Текст книги "Revolution"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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That was the right answer, but the delay made Stoner wary.

Had it been just a human mistake, or a giveaway that something was wrong?

“I don’t speak French,” said Stoner in very slow Russian.

“Anglaise?” responded the man.

Was it a trick? The contact would surely expect him to speak English.

It had to be a trick.

“You don’t speak Russian?” said Stoner.

The man again asked, in English, whether they could use that language.

Stoner exhaled very slowly. He had to either trust the man—or shoot him. Doing nothing was more dangerous than either.

“I can speak English,” said Stoner.

The shadow took two steps forward. Though his voice was deep, he stood barely five feet tall, and had a scraggly beard that matched his thin body. He stopped abruptly, spotting the other two men a few yards behind Stoner.

“They’re with me.” Stoner gestured with his left hand. His right continued to hold the gun, his trigger finger still ready to plunge.

“This way, we go,” said the man, pointing to his right.

Stoner let him start. His stomach had tightened into a boulder. They walked eastward across the field, down to a narrow creek, then began following it northward. His escorts fell farther and farther behind; twice Stoner stopped for them.

“You trust him?” asked Deniz when he caught up the second time.

Of course not, thought Stoner. But he only shrugged.

After about a half hour of walking, the stream entered a REVOLUTION

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culvert under a paved road. The stream was wider here; and while it remained shallow, it was more than four feet across.

“Wait,” said the man who had met them. He put up his hand.

Stoner nodded. The man went up the embankment to the road.

“I don’t trust him,” said Deniz when he caught up again.

“What is he doing?”

Stoner shook his head. The elaborate precautions made sense—if a man was going to betray his comrades, he would have to expect himself to be betrayed.

“Maybe we should find some cover,” suggested Deniz. “To cover you.”

“Do it,” said Stoner.

He’d already spotted two good places on the right bank of the stream, both protected on three sides by large rocks or thick tree trunks. The Romanians saw them as well and moved toward them.

“Where are your friends?” the man asked when he returned. He looked around nervously.

“They’re here. Where is the man I’m to meet?”

“A house. Two hundred meters.” He pointed to the right.

“Lead the way.”

The man shook his head. “I’m not to go. Not your friends either. Only you.”

Stoner looked into his face. He had the face of a man who’d been beaten many times. He seemed more nervous than before.

“All right,” said Stoner. “Deniz, I’m going up the road.

Stay with our friend.”

“Yes,” Deniz called out from his hiding spot.

Stoner began walking. The setup seemed too elaborate for an ambush, but he couldn’t be sure. He tried focusing on his mission, tried pushing away the fear.

He dropped to his knee when he reached the road, scanning carefully. The house stood very close to the road, just 62

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beyond a curve ahead. It was tiny, barely bigger than a garden shed would be back in the States. The woods thickened to his right, but there was a hill on his left and a clear field. He went up the hill, approaching the house from the back.

The cold ate through his coat. He opened his mouth, flexing his jaw muscles. The tendons were so stiff they popped, as if he were cracking his knuckles.

A dim light shone through the two rear windows of the house. Stoner walked up slowly, moving his head back and forth as he tried to see through them.

Nothing.

He was almost to the back of the building when he heard a footstep on the gravel in front of him. Dropping to his knee, he waited.

“Who’s there?” said a woman’s voice.

“Champagne,” said Stoner, trying not to sound surprised that his contact was a woman.

“Vin blanc.”

“Take two steps forward.”

The woman did so, walking out from the path near the corner of the building. She had a submachine gun in her hands.

“Why are you armed?” Stoner asked. His own rifle was aimed at her chest.

“It is not safe here to be without a weapon. Not for me. Nor you,” she added.

“Put your gun down,” he told her.

“And you yours.”

“All right.” But he waited until she had placed hers on the ground and stood again.

“You are the American?” asked the woman. Her English was accented, but not as heavily as Deniz’s or the man who had led him here.

“Yes.”

“You’re more than an hour late.”

“It took a while to get across the border.”

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The woman’s answer was cut short by a scream and the sound of gunfire back near the road.

Stoner scooped up his rifle. The woman already had her gun and was running. He aimed at her, then realized she was running toward the field.

“This way!” she yelled. “Come on!”

Before he could answer, a hail of bullets rang out from the woods, whizzing over his head.

