"You punk," Lyons cursed. "You bozo excuse for soldier. Your men are getting killed and you won't talk sense. You just lost your command. Pol, tell those soldiers out there what to do."

"Can't do it. They wouldn't listen to me. He's their officer. Lieutenant, may I suggest that you take us prisoner later?"

"You surrender?"

Lyons refused. "Noway!"

Blancanales negotiated. "We'll continue talking after..."

Gadgets solved it. "Hey, Lieutenant. Our cars are shot to shit, we're on foot, we're in a strange city — how're we going to get away? Talking about surrender don't mean a thing. Because you got us."

"True," the lieutenant said. "And perhaps the other things you said are true. But there will be many questions. For you and whoever sent you into my country. Stay here."

They heard his boots hit asphalt. He called to a soldier. At the other end of the alley, weapons flashed, the gunmen firing when they heard the lieutenant's voice. Trash scattered, cans rolled.

"Whose side is he on?" Gadgets asked.

"He doesn't understand the situation," Blancanales answered.

"I do." Lyons dropped off the loading dock. Crabbing across the asphalt, slugs zipping through the night above him, he blundered into someone and banged into the car.

"Who is..."

"That you, Vato?"

"Si. Qutes.... What is the problem?"

"Problem's over. Where's Jacom? Anything from Ixto or Davis or Kino?"

"Nothing from the others. Jacom is there." Vato pointed somewhere in the darkness. Lyons could not see his hand.

Then the night went white. The alley became a black-and-white scene of shifting forms and lines touched by bursts of red. The warehouses, the loading doors, a gunman running in the center of the alley — the scene and moving images oscillated as a searing white point of light above the alley swung on a tiny parachute.

In the flare light, the soldiers sprayed full-auto 5.56mm bullets at the running gunman. The cloth of his suit shook and rippled with the impacts of high-velocity slugs. A mist sprayed behind him, thousands of tiny drops glittering with magnesium white light. Dead in the air, the gunman never completed his stride.

"Los otrosl"The lieutenant shouted again and again.

Soldiers aimed their weapons at the gunmen at the far end of the alley, where several sedans and pickups blocked the exit. The white glare exposed three gunmen in the open. Rifle fire from the platoon threw one man against a truck, spun another. The third man went flat behind a mound of trash. Bullets tossed bits of garbage into the air. Cans clanked and jumped.

Lyons took his Atchisson from the car. He took two full Atchisson mags from the floor and shook off the broken glass. The mags went in the left-hand pockets of his pants. Snapping back the cocking lever to chamber a round from the magazine in the weapon, he waited.

Tires skidded, headlights appeared at the other end of the alley as the International cut off any escape.

Lyons closed his eyes against the flare light and waited. The firing continued, the squads of gunmen targeting the soldiers.

Lyons waited with his eyes closed, breathing steadily, preparing himself for the sprint. He calmed himself despite the firing of the autoweapons and the screams and the shouting.

The alley went dark. Lyons dashed across the alley. He had almost no vision in the dark, but he heard other shoes running, then saw two shapes with Uzis. Lyons threw himself against a wall, stumbled through trash, found a doorway. The Uzis fired. The platoon replied with one long ragged burst, high-velocity slugs singing past the doorway, ricocheting from concrete and steel, a man grunting with the shock of a wound. Then the alley went white again.

A Mexican in a sports coat stood beside Lyons. As the Mexican brought up an Uzi, Lyons slammed him with the butt of the Atchisson. Stunned, the gunman fell back against a steel door. Lyons kicked the Mexican, driving a full-power karate front kick into the man's crotch. Gasping, falling forward, the gunman took another kick in the face.

Slugs tore past the doorway. Lyons untangled the Uzi from the semiconscious man's hands.

Hands grabbed him from the back. Lyons whipped around, swinging the Uzi in his left hand like a hammer.

A dying gunman, his clothes soaked in his blood, his nose and one eye gone, fell on Lyons. Lyons threw the blind man aside, then kicked him in the throat. The blind man clutched at Lyons's foot.

Scanning the alley for other fascists, Lyons smashed his shoe down on the gunman's throat, crushing his larynx. He died choking as Lyons stripped off his belt and used it to tie the hands of the first gunman.

Searching their pockets, Lyons found a revolver and spare Uzi mags. The revolver went in his coat pocket. He put a full mag in an Uzi. The Uzi in his left hand, his Atchisson in his right, Lyons crouched in the doorway, waiting as the flare swung lower and lower in the sky.

The alley went black. The fascists threw grenades into the darkness, the blasts coming in one ragged explosion. The fire from the soldiers stopped. A group of gunmen rushed past Lyons, their Uzis and sawed-off shotguns flashing. Lyons sprinted from the doorway.

A gunman crouching behind a sedan saw Lyons, but didn't fire. Like the fascists, Lyons wore slacks and a sports coat. The moment of hesitation cost the fascist his life. Point-blank, Lyons triggered a one-handed burst of 9mm bullets into the gunman's face.

As Lyons wove through the cars, another gunman turned toward him, with a bloody bandage on one arm, the other hand holding a pistol. A single blast from the Atchisson threw him back.

A bullet ripped past Lyons's head. He dropped and spun, his left hand spraying slugs.

Full-jacketed 9mm parabellums gouged car steel, broke glass, tore through the legs of a charging fascist. A slug shattered a femur, the leg bowing outward. The man went down screaming, clutching his twisted leg. Lyons put a 2-shot burst through the top of the fascist's head, and the Uzi's bolt slammed down on the empty chamber.

Another flare popped. Lyons crouched between the cars. He heard firing coming from the street. The cars and trucks blocked his view. He scanned the area around him, saw two gunmen with M-16 rifles climbing stairs to a warehouse roof. Lyons dropped out the spent Uzi mag, then jammed another into the Israeli machine pistol. He slung the weapon, letting it hang on his left side.

Putting the Atchisson to his shoulder, he sighted on the fascists going to the roof. A blast of double-ought and number-two steel shot threw one man against the concrete wall. The other man turned, took a storm of steel balls in the chest and face. Screaming, blood spraying from his torn lungs and throat, he fell back against the wall, lurched forward and finally fell over the railing. He screamed some more as he dropped to the street.

Footsteps pounded between the cars. Lyons heard the gunmen shouting to one another. He understood some of the panicked words.

A grenade bounced over the asphalt. Lyons kicked it away, heard it roll under the nearest car and continue beyond. Still crouching, he stepped up into the open door of the rental car.

The grenade flashed, thousands of tiny steel razors zipping under the parked vehicles, tires blowing, a man screaming. Another grenade bounced on sheet metal. This one fell next to the car in which Lyons hid.

Scrambling across the back seat, he saw a gunman standing in the back of a pickup. The gunman watched the space where Lyons had been. When the grenade banged, Lyons fired the Atchisson once, flipping the fascist backward.

A fireball rushed up into the night from the car's ruptured gas tank. Lyons ran from the flames. Forms moved in the orange light. Firing single shots, he dropped one after another. Then he rushed into the open, away from the jam of International vehicles.