Hell and Gone

Henry Brown

Smashwords Edition

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Cover art by Logotecture (Fourth Edition)

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For SFC Bob Krahn

A leader good soldiers gladly followed.

0948 13 AUG 2002; NUBIAN DESERT, SUDAN

CAMP ALI

(Taubah, Sura 9:5)

Fight and slay the infidels wherever you find them,

and seize them, beleaguer them,

and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war.

Fifteen-year-old Bassam Amin breathed slowly and deeply through a plastic straw. He'd become oblivious to the burning, itching discomfort of being buried under hot sand for hours. His secret was meditation.

Bassam's meditation had nothing to do with the Koran, nor the teaching of the holy men. He concentrated, instead, on remembering the belly dancer he'd seen on Egyptian television two years ago. His mind painted her every contour, her every expression, her every mesmerizing motion. Every smile, every wink, every toss of her hair. Every jiggle of flesh and every wag of the hips. He rotated her image to view her at all angles, stripping away her costume and dressing her back up again.

He'd never met the woman. He'd never met any woman who wasn't married, betrothed to another, or of too high a station to concern herself with an impoverished Palestinian bastard. With the changes happening in his body and mind over the last couple years, the wonders he'd never tasted became all the more alluring. Females were all he could think of sometimes.

Besides killing infidels and liberating his homeland.

Whump! A trainer's foot stomped on the sand over his chest.

Bassam exploded out of the ground, spitting out the straw and sand from his lips. He hyperventilated while sprinting at full speed, eyes not even open until he brushed the sand from them on the run. He risked tripping and injuring himself this way, but it would get him off to a quick start.

His eyes stung. The structures of the obstacle course appeared as translucent outlines against the blinding white light of the day. His skin itched terribly all over but he dared not slow down to scratch.

As he approached the rope, he planned out the trajectory of his jump--the higher he caught it, the shorter the climb and the less time it would take. He measured his stride so he wouldn't need to slow down. He hit the log and sprang into the air. If he missed the rope at this speed and angle, he would hit the side of the pit hard enough to break something.

He didn't miss. He caught the rope high and his arms took over as his legs now hung limp. Here's where the hyperventilating paid off--his muscles had plenty of oxygen. If he used his legs on the way up, he'd be penalized thirty seconds.

Hand over hand, he pulled himself toward the thick beam from which the rope hung, back muscles popping painfully. At the top, he held on with one hand while his other felt around for the knife he knew should be lying on the beam. His fingers closed around the blade of the bayonet and he put the handle between his teeth so both hands were available to suspend his weight.

Now his arms and shoulders ached, but he knew the longer he waited the weaker they would grow. He hyperventilated again, then reached out for the first monkey bar.

The bars were fastened between two shipping ropes extending, at a shallow angle, diagonally out and down from the wooden beam. The structure bounced and swayed crazily. Cautious trainees gripped the bars with both their hands, then waited for the swinging to stop before moving to the next. Bassam swung straight from one bar to the next but couldn't help breaking rhythm due to the dangerous undulations of the hanging bridge. Now his wrists and forearms ached, too.

The last bar hung over a narrow plank atop a fence eight feet high. He waited until the swaying of the bridge positioned him directly over it, and let go. His feet hit the plank and his legs bent to absorb the shock. He struggled to gain his balance, gasping for breath.

He had to pause a moment--his lungs were burning and he felt light-headed. Trainees who'd made good time up to this point usually fell here, too exhausted to maintain their balance.

Bayonet still in his mouth, now dripping with his saliva, he held both quivering arms out at shoulder level and walked the plank.

The fence made a sharp left-hand turn ahead and Bassam slowed to a snail's pace before he got to it. He almost lost his balance making the turn, anyway. But he stayed upright, regained control and picked up speed.

At the end of the fence a tire swung back and forth from a rope tied to a horizontal pole with a sand-filled duffel bag on the other end. The pole balanced atop the notched end of a swiveling fulcrum. A thick, round rubber slab filled the center of the tire. Bassam took the bayonet from his mouth and wiped the handle on his pants, then gripped it and watched the swinging tire. He had to strike hard and accurately, or the knife wouldn't support his weight.

As the tire arced across his front, he swung downward with all his might. The blade sunk into the rubber slab only about an inch-and-a-half. It would have to be enough. He stepped off the plank, the one hand still clutching the bayonet, his other hand grabbing his wrist. This was Bassam's favorite part of the course. His momentum made the fulcrum pivot while his weight gradually overcame the weight of the duffel bag at the other end of the pole and he was eased forward and down to earth.

He wrenched the blade loose and fell upon a straw dummy, his legs wrapping around the torso. The bayonet slashed against the straw neck while his free hand squeezed what would be the lower third of the face. He half-severed off the head, but his weight and inertia were too much for the dummy. He and the dummy went down, its supporting post uprooted from the sand.

He panted and cursed, looking around to see if he was disqualified. His eyes locked with a judge's. "Go! Go!" yelled the judge.

Bassam thrust the bayonet into the chest and left it planted there, reached down into the hole where the neck had been and extracted two training grenades. Holding one in each hand, he rolled off the dummy and crawled toward the concertina wire before him.

He flattened against the sand, turned his knees out and pushed with his legs, plowing a furrow in the sand with his cheek and ribcage. He pressed himself down as hard as he could, and still the razor barbs of the concertina tore at his shirt. He had to lift his head up several times to adjust his direction, and each time he did, the concertina pricked his head and neck.

Finally he crawled into open space. Here he struggled to work the pins out of both grenades. He let the spoons fly and cooked them off for three seconds, then sprang to his feet facing right. A mock building wall stood twenty yards away. He slung the first grenade through the window, transferred the remaining grenade to his throwing hand and whirled to the left. On this side loomed an open-top oil tank some fifteen feet tall. He lobbed the second grenade and dropped back to the ground between the banks of the crawling trench. He heard the grenade bounce off the side of the tank--his angle hadn't been high enough--and the pop of the fuses blowing to his right and left.

"Go! Keep going!" shouted one of the trainers.

Bassam crawled forward under more concertina. The trench dropped deeper into the earth. His cheek plowed sand again, so he couldn't see ahead very well. But the coolness and the stench told him the "swamp" lay just ahead. Rumor had it the trainers relieved their own waste into this water. It certainly stunk as if they did.

Now Bassam's hands were wet. He was at the swamp. He took a deep breath and slithered into it. The wire hung so low it touched the surface of the water--there was no possible way to avoid submerging oneself in the disgusting muck and still make it through the course.

The swamp was deep enough for Bassam to crawl a little more comfortably without getting snared by the wire. If comfort could, in any way, be associated with this liquid hell. At the bottom of the swamp, his hands closed on a heavy object of metal and wood. He scooped it up and kept going.

***

Khaled Ali found it a bit disturbing to see Jan Chin laughing. The portly Chinese advisor's normal expression was a scowl that made Ali suspect he was always on the brink of maniacal wrath and any little thing might push him over the edge. But watching a trainee's face prune up in disgust at the horrible smell of the swamp, then crawl through it, always delighted Chin.

Ali, too, enjoyed pushing the trainees beyond their normal tolerance. He'd seen and smelled death, mutilation and many things a weakling couldn't bear to think about, all without blinking. But to see Chin grinning made him squeamish.

The two men stood upon the wooden tower overlooking the obstacle course, from which every part of the camp--and miles of landscape beyond--could be observed. But neither the Nubian Desert to the west nor the Red Sea to the east commanded their interest just now.

The young trainee made it to where the concertina wire ended and rose out of the swamp, dripping with scum of unspeakable origins. He cocked the slimy Kalashnikov and opened his eyes. He fired a burst at the target to his left (a life-sized cardboard effigy of an Hasidic Jew), stitching a line of bullet holes center-mass, then swung to his right and emptied the magazine into the last target (a cardboard Uncle Sam with fangs and devil horns). He then fell face-down on the sand, sucking hard for air.

Ali clicked the stopwatch. Chin, scowling again, leaned over to look at the elapsed time.

"He failed to get the second grenade inside the oil tank," Chin said. "Penalize thirty seconds."

Ali snorted. They could give Amin three such penalties and he would still hold the record for this course. Ali descended the tower, walked over and kicked the exhausted trainee in the leg.

"Go clean that weapon and yourself," Ali said.

Bassam rose wearily and staggered toward the field showers.

Chin nodded at Ali. "He has the sort of motivation you want."

"Everyone here is motivated," Ali said.

"He didn't hesitate at any obstacle. He showed no fear. No concern for life or health."

Ali nodded. "I have found my volunteer."

0932 13 AUG 2002; LEUCADIA, CALIFORNIA USA

Dwight Cavarra snap-kicked against the current. With knee still raised, his planted foot pivoted in the sand while his hips adjusted for the follow-up roundhouse kick. His foot knifed through the water only slightly faster than slow-motion replays on ESPN. In the follow-through, he dropped his lead foot, satisfied with the timing: the undertow didn't catch him standing on one leg. His lead hand arced down from the high guard into a low block, then his other hand extended in a leopard-paw strike.

Lungs burning, he squatted on the ocean floor, then sprang, hands and feet propelling him upwards. When his head broke surface, the lungful of stale air exploded from his mouth.

He treaded water while catching his breath. After a few moments of mentally prodding himself, he dove down to execute one more kata.

Air had seemingly never felt or tasted sweeter when he ascended for the final time that morning, and swam for shore. Once his five-foot-ten body could touch the bottom with his head still above water, he waded the final stretch, fatigued muscles straining against the pull of the sea.

Just past the mark of the tide's farthest advance, he removed his weight belt before kneeling to pull a bottle of water from the knapsack he'd left there.

How many years could he keep doing this? At fifty-two, or sixty-two, would he still be swimming around the buoys at sunup, then practicing martial arts underwater?

Bunch of Zen ego-pumping. And I've got a masochistic streak—that's what it is.

In younger days, he'd been impressed with a legend about a great master who fought a hurricane—punching and kicking into the deadly blasts of wind. He developed his own, safer exercise routine when fitness was almost a religion to him. He couldn't even remember that legendary master's name anymore, but Cavarra's tradition lived on.

Cavarra drained the bottle. He rose, slinging the knapsack and weight belt over one shoulder, and trudged inland.

Two early risers…attractive young women not yet warm enough to strip to their bikinis…unfolded lawn chairs next to a pile of umbrellas, towels, lotion bottles and paperbacks. They glanced at Cavarra as he passed, but the spark was dull: no magnetic head-turning; no nigh-unperceivable glow; no whispered comment or giggle to a girlfriend. Not that long ago, he'd taken for granted those primordial signals of superficial attraction from most of the women he encountered.

I'm disappearing off the female radar.

Another forty yards and he was out of the sand. He turned his back to the sun while slipping his sandals on. Instead of stealing another peek at the nubile beach bunnies, he studied his shadow.

It was a thick shadow. He no longer had a "powerful physique"—just a "stocky build."

Age was an ugly beast. His once jet-black hair was now salt-and-pepper. He avoided wearing hats lest his bald spot grow faster than nature intended. On the bright side, the morning cool didn't chill his wet skin much and the salt water irritated his eyes only moderately.

Cavarra turned back toward the sun and trudged on. He cut through parking lots and across asphalt roads, reaching his adobe house in less than ten minutes. After a quick shower and change, he shoveled himself a dish of fruit salad and sank into the swivel chair at his computer desk.

I'm gonna be brain-dead by noon, he thought, already growing mentally numb counting the email messages he had to sort through.

Then he noticed, buried in all the orders for ammo and gear, a message without a "Fwd" prefix. The subject line read: "Heads up, Rocco."

Cavarra's nose had been broken and set crooked, way back in ancient history. That and his cauliflower ears inspired the "Rocco" nickname his old acquaintances still used, because he resembled hired Sicilian muscle from some Prohibition-era gang. He opened the message.

Commander Cavarra:

Possible job for you. Real work. Respond A.S.A.P.

It was from a National Security Agency desk jockey he met years ago when assigned to Fort Meade. They'd kept in touch, mostly by forwarding jokes to each other. The humorless tone of this message was noteworthy. Plus, nobody addressed Cavarra by rank these days.

He clicked on "reply," typed "Wazzup?" and clicked "send."

He stepped outside and crossed the back yard to the huge sheet metal shed which served as both warehouse and workshop. Seagulls called, a neighbor's dog barked and a semi truck horn dopplered by from the highway. The salt air and sound of crashing waves carried by the breeze reminded him of the muscles still aching from the laps and the underwater workout. They also reminded him of a hundred other beaches in a dozen different countries, which he'd ran or crawled or otherwise snuck inland from, usually at night and a couple times, when best laid plans got FUBARed, under hostile incoming fire.

Fort Meade, Maryland. Six years ago, when Cavarra was ordered to leave his command position and his beloved Pacific Ocean to play glorified secretary for the pseudo-civilian spooks there, he was not a happy camper. Now he looked back on the leisure time, booze, golf, and sharing of war stories fondly. Maybe college would have been that way, had he not gone to Annapolis. Meade was a pleasant epilogue to his career. In fact, he'd gladly trade this civilian atrophy for another tour in Spyland.

He sighed, entered the shed and began assembling orders for shipping.

The E-mail must be some sort of prank.

He filled orders on auto-pilot, packing boxes with Ching-Slings, brass-catchers, scope mounts and Skin-So-Soft. Then the suspense grew too much to bear. He marched back to the house and checked for new E-mail.

A response awaited him in his "in" box. Now he felt that familiar old thumping in his veins.

Keep a phone with you today.

You might be called soon.

2321 13 AUG 2002; MCLEAN, VIRGINIA USA

"LANGLEY"

The activity level at headquarters was higher approaching midnight than at most office buildings on a Monday morning. Lights burned from every window. The security officers were far too busy screening people to be in danger of falling asleep at their posts. Coffee pots were never washed out, it seemed; just refilled. This was normal, though, in the intelligence business.

Bobbie Yousko checked her hair as she stepped off the elevator. The Big Guy calling her in at this hour meant something reasonably important. And given the state of current events, Operation Hot Potato was the most likely topic.

Her flats clicked on the polished floor as she strode down the white, antiseptic corridor to her office. There was nothing on the outside of her door to suggest her room was in any way unique; but when she waved her key card at the lock and pushed the heavy door open, the clutter on display inside contradicted the methodically-earned image of an Agency planner. Drawings from her children, portraits of her husband and of her father in dress uniform surrounded an American flag pinned to the wall. A scale model of the cruiser her father once commanded rode waves of backlogged paperwork atop the scarred desk. Bobbie collected the decoded messages from Crypto, a small stack of dossiers and a DVD-ROM into her laptop bag, and hustled back into the hallway toward the Big Guy's suite.

"Sir?" she called, into the huge office.

"Come on in, B.Y.," the Big Guy said.

Being called "B.Y." was a good sign. If things were already ugly, the Big Guy would have called her Mrs. or Ms. Yousko.

Bobbie stepped in and saw that her colleagues were already seated, facing the Big Guy's desk. She nodded to them and they nodded back.

"Have a seat, B.Y."

Bobbie sat in the Hot Seat--the chair dead center, flanked by Wilson (Special Activities Division) and Boehm (the Sudan desk).

The nickname "Big Guy" was typical American humor. Eric Varney was short, thin, and frail-looking. His eyes were rheumy and skin so pale Bobbie wondered if he'd ever been outdoors in his life.

Now his desk...that was big. It reminded Bobbie of an aircraft carrier. And it was immaculate--everything perfectly arranged and polished to a sheen. Curiously, it didn't face the picture window but sat perpendicular to it. No big loss: the view looked over the parking lot.

"This is quite a situation we've got here, B.Y."

