Stripping off his sweat-soaked clothes as he walked through the brass and teakwood passage, Lyons shoved open the door to his stateroom, where he threw down his clothes and stepped into the shower.

The cold water felt like ice. For minutes he stood under the shower stream, his eyes closed, letting the chill water wash over his face and body. Only when he began to shiver did he reach for the towel.

Flor put the towel in his hand. He started back, reflexively. "Don't be afraid," she taunted. "I'm only looking. And you don't look too bad, considering the bullet damage."

He ran the towel over the welt of scar on his ribs. It hurt when he touched it. Sometimes he dreamed of looking down the barrel of the M-60 that had come within an inch of killing him on Santa Catalina Island. He continued drying himself. "I got the impression you thought staring was impolite."

"Impolite and counterproductive. Why'd you take the cold shower? Is it hot up there?"

He nodded. She wore a white canvas beach robe. She came close to him, dabbed at the cold water on his face and throat. Under her robe she wore nothing. Her body smelled of coconut oil.

"You know the worst part of this work?" she asked him. Lyons shook his head, no. "It's the boredom. When there's action, I'm too busy to think. But when I'm bored, I can't stop thinking. Come on," she said, as he smiled at her slightly. "We've got fifty-two minutes before you go back on watch."

* * *

Light from the radar screen cast patterns of green on Gadgets' face. The high-speed scans revealed several ships in the distance. He lifted the hand-radio to his lips: "Political Man in the Sky, you see any lights to the south or west?"

Thirty feet above the deck, Blancanales swept the night horizon with the binoculars. The Caribbean shimmered under a sliver of moon and the vast swirls of stars. From time to time a meteor scratched the night sky.

"Nothing in those directions. But I've got some lights to the east."

"Watch for anything unusual. The radar shows four ships between us and the mainland."

"Running without lights? Dopers."

"There's three navies operating dope patrols out here. Could be anyone. Keep watching."

Lyons leaned over Gadgets' shoulder, studied the blips. "Which one is the freighter?"

"Maybe this one," Gadgets pointed. "Or maybe this one."

"And the Colombian cutter?"

Gadgets grinned, pointed to the same two blips. "Or maybe the other one."

"Could be anyone out there, right? Good guys, bad guys..."

"Tourists, UFO's, ghost ships. And mucho dopos."

"What happens if they've got that stealth technology you talked about?"

"Then they don't show up on the screen. Lyons, my friend, why don't you go load magazines? Shoot at the moon, anything. You're making me nervous."

"You're nervous? This whole scene's got me twitching..."

Footsteps and Spanish conversation interrupted Lyons. The make-believe Senor and Senora Meza entered the control room. They both wore denim jump suits. Flor wore a black nylon windbreaker also. In their dark clothes, the undercover agents would make very difficult targets.

Even dressed for battle, Flor was lovely. Lyons just couldn't take his eyes off her.

"Are you three ready?" she asked.

"Hope so," Gadgets told her. Lyons only nodded.

She glanced at her watch, then leaned over the radar screen. "Contact in thirty minutes," she announced. "Remember, our plane will come while we count out the cash on the freighter. When we ignore their commands and attempt to flee, they'll rocket the freighter. Please, do not become confused and go to the wrong side of the freighter. The plane will strafe and rocket one side repeatedly. If..."

"I got it," Gadgets interrupted. "I know the routine."

"When I came in, you two were talking of nervousness. There can be no mistakes."

Gadgets pointed at Lyons, laughing. "That's the man with the nerves."

Lyons massaged the long scar from the .308 slug.

Flor smiled. "Try not to think about it."

Without further words, Flor and Senor Meza left the control room. Gadgets continued studying the radar screen.

"There's a blip here that bothers me. It's the size of a freighter, but it's moving too fast. Strangest thing."

"Don't even tell me about it." Lyons slung the XM-174 grenade launcher over his shoulder, let it hang by its strap. He took an M-16, checked the tape that bound the two thirty-round magazines end to end. Then he buckled a web belt of magazine pouches around his waist.

Gadgets looked at all the armament. "All right, peace through superior firepower. Twenty eight minutes until whatever."

Lyons went out to the night to wait.

* * *

Rotor-throb descended from the stars. High above the yacht's deck, Blancanales leaned back against the safety strap and quickly swept the sky with the binoculars. He found a black silhouette. Even as he keyed his hand-radio, Gadgets' voice boomed over the yacht's loudspeakers: "Gentlemen, this is most definitely an unexpected event. Repeat, this is Number Ten. Number Ten."

Flashes on the horizon caught Blancanales' attention. He focused on the southern horizon, saw red tracers stream from the distant sky. Dashes of red and orange tracers arced upward, then one more flash revealed the deck and superstructure of a freighter. The scene became as bright as midday as a magnesium flare floated down on a parachute.

The white light glinted off of the wings of a prop-plane.

"Oh, shit," Blancanales muttered. "Somebody screwed up." His hand-radio buzzed. Lyons' voice came on:

"What's going on?"

"Mucho problemas."

Like a jackhammer on steel, the sound of tracers raking the deck of the freighter banged alongside the yacht. Ricochets buzzed in all directions, some invisible, others searing red. Blancanales watched lines of tracers shoot from the silhouette of the helicopter above them. Then the gunner targeted the yacht.

A long burst ripped the length of Able Team's sailing vessel. Blancanales watched the curtain of red phosphorescent tracers pass within an arm's reach of him. The roar of the passing slugs was an unforgettable sound. The wooden mast he was hanging from bucked and shuddered with the impacts of slugs. His hand radio buzzed again. Lyons yelled: "Get out of there! That stuff passed so close it lit you up."

Scrambling down the mast's ladder, Blancanales did not stop to answer his comrade-in-arms. Only when his boots hit the deck did he key his hand-radio.

"I'm down. Where are the Mezas? We gotta get out of here!"

Shouting came from the deck of the looming freighter. Fifteen feet above where Lyons stood, he saw a man brace a weapon on the freighter's railing and fire at the helicopter. It was a belt-felt machine gun. Brass showered down on Lyons. He saw a line of tracers cross the fuselage of the helicopter.

The rotor-noise deafened Lyons as he ran to the rear to identify the freighter's boarding ramp. He crouched as the helicopter's door gunner sought out the machine gun on the freighter's deck. Tracers sparked in the shadows.

Xenon light revealed the machine gunner on deck. He lifted the heavy weapon and fired from the hip. Tracers crisscrossed. The xenon beam died as slugs slammed into the helicopter. Then the machine gunner died, a stream of tracers from the helicopter finding him and slamming him back against the railing. Lyons watched the slugs rip through the man's body, tracers blazing through him to punch into the yacht's deck. Burst after burst hit the dead man.

"We must board now," Flor called urgently to Lyons. She hurried up the ramp, a CAR-15 in one-hand, a satchel in the other. She had the collar of her jacket turned up. The copter was gone.

The boarding was hasty, uneventful. The business was accomplished wordlessly, in a silence blessedly rotor-free.