Overhead, we are overhead. What is your situation, over?

Were in deep shit, falling back to the LZ now, get down here, get down here right now! Ramirez shouted for his men. Get to the LZ, theyre coming to get us!

Negative, negative. KNIFE, we cannot come in now. You must get clear, you must get clear. Acknowledge! Clark told the radio. No reply. He repeated the instructions and again there was nothing.

And now there were only eight left of what had once been twenty-two men. Ramirez was carrying a wounded man, and his earpiece had fallen out as he ran for the LZ, two hundred meters up the hill, through one last stand of trees into the clearing where the helicopter would come.

But it didnt. Ramirez set his burden down, looking up at the sky with his eyes, then with his goggles, but there was no helicopter, no flash of strobe lights, no heat from turboshaft engines to light up the night sky. The captain yanked the earpiece out of the radio and screamed into it.

VARIABLE, where the hell are you?

KNIFE, this is VARIABLE. We are orbiting your position in a fixed-wing aircraft. We cannot execute a pickup until tomorrow night. You must get clear, you must get clear. Acknowledge!

Theres only eight of us left, theres only Ramirez stopped, and his humanity returned one last, lethal time. Oh, my God. He hesitated, realizing that most of his men were gone, and he had been their commander, and he was responsible. That he wasnt, really, was something he would never learn.

The enemy was approaching now, approaching from three sides. There was only one way to escape. It was a preplanned route, but Ramirez looked down at the man hed carried to the LZ and watched him die. He looked up again, looked round at his men, and didnt know what to do next. There wasnt time for training to work. A hundred meters away, the first of the enemy force emerged from the last line of trees and fired. His men returned it, but there were too many and the infantrymen were down to their last magazines.

Chavez saw it happening. Hed linked back up with Vega and Len, to help a man whose leg was badly wounded. As he watched, a line of men swept across the LZ. He saw Ramirez drop prone, firing his weapon at the oncoming enemy, but there was nothing Ding and his friends could do, and they headed west, down the escape route. They didnt look back. They didnt need to. The sound told them enough. The chattering of the M-16s was answered by the louder fire of the AKs. A few more grenades went off. Men screamed and cursed, all of them in Spanish. And then all the fire was from AKs. The battle for this hill had ended.

Does that mean what I think it means? Larson asked.

It means that some stateside REMF is going to die, Clark said quietly. There were tears in his eyes. Hed seen this happen once before, when his helicopter had gotten off in time and the other hadnt, and hed been ashamed at the time and long thereafter that he had survived while others had not. Shit! He shook his head and got control of himself.

KNIFE, this is VARIABLE. Do you read me, over? Reply by name. Say again, reply by name.

Wait a minute, Chavez said. This is Chavez. Whos on this net?

Listen fast, kid, cause your net is compromised. This is Clark. We met awhile back. Head in the same direction you did on the practice night. Do you remember that?

Roger. I remember the way we headed then. We can do that.

Ill be back for you tomorrow. Hang in there, kid. It aint over yet. Repeat: I will be back for you. Now haul your ass out of there. Out.

What was that all about? Vega asked.

We loop around east, down the hill to the north, then around east.

And then what? Oso demanded.

How the fuck should I know?

Head back north, Clark ordered.

Whats an REMF? Larson asked as he started the turn.

Clarks reply was so low as to be inaudible. An REMF is a rear-echelon motherfucker, one of those useless, ordergenerating bastards who gets us line-animals killed. And one of them is going to pay for this, Larson. Now shut up and fly.

For another hour they continued their futile search for Team BANNER, then they headed back to Panama. That flight took two hours and fifteen minutes, during which Clark didnt say a word and Larson was afraid to. The pilot taxied the aircraft right into the hangar with the Pave Low, and the doors closed behind him. Ryan and Johns were waiting for them.

Well? Jack asked.

We made contact with OMEN and FEATURE, Clark said. Come on. He led them into an office with a table. There he spread out his map.

