Collateral Damage

1

Turk’s first reaction was: Are you kidding me?

He said it out loud, nearly insulted by the audacity of the enemy to fire at him.

Then learned instinct took over. He hit the flare release, pounded the throttle, and yanked the stick hard, all at the same time.

The decoys and sharp turn made it difficult for the missile to stay on his tail. At such low altitude, however, the harsh maneuver presented problems for him as well. In an instant his plane’s nose veered toward the dirt and threatened to augur in. He pulled back again, his whole body throwing itself into the controls — not just his arms, not just his legs, but everything, straining against the restraints.

“Up, up, up,” he urged.

The Hog stuttered in the air, momentarily confused by the different tugs. Finally the nose jerked up and he cleared the ground by perhaps a dozen feet.

“I have a launch warning,” he told the others belatedly. “Missile in the air. I’ve evaded.”

“We’re on it,” said Ginella. “Come south.”

“The trucks—”

“Didn’t come from the trucks,” said Beast. “Came from that hamlet south. It was a shoulder-launched SAM.”

Turk swung his head around, first trying to locate his wingman — he was off his left wing, up a few thousand feet — and then the hamlet he’d mentioned.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself. He’d been ready to splash the trucks, blaming them for the missile.

He angled the Hog to get into position behind Beast. Ginella, meanwhile, called in the situation to the controller. The missile was shoulder-launched, surface-to-air, sometimes called a MANPAD, or man-portable air-defense system. While the exact type wasn’t clear, more than likely it was an SA–7 or SA–14, Russian-made weapons that had been bought in bulk by the Gaddafi government.

The hamlet where the missile had been fired was the same one that had reported being attacked by mortars — a fact Ginella pointed out rather sharply when she got the controller back on the line.

“Is this a rebel village or a government village, Penthouse?” she demanded. “Are we being set up?”

“Stand by, Shooter.”

“Screw standing by,” said Beast. “I say we hose the bastards.”

“Calm down, Beast.” Ginella’s voice was stern but in control. “Are you there, Penthouse?”

“Go ahead, Shooter One.”

“We’re going to overfly this village and find out what the hell is going on down there,” she told the controller.

“Uh, negative, Shooter. Negative. Hold back. We’re moving one of the, uh, Predator assets into the area to get a look.”

“How long is that going to take?”

“Listen, Colonel, I can understand—”

“By the time you get a UAV down here, we’ll be bingo fuel and the bastards will be gone,” she told him. Bingo fuel was the point at which they had just enough fuel to get home. “I’m not sure they’re not gone now.”

It took nearly a half minute for the controller to respond. “Yeah, you’re OK. Go ahead and take a look.”

By that time Ginella had already swung toward the town. The Hogs spread out in a pair of twos, each element separated by roughly a mile.

Flying as tail-gun Charlie, Turk kept watch for sparkles — muzzle flashes — but saw nothing. A white car moved on the main street, but otherwise the place seemed deserted.

“What do you think about that car?” Beast asked as they cleared the settlement.

“Didn’t look like much,” said Turk. “All buttoned up.”

The Hogs circled south, building altitude. The car left the village and headed for the highway. Beast suggested they buzz it, but Ginella vetoed the idea.

“Waste of time,” she said.

“Probably has the bastards who shot at us,” said Beast.

“Unless they’re stupid enough to take another shot,” said Ginella, “we’ll never know. And we’re almost at bingo,” she added. “Time to go home.”

2

Three years before, members of the coalition of rebels had chased Muammar Gaddafi progressively south. Now history was repeating itself, with the new government being pushed farther and farther from the coast. There were certainly differences this time around — different factions of the government had broken away from the main leaders and established strongholds in neighboring Algeria and Niger — but the parallels were upmost in Kharon’s mind as Fezzan drove him south from Tripoli. It seemed some places were stuck in a cycle of doom, and would just continue spiraling toward hell until finally there was nothing more to be consumed.

Most of the journey south was boring, a long stretch of empty highway flanked by even more desolate sand and waste. Two checkpoints made it worth the money he paid Fezzan, however — clearing the barrier ten miles south of Tripoli, manned by rebels, and stopping at the gates to Birak to the south.

Getting past the first barrier just before dawn had been easy: Kharon slipped the first man who approached a few euros and they were waved around the bus that half blocked the highway.

The gate at Birak several hours later was another story.

Birak Airport was some 350 miles south of Tripoli. During Gaddafi’s reign it had been a major air base, with a good portion of the Libyan air force stationed there. Though the planes had been moved, the airport remained a government bastion, with temporary quarters set up in the revetments where fighter-bombers were parked. These quarters consisted of RVs and tents, with a few larger trailers mixed in.

A civilian city had sprouted just south of the base. Populated by family members and “camp followers,” as the age-old euphemism would have it, it was even more ragtag, with shanties and trailers clustered around tents and lean-tos that were more like lean-downs. The sun hit the white roofs of the trailers, creating a halo of light in the desert, a glow that made it look as if the settlement was in the process of exploding.

The road past the airport was a straight line of yellow concrete that ran through an undulating pasture of rock and sand. Grit and light sand covered everything, making the surface as slippery as ice. The path and nearby terrain were littered with vehicles. A few were burned-out hulks, set on fire during battles and skirmishes too insignificant to be remembered by anyone but the dead. Most were simply abandoned, either because they had run low on fuel or the keepers of the gate refused to allow the occupants to proceed with them.

Or proceed at all. Low mounds of sand not far off the road covered dozens of decayed and picked-at corpses. Hawks and other birds of prey circled nearby, drawn by the prospect of an easy meal.

The government forces had a “gate” on the highway, which they used ostensibly to keep rebels from coming south but in reality existed only to extract a toll — or bribe, depending on your perspective — from travelers. To reach the gate, a driver had to first weave past the abandoned vehicles, and then run the gamut of a de facto refugee camp populated by travelers who either couldn’t pay the toll or were waiting for others to join them from the North.

The camp had swelled since Kharon’s last visit, barely a week before. It had consisted then of no more than a hundred individuals, most of them living in their own vehicles under broad canvas cloths stretched for cover. Now it seemed to be ten times the size, extending from the shoulders to block the road itself.

Fezzan took their four-wheel-drive pickup off the road, moving west as they threaded through the ad hoc settlement. Kharon raised his Kedr PP–91 Russian submachine gun, making sure anyone looking toward the cab of the truck would see that he was armed. Fezzan had one hand on the wheel; the other gripped his own PP–91.

In truth, the pair would be easily outgunned in a battle here, if only by the sheer number of potential opponents. But brandishing the weapons made it clear they would not be casual victims, and that was enough to ward off most of their potential enemies.

A small group of children ran up to the truck, begging for money. Kharon waved them away, yelling at them in Arabic, though he was careful not to use or point the weapon — he feared inciting the parents.

They were in sight of the barrier to the west of the gate — a row of abandoned tractor trailers, augmented by the wrecked hulk of a Russian BMP and a tank that had lost its treads — when their pickup slid sideways in a loose pit of dirt and got stuck.

Fezzan tried rocking it back and forth, overrevving and making things worse. Jumping from the cab, Kharon sank to his knees in the loose sand. For a brief moment he felt a wave of fear take him; the unexpected hazard had left him temporarily without defenses.

He pushed his knee up, then shifted his weight to the right, wading through the sand to firmer ground.

By now a considerable audience had gathered, children in front, women in the middle, men to the rear. Most of the men were gray-haired and silent, glum-faced.

“Push us out,” Kharon commanded. “Get to the rear. Five euros for each person who helps.”

Five euros was a good sum, but no one moved. Finally, two of the children ran toward the truck. A woman began scolding them, but as soon as Kharon took out a fist of bills, two women went over and put their hands to the rear of the vehicle. Soon the entire crowd was there, pushing amid a cloud of sand.

Fezzan managed to get the truck out with the help of the crowd. Kharon could have just hopped in and driven off — he suspected many would. But he expected to be passing through this way again, and welshing on his promise might gain him more enemies or at least more notice than he wanted. And so he walked over to a clear spot and began passing out cash. He gave the children ones — giving them the same as the adults would have caused consternation — then doled out fives to the women.

Six men had helped; four others joined the queue. To the men who had helped, he gave ten euros apiece. The others he waved a finger at.

When they began complaining, he put his money back in his pocket, then rested his hand on his gun. They moved back.

“I would not have paid anyone,” said Fezzan when he climbed into the cab.

“Then most likely you would be food for the buzzards,” said Kharon.

Fezzan recognized the sergeant in charge of the men at the gate, and the “toll” was quickly negotiated down from fifty euros to twenty. Once clear of the gate, they sped down the highway to Sabha, an oasis city in the foothills about forty-five miles south.

They drove to Sabha’s airport. Unlike Birak, the base here was still manned by the government’s air force. MiG–21s were parked on the apron near the commercial terminal building, and batteries of antiair missiles and their associated control vans were stationed along the road into what had been the military side of the complex. There was no “gate” here, only a pair of bored soldiers who gave a cursory glance at the letter of admission Kharon carried before waving them on. Fezzan drove slowly through the complex, turning north toward the administrative building. Here another pair of guards blocked the road with a pickup truck and a fifty caliber machine gun. Kharon opened the door and got out.

“I will let you know where to meet me,” he told Fezzan, banging on the roof of the truck after slamming the door closed. As the driver made a U-turn, Kharon walked to the guards, slinging the submachine gun on his shoulder and holding out his hands to show that he came in peace. They eyed the submachine gun suspiciously. Kharon had twice lost weapons at government checkpoints, more because the men wanted his gun than for security reasons. The Russian weapon, used mostly by policemen, was unfamiliar and required special bullets, making it less of a prize. Still, the soldiers made him remove the magazine before proceeding.

A second set of guards near the building were not as lackadaisical; here he had to surrender the weapon, giving it over to the custody of a corporal who came barely to his chest. Kharon was given a tag in return; he interpreted this to mean that he might actually be able to liberate the weapon for a small bribe on the way out.

He resisted the urge to trot up the steps of the main hall of the building after he was admitted. Instead he made his way as leisurely as possible, walking slowly down the hall to large office overlooking the airfield, where he found Muhammad Benrali frowning over a desk covered with Arab-language newspapers.

General Benrali, the commander of the government’s Second Air Wing, wore a tracksuit that appeared a size or two too small; his sleeves were rolled up his arms. The suit was a present from a Russian arms delegation the first week of the war; Kharon suspected it was the only thing Benrali had gotten out of the meeting.

“You are late,” Benrali snarled as he entered.

“There were delays on the road.”

“I lost four aircraft and men because of you.”

“I warned you not to engage the aircraft,” said Kharon calmly. “I told you only to get its attention and divert it over the vans.”

“You said it was a reconnaissance plane.” Benrali’s Libyan-accented Arabic was curt. “Reconnaissance planes do not fire on others. They run away.”

“I said it was used for reconnaissance. There is a difference. I warned you,” added Kharon. “I was very explicit about the power of the forces you’re facing. And by this point you should realize that.”

Benrali frowned.

“Where are the trucks?” Kharon asked.

“Two miles from here. You have several things to do for us first.”

“Several? I know of only one.”

“You must fix the radar installation, and arrange for the Russians to resupply us with missiles.”

“I’m prepared to fix the radar,” said Kharon. “But as for missiles — that was not part of our deal.”

Benrali rose from his desk. He had been an air force colonel under Gaddafi, joining the revolution only in its last weeks. In Kharon’s mind that was why he was more objective than many of the others he had to deal with.

“We’ll get something to eat and discuss it,” said Benrali. He began rolling down his sleeves. Kharon noticed he was wearing fancy Italian shoes.

“We can talk, but any help with the Russians is separate from our agreement,” warned Kharon. “I have no power with them.”

“You have influence.”

“Not at all.”

“My people say you meet with them all the time.”

“I meet with you. Would you say I can get you to do something you don’t want to do?”

Benrali chuckled. His mirth was as explosive as his anger.

“You have a silver tongue,” he told Kharon. “Come and let us eat.”

A few hours later Kharon drove a borrowed jeep through the low hills south of the city to a cluster of hills exactly one mile east of the power line that ran through the desert. He drove by GPS reading; there was no road here.

Two large tractor trailers sat on the southern side of the hill, seemingly abandoned. They had in fact been driven here immediately after the air raid on al-Hayat, having captured important telemetry for Kharon.

He wasn’t sure how much Benrali understood, let alone if the Libyans had figured out what he was truly up to. They knew that the devices in the trucks were modified radar units; he’d had to request a trained crew and demonstrate a few areas where the radar differed from the Russian gear they were familiar with. They knew they were recording something, and they knew it must involve the Tigershark, which had been engaged by the fighters.

How much beyond that, who could say?

Kharon circled the two trailers, trying to see if anyone was lying in wait for him. In truth, it was impossible to be certain — a practiced assassin could easily hide himself in the sand. He knew that the Americans had such men; his only real protection against them was the fact that they didn’t know what he was doing.

After two circuits, he drove over to the trailers. Leaving the engine running, he got out of the jeep with his submachine gun — it had cost him ten euros to retrieve — and walked quickly to the trailers.

His key jammed when he tried to open the padlock on the first trailer. He jiggled it back and forth, pulling and prodding, nearly despairing — the alternative would be to shoot through the chain, possibly damaging the gear inside.

Finally he got the key in and the lock clicked open. He pulled it apart and unlatched the door.

A thick loaf of warm, stale air greeted him. He lowered his head and pushed in as if he were a football player.

The trailer was the back of a Russian radar station, upgraded from the Soviet era, sold to Libya in the 1980s, and since then updated at least twice more, not counting the pieces Kharon had added himself. In a way it was a fascinating display of technological evolution, with bits and pieces remaining from each of its active periods.

Kharon wasn’t here to admire it. He took a small LED flashlight from his pocket and moved quickly to a console at the far end of the trailer.

Two hard drive enclosures sat atop metal gridwork just below a radar console. The drives were held in place by a small plastic bracket at the side. He pushed the long handle in, swung the arm out of the way, and then picked up the first drive.

Wires at the back stopped him after a foot and a half. He undid the wires — the connections were the same as those used on Ethernet cables — then scooped out the second drive and did the same.

The trailer was extremely hot. So much sweat poured down his hands that he thought he was going to drop the two boxes. He went over to the door, leaning out to catch his breath. He dropped to his knees, resting for a few moments. Then he backed into the trailer, moving on all fours.

There was a small tool kit on the second console on the right side. He found it, removed it, then made his way to the back.

There was a CPU unit under the bench against the back wall. He couldn’t see one of the bolts holding it to the floor and had to squirrel around with his hand to get the wrench on it. It took him nearly ten minutes to get the one bolt off. By the time he was done he felt like he couldn’t breathe. He dragged the CPU out, yanking the cords out of the panel. They were superfluous at this point anyway.

He was so exhausted when he put the gear into the Jeep that he considered leaving the other drives in the second trailer. But he needed all the data, and so he pulled himself together. He went back to his vehicle and drank half of his bottle of water. Feeling a little better, he went to the other trailer.

