"Yeah, yeah. I understand." Lyons found the ropes that had bound his wrists. He put his hands behind his back and one of the Ochoa men wrapped the rope around his wrists. Lyons held both ends of the unknotted rope in his fists. Another length of rope went around his ankles. The gunman tied the rope with a slipknot, then tucked the slipknot into Lyons's sock.
"Be ready," Coral told his men.
The line of escort cars slowed. Weaving through traffic, an unmarked police car sped ahead. Coral looked out to see the car pass. For an instant, he saw into its interior. Then the car swerved in front of the first unmarked police car and raced down the ramp into the underground garage.
"That was the others!" Coral told Lyons. "Your Americans. I saw them in the back."
"If we can free them, that'll be seven of us. Wish we could have brought the Yaquis. But in a way, I'm glad we couldn't."
"They will be here soon. Many others will come."
"Good." Lyons looked over to the unconscious Gunther. "As soon as we're moving, we have to get him someplace safe. We've brought him too far to lose him now to stray bullets."
On the floor, his hands tied behind him, his feet tied, Gunther eased one eye open to a slit. He did not move or otherwise betray himself. His eye glanced to the men around him. Then his eyelid closed. He waited.
The caravan descended into the underground garage.
"What do you see?" Lyons asked, flat on the floor.
"There are many men around. They take the North Americans out of the car. A Mexican colonel goes to an old man in a suit. The colonel salutes the old man. Maybe the old one is General Mendez."
"What about my partners?"
"The soldiers and pistolerospunch them. But they stop. Now we arrive. Be ready."
Lyons heard voices outside. The truck's doors opened, then the cargo doors opened. Coral dragged out Lyons and dropped him on the concrete.
As the gunmen of the International kicked him, Lyons saw Gadgets and Blancanales only a step away.
"Where's the general?" Coral called out. "I want my gold!"
Gunther bellowed, "Shoot them! It's a trick!"
A gray-haired man in a gray business suit stood several steps away. "Give them their reward!" he commanded with a sneer across his patrician features.
Hands went under sports jackets as the gunmen of the International reached for their holstered pistols.
"Pol! Wizard! Down!" Lyons yelled. "Get down! Down!" Without taking the second to untie his feet, Lyons shouldered and twisted his way through the legs of the fascists. A fascist kicked him in the face twice, but Lyons turned away and crawled on. He grabbed the ankles of his partners and dragged them down.
As the Americans went flat, the four Ochoas scythed down the gunmen of the International.
Coral aimed the six-inch-long sawed-off shotgun at General Mendez. Two fascists stepped in the way of the blast. The brains of the first man sprayed over the man behind him. As the headless body dropped, a second blast from the shotgun sheared away the face of the other man and punched holes in a third soldier's neck. Only two of the double-ought lead balls hit the general.
One of the general's arms jerked back as a .33-caliber ball broke the bone. The second ball hit just above his belt, a spot of red appearing on his white silk shirt.
The general staggered back, whining with pain as the scene exploded in front of him. Coral pocketed his shotgun pistol and shouldered his Thompson.
On both sides of Coral, his men emptied their submachine guns, firing without aiming, simply holding their weapons at stomach height and firing from one side of the crowd to the other. High-velocity 9mm hardball bullets punched through fascists to kill again. The .45 slugs in Coral's Thompson and his friend's Ingram ripped through men, throwing their bodies back.
Blood and casings fell on Able Team. The autofire from the Ochoas seemed to be one continuous explosion, the noise and the blast continuing for seconds as the four Ochoa pistoleroskilled or maimed every standing man.
As corpses dropped around him, Lyons pulled the knife from his pocket and cut the ropes tying the hands of his partners. Then he freed his feet with one quick cut.
"The Man of Iron does it again!" Gadgets yelled, grabbing an Uzi from the tangle of dead men on the floor around them.
"Is that Miguel Coral?" Blancanales asked.
"Whose side is he on now?" Gadgets demanded.
"Our side. The escape was a trick on the Nazis," Lyons said as he unholstered the Python. He covered his partners, giving them time to find weapons.
The parked cars shielded Able Team. In the kill-zone, only the panicked and the dead and the screaming wounded remained. The other fascist squads, beyond the cars, did not have a direct line of fire at Able Team lying flat on the concrete.
A fascist running for cover turned, Uzi in hand. Lyons snap-fired, the X-head hollowpoint hitting the Uzi's handle, the gunman's right hand exploding as the 158-grain high-velocity slug shattered on the steel of the weapon. The tangled ruins of the gunman's hand flopped at the end of his arm as he staggered backward into a car. Nine-millimeter slugs from behind Lyons punched into the wounded man's chest.
A fascist ran from behind the shelter of a concrete pillar with an FN FAL para-rifle. Lyons steadied his Python in both hands. Before the para-rifle reached the fascist's shoulder, a .357 slug smashed through his forehead.
Shotgun blasts went off above them. Wadding and hot powder rained on them. Lyons grabbed an Uzi from the hands of a corpse. Flat on the concrete, he emptied the Uzi in a wild, one-handed spray in the direction of the fascist gunmen. Then he dropped the empty weapon and crawled through blood to the panel truck.
Heavy-caliber slugs punched through the truck, glass flying. Lyons looked inside.
No Gunther.
Lyons grabbed his Atchisson and the Uzi he had captured in the alley firefight. He saw Coral and the others firing from the cover of a bullet-pocked Dodge a few steps away.
Blancanales and Gadgets crawled through the slaughter. They both had Uzis over their shoulders. Magazines weighed down their pockets. Each held an autopistol in one hand.
"Move it, Ironman!" Gadgets shouted as they ran to join Coral.
Blood puddled on the oily concrete. Staying low, Lyons looked for Gunther in the tangle of corpses. He saw a headless corpse and a man with his hands knotted in his spilled intestines, and a wounded man vomiting blood. One fascist crawled away, dragging a shattered leg. A shotgun blast struck him low in the back, his clothing suddenly torn and bloody as his broken-backed corpse flopped.
But no Gunther.
Lyons crabbed under the panel truck, then scrambled for the wall of parked cars, calling out, "Amigos! Mis amigos Ochoas! No dispare!"
An Ochoa man reloading a Remington 1100 gave him a salute and a grin. To the side, a revolver popped and a light went out. Gadgets sat against the shelter of a police car, plinking at the overhead lights with a captured .38 revolver. One by one, he shot out the light bulbs.
"Where's Gunther?" Lyons yelled out. "Dande estd Gunther?"
"No se," answered the Ochoa with the Remington.
"It happened too fast," Coral shouted. "But he is here. We will find him. He will not escape you."
Gadgets popped out another light. "That ain't the question. Our problem at the moment is for us to escape them."
"Wrong attitude, Wizard." Lyons flicked the safety off his Atchisson. Heavy with weapons and ammunition — the assault shotgun in his hands, an Uzi over his shoulder, pistols in his holsters and pockets, magazines in other pockets — he moved to the side.