"What do you mean? What did you take?" But Finn thought he knew what had been taken."Wait, do you . . . do you have my men?"

"They are with us," said the voice.

"No!"

"Do you know where we are?"

"W-what?"

"This tunnel . . . long ago this was where vendors set up their tables. Spices hung from these walls; the rocks echoed with the cries of sheep and lambs and goats. Men and women d.i.c.kered and sold and bought.This was where bargains were made for all of the things that offered sustenance and comfort and pleasure."

"No . . . this is just a bunch of old ruins."

"'Ruins,'" echoed the voice, and for a moment there seemed to be a flavor of sadness there."I can still hear the voices of the thousands who came here. Them . . . and those who lived here after the old times had pa.s.sed.This place has had a dozen names. A hundred. Even in times like these when the desert sands and the fires of war turn these caves and caverns into a realm of ghosts, I can hear those old voices. Such . . . deals were struck here. For a string of camels. For lambs to sacrifice. For a knife in the dark. For the return of something lost."

Finn waited, muscles tensed, not sure how to respond, or even if he should.

He could feel the person bend closer.A rustle of clothes, the creak of joints. "And now, here in my town, a town I saw built, a town I saw carved from the living rock, we are well met to bargain once more."

"What . . . kind of bargain?" he asked cautiously.

"What will you give me for what you want? What bargain will you make for what you want?"

It made Finn suddenly furious that this f.u.c.king thing-man, woman, whoever or whatever it was whispering to him in the dark-had his men. Had them and wanted to trade them like beads at a bazaar. Like sacrificial lambs.

G.o.d.

It made Finn so furious. He summoned all of his flagging strength and, with one vicious growl, twisted around and lashed out with a balled fist.

His hand found nothing, struck nothing.

As if there was nothing there. But Finn could hear it breathing. He could hear it laughing softly to itself.

That laugh . . . that was the worst thing of all.

2.

echo teAm My name is Captain Joseph Ledger. Former Baltimore PD, former Army Ranger. Currently drawing pay from one of those alphabet organizations that the public never hears about.

Ever. The DMS. Short for Department of Military Sciences. Only we're not military. Not in any way I could explain.

We're certainly not regular army.

Guys like me aren't regular anything.

We're not even regular Special Forces.You won't find a single mention of a DMS field team on any list of JSOC crews, not even on those eyes-only black-ops lists. We operate off the radar because there are times someone has to. Plausible deniability will only take you so far and the president has to either lie or tell truths that-believe me-n.o.body wants to hear.

You know that saying, about how the truth will set you free.

It's true most of the time.

It's not that we're out there being bad guys. Nothing like that.

It's just that there are some things that will never fit into a newsfeed. Some things would make very bad TV. Disturbing TV. The kind that wouldn't just shake Joe Public's faith in the political powers that be but that would put serious cracks in his fundamental view of the world.

You can't sum up an after-action report with "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," and n.o.body can stand behind this stuff in a press conference.

I know it's f.u.c.ked, but it is what it is.

Some of this stuff has really screwed with my head. I'm not the same guy I was when I was recruited by the DMS.

How could I be?

How could anyone?

We were in a Black Hawk cruising low and fast through a series of rocky pa.s.ses that looked like the ruins of some ancient castle. Afghanistan is like that in areas. It's a bleak, broken, and desolate place. I know of at least two video games that used scans of the landscape as the design basis for inhospitable alien worlds. Personally, I think the surface of Mars would be cheerier and more welcoming.