"You have any foreign connections?" Lyons asked.

"You mean, Russia? Libya? Nicaragua? No. We have families and friends in the United States and Mexico and Europe. Sometimes they send us money. But we do not need it. We work."

Blancanales asked next. "Are you in opposition to the present government?"

"The new president is a gift from God. When he came to office, our group disbanded, only to learn that Unomundo and the other fascists who had escaped justice still threatened our country. Now, with the elections only weeks away, the threat is at its greatest. Unomundo has spies in the government and the army. We do not know what he plans, but it will come soon. To fight Unomundo, you need our help. And though it shames me to ask, we need the help of the United States."

"How long have you known of Unomundo?" Blancanales asked.

"Since this…" He touched the scarred right half of his face with what remained of his right hand. "Only a few months out of school. For my church, I volunteered to work in a clinic for Indians. I gave a wounded man first aid and called for an ambulance.

Merida came with a squad of killers. They wanted the names of the others fighting Unomundo. But I knew no names. They beat me, they put my hand in a fire. I knew no names. They put my face to the fire. I knew no names. They threw me in a ditch, shot me, buried me. But I lived. That was when I learned of Unomundo."

The North Americans said nothing. In the silence of the car, they heard the traffic sounds of the boulevards, and a woman singing. Gadgets shook his head, sighed quietly: "Nazis..."

"Will you help us in our fight?" Dr. Orozco asked.

The men of Able Team looked to one another. They nodded.

"Good," beamed the disfigured young man. "We help each other. After you took Merida, the Nazis evacuated those offices. But we followed them to another place. Luis, that man..." Dr. Orozco pointed to the cab driver waiting in the taxi "...he will guide you. When I learned of an American commando team attacking Unomundo, I mobilized all our people. We will stop the fascists. We must. God be with you."

Dr. Orozco stepped out of the van and raised his hand to signal the car parked at the far end of the block. The tires burned rubber as the driver roared to the van. In five seconds, the disfigured young doctor was gone.

Gadgets broke the silence. "One brave hombre. That happens to him and he still plays the game."

"No," Lyons corrected. "He wasn't in any game. They just did it."

"Talk about gifts from God," Blancanales added. "Dr. Orozco and his people are a gift to us. I feel it about this guy. From the evidence on his face, I kinda trust his story."

"Unomundo's got to go." Gadgets eased down the hammer of his Beretta 93-R. He set the safety. He returned the autopistol to his shoulder holster. "Got… To…Go."

"First, we got to find him," Lyons said as he reached into his war bag heavy with steel. He took out the re-engineered Colt Government Model. He checked the chamber and checked the Allen screw securing the suppressor. Redesigned and hand-machined by Andrzej Konzaki to incorporate the innovations of the Beretta autopistols, the interior mechanisms of the Colt no longer resembled what Browning had invented and patented. Like the Berettas, a fold-down lever and oversized trigger guard provided a positive two-hand grip. But it fired silent full-powered .45-caliber slugs, in semi-auto and three-shot bursts. Lyons jammed in an extended ten-shot magazine, with the chamber left empty. Returning the weapon to the flight bag, Lyons gave his partners a salute: He would go with Luis and they would follow him.

"Find and kill," he said.

A few steps took him to the waiting taxi. Inside, the sallow-faced young driver turned to him. Lyons extended his hand. "We're working together, Luis. We'll break those Nazis."

The driver smiled and shook the North American's hand.

Speeding to find Colonel Morales, the taxi traveled the brightly lit boulevard again. Lyons saw Luis glance to a crowd of laughing young men and women emerging from a restaurant. Then came a bride in flowing white and a young groom in a tuxedo. The crowd of friends showered the newlyweds with rice until they gained the shelter of the limousine.

Luis stared at the scene with longing and sorrow. For that moment, Lyons studied the young man's old face. Lyons had already heard Dr. Orozco's horror. What had Luis suffered?

Looking down through a dirty skylight, they saw Colonel Morales. The colonel supervised a crew of workers packing what appeared to be clay inside the door panels of three cars — a battered Fiat, a gleaming black Mercedes, and a blue-and-white National Police squad car. Elsewhere in the warehouse, workers packed the clay into commonplace street objects: trash cans, striped street barricades, the underside of fiberglass park benches.

Blancanales leaned to Lyons and Luis. He pointed to a shipping crate, then motioned to all the objects the workers packed. "That's C-4. Plastic explosive."

"They are making bombs?" Luis asked.

Lyons nodded. He slipped back from the skylight to key his hand-radio. He whispered to Gadgets.

"Guess what? It's a bomb factory. Car bombs, booby traps. Enough to make this city Beirut-for-a-day. What's going on out front?"

"Nada, man. Zero. Guard number one's got a cigar in the car. Guard number two's asleep on his feet."

"The doctor's people in position?"

"First shot they hear, it's blacktop kill zone."

"Standby. Over."

Blancanales snapped his fingers to get Lyons's attention. He pointed down. "Two guards coming up," he hissed.

Lyons went to the stairwell housing, moving as quickly as he dared over the sun-cracked tar of the warehouse roof.

He felt the footsteps on the stairs before he heard them. Pressing his back against the housing, he thumbed back his silent Colt's hammer and waited.

Voices. Sentries. The door swung open, light fanning across the dark rooftop. Lyons saw one man with a folded-stock Galil autorifle in his hands. The man called out.

A second man looked around the corner, his eyes going wide as he looked straight into Lyons's face.

Grabbing the guy by the hair, Lyons jerked the sentry's face into the muzzle of the silent Colt, and pulled the trigger twice.

He tried to shove the dead man away, but stumbled over the corpse. Still he aimed one-handed at the other sentry, and fired.

The slug clanged off the Galil's barrel and tore through the man's right bicep. The guy sucked down a breath as the pain came, but the scream never left his throat, a second .45-caliber hollowpoint punching into his chest. The third went high, tearing away the top of his head.

Lyons changed magazines. On one knee he listened for an alarm. The roof door swung back and forth on its hinges, and voices came from below; a worker used a power drill. But he heard no shouting, no rush of feet on the stairs.

He looked over to Blancanales. His partner gave him a thumbs-up, then he and Luis crept across to join Lyons. They stripped the Galils from the dead men. They found 9mm automatics in shoulder holsters. Lyons nudged Luis.

"Put on that one's coat, and sling the rifle over your shoulder. Pol, you make like the other man. Down the stairs, left into the office. I want that phony colonel alive."

Descending the stairs, Luis and Blancanales screened Lyons with their bodies. They watched the floor of the warehouse. The workers continued in their preparation for the death and dismemberment of thousands of innocent people. Colonel Morales helped a worker press a sheet of C-4 into a wide flat box. Then another worker poured thousands of steel nuts and bolts over the plastic explosive to fill the box. They closed the box, and taped it tight to create a one-foot-by-two-foot Claymore mine.