"Victory to the New Reich!"
Gunther restrained his laughter. Throughout the pompous colonel's speech, the security chief had mentally noted the lies.
"The Negro assassin impersonating a journalist" had, in fact, been a journalist. Floyd Jefferson, a twenty-two-year-old leftist with no military experience, had confronted and killed two of the four soldiers sent to kidnap him.
The mercenaries who "lured" Quesada's soldiers into death traps had demonstrated only basic military techniques. In the first "death trap," Quesada's death squad pursued the North Americans from the interstate highway. The North Americans turned off a road and waited in a narrow canyon. In complete disregard of caution, the death squad's three trucks drove into the ambush. In the second "death trap," the North Americans attacked the Salvadorans as they stood in a group in the center of a Los Angeles street.
Death traps? No. Only arrogant and stupid soldiers meeting death in a confrontation with intelligent, disciplined fighters.
But the assault on the fincaworried Gunther. On the eve of what would have been his leader's seizure of Guatemala, North Americans had infiltrated and destroyed the secret base of the army of Unomundo high in the Sierra de Cuchumantes. The assault had come virtually without warning: no firefights, no attacks on the perimeters; only an all-consuming ball of flame that killed a thousand soldiers in their barracks. A squad of Quiche Indians led by North American commandos had liquidated the survivors in a brief small-arms assault. By luck, Gunther had been airborne in a helicopter at the time of the attack. Of more than a thousand soldiers, assassins, officers, technicians and pilots, only Unomundo and Gunther and three soldiers plus the helicopter's pilots survived.
The new attacks seemed similar. Gunther questioned the Salvadoran.
"Colonel Quesada, I am familiar with your estate's very impressive security perimeter. Fences, towers, mine fields. All the modern devices. Even in the darkness and rain, I do not understand how they overwhelmed your perimeter defenses."
"I await a report," replied Quesada. "I will share that information with you the moment I receive it."
"They gained entry without an alarm sounding?"
"We suspect they parachuted agents into the coffee fields."
"Could they have had agents in your security forces?"
"No! My men are loyal. They know the penalty for treason."
"When did the fighting first break out?"
"As they assaulted the walls of the family compound..."
"They passed through all your defenses, all your forces? You did not know of the attack until they rushed the walls?"
"They are very cunning. We will question the prisoners..."
"Yes, the prisoners. Did you not personally question them?"
"My duties required my presence here."
"How many prisoners did your men take?"
"I await a report on the action."
"How many Communists did your men kill?"
"Many! I will report on the numbers killed when I receive the report."
"Did you kill the North Americans?"
"Certainly. They could not have escaped our counterattack."
"Did you see the North Americans?"
"In the confusion of the battle, I saw only the fighting."
"But you said North Americans led the Communists."
"Yes. North Americans."
"How do you know if you did not see them?"
"One of my trusted lieutenants, they took him prisoner for a moment until he fought his way free. He saw their faces. One was blond. The other..."
"This lieutenant, I would like to question him."
"When his wounds allow an interview, I will summon him here."
"Good. I must return to give my report to our leader immediately."
The colonel protested. "But you have been here at the School only a few minutes."
"We leave the moment our jet is refueled."
Minutes later, the Lear jet streaked north on a nonstop return flight to Washington, D.C.
23
Engines whined, then the misting rain became blue. Gadgets Schwarz looked up to see a small jet lift away from the mountaintop, the airstrip's blue lights reflecting from the underside of the wings and fuselage. He took the moment of artificial moonlight to check his work.
In order to prevent the cutting of the perimeter fence by intruders, security technicians had woven filaments through the chain link. Electric charges pulsing through the filaments allowed guards to remotely monitor the perimeter.
Working by the digital readout of his own monitor, Gadgets had clipped "jumpers" to each filament. He quickly checked each of three filaments, the first just below the soil, the second about a foot off the ground, the third about two feet up the fence. With plastic ties, he secured the three jump lines in a semicircular arch.
The mountaintop lights went black. Gadgets paused for his eyes to readjust to the darkness. A hundred meters away, security lights created a soft glow in the sky. A searchlight on a mechanical mount swept the cleared ground in automatic cycles. Above the brilliant beam, the shadowy outline of a guard tower stood against the night.
Though the storm had died away to drizzle and intermittent downpours, a slow wind pushed low clouds over the mountain. From time to time, clouds made luminescent by the lights enveloped the hillsides. Other times, darkness returned.
Gadgets waited until the light swept past, then put his wire cutters to the filaments. He watched the digital numbers and snipped the three filaments. The cuts did not interrupt the pulses.
With heavier snips, he cut a shoulder-wide hole through the fence. He snapped his fingers to Lyons and Blancanales.
His partners joined him. In whispers, they compared observations.
"Mines." Lyons pointed to the patterns of depressions in the shaggy grass. The earth over the antipersonnel devices had settled, exposing the location of every mine.
"Those will be no problem," Blancanales commented. He turned to Gadgets. "Are there others?"
"I'll go first with the detector." Gadgets told them. "But if anybody wanders off my path, it's all over."
Blancanales slid back through the brush. He hissed to the Lizco brothers and motioned them forward. The two brothers one on active duty with the government, one fighting the government joined Able Team at the fence.
"There, mines." Blancanales pointed to the depressions in the no-man's-land.
Captain Lizco, the guerrilla officer, laughed softly. "I have seen it before. We have a man who is very good at this. He will lead us through."
"I've got a metal detector," Gadgets told the captain.
"Very good. You lead, my man will mark the path."
The captain crawled back to his men. Gadgets slipped a vinyl case from his backpack. He assembled components and flicked on the power switch of a small, hand-held unit. Passing it near the fence, it clicked.
"Ready to go."
Guerrillas took positions along the chain link fence. Unslinging their autorifles, they prepared to cover the infiltrators. Gadgets whispered to the nearest man.
"No lo toquen ustedes fusiles," he cautioned, pointing to the fence. The guerrilla nodded and passed the warning down the line. No one touched the fence with his rifles.
The men with Galils snapped down the bipods. The men who carried rocket launchers moved close to the hole in the fence. In case of detection and a withdrawal-under-fire by the infiltrators, the rocketmen would put RPG warheads into the guard towers.
A guerrilla scurried to the North Americans. Like Gadgets, the Salvadoran carried a CAR-15. But instead of electronics, the guerrilla carried a spool of string and a bundle of short, sharpened sticks. Gadgets took the string and examined it closely. The string gave off a faint blue glow.