From experience gained in the jungles of Nam, Blancanales knew the art of moving silently through a forest. Among the elms and sycamores of this English hill, he was in his element. When he saw the brief flashes from the Uzi, he hurled himself up off the steps and into the undergrowth. He wriggled into hiding. He pulled the Startron from his nightsuit webbing.

Five men were silhouetted in the night-scope's eerie light.

As more boots thudded on the steps, Blancanales saw the five Irishmen move farther into the shadows to strike again. Stealthily he unlimbered his Colt.

Corporal Phillips had become concerned when the five-man patrol did not radio in. The route down the One Hundred Steps had been timed during the drills, and they should have radioed Phillips from the bottom of the steps two minutes earlier.

Phillips advised his CO of the problem and, with Private Scott, headed down to check on the missing patrol.

The two men reacted immediately as they came within sight of the corpses, but immediately was not fast enough, and Private Scott died where he fell.

As O'Shea swung his Uzi around to take out Phillips, two .45-caliber slugs from Blancanales's Colt found the terrorist's head. O'Shea's finger tightened on the Uzi trigger, sending random blasts of 9mm slugs into the night. The slugs found one of O'Shea's fellow terrorists, dispatching him with silent holes.

A second burst from the Colt sent another ambusher to join O'Shea.

Phillips had ducked when Scott fell. Now he raised his head. The muzzle of his L2A3 hovered just in front of his chin.

He saw two shadows moving. He stood up, aimed at one of them, fired, saw the other one crumple, then the first one, too, before he ducked back down.

Silence descended. Phillips slowly raised his head again. He knew he had an ally in the night.

Holding his Sterling level, the young corporal moved slowly down the steps until a whispered voice from the forest on his right stopped him.

"Friend," said the voice.

Blancanales emerged from the shadows and joined the British soldier. Quickly the American filled him in on the revised picture.

At the top of the steps, a voice from Phillips's radio demanded explanations.

From their natural blind in the trees the roof of the castle was just over two hundred fifty yards away — nearly point-blank range for their Russian rifles. Collins and Donegal scanned the top of the east wall. Four orange blobs glowed along the roof. British snipers' sites.

They heard the sound of the SMG far off to their right. O'Shea was having problems. It was time to go to work.

Almost as one, the two terrorists fired. A millisecond later, two of the orange blobs dissolved.

Carl Lyons, M-16 cradled in his arms, crouched just below the east end of the Sunken Garden. The reports of the two weapons to his left signaled the start of the battle in his sector. He began to crawl toward the source of the sounds.

The two snipers fired again. Lyons caught a hint of movement in the trees to his left.

He loaded an HE grenade into the 203, and with a pump, shot it into the middle of three flank men who had appeared in the darkness, black on black. The steel fragments propelled by thirty-five grams of explosive tore into the Irishmen. Screams cut through the night like an animal's cries. The roar of the M-16 restored silence to the scene.

Then two more booming reports. Lyons rolled to the cover of the trees.

Four riflemen on the east roof lay dead, shards from their nightscopes buried in what was left of their faces.

One of the snipers from the north roof moved to take their place. The British sniper was quickly joined by another, and the two men trained their scopes along the trees at the leading edge of the forest.

A light squeeze on the trigger by one of them and the shadow of a terrorist disappeared into the trees.

The second sniper tracked onto Donegal. The 7.62 NATO round thwacked into the back of the terrorist's head, exploding in a crimson spray of teeth and bone as it exited through the mouth.

Collins turned to see his partner's head explode, then dived for cover as a second round from the L42A1 chopped into a tree.

Collins brought the SVD around. A sigh, a squeeze, and a 7.62mm whoosh of death was dispatched to the castle roof. He rode the recoil and pulled once more.

He was not able to pull a third time; a NATO round had shattered his spine.

Joseph Flynn's squad number three worked through the forest by the eastern edge of the Sunken Garden. One man was walking point, followed closely by Flynn and two other men.

Lyons had a hot reception ready for the four of them. The M-16 sent a full load into the pointman. Flynn and the two surviving terrorists dived for cover in the trees.

Flynn fired his Uzi at the source of the shots.

Another blast from the M-16 took out one of his companions.

Flynn and the survivor, Kelly, continued toward their objective, the steps that led up the far end of the Sunken Garden.

Flynn kept up a stream of covering fire as Kelly headed for the steps with his only LAW. Pausing just long enough to change the Uzi's magazines, Flynn kept Lyons pinned. Kelly made the stairs leading to the top of the Sunken Garden.

Kelly extended the tube of the LAW, readying it for use against an advancing group of British soldiers.

With a whoosh, the antipersonnel rocket blasted into the middle of the little knot.

Shrapnel cut into the men like a hail of meat cleavers. Cleanly severed parts of human beings littered the air. Kelly threw the now useless tube away and unslung his AK-47. Scrambling up the steps, he ran onto the south side of the terrace and began a zigzag dash to the doors of the State Apartments.

Lyons, firing bursts at Flynn's position, moved out of the forest in pursuit of Kelly.

Lyons raced up the stairs, halted and raised his rifle. He took careful aim and fired a blast of 5.56 rounds at the running figure. Kelly's zag became a tumble as a 55-grain slug caught him in the back and pushed him over the wall.

Flynn was now dashing toward the doors that would take him into the Apartments. As he ran he hurled a grenade at the doorway.

The explosion blasted the doors open, and the terrorist ran through.

From his position in the sheltering trees at the western edge of Home Park, Gadgets heard the whine of high-powered engines coming toward him. He turned to look, saw three Land Rovers racing along Park Street.

He held up his Startron and took a closer look at the vehicles. In the cab of each Land Rover rode two men. The backs of the vehicles were covered with tarpaulins that might be concealing other men.

If they were reinforcements for the beleaguered British snipers, they were welcome. If not, they were dire trouble.

Telling friend from foe in a firefight can be hard, and an error had terrible consequences. In Able Team's war, the problem was paramount. Their fight was directed only at legitimate targets, terrorists and those who actively supported the pattern of death that followed terrorists wherever they went. If Bolan's men fired without knowing for certainthat their target was a legitimate one, then they became no different than the murdering terrorists. Gadgets fretted over each second of delay while the new players in the deadly game remained unknown.

The three vehicles reached the castle's gate.

The lead vehicle rammed the gate, tearing it from its ancient hinges. The ornamental ironwork hardly slowed the vehicle. It raced through the opening, taking tangled metal with it, followed by the other two Land Rovers.