Whiplash

35

Even the dirt in Africa was different than in America.

It had the texture of pulverized rocks, even in a light rain. It didn’t so much meld together in the rain as dissipate; the mud was more slimy than sticky. If you were crawling through it, as Danny Freah was, you noticed how it slipped into your clothes, and how it seemed to swim onto your face. You felt the rocks curl around you as you moved across the minefield, and the sting of blotches of mud as the drops splashed.

The ground had a specific smell to it, too, a scent unlike others you’d ever crawled through, either as a child or a soldier. Many times, dirt smelled like death, or the precursor to death, hot sulfur and electrified metal. Sometimes it smelled of chemicals, and other times of rot and refuse. This dirt smelled like impervious stone, absorbing nothing, and obscuring the senses, just as the rain made it difficult for the night glasses to work properly.

“Turn twenty degrees to the right and proceed forward ten yards,” said the Voice.

Danny altered his course. Flash, Hera, and McGowan were behind in the minefield, moving forward slowly, not so much because they were afraid of the mines — though a healthy fear was always in order — but because they didn’t want to do anything to attract the attention of the guards in the post about forty yards away. The guard was sitting in the machine-gun nest under a poncho, trying to keep dry, and not paying particular attention to the minefield alongside him. Still, the four Whiplashers were in an extremely vulnerable position, surrounded by mines on both sides, with their guns tucked up over their shoulders and secured by Velcro straps against their rucksacks. If for some reason the guard decided to get up from his post and take a walk around in the rain, he might easily see them.

The mines around the Sudanese army post where Tarid and the other prisoners were kept had been laid in a complicated pattern. They’d also been placed very close together. Most soldiers would have found it impenetrable; indeed, at least two would-be saboteurs and a smuggler had been blown up in the fields over the past twelve months.

But the Whiplash team had an advantage other infiltrators did not — the Voice had mapped the mines by looking at infrared satellite images from the past few nights. The mines were all slightly warmer than the surrounding ground when the sun went down, making them easy for the computer to spot. By watching Danny and the others move through the field with the help of an Owl, it gave him precise directions, warning him when he or one of his people was getting too close to a mine.

“Turn now,” said the Voice.

Danny dug his elbow into the dirt, marking the turn so it would be easy for Flash to find. As long as they all stayed in line, they’d be fine.

“We’re in position,” said Nuri over the radio circuit.

“Roger that. We’ve still got a ways to go.”

“The guard change is in ten minutes.”

“Roger. Ten minutes. We’ll be ready.”

Danny looked up. He was a good thirty yards from the perimeter fence, and they need to be inside it when Nuri began the “attack.” He started moving faster.

The prisoners were being kept in an open pen about thirty yards from the perimeter fence. Tarid was there. So was Tilia.

She’d been shot twice in the leg, but it wasn’t until she ran out of ammunition and passed out from the blood loss that the soldiers had captured her. They threw her in the back of a captured rebel pickup and drove her to the compound, unconscious; her leg was bound but otherwise left untreated. In a way, she was lucky — if she hadn’t been recognized as one of Uncle Dpap’s lieutenants, she would have been killed on the battlefield.

After being raped. So far, she had been spared that as well.

When Danny reached the fence, he pulled himself up into a crouch and looked back. To his horror, he saw that McGowan was off course by several feet.

“McGowan, stop,” he hissed. “Stop!”

Everyone stopped, not just McGowan.

“What’s wrong?”

“You went off course. Don’t move.”

Danny pulled out the control unit for the Voice and told the computer to plot the mines near McGowan.

“You went right between two mines,” he told him after studying the image. “You’re about six inches from the next mine. And there’s one right behind you.”

“You sure?”

“No asshole, he’s just trying to scare the crap out of you,” snapped Hera.

“All right. Let’s all relax. Flash, come on forward. Follow the lines I made.”

“It’s getting hard to see with the rain,” said Flash.

“Yeah, I know. Do it, though.”

