Nimec licked his lips.

"My feeling is they could be," he said. "The satellite pictures will tell us more."

She shook her head in anxious disbelief.

"What now?" she said. "We need to ... are you going to contact the State Department?"

Nimec saw her hand trembling on her armrest, and took hold of her wrist.

"Annie--"

"It can't be allowed to happen again, Pete," she said. "It--"

"Annie."

She looked at him.

"We'll handle this," he said. His grip was firm around her wrist. "I promise."

TWENTY.

WESTERN BRAZIL APRIL 23, 2001.

UNMARKED, GHOST-GRAY, THEIR PROP/ROTOR WING-TIP nacelles tilted at 90deg angles to their fuselages in full vertical-takeoff-and-landing mode, the pair of Bell-Boeing V-22 Ospreys left their launch platforms in the ISS compound's helipad area at 7:00 P.M Brazilian Daylight Time, rising straight and straightaway through layers of purple twilight at a speed of 1,000 feet per minute. nacelles tilted at 90deg angles to their fuselages in full vertical-takeoff-and-landing mode, the pair of Bell-Boeing V-22 Ospreys left their launch platforms in the ISS compound's helipad area at 7:00 P.M Brazilian Daylight Time, rising straight and straightaway through layers of purple twilight at a speed of 1,000 feet per minute.

In the starboard pilot seat of the lead Osprey's gla.s.s c.o.c.kpit, Ed Graham glanced out his rearview mirror and saw his wingman slot into formation off his port side. He had on a modular integrated display and sight helmet that allowed for day-or-night heads-up flight and resembled nothing more than the headgear worn by rebel star-fighter jocks in Star Wars. Star Wars. Beside him, the upper half of Mitch Winter's face was also hidden under a MiDash helmet. Beside him, the upper half of Mitch Winter's face was also hidden under a MiDash helmet.

Although they had spent many hours training in the Osprey, and proven their skill and teamwork at handling the Skyhawk chopper under fire, this would be their first offensive mission in the tiltrotor craft.

Six minutes into their ascent, Graham used the thumb-wheel control on his thrust lever to graduate the nacelles down 45deg to their horizontal positions--at which point the Allison T406-AD-400 turbines behind their rotor hubs began to perform like the engines of a standard high-speed turboprop, bearing the Osprey on a westerly course toward the Chapadas as it rose to its cruising alt.i.tude of 26,000 feet.

Ferried in the s.p.a.cious personnel/cargo hold of each Osprey were complements of twenty-five Sword operatives in indigo battle-dress uniforms and ant.i.terrorist gear. They wore ballistic helmets with face shields, night-vision goggles, and digital radio headsets beneath the helmets. They wore Zylon soft body armor and load-bearing vests accessorized with baton and knife holders, incapacitant spray pouches, and other special-operations rigs. Their weapons included WRS automatic rifles, Benelli Super 90 12-gauge shotguns chambered to accept 3-inch nonlethal rounds, FN Herstal Five-Seven sidearms fitted with laser grips, and an a.s.sortment of incendiary, smoke, and phosphorous grenades. The strike team in the wing craft also wore padded knee guards, and had rappelling ropes and pitons on their web utility belts.

It was almost one week to the day since they had been taken by surprise and forced to do battle on the defensive; since their home ground had been invaded and torn apart with mines and plastic explosives; since fifteen of their friends and brothers-in-arms had been killed or wounded by a then-unknown invasion force.

Now they hoped to turn the tables.

Pocketing his aviator gla.s.ses in the waning daylight, Kuhl felt a cool breeze drift across the plateau and dry the perspiration on his dun colored head scarf. He heard the Lockheed's turbines powering up on the airstrip behind him, turned from the partially evacuated camp in the ravine downslope, and watched as the last and most important items of payload were carried aboard the transport in plain wooden crates.

Despite how well things had gone, he was mildly ill at ease, and could not quite put his finger on the reason why. Perhaps it was just the precise and demanding timetable to which he'd needed to adhere, coupled with an impatience to get on to Kazakhstan. There was always a tightness within him before he made his finishing thrust. Yet this unsettled feeling had a somewhat different quality, and he wondered if the almost too too smooth progression of events thus far--the absence of any outward sign that Roger Gordian's people had made substantial headway following the trail of their attackers, or were pursuing it with the aggressiveness one might expect of such an estimable force--might not be the cause of it. As a hunter, Kuhl knew the advantage of circling in silence. But he also knew that there were circles smooth progression of events thus far--the absence of any outward sign that Roger Gordian's people had made substantial headway following the trail of their attackers, or were pursuing it with the aggressiveness one might expect of such an estimable force--might not be the cause of it. As a hunter, Kuhl knew the advantage of circling in silence. But he also knew that there were circles within within circles. That a hunter at the edge of the smaller circle could all too easily become prey at the center of the larger ... circles. That a hunter at the edge of the smaller circle could all too easily become prey at the center of the larger ...