"Yes, sir."

"Normally I don't stick my nose into the business I've delegated," he lied, "but this is a bad situation. A bad one."

"It's been brewing for some time," Boehm said. "We had our chance to intercept most of those hot potatoes years ago--"

Varney glared and interrupted. "Thanks for sharing, but we need to deal with right now." He turned back to Bobbie. "I'm not trying to micro-manage, here, but I want a broad-brush concept of the operation."

Bobbie rose and pulled out the decoded messages.

"Current location of the hot potato," she said, handing him a message. "Satellite confirmed on Saturday." Before he had a chance to question the first one, she handed over the second. "Probable target—known hostile operatives have been evacuating, quietly but quickly."

Bobbie always dutifully passed intelligence up the ladder, but in this case there was no telling when Washington would make a decision, if they'd make the right decision, or if they'd make any decision at all. She had to sell her plan to Varney, here and now.

"Pentagon brass will lick their chops at a counter-terrorist opportunity like this," Varney said.

"Their first instinct will be to cover their own backsides," Boehm said.

"You know that 'safest alternative' mantra they sing down from the State Department," Wilson chimed in.

"Same mantra they kept singing for Vietnam," Boehm said. "Good thing Charlie didn't have nukes."

Varney let Boehm's cynical observation go unrebuked this time, perhaps because he considered criticism of any rival organization to be loyalty to himself and the Agency.

"Disaster is almost certain if we wait for the Pentagon, sir." Bobbie stepped over to the computer against the wall next to the refrigerator, jiggled the mouse to cut off the screen saver, and loaded her DVD. Boehm hurried to pull down the screen at the back of the office while Wilson turned on the overhead projector. They returned to their seats, rotating their chairs so they could all watch the screen. With a few key strokes and mouse clicks, Bobbie brought up the map.

"Our hot potato is inside this camp," Bobbie said. "Soft facility with hardened positions guarding all land approaches. Flat desert terrain, so they can spot an approach for miles in every direction."

She opened the MPEG of the satellite footage showing training in the camp. Dozens of people fluttered around the facility. "The man in charge here is Khaled Ali--Fedayeen veteran with probable thirteen hits and participation in multiple successful terrorist bombings and rocket attacks. No conventional military experience, but some combat in Lebanon and the West Bank. His alter ego, unofficially, is a Chinese arms broker, Jan Chin."

"Chin worked with the African National Congress for about nine years, off-and-on," Boehm said. "Lots of Cuban military advisors on the continent have relied on him for ordinance and equipment. Solid background in the People's Army slaughtering demonstrators in Tibet, so he's become a trusted advisor himself."

"Ali seems to respect his ideas," Bobbie said. "The training camp has been set up accordingly."

"The Sudanese People's Liberation Army has mustered about three hundred volunteers for us," Boehm said. "One of my guys is arranging transportation for them up into the northern Sudan. If they hit the camp from the land side with the element of surprise intact--"

"People's Liberation Army?" Varney interrupted.

"Rebels," Boehm said. "SPLA. Tough little guerrillas in the south. Seen their families raped, shot, gassed, burned, starved and what-have-you, but they're still resisting."

"You're saying a bunch of illiterate African banditos are going to save the day?" Varney asked. "They're probably no better than terrorists themselves. I'd hardly trust them with a nuke."

"We weren't finished, sir," Bobbie said, ignoring the prejudice of his remark. "The rebels would attack from the west. Ali is still acquiring a boat for transport, but he does have a couple speedboats here at the dock already. His probable contingency, if attacked in force, is to put the hot potato in the best craft available and escape into the Red Sea."

Wilson cleared his throat. "Bobbie and I have put together a team of shooters. All combat veterans. All but two served with our own armed forces. The long-and-short of it is, each of them is well-suited to the specifics of this mission. More so than if we'd simply designated a SpecOps team on active duty."

Varney cocked an eye at Wilson. "Why not a SOG team?"

"We're stretched too thin already," Wilson said. "And frankly, sir, this calls for a team that's expendable."

Varney sighed. "But these has-beens haven't been training together?"

"No." Bobbie shrugged to concede the point. "But we've recruited somebody I consider the right person to ramrod this outfit: Dwight Cavarra--SEAL with medals from Grenada, Panama and a whole jewelry box from the Gulf. Some experience in military intelligence over with the NSA. Annapolis grad. Retired for personal reasons as an O-five."

"Never heard of him," Varney said. "Did you get his name from Soggy?"

Bobbie shook her head. "Most of the vets with that much eggplant are busy flying desks for the company, or being hired as military experts for the news networks."

"This isn't because he's ex-Navy, is it?"

Bobbie reddened. Varney knew all about her proud Navy family. But she'd second-guessed herself already. "First people I thought of were ex-Army Rangers. But Cavarra's just as qualified for this kind of mission... and his personal leadership style is exactly what a team like this needs. I think he can get our ducks in a row in a couple of days. And this has to be done in a couple days, sir. I'd give us no more than a week."

"How about the mission itself?"

"As simple as can be: This team is provisional to the rebel force we mentioned..."

She paused the satellite footage and pointed at the still image.

"The hot potato is probably inside one of these structures, here. Our team is to insert into a blocking position here, between the dock and the camp, just before the main attack. Blow the boats and hold the dock until relieved by the rebel force."

"Extraction?"

Bobbie bit her lip, then said, "Those who survive will be folded into the main force and moved back into southern Sudan where we can pull them out quietly."

"What about the hot potato?"

"Bring it back here," Boehm suggested. "Show it to the Senate, and CNN."

"Honestly, sir," Bobbie said, "I don't know and don't much care. As long as we get it away from Ali, we can let Washington worry about what to do with it."

Varney pursed his lips. His gaze bounced around the room.

Wilson, Boehm and Bobbie all knew he was thinking about pulling the plug, just to make sure his own yellow carcass was safe from any potential backlash. But far more than a CIA pension was at stake here.

"If we don't act pronto," Wilson said, "the Israelis will deal with it their own way."

Boehm struggled to keep from adding, yeah, and they actually weigh national security as more important than their own careers. Instead, he said, "The FBI has been taking some heat for not anticipating the 911 attacks, sir."

"B.Y.," Varney said in that patronizing tone of his, "I'll trust your judgment. The Pentagon doesn't know what you're up to and I'll keep it that way because I don't know either. Do I?"

"No sir. I'm acting on my own initiative."

Varney turned to Boehm. "Who's in charge of your rebel rabble?"

"He's a local," Boehm said. "Been fighting in the civil war since he was thirteen. Lots of command experience. The men will follow him. He's conducted successful raids into--"

"Chop him," Varney said.

"Sir?"

"Tell him to take a hike. We don't want an idealist in charge--no telling what he'll do. Hire a mercenary. When money is the motive, the person's behavior will be nice and predictable. Compare what Executive Outcomes accomplished, compared to all those nappy-headed Angolans."

"Sir," Bobbie said, aghast, "we only have a week. We need somebody who can--"

"There's bound to be mercenaries in the region," Varney said. "Find one who speaks the language, with command experience, who needs money. Come on; use your head."

Bobbie, Boehm and Wilson stared at each other, eyebrows stretched taut.

"I'm feeling a little peaked," the Big Guy said. "I think I'll head down to the spa for a few days. It would be nice if you'd check in with me every couple hours or so."

0957 13 AUG 2002; LEUCADIA, CALIFORNIA USA

(At the quick-time.)

Hi-ho diddly-bop

Wish I was back on the block

With that discharge in my hand

I'm gonna be yo' lovin' man.

Re-up? You crazy.

Re-up? You outa' yo' mind!

Hi-ho diddly-bop...

Cavarra hustled through the house switching on the ringers to his various phones. He had no call-waiting or answering machine, voice mail or cell phone; nor did he desire the cursed contraptions. He called Melissa to ask if she could bring the kids to him this time.

"You said you were going to pick them up," she said, her tone ugly.

"Yes, and now I'm saying I need you to drop them off," he replied.

"Why?"

"I'm expecting a call."

Amazingly, she didn't make any scathing remarks about his parental deficiencies, his friends or the nameless bimbos she imagined him fooling around with. She sighed and said, "Fine. I'll bring them over now."

"Fine," he said.

The phone still hadn't rung by the time he heard the Minivan crunching the gravel on his driveway. He opened the front door to see his kids standing on the porch, but only got a glimpse of the back of Melissa's head as she sped away. Her hair was short and blonde again.

Justin wore sweatpants, a tank-top, and a sneer Cavarra had noticed becoming more and more commonplace. He all but ignored his father's greeting while sidestepping him into the house. Just the hint of a perfunctory nod.

Jasmine was in sweats also. She smiled and gave her father a hug.

"How are you, Pumpkin?"

"I'm okay," she said. "Mom is mad at you."

What else is new, he thought. "You guys hungry?"

Both were dark like their father, but Justin had his mother's pale blue eyes. At fifteen he wasn't yet old enough to drive himself and his sister around, but he was capable of taking care of her in nearly every other way.

Justin made varsity in his sophomore year as a tailback who occasionally played tight end. He was a borderline phenomenon this year. Cavarra hadn't run quite as fast at Justin's age. The boy was good-looking, self-confident and respected by his peers, but still somewhat a loner. Cavarra guessed the sneer was more individualistic egomania than typical jock elitism.

At thirteen, Jasmine was already a knockout and very sweet-natured. Cavarra had mixed emotions about the tomboy phase she was going through. On the one hand, it might just be her trying to imitate her old man--and the baggy androgynous clothes hid her figure enough to maybe fend off attention from the wrong kind of boys. Still, she was a beautiful girl and Cavarra wished she would be proud of that.

They ordered a pizza delivery and had an XBox tournament in the living room while Jasmine filled him in on every detail of her life since he'd seen her last. Cavarra tried to pay attention, but kept glancing toward the nearest phone, willing it to ring.

After Justin trounced his father at WWF Raw, then was pummeled in turn playing Mortal Kombat, he began to lighten up a bit.

"Have you been practicing every day just so you could beat me?" Justin asked.

"You forget I beat you last time, too, punk," Cavarra replied.

"Yeah, one game...pure luck! And you've never beat me at the wrestling game."

He mussed Justin's hair. "And I probably never will. Wrestling is for phonies, anyway."

Justin rolled his eyes, but grinned. The old man was still cool, after all.

***

Butch called to see if Cavarra was up for racquetball. A potential customer called to check when Cavarra would be teaching his next class. He dismissed both abruptly, trying not to let his disappointment result in rudeness.

The third call was paydirt.

"May I speak with Mr. Cavarra?"

"Speaking."

"Dave over in Maryland gave me your number."

"Yeah." Cavarra's voice was calm, but his knuckles whitened around the receiver.

"I'd like to have an interview with you, if you're game."

"When?"

"I can be in San Diego in three hours."

"San Diego to here is another hour or so. There's a restaurant just down the road from me." Cavarra didn't want to go any farther than that, with the kids at his house.

"You understand that the utmost discretion is required."

"Roger that."

Cavarra gave him the name of the restaurant and they agreed to meet there in four hours.

"Who was that?" Jasmine asked.

"Grown-up stuff, Pumpkin," Cavarra said.

Justin's smile faded. "Are we going to war with Iraq, Dad?"

"What makes you ask that?"

"You have that look again. Are you coming out of retirement or something?

1102 13 AUG 2002; BEERSHEVA, ISRAEL

BEN ARRI KIBBUTZ

Yacov Dreizil was far from overweight, but his shirt and pants felt uncomfortably snug. Perhaps he was just spoiled from the bagginess of IDF fatigues. He'd considered buying some better fitting civilian clothes for the last few years, but a little discomfort seemed inadequate justification for a complete wardrobe overhaul.

Besides, the tight clothes--and the weight of his Uzi machine pistol--kept him from relaxing overmuch.

He left his jacket in the car but carried a newspaper, some film rolls and a box of print paper to the one-story house hiding amidst a grove of banana trees. Just an ordinary citizen with a harmless hobby about to spend a quiet afternoon developing and printing some amateur photos.

More eyes might be watching him than the friendly ones he knew of.

Once inside the house, he deposited the photographic materials in a locker. Dreizil was one of the few ever to enter the amateur darkroom at the Ben Arri Kibbutz. The dim, red-lit interior always alerted him that he was leaving the make-believe, fantasy world and entering the blood-tinged reality that few people knew existed. It reminded him he was not just some common Israeli Defense Forces reservist packing an automatic weapon.

The film-loading booth doubled as an elevator which took him down to one leg of the maze-like catacombs leading to the central bunker. He pulled at his harness until the Uzi was centered against his back--the clearance in the tunnel was tight. This exposed a sweat stain in the shape of the Uzi shoulder rig. He enjoyed the coolness of the wet pattern on his shirt, accentuated by the breeze of his movement. He strolled to the first checkpoint humming the theme from Get Smart.

He stopped and held up his identification badge when his progress was blocked by a mirror. The lights here were so bright he had to squint.

"Jawbone," crackled a flat voice from behind a pattern of holes in a chrome plate mounted flush in the mirror.

"Honey," he replied.

The mirror--actually a thick pane of ballistic one-way glass attached to a skeletal steel door--swung open. Dreizil escaped the blinding lights and the door swung to lock closed behind him. An IDF trooper in battle garb with a full-sized Uzi nodded at him from behind what looked like a concrete information desk from some spartan indoor shopping mall. The structure was half of an octagon in shape, each of the four sides facing a door identical to that through which Dreizil had just stepped.

The bored-looking trooper lifted a telephone receiver to his ear, nodded to the video camera and said, "Moab Widow Ninety-One. Cart to South Junction for personnel."

Dreizil blinked to speed his adjustment to the dimmer light and hopped up to sit on the concrete desk. He would have offered the trooper a cigarette, but he didn't smoke. In all probability, the trooper didn't smoke, either, or he might not have made it through the training for the elite unit from which he'd been recruited for this duty. Instead, Dreizil unfolded the current edition of Haaretz and slid it across the desk.

"Couple good cartoons," Dreizil said. "And the crossword is untouched."

The trooper eyed both Dreizil and the newspaper warily.

Dreizil made a waving gesture. "I'm not a snitch. This isn't a trap. I pulled this duty myself, once upon a time."

The trooper glanced up at the camera, now panning across the two-way mirror doors, grabbed the paper and spread it out on a shelf out of sight under the desk top. "Thank you, sir."

Dreizil waved carelessly again, and looked down at his hands. They were long, thin, dark and deceptively strong. But his cuticles were peeling, just like when he was a kid. He tore and gnawed at the skin with his teeth. What was it about active duty that put a stop to the peeling for three decades? Was it the no-frills diet or the constant friction of rappelling gloves and sand?

His fingers bled where the hangnails were the most obstinate. If caught in a nuclear, biological or chemical war, a battle wound wouldn't be necessary for him to be infected quickly. Stupid cuticles would peel; bad news would enter his bloodstream; game over.

An electric whine announced the arrival of his chauffeur--another trooper, driving a golf cart. Dreizil slid off the desk and hopped in the passenger seat.

"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.

"Central bunker. Command room."

"Yes, sir." They took off.

"Been a busy day," the driver said. "Busy week, actually."

Dreizil played dumb. "Has it?"

"Yes, sir. But I'll take busy over boring any day. You can only make a golf cart and a weapon so clean."

Dreizil chuckled. He made small talk with the driver en route to the next checkpoint. The driver hailed from the Golanis and Dreizil had cut his teeth in the 35th Paratroop Brigade. Having learned this about each other, some ingrained rivalry surfaced, hiding the mutual respect.

The narrow tunnel opened into a cavernous space where the roof domed up some forty feet overhead. Dreizil stepped off and the cart whizzed away with a polite goodbye from the driver.

