Текст книги "Razor's Edge"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

336

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

“Yours,” said Alou. “We have three AGMs left. Fentress, get Whiplash in as soon as the flak’s gone.”

Bullets spewed from the guns as Zen rocked northward. As the closest torrent began to separate into two distinct streams, Zen pressed the trigger on his own cannon. The Flighthawk spewed shells into the dirt and panic-stricken animals in front of the triple-A pit; he rode the torrent into a low wall in front of it and then through the sloped turret. The cloud of gunfire parted and then cleared; Zen turned to the east beyond the target, trying to sort out the battlefield before making another pass.

Flames spewed from the Hawk battery. Men were running from the barracks. Two of the flak guns were continuing to fire, one east, one west. The Hind was about ninety seconds away.

And the building with the laser?

It sat at the north end of the complex. The roof panels on the west side were folding downward. There was movement inside but Zen couldn’t tell what was going on.

“I think the laser’s getting ready to fire,” he warned.

“I’m going to grease it.”

“We’ll get a missile on it,” said Alou.

“No time,” he said, pushing over.

Aboard Whiplash Hind, over Iran 1750

DANNY WENT TO THE DOOR AS THE HIND GLIDED INTO A hover, preparing to launch its missiles. Black smoke curled on the other side of the complex, and he could see men running in different directions, some to take defensive positions, others to save themselves.

“Watch the Flighthawk!” he barked, but the warning was drowned out by a thundering succession of whoops RAZOR’S EDGE

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from the rocket launchers. The rockets left the wing pod with a furl of white smoke and a hard shake; Danny felt as if a giant had grabbed hold of the Hind’s wings and was systematically trying to empty its stores on the enemy. Zen said something about targeting the laser building, then warned about flak, but in the rush of noise and fire and smoke it was impossible to figure out what he was saying. Danny wanted only one thing—to get down on the ground and complete their mission.

“Let’s go, Egg, let’s go!” he yelled as the rockets stopped. The Hind whipped right, but then twisted backward, away from the target. “What the hell?” he asked Egg.

“Flighthawk is firing!” warned the pilot. “He wants us to stay back.”

“Get us into the complex now!” said Danny. “Just do it!”

“Yes, sir. Hold on.”

The helicopter lurched eastward. Danny saw the small robot plane pass almost in slow motion, smoke erupting from its mouth. Steam enveloped the side of the target building.

“Down! Down!” said Danny.

As if in response, the nose of the helicopter pitched hard toward the earth.

Northern Iran

1755

THEY WERE NEARLY TWO HUNDRED MILES FROM ANHIK, more than six or seven hours away by car, when the call came on his satellite phone. The connection was poor, but General Sattari understood immediately what had happened.

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“Repulse the attack at all costs,” he told Colonel Vali, though the command was completely unnecessary. “Reinforcements will be sent.”

The general told the driver to go up the road to a high point. When they reached it, he got out of the car with the telephone and walked off the road to a pile of rocks, more for privacy than to ensure good reception. The driver the black robes had supplied was undoubtedly a spy. The bastards hadn’t even let him fly back in the helicopter.

No wonder. Thoughts of treachery ran through his head. Khamenei had tipped off the Americans or the Chinese somehow—it wasn’t clear who exactly was attacking.

Sattari emptied his mind and calmly began dialing the squadron commanders he knew would be loyal to him.

Smoke rose between the distant hills.

His imagination? Surely he could not see the attack from here.

“Anhik is under attack,” Sattari said into his phone when the connection went through. “Send assistance.”

He repeated the words six times; each time the man on the other line said nothing more than “Yes” or “Right away.” As he clicked the End Transmit button after speaking to the last commander, Sattari turned toward Anhik, as if perhaps he might at least witness the battle there.

The smoke was gone.

His experts had told him the laser was undetectable.

Khamenei must have betrayed him somehow.

He remembered getting the news of his parents’ death.

