This was pretty much the opium highway. The friendlies who lived in the nearby villages were little or no help, because even though they idealistically supported us and hated the Taliban, they also feared the terrorists more than us; and without the trickle-down of drug money, they'd starve to death. It was a devil's bargain at best, but it was the reason that no one can win this war. The best we could hope for was to slow the opium shipments and keep the Taliban splinter cells underfunded and ill-prepared for a major, coordinated terror offensive of the kind they've always promised and we live in fear of.

Something flared ahead and I held up my fist. The others froze.

The pa.s.s we were following curled around the mountain like the grooves on a screw, turning and rising toward the peak on the far side. Sixty yards ahead, half-hidden by an outcropping of rock, light spilled from the mouth of a small cave. The overhang would have made the light invisible from aircraft, but not for us on the ground. A shadow seemed to detach itself from the wall and as I watched through narrowed eyes it resolved into the shape of a man. A Marine.

He walked to a spot outside the spill of light, looked up and down the pa.s.s, and then retreated to his nook. He didn't see the three big men crouched behind boulders in the dark. The sentry went to the mouth of the cave and peered inside. The glow let me see his face. He was grinning.

Then we heard the scream.

A man's voice, pleading. A string of words in Pashto, ending in a screech of pain that was cut off by the sharp crack of a palm on flesh.

And then the sound of a woman laughing.

It was not a pleasant laugh. It held no cheer, no good will. No warmth. It was deep and throaty, strangely wet, and it rose into a mocking screech that turned my guts to gutter water.

We did not hail the guard. The situation felt wrong in too many ways. I signaled Bunny to keep his eyes and gun barrel on the sentry as I circled on cat feet behind a tall slab of rock. That put me on the man's six, ten feet from his back. Even if this all proved to be a zero-threat situation I was going to fry this guy for his criminal lack of attention to duty. A sentry holds everyone's life in their hands; this guy was handing me everyone in that cave.

I screwed the .22's barrel into the soft spot under his left ear, grabbed him by the collar and slow-walked him back. Slim was there and he spun the guard and put him down. I didn't see the blow, but it sounded like a tree being felled. The guard went out without having said a word. Slim watched our backs as Bunny and I crept to the cave entrance...

...and looked into a scene from h.e.l.l.

The cave was clearly one that saw regular use. There were chairs, a card table, ammunition cases, cots, and a stove with sterno burners. A Taliban soldier was tied to a folding chair, ankles and wrists bound with plastic cuffs. His clothes had been slashed and torn away to reveal his pale chest and shoulders. His turban hung askew, one end trailing down behind him where it puddled on the rocky ground between his heels. Several Kalashnikovs stood against the wall, magazines removed.

The other three men of the Marine squad stood in a loose semicircle around the man, laughing as he screamed and begged and prayed. All of them were sweating; a couple had red and puffy knuckles that spoke to the way this session had started. If this was just a group of frustrated Marines knocking the p.i.s.s out of a Taliban grunt, partly to blow off steam and partly to try and get a handle on something that might result in some real good being done, then I might have just stepped in and calmed it down. Yelled a bit, given them the appropriate ration of s.h.i.t, but basically dialed it all down with no charges being filed.

But that's not what we were seeing. These guys had taken it to a different level and in doing so had crossed the line between an attempt to gather useful intelligence and something else. Something darker that was not part of soldiering. Something that wasn't even part of torturing or "enhanced interrogation." Something that went beyond Abu Ghraib and into the darkest territory imaginable.

They had Amirah-scientist, designer of the Seif al Din Seif al Din, wife of one of the world's most hated terrorists. There were two ropes looped around her neck, each end pulled to an opposite side by a Marine so that she could not approach either of them. All she could do was lunge forward toward the prisoner. Her wrists were bound behind her. Her ankles were hobbled by a length of rope. She couldn't flee, couldn't run. The men had stripped her to the waist, revealing a body that was beautifully made but which now inspired only revulsion. Her once olive skin had faded to a dusty gray-green and there were four black bullet holes-one in her stomach, three in her back-that were crusted with dried blood and wriggling with maggots.

Amirah lunged forward to bite the man, but the Marines jerked on the ropes and stopped her when her gray teeth were an inch from the Afghani's face. Amirah snarled and then laughed. It was impossible to say whether she was enjoying this game, or if she was completely mad.

As the men struggled to keep her in check they danced and shifted around and I could see that there were two other Afghanis in the room. They lay sprawled like broken dolls. It looked like their faces had been eaten, and their throats were tangles of red junk.

"It's getting tough to hold this b.i.t.c.h," growled one of the men, though he was smiling when he said it.

"Please, in the name of G.o.d, keep her away!" begged the bound man. He was already bleeding from half a dozen bites. Thin lines of dark red spiderwebbed out from each bite. The infection was slow for some, faster for others. Snot and spit ran from his nose and mouth as he pleaded in three different languages.

A big man with sergeant's stripes-the only one not holding a leash-bent down behind the man and spoke with sharp impatience. "We'll f.u.c.king stop when you f.u.c.king tell us what we want to know."