This time the lock was easy. He pulled it off the latch, then jerked the door open. As he did, he turned and saw the eastern horizon had turned gray. White clouds furrowed above.

A sandstorm was approaching.

He pushed into the trailer and closed the door. A howl rose in the distance.

The drives were located in the opposite side in the trailer, along with a small flash memory box he also needed to retrieve. He had them ready within a few minutes.

Back at the door, Kharon stopped when he heard what sounded like pebbles slapping against it. The storm had arrived, and it was a fierce one.

Going out in the sandstorm was not advisable. Kharon put the devices down and sat in the center aisle, listening to the wind as it whipped the sides of the trailer. He played the flashlight’s narrow beam around the interior of the trailer, trying to trick himself into thinking it was massive.

He hated dark, confined places. They reminded him of the closet he hid in the night they came to tell him that his mother had died.

His hands shook.

Kharon turned off the light and tucked his head down. He was well protected from the storm, and yet felt that it was enveloping him, as if he was its prisoner and there was no escape.

He’d known who they were and what they wanted. At nine years old, he was precocious in many ways. And it didn’t take much to guess something was very wrong.

His mother never left him for long without calling. That night, she was already several hours late, without any word, without even a note.

Home from school, he had done his homework and waited. When it was an hour past dinner time, he fed himself a sandwich, the only thing he knew how to make. He watched the cartoon channel after that — a special privilege ordinarily reserved only for days like his birthday or holidays or times when he was sick.

Then he spent an hour at the window, his fears and worries becoming so strong he could no longer keep them away.

Another hour. Two more.

A dark blue sedan pulled up. Two men in uniform got out.

He ran to the closet, knowing what had happened, hoping that if he didn’t let them in the house, everything would be all right.

But it wasn’t. His mother had died, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Until now.

Huddled in the dark, Kharon tried to clear his mind of the memories. He put his head down on his knees, eyes closed. He believed in science, not God, but even he felt the moment as something like a prayer—let it stop.

When it didn’t, he thought of Ray Rubeo.

He saw Rubeo’s thin face, his ascetic frame. He saw the sneer in his eyes — Kharon loathed that sneer.

I will do you in.

Whatever it takes. I will ruin you.

It took a half hour for the storm to pass. Grit covered everything outside.

Kharon, back to himself, put the drives in the jeep and headed back to the city.

He called Fezzan and told him to have the car waiting near the Red Sand Hotel, a place where they had stayed before.

“You want to drive north tonight?” asked Fezzan. Clearly, he didn’t want to.

“That would be ideal.” Driving at night through the desert did entail some risk, but in Kharon’s experience it wasn’t much more than during the day.

“There are many reporters in town,” said the Libyan idly. “They are all talking about going to al-Hayat tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“The commission investigating the bombing accident will be there. They have experts coming along. Americans and French.”

“Americans? Who?”

“I can ask. It didn’t come up.”

“Interesting,” said Kharon.

“Should I get rooms?”

“I don’t know that al-Hayat would be of any interest to me.”

“Most reporters are going. If you want people to think you are a reporter—”

“Thank you, Ahmed. When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”

“Just a suggestion.”

Of course he was right. There was no sense being pigheaded — this was an opportunity.

“Get the rooms,” Kharon told Fezzan. “Two of them. Make sure you get a good rate.”

“I’ll be in the bar when you get back,” said Fezzan.

Like a good Muslim, thought Kharon, hanging up.

3

Danny Freah rubbed his tired eyes, trying to clear the fatigue away. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go to Africa,” he told Rubeo. “Nobody can guarantee your safety.”

“People go back and forth between Libya all the time. Westerners generally aren’t harmed.” Rubeo rocked back and forth, as if he was having a hard time keeping himself contained in the small office. Danny couldn’t remember seeing the scientist more animated. “I don’t really need your permission, Colonel.”

“I don’t know about that. I am in charge of Whiplash,” said Danny.

“Really, Colonel, you have no rank to pull over me. If you’re not going to help me, I’ll go on my own. I have Jons, and other people to call on. Really, Colonel, I have given this some thought. I need to see the crash site and the environs if I’m to figure out what happened.”

“All right, listen. Give me a little time. I’ll figure something out, something that gives you some protection. Beyond your own team,” Danny added. “It won’t be until tomorrow at the earliest. I’ll have to arrange an escort.”

“I think it would be better to travel without the UN people.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. We’ll have more of our people here tomorrow,” Danny said. “Right now, it’s just me and Boston.”

“I don’t need an entourage.”

“Two troopers and an Osprey to get you around quickly. You can’t argue with that.”

Rubeo looked as if he could, but he pressed his lips together and said nothing. Danny half expected him to ask for the Osprey now, but he had a ready answer — he had loaned both to the UN commission investigating the bomb strike.

“Do you really think you’re the best one to go?” he asked Rubeo. “You have a dozen people over here looking into the incident—”

“Two dozen,” corrected Rubeo. “Plus the team that was here to begin with. But yes, I do think it’s a good use of my time. If one of your people had been involved in an accident or something similar, you’d want to investigate firsthand, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess.”

“I’m sure you would.”

Conceding, Danny leaned back in the seat and changed the subject.

“You know, Doc, I think sometimes accidents like this — and even blue-on-blue incidents…” He stumbled for the right words. “These things are terrible, but you know, you have to put them in perspective.”

“I’m trying to,” said Rubeo, rising to leave.

4

The black scorches on the walls looked as if they had been painted on, a kind of postmodern expressionism as interpreted by the god of fire.

The rubble in front of them was less poetic. What had once been a row of houses was now flattened stone, wood, and scraps of material too charred to recognize. The stench of death still hung in the air. The government could not have arranged a better scene if they had staged it.

Kharon was amazed at the damage the missiles had done. He had seen the results of the war firsthand before, but everything else paled compared to this.

The government said sixteen people had been killed and another twenty wounded. If anything, the number seemed miraculously low.

He curled his arms around his chest, suddenly cold. The slightest, very slightest, hint of grief poked at the very edge of his conscience. But it was more a rumor of remorse, less actual guilt or regret than an unease. It was easily ignored.

Two dozen reporters, most of them Western freelancers, had been admitted to the area by the government troops in anticipation of the special UN investigation commission’s arrival. Kharon’s phony credentials were more than enough to get him past the guards. They hadn’t even bothered to search him, though he had thought it prudent to leave his weapon back with Fezzan in the truck at the edge of town.

He’d seen a few of the reporters in Tripoli. He nodded at anyone who said hello, but kept to himself as much as possible. There was always the possibility that someone might start asking too many questions about his credentials. If necessary, he could mention the German and the Australian Web sites which he had legitimately sold stories to, but anyone who really dug would come up with questions.

Even a simple one could be devastating: What did you do before Libya?

When he first arrived in Libya, he was surprised at how few of the reporters actually spoke Arabic. He was also surprised at how little they knew of the actual conflict. And he was stunned at how lazy most of them actually were. Not that they weren’t willing to risk their lives — that, most had no trouble with. But nearly all settled for the first answer they got. And most would sooner walk barefoot in the desert than question the simple dichotomy they had arrived with: rebels good, government bad.

This story, at least, promised to make things a little more complicated.

The government had posted “facilitators” at different spots around the ruins. While their function was essentially that of press agents, Kharon suspected that they were high-ranking officers in the army or other government officials, well-trusted and dependable. He listened as one detailed the lives of the three people who had been killed in the building a few yards away. The man, a middle-aged Libyan, handed out glossy photos of the dead bodies with an enthusiasm that would have seemed more appropriate at a movie preview.

The government’s interior minister was overseeing the press briefing, preening for the cameras as he talked about how the civilians were going about their everyday lives when the American plane struck.

Almost on cue, a pair of aircraft appeared in the distance. They sounded a bit like helicopters, but as Kharon stared he realized they were American V–22 Ospreys, tilt-rotor aircraft that flew like planes but landed like helicopters.

“The UN commission is arriving,” said the minister in his heavily accented English. “They are going to land in the field across the way. Please give them room to arrive. We assume that they are unarmed.”

Some of the reporters sniggered.

Kharon’s heart began pumping hard in his chest. Some of the reports he had seen overnight indicated that the Americans had assigned technical experts to accompany the investigators.

Was Rubeo among them?

He thought it was very possible. The scientist was a control freak. He would insist on seeing something like this firsthand.

If Rubeo came himself, Kharon would stay back and avoid the temptation to confront him. It would be difficult, though, extremely difficult.

Kharon wanted to see the pain on his face.

Then, he would kill him. But first he needed to know that he had suffered.

Zen glanced at Zongchen as the Osprey settled. The former Chinese air force general had seemed visibly nervous the entire flight. Now as the rotors swung upward and the aircraft descended he clutched the armrests at the side of his seat for dear life.

It was funny what made some people nervous.

“A little different than flying in a J–20, eh, General?” Zen asked as they gently touched down.

“Very different,” said Zongchen, with evident relief. “There, I am in control. Here, very different.”

As the crewmen headed for the door, Zen unstrapped his wheelchair and pushed it into the aisle. The maneuver into the seat was tricky, but Zongchen held the back of the wheelchair for him.

“You notice that my chair just fits down the aisle at the front,” Zen told the general.

“Yes, very convenient.”

“They did that especially for me.”

It was a white lie, actually, but it amused the general. Zen rolled over to the door. A lift had been tasked to get him down; it rolled up, and after a bit of maneuvering and a few shouts back and forth, the plane crew turned him over to the lift operator.

Zen held himself steady as the ramp descended. It was the sort of thing workmen used while working on buildings, and it had only a single safety rail at the front. It moved down unsteadily — truly, it was scarier than almost anything he’d experienced in an airplane for quite a while.

“Do you get tired of being in a wheelchair?” Zongchen asked when they were both on the ground.

“Always,” admitted Zen.

The crowd of news people seemed to have tripled since the Ospreys first appeared in the sky. Kharon wondered about the security — there were plenty of government soldiers around, but they seemed more focused on holding back the local villagers than watching the reporters.

Kharon slipped toward the front of the group. His heart thumped in his throat. He regretted leaving the gun.

Relax, he told himself. Just relax.

The UN team had brought security with them — a dozen soldiers, all with blue helmets, fanned out from the first Osprey, along with a few plainclothes agents. All of the dignitaries seemed to be in the second aircraft.

There was one in a wheelchair.

Kharon wasn’t quite close enough to see his face, but he guessed that it must be Jeff Stockard, the former Dreamland pilot who was now a United States senator.

Zen.

His mother had told him stories about Zen. He was “just” a star pilot then, before his accident and struggle turned him into something approaching a national hero.

A real hero, whom even Kharon admired. Not a phony legend like Rubeo.

A wave of damp sadness settled over Kharon. Zen had been at his mother’s funeral. He remembered shaking the pilot’s hand.

“We all loved your mom,” he said.

Rubeo hadn’t even spoken to him.

Kharon craned his neck, trying to see if the scientist was with the UN committee. He spotted someone of about the right height and moved up in the line, bumping against one of the armed guards before realizing that it wasn’t Rubeo.

“Back,” said the soldier. He was Pakistani, wearing his regular uniform below the blue helmet and armband.

“Sorry.”

Kharon shifted back, joining the throng of reporters as they followed the commission walking up the road to the ruins. There was a light breeze; every so often a burst of wind would send grit in their faces.

As a fighter pilot, Zen had the luxury of distancing himself from the effects of ground war. Rarely had he seen firsthand damage to anything other than an airplane.

Now it was all around him.

It was horrific. While the government guide was a bit heavy-handed, there was no question that the bombs sent by the Sabre had inflicted a terrible toll.

Zen reminded himself that the government, too, was to blame. It was inflicting a heavy toll on the populace, robbing and stealing from the people. In the roughly two years it had been in power, thousands of people were imprisoned without trial. The new leaders were repeating many of the outrages that had flourished under Gaddafi.

But that didn’t make this any less tragic.

He wheeled slowly along, gradually falling behind the main pack as they moved along the sides of the battered buildings.

“Excuse me, are you Senator Stockard?” shouted one of the journalists trailing them.

The man had an American accent. Zen debated whether to ignore him, but finally decided it was better to speak.

“Yes, I am,” Zen told him.

“I’m Greg Storey from AP. I’m interested, Senator — what’s your impression?”

“It’s terrible,” said Zen. “A horrible accident.”

“The government is claiming that it was done on purpose, as a terrorist act.”

“That’s clearly not what happened,” said Zen.

“How do you know?”

Zen controlled his anger. He had enough experience with reporters to know that they often tried to provoke people to get an extreme reaction.

“NATO doesn’t go around targeting civilians. We hope to get to the bottom of what happened, and then fix it so it doesn’t happen again. That’s the committee’s aim.”

Seeing that Zen was taking questions, the other reporters quickly gathered nearby and asked a few of their own. The government minder ran over, but by the time he arrived there were so many other people around that he had a difficult time pushing through the crowd and was in no position to reshape the conversation.

A few of the questions were things Zen couldn’t answer in any detail — what exact aircraft had been in the raid was one he just ignored. But most were thoughtful, and he answered as fully and honestly as he could.

The U.S. was not controlling the investigation. He was an honorary member, willing to help as much as possible. Zongchen, a respected Chinese air force officer as well as diplomat, was a careful man and would sift through the evidence. It was unfortunate that the government of Libya had chosen to take a hard line against the rebels. There was room for a negotiated peace, if the sides would come to the negotiating table.

Zen admitted that he didn’t know the exact ins and outs of the local politics, and would have to defer to others on specific grievances. He was interested in finding out why things had gone wrong with the air attack.

“Was it because the planes were UAVs?” asked the American reporter.

“Assuming that they were — I’m not sure that’s one hundred percent yet — there’s no reason to think the tragedy would have been avoided with a manned plane,” said Zen.

“Really, Senator?”

“Obviously, we have to see the circumstances of the accident,” he said. “But manned planes make mistakes, too. Unfortunately.”

“UAVs seem more dangerous.”

“Not really. UAVs have helped reduce casualties,” Zen answered. “Now some people — pilots especially — long for what are thought of as the good ol’ days, when every aircraft was manned. But remember, back in the very old days, collateral damage was a serious problem. World War Two saw horrendous civilian deaths. We’ve come a long way.”

A voice from the back shouted a question. “Why are robots making the decisions now?”

Zen tried to ignore the question, turning to the right, but the reporter he glanced at asked the same thing.

“I don’t know that they are,” said Zen.

“There have been anonymous reports to that effect,” said the first reporter. “Several news organizations have gotten leaks.”

“I don’t have information on that, so I guess I can’t address it,” said Zen.

“Are the UAVs acting on their own?” asked Storey.

“It’s not a robot rebellion, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Zen. “Men are in the loop.”

“I’ve heard from sources that they are not,” said the reporter in the back.

“I’ve given you pretty much the details I know and can give,” said Zen. He noticed Zongchen standing nearby. “We’re looking into everything. Probably the person you really want to talk to about the committee would be General Zongchen.”

