Scorched Earth at-13

by Dick Stivers

  "Who knows?" Vato replied as he slipped off his Springfield.

  Around them, the Yaqui soldiers dispersed on the barren ridge. Some pressed themselves against rocks. Others flattened themselves in erosion cracks. One crawled into a tangle of mesquite. Everyone covered the distinctive lines and gleaming metal of their weapons with their bodies.

  The four outsiders — Able Team and Coral — strained their ears to hear the helicopter. They heard nothing. But following the example of the Yaquis, they became parts of the ridge, arranging their camouflage cloaks, concealing their weapons.

  Seconds later, the chopper soared over the eastern ridge, its skids seeming to touch the rocks. Rotor throb came as suddenly as an explosion. The Huey followed the contour of the slopes down the mountain, skimming over the mesquite.

  Gadgets laughed. "That guy's getting tricky."

  Blancanales and Lyons nodded agreement. Unlike the pilot of a spotter plane, who could shut off the engine and glide silently, or fly so high that people on the ground could not hear the motor, a helicopter pilot could not eliminate or diminish the noise of the rotors. However, if the pilot rode the contours of the terrain, using mountains and ridge-lines to block the rotor noise, enemies in a valley would not hear the approaching helicopter until it was too late. The pilot of the approaching helicopter had attempted exactly that.

  They watched as the troopship rose to a hundred feet. The pilot circled once in the valley, then continued directly for the ridge where the group of Yaquis and North Americans lay in the dust and rocks.

  Rotor throb exploded past them, dust swirling, as the Huey pilot tried to surprise his enemies on the other side of the ridge. The pilot circled the area once, then veered to the north.

  "They're looking for action," Gadgets said. "No doubt about it."

  "Vato," Lyons called out.

  The young man rose from the rocks, brushing sand from his hair. He duck-walked over to the North Americans.

  "Do they use light planes for surveillance and spotting?" Lyons asked.

  "Usually. That helicopter, it is nothing. The many dead from yesterday makes the Blancos crazy, so they fly around thinking they will take revenge."

  "Crazy for payback," Gadgets agreed. "We know what they want. Us."

  Vato nodded. "I know my enemy. It is the planes we must be wary of. That is why I take the precaution of many lookouts. When the lookouts are alone, there is no sound. They listen for the planes, they watch the sky as we move. We have seen planes, but the planes have never seen us."

  "They didn't leave a patrol down there," Lyons said, pointing to the ridge where the Mexican army squad had been annihilated. "And we need to take prisoners. What now?"

  Slipping the sling of his Springfield rifle over his shoulder, Vato looked around to the vast expanse of the Sierra Madres. He glanced to the western horizon. Then he said, "Be patient. We know they will come. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow. But they will come."

  * * *

  For the return to the concealed Yaqui village, Vato reorganized the scouts and main group into a skirmish line several kilometers wide. Scratching a straight line and a curved line in the sand, Vato explained to the foreigners that the skirmish line would sweep the mountains in a wide arc. The slowest foreigner, acting as the line's pivot point, would return directly to the cave village by the easiest trails. At the opposite end of the line, the fastest Yaquis, who could run at twice the speed of the foreigners, would range through the mountains, searching for patrolling Blancos.

  Vato matched Yaquis to the foreigners. Coral — who as a Mexican counted as a foreigner in the Sierra Madres — would be the pivot, walking with a middle-aged Yaqui who still limped from a bullet wound. A young man who spoke some English would walk and jog with Gadgets. A young woman who spoke excellent Spanish would guide Blancanales.

  After mentally totaling the weight of his weapons, Lyons decided to run with the Yaquis.

  "Can you run for six more hours?" Vato asked.

  "I've done it."

  "Then you'll run with me in the center."

  Staying close to Vato, Lyons observed the Yaqui chieftain's techniques of command. When Vato spoke with other Yaquis, he took the time to carefully explain details — as he had with the foreigners — by sketching maps and formations in the sand to illustrate his instructions and by pointing to landmarks. The Yaquis nodded and followed his orders. Vato never lost patience.

