With the cue in his helmet indicating his body was oriented in a level position parallel to the ground, Stoner pulled in his arms, then tucked his head toward his chin, closed his legs and threw them back, trying to pitch into a downhill posture. Once he achieved that, he gradually reopened his arms and legs, remaking himself into a stable airfoil moving in a direction he could control.

Wind raged at his body, upset that it would be used to defy gravity and the natural order of things. Men didn’t fly, and they shouldn’t attempt it. Buffeted up and down, Stoner strained to hold his limbs in position. When he hit 5,000 feet, he banked, this time gently, turning back north.

The gunfire was well off to his right and slightly behind him. According to the GPS, he was forty miles from his target, with little hope of getting there before reaching the ground.

Stoner steered himself farther east, deciding that since he would never reach the target, he would be better off landing in the soft desert plains. He cleared his mind. His forward speed had slowed to about seventy-five knots: still far too fast for a landing, but at least slow enough that he could set up for one.

He continued to coast, heading over a set of rocky crags. The edge of the desert came into view as he skimmed below 2,000 feet. Tucking his chin down, he did a flare to slow himself to landing speed. He quickly lost forward momentum. He flared wider, then tipped his upper body forward. As he did, he released the small chute at the back of his neck. Far too small to hold him, the chute provided enough extra resistance to get him to walking speed as he came through three hundred feet.

There was a rock outcrop directly ahead. Stoner struggled to keep his momentum up. He was a little awkward, not having had enough practice with the rig, and with a good hundred feet between him and the ground he started to fall. He pushed forward, then swung his legs out and did an awkward tumble into a barley field. He managed to curl his body at the last moment, tucking into a roll as he hit.

The blow knocked him semiconscious. He rolled onto his back, disoriented.

What am I doing here? What is my mission?

He knew there must be an answer, but his mind refused to give it. All he could do was stare into the never-ending blackness that enveloped the earth around him.

5

Iran

COLONEL KHORASANI TOOK ANOTHER WALK AROUND the wreckage of the command truck. He needed space to think this through, space and time, but there was little of either.

There was no doubt that the vehicle destroyed on the highway had belonged to the Pasdaran unit, stolen out from under their noses while they twiddled their thumbs aimlessly around the vehicle they found on the hillside. They had proven themselves idiots of the highest degree—typical, Khorasani thought bitterly, of the bumpkins assigned to the Guard in this region. That fact did little to help him.

The company commander had been killed when his vehicle exploded. The battalion commander came to investigate; he was in something close to a catatonic trance by the time Khorasani arrived.

Under other circumstances the commander would have made a useful scapegoat, but he was related to a high-ranking member of the clergy. Khorasani therefore had to worry about saving the battalion commander’s hide as well as his own.

But there were more immediate problems. He needed to find the person who had fired the projectile that blew up the truck. Presumably, they were the same people who had stolen both vehicles.

Were they responsible for the “incidents” at the bunkers? Khorasani doubted it, and yet, what other explanation was there? Would a wild smuggler bound for Iran have been nearly so bold, or effective? It had to be the Mossad. It simply had to be.

But ground troops would never have been able to enter the labs. So what had happened there? Unrelated accidents? Raids by as yet unidentified bombers? In either case, how would the Israelis be explained?

Colonel Khorasani kicked at a clod of dirt. He needed to construct a coherent explanation of what had happened that passed blame away from the Guards—and away from himself. But he also had to figure what really happened. For without knowing that, he might say or do something that would unravel whatever official story he constructed.

The infidel bastards were at the heart of this, certainly. He had to tamp down his hatred—it would make him irrational, and he needed a clear head now more than ever.

“Colonel,” said Sergeant Karim, approaching cautiously, “one of the teams has found something at the edge of the soil mine.”

Khorasani caught the grim look on Sergeant Karim’s face. Karim didn’t speak of it, but scenes of death turned his stomach. His face always blanched a shade or two when they spoke of it, and the colonel thought he must be struggling mightily to suppress the bile now.

“Where?” he asked Karim.

“Follow me, sir. It’s best on foot.”

They walked through the field and up a small incline. The sun was just warming the day, but it was already seventy degrees. It would be over ninety by noon.

He would need to make a full report to the ayatollah by then.

“Maybe they were deserters,” he said aloud. “Panicking and desperate to leave because they caused the accident. Renegade scientists. Traitors. Or fools. Fools are better. Easier to explain.”

“Excuse me?” asked Sergeant Karim.

“Nothing,” said Khorasani.

Karim led him in silence to a cluster of brush. There was a body in the weeds. A man had crawled here, curled up like a baby and died.

“It’s not a member of the Guard unit,” said Sergeant Karim. “I had one of the sergeants look at him.” He gestured to a man smoking a cigarette a short distance away.

“Turn him over so I can see his face,” said Khorasani.

When Karim hesitated, Khorasani did it himself. Looking at the dead didn’t bother him.

Dressed in what looked like Pasdaran fatigues, the man was large and in good shape. He looked more Arabic than Iranian, but he could be an Israeli or an American.

That’s the sort they would choose, wasn’t it? Someone who looked the part.

Khorasani let his mind wander as he looked at the man, thinking of how such an operation would run. You might try infiltrating the bunkers with the help of a few traitors; in that case, what would this man and whoever was with him be doing? Maybe he’d brought material for the attack and was on his way out, or to another target.

Or maybe he was supporting an air attack, directing it with a laser device.

Or maybe he was recording what happened. Their satellites were limited. The Americans were always delivering boasts about their technology that proved to be empty.

The colonel searched the body. The man had no weapon aside from a combat knife, and no ammunition. He had no papers either.

But what was this, taped to his chest?

Money, and quite a lot of it—10 million rial checks, along with 100,000 rial notes.

There were euro notes as well—fifty-three of them, each a hundred euro note.

Khorasani rose. The money would be considerable anywhere, but especially in Iran. It could get him to exile, if he wished.

He handed it to his sergeant.

“Count this,” he told him. “Make sure there is a record.”

Sergeant Karim took it quickly. Apparently, money made it easy to overcome his aversion to death.

How many others had been with this man? Khorasani walked a few meters, examining the area. The ground had been disturbed by the units that responded after the attack, so there was little hope of getting a read on how many there were.

A small handful. Was there another truck?

Which way would they go?