Rafii shot the man in the right knee, shattering the bones, bringing wails of pain and fury from the supervisor. He sprawled on the dirt again, wailing and screaming. Rafii slapped him hard twice and the man stopped screaming. Tears streamed down his face. He held his knee with both hands, trying to stop the gush of blood that spurted out of arteries and pooled on the sandy soil.

Rafii knelt in front of him, the pistol aimed at the supervisor's heart. "Now, big important man, how many bombs did you build and where are they?"

"Yes, yes, we built four, complete. Two more in early stages. Four are done. They took one away in a big tractor trailer truck yesterday morning."

"Four bombs?"

"Yes, on the grave of my father, only four completed bombs."

"One was smashed flat by the roof?"

"Yes, destroyed and leaking radiation."

"Is it away from the other two bombs you're trying to get out?"

"Yes, other end of the plant. No radiation around the two undamaged bombs."

"Good, you did good. How many soldiers guarding the area?"

"Only thirty. Two truckloads left two days ago."

"Good." Rafii and the man had been speaking in Arabic. Murdock got most of it, but Rafii filled him in on the basics.

"So, the quicker we go in, the better," Murdock said. "Lam, out two hundred yards and take a look at the place. We'll be leaving shortly."

Gypsy came up to Murdock. She held out her hand. "Give me your pistol. This evil one is of no more use to us. Right? You take no prisoners, right?"

Murdock nodded. He gave her his automatic. "Wait until we're gone fifty yards, then catch up with us."

He called the others around. "We're going into the complex and Kat will destroy the two bombs left. Then we have to try to track that fourth one that is out there in the desert somewhere on a highway tractor truck. Let's move. Squad order. Bravo first. Five yards separation. Go now."

Gypsy waited behind as the others left; then she stood in front of the supervisor who had tied part of his shirt around his shot knee. He looked up, surprised to see her.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am a real Iraqi patriot. And a close family member of two young men your Secret Police killed because they were suspected of being spies. Only suspected, and they were innocent. You and your kind killed them. Now I will kill you in partial payment."

"No, I had nothing-"

The sharp report of the weapon echoed down the wadi. The round entered the supervisor's forehead, fragmented into a dozen hot chunks of lead, and blasted through the man's brain, killing him instantly.

Gypsy looked down at the dead man in the faint light, and then kicked him in the head twice, once for each of her nephews who had been shot by the Secret Police. She shook her head as she hurried to catch up with the rest of the SEALs. When she tagged on to the end of the Alpha Squad, no one asked what had happened or where she had been or what the shot was. They didn't have to ask.

Five hundred yards from the sunken nuclear bomb factory, the squads stopped. Lam had been out ahead by a hundred. He came back. He reported to Murdock.

"They're working out there. Somehow they rigged up lights-off emergency generators, I'd guess. Must be fifteen men there with that backhoe and a crane. So far I didn't see anything that looked like a bomb. They have men and cables in a hole they have dug near the back wall of the factory."

"Military?"

"I saw part of one squad standing around. Not in any kind of a defensive mode."

Murdock turned to Kat. "Are you ready with your gear?"

"Ready and waiting. I can rappel down if I need to."

"Good." Murdock pulled the men in around him. "We'll move up to a hundred yards and go into a line of skirmishers. We saturate the area with twenties, and then move ahead fifty yards and recon the place. We might have some return fire by that time. Let's move."

They kept ten yards apart now, usual combat procedure. When they were only a hundred yards from the lights, they spread out in a line facing the bomb factory.

Murdock used the Motorola. "Okay, twenties. I want each man to put three rounds in and around those lights. You snipers take any forms you see moving. Fire when ready."

At once three twenties fired and Murdock brought his Bull Pup up and sighted in. The first two rounds were airbursts immediately over the crane and backhoe. Murdock saw through his scope some men scattering as he fired. He saw one round hit the crane and blow the engine apart. Three rounds later, all the lights in the area went out.

When the twenty-one rounds of the 20mm high-explosive sh.e.l.ls had been fired, Murdock ordered the men ahead to fifty yards. There had been no return fire from anyone near the end of the bomb factory.