  As they ran, Vato watched the horizons for aircraft and flashing signal mirrors. The Yaquis who ran from the valleys to the ridgelines to the mountaintops maintained contact with one another using their mirrors. Points of light flashed from mountain to mountain as the line moved across a wide swath of the Sierra Madres. Vato acknowledged the flash codes from time to time, breaking pace for a moment to flash back with his own mirror, then continuing.

  On a mountainside, Lyons saw why the Yaqui patrol maintained their continuous observation of the sky. They ran through a forest of tall mesquite trees, many over thirty feet high. Then suddenly, as they went over the ridge, all life disappeared.

  Black mesquite stood like grotesque sculptures. Ashes made the earth black. Lyons scanned the spot of devastation for an explanation of the fire. He noticed nothing extraordinary.

  "What happened here? Napalm?" he called out to Vato.

  "We saw the plane drop the bomb. But there was no one here. Maybe it was a coyote they saw. Or a coludo."

  "A what?"

  "A magic coyote. A spirit coyote."

  Lyons knew the Yaqui jived him. "Who knows?"

  For hours, Lyons and Vato ran without a break. The heat became intolerable at midday. To protect himself from sunstroke, Lyons stripped off his black long-sleeved fatigue shirt and fashioned a turban, folding and rolling and knotting the shirt to create a visor to shadow his eyes. As Lyons squatted in the cool shade of rock overhang to make his hat, Vato watched.

  "You should have brought a sombrero, americano."

  "Should've brought a lot of things," Lyons answered. "But I didn't plan on getting shot down in the desert."

  "You entered the territory of the enemy without calculation. You were very lucky to live."

  "Sun Tzu?"

  Vato nodded.

  "What would Sun Tzu say about the DEA promising my team full cooperation in investigating the dope war, then sending us into an ambush?"

  "All war is based on deception."

  In the next hours, as they ran through the mountains of the Sierra Madres, Lyons, the ex-cop from Los Angeles, considered the concept of war as deception expressed by the ancient Chinese philosopher-warrior. In crime, deception concealed and confused.

  War required other deceptions. Lyons thought of his missions with Able Team. He realized he had never systematically analyzed the role of deception in the actions. From Able Team's first counterstrike on terrorism in Manhattan to the Mexican army's rocket strike on their DEA Lear jet, deception — not weapons, not personnel, not information, not opportunity — created each action.

  Deception created threats: the explosives packed into a passenger car, the silent pistol in the purse of the teenage girl, the trusted diplomat, the plutonium generator deep in the Amazon jungle.

  Deception created responses: counterterrorist groups masquerading as taxi drivers and drunks and beggars, elite soldiers as diplomats, Able Team as international businessmen or tourists or mercenaries.

  Running through the Sonora desert, sweat salt crusting his face, Lyons accepted the truth of the ancient precept of Sun Tzu.

  The principle of deception applied to every military action or terrorist attack in Lyons's personal experience. Even now, he had told the DEA he would investigate the dope gang known as Los Guerreros Blancos; in truth, he wanted only revenge. The DEA had promised full cooperation; in truth, they prepared to murder him.

  Thinking of these things, Lyons ran throughout the day, following the young Yaqui from Tucson who read ancient Chinese philosopher-warriors. At dusk, a signal mirror fla
shing from a mountain stopped Vato.

  Vato stood in the trail, watching the point of sunset-red brilliance blink in code. Lyons disentangled his sweat-soaked shirt from his head and slipped it on, the wet shirt cold on his overheated body. The temperature of the desert air dropped sharply with the approach of night.

  "What is it?" Lyons asked.

  Without looking at the American, Vato motioned him to wait. The message continued. Lyons drank the last of his water with a few salt tablets. Soon he would have the comfort of taking off his boots. Soon he would have the comfort of a cold-water bath. Only another few minutes, he thought to himself, over and over again as he waited. Finally Vato turned to him.

  "A plane spotted a pueblo, a village of many families. They think the Guerreros will return with soldiers," he said

  "They're positive the plane saw the village? It wasn't just an overflight?"

  "The plane circled. The messenger fears that the soldiers will already be there."

