Текст книги "Whiplash"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

24

Blemmyes Village, Sudan

COLONEL ZSAR TYPICALLY POSTED A SINGLE GUARD ON the road at the edge of town. The man tended to fall asleep around midnight, but Nuri wasn’t counting on that. He drove with his light off—he could see farther with his night visor anyway. When he was about three miles from the village, he throttled back to lessen the bike’s noise.

Just over a half mile away he turned off the road, traveling due south across a fallow field until he came to an old path that wound up the nearby hill. Once used by shepherds for a pasture, the hill was now overgrown by trees eight to nine feet tall. He found a relatively clear spot just on the other side of the crest. There, he and Hera inflated the surveillance blimp, then slowly eased it skyward between the tree branches. Launching it was a calculated risk, but Nuri reasoned that no one would know precisely what it was if it came down for some reason.

With the blimp on station and its video cameras working, Nuri went back down to the field, driving across to a lane used by farm vehicles. A wall of rocks rose on each side of the lane as he drove toward the village, but they were more of an opportunity than a barrier—he planned to hide the bike behind them as he and Hera toured the village buildings.

The milk factory was his next stop. He drove until they were roughly parallel to it, then shut off the engine and coasted.

“All off,” he said as the bike’s momentum finally faded.

Hera said nothing. She’d resolved to say as little as possible the entire night. Clearly, the Whiplash assignment wasn’t going to be big enough for both she and Nuri to work together; she’d work out some sort of transfer as soon as this operation was over.

“We’ll go up this way,” Nuri told her. “There’s a night watchman who patrols at the front of the barn. We’ll go around the back.”

He put his hand on the wall and jumped over, trotting toward a cluster of small houses scattered like fallen grapes between the lane and the road. The sides of the houses were lined with steel panels cut from a dismantled building, pieces of painted Styrofoam, and cut-up shipping crates.

Nuri slid down next to the house closest to the road. According to the Voice, which was monitoring the view from the blimp, there was no one in the front yard of the barn building.

He got up and started moving along the road. His first impulse was to go slowly, to seem natural in case anyone in the houses decided to look out. But his adrenaline got the better of him, and within a few steps he began to trot, and then run.

His speed surprised Hera, who had trouble keeping up. “You’re quick for a runt,” she panted, plopping down next to him at the side of the building.

“Who you calling a runt? You’re a couple of inches shorter than I am.”

She was too out of breath to answer.

Nuri tried pushing the window open but it wouldn’t budge. “I need the tools,” he whispered. “The glass cutter.”

Hera turned around so he could open the rucksack on her back.

He took out the glass cutter and a small suction cup with a handle. After attaching the cup to the window, he got ready to cut a fist-sized hole around it.

“Aren’t you going to check for an alarm before you cut?” she asked.

“They barely have electricity, for crap sake. There’s not going to be an alarm. I’ve been in more buildings here than you have pocketbooks, and I’ve never seen an alarm.”

“How many have guards?”

She was right, and Nuri knew it. He was in too much of a hurry, getting sloppy.

Even though there never were alarm systems in this part of Africa.

Except here: The detector found current near the sill; there was a simple contact system protecting the window.

He cursed under his breath.

“You’re welcome,” said Hera.

“It was a good call,” he admitted.

He’d have no trouble jumping and bypassing the wire, which was part of a simple contact system. But the fact that there was an alarm told him they weren’t just breaking into a barn.

Which was good, and bad—there were bound to be other alarms.

“I’d look for a motion detector in the room somewhere,” suggested Hera.

“Ya think?”

Hera strained not to answer back.

“There it is,” said Nuri, spotting the detector in the corner of the room.

It was about forty feet away, high in the corner, and angled slightly to the side. It might miss the window and much of the nearby wall, but there would be no getting past it to the door. While there were several ways to defeat such a sensor, the position would make it time consuming to do so.

“Let’s look for a better way in,” he told Hera.

25

Murim Wap, Sudan

DANNY’S BUTTERFLIES MORPHED INTO BEASTS, ROILING HIS stomach. Everyone around him tensed.

“Just so you know, Colonel, the man behind me has his rifle pointed at you,” he said. “If I go down, you go down.”

The Voice had been preparing Arabic translations of his English for him to use. He did so now, repeating the words so there would be no mistake.

“If you fire,” said Colonel Zsar, “you’ll never get out of here alive.”

