"Bravo, Echo," Goose said, "coordinate your efforts with the Turkish military. I want a pincer set up to close off the access route the Syrians are using for their advance."

"Affirmative, Phoenix," Bernhardt agreed. "Understood, Phoenix," York answered.

According to the information Goose had gotten from the lieutenants and sergeants in the field, those two rifle companies were more intact than Alpha or Charlie companies. He turned and found Bill at his side, stubbornly limping along to keep up.

"You should stay put before you tear that wound loose," Goose said.

"I lay up, a lot of good Rangers are going to get killed. As long as I can stand, I can help."

Goose looked at his friend, unable to stop thinking that none of them were going to be able to stand much longer if the reinforcements didn't arrive soon.

"It's gonna be all right, Sarge," Bill said. "We're on the side of the angels. "

"I wish I had your confidence, Bill."

Bill shook his head. "It's not confidence, Sarge." He had to speak in a loud voice to carry over the sudden onslaught of 25mm cannonfire from the Harriers' GAU-12 fuselage guns. The General Electric-made weapon sported a five-barrel rotary design that was nothing but lethal on the battlefield. Carrying three hundred rounds in the magazine pod slung under the fighter jet's fuselage, a trained pilot could blast a swath of destruction in seconds. The advancing Syrian troops were in the process of seeing that firsthand. "I keep telling you, it's belief."

But it was hard to believe God cared about Rangers today. As soon as he had the thought, though, a wave of guilt rocketed through Goose. He shoved the feeling from his mind, clearing his focus as he scanned the skies.

"Phoenix Leader," Remington called.

Bill threw out an arm. "There! There they are!"

Shading his eyes, still nearly choking on dust that somehow made it through the drying kerchief across his lower face, Goose spotted the specks in the sky. Six wasp-shaped AH- 1W Whiskey Cobra helicopter gunships led the arriving aircraft.

"Base," Goose called over the headset, "Phoenix has confirmation of Wasp's wing. Pass on our appreciation to Wasp's captain."

"Affirmative, Phoenix," Remington responded. Despite his attempt to have no change of tone in his voice, Goose still heard the relief in his friend's words. "Get those Marines down in a safe place and let's sort this out. Not one inch of that border is going to be given up on my watch."

"Understood, sir. We're going to take care of it for you." Goose stood under the advancing line of Cobra attack helicopters. The Marine aircraft were similar to the AH-64A Apache gunships Goose was more familiar with. Their shadows hugged the ground and flashed over him. The sound of their passing hit him a short time later.

Once the Whiskey Cobras whipped over the ridgeline Goose had used as his observation post, the Harriers pulled away. Evidently, the two teams communicated on their own wavelength.

Besides the 20mm autocannon mounted under the nose, the Whiskey Cobras were also decked out with two LAU-68 rocket pods on the inside pylons that were flanked by two Hellfire antitank missiles and four antipersonnel bombs. The Whiskey Cobras, guided by instrumentation, sped into the cloud of smoke and dust that nearly obscured the battlefield.

A moment later, the rocket pods spat flames and carnage, ripping into the landscape and the Syrian army troops. The Hellfire missiles struck a staggered line of tanks, fast-attack vehicles, and armored personnel carriers. Goose's hopes lifted more as he saw the mass of destruction the Marine pilots left in their wake. Despite the differences in the branches of service, Goose respected the other soldiers and their equipment. After today, he felt certain the Syrians would as well.

Bravo and Echo rifle companies kept moving to secure the border along the craters and wrecked vehicles.

Turning, Goose sprinted back toward the LZ he had marked off for the team. The landing zone was on the flattest terrain available, but the smoke and dust hanging in the air lowered ground zero visibility drastically.

"Phoenix Leader," an unfamiliar voice called over the headset. "This is Excaliber Leader. We are at your twenty but can't find the LZ. Repeat, we do not see the LZ."

"Affirmative, Excaliber. Phoenix has you in sight. We're rolling out the red carpet." Goose switched over to the frequency his team was using. "All right, mark it off. Pop smoke."

In response, preset smoke grenades detonated electronically, marking off a trapezoid-shaped LZ that Phoenix team had verified as being clear of large boulders, broken ridges, or other landing hazards.

"Excaliber," Goose called, "do you have the target LZ in sight now?"

A heartbeat passed.

"Affirmative, Phoenix. Excaliber has your LZ in sight. We'll rendezvous at your twenty."

"Understood, Excaliber. I'll be the Ranger with the big grin on his face." Goose ran, heading for the LZ.

"Incoming!" Hardin yelled.

Instinctively, Goose went to ground. He held on to the M-4A1 with one hand and grabbed his helmet's chin strap with the other. His face skidded across the hard-packed ground, losing hide as well as the kerchief masking his lower face. He breathed in and choked on the dust an instant before the artillery rounds collided with the terrain.

The radio communications crackled and spat through Goose's headset. Making sense of the garbled lines was difficult. "Where is that artillery crew?"

