"We've got soldiers on our back," Gadgets said.

"How many?" the Politician asked.

"I've seen two. Pointmen, one man on each side of the gulch. Wait a minute. There's another man... Looks like we got a platoon tracking us."

"They see you?"

"No."

"Davis and Miguel are ready to go. We'll try to outrun the Mexicans."

Keying his hand radio, Lyons interrupted the others. "Negative. We've got a lookout ahead."

"What?" Gadgets asked. "In front of us?"

"That's what I said, Wiz. I've seen movement and reflections from binoculars."

"What's the distance?" Blancanales asked.

"Extreme. Maybe a half mile away, and three or four hundred feet above us. They're up on a ridge-line overlooking the canyon. I say we ambush the ones behind us, then leapfrog up the canyon."

"Through the lookout's field of fire?" Blancanales asked.

"Only chance we've got to get out..."

Gadgets interrupted them with a whispered warning. "Dudes! Make up your minds. Those Mexicans are only a hundred yards away."

Blancanales spoke calmly. "Could they be a rescue party? Searching for survivors?"

"Yeah, that's it," Gadgets snapped back. "You got it. First they shoot us down, and when we survive, they try to find us. Problem is, when they find us, we ain't going to be survivors. You got thirty seconds to get back here, Pol."

"On my way. Ironman, I'm sending Davis and Miguel forward."

"Hit those Mexicans and leapfrog retreat," Lyons answered. "Try to capture some rifles and ammunition."

Lyons changed his position, working his way through a maze of chest-high blocks of rock that had fallen from the sheer wall of the gorge. When he came to the canyon wall, Lyons crabbed up a ledge until he found a position concealed by mesquite from which he could fire into the streambed.

A minute later, he saw Davis and Miguel Coral jog up from the south. They glanced around, looking for Lyons. He hissed to them, catching their attention, and pointed to the ridgeline where he had seen the light-flashes. They nodded, and took cover in the rock maze.

Lyons waited, monitoring his partners through his hand radio, listening for the firefight.

Blancanales crept back through the rocks and stagnant pools. He saw Gadgets concealed in the crevice of a multiton flake of stone, watching the approaching Mexicans through a tangle of mesquite. Before continuing, Blancanales whispered into his hand radio, "Where are they?"

Two clicks, a pause, then two clicks answered, the signal that the enemy was too close for Gadgets to speak.

"You got your earphone in?"

Two clicks, yes.

"I'll take cover here. Let the pointmen pass you. We need their weapons and gear. Understand?"

Two clicks, yes.

Crouching in the shadowed crevice, Gadgets slipped out his silenced Beretta 93-R. Representing the cutting edge of Beretta technology, the Parkerized black autopistol featured semiauto or 3-shot bursts. An oversized trigger guard and a fold-down grip provided for a two-handed hold. Fitted with a sound suppressor and firing custom-loaded 9mm cartridges with steel-cored slugs for enhanced penetration, it killed without a sound. A positive safety allowed the single-action pistol to be carried cocked and locked.

Gadgets folded down the Beretta's left-hand grip. He eased the fire-selector to the one-shot mode.

He heard the Mexican before he saw him. Rocks turned under a boot. Water sloshed inside a canteen. Then boots squeaked through the streambed's sand. The Mexican soldier passed, his head swiveling to the right and left, scanning the rocks for movement. He looked directly at Gadgets, and Gadgets put a slug between his eyes, then a 3-round burst into his heart as he fell back.

There had only been the sound of the pistol's slide functioning and the four slaps of the slugs hitting flesh.

Nothing moved. Gadgets listened as the insects continued buzzing around the stagnant pools of the streambed. Holding the autopistol ready, he raised the hand radio to his lips. "I hit the first one," he whispered. "Where's the other pointman?"

Blancanales answered in a whisper. "He's coming up on the other side of the canyon. About twenty yards back."

"What's the line of sight? Can you pull the dead one into cover?"

"Doing it."

Gadgets watched Blancanales snake from cover. He grabbed the dead soldier's M-16 rifle, checking the safety. Then, slinging the M-16 over his shoulder, he grabbed the collar of the Mexican soldier and dragged him back. The dead man's gear clanked on the rocks.

A burst of a thousand-meter-per-second slugs screamed through the silence, the full-auto muzzle reports coming an instant later as impacting full-jacketed slugs exploded on the rocks around Blancanales. A last jerk pulled the dead man behind cover. The autofire continued.

Boots splashed through the stream. The second soldier changed magazines on the run and sprayed M-16 fire at the rocks concealing Blancanales.

A burst of silent 9mm staggered the Mexican, the three steel-cored bullets punching through the back of his head. He died before he fell.

"Strip them!" Gadgets shouted. He set the Beretta's safety and holstered the weapon, then unslung his CAR and peered through the mesquite for targets.

A soldier appeared a hundred meters downstream. He held an FN-FAL rifle with a grenade fitted to the muzzle. Gadgets set his CAR's fire-selector to semi-auto and sighted on the soldier's face. As the soldier aimed the rifle-grenade, Gadgets squeezed off his shot.

The grenade went wild as the dead man fell back. An explosion against a cliff face sprayed stone and shrapnel into the air.

Autorifles hammered. Slugs and ricochets zipped through the canyon as the soldiers reconned by fire. Gadgets saw an officer with a radioman advancing to the front, dashing from cover to cover as the soldiers kept up the fire.

A 3-round burst from Gadgets's CAR spun the officer. Gadgets snapped off a second burst as the radioman dived for cover. The autofire slowed as several riflemen went to the aid of their dead or dying leader.

"Wizard!" Blancanales called out. "Ready?"

Gadgets ran to his partner. Slugs tore through the air and whined off rocks as the unaimed fire continued.

The dead Mexicans lay in the sand, stripped of their weapons, web gear and boots. Blancanales had strapped on a bandolier and Mexican web gear. A pair of boots hung around his neck. He wore two soft-brimmed OD hats, one on top of the other. He passed other equipment to Gadgets.

"You work fast."

Blancanales nodded. He put one of the hats on Gadgets. "Off-load the rifles and gear with the others. I'll fall back and slow them down."

"I'll be back."

Blancanales shifted position. He didn't chance crossing to the opposite side of the canyon. Instead he watched for movement, and when he saw none, crawled and sprinted upstream. The volume of fire continued. A rifle grenade blasted the rocks where Gadgets had crouched.

Ahead, he saw Gadgets carrying the captured weapons and gear to the others. Blancanales scrambled up a rockfall and took cover behind a slab of stone. He loaded a high-explosive shell into his M-16/M-203 over-and-under assault rifle/grenade launcher. He set the M-203's sights at a hundred meters and waited.

The Mexicans advanced. Blancanales held his fire. The Mexicans killed brush and shadows with bursts of autofire. Rifle grenades maimed mesquite. He saw a soldier rush from rock to rock. The soldier found the bodies of the pointmen. He called out to the platoon. Other soldiers crowded around the dead men. They turned over a body.

A blast threw the men back. Blancanales had pulled the pin from one of the pointmen's grenades, slipped the grenade under a dead man's shirt, then lowered the corpse to hold down the grenade's safety lever.