"It's for everyone."

The Snow Maiden had snorted and ended the call.

"I have to go to the bathroom," said Chopra, rising from his chair, his expression asking the question.

She nodded and watched as he moved past the bed, behind her, toward the bathroom. Her hand remained on the bed, away from the pistol.

A mistake.

He came in from behind her, dropping his full weight on her back and trapping her there.

Then he reached across the bed, nearly getting his hand on the pistol before she slammed her elbow into his arm.

He gasped in pain as the weapon flew off the bed and thumped onto the carpet.

"Hussein, get the gun!" cried Chopra.

Brent had thought that after multiple tours in Afghanistan he'd seen it all-police selling drugs out of their stations, soldiers using their armor breastplates as grills to cook steaks over an open fire. His world was utterly absurd, yet the insanity had begun to feel familiar and comfortable. Expect chaos and suddenly everything is normal, despite the gasps and wide eyes from outsiders.

But maybe he had not not seen it all. He certainly hadn't seen seen it all. He certainly hadn't seen this this coming. coming.

Surveillance video along with detailed hardcopy and electronic doc.u.mentation had allowed Major Alice Dennison to make a "prisoner transfer" of Colonel Pavel Doletskaya.

She had transferred him, all right.

Straight to the unknown.

They were both MIA.

"My G.o.d, General, is she a traitor?" asked Brent.

"We don't know anything else yet, but since Doletskaya is connected to the Snow Maiden, I wanted you updated. From this point on, you'll be working with Colonel Grey instead of Dennison. I'll be checking in from time to time myself. This is a strange and disturbing turn of events. I handpicked her myself to join the JSF."

"Roger that, sir. I'll add Dennison and Doletskaya to our friend-or-foe cues."

"That's already been done," said Grey. "We have no reason to believe that she'd head to your location, but a rendezvous between the Snow Maiden and Doletskaya could occur in the near future."

"Yeah, in jail," added Brent.

"Now, Captain," the general began, narrowing his gaze. "We know what you're up against. Just remember: The Germans have a saying-feel the cloth. It comes from the days when men used to fight shoulder-to-shoulder and you could feel your buddy's arm rubbing against yours. It gave you courage. It reminded you that you weren't alone. Just go out there and feel the cloth. We're here to back you up in any way we can."

"Thank you, sir. Our infiltration was successful. I expect that if the target arrives, she'll be either terminated or in our custody."

"Excellent."

The general ended his link, leaving Brent to face Colonel Grey, whose deep scowl transformed her into an angry bird about to sink her talons into his flesh. Remarkably, she abandoned the cutting remarks and criticism and got down to business. "Brent, I'm taking into account that you might have received bad intel from Major Dennison and that she no doubt tipped off our enemies, but now more than ever we need results. I see you've placed snipers on the roof and have a perimeter around the tower."

"Observation posts out to about a kilometer from the vault. And I've got Voeckler moving down to recon the entrance. Schoolie's still patched into Voeckler's sticky cams."

"We're looking at those cams as well. I've also been following Lakota. Still no contact with the militia."

"She's working on that, and she tells me she's an excellent translator."

Most of his team had received extensive language training, but with the Cross-Com and intelligence teams monitoring back home, they could receive rapid-fire translations as they spoke with locals without having to attach a translator to the team. This was a welcome improvement in the last few years. Many of the translators Brent had used in Afghanistan turned out to be spies or were branded as traitors by locals and targeted for execution; consequently, they required extra protection.

Dubai, however, was unique in that before the war, more than eighty-five percent of its inhabitants were foreign born. Arabs, Indians, and Pakistanis were the largest groups, but people flocked to the country from all over the world, so they really weren't sure who they'd find and what language they'd speak.

"Once we link up with the militia, we'll see who's running the show," Brent went on. "Do we have any better estimates on the size and composition of this force?"

"Not very big. Battalion-sized force. Maybe a thousand if they're lucky. Poorly equipped. Any armor they had was probably looted years ago. Looks pretty ragtag, probably just some remaining troops from the country's old defense force and displaced persons. The emirates only had about sixty-five thousand to begin with. We've had some sketchy intel in the past, but this group has been largely ignored, written off as survivors in a radiological zone. There's a lot of movement in and out of Kish Island right here," she said, switching her image to a topo map of the area.

Kish was about 120 miles northwest of Dubai, across the Gulf. Before the war it had been touted as a consumer's paradise because of its free-trade zone. Now it was a bombed-out junkyard.

"All right, we'll keep an eye on that place, too. And those guys might be poorly armed, but they've got numbers. Time to make some new friends."

