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  “Standby.” He switched to the Delta channel. “Cipher Six, this is Cipher One-Six. Come in, over.”

  No answer. He tried two more times, unsuccessfully. He was about to switch back to update the pilot, when a voice sounded in his earpiece. “Cipher One-Six, this is Eagle-Eye Three. What the hell’s going on?”

  Even without the callsign, Sigler recognized the voice of Lewis Aleman. The tall, athletic sniper shared Parker’s interest in science and technology, and the two men often hung out together, salivating over the Sharper Image catalog like it was the Sport Illustrated swimsuit issue.

  “Wondering that myself, Eagle-Eye. Are you guys on the bird?” Sigler saw the crew chief motioning for his attention again, but waited for Aleman to answer in the affirmative. “Roger, Eagle-Eye. Standby.”

  He switched to the Night Stalkers’ frequency. “Go for Cipher element.”

  “Cipher, this is Beehive Six-Four. Beehive Six-Six is…they’re bugging out, and they ain’t taking our calls. This is your show, Cipher. What do I do?”

  Sigler’s brow furrowed in disbelief; there was no protocol for a situation like this. He leaned over the crew chief’s shoulder and stared out the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of the departing Black Hawk, as if visually confirming what he’d been told would give him some insight about what to do next.

  He didn’t see the helicopter. Instead, he saw a flash on the ground, perhaps a mile to the west, then another.

  Abruptly, the display in his night vision device flared bright white, like a high intensity spotlight beaming directly into his retina. He reflexively tore the monocular away, but the damage was done; a greenish blue spot filled his right eye.

  His left eye however, fixed on the source of the light: two parachute flares, fired from mortar tubes, were blazing like tiny suns in the night sky.

  “Shit! Get us out of here, Beehive!”

  His warning was unnecessary; the pilots had seen the flares as well and were already taking evasive action.

  Two deep booming sounds reverberated through the airframe, the reports of the mortar launch finally reaching them, and then Sigler’s good eye detected more flashes on the ground, and pinpoints of light streaking into the sky. Sigler recognized them instantly; RPGs…rocket propelled grenades.

  The effective range of the RPG was only about a hundred meters. Beyond that, there was less than a fifty percent chance of hitting a stationary target. At a thousand meters, the grenade would self-destruct. Sigler’s helicopter was well outside that radius, but Beehive Six-Five was a lot closer to the source. The air around the helicopter carrying the snipers suddenly came alive with flashes, as the grenades began exploding. Sigler thought the helicopter had weathered the barrage, but a moment later he heard a voice over the radio: “Shit! We’re going in.”

  Beehive Six-Five wobbled in the air and began corkscrewing downward.

  There was a thunderous eruption right in front of Sigler; the crew chief had opened up with his M240. Red arcs—tracers—described the path of the 7.62 millimeter rounds as they lanced toward the source of the RPGs, but it was impossible to distinguish a target or judge the effectiveness of the fire.

  A puff of dust below marked the spot where Beehive Six-Five finished its fateful plunge. Sigler knew exactly what he had to do next. “Six-Four, get us as close as you can. We’ll do the rest.”

  “Roger, Cipher.” The pilot’s voice was steady and professional, without a trace of hesitation. “I’ll try to make it a short walk.”

  Sigler switched channels. “Eagle-Eye, do you copy?”

  There was an interminably long silence, but then someone broke squelch. Sigler heard several seconds of gunfire, then a cough. “Cipher. Could use a little help here.”

  It was Aleman.

  “On our way, Eagle-Eye. What’s the count?”

  “Two and two.” Two dead, two injured badly enough to be out of the fight. After a beat, Aleman amended: “I think. Having trouble telling which way is up right now.”

  “Sit tight, Eagle-Eye. Help is on the way.”

  The Black Hawk set down about fifty yards east of the crash site, well out of RPG range, but in between bursts from the M240, Sigler could hear the distinctive crack of bullets ricocheting off the armored exterior of the helicopter. As soon as the crew chief threw open the door on the sheltered side, Sigler’s team poured out onto the desert floor.