Dreamland

1434

ANNIE KLONDIKE BENT OVER ZEN AS HE FINISHED HIS

checks. He was sitting on a folding metal stool, which had been pressed into service as a kind of launching pad so he didn’t have to start by sitting on the ground. His wheelchair was unsuitable, and the standard suits were always used standing up.

“Now listen, Jeff, no kidding,” said Annie in her stern-est voice. “We’ve done a lot today. If you’re the least bit tired—”

“I’m fine,” he told her, pulling on his Whiplash smart helmet, equipped with full communications gear and a video display in the visor. He reached back near his ear to the small set of controls embedded in the base, activating the integral communications set.

Danny Freah was standing a few feet away, wearing his own exoskeleton test unit. The Exo3 was fully integrated with a battle suit; its bulletproof armor was twice as thick as the regular units used by the Whiplash troopers, enough to prevent penetration by 35mm cannon rounds, though a round that large was likely to cause considerable internal damage since the suit wasn’t big enough to diffuse all of the shell’s kinetic energy. Some facets of the suit had not yet been implemented; it would eventually be equipped with LED tech-

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nology to make its wearer invisible in the sky. But otherwise it was very similar to MESSKIT. Danny had taken it for over a dozen flights already.

“Helmet on,” he said.

Zen could tell he was getting a kick out of playing pilot.

“Hat’s on,” he replied.

“Go to ten percent,” Danny told him.

Zen looked down at his right hand, then pushed the button he was holding with his thumb. The microjet engines in the back of the MESSKIT powered to life. They were relatively quiet, making a sound similar to a vacuum cleaner at about fifty paces.

Zen slowly twisted the control, moving the engines carefully to five percent total output, then to seven, and finally to ten. As the number 10 flashed in his visor indicator, his wings tugged him gently off the stool.

“You’re looking good,” said Danny. “Let’s go to seventeen.”

As he said that, Danny pushed his throttle and held out his arms. He rose abruptly. Zen tried the same thing, but without Danny’s experience, he started moving backward rather than up. He pitched both hands down, as he’d practiced in the gym. This brought him forward abruptly, but he was able to back off into a hover without too much difficulty.

The designers had worked hard to make the unit and its controls as intuitive as possible, but the feel of flying still took some getting used to. Zen slipped his power up two degrees and found that pushing his head forward helped him stay in place as he rose.

His helmet’s visor projected an altitude reading in the lower right corner, showing that he was 4.112 meters off the ground.

“How’s it feel?” asked Danny.

“Like I’m on an amusement park ride.”

Danny laughed.

The sensation also reminded Zen of the zero gravity ex-

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ercises he’d gone through early in the Flighthawk program, when the developers were trying to get a handle on how difficult it would be for someone in a plane maneuvering at high speed to control the Flighthawks. He didn’t feel exactly weightless, but the exoskeleton relieved what would have felt like a great deal of pressure on his shoulder muscles. He thought about this as he and Danny rose to fifty and then a hundred feet, practicing emergency procedures. Zen had a small, BASE-style parachute on his chest, just in case; the chute was designed to deploy quickly at low altitude if anything went wrong.

Confident that he could handle an emergency, he started putting the MESSKIT through its paces, accelerating across the marked course, then gliding into a circular holding pattern.

“You’re getting pretty good with this,” said Danny as they completed a figure eight. “You sure you haven’t flown before?”

“Ha ha.”

“How are your arms?”

“They don’t feel bad at all.”

“The thing to worry about are cramps,” said Danny. “When we were first starting the experiments, Boston cramped up so badly we had to replace him in the program.”

Danny was referring to Sergeant Ben “Boston” Rockland, another member of the Whiplash special operations team.

Zen got plenty of upper body exercise, and felt confident that whatever strain the MESSKIT was putting on his shoulders was minimal. His real concern was what he would do if he had a bad itch.

“All right, let’s do a few sprints, then see how you are at landing,” said Danny.

“Last one to the flag is a rotten egg,” said Zen.

He leaned forward and twisted his throttle. The wind rushed passed his helmet—but so did Danny. Zen pitched his body down farther, then felt as if he was going to fall into a 66

DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

loop. He backed off, slowing immediately. He looked up, and saw that Danny had already crossed the finish line.

But Danny didn’t have any time to gloat.

“Captain, we have an automated alarm going off on Access Road 2,” said one of the security lieutenants, breaking into the frequency. “I have an aerial en route and hope to have a visual in thirty seconds. Maybe a car accident.”

An “aerial” was a small UAV, or unmanned aerial vehicle, used for surveillance.

