Dropping down through the clouds in the borrowed DC-3, Grimaldi saw the flames. He eased into a wide circle around the mountaintop and watched the desperate firefight. From three thousand feet, he could see only the flashes of grenades and rockets. Streams of tracers streaked through the darkness. But he knew how many men — Able Team and their allies-of-expedience — he had dropped on a Honduran pasture. Those men now fought hundreds. When he returned with the Huey, he knew he would not take fourteen men out.
Grimaldi unplugged his headset. He slipped off the headphones and spoke into a Stony Man hand-radio.
"Able Team, this is the Eagle. Able Team, this is the Eagle. I'm up here with a surprise. Able Team, this is the..."
Lyons answered. Noise and autofire almost drowned out his voice. "What took you so long?"
Grimaldi glanced back to the cabin door before speaking again. No one had entered the pilot's cabin. "I got Agency people with me. They think we're over Ocotal, Nicaragua. How's it going?"
"Not too good. Had to shoot our way in. Still haven't found our man."
"Find him quick. I'm up here with five thousand liters of av-gas high-octane in plastic bladders. Give me a target. Won't make any bangs, but believe me, that place is going to be gone!"
"Stand by," Lyons told him. "We got to get organized. Over."
Replacing his headset, Grimaldi spoke into the intercom. "Gentlemen, prepare to crisp those Commie critters."
On his back behind the concrete foundation of a prefab barrack, Lyons hooked his hand-radio onto his web belt. Autofire continued from the offices across the wide asphalt traffic circle. A Toyota Land Cruiser sat on its rims, its tires shot flat, its windows shot out, the bullet-ripped bodies of the soldiers jerking as crisscrossing autofire from both sides of the lane smashed it again and again.
The School had been constructed around the central lane. Branching out from the center lane, side streets led to auditoriums and classrooms and service buildings. In the center, offices clustered around the traffic circle. Beyond the offices, rows of barracks occupied the other half of the mountaintop.
Fighting past the classrooms, the squad of North Americans and Salvadorans met the concentrated fire of hundreds of gray-uniformed soldiers pouring from the barracks. The surprise attack had killed scores of the surprised soldiers, but the attack had failed. Alerted by the airfield alarm, the fascist officers had gathered their troops to annihilate the few infiltrators.
Now, NATO-caliber slugs from G-3 rifles and M-60 machine guns smashed through the plywood-and-aluminum wall only inches above Lyons's face. He felt the slap of slugs impacting the concrete foundation. Staying flat, he snaked along the foundation to Blancanales.
The Puerto Rican ex-Green Beret, working flat on his belly, taped a field dressing to a Salvadoran's bullet-smashed ribs. He spoke loud encouragement to the guerrilla as he worked to tape the man's arm against his torso. Lyons shouted to be heard.
"The Eagle's up there! He's got a thousand-something gallons of aviation gas in fuel bladders to drop."
Blancanales raged with anger. "Don't even thinkabout another assault on those offices! He won't have any accuracy! We can't expect any kind of control. Grimaldi will burn us alive with that gas. You understand! Mister John Wayne hero motherfucker and your goddamned revenge!"
"Ease off," Lyons answered. He had never seen Blancanales this angry before. "I hereby vote for a withdrawal. No more of this, we're up against hundreds of them."
"What? Lyons the Brave recognizes a limit? Gracias a Dios!"
"Really, this is too much. Pass the word. The Eagle will drop that gas to cover the retreat. How's this Salvo?"
"Shattered ribs. Maybe bone fragments in his lung. But he can move. I'll pass the word to the others."
Blancanales spoke quickly to the wounded man, then went to Floyd. The two men spread word to the others. The survivors of the squad began a staggered retreat.
Lyons understood that he could not hope to search the base for Quesada. His bravado and daring had failed. He no longer thought of revenge, or of tearing information out of Quesada. He thought of getting his partners and friends out alive.
Counting by touch the Atchisson magazines in his bandolier, he found only three. Twenty-one rounds, plus three in his autoshotgun. He checked the setting of his fire-selector. Semiauto. Gripping the weapon, he joined the retreat.
He crabbed to the corner of the office building's foundation. A bloody Salvadoran with a Galil aimed single shots at the flashing muzzles of fascists across the street. But Lyons knew the lightweight 5.56mm slugs from the Galil might not penetrate the walls of the prefabs. Not like the 7.62 NATO slugs punching through the building above them.
Blancanales and Captain Lizco gathered their men. Scattered riflemen abandoned isolated positions. Darting from one building to another, throwing themselves flat behind the cover of the concrete foundations, the fighters assembled to continue the retreat.
Blancanales loaded one of his last 40mm shells. He aimed carefully at a window across the traffic circle. Captain Lizco braced his Galil, then shouted to his men.
