When they planned the assault, Nate had briefed them on the terrain and security surrounding the complex. Because the four North Americans had the most training and experience, Nate and Able Team led the approach to the perimeter, the Quiche fighters following.
A cleared perimeter surrounded the complex. For a hundred yards around the truck park, only tree stumps remained of the forest. The grass had been burned to denude the earth. Mines and booby traps prevented intruders from crossing the perimeter.
The road wound around the mountain to approach the complex from the west. Trucks and buses passed a guardpost at the tree line, then continued up the slope to the complex.
As the group crept through the forest, Gadgets stopped. Signaling his Able Team partners with three clicks of his hand-radio, he halted the group. He whispered into his hand-radio.
"Ambush."
Lyons grabbed Nate to stop him. Flat on the ground, he hissed: "Ambush. Wizard caught it on the walkie-talkie."
"Need the Starlite?"
"Come on."
Lyons and Blancanales snaked over to their electronics specialist. Nate followed a moment later. They met in a tight knot, their heads touching, their whispers lost in the noise of the trucks only a hundred feet away.
"Where?" Blancanales hissed.
"Don't know. One mere radioed another."
"They hear us?" Lyons asked. "See us?"
"No. One checked with the other. A wake-up call. Could be on the other side of the road."
"Here's the Starlite." Nate passed the silenced MP-5 to Gadgets. "Signal us when." Nate crawled back to the Indians to halt them.
Gadgets flicked on the Starlite's power. Lyons felt his partner lay the Heckler & Koch submachine gun across his back. Gadgets swept the darkness with the electronics.
"Can't see... Grass is too high and they've got cover. Not moving."
Able Team considered the options in silence. Wait? Retreat? Risk it?
"A rock," Lyons decided.
"Stay low," Gadgets cautioned him. "We could be in the kill zone right now."
Easing over on his back, Lyons searched through the grass and forest leaves for stones. He piled a handful on his stomach.
Tossing a pebble toward the road, he hit a tree fifty feet away. He waited, listening.
"Another one," Gadgets whispered.
The second stone pattered on leaves. Gadgets whispered again.
"Ten feet to the right this time."
The next rock bounced on stone. "One merc's telling the others to stop throwing rocks at him. Throw to the left."
A clink.
"Quit it!" a voice called out in English.
"What?" another voice answered.
"The rocks, you shit."
"I didn't throw any..."
"Estupidos, silencio!"
Slipping out his silenced autoColt, Lyons crawled toward the voices. Blancanales shrugged off his backpack of gear and weapons, and followed. They moved infinitely slowly, gently pushing through the grass, advancing a few inches at a time. Minutes passed as they snaked closer and closer to where the pro-fascists hid in the darkness.
Blancanales heard a man shift positions in front of him, a boot squeaking, a buckle scraping across the metal of a rifle. He flicked his eyes back and forth, trying to find the man's form with the edges of his vision.
Only five feet away, the luminous numbers of a watch appeared. Twenty feet away, another man cleared his throat. Blancanales continued forward, feeling the ground ahead of him with his left hand, the Beretta in his right.
The man to his side cleared his throat again. Blancanales heard a boot scrape on a rock a mere arm's reach away from him.
A slap, like a fist against flesh, startled the man in front of him. The noise had come from where Lyons had gone. Blancanales heard the man click a walkie-talkie's transmit key, then whisper: "What was that?"
A bullet through the brain answered him. The walkie-talkie clattered from the dead man's hand. Blancanales picked up the small radio and listened.
"Meyers?" A voice asked.
Blancanales hissed a reply. "Yeah?"
"Devlin here. Lupo?" The voice asked.
"Here." A Spanish accented voice answered.
"Cole?"
"Yeah?" Another hissed answer. Lyons.
A roll call. Three men and their leader. Two already dead.
On the road, a bus neared the guard post. An out-of-line headlight flashed through the trees. Blancanales saw the silhouette of the next man in the ambush unit. He braced his Beretta on the corpse in front of him. He lined up the dash-dot-dash of his Beretta's betalight nightsights, and waited.
As the next buses came up the road, dust diffusing the high beams, Blancanales snapped two shots into the silhouette. One of the ejected casings clinked on a rock. He waited.
A hideous wavering scream came from the parked trucks.
Guffaws came from the darkness. "Listen to 'em fuckin' up those peons," said a muttered voice.
Blancanales pointed his Beretta at the voice and sprayed the lone laughing Nazi mercenary with a three-round burst. Two rounds slapped flesh, one slug skipped off stone and hit a tree.
The laughter became a gasp. Blancanales fired another burst, heard a bullet strike plastic and flesh. He fired again. He heard blood gurgle in a throat.
Then he picked up the walkie-talkie and whispered:
"Meyers?" No answer.
"Lupo?" No answer.
"Cole?" No answer.
"Devlin?" No answer.
He whispered into his hand-radio. "Wizard. Anything?"
"There's an ambush unit on the other side of the road. Using another frequency."
Lyons broke in. "Forget them. The road."
Signaling Nate and the Indians forward, the group crawled a hundred feet to the road. They reassembled opposite the guard post.
Two mercenaries manned the post, their M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders. As each bus or truck passed, they pointed their flashlights at the drivers, then waved them past. Most of the drivers did not slow for the inspection.
Able Team sighted their silenced pistols on the two meres. Nate aimed the MP-5. A bus sputtered past the two meres. Blancanales watched the road. He saw no headlights downslope.
"Now!"
Slugs punched into the meres' heads and chests, staggering them back with impacts.
As they fell, Gadgets and Blancanales dashed across to them and picked up the flashlights. Lyons and Nate followed. Still no headlights downhill. Nate waved the Indians across.
Gadgets and Blancanales manned the guard post.
A truck approached. Blancanales stepped out into the road, waving his flashlight. As the truck slowed, he put the beam on the gray-uniformed driver. Blancanales stepped back out of the road.
The truck shifted, the engine revved, then it continued up the road, regaining speed.
Lyons and Nate rode the truck's rear bumper to the cavern fortress of Unomundo.
16
Like the yawning mouth of a skull, the vast cavern exposed the interior of the mountain. Thousand-watt worklights illuminated the complex of barracks, offices, equipment yards and helipads. The mouth of the cavern opened to the east, exactly as Nate had described.
On the south end, prefabricated steel barracks rose three stories from the concrete and naked stone of the cave floor. Other steel buildings clustered at the west end where the ceiling of the cavern curved down. A concrete wall sealed the west end from the maze of passages and chambers within the volcanic mountain.
On the north end, steel aircraft hangars served as workshops for mechanics and welders. Trucks and two bulldozers lined the north wall.
In the center, where the arcing dome of the cavern created a two-hundred-foot-high airspace between the floor and the apex, Cobra gunships and Huey troop carriers waited for the next day's assault. Mechanics and ordnance technicians moved from helicopter to helicopter, servicing the engines, loading the multi-million-dollar weapon systems.