“There are enough explosives in the trucks to take care of all of us,” answered Danny. “So let’s all of us calm down. What deal is it you want?”

Tarid was angry with Colonel Zsar, who was being reckless. He suspected that he was trying to impress Uncle Dpap, who had said almost nothing the entire night.

Or maybe the girl, whom he kept stealing glances at.

“Give us a price for five hundred guns, and a hundred thousand rounds of ammunition,” said Colonel Zsar. “And we will discuss it.”

“Fine.”

Danny told them they could have everything for sixty thousand, American.

“Half when you place the order. Another quarter paid the day before the exchange. And the rest at the exchange. It will be cash, placed where we say.”

“We prefer to deal in euros,” said Tarid.

“Euros are fine.”

“Vehicles are within three miles,” warned the Voice. “They will be within audible distance in thirty seconds.”

Danny put his hand to his ear. The others thought he was talking to one of his men.

“ID?” he asked.

“The guerrilla faction aligned with Red Henri.”

“I thought you told me Red Henri wasn’t invited to the party,” Danny said to the others.

“He’s not,” said Colonel Zsar.

“My lookout says he’s about three miles away.”

“What?” said Uncle Dpap.

“Impossible,” said Colonel Zsar.

“Listen,” said Tarid.

They could hear the trucks in the distance.

“Get behind the vehicles!” yelled Uncle Dpap. “Prepare your weapons!”

“It’s time for you to leave, Mr. Kirk,” said Colonel Zsar. “We will contact you later.”

“What’s happening, boss?” asked Boston over the radio.

Danny ignored him. “I have no argument with Red Henri,” he told the rebels. “I’ll wait and see what he wants.”

“Not having an argument with you won’t keep him from shooting you,” said Tilia. “You had better leave, or take cover.”

“Get behind the trucks with the others,” Danny told his men over the radio. “Drivers, be ready to leave. Flash, you’re with me.”

Danny ran toward the vehicle where Tarid was crouched. But the rebel soldiers had swarmed around the Iranian and Colonel Zsar and he couldn’t get close without making it obvious he was trying to squeeze next to him.

As Danny ducked down, Red Henri’s ambulance siren began to wail, morphing through its different variations. The trucks carrying his troops spread out across the plain. A half-dozen flares shot into the air, shading the night red, as if it were an extension of Red Henri himself. The trucks veered around, turning in small circles about four hundred yards from Uncle Dpap’s and Colonel Zsar’s positions. Though they were well within range, no one on either side fired.

Red Henri, sitting in the back of his Hummer, took the microphone from his PA system.

“What happens when supposed allies are meeting behind my back?” he said. “So now I have three enemies—the government, Colonel Zsar, and Uncle Dpap. This is very disappointing. Especially from you, Uncle Dpap. Colonel Zsar believes he is holy, so we know not to fully trust him. We know this. But you, Uncle, are looked up to. I look up to you. And here—a stab in the back.”

The Voice translated everything for Danny, with only a slight delay.

“Estimate Red Henri’s force,” Danny asked the computer.

“Ninety-eight soldiers in twenty-three vehicles. Six heavy machine guns. Two RPG-7 launchers. Sixty-eight AK-47 rifles of varying types. Six M-16s. One M-14. Additional weapons possible but not observed.”

Colonel Zsar had fourteen men with him, plus Tarid; Uncle Dpap had twenty. They had nothing heavier than rifles.

Every muscle in Danny’s body began to contract, tightening themselves around his nerves and squeezing hard.

He could get away by ordering the Catbirds to dive-bomb Red Henri’s force. He’d plunge through the bodyguards, swat Tarid, and run off in the confusion. But his legs were stiff and heavy, and he felt as if he couldn’t move.

Red Henri was genuinely upset, hurt by what he interpreted as a stab in the back.

“Uncle Dpap, are you so ashamed that you can’t even speak?” he shouted.

“This man claims to have weapons for sale at a very good price,” said Uncle Dpap. “We decided to check it out.”

“Without me?”

“We didn’t want to waste your time if he proved phony,” said Uncle Dpap soothingly. “You are a very busy man.”

“We are on the same side,” shouted Colonel Zsar. “We should be fighting the government, not each other.”

“I am not fighting you,” answered Red Henri. “Why are you planning to fight me?”

Danny pushed out of his crouch. “I was hoping to meet with you personally,” he shouted. His throat was so dry his voice cracked. “I did not want to insult you by having you share your time with the others.”

