Yaquis helped Lyons and Blancanales push the six-foot-five, two-hundred-twenty-pound Colonel Gunther through the door. Blancanales lashed the prisoner into a safety harness to prevent a suicide dive from the airborne troopship. Yaquis loaded M-60 machine guns and steel cans of ammunition into the helicopter.

Pete Davis, the DEA pilot, shouted to them, "Now back to the camouflage?''

Lyons nodded. "Conference time."

In seconds, the helicopter — overloaded with men and weapons and equipment — left the ridge line. Lyons looked back to see a line of Yaquis jogging down the mountainside. The group would join them later.

The helicopter veered to the north. In three directions, the vast panorama of the Sierra Madre Occidental extended to the horizon. To the west, the direction of the Pacific Ocean and the coastal cities, the mountains became foothills and desert plains. Distance and haze denied any sight of the coast.

Dropping below the ridge lines, the pilot followed a snaking canyon. Panicked birds shot from the mesquite and cactus as the thundering machine flashed past, the rotors throwing dust and leaves to swirl behind the helicopter. After a few kilometers, the helicopter descended to a sandy river bottom shaded by cottonwoods.

The rotors spun to a stop. Yaquis emerged from the cottonwood dragging screens of lashed-together branches. They quickly covered the helicopter. The camouflage screens concealed the helicopter from airborne observation and shaded the OD-green troopship from the desert sun.

Lyons dumped Colonel Gunther onto the riverbed's sand. Then he turned to Gadgets and Coral. He asked them in a whisper, "What about the transmissions you monitored?"