have where there's a lot of history, a lot of trust, and no one close

enough to hear.

I turned to him. "Whatever I heard, I heard," I said. "Maybe

it came over my mic and not yours, but I heard it. We're going

to leave it at that. I'm not going over the edge."

And yet I didn't tell him about seeing Rattlesnake Team. Why not?

Top studied me for a five count, then he nodded. I said, "I think I want to take another look at the town square

and the cave while there's still enough light to see." He was still looking at me. "Want company?"

"No. Stay here with Bunny and keep an eye on Finn." I left him there with Finn and Bunny and went back to the

valley. I stood for a long, long time looking at the blood. The

placement and amount of the blood fit the scene as Finn had

described it. Except that it didn't explain the missing bodies, the

lack of any evidence of return fire, or what happened to Finn in

that cave. I slung my rifle and drew my sidearm, turning on the

small light that was mounted forward of the trigger guard. The open mouth of the cave was only rock and sand and

some dead snarls of creeper vine, but I paused just outside, still

in the sunlight. But the sunlight was growing weaker as the day

ground on toward twilight. I did not want to be out here past

sunset, but the best ETA for our helo was still two hours and

change.

Would Bug pa.s.s along a request for that timetable to be

moved up in light of the electronics and communication being

out? Maybe. Knowing him, he'd pa.s.s along a recommendation

that our mission was way off the radar, even for our own military.

My boss could send in more black-ops shooters, and then only

if he had anyone on deck. When we'd set out for this mission,

we were the only backup. The mission sensitivity made it less

likely there would be any standard military a.s.sets deployed to

save our own a.s.ses. If we failed, that would mean that the canister of pathogen was unaccounted for. Best clean-up option then

would be to carpet the area with fuel-air bombs and turn this

region into the valley of the shadow of death in point of fact. I clicked on the flashlight and the narrow beam rose in harmony with the barrel of my gun as I pointed them both into the cave. With slow and very deliberate steps, I moved out of the down-slant of sunlight and stepped into the shadows under the mountain.

The cave was already very dark, and I moved the flashlight beam over everything-sandy floor, boulders, crenellated walls, craggy ceiling. No motion-not a bat, not a sand mouse, not even blowflies.

At ten yards, the cave still had enough light for me to see, but with every step beyond that point, visibility diminished to only those things the flashlight's beam picked out. Until you're in the dark, in a place you know to be dangerous but whose nature you aren't sure of, you really don't appreciate the fear of the dark. So many things can hide so easily there.