The message read only, “Your parents have become mar-tyrs.”

Had he not expected his dream to end this way?

Sattari walked back to the Rover. “Anhik,” he said.

“Go.”

RAZOR’S EDGE

339

Aboard Raven , over Iran 1803

ZEN KEPT HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER, RIDING THE STREAM

of bullets through the laser director, across the building and into the flak dealer nearby. The gun rattled and burst like an overheating steam engine, but he was too busy to admire his handiwork. The last gun turned nearly straight up, unleashing its shells at point-blank range. The Flighthawk stuttered momentarily, then tipped right, one of its control surfaces nicked by a shell. The computer immediately compensated and the plane responded to Zen’s push on the throttle slider, galloping south.

He took a breath as he banked back to finish the job. As he looked to his left to try and locate the Hind, the antiaircraft battery began firing again, its shells arcing off to his left. Zen thought it must be trying to nail the chopper.

Anger welled inside him; driven by instinct and emotion, he rushed to protect his friends, pushing the throttle to the firewall and mashing his trigger even though he was out of range. The ground and smoke and dust parted, replaced by a red tunnel of flame; he pushed the cannon shells into the antiair gun like a knife into the heart of an enemy.

Clearing, he banked left and began to climb. As he rose, he saw Raven two miles away to the northwest. It was a shock to realize he was actually sitting back there in relative safety, not dodging through the bullets and fire at the battlefield.

Aboard Whiplash Hind, in Iran 1806

THE HELICOPTER’S FRONT END BUCKED BACK UPWARD AS

the tail spun hard left. Then the nose and one of the wings 340

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

crashed through a fence near the laser building. Danny heard Egg and Powder cursing but there was no time to sort out exactly what was going on. The helicopter bounced twice, the first time gently, the second time hard enough to shake Danny’s helmet back on his head. He heard a sound like a load of pebbles shooting down the ramp of a large dump truck. There was no time to figure out what it was—they were down.

“Out! Out!” Danny yelled, pushing toward the door.

Something hit his face; it was one of the Marines, losing his balance as he tried to get out. Danny pushed the man to his feet and managed to follow onto the ground, running for the gray aluminum wall of the laser building only five or six yards away. One of the Marines was a few feet ahead. The helicopter revved behind him. A shell or rocket landed well off to the right.

There were no defenders between them and the building. Total and complete surprise.

Hot shit.

Between the satellite pictures of the target and the visuals Zen had fed them, the team had an incredible amount of real-time intelligence. Still, no matter how well-prepared or rehearsed, there was always a moment of hesitation and doubt, a split second when the mind had to storm through the adrenaline and gun smoke to find its balance. Danny struggled through that moment now. His lungs coughed dust and burned dirt as he spotted the small trench they’d mapped near the rear wall of the building. It was their first rendezvous point, the spot they’d launch their final assault from.

The difference between a good commander and a great one wasn’t the amount of adrenaline coursing through his veins, but the ability to control it, to use it to sharpen his judgment rather than dull it. The process was uncon-

RAZOR’S EDGE

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scious; Danny was no more aware of it than he was aware of what his little toes were doing.

“All right, we’re good. Bison, open up the wall for us,” Danny said as he ran. “Like we planned. Everyone else, remember the dance card. Liu, you’re too far left.

Go! Go!”

Bison slid in next to the back of the building while Nurse and Hernandez took the left and right flanks, respectively. Bison put two small charges of plastique explosive on the metal then furled back to the ditch.

“Down!” Danny yelled to the Marines. “Go, Bison.”

“Three, two—” Bison pushed the detonator at two; as the shock of rocks and shrapnel passed overhead, he bolted forward to leap through the eight-by-ten-foot hole his charges had made in the wall. Floyd followed; they rolled through the jagged gap, MP-5s blazing. Danny and the Marines followed a few seconds behind, Gunny and the corporal watching the flanks as Danny moved inside.

Then everything slowed down.