A pair of men in khaki fatigues with Steyr AUG a.s.sault rifles slung over their shoulders--the FAMAS guns already on their way to Kazakhstan--approached him from outside the plane's cargo section.

"We've been told everything is ready for your takeoff," one of them said.

Kuhl motioned toward the retrofitted DC-3 further down the ramp. It was still being packed with freight conveyed by the lines of jeeps and trucks moving between the airfield and the gully below.

"I want the decampment to continue without holdup," he said. "Make sure the pilot of that plane knows he's to leave here no longer than half an hour after we've gone. And stay on top of the loading."

The man who'd spoken to him nodded. Before he could turn to begin carrying out his orders, Kuhl took note of the bandage around his upper arm.

"How is the wound, Manuel?" he asked in Spanish.

"Esta mejor, it is much better." it is much better."

Kuhl made a fist and struck it to his heart.

"A lo hecho, pecho, " he said. It was an old expression he had picked up somewhere along the way. "To the chest, that which is done. Accept gladly all you have accomplished." " he said. It was an old expression he had picked up somewhere along the way. "To the chest, that which is done. Accept gladly all you have accomplished."

Manuel looked at him in silence. Then he nodded again and strode off toward the DC-3 with his companion.

Kuhl lingered for a brief while afterward, his back to the runway, staring out into the shadows as they rose from the lowlands like the waters of some dark, swollen river that had begun to overflow its banks, spreading across the lofty, sand-blown table on which he stood.

At length, he went to board the waiting transport.

Graham cursed, gazing out his windscreen into the distance. He had spotted the taillights of a plane ascending through the gloom at twelve o'clock.

"Got to be the Lockheed, from the size of it," Winter said, scanning the FLIR readouts on his helmet visor. "Of all the stinking breaks."

"Yeah." They were back down at just over six thousand feet, preparing to tip the Osprey's rotors to their vertical positions as they swooped toward the plateau only two miles up ahead.

"I can see the other one on the strip," Winter said. He pointed slightly off to starboard. "The G.o.dd.a.m.n DC-3."

Now it was Graham who checked his HUD's sensor imagery.

"You catch its IR signature?" he asked.

Winter nodded. "Engines are cranking. It's getting ready to fly."

He cranked his head around, shot a glance portside and aft. He could make out the wingman's face close behind them, his dismayed frown communicating that he'd also seen the L-100 take off.

A moment later Winter and Graham got verbal confirmation.

"What the h.e.l.l do we do, Batter One?" the other Osprey's pilot asked over the radio.

Winter breathed.

"Forget the big bird, Batter Two, we'll take the nest as planned," he said, and pulled throttle.

Hard.

Manuel knew the sound of helicopters. He had hidden from them in El Salvador when, eighteen years old and woefully naive, he had joined the Marxist FMLN in their failed revolutionary campaign. Years later, while a paid soldier of the Medellin cartel and the guerrilla armies that emerged after its downfall like countless tiny snakes issuing from the belly of a slain dragon, he had played cat-and-mouse with the Black Hawks, Bell 212's, and Cobras flown by U.S. Special Forces and Marine Corps personnel in Colombia ... and once or twice, had successfully a.s.sumed the role of the cat and swiped them out of the air. He knew the sound of helicopters, had heard it throughout Latin America as he had sold his services to whoever could meet his price, and was able to differentiate between them with his eyes closed.

However, the rotor aircraft he suddenly heard now, descending through the near-total darkness that had settled over the plateau, was unlike anything in his experience. But for the speed at which it was vertically dropping, he might have mistaken it for a large plane.

He stood outside the DC-3, looking up, listening along with the others who had frozen on and near the cargo ramp. His heart thumped in his chest. They were close, close, almost overhead-- Then he saw their winged shadows fall over him in the remaining daylight and, raising his Steyr bullpup, waved for his men to scatter.

Graham was about to deploy his landing wheels when he heard the first bursts of submachine-gun fire rattling against the c.o.c.kpit floor.

Not this time, you f.u.c.kers, he thought. he thought.

He dipped the Osprey's nose slightly and turned toward Winter.

"Release a couple of Sunbursts ..."

Which were folding-fin, high-velocity rocket projectiles fitted with combination phosphorous/smoke warheads in launch tube pods below the Osprey's wings. Their purpose was to blind and confuse, although the rockets could have been capable of ma.s.sive destruction had their warheads contained explosive charges.

"... then let's. .h.i.t 'em with the Peacemakers ..."

These being elastomer-cased 40mm bullets containing a liquid core of dimethyl sulfide, a powerful sedative that is instantly absorbed through the skin and mucous membranes. Fired at a rate of 650 rounds per minute from a specially chambered nose-mounted turret gun devised by Sword's less-than-lethal-ordnance technicians, these rounds would disable first through kinetic energy, and second, by rupturing on impact to release their DMSO fill. Again, the nose gun might have easily been converted to take deadly 30mm full-metal-jacket ammunition--but a mandate was a mandate, and the Brazilians had been unyielding in the restrictions imposed upon UpLink's offensive aircraft capabilities.

