From two hundred yards, the man who stepped out of a shadowy cleft and onto the path looked like a goat farmer. He was dressed in cheap clothes that were visibly patched. He leaned on a crooked stick. His face was elaborately bearded and seamed like lizard skin.

Finn adjusted his focus and studied the man.

A farmer.

Definitely a farmer.

Then the man turned and beckoned behind him.

Ten men came up the slope out of the shadows.Ten men leading six horses.

Each of the animals staggered under the weight of heavy burlap bags hung from leather straps.

The men were all dressed as farmers. One of them was a boy who couldn't have been more than ten.The oldest of them was probably sixty, sixty-five.

Just a bunch of s.h.i.t-kicker dust farmers from the middle of no-f.u.c.kingwhere.

Finn followed them with the monocular, watching them, studying them, looking for a tell that would give them away. Sometimes it was American boots. Or Russian boots. New ones, not old discards. Sometimes it was an iPod or iPad.The Taliban loved that high-tech s.h.i.t. Sometimes it was a top-quality cell phone or a satellite phone.

Not today.There was none of that.

But, Finn asked himself, what's in those bags?

This was goat and sheep country. n.o.body around here raised cotton.There was no real blanket industry in this corner of the region.

So what was in the bags?

The CIA intel expressed a very high confidence that the next few caravans of opium would include sealed biocontainment flasks filled with a virulent pathogen. Rumor control said that it was a new twist on the seif al-din prion-based thing from a few years back. A new generation of the bug that terrorists had tried to release at the Liberty Bell Center on the Fourth of July. That stuff did something to the metabolism and rewired the brain so that the infected went apes.h.i.t nuts and started chomping on each other like they were extras in 28 Days Later. Not actual zombies, but the real-world science equivalent.

If it was that, then Finn knew that the caravan couldn't be allowed out of this valley. Even if it was one of the other pathogens, stuff that wasn't 100 percent lethal, the Taliban had to be stopped here. If something with any kind of significant communicability was allowed out, thousands could die. Maybe hundreds of thousands. If it got to the States or to Europe, the potential loss of life was unthinkable. Imagine releasing an airborne pathogen in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Or at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Or at a crowded airport like Heathrow.

The orders Rattlesnake Team had been given left no room for error. And it had no provision for mercy.

The caravan moved quickly along the path. In four or five minutes, they'd be out of range of Finn's rifle. He tapped his mike.

"Cheech Wizard," murmured Finn,"they're coming your way."

"Got 'em," replied the voice in his ear. Cheech Wizard was the machine gunner of Rattlesnake Team. He was tucked into a nook formed by two slabs of rock that had tumbled down the side of the mountain. A sheer wall at his back and the only exit was covered by the other two members of the team, Jazzman and Bear.They had shadowy niches with good elevation.

"Tell me what you're seeing," said Finn quietly. He didn't whisper. The sibilant "ess" sounds traveled more when you whispered; quiet voices faded out into nothing. Besides, their team radios had excellent pickup.That wasn't SOP. The stuff that was usually issued was often beat-up, the works ruined by heat and sand; but there was a gal in supply that Finn had been banging for a couple of months. It wasn't love, and they both knew it, but he didn't give her the clap and didn't trash-talk about her to the other guys, and she made sure his team had gear that was in good working order. Pretty good swap. Everybody came out on top, n.o.body got hurt.

Bear had the best vantage point and the best eyes.

"Count ten. Eight adult males, one teenage male, one kid-could be boy or girl," he reported."No, correction, not a teenager. Kid's maybe ten."

Finn's lip curled. He hated this part of it, but it was something you couldn't avoid.The Taliban were heartless f.u.c.ks, and they knew their enemy.They often brought kids along with them-kids, and sometimes women-knowing that most of the allied forces would hesitate to pull a trigger if there was a chance of capping a youngster. Partly because it was a cultural thing with the allies, and partly because the Taliban used their propaganda machine to fry the Americans in the world press for killing civilian children.

Which was total bulls.h.i.t.

The Taliban, al-Qaeda, and a lot of these other a.s.shole terrorist organizations put a lot of those civilians in the crosshairs. It was part of their strategy. In the towns, they put their supply depots and main meeting places in schools or in apartment buildings. Then they more or less shook their d.i.c.ks at the Americans to take the shot, knowing they had to take the f.u.c.king shot. More than once they'd even sacrificed one of their own low-level people or slipped some intel through back-alley channels just to guarantee that a strike would be made.Then, before the smoke cleared, they'd trot out the screaming, weeping parents of the dead children. Somehow the Red Cross and the world press were always tipped off first. Or some "neutral" would capture b.l.o.o.d.y children on their iPhone. It was all theater, and it turned a knife in Finn's guts.

"What's your read?" Finn asked.

The others knew what the question meant. It had become a common thing for him to ask.

Were these Taliban drug runners? The presence of guns didn't prove anything. After the Russians had their a.s.ses handed to them a couple of decades ago, there was a lot of stuff lying around. Plenty of AK-47s. A villager could buy an old one for a male goat.

Bear said,"Four of the men have new boots."

"Confirmed," said Jazzman,"and I'm seeing some serious hardware. I count six . . . no, seven confirmed AKs. s.h.i.t, they're armed to the teeth.These aren't villagers. No way."

"Look at the second horse," said CheechWizard."Something long and hard strapped onto the side closest to the wall. I think it's an RPG."

"Affirmative," said Bear."I see it, too.These f.u.c.kers came to play."