Howard hurried to the Humvee. They had gotten an exact distance from the compound to this location from the foot-printing satellite. They'd be running on spookeyes without lights, but the terrain was mostly flat with a little scrub, and they had a route mapped, so they should be able to calculate their speed and distance and nail it to the second.

"Drive, Sergeant. And switch off the brake lights. I don't want the yahoos to see us flashing red because you stopped for a lizard in our path."

"Already done, sir. I've been down this road before."

Fernandez slid his helmet visor down and clicked his spook-eyes on, then cranked the engine and moved out. Howard picked his computerized helmet up from the floor by his feet and slipped it on, put the visor down, and lit his own night-vision scope. He buckled his three-point seat belt into place, snapping the black steel latch shut with a hard clack clack!

The landscape seemed to light up in that eerie, washed-out green that the starlight amplifiers traded for the seemingly opaque darkness. Then the suit's computer kicked in, adding false colors to give a more realistic image, and it was almost like driving in a somewhat dim and hazy afternoon.

"You don't think this pointy-nose plastic stuff is really going to hide us from radar, do you?" Fernandez said. "Seems like a shame to ruin a perfectly good truck by hanging all this c.r.a.p on it."

Howard said, "I don't think the boys in the ranch had time to set up a full-scale HQ. They only had a day and some to plan the attack. I'd be surprised if they had a mobile field unit roll into this location with radar or doppler."

"Would you look at that," Fernandez said. "Bugs Bunny!"

A jackrabbit angled across their path, then cut sharply back and stopped as the Humvee rolled past. It sat there watching as the cruisers also zipped past, turning its head to track them. Howard looked over his shoulder at the small creature.

I wonder what a rabbit thinks when he sees four black vehicles with pointy-nose plastic c.r.a.p hanging all over them rumble past his burrow at two in the morning.

"There's something you don't see every day," Fernandez said.

"Excuse me?"

"Probably what the rabbit was thinking."

Howard smiled. They'd been serving together for a long time. Must be a little telepathic spillage.

He was pumped, but even so, there was this... weary feeling, as if he could stretch out and take a long nap, could sleep for a week, and still not wake up feeling refreshed. What was this all about, this lethargy? It was worrisome. Well. He'd have to deal with it later. He had business to take care of just now. Serious business.

Alex Michaels walked back to the AWD car they'd given him, a little Subaru Outback. The strike team was out of sight in the darkness, heading for a rendezvous with the bad guys ten miles away. He should have stayed at the tent HQ back at the Texaco truck stop in Tonopah, but even if he wasn't a frontline soldier, he had wanted to come at least this far. By the time he got back to the tent, Howard's attack would be in full swing, maybe even over. All things going well.

He started the car, then headed back to the dirt road a mile or so away that would take him to the highway a couple miles past that.

This was a risky business, the a.s.sault. If it went sour, it would probably be bad enough so he'd be looking for a new job.

He laughed to himself. It seemed like every time he turned around, his job was at risk. But that went with the territory. Steve Day, the first Commander of Net Force, had never mentioned that part to him. Maybe if he hadn't been killed by that Russian computer genius's a.s.sa.s.sins, he would have eventually gotten around to telling Michaels about it...

It was really dark out here, the only source of illumination his headlights, and he bounced along for what seemed like a lot longer than a mile, the little car rocking pretty hard over some of the dips and holes in the ground. He reached the dirt road.

Finally.

For just a moment, he wasn't sure about which way to turn.

Then he remembered he had followed Howard's Humvee off the road into the desert by making a right; therefore, he should turn left to head back in the direction of the highway. He hadn't been tracking on the odometer, but it seemed like that had been a couple-three miles.

Alex paused, then made up his mind. There was no danger, he knew, not to himself nor to Colonel Howard's strike team. The terrorist camp was several miles away-at least four or five-so he could head this way for a couple of miles. If he didn't hit the highway by then, he'd turn around or check his virgil... something he was reluctant to do. That would be admitting defeat. He had always hated to ask for directions, a legacy from his father, and even looking at a map was considered unmanly in his family. The Michaels didn't get lost, according to the old man.

He turned left and picked up a little speed now that he was on a road of sorts.

A large bug splashed against the windshield in front of his face, leaving a blob of greenish goo. The body fluids of that one joined those of several other low-flying moths, mosquitoes, beetles, and whatevers. Apparently the insects didn't hibernate for the winter here. He wasn't driving that fast, and you'd think they could see him coming for a long way off, but they kept splattering against the front of the car. He turned the wipers on, smeared the bug goo around, added the washer fluid to the mix, and managed to clear a patch of gla.s.s he could see through.