"But I don't...I don't..." He was filled with too much panic to complete a sentence.

The sergeant straightened and nodded, and the men slackened their holds on the rope leashes. Amirah instantly lunged forward and sank her teeth into the flesh of the man's shoulder. Blood spurted hot and red beside her cheeks, and even from where I crouched I could see her eyes roll high and white with an erotic pleasure. The man's piercing shrieks filled the whole cave.

"Okay, pull the b.i.t.c.h off him," snapped the sergeant, and she fought them, her teeth sunk deep into muscle. It took all three men to haul her back, two pulling and the sergeant pushing. He punched Amirah in the face and that finally broke the contact, but as they dragged her away a piece of sinew was clamped between her jaws and it snapped with a wet pop.

She licked her lips. "Delicious..." she said in English, drawing the word out, tasting the soft wetness of it, savoring the way the syllables rolled between teeth and tongue and lips.

Bunny made a soft gagging sound beside me.

This was what I was afraid of. What Church had been afraid of. During that fight against El Mujahid, we'd encountered several generations of the Seif al Din Seif al Din pathogen. Most of the early generations transformed the infected into mindless eating machines. The walkers. But at the end, when I'd squared off against El Mujahid himself, he'd been among the dead but he still retained his intelligence. It was the result of Generation 12 of the disease. He bragged about how his princess-the name Amirah meant "princess"-had saved him, had elevated him to immortality. pathogen. Most of the early generations transformed the infected into mindless eating machines. The walkers. But at the end, when I'd squared off against El Mujahid himself, he'd been among the dead but he still retained his intelligence. It was the result of Generation 12 of the disease. He bragged about how his princess-the name Amirah meant "princess"-had saved him, had elevated him to immortality.

That had to be what we were seeing here. Amirah had become one of her own monsters. Was it an accident or part of some twisted plan? From the way El Mujahid bragged about it-right before I gave him a ticket to paradise-I had to believe that Amirah had chosen this path.

Chosen. G.o.d almighty.

"f.u.c.k this," I murmured and stepped into the cave. Bunny was right beside me. I held my .22 in a two-hand shooters grip; he had his M4. Our night-vision was off but we wore black balaclava's that showed only our eyes.

"United States Army," I bellowed. "Stand down, stand down!"

The sergeant whirled toward me, his right hand going for his sidearm. I put the laser sight on him.

"Stand down or I will kill you!"

He believed me, and he froze.

The other Marines froze.

The man in the chair froze.

Amirah, however, did not.

With a snarl of hunger, the mad witch twisted so suddenly and violently that she tore the ropes from the hands of the startled Marines. She tore her hands free from the plastic cuffs. She screamed like some desert demon from legend, leapt into the air and slammed into the sergeant, driving him against the torture victim. They crashed to the ground amid shrieks and blood and biting teeth.

The two Marines began to move toward the sergeant, but Bunny shifted to cover them with his M4. That left me.

I stepped in and kicked Amirah in the side of the head. The blow knocked her off of the sergeant, but she had his hand clamped between her jaws. And the bound man was screaming and beating his forehead against the side of the sergeant's head, mashing his ear.

"Holy s.h.i.t, boss-on your six!"

It was Bunny. I pivoted in place in time to catch the rush as something came out of the shadows and tackled me. It was one of the other Afghanis. One of the dead Afghanis.

His teeth were bared and spit flew from cracked lips as he lunged for my throat.

I braced my forearm under his chin as I fell backward, and then clenched my abs so that my flat back fall turned into a curled back roll. The Afghani went into the tumble with me and instead of him pinning me down we ended the roll with me straddling his chest. I jammed the barrel of the .22 into his left eye-socket and fired. The bullet tore all his wiring loose and he transformed from murderously vicious to sagging dead weight in a microsecond.

There were shouts all around and I had to shove at the body to get free. As I came up, I saw that the second Afghani had clamped his teeth around the windpipe of one of the Marines. Bunny put six rounds into the Afghani: the first one knocked him loose from his victim, the second punched him in the chest to stall him, and the last four grouped like knuckles in a lead fist to strike him above the eyebrows. The man's head exploded and his body spun backward in a sloppy pirouette. The Marine dropped to his knees, trying to staunch an arterial spray with fingers that shook with the palsy of sudden understanding. His companion crouched over him, pressing the wound with his hands, but the Marine drowned in his own blood in seconds.

Slim was in the cave mouth, his weapon sweeping quickly back and forth from target to target, not knowing whether to take a shot or not.

I dove at Amirah, who had crawled back atop the sergeant. For his part, the Marine was putting up a good fight, but it was clear that terror of the woman he had been using as a tool of interrogation was off the scale, too much for him to handle. He shot me a single, despairing glance, and I saw the moment when he gave up. It must have been one of those instantaneous moments of clarity that can either save you or kill you. His interrogation had failed. His method of interrogation was indefensible, a fact that would never have mattered if we hadn't shown up. But we were here, and he was caught. His world had just crashed, and he knew it.

