"The newspaper made a joke of it. Crazy Californians on cocaine."

"Is it true they're cannibals?"

Then Flor saw the two ex-Green Berets in casual clothes. Gadgets Schwarz and Rosario Blancanales followed the flow of the departing passengers. Gripping Lyons's hand, she pulled him through the crowd.

Gadgets blinked when he saw Flor. "Long time no see, Senora Meza."

"Thought you were on business," Blancanales remarked, giving Lyons a wink. The Puerto Rican charmer put an arm around Flor. "Glad to see you again. But why do you have to hang around with him? It won't do your reputation any good."

"Cut the crap," Lyons told his partners. "Let's go. You brought luggage?"

"You expect us to wear the same clothes all week?" Gadgets said. "Or do you think we can do this overnight?"

Lyons shook his head. "I got other plans for tonight. We'll take you downtown, introduce you to the blue-suits..."

"Ix-nay, Ironman," Gadgets interrupted as the group went to the escalator leading down from the passenger lounges. "Even if they're your friends, we got to stay far, far away."

"More congressmen call the Man?" Lyons asked.

Lyons rode shoulder-to-shoulder with Flor, Gadgets one step ahead, Blancanales one step back. They effectively blocked out any possibility of the nearby people overhearing them as they talked.

"You mean Hal, or the Main Man?" Gadgets said, turning to ride backward on the escalator.

"Any congressmen calling anybody."

"Just standard paranoia. Nothing special going on back east."

Blancanales leaned forward and spoke quietly. "But elections are coming up. One of our national voices of reason and social compassion would very much enjoy putting any one of us in Leavenworth. That would get him on the news three nights straight. So we need to stay invisible all the time."

Gadgets stared at Blancanales for an instant, his eyes and mouth wide with mock shock. Then he grinned to Flor. "The Pol never used to talk like that. Used to be soft words and brotherly understanding. It's hanging around with him..." Gadgets pointed at Lyons "...that's got our Rican talking this reactionary hard-core line."

"Me?" Lyons startled, actually offended. "Me, reactionary?"

Gadgets put up his hands, whispered, "I'm your friend, don't kill me. Don't kill me. Remember, you'd have to carry fifty percent more equipment."

"Calmatese, mi hermano," Blancanales laughed, his hands on Lyons's shoulders. "Perhaps he meant it as a compliment."

"I'm calm, just quit the clowning."

They left the escalator. Walking in a tight group through the underground corridor from the passenger lounges and the terminal, the four counter-terrorists hurried past slower travelers.

"Your luggage heavy?" Lyons asked his partners.

Gadgets nodded. "Very heavy. Someone steal our suitcases, they could start a war."

"Don't even say it," Lyons commented.

"L.A.'s got one army of crazies out there already. An army of doper zombies."

They continued to the crowded baggage pickup area. Knowing the traps and frustrations of international airports, Lyons waited until Gadgets and Blancanales took their bags from the oval conveyor belt before he and Flor went for their parked rental car.

Minutes later they sped from the international airport. Lyons navigated the car through the stream of traffic on Century Boulevard. They passed high-rise hotels and rows of pornographic bookstores and "adult cinemas." Gadgets peered out at the neon and lurid billboards.

"This specialist work we do is so amazing," he said. "One day in Bolivia, the next in California. I never get tired of this — the places we go, the things we do."

Flor turned to the men in the back seat and said, "Do you think we can make any difference? Only the four of us?"

Blancanales laughed. "Miss Trujillo, if you only knew…"

"We make things different," Gadgets nodded. "Wherever we go. Good or bad, things get changed. In fact, dig it, Ironman — Konzaki's taking a seminar in robotics. Says he's going to replace us. With titanium Godzillas."

Flor waited for the laughter to stop, then pressed her question. "But there are many police — thousands — already working. How can only four more make any difference?"

"We'll see what we can do and do it," Gadgets responded.

"That's it," Lyons agreed. "That is it."

On the freeway, Blancanales and Gadgets noticed the empty lanes. On most weekday evenings, drivers commuting home late from work or early for the theaters and nightspots of the metropolis would crowd the freeways. Not tonight.

"Where is everybody?" Gadgets asked. "Usually, there's more traffic than this after one in the morning."

"The murders?" Blancanales asked.

"What do you think?" Lyons asked him. "After a day and night of continuous media hype and on-the-spot video gore…"

"Fear City," Gadgets commented.

Half an hour of driving took them to the Civic Center. Lyons drove down into the guarded and patrolled underground garage for city employees. Their "federal" identification persuaded a uniformed officer to issue a guest sticker.

At the reception desk of Parker Center, Lyons again flashed his federal identification. "We're here to talk to Detective Towers."

"Took you long enough to get here," the desk cop answered. "Detective Towers told me to expect you. Interrogation's been going on for two hours."

" Interrogation of who?"

"Not anything I know about. But they got him the room with the mirrors."

As soon as the desk officer issued four identification badges, the group rushed for the third floor. Uniformed and plainclothes officers crowding the corridor glared at the strangers.

"Who are you?" a sergeant demanded.

"Towers invited us to listen in," Lyons told him.

"Oh, yeah?" The sergeant turned to another officer, "Check with Bill."

"Who have they got in there?"

"That's for Detective Towers to say."

"Hey, Sergeant," Lyons protested, offended by the interdepartmental hostility. "We're on your side."

"Yeah, they all say that."

Bill Towers rushed from the interrogation room. He opened another door and motioned the four Federals inside. He waited until the door closed to tell them, "We got our break."

"One of the punks?" Lyons asked.

Grinning, Towers shook his head. "Not a punk. A superpunk. We got the one who gave them the rifle. He recruited the punks, his organization trained them, and he gave them the rifle."

The four Federal specialists glanced to one another.

Bill Towers continued, his voice rising with enthusiasm. "We got a chance. We got a chance to break them. Tonight!"

Shabaka, a mullah of Allah and a warrior in the Holy War against the white devils of Satan, received the command to disperse his soldiers and dismantle or destroy his indoctrination center.

At seven o'clock, Mario Silva, the chairman of LAYAC, telephoned Shabaka with the information of the capture of Ruiz. Silva told him that Ruiz would undoubtedly betray the organization to the police to save himself from prison. Shabaka had answered in monosyllables, then hung up the telephone.