"The soldiers call the lieutenant. For instructions. The lieutenant calls for soldiers to take the prisoners. The gang tells them to run away, to leave the North Americans."
Gadgets shouted toward the warehouse ramp. "Pol! Ironman! Let the lieutenant go."
"I did! He's pointing a pistol at me."
"Silence!" Lieutenant Soto ordered.
Slinging his captured Uzi over his shoulder, Gadgets slipped out his Beretta 93-R. He touched the extractor to confirm a round in the chamber. Then he whispered to Vato.
"Count to ten, then switch on the car lights for an instant. Just an instant. On and off. Think you can do that without getting shot?"
"When the gang sees the lights..."
"I know, I can dig it. Instant target. Just on and off. I only need a millisecond of light."
"To free the others, yes?"
"That's the scam."
"Go."
"Just do it and get down. One!"
Counting to himself, Gadgets crept across the asphalt to the ramp. Before the firefight, he had seen Lyons and Blancanales with the Mexican lieutenant in the corner of the freight dock. Now he navigated by memory through the darkness. The shouts and shooting covered his steps.
His fingers found the concrete ramp. Paralleling the ramp, he continued to the spot where the ramp met the elevated loading dock. Kicking through litter, he heard Blancanales arguing with the lieutenant in an urgent whisper. Gadgets pointed the Beretta into the black.
The lights came on, Gadgets lining up the sights on the Mexican officer, the lieutenant turning, the muzzle of the Colt swinging around, Lyons moving, Blancanales shouting, "Don't kill him."
Darkness again. Then the Colt flashed, lighting the image of Lyons pushing the Colt up to the sky with his left hand as his right fist hit the lieutenant's jaw. Gadgets held the Beretta ready as he listened to Lyons disarm the Mexican.
"You punk," Lyons cursed. "You bozo excuse for soldier. Your men are getting killed and you won't talk sense. You just lost your command. Pol, tell those soldiers out there what to do."
"Can't do it. They wouldn't listen to me. He's their officer. Lieutenant, may I suggest that you take us prisoner later?"
"You surrender?"
Lyons refused. "Noway!"
Blancanales negotiated. "We'll continue talking after..."
Gadgets solved it. "Hey, Lieutenant. Our cars are shot to shit, we're on foot, we're in a strange city — how're we going to get away? Talking about surrender don't mean a thing. Because you got us."
"True," the lieutenant said. "And perhaps the other things you said are true. But there will be many questions. For you and whoever sent you into my country. Stay here."
They heard his boots hit asphalt. He called to a soldier. At the other end of the alley, weapons flashed, the gunmen firing when they heard the lieutenant's voice. Trash scattered, cans rolled.
"Whose side is he on?" Gadgets asked.
"He doesn't understand the situation," Blancanales answered.
"I do." Lyons dropped off the loading dock. Crabbing across the asphalt, slugs zipping through the night above him, he blundered into someone and banged into the car.
"Who is..."
"That you, Vato?"
"Si. Qutes.... What is the problem?"
"Problem's over. Where's Jacom? Anything from Ixto or Davis or Kino?"
"Nothing from the others. Jacom is there." Vato pointed somewhere in the darkness. Lyons could not see his hand.
Then the night went white. The alley became a black-and-white scene of shifting forms and lines touched by bursts of red. The warehouses, the loading doors, a gunman running in the center of the alley — the scene and moving images oscillated as a searing white point of light above the alley swung on a tiny parachute.
In the flare light, the soldiers sprayed full-auto 5.56mm bullets at the running gunman. The cloth of his suit shook and rippled with the impacts of high-velocity slugs. A mist sprayed behind him, thousands of tiny drops glittering with magnesium white light. Dead in the air, the gunman never completed his stride.
"Los otrosl"The lieutenant shouted again and again.
Soldiers aimed their weapons at the gunmen at the far end of the alley, where several sedans and pickups blocked the exit. The white glare exposed three gunmen in the open. Rifle fire from the platoon threw one man against a truck, spun another. The third man went flat behind a mound of trash. Bullets tossed bits of garbage into the air. Cans clanked and jumped.
Lyons took his Atchisson from the car. He took two full Atchisson mags from the floor and shook off the broken glass. The mags went in the left-hand pockets of his pants. Snapping back the cocking lever to chamber a round from the magazine in the weapon, he waited.
Tires skidded, headlights appeared at the other end of the alley as the International cut off any escape.
Lyons closed his eyes against the flare light and waited. The firing continued, the squads of gunmen targeting the soldiers.
Lyons waited with his eyes closed, breathing steadily, preparing himself for the sprint. He calmed himself despite the firing of the autoweapons and the screams and the shouting.
The alley went dark. Lyons dashed across the alley. He had almost no vision in the dark, but he heard other shoes running, then saw two shapes with Uzis. Lyons threw himself against a wall, stumbled through trash, found a doorway. The Uzis fired. The platoon replied with one long ragged burst, high-velocity slugs singing past the doorway, ricocheting from concrete and steel, a man grunting with the shock of a wound. Then the alley went white again.
A Mexican in a sports coat stood beside Lyons. As the Mexican brought up an Uzi, Lyons slammed him with the butt of the Atchisson. Stunned, the gunman fell back against a steel door. Lyons kicked the Mexican, driving a full-power karate front kick into the man's crotch. Gasping, falling forward, the gunman took another kick in the face.
Slugs tore past the doorway. Lyons untangled the Uzi from the semiconscious man's hands.
Hands grabbed him from the back. Lyons whipped around, swinging the Uzi in his left hand like a hammer.
A dying gunman, his clothes soaked in his blood, his nose and one eye gone, fell on Lyons. Lyons threw the blind man aside, then kicked him in the throat. The blind man clutched at Lyons's foot.
Scanning the alley for other fascists, Lyons smashed his shoe down on the gunman's throat, crushing his larynx. He died choking as Lyons stripped off his belt and used it to tie the hands of the first gunman.
Searching their pockets, Lyons found a revolver and spare Uzi mags. The revolver went in his coat pocket. He put a full mag in an Uzi. The Uzi in his left hand, his Atchisson in his right, Lyons crouched in the doorway, waiting as the flare swung lower and lower in the sky.
The alley went black. The fascists threw grenades into the darkness, the blasts coming in one ragged explosion. The fire from the soldiers stopped. A group of gunmen rushed past Lyons, their Uzis and sawed-off shotguns flashing. Lyons sprinted from the doorway.
A gunman crouching behind a sedan saw Lyons, but didn't fire. Like the fascists, Lyons wore slacks and a sports coat. The moment of hesitation cost the fascist his life. Point-blank, Lyons triggered a one-handed burst of 9mm bullets into the gunman's face.
As Lyons wove through the cars, another gunman turned toward him, with a bloody bandage on one arm, the other hand holding a pistol. A single blast from the Atchisson threw him back.
A bullet ripped past Lyons's head. He dropped and spun, his left hand spraying slugs.
Full-jacketed 9mm parabellums gouged car steel, broke glass, tore through the legs of a charging fascist. A slug shattered a femur, the leg bowing outward. The man went down screaming, clutching his twisted leg. Lyons put a 2-shot burst through the top of the fascist's head, and the Uzi's bolt slammed down on the empty chamber.