On the other hand, a high-altitude low open jump means that the bad guys usually don’t know you’re coming, so there are fewer bullets to try and dodge while you’re in the air. Kind of a silver lining.

We saw the landing point we’d chosen from the satellite photos and I tilted my chute forward to spill air out of the back and drop down, but suddenly I saw a ripple of bright flashes and heard the hollow pok-pok-pok of automatic gunfire. In the same moment I heard Church’s voice in my ear:

“Deacon to Cowboy, Deacon to Cowboy, be advised, the island is under attack. Identity and number of hostiles unknown. Estimate one hundred plus hostiles. Confirm; confirm.”

“Confirmed, dammit.” I tapped my earbud and identified myself. “Alpha Team, report location.”

“Alpha Team is inside the complex and taking fire,” Redman said.

“Hold tight,” I said. Back on the command channel I yelled, “Deacon, are any friendlies on the grounds?”

“Negative. Alpha Team is inside, other assets inbound. No friendlies on the ground.”

“Roger that.” I tapped the earbud once more as we circled around the line of trees and headed back to our drop site. “Echo Team, zero friendlies on the ground. Let’s rock and roll.”

While I was thirty feet above the dark lawn I saw four men in the same nondescript BDUs we’d seen on the Russians in Deep Iron. They didn’t see me. Sucked to be them.

I cut them down.

Gunfire flashed from our right, but I was below the tree line now. I stalled my speed and dropped to a fast walk, hit the release, and ran from my chute. There was no time to be neat and tidy. I headed straight for the cover of a close stand of palms, and I could hear rounds burning the air around me.

Bunny yelled, “Frag out!” and threw a grenade toward the muzzle flashes. I don’t know if he got any of them with the burst, but it gave him and Top a clear moment to land. They split up and went into the trees on either side of me.

The main building was on our left, the lawn and another row of trees to our right. There was a stone path lined with torches nearby, but half of the torches had been knocked over or torn up by gunfire. I saw a dozen bodies littering the ground between here and the door, and more sprawled on the steps.

I turned and headed toward the building, zigzagging behind trees and shrubs, firing at anything that moved. I killed a couple of exotic ferns that got caught in a breeze, but I also took down several of the hostiles.

“Grenade!” Bunny yelled, and slammed into me with a diving tackle that rolled us both to the foot of the stone steps as a blast tore a hole a few feet from where I’d been standing. I’d never seen the throw. Top spun and chopped up the hedges and a man screamed and toppled to the ground.

The steps offered no cover, but the main glass doors were intact despite dozens of impacts from armor-piercing rounds. High-density bulletproof glass. I scrambled to my feet and ran inside, crouching instinctively as a line of heavy-caliber bullets whacked into the glass. It held. So I turned and knelt to offer covering fire as Bunny and then Top ran from cover and risked the open ground near the steps. A ricochet bounced off the open door and pinged around the lobby for a heart-stopping moment before burying itself in the wall six inches from Top’s head.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

I held the door while they checked the hallway behind me. A crash door opened and six men wearing security uniforms rushed the hallway. Top and Bunny put them down with short bursts and I rolled into the doorway and put half a magazine in the next four who were running up a flight of metal stairs to this level.

“Clear!” called Bunny, and I backed away from the doorway.

I tapped my earbud. “Cowboy to Amazing, Cowboy to Amazing.”

No answer.

Then, “Headhunter to Cowboy.” Headhunter was Redman’s call sign.

“Go for Cowboy.”

“We’re hearing gunfire behind us. Sounds like M4s.” He described his location.

“That’s a roger,” I said.

“We could use a quarterback sneak.”

“Copy that. On our way.”

We ran down the hallway, passing several bullet-riddled bodies and the signs of mass panic. A lot of people had fled this way, dropping coffee cups and clipboards and trampling the dead.

We slowed. If Redman had heard our gunfire and could tell the difference between M4s and either the H &Ks used by the Dragon Factory guards or the Kalashnikovs carried by the Russians, then so could whoever they were fighting. The corridor was a long curve and the ambush was exactly where you’d expect it to be-at the sharpest point of the curve where decorative potted trees provided cover.

Top and I tossed our party favors at them and the fragmentation grenades ripped the ambush to pieces.

“Hopscotch!” I called, giving today’s code.

“Jump rope!” It was Redman’s voice.

We moved around the bend as his people came out from behind the meager cover they had found. Only six of Alpha Team could walk. Two were badly wounded-one with multiple gunshot wounds to the legs and the other with a facial lacerations from flying glass. A third-a new transfer from the SEALs-lay in the kind of sprawl that only looks like what it is.

“Report,” I said. “Where’s your commander?”

Redman turned toward the heavy portal. “She saw something and went in there just as the alarms kicked in. The door swung shut automatically.”

“Any sign of Cyrus Jakoby…?”

“From the way the major went diving into that room, I think she must have seen something.”

“Can you open it?” Top asked.

“Sure, if I had two hours and a lot of C4.”

I pointed. “There’s a keypad. Uplink to Bug and get him on it. If that thing has a computer control then let’s put MindReader to work on it.”

“Yo!” called Bunny from the sharp bend in the hallway. “We got company.”

“How many?”

“A shitload. We’re about to get outnumbered really fast.”

I cast a desperate look at the closed hatch. There was no time to break through. Damn it to hell. The advancing Russians began firing and bullets tore through the air, the ricochets turning the hallway into a killing floor.

“Fall back!” I shouted, pulling on Alpha Team members and shoving them down the hallway toward a set of exit doors. Bunny picked up one of the wounded and ran with him as lightly as if the soldier was a little child. Two other Alpha Team operatives grabbed the second. We had to leave the dead for now. Alpha Team looked hurt and angry. They didn’t want to leave Grace behind any more than I did, but there was no way we could hold this position.

We fired, we threw grenades, but we yielded ground yard by yard, letting ourselves be driven around the curving hallway until we could no longer see the hatch.

No bullets hit me, but as I backed around the corner I felt like I’d taken a fatal wound to the heart.

Grace.