The road dipped into a gully, then came up, and he rolled over several half-buried rocks in the dirt, jolting him hard enough so his head nearly hit the ceiling.

He didn't remember that part of the drive coming in. None of it looked familiar. Dark as it was, he couldn't see anything but what was in the cone of his headlights, but surely he should have reached the highway by now.

Had he somehow taken a wrong turn?

He looked at his odometer. The highway couldn't have been more than three or four miles from the dirt road. He must have come that far, he'd been driving for at least twenty or thirty minutes. It was 2:20 a.m. Howard would be hitting the terrorists in five minutes.

Maybe it was time to check the GPS.

Well, not yet. Give it another mile. If he didn't see the highway by then, he'd turn around and backtrack.

Michaels shook his head. Brother. Wouldn't that be a story for the folks at HQ? You heard about how Commander Michaels got lost in the desert?

I don't think think so, Alex, m'boy so, Alex, m'boy.

There was a hillock ahead that curved to the left. As he rounded the curve, the dirt was loose, and the car fishtailed and slipped traction, so he slowed to a crawl. To his left, there was a little stand of scrub trees, stunted pines or some such, none of which looked to be more than ten or twelve feet tall. That was practically a forest out here.

A man stepped out of the scrub growth. He wore chocolate-chip desert camouflage pants and a jacket, and held a short a.s.sault weapon in his hands, pointed at Michaels's car. He waved the weapon, his meaning clear: Pull over.

An AK-47?

For a moment, just a moment, Michaels thought it must be one of Howard's troops, but then he knew the man was all wrong. Wrong clothes, wrong gun, wrong place.

Fear spasmed in Michaels' belly as he realized who this must be: It was one of the terrorists-!

Oh, s.h.i.t! What had he done? Better still-what was he going to do now?

Chapter Eighteen.

Sunday, December 26th, 2:24 a.m. Gila Bend, Arizona Howard looked at his watch. A gift from his wife on his thirty-fifth birthday, it was a Bulova Field Grade Marine Star, with a black face and a dial light, an a.n.a.log quartz whose battery was recharged by the smallest body motion. It wasn't the most expensive watch made, not by a long shot, but she had saved for a year to buy it. It kept dead-on time, and right now the sweep second hand was moving toward 0225 hours. Thirty seconds left...

It was time.

"Ready to rock, Sergeant?"

"Just call me Elvis."

The four vehicles were rolling, slowed somewhat to time their arrival. The compound was just ahead, a smear of hard yellow flaring in the spookeyes' optical field from the security light mounted high on the wall of the barn. Which illumination should be going out just... about... now...

The compound went dark.

"Better make sure your filters are up, Colonel, the light show is about to begin."

"I've been down this road before, Sergeant." Both men smiled.

Time slowed for Alex Michaels as the gunman walked toward his car. It seemed as if he had days, weeks, months months to decide what to do. The problem seemed to be that he couldn't move. Well, he could, but the speed of his movement bogged down to match the gunman's walk. Just to lift his hand from the steering wheel seemed to take forever. to decide what to do. The problem seemed to be that he couldn't move. Well, he could, but the speed of his movement bogged down to match the gunman's walk. Just to lift his hand from the steering wheel seemed to take forever.

In what couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds, Alex sorted through all the possibilities he could think of. He could try to talk his way out of it. He could stomp the gas pedal and haul a.s.s, ducking low so that when the guy opened up on him he might not get hit. He could pull his taser and hope to get the needles into the man in camo gear before he was hosed with jacketed death. He could s.h.i.t or go blind.

So many possibilities. How to choose?

The gunman got to within a foot or two of the door, and motioned with the a.s.sault rifle's muzzle for Michaels to roll his window down.

Choose, Alex. Choose!

The PEE lights strobed like an electrical storm gone insane. The polarizing niters in the suit's helmet visor blocked the effect-plus they were behind the lights, and thus got only a partial hit anyhow.

"Gate dead ahead!" Fernandez yelled. "Looks like our sappers have taken it down along with the guards. Might as well have rolled out a red carpet for us."

"Don't count those chickens just yet."

The Humvee rolled through the gate, and one of the sappers waved at it as it went past.

"Alpha has landed," came a voice over Howard's LOSIR. "We're in the door."

"Beta's got the back door," came another voice.

"Delta's on patrol," came a third.

Fernandez slewed the Humvee to a stop by the shed where the chickens were kept, not far from the barn. Howard bailed out, the Thompson held ready, and Fernandez was next to him in two seconds.

"You didn't lock the keys in the car, did you?"

"Negative."