The building was dark and quiet. Egg and Floyd were on Danny’s right and left, respectively, crouching as they scoped out the layout. Two thick tubes covered in white and looking like large pieces of a city sewer system ran the length of the hangar on the left. Black bands extended around several sections, and in three or four places thick hoses like lines from a massive dry vac hung down to the floor, where they met metal boots. The base of the mirror system stood about twenty feet away, surrounded by metal scaffolding and bracing pieces not unlike a child’s Erector set. Beyond it stood a collection of devices stacked on metal tables; from his angle in the unilluminated shed it looked like a collection of table saws and TVs.

“People at the far end,” hissed Egg over the com link.

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“Scientists or what?” asked Danny.

“Unknown.”

Probably just technical people or they’d be shooting, Danny reasoned. “How are we outside?”

“Activity at the barracks,” said Liu. “Powder’s got them pinned down.”

“All right. Marines up. They’ll cover us.” He waved the Marines in, directing them left and right, where they would take over from his men.

“Are you ready, Captain?” said a high-pitched, tinny voice in his headset.

“Thought you’d never get here, Doc,” Danny told Ray Rubeo.

“Remember, please, that I am not where you are.”

“Hard to forget.”

“Please scan the area with the hand camera,” Rubeo told him. “The images captured from your so-called smart helmet are practically worthless.”

“Just a minute.” Danny had unhooked the small rucksack from his back and opened it on the floor. He picked up the small camera—it shot high-resolution still pictures in rapid succession, transmitting them back to Dreamland—and plugged the thick wire connector into his helmet.

Then he held up the camera as he rose tentatively. Egg and Pretty Boy meanwhile had removed their torches and were making their way with the Marines toward the Erector set.

“Humph,” growled Rubeo.

“Well?”

“Please hold.”

“Hold?”

Rubeo spoke to someone in the background, then came back on the line. “The control area. Can you get some pictures of it? And then the accelerators—the double-tube arrangement seems unique.”

RAZOR’S EDGE

343

“I’m going to have to go forward,” said Danny, starting to do so.

“Don’t get shot,” said Dog.

“Agreed,” said Danny.

“There are people in there with you?” Dog asked.

“We believe there are, Colonel. But I haven’t seen them.”

“Two guys, far corner,” said Egg. “They’re squatting down like they’re hiding. Gunny’s got them covered. No weapons we can see.”

“Leave ’em for now,” said Danny. He had reached the scaffolding. He put one strap of the ruck over his shoulder and then began climbing gingerly. A pair of what looked like long, flexible drain pipes rose from a pair of cylindri-cal containers on his right. Three small control panels sat beyond them, a monitoring or control station of some sort.

“You want me to plug the sniffer into one of those pipes?” he asked Rubeo.

“Just feed us pictures for now, please,” said Rubeo.

“Pan as much of the facility as you can. We’ll tell you the next move when—Captain, please check the settings. You just changed the resolution.”

Danny reset the camera, trying not to let the scientist’s tone annoy him.

“Better?”

“Much. Your men are at the chemical bag, not the mirror. Tell them not to touch anything until we’ve finished photographing it. This isn’t a toy store.”

“No shit, Doc. You’re going to have to lighten up,” said Danny. “Bison, Pretty Boy, what’s going on?”

“Guy here,” said Bison. “Dead. Flighthawk must’ve nailed him on the way in. Two more bodies over there.”

“Come back and get ready to take out part of the mirror, okay? The ragheads aren’t going to leave us alone forever.”

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As if in answer, the ground shook with a heavy explosion.

“All right, Captain. Now, take your chemical sniffer and begin getting samples,” said Rubeo. “You’ll want to move to the tube monitoring station. The others can dis-mantle the mirror at the director assembly. We only need a cross section.”

“What’s the monitoring station?” Danny asked.

“The stations are directly ahead of you with the control panels. Slit open one of the collector tubes and run the sampler.”

“Which one?”

