"I know it is not their embassy," Soto answered. "I will get the information later, but first we change this truck for cars."

"What else can you get?" Gadgets asked.

"We must decide at what level this operation will proceed," Soto answered. "We can keep all this within my unit, which will unfortunately limit what we can do. Or we can go to my superiors and explain the threat to your President. If we do that, we will have all the resources of the security forces. However, that may take time."

"That's not the only trade-off." Lyons took a last glance at the estate as the catering truck passed. "We go official, it takes time. It also takes it away from us. Your people won't let us operate. Then if the Iranians get across the border, we've got to go official up there, too. More time. More limitations. I say we only need a few cars. Once we get Powell and the Politician loose from those commies, we're ready to go. Wizard?"

"Get a mobile home. With a shower. A bullet-proof mobile home. With a color tv. And a video machine and some videos and some movies on tape. And..."

"Kill the wish list," Lyons said, laughing. "You ain't a senator yet!"

"You asked."

"There's a limit."

"Then come up with a panel truck. I want to park outside the people's palace back there and monitor the place."

Screams echoed from the basement. As if he had not heard, Illovich poured tequila into a tumbler. The screams continued. The two Americans glanced to one another. Illovich watched the Hispanic as he passed the tumbler of clear liquor to the American agent.

Illovich tried to guess the man's ethnic background. Mexican? Puerto Rican? Central American? The man could be one of the three Colonel Gunther had encountered the previous month when the combined force of American operatives and Mexican mercenaries smashed through the structure of Los Guerros Blancos. In a week of smash-and-run attacks, the gang of killers had first destroyed the dope gangsters and Mexican-army units ruling the opium fields of the Sierra Madres, then slashed through the maze of criminal-military-political alliances to attack the headquarters of the Fascist International operations in Mexico.

That attack had very nearly ended Illovich's most ambitious scheme: the penetration and control of the highest offices of the Fascist International by the Soviet Union.

Throughout the previous decade, Soviet KGB officers had succeeded in infiltrating thousands of agents into the security services and death squads of many Latin nations. These agents believed they served the American CIA, or the Salvadoran government, or patriotic Argentine exiles, or any one of many other reactionary groups. At the instructions of their neo-Nazi officers, and with the aid of the KGB, these thousands of agents annihilated the moderate political elements of Central and South America. Teachers, students, labor organizers, priests, progressive politicians, compassionate businessmen, idealists, evangelists — anyone not subscribing to the Stalinist diktat of the Soviet Union, died. Forewarned and sheltered by the KGB, only the cadre of Soviet agitators and manipulators avoided the death-squad assassins. When the oppressed people of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua inevitably rebelled against their feudal overlords, Soviet-trained-and-financed cadres emerged from the universities, slums, and army barracks to lead the revolutionaries.

But the death-squad agents remained in the lower ranks of the Fascist organizations. The Soviet Union needed agents who attended the conferences of the leaders. Through years of patient work, creating identities and arranging "victories" to demonstrate his agent's intelligence and loyalty, Illovich had finally succeeded in placing an East German operative in the highest military-political circles of the Fascist International. Colonel Jon Gunther, supposedly born in Paraguay, supposedly the ambitious son of a German family dedicated to the ideals of the Thousand Year Reich, had attained the coveted position of the International's military-liaison officer to Mexico. Gunther had served to integrate the actions of the Mexicans within the hemispheric strategy of the Fascist International. He had shuttled between the capitals of the Americas, coordinating and often initiating the responses of the Pan-American elite — the wealthy, the oligarchic Families, the transnational corporations — to the rising storm of nationalism and democracy throughout North and South America.

Then the three Americans and their mercenaries had almost defeated Illovich's ambitious plot. If Gunther had not escaped...

Yet from the near-disaster, Gunther had wrenched a significant gain: the recruiting of one of the Americans. Gunther had offered the blond leader of the operatives, the one called "Ironman," gold and a leadership role in the Fascist International if the American became an agent in the employ of Gunther. The "Ironman" had accepted and helped Gunther to escape. Though the Ochoa gang had immediately recaptured Gunther, the American had fulfilled his commitment. Or had it only been a trick?

Illovich must know the truth. As he poured drinks for the captured Americans, a thousand plots and countermeasures swirled through his mind. Somehow he must contact and then test the blond American known as "Ironman." Could these American agents lead him to the other man? His long joke with the employment form in the car had been a test. Somehow he must break through their resistance.

Holding the bottle to an empty glass, Illovich glanced to the Lebanese.

"And you, my friend?"

Akbar shook his head.

"Oh, forgive me. I forget. Your faith."

They sat in the library of the house. Shelves of books rose from the floor to the ceiling of the room. Heavy velvet drapes, smelling of dust and age, covered the windows. Desmarais paced the room, studying the framed prints on the walls, the titles of books, the pre-Conquest sculpture displayed on the tables.

"I'll take a refill." Powell put his tumbler on the old desk.

Illovich flashed his startlingly white false teeth. "It is not often you have the opportunity to drink with the opposition."

"Yes, the pleasure of drinking with the opposition," Powell mimicked. "Even if it's this strange cactus vodka, right, Illovich?"

The Soviet laughed. "Cactus vodka! How true. I had not thought of it like that. Is that what tequila is called in Texas?"

"We call it a lot of things. Like, deadly. Like, white lightning..."

A piercing, shuddering wail interrupted Powell. The captured Iranian screamed until he sobbed down a breath and screamed again.

"Oh, yeah! Do it to him!" Powell laughed and gulped tequila. "You Soviets know how to treat an Iranian. If I join up, will you put me in charge of questioning mullahs? I got some ideas I want to try out."

"You joke." Illovich touched an intercom key. He spoke quickly in Russian.

An aide immediately rushed into the library. With a long pole tipped with a hook, the aide closed the heating and cooling vents near the ceiling. Then he closed the vents in the floors. The Iranian's screams became distant, only a whisper in the background as they talked.

"Not often — not lately, that I get a chance to drink," Powell continued. "Hanging out with Shias, you know. Bottle of tequila could get you shot. Or whipped. Muslims are just crazy when it comes to alcohol and things like..."

Blancanales interrupted Powell. "Secretary Illovich, why are we here? Why the drinks and polite conversation? Why aren't we down in the basement?"

"Yes, yes. To business. Senor, you may appear Latin, but you certainly demonstrate the impatience of an American. To business. I would have thought I have made my interest and intent obvious."

Illovich paused to sip his vodka and consider his words. "As you know, the Soviet Union leads the world in the quest for peace. No, do not taunt me with your sarcasm. My words are true. Though your nation and the other capitalistic, imperialistic nations provoke us, we restrain ourselves, we wait, we attempt to negotiate, we never fail to demonstrate our peaceful intentions.