Into the Maze at-14 Page 14

  Steel shot smashed the plastic-and-aluminum autorifle to scrap, tearing away the gunman’s hand, ripping through his chest. He fell back into another fascist attacker. Lyons aimed the Atchisson and fired again, slamming the dead men back some more. The corpses fell in the corridor.

  Autofire searched for Lyons, hammering the door, shattering plastic computer components on the desk tops. Gadgets groaned, then rolled across the floor to the doorway. He found a fragmentation grenade in his web gear. Pulling the pin, he let the safety lever flip off. He counted away the delay.

  A fascist dashed across the doorway, an autorifle in his hands flashing. Roaring over Gadgets’s head, the slugs swept the office. Gadgets tossed the grenade into the corridor and scrambled back as slugs whined off the doorframe. Burst after burst killed the carpet where he had sprawled only a second before.

  The grenade stopped the firing. Blinded, a hundred wounds spurting blood, the gunman staggered to the office door. He held the wall and screamed with shock and despair. Lyons pointed his Atchisson at the dying fascist but did not fire. He crawled to help Gadgets as the screaming man died on his feet and fell.

  “I’m hit…”

  “Where?” His Atchisson pointed at the door, Lyons searched for blood on Gadgets with his left hand.

  “There!” Gadgets gasped as Lyons touched the Kevlar over the left side of his chest.

  Blood oozed through a tear in the battle armor. Though the steel trauma plate set in his armor protected him from a straight-on shot to his chest, a 5.56mm bullet had hit Gadgets from the side. Kevlar could not stop full-velocity rifle bullets. Lyons fumbled with the Velcro closure strips.

  “Hey, let me take care of me.” Gadgets pulled open his battle armor. “And you take care of you. Now your other arm’s bleeding.”

  Checking himself, Lyons saw where a bullet had slashed across his battle armor, cutting a path across the black nylon exterior. The bullet had continued into his right arm. He pushed the sleeve up, saw two bloody holes where the bullet had entered and exited just below the inside of his elbow. Pain came when he made a fist, but his hand still functioned. The shallow wound had not severed any tendons.

  “No doubt about it,” Gadgets said, trying to twist his face into a grin. He pointed to a small hole in his ribs. “I’m shot.”

  Black uniformed commandos ran into the suite. For an instant, Lyons and Gadgets looked into the bores of the Mexicans’ M-16 rifles, then a commando went to one knee beside the North Americans.

  The Mexican tore open a field-dressing packet and pressed a bandage to the wound. Gadgets pushed the dressing aside. He probed at the wound with his fingers.

  Blancanales joined them. “You hit? Where?”

  “I’ll live. I’m okay, I think. Nothing broken. Not gargling blood. Ughh — there it is. Found it. The wall and the Kevlar almost stopped it.”

  “Stay here,” Lyons told him. “Pol, let’s go.”

  As Gadgets surrendered to the first aid, Blancanales stripped off his partner’s ammunition and grenades. Gadgets tried to sit up.

  Lyons pushed him back. “Take a break. I’ll call you if we need you.”

  “Get the number-one man!”

  “That’s the plan…”

  Lyons and Blancanales rushed into the corridor.

  Two Mexican commandos followed the North Americans. Firing continued at the stairwells. Bypassing the offices, the group went to the next corridor. Lyons dropped flat and looked around the corner.

  In one instant of sight, as boots ran toward him, Lyons saw the elevator lobby. A group of International soldiers in uniforms and casual styles defended the stairs, spraying autofire up at the attacking Mexican commandos, then closing the door as the Mexicans returned the fire. Across the lobby, other gunmen shoved personnel — men, women, wounded — into the elevators.

  Then a boot kicked Lyons as a soldier tripped over him. Blancanales brought down the butt of his M-16/M-203 on the back of the fascist soldier’s head. The first blow of the plastic stock did not calm the struggling soldier. Blancanales slammed him twice again before he went slack.

  The Mexican commandos dragged the unconscious man off Lyons. The soldier, wearing green fatigues bearing the emblem of the International Group of the army of Mexico, wore a vest of Uzi mags and a canvas bag of fragmentation grenades. Blancanales appropriated the weapon and the bag of grenades. He pointed to the sound of the fighting.

  Lyons nodded. “Teamwork. You pull, I throw.”

  Pulling safety pins, Blancanales passed the grenades to Lyons, who let the levers flip before he pitched the grenades into the lobby. He threw three grenades before anyone noticed the olive-green spheres bouncing over the carpet.

  One fascist shouted, then a blast slammed him against a wall. Blasts came fast and continuously as Lyons threw. He tossed all the eight grenades that the bag contained.

  “Time to clean it up.”

  The North American and Mexican commandos rushed into the screams and swirling smoke. Wounded men and women raised pistols and shotguns. Others clawed the carpet to reach rifles. With an autoweapon in each hand, Blancanales killed everyone he saw, firing ambidextrous bursts from the M-16/M-203 and the Uzi.

  Lyons kicked open the stairwell door. A bloody gunman pulled the pin from a grenade and swung back his arm. Lyons fired once, the point-blank blast tearing away the man’s ribs and spinning him against the wall. Lyons closed the door. The steel fragments splintered the fire door with dozens of ragged holes.

  A flash-shock boomed on the other side. The noise made Lyons stagger back. His body ached from the shock wave. Throwing the door open, he shouted, “No mas! We are here! Tenemos los fascistos! Alto!”

  One soldier peered down. He saw Lyons and motioned to the others. A line of soldiers ran down the stairs. The lieutenant viewed the carnage in the elevator lobby. “Have you found the general?”

  “No. But we only searched one office.”

  A fury of autofire broke out somewhere on the floor. The lieutenant shouted orders to his platoon. The young commandos went through the offices, searching methodically.

  “There is still fighting below. My sergeant reports a unit of federal agents attempted to come to the rescue of the fascists.”

  “Then we’ll search through the building until we find him. Him and Gunther…”

  “No, American. You must leave. This will be trouble to explain. It is impossible for you to stay.”

  “We won’t go until we find Gunther and the general…”

  Blancanales interrupted. “You heard him, Ironman. It’s his country. We’ll go now.”

  “It’s our war! We got to track down all these Nazis and stomp them out.”

  “I thank you for your help,” the Lieutenant repeated. “But now I must ask you to go.”

  Vato and the three Yaqui teenagers rushed around a corner. Their Mexican army uniforms splotched with blood, they reloaded their shotguns and rifles on the move. When they saw Lyons and Lieutenant Soto, they blinked as if in shock. Ixto collapsed against a wall, blood pouring from fragment slashes on his left arm. Jacom and Kino sat beside him. They tore off a dead man’s shirt and used the shirt to make a compress. Vato joined Lyons and the Mexican officer.

  “Have we cut off the head?” Lyons asked the Yaqui.

  Vato pointed at the offices. “This head. But there are more. I know there must be more. This Trans-Americas sociedad andnimais everywhere. The offices have maps of all the countries. The war on my people in Sonora is only one of many.”

  “The lieutenant tells us to go…”

  “I thank you for your courage,” Lieutenant Soto interrupted, “but this problem, this syndicate is Mexican. You have done what you can.”

  “Now it is a political problem.” Vato nodded, agreeing with Lieutenant Soto.

  “No!” Lyons countered. “It is criminal. These Nazis, the Communists, terrorists — they’re only gangs of murderers. I refuse to call it political. It’s not Mexican, it’s not…”


  “American,” the lieutenant said, “it doesn’t matter what you call it. It is what the politicoscall it. But you and I know the truth. There is no disagreement between us. Now go. Take all your friends and go. The helicopter waits.”

  With a salute, Lieutenant Soto left the Yaqui and North Americans.

  Lyons shouted to him, “But I’ll come back! You understand?”

  “Next time you come,” the lieutenant answered, “call me first. It will prevent misunderstandings! Adios!”

  Lyons and Vato gathered their partners. Minutes later, they flew from Mexico City in the captured troopship.

  They had won a victory in Mexico.

  But they had far from defeated the Fascist International.

  *

  In an inner office of the Soviet Embassy, Jon Gunther briefed the First Secretary on the attack against the International. Like Gunther, the First Secretary served the KGB. “We lost most of those Mexicans, but it is not a total disaster. One of the Americans wants our gold. He will sell himself to us.”

  “Which one?”

  “The blond one. I don’t know his name. I will review our files.”

