So much planning and work...

Dastgerdi descended the steel spiral staircase to the underground factory, heard the noise of tools and the voices of all his personnel. Everyone was waiting for the trucks to leave.

The call would come any minute...

Steadying himself against the wall of sandbags, Lyons looked through the firing slot and into the muzzle of a 12.7mm Degtyarev machine gun. But the weapon was unmanned.

The Syrians stood around a fire, arguing and gesturing, warming their hands. One man searched a crumpled carton for a last cigarette and found nothing. Cursing, he threw the wadded pack into the fire.

They wore blankets over their coats. The blankets covered their Kalashnikov rifles.

Under his coat, Lyons felt the buzzer of his hand-radio. Gadgets nudged him. Easing away from the firing slot, Lyons reached into his coat for his radio. Gadgets shook his head and passed him an earphone. Lyons plugged it into his ear. Gadgets clicked the transmit key.

"You got a truck coming..." Blancanales started.

"No," Powell interrupted. "It's a Zil limo."

Lyons chanced a whisper. "How far?"

"Two kilometers maybe. Going slow."

"Move it," Lyons told them. "We'll take that limo into the base."

Lyons snapped down the left-hand grip lever of his Colt. Lyons pointed to himself and then at the bunker. Gadgets nodded.

Lyons crept under the machine-gun slot, then stood. He brushed off his Soviet coat and pulled his AK around so that the automatic rifle crossed his gut. He pat-checked his Colt's extra 10-round magazine in his coat pocket. Taking a deep breath of the frigid air, he walked into the bunker, the Colt held down against his coat, his thumb on the safety-fire selector.

The Syrians were startled; one soldier snapped a salute. Lyons brought up the Colt smoothly, his left hand taking the lever midway in the arch, his left thumb locking into the oversize trigger guard and his right thumb sweeping down the fire selector two clicks.

A 3-shot burst hit the saluting Syrian in the face, the hollowpoint slugs exploding through his skull, bone and blood, and fingers spraying the other soldiers. Lyons continued forward, pointing the pistol at the staring eyes and gaping mouth of another soldier. A 3-shot burst took his head off above the jaw.

A third Syrian finally reacted, throwing aside his blanket, reaching for the pistol-grip of a Kalashnikov. Lyons continued forward, his left leg snapping a kick to the groin of his opponent. Gasping, the soldier fell, his hand trying to find his rifle. Lyons fired down into the top of the man's head.

Pivoting, his arms straightened, he fired the last .45-caliber slug at the last Syrian as the panicking soldier grabbed for his rifle. The slug snapped the Syrian's head sideways, gouging a bloody track from his left cheek through his ear.

The slide of the Colt locked back. His gashed face contorting with a scream of panic and rage, the Syrian swung his Kalashnikov around.

A burst of three subsonic 9mm slugs took out his left eye. Another burst punched into his temple. Lyons drove a kick into the rifle in the Syrian's hands, and Gadgets stepped close and fired a point-blank burst from his Beretta through the Syrian's forehead.

"Die already!"

Ejecting the empty mag from his Colt, Lyons pocketed it and jammed in another 10-round magazine. Gadgets put the suppressor of his Beretta against the necks of the two Syrians who still had heads and fired bursts of 9mm slugs into their brain stems.

Lyons took out his hand-radio. "Politician. You watch the road. Send Akbar over here. He'll play Syrian when that limo comes."

"He's on his way. Anything goes wrong, get down."

"Don't hit the limo."

Akbar entered. "Hey, cowboys! What's going..." He saw the sprawled corpses. The sight of the open skulls and blood-glistening walls stopped his jive. He kept his sight off the floor when he spoke, his voice suddenly cool and professional. "What must I do?"

"Where's the limo?" Lyons asked. "How close?"

"Some minutes. It goes slowly on the road."

"You'll take the place of the guard out there. Stop them and check their papers. Call out for your Soviet advisor to check the passengers in the back. We need the doors open. They must open the doors. We don't want to mess up the windows, understand? The limousine must look perfect when it goes to the next checkpoint."

"I understand." Carefully avoiding looking at their ruined heads, Akbar compared his Syrian uniform to the uniforms worn by the dead guards. He took a blanket from the floor and draped it over his shoulders before stepping into the snow.

Lyons spoke into his hand-radio. "Marine, this is the Ironman."

"Receiving. The limo's close now."

"Get the truck and your car moving. I want you to move up to this position and park. You'll wait here while we go in. I want you close in case we need backup."

"You're going in?"

"Company instructions. Isn't good enough to ex them out. Got to study the situation, take back information for the clerks..."

Gadgets interrupted. "I can't go in until the truck gets here. I need my bag of tricks."

"No problem. Wizard tells me we wait until the truck gets here. He needs his equipment."

"Check."

Lyons pocketed the radio. He and Gadgets crouched behind the machine gun. Through the firing slot, they watched the Soviet staff car approach.

The Zil limousine, a long black behemoth with the styling of a 1950 Checker, rattled and banged over the frozen road. The flags of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Syrian Arab Republic hung sodden on fender antennae. Wire in the edges of the flags maintained the rectangular shapes.

Akbar strode into the road and waved a flashlight. He put up a hand to halt the limousine. Worn-out brakes squealed as the Zil shuddered to a stop. Akbar went to the driver's window.

"Stand by for our cue." Lyons stood in the doorway of the bunker and straightened his Soviet uniform. He checked his loaded and locked Colt. Keeping the oversize government Model against his Soviet-army coat, he watched Akbar shine the flashlight into the interior of the Zil.

Flashes of white light lit the foothills, the booms of exploding artillery shells coming an instant later. Akbar argued with the driver. The driver's arm waved a handful of documents. Akbar called out to the bunker. He motioned for his Soviet advisor to personally check the identification of the dignitaries.

His collar up over his face, his Russian fur hat pulled down to his eyes, Lyons strode to the limousine. He ignored the papers in the hand of the Syrian driver and knocked on the window of the back door with his left hand.

The driver shouted at Lyons in Arabic. His back to the driver, Lyons ignored the Arabic and then the phrases of Russian. He kept knocking on the back window, his body turned slightly to hide the suppressed Colt in his right hand.

Voices snarled Russian invective as the back door swung open. Lyons leaned into the Zil's warmth and saw two squat, scowl-faced Soviets, one in the gray coat and suit of a diplomat, the other in the green wool of the Soviet army. The Soviet in the army coat had an insignia on his coat collar of a triangle of three stars over two red stripes: a colonel.

The first .45 hollowpoint punched through his sneering lips, smashing through his teeth and upper palate to explode through his brain. Lyons flicked down his Colt's fire selector and fired a 3-shot burst through the upraised hands of the diplomat, the slugs tearing away fingers and continuing into the elegant gray overcoat. Throwing the falling Soviet colonel aside, Lyons confirmed the blood fountaining from the chest of the diplomat.

Akbar jerked the driver out the open window, the window frame pinning the Syrian's hands as he struggled for the pistol at his belt. Working together, Akbar and Lyons dragged the driver out of the car. But he twisted out of their grip and snatched the pistol from his holster. Gadgets and Lyons fired at the driver simultaneously, .45 hollowpoints and steel-cored subsonic 9mm slugs slapping into his chest and face, a second burst of full-powered .45 slugs ripping away his face and jaw, spilling his brains into the snow.