Gadgets continued to read from the list. "Ah... you will be going, after all. I'll need someone to carry claymores."

"Claymores? How many?"

"Ten or fifteen."

"What? You'll break my back with that..."

"Ironman, you can do it. Three and a half pounds each. No problem. Not for a big mean man like you."

"That's forty-something pounds..."

George interrupted them. "You three men have five hours only to prepare. I have been with this project since you captured Rouhani. If you have questions, only I can answer them. And nothing in those folders leaves this aircraft. This project is classified Top Secret, Need to Know Only..."

"And Burn Before Reading," Lyons interrupted. "I got a question already. Dastgerdi's in Nicaragua — so what? If the rockets are in Lebanon, why aren't we going there?"

"We do not know that the rockets are in fact still in the Bekaa Valley," George answered. "The rockets may be in transit or they may have already arrived in Nicaragua. But we know for certain as of yesterday that Dastgerdi's in La Laguna de Perlas. Interrogating him will reveal if the rockets are there, or if..."

Blancanales spoke next. "And what if they are not?"

"Hopefully, the information we gain from Dastgerdi will allow us to intercept them on the Atlantic."

"Hopefully?" Lyons demanded. "What does that mean? We can't hope for shit. What happens if..."

The screen went black. George flicked on the lights. "The briefing is over. Study your materials. I repeat, nothing leaves this..."

"Hey, clerk! I'm asking a question!" Lyons shouted. "You said you've been on this for weeks. So what happens if the rockets aren't in Nicaragua or on a ship? I'll tell you what happens! We'll go to Lebanon and hit those ragheads like we should've as soon as you found out we got played by a decoy. And I want to know what you desk jockeys have been doing for all these weeks!"

"Ixnay," Gadgets snapped. "He looks like he's been working."

Blancanales seconded the question. "I believe my partner has a valid point. When the Agency learned that we had failed to complete our mission, why weren't we immediately dispatched to hit the real threat?"

"Any project of this kind requires intensive consultation and coordination between offices. Matters of international policy and diplomacy..."

Lyons cut him off with a sneer. "Talk or take a walk, Mr. George the Clerk. I asked a question. Answer it."

"Do you believe," George answered, his face suddenly red with anger, "that you make this government's international policy?"

"Forget the foreign-policy jive. We know what goes on. And we know what we've got to do."

"Do you believe that you... cowboy mercenaries can continue improvising your way through one adventure after another, destroying years of subtle diplomacy for the sadistic thrills of your death-squad antics? I will tell you this. The value of your team is under debate. And actions such as your complete disregard of the order to arrest Powell in Beirut do not enhance your prospects for continued employment."

"So that's what took so long," Lyons said, nodding. "That's what took you clerks weeks. You knew about the rockets. But you had to debate whether to send us."

"Your team is wildly erratic in the performance of your assignments."

"We get the job done. We do what's necessary. Now, you..." Lyons left his seat and advanced on the middle-aged bureaucrat. Blancanales grabbed Lyons's arm.

"Calm down."

"You will get out of my sight. Because my instincts are telling me..."

"Be cool!" Gadgets shouted at Lyons. "You throw him out, it'll depressurize the cabin and my orange pop here will most definitely lose its fizz. So be cool!"

George retreated into the pilot's cabin. Seconds later, Grimaldi stepped out. He scanned the seats. The three men of Able Team were reading the prepared materials.

"What's going on back here?"

Gadgets looked at his partners. He looked to the back of the passenger cabin. He looked up at the ceiling. He looked under his seat. "Nothing's going on. You see anything going on?"

"If nothing's going on," Grimaldi asked, suppressing a grin, "how come our friend George is hiding up front? You guys keep aggravating the-Agency clerks, you just might not get any more of these all-expense-paid trips to faraway exotic countries. Understand? Wouldn't have the pleasure of hunting down international creeps and stepping on them. To make the world a better place to live."

Lyons grinned. "Well, then maybe we'd just hang around Washington, D.C., and step on a few Georgie boys. Wouldn't that make the world a better place to live?"

Rain beat down on their backs. Wind-driven waves splashed into the inflated boat. Leaning over plastic oars, Able Team and their Miskito contraallies rowed for the harbor of La Laguna de Perlas, on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua.

The Miskito contras, descendants of the indigenous peoples of Central America, accompanied Able Team as contract soldiers — mercenaries. They would invest the thousands of dollars Able Team paid for this night raid in their continuing war against the Sandinistas. Like their ancestors who fought the Spanish Conquistadors, the young soldiers from northeast Nicaragua fought for the survival of their culture. In the sixties and seventies, they fought the fascist Somoza regime's attempts to seize their lands. Now they fought the tyranny of the Soviet Sandinistas, who had initiated a program of forced collectivization of the Miskito tribes.

For Miskitos, tonight's raid represented only one more skirmish in a centuries-old struggle.

North of the dinghy, two red beacons flashed, marking the entrance to the harbor. When the plastic boat rose on a swell, the scattered lights of the town became visible. But in the darkness and falling rain, nothing of the shore could be seen.

The six men aboard the tiny dinghy heard waves breaking. Without a word, they rowed deeper and faster. The time of greatest danger was upon them. Upon the open water, their black-suited forms and black boat concealed by the night, they faced little chance of being spotted by the Sandinistas. But in the white foam of the breaking waves or on the pale sand of the beach, a sharp-eyed sentry might easily see them and sound the alarm.

A swell lifted the boat. Groaning with the exertion, all six men pulled in unison. The swell passed, then broke a few meters ahead. They drove the oars down again and pulled hard. Another swell lifted the boat. The men pulled their oars through the water in unison.

The boat flexed as the wave crested, then shot toward the beach, skipping over backwash. White foam engulfed the men. Blinded by the churning water, they continued toward the beach.

When they neared the sand, two men dashed toward the wind-whipped palms, pulling the dinghy. The three members of Able Team and a Miskito, a teenager who moved with the calm and efficiency of a career soldier, removed the heavy gear from the boat. The Miskito teenager stayed with the boat. Gadgets, Blancanales and Lyons grunted across the beach to join the two lookouts. Then the lookouts advanced into the palms.

Able Team waited, weapons in hand, packs of munitions and electronics on their backs. Warm rain streamed down their faces and fatigues. Blancanales looked back and saw the oval shadow of another boat in the breaking waves. He nudged his partners.

"That's number two," Gadgets whispered.

"There's number three." Lyons pointed a hundred meters to the south. Two dark forms sprinted from the waves to the palms.

Three boats had left the cruiser offshore. Able Team, laden with equipment, needed the help of three Miskito soldiers. The two other boats each carried four men.