Sergeant Mendoza unslung his FN-FAL para-rifle and swung out the metal-tubing stock. Laying low on the ridge, he braced the long-range kill machine and sighted on the dust thrown up by the rifle on the opposite mountainside.
But in the glare, he could not see the dust. He raised his field glasses to locate the sniper. A bullet exploded against the rocks a step away as the sniper searched for targets.
Squinting through his rifle's peep sight, Mendoza could only adjust for the range by guess. The FN-FAL did not have a click adjustment for extreme ranges. He fired single shots, attempting to find the sniper.
Then he heard the rifle fire behind him.
Lyons switched magazines as the Mexicans rushed the last hundred meters. He returned the load of one-ounce slugs to his bandolier and snapped in the partially empty mag of number-two and double-ought steel shot mix. He took out a second mag of mixed-shot rounds and tucked it into the front pocket of his gray fatigue shirt.
The Mexicans, expecting to find a group of dead and wounded North Americans hiding in the rocks, attempted to finish the foreigners in one rush of sprayed full-auto fire. The men of Able Team waited. Mexican riflemen in concealment overlooking the streambed continued aiming fire into the rocks. The riflemen stopped shooting only when the soldiers closed on the North Americans.
Able Team waited until the Mexicans ran into the maze of rocks. Lyons saw a green uniform rushing toward him. He fired, and the blast lifted the Mexican off his feet and slammed him down. Gadgets triggered a 3-shot burst through another Mexican.
Another soldier spun at the sound of shooting to his side and took a steel storm of number two and double ought in the face. He fell, and Davis put the muzzle of his M-16 against the dead man's chest and killed him again.
A Mexican saw Davis and fired as Lyons fired. High-velocity slugs tore past Davis and exploded on the rocks and the Mexican died, his chest blasted open, one arm and his rifle spinning wildly through the air.
Miguel Coral popped up, fired a burst through a soldier, then dropped down as a rifleman two hundred meters to the south squeezed off a shot. Coral scrambled to another rock and fired at a running soldier, hitting him in one leg. The wounded soldier staggered past Blancanales, who shot him in the back. Then the Politician delivered a mandate of full-auto fire at another Mexican. Slugs from his M-16/M-203 tore the soldier to pieces.
Lyons snatched a glance, then quickly dropped down as a slug from an FN-FAL whined off the rock. But he had seen no other soldier still standing. He took an M-16 from a dead man, changed mags, then called out to his partners: "Anyone hit?"
"I'm bleeding," Davis answered.
"Is it serious?" Lyons called out.
"I don't know. But I'm bleeding like crazy."
Blancanales crawled to Davis. "It's not a bullet wound. He hit his head on a rock."
"Any of the soldiers alive?" Lyons asked.
The others all answered, no.
Lyons shouted out again. "We've got riflemen downstream. One on each side, with heavy rifles. We can't move until we get them. Everyone shift positions and on three, pop up and fire. Got it? Answer me, Davis!"
"I can handle it."
"No hay problema," Coral answered. "I have seen them."
"Shift and fire, shift and fire," Blancanales repeated.
"One... two... three!"
The five men lurched up and fired in a tearing burst. Dropping down, they heard a rifle firing back. They shifted positions in the rocks. One by one, they fired bursts, then dodged down before the rifleman could find them in his sight.
Staying flat on the sand and exposing only one eye, Lyons peered up at the canyon wall. He saw a rifleman pressing a field dressing against a bloody arm. Sighting on the wounded man, Lyons squeezed off a burst. The rifleman's body rolled down the slope.
A second rifleman broke for the safety of the streambed, running a few steps, then sliding down the steep canyon wall. Blancanales and Gadgets and Coral fired simultaneously, the slugs from three rifles tearing through the man's head and chest.
"That's it," Gadgets announced.
"Stay down!" Lyons shouted. "Gather up whatever equipment we can use and then crawl out. There could be another one out there."
"Ironman, put the binocs on that ridge," Gadgets told him. "Something's going on up there."
Focusing on the mountain overlooking the can-yon, Lyons saw figures moving. They did not wear the green uniforms of the Mexican army. Light flashes came from mirrors.
"Wizard, what's their code say?" Lyons called out.
"F-i-n-i...fini..."
10
In the last hour of morning, they met the Yaquis.
After the firefight Able Team had bandaged Davis, then outfitted themselves with weapons and gear from the dead Mexican soldiers. Lyons and Davis and Coral found folding-stock FN-FAL paratrooper rifles. Davis and Coral stripped the dead of knives and packs and clothing. They had marched for the rest of the morning and afternoon, watching signal mirrors flash from the cliffs and mountainsides above them.
Following the streambed north, they left the gorge and climbed trails cutting across the sides of mountains. Animal prints marked the trails, but they saw no human footprints. Yet they knew others walked in these mountains. The others watched them from ridgelines, signal mirrors flashing from mountain to mountain.
The introduction came abruptly. Lyons, sweating under his load of gear and weapons, had walked point for the preceding hour. He looked down to check the trail for tracks, then looked up to see the three young men.
Two of the young men carried M-16 rifles. The third carried what looked like a .30-06 Springfield rifle with a custom stock featuring a pistol grip.
Lyons knew that rifle, or a rifle like it, had saved them from the trap in the gorge.
Lyons let the FN-FAL rifle in his hands hang by the strap over his shoulder. He crossed his hands over the top of the receiver. He stood without moving as the others caught up with him.
Blancanales spoke first in Spanish. "Buenas tardes."
"We will speak English," the young man with the Springfield told the foreigners.
"Thanks for helping us," Lyons said. "Without you, we'd be dead now."
"Why are you in our mountains?"
"The Mexican army," Lyons explained, "or a gang dressed in the uniforms of the Mexican army, shot down our plane. We're walking to the railroad. We'll take the train down to the coast. Who are you?"
"Are you with the Ochoa family?"
Behind Lyons, Blancanales whispered quickly with Miguel Coral.
"Don't talk about it," the young man with the Springfield told them. "Answer."
Coral stepped forward. "I served Don Ochoa. But he is gone now."
"Do you serve now with Los Guerreros Blancos?"
"Those assassins!" Coral spat on the trail. "They killed my friends, they killed the children of my friends, they mutilated one of the sons of mi Padrino Ochoa. Juntarme con esos? Jamas primero muerto!"
"Who are you?" Lyons asked again. "Why are you asking about Los Blancos?"
The young man answered. "We are Yoeme. The Mexicans call us Yaquis. We also fight the White gang. Come."
"Yaquis?" Blancanales asked, incredulous. "Yaqui Indians?"
"I said, Yoeme. Yaquis. The Yoeme do not come from India. We are the people of this land."