Though he modeled himself after American rap stars, among others, Red Henri’s command of English was not very good, and he didn’t immediately respond.

“Translate,” Danny told the Voice. He repeated the Arabic it fed him. “You represent a large order,” Danny added, first in English, then in Arabic. “And you will need special weapons, and personal care. You’re a VIP.”

Red Henri’s ego was mollified, even though he didn’t believe him.

“That’s as it should be,” said the rebel. “But now that I am here, what sort of deal can you arrange?”

“We should talk close together,” said Danny. “I can’t keep shouting.”

“Come here, then.”

Danny had backed himself into a corner. His whole reason for coming was to tag Tarid. But there were too many people between him and the Iranian, and going over to talk to Red Henri meant moving even farther away. Yet if he didn’t go, the others would think he was a coward and never deal with him again. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except that he needed to tag Tarid.

“Why don’t we meet halfway, with Colonel Zsar and Uncle Dpap, and their advisors,” suggested Danny. “There should be no secrets between you three. You are all allies.”

“You will come to me first and talk,” said Red Henri. “You will show the respect these others have not.”

“All right.”

Danny took a breath and started toward the rebel. The monsters in his stomach and chest had shrunk back to butterflies. Any second, he told himself, and they, too, would disappear.

“Aircraft approaching,” warned the Voice.

“What aircraft?” said Danny.

“Six helicopters. Two Aerospatiziale Gazelles, equipped with rockets. Four Mil Mi-8MTV Hip-H troop carriers. Aircraft have been supplied by the Egyptian army to Sudan for use in this theater.”

“ETA?”

“Two minutes at present speed.”

“Why are you standing there?” demanded Red Henri. “What are you doing?”

Danny put his hand to his ear, making a show of it.

“The Sudanese army is sending helicopters to attack us,” he said loudly. He turned around. “They’re two minutes away!”

“This is a trap!” yelled Red Henri. “I’ll kill you all before I kill them.”

He threw the microphone aside and underlined his thoughts by picking up his rifle and firing through the window.

26

Blemmyes Village, Sudan

NURI WALKED AROUND THE BACK OF THE BARN. THERE WERE several windows, but all opened into small rooms protected by motion detectors.

The motion detectors worked by sensing infrared energy in front of them. He had a can of compressed air he could use to temporarily freeze the sensors, but to use it he’d have to get relatively close and move very slowly. And only one of the rooms looked vulnerable.

“What we want to do,” said Hera as he stared through the window, “is go through the wall.”

“We can open the windows,” said Nuri, confused by what she was saying, “but once we’re in the room, getting close to the sensor is tough. I need a much longer pipe, and we have to cool it down. It may be better to just bag it tonight and come back.”

“We go through the wall where the detector is,” she told him. “We stay behind it.”

“How?”

“The detector in that room is in the corner,” she said, pointing to the window at the extreme right of the building. “We get past that, and we’re in.”

“Assuming there’s no detectors on the other side.”

“Why would they bother putting one inside if they have the perimeter guarded?” said Hera.

“All right. But how do we get through the wall?”

“They’re just metal panels. Screwed in. Look.”

Hera leaned against the side and put her thumb into one of the small boltlike sheet metal screws that secured the panel to its post. The screw, barely three-eighths of an inch long, popped out within a few turns.

“It’s junk. Some idiot tried to sell my dad a building like this when I was a kid. He laughed.”

They got out their screwdrivers and went to work. The panel was roughly three feet wide by ten feet long; the last six screws were too high for either of them to reach. They tried pulling the panel up as if it were a hinge. But the metal was too stiff to bend without a great deal of pressure, and Nuri realized that if he bent it, he was unlikely to get it back properly; the penetration would be noticed.

“I’ll have to boost you up,” said Nuri reluctantly. “Put your foot in my hands.”

“That won’t work. You’re too short.”

“You’re not exactly the Jolly Green Giant.”

“I’ll have to climb on your back.”

Nuri couldn’t think of an alternative. He leaned toward the building, bracing himself. “Take off your shoes,” he told her as she lifted her foot. “I don’t want them in my back.”

“Oh, don’t be a baby.”

She planted her boot on the small of his back and lifted herself up. He was a wobbly ladder.

“Hold still, damn it. I can’t get the screwdriver in.”

