"Everybody go down on one knee and don't use your weapons," Bradford said. "Got to be some primitive tribe in here that hasn't been contacted by the Mexican authorities. That's my guess. By kneeling, we show respect and subservience."

"What else would they respond to?" Murdock asked.

"Prescott got hit with a bird arrow, small, light, just a sharpened point on the stick arrow," Mahanani said. "Not sophisticated at all. Maybe if we sit down and put our weapons on the ground they'll come out, and we can make signs with them."

The SEALs looked at Murdock. "Yes, sit down. No loud talk and no threatening motions. If they shot just one arrow, they must be good with their bows."

The SEALs sat down in a defensive circle from habit, so they could observe in all directions. Murdock checked his watch. He'd give the shooter five minutes, then his team had to move. He wondered where the survivors of the shoot-out down below were. They were an hour ahead of the SEALs to get to the wreck if they'd kept going. Murdock used the Motorola.

"Flyboy One, can you read me?"

"Just barely, I moved two miles downstream. If you go much farther, I'll lose your signal."

"We're held up here in an old ruins. Come up past the wreck every two hours on the hour. It's now ten minutes to the first hour."

"Roger. That's...I say...that's..."

"Losing him," Lam said.

They waited. SEALs are good at waiting without talking, without moving. Mahanani had pulled the arrow out of Prescott's leg. It had been imbedded only two inches. There was almost no blood. He cut a slice in the cammie pants and put a bandage on the wound, then taped the pants leg tight to his leg.

Just before the five minutes were up, a solitary figure, holding a bow and nocked arrow and wearing only a short breechclout, stepped out from behind the wall of the tall stone building. The brown man stood less than five feet tall, had long, dark-black hair, and was slender and muscular.

Murdock stood slowly, left his weapon on the ground, and held out his hands, palms up in what he hoped was a sign the small man would understand.

"We come in peace," Murdock said.

The small man scowled and Murdock could see tattoos on his chest and face. He chattered something and lifted his bow.

Murdock shook his head. "We will not hurt you," he said.

With that, the native let out a cry and twenty warriors his size ran up beside him. All had their arrows nocked in the string, ready to be drawn and shot.

"Okay, somebody, get creative," Murdock whispered. "No way we're going to shoot down these aborigine men. We've got to think of something quick. These guys have lots of firepower and those dartlike arrows can cause great pain and death. Come on, men, some ideas."

29.

Prescott stood slowly, took a deck of playing cards from his combat vest, and proceeded to do Las Vegas dealer tricks. He fanned the cards and collapsed them. He spread them out on top of a fallen log and reversed them in a flash. He threw a card in the air and watched it vanish. He moved to Murdock and showed his open hand, then withdrew a coin from Murdock's nose.

The small men's eyes lit up and they smiled.

"Magic," Prescott whispered as he walked slowly toward the aborigines. They watched him, curious. He came near them and reached out toward one. The man shrank back. He reached toward the first man who had shown himself and pulled a coin from the man's ear. He flipped it into the group. The small men cheered. He went from one to another of the men, who now stood their ground. Five times he pulled coins from the men's noses, ears, or mouths and gave each man the coin. Murdock couldn't see the coins plainly but they looked like Mexican pesos.

Prescott took a white handkerchief from his pocket and carefully stuffed it into his hand, then went to throw it into the air and it had vanished. The small men gasped in surprise. Prescott turned around slowly, his arms outstretched, his head bent back so he looked at the tops of the tall trees. Then he stopped and said a dozen nonsense words. He stepped back to the head man and slowly pulled the handkerchief from the man's ear. When it was all the way out, the small men dropped to their knees and put their heads on the ground. Only the head man of the tribe remained standing. He smiled and grinned and bowed.

Prescott sat down in front of the head man and motioned for him to sit as well. When he did, Prescott took out an MRE package and tore it open. He displayed the many items of food and convenience on the mulch of the forest ground between them. He took out one of the energy bars and opened it; he broke it in half and took a bite of it. Then offered the other half to the head man.

For a moment the aborigine hesitated; then he watched Prescott chewing and taking another bite. The native nibbled on the bar a moment, his face frozen in worry and curiosity. Then he chewed and smiled. He ate the rest of the bar quickly and searched through the contents of the MRE for another. Prescott found one, tore off the wrapping, and gave it to him. He held it up, turned to his men, and shouted something. They all stood and hurried away.

The head man finished the second bar quickly and both he and Prescott stood. The head man waved his arms and motioned forward. Prescott smiled and nodded, and the SEALs stood and walked with caution past the small man and along what now became a trail near the side of the bluff that looked down into the valley where the crash had occurred.