Dreizil stood before a bunker of steel-reinforced concrete rising out of the floor, with an outer layer of sandbags and Claymore mines. Several IDF troopers sighted their weapons on him from inside.

"Clear your weapon and present!" rasped an NCO's voice. "Pistol grip up! Palms up! Fingers curled in!"

Dreizil obeyed. Two troopers climbed down to him. One covered him while the other took Dreizil's machine pistol and patted him down. They escorted him up the front of the bunker to where an iron hatch opened on top. They all climbed down through the hole, Dreizil first. His Uzi was placed beside other weapons on a rack while the NCO examined his I.D.

Dreizil repeated his destination and the sergeant assigned one of the troopers to escort him. Behind the bunker a heavy vault door opened after the proper protocol. Dreizil and his escort stepped through into a huge, brightly lit, noisy room bustling with men and women, all in uniform.

The trooper took him to General Dahav, who shook Dreizil's hand.

Dahav turned to the escort. "You're dismissed." The trooper saluted and left.

The command room swarmed with IDF brass. Dozens of radios hummed. Aides adjusted the position of symbols on the huge topographic maps. Rows of computers bleeped and clicked. Doors opened and shut in the soundproof booths buttressed up against the walls of the enormous chamber. The place had a plastic smell, almost like a toy store.

Dahav was tall, but unlike Dreizil, showed every strand of his European DNA: fair hair, fair skin, hazel eyes. Dreizil had inherited his mother's Sephardic looks--darker than the average Bedouin.

"All the command infrastructure in place?" Dreizil asked.

"We've got all we can spare down here for now," Dahav said. "Too much of the General Staff disappears from upstairs and...you know: Opsec."

Dreizil nodded. Opsec--Operational Security. The rank-and-file didn't yet need to know something big was brewing. And the world at large didn't need to know the Israeli High Command knew it.

"You won't be staying down here with us," Dahav said.

"Didn't think I would, sir." He was a field operative, after all.

"We know the target, and we know the staging area," Dahav said. "As of Monday, the Americans do, too."

"The plot thickens," Dreizil said.

"Yes. And it looks like they're going to make a move."

Dreizil thrust hands in pockets and squinted up at the clusters of floodlights.

"We're not standing down, Yacov. But we're going to let the Yanks take a shot at it."

"I've got reservations, sir."

"So do we all. At least it's not Jimmy or Willie or Al at the wheel over there."

"No," Dreizil agreed. "But neither is it Teddy Roosevelt or Dirty Harry." They could use an ally like that, on the verge of nuclear war. "This isn't a couple of Scud missiles we can laugh off for fear of alienating their precious Jew-hating 'allies'."

"None of us 'laughed' about the Scud attacks. And the Yanks did knock most of them down before they got to us. I know how you feel about them, Yacov. And I understand. We're not standing down, but we've got to let them try to resolve it their way. Who do we have on our side, once they are gone?"

"Only God."

"I'm not a religious fanatic, Yacov. And I know you are not."

Dreizil nodded and shrugged, with a fatalism second-nature to so many men who visited this facility. "Are they going full-tilt?"

General Dahav's gaze dropped as he shook his head.

Dreizil made a sound that might have been a sardonic laugh or a disgusted scoff. "Of course not. They are Americans, after all."

"Looks like they're going to farm it out," Dahav said. "And that's where you come in, Colonel Dreizil."

1440 13 AUG 2002; LEUCADIA, CALIFORNIA USA

(At a double-time.)

Singin' one, two, three, four...

Somebody, anybody, start a war...

Cavarra felt confident the Mexican restaurant was safe, but he performed a cursory check around the table anyway. Then he sat back and waited, watching the front door. Business was slow, so the nearest patrons to this table were on the other side of the room, partially hidden by the mock-up adobe oven on the bandstand.

He searched for faces that might match the voice on the phone. He'd been able to tell undercover cops from normal civilians since his early adulthood. And the intelligence people he'd rubbed elbows with in Maryland fit a stereotype, too. Cavarra wondered if a field agent could conceal that straight-edge nature enough to fool him.

The spook spotted him before he spotted the spook. Maybe because there were pictures of Commander Dwight Cavarra, United States Navy, retired, in their files. Maybe because a former SEAL was just as easy to spot as a plainclothes cop, to an experienced eye.

The spook was lightly tanned with auburn hair bleached blond in streaks. He had a ponytail, goatee and pierced ears, and wore one of those expensive suits with shorts. About as Californian as should be legal to dress.

"Is the table clean?" asked the CIA man, whipping out a cellphone, punching buttons.

"I didn't find anything," Cavarra said.

The agent ignored his answer and watched the screen of his "cellphone" until he was satisfied. He set the device on the table and punched a few more buttons. No bugs in the immediate area.

"Kurt Hendricks," the spook said. "Let's order."

Hendricks got the waitress' attention by snapping his fingers like he owned the place. She brought tortilla chips, dip, sopapillas and a bottle of honey. Hendricks ordered a basket of flautas and Cavarra chose chili rellenos.

"Are your children with their mother?" Hendricks asked, after the waitress disappeared.

Cavarra nodded. Justin could take care of his little sister, but that was nobody's business. And the boy knew who to call if anything happened.

Hendricks tilted his head slightly. "You waited 'til late in life to have kids, didn't you?"

"Late twenties," Cavarra said. "A junior officer doesn't have a lot of time to chase girls and start a family. Not in the Teams."

"Even at that, it often doesn't work out, does it?"

Cavarra let the comment go.

Is he getting personal just to irritate me? Why?

Hendricks didn't shrug, but wore an expression that should accompany one. "Have you kept in shape?"

Cavarra hesitated. Not because he wasn't in shape--racquetball kept his feet tough, he swam laps five days a week and went diving nearly every weekend. He hesitated because the words were spoken in Arabic.

"Better shape than most eighteen-year-olds," he said, in Arabic.

Hendricks raised an eyebrow. "You've kept up your languages."

Cavarra had kept in practice, probably for the same reason he stayed in shape: Because he nursed a secret fantasy that some day a meeting like this would take place.

"Let's switch to Italian," Hendricks said, in that language. "I doubt our waitress speaks it."

"No problem," Cavarra said, in national Italian.

"Why did you choose to retire after only twenty years?"

"I figured my career in Hollywood had been on hold long enough."

Hendrix didn't even have the decency to smile at his razor wit."Did your wife appreciate it?"

It was hard to say which irked Cavarra worse--Hendricks' question, or the piercing look in his eyes as he asked it. The creep was practically smirking.

Cavarra let out a deep breath and measured his response. It's only natural for them to examine my background and motivations. Standard Operating Procedure. He swallowed his pride and answered honestly: "I thought she would appreciate it. But it turns out nothing I could do would please her--even retiring early to play Mr. Mom. Or maybe it was too late by then."

"You abandoned your career for her," Hendricks said, "and ultimately, she left you anyway. How did that make you feel?"

"What are you, a psychoanalyst?"

Hendricks ignored the remark. "After your divorce, it looks like you started hanging out again with the kind of men you knew in the Navy. Opened a 'tactical shooting school' for civilians. Became a dealer in ammunition and paramilitary equipment."

Cavarra dipped a chip in the sauce and took a crunchy bite. "I guess you can take a man out of the SEALs, but you can't take the SEAL out of the man."

"Have you ever done business with domestic terrorists?"

Cavarra's face contorted. "What?"

Hendricks eyeballed him like a teacher who knew a pupil was cheating. "You deny that you sell military gear to right-wing extremists, or train them at your shooting school?"

"Not that it's any business of yours, or your boss's, but some of the guys I know do have some radical political ideas. But you know doom-well they aren't terrorists." Cavarra's voice dripped with disgust at the accusation.

"Doom?" Hendricks echoed. "You said 'doom,' not 'damn'."

"I'm impressed by your attention to detail. Want me to draw you a happy-face?"

Hendricks held Cavarra's glare without blinking.

After a long, uncomfortable silence, Cavarra dipped another tortilla chip. "I thought this was about a job, not my personal life. Do you have work for me or not?"

Hendricks wasn't quite ready to let go. Almost like he knew how desperately Cavarra yearned for an old-school operation. "How familiar are you with their 'radical politics'?"

Cavarra rolled his eyes. He didn't see how this was necessary. "They believe in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms... You know: the same stuff Jefferson, Madison and all those 'right-wing extremists' did. Those guys even put their radical ideas in writing, by the way—the original's in a glass case in DC. Maybe you oughta read it some time."

"Those same ideas have motivated some people to bomb government buildings and shoot at federal agents. In my book that makes your buddies potential revolutionaries." He squirted some honey into a sopapilla.

Cavarra stared at Hendricks for almost a full minute before saying anything. "You look like a potential child molester to me. Is somebody keeping tabs on you?"

"So you're a sympathizer, then?"

"To be honest, Mr. GQ Secret Policeman: Coming face to face with your attitude, they seem less and less like paranoid whackos every time you open your mouth."

This time Cavarra stared him down.

Hendricks smiled and hunched his shoulders. "We're actually just as concerned about domestic terrorism as we are with another Middle East-sponsored threat. I had to be sure where your loyalties lie. It's S.O.P."

"Are you sure now?"

"Nothing personal, Commander. You'll see how it's relevant in a minute."

The waitress returned with their orders and winked at Cavarra.

Roberta had flirted with him a few times...enough to know his full name, ethnic background and marital status. She was pretty, seemed to be both sensible and nice, but was probably too young for him. She must have sensed the importance of the conversation with Hendricks, because she offered nothing extra beyond the wink. Cavarra smiled at her, then unwrapped his utensils and tucked the napkin in his shirt. Roberta sashayed back to the kitchen.

Hendricks' voice dropped to a calm, discreet volume. "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, control has been split in two. The Russian Mafia--formerly known as the KGB--runs the show in Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus. The southern states are under Muslim government."

Cavarra knew this, but listened anyway, relieved that the subject had finally changed to business. He chewed his first mouthful of rellenos... then reached for the sopapillas. The chili was hotter than usual today and he needed something to absorb part of the fire.

"All those governments are broke," Hendricks said. "Plenty of weapons; no money or food. Thanks to the increased American aid, they've been deploying approximately three new Topol M sixth-generation ballistic missiles every month, and building Typhoon Class nuclear attack submarines non-stop."

Cavarra frowned. He gulped down some icewater while his brain calculated. The US had built its last MX over ten years ago. The Clinton administration had scuttled the US ballistic missile defense program while simultaneously replacing the "launch on warning" doctrine with "sustain a first strike," then neutered the most potent American counterstrike assets: attack subs and bombers. So the money we've saved by gutting defense is being given to people who'd rather starve than miss the chance to amass more strategic weapons than the rest of the world combined. Makes as much sense as throwing away the Panama Canal.

"Their Moslem brothers in the Middle East, however," Hendricks said, "have all kinds of money, but no nuclear weapons. At least they didn't before the status quo was disrupted."

Cavarra rolled his eyes and shoveled in another mouthful of tasty napalm.

"An awful lot of deliverable megatonnage has been unaccounted for in those former Soviet states over the last several years--even though their arms production has remained at Cold War levels. And what most people don't realize about nuclear warheads is that they have a limited shelf life. American warheads are good for maybe twenty-five years. But if you have a brand-new Soviet warhead, you've got about seven years to use it before it becomes ineffective."

Hendricks paused to gulp down some flautas. "Among the weapons we know to be missing are eighty-four suitcase-sized atomic warheads. Each one of them could destroy a city if detonated above ground level. What the blast doesn't incinerate, the fallout will poison. Perfect terrorist weapon...if the terrorist is willing to commit suicide."

Cavarra had watched footage of passenger jets hitting the Twin Towers over and over and over again. He'd been surprised there were no WMDs aboard either plane. "How old are those missing suitcase nukes?"

"Some of them are coming up on seven years old," Hendricks said. He let that sink in before continuing. "There's a high probability that some have already been placed in key US locations."

Cavarra's eyes narrowed and his jaw muscles bunched up.

"Saturday a field agent saw one of these devices being transported. We're confident it is now located inside a terrorist training encampment north of Hala'ib in the Sudan. Yesterday, several known and suspected Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorist cells began evacuating Tel Aviv."

"Tel Aviv? Israel?"

Hendricks glanced around the room, then nodded. "Transport will probably be a small boat. Fishing trawler, maybe. We suspect they've already bribed their safe passage through the Suez Canal. From there a short trip up the Mediterranean, dock in Tel Aviv, move the bomb inland on foot or by car and detonate."

"Why Tel Aviv?"

"You mean besides the fact that these guys love to kill Jews?"

Even more than they love killing Americans--I know that, pencil-neck. "I mean why, strategically?"

"Jerusalem is out of the question. It's sacred to the Moslems as well as the Jews and Christians. But Tel Aviv used to be the Israeli capital and is their largest city, so it has symbolic value. And our embassy is still located there. It's a win-win situation for radical Islam. It starts an Arab-Israeli war no matter what. If the US supports Israel, Dubya's coalition against Iraq falls apart. In fact, the whole Muslim world might unite to turn on us, at that point. You think our economy is unstable now? Wait 'til gas is fifty bucks a gallon. They can do that without setting off any nukes in our country--should they be disposed to show such restraint. They destroy the US, and Israel is fresh out of allies."

The potent fumes of his entree now had Cavarra's nose running. He pinched it with the napkin.

"Or the US opts to hold the coalition together," Hendricks said, "and turns against Israel when they retaliate. Either way, Israel's enemies get their way."

"Why not let the Israelis beat the stink out of them," Cavarra said. "While they're making greasy spots in the sand, we put Saddam down for good this time, along with every cutthroat pimp government that takes his side. We could sustain ourselves twenty times over if we'd use some of the oil up in Alaska."

Hendricks looked as though he'd just caught whiff of a pungent odor. "I doubt that's ever going to happen."

"Then let the Israelis intercept the boat and deal with it."

"Our current peacekeeping policy forbids aggressive patrols by the Israeli Navy. In a nutshell, it prevents aggressive patrolling by our own Navy around the Suez, as well."

"That's just great."

"An Entebbe-style raid by Israeli forces in Muslim Sudan could just as easily touch off the powder keg over there. Sudan is considered a neutral, and there are no sympathetic hostages."

"There's no such thing as a neutral Muslim nation."

"You made a great commando, Cavarra, but you'd never cut it as a policy maker. Our government wants to forge a strategic partnership with the Sudan, once Iraq is dealt with. The bottom line is this: Somebody needs to defuse this situation before the Israelis do it, or all hell breaks loose. With a nuclear threat facing their country, they're not going to walk on eggshells. US sanctions, UN condemnation and world opinion all lose their relevance once Tel Aviv is a radioactive parking lot."

Cavarra cleared his throat. "Which team would I be going in with?"

Hendricks searched Cavarra's eyes, then forced a phony smile meant, probably, to soften the blow. "You won't be going in with a SEAL team. You're not being called up."

"What?"

"There's no time to get UN permission for a SpecOps insertion. Israel could be blown to hell and gone before they'd agree to it...if then. We're asking for volunteers. Arms, equipment, transportation and intel will all be provided. Lump sum payments will be arranged. But once you hit the ground over there, you're mostly on your own. If killed or captured, we've never heard of you. Me and my beer buddies will trade theories about what that old has-been Cavarra was doing way over in East Africa. That's if enough pieces are found to identify your body."

0124 14 AUG 2002; MIRAMAR NAVAL AIR STATION, CALIFORNIA USA

(At the quick-time.)

Around the block, she pushed the baby carriage

She pushed it in the springtime, in the merry month of May.