Even standing on Nuri’s shoulders, Hera could barely reach the last two screws. She raised herself as high as she could on her tiptoes, leaning awkwardly and holding onto the edge of the panel as she undid the screw. The panel slipped when she took out the next to last one and she started to lose her balance. She grabbed the panel, trying to hold on. The small screw gave way and she tumbled down, smacking Nuri in the head with the metal as she fell. He grabbed it, keeping it from crashing, but then spun and fell. Both of them tumbled to the ground in a pile, momentarily dazed.

“Ssssssh!” hissed Hera.

Nuri cursed angrily, but softly. He got up and examined his arm—bruised but not hurt too badly.

The room was to the left, separated from the panel they had removed by an interior wall, whose stud they had revealed by pulling away the metal. A hallway sat in front of them. Nuri increased the magnification on his glasses, making sure there were no sensors guarding it. There weren’t.

The panels were fixed to the barn’s structural posts by a network of narrow one by ones. The wood members were too close together for either of them to squeeze past. Nuri pushed against one; it gave way with a snap.

“You’re going to set off the alarm,” said Hera.

“There’s a wall between it and us. We’re good.”

“Well, be quiet, then.”

Nuri pushed at the next piece of wood, breaking it off, then slipped inside.

He stopped short. There was a video camera directly above his head, covering the hallway.

They must really have something to protect here, he thought. But what?

27

Murim Wap, Sudan

DANNY DOVE TO THE GROUND AS RED HENRI BEGAN FIRING. Within seconds soldiers on all three sides had begun blasting away. Both Colonel Zsar and Uncle Dpap shouted at their men to stop firing, but their voices were lost in the din.

Danny told the Voice to have two of the Catbirds strike in the space between the rebel groups, hoping to discourage Red Henri and give enough cover to Zsar and Dpap’s forces so they could retreat. The explosions only added to the confusion. Worried that the others would be overrun, Danny told the Voice to launch the remaining UAVs against the spearhead of Red Henri’s force as it rallied around the trucks. The four explosions crated six vehicles—but still didn’t calm the fighting.

“Captain!” yelled Boston over the radio, reverting to the title he had used for so long. “Where are you?”

“I’m here,” said Danny, pressing against the dirt. “The Sudanese have helicopters on the way. Somebody tipped them off. There are two gunships, four transports. You’re going to have to shoot the gunships down.”

“You sure you want to do that?” Boston asked.

“Do it.”

The choppers were already close enough to be heard over the gun battle. Boston jumped out of his truck and ran to the rear, throwing the door open as the firing continued. He pulled out a metal box about the size of a carry-on bag and opened it on the ground.

Danny and Nuri could have purchased a dozen SA-7 shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles in Ethiopia if they wished; they would have been more than adequate to deal with the choppers. But the Whiplash team’s hip-launched Rattlesnakes had a far greater range.

“Hip-launched” was a bit of a misnomer; the missile was typically fired from a standing position with the launcher about chest high, so the operator could sight the target on the display at the top of the launching unit. The description had been coined because the missile and launcher assembly were about a third the size of the SA-7 and other traditional shoulder-fired weapons.

The name Rattlesnake—officially the weapon was known as the AIM-19x—was a tribute to the Sidewinder family of air-launched missiles. The AIM-19x was a derivative of the late model Sidewinders, with a smaller warhead propelled at extremely high speeds by a two-stage rocket motor. The first stage, which included two sets of maneuverable fins and a variable thrust mechanism, brought the missile to its target. As the projectile was about to hit, the second stage ignited, pushing the warhead through with devastating effect.

The weapon was intended to be used primarily against helicopters, though the warhead was an equal opportunity shredder of engines and other metal. Besides its terminal velocity, the secret of its success was a guidance system that could home in on heat sources, electronic signatures, or a radar reflection—or all three simultaneously. Once locked and launched, the tiny chip that constituted its brain was smart enough to see through decoys, ignoring hotter heat sources if they did not correspond to the data picked up by the other detection methods. This made defensive flares—the most common antimissile defense—useless.

A fact the Sudan gunships were about to discover.

The aircraft were flying in a staggered formation in front of the troop ships, aiming to part at the point of attack. They would sweep in opposite directions around the gathered rebels, machine-gunning their positions after launching rockets at the vehicles.

