Collateral Damage

1

The A–10E helmet had a night vision attachment allowing the pilots to see in the dark. The combination was still lighter than the smart helmet, but it was awkward, tilting the helmet forward so the edges rubbed against Turk’s cheekbones.

The glasses turned the world into a crisp collection of greens and blacks, an alternate universe that lived parallel to the real one. It was as if the pilot was an electronic ghost, slipping through the dark solids before him.

While the technology was different, the view itself was familiar to Turk from the smart helmet, where it was one of the preset defaults, designed to make the transition from older technology to new as seamless as possible. He felt it was superior to the view offered in F–35 helmets — another preset. There was a sharpness to it that the Lightning II view seemed to lack.

Turk took Shooter Four up from the south runway, moving into a gradual climb over the Mediterranean. The four-ship flight’s first stop was a tanker track to the southwest; they would top off there before heading over Libya.

Turk listened as Ginella checked in with the AWACS, getting a picture of the situation over the country.

She was an odd case — professional to the point of cold indifference toward him in the squadron room, outrageously passionate in bed.

It confused the hell out of him.

Remembering Grizzly’s tales of tanker woe, Turk approached the boom gently, easing in at a crawl. At any second he expected the boomer to squawk at him about how slow he was going. But all he got was an attaboy and a solid clunk as the probe was shoved into the nose of the Hog.

He held the aircraft steady as the JP–8 sloshed in. The cockpit filled with the heady scent of escaping kerosene. Turk tried to relax his shoulder and arm muscles, afraid that any twitch would jerk him off the straw. By the time the boomer called over to tell him to disconnect, his arms had cramped.

“Copy that. Thanks.”

Turk slipped downward, dropping through several dozen feet before banking right and moving out and away from the tanker. The radio whispered hints of distant missions; it was a busy night over Libya, the allies keeping pressure on the government as the rebels continued with their offensive.

Grizzly had already tanked and was waiting for him.

“You did good, Turk,” said the other pilot. “Gonna make a real Hog driver out of you yet.”

“I’m getting there.”

“You gotta work on your grunts.” Grizzly made a noise somewhat similar to the sound of a rooting hog. His voice lost an octave and became something a caveman would have been proud of. “Real Hog driver talk like this.”

“All right, you two, knock it off,” said Ginella. “Let’s look sharp and keep our comments to business. Turk, how are your eyes?”

“I’m good.”

“There’s been no sign of our package south,” she added. “Let’s get there. You know the drill.”

Thirty minutes later the four Hogs approached an arbitrary point in the sky where they had been assigned to loiter. The other half of Shooter Squadron was to the southwest about seventy miles. The aircraft were flying at roughly 30,000 feet, high enough so they couldn’t be seen or heard in the dark night sky.

The American planes were part of a massive search and rescue operation. Dozens of aircraft were strung out across the country, ready. All they needed was a downed pilot.

The wreck had been located in a ravine twenty miles south. But the pilot’s locator beacon and radio had not been detected. Ground forces were conducting a search near the plane and in an area where computer simulations showed the man might have parachuted. Army Special Forces units had been inserted just after dusk, and had made contact with some rebels in the area who were helping with the search.

Turk didn’t have a lot of experience with rescue operations, but it took little more than common sense to realize that if the pilot hadn’t radioed in by now, the odds of finding him alive were extremely slim. But no one in the air wanted to mention that. It was too easy to put yourself in the downed man’s place — you didn’t want to think of giving up.

An hour passed. The other half of Shooter Squadron called it a night and headed home. Ginella led her group farther south, orbiting over two different spec op detachments.

Adrenaline drained, Turk found staying alert extremely difficult. He stretched his legs, rocked his shoulders back and forth — it was a constant battle, far more difficult than actually flying the plane.

One of the ground units reported that they were following a lead from the rebel guerrillas; the information was passed back down the line to the squadron. Turk felt his pulse jump. But when the lead failed to pan out, he found it even harder to keep his edge.

With dawn approaching, Ginella decided they would refuel so their patrol could be extended if needed. She split the group in two so they could continue to provide coverage. Grizzly and Turk went north to the tanker track while she and her wingman stayed south.

Mostly silent during their loops, Grizzly became animated as they approached the hookup. He told Turk he had brought along an iPod and was listening to music as they flew.

“Got some old stuff I haven’t heard in a while.”

The music may have been old, but Turk hadn’t heard any of it. It was country and country pop — Son Volt and Civil Wars and half a dozen other singers and groups completely off his radar.

“You gotta get out more,” laughed Grizzly when Turk confessed he’d never heard of the groups. He began filling him in, keeping the patter up all the way to the Air Force 757s.

“What do you think of G?” asked Grizzly after they had finished tanking.

“Seems OK,” said Turk as neutrally as possible.

“Real hardass sometimes. Good pilot, though. First woman commander I’ve ever had.”

“First one?”

“Probably had a female in charge of one of the schools somewhere along the way,” said Grizzly, referring to the different classes the officer would have attended. “But not, you know, like this.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Kinda different flying for a woman, you think?” said Grizzly.

It sounded somewhere between a statement and a question. Turk didn’t know how to answer it either way. His boss — Breanna Stockard — was a woman, but he wasn’t supposed to refer to Special Projects if possible, and he worried that mentioning her would inevitably point the conversation in that direction. It took him a few moments to think of something suitably neutral and bland to come back with.

“I haven’t worked with an actual squadron in a while,” he told the other pilot. “I’m pretty much a one-man shop.”

“That’s kind of cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Word is the Air Force is gonna phase us down,” said Grizzly. “Turn all the electronics in these suckers on and let them fly themselves.”

“I don’t know about that,” replied Turk.

“Probably replace us with laser jets, if not.”

Both ideas were actually plausible. A few years before, that would have sounded like science fiction or maybe fantasy. But there were in fact plans to replace the A–10 squadrons with airborne laser planes. The aircraft, modified from civilian airliners and housing high-energy weapons, could fly at a safe distance and altitude yet make attacks with pinpoint precision. It was almost guaranteed that a fleet of the laser jets, as they were called, would replace the Air Force’s small force of AC–130s in the next eighteen months.

“I think there’s a real need for people in the loop,” said Turk. “But, I don’t know.”

“I hear ya.”

“Everything’s going in the other direction,” said Turk.

“You’re part of it though, right? You’re playing with those little dart jets? Pretty soon they won’t need you either.”

Grizzly was absolutely right. He didn’t answer, though — because of his position, what would have been interpreted as a casual remark by any other person could be seen as a breach of security if he said it.

Maybe the accident would turn things back in the other direction. But it could just as easily be used as an argument against keeping a man in the loop — his being there, or being close, hadn’t stopped the Sabre from making the mistake.

The accident had grounded the Sabres, but not the rest of the UAV fleet. That in itself was statement of how important they were. Right now at least three were operating in the rescue area. Two provided a continuous infrared picture of the ground to the controllers and the team hunting for the pilot. The other was sniffing for his radio and signal beacon.

With a full belly — or more accurately, wing tanks — of fuel, Turk followed Grizzly in a loose trail south as the sun tiptoed toward the horizon. As the light strengthened, he removed the night goggles and left the augmented visor retracted, preferring to see the sky and aircraft as they truly were.

He had plenty of fuel, but this mission couldn’t go on forever. Eventually, the pilots’ fatigue would build to the point where they simply couldn’t trust themselves. To use one of the more formal terms and measures, situational awareness would degrade severely.

That was a problem one never had with computers.

“Shooter One, this is Three,” radioed Grizzly.

“One.”

“We’re about thirty minutes away. Anything?”

“Negative. Still on hold.”

“What do you want to do, G?”

“We’ll go tank when you’re here,” she told Grizzly. “Play it by ear from then.”

“Understood.”

“How’s your wingman?”

“Still there every time I turn around.”

“Four?” Ginella asked.

“Shooter Four is good,” said Turk.

“A little boring for you?” asked Ginella. Her voice had a hint — but only just a hint — of the more familiar tone she used when they were alone.

“I’ll survive.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“We covering the pickup of the search units?” Grizzly asked.

“Not sure yet,” answered Ginella. “Pickup has been delayed.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“Just saying.”

The four Hogs joined up, flying in a large circular pattern above the desert. Ginella rebriefed Grizzly on contact frequencies and some of their protocols — all things Grizzly already knew. But he didn’t complain.

“We’ll be up and back as quickly as we can,” she told them. “There’s a flight of F–16s north for backup.”

“Roger that. Have a good trip.”

But before Ginella could check in with the controller, he radioed to tell them there was a flight of Blackhawk helicopters inbound. The IDs on the choppers belonged to the units tasked for the pilot’s rescue pickup.

“Groundhog has located the beacon,” explained the controller. “Stand by to cover a pickup.”

“In that case, we’ll hang down here,” Ginella told her squadron. “We have plenty of fuel for now.”

The A–10Es were vectored southwest, near a small settlement at the edge of a long, open square of desert. They waited until the helicopters were about five minutes away before going down to take a look; they didn’t want to call attention to their presence until absolutely necessary.

Ginella contacted Groundhog for an update on their situation. From the accent of the radioman, Turk guessed that the ground unit was a British SAS commando squad, one of a number of special operations troops operating in the theater. His communiqués were terse, with quick acknowledgments when Ginella responded.

The commandos were in a village isolated from the highway by a narrow winding road through a series of sharp but narrow hills. The village had no more than two dozen houses, and was centered around a pair of unpaved streets that came together in a Y at roughly the center of the settlement. A small mosque and minaret stood near the intersection on the southernmost street.

The helicopters were directed to hold at a position roughly ten miles away from the village.

The SAS troopers had located a very weak signal inside a building on the street north of the mosque. With all of their support elements in place, they were going to storm the building. If things went wrong, they wanted the Hogs in fast.

“Acknowledged, Groundhog,” Ginella told him. “You can count on us.”

Turk studied the image of the village in the multiuse screen. The nearby hills limited their attack approach to an east-west corridor above the main streets.

Once again Ginella split the flight into two elements, but kept both on the east side of the village. All the planes would fly in the same direction on the initial attack. After that, she and Coop would recover south while Grizzly and Turk would go north. The idea was that the two groups would be in position to attack anyone coming from the outside.

“We’ll play it as it develops,” she added.

Groundhog radioed that they were going in.

Turk felt his chest starting to tighten. Sweat began collecting under his gloves.

He told himself to relax, but his heart started thumping. His adrenaline level shot up — he was starting to feel a little jittery, as if he’d had a few pots of coffee. He knew he must be physically overtired, but his body seemed to be overcompensating.

Relax.

Relax, goddamn it.

The commandos used a special short-distance radio to talk among themselves; the Shooter aircraft couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Five minutes passed. The planes circled in the sky, waiting.

“Shooter One, Groundhog here. We’re moving south through the village.”

“Groundhog, say status.”

“We don’t have him.”

“Is he there? What’s going on?”

“We recovered some gear. We’re moving to the mosque.”

“Groundhog, do you require assistance?” asked Ginella.

“Negative. Hold your position.”

“Shooter One acknowledges. Holding position.”

“We oughta take a ‘low-and-slow’ and see what’s up,” said Grizzly. “Just let them know we’re here. At least shake ’em up a bit.”

“Negative,” snapped Ginella. “Just do what they want.”

“I wasn’t saying I was going to do it.”

“Silent coms,” she told him.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I have a vehicle on the road, two vehicles,” said Coop. “You see these, Colonel?”

“Yes, roger that,” said Ginella. “Groundhog, be advised we’re seeing two pickup trucks with people in the truck beds. They’re approaching the road to your village.”

“Splash them.”

“Negative, Groundhog. That’s not in my ROEs.”

The ROEs — rules of engagement — permitted the Hogs to shoot at a target only if it presented an imminent danger to friendly forces or themselves. In this case, the men in the trucks would have to be firing at the commandos to justify aggressive action.

“We don’t need company,” said Groundhog.

“Understood, Groundhog. But we’re limited by our orders.”

Turk expected the British soldier to tell them what they could do with their orders. But he didn’t reply.

“Coop, follow me down,” she said.

The two Hogs dove toward the roadway, dropping precipitously. They rode in over the pickup trucks, accelerating and jerking away.

Ginella’s idea was clear — she was putting the fear of God, or rather Hogs, into them.

The trucks sped up, continuing past the turnoff for the village.

The two jets cleared north and came back around.

“I’m getting close to bingo,” said Coop.