And if you ask her why she pushed the carriage

She pushed it for her Navy SEAL, far, far away.

Cavarra smiled to himself when the smell of tarmac, still blazing-hot from the day, filled his nostrils once again. He carried his stuffed sea bag across the field to the waiting aircraft. It was a small turboprop utility plane, normally used to shuttle flag officers hither and yon for tea parties or golf matches crucial to national security.

A haggard sailor pushed the steps up to the cargo door and opened it for him. Cavarra entered, stowed his bag, sat down and buckled up.

He knew Melissa would have pitched a fit if he'd asked her to pick up the kids, especially after making her drop them off. So he'd tucked Jasmine in, went over the shotgun, emergency phone numbers and so forth with Justin, and told him to call his mother the next day to come pick them up. He checked the fridge and cupboards to ensure there was plenty of food, and left some cash just in case. He'd deal with their mother when he got back.

If he got back.

Cavarra was tired, but decided to wait until the plane was at altitude and his ears had quit popping before racking out. Instead, while the air crew went through the pre-flight, he looked over the files Hendricks had given him.

Sudan was the largest nation in Africa. Mountain ranges lined the eastern and western borders, with mostly featureless plains in between. In the north, savannah dried out into desert approaching the Egyptian border. Rain fell nine months out of the average year in the tropical south, which boasted the world's largest swamp: the As Sudd. This year, however, El Nino` had brought droughts upon the mostly agricultural region.

Sudan's most profitable natural resource was oil.

The population was predominantly black in the south, Arabic in the north. Islam was the state religion and Arabic the official language, but many blacks were Christians who spoke English, while others spoke tribal languages or practiced tribal religions.

Sudan gained independence from Britain and Egypt in 1956, but suffered civil wars repeatedly up to the present. The twenty-year conflict still raging now pitted Islam against all non-Moslems.

Since the mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein had been hiding stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the Sudan, with Khartoum's unofficial blessing. The Sudanese Army sometimes used these weapons against the blacks in the South.

Egypt disputed ownership of the Hala'ib Triangle with Sudan. By letting Khaled Ali run his camp inside this demilitarized zone, the Sudanese could plead ignorance if any Western nation made an issue of it.

Sudan hosted an estimated thirty terrorist training camps like Ali's. Whether Khartoum knew about the hot potato or not, Cavarra wasn't told; but its placement in the Hala'ib Triangle suggested complicity.

Typical Washington pussyfooting around meant the most effective assets wouldn't be employed: DEVGRU/SEAL Team Six, Delta Force... or a Ranger Battalion if they really wanted to stomp it flat. The dossiers Cavarra held represented what CIA brass considered the next best thing: Ten has-beens and two never-weres.

His second time through the photos, Cavarra realized every Swinging Richard in this unit was either black or could pass for an Arab. Good: they shouldn't draw undue attention by appearance alone. Two were Navy Special Warfare vets. One was a former SeaBee--the Navy's version of a combat engineer. Three were ex-Special Forces, which was fortunate--Green Berets were highly cross-trained in combat fieldcraft and fluent in at least one foreign language. Two were Force Recon vets, which was also welcome news--marines were trained as infantry before moving on to their primary specialty; and as reconnaissance scouts, their stealth and navigational skills should be finely honed. Two were decorated snipers from Desert Storm. Two were mercenaries.

Come to think of it, it could be argued that all of them were mercenaries, now.

One has-been was none other than Zeke the Greek: Chief Petty Officer Ezekiel Pappadakis from the Special Boat Squadrons and the only man of the twelve Cavarra knew. They'd eaten some of the same sand at Grenada, Panama and the Gulf. Zeke was intelligent, dependable and admired by peers and subordinates alike.

Pablo Fava-Vargas was a Puerto Rican ex-SEAL from Team Two. Cavarra had never met him--Teams Two, Four and Six worked out of Virginia, while odd-number Teams were headquartered on the West Coast. Fava-Vargas became a SEAL between Blue Spoon and Desert Storm, when Cavarra took over Team One and finally returned to California. Fava-Vargas was highly decorated for his work in the Gulf, but left the Navy during the Clinton years. He had children, and was currently working on a masters degree in psychology.

Two of the three marines resumed civilian life ahead of schedule by way of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Both had a history of alcohol abuse and one had a violent streak displayed under inappropriate circumstances one time too many. This didn't bother Cavarra too much--the best men to have in combat were often the worst to have in peacetime.

His team included a bona fide Shawnee brave, complete with authentic Native American name: Tommy Scarred Wolf. Cavarra pictured a wolf with scars festooning its head and body--from a ferocious fight with another wolf, probably--prowling outside a river camp where the Green Beret's great-grandfather was born. Cavarra had wanted to hold off naming his own son until he'd had a chance to observe some personality traits: Indian-style. But Melissa and everyone else considered this notion ridiculous. It simply wasn't done in civilized society.

The guys with cool names usually turned out to be wimps, morons or queers, anyway.

Cavarra spent extra time examining the dossier of the African mercenary. His nationality was listed as Sudanese, but he'd worked all over Africa, it seemed, including Angola, Sierra Leone, Chad, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan. Those countries had seen some heavy action, so his experience could be extensive. The widespread demand for that experience might indicate that this merc was something special and not a "never-was" after all.

The American merc had a lot of baggage stamps, too, but mostly from "warm" spots with low-intensity conflicts. A Lebanese mother had passed down fluency in Arabic, plus the brown eyes and dark skin to qualify for this crew.

A third mercenary would lead a small Sudanese rebel force in a conventional attack on the terrorist camp. To Cavarra that meant an under-trained, undisciplined, poorly-motivated gaggle led by some wannabe with questionable integrity and motives.

Just before the Sudanese mob hit the target, Cavarra and his freshly-slapped-together squad were to infiltrate, take the dock, blow the boats and prevent anyone's escape with the hot potato. They'd be surrounded immediately and if the rebel attack didn't commence on time, every hostile in the camp would be on top of them. If the attack did come on time, the rebels might very well break and run upon encountering disciplined fire. But even assuming the assault was successful and the rebels pushed the hostiles into the sea, Cavarra's unit would be caught between hammer and anvil. If cornered terrorists didn't wipe them out, friendly fire might.

Only a maniac would volunteer to lead such an ate-up operation.

Or a has-been Special Operator.

Some part of Cavarra had always wanted a mission like this, though he'd prefer to undertake it with men he'd trained with for years.

Hendricks had been satisfied after Cavarra endured some vaccinations and a quick physical exam at a discreet location with an Agency physician. Then it was Cavarra's turn to get answers.

He got the personal compensation arrangements out of the way first. Then insurance coverage--he insisted Melissa and the kids be adequately taken care of should he never make it back. He made sure the men under him had been properly inoculated. He probed Hendricks about medivac and health contingencies. He hammered out the duration of the assignment, and transportation--both in-country and back to the States. He demanded, and received, a blank check for weapons, ammo, maps, equipment and food. He haggled over some finer details, then signed some papers and drove to his waiting plane.

Cavarra rejected the plan, as conceived by the CIA, from the very beginning. The bottom line was to prevent the terrorists from escaping with the nuke. To accomplish that without assuming his men to be expendable was the challenge.

The aircraft engines whined to life. The plane taxied, got clearance and lifted into the night sky. When they reached altitude, Cavarra leaned his seat back and closed his eyes.

Thousands of miles of land and ocean passed by underneath him.

***

Cavarra awakened twice: Once when the plane landed to refuel and change crews, and again to transfer from the US Navy craft to a smaller civilian seaplane.

When Cavarra stepped outside during the second stop, he almost got his feet wet. Around him was deep water in every direction. The distant sound of breakers teased his engine-numbed ears. He breathed deeply. Saltwater. The two planes were on an island...no, more like a sandbar--barely large enough to serve as an airstrip. He shook his head. Only a Navy pilot could bring a fixed-wing bird down safely on a sprinkle of dust like this.

He climbed into the seaplane. The pilot scowled at Cavarra's sea bag. "How much does that thing weigh?" He spoke with a New England accent, but was dressed in civvies and his hair was too long for any branch but the Air Force, if that. CIA, most likely.

"Maybe a hundred. Probably less."

"It better be less," the pilot said. "This is Gonna be hairy enough as is."

"Why's that?"

"Our refuel is at just about the maximum range for this crate."

Cavarra grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. "We can save some gas on takeoff: I'll steer, you push."

The pilot rolled his eyes and looked disgusted.

"So where are we, anyway?"

"In an airplane," replied the pilot.

Cavarra buckled his seat belt, dripping sweat. The heat was murderous.

The sea plane struggled to lift out of the ground swell, then leveled off at 150 feet.

Cavarra watched the plane's progress with one eye while reviewing the files with the other.

Dry land slid under them, but the plane kept low. Either they were staying under someone's radar or the pilot flew choppers in Vietnam. Green vegetation along the coast thinned out inland and finally gave way to desert.

"So where are we?" Cavarra repeated.

The pilot looked irritated. "Africa. That is what you signed up for, isn't it?"

"Africa's a pretty fair-sized piece of ground. It's sectioned off into smaller parts some people call 'countries.' I was wondering which one we're flying over."

"When you get off this plane you'll be where you need to be."

***

With too much time to think, Cavarra's mind drifted back to home.

After Panama Melissa begged Cavarra to take some cushy rear-echelon pogue assignment. He thought she'd gone crazy. His work in Panama earned him a crack at a command slot in the Teams. She wanted him to fritter the opportunity away in order to give her quality time.

Justin was only three when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Age three was about when a person started storing long-term memories, so the boy's earliest recollection could very well be of his father leaving him. Of course he couldn't have understood the reasons or the risks at the time, but certainly he felt the ominous vibes.

Looking back, Cavarra saw how selfish he'd been. The regular military was hard enough on marriages. An operator had no business starting a family.

Melissa never forgave him for that last combat deployment; for leaving her with Justin and baby Jasmine, flying halfway around the world to kill people and break things...and possibly be killed himself.

Cavarra thought his early retirement would make up for his previous mistakes, but by that time Melissa's heart was hardened and cold. She'd not only learned how to live without him, but seemed to prefer it. She discovered other men not only found her desirable, but showed it in ways Cavarra hadn't.

Other men also had a lot more time on their hands than her husband. Until he retired. Then his constant presence around the house only irritated her.

She got even with him--disappearing all day every day, leaving him alone with the kids. When she did spend time with him, it was only to complain or drop hints that he didn't light her fire anymore. Then he caught her lying about her whereabouts and activities.

The marriage fell apart. Jasmine seemed to be well-adjusted, for her age, but Justin had some issues. And here Cavarra was running off around the world again to put himself in harm's way.

Moth to a flame.

He'd examined his reasoning thousands of times and couldn't justify his lust for the warrior's life.

In time the heat and monotony got to Cavarra. He dozed off.

He awoke to the sound of the pilot cursing at the fuel gauge.

He rubbed his eyes and took a look around. The fuel tanks were almost empty and below them were some rough-looking mountains.

"Is it gonna be close?"

The pilot nodded. "Your adventure might be starting early."

Cavarra scanned the horizon for a flat surface to ditch on, seeing nothing that didn't appear fatal. Then a blue finger appeared between two mountain peaks. As they grew closer, the hills separated farther and beckoned them to a fat, calm lake just beyond.

"We can set down there, right?"

"That's our refuel spot," the pilot said.

Water was always welcome to Cavarra, so he felt home free. But the pilot didn't relax until his plane's pontoons began skidding along the surface of the lake.

When the engine stopped and the plane slowed to the speed of the prevailing wind, they spotted a heavy-laden flat-bottom boat chugging toward them from a far-off bank. On board were two thin African boys and a huge stack of jerry cans.

The boys helped the pilot refuel his plane, then he tipped them with canned goods and a pack of American cigarettes each. The most cost-efficient workers on the CIA payroll, Cavarra mused. They restacked the now-empty jerry cans in the boat and steered back for the shore.

Relieved now, the pilot got them aloft once again.

This leg of the journey was far shorter. The plane landed on a river so wide, it must have been a branch of the Nile. The pilot kept the engines running and used the propellers to pull them along the water to a dock projecting from an ugly city.

Even from a distance, Cavarra could see most of the buildings were in sad shape: Shattered windows, entire outer walls missing from apartment buildings...figures moving about in the cutaway rooms. The air stunk of garbage, rot, urine, feces and death. Dead animals and heaps of rubbish floated along the river downstream from the city. Groups of children played in that same water, oblivious to the filth floating by.

On the dock stood a black man in loose-fitting print cloth of an orange-dominated pattern. He helped Cavarra get his bag unloaded and extended his hand to steady Cavarra as he disembarked.

No sooner had Cavarra planted his feet on the dock than the door of the plane slammed shut and the engines throttled up. He turned and watched the sea plane turn, taxi and take off back in the direction they'd come from.

"Pilot's about a unfriendly mug," the man on the dock said, in what sounded like a Detroit accent. "Almost like he don't wanna stay here on the dark continent, huh?"

1805 14 AUG 2002; BOR, SUDAN

(At a double-time.)

Well, me and Superman had a fight

I smacked him in the head with kryptonite.

Busted his skull and pulped his brain

Now guess who's datin' Lois Lane?

Me and Batman had a fight too

His puny fists against my 7.62.

Riddled his body with lead and steel

Now guess who's drivin' the Batmobile?

Cavarra chuckled and slung his sea bag over one shoulder. "I thought it was my company he didn't like."

The terrain along both banks of the river was lined with exotic trees and tropical vegetation. Just beyond it was elephant grass as far as the eye could see--except east and south, where mountains broke up the horizon, and directly in front of Cavarra, where the dingy city of Bor marred the landscape.

"Welcome to the Sudan, Johnny Rambo," the man said. "Name's James--I'm your guardian angel. Call me 'Mugabe' when we're around locals."

"I'll just get in the habit starting now, Mugabe," Cavarra said. "Do you have the weapons I ordered?"

"Supposed to come in today. You know you only got twelve men, right?"

"Yup."

"Why all the extra artillery?"

"Mission specific."

Mugabe started walking. Cavarra followed him off the dock to dry land, then along a trail towards a reeking slum of mostly ramshackle huts with a few permanent-looking, stark block buildings thrown in.

They hopped in a black Dodge Ramcharger with water buffalo horns mounted to the hood. They left foul-smelling Bor and rolled down a rough country road through a vast expanse of grassland, spotted with blackened patches of scorched earth.

"What happened out there?" Cavarra asked, pointing at the burnt fields.

"Government troops burn the crops just before harvest," Mugabe said. "Infidels don't deserve to eat. Savvy?"

"How much of my crew is here, so far?" Cavarra asked.

"All present," Mugabe replied. "Some only been here a matter of hours, some longer. Brought in a few by the river on airboats, some overland by truck."

Several miles out of Bor they came upon a village. Mugabe steered them in between the mud huts and dilapidated tin and cardboard shacks. Malnourished children stared at them curiously as they passed. Some skinny adults whispered to each other.

"They dress nice enough," Cavarra said. One might expect residents of a place like this to wear tattered rags or something, but the women wore colorful dresses and the men nice shirts and slacks.

"Peeps here dress like this every day," Mugabe said. "What they wearin' right now is the only clothes most of 'em have."

"'Peeps'?" Glancing sideways, Cavarra imagined a tongue-sized dent in Mugabe's cheek. If he'd been in-country for any time at all, Mugabe should have lost the ghetto edge on his Ebonics. That it was still so pronounced when speaking English suggested self-parody.

The village was considerably cleaner than Bor, although half-wrecked recently, by the look of most of the huts.