Zongchen gave him a look that said, Thanks a lot.

The reporters began peppering him with questions. Before Zongchen could answer, a rock sailed overhead. Zen looked up and saw several more flying from the direction of the ruins.

Suddenly, there were many rocks in the air.

The riot took Kharon by surprise. He moved to his left, looking for a way out of the crowd.

People surged from the edge of the ruins, pushing toward the thin line of UN soldiers. Clearly, the action had been planned by the government. A foolish, stupid move.

But then, what did they do that wasn’t foolish?

The cameras shifted their aim from the dignitaries to the crowd. The people yelled about killers and murderers, and threw more rocks — they couldn’t quite see the irony.

The journalists moved toward the rock throwers, most thinking they were immune to the violence. Kharon realized they were just as much the target as the dignitaries were — and they didn’t have anyone to protect them.

It was time to leave.

He pocketed his ID and moved quickly back through the ruins, walking at first, then running back to his truck.

Zen made it to the Osprey just as the UN soldiers fired warning shots into the air. He wheeled himself toward the platform but was intercepted by two of the plainclothes security people who had traveled with them but stayed in the background.

“Sorry, Senator. We’re getting you out of here,” said one of the men gruffly. He grabbed him under the arm.

Zen started to protest but realized it was too late — he was half carried, half thrown into the Osprey. The props were already spinning.

“My chair!” he yelled.

No one heard him in the confusion. The door closed and the aircraft veered upward.

Zen crawled to the nearest seat and pulled himself up. Someone helped him turn around.

It was Zongchen.

“This did not go as well as I hoped,” said the Chinese general. He was sweating profusely. His pants were torn and his knee was bleeding.

“No, I would say it didn’t go well at all,” said Zen, wondering how long it would take to find a wheelchair as good as the one he had left behind.

5

The fact that the government thought staging a riot at al-Hayat would have any beneficial effect toward their cause showed just how far removed from reality the leaders were.

Kharon brooded about this on the drive back to the city, worried that the government would collapse before he was able to exact his revenge. If so, years of effort would have been wasted; he would have to begin fresh.

He was so distracted that when they arrived in Tripoli he agreed to pay Fezzan an extra hundred euros to help him carry the box of drives and CPUs up the stairs of the small house he had rented in the western quarter. Taped shut in a cardboard box that had held bags of cashews, the components were neither large nor particularly heavy. Fezzan left as happy as Kharon had ever seen him.

A few minutes after he left, Kharon took the devices from the box and put them in a large, padded suitcase. He went downstairs — he used the building only for his sporadic contacts with Fezzan and other locals — and found his small motorcycle in the alley at the back. He tied the suitcase to the rear fender with a pair of bungee cords, put on a helmet to obscure his face, then set out on a zigzag trail through the city.

His paranoia poked at him a few blocks later, when he came to an intersection blocked by police vehicles. Officially neutral like the city, the Tripoli police were generally considered pro-rebel, though you could never tell whose side they were on. And given Kharon’s situation, either could instantly decide he was their enemy.

But the police were investigating a routine traffic accident, and waved him past as he approached.

Kharon drove to the dense residential districts north of Third Ring Road. After making sure he wasn’t being followed, he pulled down an alley and raced toward a building at the far end. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a garage door opener and pressed the button in the middle. Then he hit the brakes, skidding under the thick branches of several trees as he turned into a bay whose door was just opening. He took the turn so hard that he had to steady himself with his foot on the cement floor, half crashing to a halt.

He jerked his head back and forth, making sure he was alone. Then he hopped away from the bike and went to the empty workbench a few feet away. Reaching under it, he found a key taped to the underside. He used it to open the circuit breaker box above the bench just as the door opener’s automatic lights turned off. With his fingers, he hunted until he found the switch at the very bottom of the panel. He threw it to off, and then, still in the dark, walked to the side of the room and found the light switch.

When the lights came on, he glanced to the right, looking for the red light connected to his security system. The light stayed off. No one had been inside since his last visit.

Kharon went to the door to the garage and opened it. He glanced around the small room, making sure it was empty. Then he went back outside to the garage and the power panel, turned the breaker back on, and went inside.

The garage was the side end of a small workshop used as a sewing factory some years before. All of the machinery had been removed, a perfect place for Kharon to set up shop had he wanted. But he had decided it could be too easily surrounded; he used it only as a temporary staging area.

Inside the large room, he retrieved a touchscreen computer hidden in a small compartment beneath the tile floor. He activated it, then used it to interface with the security system, running a second check to make sure it had not been compromised. Satisfied, he pulled a large duffel bag from the compartment, replaced the tile, and went back to the garage, where he put the CPU drives in the bag. Then he locked down the building and went out through a side door.

An hour later Kharon carried the duffel bag down the steps of a lab building at Tripoli University to the subbasement where the utilities were kept. He waited at the bottom of the stairs, listening to hear if anyone was following. Then he slipped a thin plastic shim into the doorjamb to get around the lock. He stepped into a corridor lined with large pipes. Closing the door, he found himself completely in the dark.

The confined space stoked his claustrophobia. His hand began to shake as he reached for the small flashlight in his pocket.

It’s nothing, he told himself. Nothing.

But that didn’t stop his hand from shaking. Kharon’s fingers finally found the light. He switched it on and played it across the space in front of him.

Breathe.

He took a step forward, then turned back and made sure the door was locked. Lifting the duffel onto his shoulder, he walked swiftly to the end of the hall, where he found a set of steps leading off to his right. He went down cautiously, one hand tight on the rail. Then he ducked under another set of large pipes and electrical conduits and walked through an open space to another door. This one led to a second hallway, lit by a dull yellow light at the far end.

There was a door near the light, guarded by a combination lock. Kharon pounded the numbers quickly, pushing inside as the lock snapped open. Still breathing hard, he reached for the two switches to the left. One killed the light outside; the other turned on a set of daylight fluorescents that lined the ceiling.

The light helped him relax. He was inside a hidden lab complex that was once part of the Libyan effort to build a nuclear weapon. It had been abandoned for years when Kharon stumbled upon it.

He walked through what had been a large security/reception area. There was a lab room at the far end, guarded by another coded lock. Inside, he found his two workstations in sleep mode just as he had left them.

After making sure that his security had not been breached, Kharon unpacked his boxes and began downloading the information from the hard drives into his native system. While the drives spun, he booted a third computer that was tied into the university’s mainframes. He used it to get onto the Internet and scan the news relating to Libya.

Most of the stories about the riot either hinted that it had been staged or said so outright.

Idiot government.

The commission had returned to Tripoli. They said all the right things — the accident had been inexcusable, the loss of life was horrible.

And the questions he had asked about the autonomous drones?

Not even mentioned. The reporters were too stupid to understand what was going on.

Frustrated, Kharon began scanning stories from several days before, looking to see if the tips he’d planted had borne fruit. Rubio’s name didn’t even come up in the stories related to the incident.

Kharon leaned his elbow on the bench in front of the keyboard. He put his chin against his hand, then bit his index finger. He bit it so hard and so long that when he finally let go, his finger was white.

Embarrass Rubeo? Ruin him?

Hardly.

He was going to have to just kill him and be done with it.

6

Following their return to base and the formal debrief, Turk joined Shooter Squadron at their second ready room — the hotel lounge at the Sicilian Inn a few miles from the base. The seaside resort had been taken over by the allies, and the bar was filled with fliers from several member countries: Greece, France, a few Brits, and even some Germans. The pilots from Shooter Squadron commandeered a table on the terrace overlooking the beach and the sea. It was a brilliant night, with the stars twinkling and the moon so massive and yellow it looked as if it had been PhotoShopped in.

Grizzly and most of the others were still sick, but two pilots Turk had never met before came down to join them, Captain Frank Gordon from San Francisco, and the squadron’s junior pilot, Lieutenant Li Pike, a woman who had joined the Hog squadron just a few weeks before.

There was plenty of the usual joking around, but there was also a serious conversation on the rebel movement and the role of the allies as well. Pike, who had a degree in international relations, pointed out that this was the second time around for the allies — the first intervention, almost universally hailed when it ousted Gaddafi, had resulted in a terrible regime that was now itself being contested. In her opinion, intervention of any sort was futile; the locals should have been left to fend for themselves.

Paulson countered that just because things hadn’t worked out in the first place, there was no reason to give up — try, try again was more or less his motto.

“Ah, waste ’em all,” groused Beast, reaching for his beer. “Shoot ’em up and go home.”

“Do you really feel that way?” asked Pike. She had a sweet, almost innocent face — pretty, thought Turk.

“That’s how I feel, shit yeah. Doin’ good? Almost got us killed today. Turk had to blow a missile off his back.”

“Almost flew his Hog into the dirt,” said Paulson. “That would have been embarrassing. Dreamland hotshot kicks in the desert because he oversticks his plane.”

Turk was starting not to like Paulson very much, but he tried taking the ribbing good-naturedly. Objecting was the easiest way to guarantee it would continue.

“I have to say, the Hog goes where you point it,” he told the others. “Very nice aircraft.”

“Sure your muscles haven’t atrophied?” asked Paulson.

“I can still make a fist,” said Turk.

“I’m just jokin’ with ya, Captain,” sneered Paulson, getting up and heading toward the bar.

“Do you believe in intervention?” asked Pike.

“I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest,” Turk told her, grateful for the chance to change the subject.

“So what’s the F–40 like?” asked Beast.

“It’s interesting. Some days you forget you’re really in an airplane. It’s real smooth.”

“I don’t think I’d like that,” said Li.

“You get used to it.”

“They blame you for the accident?” asked Beast.

“No. That’s one good thing about all the systems they have in place for monitoring everything. They can see exactly what I did.”

“You think they’ll figure it out?” asked Li. “Soon, I mean.”

“I hope they don’t,” said Ginella, returning to the table after speaking with one of the French fliers. “Because it means we have our friend Turk here for a little bit.”

“You’re staying?” Li asked.

“Well…”

“Captain Mako can stay until we have our full complement back,” said Ginella. “As far as I’m concerned, he can stay forever.”

“I’m glad to be here,” said Turk.

The mood lightened as Ginella told a story she’d just heard from the Frenchmen. Turk watched Li, whose expression remained serious the whole time.

The more he watched her, the more beautiful she seemed to become. Her light tan skin was smooth and exotic in the dim light of the club. Her eyes sparkled.

Turk looked away whenever he suspected she was going to turn in his direction. She caught him once and smiled.

He tried to smile back, but he was sure that he must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Paulson returned with a fresh round of drinks. He started bragging about how well he’d done in some Gunsmoke competition a year before. He seemed to be playing to Li, who sipped her drink coolly and avoided looking in his direction.

Turk got up and went over to the window, looking out at the sea. He was starting to feel tired. Everything that had happened over the past few days had worn him down. He decided he ought to find a ride back to his own hotel.

A pair of French pilots came over and introduced themselves. It turned out they’d been nearby when Turk shot down the Mirages, and asked him to recount the engagement. He did so gladly, using his hands to show the different paths the antagonists had taken.

“It was over in less than two minutes,” he said. “I had to be lined up perfectly.”

“He is quite a pilot, isn’t he?” said Ginella, coming over. She threw her hand around his shoulder. “A real ace.”

“Well, not so much an ace,” said Turk.

“You need five planes to be an ace,” said one of the Frenchmen, citing the traditional tally for the honor.

His companion mentioned Célestin Adolphe Pégoud, the French World War One pilot who had first earned the title. Turk confessed that while he had heard of the pilot, he didn’t know much about him. The other man described him as an early test pilot — Pégoud had looped a Blériot monoplane before the war, by legend and common agreement the first man to do so.

As the Frenchmen spoke of some other early aces, Turk realized that Ginella’s hand was lingering on his back. It felt warm, and reassuring.

And sexual, though she didn’t do anything suggestive.

Eventually, the French pilots excused themselves, saying they had an early op. Turk turned to Ginella, whose hand was still on his back.

He hesitated a moment, not exactly sure what to do.

She leaned in and kissed him.

Her lips were lush, much warmer and more moist than he would have imagined. She pressed him gently toward her, her right hand coming up on his side.

He moved his lips to hers, tilting his head to meet hers. He felt her tongue against his teeth and opened his mouth to accept it.

A small part of his brain objected — he would have much preferred kissing Li — but every other cell in his body urged him on. He closed his eyes, enjoying the sweetness of the moment. It had been a long time since he’d had a kiss this passionate.

Finally, Ginella started to move back. Turk did as well, sliding his hands down. She caught them, gripping tightly.

“Problem, Captain?”

“Um, uh, no. No. Not at all.” He glanced behind her. The rest of the squadron had left. In fact, that bar was empty except for the two of them and the bartender.

“Maybe we should continue this upstairs,” she suggested.

“Well, I—”

“Sshhh.” She put her fingers on his lips. “Nothing.”

“Well.”

He was truly undecided. He wanted to go to bed with her, without a doubt. But there were reasons not to.

Like?

They didn’t quite compute at the moment.

“Come on,” she told him.

Turk opened his mouth to say yes, but before he could get a word out, she leaned in and kissed him again.

7

The video was very poor quality, and expanding it to fill the fifty-five-inch screen in Zongchen’s conference room further distorted it. But it wouldn’t have been very pretty to look at under any circumstance.

Zen shook his head as the video continued, the camera running with the mob after the Osprey. He saw a glimpse of his wheelchair heading for the aircraft, then saw only the backs of heads and finally the ground. The last shot was the Osprey in the distance.

“They showed us,” said Zen sarcastically. The two men were alone; except for an aide watching the phones, the rest of the staff had quit for the night.

“My government has filed a protest,” said Zongchen. The Chinese general wore a deep frown. “This has been a great disgrace.”

“We should have expected it,” said Zen.

“We were assured complete security,” said Zongchen.

Zen kept his answer to himself. The general was a military man, with high standards and expectations. Like military professionals the world over, he placed a great deal on personal integrity and honor.

Noble assets certainly, traits that Zen shared, and traits one could depend on in the military world, and often in the world at large.

But the world of politics — geopolitics included — was different. Lofty values often held you back. Zen had learned the hard way that the knife in the back from a friend was more common than the frontal assault from an enemy.

“We will pursue our investigation,” said Zongchen. “We will continue.”

“Good.”

“The explanations of how the system works have been most useful,” Zongchen added, nodding to Zen. “We appreciate your candor.”

“And your discretion.” True to his word, Zongchen had not pressed for the technical aspects of the system. Given the animosity between China and the United States, they were working together remarkably well. Part of it was certainly personal — the two old pilots respected each other — but perhaps it was an indication that the two great powers in the world, one young, one not quite so young, might find a way to cooperate going forward.

Careful, Zen warned himself, you’re getting all touchy-feely. Next thing you know, we’ll be sitting around the campfire singing “Kumbaya”—and then Zongchen will knife me in the back like a proper ally.

“The pilot is not at fault,” said Zongchen. “This is clear. But from your discussion, the only possibility seems an error aboard the aircraft. Would you agree?”