  “Then why this massacre? If he…”

  “He followed my instructions. He attempted to release me. But the other one, the Mexican criminal, he took me to his gang. The American followed instructions. I told him not to betray himself. And he did not. So he killed a few Mexicans? Now we have a man in the most secret of the American special units. I will contact him. I will pay him the gold I promised and much more. And in time, he will earn his money. Tonight was not a defeat. It was another step to victory…”

  The True Adventures of Dick Stivers

  Able Team author Dick Stivers has just returned from Colombo, Sri Lanka, and sends us this report:

  What a beautiful country. How terrible and shameful this war.

  My first week here I played tourist. I took the train from Colombo, a city on the tropical west coast, to Kandy, a city high in the mountains. I held on to the handrails at the steps into the cars and watched the landscape streak past. Waved at the farmers. Looked straight down into the canyons at orchards and rice paddies. Saw young women bathing in their sarongs, standing in mountain pools, pouring water over themselves, their glistening hair like night as it flowed over their shoulders.

  I’ve been here a month now, interviewing people, taking hundreds of photos, listening to the official announcements. Some nights I lie awake and stare at the ceiling fan, thinking over what people have told me, comparing stories, cross-checking details: what streets looted and burned; how many families hacked to death, children burned alive, young men shot by the army or police, women mutilated; how many army trucks loading loot on what streets on what night.

  For a week, the cities of Colombo, Kandy and Matale went insane. The Singhalese mobs did not attack the terrorists in the north who had murdered soldiers and policemen and government clerks. The mobs instead attacked decent people in the south whose only crime had been their ethnic background and enterprise and wealth.

  In Matale, the Singhalese burned the buildings of the Tamil community: the Hindu temple, the stores, all the homes, the public-health centers. The only thing that stopped the Singhalese was time out to loot the stores. The Tamils escaped into the jungle. No one died there.

  But in Colombo the mobs looted and burned entire streets. Police directed the mobs from one area to another. Officials in the government provided the leaders of the mobs with voter-registration lists. With the lists the leaders took their gangs from address to address in City of Colombo buses. The mobs divided the loot with the army and the army loaded their share onto trucks marked with government insignia. The police allowed the mobs to pass their guard posts. When Tamils and Muslims tried to defend their homes from the mobs, police and army units killed them with autoweapons and grenades.

  Now the Singhalese pretend nothing happened. The politicians talk and talk and talk. The police and army pledge to stamp out Tamil terrorism. The newspapers denounce the lies of foreign journalists.

  No one will ever know how many died. People have told me that the army and police took Tamil boys and no one else has seen them since. I have been informed that the authorities took truckloads of bodies out of the city — which the authorities have denied. I have heard rumors of bodies burned in graveyards.

  In fact, I went out to find the body dumps. A Muslim taxi driver who spoke perfect Singhalese drove the car. With his light-colored skin and straight hair, he passes for a Singhalese. He helped me as revenge against the government; he lost relatives when a mob wiped out their shop, and he knows that the Muslims will be hit in the next “disturbances.”

  We drove the back roads around Colombo all day. Finally we found a Buddhist graveyard marked with tire tracks. Heavy vehicles had cut across the burial mounds. Tombstones and remembrance displays had been knocked down. We got out of the taxi and walked across the graveyard.

  Near one side of the graveyard, pigs grunted and snorted as they fed on things sticking out of the soft dirt. A pig pushed around what looked like a white bowl. The outside of the bowl had hair on it.

  A shattered skull.

  The pigs cleaned ribs and scattered bones. As we watched, the pigs found a bone with blackened flesh on it. The pigs fought over the rotting meat.

  I saw a pig uncover the remains of a small hand, perhaps a child’s hand. I threw a rock at the pig and I took a step toward the hand. The dirt collapsed under my foot and I went in almost to my knee. The smell coming out of the hole drove me back.

  Two Singhalese gravediggers walked over and watched us, so I made like a tourist. I picked up a skull and posed against a tombstone as the taxi driver took my picture. The skull had no jaw, and the pigs had broken away the palate and maxilla. The tissue-paper-thin bone of the skull makes me believe it came from someone old. The gravediggers laughed and joked as we left. The taxi driver told me they think tourists are crazy.

  Now the Tamils and Muslims are preparing for the war. Everyone wants to learn karate. Some mornings I teach karate to Tamil and Muslim teenagers. I give them beginner lessons in killing with their hands and bricks and rocks, umbrellas and pipes. I bought rice sickles for one family. I tell people how to defend their street with gasoline and broken glass, how to defend against gasoline bombs.

  Enough horror stories. Read the book when I write it.

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