They came to a traffic circle, from which they traveled north.

Shops, auto dealers, office buildings linked both sides of the avenue. People crowded the sidewalks. Knots of shoppers and workers waited for buses on the corners. Pedestrians dashed through stop-and-go traffic to the grassy islands that divided the north-south lanes.

The North Americans of Able Team saw Guatemalans of all social classes and ethnic origins: Mayan, European, and mixed heritage Ladinos. They saw garage workers in grease-caked coveralls. Office workers in slacks and shirts. Businessmen in Mercedes sedans. Vendors pushing handcarts painted with garish ice cream cones.

Two young businessmen talked at a curb as they attempted to wave down a taxi. Both wore the gray-suit, dark-tie uniform of junior executives. Both held the required briefcases. One had fair hair and European features, the other black hair and a profile seen on the walls of Mayan temples.

Indians walked in the modern crowds. At a traffic light, Lyons studied a Mayan woman. Shoulder to shoulder between a teenage girl in a disco-red jump suit and a technician with the logo of a multinational corporation on his uniform, the Indian woman waited for a bus. She wore sandals on her calloused, dusty feet, a simple wrap-shirt of broadloomed fabric, a huipile — heknew the word from the books — of hand-woven yellow and blues and purples, designs brocaded into the fabric, then highlighted with embroidered details. The cloth and designs and colors were a tapestry of ancient culture: history, tradition, and artistry displayed simultaneously in the marvelous fabric. Even with his ignorance of weaving and needlework, Lyons knew the woman wore months of work.

She saw him staring. Her proud, austere face returned his gaze. She saw only another North American in an automobile, his face like all the others, his sports coat and shirt like the clothes all the others wore, the automobile only one of millions from a factory. She found him uninteresting, and looked away.

Lyons saw her disdain and disinterest, and he laughed at himself. Captain Merida glanced over to him and misinterpreted his laughter. The light changed and he accelerated through the intersection as he commented: "Soon, all those filthy Indians will begone."

Lyons said nothing.

Continuing north on the modern Avenida la Reforma, Captain Merida followed the flow of traffic without speeding or swerving to exploit open lanes. Able Team watched the city pass, turning in their seats to sightsee like tourists.

Gadgets spotted a familiar Dodge sedan. He had seen it before, parked at the airport's guard booth. The man who had waved them through the security gate was driving the sedan. With a glance, Gadgets indicated the car to Blancanales. Blancanales nodded, touched his earphone.

The Reforma passed under a railroad bridge, then they saw a modern civic center of plazas and public buildings. Sidewalk vendors displayed fruits and nuts. Families herded coveys of children. Roller skaters weaved through the crowds. Soldiers with rifles guarded the offices of the Banco de Guatemala. A street preacher held up a Bible and delivered a sermon to a group of onlookers.

Above them, on a hill overlooking the plazas and government offices, they saw a fantasy of free-form concrete: the Teatro Nacional.

A boulevard intersected the Reforma at a diagonal. Captain Merida eased left through the honking, screeching traffic. He then turned left again. Now they drove south. Lyons saw the west side of the Teatro Nacional. He looked into the shadows to double-check, finally asked the captain, "Where are we going?"

"Terminal de autobuses… the bus station."

"But we've gone in a circle."

"The traffic is bad. I go around to save time. Do not worry, we will be there very soon."

They drove through an older section of the city. Diesel-blackened buildings housed workshops, small stores, second— and third-floor apartments. Trucks jammed narrow side streets. Buses that were crowded solid with passengers, goods and produce lashed to the roof racks, low-geared up slight inclines. Captain Merida turned left again to follow a sidestreet for three blocks.

Parked buses lined the streets. Vendors sold vegetables and fruit and manufactured trinkets on blankets spread in the gutters. Five-foot-tall laborers staggered under hundred-pound bags of grain, only their back and a headstrap carrying the loads. Soldiers in combat gear double-parked a jeep and began to unload cases of empty pop bottles at the warehouse of a soft-drink wholesaler. Captain Merida waited patiently for the soldiers to finish and drive away, then continued on.

Buses and trucks blocked a street. A policeman directed Merida to turn. Going right, he saw a gap in the parked cars, and he swerved over to park.

A street vendor's cart occupied the space. The toothless old man put up a hand to halt the truck; he motioned Merida away. Merida took out his wallet and opened it to show a badge and an identification card. But the old man had already turned his back on them.

"Perro anciano!" Captain Merida called out. But in the noise and chaos of the trucks and buses and crowded sidewalks, the old man could not, or would not, hear him.

Throwing the truck into neutral and jerking the parking brake, Captain Merida stepped out. They saw him wave his identification in the old man's face. When the old man talked back, Merida slapped him down, then kicked him. People crowded around as the young man in the expensive suit dragged the old man off the asphalt and threw him against the hand cart. A young laborer stepped forward to defend the old peddler. The captain's identification stopped him. The laborer helped the old man push his cart away.

Meanwhile, Blancanales had leaned forward to Lyons. Motioning Gadgets to listen also, Blancanales whispered: "At the hangar, I put a microtransmitter in Colonel Morales's front coat pocket. He's spent the last half hour on the phone arranging for us to be kidnapped and murdered. It'll happen here."

Captain Merida returned to park the truck. He smiled to the North Americans. "Come, my friends. We will go learn of Unomundo."

A thousand odors struck them. The perfumes of flowers and citrus. The stink of caged chickens and tethered pigs. The rot of vegetables and fruits mashed under thousands of sandals. Diesel soot from the buses. All mixed and fermented under a sun that blazed on a land only fifteen degrees north of the Equator.

Watching for the men who would kill them, Lyons and Blancanales followed Captain Merida through the market stalls. The narrow passages were claustrophobic with crowding Indians and Ladinos, with overhanging awnings and piled goods.

Lyons and Blancanales scanned the faces and hands of the people, watching for weapons or sudden movement. The confusion of colors and faces and objects threatened to overwhelm their danger-heightened perception.

Voices called out to them in Spanish. Women talked to one another in guttural Indian languages. Children whistled and pointed at the North Americans, chattering to them in languages Lyons had never heard before. Animals squealed. Cassette players and radios blared a cacophony of music and songs.

Gadgets had stayed in the Silverado, supposedly to watch their weapons and gear. Actually he had hot-wired the vehicle and now waited for a signal to move. Lyons wore his earphone, and kept his hand-radio channel open for instant communication. Blancanales still monitored the microtransmitter in Colonel Morales's pocket.

The Terminal de Autobuses Extraurbanosoccupied a block-square section of the city. The crowded markets surrounded the terminal itself, an asphalt area where the buses shuttling from the villages to the capital exchanged passengers and loads. Leaving the market stalls behind, the three men came to the buses.