  When the last man was out, Beehive Six-Four rose again into the sky, and the door gunner continued to hurl bullets in the direction of the muzzle flashes. Sigler’s men broke into pairs and began moving toward the crash using the tried and true individual movement techniques taught to every soldier: three to five second rushes, measured out to the rhythm of the mantra I’m up, he sees me, I’m down… Then drop to the prone, roll left or right, it didn’t matter which as long as you didn’t get into a pattern, and give your buddy some cover fire so that he could make his move.

  There was another pair of booms and two more flares appeared in the sky overhead. The enemy probably thought that lighting up the sky would level the playing field, removing the technological advantage of the Delta team’s night vision. And maybe it would do that, but stealth and darkness weren’t the only tools in the Delta toolbox. One Delta operator was easily worth ten…twenty…or even fifty insurgents.

  Sigler tried to do the math as he dropped to the prone once more, rolled left, and then squeezed a pair of shots in the direction of a distant muzzle flash. His eyesight was almost back to normal, and he could easily distinguish at least twenty separate jets of flame. Maybe fifty to one was pushing it a bit. He didn’t know how many hostiles they were facing, but it was evident that someone had put a lot of thought into this trap, which meant these weren’t run of the mill durka-durkas sprayin’ and prayin’.

  Inside job.

  He bounded up and made another rush. He was close enough to the crash site to see men huddled behind the wreck, popping up every few seconds to provide covering fire. Two more rushes would get him there, maybe one if he didn’t stop…he was close enough now that the wreck would cover his approach.

  Someone in Beehive Six-Six was working with the enemy. Klein. It had to be Klein. The Company man had sold them out, sacrificed them…but why?

  He reached the downed helicopter and went immediately to the nearest man. It was Lewis Aleman. The Delta sniper had his H&K PSG 1 sniper rifle beside him, but his left hand was clutching a Beretta M-9 handgun. It took Sigler only a moment to realize why Aleman had opted to use the pistol; his right hand, cradled protectively against his abdomen, looked like a mass of raw meat.

  Sigler took a mental step back and assessed the situation. The Black Hawk sat upright on the desert floor, but the crash had crumpled its frame like a beer can. The doors had sprung open, leaving an open space through the middle, and two men—one wore an olive drab flight suit, marking him as a surviving crewmember, and the other was a Delta sniper—were working the fixed machine gun on the far side. Sigler also saw a body inside, a crewman impaled on a piece of metal.

  There were two other motionless forms on the ground outside the Black Hawk. Both wore desert camouflage, torn and dark with spilled blood. Sigler couldn’t tell if they were alive or not. He turned back to Aleman. “Sit rep?”

  The sniper grimaced. “Pilot’s alive…at least he was…trapped in the cockpit. Co-pilot has a broken leg…maybe some ribs.”

  “Our guys?”

  Aleman motioned to the still forms on the ground. “Bell’s hurt bad. Broken back, I think. Martinez is done.”

  “Did you get a look at the other side?”

  “Yeah. There’s a whole fucking lot of them.”

  The rest of Sigler’s team reached the wreck and fanned out to join the Black Hawk’s defenders. Sigler took charge. “Danno, Jess…get that second 240 back in action. Jon, I need an LZ. Casey, Mike, get the wounded ready for transport.”

  As the men quickly went to their assigned tasks, Sigler called up to the remaining Black H
awk, which continued to circle high above them. “Beehive Six-Four, this is Cipher. We’re establishing a casualty collection point fifty meters from my location. Will pop white smoke when ready for pick-up. How copy?”

  “Good copy, Cipher. Stay on this channel. Have requested CAS, but no word on ETA.”

  CAS—close air support—was exactly what they needed right now, but Sigler wasn’t going to hold his breath and hope for someone to come pull their asses out of the fire. He turned back to the wreck, where Parker and Strickland had succeeded in liberating the M240H from its pintle mount. Strickland cradled the machine gun in both arms, while Parker gathered up full cans of ammunition—two in each hand. Sigler gestured for them to set it up at the nose end of the helicopter, and then he moved forward to the cockpit door.