"Good, I hate it when you do that."

Truth of it was, Howard himself should have stayed outside the fence in command mode and directed traffic from there. He didn't really have a function here, except as backup for Alpha, which they ought not to need- "We're in, got static, stand by-"

Howard heard gunfire, both over his helmet phones and in real time. It came from inside the main house.

"Two terries down, two down! Alpha intact!" Alpha's team leader called. "Target just down the hall, stand by." There came the sound of more gunfire from inside.

"So far, so good-" Howard began.

He felt the impacts of the bullets before he heard the shots, and the incoming rounds bit hard enough to jolt him. Thump, thump, thump Thump, thump, thump, three of them, all on the left side, but the armor held- d.a.m.n! Howard turned, saw a man and a woman in the doorway to the barn, illuminated by the bright yellow-orange of their muzzle flashes as they fired bursts from fully automatic rifles at him and Fernandez. Now and then, a tracer left a glowing red trail in the darkness. Bad idea-tracers worked both ways- Another bullet hit Howard on the torso. It felt like being whacked with a hammer.

s.h.i.t-!

Michaels took a deep breath, then pressed the b.u.t.ton to lower the window with his left hand while he carefully pulled the taser from his belt with his right hand. The terrorist stepped right up to the car.

"Excuse me, officer," Michaels said. "What's the problem?"

Michaels already had his left hand on the door's latch. He took another deep breath, then stared off in the distance and saw a series of dim light flashes. That would be the attack on the compound.

"What the h.e.l.l is that that?" Michaels said, still looking into the distance.

The gunman must have caught a glint of light peripherally. He glanced away from Michaels to get a better look- Michaels yanked the latch up, threw his weight against the door, and slammed it into the surprised gunman. It wasn't enough to knock him down, but it did rock him off balance.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n-!" the man began. He flailed with the weapon and his empty hand, trying to catch his footing, but slid a little in the loose dirt on the road. He recovered a hair, enough so he could swing the a.s.sault rifle around- Michaels pulled the door shut. A little too hard-the door's latch handle came off in in his hand-but he didn't have time to worry about that. He thrust his taser through the open window, pressed the laser aiming stud, saw the red dot on the center of the man's chest, and fired the weapon. It seemed to take eons- The man jerked, juttered toward the car as the capacitor needles fed him however many thousand volts they held. The a.s.sault rifle nosed skyward and went off five or six times in one long noise-blaaaat!-flashing red-orange and making less noise than it seemed it should. The gunman spun to his left and corkscrewed, hit the dirt, and continued to spasm, the gun still gripped tightly in one hand but no longer firing- Michaels couldn't open the door, since the handle had broken off in his hand, but he grabbed the window frame and hauled himself headfirst out of the car, did a sloppy dive and forward roll, and came up next to the downed man. He bent and jerked the AK-47 away from the gunman, then took two steps back and pointed the weapon at the man.

If this sucker tried anything, he was going to blast his sorry a.s.s to kingdom come!

The tasered gunman didn't seem too interested in doing much of anything just at the moment.

Michaels exhaled out his held breath. d.a.m.n-

Howard looked at the man and woman who had opened up on him and Fernandez. Oddly enough, what he found himself thinking was: Tracers. Huh. Probably one every fifth or tenth round. What had they been doing out in the barn Tracers. Huh. Probably one every fifth or tenth round. What had they been doing out in the barn? Why hadn't somebody picked up their heat sigs Why hadn't somebody picked up their heat sigs?

Next to him, Julio turned and leveled his H&K subgun at the shooters.

Howard swung his own heavy weapon around- "s.h.i.t!" Julio said. He dropped to one knee, his return fire chewing up the ground five meters in front of him. "I'm hit," he said. His voice was calm, as if he was talking about what he was going to have for breakfast.

One of the shooters must have armor-piercing rounds- But they weren't using concealment or cover, just standing there hosing, so Howard V-stepped hard to his left, brought the Thompson up to a quick-kill point, and triggered a five-round burst at the man. Braap Braap! Orange tongues lanced from the tommygun, and the Cutts compensator on the end of the barrel took part of the flaming orange and spewed it upward, forming a fiery letter "L" in the darkness that helped keep the recoil down and the barrel from climbing too much.

Without waiting to see the effect on the man, he shifted his index to the woman. Braap Braap!

The shooters collapsed, and the man beat the woman to the ground by maybe a half second.

Howard spun three-sixty, looking for more attackers. Clear. His heads-up showed him a strike-team suit signature as one of the sappers moved in toward the two downed terrorists. The sapper waved an "I-got-'em" at the colonel, who turned away.