Threat Level Black

Howe saw her and flew up toward her. As he leaped he saw the other hand, then the face of the man who held her. But he was already launched, already sailing into them. He crashed against their bodies and rolled downward, a siren sounding in his ear, the floor rattling as if by gunfire or thunder. He grappled for the man, threw a punch and then another punch, felt something smash against his face hard. He punched back harder and harder, furious now, his fists compressing against the hard bone of a skull.

And then something lifted him from the floor and pushed him to the side, gently yet with a good amount of force.

“Take it easy, Colonel,” said Andy Fisher. “You scramble his brains and I’m not going to be able to trust what he says.”

Chapter 18

By the time Tyler and his people were ready to lift the UAV, the backup units had arrived. Two large gunships circled overhead as a company’s worth of soldiers scoured the hills, looking for more attackers. The unit commander was excited because they’d heard reports that there were stragglers in the area but had not been able to hunt them down; the incident represented an opportunity to put one more nail in the coffin of the old regime.

Tyler ’s stomach knotted tighter as the Pave Low moved forward. Somebody shouted something and he winced; he whirled around, found himself staring into Somers’s face, then turned back, cringing: He knew, just knew, he would see the helicopter keeling over, in flames, gunfire erupting all over again.

But nothing like that happened. Sling attached and taut, the helicopter lifted upward and ahead, taking the North Korean robot aircraft under it as easily as a man might pluck a piece of paper from the floor. Tyler watched as the helicopter flew toward the well-secured air base to the south.

“You all right?” asked Somers after the Pave Low disappeared.

“Yeah,” said Tyler.

“That was a damn brave thing, getting those guys out of the helicopter.”

Tyler looked at Somers. “You keep saying that.”

“You’ve seen a lot of action, haven’t you, Major?”

“Not really.”

Tyler knew many, many people in the Army who had seen much more combat. And certainly when viewed against the long history of conflicts-wars that extended years rather than weeks-he had seen almost none.

“Getting to you?” asked Somers.

The question caught Tyler off guard. He liked the historian: He was a smart guy, insightful, and easy to like. But there was a line.

“It’s not getting to me,” said Tyler, turning away and walking toward the Chinook that had brought the reinforcements.

Somers caught up with him as he neared the door to the massive helicopter.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” said the older man.

Tyler looked at him. He didn’t know how to explain what he felt and what he had done; he couldn’t describe how fear had crept beneath what just a few weeks ago had been easy conviction, how second-guessing had wrapped itself around his determination. Everything he did now he questioned. Everything he did was wrong. And he was always afraid.

To the people on the outside, it wasn’t there. Somers saw only him jumping into the chopper.

Why had he done it? Not because it was the right thing to do or the brave thing to do, but because it was the only thing to do. He had been scared-damn scared.

“It was nothing,” Tyler told Somers, then climbed aboard the chopper.

Chapter 19

Fisher leaned forward against the back of the chair, watching through the one-way glass as the two local detectives continued the interview. He’d found some safety pins to clip his torn pants together with, and had washed his face and hands. As soon as they brought his coffee he’d feel good as new.

“Got no idea who hired us,” said the man the detectives were interviewing. He’d been the one back by the car when Fisher arrived and Fisher assumed he was the driver. As a general rule, drivers didn’t know all that much about the operation they were involved in, but the two detectives apparently hadn’t learned that from NYPD reruns. They kept circling around and taking fresh starts at the same question, and the suspect kept coming back with essentially the same answer: Damned if I know.

The other two goons were in the hospital. The one Howe had wrestled with was in pretty serious condition, with internal bleeding and a concussion. Fisher thought that was a waste: If he was going to beat him senseless, he might just as well have killed the guy and saved the county some dough.

“Like I been telling you, I got no idea,” said the suspect one more time.

One of the detectives made a big show of disgust, slapping his hands down on the table and walking out, playing the first strains of the time-honored good-cop-bad-cop routine. Fisher watched the suspect twitch nervously for a few seconds, then got up from his chair. He met the policewoman who’d gone for coffee at the door.

“Just in time,” he told her.

“I’m sorry. I had to clean the cup.”

“Shouldn’t have bothered,” said Fisher. “Scum adds flavor.”