“Go ahead and scramble the response team,” said Danny.

“They’re out at Test Area 12, covering a broken leg.”

“Call Team 2,” said Danny.

“They’re standing by for the fighter exercises. They’re already covering three ranges.”

Because of the distances involved, not to mention the danger inherent in the base’s experiments, Dreamland procedures called for a pararescue team to stand by near the range whenever live exercises were being held. The recent deployment and a ramp-up in Dreamland’s research activities had stretched the available personnel, and there were times, such as now, when only two full teams were immediately available.

“Stand by,” said Danny.

“Problem?” asked Zen, who’d heard the conversation over the radio.

“Maybe a car accident out on Road 2.”

“Why don’t we go check it out?” said Zen.

“Just what I was thinking. But—”

Zen knew what that but meant. He didn’t bother to answer, pushing his head forward and sliding the power reading to 15.

“Major, I really believe you should wait until you’re fully checked out,” said Annie from the ground.

“Thank you,” Zen replied, as if she’d paid him a compliment.

There were four access roads to Dreamland, but only Road 1, which ran from Nellis Air Base, was paved. The others were REVOLUTION

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hard-packed dirt, or as his wife Breanna liked to say, hard-packed holes with rocks scattered in between. But even though it was about as smooth as a battered washboard, Road 2 was often used by base personnel as a shortcut. Not only was it a few miles shorter than Road 1, but its horrible conditions restricted traffic to those in the know, lowering the wait at the security post where it entered the main road. That could save as much as an hour during the busy times of the day.

Road 2 came off the southeastern end of the base perimeter and ran due south for a mile and half before jogging lazily east. Zen started in that direction, then increased his speed as Danny shot ahead.

“Security Command, this is Freah. I’m on my way via Exo3.

Major Stockard is with me. Alert the perimeter system—I don’t feel like being shot down.”

Friend or foe identifiers in the gear would prevent the Razor antiair lasers from firing on them, but any uncleared flight over the perimeter fence would elicit an armed response from the robot Ospreys, which would force them to land or simply shoot them down.

The surveillance UAV zipped ahead from the west, dropping into a hover over the road three miles from the perimeter fence. The small aircraft—its rotors would have tucked neatly under the deck of a household lawn mower—was flying about twenty feet below Zen. It looked like a hive supported by a swarm of bees.

“Car is upside down,” reported the security supervisor.

“Roger that, I see it on my screen,” said Danny. “I have a smart helmet. Have the aerial back off.”

“McDaniels and Percival are en route from the guard station. They’re ten minutes away.”

“Roger that.”

A FORD EXPLORER LAY ON ITS ROOF ABOUT THIRTY YARDS

from the side of the road.

“Zen, check your fuel,” said Danny as they approached.

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“It says ten minutes, plus reserve.”

“When you hit reserve, go back.”

Of course Danny wanted him to go back, Zen thought—he couldn’t be useful on the ground. “We’ll take it as it comes,”

he replied. “I’m going to check the area and see if anyone was thrown out.”

“Roger that. Good idea.”

DANNY WAITED FOR THE UAV TO BACK OFF BEFORE TUCKing his arms into a U-shape and sliding his power down. He settled onto the dusty road about fifteen feet from the spot where the Explorer had gone off. The truck had traveled a good distance before stopping, and the marks in the desert made it look as if it had flipped at least twice.

Dropping to his knees, Danny unlatched the wing assembly to keep it from getting damaged. Then he hopped up and ran to the wreck.

The front of the SUV was crushed. He could smell gasoline as he got down on his hands and knees to peer inside.

The driver was suspended in her seat, wedged against the roof and wheel, a deflated air bag wrapped against her face and torso. He couldn’t tell if she was alive.

The driver’s side window had been smashed, but the metal was so mangled it was impossible to reach her. He went around to the other side. There was a bit more room there, but it was still a very tight squeeze just to get his hand in.

Danny smelled gasoline as he groped with his fingers, trying to reach her neck and get a pulse. He snaked his arm back out, then took off his helmet, hoping he could reach in farther without it. As he started to slide his hand inside the car, he saw the woman move her head.

Alive!

He grabbed his helmet.

“Security Command, this is Danny Freah. I have a very injured woman trapped in the vehicle. Send Team 2 immediately. Order the test ranges closed down.”

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“Roger that, Captain.”

“Give them a sitrep. Tell them to be ready with the Jaws of Life.”

“Yeah, roger, roger, Cap. I’m on it.”