What about the others? Jack asked. Colonel Johns didnt have to. He already knew part of it from the look on Clarks face.

OMEN will be right here tomorrow night. FEATURE will be here, Clark said, indicating two places marked on the map.

Okay, we can handle that, Johns said.

Goddammit! Ryan growled. What about the others?

We never made contact with BANNER. We watched the bad guys overrun KNIFE. Most of it, Clark corrected himself. At least one man got away. Im going in after him, on the ground. Clark turned to the pilot. Larson, youd better get a few hours. I need you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in six hours.

What about the weather? he asked PJ.

That fucking storms jinking around like a Weasel on a SAM hunt. Nobody knows where the hell its going, but it aint there yet, and Ive flown in weather before, Colonel Johns replied.

Okay. The pilot walked off. There were some cots set in the next room. He landed on one and was asleep in a minute.

Going in on the ground? Ryan asked.

What do you expect me to doleave them there? Aint we done enough of that? Clark looked away. His eyes were red, and only PJ knew that it wasnt from strain and lack of sleep. Sorry, Jack. Theres some of our people there. I have to try. Theyd try for me. Its cool, man. I know how to do it.

How? PJ asked.

Larson and Ill fly in around noon, get a car and drive down. I told Chavezthats the kid I talked toto get around them and head east, down the mountain. Well try to pick them up, drive em to the airport, and just fly them out.

Just like that? Ryan asked incredulously.

Sure. Why not?

Theres a difference between being brave and being an idiot, Ryan said.

Who gives a fuck about being brave? Its my job. Clark walked off to get some sleep.

You know what youre really afraid of? Johns said when hed left. Youre afraid of remembering the times that you could have done it and didnt. I can give you a play-by-play of every failure Ive had in twenty-some years. The colonel was wearing his blue shirt with command wings and all the ribbons. He had quite a few.

Jacks eyes fixed on one, pale blue with five white stars. But you . . .

Its a nice thing to wear, and its nice to have four-stars salute me first and treat me like Im something special. But you know what matters? Those two guys I got out. Ones a general now. The other one flies for Delta. Theyre both alive. They both have families. Thats what matters, Mr. Ryan. The ones I didnt get out, they matter, too. Some of them are still there, because I wasnt good enough or fast enough or lucky enough. Or they werent. Or something. I should have gotten them out. Thats the job, Johns said quietly. Thats what I do.

We sent them in there, Jack told himself. My agency sent them in there. And some of them are dead now, and we let somebody tell us not to do anything about it. And Im supposed to be . . .

Might be dangerous going in tonight.

Possible. Looks that way.

You have three minis aboard your chopper, Ryan said after a moment. You only have two gunners.

I couldnt whistle another one up this fast and Im a pretty fair shot, Jack told him.

Accounting CORTEZ SAT AT the table, doing his sums. The Americans had done marvelously well. Nearly two hundred Cartel men had gone up the mountain. Ninety-six had returned alive, sixteen of those wounded. Theyd even brought a live American down with them. He was badly hurt, still bleeding from four wounds, and he hadnt been well handled by the Colombian gunmen. The man was young and brave, biting off his screams, shaking with the effort to control himself. Such a courageous young man, this Green Beret. Cortez would not insult his bravery with questions. Besides, he was incoherent, and Cortez had other things to do.

There was a medical team here to treat friendly casualties. Cortez walked out to it and picked up a disposable syringe, filling it with morphine. He returned and stabbed the needle into a vein on the soldiers uninjured arm, pushing down on the plunger after it was in. The soldier relaxed at once, his pain extinguished by a wonderful, brief sensation of well-being. Then his breathing just stopped, and his life, too, was extinguished. Most unfortunate. Cortez could really have used men like this one, but they rarely worked for anything other than a flag. He walked over to his phone and called the proper number.

