2217.

ZEN SPOTTED TWO FIGURES RUNNING FROM THE REAR OF the barn toward a building across a dirt road a hundred yards away. As he circled around, he saw someone else near the building. Suddenly, one of the walls seemed to give way. A small pickup truck emerged-it had broken through a garagestyle door-and headed toward the road. The man nearby threw himself into the back. The two others ran and did the same. Another vehicle, this one a car, followed.

"Danny, I have a pickup truck and a sedan, mid-size, coming out of one of the buildings across the road, about a hundred and fifty yards north of your position," said Zen.

"Roger, we heard it."

"I can nail them."

"Negative. They may have hostages. Follow it for now."

Zen slipped the Flighthawk farther along the road. The Romanians had forces on the highway about three-fourths of a mile away, though there were several places the guerrillas could turn off. He tucked back, then decided to try and spook them by flying toward them low and fast, pickling a few flares into their windshields as he pulled up.

As he came out of the turn and started in, he spotted a small bridge over a stream ahead of the vehicles and got a better idea.

The bridge was little more than a few wooden planks over a culvert pipe. He climbed a few hundred feet, then pushed in, twisting the Flighthawk so its nose pointed almost straight down at the road surface. He mashed the trigger of his cannon, then waggled his plane left and right, chewing the wood up with his bullets.

The pickup appeared as Zen cleared. His attack had damaged the bridge so severely that it slid sideways as soon as the truck started across. The vehicle skidded but managed to get to the other side as the bridge collapsed behind it.

The car that was following, however, was stranded. Seven men hopped out and ran across the culvert to the truck. From the air, it looked like a circus routine, though without the humor.

"Truck got across the little bridge," Zen told Danny. "Six, seven guys getting out of the car, crossing. They're in the back of the pickup."

"Stand by."

The pickup drove about ten yards and then stopped. Everyone spilled out and began running toward a nearby house.

"Danny, they're going toward a building. I see no one that looks like he might be a hostage."

There was a pause as Danny conferred with Roma.

"See if you can stop them," Danny said finally.

Zen laid down a spray of cannon fire across the lawn of the house. Three or four men fell, but the others were too spread out for him to target in a single run. He circled back quickly, but by the time he brought his guns to bear, all but two had made it into the house.

Whether they had hostages before, Zen thought bitterly, they had them now.

Near Tutova, northeastern Romania

2220.

THE POLICE CAR AND AN AMBULANCE WERE IN THE BARN.

So were two policemen. Both had been shot through the head.

Lieutenant Roma quickly regrouped his men, organizing them so he could surround the house where the guerrillas had gone. He seemed to realize that his fears about hostages had probably led to others being taken. Or maybe his somber mood came from the fact that the guerrillas had killed two and wounded four of his men in the field outside the barn.

Danny remained silent as they drove to the house. Half a dozen soldiers had already set up positions near it without drawing fire, but when the guerrillas saw the truck, they began shooting ferociously.

"Time is on our side," said Roma after they took cover. "We will have them surrounded as soon as our reinforcements arrive."

Had the guerrillas mounted a concentrated attack on one of the flanks, they might have been able to break through. But within ten minutes another platoon of soldiers arrived; a few minutes later, another.

The house sat in the middle of well-cleared plot of land, with good lines of fire for the army soldiers as they cl.u.s.tered behind vehicles and other cover. There would be no way for the guerrillas to escape this time. Their only hope would be some sort of negotiated surrender.

Along with the reinforcements, senior officers began to arrive: first a company captain, then a major; before an hour pa.s.sed, a colonel arrived and took charge.

Roma introduced him to Danny as Oz, without reference to his rank. He had a brush mustache and eyes that sat far back in his skull.

"This is something new," Oz told Danny. "Ordinarily they don't take prisoners. But then we usually don't catch them like this. We are grateful for your help."

"That's why we're here."

"There are five girls in the house," said Oz. "The neighbors say they have a grandmother and an uncle living with them as well. From five to fifteen. Girls." The colonel shook his head. "Innocent people."

"Maybe you can get them to release them."

