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 aluminum 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 aluminum. 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 slaughter 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-barreled 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.