"Hit the lights," Lyons said into the intercom.

The pilot switched on the helicopter's xenon spotlight. Sudden noon illuminated the two-lane road. Exactly as the DEA report had described, Able Team saw a white Dodge leading the truck. A pickup truck followed.

"Tell the follow cars to fall back," Lyons said next.

Breaking in on the radio frequency of the cars that trailed the drug convoy, the pilot advised the officers of the interception. Lyons looked back. Far behind, he saw a set of headlights pull to the side of the road.

"Wizard… tell the scum what's happening."

Gadgets flipped up the transmit switch. "You in the truck. Stop. We are prepared to destroy if you continue. Stop or die."

He flicked off the transmit. As he waited for an answer, he called out to his partners, "Is that straight talk? Did I tell them?"

An electronically resynthesized voice answered. "Whoever you are, you are interfering in the operations of the United States government. You are hereby directed to desist from your pursuit and communication, under penalty of law."

"You got identification?" Gadgets asked.

"If we must present identification, we will arrest you."

"How do I know I'm not talking to a wetback with a Harvard accent?"

Lyons and Blancanales laughed at Gadgets's jive. Then slugs hammered the underside of the Huey. The pilot wrenched the controls to the side.

The sudden banking threw Lyons against his safety harness. Hanging against the straps, he saw the lights of Tijuana and San Diego fall away. The turquoise of the eastern horizon appeared as the pilot righted the troopship. Gadgets's voice came on the intercom. "There's the answer. War."

Lyons spoke into the intercom. "Pilot, take us in on their right side. Quick flyby."

"What do you intend to do, sir?"

"Stop them."

"They fired at us. I don't know if I'm authorized to risk any further damage to National Guard equipment..."

"Pilot," Lyons interrupted with a question. "Were you trained for combat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, here it is. Take us in."

"You've got the authorization?"

"Most definitely," Blancanales answered. "You got the message from Washington, correct?"

"Stop the talk!" Lyons shouted. "Take us in!"

"But, sir, you want me to attack civilian vehicles?"

"Flyboy, if you don't want to do it, get out..."

Banking again, the Huey swept down on the road. At a hundred ten miles an hour, the chopper gained on the speeding vehicles. Muzzle-flash sparked from the back window of the pickup.

As Lyons sighted on the pickup, the helicopter leaped in altitude, climbing to two hundred feet. Lyons yelled into his intercom, "What is your problem?"

"I'm sorry, sir. But my superiors will prosecute me."

Lyons turned to Gadgets. "Put a pistol to the back of his head." As Gadgets went forward with his Beretta 93-R in his hand, Lyons spoke again to the pilot.

"You are now at pistol point, pilot. Your superiors can't hold you responsible for your actions."

A laugh answered. "Yes, sir. I'm no longer responsible. You should have taken me hostage sooner. Here we go."

The helicopter dropped. It skimmed the desert brush. Lyons sighted on the pickup. A shadow inside pointed a rifle out the side window.

Lyons put a slug through the passenger door The truck veered across the road, then swerved straight. Lyons hit the cab again. The driver stomped on the brakes, the pickup skidding sideways. Lyons pivoted in his seat to fire once more, but the helicopter left the truck far behind.

Autofire flashed from the white Dodge sedan. Slugs slammed the aluminum of the Huey. Lyons saw rifles firing from the passenger window. He sighted on the car and fired one slug, then another. The rifle fire stopped. He spoke into the intercom. "Pilot, other side of the road. Politician, high explosive into the truck's cab."

"Cargo truck or pickup?" asked Blancanales as the helicopter gained altitude.

"Pickup."

A streak of fire flashed past the helicopter. The pilot threw the Huey into a violent turn. Leaning against his safety harness, Lyons looked back.

The pickup truck accelerated to close the distance with the cargo truck. In the graying light, he saw a form in the back of the pickup.

Lyons spoke to Blancanales through the intercom. "A man in back's got a rocket launcher. Hit him, Pol. Pilot, take us in."

"Against rockets?" the pilot protested.

"Think of this as advanced combat training. No grades, no scores. Just pass or fail."

The pilot took the helicopter in again, this time on the left-hand side of the road. As an evasive maneuver, he bounced the troopship, rising and falling in altitude from two hundred feet to fifty feet. Blancanales struggled to aim his grenade launcher at the pickup.

