by Dick Stivers
Blancanales and Lyons heard Gadgets whisper through their earphones.
"Like the Nazi in the cave said, trucks and buses. To take the Nazi soldiers to Guatemala City."
They answered with clicks, then moved again.
Jogging through the darkness, Lyons thought of the irony and desperation of this night. With Quiche Indian men whose names he did not know, whose language he did not speak, he went to fight Nazis. A few men against a thousand. A few North Americans and Guatemalans against an army of pro-fascist mercenaries — North American felons, Central American murderers, criminals from England and France and Germany — killing in order to impose a murderous, racist regime on the beautiful nation of Guatemala.
Carl Lyons, the blond North American, had come full circle from his European ancestry. His forefathers had fought and decimated the Indian nations so that they could impose their European culture on the New World. Now, only two hundred years later, he fought with Indians as allies against another invasion. Americans — Anglo and Quiche — fighting European dogma and hatred…
Emerging from the cavern, they heard the screams. Nate had led them through the labyrinth of passages and vast echoing chambers in a few minutes. This time they did not look down at the flat assembly area outside the hidden complex. They came out in the crevices and jumbled rocks level with the cave mouth. Only two hundred yards away, they saw the headlights of trucks. The glare of worklights from the huge cave lit the trees beyond the assembly area.
The screams tore the night. All of the fighters — North American and Guatemalan — heard them. Nate went to all the Indian men and whispered to them. Then he explained to the three men of Able Team: "I told them we can do nothing for the captives. Nothing until we blow the cave behind them. They must close their eyes and ears until then. And you, too."
When they planned the assault, Nate had briefed them on the terrain and security surrounding the complex. Because the four North Americans had the most training and experience, Nate and Able Team led the approach to the perimeter, the Quiche fighters following.
A cleared perimeter surrounded the complex. For a hundred yards around the truck park, only tree stumps remained of the forest. The grass had been burned to denude the earth. Mines and booby traps prevented intruders from crossing the perimeter.
The road wound around the mountain to approach the complex from the west. Trucks and buses passed a guardpost at the tree line, then continued up the slope to the complex.
As the group crept through the forest, Gadgets stopped. Signaling his Able Team partners with three clicks of his hand-radio, he halted the group. He whispered into his hand-radio.
"Ambush."
Lyons grabbed Nate to stop him. Flat on the ground, he hissed: "Ambush. Wizard caught it on the walkie-talkie."
"Need the Starlite?"
"Come on."
Lyons and Blancanales snaked over to their electronics specialist. Nate followed a moment later. They met in a tight knot, their heads touching, their whispers lost in the noise of the trucks only a hundred feet away.
"Where?" Blancanales hissed.
"Don't know. One mere radioed another."
"They hear us?" Lyons asked. "See us?"
"No. One checked with the other. A wake-up call. Could be on the other side of the road."
"Here's the Starlite." Nate passed the silenced MP-5 to Gadgets. "Signal us when." Nate crawled back to the Indians to halt them.
Gadgets flicked on the Starlite's power. Lyons felt his partner lay the Heckler & Koch submachine gun across his back. Gadgets swept the darkness with the electronics.
"Can't see... Grass is too high and they've got cover. Not moving."
Able Team considered the options in silence. Wait? Retreat? Risk it?
"A rock," Lyons decided.
"Stay low," Gadgets cautioned him. "We could be in the kill zone right now."
Easing over on his back, Lyons searched through the grass and forest leaves for stones. He piled a handful on his stomach.
Tossing a pebble toward the road, he hit a tree fifty feet away. He waited, listening.
"Another one," Gadgets whispered.
The second stone pattered on leaves. Gadgets whispered again.
"Ten feet to the right this time."
The next rock bounced on stone. "One merc's telling the others to stop throwing rocks at him. Throw to the left."
A clink.
"Quit it!" a voice called out in English.
"What?" another voice answered.
"The rocks, you shit."
"I didn't throw any..."
"Estupidos, silencio!"
