Leaving the beach, they cut inland along a trail evidently used by patrols. Gadgets positioned another claymore. The trail twisted up the hill. As they approached the ridge, the pointman went flat and crept forward. A minute passed. Then the pointman motioned them on.

The ridge had been cleared of palms and brush. To the east, at the end of the ridge, was the beacon house. To the west, the naked ridge vanished into the night. To the north was the village and harbor.

Only poor fishermen and their families lived in La Laguna, no more than a line of shacks and a dirt road along a rain-flooded creek. But two hundred meters away, on the other side of a chain-link fence and security lights, Cuban and ComBloc advisors enjoyed the modern comforts of the harbor complex.

Prefabricated barracks housed the Cubans and ComBloc nationals. Diesel generators provided electricity to light the barracks, offices and warehouses near the piers. On three long piers, lit as bright as day by mercury-arc lamps, Able Team saw pairs of sentries in black plastic raincoats patrolling.

Despite the storm, a freighter with deck-mounted cranes was being unloaded. Workmen in bright yellow rain slickers attached cables to cargo containers, which were being hoisted onto diesel trucks with flatbed trailers on the dock.

Blancanales pointed to the junction of the creek and the lagoon. Then he traced the creek through the harbor-complex fence. Exactly as the anti-Soviet agents in La Laguna had described and as satellite photography had confirmed, the flooding creek provided an entry to the harbor facilities.

"The clerk got it right," Lyons admitted.

As the others surveyed the harbor, Gadgets placed three more claymores. He worked by the intermittent red glow of the beacon light, carefully positioning the claymores, then securing them to immovable backstops: a jutting rock, a palm stump, a rotting palm tree. When he finished, he crept back to the group.