Like Franco.

Their combined guilts, angers, failures, becoming a distant but piercing howling in the wind-like a banshee's warning.

The soldier looks around, sees the odd abstracts that his best friend's brains and blood have made on a nearby wall. The way the angles of an imploded chest are almost beautiful; the strange dichotomy of a shoe-laces still tied and cinched-sitting by itself away from any possible bodies. And one thought sweeps over them like a gel, slowly enveloping them in its demand for...

... Life.

And like it or not, Valerie and Franco had either become soldiers ... or victims.

"What are we going to do," eh? Franco said after a long moment. He took a step toward her. "You going to lie in your bed, alone, and think about your boy and girl? I'm going to lie in my bed, alone, and think about Paolo?" He shook his head. "Stupid."

"I don't want to think at all, Valerie said angrily."

"So let's not think together."

Valerie was quiet for a moment.

How can you allow yourself a few minutes of freedom, her mind tortured her, of physical joy, while your children are dead or dying... alone. Wh.o.r.e!

She didn't think she liked Franco. There was a smell about him, physically and morally. A thing that stank of her own past. And he was most certainly no bastion of a gentleness and tenderness she so longed for. There was nothing about the man she liked, let alone loved!

But he was here, and he did understand.

And in those next few minutes of pain/pleasure, despair/ecstasy-the world of the dead and the dying and black tomorrows was gone. Replaced by flesh and warmth, forgiveness for surviving; and a blank, unwritten future where anything was possible.

The things that were necessary-not for living, but for surviving.

As soldiers.

"I got two perimeter guards, fifty meters at two o'clock."

"I see 'em. Wait till they get a little closer. I got a lousy angle."

"Forty meters at one o'clock."

"Wait for it."

"Thirty-five meters at twelve."

"Good."

"Ground from thirty-four." "Ground."

"Splash two; perimeter, North Six."

"Thirty-four from ground. Move to point two."

"Thirty-four."

"And the wolf got very quiet..."

"Qu'est-ce?" the little girl asked sleepily.

"Uh. Le loup, you know...grr!"

Gabi laughed and yawned at the same time. "Oui! Grrr!"

Sarah laughed, stroked the nearly asleep little girl's hair, and continued. "Anyway, le loup got verrry quiet and got ready to jump out and eat the little girl. Then, all of a sudden..."

She stopped as she saw Gabi was sound asleep.

"Didn't I used to tell you that when you were her age?"

Sarah quietly stood and faced her older brother. "Sure. But not as well as I do. I got a lot of practice with Bradley. It was his favorite."

She checked Gabi's covers, then started walking through the ward.

"I had a talk with your smart-a.s.s son."

Sarah smiled. "I wonder where he gets that from?"

They walked silently through the room of sleeping, injured porcelain dolls.

"You going to be okay when we split for Corsica?"

Sarah shrugged. "You tell me. You're the one who kidnapped us out here in the first place."

"I think everything's had enough time to calm down; and for Colin to get his people under control." He smiled spasmodically. "Yeah. Everything will be fine." He seemed to relax. "No, what I meant was money. You okay? That deadbeat jerk you married keeping up his end?"

"Sure. With a little prompting, he comes through not too late. And the shop's doing well."

"If there's any problem with him, remember, I know people, Xenos said offhandedly."

Sarah barely suppressed a loud laugh. "So I'm learning!"

The dimmed lights in the ward began to flicker, then went out entirely.

"You should get yourself a better generator, Sarah said after a moment. Her answer was her brother's almost stilled breathing."

"I did."

Three teams of four men each swept in on the clinic's buildings from the north, east, and west. They moved silently, coordinated, deadly. They'd come up to a building, two would remain on guard outside, the others would enter the building, spray the rooms with automatic weapons fire, then move on.

The only sound in the night, the pfft, pfft, pfft of the noise-suppressed shots, mingling with the occasional m.u.f.fled scream.

"Check left," check left! a team leader called as they approached the third cottage in their zone. "Got it, another gunman said."

Two of the men braced themselves by the front door, nodded to each other, then-three seconds later-burst through, filling the room with the deadly fire.

Ten seconds later they stopped to survey the damage. Only an unmade bed, crisscrossed with bullet holes.

"Empty. Let's go," the leader called out as he keyed his microphone. "Thirty-four, target North Six C-1 empty."

"Thirty-four proceed," came his reply.

And they moved on to the next cottage.

Never seeing Franco drop, naked, from the rafters.

"The next time you think you hear something," he said as he caught an equally naked Valerie, "remind me to listen to you." But there was no humor in his voice.

They dressed quickly.

"What's going on?" Valerie whispered.

Franco's moves became catlike, light, agile, darting. After pulling on his jeans he made one quick circle of the small room, coming up with a carving knife and a fireplace poker. He gave the poker to Valerie.