The 40mm grenade flew through the window as the captain sprayed slugs through another window. The flash silhouetted fascists firing from inside. The firing stopped instantly as spring-steel shrapnel killed the fascists. The Salvadorans sprinted across the open ground.
Firing from other enemy positions now doubled. The prefab wall above the crawling men exploded with slugs and splintering wood. A rifle grenade burst in front of the building. Captain Lizco moved his men to the other end.
Lyons saw the men gathering behind him. He pointed out one window to the Salvadoran beside him, then pointed to himself and pointed to a second window. The Salvadoran nodded. Captain Lizco shouted out the signal.
The group bolted across the space. Lyons triggered quick semiauto blasts, punching steel shot into the faces of fascist gunners as the Salvadoran sprayed out a magazine of light 5.56mm slugs into other gunners.
All of the Salvadorans and North Americans made the dash untouched. They fired at the fascist line of autoweapons as Lyons and the remaining Salvadoran made their run.
Grimaldi radioed again from the DC-3 circling overhead. "Give me a call, you crazies! You can't do it all yourself."
"We got to break out," Lyons answered. "We got wounded. We're up against hundreds of them. And they ain't just goons with guns. We busted into a military base."
"Mark their position! I'll heat up the situation."
"Okay, I'll mark it with a burning car. Stand by…"
Blancanales listened in on his radio. Lyons pointed for Blancanales and Gadgets to continue. Then Lyons reloaded his Atchisson with slugs.
Gadgets shouted into his hand-radio. "Do it right, wingwipe. We're in the shit so deep we need a periscope."
The squad had the cover of a building for their withdrawal. Three riflemen directed fire at the offices and barracks to keep pursuers back as the squad crept backward.
Bolting to his feet, Lyons ran to the other end of the building. He eased around the corner. A dead fascist sprawled against the wall, his G-3 still locked in his hands.
Lyons set the safety on his Atchisson. Slinging the weapon over his shoulder, he stripped the man of his heavy-caliber rifle and bandolier of ammunition. On the soldier's web belt, he found a walkie-talkie and three rifle grenades. Though he had weapons, the attack on the base had surprised the soldier in the barracks. He wore gray fatigue pants and a silk pajama shirt.
Fitting a grenade to the muzzle of the G-3, Lyons aimed at the wrecked Land Cruiser and fired. The grenade smashed through the shattered rear window and bounced off the inside of the windshield. But Lyons heard no explosion. No gasoline flashed. A dud?
Searing white light illuminated the interior of the Land Cruiser. It had not been a grenade, but a flare. Lyons slipped another flare on the muzzle.
Behind him, the last Salvadorans withdrew. Alone against the massed rifles and machine guns of the hundreds of fascist soldiers, Lyons sighted the G-3's flare.
But the fascists had spotted him. A thousand slugs ripped the building. Lyons went flat, the grenade still in place as the building disintegrated above him. He heard shouts rallying the fascists.
He kicked the soldier's corpse into the open. Autofire destroyed it, dissolving the corpse in a pale spray of chopped flesh. More shouts came. The autofire stopped.
Lyons chanced a glance, pulled his head back instantly as slugs chipped concrete. He had seen fascists dashing into the open.
"I need a sideways periscope…" the ex-cop muttered to himself.
Gasoline roared, a yellow fireball rising above the traffic circle. Lyons's hand-radio buzzed.
"I see it!" Grimaldi told him. "Coming in, right now!"
"No! I'm..."
Autofire drowned out Lyons's voice. Booted feet ran around the corner. Lyons rolled, fired the G-3 like a pistol, felt the stock slam into his chest.
A fascist officer staggered back, clutching at the shaft of the flare protruding from his chest. Then the magnesium burst into chemical hell.
Lyons scrambled away, white light glaring, a hideous scream coming from the blazing soldier. Other fascists ran to the man's aid. Flicking the G-3's fire-selector down to full-auto, Lyons pointed the weapon and emptied the magazine. He saw men go down. Slamming in another magazine, he sprinted after the squad.
Slugs tore past him, then engine roar sounded in the sky. The night exploded in flames.
An incandescent chaos of screams and autofire surrounded him. The ammunition of cremated soldiers popped. Lyons dropped flat and squinted into the searing yellow wall.
Figures in flames fell thrashing, other soldiers ran silhouetted against the pyre of the offices. Lyons sighted and fired single bullets, dropping pursuers.
Hands grabbed him. He lashed out with a fist to hammer metal and flesh. A voice stopped him.
"Amigo! Amigo. Vengo!"A Salvadoran, perhaps five foot six, helped the hulking Lyons to his feet. The guerrilla had seen him fall and returned to help him.