At fifty yards it was still too dark to see much. Murdock waited. Something didn't seem right. He used the radio. "Anybody have any bad vibes about this place right now?"

Lam came on first. "Skipper, I don't like it. No return fire. Where are those thirty rifles?"

"Something wrong," Jaybird said. "Maybe a squad in reserve out in the dark waiting for us to move in."

"It smells," Gardner said. "They have some resources they haven't used yet. We just don't know what they are."

"Lam, do a half circle from here around to the left. Stay out a hundred and see what you can find. Take a Bull Pup and the thermal imager with you in case you get into a firefight."

"Done, Cap. I'm gone."

They waited.

Kat lay in the sand beside Gypsy. "When we get back to the States, I'm going to set you up in your own little gallery. You will live with me in my apartment. My roommate got married and left, so I've plenty of room. I figure you can paint for six months, and then we'll have enough pieces to open a gallery somewhere. Oh, not one on the best street in town, but somewhere you can get some exposure, some notice."

"It's a dream. The Company said they would take me out if I got into real danger of being exposed and shot. I didn't think the Secret Police would ever catch me, but evidently they had doubts about me for a year or more. I was lucky. I just hope it can happen."

"It will happen, Gypsy. We have connections. I work directly for the President. He can do anything. The Company owes you a retirement check every month." Kat nodded in the darkness and put her hand on the Iraqi woman's shoulder. "It will happen."

The radios spoke softly then.

"Oh, yeah," Lam said. "I have about a dozen ghostly white forms up here about halfway around. Their weapons all lined up on the spot where the backhoe sits. They have a machine gun and two rocket launchers. I'm putting an airburst over the group, then a quick HE on the machine gun, and another one on the rocket launchers. Any left I'll pick off with the 5.56. Any questions?"

"Go," Murdock said.

They waited. A moment later an airburst lit up the desert for a lightning-fast second, then the booming sound of the detonating round came over the half-mile distance. It was followed quickly by two more 20mm rounds going off. A third and then a fourth sounded before the radio spoke.

"Okay, I'd say the threat is over. The rocket launchers are down and the MG is a bunch of sc.r.a.p metal. I got all but two of them who were running scared. They lost their rifles and are heading deeper into the desert. I'd say the next move is yours, Cap."

"Roger that. Good shooting. Get back here fast. We won't leave until you hook up. Besides, I want that imager."

"Moving," Lam said.

Five minutes later, when Lam jogged into the platoon, Murdock had given out the a.s.signments. Alpha Squad would go in with a.s.sault fire by all weapons. Bravo Squad would move a hundred yards across the face of the target to stay in reserve for any more surprises. They would be in a perimeter defense and keep alert for any troops in any direction.

"Kat and Gypsy, on me. Line of skirmishers. When you are on line, sound off."

Two minutes later Bravo Squad had double-timed to the left to get into position and the last Alpha Squad man checked in.

"Let's do it, walking a.s.sault fire. One round every five seconds. No automatic. Let's do it, now."

The first shots sounded in the quiet desert darkness. Then the shots came one after another as the men and two women marched forward. Kat set her mouth in a firm line and triggered her MP-5 every five seconds. Beside her Gypsy fired her AK-47 from the hip, aiming at the dark bulk of the crane and backhoe ahead of them. For a moment there was no return fire. Then a few shots came from the two vehicles.

"Automatic fire, let's run forward," Murdock barked into the radio. At once the firing increased as the weapons went fully automatic in five-round bursts. It staggered as they changed magazines; then it picked up again.

Murdock came to the crane first. The long arm had slumped into the depression that had been the bomb factory. He took cover behind the smashed cab and could hear no more return fire. He pulled out the large, two-cell flashlight Jaybird had brought for him and, holding it at arm's length, shined it around. A shot came from the right and he turned and fired six rounds from the 5.56 Bull Pup into the area.

There were no more shots from anyone in or near the bomb factory. More flashlights came on and shined into the hole. Murdock stood at the very edge and looked down fifteen feet. A man lay there holding up one arm. The other arm was a b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s.

"Okay, okay, okay," the Arab shouted.