Danny waited until Flash reached the fence before signaling Hera to continue. She crawled through the dirt and mud quickly, sliding her body through the markings he had left as if she were swimming an obstacle course.

“All right. You two get working on the fence,” Danny told them. “We’ll be right with you.”

He took off his rucksack, leaving it and his rifle on the ground near the edge of the minefield. Then he dropped to his hands and knees and started back for McGowan. The rain was becoming heavier, washing away the markings he and the others had left. The water also started to soak the field, making it more slippery. Even with the Voice to guide him, he had a difficult time staying on course.

“This isn’t good, huh?” asked McGowan when he finally got close.

“There’s a mine right here,” said Danny, pointing. “And one about six inches behind your right foot.”

“Can I go right?”

“No.” Danny pulled out the MY-PID head unit and stared at the screen. “Your best bet is to move to your left slightly.”

“How slightly?”

“Hold on.”

The cloud cover was making it harder and harder for the system to see McGowan from the Owl. Danny, on the other hand, was tracked by the satellites using his biomarker. He nudged right toward McGowan.

The Voice objected that he was going off the established trail.

“Affirmative,” he told it. “Guide me toward McGowan.”

“Subject cannot be definitively located.”

“He hasn’t moved.”

“Data insufficient to confirm.”

“Warn me if I’m too close to a mine,” Danny told it. He shifted right, crawled two feet to the right, then stopped at the Voice’s direction. He had to zig to the right then back before drawing parallel to his trooper.

“Get on my back,” Danny said.

“Huh?” said McGowan.

“The computer will tell me where to go. Rather than taking a risk and following me, I’ll just carry you out. It’ll be easier.”

“Hey, Colonel, I can do this.”

“Get on my back, soldier. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.”

While Danny was guiding his men through the minefield, Nuri and Boston were on the opposite side of the camp, preparing an assault. Or what would look like an assault to the men inside.

Nuri was on the north side of the road, Boston the south. They’d split the mercenaries between them. They didn’t have nearly enough men to take the camp, but they had more than enough to make it look as if they wanted to.

The rain continued to fall, blocking not only the Owl’s view, but making it hard to see with the night glasses as well. Nuri could barely tell where the machine-gun position was.

There were three minutes to go before the guards were due to change watch.

“Danny, you want us to delay the Catbirds?” Nuri asked. “You only have three minutes.”

“Stay on schedule. We want to hit while the guards are changing.”

“You sound like you’re straining.”

“I’ll explain later.”

Hera clipped through the last of the wire and pushed it back. Then she stepped through, holding it for Flash so he could get in.

“This way,” she said, pointing toward the prisoners’ pen.

Aside from some smaller lights on the buildings, the only illumination in the complex came from a pair of floodlights mounted on a telephone pole at almost the exact center of the camp. Their light formed an arc that took in about two-thirds of the prisoners’ area. The area between the two fences where Hera and Flash were was cast in a deep shadow.

Before the rain started, two guards had been watching the prisoners, walking back and forth in the area that was lit. The heavy rain had sent them into the trucks, though Hera and Flash couldn’t see them from where they were.

“What happened to the guards?” asked Flash.

“I’m looking,” said Hera.

“Maybe they’re up around on the other side.”

Hera saw the two trucks at the edge of the very small parade and assembly area off to her left.

“Maybe they’re in the trucks,” she suggested. “They can see the pen from there.”

“Could be.”

“You watch the truck,” she told Flash. “I’ll go cut the fence to the prisoners’ pen.”

“Go,” said Flash, trotting forward through the mud.

The rain kept coming harder. Flash felt it soaking into the pores of his skin, covering his whole body with a slimy film of water and sweat.

As annoying as it was, the rain was making their job considerably easier. Visibility was cut down for the defenders, and the foul weather lessened the chance of being spotted by a random patrol or a casual cigarette smoker.

Flash slipped a grenade round into his rifle’s attached launcher, ready to take out the truck quickly if necessary.