Jefe, we eliminated one of the enemy forces last night. . . . Yes, jefe, there were ten of them as I suspected, and we got them all. We go after another team tonight. . . . There is one problem, jefe. The enemy fought well, and we took many casualties. I need more men for tonights mission. S, thank you, jefe. That will do nicely. Send the men to Rosucio, and have the leaders report to me this afternoon. I will brief them here. Oh? Yes, that will be excellent. Well be waiting for you.

With luck, Cortez thought, the next American team would fight equally as well. With luck he could eliminate two-thirds of the Cartels stable of gunmen in a single week. Along with their bosses, also tonight. He was on the downslope now, Cortez thought. Hed gambled dangerously and hard, but the tricky ones were behind him.

It was an early funeral. Greer had been a widower, and estranged from his wife long before that. The reason for the estrangement was next to the rectangular hole in Arlington, the simple white headstone of First Lieutenant Robert White Greer, USMC, his only son, whod graduated from the Naval Academy and gone to Vietnam to die. Neither Moore nor Ritter had ever met the young man, and James had never kept a photo of him around the office. The former DDI had been a sentimental man but never a maudlin one. Yet he had long ago requested burial next to the grave of his son, and because of his rank and station an exception had been made and the place kept available for an event that for all men was as inevitable as it was untimely. Hed indeed been a sentimental man, but only in ways that mattered. Ritter thought that there were many explanations before his eyes. The way James had adopted several bright young people and brought them into the Agency, the interest hed taken in their careers, the training and consideration hed given them.

It was a small, quiet ceremony. James few close friends were there, along with a much larger number of people from the government. Among the latter were the Presidentand, much to Bob Ritters rage, Vice Admiral James A. Cutter, Jr. The President himself had spoken at the chapel service, noting the death of a man who had served his country continuously for more than fifty years, having enlisted in the U.S. Navy at seventeen, then entered the Academy, then reached two-star rank, achieving a third star for his flag after assuming his position at CIA. A standard of professionalism, integrity, and devotion to his country that few have equaled and none have excelled was how the President summarized the career Vice Admiral James Greer.

And that bastard Cutter sat right there in the front row as he said it, too, Ritter told himself. He found it especially sickening as he watched the honor guard from the 3rd Infantry Regiment fold the flag that had been draped over the casket. There was no one to hand it to. Ritter had expected it to go to But where was Ryan? He moved his head, trying to look around. He hadnt noticed before because Jack hadnt come from Langley with the rest of the CIA delegation. The flag went to Judge Moore by default. Hands were shaken, words exchanged. Yes, it really was a mercy that hed gone so rapidly at the end. Yes, men like this didnt appear every day. Yes, this was the end of the Greer line, and that was too bad, wasnt it? No, I never met his son, but I heard. . . . Ritter and Moore were in the Agency Cadillac ten minutes later, heading back up the George Washington Parkway.

Where the hell was Ryan? the DCI asked.

I dont know. I figured hed drive himself in.

Moore was not so much angered as upset by the impropriety. He still had the flag in his lap, holding it as gently as a newborn baby without knowing whyuntil he realized that if there really was a God, as the Baptist preachers of his youth had assured him, and if James had really had a soul, he held its best legacy in his hands. It felt warm to the touch, and though he knew that it was merely his imagination or at most the residual heat absorbed from the morning sun, the energy radiating from the flag that James had served from his teens seemed to accuse him of treachery. They had just watched a funeral this morning, but two thousand miles away there were other people whom the Agency had sent to do a job and who would not receive even the empty reward of a grave amidst others of their kind.

Bob, what the hell have we done? Moore asked. How did we ever get into this?

I dont know, Arthur. I just dont know.

James really was lucky, the Director of Central Intelligence murmured. At least he went out With a clear conscience? Ritter looked out the window, unable to bring himself to face his boss. Look, Arthur He stopped, not knowing what to say next. Ritter had been with the Agency since the fifties, had worked as a case officer, a supervisor, station chief, then head of section at Langley. He had lost case officers, had lost agents, but hed never betrayed them. There was a first time for everything, he told himself. It had just come home to him in a very immediate way, however, that for every man there was also a first time for death, and that to meet that final accounting improperly was the ultimate cowardice, the ultimate failure of life. But what else could they do?