Slipping out his silenced autoColt, Lyons crawled toward the voices. Blancanales shrugged off his backpack of gear and weapons, and followed. They moved infinitely slowly, gently pushing through the grass, advancing a few inches at a time. Minutes passed as they snaked closer and closer to where the pro-fascists hid in the darkness.
Blancanales heard a man shift positions in front of him, a boot squeaking, a buckle scraping across the metal of a rifle. He flicked his eyes back and forth, trying to find the man's form with the edges of his vision.
Only five feet away, the luminous numbers of a watch appeared. Twenty feet away, another man cleared his throat. Blancanales continued forward, feeling the ground ahead of him with his left hand, the Beretta in his right.
The man to his side cleared his throat again. Blancanales heard a boot scrape on a rock a mere arm's reach away from him.
A slap, like a fist against flesh, startled the man in front of him. The noise had come from where Lyons had gone. Blancanales heard the man click a walkie-talkie's transmit key, then whisper: "What was that?"
A bullet through the brain answered him. The walkie-talkie clattered from the dead man's hand. Blancanales picked up the small radio and listened.
"Meyers?" A voice asked.
Blancanales hissed a reply. "Yeah?"
"Devlin here. Lupo?" The voice asked.
"Here." A Spanish accented voice answered.
"Cole?"
"Yeah?" Another hissed answer. Lyons.
A roll call. Three men and their leader. Two already dead.
On the road, a bus neared the guard post. An out-of-line headlight flashed through the trees. Blancanales saw the silhouette of the next man in the ambush unit. He braced his Beretta on the corpse in front of him. He lined up the dash-dot-dash of his Beretta's betalight nightsights, and waited.
As the next buses came up the road, dust diffusing the high beams, Blancanales snapped two shots into the silhouette. One of the ejected casings clinked on a rock. He waited.
A hideous wavering scream came from the parked trucks.
Guffaws came from the darkness. "Listen to 'em fuckin' up those peons," said a muttered voice.
Blancanales pointed his Beretta at the voice and sprayed the lone laughing Nazi mercenary with a three-round burst. Two rounds slapped flesh, one slug skipped off stone and hit a tree.
The laughter became a gasp. Blancanales fired another burst, heard a bullet strike plastic and flesh. He fired again. He heard blood gurgle in a throat.
Then he picked up the walkie-talkie and whispered:
"Meyers?" No answer.
"Lupo?" No answer.
"Cole?" No answer.
"Devlin?" No answer.
He whispered into his hand-radio. "Wizard. Anything?"
"There's an ambush unit on the other side of the road. Using another frequency."
Lyons broke in. "Forget them. The road."
Signaling Nate and the Indians forward, the group crawled a hundred feet to the road. They reassembled opposite the guard post.
Two mercenaries manned the post, their M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders. As each bus or truck passed, they pointed their flashlights at the drivers, then waved them past. Most of the drivers did not slow for the inspection.
Able Team sighted their silenced pistols on the two meres. Nate aimed the MP-5. A bus sputtered
past the two meres. Blancanales watched the road. He saw no headlights downslope.
"Now!"
Slugs punched into the meres' heads and chests, staggering them back with impacts.
As they fell, Gadgets and Blancanales dashed across to them and picked up the flashlights. Lyons and Nate followed. Still no headlights downhill. Nate waved the Indians across.
Gadgets and Blancanales manned the guard post.
A truck approached. Blancanales stepped out into the road, waving his flashlight. As the truck slowed, he put the beam on the gray-uniformed driver. Blancanales stepped back out of the road.
The truck shifted, the engine revved, then it continued up the road, regaining speed.
Lyons and Nate rode the truck's rear bumper to the cavern fortress of Unomundo.
16
Like the yawning mouth of a skull, the vast cavern exposed the interior of the mountain. Thousand-watt worklights illuminated the complex of barracks, offices, equipment yards and helipads. The mouth of the cavern opened to the east, exactly as Nate had described.
On the south end, prefabricated steel barracks rose three stories from the concrete and naked stone of the cave floor. Other steel buildings clustered at the west end where the ceiling of the cavern curved down. A concrete wall sealed the west end from the maze of passages and chambers within the volcanic mountain.
