White light seared the night. High above the highway, a magnesium flare swung on a miniature parachute.

Mortar impacts flashed ahead, the booms of the explosions coming an instant later. Another flare blazed overhead. A random pattern of mortar hits scored the highway and the roadside, balls of smoke hanging in the night. Spent shrapnel rattled off the truck. Hot metal burned Lyons's neck. He tore at his scarf and a jagged bit of iron fell out.

Switching off their headlights, the drivers of the three vehicles drove by the white flares.

The Land Rover shot through the pall of smoke.

Seconds behind, the Mercedes troop truck bumped over the broken asphalt. Then a mortar exploded behind the truck, and dirt and rocks and iron pocked the wooden slats. A scrape appeared in the cab in front of Lyons.

From a rise to the north approximately three hundred meters away, a rocket launcher flashed, and an instant later the RPG warhead passed behind the Rover and exploded in a long streak on the earth. Powell answered with 40mm grenades, firing single grenades to find the range, then dropping a burst of alternating high-explosive and white phosphorous grenades on the position. Lyons sighted the Browning and raked the ridge with .50-caliber slugs as the Shias behind him fired bursts from their PKM machine guns. Tracers from the ridge and the convoy crossed.

One sparking point moved. An automatic weapon fired from a vehicle, the line of tracers going wild as the vehicle bumped and lurched over a rutted track. Another flare burst into white glare and Lyons saw a Japanese truck speeding for the highway in an attempt to cut them off. A soldier fired a pedestal-mounted machine gun from the back of the truck.

Lyons swung the Browning around and fired. The first burst went low, and a single tracer skipped off the rocks, pinwheeling away into the storm clouds. Adjusting his aim, Lyons saw a tracer disappear into the truck. He held down the Browning's button and counted out ten rounds.

The truck veered to the right and overturned. Powell sighted on the overturned truck and fired a 3-shot burst of 40mm, hitting it with high-explosive, white phosphorous, then high ex again. Spilled gasoline sheetflamed.

Returning his aim to the ridge, Powell fired for area effect. High-ex flashes and white chemical fire splashed the ridge, than a ball of orange petroleum flame surged into the sky as he hit another vehicle.

Lyons saw the silhouettes of a mortar crew and sighted the Browning. A red line of tracers touched the silhouettes. Powell found the crew with a 40mm burst.

No more mortars came. Individual riflemen fired on the convoy, slugs intermittently punching into the wood sidings of the troop truck. All the firing stopped as they left the ambush behind.

Lyons covered the Browning, then glanced back to the Shia militiamen. In the dying flarelight, the leather-faced, middle-aged men grinned and gave Lyons the V for victory. Lyons keyed his hand-radio. "Everyone okay?"

"No problems here," Blancanales responded. "Anyone know who fired at us?"

"You mean," Powell answered, "did we take names? Fuck, no. Ain't killing them good enough?"

"We didn't even get a shot off!" Gadgets complained. "Our guns only cover the road..."

"Hey, Wizard," Powell drawled in his true East Texas dialect. "You just wait. I think you'll get your chance. Any minute now."

A kilometer past Kahhale, a Lebanese army armored personnel carrier blocked the highway. A soldier with a flashlight told the Palestinian drivers of the vans to return to Beirut. Other soldiers manned the machine guns of the APC. Zhgenti did not challenge the orders. He told the drivers to find a way around the roadblock.

A few minutes later, as the vans bumped over a dirt sideroad, Zhgenti cursed. "Storms, revolutions, whores and pretty little soldiers — I must kill those Americans and the world is against me. My superiors will not listen to excuses. What a mess. What a sorry mess this is!"

"Illovich is the one," Desmarais snapped back at the Soviet. "He had them prisoner. He wanted a propaganda event. What a dreamer that old man is. I said he must kill them while he had them because they were vile, tricky, fascist bastards who'd do anything, stop at nothing..."

"Not like you, eh?" Zhgenti leered. "My tricky little Canadian."

The vans came to a village devastated by artillery. No lights showed from the windows of the remaining houses. Nothing moved on the streets of frozen mud. As the vans followed the narrow road, their headlights illuminated pathetic vignettes: bundles of rags and stiff hands, staring faces beneath shrapnel-pocked walls; a Syrian army truck that had taken a direct hit, scorched corpses and skeletons hanging from the flame-blackened hulk; a peasant wagon of belongings still hitched to a frozen mule.

A stout Muslim woman waved to them. Inside Zhgenti's van, rifle and submachine gun safeties clicked off. The woman, using an old blanket as a chador, stood at a crossroad. Behind her, a form wrapped in blankets lay on the snow. The woman ran wailing to the Zhgenti's van.

"Ask her which road will take us to the Bekaa," the Soviet told the driver.

The Palestinian shouted down her wailing. He questioned her repeatedly. Finally she pointed to the eastern road. The driver turned to Zhgenti.

"Her husband's wounded. She's begging us to take her to the highway. Or he'll die."

Zhgenti rolled down his window. Pointing an Uzi with one hand, he fired a burst into the blanket-wrapped old man. An arm reached up and clawed the air.

The old Muslim woman shrieked and beat at the van's door. Laughing, the Soviets and Palestinians fired point-blank into her face. She fell back and sat on the snow, blood gushing from enormous wounds to her head. Zhgenti leaned out and fired a long burst that spilled the old woman's brains. Smiling, displaying all the porcelain and stainless steel of his teeth, the Soviet turned to Desmarais. "Remember, my little French Canadian. Never let yourself forget that I am also a vile, vicious bastard who stops at nothing."

Shuddering with the horror, not opening her eyes, Desmarais answered. "I know, I will not forget."

Pretending to sleep, Lyons stayed low in the back of the troop truck. He held his Konzak assault shotgun under the blanket covering him.

The Syrians paced around the trucks and Rover. Lyons heard Powell talking in Arabic, followed by Arabic voices shouting back and forth, then boots hitting the road. Someone strode away — the boots splashed through the mud beside the asphalt, continued a few more steps. Powell had gone to the sandbagged bunker at the side of the highway.

Clicks came from his hand-radio but Lyons did not dare move a hand to return them, not while Syrian sentries surrounded them. Voices came from the bunker. Then the boots returned and the Rover's engine gunned. Hussein clashed the gears as he shifted and then the troop truck moved. Behind the truck, the diesel of the semi roared.

Lyons finally lowered the blanket from his face. Only dark hills and snow surrounded them. His hand-radio clicked again.

"How'd we get through that?" Gadgets asked.

"I don't know," Lyons told his partner. "I kept a blanket over my head. Ask the Marine. I heard him walk into the guardhouse and talk with someone."

Powell came on with a laugh. "Hey, don't get spooked. I told you this would be tight. It's just started, you hear me?"

"What went on in the guardhouse?" Lyons asked.

"The officer on duty questioned me. Wanted to know all about us. Why we'd risk being on the road tonight, why I, a Soviet, would be with the convoy and what was in the truck..."

"What'd you tell him?" Gadgets interrupted.