Boston zeroed in on the lead chopper and fired just before it began its attack. The Gazelle pilot’s first warning that he was in trouble were the sounds of a clunk and rip above him, as if a bolt had shot down a long metal tunnel and then torn it in two. Punctured, the engine immediately stopped working, leaving the rotor to spin on sheer momentum. Fuel flooded into the turbine chamber, where it ignited from the heat of the damaged metal. The explosion blew apart the rear portion of the cockpit with so much force that the spine of the helicopter snapped in two. The chopper fell forward, bent like a paper clip. The pilot tried frantically to pull it up, not realizing what was happening. Within two seconds the Gazelle lay in a burning heap on the ground.

Defensive flares began cascading from the choppers. The second gunship unleashed its rockets, setting two of the vehicles in Red Henri’s fleet on fire and cratering two others. Boston drew a bead; a moment later the helicopter went down, crumbling only a few yards from one of the trucks it had just destroyed.

Danny began crawling back toward what he thought was Colonel Zsar’s position. He’d gone about five yards on his belly when he realized he was heading toward Uncle Dpap’s Jeep. He started to change direction but a burst of bullets from one of Red Henri’s machine guns stopped him.

Rebels were screaming and firing indiscriminately. The troopships were landing on the perimeter. The gun battle was already a chaotic swirl, and it was only just beginning.

Sensing that staying low wasn’t going to protect him much longer, Danny jerked to his feet and ran, racing toward Uncle Dpap’s vehicle. As he ran, a pair of bullets slapped at his ribs, twisting him around. One hit the back of his vest, the other the side. Three more bullets flew at him as he fell. One smashed straight into his chest.

The outer vest saved him, but the force still took his breath away. It took him nearly a minute before he could roll back to his stomach and began crawling again.

“Don’t shoot him!” yelled Tilia.

Danny got up and ran toward her, ducking behind the Jeep as a fresh hail of bullets flew in his direction. She lay crouched behind the fender, a rifle in her hand.

By now the Sudanese troops who’d landed were firing at the rebels. Some of Red Henri’s troops swung around to meet the approaching threat. But they found themselves caught in a cross fire, as both Colonel Zsar and Uncle Dpap’s soldiers fired at both them and the regulars.

“Did you do this?” Tilia demanded.

“Hell no!” said Danny.

“Who did?”

“I have no idea.”

Instead of answering, Tilia raised her gun and fired a long burst at one of Red Henri’s trucks, cutting down one of the machine gunners. Danny looked to her right and saw Uncle Dpap on the ground, huddled against the Jeep.

He crawled to him. Dpap’s head was covered with blood, and his eyes were dazed, focused on something far beyond the battlefield.

“Are you all right?” Danny asked, but he knew he wasn’t. Uncle Dpap’s breath was shallow. He wasn’t dead, but he had only a few minutes to live.

Danny glanced back at Tilia. Her lips were pressed tight together, her eyes half closed as she aimed her gun. There were empty magazines and bullet casings all around her.

She’d lost everything. Even if she got out of there, even if no one else in Uncle Dpap’s army was hurt, Tilia’s position in the troop was done. Dpap’s brother, who was back in the village safe, would not give her the respect or the position Uncle Dpap had.

IT WAS COMMANDER JOHN WHO HAD BETRAYED THEM. Resenting his brother’s domination, he had been working with a spy from the Sudanese army for months, waiting for the right opportunity. After alerting his contact of the meeting, he had given a cell phone to one of the young soldiers who slept in his house and told him to make a call when the meeting began. Egyptian advisors to the Sudan army had been waiting; they found the nearest cell tower to the phone within seconds, and the ambush was launched.

TILIA LOOKED MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN EVER IN THE FIERCE red light and violent white flashes of the battle. The image burned into Danny’s brain, imprinting itself in his memory.

Never had he felt so hopeless.

“You have to retreat,” he yelled to her. “Get your men. Come with us.”

She pretended she didn’t hear him. She had already decided she would kill as many men as possible today—Red Henri’s, the government’s, whoever she could. And then she would take Uncle Dpap’s body back to their people.

“Boss, time for us to get the hell out of here,” said Boston over the radio. He’d pulled the men back to the trucks. So far no one had been injured—but that was only through sheer luck.

“Where’s Flash?” Danny asked.

“He’s looking for you.”

“Tell him to get back to the truck,” said Danny. He reached toward Tilia. “I have to go,” he told her, touching her shoulder.

“Go,” she said.