The Jaws of Life was a special tool that worked like a hydraulic pry bar; in this case, it would be used to pull the squashed door away from the cab so the victim could be extricated. Danny took a step back from the wreck, frustrated that he had to wait, even for a few minutes, and worried that the gasoline he smelled meant there was a dangerous leak.

He could use the exoskeleton to help him open the door. He crouched back down by the vehicle, trying to find a grip.

“What’s going on?” asked Zen, who was hovering above.

“Trying to get her out,” grunted Danny.

His first try failed: The mechanical hand gripped the metal of the crushed door so hard that it gave way as he pulled it off.

“Need help?” asked Zen.

“If I can figure out how to open the car without breaking it into pieces, I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe I can hold one side,” suggested Zen.

“I’m afraid that we’ll end up jostling it too much,” said Danny. “Hang on.”

He pushed his left arm against the crushed top of the car, and then positioned his right against the door. The smell of gasoline was strong now. The car radio was on—he worried that the slightest spark would set off a fire or explosion.

“One, two, three, push,” he told himself aloud, flexing his arms. The sensors in the exoskeleton felt the resistance and ramped up the power to help. It was designed to supply a slow, gradual push—moving too fast under certain circumstances could pull his body apart.

The crushed car parts moved about eight inches apart before the carbon skeleton began to pull through the metal.

“I think I’m almost there,” Danny said, repositioning himself.

* * *

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DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND

WHAT ZEN THOUGHT WAS A BODY TURNED OUT TO BE A TIRE, which had left the SUV as it careened off the road. He turned to the north and did a slow circuit around the wreck, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. The bumper and part of the fender had fallen off, and there was glass back near the road.

A man’s jacket had tumbled out as well.

Hearing Danny talking to himself, Zen came back over the SUV.

“Danny, you need help down there?”

“Think I got it,” grunted the captain.

Zen saw the security team’s black SUV driving up the road in the distance, dust spewing behind it. A moment later he heard the heavy beat of an Osprey approaching. He backed off, watching cautiously as the aircraft landed on the other side of the road and disgorged its team of pararescuers. He’d never felt quite so intimidated by the aircraft’s huge rotors before.

BY THE TIME THE PJS REACHED THE TRUCK, DANNY FREAH

had pried the vehicle open enough to lean in and examine the driver. She was breathing, with an irregular though strong pulse.

While the PJs went to work stabilizing her body and removing her from the wreck, Danny walked to the back, trying to find the source of the gas leak. The roof of the car, now the closest part to the ground, was soaked with fuel.

He bent down, then heard a groan from inside.

He thought at first that it was the driver. But a second groan sounded more male than female. He stepped back, took out his small LED flashlight, then went back and peered inside.

He saw a leg on the back floor.

His stomach turned.

Then the leg moved and Danny jumped back. It took a second before he realized the leg hadn’t been amputated by the crash and that he was seeing someone trapped under the car, his leg sticking out through a rear sunroof.

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“We got another back there!” shouted one of the PJs.

“Yeah, I see him!” yelled Danny. “He’s trapped underneath. His leg is moving.”

Trying to clear his head from the gas fumes, Danny walked a few feet from the wreck. Watching the PJs set the driver out on a stretcher, he recognized her as one of the women who worked in the all-ranks cafeteria. He knew she had at least one kid at home.

“She’s pretty bad, Captain,” said the sergeant in charge of the rescue team, Gabe McManus. “We need to get her over to the med center stat.”

“Go,” said Danny.

“What about the other guy?”

“We’re going to have to lift the truck to get him. That’ll take a while,” said Danny. “We’ll need to hook the Osprey up. Let’s save her first.”

McManus nodded. The others had already immobilized the driver and lifted her gently onto a stretcher.

It would take at least ten minutes for another Osprey to arrive, and a good ten if not more after that to secure a chain and lift the truck safely. Twenty minutes wasn’t a lifetime—but it might be to the trapped man.

“Maybe we can jack the truck up with the gear in the Jimmy,” McManus said.

“Ground’s kind of loose,” said Danny. “I’d worry about it slipping.”

“Yeah,” agreed the sergeant. “But it might do that when we hook up the Osprey, too. Car looks like it’s kind of perched on some of the rocks there—slip a bit too much and he’s in even worse trouble.”

McManus dropped flat and peered underneath. “All we really need is about two feet,” he said. “We might be able to get a couple of guys on the side, lift gently—”

“I have a better idea,” said Danny.

