The trucks moved as fast as the mud-slick asphalt of the road permitted.

To his sides, despite the drumming of the rain and wind-lashing branches, the lieutenant heard the faint clicks of weapons going off safety as his men prepared to counterstrike the Communist assassins.

The soldiers watched the roadside for the Communists. This section of road, so close to the gates of the finca, offered the ideal opportunity for an ambush with rocket-propelled grenades. Following the folds of the mountains until the hillsides sloped into the valley, the road ran straight for the last few hundred meters to the gate. Flat expanses of truck-rutted mud created a trap. If the convoy swerved from the road, the mud would stop the trucks. If Quesada and his bodyguards stayed on the road and returned fire while they waited for rescue by the fincamilitia, the mud flats would become a kill zone. Only a hundred meters away, the forested hillsides could hide machine guns and rocket teams and snipers.

Finally taking his binoculars from the case, Lieutenant Lizco focused on the last Silverado, hoping to see through the windshield. Did Quesada ride inside? The high-powered optics revealed only silhouettes. Then the lieutenant watched the gate. A militiaman, rifle slung over his shoulder and walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, pushed open the steel-and-barbed-wire gates. In the watchtower, another militiaman casually held an M-16 as he watched the approaching convoy.

The point truck left the winding curves. The lieutenant looked to his soldiers. They shouldered their rifles and grenade launchers. The unit's sniper put his eye to the scope on his match-grade G-3 rifle while the spotter swept the scene with binoculars.

In the quiet of the rainswept morning, they heard the Silverados shift into high gear and accelerate into the straightaway. The lieutenant refocused his binoculars on the gate. He hoped to see one of the guards salute.