofilament line. The strand caught on his shoulder as he crawled.
The monofilament pulled an Italian-made MU-50G controlled-effect grenade from a cola can. Blancanales had learned to make this particular booby trap from the Viet Cong. Tie a wire or string to a grenade, pull the safety pin, t
hen put the grenade in a can. The can prevented the safety lever from springing free. But when a soldier snagged the line, the line jerked the grenade from the can and the lever flipped away. Crude but effective. The delay of the grenade often worked to make the booby trap more effective. If a pointman on a trail snagged the line, the six-second delay gave time for the next man in the patrol to enter the kill-radius of the grenade. Shrapnel ripped the pointman's back, shrapnel ripped the gut of the next soldier.
However, in the case of the wounded Salvadoran, the six-second delay only served as a period of torture. As the man crawled against the dock, he felt the grenade fall on his back. He reached behind him, felt the shape of the small grenade. The soldier recognized the shape of it by touch.
He tried to grab the grenade. It rolled to his side. The guy struggled to crawl away. His wounded, blood-spurting legs kicked at the dirt and weeds. As in a nightmare, he saw the grenade at his side, yet he could not crawl away. Dropping his Uzi, the victim clawed at the earth, dragging himself a few feet. He did not feel the monofilament looped over his shoulder.
The grenade followed him. He kicked at it, his eyes bulging from his face, his face distorted into a mask of terror. Then the grenade exploded.
Designated a "controlled-effect" grenade because the tiny explosive charge of the MU-50G created a kill-radius of only five meters—thus making it an excellent anti-personnel grenade for clearing rooms of terrorists—the blast did not have the force to kill the man instantly. However, the explosive shock and hundreds of steel beads hit his legs at a speed of 20,000 feet per second, tearing away his legs and genitals.
Flopping in the rapidly spreading pool of his blood, the guy did not understand what had happened to him. But he screamed and screamed as his life drained away from the torn flesh that revealed his pelvic bones. In the last minute of his life he knew the horror he had inflicted on so many others. Then he sank into the darkness of unconsciousness and death.
Black smoke rising from the flaming motor home shadowed the killing ground. Over the sights of their assault weapons, Blancanales and Lyons searched the area. They saw wounded and dead Salvadorans everywhere. A brushfire spread around one dead man as his gasoline-flaming body ignited the dry weeds.
Auto-fire still came from the three gunmen hiding in the rocky gully. Lyons scanned the killing ground. He counted three wounded men still moving. He keyed his hand-radio.
"Pol, give them the chance to surrender."
Blancanales shouted out in Spanish for the survivors to throw away their weapons.
Below, one of the men wounded by Lyons, flat on his back with his shattered legs twisted beneath him, raised his arms. Another man, his intestines spilling from his shirt, died even as he called for mercy. The third man, a broken arm limp at his side, waved one hand and stood.
An Uzi-burst from the Salvadorans in the gully killed him. Lyons spoke into his hand-radio again.
"Wizard, give those three the pop."
"Put out some rounds to distract them, then," said Gadgets's voice.
As Lyons sprayed the three Salvadorans with buckshot, Gadgets touched the radio-trigger at his side to send a radio impulse to a charge he had placed in the gully.
Much like the monofilament and grenade booby traps Blancanales had placed, the device Gadgets had improvised utilized a can and a grenade. However, Gadgets used a radio-triggered fuse—a tiny bit of RDX usually planted inside a brick of C-4 plastic explosive to ignite the main charge—to propel the grenade from the can.
As the steel shot from Lyons's booming Atchisson hit the rocks around them, the three Salvadorans stayed low, their faces against the earth. They did not notice the grenade propelled straight into the air by the tiny explosion of the fuse. A length of monofilament prevented the grenade from flying too far or bouncing away. When the grenade had flown to the end of its tether, it snapped back and clattered on the rocks among the men.
They died without seeing what killed them.
Gadgets laughed into his hand-radio. "Presto, deado."
"I'm going out there," Lyons radioed his partners. "Cover me."
Jamming a full magazine into his Atchisson, Lyons left his concealment on the hillside. His steps slow with the weight of the Kevlar-and-steel battle armor, he eased down the treacherous slope, his Atchisson cocked and unlocked and set on full-auto, his right index finger straight beside his Atchisson's trigger. He needed only to clench his fist to send a devastating blast of high-velocity steel from the weapon.
On the scraped earth of the loading area, Lyons scanned the dead and wounded. He saw several of the men he had wounded, now dead in immense pools of clotting blood.
Going to one of the Salvadorans who still lived, he kicked the man's Uzi away. Atchisson ready in his right hand, Lyons reached under the wounded man's jacket and pulled a Browning 9mm auto-pistol from a shoulder holster. Tossing the Browning aside, he glanced at the man's shattered legs. One leg bled from a pattern of buckshot holes. The other leg, the femur shattered, twisted at a right angle. Lyons keyed his hand-radio.
"Pol, this one needs immediate first aid."
"On my way."
21
Flat in the dust under the Silverado, Captain Madrano watched the black-clad North American walk away. The captain had lost all his men, but he still held his Uzi. He watched the other North Americans come down from the hillsides.
Could he kill them all with his Uzi? No. Perhaps he could kill one. No. Why throw away his life with a last, suicidal attack on the enemy?
Smoke from the burning motor home drifted through the clearing. Captain Madrano saw the smoke obscure the scene for a moment. The slight wind blew the black cloud past the Silverado. Madrano watched the three armored North Americans check the Salvadorans. The Negro stayed back at a safe distance.
Captain Madrano knew he had only one chance to live. He waited for the wind to shift again.
A gust blew the smoke one way, then the wind faded. A billowing black wall descended on the Silverados. Madrano slithered backward from under the truck. Keeping the truck between him and the North Americans, he scrambled back.
When he gained the cover of weeds and a tangle of litter dumped at the side of the road, he burrowed into the trash like an animal. Concealed, he waited until he heard one of the Silverados start up. Only after the North Americans departed did Captain Madrano dare to emerge into the daylight.
Throwing away his weapons, he walked to the highway, plotting revenge every step of the way.
22
As local and federal officers photographed the dead Salvadorans, Agent Gallucci of the Federal Bureau of Investigation surveyed the scene.
Stinking soot and smoke still rose from the ruin of the motor home, the aluminium frame and shell melted and commingled with the ashes of the interior materials.
Scorched human bones lay in the gleaming pools of once-molten iridescent aluminium. Farther away from the smoking hulk, more Salvadorans lay where they had died. As if to declare their identities, the corpses clutched their passports and tourist visas. Their killers had searched their pockets for the identification, then left the official documents in their stiffening hands.
Though the papers stated the young men represented a group of visiting Mexican businessmen, their hard muscles, their military-short hairstyles identified the dead men as soldiers or paramilitary fighters.
Their wounds left no doubt as to the military weapons of their killers. Dismembered by grenades, their heads and torsos torn open by auto-fire, the 5.56mm and 40mm cartridge casings found on the hillside only confirmed what Gallucci immediately recognized.
But the hideous wounds to some of the Salvadorans confused him. How could the gunman who killed the men—obviously with a shotgun—have chambered and fired shells so fast and with such devastating accuracy?
A farmer on the far side of the hill had reported hearing a fury of gunshots and explosions. Before he could cross his equipment yard to his telephone, the shooting stopped. The slaught
er of these Salvadorans had taken no more than a few minutes.
The number of wounds in the dead men indicated continuous firing from a semi-automatic short-barrelled weapon. No weapon Gallucci knew of could put out the sustained volume of fire indicated by the twenty-one shotgun casings on the hillside—all of a common manufacturer. Only the scratches on the casings' brass bases indicating an unusual extractor mechanism would provide the laboratory with any detail for analysis.
"Mr. Gallucci! Over here." One of the San Jose county sheriffs called him over to a Silverado truck.
"Look at this…" The sheriff pointed to a pattern of holes in the passenger-side door.
Holes of .30 caliber and other holes not much larger than pinpoints created the outline of a man's legs. Chipped enamel indicated where other shot balls had lost velocity as they passed through the man's legs and only dented the truck's sheet steel. A trail of blood from the truck led to a corpse in the weeds.
Gallucci looked up at the hillside to confirm the angle of aim to the door panel. He examined the holes punched into the truck's steel.
The sheriff explained. "Only time I've seen buckshot penetrate a car is point-blank, straight on. But look. I estimate twenty-five yards from where the shotgunner fired. At a twenty-something degree angle. But his pellets—looks like a mixed load, buckshot and bird shot—they went straight through the sheet metal. Except for where that Mexican was standing. And the shot went through him and still dented the door."
"It'll give the lab something to think about," Gallucci told him.
"Me, too. Someone is running around who I don't want to meet."
Gallucci noticed marks in the dust of the road. As if continuing his search for more evidence, the FBI officer walked away from the county sheriff.
On the other side of the Silverado, handprints and the wider prints of knees indicated a man had crawled from under the truck to the other side of the road. Gallucci continued to the roadside. The handprints and scuffs showed where the escaping man had gained the concealment of weeds and trash. Footprints from the trash led toward the highway.