Mugabe drove through the dirt streets to a church building that looked like it had been through a siege. Cavarra recognized bullet scars all over the brick. All the wood was fire-blackened, the windows broken and smoke-stained.

"What's this?"

"Your crib, for now--just call it Fort Rambo." Mugabe killed the motor, got out and strolled up to the front door. A pair of lazy brown eyes scrutinized them through a jagged hole where a burst of bullets had splintered through the wood.

Mugabe clapped Cavarra on the shoulder and said, "Here's da man, fellahs."

The eyes stared hard at Cavarra. The door opened and Mugabe led the way in.

Cavarra stepped inside the vestibule and the door shut behind him. The interior of the building was lit with kerosene lamps. The plaster of the inner walls was cracked and pockmarked, and there appeared to be large blood stains on the floor. The man who opened the door was a tall, lanky black man Cavarra recognized from the photograph as Leon Campbell, one of his snipers.

Other men crowded into the room. "Fellahs," Mugabe said, "this here's Johnny Rambo Number-One. Your Commanding Officer from here on out."

Cavarra turned to Mugabe. "I need a word with you in private."

Mugabe nodded.

"Who's covering the back?" Cavarra asked.

"There's no window in back," someone said.

"Is there a door?"

A few men mumbled in the affirmative.

"Well, I want someone covering it. I also want a body at those windows on either side. I'll be busy for a few minutes. When I come back, I want it squared away. Then we'll break the ice."

Without waiting for a response, Cavarra walked into the worship area. In the dim light several pairs of eyes measured him, sizing him up as if they might have to fight him. It was something rough men from rough outfits did, and it could be unnerving.

Pews were overturned, shot and blown to pieces. The place reeked of old cordite. The floor was splotched dark brown with dried blood. Cavarra paused for a moment and Mugabe took the lead. Cavarra fell in step behind him and they made their way to the room behind the baptismal chamber.

Blood splatters decorated this area, too. Mugabe shut the door behind them and sat on a crate of charred bibles. "Private enough for you?"

"What happened here?" Cavarra asked, seating himself on a stepladder.

"There's a civil war goin' on here, Rambo."

"Yeah, no kidding. But this is a church."

Mugabe looked surprised at his naïveté. "Christianity's illegal. And here these folks had the audacity to practice it right out in the open in a big, fancy building. That's like showin' your hiney to Khartoum."

"Were these people armed? Did they resist?"

"They weren't armed, but I guess you could say they resisted. They didn't submit to Allah, now did they?"

Cavarra reached over to the wall and scratched at the dried blood with his thumbnail.

"Sudanese who practice tribal religions are the ones take up arms against the government," Mugabe said. "But most of the Christians are pacifists. The preacher here got hisself crucified--literally."

Cavarra decided he was naive, after all, and shook the impertinent thoughts from his head. "This building is un-sat. We need to get out of this town and secure an area out in the boonies."

"That'd draw attention, Johnny. Set up some tents out in the swamp, bunch of you corn-fed boys dittyboppin' around with weapons and gear--that looks too much like a SPLA operation. Save that for when you make your rendezvous with the rest of the posse."

"We got civilians crawling all over the place outside," Cavarra said. "We can't observe all the avenues of approach from here, and I don't have enough men to cover the entire town. Where's the main force holed up?"

"Can't tell you that. They don't know where you are, either. Opsec. You were briefed on where you be linkin' up, though."

Cavarra sighed.

"Look," Mugabe said, "nobody comes here, anymore. The other folks in town don't trust the government, so they ain't gonna drop the dime on y'all."

"Where can I find you?"

Mugabe laughed. "I get around too much for you to find me. But I be checkin' on you. Like I said, the weapons and gear should come in today. I'll holler at you then."

Mugabe rose and left. Cavarra breathed deep and remained seated while consulting his small spiral notebook. He had an overwhelming amount of tasks to accomplish in a short time, so he needed a moment to prioritize.

Cavarra reentered the main room of the church after a few minutes. Before he could say anything, a short, somewhat overweight man with a fat nose and crooked teeth approached and saluted.

"How you been, sir?"

Cavarra returned the salute instinctively, then extended his hand. "Hiya, Zeke. Long time, no see. How's civilian life?"

Zeke Pappadakis shook hands, then patted his beer belly. "A little too good, Rocco."

"I hope you're still sharp up here." Cavarra said, pointing to his temple.

"Sharp as a marble, sir."

"You can knock off the 'sir' garbage, Zeke. The buck stops here and I say forget the dumb stuff. Is the spook-puke gone?"

"Yeah. It's just us, now."

Campbell was still at the front door, and men were at each side, looking out the windows. Others gathered around facing Cavarra. "Who's got the back?" he called out, loudly.

"That'd be me!" a voice drawled back.

Cavarra looked over the men around him, matching the faces with the photos he'd seen. They all studied him the way wolves must eyeball new additions to the pack. They looked for signs of weakness, sure there must be some--visible or not. He almost had to fan the air to see through the testosterone cloud.

"Can you hear me back there?" he asked, toward the unseen man at the back door.

"Ooh-rah!"

"I'm Dwight Cavarra, and I'll be your C.O. for this operation. How much have you been told about what we're doing?"

Nobody said anything, so Cavarra pointed at tall, skinny Fava-Vargas, who had been singing an Enrique Iglesias song when Cavarra entered the room. "What do you know about it?"

Fava-Vargas widened his eyes and contorted his mouth. "We're supposed to insert into a terrorist camp and steal a bomb. That's all I was told."

Cavarra looked around. Everybody nodded. That's all anyone had been told.

"Mr. Mugabe's bosses have formulated a plan, but I think we're going to do it a little different," Cavarra said. "I'll give you a warning order tomorrow morning, most likely." He leaned back against the arm of a still-intact pew. "We don't have much time, so we're Gonna have to do a lot of stuff simultaneously, and I won't have time to explain every little thing. This isn't a regular military unit, obviously. I'm not gonna be acting like the typical officer, either--my involvement in this mission goes right down to every boot sole that touches the ground. Think of me as a non-com if that helps you.

"Outside of Zeke, here, I haven't worked with any of you before. And frankly, this mission would be hard enough to pull off even if we were a tight-knit unit. So we can't afford any BS, pissing contests or dissension in the ranks. Whatever petty differences crop up between us, we're gonna have to suck it up and drive on. So I need to know, right now, if there's any one of you that can't hang. Sound off now, and I'll have Mugabe arrange to get you back home mos-koshee. Otherwise, I expect loddy-doddy-everybody to dedicate yourself to this team, and the job ahead of us, a hundred-and-ten percent." His eyes locked on Zeke just to make it clear there would be no favoritism.

"With all due respect," said Force Recon vet Charles Mai, a Hawaiian with the build of a fire hydrant, "I myself can handle any mission that comes my way. But I don't know jack about you, who put you in charge, or if you can hang." His tone belied any pretense of respect.

Zeke rolled his eyes.

Cavarra stifled a groan. In one ear and right out the other. We're off to a great start.

"Okay," Cavarra said. "I retired from the US Navy at the rank of commander. That would be the equivalent of your rank of lieutenant-colonel, Gunnery Sergeant Mai."

Mai should be familiar with Naval rank, but men with ignorant attitudes ought to be prepared to have their intelligence insulted. Cavarra preferred to treat people like reasonable adults. Unfortunately, it wasn't always possible unless people behaved like reasonable adults.

"I've gotten wet in Grenada, Panama and the Gulf as a SEAL," Cavarra said, "and this is hardly the first time I've been in a command position."

Mai was undaunted. "Even if that's true, those are dubious credentials: You squids screwed the pooch in Panama."

Cavarra stared at him. Dubious credentials? Who's running around teaching jarheads big words like that? Evidently Mai was determined to make waves.

"If you're asking to see my DD-214, Mai, I'm afraid I didn't bring it with me."

Zeke and a couple others snickered.

"If you want to discuss Panama, we can do that in private," Cavarra said, taking a few casual steps toward the marine. "Since you're questioning who's in command, here, I'll assume you missed my introduction by our CIA liaison. Who else missed it?"

"I heard it," said Carlos Bojado, a Mexican leatherneck, in a tone that suggested he didn't believe it.

"Then please get Mai up to speed," Cavarra said. "And I'll address this question to anyone else who doubts my 'credentials': Who recruited you? Who paid for your transportation over here?"

"The Agency," Zeke answered, for everyone.

"And Mr. 'Mugabe' is our CIA contact, right?" Cavarra scanned over the faces again. Few replied verbally.

Now he looked directly at Mai. "And did anyone hear our contact, or anyone else from the Agency, announce Gunny Mai to be in command of this gaggle?"

Nobody replied.

"Well?" Cavarra said. "Were you put in charge here, Mai?"

"No," Mai admitted, quietly.

"Well shazam. May I continue now, Gunnery Sergeant Mai?"

"Go ahead."

"May I have command of this unit back, Gunnery Sergeant Mai?"

"Hey, I--"

"Well thank you very much. Why don't you either shut that ugly scar under your nose or pack your trash for the next boat out of here."

Mai glanced around at the others and shrugged.

Inwardly, Cavarra was relieved. He had upped the stakes on Mai so quickly, it might have come to settling the matter outside. And had he been forced to thump Mai in front of everybody, the gunny would have become a liability to the team.

Cavarra made eye contact with all the men around him. "Now are we done with that, or does anyone else want to waste our time playing ignorant games?"

Most of the men looked down at the floor, embarrassed for Mai, except Mai himself; Bojado; Greg Lombardi--a man who'd earned both Special Forces and Ranger tabs in the Army; and Sam DeChalk--a bejeweled mercenary from Illinois. No one spoke.

"Good. Where's my armorer?"

"Hup, sir." Former Special Forces Weapons Sergeant Tommy Scarred Wolf stepped forward. He wore a bright, lime-green sleeveless shirt, baggy print trousers and threadbare lime-green Converse high-tops. Lean muscle covered his average-sized frame. Blue veins pulsed down his long, sinewy arms and huge hands. His bronze face betrayed no trace of emotion, but his eyes burned with an intensity Cavarra liked.

"Our heavy metal is supposed to come in today," Cavarra said. "I'm gonna need some modifications done right off. You bring your tools?"

Scarred Wolf shook his head. "I told the suits back stateside what I would need. Tools are supposed to come in with the rest of the gear."

"Well, I sure hope they do," Cavarra said. "I ordered a few things, myself, you're gonna need. Pick out a work area in this building and get it squared away for when our trash comes in."

"There's a couple rooms in the basement that will work," Scarred Wolf said.

"Good. Make it happen."

"Hup, sir." Scarred Wolf grabbed a duffel bag on his way downstairs.

Now that was more like it.

"Where's my other sniper?" Cavarra called to Campbell.

Campbell shrugged, even as the voice from the back door answered, "Raat hyah."

"Somebody relieve those two," Cavarra said, pointing fore and aft. There was a moment of hesitation--most of these men were unaware of the others' respective ranks upon discharge and didn't want to volunteer if someone of lower rank was on hand. Finally Fava-Vargas and Jake McCallum, a six-foot-seven ex-Special Forces Engineering Sergeant, moved to take those posts. McCallum looked like Eddy Murphy's big brother, on stilts and steroids.

Campbell came front-and-center. Cavarra did a double-take when Cole appeared from the back. He was a former marine sniper from South Carolina and his dipped-in-pig-dung accent was something you'd expect to come out from under a pointy white hood. But he was darker than half the men present. His dossier listed his race as "other." Cavarra couldn't tell if he was of Native American, Arabic, or even Gypsy descent, but in any case he couldn't be called "white trash" or "redneck," despite the drawl. He had a lantern jaw, a unibrow and a fierce underbite. That and his husky upside-down-pyramid frame made him appear to be the missing link between man and bulldog.

Cavarra rested one hand on a shoulder of both snipers. "Soon as our trash gets here, I'm taking the two of you out to zero and do a little plinking. So get your gear together and stand by."

They grunted their acknowledgement and moved to comply.

"Where's my other engineer?"

Dwayne Terrell, the former SeaBee, turned from his post at the side window. He looked like a shorter, lighter-skinned version of McCallum, but no less muscular. "Right here."

Cavarra was about to assign someone to relieve him when Campbell returned with his web gear slung over one shoulder. "Suggestion, sir?"

"Go ahead."

"Rather than posting men on every side, why not just put one or two up on the roof? Better visibility up there, and less manpower needed. I can take the first watch until you need me on the range."

The suggestion was offered politely, in a humble way, but Cavarra burned with embarrassment. Campbell was absolutely right. Why didn't I think of that? I'm tripping up, here.

Several men watched Cavarra for his response. Undoubtedly, all of them had known officers too egotistical to acknowledge an enlisted man with a better idea, and waited for him to invent some lame excuse to nix Campbell's suggestion.

"Drive on, hero: Make it happen. Why don't you join him, Cole. I'll send your relief up, and I'll draft a duty roster tonight."

"Hoo-wah," Campbell said.

"Ooh-rah," Cole said.

"Heads-up play," Cavarra told Campbell, but the words were drowned out in the rustling of the two snipers moving out. Cavarra was glad it hadn't been Mai who thought of it.

He turned back to Terrell. "You go get with McCallum. First, I need you to build me a ladder for getting on and off the roof. Then I need you to put your heads together and draft a plan for a hasty rifle range. I want a zero range, a thousand-meter range, and see what you can come up with for pop-ups and moving targets from twenty-five to 200 meters."

Terrell looked like the weight of the world had just been dropped on his shoulders. "Sir?"

"See what you can dream up," Cavarra said. "I ordered some stuff you might be able to use. I need something safe, but quick. Copy?"

Terrell sighed heavily. "Copy that, skipper." He trudged back to find McCallum.

Cavarra kept firing off orders until every Swinging Richard was gainfully employed. Terrell muttered curses under his breath. Mai glared at Cavarra whenever he thought Cavarra wasn't looking.

One of the men remained silent the entire time. If Cavarra hadn't studied the photographs, his eyes might have passed right over him, so naturally did the man seem to blend into his surroundings. Cavarra knew the type. Guys like this could sham all the time and never get caught. They never got picked for scum details, CQ or guard duty. As long as they weren't stupid or weak, they could get away with murder until promoted into a leadership slot.

This particular chameleon was the African mercenary, Ehud Siyr.

1900 14 AUG 2002; NUBIAN DESERT, SUDAN

CAMP ALI

(Al Maidah, Sura 5:51-5:74 )

Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians to be your friends:

They are friends with one another.

Whoever seeks their friendship shall become one of their number,

And Allah does not guide wrong-doers.

Bassam Amin stood outside the command post, playing with the selector lever on his rifle while drawing patterns in the sand with his feet. Commandant Ali's orderly had found him in the bivouac a half hour ago and told him to report to the CP.

Unlike the pup tents assigned to Bassam and the other trainees, most of the structures in the four acre camp were semi-permanent affairs of wood, plastic, metal and mosquito netting. The command post was sturdier, with walls of stacked sandbags and a heavy canvas flap for a door. Bassam could hear voices inside, but the drone of the generator behind the CP made it impossible to distinguish words.

He hadn't shown as much energy in training today as he usually did--his back muscles were quite sore from the rope climb yesterday. Perhaps he was to be reprimanded for his drop in motivation. That's the only reason he could imagine for this summons.

***

Inside the CP, Chin exhaled one last mouthful of smoke, dropped his cigarette onto the sand floor and waited for Ali to speak.

"I don't believe this is necessary," Ali said. He sat behind a crude desk of plywood and ordinance crates, enjoying the breeze of his small electric fan.

Chin struggled to keep his composure. All these years dealing with the savages of Africa and he still had trouble hearing his wisdom questioned. "Perhaps. And perhaps not. Wouldn't you agree that it's best to have all bases covered?"