Another Salvadoran sprayed slugs to cover the two retreating men. Engine roar passed over them again. Flamelight flashed in the barracks.
But the fascists pursued them. Lyons followed the others in the squad. They stumbled over the corpses of the Nazis they had killed on their way in. As bullets tore past, slamming into the prefab classrooms that covered them, Lyons heard Grimaldi call out over the radio again.
"Where are you? I got lots more to drop! Mark their positions and I'll..."
"The white flare!" Lyons shouted into his hand-radio. "Hit the white light!"
Lyons fitted the last flare onto the G-3. He checked the stenciled identification on the flare housing, saw the words for flare in three European languages. Then he stooped over a dead fascist and fired it into his chest.
As he sprinted away, white light flashed. Engine roar came from the night. The exploding av-gas seared Lyons's hair. Throwing himself behind the shelter of a classroom, he reloaded the G-3. He saw gray-uniformed soldiers, dropped each man with shots to their chests.
A blur of gray hit him. Hands closed on his throat. He knee-lifted the attacker, jerked the butt of the G-3 into the man's chin. He fired the bucking rifle into the downed fascist, plastic stabbing into his shoulder. The buttstock had broken off.
Lyons ran. A gray-uniformed soldier ran beside him, firing at the Salvadorans. Lyons swung the broken G-3 like a baseball bat into the soldier's face. Lyons did not stop to kill the screaming man. He unslung his Atchisson on the run.
A jeep roared up to the airfield gate, blocking the Salvadorans with a wild spray of fire from a pedestal-mounted M-60. Lyons saw his friends dive for cover.
Above him, he heard the engines of the DC-3. Aiming his Atchisson from the hip, he did not break stride. He ran straight at the jeep, snapping blasts from his auto-weapon. The standing machine gunner swiveled the M-60 at Lyons, then the man flew backward into the chain link fence, a gaping hole where a one-ounce slug had blown away his heart. Slugs smashed through the windshield of the jeep, the driver's right arm disappearing in a spray of gore, a rifleman in the passenger's seat losing his head, the jeep careering away.
Lyons dropped the magazine out of his autoshotgun, reloaded on the run, then sprawled flat on the asphalt and scanned the approach for gray uniforms. Salvadorans ran past him. He saw Blancanales, then Gadgets.
A hundred meters away, headlights raced toward the gate, autoweapons flashing from the sides. Lyons sprayed a blast of steel shot, then a bag fell from the sky, av-gas bursting in front of the fascists, a whoosh of petroflame instantly incinerating the men in the open jeep. Beyond the burning fascists, pillars of flame blazed upward.
Lyons screamed to the others, "Count everyone! Everyone with us?"
Blood sprayed with his words. He tasted the blood. Internal wounds.
Betrayed in Washington, battered beyond what any man could bear, pushed now to the furthest wall, Carl Lyons prepared to die. But life — the living in the midst of the dead — would not let him go.
"Specialist!"
Lyons squinted into the flames. Floyd Jefferson staggered from the smoke and shadows, one leg bloody. Floyd turned and sprayed rounds from his M-16, then lurched a few more steps and fell. Lyons groaned, raised himself and ran in agony to the journalist. He jerked him to his feet by his camera strap.
"Easy man! That's my equipment you're..."
One-handed, Lyons triggered a point-blank 12-gauge blast into the chest of a fascist.
"Can you run?" Lyons asked, blood filling his throat, his nasal passages.
Before Floyd could reply, Lyons whipped around, saw a gray form shouldering a rifle. Able Team's iron crazyman fired one-handed again, then fell in pain and rolled on the asphalt. He saw Floyd snapping photos of the inferno. He scrambled to his feet, lurched to the bleeding journalist and dragged him along with him.
Ahead, he saw his partners leading the group through the hole in the security fences. Lyons put his hand-radio to lips cherry red with blood.
"Eagle! We're going out the perimeter. Do the place. Do it all! Burn it!"
"Burn, baby, burn!" Floyd raved as it in fever, snapping more photos. "Did I get my hundred dollars' worth!"
"What are you talking about?"
"I had to pay one of those Salvadorans to stay behind," Floyd said, limping next to Lyons toward the darkness of the fence. "Portrait of a warrior's last stand! Boy, did I get what I came for."
"I didn't," grunted Lyons, pausing for his eyes to adjust to the darkness at the gate.
"No?"
"Quesada's in there somewhere."
They slipped through the fence and followed the glowing blue line through the darkness. Floyd pointed back to the Nazi base. Flames soared high into the night. He laughed.
"Even odds Quesada's in Hell right now." he said. "And if he isn't..."
The young reporter stopped a moment for emphasis. "He's got youafter him," he smiled, standing against a backdrop of fire, "for as long as he lives. And that, my friend, is exactly the same thing."