Danny had lost the ability to sort it out, lost the ability to do anything but fight to his knees—his right one screaming again—and fire another few rounds in the direction of the stubby wing strut.

White heat flashed in front of him. Danny gulped air and threw himself down a millisecond before the shock wave as the helicopter exploded. The dirt turned molten.

He gulped the hot air, tried to get away, finally saw that he had somehow crawled under the burning chassis. He kept going, enveloped by blackness. A sudden rush of heat stopped him.

“The other Hind,” he heard himself say calmly. “Secure it.”

“Two guys, crew compartment, side facing the buildings,” said Powder.

“All right. Get their attention.”

Danny had only the vaguest notion of where he was or where he was going—he wasn’t even sure whether he’d gotten out from under the burning helicopter. Nonetheless, he began to crawl. After a few feet he got up and began running in what he thought was the direction of the buildings, intending to make a long flanking maneuver and get at the Hind from the back while his guys kept the defenders busy. As he ran—it was more like a limp, thanks to his knee—he clicked back and forth between the IR and enhanced video views in his visor; the thick 312

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smoke defeated both. Finally he pushed the screen upward, preferring his own eyes.

The main building sat off on his right. He assumed the second helicopter would be about ten yards on his left.

“Hey, Cap, how we doin’?” asked Powder.

“I’m getting there. Make sure no one blows this one up.”

“They won’t,” said Powder.

Danny finally saw the helicopter on his left, farther away than he’d expected. He took a few tentative steps and saw the aircraft bob.

Shit. The rotor at the top began to spin.

“Powder—there’s someone in the cockpit!” he yelled.

A gun burst followed. Danny ran forward, the rotor still winding.

“The cockpit’s armored!” Danny shouted.

“Fucking shit,” cursed Powder, even as his bullets bounced off the side.

The helo lurched forward. Danny ran as fast as he could, spitting bullets from his gun at the same time. The tail started to whip around; he threw himself to the ground, just missing the wing stub. He jumped up and ran again, hoping for some sort of opening he could shoot through.

A blank, puzzled face appeared in the window next to him, a ghost transported to earth where she didn’t want to be.

His wife.

The Iraqi pilot.

The cockpit handle was a clear white bar. Danny fired a few bursts at it, but the bullets all missed or bounced harmlessly away. His knee flamed with pain. The rotors spun hard and the air became a hurricane. Danny dropped his MP-5 and with a scream threw himself forward, fingers grasping the small metal strip where the windscreen RAZOR’S EDGE

313

met the edge of the metal on the canopy. He could feel the pilot inches away, felt something pound against the side of the helicopter—maybe the pilot, maybe Powder’s bullets, maybe just the vibration of the motor. He reached for his Beretta, lost his grip, found himself rolling on the ground, saw the face again—his wife’s face, definitely his wife—then realized he was running. He couldn’t get into the cockpit, he was too slow, he was going to fail. A black space appeared alongside him, a dark tunnel opening up—he pitched into it, fell into the helicopter.

What kind of lunatic fate was this, to die in Iraq on an impossible mission?

As he started to push back toward the door to jump out, Danny saw a head bobbing beyond the passage on his left—there were no doors on the Hind between the crew area and cockpit.

A small ax hung on the wall near the passage.

Jump.

He threw himself toward the ax as the aircraft stuttered and turned again, still on the ground. His hand grabbed the handle but the ax stayed on the wall, held by a thick leather strap. Danny pulled, and as he screamed he felt himself rushing through the bulkhead, shoulders brushing hard against the side.

The Iraqi’s blood didn’t spurt or gush or stream. It seeped from each of the three places Danny struck, like a stream lapping the shore, an eddy probing the sand.

The helo slammed down, the engine stuttering dead.

A moment later strong hands grabbed Danny from behind.

“Hey, way to go, Cap,” shouted Powder. “Guy must not’ve been a pilot, huh, cause he couldn’t get off the ground. Uh, can I have the ax if you’re done with it?”

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Aboard Quicksilver , at High Top 1500

“ALL SYSTEMS ARE IN THE GREEN,” CHRIS TOLD BREANNA as they finished their preflight checklist.

“You ready?” she asked him.

“This’ll be a piece of cake after what we’ve been through,” said Ferris.

Breanna nodded. He was right. Quicksilver’s mission was easy, detecting radars and fuzzing them for a group of attack planes flying over the central part of Iraq, well out of range of the Iranian laser. Between the repairs and her uncoated nose, Quicksilver’s radar signal was nearly as large as a standard B-52’s, but the jamming gear was working fine and they’d be escorted by a pair of F-15Cs.

At 35,000 feet they’d be as safe as if they were flying over France. Maybe even safer.

But Zen wasn’t with her, watching her back. Nor was she watching his.

“You with us, Captain Dolk?”

“Uh, call me Torbin.”

“Torbin. What is that? French?”

“Swedish,” said Torbin. “I was born near Uppsala. We came over when I was three.”

“Sounds like a nursery rhyme,” said Ferris.

“Generations of Swedish kings were crowned there,”

said Torbin.

“And will be again,” said Breanna. “Gentlemen, let’s roll.”

RAZOR’S EDGE

315

In Iraq

1512

DANNY LEANED AGAINST THE TAIL BOOM OF THE MAMMOTH

helicopter as his men finished topping off the fuel tanks.

He could hear Egg talking to himself in the cockpit, obviously going over each of the controls, checking and rechecking them. The helicopter expert had still not arrived in Dreamland Command. Danny’s knee had swollen so stiff he almost couldn’t move it, despite the fact that he kept trying to.

“Ready, Cap,” said Bison, who’d been overseeing the refuel. “Got rockets, machine gun. Wingtip pods are empty.”

“Yeah. Good.” Danny tried bracing his injured leg against the other. It didn’t help, but he was going to have to fake it. “Powder?”

Powder had insisted on taking the weapons operator slot, claiming that he had attended some sort of training session in Apaches. Danny was too beat-up to argue; the controls for the nose gun and rockets were fairly straightforward—select and fire.

God, his knee hurt.

“Okay, saddle up,” Danny told his team over the com system. He pushed off the helicopter, right hand tightened around the MP-5 against the pain. “Egg, our expert with you yet?”

“Uh, no, sir.”

“Well, whenever you’re ready, we’re good to go.”

THE WEIRD THING—OR THE FIRST WEIRD THING—WAS THE

blue panel. The Hind’s dash was painted a weird blue turquoise that physically hurt Egg’s eyes.

The Pave Low the other day had seemed complicated as hell, even though he’d flown a slightly earlier version before. This just seemed like hell.

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He knew where everything was, knew what everything did—the important stuff, anyway. On some basic level, all helicopters were alike.

They were, weren’t they?

Egg felt his brain starting to break into pieces.

He grabbed the control yoke, steadied his feet on the rudder pedals.

Come on, Egg, he told himself. Come on come on come on.

No way in the world he could do this. No way.