"Good luck with that, Brent. You'll need it. Because we're going to pin a medal on your a.s.s or boot it. Either way, when this is over, you and I will sit down and have a nice, long talk about the way you handled this."

He took a deep breath. "Understood."

Her eyes narrowed. "Good luck."

Bang, he ended the call.

Well, there it was. Even if he brought in the Snow Maiden, Grey would still burn him for going over her head. So it didn't matter anymore, really. He wasn't supposed to be here for himself, right? He was here to complete the mission, which in turn was vital to the security and stability of his country. That's the promise he'd made. That's the promise he'd keep, career be d.a.m.ned.

But just to show her how good he was, he'd capture the Snow Maiden, drag her kicking and screaming all the way back to Fort Bragg, and dump her in Grey's lap.

"Ghost Lead, this is Lakota. We've made contact."

Well, that didn't take long, he thought. "On my way."

Nice thing about the suits. Both her location and a suggested route were already superimposed in his HUD.

He followed the glowing yellow line (or yellow brick road, as they liked to quip) to her location between the towers, where she, Park, and Heston were standing beside two militants who'd been wearing MOPP gear but had removed their heavy face masks.

Brent was surprised to find that both heavily bearded men spoke Pashto (which he understood) and had migrated down from southern Afghanistan. They said they were being paid a small wage by a man they referred to as Sheikh Juma, who had (unsurprisingly) established a camp on Kish Island from where he directed his operations. They'd called Juma, who'd said he was willing to meet with Brent. Juma said that since the Iranian holocaust, as he called it, they rarely received visitors from Russia, Europe, or the United States.

Lakota said it was a two-to-three-hour boat ride to K ish, and Brent was concerned that the Snow Maiden might arrive while they were gone. He asked the men to see if Juma could come over to see them, but Juma refused. This was, Brent knew, part of the "power game" of negotiations, and if Brent wanted anything out of Juma he needed to play along.

"All right," Brent said. "Tell him we're coming out to see him. Copeland? Daugherty? You guys are in charge of your teams. Lakota and I are going out to Kish Island. Schleck, Riggs? Keep eyes on."

The snipers acknowledged.

"I want to be back before nightfall," Brent told Lakota.

She nodded. "All we can do is try."

They climbed into in the militia guys' battered SUV and drove toward the coast.

Chopra could not believe the power that lay within the Snow Maiden's arms. She threw him off as though he were weightless. He sailed off the bed, toward the back wall, as she dove for the pistol lying on the floor.

Hussein just sat there, frozen. He could have reached the gun before she did.

The Snow Maiden s.n.a.t.c.hed up the pistol, then came around and back toward Chopra, her eyes fiery as she reared back and pistol-whipped him at the base of his neck. His gla.s.ses flew off, so he didn't see the second blow coming, only felt the sudden pain in his cheek. Had that been a fist or a boot? He wasn't sure. The blood came warm and salty into his mouth. He slid down the wall and slammed onto his rump.

Hussein screamed for her to stop, but the Snow Maiden shouted more loudly, "Just when I was thanking you for making it easy, you do this?"

"Don't hit him anymore! Please!" the boy cried again.

"Are you serious?" she asked. "You don't care about him. You didn't care about your country, your father, your family. You don't give a d.a.m.n about anything but yourself. You're a selfish little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and maybe, after you give me what I want, I'll cut off your head and put it on a stick outside the vault. What do you think of that?"

"I think you're a crazy b.i.t.c.h."

"Then you should've gotten my gun. You're a little boy. A fool. That's what you are. You've thrown away everything your family stood for so you could be a pig watching movies and playing games all day. If your parents could see you now, they would vomit."

Chopra reached out, fumbled across the carpet, and found his gla.s.ses. He slipped them on, but they'd been bent and the nosepiece dug in sharply. He removed them, made an adjustment, then pushed back against the wall, trying to stand. His cheek was already swelling, and his neck throbbed and ached. He began to feel nauseated himself as he swallowed back more blood.

"You can take me to the vault," he told the Snow Maiden. "But I won't let you in. I won't."

"You will," she said confidently. "Because I know how much you care about him. And I'll torture him slowly, right in front of you, if you don't do what I say." She raised a brow. "I won't remind you of this again. I'll just do it."

Chopra looked fire at her.

Hussein just stared.

"You're not a sheikh," she said, turning back to the boy. "You'll never be."

Chopra glanced at Hussein, the gears obviously turning in his youthful head.

There was no deal to strike with the Snow Maiden. The boy should understand that by now. They had but one goal: escape. Chopra wasn't sure how else to convince the boy.