“Acknowledged,” said Ginella. “Groundhog, what’s your status?”

“Working toward the mosque,” he replied.

“Do you have resistance?”

“Negative.”

They took a few more turns. Finally, Ginella admitted the inevitable.

“Groundhog, my wingmate and I are going to refuel. I’m turning you over to Shooter Three and Shooter Four. You’ll be in good hands.”

“Affirmative. Thanks, mate.”

Ten minutes later the SAS trooper radioed that they were going inside the mosque. He asked the two planes to fly over “loud and low”—exactly the distraction Grizzly had thought of earlier.

“We’re on the way,” said Grizzly. “Ten seconds.”

Turk came in off Grizzly’s right wing, his head swiveling as he searched the ground for some sign of resistance, or even life. The small village seemed completely deserted, with no one on the streets. Ordinarily the small towns had goats, dogs, or other animals wandering about. He saw nothing.

The two planes circled left, pulling up around one of the small hills. As they did, Turk caught a glint off something to his right. He raised himself in the seat, looking back over his shoulder.

“Hey, I think we got those trucks coming back,” he told Grizzly. “Got something on the road.”

“What is it?”

“Turning.”

Turk circled back to get a better look at the trucks. Grizzly contacted the airborne controller, trying to see if the Predator overhead could shift closer for an image. He then tried to contact Groundhog directly, to check on their status.

The Brits said only that they were “good.” By then the trucks had gone off the main highway, moving in a direct line toward the road that led to the village.

“Those the same trucks as before?” Grizzly asked.

“Can’t tell,” said Turk. “What about the Predator?”

“The trucks are a little far from the road for the Predator to spot. He has to stay eyes on the village.”

“By the time they’re in range they’ll be in the hills.” The geography would make it harder to watch the trucks there.

“Let’s get in their faces,” said Grizzly. “See if we can run them off like before. I’ll come in first. They fire at me, light them up.”

“Yeah, all right. Roger that.”

Grizzly led him south before banking and pushing down, his nose angling toward the pickups. Turk waited, giving the other plane enough of a head start so he could react if he saw anything. He tucked down, pushing the Hog through 1,500 feet and picking up speed.

He was on the back of a sleek stallion. The engines rushed behind him, a steady whoosh. He edged his finger on the trigger of the gun, double-checking the panel to make sure the weapon was ready.

The two trucks were no more than thirty yards apart. The lead vehicle was just reaching the road to the village as Shooter Three came in ahead of him, low.

Something winked below Grizzly’s A–10.

Gunfire?

Turk couldn’t tell if it was a muzzle flash or just a reflection from the sun.

Another glint. A flash.

Weapon. Guns. MANPAD!

“Flares! Evade!” yelled Turk, warning the other plane even as he pressed the trigger to zero out the threat.

The big gun in the nose of the A–10 began rotating. The force of the cannon was so intense that it seemed to hold the Warthog up in the sky. The burst lasted not quite two seconds, but in that time, somewhere over one hundred rounds burst from the gun. Nearly every one hit the truck — or would have, if there was truck left there to hit. The heavy slugs tore the front of the truck in half, igniting a huge fireball and vaporizing a good portion of the vehicle.

“Missile in the air!” yelled Grizzly.

Turk’s warning system was bleating as well, but he was too focused to pay attention. He leaned his body left and the jet followed, moving quickly as he lined up his second shot. He was a little too close to get more than a few slugs into the truck before he passed it, but they were more than enough to stop the vehicle.

Turk dished flares and turned hard right, himself a target now. Gravity hit him in the side of the face and chest. He felt the bladders in his flight gear pushing hard against his stomach and his legs. The Hog floated a bit, moving sideways as it struggled to sort out the conflicting demands of gravity and its pilot’s will.

The peak of the hill loomed dead ahead, a jagged slag of red and brown.

“Power, baby,” Turk said, his hand already slamming the throttle. “Power.”

The Hog’s nose pulled up and the aircraft lifted in the sky, almost hopping over the hilltop.

He felt weightless. He wasn’t sure what had been launched at him. He was afraid it was on his tail.

“ECMs,” he said, momentarily reacting as if he were in the Tigershark. He recovered quickly, hitting the panel to activate the electronic countermeasures — a fancy name for a radar jammer.

The Hog continued to climb for a few more seconds before Turk realized that whatever had been launched had missed. Either it had been sucked off by the flares or was unguided to begin with, just a rocket-propelled grenade. He banked back around.

The first truck was hidden by steam and smoke. The second was sitting on the side of the road.

He had it on his nose. He glanced up, locating Shooter Three on his left wing at about ten o’clock, coming up from the south.

“I’m going in on that second truck,” Turk called on the radio.

“Roger that.”

“You OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, I’m good. Go for it — I got your six.”

The truck was fat in his windscreen. The men on the ground were firing at him — Turk could see their muzzles blinking.

One of his missiles would have wiped out all of the men, but he wanted to save them for the SAS unit. And in any event, he’d already made up his mind on how he was going to attack.

The truck grew large in his pipper. He pressed the trigger, spitting a steady stream of spent uranium into it.

The vehicle disappeared beneath a cloud of smoke. Turk cleared south.

“We’re good, we’re good,” said Grizzly. “Hold south of the village.”

“We need to move back east in case we have to run into the village,” said Turk.

“Yeah, all right, you’re right. Good — let’s get there. Follow me.”

As they pushed their aircraft back into a position that would make it easier to support the ground units, Groundhog checked in, asking what was going on.

“Just smoked two pickups that fired on us,” reported Grizzly.

“Copy.”

“What’s your situation?”

“We’re going through the building.”

“You have subject?”

“Negative.”

“We’re standing by.”

“Copy, Shooter.”

The brief engagement had been more physical than Turk realized. His arms and upper body felt as if he’d been in a boxing or MMA fight, sore and drained.

But his breathing was calm. The action had relaxed him.

Groundhog reported that there were people on the street.

“A lot of watchers,” said the British soldier.

“Threatening?” asked Grizzly.

“Negative. Just watchers. We’re moving to your south.”

A minute or two later he called back.

“We’re on the street,” said Groundhog. “Can you take a pass?”

“Stand by.”

“I’m with you,” Turk told Grizzly.

“Follow me through. Same game plan.”

“Let’s make it fast,” said Turk. “We don’t want to push our luck.”

“No shit on that.”

Turk dropped the Hog through four hundred feet as he came down. Grizzly was another hundred feet lower. He dropped to two hundred feet as they came over the village. Turk worried his wingman would plow into the buildings or the nearby hill, but he cleared them and rose south.

The flyover lasted only a few seconds, but each moment was a full day, weighted with tension. Turk looked left and right, heart pounding. He saw the broken edges of the roof tiles, a half-eroded garden wall on the largest house, a car that had lost its tires.

And he saw the tops of heads ducking, a bald man, two startled teenagers, a woman white with fear.

He punched the throttle, powering away.

“Wooo-hoo,” said Grizzly as they climbed. “You see that crowd?”

“Copy.”

“Weapons?”

Turk had to think about what he had seen. People moving, standing. Weapons?

None that he remembered. He tried processing it again.

“Negative. Not even rifles,” he added.

“You sure?”

“I think so. You see something?”

“No.” Grizzly sounded disappointed.

Groundhog began squawking. They were calling the helicopters in for a pickup.

“We’re moving to the south side of town,” said the SAS soldier. “Do you copy, Shogun Six?”

“Shogun Six copies.”

“Point is marked as Landing Four on your map. It’s behind a low wall.”

“Affirmative. We copy.”

Turk spotted the two helicopters flying from the north, crossing in a wide arc west of the hamlet. They were aiming at a field behind a large building.

“Got people in that building,” said the helicopter pilot.

“Are they aggressive?” asked the controller. “Weapons?”

“I just see people.”

A three-way conversation between the helicopters, the controller, and the ground unit ensued. The voices were quick and sharp as the men tried to determine whether the people in the building constituted a threat. No weapons had been spotted, and the ROEs declared that they be left alone. That seemed to be a relief to all concerned, especially the ground unit.

As a precaution, Turk noted the building. He could blast it with a missile if necessary.

The dozen members of Groundhog hopscotched down the street toward the landing point. Turk could see knots of people moving roughly parallel to the soldiers.

“A lot of people down here,” said Groundhog.

“We want to keep them as far back from the helicopters as possible,” said Shogun. “More Hog psyops.”

The helicopters touched down. The Brits fell into a dead run.

They were still twenty or thirty yards away when one of the helicopters jerked upward.

“Gun! Gun!” yelled someone over the radio.

Turk, about a half mile east of the pickup area, strained to see what was going on.

Grizzly radioed Groundhog and Shogun but got no answer. Bits of smoke appeared in a line on the ground about a hundred yards from the pickup area, near the village.

“Shogun’s firing,” said Grizzly.

“Hold back,” warned Turk. “Helicopter is circling.”

Turk had to bank to give the chopper room. Smoke spread across the field. It looked like something from a smoke grenade rather than gunfire.

“Groundhog? Groundhog!” said Grizzly. “Say your situation. What the hell is going on?”

The first helicopter circled south, ramping upward. The second helicopter remained on the ground.

“I don’t see any gunfire,” said Turk.

“I can take out that building,” said Grizzly.

“Negative, negative,” said Turk. “There’s nothing coming from there. Hold off.”

The blades on the second helicopter began rotating furiously. The helicopter rose upward, cutting across a thick fist of smoke.

“We’re good, we’re good,” Groundhog said. “All recovered.”

Turk lost sight of the helicopter as it passed behind him, flying northeastward. He found Grizzly on his left and followed him upward, climbing away from the village.

Barely two minutes had passed since the ground element began running for the choppers. It had been a tangle of confusion, at least from Turk’s point of view. He tried sorting it in his mind: the helicopter that lifted off had seen people coming and decided to hold them off with gunfire that missed but scared people away. The other chopper made the pickup, the trooper tossing smoke grenades behind to cover their retreat.

Simple. Assuming that was the way it went. It was hard to decipher even the most obvious action in combat.

The helicopters arced northward, getting away from the village. Turk started thinking about the long flight home — and how long he would sleep once he reached the hotel.

“This is Shogun Actual,” called the helicopter commander. “All allied assets, be advised. We have two men still on the ground. They are moving through the field at the north side of the village. Mountain Three is coming for a pickup.”

The men, providing an overwatch from the northern end of the village, had been separated as the units began exfiltrating. Confusion on the ground had sent the helicopters skyward before they reached the pickup point.

Damn.

The two SAS men on the ground were in radio contact with the controller. The men, using the call sign Rodent, were on the north side of the village. The helicopter pilot flying Mountain Three was closing in. He told them he would meet them wherever they wanted.

“Hell if necessary,” added the man, who had the slight lilt of a Boston accent.

They told him they would go north and meet him in the flat desert area. No one was following them.

The air controller, meanwhile, tried to gather more information about the crowd that had been following. The SAS men said they hadn’t seen any weapons, something Turk and Grizzly confirmed. But someone aboard the helicopter believed he had.

It was impossible to know the real facts. As a practical matter, the rules remained the same for the two A–10 pilots: they could watch, and buzz the crowd if necessary, but at the moment they couldn’t fire.

How strange it must be on the ground, Turk thought. A civilian in the war zone was a voyeur, an observer, maybe reluctant, maybe against his or her will. Yet the fascination to find out what was going on must be incredible.

You’d be drawn to the strangeness, if not the danger. The danger might not even seem real, because the situation was so bizarre — men with guns running through your village, a nightmare in the middle of the day. But it was absolutely real, and a false move or a mistake could easily lead to your death — either from someone on the ground or someone in the sky.

Was that what it had been like in the village when the Sabre attacked? It must have been worse — hell simply broke open from the sky without warning, arriving on the nose of a fast-flying missile before the plane was close enough to make a noise.

A terrible, terrible mistake.

Not his, though. Not his.

The troopers on the ground moved around the backs of two houses, toward the Y intersection at the center of town. Turk used the zoom feature on the satellite image to check the path they were intending to take — it cut through the hill off the northern road and down into the desert. The village was tucked behind the ridge there, cutting off the view from the buildings.

He looked down at it. Clear, as far as he could tell. So far, so good.

And what of the nightmare for the soldiers on the ground? They had two great fears — their legitimate enemy, trying to kill them, and the innocents walking through the village.

If they were innocents. How could you even tell?

It was easier in the old days, when you just decided everyone was bad and rolled over the place.

