5

Over the noise of the idling Cessna engine, they heard the small-arms fire. Gadgets went flat in the dust of the airfield. Lieutenant Lizco shouted to Garcia.

"Go! There is fighting!"

"But you? How will you escape?"

"It is already arranged! Go! Now!"

Garcia leaned across the seat and gave the lieutenant and the three "journalists" a salute. Then he jerked the cabin door closed. The engine roared. A sandstorm enveloped the four men as the Cessna pivoted. Bumping across the dirt airfield, the Cessna gained speed and lifted off.

The firing continued, somewhere to the north. Lyons took off his sunglasses and blew dust and grit off the lenses. He scanned the sunlit, forested mountains around them.

"No one's shooting at us," he commented as he stood up. He grabbed his equipment cases. "But things could change. Make distance."

The lieutenant grabbed one of the cases. He pointed to a hillside tangled with dense brush and second-growth pines. "There. I have a car hidden."

"Where are we?" Gadgets asked as they double-timed.

"North of Lolotiquillo."

"Great. Where's that?"

"North of San Francisco Gotera."

Gadgets laughed. "Oh, yeah? And Where's that?"

The army officer did not stop to answer. Pushing through branches, he led them into the shadows of the hillside's trees. He set down the suitcase he carried. When the three North Americans joined him, he put out a hand for silence.

They waited, listening. Insects droned around them. In the distance, the rifle fire continued. The ripping noise of M-16s on full-auto answered the sharp booms of heavy-caliber battle rifles. The roar of an M-60 punctuated the firefight.

"M-60s and M-16s," Lyons guessed.

"Army?" Gadgets whispered.

The lieutenant nodded. "And guerrillas."

Other weapons roared in one disciplined explosion of autofire.

Blancanales glanced to his partners. "Those aren't M-60s. Cyclic rate's too fast."

"Sounds like a squad of G-3s to me," Lyons commented.

Gadgets flicked open the latch of his weapons case. "Don't sound like no brass-band reception. We're here. This is it."

They silently opened their cases. Stripping off their sports coats, Blancanales and Gadgets put on identical shoulder holsters. Both men carried silenced Beretta 93-Rs. The pistols represented the cutting edge of Beretta technology. A selective-fire sear mechanism triggered both single shots and 3-round bursts. An oversized trigger guard and a lever that folded down from under the barrel provided a secure two-hand grip. Slightly underpowered loads in their cartridges propelled steel-cored slugs at subsonic speeds for silent attacks.

From his case, Lyons took out his 4-inch-barreled Colt Python. Undoing his belt, he put a holster at the small of his back.

Then he slipped into standard shoulder-holster rig for a nonstandard weapon: a Colt Government Model reengineered for silence. Redesigned and hand-machined by Andrzej Konzaki to incorporate the innovations of the Beretta autopistols, the interior mechanisms of the Colt no longer resembled what Browning had invented and patented. Like the Berettas, a fold-down lever and oversized trigger guard provided a positive two-hand grip. But it fired full-powered .45-caliber slugs, silent, in semiauto and three-shot burst modes. Lyons jammed in an extended ten-shot magazine, leaving the chamber empty. He checked the Allen screw securing the suppressor before holstering the weapon.

Able Team loaded their assault weapons. Gadgets snapped back the actuator of his CAR-15 to chamber a round. Blancanales loaded and locked his M-16/M-203 over-and-under hybrid assault rifle and grenade launcher. He slipped a 40mm high-explosive fragmentation grenade into the launcher. But he left the launcher tube uncocked. Lyons took out his Atchisson assault shotgun. The lieutenant tapped him on the shoulder.

"What is that rifle?" the Salvadoran asked.

Lyons gave a whispered description of the weapon. "Atchisson selective-fire assault shotgun. Twenty-inch rifled barrel. Slug sights with flip-up rear apertures for fifty and a hundred yards. Magazine holds seven rounds. Thumb fire-selector, safe, one-shot, three-shot, full-auto. And the shells — aluminum casings to eliminate the chance of a plastic shell melting in the chamber and fusing solid. Loaded with a mix of double-ought and number-two steel shot. I can put out over four hundred projectiles in less than a second and a half. Starting with a round in the chamber and changing mags, I can put out one thousand projectiles in less than seven seconds. One man fire-superiority, yes?"

Smiling, the lieutenant looked into the weapon cases. "Do you have another?"

"Want one?"

Lieutenant Lizco nodded.

"Could be arranged. But not now." Lyons pulled back the Atchisson's actuator and slipped a round in the chamber. Then he jammed in a magazine. "Where's that truck?"

"It is a car. Come. It is near."

They eased through the brush with their heavy cases. In the distance, the autofire died away to occasional bursts and single shots. The shriek-roar and explosion of an RPG ended the firefight.

"That one's over," Gadgets told Blancanales. "Sounds like the side with the ComBloc weapons won."

"Not your war, Wizard. Nothing you can do."

Lyons heard his partners. "I'll do whatever I can," he said. "Wherever I go, it's my war. Nazis, Commies, pirates — I pull the trigger on them all."

"Tough talk, Ironman," Blancanales hissed. "But you can't fight the world."

"What have I been doing for the past few years?"

Gadgets laughed. "That man talks the facts."

"Here is the car." Lieutenant Lizco pointed to a tangle of brush.

They put down their cases and thrashed into the bushes. Living trees and brush had been cleverly bent and twisted to conceal the vehicle in living camouflage. As they pulled aside the branches, they saw camouflage sheeting.

The lieutenant slashed the sheeting with a pocket knife. They saw gleaming paint and a tinted window. Dragging the knife blade through the camou fabric, he cut the sheeting away from the front end of the luxury car.

"A Coupe de Ville?" Lyons asked, staring wide-eyed at the vehicle.

"I could not get a truck," the Salvadoran officer explained. "A rich politician would not risk the roads. It disappeared from the garage… and came here."

"We travel in style!" Gadgets jived.

Swinging open the door, the lieutenant tried the engine. It roared. He eased the Cadillac out of its camouflage. He flicked the electric lock switch. Able Team jerked open the doors and threw in their cases.

"Now where?" Lyons asked.

"South." The lieutenant guided the luxury car through the brush. He braked when he reached the airstrip. He took tape and a bundle of paper from the floor of the Cadillac. "Here. Tape these signs to the car. Hurry."

"Sure, sure." Lyons and Blancanales jumped out.

Opening the bundle, they found several bold lettered signs — red letters on the white paper — stating Periodistas.

"Newsmen," Blancanales translated.

Working fast, they taped the signs to the hood, the roof and the trunk. They jumped back inside.

"You think of everything," Lyons told the lieutenant.

"I have planned this for months."

Accelerating across the airstrip, Lieutenant Lizco fishtailed onto the gravel road. Ruts and bumps made the Cadillac rock like a boat. The Salvadoran drove from side to side on the road, avoiding muddy holes, sometimes steering up onto the bulldozed shoulder to avoid the worst ruts.

In the back seat, Gadgets explored the comforts enjoyed by the rich politician owner. He ran his hands over the leather upholstery and lacquered walnut door panels. From the back of the front seat, a bar folded down.