Noise and voices came from the streambed. A submachine gun fired a long burst, slugs ricocheting into the sky. Silence followed.
On the hillside the five Mexicans went flat.
Men stomped through sand, weapons clattered, arms thrashed through branches. More dark forms emerged from the streambed. Lyons saw the distinctive shapes of Uzi submachine guns and Kalashnikov rifles.
The group of men advanced from the streambed. Lyons heard other voices in the streambed. He let the Konzak hang by its sling from his shoulder. Slowly, silently, Lyons worked two fragmentation grenades loose from his bandolier.
Sudden bursts of rifle fire knocked down the Iranians. The falling men sprayed aimless rounds into the night, into the brush, one Iranian shot another. Other Iranians, protected by the wall of the gully, fired at the flashing muzzles of the Mexicans' FN rifles.
Lyons pulled the pin on the first grenade and let the safety lever flip away. He counted off seconds, then lobbed the grenade on the count of four.
As the grenade exploded, thousands of wire razors slashed into the backs of the Iranians sheltered in the gully. Bodies tumbled into the streambed. Screams and sobs came from wounded.
The Mexicans threw grenades, three or four crashing into the brush concealing the Iranians. Lyons went flat on the hillside as gunmen shouted and broke cover for the gully. The explosions chopped brush and flesh with interlocking hemispheres of shrapnel.
But some of the Iranians managed to scramble back to the safety of the gully. Lyons jerked out the pin on the second grenade. The Mexicans threw another volley of grenades, but they fell short, exploding in the brush of the hillside above the gully. Autofire from the Uzis and Kalashnikovs of the Iranians answered the Mexicans.
Again counting to four after the safety lever flipped away, Lyons underhanded the second fragmentation grenade into the shadows of the gully. After the blast, Lyons heard only moans.
"Mexicanos! No dispare! Norteamericano aqui!" he called out to the soldiers.
"Who is it?" Captain Soto's voice came back.
"It's me," Lyons said as he rushed through the brush. "Don't shoot."
A penlight blinked, and Lyons went to Captain Soto. As another soldier watched for Iranians, they had a whispered conference.
"Where are the other North Americans?"
"Up on the ridge..." Lyons looked at his watch.
Eight minutes. They should have started firing. His hand radio buzzed at that moment.
"We heard the shooting."
"We ambushed the ambushers. What do you see down below?"
"They're moving the gas truck. We can't hold off any longer."
"Then don't. Hit them."
"What about you?"
"Hit them. Let me worry about what I'll do."
"Here it goes..."
NATO-caliber weapons fired on the ridgeline.
"How badly wounded is that man?" Lyons asked Soto.
"The bullet broke his ankle. You want to continue to the rancho? We can. He will stay..."
"Let's go."
Tracers sparked off the hard-packed earth of the airstrip. Blancanales clicked up the elevation wheel on the sight of the M-60 machine gun and fired again. The burst passed over the gasoline truck. Activity around the plane stopped as the workers stared at the orange streaks.
As the Mexican machine gunner supported the belt of 7.62mm NATO cartridges, Blancanales fired a long burst into the truck, adjusting his aim as the first tracer bounced off the top curve of the gasoline tank. The next tracer disappeared into the dark form of the five-thousand-liter tank.
Then the truck disappeared in a flash of yellow light. The tracer had sparked the gasoline vapors remaining in the empty tank, the mixture of vapor and oxygen exploding. Liquid gasoline remaining in the bottom of the tank vaporized, the blast becoming a fireball rising into the night sky.
The Iranians nearest the truck died of concussion and fragmentation wounds, then the searing fireball melted their flesh. Jagged plates of steel spun in all directions, slicing through men and trucks. Steel slashed through the wings and fuselage of the cargo plane, and aviation fuel poured from the wing tanks.
Then Blancanales swept the aim of the M-60 to the plane. A tracer arched into the torn wings and the fuel flamed. Pools of fire spread around the pyre. Flaming men ran from the fires.
The truck and trailer next to the plane burned for seconds, then disintegrated in a screaming explosion of munitions, jets of white flame shooting from the yellow fires, metal spinning into the air, then only twisted steel framing remained.
Blancanales saw a figure race to the cab of the rocket launcher and climb in. He quickly pulled the big gun on line and punched tracers through the windows of the cab, chewing up metal, glass and flesh. Almost instantly, the night sky was ripped apart as the rockets in the launch rack ripple fired. Comets of flame raged through the darkness in a giant pyrotechnic display. As the Politician watched, three figures stumbled from the cloud of smoke and gases at the rear of the flatbed, their bodies clothed in flame and twisting with pain. They had been caught in the backflash. Blancanales brought the M-60 around and fired a burst of mercy kill.
Rifles on the ridge hit other targets, and flames soared into the sky, illuminating the Iranians around the trucks and buildings. Powell and Akbar fired single shots from their FN FAL rifles, knocking down standing figures, forcing others to run for cover. Gadgets popped at the Iranians with his short CAR-15.
A second diesel truck, farthest from the flaming explosion, attempted to escape from the airstrip inferno. Pulling away from the flames, the truck headed toward the ranch, then began a wide left turn. The cab bumped and swayed over mounds of dirt and brush. As the truck turned onto the road, a line of tracers from the M-60 found the cab.
The driver died instantly, but the truck lurched on, leaving the road and bumping up the hillside. Blancanales continued firing. Tires blew and the trailer lurched, and the truck ground to a stop fifty meters up the hillside.
Blancanales turned his fire on the ranch house. He saw muzzles flashing from the windows, and slugs sparked off the rocks beneath the ridgeline, the ricochets humming past. Sighting on a window, Blancanales triggered a long burst, adjusting his aim until the line of tracers entered the window. He paused as the Mexican gunner linked a second belt onto the end of the first belt of NATO cartridges.
The rifle fired again from the window. Slipping a 40mm shell into his M-16/M-203, the Politician flipped up the grenade sights and steadied the fore-stock on his sack of 40mm shells as he aimed at the ranch house. The grenade dropped through the plastic sheet covering the ranch house and ripped the interior with spring-steel shrapnel.
A second shell of high explosive arched into a workshop. No more rifle fire came from the buildings.
"Bang... bang... bang," Powell chanted as he squeezed off single shots. "This gang of Eranies ain't going north. Ain't going nowhere, no way..."
Rifles flashed from every shadow and ditch below them. Slugs zipped past the ridgeline. An RPG launcher flashed, the rocket streaking past them to explode hundreds of meters in the sky.
Blancanales shouldered the M-60 again. Sighting on the shadow concealing the rocket gunner, he fired burst after burst of heavy slugs.
Another rocket shot up at them and fell short, the blast throwing up dust and debris, leaving a ten-meter-long strip of flaming brush.
"Powell!" Blancanales called out. "Over here. Take my grenade launcher. Put some high ex down there."
"Lay cool, Marine," Gadgets called out. "I'll do it. This M-zip no zap nadano way."