The head man ran to the front of the group and made motions to Lam, who was leading. They were follow motions, and Lam moved in behind him.

"I think he wants to lead us down this trail," Lam said.

"Just so we stay near the valley on the left," Murdock said from the end of the group.

The small, dark man led them forward along what they now saw was a well-worn trail. Vines and brush had been systematically cut back, and they moved quickly.

A quarter of a mile farther up the incline of the mesa, the trail turned left, and below through the trees they could see the tendrils of smoke and the gleaming side of the airliner.

Lam stopped and pointed down, then pointed to himself and down the slope again.

The small man shook his head. He pointed ahead and held his hands a foot apart. Prescott had moved up and stood beside Lam. The aborigine looked at Prescott and smiled, and then he made the same motion with his hands.

"My guess is that if we go up a short way, the small native has an easier way for us to get down through the jungle," Prescott said.

"Let's give it a try," Murdock said.

Lam nodded and waved forward. The small man grinned and went ahead at a slow trot. The SEALs followed. A half mile on the trail along the lip of the mesa ridge, they stopped. To the left they saw another path that had been cut through the brush and vines. The small man pointed down and motioned them. Lam reached into his combat pack and handed the native one of his MREs. The aborigine smiled and nodded and bowed, then dropped to his knees and put his head on the ground. He remained that way until the last SEAL had pa.s.sed, and then he stood and ran on down a continuing trail, laughing and holding up the MRE.

Murdock moved up beside Prescott. "Where in h.e.l.l did you come up with that magic idea?"

"These looked like simple people, without a lot of imagination or smarts. A little magic could work wonders with them, I figured, and it did. Just glad that I had those Mexican pesos in my pocket and that old handkerchief. If I'd had my props, I could have put on a real magic show for them."

"You did enough. Those MREs are valuable currency out here."

The trail dropped rapidly, and within fifteen minutes they had moved down over a mile toward the crash site. Twice Lam stopped and searched the area around the airliner with binoculars.

"Don't see a thing, Cap," he said on the radio. "Nothing moving down there. Can't be any survivors in a crash that bad. Don't see any birds flying up either, or any sign of those two escapees from our quick little firefight."

"Move on," Murdock said.

The trail ended at the creek, now larger due to the rain. They found where the aborigines evidently came to the stream for water or bathing or ceremonies. A small cleared place beside a large pool may have been used for tribal rituals.

Lam turned them downstream. "Not more than a hundred yards to the end of the burn swath," Lam said. "Probably are parts of the plane up here. Maybe the wings or the c.o.c.kpit."

Twenty minutes of tough jungle battling later they came to the first part of the plane. It was still on the end fifteen feet of one wing.

"No fuel in this end," Murdock said. "So it didn't burn."

They walked through the burn strip now, since it was easier. Lam came past another chunk of the plane and kept going. He stopped fifty yards from what looked like the nose of the plane that had buried itself into the streambed. The rest of the group came up beside him.

"c.o.c.kpit must be ten feet into the ground," Bradford said. "Anybody in there when it crashed is sleeping with the fishes."

"The bomb couldn't have been up that far in the plane," Murdock said. "Let's go around this and get to that big section of the fuselage."

Before Lam could move out, a rifle blasted from ahead and a single bullet tore into Bradford's left shoulder. The six SEALs dropped into the brush and rolled behind trees. Two more shots came with the flat, booming sound that could only be an AK-47.

"I caught one in the shoulder," Bradford said.

Mahanani crawled over to him and went to work.

The shots came from the half of the fuselage ahead of them fifty yards. Murdock motioned for Lam and Prescott to circle to the left. He and Canzoneri went to the right. "Halfway," Murdock whispered.

Lam led out crawling through the brush and vines for ten yards to the left, then he stood beside a tree and looked at the crash. He shook his head and moved forward, down the gentle slope for thirty yards, slithering through the vines and brush by crawling, not walking. Easier that way, he knew, but slower. Prescott came behind him, following the scout's lead. This time when Lam stood in back of a tree, he saw they were directly opposite the large piece of the airliner, but forty yards away. He saw no shooters. He waited. Two minutes later a man in cammies dropped out of the broken-off rear section of the fuselage and worked slowly forward. He carried a rifle.

Lam moved his selector to 5.56 barrel and zeroed in on the man. Brush and trees got in the way of Lam's sightline. Then the man stepped ahead and the brush thinned, and Lam triggered off three rounds. The gunfire in the softly silent jungle sounded like thunder, then it quieted again.

