Ruiz didn’t have to be told twice. They burst from the armored car, leaving the gun crew inside. They dropped to the ground and rolled into a ditch on the side of the road.

Less than three seconds later, Russell heard the short scream of the Hydra 70 rocket as it impacted the armored car and blew its turret to pieces. In the black killing machine, the gunner had turned the muzzle of the M230 automatic cannon, mounted under the bow of the fuselage, toward the first truck in the convoy. Called a chain gun, it could spurt six hundred fifty thirty-millimeter rounds a minute. The blast of shells tore through the first and second trucks’ canvas-covered benches, carrying the twenty-five armed killers hired by San Martin, that quickly became fiery charnel houses.

There was no time for a warning. The third truck drove off the road, spilling out the men as soon as it rolled into the ditch. One man on the fourth truck threw back the canvas cover and began to shoot a mounted gun at the Apache.

“I’m taking fire, Viper Two. I could use help to take him out.”

“I’ll send him to dreamland. Just stay on your side of the convoy.”

Viper One could hear shells thumping into the rotor blades and fuselage, which was protected by twenty-six hundred pounds of shielding.

Viper Two dipped under Viper One and unleashed a torrent of fire that smashed the man in the truck bed and his heavy machine gun to a pile of morbid junk.

“Obliged to you, Viper Two.”

“You still in one piece?”

“Roger. Engaging truck five on my goal line.”

“Let’s finish the game.”

The flames from one truck, and the explosion and concussion from another, were still tearing the air when the last truck tried to escape across the field. It was quickly smashed to a halt. The survivors spilled to the ground, followed by a hail of shells pouring from the Apache like water from a fireman’s hose.

Both Apaches obliterated the rest of the convoy and circled the area, picking off any survivors who did not throw down their weapons or hold their hands up in surrender.

As Russell and Ruiz watched from the cover of the ditch along the side of the road, the heat from their flaming armored car was like torture to them. They lay there, staring in fascinated horror at the total destruction of the convoy by the phantom black helicopters.

“It makes no sense,” Russell muttered. “Who are they and where did they come from?”

“They are not Guatemalan military,” said Ruiz.

“Let’s not wait to find out,” Russell grunted, crawling away from the burning vehicle toward the nearest forest undergrowth.

“We have to find a place to lay low ’til it’s dark.”

“Sound thinking, my friend,” Russell said. “Follow me and keep low.”

“Where to?”