The two-velocity 40mm grenade went far beyond the vehicle and exploded in the desert.

As Blancanales reloaded, Lyons screamed into the intercom, "Quit the yo-yo routine!"

"But..."

"But nothing. Take it in and hold it so my partner can make his shot."

"There's another helicopter!"

"What?" Lyons leaned far out from the side door to look back. A helicopter approached, flying at head height across the desert. It cut over the road, then banked. Lyons leaned across the Huey to look through the opposite side door.

The border patrol helicopter closed on the convoy of trucks and passenger car. Lyons shouted into the intercom, "Who's in that helicopter? Tell them the shits have a rocket launcher!"

"It's your partner, that knock-out looker..."

"Patch me through to her..."

The intercom line buzzed with static, then Lyons heard Flor's voice cursing him. "You macho son of a bitch, who the fuck you think you are to push me out of my operation? Channel is closed!"

The frequency went dead. Lyons shouted again, "Tell them about the rocket..."

As the helicopter neared the pickup truck, an autorifle flashing from the side door, the rocket launcher shot flame.

The launchflash lighted the helicopter. In a frozen instant, in the milliseconds before the RPG hit its target, Lyons saw Flor leaning from the helicopter, a rifle in her hands. Then, at an altitude of ten feet above the sand, the helicopter exploded. It hit the sand and disintegrated in a maelstrom of flame and twisting metal.

"Oh, Flor…" Lyons gasped. He unsnapped his safety harness and scrambled across the Huey, the Atchisson in his hand clattering on the aluminum floor.

In the opposite door, Blancanales beside him, he looked back to see a column of sooty flame rising from the desert. As their speed took them away from the crash, Lyons leaned farther from the side, hoping the impossible, hoping to see Flor run from the mass of fire and junk metal.

No one left the wreckage.

Blancanales grabbed one of Lyons's bandoliers and pulled him back into the helicopter. He shouted into his friend's face, "They're dead, Ironman. She's dead. And if you don't get with it, we'll be dead, and that insane drug will hit the streets. Back to your position."

Stunned, his mind reeling with the loss, Lyons obeyed. He returned to his safety harness and snapped himself in. Blancanales watched him for a moment. Lyons made no effort to put on his intercom headphones and mike. Blancanales shouted to him, taking over the leadership. "Ironman! Put on your headset! Pilot, get ready to go in again."

"But..."

"But nothing. Do as you're told or you'll be shot. Take it in so I can hit that rocket launcher. Wizard, if our pilot hesitates again, put a bullet in his head and then we'll give the copilot a try."

"Hey, weekend warrior," Gadgets jived, but not joking, his voice hard and angry. "'You heard it. You're going to die either way."

Confronted by the threats, the pilot took the helicopter down to the road. Now the two-lane road cut ruler-straight across the desert. Only a mile away, they saw the lights of the airfield. Sighting over the grenade launcher, Blancanales directed the pilot, "Down, down, hold it..." As he squeezed the M-16/M-203's second trigger, Blancanales shouted into the intercom. "Now take it up, now!"

As the 40mm grenade arced to the truck, the suited Anglo in the back of the pickup fired the RPG. The rocket streaked under the helicopter. Then the rocket man died in a flash of high explosive.

Out of control, the pickup left the road. Overturning in a spray of dust, the truck rolled. Blancanales looked back to see flame billow. He glanced at Lyons.

Slumping against the safety webbing, Lyons leaned his face in his hands. Blancanales reloaded his grenade launcher. He took the 40mm casing and bounced it off Lyons.

"Get with it, Ironman. Cry for her later. You're still on duty."

Without looking up, Lyons shook his head. Blancanales unsnapped his safety belt and went over to his friend. He grabbed a strut for a handhold and kicked Lyons.

Lyons did not notice. Blancanales kicked him again and again as he shouted down into his friend's ear.

"She's dead, and there's nothing you can do to make her live again! You're alive, and you're on mission and it isn't done yet! A lot of people are going to die if we don't stop that truck. Now..."

A hand like steel clamped on Blancanales's ankle. Lyons looked up to his partner and nodded. He said nothing. He pointed down and nodded. Blancanales squatted for an instant and embraced his friend. Neither man spoke. Then Blancanales crouch-walked across the Huey and strapped himself into his seat.

"Take it down again," Blancanales told the pilot.

