"A railroad connection. At one time the Rancho processed sugar cane for Mexico and the United States. That is why there is also a dock for ships."

"And what does it process now?" Lyons asked.

"That was fifty or sixty years ago," Colonel Gunther answered. "Now the Rancho is only for the army."

"There's no heroin labs there?"

"I did not see that."

"What army?"

"The army of Mexico."

Lyons pointed to the gray fatigues and black web gear and boots Gunther wore. At his collar, a silver eagle clutching lightning bolts in its claws identified Gunther as a colonel. "You're not wearing a Mexican uniform. Who hired you?"

"General Mendez."

"General Mendez of the International?"

"That is what they call themselves."

"Who are they?"

"The International? I don't know. Rich men. I know only General Mendez. He paid me. He issued instructions. I know only him."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"How do you contact him?"

"I don't. He called me."

"Is he in Culiacan?"

"I don't know."

"Where is the base in Culiacan?"

"There is no base in Culiacan. There is only the Rancho, near Obregon."

"Where are you based?"

"At the Rancho..."

"Before the Rancho?"

"In New York and Washington. The capital of your country."

"Where are the bases?"

"I don't know. We worked in hotels."

"This general lives in hotels?"

"The general never took me to his home."

"The International does business from hotels?"

"For security. They rent conference rooms for the meetings. Then no one needs to go outside the hotel during the meetings."

"Where are you from?"

"I was born in Paraguay."

"You look German."

"My family came from Germany."

"Before the war or after?"

"At the beginning of the century. Before the First World War."

"How many soldiers at that base?" Lyons pointed to the map of Rancho Cortez.

"I saw hundreds. I don't know the number."

"He's telling you nothing!" Standing beside Lyons, a young man from Tucson, Arizona, known by the Chicano name of Vato, stared down at Gunther. This leader of the Yaqui warriors had proven himself a relentless, merciless enemy of Los Guerreros Blancos in his fight beside Able Team. "Let us question him..."

"No. We need him alive."

"He may die," Vato admitted. "But he will answer our questions."

"Tie him," Lyons told the Yaquis guarding the colonel. "His hands, his elbows, his feet. I don't want him trying to escape. He's too valuable to kill."

Lyons motioned to his partners. "Vato, too. And you, pilot. Outside. Bring that map."

Thrashing through tangled branches, they followed him away from the camouflaged helicopter. They crossed the stream bed to the shade of the cottonwoods. Lyons scanned the sky for spotter planes. He saw only a hawk soaring in the infinite blue of the sky above the canyon.

Gadgets ran through the sand to Lyons. "We ain't hitting that base. No way. So don't even talk about it."

"I remember Honduras," Lyons told his partner. "No more banzai attacks."

"You just keep remembering. I still don't know how we lived through it back then. That night was extremely insane!"

They sat on the bank of the dry stream. The arching branches of the cottonwoods screened them from airborne observation. Cicadas whined behind them, the rising and falling noise of the desert grasshoppers the only sound in the stillness of the narrow canyon.

"Do you believe what he said?" Blancanales asked.

Lyons shook his head. "He's lying."

"I don't think he's lying about the base." Blancanales held up the map of Rancho Cortez. "Look at the details. Who would imagine an army base would have a dock for freighters?"

"He wants us to hit that base." Lyons took the map and studied it. "Maybe he thinks we'll try to infiltrate. Use him to get inside..."

"No!" Gadgets interrupted. "You try any shit trick like that, you're going alone."

"Not smart, Ironman." Blancanales shook his head at the thought of an assault on the Mexican army installation.

Vato spoke. "In three days, I could gather fifty men and women with rifles."

Miguel Coral nodded. "I have many friends in Sonora and Sinaloa. We could gather all those who hate..."

"No!" Gadgets cut the discussion. "No talk. No plans. I don't even want to think about it."

Lyons looked to the group of men. "Notice he didn't say anything about Mexico City? Nothing at all. Not a word."

"He talked about New York and Washington," Blancanales said.

"But nothing about Mexico City," Lyons insisted. "A gang of millionaire fascists, with private armies everywhere in Central and South America, starts a billion-dollar-a-month heroin operation in Mexico. They wipe out or take over the Mexican drug gangs. They set up their own military base. They use corrupt politicians and corrupt army officers. An emergency comes along and they've got help flying in from Mexico City the next day. But our prisoner tells us the leaders run the operation from New York and Washington. Maybe if he'd said Miami, I'd almost believe him. But he didn't."

"Mexico City is big," Blancanales cautioned. "The biggest city in the world. I doubt if the offices of the Fascist International will be listed in the phone book.''

"This is it." Lyons pointed to the map of Rancho Cortez. We can go up against this army base..."

"No!" Gadgets interrupted again.

Lyons continued. "Hundreds of soldiers, reinforcements arriving all the time, a double security perimeter with all kinds of surprises, helicopters, planes, heavy weapons, napalm..."

"I think he's seen the light," Gadgets marveled. "Ironman thinks, Ironman reasons. I don't believe it... Ahggh..."

Lyons caught his partner in a headlock to silence his sarcasm. While Gadgets struggled against the hold, Lyons continued. "Or we can fly down to Mexico City. Make like tourists and maybe hit them where they'd never expect."

Breaking Lyons's hold, Gadgets gasped, "Second the motion."

"Could we take the helicopter that far?" Lyons asked Davis.

"Twelve or thirteen hundred miles? And without maintenance? Might make it. We'd need at least four refuelings."

"What do you think, Vato?" Lyons asked the Yaqui leader.

"Exploit confusion. Move secretly. Strike where unexpected."

Lyons nodded. "Will you come with us?"

"If we cut off the head, the body will die," Vato answered. "I will go. Perhaps a few of the others."

Lyons turned to Coral. "And you, Miguel?"

"You give me the opportunity to kill those who murdered my friends, who murdered the son of my patrde.I thank you for the opportunity."

"Then it's unanimous," Blancanales concluded. "We go to Mexico City."

Colonel Gunther lay in the sand, immobilized by ropes, guarded by teenagers with automatic rifles, his mind calculating how he could survive. His intelligence had already saved his life once that day.

Suspecting an ambush, Gunther had directed his helicopter pilot to land on another hilltop. But the petty-pompous Mexican officer commanding the other two troopships of Mexican airborne soldiers disregarded Gunther's suspicions. The Mexican commander took his men and helicopters blindly into the killzone.

But bad luck also condemned Colonel Gunther and his squad of soldiers. As explosions and waves of flame decimated the Mexicans, a second group of North Americans and Yaquis struck. Gunther lost his soldiers, his pilots, his UH-1 troopship.

Now, a prisoner of a group of North Americans and Yaqui campesinos wearing stolen army of Mexico uniforms, Gunther faced interrogation by torture, then death.

Gunther put his thoughts beyond the fear of death. Fear could not save him. Only his intelligence and experience could gain him the time he needed.