“There’s nothing that would contradict that,” said Zen. “Perhaps with a little more work we can identify it. But the teams working on it haven’t succeeded yet.”

“Hmmm.” The general seemed temporarily lost in thought.

One of the general’s aides approached quietly. Zen noticed him first, and glanced in his direction. Zongchen looked, and apparently saw something in the young man’s face that told him it was urgent.

“Excuse me, Senator.”

“Of course.”

Zongchen spoke to the aide in Chinese, then turned to Zen in surprise.

“A member of the Libyan government is on the phone and wishes to talk to me. He speaks English — which is good since Cho here does not speak Arabic.” Zongchen smiled. “Come, you should listen as well.”

Zen wheeled himself from the large room to Zongchen’s suite office. He stopped a few feet away, waiting as the Chinese general put the call on speakerphone.

“I have another member of our committee here with me,” Zongchen said before he even greeted the other man. “Senator Stockard, from the United States.”

“The man in the wheelchair,” said the Libyan. His English was good, with an accent somewhere between Tripoli and London.

“The senator lost the use of his legs in an air accident many years ago,” said Zongchen, glancing at Zen. “But he has had quite a career since then. He was an excellent pilot.”

“I am pleased to talk to him, or anyone else you designate. Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Colonel Abdel Bouri, and a few hours ago I have been designated to head the military portfolio of our government.”

“I am pleased to speak to you,” said Zongchen.

“The security breakdown was deeply regrettable,” said Bouri. “And a fault of the previous minister. Things have changed. The government has… reorganized. I have been asked… Let me find the proper words here.”

He paused, speaking to someone else in the office in soft but quick Arabic.

“I have been authorized to speak of a peace arrangement,” said the minister in English. “We are prepared to hold discussions with the rebels, if the proper conditions can be arranged. These talks would lead to a new government. Elections would be established.”

Zongchen and Zen exchanged a glance.

“The president himself cannot make this statement,” Bouri continued. “But I have full authority to conduct talks. This can only occur at the most confidential… under the most quiet circumstances.”

“Pardon my skepticism,” said Zen. “But given the events of yesterday, and much of what has been happening over the past week, how do we know that we can trust you?”

The minister began protesting, saying that he was a man of integrity and had not been involved with the leadership in the past. To Zen it seemed a clear case of someone protesting too much.

“We do want to trust you, but trust is something that is earned,” Zen told him. “You should declare a cease-fire—”

“If we stop, the rebels will continue,” said the new minister. “You have seen them. They are animals.”

Not exactly the sort of opinion that was going to pave the way for peace.

“Perhaps your government could begin with a very small gesture,” said Zongchen. “Perhaps you could begin with apologizing for the attack on the committee yesterday. That costs you nothing, yet is rich in symbolism.”

Bouri didn’t answer.

“You have already apologized to me,” said Zongchen.

“Yes, but you are asking for something different. The president would have to apologize.”

“Since the government has already fired the defense minister, it’s going to be clear that mistakes were made,” said Zen. “A public statement won’t cost you anything.”

“And it will earn you a great deal,” added Zongchen.

“It will cost much,” said the Libyan. “But I will see what I can do. In the meantime, let us establish a proper procedure for these conversations. The talks between your committee and I. They will be strictest confidence, yes?”

“Of course,” said Zongchen.

“We’ll have to talk to others in order for our work to mean anything,” added Zen. “We have to talk to the UN leaders, our government, and eventually the rebels.”

“Carefully,” said Bouri.

“Quietly, you mean?” asked Zen.

“Yes, both. Carefully and quietly.”

Zongchen agreed that would be wise. The two men spoke for a few moments more, deciding how they would contact each other, and establishing a routine of “regular” calls twice per day.

After Bouri hung up, Zongchen turned to Zen. “This is an interesting development. Perhaps our being attacked has had a positive result.”

“Maybe,” said Zen.

“You don’t think this is genuine?”

Zen wheeled himself back a few feet. His substitute wheelchair was powered, something he didn’t like. But it would do for now.

“I suppose our best option is to treat it as if it is genuine,” he told Zongchen. “The question will be more the rest of government — does he speak for it? Hard to tell.”

“Hmmm.” The general was silent for a few moments, thinking. “It is very late, and we have not eaten. Let us go and find something. Deep thought is better on a full stomach.”

He spoke to his aide in quick Chinese, then led Zen out into the hall.

“It is interesting,” said Zongchen as they waited for the elevator. “Two former men of war negotiating a peace.”

“Interesting, yes.”

“But peace was also our aim,” added the general, “even if not our profession.”

8

Turk fell asleep in Ginella’s bed after they made love, but only for an hour. He slipped off the side onto the floor, trying to be quiet and not entirely sure what he was doing here. He hadn’t forgotten what had happened; he just didn’t believe it. Sleeping with another officer was one thing; sleeping with a colonel who was at least temporarily his boss…

Ginella lay with her head turned toward the wall, dozing peacefully. She had put on a T-shirt, but it was pulled halfway up her back, revealing her curved buttocks.

It was a nice curve. She was good in bed — a little more assertive than he was used to, but definitely a woman who knew how to please and be pleased.

But not quite his type. Older than he was.

And his boss.

What had he been thinking?

He hadn’t been, was the answer. He grabbed his clothes and got dressed, then slipped out without waking her.

The bright lights of the hotel hallway stung his eyes. Turk walked quickly to the elevator, but as he pressed the button he realized someone might come out and see him waiting, or worse, be in the car when the doors opened. He didn’t want to deal with any questions that might raise, so he used the stairs.

Outside, he realized it was too late to get a car. He had to go back to the desk and ask them to call a taxi.

By the time Turk got back to his own hotel, it was nearly three. He collapsed on the bed, even more tired than he had been the night before.

The next thing he knew, his phone was ringing. He had left it on the desk opposite the bed, and by the time he got there, the call had gone to voice mail.

It was Chahel Ratha.

“Didn’t you get the text? We need you here by 0800. It’s five minutes past.”

Turk made it to the Sabre hangar a few minutes before nine.

“Need some O2?” asked one of the guards at the hangar. Pure oxygen was a common cure for a hangover among flight crews.

Turk shook his head and went inside. He found Ratha and one of the lead engineers fussing over a pot of coffee at the side bench.

“Sorry I’m late,” he told them.

Ratha shook his head. “It’s just static tests anyway.”

Turk rushed to get into his gear. The Tigershark had been mostly placed back together. His job was to run the controls in a flight simulation mode while the technical people ran a bunch of tests on the interfaces with the Sabres. It was very routine, but it got his mind off the night before.

Some two hours of tests later, the engineers decided they had enough data and helped Turk from the cockpit.

“Figure it out?” he asked.

Ratha just shook his head. He didn’t look particularly pleased.

“Just the man I’m looking for,” said Danny Freah, coming into the hangar. “How are you, Turk?”

“I’m good, Colonel. Yourself?”

“Fine. Step into my office here a second.” Freah motioned him to the side. Turk followed, bracing himself for questions about Ginella.

Deny, deny, deny, whispered a little voice.

Why? He’d done nothing wrong. It was Ginella who would get in trouble, if anyone was going to get in trouble.

Right.

“I heard you did really well yesterday with the A–10s,” said Danny.

“Um, yeah.”

“You really made an impression on Colonel Ginella,” said Danny. “She was singing your praises this morning.”

Turk felt himself flush.

“It was good of you to step up,” said Danny.

“Thanks, I—”

“Colonel Ginella says you rate higher than most if not her whole squadron. She wants as much of you as she can get.”

Turk struggled to find his tongue.

“Hard getting used to the Warthog after flying the Tigershark?” asked Danny.

“Just about night and day,” said Turk.

Danny nodded. “You look like you had a rough night. You all right?”

“Oh, just a little… pilot stuff.”

“All done here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Don’t get in any trouble, you hear?” Danny chucked his shoulder, then walked away.

The engineers told Turk he wouldn’t be needed now for several days. He got changed and caught the bus over to the cafeteria to get some lunch. But once inside the serving area, he decided he wasn’t particularly hungry, a decision reinforced by hearing laughter in the seating area that sounded very much like some members of Shooter Squadron. He grabbed two large bottles of water and went back out the way he came.

A small field sat across the road at the back of the building. There were some picnic tables there. He walked over and sat on the top of a table — the benches themselves had inexplicably disappeared. He took a long pull from the water bottle, then leaned back, arms behind him, inhaling and exhaling in long, deep breaths.

A flight of Eurofighters took off with a loud rush, roaring into the air. Turk watched their bodies glow silver as they climbed, melting into a white light as they turned in the sky. Rising into the mid-morning sun, they turned black, vanishing into tiny daggers as they turned once more, this time toward Africa.

As the sound of the jet engines faded, he gradually became aware of the shouts of children. Remembering his soccer game the other day, he got up off the table, hopped the short fence, and walked in that direction.

The day care building was on the other side of the road, just beyond a low-slung barracks type building that was temporarily unused. The shouts were coming from a small group playing tag in the corner of the yard. Turk watched them for a few seconds, deciphering the rules, which seemed unusually free-flowing.

“You have children yourself?”

The woman’s voice startled him. Turk turned abruptly and saw Captain Li Pike, the Warthog pilot from Shooter Squadron. In her arms was a cardboard box so big her chin barely rose above it.

“No, I don’t have any kids,” said Turk. “You?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh.”

He took that to mean that she was married, but when he glanced at her hand, she didn’t have a ring.

“When my career gets under control,” Li added. “Then maybe we’ll see.”

“What’s your husband think?”

“I’m not married.”

“Boyfriend?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend. No time yet. Like I said, when my career gets under control.”

“Makes sense.”

She smiled, and he felt like a fool — it was the sort of indulgent smile you gave a simpleton.

“What’s with the box?” he asked.

“Oh, we took up a little collection and got the kids a few puzzles and games,” said Li. “It was the colonel’s suggestion. They’re on a limited budget.”

“Really?”

“The shelves are kind of bare. They gave us a tour the first day — I think they saw women in the squadron and thought that’s what we would be interested in. Italians.”

Her smile was so beautiful it was almost a weapon.

“Let me help you with the box,” he told her.

“Oh, it’s not heavy.”

Turk took it anyway, then followed her around to the side of the building. There was no one at the door or in the hallway; they went along to the first classroom. Li knocked tentatively, then inched in.

Some of the children spotted her peeking in and began to laugh. She pushed the door open wide, greeting the teacher and explaining, in English, that they had brought the things they had promised the other day. The colonel, she added, was sorry that she couldn’t come herself.

The teacher’s English was limited and heavily accented, but she greeted Li warmly, and told the children in Italian that the American pilots had brought them some presents. Turk, meanwhile, went over to a table near the front and put the box down.

“Il Americano!” said one of the children, running over. Within seconds Turk found himself surrounded by the soccer players, who were chattering in Italian.

“I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” he told the boys.

“We will play,” said one of the children. “Football.”

“Soccer,” said Turk.

“They were playing football with you the day two ago,” said the teacher. “You are good, no?”

“No,” said Turk. “They are very good.”

“They want to play with you now. It is almost time for their, how do you say?”

“Game?”

“Yes, game. That is a good word.”

Turk glanced at Li, who stood with her arms folded, a bemused expression on her face.

“You gonna play?” he asked her.

“I have work, Captain. I’m the maintenance officer. I’ll see you later.”

“Sure.”

The boys had retrieved three soccer balls and were already urging him toward the door.

“Just a little while,” he told them. “Five minutes.”

“Cinque minuti,” said the teacher. “Cinque. Solamente.”

“What she said,” Turk told them. “Exactly.”

9

The pilot Kharon normally used to get back and forth in Libya didn’t respond to his messages, and not wanting to wait, he booked on a commercial flight to Sicily, flying on Tunis Air, which was doing a booming business ferrying people in and out of the country. Kharon’s final destination was on the east coast, near Catania, but getting a flight there involved no less than three transfers. Renting a car and driving from Palermo made more sense and gave him greater flexibility. It also meant he would be able to arrive armed.

He had determined that Rubeo was at the base by following the movements of his private company plane, whose registration was public. He wasn’t yet sure where the scientist was staying — there were a half-dozen likely possibilities — but that was a solvable problem.

The more important question was how he would kill him.

Ironically, he had not planned the actual event. He had been so focused on the other aspects that he failed to map it out.

But murder was best executed on the spur of the moment. To plan that too carefully — certainly, he would leave clues that would be discovered and trip him up.

And after all, what had his planning otherwise gotten him? Rubeo so far had not been touched by the disaster of his prideful invention.

Kharon was more than a little out of his element in the tough precincts of Palermo, and he knew that no amount of intellect could substitute for street savvy. But he wanted to obtain a gun, and he knew that this was the easiest place to do it, as long as he was willing to overpay.

He stopped first at a legitimate gun shop, where he had no luck; the owner told him that since he was not an Italian citizen, he could not obtain a license at the local police station, and therefore he could not buy the weapon. But at least Kharon learned what the actual procedure was.

It was not particularly onerous — one was required to register the gun at the local police station, a practice the gun dealer hinted was not always strictly followed. But it was impossible to register if you were a foreigner. Anyone even suspected of being from outside Italy — as Kharon’s poor accent undoubtedly made clear — would be immediately asked for identification.

Armed with the information, he decided that the easiest approach would be to simply claim he was an Italian citizen, back to the country after spending many years in America. All he needed were documents that would prove he was Italian.

Such documents were valuable not only to new immigrants, but to legitimate citizens who wanted to avoid the hassle of getting official records from city hall. A web search of news sources showed that two years before there had been a raid on several tobacconists accused of selling these papers; the list was an obvious pointer on where he should go.

The first was closed. The second was in the lobby of an expensive looking hotel. The only clerk Kharon could find was a young man who gave him a befuddled look when he mentioned that he needed new documents. Kharon told him a story about having lost his driver’s license — the story he had seen indicated that many of the customers of the phony docs bought them to escape the bureaucracy and fees involved in getting replacements. But the young man seemed indifferent.

Outside, Kharon was looking up the address of the next place on his smart phone when a man yelled to him.

“Signor—you need help, yes?”

The man had been in the shop, standing near the magazines. He was in his early twenties, dressed in new jeans and well-tailored sport coat. The odor of his cologne was strong enough to fight its way through the cloud of diesel smoke nearby.

“I need documents,” said Kharon.

“Why?” asked the man.

He seemed too young to be a policeman. But Kharon hesitated. The man’s English was very good, the accent more American than British.

Just the sort of slick operator he needed. If he trusted him.

Am I doing this?

Yes, finally. I am moving ahead after all these years of planning. It is time.

“I need to buy a gun,” Kharon said.

“That’s a very expensive problem,” said the man.

“Not from what I’ve heard.”

“Come on and have a coffee,” said the man, pointing to an espresso bar across the street. “We will talk.”

