ANDRES VIGLUCCI AND JAY WEAVER

 Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives, on the brink of losing custody of the boy to U.S.
 immigration authorities, will get one last chance today to agree to a key government
 demand and stave off his threatened repatriation to Cuba.

 Federal officials summoned the boy's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, to a critical
 afternoon meeting in Miami to determine Elian's fate -- a showdown forced Tuesday
 when his lawyers again refused to agree to surrender the boy should they lose an
 abbreviated appeals court battle to keep him in the United States.

 If Gonzalez won't sign the guarantee, the Immigration and Naturalization Service
 said it will make good on its threat to revoke the child's legal permission to remain
 in the country as of 9 a.m. Thursday, and demand that he be turned over at a
 specific time and place.

 ''If they don't comply, they should be expecting specific instructions from the INS
 on how to turn over the boy,'' said Maria Cardona, the INS' chief spokeswoman.

 By the end of the day Tuesday, however, hours after a morning meeting between
 both sides' lawyers failed to resolve the standoff, the relatives weren't budging.
 Their attorneys would not say whether Gonzalez would even attend the meeting,
 set for 4 p.m. at INS headquarters in Miami.

 ''I wouldn't want my father to sign that,'' Lazaro Gonzalez's daughter, Marisleysis,
 told CNN. ''To me, it's betraying Elian.''

 Late Tuesday, Lazaro Gonzalez's attorney, Kendall Coffey, said his client has
 no intention of delivering Elian to the INS because the agency has refused their
 requests to conduct a psychological evaluation of the effect a forcible removal
 could have on the boy.

 TURNING HIM OVER

 But if federal agents come to fetch Elian, Coffey said, Gonzalez has assured the
 lawyers that he ''will not obstruct them.'' This marks the first time that the
 relatives' attorneys have said their client would turn over the boy if agents come to
 the house.

 ''We've been through this many times with him. He will not disobey the law. He
 will not defy law enforcement agents,'' Coffey said.

 In an interview with the Telemundo TV network, Gonzalez seemed to be sending a
 mixed message on that point: ''I won't cooperate in anything. The boy lives in my
 house and they'll have to go find him there. I'm not going to deliver him to any
 immigration office,'' he said.

 Reached later at his home, Gonzalez said: ''What I said is this is Elian's house. If
 they're going to take him here, they have to take him voluntarily. They cannot take
 him by force. He is not a stray cat. He is not a rabid dog that they come and take
 away in a cage. He is a 6-year-old boy and this is his house.''

 The great-uncle also told Telemundo that he is willing to turn over the boy to his
 father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, if he travels to Miami from Cuba to pick up his son.

 A HUGE GAMBLE

 But if Lazaro Gonzalez refuses the government's conditions, independent legal
 experts say, he would be taking a huge gamble. He would still have one legal
 avenue to stop the INS from taking custody of Elian -- seeking an emergency
 order from the federal courts barring the government from acting.

 But legal experts say winning such an order is a long shot for the relatives. If the
 legal team fails to obtain one, the INS has the power to send the boy back to
 Cuba swiftly.

 ''When someone's parole is revoked, that person is usually taken back into the
 custody of the INS immediately and sent back to their country right away,'' said
 Michael Ray, president of the South Florida chapter of the American Immigration
 Lawyers Association.

 OBEYING THE LAW

 The INS would not specify how it plans to take custody of Elian, but senior
 officials have made it plain they are banking on the relatives and their attorneys to
 live up to promises to obey the law by voluntarily surrendering the boy.

 If his relatives refuse to turn over Elian, they could face civil and criminal charges
 ranging from contempt of court to harboring an illegal alien. The government could
 also send federal agents in to forcibly remove the boy from his relatives' Little
 Havana home, but officials have insisted they would do so only as a last resort.

 Miami's streets remained quiet as most Cuban exile protest leaders hewed to a
 wait-and-see attitude Tuesday. Armando Gutierrez, spokesman for the Miami
 relatives, urged calm over Spanish-language radio.

 Some exile leaders, however, were vowing active resistance should the
 government move in to remove Elian.

 About 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Gonzalez home in Little Havana in
 response to a call by the anti-Castro Vigilia Mambisa, which has said it would
 form a human chain around the home if the government tries to remove Elian.

 ''The people are very angry and I think there are going to be very ugly days here in
 Miami,'' said demonstrator Abel Lopez.

 ELIAN AT HOME

 For the second day, Elian remained at home. The family has asked Lincoln-Marti
 school administrators to home-school the boy in response to comments made by
 Fidel Castro during the weekend.

 Some, including family spokesman Gutierrez, interpreted Castro's comments as
 a threat to send commandos to ''rescue'' Elian. But on Monday Castro, calling
 Gutierrez an ''idiot,'' said, ''I stated very clearly that we weren't going to fight on the
 field of weapons and violence, but [on the field] of ideas.''

 ABBREVIATED COURT BATTLE

 The government, in an effort to forestall what officials regard as legal foot-dragging
 by the family's lawyers, has been pressuring the relatives to agree to an
 abbreviated federal court battle.

 Last week, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore upheld Reno's authority to
 return Elian to his father in Cuba, dismissing a lawsuit by the Miami relatives that
 sought to force the INS to provide the boy an asylum hearing.

 The relatives' lawyers immediately filed a notice of appeal with the 11th Circuit
 Court of Appeals in Atlanta. At their request, U.S. Circuit Judge Frank M. Hull on
 Monday allowed more time for the appeal than the government wanted. He
 ordered both sides to file all court papers by May 1, with oral arguments
 scheduled for the following week.

 But the INS has said it is not legally bound to await the appeal absent a court
 order barring it from moving ahead with Elian's repatriation. The INS says it is
 merely exercising authority to set conditions for an alien's ''parole'' -- the
 temporary legal authorization that permits Elian to remain in the country. If Lazaro
 Gonzalez, as Elian's temporary custodian, declines to agree to agency
 conditions, the INS can revoke the parole.

 ''We hope that he will agree to the very reasonable conditions that we have set out
 as a condition of Elian's continued parole,'' INS spokeswoman Karen Kraushaar
 said in a brief statement read to reporters outside INS headquarters in Miami on
 Tuesday afternoon.

 ''Far from depriving Lazaro Gonzalez of his right to appeal, we have attempted to
 accommodate his interests in obtaining review by the Court of Appeals while
 assuring a prompt and orderly reunion of Elian and his father if the District court's
 decision is affirmed.''

 Herald staff writers Ana Acle, Alfonso Chardy, Frank Davies and Elaine de Valle,
 and staff translator Renato Perez contributed to this report, which was
 supplemented by Herald wire services.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald