At about twenty thousand feet, though, Royce realized he was writing his own epitaph prematurely. There was no need for him to crash into the waves. If he just splayed his legs and arms into a normal controlled descent position, he could slow his fall by nearly thirty miles an hour, allowing his men to hit the Obelisk well before he got close to the ground. Then he could pull the rip cord high enough that he should be able to pilot the nimble parafoil chute to his destination. He’d arrive late for his command. But he’d get there.

He opened his arms, and suddenly his men began to break away from him with remarkable speed.

Gideon's War and Hard Target

Thirty seconds later, he saw the first parachute blossom...

He readied his gear as the Obelisk grew closer and closer. He looked at his arm. Taped to the inside of his forearm was a photograph of the target, Tillman Davis. In the photo he wore a dress uniform, hair high and tight, black eyes staring unwaveringly at the camera. Looked like a hell of a warrior. Royce wondered where the man had gone wrong.

As the first chute blossomed, Royce sp of¡€†oke into his mic for the first time: “Guys, you know your orders. Every one of you has a picture of the target on your sleeve. You make a positive ID on Tillman Davis, you take him out.”

A tide of emotion flooded Gideon Davis as he stared at the man on the floor. For the first time the savagery and pace of the past few days hit him, and his legs went so weak he was afraid he couldn’t keep standing.

“Tillman?” The man on the floor nodded. “Earl told me you were dead.”

Then, from somewhere above them they heard the sound of gunfire.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

KATE CROUCHED OVER BIG Al on the floor of the dive station as her old friend tried to breathe, a thin stream of blood running from his mouth.

He inhaled, shallow and ragged, then said, “He must have hit me in the lung.”

“Don’t talk, Al,” she said, applying a compression bandage to his wound.

“Look,” he said, pointing feebly past her to the other deck.

Kate thought maybe she was hallucinating when she turned and saw a handful of paratroopers descending onto the chopper deck. Relief coursed through her. Even from here she could see the small rectangular patches on their shoulders: the American flag had never looked so good to her in her life.

There was a brief flurry of shouting and gunfire as a gaggle of Tim-ken’s mercenaries burst onto A Deck and began shooting at the soldiers.

Big Al grabbed her sleeve. “Hey,” he said, his gravelly voice now full of an ominous bubbling sound. “Listen to me, chérie”

“Shh!” Kate said. “Just hang on! Help’s coming.”

“Listen,” he said. His eyes lost focus for a moment, but then he winced and continued. “Don’t let yourself die alone just because of Ben. It was bad luck, the thing that happened to him.”

Kate felt the same stab of loneliness that pierced her every time she thought about Ben.

On the other platform the shooting continued furiously. The mercenaries—where she could see them—looked frightened and frantic. The American soldiers, on the other hand, seemed businesslike, making crisp hand signals to one another or shouting brief gnomic messages to one another: “Frag out! Tango down! Two in motion, flank left!” They had the unhurried competence of a well-drilled football team.

And suddenly the firing stopped. The soldiers on the other side of the rig were now disappearing inside the rig, leaving the fallen bodies of at least half a dozen of Timken’s mercenaries.

“I saw the way you looked at him,” Big Al whispered. “Don’t let what happened to Ben stop you from living your life.”

“Help!” Kate screamed. “I need medical help over here!”

She heard several loud pops, half swallowed by the rig. Then silence.

“Over here!”

“Promise me, you’ll let yourself be happy,” Big Al said, his eyes closing heavily. “Promise me.”

Then he took his last ragged breath, blood bubbling from his mouth.

Kate began crying quietly, in stark counterpoint to the gunfire that erupted in another part of the rig.

Gideon used his Benchmark to cut his brother’s flex cuff, then pulled him to his feet.

“It’s Parker,” Gideon said. “He’s behind everything.”

“Uncle Earl?” Tillman stared, as if trying to piece together what had happened.

“Are you surprised?”

“Not really.”

“He told me you’d switched sides. That you were working for the insurgents.”

When Tillman finally answered, his voice cracked with regret. “I was. But only because he wanted me to stay under. I took my orders directly and exclusively from him. And my mission was to penetrate the insurgency as deeply as I could. Which meant doing some pretty bad things.” He drifted off, lost in some painful memory before his eyes shifted back to Gideon. “When I told him I wanted to quit, he said he’d have me killed before he let me out. I knew he’d established enough plausible deniability that no one would have listened to me.”

“I would have,” Gideon said.

“I didn’t think you’d understand.”

“So you ran away to Kampong Naga.”

Tillman nodded, then went on to explain how the village had been shelled, and how he’d been grabbed and drugged by Timken.

“He sold us out. Both of us. He used General Prang. He hired Timken to impersonate you, and a bunch of mercenaries to hijack the rig, pretending to be Islamic terrorists on some kind of suicide mission. Their plan is to blow the rig and frame you for it. When the bodies were found, yours would be among them. I imagine they were going to shoot you and make it look like you’d been killed in the assault.”

“What assault?”

Gideon cocked his head at the furious gunfire above them. “That one. A Delta Force team just HALO jumped onto the rig.” As soon as he spoke, the gunfire slackened. “They may need help.” Gideon pulled a Makarov from the hip of the downed bomb-maker on the other side of the box, tossed it to Tillman.

“I’m still a little groggy. I got my bell rung when I hit the deck here.” Tillman pulled the slide back half an inch, verifying that a round was chambered, and looked over the sights, then gave Gideon a sly smile. “But I’ll do what I can.”

Gideon glanced at the timer on the bomb. Just under three hours. Still enough time. If they had to, they could evacuate the hostages into the escape pods and drop into the ocean before the bomb went off. It wouldn’t be a lot of fun riding in one of those pods, especially not after the eye passed and was replaced by another storm. But they&21;±€†#8217;d survive.

Tillman suddenly gripped Gideon’s shoulders. “Man, it’s been too long.” He pulled Gideon into a strong hug, which Gideon reciprocated. “I’m sorry things got so messed up between us.”

“Me too.” Gideon said. There were a thousand things he wanted to tell his brother, but he knew they would have to wait. “Let’s go.”

Tillman trailed Gideon as they charged out into the hallway and headed for the stairs. This would all be over soon.

As they climbed the stairs, they heard gunshots on one of the upper decks and the calm assured voices of American soldiers. Gideon sprinted ahead, up the stairs to the chopper deck, where he found a handful of camo-clad soldiers.

“Thank God you’re here!” Gideon shouted.

The four men turned, aiming their M-4 carbines at him. Gideon expected the men to greet him enthusiastically. Instead, their eyes went straight to his AK-47. Their faces were hard.

“Put your weapon down!” one of them shouted. “Weapon down!”

Gideon gingerly set his AK-47 down. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m Gideon Davis. The president—”

“I know who you are, sir. Down on the ground! On your knees and lace your hands behind your head!” The soldier’s commands were non-negotiable.

Gideon could hear Tillman clumping slowly up the steps behind him. The effects of his drugged captivity had obviously not quite worn off: he was lagging well behind.