“Any one. This is very much a work in progress. We’ll look for the disk arrays while you’re doing that. Those will be our next target.”

The ground rumbled again. Danny had to climb up and over one of the equipment benches. As he did, Rubeo told him to stop and take more pictures. Balancing on a long steel pipe, Danny curled one arm around a flexible tube that ran to the ceiling as he panned with the camera. The tube bounced violently as a pair of fresh explosions shook the ground outside.

“Hey, listen, Doc, things are getting exciting here. You better move us along the priority list.”

Rubeo sighed. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. Do we have the mirror section from the director yet?”

“This fucker is bolted in about twenty places,” said Bison. “It’s huge.”

“We need only a cross section,” replied Rubeo. “Two people should be able to carry a piece away from the building.”

“You think it’s so fucking easy, you do it,” replied Bison.

“Relax, Sergeant,” sighed the scientist. “We’re all in this together.”

“Yeah, well, some of us are more in it than others.”

“What’s going on outside, Nurse?” Danny asked Liu.

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“Two BMPs came up. Flighthawk just popped ’em.”

“I see some vehicles starting south now,” said Fernan-dez. “Uh, tank I think.”

“Captain?” said Rubeo. “Are you still with us?”

“I’m going to take my samples, then we’re blowing the whole thing up.”

“It would be useful if you could remove the small computer units at the base of the platform first,” said Rubeo. “That Sun workstation especially. There is a disk array near it. Take that as well. The units will slide out.”

“If we have time,” said Danny.

One of the Marines shouted. Danny threw himself down as a flare shot to the top of the building and the interior lit.

“There’s a tunnel,” said Bison. “A dozen ragheads!

More!”

After that all Danny could hear was machine-gun fire.

POWDER BLASTED AWAY IN THE HIND, SPITTING 12.7 BULlets everywhere but at the truck he was aiming at. Part of the problem was Egg, who kept flinging the helicopter left and right.

“We’ll be an easy target. Get the pickup in front and the rest will be trapped.”

“Well, I would if you’d hold steady for a second. This isn’t the easiest gun in the world to aim.”

“It’s a fucking Ma Deuce.”

“It’s a Russian Ma Deuce. Big difference,” said Powder, once again pressing the trigger and once again missing.

“Tanks,” said Egg.

The helicopter bolted forward. Powder put his other hand on the gun handle, still pressing the trigger. The stream of bullets swam over and past the pickup, through 346

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

the animal pen where the flak dealers had been, and toward the barbed-wire fences on the south perimeter. A pair of medium tanks—possibly T-54s or even American M48s—were rumbling along the roadway parallel to the fences.

“You’re wasting ammo and you’re going to burn out the barrel,” said Egg.

“Yeah, no shit,” said Powder, though he kept firing.

“Stand back and let the Flighthawk hit them.”

“You’re the one flying the damn thing.” Powder finally let up on the trigger.

The helicopter continued moving forward. Powder could see one or two people on the ground but they were moving too quickly for him to aim. As they banked and came north, the small robot plane swooped nearly straight down on the lead tank. The U/MF’s mouth frothed and the aircraft seemed to stutter in the air, skipping along and disappearing in the billowing cloud. The tank kept going.

“Shit,” said Powder. “He hit the motherfucker too.”

The U/MF’s cannon fired shells nearly twice as large as the ones in the Hind’s mouth, but Powder unleashed his weapon anyway. He got about six or seven into the vehicle with no apparent effect before the gun clicked empty.

“We’re empty,” he told Egg.

“I told you not to waste your fuckin’ bullets.”

“Maybe we should ram it.”

“Just hang on,” said Egg, throwing open the throttle.

Aboard Raven , over Iran 1820

“YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO HIT THE TANK WITH ONE OF

the JSOWs,” Zen told Alou. “My bullets bounced off the turret.”

RAZOR’S EDGE

347

“We’re down to three missiles, Zen. We have to make sure we can take out the laser.”