He took a half breath, then pushed away. His first step was toward the trucks. Then he remembered that he had not gotten the biomarker onto Tarid.

He changed direction, running in a half stoop toward Colonel Zsar’s position. A knot of soldiers were crouched behind one of the trucks, firing at one of the helicopters as it backed away from the battle.

The Voice warned that there were more choppers on the way.

“Where’s the colonel?” yelled Danny in English. “I have to talk to him.”

No one answered.

“I need Arabic,” he told the Voice. “Translate, translate.”

“Translate mode operational. Phrase was already delivered.”

“Again,” said Danny, who hadn’t heard it in the confusion. “Where is the colonel?”

The soldiers didn’t respond. One of the men had retrieved a mortar from the truck and was loading it to fire.

“You have to retreat,” Danny told them.

The mortar shell whipped upward, sailing far over the regular army’s position. Two of the rebel soldiers began shouting corrections.

Always in the past, the rebels were the ones on the offensive. The ambushed regulars, taken by surprise, would quickly panic. They expected the same now, not realizing these were specially trained troops who’d worked for months with Egyptian advisors. They were not about to give up easily.

Danny saw a man he thought was Colonel Zsar huddled with another man behind another truck about ten yards away. As he rose to run over, the Voice warned that two more helicopter gunships were on their way.

“You have to retreat,” Danny yelled as he ran, using just the Arabic words. He slid in behind the men. “Colonel Zsar, you have to retreat!”

The man turned. It wasn’t Zsar, but one of his lieutenants.

“I don’t have time for you, gun dealer,” said the man.

“The army is sending reinforcements.”

“Did you bring them?”

“I’m not a fool.”

The lieutenant pulled his pistol out. He was angry about the ambush, and though he believed it was Red Henri’s fault, he couldn’t be sure. At the moment it didn’t matter—he pointed the gun at Danny’s head.

“You betrayed us,” he said. “Why are we being attacked? We’ve never been attacked.”

The Voice translated, but Danny didn’t need to know the exact words—the gun was obvious enough.

“Not me.” Danny pointed at his chest, where the bullet had hit his vest. “They’re trying to kill me, too.”

He said the words in English, ignoring the translation.

The lieutenant straightened his arm to fire. Danny felt all of the blood in his body rush away. He was paralyzed, welded to the spot. He saw the gun.

A burst of fire took the officer down.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” yelled Boston, appearing at Danny’s side. He grabbed his vest and jerked him backward.

“I need Tarid,” said Danny.

“Screw that.”

“I need to tag him,” insisted Danny. But he started running with Boston toward the truck.

About five yards from the trucks he spotted a knot of men hunkered near the road. They were a good thirty yards away, kneeling and crouching. A battered pickup sat between them and most of the battle.

Tarid had to be among them, Danny thought. He wasn’t anywhere else.

“This way!” he yelled to Boston.

Danny’s intuition was correct. Realizing the helicopters meant they were being attacked by an elite force, Tarid had tried to escape as soon as the battle started. He’d run to the truck, but its engine compartment had been shot up by one of Red Henri’s men and it wouldn’t start.

He raised his rifle as the two men approached, then realized it was the arms dealer. His respect—and fear—of Bani Aberhadji was so great that it overcame his suspicions that the man had arranged the ambush. Still, he had little use for him, and debated whether to shoot him as he ran.

Danny saw the gun in his hand. He tucked his head down. He was going to complete his mission, even if it killed him, even if fear overwhelmed him.

“The army is sending reinforcements,” Danny shouted. “You have to retreat.”

Tarid stared at him.

“You’ve been shot,” said Danny. He reached his left hand toward Tarid’s brow, which was covered with blood. He touched it for a second.

Tarid brushed the fingers away angrily. It was someone else’s blood.

“Who the hell are you?” he said. “Who are you?”

“Kirk,” said Danny.

“Go,” said Tarid.

“Come with us. We’ll take you to safety.” Danny reached for him. “Come on.”

“No, you go,” said Tarid, pulling back and raising his weapon.

“I’m just trying to help,” said Danny, starting to back away.

“Go!” yelled Tarid.

One of Colonel Zsar’s men began yelling at Tarid, pointing toward the highway. A rocket-propelled grenade streaked overhead, its whistle piercing the air before it struck the open field a hundred yards away.

“Boss!” yelled Boston.

“All right,” said Danny, turning. “Time to go.”