It was a short drive to Langley, and the car stopped before that question could be answered. They rode the elevator up. Moore walked to his office. Ritter walked to his. The secretaries hadnt returned yet. They were in a van. Ritter paced around his office until they arrived, then walked over to see Mrs. Cummings.

Did Ryan call in or anything?

No, and I didnt see him at all. Do you know where he is? Nancy asked.

Sorry, I dont. Ritter walked back and on impulse called Ryans home, where all he got was an answering machine. He checked his card file for Cathys work number and got past the secretary to her.

This is Bob Ritter. I need to know where Jack is.

I dont know, Dr. Caroline Ryan replied guardedly. He told me yesterday that he had to go out of town. He didnt say where.

A chill went across Ritters face. Cathy, I have to know. This is very importantI cant tell you how important. Please trust me. I have to know where he is.

I dont know. You mean you dont, either? There was alarm in her voice.

Ryan knows, Ritter realized.

Look, Cathy, Ill track him down. Dont worry or anything, okay? The effort to calm her down was wasted, but Ritter hung up as soon as he could. The DDO walked to Judge Moores office. The flag was centered on the DCIs desk, still folded into its triangular section, called a cocked-hat. Judge Arthur Moore, Director of Central Intelligence, was sitting quietly, staring at it.

Jacks gone. His wife says she doesnt know where. He knows, Arthur. He knows and hes off doing something.

How could he have found out?

How the hell should I know? Ritter thought for a moment, then waved at his boss. Come on.

They walked into Ryans office. Ritter opened the panel for Jacks wall safe and dialed in the proper combination, and nothing happened other than the fact that the warning light went on over the dial.

Damn, Ritter said. I thought that was it.

Jamess combination?

Yeah. You know how he was, never did like the damned things, and he probably . . . Ritter looked around. He got it on the third try, pulling out the writing panel from the desk, and there it was.

I thought I did dial the right one. He turned and tried again. This time the light was accompanied by the goddamned beeper. Ritter turned back and checked the number again. There was some more writing on the sheet. Ritter pulled the panel farther out.

Oh, my God.

Moore nodded and walked to the door. Nancy, tell security that its us trying to work the safe. Looks like Jack changed the combination without telling us like he was supposed to. The DCI closed the door and turned back.

He knows, Arthur.

Maybe. How do we check it out?

A minute later they were in Ritters office. Hed shredded all of his documents, but not his memory. You didnt forget the name of someone with the Medal of Honor. Then it was just a matter of flipping open his AUTOVON phone directory and calling the 1st Special Operations Wing at Eglin AFB.

I need to talk to Colonel Paul Johns, Ritter told the sergeant whod picked up the phone.

Colonel Johns is off TDY somewhere, sir. I dont know where.

Who does?

The wing operations officer might, sir. This is a nonsecure line, sir, the sergeant reminded him.

Give me his number. The sergeant did so, and Ritters next call went out on, and to, a secure line.

I need to find Colonel Johns, Ritter said after identifying himself.

Sir, I have orders not to give that information out to anybody. That means nobody, sir.

Major, if hes down in Panama again, I need to know it. His life may depend on it. Something is happening that he needs to know about.

Sir, I have orders Stuff your orders, sonny. If you dont tell me, and that flight crew dies, it will be your fault! Now you make the call, Major, yes or no?

The officer had never seen combat, and life-death decisions were theoretical matters to himor had been until now.

Sir, theyre back where they were before. Same place, same crew. Thats as far as I go, sir.

Thank you, Major. You did the right thing. You really did. Now I suggest that you make written note of this call and its content. Ritter hung up. The phone had been on speaker.

Has to be Ryan, the DCI agreed. Now what do we do?