Brent wished he could have sent Lakota and Daugherty over to Kish Island to meet with Juma, but he knew how these warlord/militia leader types operated. First, Juma would not respect Lakota's authority because she was a woman. Second, Juma would feel slighted because Brent had sent his underlings instead of coming himself. You had to show face to save face. What Juma lacked in numbers and technological superiority, he made up for in demands of dignity and respect. Brent was certain he would hear phrases like "We are a proud people" and "The invaders who come to rob our land will be executed."

While riding aboard the small and agonizingly slow fishing boat, he contacted Grey and had her tap Ghost Recon's intelligence sources to positively identify Juma. Grey said once they had an image of his face they could do so immediately.

They reached the east side of the island and were met at the dock by a security force of six men, all wearing MOPP gear. They climbed into two trucks and were driven out to the postwar remnants of the Dariush Grand Hotel, once a 125-million-dollar five-star affair with more than two hundred guest rooms. Cross-Com data indicated the place had been built to resemble Persepolis, a city of ancient Iranian civilization and the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire.

Now the hotel's once-magnificent grand columns and towering archways that reminded Brent more of ancient Rome than Persia lay in piles of rubble through which they threaded, finding what had once been an ornate marble stairway framed by rubble and leading down into the shadows.

Two of the security men fired up torches, which made Lakota glance strangely at Brent. He a.s.sumed they'd at least have flashlights powered by solar cells or other conventional batteries, but they clearly had limited resources.

In the eerie and flickering torchlight, Brent noted that the walls, once adorned by ornate murals of gardens and waterfalls, had been scorched black by terrible fires, and as they descended farther, Brent experienced the enormity of what had happened in this region. They had been far from ground zero, but there had been an unrelenting shower of conventional bombing prior to the nuclear exchange. Kish, though not a primary military target, had been flattened as an economic blow, because it had been one of the most popular tourist destinations and helped bolster the Iranian economy.

They continued on, winding their way through a labyrinth of bombed-out hallways intersected by fallen walls and doors blasted off their hinges. Once they had descended two more flights of stairs that had been sloppily repaired with bricks and thick mortar, they finally reached an open area that might have been a small ball-room or conference room, Brent wasn't sure. Giant chandeliers hung like twinkling mother ships from the ceiling but remained dark. The room was in fact lit by dozens of candles.

Two unmasked men stood at the entrance, both clutching AK-47s. They allowed the group to pa.s.s. Several large writing tables laden with maps, charts, and all kinds of papers lay directly ahead, along with books, thousands of books rising in piles like the Manhattan skyline against a horizon of more ma.s.sive bookshelves lining the back wall.

Seated behind the broadest desk, a hand-carved piece of furniture as gaudy as Brent had ever seen, was a large man who had to be Juma. He had his boots kicked up, his face half-hidden behind a thick, graying beard as his stubby finger ran down the margin of a report in his hand. A pair of bifocals had slipped down to the tip of his leathery nose. Brent found it a bit ironic that the warlord still managed his forces via hardcopy doc.u.ments; that was about as old-school as it got. Ghost Recon had been paperless for as long as Brent could remember.

Juma glanced up from his report. "Ah, finally!"

He immediately rose and shuffled around the desk to greet them. He was a large man, at least three hundred pounds, dressed in nondescript military fatigues and a traditional Arab headdress that might've been called a turban or something else, Brent guessed, because he'd never spent much time this far south. Surprisingly enough, Juma proffered his hand and said, "You must be Captain Brent of the JSF."

He spoke perfect English with a British accent and had either spent time in the U.K. or, perhaps, been educated there. Brent didn't have to wait long for the answers. Abruptly, a data box opened in his HUD, and information on the man scrolled downward as Grey had promised. Juma's face had been a.n.a.lyzed by the teams back home, who updated Brent with more than he'd ever need to know. Juma was a cousin of the Al Maktoum family, not directly in line to lead but a highly educated businessman once intimately involved with the country's oil exports. That he had become the leader of a militia was not too surprising, given his graduate degree education and skills.

"I see they're feeding you the gossip on me," said Juma, indicating the little flashes of light he detected in Brent's faceplate. "You can take off your helmets here."

"Thank you. I'm sorry, but how would you like to be addressed?"

The man grinned. "Juma would be fine."

Brent removed his helmet, which clicked and hissed as he raised it over his head. "All right. I'm Alex."

"Alexander the Great," said Juma with a grin.

"No, just a soldier here to help. And most people just call me Brent." He turned. "This is my second in command, Sergeant Lakota."

Lakota removed her helmet and shook out her hair. "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

He issued a polite if not perfunctory grin at Lakota but refocused his attention on Brent. "First we eat, drink, then talk."

"Excellent," said Brent.

Lakota looked at him, a bit weary. They didn't have time for this, but refusing the invitation would be an insult.