Gadgets covered Lyons. Soon he followed, also. Against the concrete wall of the fortress-house, none of the AK fire could touch them. The Indian gunners still fired at guard ports around the house. Gadgets returned Blancanales's weapon and the few remaining 40mm grenades. He took out the two hand grenades he carried and pulled the pin of one.

Waving his arms to the Indians, Gadgets sidestepped. The gunners held their fire as Gadgets slipped up to a shattered port and let the lever fly. After four seconds, he slammed it in. The blast silenced the rifleman inside. Gadgets dashed to the other rifle port, silenced it also.

Indians rushed across the asphalt. They crowded around the entry. Two warriors climbed through the shattered port and called out to the others. Several men followed. Thomas shouted to Able Team, "Inside door open, come!"

Fire from an AK hammered the steel. An Indian was slammed back. Lyons put his Atchisson through the hole in the steel. He sighted on an Asian at the end of the corridor. Steel shot tore a nine-inch wide hole in the Asian's chest.

Gadgets and Blancanales climbed up, got swept along in a charge, Indians firing shotguns continuously, men crouching down to reload, letting the others surge forward.

A grenade bounced from the guard station. Gadgets kicked it back, screamed to the others, dropped flat. Indians tripped over him, sprawling. Other men crouched as the grenade skittered to the end of the entry corridor. It spun like a top for an instant and came to rest against the security door.

The corpse of a Cambodian took most of the shrapnel and blast. A few steel razors slashed men's backs, peppering prone men with wounds. Bloody, they still rushed forward again. An Indian fired wild into the guard position, then pumped the Remington's action and fired again. A torn body flopped out. Blancanales rushed forward to strip three grenades from the guard's pockets. Gadgets found the door's power switch and hit it.

"Throw those grenades! Now, now, now!"

Blancanales jerked the pins out, lobbed a grenade, pulled another pin, threw that grenade hard. The blasts slammed the interior, one-two, one near the door, the second across the garden. Blancanales pulled the third pin. He snapped his head out for an instant.

He almost lost it. A burst of AK fire came from behind him. He whipped his head back in, bounced the grenade in that direction. He found one of his 40mm buckshot rounds and loaded his grenade launcher. Then he changed the magazine on the M-16.

"Don't!" Gadgets had found another grenade on a second dead mere, and he passed it to his partner.

Lyons charged up behind the attacking force, saw Blancanales let the grenade's lever flip free, count, then toss the frag. An instant after the blast, he dived through the door and rolled across flowers.

A tiny Chinese girl with an Uzi ran at him, her silk robe fluttering. Blancanales lifted his weapon. Simultaneous blasts from three Remingtons sheared away the upper half of her body.

Slugs from an AK hit the Indians, a warrior dropped, Blancanales spun, saw the shoulder and head of a man holding an auto-rifle. Firing the M-203, Blancanales saw the rifle and arms and head disappear in a spray of gore.

Remingtons and G-3s fired in one continuous roar as the Indians riddled the carved wooden partitions and painted screens inside Wei Ho's palace. Double-ought blasts ripped gaping holes through doors, walls, priceless Chinese art.

Able Team searched for Wei Ho. They killed everything that moved. A boy wearing a girl's gown and makeup ran from hiding, took a burst from an Indian through the back. Serving maids attempted a last desperate defense of their master with the AKs of dead guards. They died.

Lyons kicked a door as slugs punched through the wood. Spinning aside, he ran a few steps, slammed his shoulder against the wall. The carved partition crashed inward, knocking two Chinese guards to the floor. Lyons waved a burst of steel shot over them, their bodies suddenly masses of torn flesh and spilled guts. He saw the old man.

Wei Ho wore a gray English suit cut in the style of the thirties, his thin gray hair combed flat on his skull like a bank clerk. Rimless spectacles perched on the bridge of his fine-boned nose. He sat at a lacquered table, papers and blueprints spread before him.

"Would you kill a defenseless old man?" Wei Ho asked, his whine accented with the preciseness of British schooling.

Lyons brought up the Atchisson even as the old man's clawlike hand flashed. Dropping low, Lyons saw darts shoot over his head. He decided not to give the warlord another instant of life. He triggered an auto-burst of steel high-velocity shot through the ancient body. The three blasts ripped the old dart-wielder in two.

Rushing in, Blancanales saw the blank-eyed torso and arms drop to the floor, thrash for an instant, blood turning the conservative English suit's fabric to black. Lyons stared down at the dead Chinese. How could a frail old man contain so much evil as Wei Ho did?

"I think you killed him, Lyons. Now move it. We gotta hold this place until the cavalry arrives." Blancanales lifted his hand radio to his mouth. "Gadgets, he's dead. Lieutenant Silveres. Lieutenant! Send out the calls."

On the river cruiser, as the gunners on the deck continued raining high-explosive grenades on the mercenaries, Lieutenant Silveres pressed the transmit button of the long-distance radio, having been briefed by Gadgets on its workings, and sent a high-speed taped message by satellite to American stations in Bolivia, Peru, Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

Then he changed frequencies to radio his commander in the nation's capital of Brasilia.

"Men of the American Phoenix have torn into the heart of a great sickness. I was with them. We live. It is great to live! It is great to be here at this victory, greater than you will ever know! Allow me this moment of glory with these men. Then I return. But such men as these will never leave me in spirit. I salute them in your name. These damn Yankees...!"