Now I know where the bureau gets these dogs, they buy them used from rental companies. But I won't have to drive these used-up wrecks next year. Take an early retirement, pack up my bag of Salvadoran gold, move someplace where the living is easy. And the peasants obedient. And the little girls hot for dollars. If Quesada and his boys deal with the revolution, El Salvador would be great. If not, I'll go where they go…

Gallucci had no problem following the blue Dodge. Prescott followed the San Diego Freeway north to the Santa Monica Freeway, then went east to the civic center. The late-night traffic screened Gallucci from Prescott's rearview mirror.

The sounds Gallucci was monitoring indicated that Prescott had taken the threat from Captain Madrano really seriously. The minitransmitter sent the sounds of the lawyer mumbling to himself, of dry heaves and of choked sobs.

Yep, they definitely put the fear of God into that jerk.

When Prescott left the Santa Monica Freeway and went north through the deserted manufacturing and retail areas, Gallucci veered off to a parallel street.

He sped to Main Street and parked a block and a half north of the hotel. The square cargo van compartment of a produce truck concealed most of his bureau Dodge.

Looking diagonally across the four empty lanes of Main Street, Gallucci watched as Prescott parked his rented Dodge. The minimike in the lawyer's coat pocket transmitted every sound to Gallucci's receiver. The stark glare of a mercury-arc street lamp lit the entry to the hotel like a spotlight.

Gallucci watched and listened as Prescott slammed his car door. But then the audio went silent.

Damn that jerk! Gallucci cursed as Prescott crossed the sidewalk. The frightened lawyer, for whatever reason, had left the walkie-talkie and its concealed minitransmitter in the Dodge.

But Gallucci had an excellent view of the hotel. Prescott could not leave unobserved.

The moonlighting FBI agent waited, watched.

30

Throwing Prescott down, Blancanales put his knee in the screaming man's back. He forced Prescott's face into the filthy carpet to silence him. Senor Rivera grabbed their prisoner's hands. Jefferson checked the hallway for Blancos, then pulled the door closed and locked it.

"None out there," Jefferson told them.

Senora Rivera huddled on the mattress with her daughters. She held the girls' heads against her bosom so they would not see what the men did. The eight-year-old turned to peek at the scene of brutality and terror. Lidia pulled the blanket over her daughter's face.

"Where is the death squad waiting?" Blancanales asked Prescott.

"What? What do you mean?" gasped Prescott at the carpet. "What are you doing to me? Are you a law officer? Do you know that you are violating every police procedure and every civil right..."

Blancanales shoved Prescott's face into the carpet again. Keying his hand-radio, he reported to his partners, "I have him. What do you see out there?"

"Nada," Gadgets answered. "Unless you mean boozer losers."

"No one else got out of the car," Lyons reported. "Looks like he's alone."

"Any other cars?"

"Not on this block," Lyons answered.

"No goon squads," Gadgets reported.

"Wizard," Lyons spoke again. "Watch the front. I'm going to the back. Pol, is he talking?"

"Not yet."

"If he won't, let me know."

"Will do." Blancanales returned his hand-radio to his coat pocket. He knotted his fingers in the styled hair of the lawyer and pulled his head back.

"Where are the Blancos!"

"This is assault, false arrest, false imprisonment..."

Bearing down his knee, Blancanales pulled Prescott's head back until he felt the vertebra creak. The lawyer gasped and choked. His voice low and smooth, Blancanales asked again: "Where are the Blancos!"

Prescott struggled against their hold on him, kicking his legs, straining to twist his head free. Blancanales and Senor Rivera held firm until Prescott broke into sobs. Blancanales took plastic handcuffs out of his pocket, handed one to Rivera, two to Jefferson.

"His hands and his ankles."

Heaving and thrashing, Prescott fought once more against Blancanales on top of him, his throat making a high, whining sound. Blancanales slammed Prescott's head into the rotted carpet again and again until Prescott stopped struggling. He lay still, his face in the ancient filth of the carpet, gagging.

Rivera studied the plastic loop. He determined how it worked, then cinched it tight around the prisoner's wrists. Jefferson, too, linked one strand to the next to secure Prescott's ankles.

"Here," Blancanales motioned to Jefferson. "One foot on his neck while I search him. Don't break it."

As Blancanales went through the lawyer's pockets, Jefferson put a jogging shoe on the lawyer's neck. He bore down and joked. "Well, imagine this, Bobby. You had me all set up. Sold me out, sold out the Riveras, sold out your country. Must've been a real laugh in Buckley's office, listening to me talk, watching me shake while I looked outside at the goons. And all the time I was talking to a goon." He pressed his foot down slightly.

Prescott gasped.

Blancanales found the folded map. He looked at the red-ink directions. He passed the map to Jefferson.

"You know Los Angeles? What sort of neighborhood is that?"

Reading the names of the freeways and boulevards, glancing at the position of the Los Angeles International Airport to double-check, Jefferson shook his head.

"No one lives there. Not there. I did free-lance background on gang punks because I speak Spanish and look like a ghetto punk. I went there. Looks like a nuke zone, nadaland... 'land of nothing'… that's where he was taking the Riveras! There, man, there!"

Motioning Jefferson aside, Blancanales resumed the interrogation. He held the map in front of Prescott's face.

"Are they waiting there? Answer me."

"I'll sue you for everything you have..."

Blancanales drove a fist into the side of the lawyer's head. Prescott groaned. He strained against the plastic handcuffs, finally went limp again.

"You threatened me," Blancanales told him, his voice calm, quiet. "Don't do that. Understand your position. You are a prisoner. Your life depends on your cooperation. You are very lucky my partner, Ironman is not here. You give him some chickenshit threat like a lawsuit and he will take you apart. He'll do it. Or maybe I'll do it."

Blancanales stabbed a finger at the red-ink address. "We've got the location. Now I'm giving you the opportunity to help us. Help us, and you go to a clean, safe prison. Don't help us and… Floyd, que piensas?"

"What do we do to him?"

"Use your imagination." Blancanales gave Jefferson a wink.

"I don't have to imagine anything," the reporter said. "I saw the pictures of the Rivera boy..."

Prescott thrashed and jerked at his restraints.

Blancanales smiled and nodded. "This guy saw the pictures, too. But I got a better idea than that. We're going to give you to the Blancos. A one-way ticket to El Salvador. And a letter of thanks for helping us wipe out Los Guerreros Blancos..."

Prescott screamed. Blancanales punched his head again.

"Quiet."

"Little Bobbie Prescott's afraid of that." Jefferson laughed.

"Now will you cooperate?" Blancanales asked him.

"I was to take… the family there. Madrano's waiting. With his men. I don't know anything else. Nothing else."

"Where are they waiting? Is it a house? A warehouse?"

"They only… they gave me that map."

Blancanales heard paper rustling. He saw Jefferson returning his sawed-off shotgun to its shopping-bag camouflage. From astride Prescott, Blancanales shook his head.