Blancanales saw a figure race to the cab of the rocket launcher and climb in. He quickly pulled the big gun on line and punched tracers through the windows of the cab, chewing up metal, glass and flesh. Almost instantly, the night sky was ripped apart as the rockets in the launch rack ripple fired. Comets of flame raged through the darkness in a giant pyrotechnic display. As the Politician watched, three figures stumbled from the cloud of smoke and gases at the rear of the flatbed, their bodies clothed in flame and twisting with pain. They had been caught in the backflash. Blancanales brought the M-60 around and fired a burst of mercy kill.

Rifles on the ridge hit other targets, and flames soared into the sky, illuminating the Iranians around the trucks and buildings. Powell and Akbar fired single shots from their FN FAL rifles, knocking down standing figures, forcing others to run for cover. Gadgets popped at the Iranians with his short CAR-15.

A second diesel truck, farthest from the flaming explosion, attempted to escape from the airstrip inferno. Pulling away from the flames, the truck headed toward the ranch, then began a wide left turn. The cab bumped and swayed over mounds of dirt and brush. As the truck turned onto the road, a line of tracers from the M-60 found the cab.

The driver died instantly, but the truck lurched on, leaving the road and bumping up the hillside. Blancanales continued firing. Tires blew and the trailer lurched, and the truck ground to a stop fifty meters up the hillside.

Blancanales turned his fire on the ranch house. He saw muzzles flashing from the windows, and slugs sparked off the rocks beneath the ridgeline, the ricochets humming past. Sighting on a window, Blancanales triggered a long burst, adjusting his aim until the line of tracers entered the window. He paused as the Mexican gunner linked a second belt onto the end of the first belt of NATO cartridges.

The rifle fired again from the window. Slipping a 40mm shell into his M-16/M-203, the Politician flipped up the grenade sights and steadied the fore-stock on his sack of 40mm shells as he aimed at the ranch house. The grenade dropped through the plastic sheet covering the ranch house and ripped the interior with spring-steel shrapnel.

A second shell of high explosive arched into a workshop. No more rifle fire came from the buildings.

"Bang... bang... bang," Powell chanted as he squeezed off single shots. "This gang of Eranies ain't going north. Ain't going nowhere, no way..."

Rifles flashed from every shadow and ditch below them. Slugs zipped past the ridgeline. An RPG launcher flashed, the rocket streaking past them to explode hundreds of meters in the sky.

Blancanales shouldered the M-60 again. Sighting on the shadow concealing the rocket gunner, he fired burst after burst of heavy slugs.

Another rocket shot up at them and fell short, the blast throwing up dust and debris, leaving a ten-meter-long strip of flaming brush.

"Powell!" Blancanales called out. "Over here. Take my grenade launcher. Put some high ex down there."

"Lay cool, Marine," Gadgets called out. "I'll do it. This M-zip no zap nadano way."

"Three points!" Powell raved. "That's no lame-loser lingo. That's high jive."

"Quit the talk!" Blancanales shouted out. "Put out rounds!"

Gadgets took the M-16/M-203 and the canvas bag of 40mm shells. He chambered a shell and snapped closed the launcher. "Where's the man with the rockets?"

"Right... there," Blancanales said as he triggered another long burst, three tracers arching down into the shadow.

A 40mm grenade followed the tracers. High-explosive popped and a rocket went wild, streaking over the roofs of the ranch buildings and hitting the hillside near the wrecked truck and trailer. Brush flamed.

Reloading quickly, Gadgets watched an Iranian run from the ranch and take cover in the gully beyond. Other Iranians followed, sprinting away from the flames and slaughter. A line of rifles fired from the embankment.

Slugs zipped past the ridgeline. Gadgets searched through the bag of grenades, squinting at the markings in the moonlight. He found what he wanted. Laughing, he chambered the shell and sent it down.

White phosphorus sprayed the gully. A man ran from the fire, points of white flame glowing on his body. He stumbled into the weeds and fell, flames and smoke rising as his body ignited the weeds.

Gadgets aimed a second white phosphorus grenade into another section of the gully. The chemical fire sprayed twenty meters of brush and weeds, flames coming immediately. An Iranian ran from the brush-fire. As the Iranian stood silhouetted against the flames, Gadgets saw the M-60 and the rifles stagger him, multiple hits throwing him back into the fire.

"That Jap Jeep!" Gadgets shouted out as he slammed a 40mm shell into the grenade launcher. "Pol, hit it!"

A four-wheel-drive Toyota wove across the ranch, swerving around running men and flaming brush. Blancanales sent a line of tracers at it, missing as the Toyota wove across the airstrip then disappeared behind the flames and black smoke of the burning plane.

Blancanales estimated the Toyota's path. Arcing tracers past the plane's flames, he waited for the sight of the Toyota. Gadgets fired a high-explosive grenade. The distant pop raised a circle of dust.

The Toyota reappeared, racing in the opposite direction. Jumping ditches, swaying wildly, the Toyota accelerated on the stretch of road. Tracers and rifle fire followed it, but the zigzagging vehicle hurtled past the house, struck a running Iranian, then disappeared again, this time into the darkness at the south end of the ranch.

Powell and Akbar continued firing. Blancanales shouted, "Stop! Our partner's..."

"Damn, that Eranie made it away!" Powell cursed.

Gadgets laughed. "Not yet..."

Engine screaming, the Toyota low geared through the brush and small trees. Lyons saw the driver wrench the wheel and the wagon dropped down the gully wall. The tires sprayed mud from the stream.

"Soto!" Lyons hissed.

The young infantry captain turned, the angles of his Nahuatl features silhouetted against the fires. The noises of splashing and slamming continued as the four-wheel drive vehicle maneuvered through the darkness. Soto issued quick instructions to his three remaining soldiers, then edged back to Lyons.

"That car," Lyons told him. "It could be leaders. What do you say you and me try to take them prisoner?"

Soto nodded. He crouchwalked back to the nearest Mexican soldier. On the distant ridgeline, Lyons saw the muzzles of weapons flashing, a machine gun and several rifles firing down at the ranch. No organized resistance countered the attack. Kalashnikov rifles and Uzis popped from time to time as individual Iranians blindly sprayed bullets at the hill, but their firing only attracted the downward directed aimed fire of the attackers' NATO-caliber weapons.

When Soto returned, they moved south again, retracing their path above and parallel to the gully.

They heard the Toyota crashing through brush, the engine roaring as the driver tried to double clutch. Then gears shrieked and the motor died.

Doors slammed and men cursed and shouted. Lyons moved quickly, silently, Soto a shadow a few steps back. They gained on the voices.

In the gully, flashlights lit the darkness. Lyons slowed, his steps silent in the sand of the hillside. He found a break in the weeds and brush, and going flat, he looked down into the gully.

Two Iranians were attempting to push the Toyota off a rock. The rock had bent the front bumper, then smashed into the frame. Pinned, the front wheels off the ground, the rear wheels in water and mud, the Toyota could go neither forward nor backward.