"One was very interesting. It came in on this black box." Gadgets touched the radio designed and manufactured by United States National Security Agency. The Mexican army unit used the secure-frequency radio to communicate with their base. Similar to the hand-radios Able Team used, but with more frequencies and range, the radio employed encoding circuits to scramble every transmission, decode every message received. Without a matching radio, anyone scanning the bands would intercept only bursts of electronic noise.

"A planeful of goons came in from Mexico City. They wanted to report directly to Colonel Gunther. A Mexican army officer said Colonel Gonzalez commanded the operation. The goons said they'd radio their general in Mexico City for instructions. But then the Mexicans said Gunther was with Gonzalez and the goons went ahead and landed." Gadgets turned to Coral. "I get that right?"

Coral nodded. "The soldiers from Mexico City would not accept orders from Mexican army officers."

"Mexico City? That's where their general is?" Lyons asked.

"Yeah."

"Anything else?"

"Just calls to ones that got wasted."

"A general in Mexico City..." Lyons considered the information. He stepped from the helicopter.

Blancanales watched as Gunther sketched a map of Rancho Cortez. A Yaqui teenager named Ixto stood two steps back from Gunther, an FN FAL rifle pointed at the prisoner's head.

"The barracks." Colonel Gunther pointed to the line of rectangles he had drawn. "The administrative buildings, the landing field, the aircraft hangars. Fuel tanks. The building for the electric generators. The road to the dock. A rifle range. Here is the beach."

"And the perimeter?" Blancanales prompted.

"Outside, a barbed-wire cattle fence. Then a cleared area. Then an eight-foot chain link fence with concertina wire."