“Gee, sweetheart, I didn’t know you cared,” mocked the corporal as he caught up.

“We got everybody?”

“Didn’t see no one,” said Jackson. “Better check around for Gaston, though. You know how he likes to jerk off in the bushes.”

“Yeah,” was all Gunny could manage.

KNIFE’S STOMACH PITCHED TOWARD HIS MOUTH. HE clamped his teeth shut, holding steady on the control stick as the dark, oxygen-deprived cowl slipped back from over his face. The F-16 could withstand more than nine g’s, at least one more than its pilot under the best of circumstances, and this was hardly the best. The plane was pointing nearly straight down, shrapnel streaking all around, an SA-3 somewhere in the air, hunting for his belly. He could escape it—he’d been in more difficult spots—but only if he could keep his head clear. And right now that seemed damn impossible.

Gravity clamped its thick fingers around his temples. Squeezing with all its might, it began to mash his skull into powder. The wind ran from his chest, and a long, jagged sword began ripping up his stomach.

An image shot into his head—Zen Stockard, his body being propelled from the F-15 cockpit, hurled sideways in a tumble.

Poor bastard.

Just not good enough. Not as good as me.

I am not getting fried here.

Smith regained control of himself as well as the plane, rolling through an invert and now tracking to the north, the RWR still bleating. Even so, he began hunting for a target. Everything was on fire below, everything; he couldn’t find anything to hit.

Knife jinked and saw a large shape passing through the air maybe four hundred yards away. It was the missile the Somalians had fired, but to Knife it seemed like the demon that had tormented him all through the attack, the panic that had tried to sneak up on him, panic and rust and doubt.

“No fucking way,” he screamed. He pulled himself up in the slant-back seat, straining against the restraints. The enemy missile shot clear, unguided, lost, no longer a threat.

The ground team’s Chinook was two miles away and taking fire; there were armored cars approaching from behind the buildings. He took a quick breath, switching the mode on the LANTIRN bomb-guidance system to allow him to designate the target himself. The targeting cue instantly zeroed in on the lead vehicle.

“Good night, motherfucker,” he said, loosing the GBU from his wing.

GUNNY AND JACKSON WERE TWO HUNDRED YARDS from the helicopter when the ground began percolating with heavy machine-gun fire. The two Marines dove into a ditch, where they found themselves pinned down with half a dozen other Marines. They could hear but not see the helicopter beyond a row of low trees or bushes. An armored car or personnel carrier, maybe two, rounded out from behind the near building and began firing.

“We have to move!” yelled Gunny. “Move!”

“Move!” echoed Jackson, trying to urge the others to stop returning fire and retreat to the Chinook. “We’ll cover you.”

The far end of the ditch burst with an explosion. Gunny cursed, falling forward and hitting his chin on Jackson’s boot.

“Damn it,” he said, starting to pull himself up. “Down! Down! Incoming!” yelled Jackson.

Something roared above them and the armored car hissed. Red metal flew through the air.

“The Chinook’s moving!” yelped Jackson.

“Go! Go!” yelled Gunny. Above them one of the F-16’s was wheeling through the sky, trying to cover their retreat. The Somalians had temporarily turned their attention to it, throwing everything they had into the sky.

“You got balls,” Gunny told the F-16 as he burned a clip in the direction of the Somies. “Even if you are a pansy-ass Air Force pilot.”

KNIFE WAS OUT OF GBUS AND ABOUT HALFWAY through his store of cannon shells, slashing and dashing the Somalian forces as the Chinook tried desperately to round up the last members of its fire team. The helicopter pilot’s aircraft had been hit and he was worried about making it back to Ethiopia, but the man didn’t want to leave without every one of his passengers aboard.

Somewhere in the past two and a half minutes, Knife had told the pilot that he’d hang in there as long as needed. Somewhere in the past two and a half minutes, Mack had decided he had to stay close and help keep some of his guys alive. And somewhere in the past two and a half minutes, Major Mack “Knife” Smith had realized that he was flying maybe twenty feet over the trees and taking a hell of a lot of risk with all this metal flying through the air, not to mention the damn fireworks from the still-exploding missile stores.

Flames from the two vehicles he had smashed gave him a clear view of the remaining troops firing on his Marines. Smith swooped in for a low-level cannon attack. The Chinook stuttered to his left as he rode in, the barrels on his M61 beginning to churn. He cut a swath through the Somalians, then picked up his nose to bank around for another pass. As he did, he saw a pair of wheeled vehicles moving forward behind the far building. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw an H-shaped shadow at the top of one of the vehicles—a missile launcher maybe, but he was beyond it too fast. His RWR stayed clean.

“Poison One, this is Poison Three, we are moving to engage four bogies at this time,” snapped the lead pilot of the second group of F-16’s. “Repeat, we have company. MiGs. Possibly Libyan. They’re coming south and they are hot!”

“Copy,” said Knife. It was past time to call it a day. “Pelican, get the hell out of there,” he told the Chinook pilot. “Go! Now! Go!”

He banked around to cover the helicopter’s retreat. He hunted the shadows for the two vehicles he’d seen, his forward airspeed dropping toward two hundred knots. He saw something loom on his left; by the time he got his nose on it a tongue of fire ignited from the top.

Missile launcher. Probably an antitank weapon or something similar, but he felt sucker-punched as the missile sailed toward the helicopter. He began to fire his cannon, even though he wasn’t lined up right; he pushed his rudder to swing into the shot, but was too high and then too far to the right. He thought he heard a stall warning and went for throttle; rocketing upward, he realized he was low on gas.

The helo was still hovering. The missile had missed.

His RWR bleeped. The MiGs were on them already. Shit.

“Pelican! Get the fuck out of here!” he screamed.

He plunged his aircraft back toward the remaining vehicle, again firing before he had a definitive target. Meanwhile, Poison Three called a missile launch; things were getting beyond hot and heavy.

Knife reached to put the throttle to the redline, already plotting his escape southwest toward Poison Two.

Something thudded directly behind his seat. He felt the Viper’s tail jerk upward, and in the next instant realized the control stick had stopped responding.

“I’m hit,” he snapped. And in the next instant he pulled the eject handles, just before the plane tore into a spin, its back broken by not one but two shoulder-fired SA-16’s.

GUNNY AND JACKSON WERE STILL FIFTEEN YARDS FROM the Chinook when it started to pull upward. But the old sergeant had been prepared for this—he’d removed the flare pistol from his vest pocket to signal them.

Before he could fire, something exploded above him. He jerked his head back and saw the plane that had been covering their escape erupt in a fireball. Something shot into the air; a second or two later he realized it was the pilot.

Gunny turned around.

“Gunny, Sarge, shit. Helo’s this way,” said Jackson, grabbing his arm. “Come on.”

“We got to go get that pilot,” Gunny said.

“Fuck that.”

“Here,” Gunny said, pressing the flare gun into his point man’s hand. “I’ll catch up.”

“The hell you will,” said Jackson. The corporal tugged the older man around.