Danny had told him only to fire if the guards presented a clear danger — if they came to investigate or started shooting. This wasn’t only because he wanted to keep the casualties down. They were outnumbered, and the only way to even the odds was to use trickery. When Boston and Nuri attacked, so the plan went, the defenders’ attention would be drawn toward the front of the camp. Escaping out the back with the prisoners would be easy.

While Flash was watching the truck and the rest of the compound, Hera had slipped around the corner of the prisoners’ area. The rain had encouraged the prisoners to clump together at the southeast side of the pen, seeking shelter under a small tarp augmented by a collection of small blankets and other rags. They were all soaked, the water leaking in a constant drip on the prisoners below.

Hera began cutting the fence. She knew Farsi, but Danny thought it might make Tarid more suspicious and told her not to use it. He wanted to make it appear that they had come to free all of the prisoners. So she used Arabic after she got into the pen and started waking the prisoners.

“Time to go,” she said, first in a whisper, then more loudly. “Be quiet. The way is this way.”

The first man was so battered by his wounds that he simply stared at her. The one next to him was dead.

“Come on,” said Hera, shaking the third. She raised her voice. “Let’s go.”

The man turned his head toward her.

“What sort of devil are you?”

“Mr. Kirk sent us. Go through the fence. Stay low to the ground so they don’t see you. Go!”

The man raised his head, barely able to make her out even though it was raining. As Hera grabbed him to pull him upward, the ground heaved with an explosion, the night turning white. Two of the Catbirds had just struck the minefield in front of the machine-gun posts.

Danny and McGowan reached the safe area behind the minefield just as the Catbirds exploded.

“Take out the minefield,” Danny told McGowan, pushing him off his back. “I’ll hold the prisoners back.”

McGowan pulled off his rucksack and pulled out what looked like a misshapen football. He slid his thumb against a latch at the side, undoing the safety.

“Fire in the hole,” he yelled, rearing back and throwing the football toward the end of the minefield.

As it sailed through the air, the rear of the ball burst apart and a thin Teflon net expanded from the rear. The net was studded with microexplosives. These were more like powerful firecrackers than bombs, but had the same effect on the minefield, exploding in a coordinated pattern designed to create and accentuate a pulsing shock wave. The explosives set off six mines simultaneously, in turn igniting another two dozen nearby. Dirt, water, explosives, and metal roiled into the air. McGowan pushed his head down, protecting himself as the shrapnel settled.

An illumination flare shot up from the center of the compound. Its white phosphorus gave him a good view of the minefield. The explosion had cut only about a third of the way through. He took out a second football and tossed it closer. This time he was too close for comfort; pebbles pelted him as the mines finished exploding.

Inside the fence, Danny had grabbed the first escapee, corralling him while McGowan worked on the mines. He repeated the words for “stop” and “mines” in Arabic, but the man seemed simply bewildered, still half asleep and confused by the explosions. Danny pushed him down to the ground, then signaled to the man running behind him that he should hit the deck as well.

McGowan had one more football, and roughly half of the minefield to take out. The shower from the last blast convinced him that he had to throw it from shelter, so he ducked into the trench leading to the machine-gun post. This time more than a dozen mines ignited immediately, starting a chain reaction that zigged out through the rest of the remaining field.

He started to get up out of the trench to make sure the path was clear, and to mark it for the prisoners. But as McGowan started to his feet, he heard a shout and turned to see a Sudanese soldier pointing his rifle at him.

McGowan raised his hands in surrender.

As soon as the catbirds exploded, Nuri and Boston’s teams began firing at the machine-gun posts in front of them. The guards were taken completely by surprise. The man at the northeast post, in front of Nuri, began firing wildly into the minefield, his bullets setting off several mines. The other man fired a single burst before his gun jammed. Too shaken to clear it, he hunkered down behind the sandbags and waited for the gunfire to stop.

Behind them, troops poured from the barracks. Most ran toward the front of the camp where the battle was raging, either jumping behind sandbags or into the zigging defense trench just outside the perimeter. A good dozen, however, ran to the south side of the camp where the gunfire was less intense, either unable to sort out what was going on or simply out of fear. Their retreat took them to within ten yards of the prisoner pen.