The man with the rifle turned, as if surprised anyone was near him; then he bent in half, dropped the rifle, and sprawled in the edge of the stream beside the airliner. For ten minutes nothing moved around the broken aircraft. Then a machine gun chattered off two twelve-round bursts. The sound came from the other side of the crash site, twenty feet up the slope. The bullets snarled and thudded and ripped through the trees and brush around where Lam and Prescott lay. None hit them.

"Hear that, Cap? We've got a chatter gun on your side of the crash."

"Heard it. We pulled back. We almost ran into a squad of twenty men. Some in uniforms, some in civvies. A ragtag bunch, but all have good-looking rifles and then that d.a.m.n machine gun. Pull back to where we were, and we'll try to figure this thing out.

"Roger that," Lam said, and he and Prescott started their slow but invisible crawl back to their a.s.sembly point.

The six men lay in an arc aimed at the aircraft, watching for any movement toward them. "We pull back to the end of the trail," Murdock said. He checked his watch. Almost noon. He made a radio call, and the sputtering sound of the chopper came in.

"Read you, groundlings."

"Sky man, cut out for the city. Bring back the rest of the platoon. Stuff them all in your bird. Remind them to bring MREs and double ammo. Land where you did before. We'll have a guide to meet them. Do not fly over the crash site. We have some unfriendlies there."

"Understand. How many men?"

"Ten men. We don't need any more axes or machetes. Get them here as fast as you can."

"Roger and wilco."

Lam frowned. "Haven't heard that word for years. 'Wilco,' that means what, will obey your command?"

"Close enough," Murdock said. "Now let's get back and set up a base camp at the pond. Bradford, how is the shoulder?"

"Not the best, Skipper. But I can still do the duty."

"Good. Canzoneri, you heard the transmission. You've got two hours to get up the hill and to the brush beside that burn LZ. Then bring the rest of the troops down here. We'll wait until it gets dark, then move in on a black raid and try to take them out. The twenties won't work as well in all this brush and trees, but we'll get their attention. Where in h.e.l.l did Fouad get twenty-six to thirty men for an operation like this? And is the mastermind still alive or did he go down with the plane?"

"Oh, he's down and dead," Lam said. "He probably left instructions for the worst scenario. This is it, and somebody recruited a bunch of loyalists or mercenaries to come in and check out the bird and rescue the bomb if possible."

"A lot like us," Murdock said. "Only we haven't seen a chopper from the bad guys."

"We will," Lam said, "tomorrow."

Ten minutes later, Lam moved over to Murdock.

"Cap, I'm going out as an FO. I don't feel good not watching that site down there. We should know what they're doing."

"Right. Go. Be careful. Keep your radio on."

Twenty minutes later Lam was on the net.

"Hey, Cap, funny stuff going on down here. Not sure what. I hear what might be hammers. Some pounding. Maybe they're trying to get the bomb out of the crate. Would it be in a wooden crate?"

"Could be. If you see anyone outside, pick them off, then move like crazy. Wonder if we should send a couple of twenty-millimeter rounds into the trees over the crash. Might slow them down."

"I'd vote for that. Let me move a little so I can see the scene better. You have to move to get a clear shot?"

"Some. I'll let you know before we fire."

Murdock motioned to Fernandez, and they moved down the trail they had made to the burn swath. Still out two hundred yards to the body of the wreck, they stopped.

"One round each, airburst in the trees uphill on that blind side of the aircraft," Murdock told Fernandez. "Lam, two rounds, you clear?"

"More than clear here."

They fired, and the resulting airbursts in the trees showered the top of the crashed airliner with hundreds of chunks of shrapnel. It could do great bodily harm to anyone in the open near the back of the length of fuselage.

"Well, the pounding stopped," Lam said. "n.o.body is venturing out on this side of the plane. The body that was there has been taken away."

"Watch and wait. We have another two hours before we will have our whole platoon in hand. Then we figure out exactly what we're going to do as soon as it gets dark."

Lam kept watch on the crash site. The hammering had stopped and didn't start again. He reported spotting no one at the scene.

"What the f.u.c.k are they up to?" Lam asked on the radio.

"No good, count on that," Bradford said. He was moving his shoulder and arm to keep it functioning.

At sixteen-hundred, Canzoneri came back with the rest of the platoon. They all wanted to look at the crash site, and Murdock sent them up two at a time to the closest viewing spot.

"No noise and don't make the brush shake or you'll get a machine gun searching for you with hot lead," Murdock told them.

Just at dark they settled down for an MRE dinner. They were the new ones that heated up when you broke a seal. After that they huddled and Murdock laid it out.

"Tonight we take them out," Murdock said. "Here is how we're going to do it."

30.