'You remember how to use the gun?' he said pointing to the M9.

'I do.' The words brought a scratchy tickle to the back of Hazo's throat. He buried his mouth in his sleeve and coughed to alleviate the discomfort. He could feel a tightness settling into his lungs.

'All right. Here we go.' Shuster used his sleeve to mop the sweat from his eyes, then directed his M-16 straight down the tunnel. The muzzle-mounted flashlight cut four metres into the darkness, revealing solid rock. He felt like he was staring into the entrance to h.e.l.l itself. Even with all his military training and field experience, he wasn't prepared for a hostile encounter in this environment. Should an enemy be lurking in the shadows, there'd be no choice but to face him head on - no cover, nowhere to run. The light would provide plenty of warning to anyone hunkered down in the darkness, mark a clear target even for a novice shooter. The weighty Kevlar-lined flak jacket that covered Shuster's chest offered little solace, feeling like nothing more than tissue paper. And at close range, he felt that his combat helmet would shield his skull no better than a Tupperware bowl.

Shuster set off down the pa.s.sage. The tunnel ran straight for fifteen metres and felt perfectly level underfoot. With the scuffing of boots and the clattering of gear, it was difficult for him to hear anything. So every few metres, he'd signal for the procession to stop. Then he'd listen for any sounds that might be emanating from within the mountain. When all went still, however, the only noise he detected was the wheezing sounds coming from Hazo's chest.

Fifteen minutes had elapsed since they'd left the entry point forty metres back. The ground began to gradually pitch downward as the pa.s.sage narrowed and began curving in a wide arc.

As they went deeper, the cool air got thinner.

The pa.s.sage straightened again, just before the ceiling seemed to disappear. When Shuster aimed his light upward, he felt like he was staring up from the bottom of a creva.s.se - as though a colossal axe had cleaved the inside of the mountain. Instead of opening into sunlight, however, the sheer walls tapered gradually inward until fusing once more about ten metres up.

Shuster halted the procession once more to listen for activity.

This time, he thought he heard something. And it wasn't the Kurd's stuffy chest. The lofty ceiling was amplifying a sound that seemed to be carrying up from inside the mountain.

'What the h.e.l.l is that?' Ramirez whispered.

'Don't know,' Shuster said. The persistent churning sounds were difficult to place, but didn't seem to indicate a human source. 'Maybe an underground water source. Like an aquifer or an underground river.' He pressed forward.

'Wait,' Ramirez protested.

Shuster stopped and turned back to the private. 'What?'

'That doesn't sound like water to me. I don't like it.'

'Only one way to find out,' Shuster said, motioning ahead. But Ramirez wasn't moving.

'I say we tell Crawford to go f.u.c.k himself. Let him send his robot down there.'

'Hey!' Holt interrupted. 'I saw something moving up there.'

Shuster spun and took aim with his M-16. He swung the light side to side, up and down. Ahead, the pa.s.sage was still.

'Oh that's it,' Ramirez said, repeatedly looking back the way they'd come. 'I'm getting the f.u.c.k out of here.'

'No you're not,' Shuster said. Shaking and fidgeting like a caffeine junky, Ramirez clearly had an extreme case of jitters. 'Pull yourself together, will you?'

Hazo shimmied past Holt, saying, 'Excuse me, please.'

Confused, Ramirez backed up to the wall to let the Kurd through. 'Where are you going?'

Hazo didn't answer. When he tried to squeeze past Shuster, the corporal grabbed him by the arm, saying, 'Hold up, Hazo.' He glanced back at Ramirez. 'I'm not about to send our interpreter to do your job. Ramirez, be a man for G.o.d's sake.' He patted Hazo on the shoulder and motioned for him to return to the back of the line. 'We're got a plan. Let's stick to it. Stop wasting time.'

Shuster raised his M-16 and moved forward.

'You're a p.u.s.s.y, Ramirez,' Holt said, giving the dissenter a prodding push.

'f.u.c.k you. You would've been right behind me and you know it.'

67.

'Thanks for getting here so fast,' Jason yelled to Candyman over the sound of the Blackhawk's whirling blades. Once in the helicopter, he buckled his harness, tightened the chin strap on his flight helmet and adjusted the mic boom on his headset. Next to him, Meat fussed with slackening the shoulder straps to accommodate his bulk.

'No problem,' Candyman said. 'It was easy to find you. That's a mighty big fire you boys lit up. Could practically see it the second I got up in the air. Didn't even have to bother with the GPS.' He motioned to the ravaged outline of the safe house, engulfed in orange fire. A column of thick black smoke boiled straight up from the conflagration into the windless sky before melding into the night.

