Buckley listened. "Yes, very good. I'm giving the phone to Floyd. Explain to him what you propose…"

Floyd Jefferson took the telephone. "Yeah?"

He heard a deep voice. "I'm Rosario. We can't come in with those..."

"Yeah, yeah. Listen, we can work out a place to meet, okay. But hear me, you don't know where it is until we get there. I'm not walking into any surprises…"

"No problem. I understand."

"You'll follow us..." Jefferson put his hand over the phone. "Mr. Buckley, you still have that black Lincoln, right?"

Buckley nodded. Jefferson spoke into the phone again. "A black Lincoln Continental. Easy to follow. You can't lose us. You let us go in, wait a minute or so, then you show up. But no surprises, see? I am one very jumpy dude lately, and if you try anything tricky, I just don't know what I'll do. Hear me?"

"I hear you. No surprises."

"All right. Give us ten minutes and we'll be coming out of the garage exit."

"See you soon."

"Yeah, later."

Hanging up the phone, Jefferson turned to the others. "We'll go to your place, Bob. They'll follow us. But man, this could be a setup."

Jefferson gripped the sawed-off Smith & Wesson riot gun. He had hacksawed the barrel off at fourteen inches, then cut off the stock to leave only a curled pistol grip. Black electrician's tape wrapped the grip. He held his finger straight against the safety and trigger assembly as he slapped the weapon's pump grip into the palm of his left hand.

"They make a move on us, they are gonna suffer…"

Watching in the rear view mirror, Lyons saw the black Continental leave the office building's underground garage. The luxury car accelerated past. Putting his car into gear, Lyons entered the traffic of early-morning commuters and trucks. Blancanales, his passenger, cued Gadgets.

"That's the congressman's car."

Lyons spoke into his radio. "Let us lead. You stay out of sight. No reason to show them all our cards…"

"Check," Gadgets acknowledged.

Blancanales glanced at their partner as they passed.

Lyons stayed half a block behind the Lincoln as the black car sped from the Civic Center. In its back window, Lyons saw the silhouette of a head as someone looked back.

"Give them distance," Blancanales cautioned. "The kid sounded like a panic case."

"He's got reason." Lyons followed the Lincoln through a sweeping left-hand turn onto a one-way boulevard. "Most people couldn't cope with life on a death list."

"Remember Morales and Merida in our Guatemala hit?" Blancanales asked.

"They went to the wall. Guatemalans don't like traitors."

"Sharp dressers, remember? Italian silk suits, gold rings and watches."

"Merida looked more like a gigolo than a colonel."

"Remember the general's bodyguards the other night? At the reception?"

"So? You work for a rich general, you can afford flashy clothes."

"The ones in that parked Dodge..."

"I didn't see them."

"Men on a surveillance detail usually can't afford five-hundred-dollar suits..."

"I never could…"

"And if one can afford a five-hundred-dollar suit, he wouldn't wear it to sit in a parked car all night. Unless perhaps he worked for a billionaire."

Lyons laughed. "Hey, Rosario. I'm the paranoid. Not you. And what you're talking about is totally paranoid." Both knew Blancanales referred to a dangerously crazed billionaire known only too well to Able Team. "Why would Unomundo put a U.S. Congressman under surveillance?"

"Who hit his Azatlan base?"

"He doesn't know that we..."

"He saw you and Nate. Saw you face to face."

The Lincoln turned from the boulevard onto a winding avenue leading in to the homes on the Twin Peaks. Lyons slowed as a van roared past on the narrow avenue. He glanced at the van's passenger window and saw a middle-aged, gray-haired man in a conservative sport coat.

"Crazy San Francisco," Lyons commented. "Businessmen drive like hot-rodders. Pol, I want Unomundo, you know that. I got that Nazi's name on my list. But I'll have to go south to find him. He wouldn't send his people north."

"He sent his people to Texas…"

Lyons looked at Blancanales. "Yeah… but why this congressman? Buckley's a liberal, a dove. Peace to the world. He wrote that antigun amendment. Want to repeal the second amendment to the constitution. He thinks everyone should talk Russian..."

A buzz from their hand-radios interrupted Lyons. Blancanales keyed his radio.

"What goes?"

"You see those two straights in the van?" Gadgets asked.

Blancanales looked ahead. He saw the white van tailgating the Lincoln. "Yeah, they're ahead of us. Behind the Lincoln."

"That's because they're following the Lincoln..."

Lyons keyed his radio. "When did you spot them?"

"About a mile back. The one on the passenger side has a walkie-talkie..."

"But I saw him. He's an Anglo. Holy shit! They're hitting Buckley..."

A hundred yards ahead, beneath the overspreading branches that shaded the street, the Lincoln had stopped at an intersection. A gray-haired, overweight Anglo in slacks and a sport coat ran from the van. Acceleration slammed the passenger-side door closed as the van swerved past the Lincoln and into the intersection. Then it came to a screeching stop in front of the Lincoln.

The gray-haired Anglo pulled an auto-pistol from a shoulder holster. Pointing the weapon with both hands, he advanced on the trapped Lincoln. The other man left the van and pointed a CAR-15 at the Lincoln's windshield.

Jerking back the Ford's transmission lever into first, Lyons stood on the accelerator. He saw the scene float past as if in slow motion.

The Anglo on the sidewalk looked toward the sound of the accelerating Ford. A blast came from the right rear window of the Lincoln, the Anglo gunman's face and head disintegrating in a spray of blood and flesh, the corpse flying backward. Even as Lyons's Ford whipped around the Lincoln, the Lincoln accelerated in reverse, tires smoking. The cars passed in opposite directions, only inches apart as the second gunman's Colt rifle sprayed a burst of 5.56mm slugs.

Lyons did not slow as slugs ricocheted off the Lincoln to hit the Ford, breaking the side window. Blancanales braced his Beretta 93-R in both hands. The silenced selective-fire pistol sent a three-round burst into the chest of the gunman, then the van blocked his line of fire.

As the Ford smoked through the intersection, Blancanales leaned from the window to sight on the gunman behind them. The wounded man staggered back, the Colt assault rifle still gripped in his right hand, his left hand clutching at his chest.

Pivoting in the seat to point the Beretta, Blancanales aimed another burst, but the slugs went into the sky as Lyons slammed on the brakes. A car backing from a driveway blocked the street. A housewife with three children in the back seat of her station wagon stared at the firefight.

In the rearview mirror, Lyons saw the wounded gunman lean against the van. One hand clutching his bloody chest, the gunman struggled to raise his assault rifle. Lyons slammed the Ford into reverse.

Tires smoking, the Ford roared backward through the intersection. Lyons screamed to his partner, "Down!"

The rear window exploded in fragments of sparkling glass. Slugs punched into the seats, slugs spiderwebbed the tempered glass of the windshield. Then the rapidly reversing Ford's rear bumper hit the gunman and the van.

Crushing both his legs, melding his body into the sheet metal and frame of the van, the crash killed the gunman instantly. The impact threw the van aside. Whipping wildly from side to side on the street, side-swiping a parked car, the Ford careered on. Lyons pumped the brakes, struggling to bring the car to a stop as it hurtled toward the Lincoln.