The SAS troopers crossed the street near the mosque.

“We’re going north on the street,” reported Rodent. “We—”

He stopped talking. Turk heard gunfire in the background.

“We’re under fire,” said the Brit.

“Do you have a target?” called Grizzly.

“Negative,” said Rodent. “We’re in cover. We can’t see the gunman.”

“Rodent, is it the mosque?” Grizzly asked.

“Stand by.”

“I can take the mosque out.”

“Stand by.”

“Turk, you see the gunfire?”

“Negative.”

Turk, about a mile and a half behind Grizzly, zeroed into the area on his screen, using maximum resolution. He couldn’t see any gunfire at all. Hitting the mosque would be easy enough, but without a positive ID that it was the target he couldn’t take the shot. The helicopter, meanwhile, held short, about a mile and a half away.

“We need a target, Rodent,” said Grizzly.

The ground unit replied with a curse.

“Rodent, can you beam them with your laser designator?” asked Turk.

“Negative. We’re not sure where they are.”

“Are you under fire?”

No answer.

“Rodent?”

“We’re sorting it out, mate. We hear people moving east of us.”

“East of you?”

“And north. Both.”

“I’m going to try and get eyes on,” Turk told Grizzly. “I’ll come through, then maybe we can nail them.”

“Roger that. Good.”

“Rodent, can you try and get them to fire?” Turk told the ground unit.

“They don’t bloody well handle requests, Yank. And if they did, that wouldn’t be one I’d make.”

The haze from the earlier smoke grenades had drifted across the eastern end of town, obscuring Turk’s view as he came up from the south. As he cleared past it, he saw two quick flashes on the far right. They were coming from the roof of a building on the corner of the intersection. The location didn’t seem to have an angle on Rodent’s position, however.

“How close is that gunfire?” he asked the ground unit.

“Close enough to count.”

He told the British soldiers about the building. They agreed it was the likely source, though from where they were they could see only a small corner of the roof.

“May be why they’re missing,” said Rodent.

“You sure that mosque is clear?” Grizzly asked Turk. “It has that whole road covered.”

“I didn’t see anything there. You?”

Grizzly didn’t answer. He told the SAS troopers to keep their heads down, then dialed his Maverick into the building Turk had ID’ed as the sniper nest.

Ten seconds later the building exploded.

Rodent called in to say that they were moving. More gunfire erupted on the street, coming from behind a parked car. This time the target was obvious. The Brits took cover, and Turk put a Maverick into the vehicle, setting it on fire and killing or wounding the two gunmen behind it.

“You sure that mosque is clean?” asked Grizzly.

Stop with the mosque, thought Turk. But he answered calmly. “I don’t see anything there.”

“We’re moving,” said Rodent.

There were a few more shots, but the pair made it to the northern fork and then ran down the hill. They were clear of the village.

“Helicopter is inbound,” said the controller.

“Let’s take a pass between the landing zone and the village,” said Grizzly. “Make sure things are cool.”

Turk got behind him. Grizzly told the controller and the helicopter what they were doing.

“You sure that mosque doesn’t have anything?” asked Grizzly.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bet that’s where they came out of. Those places are nests.”

Grizzly went across the top of the hill. Turk got his Hog a little lower. His airspeed kept declining; he was barely over a hundred knots, very close to getting a stall warning.

“Looking clear.”

A large black bug appeared on the horizon. The SAS men ran toward it. As the Blackhawk swooped in, the two A–10s flew east to west across the village, between it and the SAS troopers.

“Something on my left,” said Grizzly as he cleared west. “You see that?”

“I’ll look for it.”

“Two or three people.”

Turk saw the figures on a small path at the side of the knoll. There were four — at least two were children.

“Just kids,” he told Grizzly.

“You sure?”

Turk slid his aircraft left. He could have fired at them if he wanted.

But they were kids.

“Yeah. Just kids.”

“You see a weapon?”

“Negative.”

The helicopter touched down. Within thirty seconds it was back in the air, Brits aboard. Grizzly took another pass, running between the village and the Blackhawk. As he did, there was a puff of smoke from the hillside.

“Flares! Break right, break left!” called Turk, even before the missile launch warning began blaring. “Missile! Turn hard! Left! Flares! Flares!”

Something sparked in the sky. Turk looked to his left, where the other aircraft should be, but there was nothing there.

He jerked his head around, afraid. But Grizzly was there — he’d gone right.

Turned toward the damn missile.

There was a dot of red in the pale blue. Two dots.

Decoys, thought Turk. He’s past.

“I’m hit,” said Grizzly a moment later.

2

Driving away from the radar complex, Rubeo zipped his jacket against the cold and considered something one of his professors had told him.

Only thought experiments fully succeed in science.

As a pimple-faced teenager extremely full of himself, he had considered that an exaggeration. He’d pulled off dozens of experiments that were one hundred percent successful. As time went on, however, he saw the truth in his professor’s remark. And while he had come to appreciate that the failures were almost always more interesting than the successes, at this particular moment the limits of science were a challenge.

Even though the UAV gathering the electric data had been shot down before completing its survey, the map it provided of the devices at the complex was fairly complete. The aircraft’s sensors had found the main generators and the trailers with the radar control units. The detail was good enough for an eighty-five percent certainty on the ID of the radars that detected planes and controlled the missiles.

Eighty-five percent was considered more than enough; the matching algorithms were extremely exacting. Additionally, the radars had already been identified by the receiving unit independent of the Mapper, so the match confirmed that the system was working properly.

The next stage was more difficult. The computers at Rubeo’s headquarters compared the diagrams with known circuitry maps of the “stock” radars. They found them exactly the same. Since modifications would be needed to interfere with the UAVs, Rubeo could now be certain that hadn’t happened.

Or rather, that those units hadn’t done it. Because there was still a portion of the complex that had not been mapped. The section included a small shed and a trailer. The electronic map implied some sort of activity there — there were two power lines leading in — but the rest was open for interpretation.

Or imagination. Unable to rule anything out, most people tended to think of the worst. It was an interesting human prejudice, Rubeo knew, but one even he couldn’t escape.

Would a jamming unit fit in the trailer?

Absolutely. The devices the Russians had deployed near the Georgian border to deter spying UAVs were about that size.

If they were there, wouldn’t the Libyans have used them to deter the attack?

Perhaps. But that was just it — a guess, not definitive proof.

“Guys could use some rest,” suggested Jons.

Rubeo turned to him. He’d been concentrating so fully on the problem that he forgot where he was.

“Halit up there keeps nodding off,” added Jons. “If we stop out here, away from the town, we’ll be a little more secure. Sleep until the afternoon. You wanted to see the place in the day.”

“Yes,” said Rubeo, coming back fully to the present. “Let’s find a place.”

3

Grizzly’s plane was ahead of Turk, to his right, just below eleven o’clock. It looked OK, rising in the sky.

He escaped.

He got lucky.

A black smudge appeared on the left side of the plane. It grew exponentially, surrounding the engine.

Flares floated below. Smoke trailed down to them, black and gray billowing in a mad stream.

“Grizzly! Get out!” Turk yelled over the radio.

“I have the plane,” replied the other pilot.

“Your left engine — there’s black smoke pouring out of it.”

“Yeah, I got a problem there. You get those guys?”

“Negative.” Turk was in no position to take a shot at them and wasn’t about to leave the other pilot simply to get revenge.

“I told you to watch those people on the hill.”

“They were kids. They weren’t the problem.”

“I’m coming through one thousand feet,” said Grizzly. “Still climbing.”

“Think about getting out,” said Turk. “Are you sure you got it?”

“I got it.”

Turk told the controller what was going on. He wanted the helicopter that had just made the pickup to stand by in case the Hog went down.

Grizzly jettisoned the last of his missiles, lightening his load. He was at 3,000 feet, still climbing, though slowly.

He had sky under his wings. Maybe he could make it.

He’s going to make it, Turk told himself.

Besides the engine, the A–10 had been hit in the wing and tail. There was damage to its control surfaces. Grizzly reported a small leak in the hydraulic system. He’d also taken a few splinters to the side of his windscreen.

“Nice little spiderweb on the left side,” he told Turk. “Almost artistic.”

Turk plotted a course farther east that would get them away from most of the government forces. The trade-off was that it would increase the amount of time it would take to get home.

“I’d rather take my chances in a straight line,” said Grizzly. “If we go too far east, I’m going to run out of fuel anyway.”

“Be better if you could get higher,” Turk told him.

“No shit. I’m trying.”

Turk rode in and took a look at the left wing. He was stunned at what he saw — it looked like something had taken a bite out of the last five feet. The rest of the metal was ripped and gouged.

“You got a bunch of holes,” was how he described it to Grizzly. “How’s your fuel?”

“Gauge says I’m good.”

“The tank on the left wing?”

“Full.”

Turk doubted that the reading was correct. He hesitated to say anything, however — for all he knew, the aircraft itself didn’t know, and saying something would break the spell.

“I think it’s optimistic,” he said finally.

“You see fuel coming out?”

“Negative.”

“Bladders might have contained the damage.” The A–10’s tanks were equipped to stop leaks.

“Maybe. We’re coming up toward the Castle,” Turk added. “You’re gonna have to cut east. There’s no way you’re going to make it. You’re still way under ten thousand feet.”

The Castle was a government-held town that had gained its nickname early in the conflict because it was so well armed. While the antiaircraft launchers stationed there had been bombed repeatedly, it was thought that the government still had a number hidden in the city. Besides those weapons, there were ZSU antiaircraft guns, which posed a serious threat to a low-flying aircraft.

The air boss had vectored a pair of Spanish F–16s south to provide cover. Turk checked in with them, giving them a rundown of the situation. They could deal with a major antiair site, but Turk was more worried about a MANPAD or even an overachieving triple-A battery. By the time one of those was spotted, it might be too late.

“You have to come more east,” he told Grizzly.

“I’m working on it. Having a little trouble steering. It’s really fighting me.”

“Copy.”

“I don’t want to have to bail out,” added Grizzly.

“I know. I’m with you.”

“I don’t like the idea of parachuting, Turk. The only times I’ve done it, I puked.”

“It’s better than the alternative.”

“I don’t know.”

Turk realized that the other pilot was worried his plane would fall apart if he stressed it at all, even in a slight bank. While he sympathized, he couldn’t see an alternative.

“We gotta turn, Grizzly. You aren’t gonna make it otherwise.”

“I should have some sort of wise-ass comeback here, shouldn’t I?” asked Grizzly. He put the Hog into a gentle bank eastward.

Grizzly made the turn. The plane stuttered, but leveled off. A few minutes later, still south of the Castle, Turk noticed its rear tail surface was shaking up and down.

“Grizz?”

“I’m going to have to get out,” answered the other pilot. “I’m sorry. We just aren’t going to do it today.”

“It’s cool.”

“I’m going to try to get a little farther north.”

“Don’t hold it too long,” said Turk.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

The helicopter that had picked up the last SAS men was about ten miles farther east, and the AWACS controller had another SAR helicopter coming south. The F–16s had been joined by a flight of Eurofighters for air cover. And Shooters One and Two, having just completed their refuel, were heading in their direction as well.

Turk got a radar indication. Something at the Castle was beaming them.

“You see that?” he asked Grizzly.

“Yeah. Bitchin’.”

The radar was a SURN 1S91 “Straight Flush” used for target acquisition by SA–6s — not particularly welcome under the circumstances.

The F–16s immediately went to work. But that didn’t make the sweat factor any less for Grizzly or Turk. They flipped on ECMs, hoping to confuse any missile that might be launched.

But Grizzly had other problems.

“My other engine’s ramping down,” he said.

“I’m seeing smoke from the right side,” said Turk, noticing a wisp near the wing root.

“Ah, shit, I got a lot of problems here,” said Grizzly. “Panel looks like a goddamn Christmas tree. Controls not responding. Damn.”

Something flew off the right wing.

“Grizzly — out! Now! Your wing’s coming apart,” said Turk. He was shouting over the radio. “Time to get out. Go! Go!”

“Left engine failing. I think the fuel pump or something is going.”

There was the understatement of the year, thought Turk. “Time to bail, damn you.”

“I want a couple more miles.”

“Get out now while you can. I’m seeing flames.”

“Got another warning.”

“I’m going to shoot you out if you don’t pull that damn handle,” cursed Turk.

The answer was a small explosion from the aircraft as Grizzly abandoned his plane. A second later the A–10E’s right wing flew apart. The plane jerked hard to the left, then fell into a spin as flames enveloped the fuselage.

