God, help me.

The bot continued inside the hull of the aircraft, moving forward. The side door was open, a trooper leaning through the open space, a safety belt holding him as the aircraft pitched upward. Kharon was a foot or two away.

The roar began to quiet. For a moment Kharon felt safe, untouchable. But then he noticed the darkness around him, the walls close by.

The closet.

Someone was yelling outside.

“Neil! Neil!”

His mother.

Kharon unfolded his fingers and then his arm. He took a tentative step. Someone grabbed for him. He pushed away.

Leave me alone!

Leave me!

“Neil!”

The sides closed in. He couldn’t breathe. He was going to be smothered.

The door was open in front of him.

With all his strength, he leapt for safety, ignoring the surge of pain in his leg, ignoring all the pain, ducking his head and driving ahead for the light.

By the time Rubeo realized what Kharon was doing it was too late. The Whiplash trooper at the door dove at him, but Kharon moved too fast: He leapt through the open hatchway at the side of the aircraft, tumbling down some one hundred feet to the rocks.

“Damn,” muttered Rubeo, sinking back onto the web bench at the side of the aircraft. “Oh damn.”

26

Over Libya

The Tigershark spit its slugs in a computer-controlled spurt, current and metal flashing in a dance of force and counterforce.

The rail gun had originally been conceived as an antiballistic missile weapon, and the computer program controlling it still bore that DNA, able to handle the complicated coefficients of speed, mass, and trajectory with quick ease. From a mathematical point of view, the fact that the warheads it was aiming at were comparatively small did not present a great difficulty; the formula always aimed at a single point in space, and as with any point, it had no dimension whatsoever. It was simply there.

But on the practical level, the predictable margin of error increased dramatically in an inverse proportion to the suitable target area; in other words, the smaller the target, the more likely the slug was to miss. To compensate, the computer spit out more slugs as Turk fired. While he could override this, it wasn’t advisable in an engagement with missiles, especially given that each individual encounter lasted only a few seconds at most.

But this did mean that the gun needed additional time to cool down between engagements, and even if the time was measured in fractions of seconds, each delay meant he might not reach Li in time. For the pilot stubbornly insisted to himself that he would in fact save her; that he would finally end in position to shoot down the last missile before it got her.

The Hogs completed their attacks and ducked away, firing chaff and working their electronic countermeasures. The Russian missiles were sticky beasts, staying tight to the trail of the planes they had targeted.

To the west, one of the MiGs had already been shot down, but that didn’t change anything for Turk—there were eight missiles in the air, and every one of them was homing in on the back of someone he needed to protect.

Danny’s voice came out of the buzz around his head. “Whiplash is away.”

Turk didn’t bother acknowledging. The only thing that mattered now were these eight missiles.

A tone sounded in Turk’s headset and his screen’s pipper flashed black—the computer had calculated that the first target was “dead.” There was no time to linger over the kill, or even watch the missile explode; Turk immediately turned to the next course, following the line laid out in his virtual HUD.

By the time the computer reported “Target destroyed,” he was already firing at the nose of the second missile, pushing the plane down at the last instant to keep with the missile’s sudden lurch. The maneuver probably meant that the missile had been sucked off by one of the countermeasures, but Turk was too intent on his mission to break at that moment. Once again he got a kill tone; once again he came to a new course.

He saw Li’s plane out of the corner of his eye. Had she gotten away? Would she?

Tempted to make sure, he started to fire too soon. The computer tacitly scolded him, elevating the course icon and flashing its pipper yellow, indicating he was no longer on target. He willed himself back to course as he continued to fire, pressing the attack until the tone. Then he pushed hard right, looking for the last missile, looking for Li.

He saw her plane, then saw the missile closing.

God, why didn’t I save her instead of Ginella?

The computer set up solutions for the remaining missiles, but all Turk could see was Li’s plane. He turned hard, still with her, then saw something flashing next to her.

By the time he cringed, it had passed. The Hog went on its wing to the left; the missile exploded right.

She was OK. Her ECMs had managed to bluff the missile away.

Turk turned hard to the computer’s suggested course, aiming for the next missile.

27

Over Libya

As far as Danny Freah was concerned, Neil Kharon’s body wasn’t important enough to risk going back for.

It was a cold decision, but one he had no trouble making. There was still sporadic fire in the area, and he had Rubeo and the robots aboard.

“We’ll get him if things calm down,” Danny told Rubeo, kneeling on the deck of the Osprey as the aircraft sped northward. “Zen is working on it.”

“It doesn’t matter, really,” said Rubeo blankly. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“Antiair battery to the east activating radar,” warned the copilot. “Radar—we have a lot of radars. Everything they got.”

Danny got up and grabbed his phone. He was still dialed into Zen’s private line.

“Zen, are you there?”

“I’m here, Danny.”

“We could really use that cease-fire you promised,” he said as the aircraft tucked down toward the ground. They would attempt to bypass the radar by staying close to the earth, where it would have trouble seeing them.

“The defense minister is on the phone with the air force right now,” Zen told him.

“There’s an antiair battery north of us. It—”

“All right, hold on.” Zen said something Danny couldn’t hear, then came back on the line. “Give me a GPS reading.”

“Every goddamn radar in the country is lighting up,” said Danny. “Get them all.”

Zen didn’t answer. Danny could hear someone speaking sharply on the other side of the line but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“Radars are turning off,” said the pilot.

Danny waited. Zen came on the line a few minutes later.

“Danny?”

“I’m here. The radars are off. Thanks.”

“Not a problem.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I said we’d blow them up if they weren’t off in sixty seconds,” said Zen. “I wish every negotiation was that easy.”

28

Over Libya

Thoroughly confused by the electronic countermeasures and now at the far end of their range, the last two missiles blew themselves up several miles from their targets, destroying themselves in a futile hope that their shrapnel might take out something nearby.