Lyons laughed softly. "He doesn't think there'll be a fight? I am not making that assumption."
The line of soldiers moved into the moonlit darkness. Led by the ex-cowboy, they zigzagged up the stone face to the next level. The streambed stretched before them, as wide as a street. Desmarais stumbled every few steps. But the others walked quietly, the only sound the squeaking of their boots in the sand.
After a half hour of fast walking, they came to the intersecting ridge. Captain Soto signaled for a rest. Lyons took the captain aside. "Here's where we split. Your man with the M-60 comes with us. I'll carry his ammo. Give him a walkie-talkie. And the woman..." Lyons glanced around. Desmarais sat at the other end of the line. "Don't watch her."
"I know."
"See you later."
Lyons walked back to Powell and Akbar, who were both checking their FN FAL rifles. Lyons motioned them forward. Blancanales led the group up the hill. Following the Mexican soldier who carried the M-60 machine gun, Lyons went last. He carried five hundred rounds of 7.62 NATO.
In the moonlight, Blancanales found a cattle path and followed it, moving quickly uphill. One hundred meters short of the crest, he cut parallel, staying below the ridgeline. At the end of the line, Lyons sweated to maintain the pace.
At a fold in the hillside, Blancanales stopped. He waited for the others to close up the line, then motioned for them to wait. He went alone to the ridgeline.
Lyons found a space between two bushes and squatted, concealed in shadows. He scanned the moonlit hillsides for movement, but saw nothing. The curve of the hillsides blocked his view of the streambed.
His hand radio clicked. Blancanales reported to his partners, "No one up here."
"What do you see down there?" Lyons asked.
"An airstrip. Looks like a cargo plane. And trucks."
"Be there quick," Gadgets told him.
The line moved uphill. Sand and loose stone slowed the machine gunner and Lyons, and they reached the top minutes after the others.
"Hey, Ironman," Gadgets taunted. "Getting old? I know you're getting slow."
Ignoring his partner, Lyons studied the ranch and airstrip below the hill. He heard the continuous popping of a generator motor providing power to the electric lights illuminating areas around several old buildings. The buildings had been the house and barn and equipment sheds of a ranch. Plastic tarps replaced the collapsed roofs.
A recently improved road led to the ranch. Two hundred meters below Lyons, a long stretch of flat-land had been scraped bare of brush and rocks. A four-engine prop plane — painted black, devoid of markings — sat on the airstrip. Men moved between the cargo plane and three tractor-trailer trucks. Other men ran hoses from a gasoline truck to the wing tanks of the plane. Off to one side stood a Soviet-made multiple rocket launcher. Lyons could see the dark outline of the steel rack that housed the rockets mounted on the flatbed of the truck. The rack was angled at forty-five degrees, ready for firing. The Ironman shrugged. Maybe the rig was for defence, or perhaps the enemy was planning a few test firings; either way, the launcher had to go.
Lyons hissed to the Mexican machine gunner and pointed at the gas truck. In the moonlight, the young man's smile glowed as he extended the bipod legs of the M-60. Lyons moved over and positioned himself to feed belts of ammunition to the weapon.
Distant autofire came in a long tearing blast, and Lyons looked toward the streambed. He saw nothing. Scrambling along the ridge, he heard Blancanales calling the Mexicans.
"Captain Soto! Captain!" Blancanales whispered urgently into the Mexican army walkie-talkie.
An answer came. Autofire continued, the hammering almost overwhelming Soto's desperate voice.
"Ambush!"
18
As Blancanales jerked back the cocking handle of the machine gun, Lyons crabbed across the ridge to his partner's position.
"Wait!" Lyons rasped. "Hold it. Don't hit them down there. Don't."
"What are you thinking?" Blancanales asked.
"If we hit them," Lyons said as he glanced to the airstrip and rancho, "they know we're up here. Give me five minutes. I'll try to come up behind that ambush. If Soto or any of his soldiers are alive, or if they're captured, I can get them out. Then you hit the Iranians."
"Can you get down there?"
"Yeah, I can. It's downhill. Five minutes?"
"Go. We'll wait."
Sliding, running, side slipping with every step, Lyons cut across the hillside. He made no effort at silence for the first three hundred meters. The continuous firing of the Iranians and Mexicans continued. He ran through the moonlight, zigzagging through the brush, sprinting the open stretches.
As he ran, he cursed his acceptance of official Mexican liaison. He did not know, but he suspected — he believed — the Mexicans had betrayed them. Captain Soto's battalion commander had sketched the path of approach to the rancho. Lyons remembered Captain Soto talking of his commander's assurances that the Iranians would scatter in the assault.
And then Captain Soto had walked into an ambush.
The autofire sputtered out to isolated bursts and shots. Lyons heard men shouting to one another in the darkness. They did not shout in Spanish.
Lyons slowed to a silent walk as he rounded the curve of the hill. He crouched down and scanned the hillsides and gully. He saw the streambed, the brush and small trees black in the moonlight. Flashlights appeared. Lyons stayed low in the sage, his black gear and faded black fatigues like a shadow on the hillside. He crept to the drop-off.
Below him, he heard the sound of footsteps in the streambed and saw Desmarais running through the sand and grasses. She looked back, fell, then ran again.
A submachine gun fired upstream. Slugs tore through the brush, snapping twigs and branches, the bullets continuing into the distance. A hand waved a flashlight over the brush. Rifles boomed and the flashlight spun back through the air, a man crashing back and moaning. Men shouted. Others thrashed through the scrub.
Desmarais continued downstream. Lyons unslung his Konzak. He thought of killing the Canadian, the thought making him grin. She deserved it, but the woman had a role to play. Instead, Lyons moved upstream.
Ahead he heard men moving through the brush. Boots ground pebbles, broke dry leaves. Weapons clinked. Lyons squatted and watched.
Dark shapes moved against the night sky. A head turned. He saw moonlight gleam on the sweat-slicked features of a Mexican. The Mexican motioned. Three men rushed out, two of the Mexican soldiers on each side of a third, supporting the wounded man as he limped along. The pointman held his position until another soldier scrambled out of the gully.
The last two Mexicans covered the others, then followed twenty steps behind. In a leapfrog retreat, one of the soldiers went low, his FN FAL rifle at his shoulder while the other continued. Then the second man stopped to cover the other. In front, the first three soldiers moved fast despite the wounded man. These five Mexicans had escaped the ambush.
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.