"So what're they saying? I know it concerns us, she used our names."

"Please play the tape again. The Russian speaks French. The woman's accent is very difficult for me."

Gadgets played it again. "You got it that time?"

"I cannot give you a literal translation. But the woman works for the Russian. The Mexican police will kill the Iranians and your friends. The woman will photograph it and distribute the story. I did not understand everything they said, but..."

"You're positive? They're going to off..."

"There is more. The Soviet questioned the woman about you norteamericanos. Your descriptions. Your names. She told him you were called 'Politician,' 'Wizard,' and 'Ironman.' He asked many questions about you."

"So now he knows about the rest of us. Put the Ironman on the talkie."

"I heard..." Lyons announced.

"We've got to stop them, like now."

"Hit them first. And fast," Lyons said.

"That's my man. Always ready with the plan."

In truth, Lyons had no plan. He did not know the location of the Iranians. He did not know how the Russians would mount the assault on the Iranians. He did not know the role of the Mexican police.

But he knew the assault would end with the executions of Blancanales and Powell.

Rather than allow the unknown elements to paralyze his reasoning, to create overwhelming doubts and inaction that would condemn his friends to death, he turned his thoughts away from the unknowns and concentrated on his assets in the situation.

As he rode through the midday traffic of Mexico City, the noise of thousands of cars and trucks beating at his concentration, he mentally listed the positives.

The minimikes relaying the conversations in the Russians' vehicles.

The directional transmitters.

The limited weaponry of the Soviets and Mexican police. He knew they had pistols and submachine guns, but he doubted if they had armament matching the modern military weapons of Able Team and Captain Soto's antiterrorist squad.

Surprise. The Soviets thought they had eluded the American force tracking the Iranians.

And more important, knowledge. He knew the approximate strength of the combined Soviet and Mexican force. The Soviet leader knew nothing of the Americans following and almost nothing of the Iranians.

A realization came to Lyons. The Iranians had lost three men, two dead and one captured. They might think all three had been killed, but a cautious leader would assume their location had been compromised.

The Iranians had two options: they could run or they could stay and fight.

In Beirut, the Iranians and Libyans had set ambushes. Why not in Mexico City?

But would a firefight advance their plot to assassinate the President? The Soviets and Mexicans might find no one at the location.

Lyons thought through the possibilities. He visualized the line of Soviet and Mexican cars approaching the Iranian position. He ceased to be Carl Lyons of Able Team and considered the approach as the Soviet leader would. Then he considered the action from the viewpoint of the Iranian leader.

No one plan could anticipate all the variables. Lyons blanked out his doubts and fears. He forced his mind to formulate a plan. Then he briefed the others.

The line of Soviet unmarked cars and Mexican police cars caravanned through an industrial district. Listening to a Soviet gunman talk via walkie-talkie with other Soviets, Blancanales scanned the gray warehouses and filthy streets. Diesel trucks parked in alleys, others backed up to loading docks. Laborers crowded around the trucks, unloading boxes and sacks by hand, sweat flowing from their bodies. At other docks, skiploaders shuttled between trucks and the stacks of crates in the warehouses. The smells of rot and diesel fuel and food cooking flooded through the windows of the van.

"What's this area?" Blancanales asked Desmarais.

She did not meet his eyes. "I have no idea."

The Soviet gunman next to Blancanales jabbed him with the muzzle of a pistol. "Why you talk?"

Blancanales spotted a street sign and said the name. "You recognize that street? Where are we?"

"Why don't you ask the driver?"

"And I thought you were familiar with Latin America."

The Canadian only shrugged. The gunman jabbed Blancanales again and the American went quiet. He turned in the seat and looked behind them.

Blancanales saw cars and panel trucks leaving the line, taking side streets and alleys off the boulevard. He resumed his pretense of talking to the Canadian.

"We're close. They're splitting up. Must be intending to approach from different directions. But us and Illovich and the others are staying together."

The Canadian turned and looked. Smiling with a secret knowledge, she glanced at Blancanales and smirked.

The Dodge carrying Illovich, Powell and Akbar stayed behind Blancanales and Desmarais. The Dodge and the passenger van continued along the boulevard another block, then turned right.

"Must be close now. Here we go..."

"Are you nervous, American? Why do you talk so much? I thought secret agents were strong and silent. You chatter."

Blancanales looked back again. He saw a pickup truck leave the boulevard. Two young Mexican men in stained shirts sat in the cab, laughing with one another. The pickup truck gained on the Dodge.

Then another car and panel truck left the boulevard. The pickup truck accelerated to pass the slow-moving Dodge and passenger van. Blancanales saw the other vehicles gaining. Watching the pickup truck pass, he saw the young Mexican men eyeballing Desmarais.

The Soviet gunmen watched the speeding truck. A walkie-talkie squawked. Then, in the back of the pickup, a Mexican sat up with a silenced Heckler and KochMP-5.

Even as the 9mm slugs shattered glass, hammered sheet metal, tore through the bodies of the Soviets in the front seat, Blancanales grabbed the wrist of the gunman next to him. He forced the pistol against the front seat as the pistol jumped again and again.

Then the van crashed.

Crouching in the back of the panel truck, a round in the chamber of his CAR-15, Gadgets watched the pickup and the taxi cab gain on the Soviets. The pickup accelerated to parallel the Mitsubishi van. The taxi cab accelerated to pull alongside the Dodge.

Voices came from the Mexican walkie-talkie as units of Captain Soto's force raced to their positions on the other streets.

Gadgets slap-checked his gear a last time, touching the Velcro closures of his Kevlar-and-steel battle armor, the bandoliers of magazines and grenades, the fit of his sunglasses.

Ready to go. Gadgets snapped his bubble gum and watched as the Mexican in the back of the pickup killed the three Soviet gunmen in the front seat of the Mitsubishi passenger van. He saw Blancanales struggling with the Soviet next to him. The multiband receiver blared sounds of panic and shooting from the three frequencies of the minimikes.

Fifty meters ahead, Lyons leaned from the window of a taxi cab. He pointed the fourteen-inch barrel of the Konzak out the window of the taxi and put a 12-gauge blast through the back left tire of the Dodge carrying Illovich. The tire exploded and flapped on the rim. Lyons put a second blast through the front left tire.

Jumping the curb, the Mitsubishi crashed into a parked truck. The pickup truck glanced off a streetlight pole and skidded sideways to stop, its tires smoking and screaming.

But the driver of the Dodge accelerated, aiming the bouncing, tire-shot car at the pickup. The taxi stayed parallel, Lyons firing from the window, the Konzak flashing semiauto flame. The driver's window of the Dodge exploded, the spray of steel balls and glass cubes ripping away the head of the driver and killing the other gunman in the front seat. Lyons fired again, and blood and glass sprayed out the opposite window as the Dodge hurtled on toward the pickup.