Under the blue white luminescence of the plantation's lights, the brass casings and belt links shot out in a cascade of glittering metal. Lyons held the sights on the headlights. The line of orange red tracers extended from the jeep to the approaching vehicle. One of the headlights went black. Ricocheting tracers sparked in all directions. Glass sprayed.
The driver died. His Chevy Silverado drifted off the lane of blacktop. Lyons sighted on the doors and put bursts through the body panels. The Silverado crashed into the chain link security fence. Lyons turned as the jeep raced past.
Ricardo fired a long burst into the Silverado. Gasoline flashed, and a fireball churned up into the black sky. No one escaped the burning hulk.
"On the right! A la derecha!" Blancanales shouted.
Only a hundred meters ahead, Lyons saw a gray-painted jeep emerging from the darkness of the coffee fields. A militiaman in a black rain slicker swiveled a pedestal-mounted M-60 as Lyons whipped up his Atchisson, thumbing down the fire-selector.
Firing from the hip, Lyons sprayed steel balls at the gunner. The Atchisson's twenty-inch barrel allowed the double-ought and number-two buckshot to disperse in extremely wide patterns. He saw the gunner jolt as one or two balls hit him.
But Blancanales closed the distance at one hundred fifty kilometers per hour. At ranges of fifty meters and thirty meters, Lyons triggered single shots and hit the gunner again, throwing him backward.
Muzzleblast slammed the back of his head. Reeling with the pain, Lyons sat down hard as Ricardo tore into the militia jeep with slugs from the rear M-60. A line of red tracers passed through the militia jeep's windshield, specks of phosphor spinning into the darkness of the coffee fields.
Ricardo saw Lyons holding his aching ears and realized he had fired the heavy-caliber machine gun only inches above the head of the North American. He leaned to Lyons and gripped his shoulder.
"Lo siento, senor! Esta usted okay?"
His ears ringing, Lyons looked back to Ricardo. "No problem! Kill them!"
They left the militia patrol behind. Ricardo swiveled the M-60, walking a circle around the machine gun's pedestal as he fired more bursts into the jeep. The dead driver allowed the jeep to lurch forward to stall in the roadway. Ricardo raised his aim to the headlights following them.
Tracers crisscrossed. In the lead vehicle pursuing them, an experienced gunner got their range. Slugs whined off the roadway beside them. A tracer sparked off a fender. A slug slammed into the jeep's spare tire.
Lyons sighted the Atchisson on the headlights two hundred meters behind them. Then he adjusted his aim upward to compensate for drop. He fired semiauto, once, twice, three times, emptying the Atchisson's box mag.
Behind them, a headlight went black. The lead jeep with only one headlight swerved from side to side. The other headlights wove. Though the steel buckshot at that extreme distance presented no lethal threat to their pursuers, the spent projectiles had shattered glass and perhaps wounded the standing machine gunner.
They approached the vehicle yard. Many pairs of headlights indicated a general mobilization of the militiamen.
A truck came from the gate and blocked the road. Letting the Atchisson hang at his side, Lyons put the butt of the forward-pointing M-60 to his shoulder. As Blancanales slowed to evade the roadblock, Lyons sighted carefully and put bursts through the rear tires. The next burst went through the passenger-side door.
Holding the trigger back, Lyons raked the cab, behind the door, under the door, hoping to find the fuel tanks. He scored. The tracers ignited a sea of gasoline. A flaming figure staggered from the inferno and stumbled into the coffee rows to burn. The sheet of flames blocked the vehicle-yard exit.
Lyons directed the line of 7.62mm at the gate, killing a sentry, shattering the windshield of a Silverado blocked by the burning truck. He swept the autofire across the other vehicles attempting to exit trucks, cars, a bus. Tracers hit the chain link fencing and flew at wild angles. But the fragments and ricocheting heavy NATO slugs retained the velocity to punch through steel and flesh.
Militiamen evacuated their transports. Rifles and heavy weapons returned Lyons's fire as Blancanales left the asphalt road for the muddy coffee fields. Ricardo directed his fire straight back at the vehicle yard, sending a line of tracers through the flames and smoke to rake militiamen and trucks and cars.
Ricochets from wild autofire scratched against the black overcast. The orange glow of the gasoline flames tinted the clouds.
"How we going to get out the gate?" Blancanales shouted to Lyons.
"Only one way. Crash it."
Blancanales downshifted to power through mud and pools of rainwater. "We won't make it. It's steel beams and cables under the chain link."
"You don't think this jeep would do it?"
"If we try to crash that gate with this vehicle," Blancanales emphasized, "we will disable this vehicle. We will be on foot. And then very quickly dead."
"So the solution is obvious..."
Lyons looked back. Headlights followed them along the row of coffee. Ahead, their headlights illuminated a long corridor through endless coffee bushes. Standing in the front seat, he looked over the bushes but saw no roads or breaks in the green sea of the plantation.
Slugs tore past him as the militiamen sighted on their jeep's taillights. Ricardo returned the fire. But with the lurching and bumping of the jeeps and trucks over the earth and mud, no one hit anyone.
Lyons climbed into the back. As Ricardo watched for targets, Lyons pulled his Colt Python. He held the revolver by the barrel and leaned over the tailgate of the jeep. He smashed out the taillights.
Blancanales cut to the left. Crashing across rows, swerving, he zigzagged to confuse the pursuers. He maintained a course parallel to the road, then veered back for the blacktop. Lyons saw headlights in the rows continuing in the opposite direction.
But on the road, headlights waited for them. A truck's spotlight swept the rows of coffee. Lyons motioned Ricardo to the front machine gun. He leaned to Blancanales and explained.
"Here's the plan. Get as close to the road as you can while the kid puts out some rounds. Then turn parallel. Then cut for the road. Got it? Straight on, parallel, then straight on to the road and make it for the gate. I'll be right behind you."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm getting us a truck."
"Crazyman!"
"You got any ideas?" Lyons touch-checked his equipment. Bandoliers. Pistols. Grenades. Knife.
As they neared the road, the spotlight found them. Autorifles fired. Blancanales switched off the headlights and swerved through bushes. Ricardo aimed the M-60 at the lights. Blancanales spoke to him quickly in Spanish. The teenager raised the barrel and fired a short burst over the truck.
Forms scattered. The searchlight went dark. Lyons tapped Blancanales.
"Now!"
The jeep slowed for a moment. Lyons stepped into the darkness, running for a few steps. He crashed into a bush and rolled through mud. The jeep accelerated away in the darkness, plunging through coffee rows.
Lyons moved fast. Mud sucked at his boots. Ahead, he heard voices. Rifles fired blindly into the coffee rows, the slugs cutting through leaves and branches. He moved closer. He saw militiamen bracing M-16 rifles on the hood of a gray Silverado. They watched the rows for the North Americans.
Lights appeared a hundred meters to his right as Blancanales switched on his headlights. The militiamen at the truck snapped bursts from their M-16s. The jeep's headlights wavered as Blancanales bounced up the shoulder of the service road and skidded through a hard right turn.
Three militiamen scrambled into the Silverado. Lyons, sprinting across the broken, muddy ground, stopped, pulled down a breath to steady his aim and lined up the Atchisson's tritium nightsight on the windows of the truck.