TWENTY SEVEN.

Coleman reached the summit of the small mountain huffing and puffing from the breakneck pace he'd kept for nearly twenty minutes. With sweat covering every inch of his body he took a knee and did a quick one-eighty of the relatively minute area before him. The summit was not big. A large, dark gray, almost black, rock occupied almost one entire side of the crest. It was covered with a few stubborn trees and bushes, their roots running down into the rock's deep fissures. Directly in front of Coleman lay a gently sloping shelf covered in grass and shielded from the sun by several twisted trees.

On first glance he missed Wicker.

Positioned between the base of a tree and a clump of bushes, the soles of Wicker's jungle boots were all that was visible. Coleman dropped to his belly and crawled through the knee-high grass.

When he reached Wicker he noticed that the more agile man had already unpacked and assembled his. 50-caliber Barrett M82A1 rifle and was surveying the lay of the land through a pair of M19/22 binoculars.

Out of breath but not the least bit embarrassed by it, Coleman asked, "What's the sit rep?"

Wicker remained motionless as he peered through the powerful binoculars.

"I did a quick check of the perimeter, and it looks like we're alone."

"Any sign of Mitch?"

"No, but we've got a Huey down there with a pair of hot engines, and a very nervous colonel standing outside of General Moro's tent."

Coleman frowned.

"How in the hell do you know it's Moro's tent?"

"Because someone was dumb enough to hang a sign with his name and rank on it."

"You're shittin' me."

"Nope. Have a look for yourself." Wicker handed Coleman the binoculars and nestled in behind his high-powered rifle scope.

The former SEAL commander did a quick check of the camp and announced, "Well, if that isn't one of the stupidest things I've ever seen."

Wicker silently concurred while he used his scope to check out several likely spots where an enemy sniper might be lying in wait. He was a cautious man by nature, but he was also extremely confident in his skills.

This Philippine Special Forces group didn't appear to be a crack outfit. From the sign hanging on the general's tent, to the lack of perimeter security, it looked like a truly sloppy operation. The odds that they'd deployed a counter-sniper team seemed unlikely. Even more in his favor, though, was the distance of the shot that he was to take. There were only a handful of men in the world who could execute a head shot at this distance. If there was a counter-sniper team about they would be focusing on a perimeter of 500 meters, give or take 100 meters. Wicker was well outside that range. Even so, he was breaking many of his own rules.

They'd arrived while the sun was up, and he'd slithered into position without donning his ghillie sniper suit. Covered with netting and burlap strips in various shades of green the sniper suit allowed him to disappear into the terrain. If given proper time, he would have added the natural vegetation of his surroundings to the suit, ultimately making him invisible to even the most well-trained pair of eyes.

"What do you think?" asked Coleman.

"I think these guys aren't real worried about being attacked."

Next came the important question.

"Can you make the shot?"

Wicker brought the crosshairs of his scope back to the general's tent and centered them on the colonel's head. Moving his eye away from the glass aperture, he looked to the east at the rising sun. The horizon was ablaze with a brilliant bank of storm clouds. For now the weather was acceptable. There was no wind yet, but that would undoubtedly change as the front approached.

Wicker eased his left eye back behind the scope and said, "Tell him I can handle it."

Coleman, who was still breathing heavily, marveled at the sniper's calm demeanor. After retrieving the satellite phone from one of his thigh pockets, he punched in a number and waited.

TWENTY EIGHT.

The director general of Mossad leaned forward and stared intently at one of the large screens. It showed a section of one of the nastiest neighborhoods in all of Israel. The analyst to Freidman's right spoke in hushed tones.

"Look at the roadblocks. "With a laser pointer, the man marked the three avenues of access to the hillside neighborhood.

"And look at the four men on this rooftop right here." He circled the roof of the building in red light.

"Lookouts?" questioned Freidman.

"That and probably more." The man said something into his headset and the rooftop was magnified.

"I'm ninety percent sure two of those men are carrying RPGs."

Freidman looked at the grainy black, green and white image. It was being shot from the underbelly of a customized DHC-7 four-engine turboprop. Part of an aid package from the United States, the plane was outfitted with the Highly Integrated Surveillance and Reconnaissance System, or HI SAR The plane was designed to provide both image and signal intelligence in real time.

The men on the rooftop with rocket-propelled grenades were not unexpected. Since the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia back in 1993 every terrorist in the Middle East had realized how easy it was to shoot down a hovering helicopter. For this, and several other reasons, Freidman had ruled out sending in a team of commandos. There were other, less risky ways to handle the job.

Freidman shifted his glance to one of the other large screens. It gave a broader picture of Hebron. In the center of it a laser dot marked the roof of a sedan that was speeding through the streets. With each passing moment the tiny car worked its way closer to the hillside neighborhood that they'd already identified. It looked like things were going to work.

Suddenly, the sedan stopped at a roadblock that had gone unnoticed.

The man on Freidman's right spoke into his headset and almost immediately the airborne low-light camera zoomed in on the roadblock.

The room watched tensely as several people got out of the car.

One of them walked to the rear of the sedan and placed two objects on the trunk. Others gathered around.

"Give me full magnification on the trunk of that car," barked Freidman.

Several tense seconds passed and then they were treated to a welcome sight. It looked like the two attachИ cases were still in play.

Freidman watched as they were closed. He muttered something unintelligible to himself and blinked several times.

The entire room watched in silence as the man with the cases was led through the roadblock and into a waiting van. The camera zoomed out, following the van as it wound its way up the narrow streets. A digital clock on the wall above the TVs crept downward from five minutes.

In two minutes and twenty-eight seconds the burst transmitter would send confirmation of the location of the attachИ cases and then the waiting would be over.

All at once the four large screens fell into sync, and at the center of each was the house they had expected to see. Freidman watched as the van carrying his instrument of retribution stopped directly in front of the target. Needing no further confirmation, he turned to the general on his left and nodded.

hovering AT 500 feet, on the outskirts of Hebron, lurked two of the most efficient killing machines ever built by man, or more precisely, the Boeing Corporation of America. The AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter was an unrivaled lethal machine. Its fire control radar target acquisition system allowed it to classify and prioritize up to 125 targets in just seconds. Even more impressive was the system's ability to designate the sixteen most dangerous targets and engage them with the Longbow's fire-and-forget Hellfire laser-guided missiles or AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. The Apache Longbow is the most advanced attack helicopter in the world, and in some people's minds the most advanced flying machine in the world.