Turk banked, watching the parachute descend. As he took his first turn, he got a launch warning — a trio of SA–6s had been fired in his direction.

His first thought was to get away from the parachute — he didn’t want Grizzly to be hurt by the missiles. It wasn’t necessarily rational — the odds of the missile hitting the pilot were exceedingly small — but he nonetheless reacted automatically, pushing away from the falling canopy. He then turned to try and beam the missile’s radar — putting the plane on a ninety degree angle to lessen the odds of it tracking him. He fired metal chaff, accelerating, and finally pushing down hard on his wing.

One of the missiles tanked, pushing down into the desert, where it blossomed in a mushroom of dirt and spent explosive. The other two sailed well past the Hog, losing it in the fog of electronic countermeasures.

Turk turned back in Grizzly’s direction, hunting for the parachute. It wasn’t where he thought it would be. His heart lurched and a hole opened in his stomach: Where the hell was his wingmate?

Finally he found the chute, farther east than he had thought. That was a good thing — it was farther from the city.

“I have a chute,” he told the AWACS. “A good chute. He’s looking good. I have him.”

A fireball rose from the direction of the city. The missile battery that targeted him had just been hit by radiation-tracking missiles.

Turk settled into a wide orbit above the parachute. The AWACS vectored in more support aircraft; the SAR helicopter and the Blackhawk with the SAS soldiers both headed for a rescue.

Turk spotted a pair of pickup trucks coming from the direction of the city. He dropped low and accelerated, heading in their direction.

“I have two trucks approaching the landing area,” he told the controller.

“Roger that. We’re seeing them.”

“I’m hitting them.”

“Stand by,” said the controller.

The ROEs directed that Turk could only shoot at the trucks if they took hostile action. But there was no question in his mind what he was going to do. He rolled toward them.

I should have hit the kids earlier.

But they were kids.

“Shooter Four, you are not authorized to engage.”

“Give me a break,” snapped Turk.

“Repeat?”

“I’m going to protect my guy.”

“Shooter, you are not cleared to engage. We have them under surveillance.”

Where the hell was your surveillance when he was hit? Turk thought. But he didn’t say that. He forced himself to be logical — got back inside his calm pilot head.

“I’m going to check them out,” he told the AWACS.

“Predator is overhead,” said the controller. “We are looking at the truck. No hostile activity or indication at this time.”

Turk tucked the A–10E toward the ground, riding up parallel to the road. The trucks were ahead.

“Shooter Four, this is Shooter One,” said Ginella over the radio. Her voice was sharp. “Say your status.”

“Checking out two trucks headed in Grizzly’s direction, Colonel,” responded Turk.

“Be advised, Big Eyes is telling us those are civilian trucks. You are not to engage. Repeat. Do not engage.”

“Negative,” said Turk, who was now close enough to see the vehicles. “Both have men in the back. Uniforms.”

“Don’t shoot them, Turk. You are not cleared.”

He flashed by.

“Shooter Four, what’s your status?” asked the controller.

Turk didn’t respond. He pulled the Hog around, checked the air around him, looked at the ground, then put the A–10’s nose directly over the road.

If he wanted, he could take both trucks with his gun in short order.

And maybe he should do that.

Was he compensating for having screwed up earlier? But he hadn’t screwed up — he’d done the right thing. They had been kids. Surely.

He knew what he saw. And yet the other Hog had been hit by a missile. The facts were the facts.

“Turk, acknowledge,” said Ginella. “Where are you and what are you doing?”

“I’m looking at them. The trucks. They’re on the road. They’re a mile from where Grizzly’s coming down. Going in that direction.”

He was sure they must be soldiers — rebels wouldn’t be coming out from the Castle.

Maybe they’d shoot at him. He pressed the plane down, went over the trucks at barely fifty feet.

No flash, no launch warning. Not a peep.

By the time he banked away, the trucks had stopped dead in the road. Both made quick U-turns and headed back in the direction they’d come.

“Still think they’re sightseers, huh?” said Turk.

“Not the point, Shooter Four,” responded Ginella.

“I have helicopters inbound,” said Turk, spotting the approaching birds. He could hear them calling Grizzly on the Guard or emergency band. Grizzly acknowledged, then waved.

“SAR assets in contact,” reported Turk. “They’re in contact.”

“Let the choppers do their work,” said Ginella.

“That’s my plan.”

Shooter Squadron escorted the helicopter to the coast, then split away as the chopper headed for the Italian carrier Garibaldi.

Turk got a fuel warning when he was still twenty miles from Sicily. He contacted the tower and the entire squadron was bumped up, allowing him to land right away.

He pulled himself out of the cockpit, feeling as if every part of his body had been pounded.

Ginella met him on the tarmac.

“What the hell happened?” she asked.

“We were north of the hamlet. They’d just made the pickup of the SAS guys.” Turk held his hands wide, trying to sort it out in his head. It had been so vivid when it happened, yet now it seemed clouded. “There was a group of kids—”

“Start from the beginning. What happened with the SAS guys? Did they find the pilot?”

Turk realized he wasn’t even sure, though in fact they had. As he recounted the story, he realized he had either blanked out or simply forgotten vast portions.

Given how much debriefing he’d been doing over the past few days, he ought to be getting better at this, but for some reason it seemed worse. More details would occur to him as he went, and he had to backtrack and revise.

“How did you let him get hit?” she asked finally.

“I–I didn’t let him get hit,” said Turk. “He turned right. I told him to break left. He went into their path.”

Would that have saved him, though? Turk wasn’t sure.

She shook her head.

“The only people I saw on the ground were kids,” added Turk.

“Kids with a launcher?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

Ginella stared at him.

“You think I screwed up?” he said.

“You didn’t see the missile on the ground?”

“I saw kids. That’s what I saw.”

She turned and walked away without saying anything else.

4

Kharon’s collaboration with the Russians had brought him any number of complications over the years, and he knew better than to trust them any more than absolutely necessary. And so while he could have asked Foma to arrange for access to Russian satellite intelligence on the war, he decided it was much safer to simply steal it.

Russian hackers were arguably the best in the world at getting into secure systems, even better than the Chinese groups that tended to dominate news reports. But the security on the Russian government’s own systems left much to be desired. The feed sent to certain Spetsnaz units in Chad and southern Libya used a common and easily defeated encryption. Getting past it was child’s play.

Finding that out had taken a bit of work on Kharon’s part, but now he enjoyed the benefits, looking at near real-time satellite images as they were relayed to the unit. He sat at the console in his university lair, flipping through the quadrants as they loaded.

Nothing much had changed in the past two weeks. The reinforced lines were still where they had been for days. The only exception was in the east, where a number of tanks were poised to strike near Sawknah, a small city liberated by the rebels early in the war. Wisps of black smoke drifted in the area.

Zooming in for detail, Kharon could see irregular troops lining the ruins at the southwest corner of the road. The buildings immediately behind them were badly battered. Many were heaps of rubble. The one three-story that remained intact on that side of the street had several men on the roof, obviously snipers.

It was impossible to predict the outcome of the battle from the image. But the fact that the government felt strong enough to fight back there surprised Kharon. Everything he had seen to this point had led him to think they were not only losing, but on their last legs. But launching an attack some two hundred miles from their strong point implied they were stronger than he believed.

The government leadership had just been shaken up as well. Maybe there was life left in them after all.

But Kharon was not really interested in the direction of the war; he was looking for Rubeo.

He delved into the Russian intelligence bulletins, searching out information. The name didn’t jump out. Nor were there details about the UAV incident. The Russians seemed not to care about it — at least not tactically.

That made sense. It had little impact on anything the Russian special ops troops would be involved in.

One odd thing stood out — the government had fired antiair missiles overnight in the same area where the Sabre UAVs had operated. They had claimed they shot down two aircraft, but NATO had not acknowledged any losses.

A coincidence?

Kharon went back to the satellite imagery, examining the grids linked to the summary.

He spotted two large pickups parked well off the road behind a ridge of sand and rock. There were tents nearby.

He zoomed to the trucks. They were large American vehicles, unlike the small Japanese models common in the region.

Rubeo?

It had to be.

Damn, he thought. Right under my nose.

5

“Looks like Dreamland isn’t the superhero he’s cracked up to be,” said Paulson when Turk walked into the squadron’s ready room.

“What the hell does that mean?” snapped Turk.

“It means what it means.”

“That’s enough,” said Ginella. She was at the front of the room, poring over a paper map.

“Excuse me,” said Paulson. “I didn’t mean to insult teacher’s pet.”

“Knock it off, John.” Ginella went to the coffeepot at the side of the room, walking between the two men. She poured herself a cup, even though the coffee was clearly cold. Everyone else took a seat.

They went through the squadron debrief mechanically. All of the squadron’s pilots and a lot of the enlisted personnel, including Beast and the others who were still suffering from the flu, came in to hear what had happened.

Turk had always felt a bit like an outsider, but it was worse now, much worse. No one said anything, but he felt that they were all blaming him for Grizzly being shot down.

What could he say?

It wasn’t his fault. But that sounded lame. Better to keep quiet.

He played the scene over and over in his head, trying to re-create what had happened. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t see a missile, or any weapon for that matter — nor a shadow that looked like one.

The bastards had hidden it somehow.

“Grizzly will be back tomorrow,” announced Ginella. “I spoke to him right after I landed. He claims he’s going to steal a helicopter off the Italians if they don’t let him go. I’m sure they will send him back — it sounds like he’s eating them out of house and home.”

The others began applauding. Somehow, that just made Turk feel worse. He slipped out the door, heading in the direction of his car.

He was already in the lot when his phone began to vibrate. Dreading talking to Ginella or anyone else, he hesitated before pulling it out.

It wasn’t a call. It was his calendar, reminding him of the appointment he’d made to play soccer with the kids.

Dead tired, all he wanted to do was pour himself into the car and go home to the hotel. He walked to the car, unlocked it, and got in.

His key was almost in the ignition when he pulled it back, deciding he just couldn’t blow off the kids. Ten minutes of running around — even twenty — weren’t going to make him that much more tired than he was.

Hell, maybe he’d just call a taxi anyway. Get a ride to the hotel, grab a few beers and collapse.

Turk walked over to the day care center, where the children were just coming out for their recreation break. The boys’ shouts cheered him up, and for the next half hour he forgot how tired he was, how depressed he was, how out of sorts he’d been. He laughed and joked with the children, lost in the game. When he was done, he told them he would be back, though this time he was smart enough not to make an exact appointment.

Turk went to the fence, preparing to hop over. Li was standing there, a big grin on her face.

“Playing soccer again?” she said.

“Uh, they’re playing. I’m more of a spectator.”

“You seemed to be holding your own.”

“Thanks.” He put one foot in the chain links, then lifted the other over the top bar. Tired but determined not to fall on his face in front of her, he lifted his body over, sliding down slowly.

“I’m sorry about what happened with Grizzly,” said Li.

“Yeah.”

In an instant his spirits sagged. Not only did his fatigue return, but he felt depressed and defensive.

“I heard Paulson talking,” Li told him. “He was out of line. Everyone knows you did what you could.”

“I guess everybody thinks I screwed up. That I missed the missile.”

“No one thinks that,” said Li. “We all know you would have done everything you could.”

“I was — I flew right over that group, a couple of times,” said Turk. “I was close to them — there was no weapon there. I was close enough to see that they were kids, you know? Older than these guys”—he gestured toward the children in the yard—“but still kids. And there wasn’t a gun. Let alone a rocket launcher.”

If he’d been in the Tigershark, the aircraft’s AI sections would have ID’ed the weapon for him.

Maybe he’d grown lazy, relying on the machine to do his job.

“I really didn’t see anything,” he said.

Li’s eyes seemed to have grown larger.

With disbelief, he thought.

“I gotta go,” he said, turning in the direction of his car.

“Hey. Wait. Captain—” Li trotted after him.

“People are pissed because I took their slot, I guess,” said Turk. “I’m sorry — if I thought those kids were a threat, believe me, I would have shot at them. With or with permission.”

“You would have shot at children? Even with a launcher?”

Turk pressed his lips together. The truth was, he would have a hard time doing that, even with permission.

But if he’d seen a missile launcher, if he’d seen something capable of taking down a plane, he would have done it. Definitely. To protect a fellow pilot.

“I just… didn’t see anything.”

“You have kids?” Li asked.

“I’m not married.”

