Justin had gone renegade. He had killed two Israeli pilots and downed forty million dollars' worth of jets.

Kara had four h.e.l.lfire missiles at twenty-nine thousand feet. Eighty pounds of high explosive. Running at Mach 1.3, a thousand miles per hour, she had a lead time of eighteen seconds. At cruise speed, the Calamity Jane would reach the air base in ninety seconds, just over a minute at never-exceed speed.

She allowed herself twenty seconds; all she dared spare.

Radio response was nil.

The two Israeli jets still returning from the Egyptian border were fully six minutes away despite having reached supersonic flight.

Based on their earlier response time, Ramon Airbase was still five minutes from launching any more alert fighters.

Who could she call for advice in the next fourteen seconds?

Michael Gibson was on the ground, probably unaware of what had just transpired deep in the Negev unless he'd been looking in the right direction to interpret the ma.s.sive boom of destruction.

Captain Claudia Gibson was parked in a deep and distant canyon and would know nothing. No flash of light. No shock wave.

Lieutenant Commander Boyd Ramis would only know about his ship, the Peleliu, not about this highly cla.s.sified mission being run from a steel box on his hangar deck.

Chief Warrant Lola LaRue was in transit from her leave in the U.S. She wasn't due back aboard until midday and it was only midnight now.

And Justin.

Nine seconds.

She couldn't ask Justin because he wasn't answering his radio.

Six seconds.

Her only guidance was the Air Mission Commander, one Captain Kara Moretti.

Four.

She wanted to have faith that there was a reason Justin had broken cover to down two Israeli jets and was now turning to attack Ramon Airbase.

Three.

Kara wanted to trust him.

Two.

The Calamity Jane shifted direction. Not toward the Israeli housing, nor the main operations base of the air base. Instead, it veered toward the American Camp's housing. Base personnel lived there. Families. Maybe children.

One second.

Kara centered the Gray Eagle's targeting crosshairs on the Chinook helicopter.

She selected all four h.e.l.lfire missiles and hit the fire b.u.t.ton.

Wilson gasped in shock or relief behind her; she didn't care.

She held the laser guidance on the center of the helo and counted seconds until impact.

These weren't some flares that would light up a hillside to spook the Turkish OKK during an exercise.

Her heartbeat stroking slow and steady, counting seconds in perfect sync with the timer.

A single h.e.l.lfire was a tank killer, able to punch through the heaviest armor.

She kept a thumb near the abort-destruct switch that would destroy the missiles prior to impact and called one last time on the radio, knowing it was in vain.

At fifteen seconds she removed her hand from the switch.

Four h.e.l.lfires...

At sixteen, she whispered into the mic that she loved him.

...striking a thin-skinned helicopter...

At seventeen, she still held the laser guidance steady.

...were annihilation.

At eighteen seconds, the Chinook disappeared from the sky in a ma.s.sive ball of flame.

Chapter 26.

Some part of Kara continued functioning. She didn't know how.

She fielded messages from the inserted team.

Rousted Claudia from her hidey-hole two hours before sunrise.

All focus from Ramon Airbase had turned to the destruction of three aircraft in the desert: two jets in the heart of the desert and a million tiny bits of an American helicopter close outside the air base's perimeter fence.

The eighty pounds of explosive and the eight hundred gallons of Jet A that the Chinook helo had carried-Kara could no longer stand to think of it as the Calamity Jane-burned long and hot.

Four h.e.l.lfire missiles.

Hopefully nothing identifiable would remain.

She shied away from the thought.

Kara guided the Maven II in across the desert, and Claudia extracted the four-person team more quietly than they'd arrived. Their job was done.

Fifteen minutes after their departure, there was one more nasty surprise for the Israeli air base. The Humvee that had gone missing three weeks earlier had reappeared in a far corner of the base, on fire. The unusually intense vehicle fire killed four American soldiers who would probably get honorable burials back in the States no matter how little they deserved them.

She let Sergeant Santiago Marquez solo the Tosca to provide a watchful eye over the Maven's departure from the Negev and her return to the Peleliu. There was no need.

n.o.body was watching for the tiny stealth helicopter's pa.s.sage or the four shooters she carried back to safety.

All the Israelis cared about was the graveyard in the desert.

Time disjointed on Kara.

Wilson was gone, p.i.s.sed as h.e.l.l about something. At her. At the dead pilot she'd just killed in a foreign land. It didn't matter.

The Maven was over the Negev. The West Bank. The Mediterranean.

Santiago handed off the Tosca Gray Eagle to the Incirlik ground crew.

And Kara watched the replay on the screen.

Two Israeli jets descending back toward base after a fruitless search exactly as expected.

Tracer fire from two miniguns arcing into their bellies as the Chinook climbed out of its hiding place among the ancient ruins of Avdat.

The jets flaming, exploding, augering into the desert floor.

The Chinook turning for Ramon Airbase. The long, long silence. Thirty-eight seconds from the final turn until it exploded. Until Kara killed...it.

Gone.

That simple.

Gone.

The helicopter.

Her crew.

Her pilot.

Captain Justin Roberts dead in the desert.

No body to deliver back to his mother. His mother who had begged her to protect her son.

Instead she had killed him.

Kara rewound the tape and watched it again, etching the images on her heart.

At some point, Claudia arrived with Michael close beside her.

She fought when they lifted her from the chair, but they overpowered her easily.

They carried her to her cabin where Justin and she had- That's when she broke and the tears finally came.

Chapter 27.

Kara had no recollection of sleeping, but when she awoke, Claudia was still there. So were Lola, Connie, and Trisha.

"What are you all doing here? Why-" And then she spotted the fifth woman crowded into the small room that was Kara's berth.

A tall, stunning blond.

For half a moment, her mind still foggy, Kara was afraid that Annie Roberts was impossibly here and Kara was supposed to tell her something.

Something bad.

Then she recognized Tanya of Mossad's Kidon counterterrorism unit and it all flooded back.

Worse than bad.

Kara had killed the only man she was ever going to love. Shot him right out of the sky.

"Go away." She wished they'd all go away so that she could curl up and die...

Like Justin.

What could have gone wrong?

Someone took her hand.

Kara would have shaken her off if it had been anyone other than Connie.

The sympathy was worse than the pain. The pain was hers, but the sympathy made no sense. They didn't know. They couldn't know. Their husbands were all safe, all secure-probably down in the officers' mess razzing each other.

"Tell me." Connie's voice was barely a whisper, but it carried in the otherwise silent room.

Kara was past decision making, didn't know what was right, wrong, allowed... A glance at Claudia, then the woman from Kidon. Each nodded in turn.

So Kara forced her body upright until she sat up on the edge of the bunk, still holding on to Connie for strength, and told them.