"... got it?" Graham finished.

"Got it," Winter said.

And reached for his weapons console.

Crouched over a sealed crate in the cargo bay of the DC-3, Manuel worked sweatily at its lid with a crowbar he'd s.n.a.t.c.hed from a tool compartment behind the pilot's cabin. His face dripped with moisture, and he could feel the downwash of the Osprey's rotors through the bay door behind him, blasting sand and pebbles against the back of his head.

One comer of the lid came loose and Manuel shuffled quickly around on his knees to pry at another. He had managed to dash up the freight ramp and shelter himself in the plane as the first rockets from above had discharged their blinding flashes; an instant later the Osprey's machine gun had opened fire. Peering outside, he'd seen his men stagger and fall across the smoke-covered airstrip, but then had noticed they were falling bloodlessly. bloodlessly. It had made him remember the robot at the ISS facility, the one he'd taken out with the FAMAS gun. Remember its dizzying lights, and the sound emissions that had sickened him to the stomach. The robot and its armaments had been meant not to kill, but rather to cripple, a weakness that had given Manuel a chance to reduce it to sc.r.a.p metal. A weakness shared by the strange attack birds besieging the airfield ... or at least by the men in control of them. It had made him remember the robot at the ISS facility, the one he'd taken out with the FAMAS gun. Remember its dizzying lights, and the sound emissions that had sickened him to the stomach. The robot and its armaments had been meant not to kill, but rather to cripple, a weakness that had given Manuel a chance to reduce it to sc.r.a.p metal. A weakness shared by the strange attack birds besieging the airfield ... or at least by the men in control of them.

Now, as then, Manuel would exploit it.

The second comer of the lid separated, the nails that anch.o.r.ed it to the crate bending as they were torn free. Breathless, panting, the wound on his arm reopened from his exertions and staining his bandages with fresh blots of crimson, Manual flung the crowbar carelessly aside, slipped the fingers of both hands under lid, and then hefted it up with a grunt of exertion.

The lid came off with a splintering crack of wood.

Manuel hurriedly reached inside the crate, his hands ripping layers of fibrous packing material out by the wad until, at last, they found the Stinger surface-to-air missile launcher.

The pilot of Batter Two had remained in a circular hover-and-support pattern above the field as Batter One had alighted, lowering its aft cargo ramp to discharge its strike team.

With only a dozen or so hostiles in the runway area, most of them incapacitated by the Sunbursts and Peace-maker rounds, there was little for the team to do but cleanup work. Minutes after Batter One landed, Graham radioed up word that the field was fairly well secured.

"Thanks for the a.s.sist, Batter Two," he said. "Good luck in the valley below."

"Roger, on our way," the pilot of the airborne Osprey said, and veered off toward the ledge where it would drop its rappellers.

That was when Manuel stepped out onto the loading ramp of the DC-3 transport, the man-portable SAM launcher on his shoulder.

Manuel had little to decide in choosing his target: The Osprey on the ground had already discharged its men, and the one still in the sky was full of them.

His eye to the sight of the lightweight fibergla.s.s launcher, his hand on its grip-stock, he angled it toward the flying aircraft and activated its argon-cooled IR seeker unit with the touch of a switch. A shaved second later he heard the beep tone indicating a lock-on, and pulled the Stinger's trigger.

His heart stroked once, twice in his chest.

The missile shot toward the departing Osprey with a whoosh whoosh of propellant gas. of propellant gas.

The pilot and co-pilot of Batter Two did not see the plume of the heat-seeking missile as it streaked toward their fuselage, but the sensor pods on its nose and tail did, and instantly informed them of the threat via readouts on their dashboard and HUDs. At their low-level height above the plateau, the missile would only take a matter of three or four seconds to close, too quickly for an evasive maneuver, or for the limitations of human reaction time to allow either crew member to engage the Osprey's IR countermeasures set.

Which was why its GAPSFREE avionics were failsafed to do so automatically.

Two independent defenses awakened at once: a thermal chaff/decoy dispenser on either wing that ejected bundles of aluminum strips and incendiary flares into the air, scattering infrared bogies to confound the missile's nose-cone guidance system, and an infrared pulse lamp that accomplished much the same thing with tiny gusts of energy emitted at right angles to the fuselage.

The Stinger missile tracked yards wide of its mark to finally detonate against a blank wall of sandstone in its declining arc, harming nothing but the weeds and brambles clinging to its face.

Though Ralph Peterson had been with Sword for almost three years without ever having needed to use a weapon off the target range, his first shots fired in action would be lethal ones.

The night the ISS Compound was raided, he'd been on his day shift rotation, off duty, picking up a pretty girl in a Cuiaba barroom. He'd never thought he could possibly regret getting invited back to her apartment, but that turned out to be the case just the next day, when he reported to base and heard about the raid--and about the men who had died defending the facility in his absence.

He was not going to let anyone else be murdered without doing whatever he could to prevent it.