“If we don’t stop the tanks, they’ll reach Whiplash.

They’re firing.”

Zen poked the nose of the Flighthawk around as the tank recoiled from its shot. The shell from the 105mm gun, which had been retrofitted to the upgraded M48, sailed well over the laser building. As the gun started to lower for another shot, Zen dropped Hawk One down for a low-level run, hoping his bullets might find a soft spot at the tank’s rear. He gave his trigger two quick squeezes and broke right as the tank fired again. Recovering, he spotted a small cement structure that looked like a tunnel entrance at the edge of the barbed wire. Ducking around to get a better view, he saw several troops running toward it.

“Targeting lead tank,” said Alou.

“Hold on, hold on,” said Zen. “We got some sort of underground entrance, bunker or something. May lead to the laser. Men inside,” he said, unleashing thirty or forty rounds before swooping away. He could see another knot of men coming from the shadow of one of the buildings.

He tucked his wing and dove back immediately, but they’d made the tunnel before he could get a shot.

“All right, stand clear,” said Alou.

Two JSOWs popped out from the Megafortress’s belly and nosed toward the tank and the tunnel entrance. Their rear steering fins made minor mid-course corrections about a third of the way home; two seconds later their warheads detonated precisely on their targets, stopping the Iranian counterattack cold.

“Whiplash, we have one lollipop left,” Alou said over the shared circuit. “Time to saddle up.”

348

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

In Iran

1830

WHEN THE MISSILE HIT THE ENTRANCE TO THE TUNNEL, THE

concussion blew into the building with enough force to knock over a good part of the laser gear, including the director assembly. But it also killed or dazed most of the Iranians near the entrance, who, unlike Whiplash, hadn’t been forewarned. The Marines took care of the rest, spraying their SAWs from a platform on the left side of the building. The metal walls reverberated with the loud rattle of light machine guns, the roar several times louder than a case of firecrackers going off in a garbage can.

The acrid smell of the flare, still burning on the ground, stung Danny’s nostrils as he made his way down from the platform toward Bison and Pretty Boy, who were wedged down behind some equipment on the right side of the building.

“Two more guys, back behind that row of cabinets,”

said Bison, pointing.

“Flash-bang,” said Danny. “You go left, I’ll go right.”

Bison ducked and began moving. Danny took one of the grenades in his hand, tucking his thumb beneath the tape he’d safed the pin with. As he got ready to toss it, Bison shouted a warning and began firing. Danny pitched the grenade over the barrier, then dove to the floor. The loud pop was almost lost in the roar of gunfire. Crawling, Danny managed to reach the end of the row, then hesitated, not sure exactly where Bison was and not wanting to get caught by his cross fire.

“Bison, where are you?”

“Pinned down,” said the sergeant.

“Stay there,” said Danny. He pitched another grenade over the top of the cabinet and threw himself around the RAZOR’S EDGE

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corner a millisecond after it popped. There were bodies everywhere, at least a dozen of them. Two Iranians with heavy weapons were crouched at the far end of the row; Danny’s bullets caught them chest high as they began to turn toward him. He ran through his clip, then jerked back behind the row of metal as someone behind them popped up and returned fire.

“There’s a million of these fuckers,” said Bison.

“Just seems that way,” shouted Gunny, who’d come down and around to cover them. “Advance. I got your ass.”

Danny rammed home a new clip. When the Iranians’

bullets stopped hitting the wall near his head, he threw himself around the barrier again, once more emptying his weapon before ducking back. But this time as he reloaded there was no answering fire.

“Secure,” said Bison.

“Let’s grab that shit and get the hell out of here,” said Danny, scanning the pile of dead before retreating.

The smoke was so thick in the building that even with his low-light mode on he could see only a few yards ahead. When the Marine corporal rose in front of him, Danny cringed for a second, not sure who it was. Then he recognized him.

