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took the walkie-talkie from him.
    â€œMove to the station,” he barked. “ Now! ”
    Garotin tossed the walkie-talkie back to Bakr.
    â€œTell ammunitions to meet them with RPGs,” ordered Garotin.
    â€œWe have a week’s worth of RPGs,” said Bakr. “Maybe less. We’re running out.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, we’re running out?”
    â€œI told you this, Commander. I told you this yesterday. We’re almost out.”
    Garotin nodded, remembering. He took a last drag on his cigarette, then flicked it out the window.
    â€œYes, you did,” he said. “We’ll have to do this with what we have.”
    â€œBullets are in short supply as well,” said Bakr.
    Garotin paused, deep in thought. His face showed disappointment.
    â€œHow much do we have?”
    â€œTwo weeks at most,” said Bakr. “I don’t see how we can move across the river without more ammunition.”
    Garotin nodded, understanding. He gestured to the door, indicating for Bakr to leave him alone.
    â€œJust get them to the train station,” said Garotin. “By dawn I want a line of attack to the east of the hospital. Let me worry about the ammunition.”

 
    10
    PORT OF TAMPICO
    MEXICO
    The guns were sanitized. There were no manufacturer engravings or other identifiers on any of them. And they were all precisely the same model: M4 carbine, blackish-gray, gas-operated, magazine-fed, telescoping stock, Picatinny rail, vertical forward grip, 14.5-inch barrel, semiautomatic and three-round burst firing capability, .223-caliber or 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge.
    It was a favorite of most counterterrorist and Special Forces units because of its combination of compact size and vicious firepower; it was the model of choice for close-quarters combat and urban warfare.
    There were no individual cases to hold each weapon, thus maximizing volume inside the forty-foot-long steel shipping container. Like sardines in the proverbial can, they were arrayed in rows and stacked to the roof of the box. The container held about eight hundred guns in all and was the thirty-second container loaded to the teeth. Twenty-five thousand guns in all.
    The weapons were manufactured in Mexico by a company called MH Armas, whose engineers had replicated the original design by Colt Manufacturing. They were knockoffs, but no less lethal than the standard offering.
    A black-and-yellow mobile gantry crane lowered the container to the ship, stacking it on top of an already bulging checkerboard of forty-foot steel containers.
    In addition to the containers filled with M4s, fifty-eight containers were filled with bullets. Ammo cans the size of mailboxes were loaded with 5.56×45mm slugs, then packed together in wirebound wooden crates and stacked on pallets. Pallets of the crates were stacked to the roof of the containers. In all, there were more than 330 million slugs about to leave for the trip to the Middle East.
    But guns weren’t the only fare on the weighed-down, freshly painted, 662-foot-long container ship. The containers closest to the front of the boat held contents much more valuable and much more lethal: stacks of HEATs, high-explosive antitank missiles. There were seventy containers filled with antitank missiles and ten containers with shoulder-fired, recoilless rocket launchers. They could take out tanks and other battlefield armament but were also extremely effective in urban environments. One well-targeted HEAT missile could take down half a building and easily kill a dozen men. Many cities throughout the Middle East were pockmarked with the legacy of the ubiquitous weapon.
    Dawn approached as the final container was battened with steel cord to the ship. It would be a scalding-hot day; already the temperature was above ninety degrees. The sky was changing rapidly from gray to deep red as the sun approached at the eastern horizon. In many ways, a perfect day.
    A tall bearded man named Miguel