* * *

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ZEN SAW DANNY STANDING NEXT TO THE TRUCK. HE LOOKED

like he was trying to gauge whether he could push it over.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“We have another guy underneath. I think I can use the arm to lift it.”

“You want help?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Zen came over slowly, his power at seven percent. “We can lift it straight up,” he said.

“We’re going to have to pull up together,” Danny told him.

“Just tell me what to do.”

Danny explained how to use the skeleton’s fingers as clamps, then coached him on slowly revving the power.

They’d have to work as a team, each clamped on one side of the vehicle.

The ease Zen had felt just a few moments before had evaporated. He jerked to the side, unable to get into the right position. His legs dangled uselessly below him. He forced his arms closer together, slipping back on the power. Sweat poured out of his body. It wasn’t the heat, though it was plenty hot. His nerves were melting.

It’s easy, he told himself. We’re going to save this guy, save his legs. Don’t let him end up like me.

His own feet were touching the ground. He edged closer to the SUV, trying to find a good place to grip.

“Got it, Zen?” asked Danny.

“Hold on. I’m still new at this.”

Zen hooked his arm under the chassis and found a solid hold for the body. The finger extensions on his arm seemed too weak to hold, and left part of his hand bare—he could feel the grease and grime from the chassis.

I hope I don’t crush my hand, he thought.

“Ready,” he told Danny.

“Ramp up slow, real slow. On three. One, two … ”

Zen twisted his wrist as gently as he could, as saw the REVOLUTION

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power move up to 15, then 20. The exoskeleton was straining, but the SUV didn’t budge. He twisted his hand on the throttle, fighting the urge to rev it as high as it could go.

“That’s it, keep steady!” said Danny. “Steady! Just hold it there. You OK, Zen?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

The PJs scrambled to brace the man and get him out. Zen could hear them talking through their radios. They were near the victim—he was conscious, answering them, complaining about his legs.

At least he felt pain. That was a good sign.

A tone sounded in Zen’s helmet. He was into his fuel reserves.

“Danny—”

“Yeah, I heard it. Let’s move it, you guys. McManus—you have two minutes.”

It took nearly three. Zen and Danny held the truck up together for another minute and a half; by then it was too late for Zen to fly back. Instead, he fluttered down to the ground, exhausted, landing ignobly in a heap. Before he could say anything, two of the PJs grabbed him and hustled him into the back of the security Jimmy.

“Way to go, Major,” said the man on his left as they slid him into the back.

“Yeah,” said Zen. “Thanks.”

The truck started to move. The passenger they’d pulled out was laying on a flat board across the folded-down seat, his ride cushioned by four large balloonlike buffers. The truck moved slowly down the road, avoiding the worst of the potholes.

“Major, am I going to be all right?” the passenger asked.

Zen glanced at the parajumper behind him. He was a certified combat medic, the closest thing to a doctor you could find on the front line, and more experienced in dealing with trauma injuries than many emergency room specialists. The 74

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PJ made a slight movement with his eyes, signaling to Zen that he didn’t know.

“Yeah, kid,” he said. “I think you’re going to be cool. I’m pretty sure you are.”

“Wow, that’s a relief,” said the young man.

Zen recognized him as a maintainer, one of the engine specialists responsible for the EB-52 power plants. A crew dog who’d worked on his aircraft many times, he was sure.

“I wasn’t wearing my seat belt,” he continued. “We went off the road—there was a jackrabbit or something weird. I bounced up and down and the top flew open. The next thing I knew, it felt like the whole world was sitting on top of me and I was being pulled apart. I am gonna make it, right?”

“You’ll make it,” said Zen.

“My legs are kinda numb.”

Zen glanced up at the PJ, who now had a pained expression on his face. He’d been prodding the young man’s foot with a pin, apparently getting no response.

“They gave you painkillers,” Zen said. “I’m surprised your head’s not numb.”

“As long as I can walk.”

“Just close your eyes and relax now,” said the pararescue man, resting his hand gently on the young man’s chest. “We’ll be at the med center in a few minutes.”

Northwestern Moldova,

near the Romanian border

23 January 1998

0134

STONER FOUGHT THE URGE TO RETURN FIRE, KNOWING IT

would just give away their position. He lay still, gun ready, waiting as the bullets continued to fly. The cold seeped up through his jacket into his chest; his pants grew damp with the chill.

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Finally, the rounds slacked off. Stoner waited, expecting more.