"Don't know, Blue Falcon Leader. We're searching."

"Find them." The Marine pilot cursed. "Those men and those transport helos are going to get blown to bits."

"I'm hit! I'm hit!"

More artillery shells continued to land, chewing into the turf. Craters opened up in the LZ. One of the CH-46E helicopters took a direct hit while the group held back rather than charging into the LZ the Syrians had targeted.

Peering up with his arm shielding his face, feeling the sting of the skinned cheek, Goose saw the helo sag drunkenly. Orange and black flames whooshed from the cargo door, blowing the group of Marines from the cargo space like flaming puppets. Their arms and legs pinwheeled as they fell at least seventy feet. There would be few-if any-survivors.

The CH-46E was distinctive because of the twin rotors, one at either end of the fat-bodied aircraft. The model was primarily a cargo helicopter, giving it the CH designation, but could be used as a troop carrier. Originally, the CH-46 had been built to carry twenty soldiers, but increased armor and structural upgrades had cut that number to between eight and twelve men.

"Phoenix Leader," Bernhardt called.

Goose barely heard the man over the garbled dialogue coming through the headset. "Go, Echo. You have Phoenix."

"We've got the artillery company in sight, Goose." "Understood. Can you shut them down?"

Battling the indefatigable pull of gravity, the damaged CH-46 slid toward the merciless ground. An instant later, the rotors chopped into the hard earth and shattered on contact. Shards of composite metal sliced through the air.

"It's no-man's-land out there, Phoenix," Bernhardt replied. "Our air support has us cut off."

"Blue Falcon Leader," Goose called. "Can you see those Rangers?"

"Negative, Phoenix," the Marine pilot replied. "It's duck soup down there. We've stayed true to our line of demarcation."

Goose thought furiously as the fierce shelling continued virtually unabated. If the Harrier pilots had been able to see through the smoke and dust to see Echo Company, they could have targeted the enemy artillery. "Echo, can you put a smoke round near the artillery?"

"That's pushing two hundred meters, Phoenix."

"Understood," Goose replied. The M-203 grenade launcher's accuracy was only good out to a hundred and fifty yards. "Put a round out there."

"Will do, Phoenix."

"Blue Falcon Leader, did you copy?" Goose asked.

"Affirmative, Phoenix. Blue Falcon will be watching for smoke."

"Your target will be fifty yards south of the smoke," Bernhardt said. "Mark-now!"

Turning, Goose peered back across the border. A second later, a plume of violet smoke shot up from the ground, coloring the dust and smoke like ink from a startled squid.

"Echo, Blue Falcon Leader marks your target designation and I have a verified lock," the Marine pilot said. Target lock required laser spotting from another source. Goose guessed that one of the other Harriers or the Whiskey Cobras had pinpointed the target. "Pull your team back and take cover. Gonna be a big blast over in that twenty."

The Harrier heeled over in the air above Goose's head, splintering sunlight for a moment, then diving back toward the battlefield. The pilot kept his deadly craft low, charging into the teeth of the artillery fire. Then a pillar of fire launched up from the ground whirling orange flames and black smoke from the Hellfire missile's double detonation.

The artillery fire stopped immediately.

"Way to fire, Blue Falcon Leader! " Bernhardt called.

"Phoenix, Excaliber is coming in."

"Come ahead, Excaliber. We're clean and green as it's going to get." Goose pushed himself to his feet, feeling the weakness in his knee and shoulder.

"Affirmative. We've got troops here that are ready to rock and roll."

"Goose! Goose!"

Bill Townsend's voice rolled out of the smoke and dust to Goose's right.

"It's Dockery, Goose," Bill said. Under the dust and blood, his face was ashen. "He's hit."

Goose followed Bill as the thunder of the arriving CH-46Es filled the air overhead again. The pilots juked their helos around, bringing them down in a compact spread. Then the dust and smoke cleared in front of Goose. Seeing Dockery nearly took Goose's breath away.

Corporal Steve Dockery had eight years in as a Ranger and had seen some of the worst that the terrorist campaigns had to offer. He was a good man, a good soldier.

Now Dockery sat on his knees in a mockery of obeisance. A twoinch-wide, six-foot-long shard of the downed helicopter's shattered rotors impaled him, sticking through his back and nailing him to the ground in a crouching position. His assault rifle lay beside him. Blood colored the kerchief over his lower face. His hands gripped the piece of steel that jutted from his chest and into the earth between his knees. Crimson ran down his arms, darkening the sleeves of his BDUs.

The man tried to speak. His mouth came open, but only blood poured out.

Goose didn't know why the soldier wasn't already dead, but over the years he had seen men cling tenaciously to life because they were afraid there wasn't anything afterward. His eyes made contact with Dockery's.

Dockery's mouth moved again, pleading.