In the end, Kharon purchased a Glock 17. The pistol was an older version, the type before the accessory rail was added, but the gun itself was in excellent shape. Kharon field-stripped it for inspection in a small room at the back of the coffee shop the man had taken him to. Before he had it back together, his “friend” appeared with a driver’s license and an EU passport. He took a photo, and within ten minutes Kharon was an Italian citizen.

Amazing what five thousand euros could do.

The gun didn’t come with a holster, and Kharon knew better than to try and carry it bare in his belt. He went back to the legitimate gun store and purchased a holster. The whole time, he expected the clerk to say something, perhaps even refuse to deal with him, but the man didn’t even indicate he knew him, or glance suspiciously at the wrapped-up bag Kharon carried with him.

He stopped at another store and bought himself a jacket for two hundred euros. It was a little big, and the shop owner gave him a hard time, insisting that he have it altered, a process that would take a few days. Kharon had to practically shout at the man to get him to sell it as it was.

It was easier to buy illegal documents and a gun in Italy than an ill-fitting jacket.

Better equipped, he filled the tank on the rental car, then set out on the autostrada for the eastern end of the island.

Soon, he thought to himself, he would see Rubeo.

10

Turk’s five minutes playing with the i ragazzi turned into roughly a half hour, and certainly would have lasted longer had the teacher not finally declared it was time for the children to eat lunch.

The kids demanded that he return. He promised he would come back in two days — a vow the teacher made a big deal of, even writing it on the class calendar.

The game vanquished Turk’s hangover, or whatever physical funk he had been in. It also left him hungry, so he walked over to the cafeteria and got himself lunch — a warm octopus salad with red and blue potatoes and the mandatory side of pasta.

He was just about done when he realized he hadn’t checked his phone for messages. There were a stack of them, including two from Ginella: Shooter Squadron was having a pilots’ meeting at 1500, and she hoped he’d be available.

It sounded like a voluntary request, and while the military wasn’t exactly known for volunteerism, Turk decided he would interpret it that way. He also decided he would head toward Catania, a city on the coast about eleven miles north of the base. He hadn’t been there since arriving, and from what he’d heard, it would be the perfect place to let his mind wander while he took a mental breather.

A public bus ran from the base up to the city. Turk hopped on it, and after a confused negotiation with the driver — who finally made it clear that he didn’t have to pay, grazie—he settled into a seat near the back and watched the countryside. Sicily was basically a volcano in the shallow Mediterranean, and the focal point of that volcano — Mount Etna — rose beyond the window as they rode. Despite the early spring heat, the top of the mountain was white-capped. A dim layer of mist rose from the peak; it was a benign presence this afternoon, barely hinting at its power to reshape the lives of the people in the area as well as the landscape.

Turk got out near the city square, or piazza. He walked around for a while, looking at the buildings and the people, his mind wandering. Finally he took a seat at an outdoor café at one side of the square, ordered a wine, then got the menu and had a plate of pasta and a second wine.

A succession of pretty women passed nearby en route to the tourist spots or somewhere to shop. He started to think he might like the idea of touring the country alone.

Few people came close to him, though occasionally he got a smile when his eyes met a stranger’s. Probably this was a function of the flight suit, he realized. He should have dressed in civilian clothes — he was the only serviceman around, American or otherwise, and it seemed to strike an odd note with the tourists who wandered by.

He was just about to pay his bill when his cell phone rang. Taking it from his pocket, he glanced at the number. It wasn’t one he recognized, but he answered it anyway.

“Turk, are you making our meeting?” asked Ginella as he said hello.

“Oh, Colonel, hey,” said Turk. “Meeting?”

“We’re planning the next few sorties,” she said. Her voice was pleasant but businesslike. There was no hint that they had been together the night before. “I was hoping to see you.”

“I got stuck with a few things,” he said. It wasn’t a direct lie, he thought; more like a slight disarray of information. “I didn’t think you guys needed me.”

“The flu has knocked us down badly,” she said. “I’d like to be able to count on you tomorrow.”

“Well—”

“We’ll brief the mission at 0600,” she said, her voice growing more officious. “I am counting on you. I did speak to Operations. And to your colonel.”

“Yes.” Turk wasn’t sure what to say. He did want to fly — he was developing a definite taste for the Warthog. It was just the situation with Ginella that was awkward.

Maybe this was her way of removing that. She was being completely official — yes, he thought, she’s trying to make it easy for me.

Great.

“If I’m not needed by the Tigershark people, I’ll definitely be there,” he told her.

“At 0600,” she told him.

“Got it.”

Turk spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city. Around six he decided he would head back to the hotel and get changed before finding a place to eat. He thought it might be a good idea to find a dining companion.

Li came to mind. But he had no way of getting hold of her — he didn’t know if she even had a phone.

Maybe, he thought, he could just call her hotel and have the desk connect him to her room.

He couldn’t remember the name of her hotel. His description of it didn’t help the concierge downstairs at his hotel.

“Mi dispiace, Captain,” said the man. “But you have described nearly every hotel in Sicily. It even sounds a little like ours, though maybe not so close to the sea.”

“True,” agreed Turk. “How about a nice place for dinner, not too fancy?” he asked.

“I know just the place. Very quiet and out of the way.”

Turk nearly jumped. Ginella had come up behind him. She placed her hand on his hip.

It felt good, tempting even. But…

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she told him.

“I–I didn’t know you were here.”

“I was waiting. They said you were out.”

She was in civilian clothes, a mid-thigh black skirt and a red top. Not quite see-through, the top gave a hint of lace beneath.

Which was pleasant.

He thought of objecting, but what could he say?

And why? Why object? Why not just… go with what felt good?

“I was — I kinda went for a walk to clear my head,” said Turk. “After everything that’s happened. You know?”

She nodded sympathetically, then leaned toward the concierge. “Can you make a reservation for two at il Bambino. Say in about an hour? No — make it an hour and a half.”

“Il Bambino,” said the concierge approvingly. “Very nice.”

They made love twice, once in a frenzy before dinner, Turk still damp from his shower, then again afterward, this time with even more desperation. Ginella silently urged him on, pulling him toward her. The second time she dug her fingers into his back so hard as he climaxed that he found tiny traces of blood on his sheets in the morning when he woke.

She was gone by then. There was no sign that she had been on the bed or even in the room. The scent of her perfume lingering in the sheets and on his chest was the only hint that she was there.

He called down for coffee, and took a shower for so long he was still inside when the coffee arrived. He got out, brought the tray inside, and showered again.

It wasn’t pathological, he told himself. He had wanted to have sex. The memory of it as he showered threatened to arouse him again.

Turk shaved and dressed. He jogged down the stairs rather than taking the elevator, trotting out to the lot after scoring his pick of the car pool.

Heading to the base for the mission briefing, he began rehearsing different things he might say to her to break off the affair.

He wouldn’t say them today, probably. But soon. Very, very soon.

11

Kharon’s search for Rubeo’s hotel turned out to be much easier than he thought, though as always it was absurdly expensive. He called the man who had arranged to connect the USB device to the maintenance computers; the man called him back inside an hour, while he was still driving. For two thousand euros he learned the American civilians were staying at the Crown Prince, a fancy hotel a few miles from the base.

For another thousand euros he got the floor and room number.

Kharon reserved a room at the hotel without trouble. He studied the layout, and within a half hour had it memorized.

He walked through, placing a dozen miniature video cameras around, giving him a full view of anyone entering or leaving the hotel, and surveying each of the floors.

Sending the images directly to his laptop would have been too easy to trace, so Kharon routed the data through the hotel wireless out to the Internet, then through a set of servers, and had it post to a Web page hosted by a Polish provider. The page was encrypted, but it wouldn’t take a hacker with half the expertise of Rubeo to track it down and eventually decrypt it. For that reason, Kharon resisted the temptation to put extra devices on Rubeo’s floor, and didn’t set up anything to watch specifically for the scientist.

Finished, Kharon went up to his room and took a shower. He decided he would rest — he hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours at least — but once in bed flopped around, unable to sleep. In short order he rose and began stalking the room. Nothing on television interested him, and he was loath to use his laptop to connect to the in-hotel network. He finally decided he would work off some of his excess energy with a walk. Dressing, he went out to the hall and walked down to the elevator. He leaned on the button, then saw from the display above the door that the elevator was all the way downstairs in the lobby.

Better to walk, he decided.

The marble tiles that lined the hallway floor were old and worn, but there were no cracks in them that Kharon could see. This intrigued him — was the marble so thick or perfect that it couldn’t break?

Or was it fake? The overhead lights were not particularly bright. He was tempted to drop down and examine the material.

Marble always cracked. The hotel had to be at least fifty years old. The floor looked original — scuffed and worn, yet no cracks.

The stair treads were made of thick stone, some sort of granite, he guessed.

Obsessing over odd matters was one sign of fatigue. Another was his eyes’ reaction to the light — everything seemed brighter than it was.

There was no door on the stairway where it opened onto the floor above the lobby. Kharon shielded his eyes from the bright light reflected upward from the lobby chandeliers by the mirrored walls below. He started down the steps. Already he was tired — he’d walk once around the building outside, then return quickly and sleep.

He was three-quarters of the way to the bottom of the stairs before his eyes could fully focus. Two men were coming in from the main door to the right. One large and bulky, the other even taller but thinner.

Ray Rubeo.

Rubeo saw the face float above the steps. It transported him back some twenty years to his early days at Dreamland.

Alissa Kharon. A talented scientist who’d died in an idiotic lab fire.

It wasn’t her — obviously — but the eyes, the cheeks, the nose: the face was almost exactly the same.

It was a man a little younger than she had been when she died, taller, but with the same coloring, the same expression.

Haunted.

Her son.

“Neil,” said Rubeo loudly. “Neil Kharon.”

He strode toward the stairs. The young man stared at him, confused.

“Neil Kharon. I’m Ray Rubeo. Do you remember me?”

“Uh, uh, yeah.” The young man stuttered, then glanced awkwardly at the hand Rubeo thrust toward him.

“Your mother worked for me at Dreamland, back in the nineties. Do you remember me? I sent you an e-mail when you graduated from MIT. I know it’s been years?”

Rubeo had done more than that. He had written a recommendation to help Kharon into a doctorate program in Europe — surreptitiously, with the help of the young man’s teachers at MIT. He’d actually hoped to steer him to Stanford, though there was really no arguing about Cambridge.

Rubeo had lost track after that. It was a shame — the young man was brilliant, every bit as smart as his mother.

“What are you doing in Sicily?” Rubeo asked.

“I’m here — I was supposed to interview for a position at VGNet.”

“With Rudd?” Rubeo touched his right ear, squeezing the post — an ancient habit, especially when holding his tongue.

Armain Rudd, who owned the company, had the ethical standards of a slug, and treated his employees little better than slaves. VGNet was active in the artificial intelligence field, handling cognitive interfaces — basically helping sensors “talk” to brains. Its work was solid, but not anywhere near as advanced or as interesting as Rubeo’s work.

Surely young Kharon could do better than that.

“You’re looking for a job?” Rubeo said. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

“I—”

“Give me your contact information.”

“Uh—”

“Forget what you’ve told them, or they’ve told you. They’re not to be trusted anyway. We will easily meet their offer. Really, Neil, I’m disappointed you didn’t think of us. You’ll be a good fit for us — we have a lot of interesting projects. Tell me about your interests.”

“I, uh, well—”

“You have a date tonight?”

“I was actually meeting, uh, a young lady,” stuttered Kharon.

“Naturally. Unfortunately, I’m going to Africa tomorrow. Wait.” Rubeo took out his wallet and retrieved a business card. It was a bit worn at the edges; he couldn’t remember the last time he actually gave one out.

“Here,” he told Kharon, handing him the card. “You are to send me an e-mail. Or call that number at the bottom. Call as soon as you get back to your room tonight. There’ll be a secretary. Make an appointment.”

Kharon took the card.

“The secretary may be a computer,” added Rubeo. “Or maybe not. See if it passes the Turing Test.”

Kharon shoved the card in his pocket and walked toward the lounge. His cheeks were burning; he felt unbalanced, small and weak. It was as if he was trapped again, back in the closet.

He went to the bar and ordered a beer. He took it from the bartender’s hand and practically drained it, still feeling pressed in on all sides.

Undone by a chance meeting? What kind of coward are you?

What kind of sissy weakling are you?

You should have shot him dead right there. Killed the bodyguard, too.

He hadn’t brought his gun. That was just one of his many mistakes.

“Are you all right?” asked the bartender in Italian.

“Bene, bene.” Kharon raised his head and looked at the bartender. Then he glanced at the bottle — it was nearly empty. “Un altro, per favore,” he said stiffly. “Please. Another.”

The bartender smiled. “A woman, eh?”

“Yes. My mother.”

“Ahhh,” said the bartender knowingly. He went and got the beer. “I am sorry for your loss,” he said, placing the bottle on the counter.

In a way, the man had drawn exactly the right conclusions, Kharon thought. He was still grieving.

Upstairs, Rubeo left Levon Jons and went into his room, checking the security first with his bug detector. The device mapped the room’s electrical circuitry, and was sensitive enough to detect even the NSA’s latest generation of nanopowered “flies”—a certification Rubeo was sure of since his company had worked on the technology employed in the microsized listening gear.

The room was clean. Rubeo sat down in the large chair opposite the television and turned the set on, flipping to the U.S. news stations.

Alissa Kharon’s son working for VGNet. Good God!

The news program detailed a shake-up in the Libyan government’s ruling body. A group of alleged moderates had taken over.

Since when did moderates take anything over? Rubeo wondered.

He changed the channel. CNN was carrying a discussion program. The host introduced a speech from a member of the Iranian government saying the American plane that had bombed the village was the spawn of the devil.

“I’m sure you’re an expert on that,” spat Rubeo.

He sat back on the bed, mind drifting. He thought of Alissa Kharon. He’d had a crush on her. She probably didn’t even know. He’d certainly never acted on it: She was married and, though he was her supervisor, a few years older than he was.

Pretty woman. And very smart.

He closed his eyes and heard the alarms, smelled the fire, the aftermath. Alissa had died from suffocation in the lab bunker. The laser system she was working on had malfunctioned, and rather than leaving, she’d tried to put out the fire — a classic mistake, but like her in a way, insisting that she could shut down the systems and prevent more damage.

Rubeo knew exactly what she must have thought — all that work they’d done about to be ruined. The laser was connected to a hand-built targeting system that the team had spent two years perfecting. She had jumped from her station and run to it as the others began to leave.

The bunker had been equipped with a state-of-the-art fire suppression system. But state of the art in the early 1990s wasn’t quite good enough to kill the chemical fire the laser unit spawned. The doors locked, and for some reason no one realized that she was still inside.

Rubeo, working upstairs on something else, distracted as he always was then, arrived to find one of her assistants screaming frantically.

“Where’s Alissa?” she’d yelled. “Where’s Alissa?”

He overrode the system, but when they opened the doors they were met with a wall of black smoke. He had to close the doors — he closed them himself, knowing she was already dead, lost somewhere behind the smoke.

The hazmat team arrived a few seconds later. Rubeo went and got himself a suit, and went in after them.