  "Then let's go." Lyons reached for his hand radio. If the distances permitted, he would brief his partners immediately.

  "It is another five hours running."

  14

  Beneath the dome of stars, mountains floated in the moonlight. The sand of the trails shimmered pale blue. Lyons no longer felt his boots striking the earth as he ran. He floated over the trail, unaware of his body, his breathing or the pain of the hours of running without rest.

  After learning about the spotter plane, Able Team had lightened themselves by passing their weapons to Yaqui warriors. Yaquis from the cave village carried their packs and ammunition and back-up weapons, including Lyons's Atchisson and the 40mm grenades for Blancanales's M-16/M-203.

  Able Team only carried themselves. Miguel Coral had surrendered to his fatigue and remained behind in the caves with Davis.

  Blancanales and Gadgets had agreed to the crosscountry race on one condition: runners would go ahead to check the pueblo. They did not want to run all night for nothing.

  On the trail, Lyons left his partners behind. He lagged only a few hundred meters behind Vato, keeping up with the line of Yaquis. He ran without thinking, oblivious to the slopes and the landscape floating past. His eyes focused only on the trail, luminous with moonlight, and the forms of the runners ahead.

  Two hours after dark, a teenage messenger confirmed the alarm. A young boy, his eyes wild with desperation, talked with Vato. When Lyons appeared, the boy startled away. Vato stopped him and reassured him.

  Lyons stood outside the group as the Yaquis questioned the boy. He closed his eyes and slept on his feet, the language of the indigenasaround him strange and incomprehensible, like voices in a dream. Finally he heard Vato's voice speaking English.

  "Helicopters came with soldiers. He escaped by hiding. When he ran, he had heard rifles and explosions."

  Without opening his eyes, Lyons concentrated on his questions. He tried to visualize the distant mountain village.

  "Is the town on a hill or in a valley?" he asked Vato.

  "In a canyon. Steep mountainsides to the north and south."

  "Cliffs?"

  "Impossible to walk at night."

  "How many helicopters and where did they land?"

  "Three helicopters." Vato turned to the boy, asked more questions and translated the boy's replies. "He says they landed on the hills. That way they could fire down into the pueblo."

  "How many people in the village?"

  "Only a few families. Perhaps a hundred campesinos and Yoeme. Perhaps more."

  "Fighters?"

  "The fighters are with us. Only a few stayed there."

  "Do they know where the hidden caves are?"

  "They will not betray us!"

  Lyons opened his eyes. He had his plan. He forced himself not to simply issue instructions to the proud young Yaqui leader. He put his hand on Vato's shoulder, as if to steady himself.

  "My friend, it would be reckless not to alert the others to the..."

  "True," Vato interrupted. "But they are already on alert."

  "Have you sent your fastest runners ahead to recon the scene? Then they can tell us what to expect. Warn them of trip wires, booby traps."

  "Yes," Vato said with a nod. "If the soldiers are still there, they will fear attack in the night."

  "And send the boy back to the caves. Tell him to tell Davis, the pilot, to come. We will attempt to capture not only soldiers and officers, but a helicopter too. Tell him to also tell my partners."

  Vato laughed. "Yes! Very good! You have a pilot, we will have a helicopter. Amigo, you can continue now. I will instruct the boy and the runners."

  Lyons ran again.

  Mesquite branches shattered the distant scene with web works of blue lines. Keeping their bodies pressed flat, they moved slowly through the desert brush, snaking past mesquite, pushing aside branches and dry weeds. Lyons and Vato crawled to the ridgeline's drop-off to gain an unobstructed view of the pueblo below.

  Hundreds of meters to the south, lanterns and flashlights illuminated a single street and two rows of adobe houses. The lights silhouetted soldiers and projected giant forms onto the near-vertical mountainside beyond the village. A fire burned between two houses, flames leaping up.

  Voices carried to the warriors watching the scene. Laughter, shouts. Sometimes a woman shrieked.

  Below Lyons and Vato the ridge fell straight into the rocks of a gully. Moonlight gleamed off water. From the stream, one switchback trail led to the west, to the ridgeline overlooking the pueblo. From the other side of the stream, other trails cut east, zigzagging up an embankment to the houses. The two rows of adobe houses, scattered on both sides of a north-south road, occupied the flat area in the narrow canyon.

