El Brujo and the other young man took a trail leading down the mountainside. For the next hour, on trails and ledges several hundred meters above the rocky riverbed of the gorge, they paralleled the foreigners who were attempting to escape into the mountains.

8

As the pilot held the Huey troopship in a hover, Mexican soldiers stepped down to therocks of a mountain ridgeline. The NCO leading the ambush squad turned and saluted Colonel Gonzalez. The colonel returned the salute, then the helicopter sideslipped away and descended into the canyon. The helicopter stayed low in the canyon, the pilot weaving the million-dollar ship between the cliffs and mountainsides, using the topography to conceal its rotor throb from the North Americans somewhere in the mountains.

Sergeant Mendoza called his men together, and briefed them quickly, touching the map to indicate the location of the gorge.

At the site of the wreck the searchers had found the false tracks leading south. Colonel Gonzalez believed the North American drug agents who survived the wreck had fled north, into the mountain gorge. The colonel's helicopter had placed Sergeant Mendoza and his squad more than ten kilometers north of the crash site. Now, only a mountain ridge and a march of a few kilometers separated the soldiers from the North Americans.

"We think four escaped the crash and ran into the mountains. Some are bleeding. The colonel will send the other squad into the gorge. The gringos will run from them..."

His blunt calloused finger traced the path. The squad would go uphill to the first ridge, proceed north to a second, then travel east along a third. "We will take positions here, above them, and kill them. Or force them to surrender to the others. It should all be over before nightfall."

He led his men west up to the first ridge. They grunted against the weight of the weapons and munitions they carried. In addition to their heavy FN-FAL folding-stock paratroop rifles and two hundred rounds of 7.62mm cartridges in magazines, each man carried rifle grenades and mortar rounds. The mortar crew, burdened with the components of the 81mm mortar, carried lightweight Uzi submachine guns. Every soldier carried four one-liter canteens of water.

At the mountain ridge, as the soldiers caught their breath, their rasping throats and coughs loud in the silence of the mountains, Sergeant Mendoza surveyed the terrain.

To the south, he saw the foothills and desert. A smear of gray smudged the sky, but smoke no longer rose from the crash site. To the other points of the compass, Mendoza saw only the Sierra Madres, the thousands of canyons and ridgelines and peaks continuing into the distance.

With his binoculars he searched the mountainsides for signs of Indian bandits. His brigade had lost men in these mountains before. Though soldiers with dogs searched for the lost squads, they never found the missing men. The dogs found the scent of blood and a few cartridge casings buried in the sand, but nothing else.

Legends told of Indians who still fought in the Sierra Madres. Sergeant Mendoza searched every rock and shadow and form of the mountains, focusing his binoculars on scrub brush and wind-gnarled trees. He did not want his death to contribute to the legends.

The sergeant ordered his squad to move. Leading the way, he followed the ridge to the north, his men behind him groaning and complaining about the weight of their weapons. Automatically his eyes searched the sand for signs of Indian bandits.

Mendoza consulted his map at every turn of the ridgeline. Prepared from satellite photos, the topographical map had been provided to the Condor Group by the DEA for use in operations against the opium farmers.

In the recent months, Mendoza had used the map to find and force the cooperation of the farmers in the mountains. Now he used it to find and kill American DEA officers.

The squad followed the ridgeline, slipping and scrambling across the steep slope until they came to a sheer drop. Hundreds of meters of void separated the squad from the opposite mountain. A hawk floated in the updrafts, watching the canyon and mountainsides for prey.

Mendoza crawled to the edge and looked down into the cleft between the mountains. Two hundred meters below, stagnant water pooled in the sand of the streambed. A thin stream snaked around slabs of fallen stone. Twisted cottonwood and mesquite trees grew from the walls of the gorge, but at the bottom, where countless flash floods had scoured the stones, only brush and grasses would provide cover for the Americans.

He scrambled up to the knob of stone where the ridge ended. From there, he looked down into a section of the gorge.

Perfect. Here, his riflemen and mortar crew would command the entire canyon. Without cover the Americans could not pass him. They would be trapped between his squad and the squad pursuing them.

Between death and death.

Able Team maintained a quick pace north. In the streambed at the bottom of the gorge, they walked in cool early-morning shadow. Above them, the intense sunlight burned white on the cliffs and near-vertical mountainsides. They constantly scanned the slash of sky overhead for helicopters, but none appeared. They heard no rotor throb.

Midges and blue-bodied dragonflies buzzed around them as they walked. When they stepped through the stagnant pools, every splash of their boots raised swarms of tiny flies. Ropes of moss alive with flies clung to their boots.

Davis and Coral, walking in street shoes, kept up with Able Team. Blancanales carried Coral's overnight bag on his backpack. Though both the DEA pilot and the Mexican gang soldier maintained the pace, they did not have the boots and physical conditioning necessary for comfortable long-distance hiking.

Lyons called a stop. "Let's tape their feet. Otherwise, they won't last the day. And we've got distance to make."

"Right," Blancanales agreed. "You go on ahead, Carl, and scout the terrain. Wizard, watch our back."

Davis sat on a rock and pulled off his shoes. He wore thin nylon dress socks. "Got an extra pair of socks? I didn't come prepared for a forced march."

"Sure." Blancanales found heavy socks and a roll of OD adhesive tape in the compartments of his backpack. "Got to keep you two moving. A platoon's only as fast as the slowest man."

"When I was a boy," Coral said, surveying the cliffs and peaks above them, "I hunted deer in these mountains with my grandfather. These mountains are a world without end. When we are in the mountains, there will be no problem from the soldiers. They will never find us."

A hundred meters ahead of the others, Lyons scanned the ridgelines. A point of light flashed, sunlight reflecting from glass on a rocky peak overlooking the canyon. Lyons backed into a dark crevice between two fallen slabs of rock. The dark rock and shadows concealed his gray uniform and black gear. He raised his binoculars.

The extreme distance defeated the optics. He could see only the crags and the windswept mountainside. Gnarled brush clung to the slopes, splotches of green against the rocks and sand.

Lyons eased himself into a comfortable slouch against the slabs and braced his elbows. He held the field of view on the ridgeline, where the ragged edge of the rock outcrops met the pure blue of the sky. Relaxing, he held his eyes still, almost unfocused, letting his eyes see everything at once.

One of the rocks moved.

He watched that one spot. The rock moved again. Then from the side, sunlight flashed again. Lyons shifted the field of view. A point of white light flashed, then disappeared as an observer lifted, then lowered binoculars.

His hand radio buzzed. Lyons maintained his watch of the ridge while Blancanales and Gadgets talked.