'Man, you guys don't mess around,' said the slight copilot with an air of admiration.

Jason wasn't about to explain why they'd set the house ablaze. The act was not something to be glorified.

But Meat felt the kid deserved to hang on to the outlaw image, saying, 'We like to be thorough.' He managed a thin smile.

'I'll say,' the copilot said. 'Who was in there anyway? Some of those Al-Qaeda f.u.c.kers?'

Jason gave Meat a stern glance. Meat said nothing.

'Even for a rookie you're an idiot,' Candyman chastised the copilot. 'Why don't you go jerk off to Full Metal Jacket Full Metal Jacket for the two-hundredth time and leave these guys alone?' He worked the controls and lifted the Blackhawk smoothly into the air. As he banked north, the chopper's downdraught whipped up the smoke and flames. for the two-hundredth time and leave these guys alone?' He worked the controls and lifted the Blackhawk smoothly into the air. As he banked north, the chopper's downdraught whipped up the smoke and flames.

To the west, two klicks out, Jason spotted three Humvees angling fast along the dirt roads that bisected the fields, heading for the blaze. In the glare of their bouncing rectangular headlights he spotted Iraqi Security Force insignias. His jaw clamped tight. Now Now they were showing up? they were showing up?

'Don't worry about the sand cops,' Candyman said as if linked into Jason's thoughts. 'Our guys will get there first and send them on their way.' He swung the chopper a bit. 'There ... see?' He raised his hand for Jason to see, then pointed down and left.

Down below, only a klick away, a second convoy was cutting its own path through the wheat fields on a beeline for the burning house. This time, the headlights highlighted nothing but desert camouflage. Six marine Humvees.

Jason's jaw slackened.

'Two more platoons are heading for the cave,' Candyman added. 'Another unit's already handling the chopper wreck. Said they found a bunch of shot-up Al-Qaeda in a ditch. That your handiwork too?'

Jason said nothing, so Meat spoke up. 'They were taking pictures of the wreck, like they were at Disney World ... probably looking to update their Facebook page. We didn't feel that was appropriate.'

The eager copilot chimed in with, 'Yeah, gotta teach these sand monkeys some manners.' But Candyman shot him a biting stare and he sank into his seat.

'By the way, Google,' Candyman said solemnly, 'sorry to hear about Camel and Jam. That's a G.o.dd.a.m.n shame.'

'Thanks.'

A few more seconds went by without conversation.

Eventually, Candyman had to ask, 'Did Crawford f.u.c.k things up as badly as you said?'

'Worse,' Jason said. 'You have no idea.'

'That guy's going to be in a world of hurt when the BG finds out what he's done ...'

The BG, thought Jason. Despite his distaste for conspiracy theories, there was no telling if the brigadier general wasn't part of this too.

68.

The inverted-V ceiling dropped precipitously once more as the pa.s.sage drilled through the mountain in a wide hollow tube that reminded Shuster of an earthen storm drain. He kept the procession drumming along to a steady, furtive cadence - Ramirez, Holt and Hazo following in his wake. Sweeping his light in wide arcs over the rough stone confirmed an absence of mining or tool marks. Only time and the elements had been this tunnel's quarrymen.

The tunnel curved gently from left to right, then back again, the ground rising and falling along a general downward trajectory. The air quality was degrading quickly, and Shuster worried that if something were not soon found, he'd need to abandon the exploration. One thought kept cycling through his mind: why would Fahim Al-Zahrani have retreated back towards his enemy? If Al-Zahrani had met a dead end, they had to be nearing it - which coincided all too well with the strange sounds that were growing stronger with every step. He paused once more to try to decipher the noise.

'G.o.dd.a.m.n it, what is is that?' Ramirez said. that?' Ramirez said.

'No idea,' Shuster replied, trying to conceal his deepening anxiety.

'Sounds like something's alive down there,' Holt said.

No one challenged the idea.

'Wait here,' Shuster suggested. 'I'll go check it out.'

'Absolutely,' Ramirez said. 'That's a very good idea.'

They all watched in silence as Shuster disappeared around the bend.

With time to rest, Holt became acutely aware of Hazo's worsening health. Hazo, bracing himself up with the tunnel wall, was ashen and sluggish, and his chest heaved every time he inhaled.

'Hey, Hazo,' Ramirez said. 'You know anything about this place?'

Hazo shrugged. 'Just legends.'

'That's a start,' Ramirez said. 'What legends?'