“You don’t have to be married to have kids,” she said.

“Duh,” he said sarcastically.

She frowned and started to turn away.

“Hey, no, I’m sorry.” Turk reached out for her arm. She drew back, but stopped. “I didn’t mean — I’m just — I’m tired and I guess— I’m just tired.”

“I know.” She nodded.

“This, and the village before. I had nothing to do with that. I–I shot down those planes. Nobody thinks about that.”

“I think they do, Turk. I think you should lighten up on yourself.”

She had an incredibly beautiful face.

“You want to get a drink or something?” he asked. “My car’s in the lot. We can go and—”

“I’m on duty,” she told him. “I was just taking a break to see what the day care center needed.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe later. You look like you could use some sleep.”

“Yeah. OK. Later.” He took a step toward the car.

“What time?” she asked.

“Time?”

“What time do you want to meet?”

“How’s dinner?”

“Dinner would be nice.”

“Can you get to my hotel? The restaurant there’s pretty nice. Or we could go into Catania. It’s a nice little city. They look like they got a couple of restaurants and things.”

“Oh, Catania would be great. I haven’t been there yet. But how do we get there?”

“I can borrow a car,” said Turk. “There’s a bunch allotted to the personnel at the hotel, and there’s always one or two open at night.”

“That would be fantastic.”

“I’ll pick you up at your hotel around seven. OK?”

“That’d be great. Real great.”

Up until the moment he drove into the parking lot of Li’s hotel, Turk didn’t give Ginella a thought at all. But as soon as he saw the lit lobby, he was filled with dread, worrying that he would run into her.

Would she be jealous?

Of course.

But maybe not. They were just having a flirty thing, nothing important.

Would she see it that way?

He pulled the car around to the far side of the lot, then took out his cell phone. He didn’t have Li’s phone number, but the hotel desk agreed to connect him to her room. She answered on the fourth ring, just as the call would have gone to voice mail.

“This is Turk,” he told her. “Are we still on?”

“Of course.” She sounded surprised that he would even ask.

“Are you ready?”

“I was just on my way down.”

“I’ll be at the front door in like, zero three minutes,” he said.

“I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

He hesitated, thinking of Ginella.

“OK,” he told her finally, deciding it was more important to keep Li happy. “I’ll be there.”

Even so, he waited a full ten minutes before getting out of the car. He could feel his heart starting to pound as he walked around to the driveway, and by the time the automatic door at the front swung open, his pulse was approaching a hundred beats per minute.

Ginella wasn’t there. Li greeted him with a smile, and they went out quickly to the car.

The Sicilian city was even nicer with someone to share it with. They walked around for more than an hour, checking out the menus posted outside the restaurants. Never picky about food, Turk would have agreed to go into the very first place, a modest-priced ristorante promising “Roman style” cooking. But Li was more of a foodie, and insisted on checking as many places as possible. She didn’t just look at the menus; she glanced inside, and eyeballed the diners as well.

“You can judge a lot about a restaurant by who eats there,” she told him. “What we want is a place that the locals eat at.”

“How do we know that they’re local?”

“You can tell if they’re Italian,” she said. “Look at the clothes. The shoes, especially.”

Once she had pointed it out, differences became very noticeable. A lot of people wore jeans, just as they did, but they had different hues and washes, and tended to be fairly new. The shoe styles were very different, and even the way people walked could give them away.

“I was a psych major in college,” Li told him. “Reading people is more sociology — you can tell a lot by what they’re wearing, and just the forms of how they interact.”

“Can you tell that much about me?”

“I can figure out a few things,” she said. “But it’s no fair in your case — I already know you.”

“What do you know?”

“I know you’re a good pilot. And a good person.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“Could you?” Li laughed. It was a little girl laugh, innocent. Aside from the jeans, she was wearing a thick knit sweater that coddled her neck. She couldn’t have looked prettier to him if she were wearing a flowing gown.

They circled through downtown, Li studying the menus, Turk studying her.

“How did you get from psychology to flying Hogs?” he asked.

“You don’t think flying Warthogs takes a lot of psychology?”

“Seriously.”

“I was in an ROTC program. That’s how I paid for college. But I was always going to be a pilot.”

“Or a psychologist?”

“Not at first. I was in engineering. You wouldn’t believe the red tape switching.” The corners of her mouth turned up with a quick smile. “But I was also thinking that maybe I would use it, if I didn’t make it as a pilot. And maybe down the road.”

“Are you going to psychoanalyze me?”

She laughed, a long, warm laugh. “I don’t think so.”

They settled on a small restaurant whose menu was entirely in Italian. The waiter tried explaining the dishes, patiently answering Li’s questions. Turk ended up with a fish dish, even though he thought he had ordered beef. He barely tasted the food, completely entranced by the woman he was sharing the meal with. Everything Li said seemed interesting — she talked about her hometown in Minnesota, about the fact that she had been adopted, about the grudging acceptance of other pilots because she was a woman.

She could have talked about differential calculus and he still would have hung on every word.

His phone rang during dinner. He pulled it out, and not recognizing the number, decided to let it go to voice mail. Then he turned the phone off.

Driving back to her hotel, he searched for some reason to keep the night going. He asked if she wanted to hit the bar. She said she was tired and wanted to turn in.

He let that hang there — it wasn’t an invitation, and in the end he simply said good night.

When she hesitated for a moment before reaching for the door handle, he wondered whether he should kiss her. But the moment passed.

He rolled the window down and called after her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I hope so,” she told him, before turning and going inside.

Back at his hotel, Turk checked his voice mail. He’d missed three calls — all from the same number. Belatedly, he realized it was Ginella’s.

She’d left only one message.

“Where are you?” she said, her voice raspy and tired. “I thought I’d see you tonight.”

Breaking things off wasn’t going to be easy. He turned in, leaving it for another day.

6

When Ray Rubeo was eight years old, a cousin’s house had caught fire and burned to the ground. Rubeo visited the house the day after, as a bulldozer tore down what was left. A metallic smell hung in the air, mixing with the diesel exhaust of the Cat. His cousin’s family stood around, eyes glassy as they watched the dozer work through what had been their home for more than a decade. There had not been time to rescue any of their belongings. Toys and clothes and furniture were jumbled in the flotsam.

The smell and the emptiness returned to him now as he walked through the ruins of the buildings hit by the Sabre’s missiles. The ruins hadn’t been touched since immediately after the attack, when the victims were pulled out. Now the bricks were being salvaged; two young boys were piling them on one side. Otherwise the area was deserted.

“Seen enough?” asked Jons.

“Not yet.”

“I don’t want to stay too long,” said the bodyguard. “We stand out here.”

“Understood.”

Rubeo walked along the narrow street at the center of the attack, coordinating what he saw with what he remembered from the map. With the exception of a pair of buildings at the eastern end, where a fire had started and then spread, the rubble petered out at the edges of the street and three alleys that intersected the target area. That meant the computer had identified the buildings as targets.

Which he already knew.

Or did he? Because really, looking at the targeting information, they simply assumed that the computer had deliberately gone after a building. But it could just as easily have been looking at pure GPS coordinates.

It was a subtle, subtle distinction. Given the coordinates, the targeting section would look at the building, and go from there.

Significant?

Certainly this had not been a random act — the house was struck perfectly.

No, that didn’t mean it wasn’t random. That just meant the house was struck perfectly. Because in theory, to the machine there was no difference in the coordinates for an empty desert.

Not true — the machine took the coordinates and looked at them, deciding if it was a building or a tank or whatever. It then worked from there.

To an investigator coming in later, it would look purposeful. But that didn’t mean it necessarily was.

If it had been given an empty desert, it wouldn’t have attacked at all. But given a location with a house…

Rubeo played with his earring. The mission had been programmed in. Assuming there was no interference, what had happened could be explained by a change in the navigation system that made the Sabre think it was several miles away from its intended target, and by an override to the targeting computer that put the strike into dumb mode — in other words, turned off the target recognition feature. Two separate events that someone would have to beam in.

Dumb mode wasn’t on. It hit the house — it was going to a target.

Maybe by accident. Or not accident exactly, but whoever had worked out the coordinates knew it would be close enough to look deliberate.

To reprogram it, you’d have to physically access the system. You’d need a fairly sophisticated knowledge of the Sabres as well as the computing system.

No. You could do it with a sophisticated knowledge of the Flighthawk GPS and backup system, which was the model for the Sabres. In fact, it was essentially the same, ported over with minor changes to account for the hardware.

How would you figure that?

Easy — look through the Air Force bids relating to the project. If you had access to different defense contractors.

So you’re in. How do you get to dumb mode in the targeting section?

Easy — just flip a software switch. But you had to know it was there.

Hmmmph.

Interference, but an extremely sophisticated form.

Hard to get all of that data into the aircraft via the GPS channel. And then you had to erase it.

Rubeo worked the problem out in his mind, seeing the lines of code he would need to write if he were the one introducing the problem.

No, that was the wrong approach. Too complicated. It assumed too much knowledge.

Go back to the random theory. What if rather than playing with the software, which was always recorded, you attacked the hardware — if you changed the voltage to a particular circuit, you might be able to change the targeting mechanism. If you affected the GPS sensor for a short period of time, you could send the aircraft to a new location.

Was that all you needed?

He wasn’t sure. He tried picturing the different circuitry in his mind. One thing he did know, however: when the system returned to normal, there would be no trace.

Who would go to that kind of trouble, though? With that much knowledge, wouldn’t you just reprogram the unit to fly to wherever you wanted it? The Chinese would pay dearly for it.

Rubeo jerked his head around as he heard something fall nearby. The bricks had fallen on the two boys working on the wall.

He ran toward them, Jons right behind.

The Filipino who’d been watching that side of the perimeter got there first. One of the child’s legs was pinned by the rubble. He scooped the material off and lifted the boy gently out. He put him down on the dirt nearby, then swung his rifle up and took a guard position a few feet away.

Rubeo found the second kid dazed but apparently unharmed. He lifted him by the shoulders and deposited him next to his friend.

“Are you hurt?” he asked the child.

The kid looked too shocked to talk.

Jons called over Halit, who had been back by the car with Lawson. The translator took a stern tone with two kids, immediately beginning to berate them for playing in the ruins.

“Don’t yell at them,” snapped Rubeo. “Find out if they’re all right.”

“They are fine. Look at them.” Halit waved his hands as if he was an exasperated crossing guard. “These vermin are always wandering where they don’t belong. They are worse than monkeys. Monkeys would have more manners.”

“Ask them,” said Rubeo.

Halit began to question them. Neither boy spoke, clearly intimidated. Rubeo went to the kid whose legs had been pinned under the rubble and helped him to his feet. There was a bit of blood near the right knee. Rubeo started to roll up the pants leg; the boy jerked back.

“Tell him we’ll fix his leg,” he told Halit.

“See? He is already OK. He moves around like a monkey. Faking.”

“I have a first aid kit,” said Lawson. “Let me see him.”

Lawson rolled up the boy’s pants, exposing some scrapes and minor scratches. A thick welt was already shaded purple on his shin. Lawson took out a bacteria wash and cleaned the cuts and scrapes. The boy barely reacted, even though the antiseptic must have stung.

“Let’s see you walk a little, fella,” said Lawson. When the child didn’t react, the former Ranger began mimicking what he should do. He added a few words in Arabic, then pretended to be a toy soldier or robot — it wasn’t clear to Rubeo which — bouncing around back and forth.

The child laughed. He took a few steps, apparently not greatly harmed.

“See, laughter is the best medicine,” said Lawson.

“Let’s take them home,” said Rubeo.

“Good idea?” asked Jons, in a tone that suggested the exact opposite.

“Ask them where they live,” Rubeo told Halit. “And say it in a way that gets us a correct answer, or you may find it difficult to walk yourself.”

The boys were cousins, but lived together in a small apartment complex a few blocks away. Five stories tall, with walls of large brown bricks and a stucco material, the buildings were not much different than what might be seen in Europe or even parts of America. The Gaddafi government had erected similar developments throughout the country, awarding them occasionally to the poor, but more often to families connected in some way to the power structure.

The interior hall of the building was clean, and smelled of some sort of disinfectant. But the disrepair was obvious as soon as they were through the door. The elevator, its door scratched and pockmarked with indentations, was out of order. The railing next to the stairs leaned at an angle, missing several supports. The floor tiles were cracked and pitted.