On the north end, steel aircraft hangars served as workshops for mechanics and welders. Trucks and two bulldozers lined the north wall.
In the center, where the arcing dome of the cavern created a two-hundred-foot-high airspace between the floor and the apex, Cobra gunships and Huey troop carriers waited for the next day's assault. Mechanics and ordnance technicians moved from helicopter to helicopter, servicing the engines, loading the multi-million-dollar weapon systems.
Lyons and Nate stood in the back of a stake-bed truck, surveying the fortress and the army of the Nazi warlord. Trucks and buses parked around them, mercenaries driving the vehicles to the wide, flat parking area scraped from the hills. Mercenaries walked past the truck where they stood without giving the two men a glance. With their European faces and gray uniforms, the two infiltrators passed as Nazis.
Beyond the gravel area, a hundred yards of scorched hillside separated the base from the forest. Only the road breached the perimeter.
Lyons squatted in the shadows with his hand-radio.
"Ironman speaking. We're in. There's no other way in but the road."
"Won't be a problem," Blancanales responded.
"The trucks and buses enter and park in rows. No one checks the interiors. No sentries. A few meres wandering around. Everyone else is busy…"
A scream, then laughter came from the center of the parking area. Lyons and Nate could not see the scene of torture from the truck where they surveyed the complex. But the screams told them of the terror and suffering. Lyons took one of the radio-fused charges from under his gray fatigue shirt and passed it to Nate. Now they each had a pound of C-4 plastic explosive hidden under their belts.
"Wizard," Lyons whispered into his radio.
"Here. Nothing crazy yet. Monitoring it all."
"You're not hearing what I'm hearing. Do us a favor. If they take us, push the button on the radio charges. Understand?"
"Understand. Over and adios, brother."
Blancanales's voice came on. "Nate. Ironman. Good luck."
Lyons clicked off. Nate dropped to the gravel. Lyons followed a moment later. They walked through the vehicles, double-checking for sentries. In the shadows and glaring lights, pro-fascist mercenaries passed Nate and Lyons. But their uniforms and weapons concealed them. Still, Nate kept his left hand near the pistol grip of his M-16. He kept his right arm tucked into his belt, only six inches from a holstered Colt Government Model on full-cock. Lyons folded his arms over his Atchisson to conceal the oversized receiver group and magazine. He had seen mercenaries carrying G-3s, Galils and Remington 870s. Though he did not fear that the Atchisson would betray him, he did not want mercenaries to question him about his avant-garde full-auto assault shotgun.
A six-foot-high chain link fence marked the edge of the mine field. Signs marked with a skull and crossbones and printed in four languages — English, Spanish, French and German — warned the camp personnel of the danger. Lyons and Nate started to the cavern.
When they left the parked buses and trucks, they saw the horror.
Truck headlights lit the scene. In the center of the large graveled area for the trucks, steel beams leaned against the platform of a cargo truck. Chains bound the young man and his uncle to the beams. A mercenary with a welding torch played the intense blue flame over the blackened stumps of the older Indian's legs, the man's feet and ankles already burned away.
The night stank of scorched flesh.
Other mercenaries crowded around, laughing and guzzling booze. As Nate and Lyons approached, another torturer heated a steel rod red hot. Then he jammed it into one of the boy's eyes.
The image and the scream tearing through his consciousness, Lyons staggered, dizzy with horror and sorrow, his gut knotting. He stumbled, Nate catching him.
As the fascists a few steps away laughed at the nightmare, Lyons dropped to his hands and knees and vomited. Nate knelt beside him, his good left arm over Lyons's shoulder as he gasped and choked. Nate felt a sob wrack the North American.
"Can't keep that booze down, eh, man?"
"Take a drink," said a voice.
Nate looked up. A drunken mercenary held out a pint bottle of aguardiente. He took it. "Thanks."
"Tonight a party," the mercenary laughed, twisting off the cap of another bottle. "But tomorrow, the orgy starts."
The guy moved on. Nate offered the bottle to Lyons. Around them, mercenaries looked at the blond man staring into his vomit, then turned back to the spectacle of the Indians.
