“Pave Lows are for wimps,” barked the Marine sergeant. “You need a Marine aircraft.”

Powder’s curse-laden retort was drowned by a sudden surge from the engines as the Osprey whipped to the side and then shot up. All Danny could see out the window was a sheer cliff.

“We don’t have contact with the pilot yet, but we’re 206

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only two minutes out!” shouted the copilot from the flight deck. “Area is hot!”

“Just the way I like my pussies,” yapped the gunnery sergeant.

Aboard Quicksilver , over Iraq 1654

ZEN TOSSED FLARES AND CURLED THE FLIGHTHAWK TO THE

right, jinking away from the shoulder-launched SAM.

The fact that he was actually sitting nearly 25,000 feet higher than the Flighthawk was of little comfort to him; he flew as if he could feel the missile’s breath on his neck.

More flares, a roll, hit the gas—the U/MF zipped within inches of a cliff wall before dashing into the clear beyond the row of mountains forming the valley.

“Missile self-detonated,” said Ferris, monitoring the situation from the flight deck. “You’re clear, Hawk leader.”

“Hawk leader. Thanks, guys.”

“He’s not on the air,” said Habib.

“Yeah,” said Ferris. “We’re still clear on Guard.”

“Maybe it was a decoy,” suggested Bree. “Trying to ambush.”

“Maybe.” Zen pushed back in his seat, scanning his instruments as he got his bearings. Fuel was starting to get a bit low. He had only two flares left. Full load of combat mix in the cannon, at least.

“The Iraqi’s transmitting again. He’s on the move,”

said Habib.

“Helicopter is ninety seconds away,” said Bree.

“Better hold the helo at sixty seconds, if he can,” said Zen. “I’m going to try following our friend in the vehicle.”

He circled back toward the north end of the valley, RAZOR’S EDGE

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dropping back to three thousand feet. He saw a rift to his right, glanced quickly at the sitrep or bird’s-eye view to make sure it led to the valley, then whipped into it. As he came through he pushed downward but nudged back power.

“Iraqi is off the air,” said Habib.

“Another flare,” said O’Brien.

This time Zen saw it, about a mile on his left, ten yards at most from the dirt road. He still couldn’t see the vehicle.

“All right—I got something,” he said as he saw movement on the road. “Computer, frame the object moving on the rocks.”

Before the computer could acknowledge, he saw a brown bar of soap turn off the road.

“I think I see our guy in the rocks. Nailing this truck first,” said Zen. By the time the words were out of his mouth, he’d already squeezed the trigger to fire.

Aboard Dreamland Osprey , over Iraq 1700

THE NOSE OF THE OSPREY BUCKED UPWARD AND THE WHAP

of the rotors went down an octave as it cleared a rift in the hills. The pilot had just kicked up the throttle, nearly tripling its speed, but to Danny Freah the sudden change in momentum made it feel as if it had slowed down. Powder and Liu clutched their rifles. Danny realized how much he missed the smart helmet—no map, no real-time view of the battlefield. But much more important, he’d jumped aboard with only his personal handguns—a service Beretta in his holster, and a small hideaway Heckler

& Koch P7 M13 strapped to his right ankle. That meant no MP-5 with its target scope slaved to his helmet; he 208

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didn’t even have his HK Mark 23 SOCOM with its laser pointer and thick silencer.

There was something to be said for the good old-fashioned feel of the Beretta in his palm. He took it from his holster as the MV-22 skittered forward, and peered through the window on his right at a narrow furrow of gray and black smoke.

“Flighthawk!” Liu yelled to him over the whine of the GE turboshafts.

Danny saw it too—a small white wedge twisted through the air about fifty yards away, red bursting from its chin as if it were on fire. It figured that Zen and the others would be in the middle of this.

Standard combat air rescue doctrine called for rescue aircraft to remain at forward bases until definitive contact was made with a downed airman. Occasionally, those procedures were relaxed to deal with difficult situations—on several attempted rescues during the Gulf War helicopters had actually waited inside Iraq during searches. But they were really freelancing here—according to what the copilot said, Quicksilver had heard the pilot but not seen him. They were listening to Iraqi units search, and had been fired upon.

Definitely could be a trap.

“Downed airman is near the road, near a truck they’re smoking!” yelled the copilot. “We got a spot to land right next to it. We’re going for it.”

“They talk to him?” shouted Danny.

“Negative, sir. They’re sure, though. Hang on!”

“Okay, ladies!” yelled the Marine sergeant, moving toward the door. In the next moment, the Osprey pitched sharply, pirouetting around and descending in nearly the same motion, dropping so quickly that for a half second Danny thought they’d been hit. Then there was a loud clunk and he knew they’d been hit. But they were on the RAZOR’S EDGE

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ground, it was time to go, go—he fought back a sliver of bile and lurched toward the door behind his men as the door kicked down.

The Osprey settled harshly onto the uneven surface of the scratch road. Danny was the fifth man out. An acrid smell stung his nose; the Flighthawk had smoked a pickup truck, which was burning nearby.

“Yo, Marines—my guys on point! Whiplash on fucking point!” yelled Danny. It wasn’t a pride thing—it made much more sense to have the people with the body armor in the lead. The Marines finally caught on, or maybe they just grew winded as Liu and Powder motored past.

So where the hell was their guy?

The Flighthawk whipped overhead and wheeled to the right, then shot straight upward about three hundred yards away. But it wasn’t until the plane rolled and dove back down that Danny realized Zen was trying to put them on the downed pilot.

“There! There!” he shouted, pointing. “Powder, your right. Right! Right!”

No way the pilot didn’t hear the Osprey. So why wasn’t he jumping up to greet them?

They had to clamber over a twenty-foot-wide rock slide before finally reaching their man. As he cleared the rocks, Danny saw the pilot sprawled on the ground, his radio lying smashed on the rocks. Powder was just getting to him; Liu was a few yards behind Danny.

Powder threw back his helmet and put his head down in front of the pilot’s face. Danny noticed a black stain on the pilot’s right pant leg; congealed blood.

“Breathing. Shit, I thought he’d fucking bought it,”

said Powder. “Hit by something.”

Liu threw his medical kit in front of him as he slid close. He glanced quickly over the pilot’s body, then 210

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reached into his pack for the quick-inflate stretcher. He pulled a wire loop and held onto the side as compressed air exploded into the honeycombed tubes. Liu took a pair of titanium telescoping rods from the underside of his go-bag, then propped the stretcher on rocks next to the stricken man.

As they moved him to the stretcher, a second radio fell from his hand. His face had been bruised badly during the ejection, and his right hand burned; besides the leg there were no other outward signs of injury. Liu had his enhanced stethoscope out, getting vitals. The stethoscope had a display screen that could be used to show pulse rate and breathing patterns; intended for battle situations where it might be difficult to hear, the display also helped convey important information quickly to a full team. The downed airman’s heart beat fifty-six times a minute; his breathing code was yellow—halfway between shallow and normal.