They huddled there for several minutes, unsure what to do. Then an illumination flare ignited overhead, close enough to cast shadows from the moving prisoners. It looked to the soldiers that a fresh attack was coming from that direction, and two of them began firing.

Hera had just found Tarid inside the pen when the gunfire began. She cursed — in English — pushed him to the ground, and began returning fire.

“Go!” she shouted. “Crawl out of here. Get away.”

Tarid twisted back on the ground. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m with Kirk. Go! Get out!”

The gunfire intensified. Tarid began crawling toward the back of the compound. Others were gathered there, crouched down. One fell, then another. Suddenly, the rest of the crowd rose en masse and ran toward the hole at the back of the fence.

Danny grabbed one, trying to stop him, but the others bolted past, running toward the minefield with its cleared but unmarked path.

In the trench, McGowan tried to think of some way to escape. His rifle was at his feet, but he’d be dead by the time he got it in his hands.

“Now listen, you don’t want to shoot me,” he told the soldier.

The soldier heard the shriek of the men escaping and pulled the trigger. His first bullet struck McGowan at the very top of his armored vest, pushing him back.

The next bullets struck his forehead, killing him instantly.

There were too many prisoners for Danny to stop, and finally he just moved aside.

“McGowan, there’s a whole bunch of them coming out,” he said over the radio. “Is it clear? Mac?”

Unaware that McGowan was already dead, Danny crouched down, waiting for Hera and Tarid, and yelling at the prisoners to stop when they ran by.

The first sign that something had gone wrong came a few minutes later, when one of the escaping prisoners strayed out of the path the bombs had created and stepped on a mine. Danny saw the flash — red rather than white, a blossom of color and death.

He got up and went to find out what was going on.

The man who had killed McGowan was the machine-gunner posted to the southwest pillbox. He had abandoned his post in a panic. But his confrontation with McGowan had steeled him, and now the coward was a warrior, a bold lion who threw himself against the side of the trench and began shooting at his enemies.

He killed two before he had to stop and reload. Danny, crouching by the fence line, saw the muzzle flashes and guessed what was happening.

As soon as the gun stopped flashing, he rose and ran to the trench, jumping down and racing forward.

His lungs pressed against his chest. But unlike yesterday, there was no doubt in his mind, no second-guessing. A single thought filled his mind: He had to take out the person shooting, or most of the prisoners would die.

The Sudanese soldier, meanwhile, had slapped a fresh magazine into his gun and rose to fire again. He was so intent on the shadows in the minefield that he never saw Danny coming around the tight corner a few yards away.

Danny fired a single burst from his SCAR. The bullets sliced through the soldier’s neck, making neat holes on the way in and craters on the way out. The soldier died without knowing what hit him.

Worried there might be someone in the pillbox, Danny continued along the trench. He nearly tripped over McGowan’s body. He sidestepped him, kept going.

When he reached the machine-gun post, he pumped a grenade through the opening and ducked.

The explosion sounded like a can of beans popping in a fire.

There was no one in the pillbox. He pulled the bullets from the gun, threw it over on its mount, and began running back.

It was only then that the fear he’d felt the night before returned. This time the emotion focused on McGowan — it was a fear, a knowledge really, that his man was dead.

Danny had lost men in combat before. Not many, but enough to know that it was both necessary and inevitably sorrowful. He dropped down near the young man, still hoping that he had survived. But the wounds were obvious, and even the downpour couldn’t wash away all the blood that had spurted from the dead man’s skull.

Danny felt sick to his stomach. He held his breath a moment, then stooped down and pulled McGowan up onto his back.

He seemed much lighter than he had just a few minutes earlier, when Danny had carried him through the minefield.

Flash blew up the truck as soon as the passenger started to get out with his gun. Then he shot out the floodlights on the post above the compound and ran up along the fence to the prisoner pen, aiming to get an angle on the barracks door. By the time he reached it, however, the barracks were empty. All the soldiers had gone to the east side of the camp, where the battle seemed to be concentrated.

