Blancanales's voice came on the frequency. "Unomundo's still alive."
"What?"
"Wounded but alive. The helicopter's coming down for him."
A voice called out from trucks in Spanish. Nate shouted back. Lyons crept down the line of fighters to the North American ex-Marine.
"What do they want?" Lyons asked.
"They say our tortured men are still alive," Nate said. "They'll let them live if we let them go. Or they'll execute them."
"It's Unomundo..."
"I saw you shoot him."
"He's alive." Lyons pointed up at the Huey troopship. "He radioed the helicopter."
The voice called out again in Spanish. Nate listened. Then he spoke to his men in Quiche. The men moved position so they could see their mutilated friends.
One Indian called out in Quiche.
The blinded, scorched boy moved his head, and in a weak, quavering voice called back to his friends. The Indian shouted again. The boy answered, then lay back.
As one, the Quiche men raised their rifles and sighted. Autofire from ten rifles ripped the dying man and boy, ending their suffering.
Lyons jerked the pin from a fragmentation grenade and threw it past the trucks. A second grenade went under the nearest truck. As he pulled the cotter pin from a third grenade, shrapnel from the first one tore into the cowering mercenaries. The second punched steel through the truck's gas tank.
He threw the third, then a fourth grenade, and shouldered his autoshotgun. A mercenary ran from the flaming truck. He never reached the cover of the second truck. Sighting on the center of his back, Lyons fired.
A one-ounce slug threw the mere forward. Bullets from the Indians' rifles ripped the falling man. Exploding grenades spun the corpse again. The chaos of flames and flying shrapnel drove the other Nazis from cover.
Silhouetted against the flames of the complex that burned behind them, fascists sprinted in all directions. Autofire from the rifles of the Quiche men sprayed the running Nazis.
Rotorthrob drowned out the noise of the firefight. As the gray-painted Huey dropped from the stars, the door gunner strafed the buses and trucks. Glass shattered, slugs hammered steel, ricochets slammed into sheet metal.
"Nate!" Lyons shouted. "Spread them out. The helicopter's coming down for Unomundo."
Directing his friends in Quiche, Nate moved through the line, shoving men, pointing. Broken glass showered his back as he divided the men into groups. The men went to widely spaced positions along the lines of buses and trucks.
Dust that was orange with reflected flame swirled against the orange light of the blazing complex. Gravel pelted Lyons's face as he scanned the sprawled corpses and running men for the blond, fair-featured Unomundo. The Huey moved low along the scraped earth, the door gunner raking the vehicles.
A 40mm grenade missed. It exploded beyond the helicopter. The Huey spun and rose straight up. Tracers from an M-60 hammered the tops of several buses. Gasoline flamed. Autofire from the ground shattered the Plexiglas window of the Huey's side door.
Lyons sighted on the rectangle of the side door and fired a blast of steel shot. The tracers from the door gunner whipped about wildly, an orange line of unaimed slugs arcing into the sky. Lyons emptied the Atchisson, then slammed in the box mag of one-ounce slugs. He sighted on the Huey, and waited.
A body fell from the side door, then the M-60 fired again. Veering, swaying, the Huey came down again. Tracers from the door gun searched for the Quiche riflemen.
Following the pilot's windshield in his sights, Lyons fired. But the Huey troopship veered and swept across the parking area, its skids only ten feet from the gravel. Dust stormed around it. Light from the burning buses and trucks revealed the shadowy form of the helicopter in the dust. A line of tracers emerged.
Lyons fired again and again at the helicopter. The dust clouded like an orange wall, concealing the hovering bird.
As one, the surviving mercenaries fired their weapons at the Indians from behind the trucks.
Bullets punched metal above Lyons, then the fire stopped as the meres dashed for the Huey.
Jumping from cover, Lyons sprinted across the open ground for the two trucks. A mercenary dropped the mag from his M-16, slammed in another before a one-ounce slug threw him back ten feet. Another raised a pistol. His head exploded in a spray of blood.
The Atchisson's action locked back. Lyons crouched against a bullet-dented fender as he dropped out his assault shotgun's empty magazine and shoved in another. He snapped a glance over the truck's hood, saw meres grab the helicopter's skid. Lyons fired two blasts. A spray of steel severed a merc's arms.
Slugs screamed past his head. Throwing himself back, Lyons saw a mere pivot with an M-16 in his hands. Lyons zipped a blast of steel at the man. He saw the legs fly away from the torso. Lyons went to the fender again, and sighted on the helicopter.
The door gunner saw him. A line of tracers scythed the night as it sought Lyons.
Lyons pointed the Atchisson at the flashing muzzle of the machine gun only fifty feet away. He sprayed full-auto 12-gauge fire. The door gunner died. A mercenary fell back from the hovering helicopter. More Plexiglas showered from the side door. Then the whipping line of tracers, the M-60 still gripped in the dead hands of the gunner, found Lyons.
Lyons saw it as if in slow motion as he willed his body to move. The red line of tracers roared past him, hammering the truck. Slugs hit the shattered windshield, bits of glass flying, then fragments of the plastic dashboard exploded.
Slowed by his adrenalin-heightened perception, Lyons saw the flashing piece of metal and glass hurtling at him. He saw it coming, felt his body dropping though the air as he sought the shelter of the tires and gravel, then it hit him, the impact twisting him.
Lyons slammed into the gravel, his left arm numb. He grabbed for the wound, expecting to find his arm gone or a wound of shattered bone and gore. He felt no blood.
Then, on the gravel next to him, he saw what had hit him: the bullet-warped steel and brilliant silver mosaic of a mirror from the truck.
Wounded by a rearview mirror!
His numb arm hanging, Lyons struggled to his feet. One-handed, he pointed the Atchisson. Beyond the hovering helicopter, a blond European-featured man in a suit ran for the other side door.
"Unomundo!" Lyons screamed, rushing the helicopter, his left arm dangling. With his right hand he fired the Atchisson twice. The action locked back, the weapon empty. Rifle fire flashed from behind him as Quiche men fired bursts at the fleeing mercenaries. Machetes flashed as they chopped wounded Nazis to pieces.
Fumbling with his bandolier, Lyons tried to change magazines one-handed and on the run. He saw Unomundo scramble up toward the Huey's far side door. Lyons could not reload the Atchisson. He threw the assault shotgun aside and pulled his Python.
As the helicopter lifted, he double-actioned slugs into the fuselage. The windshield shattered.
Lyons jumped. He tried to wrap his barely usable left arm around the skid. Blood-slick steel slipped from his failed grasp. Falling ten feet to the gravel, smashing down on his shoulder and side, Lyons rolled over and fired his Python at the underbelly of the Huey. The hammer finally fell on an empty chamber.
As the Indians slaughtered the last Nazi mercenaries with machetes and autofire, Lyons knew he had failed.
The monster Unomundo soared away. The Huey disappeared into the Guatemalan night.
For the first time, Able Team had lost their man. They had destroyed an evil dream, but they had not destroyed the mind that created it.
For the first time, Lyons truly understood what Mack Bolan meant by war everlasting.
Lyons would never rest until he had turned Unomundo's evil onto the monster himself. It might not happen next week, it might not happen next month, but eventually Carl Lyons would do Unomundo...