He might have been with Karen, but he hadn't been rehearsing, she thought. That was why Stephanie was looking like murder. Lucy looked past him to Wilder, the antithesis of him in every way. "I don't want to know that much about you," she said and walked over to the monitors, leaving him stunned behind her.

Wilder had been having a trying afternoon. First there was Bryce's gun: It was a stunt gun, but Bryce held it in a way that made Wilder nervous. Then there was Wilder's outfit: He was dressed identically to Bryce in the stupid tiger-stripe fatigues and web gear with his copy of that damn knife strapped across his chest, looking like an idiot. And finally there was Armstrong across the road, distracting him, talking to Daisy, looking a lot like Wonder Woman except for that long dark braid down her back. II he ever got close enough, he was taking that braid down-"

"How do I hold this thing?" Bryce said, frowning at the gun.

Wilder sighed. "Here." He held out a hand for the submachine gun.

Bryce reluctantly parted with it, and Wilder took the MP-5 in his hands. It was a German-made gun, the weapon of choice among counterterrorist units around the world, the same as the one Wilder had cached close by, except that his would work for real. Out of the corner of his eye, Wilder could see Nash watching them.

He removed the magazine and then checked the chamber. The rounds were blanks and there was a blank adapter plugged into the barrel. He checked to see that the adapter was secure, since it could be lethal if it became a projectile fired by the blast from the blanks. Just to be safe, Wilder knelt down and quickly thumbed out the thirty rounds from the magazine onto a box, making sure every single one was a blank. Then he began reloading.

"What are you doing?" Bryce asked.

"Making sure no one gets hurt, particularly you."

Bryce nodded. "That's good. I remember that guy died making that movie. You know, Bruce Lee's kid."

Wilder remembered reading about that. The stunt gun had malfunctioned. "That won't happen here. Nash did a good job."

"Thanks a fucking lot, mate," Nash said from behind them. He looked at the gun in Wilder's hand. "Satisfied?"

"Just doing my job."

"So am I. And I've been doing it a hell of lot longer than you have. Don't mess with my gear after I've prepped it."

Wilder nodded and glanced over at Armstrong and caught her watching them. She turned her head, and he thought, Go away, Nash. Far away. Iraq would be good. Afghanistan. Pluto.

Nash looked pointedly at his watch. "You guys good to go? Or you got a bar fight you got to get to?"

"I want to be in the chopper," Bryce said, lifting his chin, and Wilder forgot Armstrong to focus on this next disaster.

"You will be in the chopper," Nash said. "For the ground shot once we land the bird after the air shots. It will look like you're in the air, so don't worry."

"No," Bryce said. "I want to be in it for the first part. Where it catches up to the car. The skid sequence before the jump."

Wilder thought, Oh, fuck.

"No." Nash said it as an order.

That's telling him, Wilder thought. Not that it's going to work. Bryce had that mule look on his face again.

Bryce drew himself up, his face blotchy with stress. "It's a daylight shot, so I should do it. People have to see me in action scenes to think I'm an action hero. I can do it. I held my own in the bar fight. Just ask J.T."

Nash looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Bryce didn't hesitate," Wilder said, truthfully. He got in the way, but he didn't hesitate.

"Lucy isn't going to-" Nash began, but Bryce cut him off.

"So don't tell her until it's over. I'm the star here."

Nash looked at Wilder, mad as hell but fighting to keep a lid on it. "Are you saying he can do this? That you will guarantee he won't get hurt?"

"Nope," Wilder said.

"I'm getting in that copter," Bryce said, "and I'm going to stand on that skid, just like a real action hero." He caught himself. "I am a real action hero."

"Uh, Bryce," Wilder said.

"And if I don't get to do the stunt"-Bryce drew himself up-"I might get so upset that I couldn't shoot for a while. I ill maybe next week. That would cost you more than the insurance."

"Fuck," Nash said, his voice savage now.

"It will save you time with the helicopter," Bryce said. "You won't have to keep it here to do my shots on the ground because they'll already be done."

"Listen, Bryce," Nash began in a totally new voice, almost begging. "We've storyboarded this and-"

"I'm in the helicopter on the skid or there's no more shooting this week."

"Lucy will go crazy," Nash said.

"I'm the star."

Wilder sighed. He'd seen behavior like this before. A three-star general had come to Afghanistan and demanded stupid things in exactly the same manner. Wilder had been tempted to toss a grenade his way.

Nash glared, looking like he wanted to chuck a grenade or two himself. "Fuck it. It's your ass." He stalked off, pulling his cell phone out.

"Let's get this done," Bryce said, his voice deeper now that he was feeling macho.

Wilder ignored him and cocked his head as a familiar sound reached his ears, sending a surge of adrenaline through his body. Inbound helicopter. It's just a movie, Wilder reminded himself, but it didn't matter. Going in on a mission or getting pulled out, that's what the sound of a helicopter meant to him.

''Let's go," Bryce said, channeling G.I. Joe, as a four-seater Bell Jet Ranger with the doors off touched down.

Wilder followed him to the helicopter. Once inside, he leaned forward to get the pilot's attention, easier to do because the doors were off. Her name was Karen Roeburn, Bryce had said when he'd pointed her out, the same tough-looking brunette in an Army flight suit that Armstrong had pointed out the day before. His second ex-wife used to come home dressed like that, smelling of jet fuel.

Wilder tapped the pilot on the shoulder, and she turned and lifted her visor.

"I'm Wilder," he yelled over the sound of the rotors.

"I know," she yelled back. "Captain. J.T. One each. Government issue."

"Bryce is going to be on the skid today in the air, so keep it low and give him a smooth ride."

The look on her face told him what she thought about that. "I take orders from Nash, not from you."

"Right." He sat back, noting that she was programming a handheld GPS, a global positioning system that she had attached to her knee-board. He found that odd; it wasn't like it was hard to find this place in the daylight.

"What are you doing?" Wilder shouted to be heard above the chopper noise.

She looked startled for a second. "Fixing waypoints."

"Why?"

She stared at him. "You a pilot?"

"No, but-"

"Let me do my job."

Boy, everyone was getting real touchy, Wilder thought. It wasn't like they were going into a hot LZ.

Bryce settled into the front right seat, trying to be nonchalant but looking pale, and Nash finally arrived and sat down in the back beside Wilder, his equipment bag at his feet. "Let's go, Karen," he said, patting her on the shoulder, and with a slight shudder the chopper lifted.

Bryce got paler as the ground receded beneath them.

Wilder leaned across and tapped him on the shoulder. "Buckle up."

The actor jerked at the tap and then nodded. He fumbled with the shoulder straps, his hands shaking, and finally managed to get the male end into the female end. Wilder hoped he was better with women than with seat belts.

"We're airborne," Nash announced into his headset, which Wilder had to assume was part of his standing operating procedure since any fool within miles would be able to see that.

He watched Nash get the gear ready for Bryce's big scene. He hoped there was a barf bag in it. Bryce looked like he was going to be needing one.