As Bruce slept, Cachorro stretched against his feet. The usual hubbub of the town echoed softly into the apartment, and the dog downstairs kept up his regular barking. It was an ordinary evening in Porto Verde ... except for the commando operation just now swinging into action.

In the shadows of the apartment's back alley, a commando scanned the rear entrance of the apartment building with night-vision goggles. The area was clean, so the commando signaled to the other soldiers.

Five other figures stepped out of the shadows and slunk toward the back door. They were clad in black hoods and carried dart rifles, with backup MP5 submachine guns slung over their shoulders. The few people still out at this hour in Bruce's residential area saw them and steered clear, not wanting any trouble.

The sound of the neighbor's dog barking suddenly ceased. Cachorro looked up and growled.

Downstairs, the commandos climbed up toward their target, their black boots stepping softly onto the landing past the neighbor's dog. The dog twitched, silenced by a tranquilizer dart. Guided by handheld Geiger counters, the commandos zeroed in on the target.

Back in the command vehicle, parked on the main street at the base of the hill, General Ross saw the gamma-radiation levels on the feeds from the Geiger counters. "Gentlemen," he said, "here we go."

When the soldiers reached Bruce's apartment door, Blonsky hand-signaled for one of the commandos to head for the roof's steps. Blonsky then motioned for two of the commandos to approach the door. One soldier dropped to his knees and began to snake a miniature video camera attached to a thin rod under the door.

The soldier couldn't see any movement on the left side of the apartment on the camera's tiny monitor. He adjusted the camera toward the right and was startled by the sight of a giant dog's muzzle sniffing the camera. Bruce's dog licked the lens and then returned to the bed.

A man seemed to be lying in the bed, quiet in sleep.

The soldier with the camera held up one finger and then pointed it to the right, signaling that one person inside was low to the ground. Another soldier applied packs of explosive plastique to the hinges and lock. Blonsky stepped back and faced the door, his tranquilizer gun ready.

Blonsky keyed a code into his microphone communicator.

Outside the apartment building, General Ross, Major Sparr, and a Brazilian officer supervised the commandos' progress from a black van filled with surveillance equipment. When Sparr received Blonsky's signal, she turned her attention to the monitors, which showed feeds from one of the team's helmet cameras, a cam from the back of the building, and the cam from the soldier on the roof.

Everything was in place. Ross nodded. "Take him," he ordered Blonsky.

Boom! The plastique ignited, blowing the door off its hinges.

Blonsky hustled into Bruce's apartment, with the other commandos hovering behind him. Blonsky spun right, dropped to his knees, and fired three tranq darts at the sleeping form. Each dart hit its target—one dart in Bruce's body, and one in each of his legs.

Blonsky slowly approached Bruce's bed. He yanked the covers back.

On the pillow was a Styrofoam head, covered with a wig and a baseball cap. Blonsky pulled the covers farther, revealing bunched-up pillows on the bed. The target's dog barked furiously, and Blonsky, irritated, silenced it with a tranq dart.

Then he saw the rope dangling out the window over the kitchen sink. Blonsky activated his microphone. "Target's on the move," he reported. TUul2WX+kNmoQsdxS68cB3j7pWcCIke0hYFZrbEsXfqSOICs5FtbhWFUytu6a+n0