He crouched on one knee, hoping they wouldn’t come back, ready if they did.

Flash had been in several firefights, first in Iraq, then in Afghanistan. As different as they all were, as different as each one was from this, one thing tied them all together — the sharp pain at the top of his skull, right behind his left eye. A doctor — not in the Army, he worried about being kicked out if he mentioned it — had told him that the pains were related to stress, and either to quit what he was doing or not worry about them. Flash opted for the latter.

“Whiplash team, check in,” said Danny. “Boston?”

“We can keep this up all day.”

“Nuri?”

“Ditto.”

“Flash?”

“I blew the truck. I have the barracks covered. May be empty.”

“Hera?”

“I’m taking heavy fire.”

“Did Tarid get out?”

“He’s a few feet away. We won’t make it out unless you get this gun off of us.”

“Flash, can you help her?” asked Danny.

“On my way.”

“Hera, as soon as you can, get out of there.”

“No kidding.”

Starting along the fence, Flash realized that Danny hadn’t checked in with McGowan. Not a good sign, he thought.

The last flare burned out, leaving the camp bathed in the dull red shadow of a burning fire in the administration building.

Hera looked east, toward the gas tanks. The soldiers pinning them down were near the tanks, scattered behind the cement mounts for cover. A few fired indiscriminately, but the others were more disciplined, firing only when they had a target. The combination made it impossible to move without being shot.

Some of the prisoners were crawling slowly toward the rear of the pen, hoping to escape, but most of them were lying nearby, wounded or too paralyzed with fear to move.

The fiercest gunfire was coming from her right. A pair of soldiers were huddled below one of the gas tanks, taking turns firing into the pen. At first they’d had plenty of targets exposed and framed by the light. As the flare died, however, it became more difficult to aim. Afraid of return fire and confused by the steady rain, they resorted to holding their guns over their heads and firing short bursts, unaimed.

Hera nudged her way around two prone bodies to the corner of the pen, trying to get an angle on the men. She saw one rise at the edge of the cement pier that held the gas tank. She waited for him to straighten, then fired a single shot, hitting him in the temple.

The soldier spiraled back against his companion. Hera waited for the other man to turn and fire back, giving her a target. But his friend’s death had paralyzed him, and he stayed low, out of sight.

Hera grew tired of waiting. She started for the fence, planning to cut through and then flank the whole line of them behind the piers. But before she got very far, someone began firing in her direction. She froze as bullets cascaded overhead.

The slugs chewed everything up in front of her, including the body of one of the prisoners. She started backing away. Then a tremendous explosion scooped her up and tossed her toward the rear of the pen.

Flash had blown up one of the gas tanks.

Danny carried McGowan’s limp body to the ramp at the end of the trench. He put him down as gently as he could, tipping his shoulder forward and going to a knee to keep the dead man from flopping down. He winced as McGowan’s head thumped against the dirt.

“I’ll be back. I promise,” Danny told him.

He turned and ran to the perimeter fence, not even ducking, though bullets were flying everywhere. Another emotion had overcome fear, or suppressed it: recklessness.

It was a strange combination, to be scared of dying yet not caring at the same time.

Danny felt the force of the exploding gas tank even from where he stood. He dropped down to his knees.

“Hera, where are we?” he barked over the radio.

There was no answer. Danny ran toward the pen. God, I’ve lost another, he thought.

“Hera?” he repeated. “Hera.”

“I’m still in the pen. Still pinned down. One of the gas tanks just blew, but they turned the machine gun around on the southeast corner.”

Danny was at the fence of the prisoner area. The machine gun was at the corner of the perimeter, ahead to his right. He’d be under direct fire if he approached.

“Boston, where are you?” he said.

“Same old, same old,” said Boston. “South of the road.”

“That machine gun on the southern end in front of you — can you get some grenades in it?”

“Already trying, boss.”

“All right. Get their attention. I’ll get them from back here.”

“Working on it.”

