"They should be in the air any second."

Aboard the Bennett

above northeastern Romania

2124.

ZEN TOOK OVER THE FLIGHTHAWK AS SOON AS IT WAS launched, juicing the throttle and heading toward the GPS reading from Danny Freah's radio. The infrared camera in the Flighthawk's nose showed a docile, almost dreamlike landscape of empty fields broken only occasionally by small cl.u.s.ters of houses. It seemed impossible that there was a war here, but Danny's voice when he checked in sounded as grim as if he were in the middle of h.e.l.l itself.

"We're traveling on local Road 154," said Danny. "They have a police car, an ambulance, and maybe a pickup truck. There may be a hostage."

"Roger that," said Zen. His rules of engagement required him to get permission not just from Dog, but the Romanian Second Army Corps commander before firing-unless the guerrillas were shooting directly at a Whiplash team member.

In that case he'd obliterate whatever he felt was a danger and ask questions later.

"Check the highways nearby, just in case," added Danny. "But we think this is the road they took."

"Yeah, we're on it."

Romanian road maps had been uploaded into the computer's memory. Zen gave a verbal command and the computer projected the map on the screen. After highlighting his position, it flashed an arrow on the highway Danny had mentioned, a long, winding road that ran from the larger highway to the south.

The road was about thirty miles away. Zen adjusted his course, turning so he would bring the road into view just south of Danny's location. Then he pushed the plane lower, his eyes locked on the view in the screen.

The road ran for about three miles, taking a few gentle S-turns past farm fields and ending at a shallow creek and woods. There were no vehicles of any kind along it. The infrared camera didn't show anything warm in the vicinity. Zen rechecked his position, then took another pa.s.s, slowing the Flighthawk down to get a better look.

Spiff, operating the ground radar, reported that the highway was clear, except for a fire truck responding from a neighboring town.

"Danny, are you sure this is the road?" Zen asked as he flew the Flighthawk north, pa.s.sing over the army vehicles.

"It's their best guess."

Zen pulled up, taking a moment to consult the radar image of the ground. The odd thing about this road was that it didn't connect to any other roads; it was essentially a dead end, albeit a very long one, flanked by numerous barns and some isolated farmhouses. If the guerrillas had used it, they were almost certainly hiding somewhere.

Near Tutova, northeastern Romania

2131.

ADRENALINE WAS BOTH A CURSE AND A BOON. TOO MUCH and you started to lose your sense of judgment, rushed into things without taking the wisest approach. Too little and you lost your edge, holding back when you should attack.

Even for Danny Freah it was a difficult balance. The dark night, the unfamiliar territory, and most of all his role as an observer rather than a leader, made it more difficult to walk the tightrope. His heart sped; his head told it to slow down.

Even though Zen had said the road was empty, Lieutenant Roma insisted on driving to the very end. When they reached it, he got his troops out and had them cross the creek, searching the woods and nearby fields. Danny, watching the infrared feed from the Flighthawk on his smart helmet's visor, could tell that the woods were too spa.r.s.e to hide any of the vehicles. When he told the lieutenant, the Romanian replied that a few months back after a similar attack the troop had chased a small unit of guerrillas across a stream nearby and trapped them in the woods.

A nice story, thought Danny, but one that had no bearing on their present situation.

"They always go back across the border," said Roma. "They are cowards and head in that direction."

"But if they took a police car and the other trucks, shouldn't we look for them? They must be hiding in one of the barns we've pa.s.sed, waiting for daybreak to launch another attack."

"They will abandon them somewhere," said the lieutenant.

"Why take something so obvious as a police car or an ambulance unless you're going to use it?" asked Danny.

"We have only the mayor's word that they took a police car. Sometimes they say things like that because they hope the government will give them new vehicles. That is what I think is happening here-it's a small village; there may not even have been a police car, let alone an ambulance."

Roma had left two of his men back near the village, and between them and the Flighthawk, it was unlikely that the guerrillas would be able to double back without being seen. But the allocation of resources bothered Danny's sense of priorities. When one of the soldiers thought he saw tire ruts on the other side of a shallow stretch of the stream, Roma ordered most of his men to cross the field and search, a decision that would not only waste time but fatigue the troops unnecessarily, Danny thought. He radioed Zen, who took a low, slow pa.s.s overhead.

"The terrain goes up pretty sharply at the end of the field," Zen reported. "I could see maybe a jeep getting in and through there, but not a car, let alone an ambulance."

"How about a pickup truck?"

"Yeah, I guess if it's four-wheel drive. But I don't see anything up there on the infrared. It'd be pretty easy to spot."

"You see tracks?"

"Those might be a little harder, but no, nothing obvious."

"Keep looking, all right?"

"I'm on it."

While Roma's men continued searching the area, the Romanian lieutenant checked in with his division headquarters. The border guards had been alerted, and another company sent over to the hamlet that had been attacked. Five people had died in either the explosion or the subsequent fire; two others were missing. It wasn't clear whether they had been taken hostage or were still somewhere in the smoldering ruins of the buildings.

When the search of the field failed to turn up anything, Lieutenant Roma called his men back and began a systematic search of the buildings they'd pa.s.sed. The soldiers split into groups so they could cover each other as well as prevent an escape.