“This comes with us,” he told the Marine, pointing to the disk array. A stack of drives sat on top of each other in a plastic cabinet about five feet high. “Grab whatever you can. Just tear it out and get it into the helo. Go.”

The Marine began prying out the disk units with his knife, sliding them out past the flimsy locks that secured them. Danny climbed back onto the platform and retrieved his gas analyzer. He took out his knife and cut open a hole in one of the plastic tubes.

“Put the sensor right on the interior of the tube,” said Rubeo in his headset.

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“Hey, Doc, I thought you’d gone for coffee.”

“Hardly. This is probably an exhaust manifold, Captain.

Not optimum. Move to the last pipe in the second row.”

“We’re tight on time.”

“I understand that.”

Danny walked to the edge of the platform. His knife made it through the inside layer of plastic, but there was another plastic pipe inside that the point could reach but not quite cut.

“Shit,” he said.

“Very good,” said Rubeo. “Open the pipe.”

“How?”

Rubeo didn’t answer. Danny took his pistol and fired through.

“That was expedient,” said the scientist. “Please take your sample now.”

Danny pushed the modified sniffer probe into the hole.

As he stood there he could see the Marine corporal running toward the hole in the wall with an armload of gear.

“Enough,” said Rubeo. “Now we would like a measure on the reaction chambers, the large tube structures directly behind you. Do not fire at those,” added the scientist. “While puncturing the inner piping is unlikely, if you did succeed, the concentration of chemicals could be quite sufficient to kill you and the rest of your team.”

Danny took the ruler from his pocket—a laser unit not unlike those used on some construction sites. He made his way to the end of the tube and shot the beam down to the other end, then struggled to get a good read as the numbers kept jumping on the screen.

“Close enough,” said Rubeo. The handheld ruler didn’t have a transmit mode, but Danny realized that Rubeo had read it through his helmet inputs. “Now, one of those junction boxes would be very useful. Do you see it beneath the third band?”

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“Why don’t I just take the whole damn chamber?”

“That would be infinitely preferable,” said Rubeo. “An admirable solution.”

Danny had to pick his way over two piles of debris to get to the box; as he climbed off the second he realized there was a boot sticking out. He bent down and saw that the pant leg above the boot was tan.

The boot moved slightly. He heard, or thought he heard, a groan from the pile.

Not one of my guys, he thought. Still, he found himself fighting an urge to stop and help the man.

“Do not damage the circuitry if possible,” said Rubeo as Danny pried the cover of the box off with his knife. The last two screws shot away and the metal cover fell away.

“Looks like a bunch of wires.”

“Yes,” said the scientist.

“You sure you want them?”

“Do you want me to explain how the probable current can be determined from the size and composition of the wires, and what other suppositions could be made—or should I skip to the math involved in determining the propagation of electromagnetic waves?”

“Fuck you, Doc,” said Danny, hacking at the thick set of wires.

Dreamland Command Center

0742

“MUCH MORE PRIMITIVE THAN RAZOR,” SAID RUBEO, TURNing away from the console.

“In the matter of size, yes,” said Matterhorn, one of the laser experts.

“In everything.”

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“I disagree,” answered Matterhorn. “The size of the mirror array and the lack of mobility in the aiming structure indicates to me that they’ve found a way to target it by focusing individual frames at the reflective site.

They’ve obviously gone operational too soon, but that undoubtedly was a political decision.”

“Piffle,” said Rubeo. “Razor is several times more powerful.”

Dog took a step away from them, turning his attention back to the image from Dreamland’s miniature KH satellite. The high-resolution optics on the satellite could not be sent as video, but in rapid burst mode it updated every twenty seconds. The effect was something like watching dancers move across a strobe-lit stage.

Except, of course, the dancers were his people under fire.

“The mission has been invaluable,” Matterhorn said, probably sensing Dog’s annoyance.

The colonel ignored the scientist. More vehicles were starting from the barracks area. “Danny. Let’s get the hell out of there, okay?” he said, pushing the talk button on his remote.

