The auto-fire died away. Madrano motioned for his lieutenant to check the hulk.

Zigzagging as they had taught him at Fort Bragg, the lieutenant dashed into the street. He looked into the Dodge, then flicked on a flashlight. After searching the interior with the beam, he called out to the captain: "El federal!"

Captain Madrano left his concealment. The stink of gasoline swirled in the cool night. The flashlight's beam illuminated a sickening mass of flesh and torn clothing. Spilled intestines reeked of excrement. Vinyl and auto glass and foam plastic mixed with the gore.

What remained of the head had the face of Agent Gallucci.

Confused, not believing what had happened, Captain Madrano backed away from the car. The stink of gasoline choked him. He looked down at the asphalt. Gasoline and blood flowed from the bullet-patterned automobile. The captain grabbed the flashlight from his lieutenant and looked in again.

No corpses sprawled in the back of the Dodge. And only one body — not actually a body any longer, actually a tangled spill of body parts — covered the front seat.

Agent Gallucci.

Captain Madrano had killed Colonel Quesada's most effective North American. A North American who operated within the same agencies threatening the Families of El Salvador with investigation and indictment and slander. Though Colonel Quesada had forgiven his blunder in the mountains south of San Jose, because of the friendship of their families and their intermingled bloodlines, how could Madrano beg forgiveness for this?

Shining the flashlight down on the horror that had been a valuable informer, Madrano prepared his explanation to his father's friend. He prepared his defense as a playwright imagines a scene, the dialogue flying back and forth between the characters, the hand gestures, the drama of emphasizing his words with soft words, then shouts, then silence.

No problem. I can explain it. The North American misunderstood or disregarded instructions.

Captain Madrano had always explained away his failures and mistakes. The students looked alike. The house numbers had been tampered with. One street looked like another. The man with the pistol and uniform had not looked like a real policeman. I'll be more careful next time. Please do not shame my father and my family because of this insignificant and forgettable error. Please, for the honor of the army, forgive me…

If the other squad succeeds in executing the Communist family, Captain Madrano thought, all will be well. He could hear his impassioned speech to Colonel Quesada: "Gallucci's blunder was unfortunate, but the Communists died. True, it was a quick death. It was not the justice I wanted to give them. But it is a step onward to victory of the fatherland!"

For two minutes, the men of the death squad stood in the street and waited as Captain Madrano stood motionless at the wreck, staring down at his error, mentally rehearsing the scene in which he would win the forgiveness of Colonel Quesada. The men glanced at their watches. They looked around at the darkness.

Unlike the police of San Salvador, the police of Los Angeles did not honor the extraordinary privileges of El Ejercito de los Guerreros Blancos. The men knew they faced arrest and a few days of jail. As their leaders had assured them, the administration would grant the squad immediate release — as in the murders of the North Americans in El Salvador — but the questions and publicity would be embarrassing.

They did not see the onrushing automobile until it neared them. For a moment, they stared.

Quietly, without lights, an automobile hurtled at them in reverse. The Salvadoran soldiers stared at the rear bumper and rear windows of the automobile.

Doubts restrained their reflex to fire. If the automobile had raced toward them directly, the soldiers would have raised their weapons and fired instantly.

But an attack in reverse? Four of their compatriots had departed only minutes ago. Could this be their friends returning for some reason? Then they realized the automobile had a different color and manufacturer than the vehicle their compatriots drove.

The Dodge braked suddenly. As the driver slammed the transmission into forward and smoked the tires with acceleration, the rear windows exploded outward.

A deafening auto weapon boomed. Glass floated in the air, a universe of tiny red stars as the cubes of tempered glass flashed with the red muzzle-flash of a weapon sweeping the standing Salvadorans.

As the Blancosraised their Uzis, as men dived for the shelter of graffitied walls and trash mounds, a storm of projectiles swept them. One of the gunmen twisted in the air as a pattern of high-velocity steel balls tore through his body. Another lurched and staggered as his through-and-through wounds spurted blood. Another fell screaming, his legs collapsing backward from multiple hits that shattered his knees and his leg bones.

The car screeched away. Slugs from the Blancos'Uzis sought it.

An explosion boiled upward. A wave of flame enveloped the dead Gallucci's gasoline-drenched automobile. The soldiers heard a scream as Captain Madrano writhed on the asphalt in a hell of gasoline fire. Justice by fire lit the night.

32

Flat in the back seat, Lyons snapped a safety belt around his waist as Uzi slugs hammered the Dodge. Slugs hitting the trunk lid shrieked across the sheet steel and through the interior of the car to shatter the windshield.

Behind the car, he heard the pops of 40mm grenades killing the Blancos. An orange flash colored the darkness.

Blancanales lay flat in the front seat, his head below the level of the car's windows. He did not steer the car. He only held the steering wheel straight as his foot kept the accelerator to the floor.

The bodywork's steel, the spare tire and the seats protected both men from the lightweight 9mm bullets. Hurtling away from the wild auto-fire of the Blancosat sixty miles per hour, the Dodge swerved from curb to curb on the empty street of the desolated suburb until a front wheel went up a driveway. The undercarriage scraped concrete as the car jumped the curb. Bouncing across lawns, crashing through shrubbery, the car smashed into the arson-gutted frame of a house.

Ashes and stucco and framing fell. Unsnapping his safety belt, Lyons looked around. A fire-charred wall leaned on the front and one side of the Dodge. Tangled bushes screened them from the view of the Blancosa block behind them.

Lyons smelled gasoline. "Pol! Out of here!"

"You need help?" Blancanales asked as he kicked a door open.

"Not me, I thought..."

"Don't think. Move. This car's about to burn."

Pushing aside boards and branches and sheets of stucco, they staggered to the lawn. Lyons scanned the street and other yards, his Atchisson on line. The gray dome of the sky cast a half-glow on the neighborhood. No one had pursued them.

The flaming hulk on the next block lit the street and house fronts. Silhouettes dashed from cover to cover. Wounded men clawed at the asphalt, pools of blood around them shimmering with flamelight.

Blancanales keyed his hand-radio. "Wizard. We're out. Which way are they moving?"

"They're not! What a crew of losers. They're panicked and screaming."

"We're on our way…"

"Make distance!" Lyons hissed. "Here comes a distraction…"

Blancanales saw Lyons point his silenced Colt at the rear end of the Dodge. The jacketed slug sparked off the concrete foundation of the wrecked house, then the leaking gasoline roared.

Thrashing through shrubbery, they left the flames behind them. The gas tank exploded, a fireball churning into the night. They dropped low as the street went bright with the orange light.