"There's someone on the third floor," Gadgets told them, "looking down at the street."

"Seems the two in the car are surveillance," Blancanales answered.

Lyons joined the conversation. "Unless maybe they've waited all night for the office to open… or for someone to come out."

Able Team did not fear the interception of their radio transmissions. They used hand-radios designed and manufactured to National Security Agency specifications. Encoding circuits scrambled every transmission. Any technician scanning the bands would intercept only bursts of electronic noise.

Blancanales turned to Lyons. "We go in through the parking lot entrance?"

"They could have a car down there." Lyons looked to the daylight blazing from the glass of the towering buildings. "I say no meeting here. There'd be people coming to work while we talked. Much too public."

"Affirmative," Blancanales agreed as he opened the passenger door. He stepped out to the chill, damp morning. "Pay phone time."

As Bob Prescott talked on the phone, Jefferson observed the Salvadorans on the boulevard watching the office entry. Hearing what the congressman's aide proposed, Jefferson whipped around. "They what?"

Prescott put his hand over the phone's mouthpiece. "He says they won't come in. Says it would compromise them. He wants us to go somewhere else where we can talk. So why don't we go over to my place on the hill? It's quiet and private."

"Forget that!"

"We could slip out the parking entrance. That way they..." Prescott nodded toward the boulevard " — wouldn't see us leaving."

"And what about the spooks?" Jefferson demanded. "They come in here, we've got a chance to check them out. We go where they want, we don't know what we're walking into."

"Floyd…" The congressman spoke with his sonorous media voice, his tone paternal and wise. "Though I don't always see eye to eye with the man I called, I trust him completely. I have no doubt he dispatched… ah, specialists… who are also trustworthy."