Blancanales, emerging from the bungalows alone, whispered to Lyons, "He wasn't there! No clothes, no luggage, nothing!"

Lifting his prisoner's head by an ear, Lyons demanded, "Where's Dastgerdi? Where is he?"

"Who?"

Lyons aimed his silenced Colt at the Syrian's left foot.

Choufi begged, "No more! Have mercy! I know nothing of the colonel's affairs."

"Where is he?"

"He returned to Syria today."

"If he's here, you live. If not, you die. Where is he?"

"Have mercy!" Choufi lapsed into Arabic.

The two contrasfrom the third bungalow rushed to Blancanales and spoke rapidly in Spanish, handing him a folder of identification papers. Blancanales nodded and sent the men to the truck.

Several Sandinista militiamen ran to the bungalows. One staggered as a silent 9mm slug punched into his chest; then bursts from the contras'M-16 rifles dropped the others.

"Christ, it's gone wrong!" the Puerto Rican cursed. "They had an accident. Their man opened up on them and they killed him, blew off his head..."

Lyons thought fast. "Wizard! Here, fast! Bring a radio-pop. And one of those dead men. A skinny one. We got to improvise."

"What?" Blancanales asked.

"It's a sixty-six percent failure so far. Let's make it one hundred percent."

"What are you talking about?"

Snapping open Choufi's briefcase, Lyons removed the Syrian's identification. Gadgets and a contracarried a thin, bloody, dead militiaman.

"I don't even want to know what you're doing with that," Gadgets jived.

"Get that radio-pop ready." Lyons glanced at the dead man: a bearded, hard-muscled, middle-aged soldier, punctured by a crescent of 5.56mm slugs. His height and weight approximated the Syrian's. Lyons jerked the corpse off the walkway, dragged it into the bungalow and threw it onto the bed.