"Will they help us?" Lyons asked.
"Most definitely," Blancanales smiled. "All these bullet holes make us guests of honor."
"Ask them who did Mr. Bones," Gadgets suggested.
Blancanales asked the woman. She made a nasal-guttural Indian sound in her throat and shook her head. He translated: "I don't think she knows."
The Indians led them up the path. Gadgets struck up a friendship with the boy when he demonstrated his silent Beretta on a lizard. The boy had started after the creature with his machete. Gadgets stopped him. Slipping out the autopistol, Gadgets gripped the weapon with both hands and shot off the lizard's head. The only sound was the rush of the subsonic bullet through the air, and the noise of the bullet hitting the rocks and whining away.
The boy laughed. He held out his hand for the pistol. Gadgets shook his head as he returned it to his shoulder holster. The boy looked downcast. Gadgets held up one finger, the boy nodded.
Checking the fire-selector, Gadgets helped the boy grip the pistol. He fired a shot at the rocks. They heard only the ricochet. Gadgets took the pistol back as the boy laughed and jumped with joy.
He and the boy continued ahead of the others.
Together they walked point. The trails cut along the vertical face of the cliff, angling always upward. Once, Gadgets peered over the edge. He looked down on the others' heads a hundred feet below him. If he kicked a rock off the edge, they would be in danger.
Despite the climb, the miles passed quickly. The cool mountain air, the beauty of the valley and mountain, made the march a pleasure for the ex-Green Beret.
Gadgets and the boy reached the top before the others. On the mountain crest, the ever-present moisture of the drifting clouds created a paradise of green, knee-high grass, wild flowers, and dense pine forest. Gadgets went to the cliff edge and keyed his hand-radio.
"Shangri-la calling. All is cool."
"On our way."
The boy whistled. Following the sound, Gadgets walked along the cliff. The boy waved to him from the incomplete frame of a house. Built only a few steps back from a sheer thousand-foot drop, the front window framed but with no glass had a hundred-mile view.
Sitting down on the weathered flooring and piles of hand-sawn planks, Gadgets saw three mountain ranges. Smoke from the burning forest where Luis had died grayed the valley of Azatlan. But the next valley had clear air. He saw green patchworks, the thin line of a highway. Perhaps thirty miles away, smoke rose from a village, only the smoke visible, the houses and streets and churches lost in the hills and forest.
The horror of Unomundo seemed so far away, beyond possibility. Yet Gadgets knew what he saw was the illusion, and that the terror of Unomundo was the reality. He looked at the unfinished house. Apparently, Unomundo had driven them out.
You'll get yours, Mr. Nazi, Gadgets muttered to himself. I'm gonna sic the Ironman on you. You'll never forget him. But then again, maybe you'll get lucky and just drop dead of fright.
Rotorthrob exploded behind him. Gadgets went flat as a gray shape flashed over him. He radioed to the others.
"Hit it! Helicopter! Looks like a Huey."
He waited for the helicopter to drop below him before moving. Holding his hand-radio, Gadgets crawled to the edge of the cliff.
A soldier squatted at the door of the gray-painted Huey troopship. Gadgets saw the mercenary searching the cliffs and trails with binoculars. The soldier pointed.
Hundreds of feet below him, Gadgets saw the bright purple and red of the Indian woman. Caught in an open stretch of the trail, Lyons and Blancanales and the two Indians ran for cover. But too late.
The helicopter veered for the cliffs. The soldier in the door pointed the swivel-mounted M-60. The muzzle flashed. Gadgets heard the hammering of the shots an instant later. Far below, dust puffed on the trail. But his partners and the Indians had gained cover. His hand-radio buzzed.
"They caught us in the open," Lyons reported. "Now it's a shoot-out. If we don't make it, it's up to you to complete the mission."
Over the radio, Gadgets heard the thumping and ricocheting of heavy-caliber slugs. Then the hammering of the M-60 drifted toward him.
"Forget that kind of talk!" Gadgets told him. "We'll get them!"
"With rifles?" Lyons asked him. "Might as well throw rocks. But we'll shoot at them until the Cobra shows up. Then we're dead. Over and adios."
A few hundred feet below, the door gunner raked the cliffside trail with burst after burst. Gadgets knew what Lyons had said was the truth.
When the Cobra came, his partners died.
11
The Huey seemed to float below him. Gadgets Schwarz considered his options. With his Galil, he might hit the door gunner. But from this angle, he could not expect the lightweight 5.56mm slugs to punch through the pilots' windshield. Even if he waited for a straight-on shot, the windshield would deflect the 5.56mm slugs at wild angles. He would have to kill the pilot and copilot simultaneously and instantly to drop the Huey. And if he did not make an instant kill, they would come to kill him. Like Lyons said, he might as well throw rocks.
Rocks?
As Gadgets watched, the helicopter made another pass at the trail, the door gunner spraying Lyons and Blancanales with a long burst. A soldier threw a grenade. The explosion puffed dust on the cliff face.
Gadgets grabbed a fist-sized rock and threw it. He watched the angle of fall.
He ran back from the edge. Frantically searching through the clutter of materials stacked around the unfinished house, he found rolls of barbed wire and chicken wire. Rough-sawn planks leaned against the house.
He tore off the weather-rotted cardboard on the end of a roll of barbed wire. He dragged the roll of wire to the cliff.
He watched the helicopter. The Huey had completed a circle and was veering in for another attack. The M-60 flashed fire.
Strong with panic, Gadgets jerked up the barbed wire from the ground. He held it above his head, then threw it.
The heavy roll of wire hit a rock and bounced far out from the cliff.
Gadgets watched. The wire fell in erratic gyrations.
It did not miss. The unraveling wire hit the circle of the Huey's rotorblades. It whirled in a tangle above the fuselage for an instant, then the blades started to buckle and twist as the wire was sucked into their spin.
A rotor flew into space. The three remaining blades locked. The Huey fell straight down. The fuselage disintegrated on the rocks, then flame rose in a sheet.
"Whoo-eee! The Wizard does it!" Lyons laughed through his hand-radio. "What a trick. Brought us back from the dead."
"I don't believe it myself."
"Watch for the Cobra," Lyons told him. "We're on our way up, double time. Maybe you'll get a chance to drop another surprise."
Beside him, the Indian boy stared down at the burning helicopter. The boy looked from the helicopter to the chicken wire and planks stacked around the house, looked down to the wreckage again. Gadgets laughed.
"When you eliminate the impossible" he said.
The Cobra came three minutes later.
Lyons and Blancanales directed the woman and child to take cover. The Indians crouched behind a rock, the little girl crying, the mother sobbing and shrieking, her hands over her ears as the Cobra approached.
Lyons jerked his folded black nylon windbreaker from his backpack. He crawled to the woman and the girl. Opening the jacket, he spread it over the woman's shoulders to cover the beautiful purple-and-red weaving she wore. He touched the black rocks around them, touched the black jacket, pointed to the sky.
The crying woman nodded. She held her daughter in her arms and enfolded her brilliant colors.
Blancanales radioed Gadgets. "What's the Cobra doing?"
"Skirting the cliffs. Staying back. It's get ready."