Oz frowned. "One of my men has already tried calling the house. No answer."

"Can we wait them out?"

"What other choice do we have?"

About a half hour later two armored personnel carriers arrived. Oz climbed into the rear of one, then the two trucks slowly advanced onto the front lawn, stopping about twenty yards from the house. The guerrillas made no effort to stop them, and, as far as Danny could tell, didn't appear at the windows.

The rear ramp of the vehicle Oz had gotten into slammed open. The colonel emerged, a microphone in his hand.

"What's he saying?" Danny asked Roma as Oz began to broadcast a message.

"Telling them they have to surrender," said the lieutenant. "He's giving them a phone number they can call to talk to us."

The colonel paused, evidently waiting for an answer. When none came, he repeated his warning and plea.

This time there was an answer-an explosion so violent it knocked Danny to the ground.

Aboard EB-52 Bennett,

above northeastern Romania

2235.

EVEN THOUGH ZEN KNEW BETTER, THE EXPLOSION THAT rocked the house was so intense that for a second he thought the Bennett had unleashed a missile on the building. The fireball rose over the Flighthawk.

"Colonel, you see that?" Zen asked.

"I have it on screen," said Dog dryly.

"They blew themselves up. s.h.i.t."

"All right, Zen. Tell Danny we're standing by."

Near Tutova, northeastern Romania

2237.

BY THE TIME DANNY RECOVERED, THE FIREBALL HAD FALLEN back into the ruins. Smoke and dust filled the air. All he could hear was the low rumble of the motor from one of the personnel carriers; the other had been choked and stalled by the air surge of the explosion.

Then the screaming began. A loud wail went up, as if all the world had begun to cry at once. A dozen men had been hit by shrapnel and were seriously wounded. Another two or three had been killed outright.

What remained of the house was on fire. The glow turned the night orange, casting long shadows around the yard. The Romanian soldiers began to move toward their comrades who had been wounded.

"Groundhog, are you all right?" asked Zen.

"Groundhog. Affirmative."

"What the h.e.l.l happened? It looked like a piece of h.e.l.l opened up."

The only thing Danny could think of was that the guerrillas had been carrying plastique explosives with them, and augmented their power with something they found in the house, natural gas, maybe.

"I heard there were kids in the house," Danny told Zen, still in disbelief.

"G.o.d."

"I'll get back to you."

Though he didn't have a med kit, Danny was a trained paramedic and realized he could be of more use helping the wounded than lamenting what had happened. He threw off his helmet and ran toward the bodies scattered along the lawn. Most were near the armored personnel carriers, lulled by the bulk of the big trucks into thinking they were safe behind them.

The first man he reached had been hit in the leg by a large piece of metal. The wound wasn't deep. Danny checked for little shards or metal splinters up and down his thigh; when he didn't find any, he made a bandage from the man's handkerchief and had him press down on it to stop the bleeding.

The next man was dead, killed by a large piece of wood that had slit his neck and its arteries wide open.

Oz was sitting on the ground behind the APC, dazed. The shock had thrown him off the open ramp of the carrier and he'd struck his head. His pupils seemed to react to the flashlight Danny shone in his eyes, but that didn't necessarily rule out a concussion, and Danny told him he'd have to be checked by a doctor. Oz nodded, but still seemed dazed.

Lieutenant Roma walked up as Danny rose.

"You see what kind of people we're up against, the criminals," said Roma. He had tears in his eyes. "Devils. Worse. Killers of children."

"It's horrible."

"They're slime," said Roma. "Cowards."

"Yes," said Danny.

Roma crumpled.

Danny knelt and saw that he'd been struck by something hard, a brick maybe, that had caved in the right side of his head. Blood trickled from his ear.

"Roma? Roma?" he said.

The lieutenant didn't answer. He wasn't breathing. He had no pulse.

Danny started CPR. A Romanian medic ran up; they worked together for a minute, two minutes, then five.

When ten minutes had pa.s.sed and both men could no longer pretend there was still hope, they looked at each other for a moment. Then slowly Danny rose and went to see if there was someone else he might help.

IV.