As his men muttered curses and gathered their equipment, the lieutenant kept his binoculars on the trucks inside the plantation. The lead truck — the Toyota Land Cruiser — turned onto a side road. But both Silverados continued directly to the gardens and homes of the Quesada family.

Lieutenant Lizco returned his binoculars to its case. He had not determined which truck carried Colonel Quesada, but he had confirmed several other important details. Though his soldiers cursed the informant who had misled them and condemned them to an all-night wait in the storm for nothing, Lieutenant Lizco considered his unit's operation a success.

No Communist assassins had waited for the fascist convoy, contrary to what the lieutenant had told his commander. Lieutenant Lizco had lied. True, an informant did tell the lieutenant of the colonel's rare overland commute to the finca. Only a few times in recent years had the weather forced the colonel or any of the other members of the family to risk the highways; now, in this year of strange weather when God sent violent storms to warn of His wrath, when weather denied the Quesadas their inviolate passage through the skies, the family would take the highways more often.

No Communist assassins lay in wait today. But soon the lieutenant himself hoped to ambush Quesada. He would not murder Quesada. He would kidnap him for the humiliation of public trial and judgment in the courts of the United States.

The lieutenant lay in the mud watching Colonel Quesada, the fascist murderer of Salvadorans and North Americans, race to the safety of his fortified estate.

That night, wearing the casual fashions of a Salvadoran playboy, with forged papers concealing his identity, Lieutenant Lizco carried his information far to the north, to San Francisco, California, to set in motion the relentless process of justice.

Electric fans created a wind of humid, polluted air through the improvised dojo. In sweaty T-shirts and homemade karate pants, two lines of ghetto boys — and one girl — practiced the rising-block defense against a punch to the face. A line stepped forward in attack, and a second line stepped back as the individuals defended themselves. Isador "The Izz" Goldman, a New York Police Department detective, went from child to child, correcting stances, watching moves, demonstrating correct techniques. He spoke English, Spanish and French to the class of North American and Jamaican blacks, Eastern European whites and Central Americans.

Rosario Blancanales and Carl Lyons served as demonstration subjects. In their sweat-yellowed gis, the two Stony soldiers waited as Izz Goldman called the students together and explained the next technique.

"Now defense becomes attack. Use the same upward blocking motion, but instead of deflecting the punch up and away, break the arm. Like this..."

Goldman motioned Lyons forward. Goldman had invited his buddy Rosario to the karate class and Rosario had brought this ex-cop with the impassive face and expressionless eyes. Making the ritual bow to his opponent, Goldman then waited as the blond man stepped forward in an exaggerated and slow punch.

Snapping his left forearm up, Goldman hit Lyons's wrist hard with the bony edge of his forearm. The students asked to see the move again.

"Mr. Goldman. Do you hit only the wrist?"

"Is there a nerve there, Mr. Goldman?"

"If you hit it hard, will it really break?"

Repeating the same attack several times, Goldman struck the ex-LAPD officer's arm again and again. His eyes half-closed, expressionless, the blond man attacked on cue without flinching or holding back. Finally Goldman sent the students back to their practice. Lyons returned to tutoring a group of beginners.

Goldman went to his Puerto Rican friend, Rosario. "What's with lizard eyes? Doesn't your friend have any nerves?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like pain nerves. I must've hit him ten times in the same place and he doesn't even blink. Like looking a snake in the face."

"That's the way he is," Blancanales answered. He glanced over to Lyons. Lyons patiently demonstrated the technique of advancing in stance, knees flexed, feet sliding, eyes focused straight ahead. "That's the way he is now. Recently he lost a partner — more than a partner. He's still in mourning."

"Oh, yeah. Know about that. Tough. But that's the job."

"She was more than a partner. Looked like love and marriage. And then she was gone."

"Yeah, can imagine that."

"Not really," Blancanales corrected his New York buddy. "You don't know how broken up he is. You see, it was his fault..."

"What?"

"In a way. She was hurt and he tried to stop her from making the bust. Left her behind while we went to take the bad guys. She got pissed and did something wrong and went straight into it. If he hadn't gotten protective, she'd be alive."

Across the converted basement, Lyons attempted to explain the principle of tension-nontension to a ten-year-old boy with the almond eyes and blue black hair of a Central American mestizo.

"All your strength must go outward…" Lyons exaggerated his front stance to emphasize his words. "But the strength cannot stop you from moving, and you must move with your legs strong. Then if your leg is kicked — as in an attack to your knee — nothing happens."

The boy tried to hold his leg muscles tense while he slid through steps. His rigid legs moved in awkward jerks. Lyons shook his head. "Relax. You can't move like that..."

"You say I should keep my legs strong. But if I keep them strong, I can't walk."

"Practice it every day. Your legs will be strong and your stance will be strong. Then you'll understand what I'm saying."

"Hey, social workers!"

Lyons looked up to see Gadgets Schwarz, the Able Team electronics specialist, standing on the steps. Tanned, wearing slacks and open-collared sport shirt, the ex-Green Beret looked like an off-season tourist.

"Got a man who wants to talk to you…" Gadgets motioned up the stairs behind him. "A man from Dee Cee."

Lyons answered with a nod. He turned to the mestizo boy. "Practice. In a year it will be easy."

"You will teach me? You come back for next class?"

Glancing to his waiting partners, Lyons shrugged. "Maybe."

The boy turned away, disappointed. Lyons crossed the varnished plywood of the basement dojo to the stairs.

"How's the Ironman?" Gadgets asked.

"Never better," he lied, his eyes hooded, revealing nothing of his grief.

"Ready to work?"

"Why not?"

"That's my man. Up there."

As they went up the stairs, Lyons looked back to see Izz Goldman dividing the students into advanced and beginner groups. Two advanced boys bowed, then sparred in awkward freestyle. The deep voice of Andrzej Konzaki turned Lyons's head.

"What you doing in this neighborhood, gringo?"

Lyons stepped up to the pavement. New Yorkers crowded the sidewalks. The unseasonably warm night throbbed with rhythm of Puerto Rican music blasting from a record store.

"I'm learning Spanish."

"Looks like you're training your own gang down there."

Blancanales answered the joke. "They're all honor students. A's and a's."

"And what do they get for it?" Lyons asked rhetorically. He sat on the concrete stoop of a tenement. In his white karate pants and clinging sweat-soaked shirt, with close-cut blond hair and golden tan, he stood out like neon against the old, soot-gray tenement. "I'll tell what they get, they get their heads kicked by the punks. So we're training them to… er, present a credible threat of counterforce. There it is. Why are you here?"

"Want to use your Spanish?"

"Where?"

"El Salvador."

Lyons and Blancanales exchanged glances. The Puerto Rican ex-Green Beret sat beside Lyons on the stoop and said, "Here's a quick Spanish lesson for you. The word for asshole in Spanish is ano. Like, el ano del mundo. Asshole of the world. It's spelled S-a-l-v-a-d-o-r."