Ali conceded the point by sucking his teeth.

"You won't be paying for it," Chin reminded him. "I will." Actually, the beauty of it was that the money ultimately came compliments of the capitalist enemy. But Chin still thought of it as his to allocate.

"It might make him soft," Ali said. "Weak. Spoiled."

Chin waved his hand. "Soldiers are like dogs. A dog is far more motivated to fight after catching the scent of a bitch in heat."

Ali drummed his fingers on the makeshift desk. Funny Chin should use the canine analogy--to Ali, Chin resembled a Sharpei. His face had more folds than a half-deflated air cushion and he spoke as if barking.

Jan Chin supposed that by Middle Eastern standards Khaled Ali was a handsome man. He approved of Ali's grooming, and dress. Ali eschewed the traditional Arab garments for a pressed-and-starched brown uniform. To Chin this bespoke much leadership potential. Chin could forgive lapses in judgment and occasional incorrect thinking when a man had the immaculate appearance Ali had.

The ugly young ragamuffin waiting outside the CP, however, appealed to Chin as the perfect candidate for a suicide mission.

Ali finally nodded agreement. Chin nodded back and left.

***

Bassam Amin stepped aside as the heavyset Chinese pushed through the canvas flap. Chin's eyes raked over Bassam briefly as he went by. There was power in those eyes. Bassam could see murder there, and rape, and things even worse. It was strength, but belied by the fat.

Bassam had never seen obesity first-hand. The closest he'd ever come before was when he met the overweight Yasser Arafat. Chin was heavier. He'd seen true obesity only on television and in newspaper photos--images of fat Jews and Americans, living luxuriously, amassing wealth by exploiting and manipulating those less fortunate. Soft, weak men whose biggest weapons were deception and greed.

Only hungry men possessed genuine strength. It was obvious Chin hadn't been hungry in a long, long time. Whatever strength appeared in his eyes was but a reflection of something lost long ago.

"Bassam Amin!" Ali's voice called from inside. "Enter!"

Bassam entered and stood before the desk.

Ali looked him over for a moment. He had an unnerving stare, and many trainees shrunk under it. Bassam endured it unflinching. In fact, his expression was blank, as always.

"Sit down."

"Thank you," Bassam said, and sat on the folding chair indicated.

"How long have you wanted to fight in the jihad?"

"Since I was nine years old."

"And what happened then?"

"Someone explained the nursery rhyme to me."

"What nursery rhyme?"

"First Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday."

Bassam had never known his father. His mother was killed attempting to mix TATP (triacetone triperoxide) explosives in southern Lebanon when he was five. He grew up in a refugee camp with a foster family for a while, but tired of the insults and beatings. The patriarch of the family detested the boy for some reason never voiced.

Bassam learned of an uncle he had in Amman. At nine years old, imagining this uncle would welcome him and raise him as his own son, Bassam ran away for Jordan. He was turned back at the border with no explanation.

He tried crossing again, this time explaining his motives to the guards. It did no good. Finally, he snuck across. But capricious Allah had the last laugh. A Jordanian soldier, who had been on border guard duty the day before, recognized Bassam asking for directions in a bazaar. He turned Bassam over to the PLO. The agents dragged Bassam to an apartment building where they slapped and punched and kicked him back and forth. They might have gotten carried away and killed him, but a superior officer happened on the scene and the men quit beating him.

The officer sat down and talked to Bassam. "First Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday," he said. "You've heard this, haven't you?"

Bassam had. All children were taught this saying, but nobody had taught him its meaning.

The officer explained:

"Friday is the Muslim holy day, Saturday is the Jewish holy day and Sunday the Christian holy day. Submit yourself to Allah in prayer and worship. Then take up the sword of jihad, and win the world to Islam.

"There are two types of people in this world--Dar Al Islam: the faithful of Islam, and Dar Al Harb: the infidels, with whom we are at war with until Judgment Day.

"The most dangerous infidels are the People of the Book. So push the Jews into the sea, then burn their brothers, the Christians, with holy fire. First Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday. After that, the godless and pagans will either convert or be put to the sword.

"Allah has placed you here for a reason, Bassam. You are to be a holy warrior and help drive the infidels out of Palestine. Allah has decreed it, and yet you try to run from your divine duty. Allah rewards the brave, but he hates cowards. Surely you don't want to be a coward?

"Boys your age have taken up the sword of Allah and died killing the infidel. And when you die killing the infidels, Bassam, you are guaranteed entrance into heaven.

"Why would you run like some coward from such an honorable mission and glorious reward? Are you a coward? My soldiers think you are because you tried to sneak out of your country and your duty. But Allah has prevailed upon me to give you a second chance. Will it be cowardice or glory, Bassam?"

The officer took Bassam back to the refugee camp, relieved his foster family of his guardianship and placed Bassam directly under the care of the Martyrs. Instead of humiliating Bassam for his cowardice, the officer praised him in front of the other refugees. He proclaimed Bassam a warrior in training.

Bassam understood very little about Allah or the teachings of Mohammed, but he knew that he lived under a curse, and he knew the curse was related to some Jew now occupying the land that rightfully belonged to him.

Bassam ran errands and did chores for the older Martyrs. In time, they taught him. They trained him how to scam and steal from tourists; how to mix explosives; how to build booby-traps; how to carry a bomb into a big crowd of Israelis and set it off. But that assignment never came. Eventually he was recommended for advanced training, and he wound up at Ali's camp.

Ali beamed at the boy.

The Palestinian officer was truly an asset to jihad, Ali decided. United Nations relief fund payments were doled out to the PLO based on the headcount in the refugee camps. Defections would bite them in the pocketbook, but good leaders knew how to inspire potential Martyrs beyond such notions.

"Truly Allah's hand was at work," Ali said. "Have you abandoned the path of cowardice for good?"

Bassam nodded.

"That's good, Bassam, because Allah has given us a momentous task to undertake. It requires a man of tremendous courage and strength.

"At first I didn't think you had that strength. But I'm a fair man. Perhaps there is more courage inside you than I can see, outwardly. That is why I'm offering you the chance to strike a mighty blow for the jihad. If you volunteer for this holy mission, you will have the honor of delivering the most devastating attack ever against our oppressors."

"What is it?" Bassam asked.

"I will tell you right now that if you accept this mission, you will die. But you will die delivering the wrath of Allah on our enemies."

"Tell me what I have to do."

Ali smiled and pounded his desk, which wobbled from the blow. "Praise to Allah! I knew you weren't a coward!" He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his neck. "The details will be revealed to you in time. Right now, tell me what you know about Heaven."

"I know if I die killing infidels, I will go there."

"True. But what sort of place is it?"

"Paradise, I guess."

"What is paradise to you, Bassam?"

"I don't know. I don't understand the question."

Khaled Ali opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a magazine and dropped it down where Bassam could see it. There was a well-endowed, naked woman on the glossy cover.

"Does this look familiar?"

Bassam was silent. They must have snooped around in his tent to find it. He was more angry than embarrassed.

"Don't worry," Ali said. "You're not in trouble. But tell me something: Have you ever bedded a woman?"

"No."

"Are you aware that when a holy warrior arrives in heaven, he is awarded a harem?"

Bassam's eyes glowed keen.

"A harem of wives far more beautiful and voluptuous than these women," Ali said, pointing to the magazine. "Wives who will serve you with every kind of pleasure you can imagine."

Bassam's eyelids twitched.

"It's too bad you've never had a woman," Ali said. "You can scarcely imagine how much pleasure even one can bring you."

Bassam felt light-headed, and couldn't help the dopey smile twisting his homely face.

Ali pretended to wrestle with an idea. "You know, in days of old, a general would bring in willing women to service his warriors on the eve of a great battle. So they could have a taste of the pleasures awaiting them if they died a hero's death."

Bassam's mouth moved, but no words would come out.

"Would you like that, Bassam?"

The boy's head bobbed vigorously.

"Very well. I will arrange this sample for you. I will trust that you won't let me down. That you won't let Allah down. That when the moment of truth comes, you will die bravely and honor all of Islam."

"I will do it!" the boy said. "I will not hesitate."

"Good. I will arrange a hero's brothel privileges. You are dismissed for now."

1929 14 AUG 2002; DINKA VILLAGE, SUDAN

(At a double-time.)

Early one mornin' in the drizzlin' rain

My first sergeant was raisin' Cain.

Kickin' in doors an' bustin' down walls

Droppin' lower enlisted like Niagara Falls.

He had NCOs all around his desk

And a leg lieutenant in the lean 'n' rest...

Jake McCallum and Dwayne Terrell took some scrap lumber found around the village, tied it together with 550 cord and covered the splintery rungs with hundred-mile-an-hour tape. Once done with the ladder, the engineers set out to scout a potential site for the rifle range.

Before the ladder was finished, the snipers found a way atop the building.

The roof was stucco, sloped only slightly. Obviously it never snowed here.

Campbell and Cole fashioned a couple hooches by tying ghillie ponchos between the small steeple and furniture scavenged from inside the church. The shade from the ponchos eventually cooled those sections of the roof enough to sit down.

"We could knock a mouse hole and some shootin' ports in that staple," Cole said, thoughtfully.

"Steeple's the first thing I'd shoot at if I knew a sniper was in a church," Campbell said.

Cole grinned. "Reckon even the Sudanese saw Savin' Private Ra'an."

Inside, Cavarra oversaw reorganization of their temporary HQ. The men stacked pew fragments up by the windows to serve as shooting platforms. The intact pews were mated to form long rectangular trays in which two men at a time could sleep. Some men had brought hammocks, and hung these in the basement, the baptismal chamber and other out-of-the-way areas. They scraped as much of the dried blood as possible from the floor and walls with scrap wood, then swept it outside with brooms found in the basement closet.

Cavarra took over the office, where he hung his own hammock. After clearing the fire-blackened metal desk, he sat in the squeaky swivel chair, pulled out his spiral notebook and backward-planned the next day's schedule.

Sam DeChalk sauntered into the office and leaned against the desk grinning down at Cavarra. He introduced himself, then quickly found a pretense to start name-dropping and reciting his mercenary resume.

Cavarra knew from the dossier DeChalk had worked in Lebanon, the Balkans, Chechnya and even here in Sudan, but he'd never spent a day in a professional military outfit. Cavarra hadn't been all that impressed before. He was even less impressed now, since the merc seemed to be bragging about his "combat experience." Guarding roadblocks in Bumfuq, Egypt was hardly the sort of trigger-time Cavarra found useful for his current undertaking.

But the guy could speak Arabic.

"I've worked in-country before," DeChalk repeated. "So if you need any help finding your way around, talk to me."

"How much of the country have you seen?" Cavarra asked.

"South of Shambe, mostly. All the action is down here."

Not for long, Cavarra thought. "How are the roads? Are the rivers navigable?"

"The roads are pretty much like they are in all these jerkwater countries. Rivers are a hassle to cross. Especially the Blue Nile, from what I hear. It floods bad around September, though it's been a really dry year so far."

"What about dams? Falls? Rapids?"

"There's a couple dams on the Blue Nile, I think. One on the White Nile, just south of Khartoum. And there's some butt-ugly swamps down here."

Cavarra knew that much from the maps Hendricks gave him.

"You know what kind of weapons we'll be getting?" the merc asked.

Cavarra didn't answer. He was distracted by DeChalk's jewelry as the merc gesticulated. "You need to lose that trash," Cavarra said.

DeChalk was stunned for a moment. Then he said, "Don't worry. I'll take it off when we go tactical."

"Take it off now. Everybody needs to start getting in the tactical mindset. It won't be long before we're snoopin' and poopin'."

DeChalk reddened. "What about Mai and Fava-Vargas?"

"What about them?"

DeChalk held his hands up and fluttered his fingers.

Cavarra rose, stepped out of the office and, accompanied by DeChalk, tracked down the two men in question. Indeed, they also were decorated for the Pimp of the Year Contest.

Cavarra raised his voice. "Mai and Fava-Vargas, that goes for you, too...and anybody else who's bling-bling: All jewelry comes off, now. I don't want to see it again."

DeChalk looked angry.

"Did I stutter?" Cavarra asked. "Lose it before I melt it down into something useful."

With sullen glares, DeChalk, Mai and Fava-Vargas did as they were told. But Cavarra didn't stop there. "In fact, everybody get out of your civvies. Put your boots on, and whatever duds you'll be wearing in the field."

Lombardi, an ex-Special Forces Medical Sergeant who'd spent his first three tours in the Rangers, looked bewildered. "What's the uniform?"

"No uniform," Cavarra replied, loud enough for all to hear. "As long as it's subdued, with no shiny buttons or zippers exposed. And no unit patches or nametapes, if you brought your old duds."

Lombardi fairly sneered with distaste. "This unit isn't going to have a uniform?"

Cavarra hadn't expected this flack from a Sneaky Pete. "No uniform per-se. But no doomed neon tee-shirts or purple parachute pants either...which reminds me: Somebody go down and get Scarred Wolf up to speed. He's the biggest offender in the clothing department. And you all might as well get your web gear out now. Fill your canteens with fresh water. I've got some two-quart canteens with covers, and some iodine pill bottles for everybody."

Lombardi's expression read something like: What kind of incompetent Limp-Richard are you?? Mai had a very similar look.

"You expect us to provide our own equipment?" Lombardi wondered aloud.

"You didn't bring yours?" Cavarra asked. "Anyone else not bring their own web gear?"

No one responded. Most were digging it out. The snipers on the roof already wore theirs.

Cavarra nodded for Lombardi and Mai to follow him over to a secluded corner. He dropped his voice. "What the hell? You two were senior non-commissioned officers. How could you forget your load-bearing equipment?"

"Troops aren't expected to provide their own gear, sir," Lombardi informed him with an impatient, caustic tone as if addressing the idiot child of royalty. "They're issued what they need. I always told my men, 'if we don't issue it, you don't need it'."

"Amen," Cavarra said. "Thanks for sharing the LIFER Gospel of Braindeath. But in case the Agency misinformed you, you're not back on active duty. This is not the regular military and every man here is going to be expected to think for himself."

Mai was suffering a brain hemorrhage. "This isn't the way you do things! You issue the same LBE to everyone! Everyone is outfitted the same exact way!"

"That way if one man reaches for his LBE..." Lombardi began.

Cavarra interrupted, "...But grabs his buddy's by mistake, everything will be in the same place, blah, blah, blah. That garbage never works, men, even in the regular military where every effort is made to destroy individuality and build a hive mentality. Even if it could, some senior non-com would rewrite the S.O.P. every five minutes until nobody knew where anything was supposed to be packed, anyway.

"I ordered vests with the other gear, in case some half-stepping Richard-heads didn't have enough sense to bring their own. If we get them, you can have one apiece. Otherwise, you'll have to stuff what you can in your pockets."

"This is un-sat," Mai grumbled.

Cavarra stood nose-to-nose with Mai. "Did the Agency not tell you to bring everything you might need, short of weapons and ordinance?"

Neither NCO offered an answer.

"Well, shazam," Cavarra said. "Now I know where my weak links are, don't I?"

Campbell yelled something from up on the roof. Soon they heard the clattering growl of diesel engines and grinding of gears outside.

Everyone in the church mobbed outside to see what went on. Mugabe's Ramcharger led two big old trucks through the village to the church. Mugabe directed the drivers to back the trucks up against the rear of the building. The weapons and supplies had arrived.

Mugabe strolled up to Cavarra and said, "Here y'go, Johnny Rambo. Merry Christmas. The trucks are yours, too. I'ma' go drop the drivers off. You might not wanna unload 'til we're gone."

