"They're not tough to look at," Gadgets commented.

"Wait'll you see them move," Lyons snapped.

"How the hell did an athlete have a telephone number for Stony Man?" Blancanales asked. "Someone hand out Stony Man business cards?"

Lyons grinned in spite of himself. "Pavlovski wrote a letter to Sergeant Grendal, care of the Director of Central Intelligence. Grendal was the only name she knew Mack by. In the letter she said there's a lot of pressure being placed on black American athletes to head to Communist countries after the Games. Brognola talked to her, gave her the Stony Man number, then talked to the FBI to make sure things were handled right. Pavlovski must have passed the number to King.

"Brognola's in some sort of deep shit right now, so he called me, briefed me, and here I am delivering this fucking masterful briefing to you clowns. The FBI's going to meet us at LAX and give us any more intel they may have stumbled upon."

Politician shook his head. "The FBI's officially in charge of Olympic security — they've probably got an army of Feds. And LAPD's probably got its finest out there. So why us?"

"Three reasons," Lyons said. "First, the President is afraid this is a major terrorist offensive. Second, there's a lot of political fighting going on between LAPD, the FBI and the sheriff's office over control of Olympic security — the prez wants some outsiders to coordinate things. And third, the U.S. has a lot at stake. Pavlovski is a defector. She was supposed to be protected. We don't know why her security failed, but if the KGB — that's who they figure's after her — can bump off defectors on U.S. soil, there isn't a country around that's going to take us seriously. And, while we can't stop people from leaving this free country of ours, we can stop people from pressuring them to leave.