Lawson, with the two boys in tow, led the way up the stairs to the third floor, where they lived. By now he and the kids were great friends, so much so that they ran to the door and pushed it open, shouting to their family that they had found rich Americans. Halit was clearly nervous, hesitating near the door as Rubeo took off his shoes.

“You’re coming in with us,” Rubeo told him.

“Of course,” said the man unhappily.

Lawson and the Filipino nicknamed Joker went first, followed by Jons, who stayed in the doorway until the other two had made sure the place was clear. Abas and the others stayed below.

Four girls and two women were crowded into the living room just off the small foyer. They were the only ones home; all the others were either out at school or work. From what Halit said, there were two families here, and a grandmother. The grandmother, who was in her early fifties, was in the living room and acted as the family spokesperson.

After the children had told their story, she went to the kitchen to prepare some food for the visitors. Rubeo had Halit tell her that they’d just been fed but would gladly like something to drink. Anything more, Rubeo realized, would undoubtedly mean the family wouldn’t eat for a week.

The grandmother found two dusty bottles of an Italian soft drink, and served cups all around. Rubeo told Halit to find out what he could about the family, then to ask if the woman knew the people who had been killed in the bombing.

Halit balked.

“To ask this — it is difficult to know the reaction,” said the translator.

“Tell her we want to help them.”

“She won’t believe you.”

“Probably right, boss,” said Jons.

“Then let’s ask the kids,” said Rubeo. “Have them take us to the families.”

“There was a riot here the other day, Ray,” said Jons. “We’ve really pushed this far. Very far. I really don’t think we should go any further.”

“Fortunately, you’re not the one making the decisions,” said Rubeo.

7

Turk was on his way to the base when Danny Freah called him on his cell phone and told him to report to him ASAP.

“What’s up, Colonel?” asked Turk.

“We’ll discuss it when you get here.”

Danny’s tone made it clear that he should expect trouble, so when Turk walked into his office, he wasn’t surprised by the colonel’s stoic face — Freah’s standard expression when things were going sour. The colonel wasn’t a shouter — Turk couldn’t remember him ever raising his voice. But in many ways his silent, unspoken disapproval was far worse.

“Have a seat, Captain,” said Danny. He was sitting at a computer screen, and after giving Turk a brief but meaningful glare, turned back and resumed typing.

The wait was excruciating, but Turk knew the best thing to do was wait for the colonel to speak. Danny’s keystrokes seemed to become harsher as he typed. Finally he was done. He sat back from the computer, crossed his arms, and swiveled in his seat.

“Half the NATO command thinks you are an irresponsible pilot willing to fire on civilians—” started Danny.

Turk cut him off. “No way.”

“You had to be ordered several times not to open fire on civilian vehicles.”

“I–I didn’t shoot.”

“And then there are people who think you withheld fire because you’re afraid of hitting anything.”

“What?”

Unfolding his arms, Danny reached across his desk for a piece of paper.

Turk took it and started to read. It was an e-mail detailing part of an after-action report about the A–10E “incident.”

… despite having been cleared because of the earlier engagement, Captain Mako erroneously held fire. A few moments later there was a flash from the ground. The flash was the launch of an SA–14, fired from the group Captain Mako had passed. The missile or its shrapnel struck Shooter Three on the right side, disabling the engine and much of the control surfaces…

“That’s bullshit,” said Turk. “That’s total bullshit. Who’s saying this?”

“Check the heading.”

The e-mail was from Colonel Ernesto.

“Ginella said this? No, no way. No way,” sputtered Turk. “I couldn’t assume that I was cleared to fire — that’s totally missing the intent of the ROEs. Even if I saw a weapon—”

“Did you see a weapon?”

“No,” Turk insisted. “No. If I had seen a weapon, then—”

He stopped short. If he had seen a weapon, he would have fired. Even if it was a kid.

He would have, wouldn’t he?

“She’s giving me a heads-up as a courtesy,” said Danny. “She said there may be an explanation, and she’s not putting anything in writing until she talks to you.”

Turk felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He had a feeling this had nothing to do with the incident itself, but rather Li.

Damn.

“Colonel, I swear. No one in that group was armed. I would have seen a missile launcher. I looked. I really looked.”

“How fast were you going?” Danny asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“Three hundred knots?”

“No.” Turk shook his head. “It would have been a lot slower than that.”

“A hundred?”

“That’s stall speed. A little faster.” Turk shook his head. “Colonel, I know what I saw.”

Danny frowned.

“You can’t let her say that. It makes me look like… a coward.”

“It’s not up to me what she says.”

Turk knew the e-mail was meant as blackmail. But he couldn’t tell Danny that.

“You have to believe me. That’s not what happened,” he said. “They’re saying crap about me because I’m not a member of the squadron. And for the record — I told Grizzly to break the other way. He turned right into it. It was dumb, not his fault, but… I mean—”

Danny put up his hand. “She’s the one you have to talk to.”

Turk shook his head.

“Are you saying you don’t want to talk to her?” asked Danny.

“No — I’ll talk to her. I’ll talk to her.”

“You want me to come with you?”

That wasn’t going to work.

“It’s all right. Thanks.”

“In the meantime, you’re not flying for anybody but Whiplash. You understand?”

“Yes, sir. That’s fine.”

Danny watched Turk leave the office. He felt bad for the kid — Ginella’s e-mail was extremely harsh, even without the very strict rules of engagement they were operating under.

Technically, she was within her rights to go through with a report criticizing Turk. If she did, Danny would make sure it was countered somehow.

Still, the damage would be done. Better for Turk to talk her out of it himself.

On the other hand, was her implication correct — had Turk missed the weapon? Had he seen it and dismissed it? It couldn’t have just appeared suddenly.

Between that and the incident with the trucks, which the air commander had mentioned to him earlier, it seemed like the pilot was unduly stressed.

Understandable, he thought. He’d been there himself.

Paulson was standing in the outer office when Turk came in.

“Here’s the Dreamland hotshot who nearly got Grizzly killed,” said Paulson when he saw Turk in the hall. “Thanks a lot.”

“Fuck you,” snapped Turk.

“You gonna slug me?” asked Paulson.

Turk was sorely tempted.

“Mr. Paulson, that will do,” said Ginella, coming to the doorway.

“We’re all grounded, you know,” Paulson told Turk. “Nice going, hotshot.”

Turk felt his face warm.

“We’re taking a breather, Captain,” Ginella told Paulson. “Captain Mako, why don’t you step into my office?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Turk went to the chair quickly and sat down. He watched Ginella close her door, then walk over to her desk.

She was all business. That was a relief.

Or was it?

“I understand you were out with Captain Pike last night,” said Ginella, sitting down.

“We went to dinner.”

“Had a good meal?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad.”

“Listen—”

“I just spoke to Colonel Freah on the phone,” said Ginella. “He showed you the e-mail, I understand.”

“Yes, and it’s bullshit,” said Turk.

“Is it, Captain?”

“Absolutely. I told you what happened.”

“If you didn’t miss the missile, where did it come from?”

“I don’t know.” Turk clenched his fists, then struggled to unknot them. “I — it wasn’t on that hill when I passed. There’s no way it came from that hill.”

“No way?”

“No. Maybe somebody climbed up there after I passed,” said Turk. “I don’t think so — it wasn’t with the kids.”

“You don’t think they might have hidden the missile launcher somewhere?”

She was pushing this ridiculously hard. Turk wondered when she would drop the charade.

And what would he do then?

“Well? Could it have been hidden?” she asked.

“Maybe,” said Turk reluctantly.

“I see.”

Ginella’s eyes bored into him. Turk tried to hold her stare but found he just couldn’t. He blinked, looked down at the floor, then back up.

“You’re worried that if the report is written this way, it’ll hurt your career,” said Ginella.

“It’s not the truth. That’s my concern.”

“Understood. You can go, Captain.”

“Are you going to change it?”

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

“But—”

“Dismissed, Captain. I don’t need you in the squadron anymore. Thank you for your help.”

“Listen, this is all—”

Ginella stared at him. What was she thinking? Was she actually trying to blackmail him? Or was she just being a tough commander? Grizzly thought he’d screwed up — maybe she was just taking his word over his own.

Most squadron leaders would let it go. On the other hand, if she really thought he had messed up, she did have a duty to press him on it.

But…

“What is it you want to say, Turk?” Ginella asked.

“I–I just want to say that I know what I saw.”

“I’ll take it into consideration.”

Unsure what else to do, Turk started to leave.

“One last thing, Turk,” said Ginella as he opened the door. “It’s always best to answer your phone.”

It took every ounce of his self-control not to slam the door on the way out.

8

Rubeo hadn’t known exactly what to expect from the families hurt in the attack, but he thought he would see some outer sign of grief or at least chaos; if not direct mourning, then some sadness or grim resolve. But the family the boys took him to see were cheerful, happy, and grateful to have visitors.

Which was strange, because there were eight of them crammed into what looked like a 1960s travel trailer, the sort that would be used back in the States only as a derelict hunting shack, if not the target on a shooting range.

Two of the family members — the mother and a girl about three years old — had been wounded in the bombing, which damaged one wall of their house. The mother had a cast on her arm and her head was bandaged. The little girl’s leg was in a cast. They spoke freely about the accident, telling Lawson — he had instantly made friends, with the help of the boys — about the disaster.

Rubeo listened attentively, interested in every detail. The sudden explosion, the darkness from the cloud, the grit falling down, the surge of fire — listening somehow made the strike more scientific to him, more real. If it was real, it could be understood more readily.

Curious neighbors began gathering outside. Jons was getting more and more agitated. He’d posted Abas and the Filipinos a short distance away, with their guns out, but the team would be very easily overcome if a large crowd gathered and became hostile.

“What about the other day?” Rubeo asked the woman. He made Halit translate. “Ask her about the riot.”

“Thieves hired by the government. Many of them soldiers,” said Halit.

Rubeo looked at Lawson. “More or less, I think,” he told him.

“Find out if they have a bank account,” said Rubeo.

“I can tell you without asking, they don’t,” said Halit.

“Look around,” said Jons. “These people don’t have anything.”

Rubeo dug into his pocket for his roll. He unfolded ten ten-euro notes.

“See if you can find some contact information,” he told Halit. Then he bent toward the grandmother and slipped the money into her hand.

“I have to go,” he said as she stared wide-eyed at the bills.

“What are you going to do?” Jons asked a few minutes later in the truck as they left the village, heading west in the direction of the missile site.

“We’ll find the people who were victims,” said Rubeo, “and get them new homes.”

“The allies will handle compensation.”

“What I do is independent of the government.”

“Ray, this is not a good place.”

“I’m not going to stay here and do it myself, Levon. You needn’t worry.”

“Yeah, OK, good. It’s not a horrible idea.”

Jons, clearly relieved, checked his mirrors quickly. They were in the lead, their escorts a few dozen yards behind.

“It’s just going to be tough to figure out who truly deserves it, you know?” added Jons. “Once word gets out. Especially here, with the government crumbling. Everybody’s going to have their hand out.”

“It doesn’t look particularly endangered to me,” said Rubeo.

“Don’t fool yourself. They don’t have much of a grip. Things can turn around in an instant.”

Rubeo looked out at the countryside, a vast roll of undulating sand. The encounter with the families had taken his mind off the problem of the UAV and what had gone wrong.

He wondered why he hadn’t thought of helping the people before. It was an obvious thing to do.

Dog was right. That was why he suggested I come. He didn’t say it, because he knew I would only appreciate it if I reached the conclusion myself.

So good at giving others advice, at balancing their problems against the world’s. But he couldn’t overcome his own demon.

His loss was far greater than theirs.

“I want to go back to the radar site,” Rubeo told Jons. “There are two other structures I need to look at. I want to see what’s in there.”

“Inside them?”

“Yes. I need to know if they have equipment in them.”

Jons frowned.

“You think that’s a problem?” asked Rubeo.

“It’s a big problem. We’ll never get inside there. I don’t even want to go close — they’ll be on their guard after finding the two UAVs. We can’t, Ray. Absolutely not.”

“I wasn’t considering marching up to the gate and demanding access,” Rubeo told him.

What he had in mind, however, was every bit as dangerous — they would sneak in from the south side of the facility, go to the building, and inspect it firsthand. Ten minutes inside each should be enough to eliminate the possibility of anything having been beamed from it. Once that was done, he could pursue what he saw as the more promising theory. But interference had to be ruled out first.

“You’re not going in,” said Jons. “If I have to physically hold you back, you’re not going in.”