“I’m with you, Colonel.”

Aboard Quicksilver , over Iraq 1843

TORBIN FELT HIMSELF STARTING TO RELAX AS THE LAST OF

the attack jets checked in, hooking onto the course for home. His fingers hurt and his neck was stiff.

“Crew sound off,” said Captain Breanna Stockard.

“Torbin, how are we looking?”

“Good,” he said. “Thanks for picking me up back there. I appreciate it.”

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“Not a problem. Chris?”

Torbin tried to stretch away some of his cramps as the others joked. Had he screwed up? Normally the copilot handled the missile shots, but he should have taken the radars down himself.

Nobody else thought he’d messed up, though.

Ironic—on the other missions, he’d been the one convinced he hadn’t failed, and everyone else pointed the finger. Now it was the other way around.

So was he a screw-up?

The computer snapped a warning tone at him.

“Radars, airborne,” he relayed to the captain. “Three, four—helicopters coming north.”

“They’re not ours?” asked Breanna.

“Negative, negative. ID’d as Mi-8 Hips,” he said, reading the legend on the panel. “Assault ships. I have a bearing.”

“Hang tight everyone,” said Breanna. “Torbin, give the heading to Eagle Flight. Chris will punch you through.”

“They’re on a direct line for High Top,” said Chris Ferris.

“The fighters will take care of them,” replied Breanna.

In Iran

1855

THE HIND BUCKED AS THEY THREW THE CAPTURED GEAR

inside. The rotors revolved at low RPM, their wash making it difficult to move in a straight line. The part of the mirror assembly they’d cut away proved so heavy that the two Marines had to help Egg and Pretty Boy get it out of the building; even then they dragged it most of the way.

“Something moving beyond the fence,” warned Liu.

“Can’t see through the smoke.”

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“Okay,” said Danny. “Liu, Hernandez, fall back. We’re buggin’ out.”

“Two more of those disk things inside,” yelled the Marine corporal.

“All right,” said Danny. “I’ll get the last array and then we’re gone.”

He tossed his plundered CPU unit inside the Hind, then ran back to the building, heading toward the arrays. Light filtered through the smoke; a fire flared in fits near the tunnel entrance at the other side of the building. Danny moved through the red and gray shadows like a goblin slithering through a haunted house. As he jumped up onto the raised metal platform of the control area his knee gave way; as he sprawled off the side he managed to snag his arm on a metal railing, but then lost it. He fell face first to the ground without getting his hands out to break his fall.

He cringed, expecting to hit hard and on his face; instead his chest and face landed on a large, soft pillow.

Not a pillow, but the stomach of a dead Iranian soldier.

Danny turned his head to the side, his helmet’s visor magnifying the dead man’s green eyes. Wide open in the dim light, they stared at him as if to ask why he had come.

Danny pushed himself upward, ignoring his throbbing knee. The disk array sat on the floor a few yards ahead.

He moved toward it, meanwhile scanning the interior.

Two large suitcaselike arrays sat next to a small screen; he slung his gun over his shoulder and hoisted them from the floor. They were lighter than he thought but hard to hold in his hands as he began picking his way back outside.

He’d gotten about a third of the way when a fresh explosion rocked the building. He stopped, regaining his balance, then began again. He could hear the helicopter revving outside, felt his own adrenaline surging.

This is why I’m here, he thought. How could he tell RAZOR’S EDGE

355

Jemma that? How could he explain it to her friends or politicos, to anyone who wasn’t right in the middle of things?

It was more than the rush. Part of it had to do with pa-triotism, or fulfilling your duty, or something difficult to put exactly into words, even to your wife. Danny pushed forward, sliding against a piece of mangled machinery, ducking to his right. An automatic weapon popped outside.

A hand grabbed him from the side, a hard clamp that whipped him around and threw him down. An AK-47 appeared over him as he fell, the gun barrel flaring.