Bill knelt beside the wounded man and took one of Dockery's hands in his. "We're gonna be okay, buddy," Bill said, his voice unnaturally calm. "We're gonna be okay. Just look up in the sky. Look at those helos coming in to us. We got help now. We'll get you out of here. "

Goose shouldered his rifle and dropped to one knee. He opened his medkit and took out an ampoule. Ripping the plastic away with his teeth, he stabbed the needle into a vein in Dockery's arm and hit the plunger. He hoped the anesthetic was enough to knock the man out, but at the same time he felt bad that Dockery might not even be conscious the last few minutes of his life.

Bill took out gauze and tried to stem the flow of blood around the wounds in the Ranger's back and chest. "Sarge. Goose. I need help. Please."

"Excaliber, this is Phoenix," Goose called, holding a bloody and shaking hand to his mouthpiece. "Are you prepared to take on wounded?"

"Affirmative, Phoenix. Excaliber is ready, willing, and able to transport wounded back to Wasp. The cap'n has the ship's hospital standing by if we can't make use of local resources in Sanliurfa."

Not feeling in the least relieved, knowing that a great number of good men were going to be dead very soon and some were already dead, Goose looked back at Dockery. The Ranger's eyes had glazed, but his breath still pulled at the kerchief covering his mouth. He was conscious, but barely so.

Goose took some of the gauze Bill handed him. He took a deep breath and tried to steady his hands as he worked to staunch the bleeding. The shadows of the descending helicopters filtered through the swirling smoke and dust haze to cover them.

"The shrapnel missed his heart and both lungs," Bill said. "At least, I think it missed both-"

When his friend's words cut off abruptly, Goose looked up from Dockery's back. Bill wasn't on the other side of the wounded man. All that remained was a set of crumpled of BDUs, the LCE, the assault rifle, and gear.

Alarm jarred through Goose. He'd only taken his eyes off Bill for an instant. There was no way Bill had time to get out of his clothes and then-then-then what? Take off across Turkey?

The superstitious paranoia that Goose had grown up with as a child, part of that feeling stemming from stories of the Old Testament and part of it from all the tall tales of ghosts and monsters that lived in the Okefenokee Swamp around Waycross, Georgia, raised goose bumps across the back of his neck. He fisted the pistol grip of the M4A1 and glanced around.

"Bill?"

"He ... vanished," Dockery croaked.

Goose glanced at the wounded man, noting the pinprick-sized pupils, symptoms of the drugs in his system.

"'S'truth, Sargh. Saw'im ... disappear."

A dozen questions filled Goose's mind. Before he had a chance to ask any of them, metal screamed overhead. He glanced up, spotting the black silhouettes of the helicopters through the dusk and smoke haze framed against the sun and the blue sky. Tears ran down his cheeks, brought on by the stabbing brightness of the sun.

But then he saw at least half of the CH-46Es slide out of control across the sky. They collided with other helicopters, shredding rotors and sending deadly shrapnel through each other and the vulnerable troops inside.

Then the troop transport ships rained from the sky like dying flies, breaking open and scattering troops and gear across the hardpan. In a handful of seconds, the relief effort sent by USS Wasp had become a broken necklace of casualties spread across the battlefield.

United States of America Fort Benning, Georgia Local Time 1:20 A.M.

Megan threw her upper body out across the roofs edge. She'd moved before she'd thought about the action, and she knew that was the only thing that had saved Gerry Fletcher. She had never moved so quickly in her life. By some miracle, she managed to grab the boy's left wrist and stop his plummet down the side of the building to the hard ground four stories below.

Men cursed in the parking lot below, in stunned amazement as well as fear. Megan recognized those emotions because she felt them within herself as well. She couldn't believe she'd caught the falling boy.

At the same time, she knew she wasn't going to be able to keep Gerry from falling. She didn't have the mass or the strength. Her arm felt torn from the socket.

The spotlights from the vehicles trained on her and Gerry, pinning her shadow and the boy's against the side of the building in hard-edged relief. The MPs broke loose first, sprinting for the fire escape.

"Somebody get up there!" Boyd Fletcher squalled. "She's going to get that boy killed!"

Megan tried to pull Gerry up but couldn't. She lacked the upperbody muscle it would take to pull the boy up. At the same time she wondered who had brought Boyd Fletcher out into the parking lot. If the man hadn't startled Gerry But he did, she told herself. You're dealing with that now. No! God, we're dealing with this! You and me! You helped put Gerry out here on this roof tonight, and You're going to help me get him back down!

Metal rang as the MPs pounded up the stairs. "Hold on, ma'am!" one of them called. "Just hold on!"

I am! Megan thought. God help me, I am! God, please help me!

Megan could see an explosion of fear go off inside Gerry as he dangled above the waiting ground. Whatever he'd thought when he stepped off the roof, he'd clearly changed his mind now. He kicked and whipped his other arm up to grab hold of her forearm.

"Pull me up, Mrs. Gander!" the boy pleaded. "Pull me up! I don't want to fall! Please don't let me fall!"

At least we're on the same page now, Megan thought. She pulled at her arm. Abruptly, she slid across the roofs edge. Her shirt buttons rasped against the rough surface. No! God, no!