"Ironman! You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I even got a prisoner. I tell you, this is strictly amateur night…"

Blancanales buzzed Gadgets. "Action in here. What's going on out there?"

"Nothing. Absolute zero. What happened?"

"Tell you later."

Stepping over corpses as he rushed down the stairs, Blancanales saw Lyons standing over the mullah, one foot on the old man's throat, the modified Colt Government Model pointed at his face. The mullah choked, thrashed, raised a clawlike hand for mercy. The other arm lay limp at his side, the shoulder shattered, blood from the gaping wound soaking his white robe.

"With losers like these against us," Lyons sneered, "we'll be going home tonight. He had me. In his sights. And look…"

He pointed the Colt at the AK. The autorifle had no magazine in place. "Tried to shoot me with an empty gun. Abdul. Watch this lowlife."

The breathless taxi driver stood over the prisoner as Lyons looped plastic handcuffs around the old man's wrists and cinched them tight. He fitted two of the plastic locking strips end to end and bound the prisoner's ankles. Finally, he tore a shirt from one of the dead teenagers and wadded it into the mullah's mouth.

Silenced autopistol pointed, Lyons followed the passage toward the street. At the far end, a single bare bulb illuminated the long narrow passage. They stopped at a door. Lyons nodded at the light, looked at the Beretta that Blancanales held. Blancanales sighted on the bulb and popped it with a slug.

In the darkness, a fine line of light outlined the door. Lyons crouched beside the door. Blancanales flattened himself against the wall near the handle. Lyons jerked the door open, dodged back behind the cover of the wall.

No shots came. They heard no movement. Keeping his head low, at less than knee height, below the point where a terrorist inside would aim a burst of autofire, Lyons stuck his head out for a look, saw a garage cluttered with auto parts and tools and jerked his head back.

"Don't see anyone…"

"Doesn't mean they don't see you," Blancanales whispered. He took out his hand radio to buzz Gadget. "Wizard. Hit that door, make noise, a distraction. On the count of three."

"Got it. One, two…"

On three, bursts of silent 9mm slugs hammered into the ceiling and rear wall of the garage, a fender crashing down, glass breaking, plaster falling. Lyons slid belly-down through the doorway.

He saw no one. Staying on the floor, Lyons braced the Colt with both hands. Rolling on his back, he peered into every corner of the garage.

Gadgets knocked on the heavy doors, hissed, "The kid on the motorbike's coming." Then Lyons's hand radio buzzed. He did not stop to answer it as he pulled the crossbar from the doors.

Blancanales leaned through the doorway. "Wizard says the kid on the motorcycle's coming. Thinks you should let him in…"

"Already…" Lyons cut off his answer as the two-stroke roar of the motor scooter became deafening. He stayed behind the door as he pulled it open. The teenager rode in on his Japanese bike.

Three pistols and an Uzi greeted him, Gadgets and Mohammed rushing in a step behind the teenage terrorist. Lyons shoved the door closed. In seconds, they had the boy gagged and bound.

"Back to the stairway?" said Lyons.

Rejoining Abdul, Lyons and Blancanales looked up the stairway to the tenement apartments.

Blancanales shook his head. "I don't want to chance it. There could be a hundred of them up there. Waiting with AKs."

"Second the motion," Lyons agreed. "Maybe they control the entire building, maybe not. There could be children, old people on the upper floors. Depends on what raghead here tells us."

As Blancanales surveyed the stairway, he took a mental body count. "Five. Plus three more upstairs…"

"And two more there." Lyons pointed toward the alley. He held up his suppressed autopistol. "Colt seven, Beretta three. Winner and still champion…"

Stepping past the door, Blancanales looked down at the sentry. One slug had smashed the left arm where it met the shoulder. The arm dangled by tendons and strands of muscle. Only the jaw and a scrap of scalp remained of the head. Blancanales exhaled slowly.

"That's an example of burst fire," Lyons told him. "Point-blank."

"Let's get this old man into the garage." Blancanales handed his Beretta and an extra fifteen-round magazine to Abdul and left him at the stairs.

They dragged the mullah over the stones. In the garage, Mohammed questioned the mullah. The old man babbled, nodded his head, cried.

"If we let him live," Mohammed told them, "he'll tell us everything, take us to the others."

"He doesn't want to be a martyr?" Lyons sneered.

"That's only for soldiers," Mohammed grinned. "This old man, when he dies, he knows where he goes."

"Do they have more SAM-7 missiles?" Lyons asked. Blancanales spoke simultaneously.

"How do they get their information about the planes?"

Mohammed translated their questions, listened to the old man whine and cry. "He wants you to stop the pain in his shoulder."

Lyons looked at the two prisoners, then motioned Blancanales and Gadgets to the passage door. There, Lyons glanced down to the stairway to check on Abdul. He watched the passage as the three men talked in whispers.

"I don't think he's the head man," Blancanales told them. "The old man upstairs had a servant, and he had better robes."

"But he's dead," Lyons commented. He called over to Mohammed. "Ask him if he's the leader, the number one man."

When Mohammed questioned the mullah, the old man nodded again and again, looking around at his captors, beseeching them with his one hand. Mohammed shook his head. "Says he is, but he ain't. I say he's a stupid old priest from the desert."

"Does he know where the missiles are?" Lyons asked.

For minutes, Mohammed translated questions and answers. "He says there are missiles someplace else. If you stop the pain, get him to a doctor, he'll take you there. He doesn't know anything about the airport. Doesn't know anything about the CIA. His group makes war on America. That's all he knows."

"Pushing our luck," Gadgets told them. "We go to another place, and they're ready for us… "

"I haven't seen any telephones or radios," Blancanales told them.

"They have walkie-talkies," Gadgets cautioned. "Limited range, but…"

"This isn't their main group," Lyons reasoned.

"That old man, he's no one. Not these punks, either. They had old AKs and pistols and knives. You see the submachine gun that one raghead punk had? Looked like something out of World War II. They wouldn't have the missiles here. The main group would. When we get them, that's when this show's over."

"That's what that Hershey goof thought," Gadgets muttered. "And now he's over."

"Hershey had a traitor or informer in his team for sure," Blancanales corrected. "We don't."

"Gentlemen..." Lyons numbered his points "...one: we came in here quick and quiet. No shots. No warning. Two: no one got out. Therefore, I vote we hit the next group."

"Second the motion," Blancanales agreed.

"It's unanimous, then. Let's hit them. But," Gadgets cautioned Lyons, "what you mean is, no one got out that you know of… Now they could be expecting us, right?"

Lyons nodded.