Hazo paused. 'A demon was buried here,' he explained bluntly. 'This is what some say.' His thoughts flashed back to Monsignor Ibrahim and Michelangelo's painting of a half-woman, half-serpent entwined around a tree.

'Demon?' Holt jumped in. 'Exactly what kind of demon?'

There was no reason to keep secrets at this juncture, thought Hazo. 'Those are her pictures on the wall near the entrance. Her name is Lilith,' he explained weakly. 'Thousands of years ago, she came to this place ... these mountains. She killed every man and boy.' The conversation quickly exhausted his lungs, forcing him to cough.

'Crazy b.i.t.c.h,' Ramirez seethed as if one of the victims had been his own brother.

'How? How did she kill them?' Holt pressed. He felt like he was a boy scout again, hearing haunted campfire stories. Hazo reluctantly cast his bloodshot eyes to the ground. 'Come on, Hazo. If we're stuck in a demon's grave, it would be nice to know what we're up against.'

Trying to catch his breath, Hazo managed to force one tentative word from his lips: 'Pestilence.'

'Pest-a-what?' Ramirez asked, agitated.

'Disease, Ramirez,' Shuster said. 'Learn the language, will you?'

Ramirez lingered on the word, his M-16 drooping in his grip. He repeated it to himself with a sense of fatalism: 'Disease.' He pulled a gold crucifix out from under his collar and blessed himself with it.

'It's just a story,' Holt reminded him.

'A story? You saw Al-Zahrani when they pulled him out of here. Man, he was sick ... real sick. You saw him.'

Holt rolled his eyes and spread his hands.

Then Ramirez took a hasty step back from Hazo, looking spooked. 'And look ... now he's he's sick,' he said accusatorily. He tightened his hold on the M-16. A psychosomatic tickle came to the back of his throat and he grabbed at it. 'I don't want to catch no d.a.m.n disease ...' sick,' he said accusatorily. He tightened his hold on the M-16. A psychosomatic tickle came to the back of his throat and he grabbed at it. 'I don't want to catch no d.a.m.n disease ...'

'Settle down,' Holt said.

'Guys!' Shuster's voice echoed up from the mountain.

Holt cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back: 'Yeah?'

'Get down here ... I found something!'

Holt set off on a brisk pace through the tunnel, Ramirez and Hazo bringing up the rear. The pa.s.sage essed twice and curled sharply before spilling into a cavernous black hollow. Holt stopped dead in his tracks. 'What the ...?' he gasped.

'Over here,' Shuster called to him from deep within the hollow.

He spotted Shuster's flashlight floating in the voluminous darkness. The light played over the surface of a ma.s.sive angular form plonked down in middle of the cave, which resembled an unhitched semi-trailer or a railroad boxcar. And it seemed that the sounds they'd been hearing - now clearly recognizable as the whirring of mechanical parts - were coming from inside it.

'Come on, Holt!' Shuster shouted. 'Get over here!'

'Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?' Ramirez said over Holt's shoulder.

'This ain't no dream,' Holt said, pointing his light down to illuminate the ground. He was surprised to see that a section of the cave floor had been levelled into a two-and-a-half-metre-wide path, definitely not by natural means, but by some kind of excavating machine. On either side, the natural limestone formations had been left intact, looking like a moonscape. Around the cave's perimeter walls, his light glinted off enormous stainless-steel holding tanks shaped like inverted baby bottles. For a moment he felt like he was back on the tour of the local Budweiser brewery, in the fermentation room.

Holt and Ramirez trotted over to Shuster, while Hazo paused to catch his breath.

'How did this get down here?' Holt asked.

'Must have been brought in here in pieces ... a.s.sembled on site. Modular construction. See there,' Shuster said, moving his rifle muzzle up and down so that the light emphasized one of many riveted seams connecting the container's outer steel panels.

'Looks like a shipping container,' Ramirez said.

'Sure does,' Shuster said, making his way around it.

'For what, though?' Ramirez mumbled. Thoughts of the ancient legend had his imagination running wild. The short hairs on his neck bristled.

'Take a look at this,' Shuster called over.

Holt and Ramirez kept their M-16s at the ready and angled around the hulking container. A pale purple light glowed on to a grooved steel ramp that led down from the side of the container. The container's short side was two and a half metres square, partially enclosing a central entryway a metre wide, two metres high. Beside it, a mechanical door mounted on rails had been slid open. Semi-transparent plastic flaps - like those used for meat lockers - dangled like a curtain from the top of the entryway to provide an air barrier. The flaps distorted the details of the container's interior, but provided enough visibility to suggest that there was no one inside.