Meanwhile Blancanales called Gadgets again and again. No answer. Finally: "Carl! Where's Merida?"

"Our liaison? Probably out there with a goon squad."

Looking across the walkway, Lyons saw two Indian children watching him. Their eyes flicked back and forth, from him to a point on the left side of the bus, six feet from where Lyons crouched.

Lyons shifted the Python to his left hand. He extended his left arm. He leaned down to look under the bumper. He saw two scuffed and torn shoes behind the front wheel. Infinitely slowly, the shoes crept through the black fluid and the filth and litter in the gutter. The shoes neared the front of the bus.

The front sight and barrel of a revolver appeared around the edge of the bus at waist height. Lyons tensed, then made his move even as the shoes splashed through the gutter, the man jumping out from around the fender to shoot, only to sprawl as the North American grabbed the pistol's barrel and jerked the gunman off balance. As the man fell, Lyons whipped back his Python and backhanded the gunman with the pistol's heavy barrel.

Shots. A bullet slammed into a fender. Lyons straightened, turned, heard the quiet rip-rip-ripof Blancanales's silenced Beretta 93-R, the three-shot burst hammering steel and breaking glass.

"DON'T SHOOT!" Lyons screamed. "THERE'S PEOPLE AND LITTLE KIDS EVERYWHERE!"

But the other pistol fired again. Lyons felt a fist slam into his head. He struggled with the gunman who had risen up from the sidewalk, the man's right fist clubbing Lyons in the head and face and shoulder again and again.