“Of course not. And I’m not going to risk you either. I intend to send a pair of bots in,” Rubeo told him. “All we need is someone to get them past the fence.”

“I don’t know.”

“Please — there are dozens of people who live in that little hamlet. None of them can be bribed to change places with someone?”

“Well, that we might be able to arrange.”

“Good.” Rubeo took out his phone and called up a satellite map. “There’s a road ahead to the right that gets lost in the desert about two hundred yards north. If you are careful, we can drive across the desert and completely miss the gate. It’ll save us considerable time.”

“I don’t think we need to be in a hurry.”

“I do. The plane with the bots will land in Tripoli in four hours. We don’t need to be there, but I don’t want to wait too long before we retrieve them. Besides, if we get there quickly, we can get back in time to finish the probe by first light tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll agree that the sooner we’re out of this hellhole the better.”

9

He’d missed him.

Kharon thumped his fist against the dashboard. He was tempted to yell at Fezzan, who’d taken so long getting them here, but he held his anger in check, not least of all because the two men in the back of the SUV were the driver’s friends. He barely trusted them with weapons under the best of circumstances.

Meanwhile, the boy who told him that the Americans had left stood trembling by the car window, frozen in place by Kharon’s retort at hearing the news.

“Are they coming back?” Kharon managed to ask.

The boy quickly shook his head.

“Go,” said Kharon, dropping a few coins in front of the boy. “Go.”

He rolled up the window. Rubeo had moved much more quickly than he had expected. But of course — this wasn’t a fantasy anymore, this was reality. And the reality was that Rubeo was very, very good. Kharon couldn’t afford to be sloppy, to play the child. He was a man and needed to act and think that way.

“What should I do?” asked Fezzan. “Where are we to go?”

“Find a place for them to eat,” said Kharon, jerking his thumb. “Not too expensive.”

The car bumped along to the north end of town. Fezzan drove as if he knew exactly where he was going, but Kharon could never really tell with him. Like many of the people he dealt with, the Libyan was an excellent bluffer.

Kharon had hoped to catch Rubeo in the ruins — it would have been easy to separate him from his bodyguards, especially with the others to help. The plan to embarrass him had been abandoned. It was too ambitious, and he had lost his patience besides. At this point he wanted only to kill and be done with life completely.

His anger had grown exponentially since the chance meeting in the hotel. Why was that? What alchemy had caused his anger to become so insane?

He was capable of recognizing that it wasn’t rational, yet powerless to do anything about it. He couldn’t blame it on any fresh insults or indignities; nothing compared to the death of his mother.

The restaurant was located in the ground floor of a small office building. There was a small crowd of people outside, perhaps a dozen, waiting to get in.

“Very popular place,” said Fezzan. “Come. We will get in.”

“You know the owner?” Kharon asked.

“I know what he likes.”

Yes, of course, thought Kharon. Money. For enough, the man would undoubtedly kick out his own mother.

Kharon’s phone buzzed as he got out of the car. It was Foma.

“Go ahead,” he told the others. “I have to take this.”

Kharon handed Fezzan a few bills, then walked a few steps away and held the phone to his ear.

“This is Kharon.”

“Where are you?” asked Foma.

“Running an errand in the south.”

“Are you still interested in what we spoke of?”

“Yes.”

“Good. It happens that I know where your man is going.”

Kharon felt his throat catch. He hadn’t mentioned Rubeo specifically. The Russian was a step ahead of him.

“Where?” asked Kharon.

“He has a cargo flight landing at Tripoli very shortly,” said Foma. “I would imagine he or his people will be there.”

“No. He doesn’t do that sort of thing himself.”

“I would imagine that whatever is landing will reach him eventually,” said Foma. “So even if he is not there, it is a way to find him. Unless that is what you are already up to.”

“You can’t just follow him,” said Kharon. “He’s clever. He has surveillance gear.”

“I’m sure he has many things. Do you want to get him or not?”

“How do you know I’m looking for him?”

“I should have realized it long ago,” admitted Foma. “But only when I thought of whom your parents had been did it become obvious.”

Kharon glanced up at the empty street. All these preparations, and still he was blindsided at every turn. To work with Foma — truly the Russian was the devil.

But this was devil’s work.

“Do you want to get him, or not?” asked Foma.

“Tell me how.”

10

Danny Freah turned from the credenza at the side of his office and held out the fresh cup of coffee to Zen. The two men had been friends since their Dreamland days, through a variety of ups and downs. Something about serving in combat together made for a deep relationship despite surface differences.

“I get the sense there’s something going on between Turk and Ginella,” said Danny. “But the kid won’t say.”

Zen took the coffee. “You sure he’s just not blaming himself for the shoot-down?”

“Well, he seems pretty convinced that he wasn’t at fault.”

“What’s that saying, ‘protest too much’?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Freah poured himself a cup. Boston had managed to commandeer all the comforts of home: a working coffee machine, a minifridge, and two padded desk chairs. The place was still cramped, but it was habitable. “He’s had a pretty stressful few days.”

“He shot down four enemy fighters,” said Zen. “That oughta have earned him some time off.”

“I know.” Danny took a sip of his coffee, then sat down. “We had to keep him around to help test the aircraft systems — I should have sent him home. He wanted to fly.”

“Pilots always want to fly, Danny.”

“He seemed to do pretty well with the Hogs. Ginella loved him — until this.”

“Want me to talk to him?”

“Don’t you have to fly to Libya with Zongchen?”

“I have a little time.”

“Well.” Danny wasn’t sure what good, if any, that would do. But maybe Turk would open up to another pilot. “If you want to take a shot — I might be making too much of it. He just seemed, bothered, you know?”

“Uncle Zen has his shingle out.” He adopted a fake Viennese accent. “But sometimes, Colonel, a banana is just a banana.”

“I don’t get the joke.”

“Never mind. Probably there’s nothing there. I’ll talk to him and see.”

“Thanks.”

A half hour later Zen found Turk at the Tigershark’s hangar. He paused for a moment, sitting near the door, watching the young pilot gaze contemplatively at the aircraft. Zen thought of himself doing the same thing, though under vastly different circumstances.

“Pretty plane,” he said loudly as he rolled forward. He still wasn’t comfortable with the chair. It seemed to steer a little harshly and pulled to one side.

“Um, hi, Senator.”

“Fly as sweetly as they say?” asked Zen.

“It’s pretty smooth, yeah,” said Turk. “Once you’re used to it. It’s very quick. Doesn’t have the brute thrust of the F–22, but it’s fast enough. Because it’s so small and light.”

“You like lying down to fly?”

“It’s more a tilt, really,” said Turk. “Closer to the F–16 than you’d think.”

“Cockpit looks pretty tight,” said Zen. “Almost an afterthought.”

“It was, pretty much. Just there to help them test it.”

“You think you could just sit on the ground and fly it?”

“No.” Turk scowled, his brow furrowing. He was thinking about the plane, Zen realized, gathering his actual impressions. “It’s different being in the air, you know?”

Zen knew very well. “It’s not easy to explain, is it? People always asked me about flying the Flighthawks. It was… hard to tell them, actually. Because you don’t think about it when you’re doing it. You just do it.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re not really separated from the plane. You don’t think of yourself as separated,” added Zen, correcting himself. “Because if you thought of it that way, you’d have less control.”

Turk nodded. Zen turned and looked at the aircraft. It was rounded and thin, a beauty queen or model.

“Big difference between this and the A–10,” he said.

“Oh yeah.”

“What’s that like?” asked Zen. “I never flew one.”

“Oh. Uh, well, it’s a really steady aircraft. It, um, pretty much will go exactly where you want. Very physical — compared to the Tigershark. In a way, for me, it’s kind of closer to flying the Texan.”

“The T–6 trainer? The prop plane?”

“Yeah, I know. But for me, that’s kind of the parallel.”

“I learned on a Tweet — the T–37. Great aircraft.”

They traded a few stories about flying the trainers, solid and sturdy aircraft, perfect for learning the basics of flight. The planes were more forgiving than the flight instructors.

“There’s nothing like feeling the plane move where you want it to move,” said Zen finally. “Truth is, I could never look at a Flighthawk without feeling just a little bit of anger.”

“Because of the accident?”

“Yeah.”

Zen wheeled toward the Tigershark. “Flying was different once I lost my legs,” he said, talking more to himself than to Turk. “At first, I did it more or less out of spite — I had to prove to the Air Force, to everyone, that I was still worth something. They didn’t want me to come back. But they couldn’t exactly bar me. They could keep me out of a cockpit, obviously, because I couldn’t fly an F–15 or an F–22, or any real fighter. But the Flighthawks were different. My hands were still good. And my reflexes.”

“It must have been tough,” said Turk.

Zen slid his chair back to look at Turk. “Truth is, I was really, really angry. That helped. It gave me something to overcome. I like a fight.” He laughed gently, making fun of himself, though he wasn’t sure Turk would realize that. “How about you?”

“Like to fight? Well, I shot down those airplanes.”

“Not that kind of fighting.”

Turk pressed his lips together. He knew what Zen meant — dealing with the bureaucracy, with your superiors when they were being unfair or stubborn or both.

“Whatever you say is between you and me.” Zen nudged his wheelchair a little closer. “Doesn’t go out of this hangar. Nothing to your superiors.”

“You’re investigating the Sabres—”

“But not what happened with Shooter Squadron. What did happen?”

“I didn’t see anything on the hill,” said Turk. The words started slowly, then picked up speed. “I came across the ridge, checking. I had a good view of the kids there—”

“Kids?” asked Zen.

“They were definitely kids. There were all sorts of references on the ground. I could tell they were short — there was a bush, some vegetation. They were definitely kids.”

“You were moving at a hundred and fifty knots?”

“A little slower.”

“But you know what you saw.”

“It’s burned in my brain. If it was the Tigershark…”

Turk’s voice trailed off, but Zen knew what he was thinking: the Tigershark’s sensors were far wider than the A–10E’s, and would have captured a full 360 degrees. The computer would have examined the figures for weapons. There’d be no doubt.

Something else was bothering Turk. Zen didn’t know him very well, but he knew pilots, and he knew test pilots especially.

They were always sure of themselves. Granted, Turk was still pretty young. And back-to-back incidents like the ones Turk had been involved in had a way of shaking even the steadiest personality. But Turk was pretty damn positive about what he had seen.

So what else was troubling him?

Turk looked at the expression on the older man’s face. He was serious, contemplative, maybe playing the engagement over in his mind. The recorded images from the A–10 had been inconclusive. That didn’t help Turk.

Still, he knew what he had seen.

Didn’t he? He couldn’t repicture it in his mind now. With all this talk… maybe they were right.

No. No, it was just Ginella undermining him, trying to get him back.

Or had he really missed it? Had his eyes and mind played tricks?

“You think they’re right?” Turk asked Zen. “You think I chickened out?”

“Chickened out? Who said that?”

“It’s implied. Like I was too scared to fire at enemy soldiers because of everything else that had happened.”

“I don’t think that would be a fair assessment, do you?”

“It’d be bull.”

Zen studied him. “What did Colonel Ernesto say?” he asked.

Turk frowned. “She…” He shrugged.

“She what?”

Turk shook his head.

“What’s the personal thing going on here, Turk?” asked Zen sharply.

“What do you mean?”

“What is it with you and Ginella? One day she’s singing your praises, now she’s tossing you under the bus. What did you do to her?”

Zen couldn’t have surprised him more if he’d risen from the wheelchair and begun to walk on his own.

“What do you mean?” asked Turk.

“It’s written all over your face. There’s something personal here. What exactly is going on?”

“It’s nothing bad.”

“Whole story.” Zen had the tone of a father interrogating a child sent home from school by the principal. “Now.”

Reluctantly, Turk told Zen everything that had happened between him and Ginella, including her reaction to Li.

“There was never a quid pro quo, or anything like that,” he added. “But it was, uh, awkward.”

“Is that what’s really bothering you?”

“I did not see a missile on that hill. She can say anything she wants, but I didn’t see it. And I wasn’t affected by the Sabres. I mean, it was bad and everything — it’s terrible, but that wasn’t my fault either.”

If Turk had been a woman, the affair would clearly be a problem for Ginella. A commanding officer couldn’t have an affair with a subordinate, even one temporarily assigned.

But the role reversal blurred everything. Maybe it shouldn’t — from a purely theoretical sense, a colonel was a colonel, and a captain was a captain. But in real life, old prejudices died hard. A man simply wasn’t viewed as a victim of sexual harassment, no matter what the circumstances.

