Surrounded by death, the colonel lay in the dust, his hands tied behind his back, a rope around his neck. Flies found his open wounds and the blood clotting on his gray uniform. His North American and Yaqui captors stood in a circle around him, automatic rifles in their hands.

Black, choking smoke drifted from the wreckage of burning helicopter troopships. Here and there, the white fire of magnesium blazed in the hulks. Molten aluminum flowed from the wrecks. In the ashes, the aluminum puddled in shimmering iridescent mirrors.

A Mexican soldier dying of burns screamed until a single rifle shot silenced him. Only skeletons and charred meat remained of the other Mexican soldiers who had died in the explosions.

Minutes before, on this ridge in the desert wilderness of the Mexican state of Sonora, Able Team and a group of teenage Yaqui Indians had annihilated two squads of elite airborne commandos. Rosario Blancanales, the Puerto Rican ex-Green Beret, called The Politician by his fellow warriors, triggered set charges of explosives and kerosene to destroy the squads as they left their Bell UH-1 Huey troopships. On a hilltop to the east, ex-LAPD officer Carl Lyons faced a third Huey. Of the squad of soldiers in that troopship, only the colonel survived.

Carl Lyons asked the first question of the interrogation. "What's your name, Colonel?"

"Gunther. I'm Colonel Jon Gunther. I was assigned to help the Mexicans capture you."

"Who assigned you?"

"My commander, General Mendez."

"Where is your base?"

"To the west. There is a place called Rancho Cortez on the coast. It was used by Colonel Gonzalez as his base."

"Is General Mendez there?"

"No. The general issued his instructions by telephone."

"Where is General Mendez?"

"I don't know. He could have called from Culiacan."