"Comandante!" Captain Mendez called from the door. "There is a development in the battle!"

Colonel Quesada gave Lieutenant Kohl a salute. "Our family is fortunate you survived. Prepare a complete report when your condition permits."

The broken and bleeding officer grasped at his uncle's hand. "Comandante, did you kill them?"

"We will," said Quesada. "Be certain of that. The fighting continues. Soon we will know. Now rest, be strong…" He leaned close to Lieutenant Kohl so that the others would not hear. "Your Fatherland and the New Reich need you."

The lieutenant balled his left fist against his chest, then extended his arm out straight in a variation of the Nazi salute.

Colonel Quesada paced away from the dead and the suffering men. Outside, he saw the helicopter waiting in the center of the garden lawns. Captain Mendez shouted over the roar.

"There is shooting outside the west gate," he reported. "May I delay your departure while I take my squad to the fight?"

"No! We go on to Honduras. I do my duty to the Reich, before I take revenge on the attackers."

The colonel ran across the courtyards and garden walkways to the waiting helicopter. In moments, the Huey lifted away, carrying Colonel Quesada to the safety of the Honduran mountains.

19

A lightshow of death — red tracers, green tracers, the orange yellow flame slashes of RPG-7 rockets — streaked from the night-black hillside. Amazed by the intensity of the one-way firefight that would end their lives, Blancanales and Lyons and Ricardo stared at the flashing autofire, reflexes locking their hands on their weapons, their reason abandoning all hope. But not a bullet hit them. Their heads pivoted as their jeep sped through the kill zone.

Behind them, the storm of full-metal-jacketed slugs tore the two pursuing trucks to bloody junk. The Quesada militiamen, who chased Lyons and Blancanales and the teenager knew only an instant of the high-velocity maelstrom — headlights exploding, windshields shattering, windows dissolving into glitter, sheet-steel deforming — before falling into the endless night of death.

Tires popped. The first truck went into a sideskid across the wet pavement, the steering wheel in the hands of a dead man. Ten lines of tracers focused on the truck. An RPG's warhead hit. Metallic points of flame sprayed into the night, then petroflame engulfed the rolling hulk.

A rocket flashed from the hillside to hit the second truck. Ragged sheet steel spun into the low brush beyond the road. A fireball churned into the darkness and rain.

Blancanales glanced in the rearview mirror and saw only flames. Then a wall of headlights appeared in front of him. The shadowy forms of cars blocked the road.

Stomping the brakes, Blancanales fought the fishtailing jeep. He danced the pedals, downshifting, braking, downshifting again. Desperate for an escape route, he steered for the hillside's muddy embankment. He would go above the roadblock.

Gadgets Schwarz stepped into the glare of the headlights and waved his arms.

"What's happening here?" Blancanales wondered as he stood on the brake.

In pain, Lyons laughed. "Ask Mr. Wizard."

The jeep slid to a stop. Gadgets ran to his partners. He slapped Lyons on the back.

"Saw that stunt show through binocs!" he exclaimed. "Don't ever ask to borrow my car." He leaned across and jabbed Blancanales in the shoulder. "Wait till you see who's here. Floyd Jefferson! And some people from the other side..." He glanced to the darkness of the hillside and whispered, "Just be cool. They're on our side, tonight. I explained what we're doing and it's cool. Be cool."

"What are you talking about?" Lyons's eyes scanned the darkness as he reached for his Atchisson.

Gadgets's hand closed around his partner's wrist and moved his hand away from the autoshotgun. "Be cool, Ironman, or you'll be scrap metal. You're standing in the wrecking yard…"

Shadows came from the hillside. Against the flaming hulks of the militia trucks, they saw the silhouettes carrying an international collection of autoweapons. Israeli Galil rifles. M-60 machine guns. An M-14. Heckler & Koch G-3s. Two forms carried Soviet RPG launchers and slung CAR-15s.

"Hey specialists." Floyd Jefferson called out. The young reporter from San Francisco, California, ran from the silhouettes. A camera on a strap bounced against his side. A shotgun bandolier loaded with 35mm film cans crossed his rain-soaked camouflage shirt.

Lyons shoulder-slung his Atchisson and got out of the jeep. He swayed on his feet. Floyd ran up and hugged his ex-cop friend.

"Easy, kid." Lyons winced with pain. "I just totaled a truck."

"Oh, yeah! Saw it. All the muchachosthink you're fantastico. Ain't seen you since… since…"

"Since I carried you to that ambulance. How's your head?"

"Call me Fearless Fosdick. Thank God for my Irish skullbone. Had a concussion. But one in my ribs was the pits. Couldn't take a deep breath for nine weeks."

Blancanales walked around the jeep. He exchanged an abrazowith the Puerto Rican-Irish-Mexican-Indian-Anglo young man. Looking past Floyd, he asked quietly, "Who are they?"

Floyd turned. He saw the platoon of men in camou uniforms only steps away. He briefed Able Team quickly. "Democratic Liberation Front. Ex-Salvo soldiers and officers. They don't fight, they kill. You saw. They're specialists, just like you. Lizco will explain everything."

"The lieutenant's with them?" Lyons asked. "I thought so…"

"The other Lizco," Gadgets corrected.

The Lieutenant Lizco whom Lyons knew came from the headlights. He had his M-16 slung over one shoulder. He joined the guerrillas crowding around Able Team.

"I introduce my brother, Captain Alfredo Lizco," he said.

His older brother extended a hand to Lyons and Blancanales. "Pleased to meet you. Enemies of Quesada are my friends."

"Mucho gusto, comrade," Blancanales said.

"Amigo," the captain corrected. "That other word is for other fighters."

"You're not Communists?" Lyons asked, shaking the captain's hand with enthusiasm.

"No!" The older Lizco spat out the denial. "Now come. We talk too much here."

Slowly, painfully, Lyons stepped back into the jeep. Captain Lizco caught his arm.

"Please," he said. "Come with us in truck. We talk in truck."

"Are we your prisoners?" Lyons asked.

"We do not take prisoners," the captain stated simply.

Gadgets laughed. "The man talks straight. In the truck, Ironman. We got to make out of here, muy rapido."

Two guerrillas got in the jeep. Pausing to find only empty Atchisson mags on the floor of the jeep, Lyons followed the others. He staggered a few steps to catch up with Guillermo Lizco, the lieutenant.

"Why didn't you say your big brother was up here?" he said. "Me and my partner and Ricardo just took the kamikaze tour of the Quesada estate. With two M-60s, we ripped that place apart. But with your brother's men, we could have taken Quesada and the plantation and all his people."

"Until an hour ago," the lieutenant answered, "I did not know my brother still lived."

"You just bumped into him? By coincidence?"

"No," the elder brother told him. Captain Lizco explained as they climbed into the back of a slat-side farm truck. "My commander send me here because my brother fights with Las Boinas Negras. I come to make contact with him. To stop the Stalinistas, those crazy Soviet rojoswho kill everyone. Farmers, soldiers, children."

Able Team, the Lizco brothers and several guerrillas crowded into the truck. They had only plastic tarps to shelter them from the rain and the wind. The convoy of the truck and the two jeeps sped away from the burning hulks.