I locked my arm around Amirah's throat and squeezed, bulging my bicep on one side to cut off her left carotid and my forearm to cut off her right. In jujutsu that puts someone out.

It didn't do a f.u.c.king thing to her.

She bucked and writhed with more force than I would have thought possible for a woman of her size, alive or dead.

I shoved the hot barrel of the .22 against the back of her head, bent close, and whispered in her ear, speaking in Farsi.

"There is no shame to die in the service of Allah."

Her muscles locked into sudden rigidity. The cave was instantly still. Even the Afghani and the sergeant had stopped screaming. I held her tight against my chest and my back was to the cold stone wall. She smelled of rotting meat and death, but in her dark hair there was the faintest scent of perfume. Jasmine.

"Amirah," I said. "Listen to me."

I whispered six more words.

"Your choice, Princess," I said. "This...or paradise?"

I leaned on the word "this." From the absolute stillness, I knew that she understood what I meant. The cave, these men, all this destruction. She knew. And even though she had meant to sweep the world with her pathogen, the end goal-the transformation via Generation 12 of a select portion of Islam and the total annihilation of the enemies of her people-that was impossible. All that was left to her now was to be a monster. Alone and reviled.

The moment stretched. No one moved. Then Amirah leaned her head toward me. An oddly intimate movement.

She said, "Not...this."

I whispered, "Yarhamu-ka-llah."

May G.o.d have mercy on you.

And pulled the trigger.

-4-.

Battalion Aide Station Now

I sat back and studied Harper for a long time.

He said, "What? You going to sit there and tell me that you wouldn't have done the same thing?"

I said nothing.

"Look," he said, "I know that was you in the cave. What are you? Delta? SEALs?"

I said nothing.

"You know know what we're up against out there. They want us to stop the Taliban, stop the flow of opium, but our own government supports the brother of the Afghan president, and he runs half the opium in the frigging country! How the h.e.l.l are we supposed to win that kind of war? This is Vietnam all over again. We're losing a war we shouldn't be fighting." what we're up against out there. They want us to stop the Taliban, stop the flow of opium, but our own government supports the brother of the Afghan president, and he runs half the opium in the frigging country! How the h.e.l.l are we supposed to win that kind of war? This is Vietnam all over again. We're losing a war we shouldn't be fighting."

I said nothing.

Harper leaned forward, anger darkening his face. He pointed at me with the index finger of his uninjured hand. "You think Abu Ghraib's the only place where we had to do whatever it took to get some answers? It goes on all over, and it's always always gone on." gone on."

"And look where it's gotten us," I said.

"f.u.c.k you and f.u.c.k that zero tolerance bulls.h.i.t. We were trying to save save lives. We would have gotten something out of that man." lives. We would have gotten something out of that man."

"You didn't get s.h.i.t from the first two."

Now it was his turn to say nothing. After a minute he narrowed his eyes. "When you spoke to that...that...thing. That woman. At the end, you gave her a blessing. You a Muslim?" That woman. At the end, you gave her a blessing. You a Muslim?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"Honestly, Sergeant, I don't think I could explain it to you. I mean...I could explain it, but I don't think you'd understand."

"You think I'm a monster, don't you?"

"Are you?"

"No, man," he said. "I'm just trying to...." And his voice broke. At first it was just a hitch, but when he tried to catch it and hide it, his resolve broke and he put his face in his unbandaged hand and sobbed. I sat back in my chair and watched.

I looked at him. The bandages on his other hand were stained with blood that was almost black. Red lines ran in a crooked tracery from beneath the bandage and up his arms. I could see the same dark lines beginning to creep up from his collar. It was forty-eight hours since he'd been brought to the aid station. Fifty-nine since Amirah had bitten him. Strong son of a b.i.t.c.h. Most people would have turned by now.

"What's going to happen to me?" he asked, raising a tear-streaked face.

"Nothing. It's already happened."

He licked his dry lips. "We...we didn't know."

"Yes you did. Your squad was briefed. Maybe it was all a little unreal to you, Sergeant. Horror movie stuff. But you knew knew. Just as you know how this ends."

I stood and drew my sidearm, and racked the slide. The sound was enormous in that little room.

"They're going to want to study you," I said. "They can do that with you on a slab, or in a cage."

"They can't!" he said, anger flaring inside his pain. "I'm an American G.o.d d.a.m.n it!"

"No," I said. "Sergeant Andy Harper died while on a mission in Afghanistan. The report will reflect that he died while serving his country and maintaining the best traditions of the U.S. Marine Corps."

Harper looked at me, the truth registering in his eyes.

"So I ask you," I said, raising the pistol. "This...or paradise?"

"I...I'm sorry," he said. Maybe at that moment he really was. Deathbed epiphanies aren't worth the breath that carries them. Not to me. Not anymore.

"I know," I lied.

"I did it for us us, man. I did it to help!"

"Yeah," I said. "Me too."