Her body, badly burned, was back near the unit. The main AI unit lay inches from her outstretched hand.

She was a beautiful woman, and smart, with a kid and a husband. The husband dissolved after her death. He died of cancer a year later, but he’d been a broken man, unable to pull himself back together.

By then the assistant who had screamed had committed suicide.

Not because of Alissa’s death, or so the investigators said — she had marital problems, which were prominently mentioned in the note she left. But Rubeo remembered the last line of the suicide note:

I will see Alissa for you all.

So much pain. So much success and achievements, and all he could think of was the pain.

Rubeo glanced at the television. The talking heads were pontificating about the dangers of drones and the inevitability of “disasters.”

“What about the decline in collateral damage brought on by smart weapons?” Rubeo asked the screen. “What about the ability to empirically correct problems in the machines, unlike intractable human error?”

He flipped the television off.

What sort of thing did VGNet want young Kharon to do for them? His graduate work, if Rubeo recalled correctly, had to do with systems integration relating to intelligence.

Or was he wrong?

He’d look it up in the morning. And check on VGNet — they had a lab in southern Italy, obviously, but where?

He really should pay more attention to his competitors and potential competitors. Now, though, he needed sleep. He had to leave for the airport at four, and it was already past one.

Two and a half hours of sleep. About his norm when traveling. Rubeo pulled off his clothes and climbed into bed.

12

Zen sat in the secure communications room, sipping his coffee and thinking about his daughter, Teri. More than anything in the world, he wanted to talk to her about baseball, one of their morning routines.

An odd thing. A decade and a half ago, back at Dreamland, he never would have thought he would have preferred speaking to his little girl rather than the President of the United States.

“I’m sorry for the interruption, Zen,” said the President, coming back to the video screen. “Some days the schedule just gets ahead of itself.”

“I understand, Madam President.”

“I think there’s no downside in proceeding,” said National Security Advisor Michael Blitz, who was sitting next to her in the secure communications center in the White House basement. “At least at this point. Naturally, down the road, it could all blow up in our face.”

“I don’t like the idea of nonprofessionals conducting these sorts of talks.” Alistair Newhaven, the Secretary of State, shook his head as if he’d just come out of a pool and was getting rid of excess water. Zen didn’t know Newhaven very well, and what he did know of him he didn’t like. “This is a very sensitive and dangerous area.”

“No offense intended for the senator, I’m sure,” said the President, glancing toward the camera.

“None taken,” said Zen. “The Secretary wasn’t getting a Christmas card anyway.”

Newhaven, who had exactly zero sense of humor, stared at the camera without comprehending.

“The committee is perfect,” countered Blitz. “The allies have absolute deniability.”

The President’s aides debated back and forth a few more minutes. Zen’s mind drifted back to Teri. He wondered if Breanna had managed to take enough time off to take her to a ball game since he’d been gone.

“I think we’ve talked this to death,” said the President finally. “Jeff — Senator — please proceed. You have my blessing. Obviously you can’t guarantee anything, but I think it would be fair to say that you have my ear.”

“Thank you, Madam President.”

“And for the record,” she added, “I think you’re a hell of a negotiator. Having seen you operate from the other side of the table, I’m very glad to know you’re working for us this time.”

“I’m always working for America, Mrs. Todd,” said Zen as he signed off.

13

Danny Freah shook his head vehemently.

“No way, doc. There is no way I am letting you go to Africa now. Not after what happened to the commission.”

“The incident was staged.” Rubeo folded his arms in front of his chest. “As you yourself have said. Three times now.”

“Just because the government incited them doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of anger out there. No American is safe. No Westerner. There is just no way you’re going.”

“You’re exaggerating the danger…”

“Look Ray, I’m sorry. No way.”

“I need to find out what happened, Colonel.”

“You don’t have to be there to do that. Come on, Ray — you’re too valuable to be walking around in Africa. Crap — you’re not twenty years old anymore.”

“Nor am I an employee of the department of defense.”

“Yeah, but come on.”

Rubeo scowled and walked out of the room. He was determined to see what had happened for himself.

“I don’t know, boss. Getting there is no problem. Once we’re there, though…” Jons shook his head.

“We’ll hire people,” Rubeo told him. “I need to examine the radar facilities near where the accident happened. And I want to look at the attack pattern.”

“Why?”

“Because if this isn’t fixed, everything will be flushed.”

“I don’t know. Getting there—”

“Hire a guide. It’s easily done, I’m told.”

“Yeah, but finding the right people…”

“That’s your job.”

Jons frowned.

“We are booked on a flight to Tripoli at three, using our alternative identities,” said Rubeo. “I already have gear en route. So line the right people up quickly.”

14

Today’s target was literally dialed in — Turk and the rest of the Hog drivers would drop satellite-guided smart bombs at artillery at the edge of a city under government control.

Fly in, fly down, fly home. Piece of cake.

Counting Turk, the squadron was up to eight active pilots, which let them split into two different groups and take on a pair of missions. Turk’s group got the artillery; the other flight of A–10s would attack a motor depot where a variety of armored vehicles were parked.

Turk’s flight of four Hogs was led by Paulson in Shooter One. Grizzly was his wingman. Beast had finally succumbed to the flu and was a late scratch. That made Turk, flying Shooter Three, the leader of the second two-plane element in the flight. His wingman was Lieutenant Cooper “Coop” Hadlemann in Shooter Four.

Ginella was leading another mission to a different part of Libya at roughly the same time. She’d been all business today, without any mention or even hint that they had hooked up.

Fortunately.

“Shooter flight, we’re two minutes from IP,” said Paulson as they neared their target. “Look alive.”

Turk did a quick scan of his instruments. He was at 30,000 feet, moving a hair over 380 knots. It was a bright day, with no clouds within a few hundred miles.

The government forces had not scrambled any fighters since their encounter with Turk earlier in the week. Nonetheless, there was a heavy contingent of fighter coverage aloft. A two-ship of Eurofighters had flown down from the Med with the Warthogs, and were lingering overhead. A pair of Spanish F/A–18s were tasked right behind them. Technically, the Spanish versions were designated EF–18As, with the E meaning España; Spain. These variants were similar outwardly to the first generation of the Hornets produced by McDonnell-Douglas, but had upgraded avionics and other electronic gear.

The presence of the different aircraft types pointed out the different approaches to air warfare undertaken by the Americans and Europeans. While the air forces were much more similar than they were different, their varying needs and philosophies were expressed in the airframes they chose to build.

As a general rule, European aircraft were at least arguably better than their American peers when it came to sheer maneuverability. They were almost always better suited at taking off from short runways, even with decent loads. Their Achilles’ heel tended to be their fuel capacity; they had “short legs” compared to Americans.

This wasn’t surprising, considering the physical environments the respective air forces expected to be fighting in. The U.S. was always worried about distance, whether in its own country, the Pacific, or even the European and African theaters. In contrast, a French or Spanish pilot never had far to go to defend his borders. He might find it necessary, however, to do that from a highway rather than an airfield — and he could.

Americans would scoff at what they saw as incremental improvements in maneuverability. In their view, advanced electronics and weapons gave them a decided edge. To oversimplify, American strategy called for detecting the enemy before you were detected, and killing them well before they became a threat: an enemy pilot could maneuver all he wanted before he was shot down.

“Two minutes to IP,” said Paulson, signaling that they were almost at the start of the attack. “Let’s do it.”

The flight split in two. Turk and his wingman cut twenty degrees farther south, lining up for the bomb run. As they closed to fifteen miles from target, Turk got the weapons screen up, triple-checking his position and markers. He was going to launch his JDAMs ten miles from the target.

“Four, how are you looking?” he radioed.

“We’re good, Three. Coming up on sixty seconds.”

“Yeah, roger that.”

Turk checked the armament panel one more time, then took a slow breath. The targeting computer provided a cue for him as he approached — it wasn’t the fancy color-coded box the Tigershark’s computer drew, but it did the job. The system would automatically compensate for wind or any other unusual environmental factors.

“Firing,” said Turk.

He pressed the trigger, releasing a pair of 500 pound bombs. Though unpowered, the bombs were steered toward their target by small electronic devices that shifted the positions of the fins at the rear. Checking themselves against satellites above, the miniature brains piloted the charges toward a howitzer parked between piles of sandbags near the main highway.

Turk pulled the Hog’s stick up to increase separation as he let off the bombs. He quickly took the Hog toward its second release point, shifting in the sky to aim at an ammo dump about two miles north of the artillery emplacement. As the cue for the pickle appeared in Turk’s screen, he released the bombs. This time the Hog jerked up quickly, as if the aircraft were glad to be free of the weight it had been carrying.

“Away, away,” said Turk. Coop had already dropped his bombs and was moving back to the north. “Egressing north,” said Turk. He checked his compass reading and gave Coop the heading, moving toward the rendezvous they had briefed.

He could hear the chatter of the other pilots over the squadron frequency, calling “good bombs” and “shack,” indicating they had hit their targets. Fingers of smoke rose in the far distance — at least some of the bombs had hit their targets.

Primary mission complete, Paulson checked with the flight boss, making sure they had a clean screen — no enemy fighters — and then told the others that he was going to take a run over the target area.

“If I see anything else we can hit down there, we’ll come back and grease them,” said Paulson. “Grizzly, you’re on my back.”

“Copy.”

The A–10s were relatively high, over 15,000 feet, which put them out of range of guns and light MANPADs, but also made it difficult to get a definitive read of anything on the ground. They crossed once at that altitude, then came back, dropping to about 7,000 as they ran past the site.

Paulson reported that there were two fires burning near the artillery emplacements, and that there seemed to be widespread destruction. A few moments later he added that the ammo dump had been obliterated.

“Only thing here is black smoke and red flames,” he said, climbing out.

Deciding there were no targets worth taking a run at, the flight leader had them saddle up and head westward, aiming to get them back to Sicily by lunchtime. But they’d only gone a short way before they got an emergency call from a harried JTAC ground controller, requesting immediate assistance in a firefight that happened to be less than fifteen miles out of their way.

Out of habit, Turk punched the mike to acknowledge and ask for more details. Paulson overran his transmission with his own acknowledgment a moment later.

“Sorry,” said Turk, clicking off. “My bad.”

“Go ahead, Turner,” Paulson said to the JTAC. The forward controller — JTAC stood for joint terminal attack controller, the formal military designation — was a Navy SEAL operating with a group of rebels caught in an ambush on the edge of a stream. The rebels were huddled around two disabled vehicles, under attack from both sides.

“What ordnance do you have?” asked the JTAC. Bullets were whizzing in the background as he spoke; Turk could make out two distinct heavy caliber machine guns. “Say again?”

“Turner, we have our thirty calibers and that’s it,” replied Paulson. “Give me a location.”

“Shit.” The controller was clearly looking for a big boom. Maybe he hadn’t worked with a Hog before.

“Repeat?”

“At this time, I would like you to put down heavy fire to the southwest of my position,” said the JTAC, calmer, though his voice was nearly drowned out by gunfire. “Restrictions are as follows. Make your heading east to west. We are near the two pickup trucks. The enemy is north and south of us. The heaviest— Shit.”

There was an explosion in the background before the JTAC continued.

Pushing his wing down, Turk got his nose in the direction of the southernmost grouping of enemy soldiers, figuring that Paulson would divide the group in two for the attack, and take the northern bunch himself, since he was closest to them. But instead Paulson called for them to all attack the northern group.

“I can get that southern gun,” said Turk. He could already see it on his target screen. “Coop can follow me in.”

“I’m in charge, Dreamland.”

Turk blew a wad of air into his face mask in frustration. “Copy that,” he said.

The Hogs ducked low. The first two aircraft tore up the terrain with long sprays of thirty caliber. Fire rose over the position.

Turk followed in, about two miles behind. But as they approached, his gear became confused by all the secondaries and smoke and he couldn’t see well enough to get a specific target.

He told Coop to pull off. They rose, circling north.

“What the hell are you doing, Three?” radioed Paulson.

“I didn’t have a definite target. Too close to the friendlies,” said Turk.

“Picture’s clean down low.”

Bullshit, thought Turk. Stop giving me a hard time. But he said nothing.

Paulson told him and Coop to orbit north in a holding pattern.

“We can get that target south,” said Turk.

“We’re on it, Dreamland,” snapped Paulson.

Turk did his best to keep his head clear, checking his instruments and making sure there were no threats in the immediate area. Paulson and Grizzly took two runs at the area. Finally the JTAC called to say they had stopped taking fire.

“We’re good,” said Paulson. “Heading home.”

Turk seethed the entire flight home, and was in a finely wrought lather by the time he touched down. Paulson managed to avoid so much as eye contact during the postmission briefing. He made no mention of their disagreement when he talked to Ginella, and was even complimentary toward Turk, whom he called Turk, not Dreamland.

Turk figured it was a show for the boss, and that made him even angrier. But there was nothing to be done short of knocking the asshole on his back — which he might have done had he managed to get out of the briefing room quickly. But he was waylaid by Ginella.

“Lunch?” she asked, putting her arm across the doorway. He was the last pilot in the room; they were alone together.

“A little late.”

“It’s never too late for some things.”

“I gotta check with my guys,” said Turk. He started to push against her arm.

“Turk.” She put her hand on his chest.

A pilot from another squadron walked down the hall just then. He cleared his throat loudly. Ginella pulled her hand back. Turk took the opportunity to squeeze past into the hallway.

“I just gotta go,” he told. “I’ll talk to you.”

Ginella rolled her eyes, then went back into the room.

15

Kharon spent the night in a sleepless stupor, unable to do anything but berate himself. He told himself he was a weakling and worse. He called himself a coward and a jerk and a fool. He punched his stomach with his fist until he collapsed in the bathroom, retching over the edge of the tub.

His life had led to that one moment, and he had failed.

He offered me a job!

The guilty fool!

And still I did nothing! Nothing! I could do nothing!

Kharon writhed on the floor of his hotel bathroom for hours, alternately beating and sobbing to himself. He was incapable of getting up, of moving.

Morning came. There was no epiphany, no conscious decision to reverse course. He simply rose, and in the still of the night fled the hotel, driving himself to the Aeroporto Fontanarossa Vincenzo Bellini, which was still taking civilian traffic, though largely given over to NATO operations. He found it surprisingly easy to find a flight off the island, and within a few hours had connected into Morocco, and from there bribed his way onto an Egyptian Air flight to Tripoli.

By the time he arrived, he had decided what he would do. His head felt like an empty space; the decision neither cheered nor frightened him. It seemed only preordained.

He found a cab and had the driver take him to Al-Fateh Tower, near the beach area. The government offices that had been located in the building were shuttered, as were most of the banks, but a few stalwart tenants remained, carrying on as best they could. Guards were posted on the bottom floor, but as far as they were concerned, Kharon was no threat: he was clearly a Westerner, and they let him pass after a brief look at his passport.

