Hands touched the lieutenant's wounds. The Politico examined the bites and slashes. Men with blood streaming down their bodies passed the lieutenant, their feet silent on the creaky old stairs.
Blancanales's hand radio buzzed. "Politician here."
"This is the Wizard. All clear on this side. I count eight dead gooks so far."
"How's the soldier?" Lyons said, his silenced Beretta in one hand, his radio in the other.
"No problem. He'll have a few scars."
"Is a war like this?" Lieutenant Silveres asked the two North American commandos.
The American he knew as Ironman laughed out loud. "What do you think this is?"
18
Their wet sandals silent on the warped, rotting decking, Lyons and three Xavante warriors slipped past the dark cabins of the first deck. Dripping river water and blood, their blackened bodies glistened in the railings' brilliant lights. Blood flowed from two piranha bites on Lyons, a deep snip from the flesh of his thigh and twin semicircles of teeth punctures on his left elbow. Other men bled also, their blood spattering the walkway.
Crouch-walking beneath louvered ports, listening for voices or movement inside without pausing, they crept toward the cargo deck. Lyons stopped at the open door to a lighted cabin, took a look inside.
Clothes, shoes, books littered bunk beds. An Asian mercenary sat on a lower bunk, tearing open cardboard boxes, searching through the possessions of a family. Lyons chanced another look into the cabin. He saw no one on the bunk bed against the opposite wall. Gripping his Beretta with both hands, he stepped into the doorway. He sighted through the bunk's steel frame to the mercenary's head. He put the bullet in the Asian's right temple. The body fell sideways on the bed, as if the man slept.
Continuing, they came to stairs. Shouts and cries came from the deck above them. Feet scrambled somewhere, the woodwork of the old steamer creaking. Lyons pointed to a Xavante, pointed to a shadow. He touched his eye, then indicated the flight of stairs. The Xavante nodded, stood in the shadow. Invisible, he guarded the stairs, his black-bladed machete in his hand.
Lyons watched the Brazilian soldier on the first patrol boat. He called to the cargo deck. A voice answered. Boots crossed the deck.
A patrol boat's motor rumbled. Behind the windshield on the open bridge, a soldier cranked a steering wheel, then called out. A soldier stepped over the paddle-wheeler's rail, carefully extended one leg to the gunwale of the patrol boat, shifted his weight to step across the gap.
Whipping up the Beretta, Lyons sighted with both hands. He waited an instant. At the moment the soldier transferred his weight to his forward leg, a 9mm subsonic slug shattered the knee. The soldier fell into the river, screaming for help.
Brazilian soldiers crowded the railing. A man ran to the rail with a rope, threw one end to the man thrashing in the water. Lyons dashed to the end of the walkway. He looked around the corner, saw no other soldiers on the cargo deck, squinted past the blazing lights on the rail, saw soldiers at the helms of the second and third patrol boats.
Taking five silent strides across the deck, Lyons raised the Beretta. He jammed the titanium suppressor against the head of the first soldier, sent a slug through his skull. The men leaning against the railing turned at the sudden movement, saw a black-painted six-foot-one wild man. The Beretta snapped three-shot bursts into their chests and faces. The fourth soldier grabbed at the G-3 slung over his shoulder. A Xavante stepped past Lyons and swung his machete with both hands. The severed head fell into the river.
A three-shot burst through the head dropped the nearest helmsman. Lyons stepped over corpses, sighted on the chest of a soldier on the second patrol boat. The soldier raised an auto-rifle. Lyons slipped in blood, sent a burst through the boat's windshield.
Waving the muzzle of the G-3 at Lyons's chest, the soldier pulled the trigger. Nothing. He jerked back the cocking lever even as three 9mm steel-cored slugs tore through his heart. A dead man's auto-fire slammed into the deck and gunwale of the patrol boat as the man fell.
On the third boat, the helmsman took cover. Passing a stack of head-high wooden crates, Lyons heard the scuff of boots. A dying soldier fell at his feet, the back of his head spraying blood. He saw a Xavante dodge through the cargo, his bloody machete held high.
Auto-fire slammed into the crates. Lyons fell back, scrambling for cover. High-velocity .308 NATO slugs splintered wood, smashed through five-gallon cans of motor oil. Holstering his Beretta, Lyons slipped the Atchisson from his back and pulled back the actuator to strip the first round from the magazine.
Firing broke out on the upper decks. A Brazilian soldier flew backward over the third deck railing, crashing down on the crates, tumbling to the deck in front of Lyons. Alive, but badly wounded and disoriented, the man struggled to his feet. Lyons shoved him into the open. Auto-fire from the patrol boat spun the Brazilian.
Sighting on the muzzle-flash, Lyons fired three blasts. The 1200-feet-per-second steel balls disintegrated the fiberglass and plywood of the patrol craft's gunwale. Lyons crouch-walked to another row of stacked boxes and fifty-gallon drums and checked out the deck of the craft.
In the glare of the aft rail's electric lights, he saw a battered and impact-pocked G-3, a hand caught by a finger in the trigger guard. The rifleman thrashed ten feet away, his eyes and forehead gone, his right forearm gone, a hideous cry choking from his throat. Lyons raised the Atchisson to fire a mercy blast into the man's brain but did not.
A Xavante with a Remington 870 crouched beside Lyons. Lyons hand-signaled for the warrior to cover him, then dashed to the rail and vaulted to the patrol boat. Holding the Atchisson at his hip, he stepped over the blinded and dying soldier, stole a glance inside the craft's small cabin, whipped his head back fast. A pistol shot flashed.
Stepping back three paces, Lyons put two blasts through the bulkhead, darted in as a wound-riddled Brazilian lurched toward him, a pistol rising. The Atchisson roared. The suddenly headless soldier bounced off a radio console, his one remaining shoulder and arm whipping about.
Lyons looked out the impromptu window in the craft's cabin. Through the shredded plywood and hanging wires, he scanned the second patrol boat. A Xavante searched the boat. On the prow, concealed behind a canvas-covered, pedestal-mounted M-60, an Asian waited in ambush with a pistol. Lyons sighted on the mercenary's head and blew it away. The Indian saw the headless corpse splash into the river. He looked up, his eyes searching the patrol boat for whoever had saved him.
"Xavante!" Lyons called out as he changed mags on the auto-shotgun. The Indian waved.
Feet thudded on the deck of the patrol boat. The wounded Brazilian's hideous crying was cut off with the sound of a machete chopping meat. A warrior peered cautiously into the cabin, smiled to Lyons, motioned him out.
"Shadowman!" Gadgets called out from the rail of the third deck. "Did we make it?"
Lyons glanced back to the craft's console. Steel double-ought and number two shot had smashed the metal and plastic and torn away a panel to expose circuitry. He stepped closer to check the power switch. Off. Lyons called back to his friend.
"No messages out."
"Yeeeaah! Victory party time!"
Coarse featured, their hands gnarled by decades of working in the fields, the grandfathers spoke for family clans. Their wide-shouldered sons and grandsons stood behind 'them. A barrel-bellied merchant spoke for another group of families. They argued and shouted, interrupting each other, some men leaning to within inches of Gadgets's face to make their statements, all shouting Portuguese. Gadgets understood nothing.