Konzaki read from a notebook of photocopied documents and top-secret memos. "Throughout the past several months, in fact the last few years, the FBI has been working on several gangs running weapons into Central America. They've traced the serial numbers of weapons captured in El Salvador back to Miami and Los Angeles..."

"Commies are killing people with American weapons?" Lyons broke in.

"Everybody's killing people with American weapons," Konzaki told him. "Castro took Cuba with M-1s, Thompsons and Brownings. The Sandinistas took Nicaragua with rifles bought in Miami gun-shops."

"First good reason I've ever heard for gun control." Lyons took off a pale blue sports coat, then unbuttoned his bright red shirt. His pager had beeped from the bedside of a young woman in Georgetown; he had taken a taxi to the airport to wait for the others to arrive by helicopter from the Great Smoky Mountains.

Konzaki continued. "The FBI have a special task force of officers following the flow of weapons from the United States to the death squads in El Salvador. We're trying to stop those crazies before they murder everyone down there.

"What the FBI have found are huge shipments of ammunition and weapons going south. Not just pistols and rifles. Machine guns, grenades, rockets. Tons of ammunition..."

"Sounds like someone's going into politics," Lyons joked.

The interruptions irritated Konzaki. He stared at Lyons for a moment, then looked to the others. "How do we shut him up? I've got a briefing to deliver, and you've only got five hours before you hit the ground."

Blancanales considered the question. "Shoot him. Back when one of those bikers on Catalina got lucky and hit him with a slug from an M-60, I didn't see Lyons moving or talking for at least two minutes. It was all he could do to breathe..."

Gadgets disagreed. "Don't shoot him. He's a good pointman. Always blundering into things, stirring up trouble long before we show up. Gives us time to plan something intelligent. Maybe we could kick him in the head for a while..."

"Tell you what, Konzaki," Lyons ended the jiving. "You don't like me talking, kick my ass."

Blancanales and Gadgets went silent, waiting for the ex-Marine's response.

Konzaki had lost both legs during the Tet Offensive. He stared at Lyons. The others waited for rage or mayhem. But Konzaki merely laughed.

"Why should I break up my good plastic feet on your worthless body? However, I just might twist your head off if you don't shut your mouth. Now will you let me proceed?"

Lyons laughed too. He said nothing as Konzaki flipped through pages. Mack Bolan's primo weapon-smith continued to summarize the documents and reports for Able Team. "Yesterday a semi-tractor trailer left a Houston warehouse. The task force had agents in cars following the truck, plus men and helicopters waiting as backup. Out in the desert, the cars got hit. The last radio transmission from the agents reported rockets. Apparently the lead car got hit, then the gunmen got the second car. When the backup teams got to the scene, they found both cars burning. The first two agents never knew what hit them. The other two men died in the desert. Somehow they got away from their car before they got rocketed.

"The agents fought with shotguns and .38 pistols. The gang hit them with military weapons. The backup officers found 5.56mm brass, 7.62 NATO, M-60 belt links, 40mm grenade casings.

"The agents must have wounded or killed a few of them. There were several blood trails. But after both officers were wounded, the gang overran them and executed them with point-blank riflefire. Then they mutilated them, and left them for the backup officers to find."

"And we're following the gang?" Lyons asked, his voice quiet.

Konzaki nodded, Blancanales asked the next question: "How do we know they're in Guatemala?"

"National Security Agency satellites tracked a flight, probably a turbo-prop cargo plane, from Texas to Guatemala. It landed in the State of Q-U-I-C-H-E, pronounced key-chay, in the interior of Guatemala.

"Clouds blocked the satellites from photographing the exact landing area, but chances are the gang has an airstrip and warehouses up there somewhere.

"The killings in Texas ruined what looked like a successful conclusion to an investigation spanning years. But you men will have the benefit of all the information acquired.

"We may not know the names of the men who pulled the triggers and did the cutting, but we know who hired them. His name is Klaust de la Unomundo-Stiglitz, a Guatemalan billionaire known in that country by his Spanish name, Unomundo. Here are photos of him."

Konzaki passed out photos and folders of biographical details. "He's blond because his father was German, a Nazi SS officer on the run after the victory in Europe. He married a debutante from one of the wealthiest families in the country.

"It wasn't enough for Unomundo to be born rich. After college in Germany, he went straight into his father's business. He multiplied his inheritance through drug and weapons smuggling.

"This punk was not subtle. The FBI knew about him from the start. But he ran a tight organization, a Spanish-speaking Mafia with a Gestapo philosophy.

"No one crossed him and lived. One time, one of his managers went to Miami with a set of account books. He said he'd cooperate with the U.S. Justice Department to break a transnational scam if they'd help him get his family out of Guatemala. But our people couldn't locate his wife or kids.

"One day, the accountant gets a big set of photos. They showed his wife and kids hanging by their arms, going down slow, an inch at a time, one photo at a time, into tubs of acid. The guy killed himself the same day.

"Unomundo took over his father's companies. He made billions, invested billions in land in Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, in manufacturing and transportation industries throughout Central America. He used his winning ways — extortion, murder, terror — to build up his financial empire. His death squads wiped out unions, competitors and government officials.

"He also invested in politicians. His death squads worked for his politicians to make sure they took power. Sometimes the killers passed themselves off as right wing, sometimes as Communists. But it was always murder-for-money.

"We have reports of his influence — meaning money and weapons — spreading to very powerful right-wing leaders. That's where we thought his weapons went to. But then we got information on other shipments, other weapons.

"Here's a satellite photo of a ship off the Guatemalan coast. That's a Huey. Here's another. A Cobra gunship in flight to the central mountains of Guatemala. These helicopters are a mystery.

"If we spotted them going into Guatemala two years ago, we could have understood. The Carter Administration cut off Guatemala'a purchases of American weapons because of the old government's human rights violations. No helicopters, no rifles, no ammunition, nothing.

"So the government went to other countries for their weapons. The Guatemalans are damned proud people and they don't take flack from anyone. They don't allow other countries to dictate their politics.

"But now there's a new government. The younger army officers rebelled against the generals and threw out the general who was in office. They gave the presidency to the man who actually won the elections in 1974.

"In 1974, after he'd won the popular vote, the generals invalidated his election and drove him into exile. Eventually he came back, but stayed out of politics. He worked for his church and became a pastor. Story is that he was sweeping out the church when the young officers came to ask him to be president of Guatemala. Then things changed. Overnight, no more death squads. No more disappearances. No more torture.