The roof of the post was thick and sharply angled, designed to deflect grenades and absorb what didn’t bounce off. But its defenses were oriented outward, and Danny reasoned if he could get close enough, he could get his own grenade into it.

The problem was getting close enough to get a shot without getting killed. Having gone to the trouble of reorienting his machine gun so he could fire into the compound, the gunner wasn’t skimping on bullets.

Danny pushed his shoulder against the perimeter fence as he ran forward, staying on his feet until he saw the flickering yellow of the machine-gun muzzle as it fired. He put a grenade into the launcher and crawled forward to get a better angle, almost swimming in the mud.

How long had it been since he’d done something like this? He couldn’t even remember doing it in Dreamland.

After ten yards he still didn’t have much of a shot. The perimeter fence was in the way — he worried that if the grenade struck it, the shell might bounce back at him.

His best alternative was to shoot through the fence. The machine gun continued to fire, blasting away at the pen. Danny raised his right knee under his chest, then levered himself into flight. The world blurred into a black swirl as he ran, flames circling in the distance.

He was almost to the fence when he saw someone on his left.

One of the Sudanese soldiers crouched on the ground, staring at him with wide eyes, the outline of his body black against the background of the flames of the gas tank near the entrance to the camp.

The eyes showed surprise, and a question: Are you going to kill me?

Danny had no choice. The barrel of the man’s gun was already swiveling toward his chest.

Danny reached for his gun’s trigger, pulling twice. Six bullets flew into the space between the man’s eyes, permanently shutting them.

The machine gun stuttered on, the gunner oblivious to everything but the dancing shadows in the prisoner pen. From his perspective, that was where all the trouble was; he would kill them all.

The fence gave way as Danny hit it. He sprawled forward against the chain links, abruptly stopping at a forty-degree angle. He pushed up, toes digging into the spaces in the fence. He surged forward, despite his fear. The links scraped against his knees.

His recklessness fled. But he was trapped now, unable to do anything but continue his attack.

The fence tottered forward but didn’t fall. Danny reached the top and stuck his rifle through the gap under the razor wire.

He could see the machine-gunner’s face, lit by the reflection of the nearby tank fire.

Not only was the launcher’s trigger heavy, but the rain and exertion had stiffened Danny’s muscles and dulled his sense of touch. The grenade leapt from the gun. The gunner started to duck, but it was far too late; the grenade hit the wall behind him and exploded.

“Hera! Go!” yelled Danny, pushing to slide back down the fence. “Go! Go! Go!”

Hera poked Tarid to make sure he was still alive. He groaned.

“Come on,” she said in Arabic. She pushed herself under him, then levered him upward, half dragging and half running toward the back of the pen. The machine gun had stopped, but there was still sporadic gunfire around the compound.

“Who are you?” muttered Tarid in Farsi as they reached the fence.

Hera told him in Arabic that she was there to rescue him.

“Why?” he asked, this time in Arabic.

“I’m with Kirk.”

“And who’s he?”

“A bigger fool than you are,” she said. “He thinks he can make money off of this.”

She’d practiced the answer; they wanted Tarid to think it was being done for money, the only motive an arms dealer would embrace.

Hera pulled him from the pen, rushing toward the hole in the perimeter fence. She saw a body at the foot of the trench as she neared the minefield, but didn’t realize it was McGowan.

There was nothing she could have done if she had.

Tarid felt his strength and senses returning as they started through the minefield. Adrenaline started pumping again. A bullet had slapped against the fleshy part of his right thigh, burning and causing a great deal of pain but, as bullet wounds went, very little damage.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked Hera.

“Outta of this crap,” she said.

“You’re with the American CIA?”

“There’s a laugh,” she said. She switched to Greek, telling him he was an ignorant jerk. Then she switched over to English.

“Are you CIA?” she asked. “Is that why Kirk rescues you?”

“Me?”

“You are pretending to be Iranian. That’s not true, is it?”

“I am Colonel Zsar’s lieutenant,” Tarid insisted, going back to Arabic.