He took the elevator to the eighteenth floor, got out and took the stairs to the top floor, where the restaurant had been located. In the good days of the Gaddafi regime, Arab tourists and Western diplomats filled the revolving restaurant at the top of one of Tripoli’s tallest buildings. Now, though, the place was vacant, shut since the start of the war. Iron gates blocked the way from the floor below. The locks probably could have been picked, but Kharon didn’t have the equipment, or the will. Instead, he went down to the twenty-second floor and found his way into the maintenance section. There was a ladder leading up; he climbed it, and within a few minutes reached a ledge area below the main roof.

A fierce wind struck him as he stepped outside. It was so strong it pushed him back through the threshold, and slammed the door against his outstretched arm. He fell back into the corridor, stunned.

Kharon rose slowly, surprised by the pain. He went back to the door, and this time pushed out onto the white stone ledge.

The stones rimming the ledge were wide but slick, and he felt his feet starting to go out from under him. He put his hand up to grasp the wall but couldn’t find his balance.

Down he went, down face-first, chest slamming against the stones.

He was still on the ledge.

The city screamed in front of him, the noise of its traffic rising above the wind. The ocean roared in the distance, and the sun looked down from on high.

Kharon crawled closer to the edge. Oblivion seemed to beckon. He was inches away from the end.

Something rose inside him then, a sense of rage — how unfair it was, for Rubeo to ruin not just his mother’s life, but his life as well. To destroy him: Was he going to end things like that?

He pounded his fists on the stone. He was a coward. He had proven himself to be a coward, impotent and toothless.

Was that one moment all that defined him? Being caught off guard — taken by surprise, fooled by a man he knew was nothing short of a demon? A man who had insisted that his mother work in an unsafe lab, then stood idly by as she died?

Is this who he was?

I’m not the little boy who cowered in the closet, afraid to hear the truth. That isn’t me. That isn’t the way I am.

Kharon began to tremble.

He couldn’t let Rubeo win. Not like this.

He pushed back slowly from the edge, then took a deep breath. As calmly as he could — slowly, to show himself that he was in charge — he rose. After three more very deep, slow breaths, he walked to the service door and went back inside.

Finding Foma Mitreski proved more difficult than Kharon had anticipated. The Russian spy master made a regular tour of the city’s bars and hotels, and was not in the more popular places where he looked first. He finally found the Russian having lunch in the bar of a hotel a few blocks from Tariq Square. Kharon made sure to nod, then went over to the bar and ordered himself a bourbon.

His mood had changed dramatically. In effect, he decided, he was already dead — so nothing that happened next mattered. It was a strange and liberating feeling.

The bar counter was made of old wood, and bore the marks of millions of glasses. Thick scrollwork hung down from the rafters directly above, holding a pair of mostly empty shelves. A quartet of American whiskey bottles were spaced out there; the mirror at the back of the bar was so old and the light so poor that the bottles were reflected only as oblique shadows.

While the hotel had been popular with European tourists looking for bargains before Gaddafi fell, its dated decor and cramped rooms upstairs made it an unlikely place for the generally stylish Foma to meet anyone. But that was very possibly its attraction — it was close to the last place anyone, even Kharon, would look.

Foma concluded his business in a few minutes, then got up with the others and left the bar. Kharon ordered another drink.

Twenty minutes later, glass empty, he wasn’t sure whether to stay or not.

The bartender came over. Kharon nodded, accepting a refill. The bartender mumbled something Kharon couldn’t understand; he gave a noncommittal grunt.

Halfway through the drink the Russian returned.

“Ah, I was worried that you would have gone,” said Foma, speaking in Russian.

“I knew to wait.”

“We can use English.”

“Better Russian. Less chance of being understood.”

“More mystery for others.” Foma smiled at him, then ordered a scotch.

“Dalmore,” said Foma. “Very good.”

“I’m sure.”

“What do you have there? Not scotch.”

“American bourbon.”

“Americans always think they know better.”

They sat for a moment, Foma swirling his liquor in the glass before downing it in a gulp.

“I have a new proposition,” said Kharon.

“More information?”

“No. Everything I promised. But I need extra help. I need someone to cause a diversion, and I can’t be connected to it. So you’re going to arrange it.”

“Something too dangerous for you, but not for me?”

“Danger is all around us,” said Kharon coldly.

Foma pushed his glass forward for a refill. “You are in a bad mood today.”

“No. I’m in a good mood.”

Foma’s glass was refilled. Kharon waited for the bartender to leave. If the Russian wouldn’t help him, he would find another way. Fezzan could certainly find someone. But for something like this, he trusted the Russian more.

“Well,” said Foma finally, studying his drink. “Tell me what it is, and then I will tell you if it can be done.”

16

As much as he tried, Rubeo found it impossible to stay behind his bodyguard as they walked through the narrow streets filled with outdoor markets. Jons finally gave up trying to nudge him back and let him walk at his shoulder.

Jons had tried very hard to talk him out of coming along to meet Halit. But Rubeo was determined to see the man for himself in his own environment before they hired him. You could only learn so much from a sanitized meeting in an office or at the airport.

Both Rubeo and Jons were armed — Rubeo with a pistol hand made by a colleague at Dreamland years before, and Jons with a pair of weapons made by Rubeo’s companies. Both guns employed so-called “smart bullets”—microprocessors inside the ammunition received target information from the aiming mechanism at the top of barrel, and could adjust the flight of the bullet via a muscle wire: actually a piece of metal that changed the bullet’s shape and ballistic characteristics.

The bullets couldn’t change direction, nor were they able to find their own target or do anything outrageously fancy. But the weapons simplified aiming, while at the same time increasing their lethality. The shooter pointed his gun at the largest part of his target — generally the torso. The finlike reader on the top of the gun automatically adjusted the aim for its target’s face, and put the bullet there. Not only did this avoid the problem of bulletproof vests, it made even novice gunmen dangerous no matter what the situation.

Rubeo wasn’t a novice — he had acquired a taste for hunting long ago — but he certainly wasn’t combat-trained, and the weapon made it much easier for him to be sure that he would protect himself. Levon Jons, on the other hand, disliked the idea that the gun would aim on its own.

“What if I just want to wound someone?” he often complained to Rubeo.

This was an entirely theoretical complaint: Jons himself would be the first to admit that when his gun came out, it came out to be used, and when it was used, it was only with the intent to kill. But he didn’t see the contradiction, and more often than not turned the smart technology off.

He had it on today. Benghazi was not a place to worry about purity.

“Left,” suggested Jons. The bodyguard was listening to directions from his earpiece.

“Mmmm,” said Rubeo. He kept walking, sensing that they were being watched. Like most of the Libyans on the street, they were wearing Western clothes; more traditional dress would have highlighted them rather than made them blend in.

Rubeo wore his thin protective vest beneath his shirt as well as a light jacket that concealed his pistol. Jons had a bulky sweater. The copper-boron web vests used a layer of glass filaments to reduce their thickness, but they restricted the wearer’s body subtly, and even though his vest was tailored to his chest, Rubeo felt as if his arms were banded. His discomfort annoyed him, but at the same time it heightened his watchfulness, and as he continued past the street where they were supposed to turn, he picked out a small boy staring at them from across the way.

Rubeo stopped at the nearest stall, where a man was selling leather goods. He picked up a wallet and glanced at the boy from the corner of his eye.

“Kid watching us,” he told Jons.

“Probably a pickpocket.”

“Maybe.”

Rubeo gave the wallet back, then started walking again. The city was patrolled by members of the rebel militia, or at least men who claimed to be so. Most wore civilian clothes, but were identifiable by red bandannas on both arms. They were armed with rifles, AK–47s and AK–74s for the most part, though the one Rubeo saw at the end of the block had an M–4.

“Let’s turn,” he said.

He led the way through the thin crowd about halfway down the block, where he found a small store selling groceries. He pulled open the door, turning casually in the direction they had come. The boy was there, looking at them.

“Maybe he is with our friends, and maybe he is not,” said Rubeo. “But let us find out.”

“Your call,” said Jons, in a tone that let Rubeo know he disagreed.

“There’s a door in the back.” Jons moved to check it out.

Rubeo rummaged through the front of the store, looking at the shelves of dusty canned goods, making sure the boy could see him. The store owner came over, delighted at having a Western customer. Rubeo nodded at him.

“This, very good one,” said the man, stumbling in English.

“Nice.”

“You like?”

“No.”

“You buy this one, then?”

“No. I’m not buying anything,” said Rubeo flatly.

The man went off, offended. Rubeo turned his attention back to the street. The boy saw him and started to back away — right into Jons’s arms.

Rubeo came out of the store. The boy kicked and wiggled, but Jons held him firmly.

“How old are you?” Rubeo asked in English. “Eight? Nine?”

The boy didn’t answer.

“I cannot speak Arabic well,” said Rubeo. “But this device will translate for me.”

He took out his phone and queued up a translation program. He pressed the large circle in the middle of the screen, scrolled through his most recent lines, and highlighted the questions. The machine repeated them in fluent Arabic.

“Go to the devil,” said the boy.

Even Rubeo’s Arabic was good enough to figure out what he had said without the program. He reached into his pocket and slipped out a ten euro note.

“Would this help?”

The boy grabbed at it.

Rubeo pulled it back. “Tell them I’m coming.” He double-tapped his screen without looking; the machine gave the translation almost instantly. Then he handed the boy the money.

“I say he’s a purse snatcher,” said Jons as the boy ran off.

“That is why you are the brawn of the company, Levon.” Rubeo flicked the app on his screen to the tracking display. While holding the kid, Jons had placed a small video fly on his shoulder. The fly transmitted his location, displaying it on an overhead map.

He ran straight to the alley where they were supposed to meet the men. Rubeo brought up another app, and images appeared on the screen.

“All right. I’m an asshole,” said Jons glumly as he took the phone from his boss.

Ten minutes later Rubeo and Jons climbed over a short fence that ran behind the building where the boy had run. Jons knocked on the back door, then put his shoulder to it, breaking it off its hinges. Rubeo walked inside.

The three men the kid had reported to were still questioning him about Rubeo.

“Excuse my dramatic entrance,” Rubeo told them. “I was somewhat disconcerted by the fact that you had a child shadowing me.”

Jons held his gun on the men, but that was superfluous: they were all too surprised to react.

“Which one of you is Halit?” asked Rubeo. He had practiced the phrase several times, and said it smoothly.

A man in a white-and-blue striped sweater raised his hand.

“These are my brothers,” said the man in English. “They have just been here with me, to keep company.”

“I’ll bet,” said Jons. “Come here.”

The squat Libyan tried to suck in his gut as he got up. He wore a gray warm-up jacket and black jeans, along with black shoes polished to a high shine.

“Spit,” said Jons, holding out a small device with what looked like an air scoop on the edge. “Into it.”

Halit did so. The device analyzed the DNA in the spit, uploading parts to a database back at Rubeo’s company headquarters. It worked quickly, picking out only small parts of the complicated code, looking for signatures that would be compared to known agents, terrorists, or criminals in the federal database.

The system was not foolproof. From a scientific standpoint, there was too much potential for a bad match: about 122 chances out of 65,000; roughly the standards law enforcement had used for preliminary DNA matches with limited markers just a few years before. But it was fine for Rubeo’s purposes.

The small screen on the device went green, indicating the sample was sufficient to be tested. A minute later the screen blanked, then flashed green, yellow, then green again. Halit was not a criminal or a known terrorist. Or anyone else in the U.S. data banks, for that matter.

A start, at least.

Rubeo reached into his pocket and took out a few euros. He threw them on the floor.

“Halit comes with us. The rest stay, or that money will be used for your funerals.”

Rubeo looked at his phone, where the feed from the video fly was still operating. The boy was outside; the area was clear.

Jons took hold of Halit’s elbow and they went out the front door. Rubeo, more relaxed, walked behind them, looking back and forth.

There was something invigorating in dealing with danger, he thought. He liked the way his heart pounded in his chest.

They brought Halit to the truck. After checking the monitoring system to make sure the vehicle had not been tampered with, Jons put Halit in the backseat.

Rubeo climbed in the front. He let Jons drive.

“Do you know the head of the guards at the gate below Tripoli?” Rubeo asked Halit.

“I know them, yes. Why do you treat me like a prisoner? I was told you need a guide. I am a guide, the best.”

“I don’t trust you,” said Rubeo. “You used a child to spy on me.”

“Only to see when you are coming. My son.”

“He wasn’t your son,” snapped Rubeo. He hated being lied to.

“My son, yes.”

Rubeo stared at him with contempt. The two couldn’t appear more different. The boy had been rail thin, with light features and blue eyes; the man was dark and pudgy, very short, with curly hair where the boy’s was straight.

Which was worse? The fact that he would lie on such a petty matter — or that he would think it OK to put his own son in danger?

Or any child, now that he thought of it.

Rubeo found most people venal and petty. A good number were stupid as well. Navigating around them was one thing; inevitably, though, there were situations where you had to count on them.

Jons had found three men capable of getting them south into the government-held areas. Halit was the most highly recommended.

Rubeo couldn’t help but imagine how horrible the other two must be.

“Your job is to get us past the guards,” he told the man as they drove. “You will stay with us at all times. If you say anything beyond what I ask you to say, if you attempt to leave us, if you do anything that puts us in danger, you will die.”

“A lot of words,” said the Libyan, holding his hands out. “I don’t understand.”

“Let me explain,” said Jons. He pulled one of his pistols out and pointed it toward the backseat. “Fuck up and we kill you.”

They drove back over to the airport. Two associates were waiting, sitting on the front bumper of a large Ford 250. The diesel-powered pickup had been flown in only an hour before.

The taller of the two men sprang off the bumper as they approached. Rubeo had met him when he’d helped pull security for him during some travels in China. His name was Lawson, and he had been a Ranger in the Army. He was personable, a talker — rare for the profession, in Rubeo’s experience.

The other man was Abas, an Iranian-American who had been a SEAL and done some work for the CIA before joining a private company Jons often called on for backup. Abas was silent to the point of being rocklike. He never smiled, and if he blinked his eyes or even closed them, Rubeo had never seen it.

“Boss, how’s it going?” said Lawson, stalking over. He was tall and thin. His right knee had been torn up in Afghanistan. For some reason it didn’t keep him from running, but he walked with the slightest of limps. The others sometimes called him “Igor” because of it.

“Where is everybody?” asked Jons.

“Siesta in the warehouse,” said Lawson. “And Kimmy’s out with the helucopper.”

Lawson thought his mispronunciation was funny and began chuckling. The men in the warehouse were four Filipinos, trusted by Jons but unknown to Rubeo. Between them they had plenty of firepower, ranging up to a pair of automatic grenade launchers.

Unlike Rubeo and Jons, the team used commercial weapons and tactical gear. The only thing supplied by Rubeo’s company were the com units — small ear sets with a pocket broadcast device. The units linked through a satellite connection and could share data; they worked solely by voice command.

“Go wake them up,” said Jons. “When’s Kimmy getting back?”

“Oughta be here any minute. She’s just shay-uh-aching the chopper down.”

Laughing again, Lawson turned and walked over to the warehouse to get the others.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just take the helicopter in?” Jons asked.

