He reached the trees as the armored car rolled over the metal manhole cover. When he got to the fence line, he saw Nuri and the others standing near the car, staring at the sewer grate.

Danny threw himself halfway up the fence and began climbing over.

He had just reached the top when the armored car heaved upward a good two or three feet. It fell to the right, bouncing on its springs and rolling away from the tunnel opening.

Danny pulled his gun from behind his shoulder as a head popped up from the hole. He fired at it, two solid bursts ripping into the back of the man’s skull. He collapsed over the edge of the hole.

“There’s another! There’s another!” yelled Danny. He flipped over the edge of the fence and half slid, half fell to the ground. He ran over to the entrance to the tunnel, his head woozy.

Nuri, pistol out, reached down gingerly to the dead man and pulled an automatic rifle from beneath his body.

“Get ready!” yelled Danny. “Get ready—there’s another one!”

The truck started to back up. The gunner pointed his machine gun at the hole.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Nuri.

“We have to close off that entrance,” said Danny.

“Did that guy just lift that car off?” demanded Nuri.

“Get the gunner to blow up the tunnel entrance,” yelled Danny.

“Did that guy lift the cover off with the truck on it?” repeated Nuri.

“Yes—get the gunner to hit the tunnel entrance!”

“He can’t—they don’t have shells.”

“Get some explosive and blow it closed!” Danny reached for his headset. “MY-PID—where is the other man who was escaping through the tunnel?”

“He is returning to Building B.”

Danny grabbed Nuri. “Blow the entrance to the tunnel up. You understand?”

“But—”

“Just do it!”

“All right. We’ll figure it out.”

Tiny felt himself being carried through the house like a sack of potatoes. There were two of them—one holding him on his back, another nearby.

They were on the third floor, in the room he had come in through.

Tiny tried to move his legs but the man’s grip on them was too strong. His side pulsed with pain.

He felt himself being lifted, then thrown upward, tossed into the attic like a child’s doll. He clawed at the ground, desperate to get away, but it was useless; within seconds he was scooped up and once more flung over the back of one of the men.

The other was grunting something. It was too dark to see—Tiny’s night vision goggles had fallen off.

He heard a swinging sound, and realized the other man had grabbed an ax. They were going to chop their way out of the roof.

God, thought Tiny, I hope Bean doesn’t shoot me when he shoots them.

Bean felt the wood being smacked a few feet away. He took a step back, sliding along the peak of the roof. Danny had ordered him to hold his position when the gunfire started. Bean had taken some shots at the last man who’d jumped from the window, but otherwise he’d sat here and watched as the situation deteriorated into chaos.

“Flash—I got somebody trying to chop their way out up here,” he said over the radio. “Is it our guys?”

“Two of the Wolves—they have Tiny.”

“Tiny’s with these guys?”

“Yeah.”

The axe blade came up through the shingles six feet away. Bean fired at the blade, striking it point-blank. It disappeared back below.

Bean got up and ran to the hole that the axe had just made. He kicked at it with his heel, then pulled one of the tear gas canisters from his belt and dropped it through.

“Where are they?” he asked Flash.

“They look like they’re going for the stairs.”

He retreated to the edge of the roof, pulling on his gas mask. But he stopped at the edge. It didn’t make sense to go in there with them; they’d just use Tiny as a shield.

Danny ordered the Rattlesnakes to circle the large building, expecting the man heading back to try and escape. Boston and his men, meanwhile, had joined the others at the house, holding positions on all four sides.

Three Whiplash team members had been hurt, one seriously wounded in the leg by gunfire, the other two merely nicked by shrapnel. No one had been killed.

Yet.

There were only two Wolves still moving around in the house, but they had Tiny with them on the top floor.

There was an explosion on the other side of the fence. The tunnel entrance had been blown up.

Danny was huffing for breath when he reached the house.

“The knockout gas didn’t affect any of them,” said Flash. “Bean just tossed a tear gas canister into the attic. They’re still up there. I don’t think it bothered them at all.”

“Where are our guys?”

“They’re on floor three, covering the hole into the attic.”

“American!” The radio crackled with an unfamiliar voice. One of the Wolves had taken Tiny’s headset off. “We have your people.”

“Let him go and I’ll let you live,” Danny replied.

The man replied in what Danny thought was Russian, then switched to English.

“You will see his legs torn off!”

Tiny was still wearing the gas mask over his nose and mouth, but without the goggles his eyes had no protection, and they began stinging as soon as the canister exploded. Tears streamed from his eyes.

It was the final indignity, he thought. It was bad enough that he had to die, but now it was going to look as if he had gone out as a coward.

47

Over the Atlantic Ocean

Turk put his hand on the throttle, nudging his power up slightly to maintain his optimal cruise speed as the tailwind shifted.

It was a bit of unnecessary fussiness—the computerized flight controls could have easily maintained the proper speed, even in a hurricane. In fact, the computer could easily fly him all the way to Prague without his intervention, even landing itself: not only could it check in with flight controllers along the way in commanded air space, but it could properly interpret commands from the tower when coming in for a landing.

But where was the fun in that? What good would airplanes be, he thought, if you couldn’t fly them?

They’d be the Sabres, still seen by the brass as the real cutting-edge answer to aviation warfare.

Wallace didn’t think so. But he’d probably retire in a year. Then no one would be talking about “manned flight.”

The hell with the future, Turk thought, marveling at the stars in his viewer. I’m flying in the here and now.

48

Northeastern Moldova

Danny ran over to Flash and had him lock out Tiny’s receiver channel so their communications wouldn’t be compromised. But the mike stayed on, and MY-PID could hear the man who’d delivered the ultimatum about Tiny talking to his companion in his native tongue.