They reached the end of the minefield. Two other prisoners were sitting nearby. Hera let Tarid slip to the ground. The field was littered with prisoners, some wounded, others too scared to move or unsure where to go.

McGowan was supposed to be out with the prisoners, directing them to run south while waiting for Tarid. They were going to help him get farther away, then play it by ear.

She couldn’t see the other trooper. She’d been assigned to hold by the perimeter fence in case there was a counterattack. If she wasn’t there, the others would be trapped inside.

“Mac?” she yelled, turning around. There was no answer. She yelled again and called for him in Greek.

Tarid collapsed to the ground. With his wounded leg, he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Wait here, you,” Hera told him in English. “I return soon.”

Danny made his way back along the perimeter fence.

“Where’s Tarid?” he asked the Voice.

“Beyond the minefield.” The computer gave him the GPS coordinates.

“Flash, Hera, we’re out of here.”

“I’m coming out,” said Flash.

“Hera?”

“I’m at the perimeter fence. I’m holding.”

“Good. Copy. Boston, get to the rendezvous point.”

“On it, Chief.”

“Nuri?”

“We’ll keep them occupied,” said Nuri. “See you soon.”

“Copy that,” said Danny.

Their mission was accomplished, but Danny had one more thing to do. He asked the computer to locate Tilia.

She was still inside.

“Is she alive?” he asked the computer.

“Unknown,” said the Voice.

The computer could locate people, and make judgments based on their movements, but it didn’t have the power to diagnose life or death. She hadn’t moved in several minutes, adding to its uncertainty.

“Lead me to her,” Danny told it.

Boston led his three mercenaries back from the rocks and trees where they’d taken shelter. Though the brush had been torn to pulp, no one was hurt. They jogged back to the truck, got in, and drove south and then back west, circling around the camp across the fallow fields before meeting Flash at the rendezvous point on the road west of the camp.

“Where’s McGowan?” asked Boston. He was supposed to be there, too.

Flash shrugged. “I don’t know. He should’ve been at the fence when we came out. I got out late and thought I’d find him back here, but I don’t see him. I haven’t heard him on the radio the entire operation.”

Neither had Boston.

“Hey, Colonel, you know where McGowan is?” he asked over the radio.

“He’s with me,” said Danny.

Tarid lay on the ground, trying to will away the pain of the bullet crease on his leg. He saw the vehicle down by the road, perhaps twenty yards away, and knew it must be Kirk’s.

So Kirk expected to be paid for helping him escape? Was it a reward or a ransom?

Whatever it was, he wasn’t getting it.

Tarid turned to the two men sitting nearby. They were staring into the distance, shell-shocked but unhurt.

“You two — come with me,” he said as he struggled to his feet.

Neither man moved.

“There’s a village north of here. Two kilometers,” said Tarid. “Saad Reth. I have a friend there who can help us. Come with me.”

One of the men blinked. That was the only acknowledgment that they had heard him.

“If you help me get to Saad Reth,” said Tarid slowly, pacing his Arabic, “I will make sure you are rewarded. One hundred euros apiece.”

The offer of more money than either man had handled in a lifetime stirred them to action. The man who had blinked was the first to rise. He helped his companion up, and together they started following Tarid, who was limping but moving along quickly.

“We have to stay away from the people who blew up the camp,” he told them. “Go, before they pay attention to us.”

“Saad Reth is a long walk from here,” said one of the men, noticing his limp.

“The distance doesn’t matter.” Tarid pushed himself forward. “The army will be after Kirk, and we’ll be long gone. Come. As fast as you can.”

Danny found Tilia hunched against the fence. Her fists were clenched and propped against the side of her head, arms crossed at the wrists. He knelt down and touched her shoulder.

“Tilia?”

Her body heaved but she didn’t raise her head or talk.

“Come on then,” said Danny. He scooped her up. She was light, incredibly light.

Nuri was still firing at the machine-gun posts on the north side of the camp, but there was only sporadic return fire. The Sudanese army officers were regrouping their men, mustering for a counterattack. The battle had seemed to last for an eternity, but barely ten minutes had passed since the Catbirds initiated the onslaught.