"Stay here," he whispered. "They probably won't come back." And he was gone-shirtless and barefoot-into the night.

There were more screams now, the shooting more constant. Valerie nervously gripped and regripped the poker.

"f.u.c.k this," she mumbled, then headed out into the deadly night.

Two of the teams converged near the entrance to the main house, just behind the clinic itself. With hand gestures and nods, they deployed at two of the doors, and at an agreed moment, burst inside.

Herb's first shot caught the lead mercenary in the forehead and threw him backward into the next. His next three sprayed the doorway and anyone beyond it. Then he dived behind the sofa as a torrent of fire responded to him.

"Taking fire," one of the mercenaries called out. "West Two H-5. Taking fire!"

The other team entered more slowly from the back, having heard Herb's .45's reports.

"Carefully, lads," their leader whispered as he peeked from the kitchen into the dining area. "Carefu-"

A gurgling sound replaced the rest of his thought as Avidol's carving knife nearly severed the man's head.

He took four rounds-all grazing him in the side-before he got all the way back to the living room.

Three new teams were dispatched from their staging area in an olive grove just below the clinic enclave. The twelve men ran to the scene, four reinforcing the men at the main house, the other eight breaking off into the clinic itself.

Silence and stealth were history now, as a satchel charge blew the double doors off the front of the clinic. Flash-bangs were tossed through, exploding in blue light and smoke, followed by a two-man entry team. Unsilenced automatic fire pierced the night, then, abruptly, stopped.

"Trevor?" one of the mercenaries called out. "Ian? Is it clear?"

"Look! another mercenary screamed as he pointed at the roof of the building."

But there was no hesitation, no shock on Xenos's face. Just pure rage!

He squeezed both triggers on his captured weapons, holding them tight and long, as he demolished the six men below him. Then a commotion on the other side of the clinic called him and he left the barely human remains of the gunmen behind as he ran across the pitch roof.

One of the mercenary teams had cornered four children and a nurse on the edge of the southern bluff. They shined bright lights on them, checking the woman's face before reporting in.

"Twelve, South One Bluff."

"Ground."

"Four locals," none targeted. Request instructions. "Clean sweep."

"Twelve, copy."

The men sighed, straightened their aims, then fell to the sides as Franco leaped into them.

The knife flashed-into the eye of one, the armpit of another-and he rolled to his feet grabbing one of the guns as he moved.

"Allez! Allez!" he screamed as the children scattered and he found the third gunman. He emptied the clip into the overwhelmed man's face. He realized too late that the fourth man was behind him, and he threw himself to the ground as a disciplined burst caught him on the left side. He lay on the green gra.s.s, looked up at a beautiful moon, out at the peaceful Mediterranean, and prepared to die.

Puzzled why it was taking so long.

He looked over in the direction of the shooter, a man who stood there stiffly, his gun hanging limply in his hands, the end of a poker barely showing through his bloodied chest.

"Vulture, Vulture, Vulture, this is ground!"

"Vulture."

"We're getting the h.e.l.l kicked out of us! Request air!" "Ground from Vulture. ETA thirty seconds." The helicopter climbed quickly from its below-radar, surf-skimming alt.i.tude. The pilot, remembering that he had to clear the eighty-foot bluff, concentrated on his instruments as the man in the seat next to him concentrated on making sure his two door gunners with their belt-fed .50-caliber machine guns were ready.

"Come up fast and quiet," he commanded. "Straight down the middle and we'll rake everything we see, right?"

The pilot and gunners nodded.

"When we reach the olive grove, bank left and start orbiting at fifty feet," Canvas yelled to be heard above the engine. "We'll take it one building at a time with the RPGs, then sweep back and take out anyone left about, got it?"

One of the gunners picked up a rifle-propelled-grenade launcher. "What about our guys down there?"

Canvas turned back to studying the approaching bluff with his night-vision goggles. "They've been paid in advance."

Sarah was trying to get as many children out of the partially burning ward as she could. Somewhere behind her, she heard gunfire. Somewhere ahead, she heard explosions. And she hadn't seen Xenos in long minutes.

"Down," she commanded as a helicopter swept in low from the sea. She and Dr. Jacmil tried to keep the oddly calm children together. There was no screaming, little crying, most of them trooping along following orders like little soldiers.

Then she remembered the nightmare that they'd come from and she cursed G.o.d for giving these innocents such unique skills.

Five of the seven buildings were burning heavily now. The high-explosive and phosphorous grenades more than doing their jobs. The helicopter would come up on a building, hover long enough for the gunner to aim, then fire the lethal missile. A .50 would rake the inferno and they'd move on to the next target.

Killing anyone moving on the ground as they flew.

"Main building," Canvas called out. "Give her three RPGs and rake her good!"

The helicopter slowed, then hovered less than thirty feet above the building's roof.