"Drink, they're looking at us."
Lyons's hand moved for the grip of his Atchisson. Nate grabbed his arm and held it tight. He whispered to Lyons: "Don't see it. There's nothing we can do. They're done for. But, they would understand. They know we're here, but they've said nothing. Therefore they know they'll not die for nothing. We are going to walk past, and then we are going to burn this monster. If we can do it quick, they'll survive long enough to know it. Let's do it before they die."
Nodding, wiping his face, Lyons stood. He gulped from the bottle and staggered. As they passed the horror, Lyons looked again.
Lyons was no longer broken by the crime. Nate saw a face that had become stone, although it was streaked with tears. The sparking and popping of the welding torch lit his hardened features as Lyons looked at the scene, and scorched the image into his mind forever.
They walked toward the cave. Pouring aguardienteinto his hand, Lyons washed his face with the high-proof alcohol. He brushed back his short hair. Nate heard Lyons's breath shuddering in his throat.
For the first time, Nate trusted this stranger who fought with him and his Quiche friends.
"You know how I came here?" Nate spoke suddenly, his voice as loud as the other mercenaries walking around them. "You must think Guatemala is nowhere. When I was eighteen, I was a badass Marine Recon warrior dropping into Laos. Had some severe personality conflicts with my commander. We did not agree on what was acceptable human behavior with prisoners and non-combatants."
As they approached the mercenaries working in the cave, Nate lowered his voice. "I liked those people. I wish we'd won the war, I wanted to stay there. Instead, my commander got shot in the back one mission. I get convicted of shooting him, Murder Two. Life in Leavenworth."
"Did you shoot him?" Lyons asked.
"I don't know. Maybe. Things get confused when you have a People's Army battalion chasing you through the jungle."
The two men entered the cave. They passed unchallenged through the preparations for the next day's coup. In the center of the cavern, parked among the Cobras and Hueys, they saw a blue-and-white executive helicopter.
"Is that his?" Lyons asked.
"I've seen it before. But..."
Walking along the side of the three-story barracks, they scanned the officers of the command staff. They saw plainclothes guards standing at the doors of one office.
"His men?" Lyons asked.
"All the Guatemalan and Salvadoran fascists have bodyguards."
"You break out of Leavenworth?" Lyons had to know.
"Out of a prison bus. Two other prisoners had friends ambush the bus on the highway. I'd done two years in the brig while the trials and appeals went on, and I knew what to expect in Leavenworth. I escaped with them. They took me to the Black Panthers and the Weatherman. I was the most qualified soldier that ever came their way. They wanted me to be a guerilla warfare instructor. To help them kill police. Politicians. I told them to stuff it. I went south. Through Mexico, into Guatemala, into the mountains. I had a good life, never wanted to go back. But Unomundo came."
Nate pointed behind the prefabricated mess hall and kitchens. They stepped off the concrete path. Maintaining an even, unhurried pace across the irregular stone of the cave floor, they walked behind the kitchens.
Stenciled red warnings marked the sides of a gleaming white cylinder.
DANGER
LIQUID PETROLEUM GAS
EXTREMELY INFLAMMABLE
This was what they sought. Lyons and Nate crawled along under the pipes and concrete blocks that supported the prefab units, then waited and watched. Footsteps crossed the floor of the mess hall, making the metal floor creak.
Only ten feet separated them from the one-inch galvanized pipes connecting the tank to the kitchen. They waited for a minute, then crawled to the pipe. It was dangerous; they were exposed to view.
Nate closed the emergency valve. He took the radio-fused slab of C-4 explosive from under his shirt and gave it to Lyons. He slipped a hacksaw blade from the bloodstained top of the gray boots he wore.
As Nate sawed on the pipe, Lyons moved back to snake himself under the tank. He put the first charge where the base brackets met the cylinder. Molding the puttylike explosive, he formed a strip along a foot of the tank's circumference. He came up on the far side of the tank. He found a valve welded into the end of the tank. A steel cap sealed off the valve. The second charge went around the weld. He could take his time because he was concealed from view.