Below them, the white Dodge and the cargo truck raced to the airfield. Dropping to zero altitude, the pilot paralleled the truck. Autofire flashed from the sedan.

As Blancanales aimed his grenade launcher, a slug ricocheted through the cockpit. Plexiglas splintered. The helicopter veered away for an instant until Gadgets pushed the pilot's head with the muzzle of the Beretta. The helicopter returned to its parallel course.

"Steady…" Blancanales said into the intercom. Slugs hammered the helicopter. He fired and shouted. "Take it away!"

Hundreds of steel fragments slashed the front tires of the truck. Skidding sideways across the gravel airfield, the driver lost control. The truck tipped sideways and slid to a stop.

The Dodge cranked a sweeping turn. At the other end of the field, a Lear jet left a hangar.

"Now the Dodge," Blancanales told the pilot. Reloading, he looked over at Lyons.

As the helicopter banked through a steep turn, Lyons waited, his face expressionless, the Atchisson ready in his hands. He stared out at the dying, paling night as if he were a passenger on a bus. Blancanales shouted into the intercom, "Ironman, hit the Dodge with everything you can put out."

Without acknowledging his partner, Lyons took a magazine of 12-gauge rounds out of his bandolier. He held the magazine in his teeth and waited, grimacing like a pirate.

"Take us in, pilot," Blancanales said.

Swooping low, the helicopter closed on the Dodge. An Anglo in a suit leaned from the car's rear driver-side window and fired an Uzi up at the troopship. The 9mm slugs plinked the aluminum hull.

The Dodge skidded to a stop at the overturned cargo truck.

"Up to a hundred feet and hover. Hover!" yelled Blancanales. "Wizard, grenades out the doors. Everything!"

The helicopter seemed to lurch to a stop. Dust clouded from the field as Blancanales stood in the side door and fired his M-203 straight down at the Dodge.

The Dodge's driver stepped from the door of the car as the grenade hit the roof. Suddenly headless, he took one more step and fell.

While Lyons emptied his magazine of slugs through the roof of the Dodge, each impact like a supersonic sledgehammer strike, Gadgets pulled the cotter pins from hand grenades. He lobbed them out the doors underhand, then pulled two more out and threw those.

Blancanales sprayed the Chicanos and Anglos with thirty 5.56mm slugs. At the other side door, Lyons dropped out the spent magazine and loaded seven rounds of double-ought and number-two steel.

Lyons sighted on a man in a suit sprinting across the gravel. The blast sent steel through his brain and heart and lungs. He died before he fell. A Chicano scrambled from the back of the truck. Lyons put a single blast through his body. Another Chicano stepped over the corpse. Steel from the Atchisson and from one of Gadgets's grenades ripped him.

"That plane!" Blancanales called out.

The Lear jet veered away from the carnage. An arm reached from the cabin and pulled the cabin door closed. Accelerating, the jet bounced across the field.

The helicopter pilot turned the Huey. At a hundred miles an hour, he attempted to intercept the jet before it lifted off. But the jet's engines took it into the dawn sky and away.

"Sorry, I couldn't stop it, it was too fast…" the copter pilot apologized.

"Back to the truck and the car. Put us down," Blancanales said.

Nothing moved in the scene. Anglos and Chicanos sprawled around the overturned truck and the unmarked sedan. As the Huey touched down on the field, the rotorstorm made the suit coats of the dead Anglos flap.

"We need prisoners," Blancanales told his partners.

Jumping from the helicopter, they fanned out to approach the bodies. They glanced into the Dodge. They saw only blood. In the truck, they found dead men and four hundred forty pounds of a white powder in thick vinyl sacks.

None of the dead carried identification.

After the search, Lyons finally spoke, his voice emotionless, beyond despair. "I'm going back to find Flor."

"There's not going to be anything to find, nothing that you'll recognize," Blancanales told him. "Let the fire department do it."

Lyons shook his head. "She's mine. I'll get her ready, I'll…" His voice faded away. Without speaking again, he left his partners. He walked the mile back to the crash site.

Two hours later, when a Drug Enforcement Agency car came for Blancanales and Gadgets, they joined Lyons at the wreckage.

Lyons stood in the desert, his back to the morgue workers who combed the scorched metal. They found only bones and ashes. With plastic gloves on their hands, the morgue workers put the pieces of a proud, brave woman in plastic bags for later positive identification.

Lyons walked east into the desert.