"Now we know they're serious."

"It could've been me!" Jefferson blurted out.

"But it wasn't," Blancanales told him.

"And it won't be," Lyons added. He looked to his partners. "We got a plan yet?"

Jefferson's voice cracked with a sob. "And... and that's what they did to the Riveras. Those little kids…"

"We don't know that," Blancanales told him.

"But they disappeared. I went there and it was like they were never there."

"Think about it," Lyons told him. "Gunmen show up to take the family. Two, three, maybe four of the Blancos. The mother and father know what's about to happen to them and their children. They'd fight. Kids would scream and cry. In a crowded apartment house? This isn't El Salvador..."

Jefferson nodded. "People in the barrio watch out for each other."

Lyons continued. "Did they leave any clothes? Any luggage? A death squad wouldn't stop to pack up the family's belongings. Not with crying children and screaming neighbors and every homeboy on the street putting out rounds. This isn't El Salvador. Everybody's got a pistol or a shotgun. That death squad wouldn't make it to the street. I hope our esteemed representative..." Lyons turned to the mourning congressman "...will consider that fact the next time he authors an amendment to the constitution to repeal the right to bear arms. Those revolutionaries who wrote the constitution and bill of rights, they knew something you don't, Mr. Buckley."

"Stop it!" Blancanales lunged across the coffee table to silence Lyons.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll write a letter. I'll write a letter saying that a Mr. David Holt would be alive if he'd had a pistol in his pocket."

"I apologize for my loudmouthed associate," Blancanales told Buckley. "This is not the time for his speeches. He is a good man but he has no grace..."

"I got no grace," Lyons interrupted, "but I got the plan! There are three things we have to do. Protect Floyd Jefferson. Find and protect the Riveras. And break the Guerreros Blancos. We can't do that in San Francisco. I say we go to San Diego. Take Floyd with us."

"The police are looking for him," Gadgets countered. "They'll be watching the bus stations and the airport. We take him to the airport, he's gone. And not to San Diego."

Lyons shrugged. "We drive, then. Four hundred, five hundred miles. We dump that wrecked Ford, rent another one. We'll be there tonight."

"Take my motor home," Prescott offered. "If anyone got your license number today, all of you are fugitives. The police can trace you through those rented cars. They could intercept you on the highway."

"A motor home." Gadgets grinned. "What a luxury."

"Doesn't go very fast but it's very comfortable. Allow me to make one suggestion."

"What's that?" Lyons asked.

"Floyd, those photos from Miami. You should leave the negatives with our office..."

"Noway!"

"For safekeeping. You lose the negatives, it all comes apart. We have no case to present to a court."

"No way, Bob." Jefferson shook his head, repeated, "No way. I got three killings to explain. That short little fella..." the young reporter pointed to the sawed-off shotgun near his feet "...will keep me alive. The negatives will keep me out of San Quentin. They go where I go."

Prescott shrugged. "If that's the way you want it. I'll go get my camper out of the garage."

The others sat in silence for a minute. They heard Prescott slide open garage doors. An engine started, sputtered, finally idled. Prescott's footsteps crossed the driveway. Looking to Lyons, Chris Buckley broke the silence with his first words since he had learned of the death of his friend.

"Perhaps I am a Utopian. I believed I was acting in the best interests of the people of the United States when I proposed the amendment to limit the possession of weapons to security personnel. Until all this began, I did not doubt my reasoning that this is no longer a frontier nation, that this is now a nation governed by laws and protected by sworn personnel. I have faith in our country's criminal justice system — despite all its flaws — and I will always believe that law and justice and compassion, rather than force, will create an American culture that will be the envy of all nations.

"David Holt shared my beliefs. And now he is gone. You need not write that letter to me. Perhaps I should temper my Utopian hopes with pragmatism. Perhaps we arestill a frontier nation. It is one thing to hear of the suffering of others, it is another thing entirely to lose a friend. He was a fine man. Wealthy, yet concerned for those less fortunate. Totally committed to the future of our country. I have one request to make of you..."

Lyons looked to his partners, then turned back to the congressman. "What? What can I do for you?"

"When you find those who killed my friend..." Chris Buckley's hand closed into a fist "...do justice."

16

As Blancanales piloted the borrowed motor home south from San Francisco, Jefferson spun through the AM and FM radio stations. He paused to listen to news programs. Finally, he heard a report on the four killings:

"…investigators report the two men carried false identification. They had given an airport car-rental agency false names and identification. In what may be a related crime, two other men died this morning in a horrifying incident in the Twin Peaks area. Witnesses reported a number of gunmen firing weapons. Police refuse to link the killings last night and this morning, but they also refuse to comment on witnesses' statements indicating sawed-off shotguns were used in both shoot-outs…"

"You hear that?" Jefferson asked Lyons.

"You're famous." Lyons did not pause as he searched the interior of the motor home.

"I hope not…"

Standing feet apart to brace himself against the sway of the moving vehicle, Lyons had begun his search with the drawers of a kitchen cabinet converted to a desk. The furnishings and decor of the coach indicated Prescott used the thirty-foot-long vehicle not for vacations but for precinct work. The sink and enclosed toilet and the rear bedroom remained, but the aide had remodeled the motor home to reflect his European taste in design. Gray industrial linoleum covered the floor. Curtains had been replaced with pull-down shades. White sheet plastic covered the walls. Steel and cloth folding chairs replaced all the couches and bucket seats. Wall-mounted telephones lacked only connecting lines to create a self-contained political office. With the breakfast table and couches gone, the interior became almost spacious.

Lyons pulled out the first drawer. It contained pens, pencils, felt markers, and the congressman's letterhead stationery and envelopes. Lyons examined every pen and eraser, then looked at the underside of the drawer.

"What you doing, Ironman?" Gadgets called out from the bedroom. The Stony Man electronics specialist had spread out all of his equipment on the fold-out double bed. "You think those liberals put a bomb on board?"

"No. Maybe a microphone. Maybe a cassette recorder."

Jefferson swiveled around. He sat in the second bucket seat immediately next to Blancanales, who was driving. "Bob wouldn't do that. He's a good guy. Ricardo, he and I were like brothers."

"Marquez was a reporter, right?" Lyons asked. "And you're a reporter?"

"When I can get the work."

"Did Prescott give you stories?"

"Sure. The congressman's Mr. Conspiracy himself. Always investigating something."

"Well, no one's going to be reading about usin the newspapers." Lyons set the drawer aside and pulled out another. He examined rolls of sealing tape and wrapping paper.

"But they're with us," Jefferson protested. "They won't go public on us."

"They would if they got the chance. That's why I shot off my mouth like I did. They were so smooth, I just had to hear what they really thought. And the congressman told me."