The ground smelled vaguely like cow dung. He funneled his breath through his mouth as slowly and silently as he could, worried that his breath might be visible in the moonlight. Finally, when he hadn’t heard any gunfire for a few minutes, he began edging to his right. He raised his head ever so slightly as he moved, trying to see down the hill.

There were two shadows near the road, but by the time he spotted them they were moving toward the cottage and he didn’t have a clear shot. He waited until their shapes had been consumed by the cottage then got up and ran down the hill toward the road.

Meanwhile, two flashlights played across the windows of the cottage. There was more gunfire, this time muted—a nervous gunman firing inside the house, Stoner thought.

The woman he’d come to meet was somewhere near the ridge, but he wasn’t sure where; he’d lost track of her when the shooting began. He felt certain she wasn’t in the building, but if she was, there was nothing he was going to do about it now. Stoner edged further down the hill, aiming to find a place where he could easily ambush the gunmen when they came out of the house. As he did, however, he sighted a shadow moving along the road. He held his breath as it disappeared in a clump of trees.

His night goggles were in his ruck, but he was afraid getting them out would be too noisy: the trees were less than twenty years away.

If there was just one man by the road, he would take him out as quietly as possible, then turn his attention back to the cottage. If there were more …

If there were more he would have to fight his way through them.

No. It would be better to simply leave.

He could do that, but it would mean giving up on his contact.

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Wasn’t she just a lure, though? Wasn’t this an elaborate ambush?

Stoner transferred the AK-47 to his left hand, then reached with his right to his knife scabbard. Killing a man with a knife was not an easy thing, a fact Stoner knew from unfortunate experience: Some years back, he’d failed in his one attempt to do so, sneaking up on a border guard between China and Vietnam. He’d put his knife on the man’s throat, but his pull hadn’t been deep enough; the man had managed to shout an alarm before a second slash of the knife, this one deeper, killed him.

Stoner worked his fingers around the knife’s hilt, trying to get the right grip. Only when he was sure he had it did he start working his way in the man’s direction.

The cigarette tip flared again, then faded. Twenty yards was a long way to cross without being seen or heard. Stealth and speed had to be balanced against each other. Stoner bent his legs slightly as he walked, lowering his center of gravity, hoping that the way the trees threw their shadows would keep him hidden. He got to within ten yards, then five, then three—less than the distance across a kitchen.

He slid the rifle down. All or nothing now.

Two yards. The man lowered his head, cupping his hands, lighting another cigarette.

He was alone.

Stoner sprang forward. He grabbed the man’s mouth with his left hand, while his right rode up and across the man’s neck—too high, but with enough force that the mistake could be overcome. He pushed his knee into the man’s back and rammed the knife hard across flesh that suddenly felt like jelly. Stoner pulled back with his left hand and plunged the knife across his neck a second time, the blade slicing through the windpipe and into the vertebrae. Stoner pushed his knee hard against the man’s back, felt no resistance; he stabbed one more time, then let his victim fall away.

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Even as the man hit the ground, Stoner reset his attention on the cottage, where the flashlights were now joined in an X

near the outside wall. He scooped up his rifle, then grabbed the dead man’s gun and began moving along the road.

If they saw a shadow coming from this direction, they would think it was their companion. The illusion would last only until they shouted to him. He wouldn’t be able to answer, except with his gun.

Stoner stopped and undid the top of his backpack. Taking out the night glasses he put them on. The building, the night, turned silvery green. The men had gone back inside.

Stoner began trotting along the road, trotting then running, adrenaline pumping. He turned up a dirt path that led to the cottage’s side door.

One of the flashlight beams appeared at the edge of the building. Stoner went down to his knee, ready to fire.

The beam grew longer, moving slowly back and forth across the yard.

Where was the other man? Or men?—He’d seen two flashlights, but there could always be another.

Stoner turned his head in the other direction quickly, making sure no one was coming across the front of the barn.

The man with the flashlight rounded the corner. He was dressed in fatigues, but Stoner couldn’t see any insignia or other sign that he was a soldier instead of a guerrilla. He had an AK-47 in his right hand, the flashlight in his left.

As the flashlight swung in his direction, Stoner fired a three-shot burst that took the man square in the chest.

The man’s companion began shouting from behind the cottage as his friend fell. Stoner raced up the hill, then threw himself down as bullets began flying from the corner of the building. Stoner fired back, then got up into a crouch to swing to his right and flank the gunman.