"Ten minutes, then," he concluded.

"All right," the captain agreed. "We haven't had much contact. We have all the weapons and ammo we need."

"So?" Escobedo asked.

"So we killed ten norteamericanos last night and we will kill ten more tonight."

"But the losses!" LaTorre objected.

"We are fighting highly skilled professional soldiers. Our men wiped them out, but the enemy fought bravely and well. Only one survived," Cortez said. "I have his body in the next room. He died here soon after they brought him in."

"How do you know that they are not close by?" Escobedo demanded. The idea of physical danger was something he'd allowed himself to forget.

"I know the location of every enemy group. They are waiting to be extracted by their helicopter support. They do not know that their helicopter has been withdrawn."

"How did you manage that?" LaTorre wondered aloud.

"Please permit me my methods. You hired me for my expertise. You should not be surprised when I demonstrate it."

"And now?"

"Our assault group - nearly two hundred men this time - should now be approaching the second American group. This one's code name is Team FEATURE," F lix added. "Our next question, of course, is which elements of the Cartel leadership are taking advantage of this - or perhaps I should say, which members are working with the Americans, using them for their own ends. As is often the case in such operations, both sides appear to be using the other."

"Oh?" It was Escobedo this time.

" S , jefe . And it should not surprise either of you that I have been able to identify those who have betrayed their comrades." He looked at both men, a thin smile on his lips.

There were only two road guards. Clark was back in the VW Microvan while OMEN raced through the woods to get to the objective. Vega and Le n had removed a side window, and now Vega, also in back, held it in place with his hand.

"Everybody ready?" Clark asked.

"Go!" Chavez replied.

"Here we go." Clark took the last turn in the road and slowed, taking the car right up to the two guards. They took their weapons off sling and assumed a more aggressive stance as he slowed the vehicle. "Excuse me, I am lost."

That was Vega's cue to let go of the glass. As it dropped, Chavez and Le n came up to their knees and aimed their MP-5s at the guards. Both took bursts in the head without warning, and both fell without a sound. Strangely, the submachine guns sounded awfully loud within the confines of the vehicle.

"Nicely done," Clark said. Before proceeding, he lifted his radio.

"This is SNAKE. OMEN, report in."

"SNAKE, this is OMEN Six. In position. Say again, we are in position."

"Roger, stand by. CAESAR, this is SNAKE."

"SNAKE, this is CAESAR, ready to copy."

"Position check."

"We are holding at five miles out."

"Roger that, CAESAR, continue to hold at five miles. Be advised we are moving in."

Clark killed the lights and drove the van a hundred yards down the driveway. He selected a spot where the road twisted. Here he stopped the van and maneuvered it to block the road.

"Give me one of your frags," he said, stepping out and leaving the keys in the ignition. First he loosened the cotter pin on the grenade. Next he wired the body of the grenade to the door handle and ran another wire from the pin to the accelerator pedal. It took under a minute. The next person who opened that door was in for a nasty surprise. "Okay, come on."

"Tricky, Mr. Clark," Chavez observed.

"Kid, I was a Ninja before it became fashionable. Now shut up and do your jobs." No smile now, no time for banter. It was like the return of his youth, but while that feeling was a welcome one, it would have been more so if his youth had not been spent doing things best unremembered. The pure exhilaration of leading men into battle, however, was something that his memory had not lied about. It was terrible. It was dangerous. It was also something at which he excelled, and knew it. For the moment he was not Mr. Clark. He was, again, The Snake, the man whose footsteps no one had ever heard. It took five minutes to get to their jump-off point.

The NVA were smarter opponents than these. All the security troops were near the house. He took Vega's night scope and counted them, sweeping the grounds to check for strays, but there were none.

"OMEN Six, this is SNAKE. Say your position."

"We are in the treeline north of the objective."

"Toss your strobe to mark your position."

"Okay, done."

Clark turned his head and the goggles showed the infrared strobe blinking on the open ground, thirty feet from the treeline. Chavez, listening on the same radio circuit, did the same.

"Okay, stand by. CAESAR, this is SNAKE. We are in position on the east side of the objective where the driveway comes through the trees. OMEN is on the north side. We have two good strobes to mark friendly positions. Acknowledge."

"Roger, copy, you are in the treeline at the road, east side of the objective. Say again, east of the objective, with OMEN to the north. Copy strobes to mark friendly positions. We are standing by at five miles," PJ replied in his best computer voice.

"Roger, come on in. It's show time. I repeat, come on in."

"Roger, copy, CAESAR is turning in with hot guns."

"OMEN, this is SNAKE. Commence firing, commence firing."

Cortez had them both at a disadvantage, though neither knew the whole reason for it. LaTorre, after all, had talked to F lix the previous day and been told that Escobedo was the traitor in their midst. Because of that, he had his pistol out first.

"What is this?" Escobedo demanded.

"The ambush was very clever, jefe , but I saw through your ploy," Cortez said.

"What are you talking about?"

Before Cortez could give his preplanned answer, several rifles started firing north of the house. F lix wasn't a total fool. His first reaction was to extinguish the lights in the house. LaTorre still had his gun aimed at Escobedo, and Cortez dashed to the window, a pistol in his hand, to see what was happening. Just as he got there, he realized that he was being foolish, and dropped to his knees, peering around the frame. The house was of block construction and should stop a bullet, he told himself, though the windows certainly would not.

The fire was light and sporadic, just a few people, just an annoyance, and he had people to deal with that. Cortez's own men, assisted by the bodyguards for Escobedo and LaTorre, returned fire at once. F lix watched his men move like soldiers, spreading out into two fire teams, dropping at once into the usual infantry drill of fire and movement. Whatever annoyance this was, they'd soon take care of things. The Cartel bodyguards, as usual, were brave but oafish. Two of them were already down.

Yes, he saw, it was already working. The gunfire from the trees was diminishing. Some bandits, perhaps, who'd been late realizing that they'd bitten off more than -

The sound was like nothing he'd ever heard.

"Target in sight," Jack heard over the intercom phones. Ryan was looking the wrong way, of course. Though he was standing at a gun, Colonel Johns had not mistaken him for a gunner, not a real one. Sergeant Zimmer was on the right-side gun, the one that corresponded to the pilot's seat. They'd come skimming in so low that Ryan felt - knew that he could reach out and touch some treetops. Then the aircraft pivoted. The sound and vibration assaulted Jack through all the protective gear, and the flash that accompanied the sound cast a shadow of the aircraft before Jack's eyes as he looked for other targets.

It looked like a huge, curving tube of yellow neon, Cortez's mind told him. Wherever it touched the ground, dust rose in a great cloud. It swept up and down the field between the house and the trees. Then it stopped after what could have been only a few seconds. Cortez couldn't see anything in the dust, and it took a second to realize that he should have been able to see something, the flashes of his men's rifles at the very least. Then there were flashes, but those were from farther away, in the treeline, and there were more now.