"Before the war or after?"

"At the beginning of the century. Before the First World War."

"How many soldiers at that base?" Lyons pointed to the map of Rancho Cortez.

"I saw hundreds. I don't know the number."

"He's telling you nothing!" Standing beside Lyons, a young man from Tucson, Arizona, known by the Chicano name of Vato, stared down at Gunther. This leader of the Yaqui warriors had proven himself a relentless, merciless enemy of Los Guerreros Blancos in his fight beside Able Team. "Let us question him..."

"No. We need him alive."

"He may die," Vato admitted. "But he will answer our questions."

"Tie him," Lyons told the Yaquis guarding the colonel. "His hands, his elbows, his feet. I don't want him trying to escape. He's too valuable to kill."

Lyons motioned to his partners. "Vato, too. And you, pilot. Outside. Bring that map."

Thrashing through tangled branches, they followed him away from the camouflaged helicopter. They crossed the stream bed to the shade of the cottonwoods. Lyons scanned the sky for spotter planes. He saw only a hawk soaring in the infinite blue of the sky above the canyon.

Gadgets ran through the sand to Lyons. "We ain't hitting that base. No way. So don't even talk about it."

"I remember Honduras," Lyons told his partner. "No more banzai attacks."

"You just keep remembering. I still don't know how we lived through it back then. That night was extremely insane!"

They sat on the bank of the dry stream. The arching branches of the cottonwoods screened them from airborne observation. Cicadas whined behind them, the rising and falling noise of the desert grasshoppers the only sound in the stillness of the narrow canyon.

"Do you believe what he said?" Blancanales asked.

Lyons shook his head. "He's lying."

"I don't think he's lying about the base." Blancanales held up the map of Rancho Cortez. "Look at the details. Who would imagine an army base would have a dock for freighters?"