  The pilot sat unmoving in his chair, the control panel closed over his legs like the jaws of a devouring monster. His head lolled to the side and blood dripped from the bottom edge of his helmet. Sigler turned away.

  He joined Parker and Strickland just as the latter opened up with the M240. Parker was right next to his teammate, ready to slap in a fresh belt of ammo as soon as it was needed. Sigler dropped down next to him.

  “How many?”

  Parker craned his head to answer. “I make out three different groups…at our ten, twelve and two.”

  The mortars boomed again, throwing another pair of flares into the sky, and this time Sigler was able to mark their location, positioned behind the line of riflemen.

  “I don’t like this, Danno. Pretty soon, they’re gonna figure out they can do more with those cannons than just pop flares.”

  “So we can’t stay here. What’s the play?”

  Sigler did a rough head count. There had been ten men aboard the Black Hawk. Even if they left the dead behind, a thought that galled him, he didn’t think the remaining bird could get them all out. “We evac the casualties, then fall back to the original objective. Buy some time until another bird gets here.”

  Parker nodded, but before he could say anything, the ground in front of them erupted in a spray of dust. Sigler instinctively dropped, but just as quickly, he rolled into a prone shooting position and triggered a few shots of suppressive fire. He expected to hear Strickland jump in with the 240, and when that didn’t happen, he called out: “Danno, Jess, still with me?”

  “Jack,” Parker called. “Jess is hit.”

  Sigler muttered a curse and spider-crawled back to the impromptu machine-gun emplacement where he found Parker with both hands pressed to the Strickland’s neck in what seemed like a futile effort to stanch the rhythmic spurts of blood.

  “Keep pressure on the wound,” Sigler instructed. “I’ll pull him behind cover.”

  At a nod from Parker, he grabbed the stricken soldier’s legs and began hauling him back behind the shadow of the helicopter. Parker kept one hand on the wound and dug a field dressing from his tactical vest with the other. It was probably a wasted effort, but Sigler didn’t tell Parker that; Delta operators never gave up, especially when it came to saving one of their teammates. Braving the kill zone once more, Sigler crawled out to retrieve the 240.

  “Jon! Where’s my LZ?”

  From about fifty meters away, Jon Foley on one end of a litter carrying an immobilized Delta sniper, shouted: “Open for business!”

  Sigler helped Parker carry Strickland to the casualty collection point, and then he keyed his mic. “Beehive, this is Cipher. Watch for smoke.”

  The Black Hawk set down, practically on top of the hissing smoke grenade, once more shielding the Delta team while they loaded their wounded men and dead. Sigler kept a mental tally; the score now stood at three dead, including the pilot whom they’d been unable to free from the wreckage, and three seriously wounded. He realized someone was missing. “Where’s Aleman?”

  He spied the lanky sniper, still in position at the wrecked bird, and somehow firing an assault rifle one-handed. Sigler switched to the Delta team channel. “Aleman, get your ass on this bird!”

  Aleman’s voice came back, crystal clear. “Sorry, did not receive your last.”

  Sigler considered repeating himself, but then thought better of it. There was no telling how long it would be before help arrived; as long as Aleman was willing and able to pull a trigger, there was no reason not to keep him in the game.

  As the last of the litters was loaded onto the Black Hawk, the crew chief leaned in. “If we dump some weight and get real cozy, we might be able to get everyone on.”

  “Dump some weight? You mean like the guns and all the ammo?”

  The crew chief shrugged. “I didn’t say it would be pretty.”

  The Black Hawk was rated to carry a maximum of eleven troops along with its crew of four. Dropping the armaments and other extraneous equipment might allow them to stretch that limit a bit, as would leaving the bodies of the dead behind, but Sigler didn’t like the math. “Just hurry back.”

  The crew chief nodded solemnly and then climbed aboard and slid the door closed. Sigler crouched low and hastened out from under the rotor wash as the idling turbines began whining louder.

  He was halfway to the wreck when he saw a flash in the corner of his eye.

  A small group of insurgents—or maybe it was just a lone fearless soul, hell-bent on earning his virgins in Paradise—had flanked them, circling around to the south of the crash site.

