He scrambled on all fours through the acrid smoke of the burning trucks. Clawing the Colt Python from the holster at the small of his back, he pointed the .357 Magnum at a smoke-shrouded form holding an AK.
As his finger tightened on the trigger, he saw a bloody teenager in the uniform of the Salvadoran army. Lyons's thumb caught the hammer at full cock.
"Amigo!" Lyons shouted out one of the few Spanish words he knew.
"Americano?" The sight of a blond, blue-eyed North American in slacks and sports coat on his hands and knees in the mud amazed the Salvadoran trooper. The youth grabbed the North American's coat and jerked him to his feet.
A guerrilla blundered into them. Lyons fired a 158-grain hollowpoint point-blank into the man's face. As the corpse fell back, Lyons snatched the AK from its grasp.
The AK in his left hand, the Colt Python Magnum in his right, Lyons dashed for the cover of a gravel pile. Beside him, the Salvadoran private grabbed a wounded friend from the ground. The young soldier dragged the wounded boy away. Lyons turned to cover their retreat.
Near the trucks, a guerrilla shouldered an RPG and aimed it at the careering Cadillac. Lyons thumb-cocked his revolver and sighted on the rocketer's head. He squeezed off the shot, saw the hollowpoint throw the man sideways.
The Communist's dead hand triggered the launcher. The rocket's primary charge sent the warhead skittering over the road and into a flaming truck.
Flame and black smoke enveloped the hillside as the RPG's warhead exploded, spraying metal and burning rubber from the already fire-gutted truck.
The sheet of flame churned into the sky. A guerrilla staggered from the flaming brush, his hair and beard burning, his hands and face melted. The flame-blinded Communist wandered in horror for an instant, then fell down the embankment and thrashed with the agony of slow death by shock.
In the Coupe de Ville, the lieutenant whipped the steering wheel from side to side, his foot holding the accelerator to the floor. The car shuddered as the tires spun.
"Carl's out there!" Blancanales shouted to Gadgets.
"That's their problem!" Gadgets yelled back.
A guerrilla saw the Cadillac swerving toward him. Despite the big car's high powered engine, the Cadillac seemed to move in slow motion, the engine roaring but not accelerating the vehicle as its spinning tires sprayed mud and gravel. The guerrilla calculated the path of the Cadillac as he dashed forward. He would fire directly into the open windows of the armored luxury car.
Both Lieutenant Lizco and Gadgets saw the guerrilla sprinting toward the Cadillac, AK flashing. Slugs hammered the steel of the car's fenders and doors. Lieutenant Lizco cranked the steering wheel in the opposite direction. Gadgets pointed his CAR.
The Cadillac careened sideways, the muzzle of the Colt autorifle touching the guerrilla's olive-drab uniform as Gadgets fired a burst.
AK slugs tore the leather seat mere inches behind the lieutenant. Then the mangled fender struck the guerrilla's legs like a sheet-steel ax, severing one leg, impaling the other. The Cadillac dragged the guerrilla over the road, his body tumbling like a tangle of bloody rags.
In a wide, sweeping turn, the lieutenant attempted to circle around the first truck.
The Cadillac left the ground.
What? Gadgets thought as he saw the scene of burning trucks and running men fall below him. Can this Cadillac Coupe de Ville fly?
Then the shock and roar answered his unspoken question.
A land mine.
After an instant of flight, the Cadillac hit the road. Steel-plate armor under the passenger compartment had saved Gadgets and Blancanales from the mine's blast and shrapnel, but not the vehicle. Minus the right rear wheel and fender panel, the Cadillac bounced to a stop.
The lieutenant attempted to continue. As he stood on the accelerator, the drive shaft, blast twisted and torn from the differential, flailed at the underside of the Cadillac like a rotary hammer gone wild.
Numb, disoriented, his vision spinning, Blancanales smelled gasoline. "Wizard, Lieutenant, out!"
A hand grabbed Blancanales. Gadgets leaned in the Cadillac and dragged Blancanales clear. Blinking at two suns, Blancanales realized he lay flat on his back. He felt his M-16/M-203 in his hands.
Pushing himself up with the butt of the assault rifle-grenade launcher, Blancanales's double vision saw two scenes of Gadgets throwing gear and weapons from the Cadillac while the lieutenant fired Lyons's Atchisson at guerrillas rushing the blast-wrecked Cadillac.
Slugs tore over Blancanales. Too dizzy to stand or run, he rolled onto his stomach. He braced his M-16/M-203 on the road and searched for the guerrilla gunner.
A teenager with a red hammer and sickle embroidered onto his beret rushed from the smoke. Blancanales sighted on the center of the two spinning images and pulled the trigger. Nothing. He touched the M-16's receiver. The magazine empty, the bolt had locked back.
His left hand found the trigger assembly of the M-203 grenade launcher. Closing one eye, he fired the grenade as the teenage Communist sighted his AK on the North Americans.
The 40mm HE fragmentation grenade disintegrated the boy's torso. Like half a marionette, the legs and pelvis danced about in the mud of the road as the dead boy's nerves died.
"Just use bullets, will you?" Gadgets shouted through the chaos. "That's overkill!"
Diving into the mud, Lieutenant Lizco and Gadgets escaped a searing wave of flame from the Cadillac as the spilled gasoline flashed. The fireball rose to join the smoke of the burning trucks and hillside.
Waiting until the heat-flash faded, Gadgets dragged two cases of Able Team equipment away from the Cadillac.
"Ammo!" Blancanales called out.
Lieutenant Lizco, dragging other cases, unslung a bandolier of magazines and tossed it to the North American.
Blancanales tore open a Velcro closure to find a box mag of 12-gauge shells. He slung the bandolier and his M-16/M-203 over his shoulder and pulled out his Beretta 93-R. Staggering to his feet, he searched the ground near the burning Cadillac for weapons and gear.
"We got it all! We got it!" Gadgets shoved Blancanales away from the fire. "Put out rounds!"
"I don't have rounds!"
"Here." Gadgets shrugged the Atchisson of his shoulder. "There's ammo for this monster somewhere..."
"I got it," Blancanales gasped.
AKs banging, three Communists broke from the smoke and flames and sprinted for the parked jeeps. Slugs zipped past Gadgets and Blancanales as the guerrillas sprayed autofire in all directions. Lieutenant Lizco returned the fire with a mud-splashed M-16. All three ComBloc weapons were pointed at the men staggering away from the burning Cadillac.
Blancanales flipped down the Atchisson's fire-selector and pulled the trigger at the three guerrillas. The assault shotgun roared in full-auto mode.
As he saw the running Communists contort in a mist of sprayed blood, the slamming recoil of the weapon knocked Blancanales backward. Sitting in the mud, he pocketed the empty mag and slapped in another magazine of 12-gauge shells. Before standing again, he glanced at the fire-selector and clicked it up to semiauto.
Across the clearing, Lyons heard the Atchisson booming. He lay behind the cover of the gravel pile and stacked pines with several Salvadoran soldiers, some wounded, others dazed. Teenage soldiers put out aimed shots into the confusion.
Lyons scanned the road and maintenance area for the guerrilla officer. He knew the value of capturing a member of the Communist command cadre. The officer would not only know the locations and patrol routes of guerrilla units, but also as demonstrated by the efficient and deadly ambush information on army movements. Perhaps he would have details on the security of Able Team's target, Colonel Quesada.
But black smoke drifted over the road and clearing, hiding the guerrillas and the surviving soldiers. He listened for the 9mm popping of the officer's Uzi. He did not hear the weapon.