  Another woman screamed, but this time from the ridgeline. Helicopters were parked not more than a hundred meters from where the North American and the Yaqui sprawled in the brush.

  Despite his mind-numbing exhaustion, Lyons felt a surge of rage. He suppressed his loathing and urge to kill, returning his attention to the problem of the infiltration and recapture of the village. He could do nothing for the people now.

  But later, he resolved, he would give the soldiers over to the village. Let the families of the murdered and raped judge the raiders.

  Shoulder to shoulder with Vato, Lyons sketched his plan in whispers. "The ones in the town can't see the helicopters. The ones at the helicopters can't watch the town. I believe we can take all of them at once. My team has radios. My team knows booby traps, and we have silenced pistols."

  "Our knives are silent," Vato told him.

  "But they cannot kill from a distance. When my partners come, I believe we should divide into three groups. One group for the helicopters. The second will enter the village from the south, the third from the north. Once we have closed on the soldiers, even if there is an alarm, we will take them."

  Vato nodded in the moonlight. "Silenced pistols and walkie-talkies. Tonight we have the luxury of technology."

  "Remember, your fighters must understand that we will take the officers alive. And the helicopter radios must be controlled. We cannot allow any of the soldiers to send a panic message."

  "No one radios for help. No one escapes. No one lives."

  "Only the officers."

  They crawled back through the brush. Pausing at the rocky crest of the ridge, Lyons rose to a crouch. He looked downhill to where the three Huey troopships were parked on a wide, flat plateau like huge somnambulant insects. He watched for a minute as silhouettes crossed the glaring lights. Other forms stood around fires.

  From the height of the crest, he searched the ridge for an avenue of infiltration. Directly in front of him, to the north of the helicopters, open ground denied access. To the east, any soldier looking up from the pueblo could have spotted Lyons and the Yaquis on the cliff face below the helicopters.

  He saw a crease in the ridgeline. A shallow gully, erosion-carved during the torrential tropical rains of the summer, cut through th
e center of the camp, running southwest from the helicopters to the darkness of the mountainside. That erosion ditch would be his avenue through the perimeter.

  Squinting against the lights and the leaping fire, Lyons searched for sentries. He saw one form pacing in the darkness.

  Then a uniform took his attention. A soldier was squatted at the door of a Huey. Unlike the other soldiers, who wore the camouflage greens of the Mexican army, he wore a gray uniform. Silver insignia flashed like sequins from his collar. Lyons saw the gray-uniformed soldier raise a bottle and drink.

  Lyons noted the soldier's helicopter, then followed Vato through the moonlit darkness. They scrambled down the mountainside to a trail that paralleled the ridgeline. In minutes they rejoined the group of Yaquis.

  As Lyons cleaned and checked his silenced Colt Government Model, more Yaquis led in Gadgets and Blancanales.

  For minutes the two ex-Green Berets walked in circles and stretched as their muscles cooled. With the arrival of the foreigners, Vato divided the Yaqui fighters into three groups. He began the detailed explanations of the upcoming action and the role of each of the three groups, sketching the action in the sand.

  Gadgets found his backpack and sprawled against it, only one hand moving slowly to pull open the Velcro closures. His words came in a dry rattle from his throat. "Twinkies... I must have Twinkies..."

  "What are you talking about?" Lyons demanded.

  Gadgets pulled out a plastic box and eased off the lid. "Been thinking about this good stuff all day long. How long we been running today?"

  "It's already tomorrow." Blancanales gasped. "I'm getting too old for this..."

  Cellophane crinkled. Lyons heard the tear of a pop top and the soft hiss of escaping pressure as his partner opened a can.

  "Orange soda and some Twinkies, man. This is it. I am now ready. Mr. Wizard reporting for duty. Here, here's some quick energy for you dudes."

  Lyons shook his head. "I don't want any of that junk-food shit."

  "This ain't food. These are bennies. And aspirin. If you feel like me, you could pass out on your feet any second now."