"Drop it or she die here!"

Thumbing down the hammer, Pardee glanced at Blancanales, then slowly stooped down and surrendered the Colt to the asphalt. One of the gang boys ran forward and kicked Pardee in the gut. Pardee did not even look at the gang boy. He kept his eyes on the punk with the knife.

Two toughs shoved Blancanales against a car and went through his pockets. The others slammed at Pardee with their fists, hitting him in the body, then in the face, their fists sounding like slaps. Still he kept his eyes on the punk with the knife.

Blancanales muttered into the tiny microphone set in his coat lapel. "Lyons, Gadgets. Trouble. Real trouble. Other side of the club."

"Shut that mouth, white man," a tough screamed at him. Blancanales blocked a punch with his elbow.

"Thanks for the money, man, thanks for the gun, and man, thanks for the blonde!" shrieked the punk who was pointing the surrendered .45 at Pardee's head. "You know what we gonna do? We all gonna screw her, then..."

The tough holding the knife to the girl's throat stepped close to Pardee, leered into his face:

"...we gonna take her across town and sell her..."

Pardee glanced at the .45 only a foot from his head. He smiled, looked over to Blancanales. Pol studied the pistol for an instant. The punk had thumbed its hammer back only to half-cock.

In a motion too fast to see, Pardee snatched the knife from the punk with the girl. The tough with the pistol jerked the trigger, but there was no shot. Pardee kicked and punched. Toughs slammed backward into cars. The auto-pistol clattered to the asphalt.

Blancanales smashed the hoodlums on either side of him, then sprinted for the girl. Even as he kicked the punk who had threatened the singer, the girl punched the punk in the throat, knocking him down and out. Blancanales pulled the enraged girl away.

Turning, Blancanales saw Pardee lean over the two thrashing, choking gang boys that he had kicked and punched. The choking ended in strange gaspings. When Pardee stood, his hands and coat sleeves were glistening with blood. The eight-inch blade of his knife dripped red.

"Down!" Carl Lyons shouted from the far end of the parking lot. "Get down!"

One of the toughs had a snub-nosed revolver. Blancanales shoved the girl down, threw himself on top of her.

The rip-roar of the Magnum's bullet passed over them. Blancanales heard glass falling as the bullet, punching through the tough boy, continued on through parked cars.

Pardee stooped down to Blancanales. "Get Christie out of here. We'll meet at the hotel. Go!"

"Craig..." the blond singer called out "...are you okay?"

"We're going to the car, come on." Blancanales jerked Christie to her feet, then half-dragged her across the parking lot.

Behind them popped six small-caliber shots. Blancanales saw Pardee empty the .22 snub-nose at the club's side exit. Someone ducked back inside and slammed the door closed. Pardee wiped the revolver of prints and dropped it. Then he cut the throats of the two toughs that Blancanales had sent sprawling against the car.

Carl Lyons caught Christie's arm, took her stubbornly held guitar case. "Are you hurt, lady?"

"I'm okay! Who are you?"

"He's a friend. We've got to get you out of here. Where's your car?" Blancanales' voice pulsed with urgency.

"We came in Craig's."

"Then we'll take mine. He'll follow us."

Blancanales had the doors to his rented sedan open in an instant. Lyons and Gadgets helped the singer into the car, then sprinted for their car.

A long scream tore apart the night. Blancanales looked back to the bodies. He saw Pardee, knife in one hand, something gory in the other, standing over the wailing, writhing punk who had threatened Christie. The scream choked off as Pardee jammed the handful of gore into the punk's mouth. Then he lifted the punk's head by the hair and grinned his death's-head smile into the face of the dying gang boy.

The knife flashed twice. Blood arced from the hood's yawning throat.

Blancanales threw the rented car into gear, burned rubber. A last look into the rearview mirror showed Pardee pause in the center of the parking lot to survey the scene, then scoop up his Colt from the asphalt and run to his car.

Taking directions from Christie, Blancanales wove through the avenues of Kingston. Lyons and Gadgets followed in their rented car. Pardee was waiting for them at the hotel. He greeted Lyons with a grin and a handshake.

"Good shooting, pal. Two inches to the left of the sternum at one hundred feet. And by street light. Ex-cell-ent!"

"Thanks. Practice makes perfect."

"Marchardo! You see the expression on that punk's face when he pulls the trigger and nothing? Punk didn't know the difference between cocked and half-cocked." Pardee continued on to Christie. "Are you all right, love?"

"I'm okay. What about you? You're the one they kicked."

"We don't have time to talk. My friend here..." he nodded to Lyons "...had to kill one of those punks. You know how the law is. I'm sending you back to the States. Or anywhere you want to go right now. We can't stay in Jamaica."

"I'll go with you. I don't want to go back alone."

"Okay, Los Angeles. You always wanted to go to L.A., so now you're going. Upstairs and pack! I'll join you in California next weekend."

Christie ran into the hotel. Pardee watched her, a look of love on his face. He turned to the three men.

"Okay, gentlemen. You got work." Pardee offered his hand to Gadgets. Then he noticed the blood that had clotted on his jacket sleeves. He grinned at Blancanales: "Another good suit hits the shitcan."

Dawnlight revealed the desert blurring beneath them, rocks and low brush flashing past at three hundred miles per hour. The pilot maintained an altitude of one hundred feet. To the east, rip-saw peaks stood black against a horizon the color of sheet flame. Six hours out of Jamaica, this was their first sight of Texas. They had seen the distant glows of towns' lights during the night. But now, in the first minutes of daylight, there was nothing. They skimmed over total isolation. Only the black line of a highway miles off marked the desert.

"So — you worked for the airlines after your discharge..." Pardee continued his questioning. For the hours of the flight, the plush leather and hardwood interior of the Beechcraft jetprop had served as an interrogation room. Before take-off, Pardee had collected their weapons and searched them. In the air, he asked them for their backgrounds, in detail. And then he questioned each detail.

"For a while, yeah," Gadgets answered. "But they let me go. Either the Feds bothered them, or they decided not to risk me fragging a pilot. They never told me straight."

"If you fragged your captain in Nam, how come they hired you in the first place?"

The nature of his role damn near made Hermann Gadgets Schwarz spit.

"I didn't tell them. I had a medical discharge. I had my Purple Heart. I mean, it was 'Hire the Vet' time. Until the investigators came along. Then they found out."

"What was the name of your captain? The one you wasted."

"Sisson. Captain Sissy, I called him. Always having us running around topside, to string antennas and put up new radar dishes — but he wouldn't even go for his own food. One time we took a hit on top that took away our gear, and he orders three men up to fix it. To fix it right then. Rockets, mortars, 130mm shells coming down, and he sends them up. 'Wouldn't ask you to do anything I wouldn't do.' Bang, we get hit again. He sends me up to check on them. Nothing but rags and meat. Couldn't even tell who was who. I go down and give him the bad news, he hears it, then he sends me topside to the officers' mess. He has me fetch coffee. The sky's falling, we're dying all over, and I'm trying not to spill his coffee." Schwarz was alive to the possibilities of the story. In fact he knew many like it. "That's when I decided to do him. My contribution to the war effort."