  In the time it took him to turn his head, the RPG crossed the distance to its target.

  The warhead—a PG-7VR tandem charge grenade—had been designed to destroy tanks with modern reactive armor. It did this by first exploding a small shaped charge that released a high-velocity jet of metal in a super-elastic state, which can cut through solid steel. The second, larger high-explosive charge would then penetrate deep into the wound and detonate inside the target.

  The rocket snaked in under the rising helicopter’s rotors and struck below the exhaust vent on the port side. The shaped-charge blast cut through the Black Hawk’s exterior like it was made of tissue paper. A millisecond later, the three pounds of high-explosives in the main charge detonated, and Beehive Six-Four blew apart at the seams.

  EIGHT

  Washington, D.C.

  The President’s palm came down on the tabletop with a resounding smack that echoed like a pistol-shot in the crypt-quiet Situation Room.

  The operational command center in the White House basement was all but deserted. The President had only intended to observe the Delta team operation, and so he had eschewed the normal cadre of advisors, aides and support staff. The were only two other men in the room besides Boucher. Lieutenant General Roger Collins, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, was a thick, beefy man with puffy, red features and a poorly-kept secret love affair with the bottle. Collins’s aide was a compactly built man with a silver-gray buzzcut, colonel’s eagles on his epaulets and a black name plate that read ‘Keasling.’

  Collins shook his head. “Well…shit.”

  Boucher winced as the President’s eyes sent daggers through the air at the three-star general. “Shit? That’s all you’ve got? Shit?”

  Domenick Boucher swallowed nervously and returned his gaze to the television screen, where the crisis was playing out in real-time. The feed was from an infrared camera mounted on a circling Predator UAV, and the images were rendered in an eerie inverted black and white, with the grayscale hues serving as an indication of temperature. The expanding cloud of white smoke that now occupied the space where one of the Army helicopters had been a moment before, could only mean one thing: the Black Hawk had become an inferno.

  Until the President’s outburst, Boucher had felt as paralyzed as Collins. He’d watched in mute disbelief as the operation had fallen apart before his eyes, turning from a simple raid into a full blown battle. But Duncan’s anger galvanized him.

  Focus, he thought. What are the priorities?

  He’d never faced a crisis like this as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agenc
y. There was rarely a need for the DCIA to be hands-on, but Boucher had come up through the ranks and witnessed some of the nation’s worst moments from the other side of director’s desk.

  I’ve got people in the field… He shook his head; Klein and the crypto consultant were on the helicopter that had taken off without warning. There was nothing he could do to help them; no way to reach them. Why? Why did that Black Hawk go rogue? Who was giving the orders?

  He dug his cell phone from a pocket, then just as quickly put it away. The Situation Room was shielded; no radio signals could get in or out. He would have to make do with one of the hard-wired telephones, which like all the other technology in the Situation Room, was painfully obsolete and actually less secure than Boucher’s encrypted digital phone.

  Collins was still fumbling for an answer. “Sir, there’s not a hell of a lot I can do.”

  “You can get those men out of there.” The President’s voice was low and flat, a steel blade hissing from between clenched teeth.

  The general, perhaps without thinking it through first, shook his head. “Mr. President, it’s not that simple. We’re not coordinating with Defense on this, and if we make that call, we’ll have to disclose the whole operation. We won’t be able to keep the mission a secret.”

  “Do you think those men out there give a damn about that?”

  “That’s what we pay them for, sir.”

  Boucher wasn’t the only man in the room shocked into action. The general’s aide likewise leaped for a phone. The President’s eyes followed him, but he made no move to interfere or ask for an explanation; the man was doing something, and Boucher knew that counted for a lot in Duncan’s book.

  Collins finally seemed to grasp the concept as well. He swiveled his chair toward Keasling. “Mike, get some CAS out there.”

  Keasling looked up but didn’t pull the receiver away from his mouth. “Calling the Air Force now, sir.”

  “Doesn’t the 160th have attack choppers?” intoned the President, somewhat mollified. “Little Birds?”