"Rafii, on me," Murdock shouted. "Just behind the crane." Rafii ran up beside his CO.

"Man down there. Talk to him."

Rafii leaned down and shouted in Arabic at the man below.

"You in the hole. Anyone else alive down there?"

"No, two with me but they are dead. All dead. Artillery sh.e.l.ls. All dead."

The side of the dug-out hole next to the slanting roof of concrete had a sloping side.

"I'm going down," Rafii said.

"Go," Murdock said.

Rafii slid down the side with his flashlight beam playing on the wounded man. He checked the Iraqi quickly, took a pistol he had, and looked around. He aimed his light around the open s.p.a.ce between the slanted roof slab and the concrete wall it rested on. Then Rafii vanished under the slab. He came back to the side a moment later.

"Skipper, looks like the real thing down here. Better send Kat down with her gear. Two big mothers, fifteen, sixteen feet long. Lots of metal and wires. Fat little jobs, maybe four feet across."

"Any more Iraqis down there?"

"Don't see any, Skipper."

"I'm coming down with three men to clear the area before we risk Kat."

Kat had knelt down beside Murdock.

"I'll wait here," Kat said. She snapped on her flashlight to check below. At once a rifle fired from down near the end of the fallen roof. Another rifle answered it on automatic fire. Murdock recognized the heavy sound of the AK-47. The rounds came from the top of the ground. It had to be Gypsy firing. When the shooting stopped after twelve to fifteen shots, they heard a scream from across the way, then silence.

Murdock took the closest three men and went over the side and down to the bottom. They worked into the vacant area under the slanted slab. The spot they had to clear was only thirty feet deep and ten feet high at the wall. The fallen roof tapered down rapidly and hit the concrete floor of the structure fifteen feet from the side.

"I've got two KIAs," Jaybird said on the radio.

"I've got another down and dead," Luke Howard reported.

"Any live ones?" Murdock asked.

"None here. Clear in this section the farthest back," Jaybird said. "I'd say were clear."

"Clear," Murdock repeated. "Kat, come on down but be careful. How many flashlights you want down here to light your work?"

"Four should be enough. I'm sliding down."

Murdock met her at the edge of the cut and lit her way back to the first large device. Kat checked it from one end to the other.

"It's the real thing. I need to take off two panels and put in the explosives. I don't have the C-4. I want two pounds for each one."

Murdock used the radio. "Who has the C-4? We need eight of the quarter pounders. Gather it up and get it down here."

As he spoke, he heard gunfire on the surface. Then the radio came on.

"We're taking incoming," Bradford said. "We're coming over the side and into the hole."

Just then an explosion rocked the fallen-in roof of the factory twenty feet behind where the backhoe stood.

"Come on in," Murdock said on the Motorola.

"Yeah, getting a line on the shooters," Gardner said. "Look to be about a hundred yards north of us. Putting twenties on them now."

Murdock stood in the opening. One more rocket came in. It went high overhead and hit in the middle of the fallen-in roof. Murdock figured it was a shoulder-fired rocket. He heard the twenties going off.

"Oh yeah," Gardner said. "We got them pinned with the twenties. Now Fernandez is picking them off using the thermal imager. We figure there were about ten of them. Not more than two or three left who can move. Get on with your work down there."

"That's a roger, Gardner. Protect our backs here. Good work. See you soon." He looked around and saw most of his men, who had slid into the hole when the shooting came.

"Where's Gypsy?" he asked Jaybird.

"Haven't seen her."

"Gypsy, you have your radio on?" Murdock called. There was no response. "Gypsy, are you down, hurt? Where are you?"

Nothing.

"I want all but four of you back up to the top and find Gypsy. She must be hit or she'd respond. Move it."

The men crawled up the slope and over the top. Murdock went inside to where two men each held two flashlights. Kat had used impact wrenches and screwdrivers and had removed a two-foot-square panel near the nose of the first bomb.

She took one of the lights and looked inside.

"Oh, yeah, they got it right, but it's easy enough to blow apart. We'll blow up the trigger and fusing end and leave nothing that can set off the chain reaction."