And in truth, that wasn’t necessarily the case — not legally, at least. Ginella hadn’t explicitly threatened Turk’s career.

The real problem wasn’t Ginella, it was Turk. Maybe he hadn’t blamed himself for the Sabre accident, but Zen remembered him being troubled when he landed. Maybe he’d just missed the missile on the hill — at that speed and height, it wouldn’t be surprising at all. But whatever had happened, he was definitely second guessing himself now.

Fighter pilots couldn’t have that. In the darkest moment, you needed to know you could trust yourself. You needed to be able to just do, not think.

“Are you afraid Colonel Ernesto’s going to screw up your career?” Zen asked.

“I don’t know,” admitted Turk. “I guess what I’m really — what really bugs me is somebody saying I’m a coward.”

“If you missed a missile, that wouldn’t make you a coward. That idea shouldn’t even enter your mind.”

“Well.”

“Seriously. It’s bull. And I don’t think you missed it.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about Ginella,” Zen told the pilot.

“You’re not going to say anything to her, are you?”

“Nothing that doesn’t need to be said.”

11

Tripoli

The machine called Arachne stood barely half a foot tall with its six legs fully extended, and could easily hide behind a crumpled piece of newspaper. The work module on top was smaller than a watch face, but its interchangeable sensors were more powerful than even the most advanced timepiece. One provided a 360-degree IR image, another an optical image in 10-4 lux.

In the rarefied world of advanced robots, Arachne was a superstar — or would have been, had anyone been allowed to boast of her prowess. The “bot,” as Rubeo and his people referred to her, was a hand-built terrestrial spy, able to do things that human spies could only dream of. Developed privately, she was still undergoing testing before being offered for sale to the CIA.

Where better to give her a realistic test than in Libya?

Rubeo finished the bench calibration on the third and final sensor, more critical in this application than the others — a magnetometer that mapped currents. The device had to be carefully calibrated, then gingerly handled until it was locked on the unit. The procedure was relatively straightforward for the techies who worked with it routinely, but unusual enough that the man who invented the device had to proceed extremely slowly.

Rubeo finished his checks, locked out the options panel, and then killed the power to the unit. He unscrewed it gingerly and brought it over to the bot, which was sitting on the bench in the hangar across from the larger transport bot, Diomedes.

Also invented by Rubeo’s company, a version of Diomedes was already in operation with Whiplash and the U.S. military. The Greek name was used only by Rubeo; the versions delivered to the military had extremely mundane designations like “gun bot 34MRU” and “WGR46TransportAssist,” which alluded to their ultimate use.

Diomedes was about half the size of a gas-powered lawn mower, with a squat, rounded hull that featured a flat payload area about twelve by eighteen inches in the back, and a broad mast area that looked a bit like the bridge superstructure from a modern destroyer. The skin was made of a thick, webbed resin composite, sturdy yet light. The motor, powered by hydrogen fuel cells, was extremely quiet. Diomedes could operate at full speed for sixteen hours without being refueled; in combat under normal operation, it might last a good week before needing a new fuel cell.

Unlike the smaller bot, Diomedes had two tanklike treads on either side of its rectangular body. Fore and aft of the tread systems were wheels that extended from large shafts. Ordinarily, the wheels remained retracted next to the transport bot’s hull, but when meeting an obstruction or if needed for balance or quick maneuvering, the bot extended them. This helped get the machine over small obstacles or balance on very difficult terrain. There were two armlike extensions at the front, and a miniature arm with a crane hook in the flat rear compartment.

Rubeo slid the sensor atop to the plastic holder, making sure the metal shielding was properly in place. The system was designed to ignore the fields generated by the bot, but he considered the shielding an important safeguard nonetheless.

Lawson was hovering nearby, watching. He was excited about the bots, which he called “little creatures.” He wasn’t actually in the way, but his lurking presence would have been annoying if he hadn’t been so enthusiastic.

Actually, it was annoying, but Rubeo let him stay anyway. The others were seeing to last minute details or guarding the area outside. Uncharacteristically, Rubeo felt the need for human company tonight.

He glanced at his watch as he snapped the last prong in place on Arachne. Clearly, they wouldn’t be able to get south before dawn — it was almost 5:00 P.M. now. The process had taken far longer than he thought it would.

His fault, really. He should have had more of his people here to help. He needn’t have done all the prep work himself.

Should he go to the hotel rooms they’d rented and get some sleep? Or sleep in the desert?

He’d ask Jons what he thought.

“So the spider creature walks right in to where we want it to go?” asked Lawson.

“When told to.” Rubeo went to the bench and took the control unit — a modified laptop — and brought it over to finish orienting Arachne. The unit had to be told what sensors it was carrying; once that was done, the process was fully automated and quick.

“How does it get in?”

“It will depend. If necessary, Diomedes will cut a hole through the wall,” said Rubeo. “Or do whatever is necessary.”

“Oh. I thought maybe it would, like, crawl up the drain spout or something.”

“It could, if there was a drain spout,” said Rubeo. “We haven’t seen an easy access. Diomedes will check the external perimeter, and if there is an easy access, we’ll use it. Cutting into the building is the last resort.”

“Because of the noise?”

“The saw is relatively quiet,” said Rubeo. “But because of that it works very slowly.”

“Are you a better weaver than Minerva?” Lawson asked the bot.

“I’m impressed,” said Rubeo. In Roman myth, Arachne was a weaver who was turned into a spider after her work outshone Minerva’s in a contest. Jealous, Minerva took revenge by changing her into a spider. “I didn’t know you knew the story.”

“Oh, I know my myths. That of course is the Latin version. There’s a parallel in Greek. Minerva would be Athena. Of course, this is all coming from Ovid, so who the hell knows what the real myth was.”

“You don’t trust Ovid?”

“Do I trust any poet? Hell, they lie for a living, right? For all I know, he was working for an extermination company when he came up with the tale.”

Rubeo laughed, unexpectedly amused by the mercenary soldier. He finished his work, unhooked the laptop, and placed the small robot inside a delivery compartment at the base of Diomedes. Then he keyed his access code into the larger computer, waking it up.

“Follow me,” he told the machine.

It did so, moving out to the pickups. One of the Filipinos had set up a ramp; Rubeo directed the machine to drive up it, into the back. Once there, he deactivated it and covered it with a tarp. Lawson helped tie it down.

Jons was in a parking area about three hundred yards away, talking with their helicopter pilot. Rubeo called him, telling him they were ready to leave. They discussed whether to go right away or not. For Jons, it was a no-brainer — better to move out as quickly as possible.

Lawson gathered the Filipinos. Halit had been dismissed. Abas was to stay with Kimmy, the helicopter pilot, in case they needed backup.

Jons suggested they tell the alliance what they were up to. Rubeo rejected the idea out of hand.

“They’ll only tell us not to,” he said.

Rubeo went to the front seat of the truck, brooding. He was fairly sure now that the Sabres hadn’t been interfered with from the ground, so why even bother going back?

Was the risk worth it for fifteen percent of doubt?

If that wasn’t the cause, though, what was? The sabotage theory seemed even more improbable.

His sat phone rang. Rubeo looked at the number, and at first he didn’t recognize it. But then the last name came up.

It was Kharon.

“This is Rubeo.”

“Ray, hi, say, um, I kind of need a little help.”

“What is it, Neil? What can I do?”

“Well… I kind of flew in to Tripoli and I got into a little problem at the airport. I was wondering if you could call one of your connections and maybe talk to them to get me sprung.”

“You’re in Tripoli?”

“Actually, I’m at passport control in the airport. I should be able to just go — it’s an open city, right? But they’re questioning my stamp from Italy. I guess the guy who stamped it there didn’t stamp it right.”

“Where are you?” asked Rubeo, still not quite believing what he had heard.

“Passport control. In the terminal. Tripoli. Maybe if, like, you could get one of the officials or somebody you work with—”

“Wait there. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“You? Here?”

“Just sit tight.”

Kharon hung up the phone. It had been easier than he thought.

“He’s on his way,” he told the passport officer. “You know what to say?”

“Of course.”

Kharon held up the one hundred euro note. The man eyed it greedily.

“Soon,” promised Kharon. “When you release me, I slip you the passport to stamp. It’ll be between the back pages.”

The man nodded. Bribing your way through customs was a time-honored practice in Tripoli.

A few minutes later Kharon spotted a dark-haired American strutting through the hallway as if he owned the place. He stopped and asked someone near the lobby for directions. The man pointed toward the small desk where Kharon and the customs agent were standing.

He sent one of his people, rather than coming himself. I should have known that.

“You Neil?” asked the man, spotting him. His voice was very loud, as he was shouting across the hall.

“It’s me,” said Kharon.

The man walked over, grinning. “Name’s Lawson. What’s the trouble?”

“Passport, this not correct,” said the customs agent quickly. His English was actually quite good, as Kharon had learned earlier; he used fractured grammar for effect.

“Well we can fix that, can’t we?” asked Lawson. He winked at Kharon. He switched to Arabic. It was a little stiff, but grammatically correct. “I have heard that the paperwork can be corrected on the spot by the proper authority,” Lawson said. “Naturally, there are fees involved.”

“This is true,” said the passport officer softly.

“Perhaps we could do that in this situation.”

“Very well.”

“What is the fee?” asked Lawson.

“One hundred euro.”

Lawson didn’t bother trying to talk the man down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two fifties. The customs man’s face fell — he realized he could have gotten more.

The rest of the transaction was completed swiftly. Kharon handed over his passport, and got it back stamped — and a hundred euros lighter.

“Not that I think he’ll change his mind,” Lawson said, starting away. “But let’s not give him a chance.”

“Is Dr. Rubeo in Tripoli?”

“He’s waiting for us outside.”

Rubeo saw the young man trailing along after Lawson, looking a bit sheepish. He was smart, undoubtedly, but a bit naive. Surely a simple bribe would have gotten him out of trouble immediately.

But perhaps he didn’t have the money.

“Neil, I didn’t think you were coming to Africa,” said Rubeo, opening his window as he approached. “What brings you here?”

“I thought, since I was so close, I should see what was going on,” said Kharon. “You actually inspired me.”

“How is that?”

“I thought if a famous scientist like you was going to visit the country, then I should, too. An adventure.”

“This is hardly the place for an adventure. We’ll take you into town. Do you have a hotel?” Rubeo asked.

“The Majesty, in the old section.”

“I’m sure we can do a little better than that,” said Rubeo. He turned to Jons. “What about the Citadel?”

“Yeah, something along those lines.” The foreign hotels in the new sections had much better security.

“I, uh, really can’t afford that—”

“You’re my guest. Think of it as part of the interview travel. Unfortunately, I have to do some more traveling, but I’ll be back by tomorrow, and then we can talk. Some of my men will come with us and you can see the city, and have your little adventure.”

Kharon slid into the truck. A dark-skinned Filipino sat next to him. The man was silent, but had an AR–15 between his legs, pointed at the floor.

The closed space of the unfamiliar SUV began to bother him. He felt the first tingle of fear rising along the back of his neck. He turned toward the window.

“I need some fresh air,” he told the others, and opened the window.

They weren’t paying attention. In front of him, Rubeo adjusted his ear set and told the men in the second car that they would meet them on the highway south. The driver, Jons, was clearly unhappy.

“I’d rather they rode behind us.”

“I don’t want the bots exposed,” said Rubeo. “The less they’re seen, the better.”

“They’re tarped. It just looks like equipment in the back.”

“And that won’t raise questions?”

Jons didn’t argue. Rubeo was the boss.

They drove away from the terminal, heading toward the Al Amrus Highway.

“I don’t want the truck driving all through the city,” Rubeo told Jon as they reached the highway.

“I don’t like splitting up.”

“It’s only for a few minutes. The bots are safer at the airport.”

The traffic was light. The truck sped around the circle and onto the highway.

Kharon sat back, waiting.

Rubeo realized he was getting testy, and that was affecting his judgment. He ought to let Jons do his job.

“I’m sorry,” he told him. “Call them to catch up.”

“Good,” said the driver. He took his foot off the gas and reached for the mike button on his ear set.

A moment later there was a sharp pop at the front of the truck. Jons gripped the wheel tightly, holding the truck steady as it jerked to the right.

“Blowout,” muttered someone.

There was a flash. Rubeo felt himself lifted into the air, then spinning.

“Damn,” he said, cursing for one of the very few times in his life. Then everything went black.