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