Lyons turned to Thomas. "Tell your men no shooting unless we call for it. Understand? We'll be in the camp. Your men shoot, they'll hit us."
"Understand."
As Thomas instructed the other Indians, Blancanales slipped on his equipment. Then Able Team led the force into the village. The Indians crept to their positions. For minutes, Able Team watched the soldiers in the camp.
Lyons nodded toward the boats. "I'll slip in along the riverbank, trying to get on the big boat."
Gadgets pointed to Blancanales and himself, whispering, "We get those Indian people out of there..."
"And declare a free-fire zone," Lyons concluded. Blancanales and Gadgets nodded. With a mock salute, Lyons crawled away.
They watched the soldiers. A fire burned in the center of the camp. A soldier held out a stick skewering a hot dog. He wore green fatigues without rank or unit identification. A Heckler & Koch G-3 automatic rifle hung from his shoulder.
A few steps from the fire, a gas lantern stood on the end of a ten-foot pole, its unnatural white light searing away the constellations and swirling galaxies of the southern hemisphere's night. Another light on a pole was placed at the riverbank. The lanterns lit the camp like streetlights.
Two soldiers with G-3 rifles pulled a man from the cabin of the patrol boat. The prisoner staggered to the gangplank, steadied himself before descending. In the lights' glare, Gadgets and Blancanales saw blood on the man's face. Blood on tanned skin showed through rips in his uniform.
"That's the officer I saw before," Blancanales whispered to Gadgets.
Lurching down the spring aluminum gangplank, the bleeding officer staggered across the sand beach, then up the slight embankment. The two soldiers followed him.
A third slaver soldier left the patrol boat's cabin. He carried no rifle. He wore an ascot at the throat of his permapress camouflage fatigues. No rank or unit identification marked his uniform. A military holster hung from a web belt.
A dark-featured Latin with curly hair, he strutted down the gangplank, one hand on his holster, surveying the scene. He followed the prisoner and the other soldiers to the line of captives.
Shouting instructions in Portuguese, he pointed at the bleeding officer, then to another captive. One soldier held the officer upright, another jerked a captured Brazilian soldier to his feet. The teenager wore a single stripe of rank on his sleeve.
The dandy in the ascot shouted at the captured officer. The officer shook his head. The dandy unholstered a black auto-pistol, put the muzzle at the head of the teenage prisoner. Again, he shouted his questions.
The captured officer spoke quickly, strained against the grip of the gunman behind him. He repeated his words over and over again.
A blast rocked back the boy's head, threw him down. The captured officer stared at the dead teenager. He said nothing as the auto-pistol went to his head. The dandy shouted more questions.
"Is there anything we can try?" Gadgets whispered.
Blancanales shook his head. Keying his hand radio, Blancanales warned Lyons, "Don't. There are twelve prisoners we've got to get out of there."
"Pretty boy is on my shit list..." Lyons hissed.
They watched the bleeding, silent officer shake his head to more shouted questions. The dandy kicked the officer's feet from under him, kicked him again and again. Finally, the slaver holstered the auto-pistol, strode away. He straightened the knot of his ascot.
Gadgets punched Blancanales in the shoulder. "Let's go before pretty boy comes back."
Blancanales led the way between the mounds of ashes that had been the shelter and possessions of the tribe. Checking ahead of him with a grass stem, he stayed on the footstep-trampled path. He kept his belly to the dirt, moved with slow caution. He saw the glistening mono-filament of a booby trap. He didn't pause to dismantle the weapon. He unscrewed the fuse and dropped it.
A shadow lay on the path. Even with the light from the lanterns, Blancanales could not make out the form. Was it a soldier flat on the path, watching for Indian raiders? Blancanales flicked a stone at the shadow, then lay without moving for the count of fifty. The form did not shift or turn.
He thumbed the fire selector of his Beretta to three-shot auto and crawled forward. Passing a knot of weeds singed by fire, he spotted the small rectangular outline of a claymore. There was no trip line. But he did see a wire trailing from the back. This one was command detonated. Not stopping, he continued to the form. Finally, he saw a face staring at him.
Blood crusted the child's face. Blancanales saw no breathing. Crossing the last few feet quickly, he reached out to touch the child.
He stopped his hand. A fast wave of the dry grass stem found no wires or monofilament. Blancanales did not move the body as he felt for a pulse. Nothing moved under his fingertips. He raised himself up slowly and looked at the child. The opened lung and guts of the boy indicated a point-blank burst to the back.
As he crabbed backward over the path, a hand caught his boot top. Blancanales whipped the Beretta around.
"Pol! Be cool!" Gadgets spat. "What's up there?"
"A dead kid." Blancanales controlled his emotions. He started past Gadgets.
Gadgets grabbed him. "Why you going back?"
"Command-detonated claymore," he whispered.
"Forget it. I pulled the fuse."
Blancanales advanced again, skirting past the dead boy. Only ten feet separated them from the bound-back hands of the prisoners. Past the Brazilian army officer and the line of Indians, two green-fatigued slavers shouted Spanish obscenities at each other. A third gnawed on a roasted hot dog, watched the other men, grinning when the men shoved and grappled.
One man threw a punch. Blancanales slipped out his Beretta, waited an instant until the other man countered. A 9mm subsonic steel-cored slug punched into the first man's temple as a fist hit his jaw. The gunman eating the hot dog went over to the fallen man, stood looking down at him. The other gunman rubbed his knuckles, laughed. Then both men stooped down to help the fallen man.
Rising to one knee, Blancanales shot them in the tops of their skulls. They fell on their faces, thrashed. Blancanales rushed to the captured Brazilian officer.
"Habla usted espanol? No hablo portugues. "
"No hablo espanol bien. Can we speak English?"
"Sure can. Keep these people quiet. Don't let them move. My partner and I have to get all of you out of here before we can take care of these slavers."
"You're a gringo!" the bloodied officer exclaimed. "What are you doing in Bolivia?"
"Long story. Be still, we'll try to get you out alive."
At the other side of the burned village, Lyons stripped off his Atchisson, the bandoliers, the shoulder-holstered Python. He took off his shirt and spread it out on the mud. An Indian an arm's distance away watched as Lyons laid out his equipment on the shirt. Then he took off his boots, smeared mud on the white tops of his feet.
Two layers of genipap black made Lyons's face and body invisible in the night. He slipped his hand radio into his pants' left thigh pocket. Taking only the silenced Beretta — no web belt, no extra magazines — Lyons started away.
The Indian hissed something in his own language. Lyons glanced back. The Indian held out his hand. Solemnly, they shook hands, then Lyons continued away.
Light from the pole-mounted lanterns shone on the river and the ripple-lapped sand. But the slight embankment above the beach cast a shadow that paralleled the water. Lyons eased over the lip of the muddy riverbank and down to the shadowed bench.
Rocks and weed stubble scraped at his skin as he snaked closer to the two soldiers lounging against the windshield of the air-cushion boat. They laughed, argued. One man drained a beer bottle, threw it far into the river. Lyons crawled until only twenty feet of sand separated him from his targets. He took the Beretta in a two-handed grip and raised its luminescent night-sight dots to the head of a soldier.