“It’ll attract too much attention,” said Rubeo. The helicopter was a backup, in case they needed to be extracted quickly. While it was tempting to fly directly in and out, the chopper brought its own risks. It would be a target not only for the government and the rebels, but the Western coalition as well. While Rubeo assumed they wouldn’t shoot him down, he wanted to avoid telling them that he was here.

Jons took Halit over to the pickup and put him in the front seat. With Abas looking on, he showed him the GPS mapping system, which had a seven-inch screen mounted on a flexible arm between the driver and the front passenger.

The 250 cab had another row of seats in the back. Abas would drive; Jons and Rubeo would be in the back. Lawson and three of the Filipinos would be in the other truck. The last Filipino and Kimmy would stay back in the helicopter, on alert.

Rubeo turned his attention to the horizon. The desert was calm. There was no wind to speak of. A few pancake clouds sat on the horizon. The temperature was mild, considering where they were.

“Kimmy’s about five minutes away,” said Jons. “You want to wait for her, or should we hit the road?”

“There’s no reason to wait.”

“Let’s go, then.” Jons turned to the others. “You want to hit the can, better do it now. We ain’t stoppin’ for nothing and nobody once we leave.”

17

With the rest of the afternoon off, Turk decided he would work out back at his hotel, then maybe go for a swim in the pool there. He hoped the activity would give his mind a break. He was almost at his car when his phone buzzed with a text message.

It was from Li Pike:

He answered yes.

The briefing had already started by the time he got there. A French plane had gone down near a city held by the government in the southeast corner of the country, very close to the Chad border. The plane had apparently been lost to engine trouble; in any event, the government did not appear to know that it had crashed. A team of British SAS commandos was looking for the downed airman; the Hogs had been asked to join the second shift of air support tasked to aid the mission.

The A–10s would be equipped with Maverick missiles guided to their targets via laser designators; the bombs could be targeted either by the ground forces or the aircraft themselves.

All eight of Shooter Squadron’s planes were tasked for the mission, but they would be divided into two groups to extend coverage.

The first flight, with Paulson as lead, would take off at 2200. The second group, led by Ginella, would come off the runway three hours later, at 0100.

The two flights would overlap for a brief period, but the general idea was that the first flight would be relieved by the second, which would operate until daylight.

“What happens if they don’t find the guy by then?” asked Grizzly.

“Then he’s not alive,” said Ginella. She glanced at her watch. It was a little past 1900, or 7:00 P.M. “There’s a little time to grab something to eat, but make it quick. Anyone that’s too tired, I want that hand up now.”

She looked at Turk. He wasn’t about to admit fatigue.

Assigned to the second group, he would fly wing to Grizzly; Ginella explained that he had never flown at night with the special gear the Hogs used. Coop was flying as her wingman.

Li was in the first group as Paulson’s wing.

“I’m sorry for you,” Turk told her as they went over to get some dinner.

“For what?”

“Paulson can be a real prick.”

“I think he’s a pretty good pilot.” Turk felt a little stab in his heart, until she added, “A class A jackass and a jerk besides, but he flies well.”

While they ate, Grizzly regaled them with stories about his first nighttime refuel in a Hog — not particularly morale inducing, as he had fallen off the fuel probe not once, not twice, but three times, which the boomer — the crewman manning the refuel probe — had claimed was a new Hog record. Turk gathered that the difficulty of the refuel was the reason he’d been relegated to the back of the line.

“The boomer, though, claimed the worst pilots at night refuel are the F–22 jocks,” said Grizzly.

That got a jealous laugh from the others, even though it was probably not true.

Turk hardly touched his food, spending most of his time watching Li instead. She had long slim fingers. They were expressive, even just holding a fork.

He wanted to ask her why and how she had become a pilot, but Grizzly started another story about how he’d spent “a year one week” flying Hog missions with a SEAL team.

His stories were too involved to be interrupted. The ops weren’t the interesting part; the shenanigans, missteps, complications, and above all the nightly parties with members of the SEAL team, were the real point. According to Grizzly, they had gotten into a total of ten fights in six days, including one all-out brawl with members of a mixed martial-arts troupe.

True or not, it was a good yarn. Li, anxious to get ready for her flight, excused herself before it ended. Unable to find an excuse to accompany her that wouldn’t sound overly corny, Turk watched her leave.

Even her walk was sexy.

He was glad that he didn’t have to fly with Paulson, but the long wait before the sortie weighed heavily. He finally found a couch in a corner of the room next to the ready room and bedded down.

He started to drift off. He saw Li in his mind, starting to slip into unconsciousness. The image was pleasant, but almost immediately it morphed into Ginella. They started having sex.

Turk opened his eyes. Grizzly was shaking him.

God!

Turk practically jumped to the ceiling.

“Rise and shine, bro,” laughed Grizzly, who fortunately had no idea of the dream he’d just woken him from. “We got some flyin’ to do.”

18

Following Halit’s advice, Rubeo decided to avoid the gate south of Tripoli, riding about twenty miles across open desert to reach a road that connected to the main highway south.

The road was barely discernible from the dirt, grit, and sand that washed over it. They drove up through a succession of hills. From a distance the terrain looked like the rumpled back of a giant sleeping facedown on the earth. Up close they were brown and almost featureless, bland nonentities that only slowed them down.

So much of life was like that, thought Rubeo. From a distance things looked remarkable. And then you got there and they were bland and boring.

Even his own life. For all his work in artificial intelligence systems, in related technologies, in the interface between man and machine — what accomplishments filled him with excitement?

The work that he was doing now on autonomous machines? On computers that really, truly, thought for themselves — not in the areas where they had been programmed to think, but in areas that they knew nothing about.

The Sabres were a small by-product of that work — a distant offshoot, really, because of course war had to be programmed into a machine.

And programmed out. The machine needed to be taught limits so it would not turn on its master, as everyone who had ever picked up a scifi novel surely knew.

Had he not given the Sabres proper limits? Or was it a mechanical flaw?

Some combination, surely.

They had not yet ruled out direct action from the enemy. But that seemed to make little sense. Why do something to cause more casualties? The aim would be to have the plane destroy itself.

“What do you think of this?” asked Jons, handing him one of the team iPads. The device was equipped with a satellite modem in place of the usual cell and wireless connections; the com system used a series of anonymous servers to hide the identity and origins of the Web requests.

The screen showed a news story on the UAV incident. Labeled “Analysis,” it recounted some of the popular theories on what had happened. Most were far off base or so vague that they could be describing a car accident.

But the paragraphs Jons had highlighted speculated that the attack had been made because of software problems. And it cited anonymous e-mails from “developers” indicating that the aircraft were making targeting decisions on their own.

In contrast to the rest of the piece, there was plenty of well-reasoned thought on the subject, enough to convince Rubeo that the source knew a great deal about the problems involved. He scrolled back to the top and reread the story carefully. Much of it was generic, so much so that he couldn’t figure out whether the writer, as opposed to the source, actually knew what he was talking about.

“It’s not very specific,” said Rubeo, handing the iPad back. “This middle part is interesting, but I don’t know that he has any real sources inside our organization. He might know someone at another company that’s working on the problem.”

“That’s what I thought.” Jons opened the browser to a new page. “But I did a couple of searches on some of the phrases just to be sure. Look at this list.”

There were twenty-eight matches from bulletin boards and comment areas. All used similar language to describe the accident and the theory that the aircraft had been under their own autonomous control when the attack was made.

“These drones are being operated without human supervision,” read one. “They decide who to kill and who to spare. The man who invented them, Ray Rubeo, thinks machines are better than people.”

The latter was a rather common criticism, not just of Rubeo, but of practically any scientist who worked in the area. But the fact that it was being directed at one person, rather than a team, bothered Rubeo immensely. Coupled with the alleged e-mail, it looked as if someone either in his company or at least tangentially related was leaking information.

“What do you think?” asked Jons.

“Someone doesn’t like AI,” said Rubeo, handing the computer back.

“Or you. You’re mentioned by name in these. My guess is that a bunch of organizations got the e-mail cited in that article,” added Jons. “It looks like a campaign.”

Rubeo said nothing. He had many competitors. Each one was an enemy, at least figuratively. And any number of people would benefit if the government stopped dealing with his firm; there would be a vast void to fill.

“No one seems to be taking them very seriously,” he told Jons. “Or otherwise I’d have heard.”

“Maybe. In any event, it’s a potential security leak. It could definitely be a disgruntled employee. Anyone willing to put out this kind of information, add your name — they won’t stop here.”

“I don’t think it’s an employee. Or an ex-employee. They’re paid too well.”

“It’s not always about money. Or science.”

In Rubeo’s experience, if it wasn’t about science, then it was always about money. Or sex.

“Rerun our security checks,” he told Jons.

“Oh, we’re well into that.”

“Good.”

“It may be a contractor,” suggested Jons. “We’re checking that as well. I wonder if there’s any disgruntled military. Maybe on the Whiplash side.”

“We can certainly check. There aren’t many of them.”

“Not directly. Indirectly, you’d be surprised.”

“Right.” Rubeo settled back into the seat, as frustrated as ever.

Halit proved his worth at the gate, speaking quickly to the guards. Jons, standing next to him, handed over a folded envelope, and they were through.

“One hundred euros,” Jons told Rubeo, climbing back into the truck. “That is all it took to get us past the front line. The government doesn’t have long.”

Rubeo nodded but said nothing. Darkness had enveloped the desert.

They drove quickly, nearly missing the turn that would take them to the military site where the government’s most powerful radar units were located. There were two sets here, general warning radars and radars that were connected with an SA–10 antiaircraft battery.

According to Rubeo’s calculations, the latter were the only ones in the area capable of interfering with the Sabre telemetry. Supposedly, they had come on very briefly during the engagement. The allies, for reasons known only to them, had not yet gotten around to targeting the radars, possibly because there were civilians inside the complex where the units were located.

There were two ways to see if the units here could have interfered with the Sabre. One was to somehow turn back time and record everything they did. The second was to examine them very closely, which required being physically nearby and provoking, or at least attempting to provoke, a similar response.

The latter choice was only slightly less impossible than the former. But more likely twice as dangerous.

They stopped a mile outside the site, clearly visible on a slight rise, guarded by two armored personnel carriers and three sandbagged machine-gun emplacements.

“Guys in that post over there are sleeping,” said Jons, looking through the night glasses.

“Go ahead and launch the Streamer.”

Lawson had already taken the small aircraft out of its case. With a wingspan just under twenty-four inches, the robot aircraft was an electronic noise machine. Powered by a small kerosene-fueled engine, it would circle over the radar installation, broadcasting a signal that would make it seem as if NATO aircraft were approaching.

“Come on little birdie, time to start you up,” said Lawson, half singing the last few words as if he were Mick Jagger singing “Start Me Up.”

The motor didn’t seem to be in a musical mood, or maybe it just didn’t like rock ’n’ roll. It refused to start. He reprimed it and pressed the starter, which used a spring and battery combination to spin it to life.

The engine spat, coughed, then finally spun into high speed.

Up close, the miniature power plant sounded like an HO-scale racing car, its high-pitched whir almost a whistle. The sound didn’t carry very far, however; it was difficult to discern at a hundred feet, and would be easily covered by the hum of the electronics and cooling gear in the control vans at the base.

“Fly, my pretty,” said Lawson, pushing the UAV into the air.

It launched like a paper plane, the wings struggling to find airflow as the motor revved. The nose dipped down, the plane gathered speed, then suddenly tilted up and soared skyward on a preprogrammed climb.

Lawson picked up the controller — it was a hobbyist’s kit, with only slight modifications for security — and worked the plane up to two hundred feet. Then he put it into a wide circle above the base.

Rubeo was watching the screen on the detection processing unit, which was attached to a set of wire antennas. As the UAV circled, Lawson turned its broadcast system on.

The radar system on the ground believed it was looking at a Predator some twenty miles away — well inside the missile’s effective range.

“They’re just watching,” said Lawson.

“Good. Phase two.”

A second signature now appeared on the screens of the operators inside the van — F/A–18s approaching from a distance. The aircraft popped up, preparing to attack.

The engagement radar for the ground-to-air missiles came on. The operators had decided to take down the Predator, which they interpreted as scouting for the manned aircraft. But within seconds both radars shut down.

“They’re afraid of antiradiation missiles,” said Rubeo, looking at the screen over Lawson’s shoulder.

“Yup.”

The radars stayed off.

If the Libyans had a way of interfering with the UAV transmissions, Rubeo reasoned, they would have likely used it against the Predator, which after all looked as if it was bird-dogging for the other planes.

Still, he needed to be absolutely sure. The jamming unit might be “tuned” to the Sabres.

“Launch the Mapper.”

“With pleasure,” said Lawson.

The Mapper was a larger UAV, with a wingspan over twenty feet. The large size allowed it to carry a heavier payload — a device that would map the electronic layout of the camp. Every wire, every circuit, would be diagrammed.

Rubeo monitored the Streamer controls. If the radars suddenly turned on, the Mapper would be an easy target; it was not only bigger, but louder than the first UAV.

“It’s on its own,” said Lawson. The plane had been programmed to fly a very slow circuit over the compound. As it did, its sensors would map the electronic and magnetic fields and circuits below, giving Rubeo a picture of the installation, or at least its electronic components.

“They’re going to hear it,” said Jons. He was watching the machine-gun position through his glasses.

“Hopefully they won’t,” said Rubeo.

“Relying on luck? That’s not like you, Ray.”

Rubeo didn’t answer. The data from the aircraft had to be recorded and then uploaded to his systems back in the States. They didn’t have the equipment to analyze it in real time. Rubeo had calculated that they needed three circuits to get a sufficient image; he wanted at least six.

The plane was just completing the second when the radar came back up.

“Why the hell did they do that?” grumbled Lawson.

The Streamer pumped out fresh signals, making it seem as if the site was going to be attacked by the F/A–18s. This time it didn’t work.

“They’re running around like crazy men,” said Jons.

A second later someone in one of the vehicles began firing a fifty caliber. The Mapper was way too close to be targeted by the missiles, but within easy reach of old-fashioned machine guns.

Red and orange tracers cascaded in the air, peppered here and there with bolts of black. The sound was oppressive, even from where they were.

“They’re going to launch missiles,” said Lawson. “Radar thinks it has a lock.”

“Wonderful,” said Rubeo sarcastically. He kept his eyes on the control screen, watching the Mapper UAV. It was about three-quarters of the way through its third turn over the complex, heading directly for the tracers. Rubeo could take over the flight program and divert it to safety, but that would mean the circuits would have to be repeated.

The odds were better to just keep it flying, he decided.

A few seconds later the screen on the control blanked. It had stopped transmitting. The Libyan gunfire had caught the aircraft.

There was a ground flare at the complex. For a brief moment Rubeo thought it was the aircraft crashing, but in fact it was an SA–10 missile launching. A second and then a third and fourth came off the ground in quick succession.

“It is time for us to leave,” announced the scientist. “Pack quickly.”