The helmsman called down to Able Team in broken Spanish. "Vamos, gringos. Ahora. "

Veering for the opposite riverbank, the patrol boat cut through darkness and low mist. Lyons signaled Thomas. Gadgets and Blancanales gave their battle rigs a last pat-down check. Thomas crowded his men against the stern.

Lines of lights, fuzzed by early morning mist, marked a dock. The helmsman kept his distance, dropping the rpm to a whisper and drifted past. Then he eased the throttle open to imperceptibly gain speed.

The drone of a diesel generator carried from the shore. Lyons peered into the chill darkness, watching for the second pier.

"Alla," the helmsman whispered, his voice like a shout to the tensed warriors.

Faint glowing spots emerged from the lightening night. Lyons hand-signaled the others. The PT boat stopped dead in the water as the assault force climbed from the rails. The men lowered themselves into the small boats.

Hands clutched ropes as men fumbled to their places in the dark. Lyons found his seat in a dinghy, felt the tiny boat sway and bob when the last man crowded aboard. Aluminum scraped fiberglass as the men with oars pushed away from the PT boat. The engine chugged again. The hull slipped away in the darkness.

Oars pulled at the black mirror of the river. Mist billowed and swirled. The men rowed quickly, carefully, never splashing, never banging the oars against the boats.

A black rectangle loomed against the gray sky. Pressing themselves low in the boat, the men looked up at the vertical wall of steel containers on a barge. A ray of lighted mist projected from the window of a toolshed on the docks.

Touching the earphone from his hand radio, Lyons keyed his transmit and whispered, "The current's carried us downstream. We might have a hot landing."

"Check," Blancanales answered.

"Maybe," Gadgets acknowledged from the canoe.

The oarsmen kept their strokes steady, silent. Lights on the riverbank made gray mist glow yellow. Lyons scanned the water behind them, caught two shadows sliding over the water: the other dinghy and the canoe.

Sand scraped the aluminum keel. Jamming the oars into the shallow water, the rowers steadied the dinghy as the other men slipped into the water. Lyons dragged his feet through the shallows, not risking a splash. Easing himself prone on the beach, he waited, listening. The other men fanned out around him. Ahead of them, a tangle of reeds stood motionless in the windless predawn.

A truck's engine revved somewhere. The drone of the diesel generator drifted to them from time to time. The second dinghy and the canoe slid onto the beach. Boots and sandals crushed the sand.

Lyons waited until all the movement behind him went still, then crept through the high reeds. He heard grasses swish against moving men. At the top of the riverbank, Lyons and the Xavantes came to raw mud and gravel. Staying low in the reeds, he scanned the cleared ground.

To one side he saw an open-sided steel shelter, only a roof on poles to offer workers a relief from the sun and rain. A single bare incandescent bulb dangled on a wire, insects orbiting the point of brilliance. The light spilled over a wide area surfaced with asphalt and gravel. Lyons keyed his radio. "No go here. A lighted parking lot. Bear to the south. I'll catch up."

Boots scuffed on asphalt. Lyons dropped flat, listened. He heard a mechanical snick. A rifle safety! They'd spotted him!

Ten yards to his side a cigarette lighter flared, the mist glowing for an instant. Lyons parted the reeds to see the ember of a cigarette arc as a sentry took a drag, then let his arm drop.

"We got a mere on guard here," he whispered into his hand radio. "I see only one. I assume there's two. I'm taking them out."

"Do it," Gadgets's voice answered from the tiny jack plugged into Lyons's ear.

First he crept back and found Thomas. Pointing toward the sentry, Lyons held up one finger, two fingers. Thomas nodded. Lyons pointed to Thomas and another man and motioned for them to follow. Then he snaked through the mist-damp reeds, closing in on the sentries. The odor of tobacco drifted in the mist.

They were racing the dawn. Lyons slid his Beretta from the holster and eased back the hammer. He moved on. He felt reeds catching his Atchisson, squeaking slightly as they slid over the plastic. He froze for a moment and listened. Boots paced the asphalt.

Lyons continued. One hand in front of the other, his belly pressed to the matted weeds, he closed distance.

His hand touched a face, the sleeping man's breath catching, his head turning away from Lyons's touch. Lyons scrambled inches forward, sliding his body over the man's head, his body deadening the slap of a slug smashing through a skull. The dead man thrashed for a moment, went slack soon enough. The other sentry still paced the road to the pier.

Easing forward, Lyons stayed flat. He watched the sentry pace and smoke. He waited. The mercenary turned his back. Lyons rose to a crouch and swung up the Beretta.

Headlights swept the reeds as a truck turned onto the pier road. Bouncing over the ruts and broken asphalt, the troop truck bore down on Lyons.

21

Caught in the headlights, Lyons sat back down in the reeds, his legs and boots still out in the open. The sentry turned, blinking against the glare. Blinded, the man turned to Lyons and spoke in Spanish. The truck downshifted, low-geared past Lyons and swung in a wide circle to turn around.

Two mercenaries hopped off the tailgate. Snapping up the Beretta again, Lyons put a single shot into the head of the sentry near him. Then he left the reeds in a sprint, his long legs straining against the weight of the weapons he carried. He fired three-shot bursts into the two mercenaries and then vaulted onto the tailgate.

Lyons was in a tangle of arms and legs; the Beretta's slugs slapped flesh. He kicked and elbowed, fired burst after burst into the mercenaries there. Dropping out an empty magazine, he jammed in another fifteen rounds. He heard steps behind the truck, whipped around, the Beretta on line for a target.

Thomas and three Xavantes were rushing toward and around the truck. Lyons heard a machete strike steel, heard tempered glass pop. A flurry of machete hacks chopped meat in the front seat.

Lyons saw a soldier on the road flop over and grab up a rifle. Snap-sighting, Lyons fired a burst. The slugs slapped the man's head sideways. Other slugs whined into the distance. The soldier still managed to lurch to his knees, shattered jaw and face hanging, and shouldered his rifle. Lyons fired more bursts into the almost-dead soldier's chest and face. The impacts finally knocked him down and out. That one did not want to die.

Keeping the auto-pistol pointed at the bodies sprawled on the truck's floor, Lyons grabbed dead men, dragged them to the tailgate one-handed, the pistol cocked, the safety off. Xavantes grabbed the bodies.

"Thomas!" Lyons called out. "Dump them in the brush. Hide them."

As he reached to grab another dead mercenary, an arm swung up from the floor with a knife. Lyons blocked the arm, fired a burst into a wounded man's face. Flicking the fire selector down to single shot, Lyons put a death-slug into two more palpitating mercenaries. Then he kicked them to make sure.

"Goddamn nine-millimeter!" he cursed. "It's not the right slug for this!"

Blancanales, Gadgets and the Indian warriors dragged the last bodies into concealment.

"Change in plans," Lyons announced. "Same routine but we ride. Yeah?"

"Make it, man," Gadgets agreed. "Full speed ahead."

"Thomas, Gadgets, get all the Indians in the back. Pol, you and me in front. Thomas, keep your radio on. We gonna whip some tricks."