Now, as their limousine sped into one of the quarters of the ancient city, Sadek briefing Parks on the future Egyptian investigation, an unmarked United States Air Force F-16 taxied onto the runway of Cairo International Airport.

"Executive Underwriters' shuttle jet, requesting permission for takeoff…"

Almost a mile away, the late-night shift of flight controllers glanced at radar screens empty of tourist flights. Talking and joking as they chain-smoked, they followed the course of an air-freight flight crossing the Mediterranean coast. As he gulped coffee, one of the men watched a controller monitoring an outgoing flight at a console.

"Please wait for updated atmospheric data," Aziz Shawan murmured into his headset's microphone. The controller reached to the tiny pager at his belt, pressed the unit three times.

Seated a few feet away, the other controller noted the action. He excused himself from his friends and left the tower's flight-control center.

He went to the lounge. In a few hurried steps, he checked the restroom's toilet stalls for other employees, then returned to the lounge. He dropped a coin into the pay phone.

What he had seen, and this call to the Egyptian secret police, would earn a new color television for his home.

But the number he dialed rang an office in the American aircraft hangar at the far end of the airport complex.

In fluent, idiomatic Arabic, a CIA agent took the information. Slamming down the phone, he pressed an intercom button. "Our turkey in the con-tower called. He saw Aziz Shawan dispatch our flight, then press his pager, but not in response to any signal from the pager."

"Three tones, right?"

"Yeah. You got it?"

"Confirmed. Our team is listening into the transmission now. Evidently the Muslims are alerting their headquarters."

On the runway, the pilot of the F-16 eased forward the throttle. As he gained speed, the runway lights became parallel streaks of light. Then the interceptor hurtled into the night. Holding down his speed, the pilot followed the flight path of the U-2 destroyed two nights before.

Watching the display of the downward-looking radar, the pilot waited for the blips of uprushing missiles. One gloved hand reached for the switch of the electronic counter-measures. He spoke into his helmet's microphone. "This is the Roadrunner. All set to smoke the Coyote."

Below, in the streets of Cairo, agents waited in cars and trucks. Technicians listened as the Muslim Brotherhood agent at the international airport told his superior about the American Air Force jet. In seconds, signals went out to the missile units.

"These crazies are organized!" one technician told another. "Flight controller to SAM launchers, ninety seconds."

"And ten more for launch! There go the missiles!" The agent spoke into his radio. "We saw a launch from a truck. The truck's moving. We're following…"

In the cockpit of the F-16, the pilot saw the green points of the SAM-7 missiles appear on his display screen. He flicked the electronic-counter-measures switch, pulled back on the throttle. Giving the engines full power, the pilot took his jet far away from the threat of the Soviet missiles.

Laughing to himself, the pilot thought of a cartoon roadrunner streaking an acetate desert, leaving the hungry coyote behind in a cloud of dust.

"Beep, beep."

Zaki pulled down the rolling door of the garage. Bloody and dirty, Able Team staggered from the taxis. Lyons lurched to one of the Fiats and sprawled on the hood, using it as a lounge. Blood caked his hair to his skull.

Examining the wound with a calm, experienced eye, Abdul poured water on Lyons's hair, sponged away the gore. "Open your eyes for a moment, sir. Look at the light. Good, good. Do you have any pain? Are you dizzy? We have doctors available if..."

"You got some food available?" Lyons interrupted. "My head's okay, but my stomach's killing me."

"Yes, sir. I'll see exactly what was provided. Would you like a folding cot? Colonel Katzenelenbogen anticipated your comforts, also."

"Just so I don't have to lie down on the concrete…"

Blancanales surveyed the interior of windowless garage. He glanced from the shadowed corners to the few boxes stacked against one wall. He saw no exit other than the steel roll-down door. "Where are the prisoners?"

"They were taken for interrogation," Abdul answered.

"By who?" Lyons demanded.

The three taxi drivers looked to one another. Abdul continued, "I'm quite sure the embassy will receive transcripts of all the information."

"The old man needed immediate hospital care," Zaki reminded them.

"Hey!" Lyons shouted. "You're not hearing me. I asked you who's got them?"

Mo-man laughed. "Well, hey yourself, bad man. Why do you want them? Target practice? Ain't you killed enough of them tonight?"

Blancanales went to Lyons. "Let it go. You know who's got them. The local Mossad franchise."

"Maybe," Mohammed admitted.

"Then why don't you say so?" barked Lyons.

"It's called the 'option to deny,'" Blancanales said.

"Political double-talk is what it's called," Lyons muttered.

Abdul checked the boxes. He returned with a folding aluminum cot, and he set it out for Lyons. "Here, sir. And we have blankets if you would like to sleep."

Gadgets was searching through the boxes. He called out, "Dig this! They got hot food in here. Look at this."

"What is it?" Blancanales asked, walking across the garage. "What's that I smell?"

Gadgets opened a flat Styrofoam carton. "Steak! It's hot. All right, man! Someone out there loves us. Ironman, forget about the rockets for ten minutes. Get a steak. Take a break."

The three men of Able Team and their "Egyptian" helpers crowded around the cartons, finding Styrofoam boxes of steak dinners, containers of hot coffee and chocolate. Other boxes contained more folding cots, blankets, loaded Uzi mags and .45-caliber ammunition. Gadgets crammed a handful of french fries in his mouth, gulped. "Whoever they are, they know what we need."

Lyons glanced at his watch. "I want to clean up and be ready to move again in an hour."

"What the hell," Gadgets said. "We don't even know where we'regoingnext."

"Okay, Mossad Man," Lyons addressed Mohammed the taxi driver. "You seem to know everything. Tell us where we're going next. Where are those rockets?"

Mohammed set down his Styrofoam plate. Making his face the solemn mask of a fortune-teller, he brushed his hands over wavy hair, ratting it to an electric tangle. He rolled his eyes, raised his hands to the soot-blackened ceiling of the garage. "I see… I see..."

Despite himself, Lyons laughed, the tension and exhaustion gone for the instant of the jive-talking young man's routine. Mohammed bugged his eyes, fixed Lyons in a stare, his face frozen in comic terror.

He shook his head, blinked his eyes. "Jeeeeezus."

"What?" Lyons demanded. "Tell me."

"What I saw? I looked into your heart and, man, I'm sure glad you ain't after me. That Muslim Brotherhood better say its prayers, 'cause there's a heart of darkness abroad tonight!"

White-uniformed police officers with flashlights guided the limousine through the squad cars and the fire engines. An ambulance turned from an alley and accelerated away, its siren shrieking. Smoke drifted from the alley mouth, evening wind dissipating the acrid haze through the neighborhood. Sadek knocked on the Plexiglas partition. "Here, driver. Thank you."

Sadek stepped out, held the door open for Katz and Parks. In the alley, they saw the floodlights of emergency vehicles. Shadowy forms moved in the glowing haze. Firemen directed streams of water onto the smoking hulk of truck.