Davis, exhausted from the all-day hike, took a place where he could doze against the cool stone of the cave wall. Gadgets studied the stone floor with a penlight before he sat down.
Lyons sat near the cave mouth. While he watched the faces of the old man and Vato, he listened to the people outside, their shouts, their laughter and the singsong of the children's voices. The scraping of a bore-rod continued as a Yaqui cleaned the captured rifles. Then he noticed Miguel Coral intently studying Vato. Blancanales resumed questioning the old man.
"Why is there fighting?" the Politician asked.
"We fight for the rights of the Yaqui people," Vato declared. "To free..."
The achaiheld up a hand to stop the young man's speech. "We fight because the army and the White Warriors gang terrorize our people. They burn our farms. They will not let us live in peace."
"Does the army work with the White Warriors?" Blancanales asked.
"These soldiers are not of the army of Mexico. We knew the soldiers before. But they are gone. And these men in uniforms come. We think the soldiers and the White Warriors are the same."
"Just who are the White Warriors?" Gadgets interrupted.
"You ask us?" the achaiexclaimed, amazed. "But you fought them in Culiacan, why..."
Vato interrupted. "He said that he worked for Senor Ochoa." The young man pointed to Coral. "But you others, who are you?"
Coral answered. "Ellos solo buscan a Los Guerreros Blancos, no les importan ni sus propiedades, ni su dinero."
"Who are you?" Vato repeated.
"He is a pilot for the American DEA," Coral said, pointing to Davis. The Mexican's arm motioned to Able Team. "They are different than the DEA. I think they are secret agents."
"Spies?" the achaiasked, confused, incredulous. "Why do you come to spy on us? What do you want to know, Americans? How to be hungry? How to suffer injustice? How to be with sorrow? How to be without hope? Spies!" The old man laughed. "If you are lucky, you will never know what we know."
"Grandfather," Coral explained. "They will not interfere with you. They want Los Guerreros Blancos — the White Warriors. Only the White Warriors. And I am here to help them. I trust them." Coral turned to the young man. "You, you know who I am. I stood at the side of Don Ochoa. I know you saw..."
Vato sneered back an answer. "But now you are with the Americans. Did they offer you a deal? Turn informer, send others to prison, so you do not go?"
Coral laughed, his eyes narrowing to slits, his hands closing. In the soft yellow light and shadows of the cave, the men of Able Team saw the face of Miguel Coral the hardcore killer, no longer the family man negotiating for the safety and future of his family and his freedom. Now they saw the cold, calculating assassin who had survived twenty years of gang wars, ten years as the personal protector of the most hated, feared and respected gang patriarch on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
"Boy," Coral said, smiling like death. "Be quiet." Then he turned to the achai. "They do not care about your farms. If you help us, we will attack Los Guerreros Blancos. These men are a law unto themselves. And behind them, they have all the money and the weapons of America. If you want your enemies, who are also my enemies, destroyed, then we will fight together. It is agreed?"
Coral turned to Able Team.
"You see, these people... the soil of their mountains is very poor. There is no water. The corn does not grow. They could never feed their children. So on their farms, they grow opium."
11
In the red light of sunset, vultures feasted on the bodies of the soldiers who had died on the high ridge. The squat black creatures, their heads and necks glistening red with gore, paused in their feeding to look up at the helicopter. One vulture pulled its head out of the chest cavity of a naked corpse, a torn mass of lung tissue flopping in its beak. The vultures flapped their blood-splashed wings to drive off the huge mechanical insect descending onto the ridge.
Dust gusted. The rotor storm swirled red in the sunset as the chopper settled on its skids. Inside, Colonel Gonzalez, Lieutenant Colomo and a squad of soldiers looked through the Plexiglas of the sliding doors as the mountain wind carried away the dust. Without speaking, they watched as the dust-grayed vultures returned to the dead men.
The lieutenant threw open the door. Jerking out his autopistol, he fired at the vultures, the rapid-fire popping of the 9mm cartridges insignificant in the vast expanse of shadowy mountains and red sky.
Awkward, their gullets heavy with Mexican flesh, the vultures flapped away, squawking into the canyon.
Except one. The lieutenant's wild shooting had broken the wing of one vulture. Flailing the disjointed wing, the crippled carrion bird screeched and waddled away, its good wing fanning swirls of dust. The lieutenant rushed the vulture and executed it with three point-blank shots to the head, then launched a vicious kick at the gore-splashed headless creature.
Cursing, muttering prayers to their Catholic saints and God, the soldiers jumped out of the helicopter. They moved through the dead, groaning at the sight of vulture-mutilated faces with empty eyesockets and torn-away noses and lips. Soldiers shouted out to one another as they found dead friends.
Men forgot their machismo, their curses and obscenities becoming sobs.
Snapping his riding crop against his jackboot, the colonel finally took command. "Search the area! Perhaps someone survived and is hiding. Look for the bodies of the ones who did this. Look for weapons. Anything. We cannot take revenge until we know who committed this massacre and find them. Now! Soon it will be dark."
"The gringos did this!" the lieutenant declared. "We will search the mountains and make them pay. They will wish they were never born."
"It could not have been them," the colonel told his junior officer. "Sergeant Mendoza reported the gringos in the canyon, down there..."
Walking to where the ridge ended, Colonel Gonzalez pointed with his leather crop into the darkness of the gorge. "The ambush trapped the DEA men there. Sergeant Mendoza reported fighting between the gringos and Sergeant Orlando's platoon. Then Mendoza opened fire. The helicopter went down to make the kill. That is when the others attacked here."
The two officers looked at the twisted, gory bodies scattered around them on the ridge. The colonel continued his analysis. "The gringos could not have done this. Someone else. A force that came down from there..."
Like a professor lecturing, the colonel pointed to the mountain engulfed in shadows behind them. "They came from there. That would also explain how the pilot was wounded. Perhaps another group helped the gringos in the canyon."
"But how is that possible?" the lieutenant asked. "After we shot them down, they had no time to send for help."
Colonel Gonzalez surveyed the range of mountains. In the east, the night already held the Sierra Madres in its dark, cool grip. In the west, patches of red sunlight glowed from peaks.
"We have enemies here. Enemies of our organization and of our New Order. But they will not survive. Nothing will be allowed to resist the International. We have the helicopters, we have the soldiers, we have the bombs, the napalm, we have the satellites of our allies in Washington. They cannot escape. We will find them and exterminate them!"
An hour later, the helicopter returned to the asphalt airfield of Rancho Cortez, the temporary garrison facility commanded by Colonel Gonzalez. While his superiors in the capital completed the ouster of the army and federal officials who refused to swear allegiance to the New Order, the elite International Group occupied the sprawling ranch on the Pacific coast. The complex of dormities, warehouses and air-craft hangars that dotted the ranch had been used throughout the century for a succession of causes. First came the free enterprise of the Yankee sugarcane processors, then the revolutionary forces of General Emilio Flores. Mafia bootleggers followed during Prohibition and, decades later, the airborne commandos of Operation Condor found a hospitable home. Every user had contributed improvements to the facilities of the Rancho.