The third man actually got a shot off before the weapons of all six invaders bore down on him, opening fire as one and blowing him backward, a riddled, leaking straw man suddenly devoid of any life.

They swept on past the human ruins, robbed of their surprise advantage now, knowing that they might run into anything beyond the pantry door. What Toro had not quite expected was the sumptuous living room, complete with curving staircase leading to the upper floor and bedrooms. Everything was hardwood, dark, crushed velvet, carpet deep enough to hide in if you bellied down.

A shotgun boomed its greeting from the stairs, and Toro's squad scattered, going to ground behind the ornate pieces of furniture. Mano was slow, and the second shotgun blast caught him in midstride, lifting him off his feet and spinning him around before dumping him facedown on the carpeting. He was dead before he hit the floor, and from his place of bare concealment, Toro could already see the small soldado's lifeblood soaking down into the nylon shag.

Above them and across the room, the shotgunner was getting overconfident. He showed himself, looking for another target. It was his last mistake. Toro raised the .45 he carried, sighting quickly down the slide and squeezing off a double punch, even as Juanito stroked a burst out of his lethal Uzi from the other side of the room.

The shotgunner was crucified to the wall, leaving long streaked traces of himself as he slid away, finally coming down head over heels, landing in an untidy heap at the foot of the staircase.

Toro and his survivors took the stairs in a rush, mounting them swiftly. They were alert to danger, but the final gunner took them by surprise, looming around the corner of the second-story landing, banging away almost in their faces with the nickel-plated revolver that he carried.

Juanito took a round between the eyes, another in the Adam's apple, dead before his trigger finger clenched, unloading the Uzi's magazine in one last, long ragged burst. He took the gunner with him, riddling the man right where he stood and sweeping him away. His job completed, little Juanito collapsed facedown on the risers, his Uzi trapped beneath his lifeless body as he fell.

They took the bedrooms one by one, crashing each in turn until they reached what was clearly the master's room. Toro gave the door a flying kick and they edged back from the open portal, waiting for a burst of fire that never came.

The room was empty, rumpled bed and scattered nightclothes bearing testimony to the fact that their quarry had been there only moments earlier. Without speaking, El Toro began a rapid search of the room, looking under the bed, into the adjoining marble bath, moving out onto the veranda that overlooked a swimming pool in back.

Nothing.

The Cuban commando was frowning as he reentered the bedroom, but his expression changed at once when he beheld the folding closet doors. Moving swiftly across to stand in front of the closet, he raised the .45 autoloader, braced it in both hands and pumped three rounds waist high across the double doors.

It was a gamble, but his aim was true. A strangled little cry from inside the depths of the closet rewarded him, and Toro closed the gap, flinging the door wide, no longer afraid that Ornelas would pose any physical threat to his men.

The traitor was crouched in a corner of the closet, hidden in among perhaps fifty expensive-looking suits. And Toro did not have to ask himself where the money for these clothes, this house, had come from. Ornelas had sold his people and his honor, sold himself to the highest bidder like a puta on the street... and it was time for him to begin paying his dues.

Toro leaned inside the closet, grabbed a handful of his quarry's hair and dragged him out into the middle of the room. Ornelas was sniveling, crying now, a man afraid of death when it came calling at his door. He looked from one face to the other, always coming back to Toro, still afraid to speak although he plainly longed to beg for mercy.

Toro did the talking for him.

"Stand up, Raoul," he snapped. "It's time to meet your people."

Don Phillip Sacco shifted restlessly in the back seat of the silver Rolls. Sacco wanted a cigar, but he was afraid his hands would shake if he tried to light one. He would do anything to stifle the urge rather than let his soldiers see his nervousness on the eve of battle. So he settled down to wait for the word that would propel him into combat like some kind of junior hit man.

There were six guns with him in the Rolls: one on either side of him in the back, a pair on the jump seats, and a couple more in the front. All of them were armed to the teeth, their hands held close to holstered hardware, itching for a chance to use it. They were primed to kill, damn right, and wanting it so bad that they could taste it.

They were good boys, these amici. Some of them were younger than he might have liked, but all the seasoned guns were gone or out to pasture these days. Soldiering was actually a young man's business, anyhow, he thought, although an old horse like himself could still teach them a thing or two when it came to kicking ass.

The coal-black Lincoln Continentals parked on either side of Sacco's Rolls contained identical contingents of his hardmen — eighteen guns in all. It was the core of his strike force, and they had been waiting in the parking lot outside an all-night supermarket now for the better part of ninety minutes, looking for word from one of the point cars as soon as that first crucial contact with the enemy was made.

Sacco was the general this time out, and he would not be hiding somewhere behind the lines, no way. He was intent on leading his troops into battle, closing the bottleneck with his enemies trapped inside.

It was an easy stand, there being only three main routes approaching Rickenbacker Causeway. And no matter which direction the Cuban gunners came from, they would have to choose one of the routes that Sacco had already picketed with lookouts at strategic locations.

Any way they came he had them, and his own central location made it feasible for him to instantly respond to any contact point within moments of the initial sighting.

The plan was simple, and that was why he liked it.

Sacco did not fully understand what Tommy Drake had been doing with his Cuban contacts, and at the moment he did not really give a damn. The time had come to square accounts, for damn sure.

Time to save some face and put his house in order, right, and regain some of his slipping prestige with the commission.

When he had finished whipping ass today there would be time enough to look around and see how far the treason had spread within his family. Time enough, perhaps, to show a certain smart-assed Ace of Spades how the old pros handled revolutions in the ranks.

A walkie-talkie crackled into life between the front-seat gunners. Sacco snapped his fingers, reaching for the radio and taking it from the driver's hand.

"This is Digger, calling home base. You there, Chief?"

Sacco recognized it as his scout on Brickell Avenue.

"I'm listening," he snapped. "What is it?"

"Four vans headed your way, Cubans driving."

"Slow 'em down the best you can. We're coming in."

"You got it, boss."

Sacco held the transmission button down, calling in the other point cars, knowing that he would need every gun he had.

"All cars, form up on number three's position. North on Brickell. Move it!"

He did not wait for their responses. His driver was already peeling out of the parking lot. The gunners all around him were unlimbering their weapons, checking loads.

The capo reached under his jacket and slipped the stainless .45 AMT Hardballer out of side leather. He drew back the slide to chamber a live one, easing the hammer down with the ball of his thumb.