Cavarra wondered how much the drivers knew. He also wondered how many townsfolk would be watching them from their darkened doorways. "Just how secure are we here?"

Mugabe grinned. "Relatively secure. This is about as safe as it gets in the Sudan."

Cavarra and Mugabe discussed logistics privately for a few minutes, then the agent collected the truckdrivers and left.

Cavarra didn't want to unload everything, but he had to unload enough to find what equipment he needed right away. He got a relay-line going on both trucks, then pitched in himself.

Once the weapons and ammunition were found, the men hauled it down to the church basement where Scarred Wolf had set up shop. The tools, generator and arc welder followed. The food was also relayed into the church, from man-to-man. They dug out the spare web gear, so Lombardi and Mai would have some, and the tools and materials for the rifle range. Everything else was loaded back in the trucks.

Cavarra made sure DeChalk, Mai and Lombardi did their fair share of the work.

2044 14 AUG 2002; WHITE NILE RIVER, SUDAN

A tiny pinpoint of red light winked in the night. He was at the right spot.

Ehud Siyr rotated the paddle, changed his grip, and steered the dugout canoe for the bank. He ran the canoe aground and hopped onto dry land. Before he could regain his balance, the Mossad agent had pocketed his laser pointer, stooped down, grabbed the canoe and halfway pulled the heavy vessel onto the bank.

Between the two of them, they managed to hoist the dugout onto a level earthen shelf where the tall grass would make it hard to spot, even in daylight.

"Were you followed?" asked the Mossad agent.

Siyr shook his head. The Americans hadn't noticed him leave. Chances were, they'd never even been aware of his presence amongst them...except Cavarra. He'd locked eyes with Siyr at one point. He hadn't said anything, but he looked, and he'd remember.

They climbed the bank and got in the agent's Jeep Cherokee. The agent started the engine and drove north with the lights off. The vehicle was quiet, thanks to the heavy mufflers. Both men agreed that it was more difficult to surprise or eavesdrop on two people in a moving vehicle than two people chatting in the dark at a static location.

"Report," ordered the agent, in Hebrew.

Siyr answered in the same language. "Twelve of us total, until today when the C.O. showed up. All American, except me. One is a merc--don't know if he's trouble or not."

"Sam DeChalk?" The agent had received only sketchy information on the Americans.

"Yes, from Illinois. Seems more talk than action, but he's half-Lebanese."

"He worked for Major Haddad back during Peace in the Galilee, didn't he?"

"He guarded a few gates and target practiced on Spam cans, but talks about it like it was Mitla Pass or Omaha Beach. I'll bet the other 'action' he's seen was just as intense."

"He's probably harmless," the agent said. "The others are US military veterans?"

"Yes. Most of them look like pros. But they don't know each other, haven't worked together. Iron mixed with clay. Already there are petty arguments. Each one thinks he is tougher than the rest of them combined."

The agent shook his head. "American servicemen: Ex-high-school jocks who sign up to extend their adolescent machismo at four-year increments. How about the commander?"

"He seems pretty sharp," Siyr said. "He is doing well under the circumstances. Ex-Navy SEAL. Officer. Hard-charger. But not a primadonna."

The agent chewed his lip for a moment. "Dwight Cavarra. How does he lead?"

"From the front, I would guess, though only combat will tell."

"Can he do it? And will he do it?"

Siyr shrugged. "I think he is able, if anyone is, given these obstacles. Will he? I am uncertain..."

The agent picked up on a strange note in Siyr's words. "Does something bother you?"

A herd of zebras appeared out of the darkness and scattered before the bouncing vehicle. The Jeep swerved to miss the stragglers.

"He's failed to inform them of some important facts," Siyr said. "They know very little. He hasn't told them where the camp is, how many are in the camp, or about the attack by the Sudanese rebels. They know there is a bomb involved, but not what type of bomb or what its target is to be. At this point, however, maybe it's all just an opsec consideration."

The Mossad agent was silent for a moment. They drove on.

Ehud Siyr practiced what he considered "guerrilla Judaism." His mother taught him, when very young, that his lineage went from her all the way back to Solomon's Ethiopian wife. But few people knew this. He'd successfully masqueraded as a Sudanese, a Ugandan, a Somali, a Kenyan...and he knew enough about the enemy to convince outsiders he was Muslim even as he secretly worshipped the Mighty One who'd led his ancestors out of Egypt.

Siyr made his alliyah at sixteen, stowing away on a cargo ship to Haifa. His pilgrimage was disappointing at first, when he realized that most Israelis didn't worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Some of them didn't even believe in the Mighty One. Some actually wanted to surrender the Holy Land to the Philistines.

Siyr knew his Middle East history. When partition was decreed in 1947, the Jews were granted one fifth of the land promised them at Versailles. The rest was granted to the "Palestinians," who started out with everything Israel was now being told to surrender to them. Even that wasn't enough, so they attacked, along with the armies of five Arab countries. The nation of Israel consisted of a few shiploads of Holocaust survivors and the handful of Sabras who had survived various occupations of the Holy Land. A melting-pot militia with kitchen knives, museum-piece pistols and homemade Sten Guns, and an air force of two Piper Cubs, comprised Israel's military. Yet they fought off the invasion and not only survived, but held more land after the war than before it.

Historians attributed the War of Independence, and all the improbable victories since, to the Israelis' prowess in battle. Siyr knew better. Once the seed of Jacob was regathered from the nations, all the armies of earth and hell couldn't scatter them again. An inalienable Covenant guaranteed their place in the Land.

The very name "Palestine" came from the Roman pronunciation of "Philistine." The name was applied to Israel in order to deny the Hebraic connection to the Land. The same motive underlied renaming Judea "the West Bank."

The Palestinian Liberation Organization was formed in 1964--three years before Israel captured the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and Judea. These were the territories the world Press now claimed gave impetus to the "Palestinian" cause. What, then, was the PLO's motive for murdering Jews when Moslems controlled all those territories? The Moslems' goal remained unchanged since their collaborations with Hitler: the annihilation of all Jews. But the Labor Party and the left-wing Press continually insisted that Israel's enemies harbored some unevidenced inner desire for peace.

Disillusioned but undaunted, Siyr joined the IDF as soon as they would accept him. Few Israeli soldiers were committed to the Mighty One, but at least they were committed to national survival.

Despite his skinny build, he made a tough, model soldier. When he volunteered for the Paratroops, his C.O. approved the request--believing in the boy's willpower, if not his stamina.

The paratroop training almost killed him. He suffered heat exhaustion, heat cramps and even heat stroke. On the rare occasions he was allowed some sleep, he awoke so sore it took monumental willpower to move a single muscle. His feet grew blisters atop blisters, all of which ruptured during the endless forced marching.

His socks hardened and crusted with the dried blood and fluid, which glued them to his lacerated feet. A medic finally had to remove what was left of the socks with a scalpel. Pieces of the socks and the omnipresent sand had caused infections all over his heels, toes and the balls of his feet. The medic snipped away the flaps of shredded flesh, then scrubbed the raw pulp which remained. Siyr almost passed out from the pain. Then the medic sprayed some chemical on the open wounds which felt like a thousand white-hot razor blades, and bandaged them.

Still Siyr wouldn't quit. When his feet healed, he continued training.

The parachuting turned out to be the easiest part of the whole ordeal. The proudest moment in Siyr's life was when he first sported IDF jump wings on his chest.

When Siyr first met him, the Mossad agent was an officer in the Sayeret Matkal. He'd been with Yoni Netanyahu for Operation Thunderbolt and had a reputation as a hard man, even among the hardest of men. The next time Siyr met him, they sat side-by-side in front of General Shomron's desk.

Shomron and the officer asked questions about Siyr's religious and political beliefs, and were particularly interested in the languages he could speak. Siyr had a gift for languages and had mastered not only Amharic, Arabic, Hebrew and English, but also achieved fluency in Kiswahili, Nubian and some Nilotic dialects. Shomron congratulated him on his battlefield distinctions won in Lebanon, praised him for his reenlistment in the 35th Brigade, then proceeded to explain how he might serve Israel even more effectively than as an infantryman in an elite combat unit.

Since that day, Siyr had worn many uniforms, fought in numerous skirmishes, eavesdropped on countless conversations, observed manifold foreign officers and politicians, trained with several armies and rebel forces, and sabotaged various covert operations.

"Perhaps this Cavarra suspects a mole," the former commando officer suggested, his Jeep jumping a dune and landing with a violent shock.

"If so," Siyr said, "then he will be sure it is me."

"You have to win his trust."

Siyr shook his head. "You make me look suspicious by sneaking away to report to you, then tell me I must make him trust me."

"Americans are nothing if not gullible," the agent said. "I have some beer in the back seat for you to return with. Going AWOL for alcohol might prove you are worthy to be one of them."

Siyr doubted the plausibility of the story, but he couldn't think of a better idea. "What bothers me the worst," he said, "is that if I do gain their trust, it is only so that I can be in a position to betray that trust. These men are putting their lives at risk in defense of Israel, after all."

The agent frowned. He didn't want to argue. "The defense of Israel is our duty, Ehud. It is of utmost, immediate concern to us. The only trust that matters right now is our trust. Our faith in our country; our country's faith in us. That is the trust that can't be violated."

2136 14 AUG 2002; DINKA VILLAGE, SUDAN

(At a double-time.)

Old lady runnin' with a parachute...

She had a fifty-cal rifle and a ghillie suit.

Said, "Hey, Granny, where ya goin' to?"

She said, "Force Recon and sniper school."

I said, "Hey Granny don't ya think you're too old?

Ya better leave that stuff for the brave and the bold."

She said, "Hey little punk, who ya talkin' to?

I'm an instructor at the sniper school."

Hey-hi Semper Fi!

'Til the day I die...

The warning order was finished early, so why not give it early? No telling what could happen between now and the morning, Cavarra thought, and so led his men up onto the roof. They sat around him in a circle under the stars and the warm night air.

Cavarra struggled about whether or not to let them in on the gravity of the situation: All they knew, apparently, was that they were to intercept a bomb. They hadn't been told it was nuclear. It was something they deserved to know, given that they could be blown to atoms themselves if something went wrong. And yet he didn't know these men well enough to guess how they might handle the news.

Cavarra hoped they were the cool-headed killers the CIA thought they were. Most of them had been civilians for a while--including himself--but wimps or cowards couldn't have made it through the training these men had once undergone. Collectively, they represented the best fighting men America boasted--or at least once they would have. The elite of the elite. All except the mercenaries.

Mercenaries!

Cavarra looked around the group. Only eleven men. DeChalk was present, but the African merc was not.

"Where the hell is Siyr?" he demanded. "Has anyone seen him?"

They looked amongst each other, somewhat confused.

"Was that the skinny black guy?" Zeke asked.

"Kinda' black," Scarred Wolf said. "He looked mixed. Part black, part Middle Eastern, maybe. Strange accent."

"Yeah," McCallum said. "Real quiet guy. Did you talk to him?"

Scarred Wolf nodded, and turned to Cavarra. "Sorry, sir. I didn't think about him much. Guess I assumed you had him busy somewhere else."

"Me too," Cole said.

"I talked to him," DeChalk said. "He asked me some questions about Lebanon--"

"This is just great," Mai said.

Cavarra cursed. Accountability had to be one of the worst problems with commanding pseudo-civilians. "Who saw him last? And where?"

"Last I saw him was when the trucks arrived," Bojado said.

Cavarra sat silent for a moment trying to decipher what it meant. Did he bug out? Did he get snakebit taking a leak outside? Is the mission compromised already?

He couldn't afford to panic. "Alright, we're gonna have to find him as soon as we break up, here. Prepare to copy."

Most of them produced notepads and pencils, to copy by moonlight. A few used red-lensed flashlights, though the night was bright enough without them.

Cavarra nodded toward Terrell, then McCallum. "Did you find a good spot for the rifle range?"

"This whole country's a rifle range," Terrell said. "But to make one like you want, we're gonna have to bust our humps."

"I'll make sure you get the help you need," Cavarra said.

"I think we found a decent spot," McCallum said. "We came up with an idea or two for the fancy targets. Gonna be some work, though."

"Can you work in the dark?"

Terrell winced as if slapped. "You want us to work through the night, sir?"

McCallum looked at his ex-Navy counterpart and smiled while shaking his head ever-so-slightly. Relax, my brother. It won't kill us.

"You can catch up on your sleep in the a.m.," Cavarra said. "I want to take my snipers out there at first light. I'll probably be a couple hours with them. Then the rest of us can go out there and zero our rifles. Two-at-a-time, I'm thinking. You two can go last, so you'll get more sleep. Soon as everybody's doped in, we'll move out."

"Will I be working through the night, too?" Scarred Wolf asked.

Cavarra shook his head. "Just get the M21s together tonight. You can knock out the rest in the a.m. But get started at, say, 0500."

Cavarra read the guard roster aloud. He had assigned himself the middle watch--this raised eyebrows but no comments. Officers and senior NCOs always excluded themselves from the scum details. But this wasn't the regular military and Cavarra had never been a typical officer.

Next he passed around the maps.

Cavarra went over some of the basic poop, omitting identification of their final objective and some other key info. He'd been struggling with whether or not to spill everything to them. On the one hand, everyone should know what he knew, so they could carry on if he got greased before reaching the objective. On the other hand, the CIA had only given them sketchy info for some reason, and if he kept them from knowing all the specific poop, there was less chance that one of them could compromise the mission if captured. Siyr might prove to be a case in point.

"I need a patrol," Cavarra said, once the briefing was complete. "Search this town for Siyr, and every nook and cranny just outside of town."

Every single man volunteered. Cavarra picked Bojado and Mai.

0329 15 AUG 2002; MALAKAI, SUDAN

Major Anwar Hasan of the Popular Defense Forces wore his night clothes. He pushed on his glasses and squinted through them at the thin, dark man outside his front door.

Hasan recognized the man, but it took his tired brain a moment to remember from where. He was black like a Nilote (southern Sudanese ) but with Semitic facial features. A mixed breed. Now Hasan remembered: Bunty was an informant—an officer in the Regular Army had introduced them. Bunty hadn't given Hasan many tips, but the tips he'd given had paid off.

"Why do you wake me at this hour?" Hasan asked, with a tone that seemed to add you half-breed filth.

Bunty may have been a good informant, but he was still of inferior stock. Khartoum was finally cleaning them out of Darfur in the west, Muslim or not, because the Koran damned the black-faced savages. Not that Hasan needed religious teaching to realize they were only one step up from apes.

Bunty bowed. "Esteemed Major, you remember the Dinka village you raided last month?"

Hasan didn't, really. He'd raided so many villages in the last few years he couldn't remember the Dinkas from the Nuers from the Shilluks from the Mandaris from the Didingas. Doubtful he could tell one Dinka village from another.

"It was a village outside of Bor," Bunty said. "Infidels. They built a temple to the Christian God."

Now Hasan remembered. Their audacity had infuriated him. A few of the prettiest girls were spared for sale to the brothels in Khartoum. The other females, after his men had used them, were necklaced alongside the men and boys as an example that shouldn't be soon forgotten.

Hasan borrowed the idea from the African National Congress--infidels were bound like mummies, then "necklaces" (tires full of gasoline) were placed on their shoulders and set afire.

"What about it?" Hasan asked.

"Many of the villagers escaped," Bunty said. "They've moved back into the village."

Hasan should have burned it to the ground, but he wanted the ghost town to serve as a memorial to the folly of resistance. Still, this news was hardly worthy of waking him at this hour. "Report to me in the morning. Now leave, before I have you flogged!"

