But the fascists pursued them. Lyons followed the others in the squad. They stumbled over the corpses of the Nazis they had killed on their way in. As bullets tore past, slamming into the prefab classrooms that covered them, Lyons heard Grimaldi call out over the radio again.

"Where are you? I got lots more to drop! Mark their positions and I'll..."

"The white flare!" Lyons shouted into his hand-radio. "Hit the white light!"

Lyons fitted the last flare onto the G-3. He checked the stenciled identification on the flare housing, saw the words for flare in three European languages. Then he stooped over a dead fascist and fired it into his chest.

As he sprinted away, white light flashed. Engine roar came from the night. The exploding av-gas seared Lyons's hair. Throwing himself behind the shelter of a classroom, he reloaded the G-3. He saw gray-uniformed soldiers, dropped each man with shots to their chests.

A blur of gray hit him. Hands closed on his throat. He knee-lifted the attacker, jerked the butt of the G-3 into the man's chin. He fired the bucking rifle into the downed fascist, plastic stabbing into his shoulder. The buttstock had broken off.

Lyons ran. A gray-uniformed soldier ran beside him, firing at the Salvadorans. Lyons swung the broken G-3 like a baseball bat into the soldier's face. Lyons did not stop to kill the screaming man. He unslung his Atchisson on the run.

A jeep roared up to the airfield gate, blocking the Salvadorans with a wild spray of fire from a pedestal-mounted M-60. Lyons saw his friends dive for cover.

Above him, he heard the engines of the DC-3. Aiming his Atchisson from the hip, he did not break stride. He ran straight at the jeep, snapping blasts from his auto-weapon. The standing machine gunner swiveled the M-60 at Lyons, then the man flew backward into the chain link fence, a gaping hole where a one-ounce slug had blown away his heart. Slugs smashed through the windshield of the jeep, the driver's right arm disappearing in a spray of gore, a rifleman in the passenger's seat losing his head, the jeep careering away.

Lyons dropped the magazine out of his autoshotgun, reloaded on the run, then sprawled flat on the asphalt and scanned the approach for gray uniforms. Salvadorans ran past him. He saw Blancanales, then Gadgets.

A hundred meters away, headlights raced toward the gate, autoweapons flashing from the sides. Lyons sprayed a blast of steel shot, then a bag fell from the sky, av-gas bursting in front of the fascists, a whoosh of petroflame instantly incinerating the men in the open jeep. Beyond the burning fascists, pillars of flame blazed upward.

Lyons screamed to the others, "Count everyone! Everyone with us?"

Blood sprayed with his words. He tasted the blood. Internal wounds.

Betrayed in Washington, battered beyond what any man could bear, pushed now to the furthest wall, Carl Lyons prepared to die. But life — the living in the midst of the dead — would not let him go.

"Specialist!"

Lyons squinted into the flames. Floyd Jefferson staggered from the smoke and shadows, one leg bloody. Floyd turned and sprayed rounds from his M-16, then lurched a few more steps and fell. Lyons groaned, raised himself and ran in agony to the journalist. He jerked him to his feet by his camera strap.

"Easy man! That's my equipment you're..."

One-handed, Lyons triggered a point-blank 12-gauge blast into the chest of a fascist.

"Can you run?" Lyons asked, blood filling his throat, his nasal passages.

Before Floyd could reply, Lyons whipped around, saw a gray form shouldering a rifle. Able Team's iron crazyman fired one-handed again, then fell in pain and rolled on the asphalt. He saw Floyd snapping photos of the inferno. He scrambled to his feet, lurched to the bleeding journalist and dragged him along with him.

Ahead, he saw his partners leading the group through the hole in the security fences. Lyons put his hand-radio to lips cherry red with blood.

"Eagle! We're going out the perimeter. Do the place. Do it all! Burn it!"

"Burn, baby, burn!" Floyd raved as it in fever, snapping more photos. "Did I get my hundred dollars' worth!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I had to pay one of those Salvadorans to stay behind," Floyd said, limping next to Lyons toward the darkness of the fence. "Portrait of a warrior's last stand! Boy, did I get what I came for."

"I didn't," grunted Lyons, pausing for his eyes to adjust to the darkness at the gate.

"No?"

"Quesada's in there somewhere."

They slipped through the fence and followed the glowing blue line through the darkness. Floyd pointed back to the Nazi base. Flames soared high into the night. He laughed.

"Even odds Quesada's in Hell right now." he said. "And if he isn't..."

The young reporter stopped a moment for emphasis. "He's got youafter him," he smiled, standing against a backdrop of fire, "for as long as he lives. And that, my friend, is exactly the same thing."