"It's the sand. We can't keep it out of the housings. We have two or three units a day go down. And then we get sun-flares burned into the videcon tubes. We put on filters, we can't use the cameras at night. Without the filters, the cameras burn. I tell you, Texas is a rough place for this equipment..."

Furst ignored the technician. He called out to Gadgets: "You find what you need?"

Gadgets left the racks. "Here's what I can do for you."

* * *

Scanning the darkness of the firing range and the rocky foothills beyond, all of it green through the optics of the Starlite scope, Lyons found the bottles. He paused to fix each in the cross hairs, then popped each with a single round from the M-16.

"That's six," Pardee told him.

"Just a second..." Lyons saw a shape scurry through the rocks. He waited. When it moved again, he fired.

"What was that?" Blancanales asked.

"A rat."

"A head shot, I suppose," Pardee joked.

"Nah, nothing fancy," Lyons replied. "I shot him through the heart."

"Okay, you're going south. Rest your feet tomorrow. In twenty-four hours, you got a twenty-mile hike, then target practice on Mexican dopers."

Slipping out the magazine and clearing the chamber, Lyons handed the rifle to Pardee. "I don't want to knock the equipment, but how about getting that scope on an M-14? Mattel's swell, but..."

"Heavy rifle. You willing to carry it?"

"Dopers need the heavy stuff. Might not notice a five-five-six."

Pardee laughed and slapped Lyons on the back. "That's the attitude! You have to meet Colonel Furst, he'd like you."

Headlights flashed on the road from camp. In the quiet of the rolling desert, the whine of an engine came to them.

"Well, there, Morgan. Looks like you meet the man immediately. Here." Pardee returned the M-16 to Lyons. "I think you'll be doing some more shooting."

As Pardee walked downslope to the parking area, Lyons snapped the magazine into the receiver and eased back the action to chamber a round. He looked at Blancanales and muttered: "Maybe so."

* * *

Schwarz rode in the passenger seat. Despite the darkness and the slipwind of the open jeep, Gadgets was sketching a design in a notebook. He finished a detail, held the drawing up for Furst as he drove, a shaky flashlight beaming onto the drawing.

"That's what it would look like," Gadgets told him. "I can put that together from the materials in the shop."

* * *

On the range, Lyons looked down to the jeep, gripped the top-heavy M-16. Blancanales stepped close to him: "We'll wait for him up here. If he recognizes..."

" Whenhe recognizes me."

"Okay, when he recognizes you..."

"Bang, bang."

* * *

In the jeep, a beeping cut off Gadget's tech talk. Furst touched a pager on his belt. He braked as he pulled up to Pardee and the other jeep.

"Urgent call," Furst told Pardee as Gadgets stepped out of the jeep. "Take Schwarz back to the base. I'm going up the hill."

Pardee guffawed, slapped the side of the jeep as it pulled away. He watched the taillights streak in the direction of the Monroe mansion. He laughed again. "Urgent!"

* * *

Wearing a white silk kimono splashed with patterns of red waves, Availa Monroe stood in the road. She raised her arms to stop the jeep, the headlights making the red and white silk blaze against the night. The soft desert wind flagged the silk. As he braked, Furst stared: in the wind and headlight glare, the woman looked like a saint seen in a dream... a beautiful girl writhing in flames, or flags, or the bloody rags of a shroud.

"Here, I want you here." She clutched at him, tried to pull him from the seat of the jeep. "Stop now. Get out and take me."

"Wait! Just..." He idled the vehicle off the asphalt a few car lengths and parked it against rocks. He jumped out, the sand soft under his feet.

Availa rushed to him, her kimono a pale fluttering around her. There were no embraces or kisses. She clawed her red lacquered nails into his fatigue shirt, dragged him down onto her. She tore the silk of the kimono aside and threw her body against him.

The sand was warm beneath them. She took him with her violent passion. In their few weeks as lovers, she had wanted more of him every time she called him. Now, her lust demanded every ounce of his force. She clutched, implored, commanded. She sneered when he tired. It drove him to anger. He beat her with his body, slamming into her as if to murder her. He did not slacken his pace or violence until she gripped him with her legs, spasmed and thrashed.

He slowed. She dug her nails into his back, hissed into his face: "Again. Again!"

Cursing her, he gave her two more climaxes before he collapsed, truly spent. He was too exhausted to look at her. The wind cooled the sweat on him as he lay in the sand. He felt raw and bloody.

Availa sat up, pulling the kimono closed. She drew a cigarette and lighter from a pocket. It wasn't tobacco. She smoked marijuana laced with cocaine base. She took several long drags and stared up at the star-strewn night sky.

Finally, he sat up. Less than a quarter mile above them, the lights of the mansion blazed against the shadowy mountains, lightspill from the windows and patios illuminating the jagged, convoluted mountainsides and cliffs in patterns of red rock and black. Far below them, the base lights formed a pattern of brilliant points on the desert plateau. In silence broken only by the soft rush of the warm evening wind, she asked: "Do you love me?"

Furst didn't answer. She looked at him for a moment. "Good," she said. "Now I don't have to pretend."

She leaned to him, kissed him, her mouth open, hot and fluid, scented with narcotic. "Next time bring more men."

He startled back. "What?"

"Or I will confess our love to my husband. Bring the other men, or you will know the wrath and revenge of Monroe."

Through the side door's Plexiglas, Lyons watched the western horizon fade from red to violet. The Huey bucked and shuddered as the pilots maintained an altitude of fifty feet over the desert gorges and plateaus. Every thermal updraft and crosswind threw Lyons against the men on each side of him, or else back against the bulkhead. Lyons gripped the nylon and foam case for the M-14, and tried to keep the equipment of the other mercenaries from bumping the Starlite scope.

A man touched a lighter flame to a cigarette. Pardee's shout tore through the engine's roar: "Put that out before I shoot at it!"

The smoker threw the cigarette down, ground it out. Pardee leaned to Lyons, spoke with his head touching Lyons'.

"A night op, so what do they do? They smoke! Two months I've nursed these losers. I should have recruited Girl Scouts."

Time went slowly. As the sky darkened to night, the terrain below them became black. The pilot took the helicopter higher. Now the swerves and lurches came infrequently. Twinkling lights appeared to the east, then the dark form of a mountain obscured the town. The monotonous vibration and night landscape lulled Lyons almost to sleep.

He had not slept since he'd seen Robert Furst, ex-army officer, ex-movie actor, ex-bank robber. After the gut-twisting near confrontation on the rifle range, Lyons and Pardee had returned to camp. They fitted the Starlite scope and a bipod onto an M-14, then Pardee made an unauthorized entry into the PX and carried out two six-packs of beer. Out in the hills, they drank the beer, then shot the cans to zero the rifle. Finally back in the barrack, Lyons had lain awake until dawn, figuring angles. How long could he avoid Furst? Could he risk Furst "disappearing"? Where did Furst sleep? How could Lyons get the body past the sentries?

If Lyons wanted to live, if he wanted Blancanales and Gadgets to live, Furst had to meet with a fatal accident. But how? After brooding all night, Lyons knew he could do nothing, the guarantees were too slender. Therefore he had to avoid Furst until an opportunity for elimination arose later.