"Pol!"

"Can't! Cannot do it."

Letting his assault shotgun hang from his shoulder by its sling, Lyons snatched up the Uzis of the dead men. An Uzi in his left hand, he leaned from cover and sprayed out the magazine. Return fire smashed into the truck. Lyons felt blood flowing down his arm. Blood dripped from his sleeve.

The blood of other men covered his sports coat. He could not see his own wound. He could not stop to find it. Dropping the blood-slick Uzi, he shifted his position. NATO slugs tore through the truck as riflemen tried to kill him.

Blancanales answered with the FN FAL para-rifle.

Over the sights of the Uzi, Lyons saw a fascist stagger back. Then the Remington 1100 blasted a gunman's face and hands away. Lyons spotted a leg and put a burst of 9mm slugs through it. As the wounded man clawed at the concrete, another burst killed him.

Fascists retreated to the ramp, trying to gain the safety of the street. The Ochoas cut them down with shotguns and bursts of .45-caliber slugs. Gadgets broke cover and pursued the fascists, firing quick bursts from an Uzi into any fascist still holding a weapon.

A wounded man with a pistol got a 3-shot burst to the face. A running fascist got four 9mm slugs through the back. A soldier in camouflage-patterned fatigues tried to tear a grenade from his web belt but died.

Lyons changed magazines and charged, killing everyone in front of him. Wounded men, fascists crawling to escape — blasts of 12-gauge ended their allegiance to the Pan-American Reich.

A shot zipped past Lyons's face. He whirled, unleashing a full-auto burst from his Atchisson. A fascist with a pistol disintegrated as three blasts of double-ought and number-two buckshot ripped away an arm, opened his chest and tore off his head.

"Where's General Mendez? Where's Gunther?" Lyons shouted to the others as he searched for another Atchisson magazine in his pockets.

"I think the general made it out," Gadgets called back. As the firing died, he took that moment to change Uzi mags. "I haven't seen Gunther."

A full-auto burst from an M-16 chipped concrete, the high-velocity 5.56mm slugs whining and ricocheting through the garage.

Caught in the open with empty weapons, Lyons and Gadgets looked up the ramp. Lieutenant Soto and a wall of black-clad Mexican army commandos stood at the top.

Each of their rifles pointed at the North Americans.

16

Spinning to face the line of soldiers, Lyons slammed a magazine into his assault shotgun and thumbed down the fire-selector to full auto.

Gadgets screamed, "Don't. They're good guys!"

Lyons stopped an instant before his index finger touched the trigger. "What?"

"Yeah, man. The lieutenant's okay. He tried to stop the colonel from taking us here. And he got banged upside the head for thanks."

Setting the safety of his Atchisson, Lyons strode up the ramp to the Mexican soldiers. The lieutenant directed his soldiers to form a cordon around the entrance. He motioned Lyons back.

"You cannot be seen," Lieutenant Soto told him. The young officer accompanied him down the ramp. Lyons saw that a huge scab of drying blood matted the lieutenant's black hair. "There will be much trouble soon. I may lose my commission. Or I may be a hero. But first we must do what must be done."

"Now do you know what's going on?" Lyons asked.

"Yes, now I know."

Blancanales greeted the lieutenant with a quick medical exam. "How's your head? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseated? Do you have a medic with you?"

"We cannot take the time," the lieutenant replied. "The criminals fled to another building. When we attempted to detain the fascists, they fired on my men. We know where they are, but an assault from the street is not possible. What do you know of these fascists?"

Blancanales saw blood dripping from Lyons's coat sleeve. "You got hit."

"Their commander is someone named General Mendez," Lyons answered the lieutenant first. Then he made a fist and moved his arm for Blancanales to see. "It still works."

"Alfonso Deloria Mendez was very important in the previous administration," the lieutenant told them. "I recognized him from parades. That means we must act tonight. Now, he probably calls the ex-president and his friends for help. Tomorrow we cannot touch him."

As the lieutenant spoke, Miguel Coral joined the group. Lyons turned to him. "They ran to a building near here," he said to Coral. "You know anything about it?"

"Nothing. What is the problem?"

"They look down on the avenida," Lieutenant Soto said. "Their machine guns fired down on my men. We cannot assault from the street. And we cannot call for other units. No airborne troops, no armored forces. I only trust the men with me. And you North Americans.''

"No other way into the building?" Blancanales asked. "Is it possible we could fire down from another building?"

"The tower of Trans-Americas S.A. is the highest in the area."

Coral glanced at his watch. "Soon, with luck, you will have your airborne forces. Perhaps ahorita."

"What?" the lieutenant asked.

"The helicopter. When our surveillance men saw you soldiers, we warned the pilot, Senor Davis, and the Yaqui. They went to get the helicopter. We thought it would be the best way to escape the city."

"And what about Vato and Ixto?" Lyons asked.

"I will radio." Coral called to one of his men. The man took a walkie-talkie from the panel truck and ran to Coral. Flipping the switch, they heard only static. Coral went up the ramp to the open air. He spoke into the radio. After a few seconds, he returned.

"The helicopter comes. All the boys are with it."

"We will take the helicopter," the lieutenant told the North Americans. "With it, my platoons can land on the top of the building, where the criminals will not expect them."

Gadgets glanced to the blood-splashed, corpse-littered floor of the garage. "The unexpected is hitting a lot of people today," he said.

"Thought you didn't want to fly this thing anymore." Leaning forward to the pilot station, Lyons shouted over the rotor noise to Davis. The DEA pilot checked his instruments as soldiers boarded the helicopter.

"I don't! This thing's junk." Davis turned to glance at the soldiers crowding through the door. He saw Lyons's clothes. "Man, you look like you been rolling in blood."

"I have."

"I believe it. Your gear's back there. All those Mexicans are in blacksuits. And from what I understand, they're going to be shooting goons who are wearing clothes just like those. There could be a misunderstanding."

"You talked me into it," Lyons said, glancing back to check out the packs of gear secured to the seat frames and the gun mount.

The helicopter idled on the roof of a high rise. A block away, the Trans-Americas S.A. tower stood against the sky, its office lights creating random patterns of white and black. Several soldiers stood outside the radius of the rotor blades. They would take the next flight to the roof of the fascist headquarters.

Lyons tossed out his partners' gear. "Wizard! Pol!"

"Thanks," Gadgets shouted. "You go with the lieutenant. We'll come over on the second trip." Gadgets carried the packs back to Blancanales, waiting with the Yaquis.

Lyons's pack had been lashed to the door gun's mount by its hip belt. He pushed aside the barrel of the M-60 and stripped off his blood-crusted sports coat and shirt. He paused to find the wound. A bullet had grazed his left forearm. It would not even need stitches. Just another scar.

He did not take the time to change from his gray slacks. He pulled on his faded black fatigue shirt. It stank of sweat and dust from the Sonora desert. Over his fatigue shirt, he slipped on his Kevlar and steel battle armor and slapped the Velcro closures. The Kevlar would stop all low-velocity bullets and shrapnel. The steel trauma-plate insert over his heart and lungs would stop all rifle bullets. The armor had saved his life before, stopping a point-blank burst from a Kalashnikov in an Able Team battle in Cairo.