Bunty bowed again. "That is not all, esteemed Major. There are men in the Christian temple. I think they are fighting men. Earlier, they received two truckloads of weapons, ammunition and equipment."

Hasan removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Could it be? Making war on the Christians had always been so easy because few of them bothered to fight back. The survivors showed their cowardice by forgoing vengeance in lieu of attempts at proselytization. Armed rebels in the church must mean they were finally preparing to actively resist.

Numerically, the Sudanese Christians had never been much of a threat. They were even less of a threat now, with so many of them wiped out over the last several years. But if they allied themselves with the rebels...

Either some Christians had decided to take up arms, or they'd hired someone to do it for them. Where had they obtained the weapons? What did they intend to do?

No matter. Bunty had presented Hasan with a golden opportunity. Hasan could destroy the nucleus of this new resistance faction before it had time to get organized. It could mean a promotion in the Popular Defense Forces, or even a commission in the Regular Army.

Two truckloads of weapons and ammunition meant a small force, depending on what their intentions were. A couple hundred men at the most. But Hasan only had 146 men under his command--if he could muster all of them.

"How many fighting men are there?" Hasan asked.

"Twelve," Bunty said.

It must be the command structure, Hasan decided. They plan to arm and train the Christians along the White Nile and in the highlands. With twelve experienced soldiers, they could easily organize a few hundred rebels.

But Major Hasan had no intention of letting them organize anyone. He wouldn't need all his troops for twelve rebels. By dawn he could muster enough men for an attack that would make his earlier raid seem merciful by comparison.

"What else?"

"I've told you all I know, Major."

Major Hasan retrieved some dinars from inside, gave them to Bunty and dismissed him. He then returned to his bedroom, opened the closet and pulled out his uniform and boots.

0607 15 AUG 2002; DINKA VILLAGE, SUDAN

(At the quick-time.)

They issued me an M14 hurray, hurray.

They issued me an M14, with FMJ loaded magazines

And they dropped me down right into the DMZ.

They issued me a blooper gun hurray, hurray...

The patrol returned after an hour without finding Siyr. Cavarra gritted his teeth but drove on with his original plans. He, Cole and Campbell were out on the makeshift rifle range as dawn broke.

The range occupied a neatly-plowed field lined with straight rows of charred stubble that once was a sorghum crop. The soil was burnt black.

The M21 sniper rifle was basically a scoped M14 with a match-grade barrel, capable of semi-automatic fire only. Their rate of fire, twenty-round box magazines and rock-solid reliability had prompted Cavarra to choose them for his "master mechanics."

Scarred Wolf had bore-sighted both the scopes and iron sights on the M21s. Cole and Campbell zeroed first with iron sights, then the scopes. Both snipers did so with an impressively small number of rounds fired. Apparently they hadn't gotten too rusty since doing this for a living. Their range estimation, elevation and windage adjustments were practiced and efficient.

The range was set up perpendicular to the prevailing wind, per Cavarra's instructions, which gave him a chance to see how the snipers would do with an unpredictable crosswind on the 1,000 meter targets.

They fired three rounds apiece, then Cavarra went down to check their groups and tape over the holes. He had them engage under time constraints, then fire at his command. After every three rounds he humped out to the targets to check the groups, running on the return trips to save time.

US Marines were traditionally better marksmen than shooters from the other branches. The USMC sniper school had a rep for being tougher than the US Army's counterpart. But Campbell was just as deadly-accurate as Cole, and a touch faster with iron sights.

Cole's rank upon discharge was lance corporal, the lowest of everyone in this group. He served with some distinction in Desert Storm. But repeated drunk-driving arrests and other alcohol-related misconduct back on the block had kept him from advancing in rank and, ultimately, resulted in a General Discharge Under Less than Honorable Circumstances. Too bad. He was one fine instrument of warfare.

"Where'd you learn to shoot, Cole?"

"Daddy taught me," he said, squirting tobacco juice through his teeth. "Got mah first squirrel with a twenty-two when Ah was seven. First Deer at fourteen with a thirty-ought-six. Ah still prefer notch sats over these here pape sats."

Cavarra never had a problem with military peep sights, but knew many shooters who did.

"How about you, Campbell?"

"Never shot a rifle 'til the Army taught me."

The Army was a huge organization, with units running the gamut from pathetic to hardcorps. It was easy to ridicule, because the reputation of the former got more attention than the performance of the latter. But assuming every soldier to be a lazy incompetent pogue was like assuming every Chicago native was a gangster or every Californian a surfer.

"What outfit were you in?"

"Recon Platoon. Second of the 504th P.I.R. Devils In Baggy Pants."

Cavarra knew enough about ground forces to understand the nomenclature meant Second Battalion of the 504th Regiment or Brigade. "What's the 'P.I.R.' stand for?"

"Parachute Infantry Regiment."

Airborne Infantry. This was no ordinary grunt, with or without the sniper training. Campbell had an Honorable Discharge, and had sniped with distinction in the Gulf.

Cavarra moved them over to the pop-up/moving-target range. McCallum, Terrell, DeChalk and Bojado had labored through the night to put this one together. They'd dug pits downrange, in which one man could lie safely, operating the silhouette targets with ropes and pulleys while the other man tried to engage them. Most of the targets merely swung up on their hinges in fixed locations, knocked back down when hit. But one popped up and moved laterally along a track before disappearing again. Cavarra was impressed with what his sappers had been able to accomplish in one night.

Once again, both Cole and Campbell showed outstanding prowess with the M21, easily engaging every target. They returned to the church with Cavarra so pumped up, Siyr's disappearance almost didn't bother him.

In the church basement, Scarred Wolf was busy with the other weapons. Cavarra knelt to watch him work. Scarred Wolf heard him come in, but only glanced up for an instant.

"How's it going, Chief?" Cavarra immediately regretted using the term--it was probably considered a racial slur these days. "Sorry. No offense intended."

Scarred Wolf grinned. "It's okay, boss. I actually am a chief, so it's no insult."

"No kidding? Aren't you kind of young for that?"

"There've been younger Shawnee chiefs," he said, "back when the nation was free. All the Galils are bore-sighted."

"Grenade launchers?"

"I've got them off the M-shit-teens. But four of our heroes are still sleeping so I didn't want to fire up the generator just yet."

Cavarra had resembled the kid in the proverbial candy store when first told he had carte blanche in weapons selection. However, twelve Stoner 63s was too tall an order on short notice, even for the CIA. He considered the Smith & Wesson 76 and other superb submachineguns, but he wanted range as well as select-fire capability. He opted for the Galil.

After extensive testing, the Israelis had settled on the AK47 as the platform for the IDF's main battle rifle. It could be fired semi or full-auto all day long in any environment, then left to freeze or rust or be buried in sand or even submerged in saltwater; then without any cleaning, reloaded and fired some more without a jam. They chambered it for 5.56mm NATO, improved the accuracy with a hammer-forged, cold-swaged barrel, flip-up rear sight and a Tritium-lighted front sight, gave it a sturdy steel folding stock and built-in folding bipod, a swivel-up carrying handle, a muzzle brake/flash-suppressor, ambidextrous safety and charging handle, and a thirty-five-round magazine. The Galil was far more expensive than its Kalashnikov grandfather, but worth every penny. The flat trajectory of the .223 caliber round made for decent accuracy, and its weight was about the same as a pistol round, so a man could carry enough ammo to make its firepower comparable to that of a submachinegun.

The one problem Cavarra had with the Galil was that he wanted half his men to have grenade launchers. For a man with no stubborn ingenuity, that meant his grenadiers would have to hump M79s along with their normal weapons, or fire rifle grenades from the muzzles with blanks, reducing firepower and probably tweaking the barrels in the process. So Cavarra had ordered six 40mm M203 bloop guns, the welder and generator, in the hopes that his armorer could mate them to the Galil effectively.

Unfortunately, even though he'd specified that he wanted only the grenade launchers and handguards, he got them still attached to the M16s. This made extra work for Scarred Wolf.

Cavarra pointed to the fifty caliber Dover Devil machinegun Scarred Wolf was assembling. "Once you get that thing squared away, fire up the generator and put my bloopers together. The men will just have to sleep through it." He'd probably had less than four hours of sleep himself.

***

Siyr was still missing. Another patrol went out to look for him, even stopping to question villagers who didn't flee upon sighting the heavily-armed Americans. Nobody had noticed Siyr at all. Like he was some sort of phantom.

Cavarra took the next two men out with their Galils. He picked out a rifle for himself and zeroed along with them. They engaged the pop-up and moving targets, but didn't waste time launching varmint bullets at the 1,000 meter silhouettes.

The villagers quickly got used to seeing the Americans around town. After Cole had given out most of his rations to the kids, and Bojado had shown some of the skittish adults his crucifix, they seemed to accept that the Americans meant them no harm.

Two-by-two, Cavarra saw all his men qualified. Mai and Bojado didn't ace the pop-up targets as the snipers had, but they shot very well.

Not as well, however, as Scarred Wolf. Not only did every single shot he fired hit its mark, but he did it lying prone, sitting, squatting and standing offhand. His position didn't seem to matter--he could hit anything he could see. So far he was living up to the cool last name.

"You hunt a lot on the reservation?" Cavarra asked.

Scarred Wolf winked. "A little hunting; a little poaching."

"Yo' daddy teach ya?" He tried to imitate Cole's accent, but couldn't even come close.

Scarred Wolf shook his head. "Brother."

In between escorting pairs of shooters to the range, Cavarra delegated, inspected and supervised. Zeke took the initiative to set up the field stove and prepared a breakfast of T-rations. The smell of this...not the noise of the generator...awoke the men who'd worked all night putting the rifle range together.

As the men ate, Cavarra passed lurps out for everyone to stash in their buttpacks.

The "lurp" had been developed for members of Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs). Theoretically, after eating one, a man could hump through the bush for days on end without stopping for chow. It hit your stomach still dehydrated and gradually expanded as you drank water, keeping your stomach full. Cavarra had never known anyone who could eat an entire lurp at one sitting. And he'd known some big, hungry dudes in the Navy.

Cavarra had everyone's rifle zeroed ahead of schedule. Scarred Wolf had the six M203s remounted by 0845.

They still had time to dope in the machinegun and get some practice with the grenade launchers before moving out. Cavarra put Zeke in charge of a detail to accomplish that, told McCallum and Terrell to make sure the trucks were ready for the trip, and sat down to finish writing out his op-order.

Siyr's whereabouts were still unknown.

0907 15 AUG 2002; PORT SUDAN, SUDAN

(An-Naba, Sura 78:31-34)

As for the righteous, they shall surely see paradise.

Theirs shall be gardens and vineyards,

and full-bosomed virgins: a truly overflowing cup.

The drive south from the camp was silent, but for the Hillux truck's engine. Ali's orderly said very little to his passenger, Bassam Amin.

That was fine with Bassam. All he wanted to think about was losing his accursed virginity. Any discussion would be an irritating distraction.

Bassam ignored the miles of desert creeping by and watched, instead, the progression of vegetation along the coast. Suddenly, the city appeared over the top of a hill. It grew uglier, and smellier, as it drew closer.

The truck slowed approaching the city limits. Ironically, the trail became more rough as it gave way to paved road. Some of the potholes threatened to snap the Toyota's springs.

Pedestrians stared at the truck as it passed. Bassam stared back. Everyone he saw was as skinny as he. The stink from their hovels offended him. The squalor here was as pronounced as that in the refugee camp he grew up in, though the structures were intended to be more permanent.

The truck maneuvered through the narrow streets, mirrors scraping buildings on either side. It stopped in an alley behind a long, low block building with several loading docks.

A red light bulb glowed above one doorway set flush in the flat, barren wall. The number "1317" was painted above the bulb, but no words or names.

"You wait here while I go inside," the driver told Bassam. "I'll come back out to get you."

Bassam wanted to ask several questions about what was going to happen, but felt too embarrassed.

The driver jumped out of the truck and knocked on the door. After a long pause, the door swung open, framing the driver in a black rectangle.

Bassam faintly saw a face in the dark opening, and the driver's mouth moved. Bassam strained for a better look at the face inside, but the driver then blocked his view while entering. The door shut behind them and Bassam sat alone in the alley, staring at the door.

His heart raced as he imagined what was beyond the door in that wicked darkness.

After an hour, his heart resumed a normal cadence.

After another hour of sweating in the truck, uncomfortable with nothing to do, Bassam grew angry.

It wouldn't happen. Ali had changed his mind without telling him and this wasn't even the brothel; the whore wanted too much money; or it was all a cruel prank.

He waited and grew angrier. He rammed his fist into the dash repeatedly to see how deeply he could dent it with bare knuckles.

Being left alone to wait always angered him. His mother had done it to him hundreds of times. The Martyrs thousands. He was fed up with being left to wait in hot, uncomfortable places. He would almost prefer crawling through the swamp.

The door opened and the driver came out. His expression was blank but his posture seemed straighter. "Come on," he said.

Bassam threw the passenger door open and hit the ground racing toward the red light bulb.

The driver opened the door and pushed Bassam inside. "I'll pick you up tomorrow," he said, and the door shut behind him.

Bassam couldn't see much in the darkness, but he heard soft murmurs and whispers. Female whispers. He smelled many aromas. Strong. Sweet. Exotic. Alien. Female odors.

A voice called him by name, from close by. He blinked. Before him stood a figure of exquisite curves. He couldn't make out the face, yet, or the breasts, but it was unmistakably feminine. The figure reached out to him.

A cool, soft hand closed around one of his. Strange sensations shot up his arm. The hand was so unlike his own! Small, soft, fleshy. It tugged him forward.

He followed eagerly, through the frightening, wonderful place of murmurs, whispers and intoxicating scents. Soft music played somewhere. Sitars and flutes wove rich melodies to the hypnotic jangle of cymbals and tambourines.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness as he walked. Oil lamps cast pools of light onto walls and floors--windows through the darkness, through which he spied rugs, pillows, furniture, clothes, feet, legs...

Before him, the hand holding his tapered to a petite wrist, thickening into an even softer arm with dimples in the elbow and cushions of flesh jiggling slightly with movement. The arm blended into a small set of round shoulders below a shower of inky black hair. Bassam could make out voluptuous hips wagging as short, curvaceous legs with bare feet led the way.

Bassam's escort led him through a beaded curtain into a small room with incense burning.

She stopped and turned, letting go of his hand.

He saw her now in the golden glow of the room's oil lamp. She was about five feet tall, maybe a little more, clad in silk and satin. She was in her mid-forties...late-thirties at the youngest. She had a soft, oval face with pouting lips and dark eyes under long, thick, half-lowered lashes. Bassam admired her large, round breasts, wide, curving hips and sculpted legs. She wore many jewels and her eyelids were painted dark purple. Oh, how she thrilled him! A real woman.

"This is your first time, Bassam?" She asked, with a voice like velvet. Hearing her pronounce his name gave him chills all over.

He nodded. She smiled. It was a knowing smile. Then she touched him.

0948 15 AUG 2002; SOUTHERN CLAY PLAINS, SUDAN

Major Hasan saw the shape of Bor appear on the horizon, had his driver veer slightly eastward, then signaled his convoy to fan out. They spread from the road into the fire-ravaged sorghum fields and clay patches spotted with elephant grass.

Hasan had managed to muster some 120 of the troops under his command.

An attacker should outnumber the defender at least three-to-one, if the defender was dug in. These defenders weren't dug in, and Hasan always used overkill when he could. He felt good about the pending operation.

At first only about thirty men answered his alert, which was close to all he needed, technically. But as daylight broke, word spread rapidly among the villages in his jurisdiction. Many men recognized the historic potential of Hasan's battle to extinguish the Christian resistance, and wanted to be involved.