Hera was waiting at the fence when Danny arrived.

“Did you send Tarid through?” Danny asked.

“Yes. Where’s McGowan?”

“I know where he is. You think you can carry her?”

“Is she coming with us?”

“Yeah. We’ll drop her off along the way.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I don’t care what you think. Take her.”

Danny deposited Tilia on Hera’s shoulder. Hera didn’t say anything, turning and carrying her from the compound.

Danny went to the trench. He didn’t see McGowan. His heart leapt: He thought he’d been wrong about him being killed.

But the only mistake was where he had left him. A moment later Danny spotted him a little farther on in the trench.

As gently as he could, he picked up the battered body and double-timed it through the disabled portion of the minefield.

“Skipper, we got problems here,” said Boston over the radio. “Every one of these bastards wants to come with us. And I can’t find Tarid.”

Danny asked the Voice where Tarid was. It found him moving a quarter mile away, on the road west.

“It’s OK,” said Danny. “He’s escaping. Better that he gets away on his own.” Much better, he thought. “Hera’s bringing Tilia, Uncle Dpap’s translator.”

“Yeah, here she comes now.”

“I’m sixty seconds away.”

“What do I do with these people?”

“Tell them to run.”

Danny saw the small crowd ahead of him. Boston fired another burst, then pushed the prisoners away. They were angry and scared, but they were also depleted from the day spent without food. They began walking away from the camp, some north, some west.

“Jesus, is that McGowan?” said Boston as Danny put him in the SUV.

“Let’s go, Boston.”

“Shit.”

“I said, go.”

“Yeah, all right, Cap. I’m sorry.”

Boston climbed in. The mercenaries squeezed into the back.

“Go south two miles and stop,” Danny said. “I want to make sure Tarid’s OK.”

The truck’s rattle settled after a minute, and they rode in relative silence across the empty land. The rain had started to let up.

“Everybody out,” said Danny when they stopped. He was being crushed by two of the mercenaries, who’d crowded next to him.

He went around to the back and got a blanket from the wheel well. He wrapped McGowan’s body in it and set him down in the back.

Tarid, meanwhile, had continued to the northwest. The Voice located him near a village named Saad Reth.

“Nuri, what’s in Saad Reth?” Danny asked.

“Not much. Little village.”

“You think Tarid can find transportation there?”

“Maybe. If he has friends there. Hard to say.”

“Colonel, your lady friend wants to talk to you,” said Hera.

“She’s not my lady friend,” said Danny, annoyed.

“Whatever. She wants to talk to you.”

Hera needed a serious attitude adjustment, but now wasn’t the time. Danny walked over to Tilia, who sat cross-legged on the ground.

“Am I your prisoner now?” she asked.

“You’re not our prisoner. We just rescued you.”

“Who are you?”

“Kirk.”

“They were calling you colonel.”

“I was once. I was a lot of things.”

Tilia stared at him. She wanted desperately to believe in something — she wanted to believe in him. But whatever world he belonged to, it was too far removed from hers. And hers had just imploded.

“We’ll get you back to your village,” said Danny.

“No.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“I can’t just leave you here. Come on. You can come with me.”

Tilia straightened. One of the Sudanese medics had bandaged the bullet wounds in her shoulder. Her pelvis and abdomen were on fire, but the pain did not prevent her from walking.

“I have to pee,” she told him defiantly.

“All right.” Danny put his hand out to help her up.

“I want some privacy,” she said.

“Sure.”

He went back to the truck. Tilia began walking toward one of the mercenaries, who smiled when he saw her coming. Even with her wounds, even in the dark and the rain, she was a beauty.

The look in his eyes revolted her, but she continued toward him. The young man smiled nervously, unsure what she was doing. She put her hand gently on his arm, then leaned up, lips pursed as if to kiss him.

He couldn’t believe his luck — he bent forward to return the kiss.

As he did, Tilia grabbed the rifle from his hand. She spun it around, put her thumb on the trigger, and blew a hole through her head.