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desperate pleas shouted outward in Portuguese.
    Blaine threw himself into a lunging stagger that engulfed the lead officer’s legs and took him down. The whole throng reeled backward in a whiplash effect, some tumbling.
    The officer was in the process of shouting out when McCracken’s iron fingers found his throat to silence him. With no time to be subtle, he slammed the man’s head against the hard floor to knock him out. The officer at the rear was storming forward by this point. He struck a meaty hand downward to yank McCracken up. Blaine let him, went with the motion, and came up with fists flying. The first blow to the solar plexus doubled the officer over with a violent expulsion of breath. The man was still slumping when Blaine slammed a knee under his chin. Impact lifted the officer off his feet; he slumped down against steel bars infested with curious hands forcing their way out toward him.
    The drunks still awake in the cells had gone quiet for the brief duration of Blaine’s work, but now were snouting and cheering as if they expected to be freed. The new lot that had shielded him had begun to back their way down the rank corridor when McCracken showed the gun he’d lifted off the first guard. In his other hand was a wad of keys.
    The drunks slowed, then halted, disappointment obvious on their features. Blaine opened the less crowded of the two cells and herded them in. His original plan had been to throw the downed officers in here as well, but the mad eyes of the occupants dictated otherwise. There was a third cell, unoccupied for the moment, and he quickly dragged them into it after locating the proper key. Stripping the clothes off the larger of the two officers and donning them in place of his own was next on the list. The drunks had bunched close together in both cells to capture angles that let them watch. Those with the best view cheered Blaine when he stripped off his clothes and booed him when he put the guard’s on instead. By far the loudest reaction he got came when he exited the third cell tightening his gun belt and moved back down the corridor. The drunks shouted their anger at his not releasing them, then busied themselves with seeing if they could probe through the bars of the third cell to find purchase on the downed policemen.
    McCracken reached the staircase at 11:49. Timing was of the utmost importance now if he was to reach Johnny Wareagle ahead of the explosions, and a significant obstacle remained to be overcome: gaining entry to the second-floor area of the jail where Johnny was being held meant retracing his steps up the staircase and passing right through the building’s front area.
    He mounted the steps quickly and used his keys to unlock the door. He fixed his cap lower over his forehead and slid outward. Not hesitating, he turned right and walked past the wall-less main room, which was busy with activity. Another stairway that would take him to the second level, where Johnny was being kept, lay straight ahead. The building’s ancient design did not allow for monitoring stations on every floor. There were just lines of claustrophobic cells with heavy wooden, windowless doors. Patrolling guards, yes, but no central station to bypass.
    11:51 …
    McCracken rushed up the stairs and waited briefly at the top to see if a guard was patrolling the floor. The rattling clip-clop of boot heels alerted him to the presence of one before his eyes recorded the steady pace of the man heading his way on his pass. Blaine pressed his shoulders against the alcove wall and waited. When the guard had turned to go back the other way, he pounced. The man felt only a slight twinge in his neck before consciousness was stripped from him. Blaine headed on past the small room he had met Johnny in that afternoon to the cell where Wareagle was being held.
    “This is your wake-up call, Indian,” he said, turning the key in the lock. “Time to rise and shine.”
    McCracken pushed the heavy door