The first barn was quite a distance from its owner's house, and Roma didn't bother asking permission before inspecting it. After sealing off the driveway and posting lookouts on the other three sides, two men with submachine guns and a third with a grenade launcher took up positions opposite the large door, which was mounted on a track of wheels that allowed it to be pushed to the side to open. On the count of three, a pair of soldiers shot off the locks and hauled it aside, the runners squeaking and the men huffing as they pushed, then dove to the ground for cover.

Except for some old farm equipment and a few bales of hay, the interior was empty. The house didn't have a garage; after a precursory check of the owner's small Fiat parked in back, the troops moved on.

The second barn was right next to a house, and because of the proximity, the lieutenant decided to alert the owner to the search. After his troops surrounded the place, the Romanian and Danny walked up the creaky wooden steps to the front porch.

Danny had a premonition of danger. He edged his finger against the trigger housing of his MP5 as a light came on inside. A plump woman in her early fifties answered the door, wearing a bathrobe. For a moment she seemed confused. Then she turned angry and began scolding the lieutenant. Roma ignored her, signaling for his men to proceed. They shot off a lock in the nearby barn, hauled the door open, and began their search.

The woman shouted angrily. Roma turned his back on her, signaling for a squad to search inside the house. Enraged, she swung her fist at the back of his head.

Danny grabbed her arm before she connected. She screamed even louder, then spun and tried clawing at his face and bulletproof vest. He pushed her as gently as possible back inside the house. She squirmed against him, flailing with her fists, her fury unleashed. Afraid that she was going to grab his pistol, Danny went to push her away with his left arm and inadvertently smacked her across the forehead with the MP5. The woman staggered back, slapping her head against the doorjamb and then slipping to the floor. He reached out to grab her but was too late; she fell in a heap on the floor, stunned.

Two of Roma's men who had run up to a.s.sist grabbed the woman and dragged her farther inside. They pushed her into an upholstered chair. One pointed his rifle at her face and barked something in fierce Romanian. The rest of the squad began searching the house.

Danny stayed downstairs, unsure whether he would be needed or not. The woman sat in the chair, her eyes narrow slits and her mouth clamped shut. She looked as if her insides were literally boiling, her forehead reddened from the effort to keep from exploding.

The whole house shook with the heavy footsteps of the men searching above. Danny moved to the side of the room, watching an alcove that led into two rooms in the back. One of the rooms was a kitchen; a small vase of plastic flowers sat in the middle of the table between two candles, almost as if the woman were expecting a romantic evening.

"Nothing," said one of the soldiers to Danny in English as he came down the steps.

He nodded. The soldier began questioning the woman in Romanian, but she clamped her mouth shut. As the other men came downstairs, Danny decided he'd be of more use outside, and went to see what was going on.

He'd stepped off the porch and was just about to contact Zen when he heard a scream and a crash inside the house.

The soldiers filed out quickly. Danny went back and looked into the room. The woman lay on the floor on her back. Slowly, she rolled over and started getting to her feet. He was about to go help her but the expression on her face stopped him. She was afraid he was going to kill her, and he realized the kindest thing he could do was simply back away.

OUTSIDE, THE BARN AND NEARBY GROUNDS HAD BEEN searched without anything being found. Danny checked in with Zen, then walked back to the troop trucks.

Roma was already there, talking to his commander. More troops were being sent to help with the search.

"I think one of your men hit the old lady in the house," Danny told him, explaining what he'd heard.

"You saw what she was like," said Roma. "Many of these people are like that."

"Still-"

"You had to hit her yourself."

"I grabbed her so she wouldn't hit you."

Roma turned and ordered his men into the trucks.

"Aren't you going to do anything?" Danny demanded.

The lieutenant didn't answer.

Danny grabbed his arm and spun him back toward him. "Listen, Lieutenant. You can't just let your men push around civilians."

Roma looked down at his hand, then back at him.

"I'll ask what happened," Lieutenant Roma said.

"Good."

Danny got into the back of the jeep. Sitting there, he started to doubt that Roma would actually ask his men what had happened. Even if he did, it was likely nothing would come of it.

Yes, he had pushed the woman himself-but only to protect the lieutenant, who would have been hurt otherwise. Everything else was an accident.

Maybe it didn't look like that from Roma's perspective. And maybe the lines he was drawing were too fine to be practical.

Aboard the Bennett

, above northeastern Romania

2201.

"TWO MORE CONTACTS OVER THE BLACK SEA, SAME AS before," Rager told Dog as they circled above the area where the guerrillas had attacked.

"MiGs?"

"MiG-29s. Configuration: two AMRAAMskis, four small missiles, probably infrared AA-11 Archers," said Rager. AMRAAMski was slang for the Russian R-77 radar-guided antiair missile, a weapon somewhat similar to the American AMRAAM. AA-11 Archer was the NATO designation for Russia's R-73 short-range heat-seekers. "They're running a racetrack pattern 263 miles to our east."

"All right. Thanks."

"We going to take another run at them?" asked Sullivan.

"We have better things to do," Dog told him. "We'll ignore them as long as they keep their distance."

"What if they don't?"

"Then that will be their problem."

Near Tutova, northeastern Romania

2207.