'We can't abandon the platoon,' Jason said. 'They won't be able to hold off those gunners. We've got enough firepower to take them down.'

'What about the truck? Al-Zahrani?' Jam said.

'We'll catch up to them,' Jason replied confidently. 'Don't worry.'

'You'll need to work the weapons console,' Meat said, glancing over at Jason. He pointed to the copilot controls in front of him.

Staring down at the switches, gauges and computer interfaces, Jason felt instantly overwhelmed.

Meat flipped some switches on the cyclic's grip which powered on the AGM-114 h.e.l.lfire missiles rack-mounted on the pylons. The targeting interface illuminated on the LCD in front of Jason - a camera tracing the terrain beneath the chopper with glowing night vision, overlaid with crosshairs.

'Works like a videogame,' Meat explained to Jason. 'I'll walk you through it as soon as we're in range.'

'Got it.'

Safely out over the plain, Meat banked the chopper along a wide arc and headed south to allow for the first glimpse of the enemy convoy.

'Holy s.h.i.t!' Jam said. 'Look at them all!' He pointed out the fuselage window.

Jason saw what he meant. There looked to be almost a dozen trucks on the road south from the camp.

'All right,' Meat said, flipping down the helmet's night-vision lenses. He paused to study the enemy formation. 'They're bunched up pretty nicely along the road. I'll take us two klicks out so we can line up for a nice shot. I'll need to focus on keeping this thing steady. So I'll need you to send some rockets at 'em,' he told Jason. 'Use the toggle b.u.t.ton on top of the grip to move the crosshairs over the target. Then squeeze the trigger to get a laser on it ... you'll see it come up on the screen. Just be sure to keep the laser dot on the target until the rocket hits. Use the red b.u.t.ton to fire the missile. Fire and forget. Think you can do it?'

'Roger that,' Jason said, focused on the targeting screen and getting a feel for the control grip. He used his thumb to move the crosshairs side to side. As he tested the forward and backward functions, the camera zoomed in and out.

'They see us coming,' Jam said, scanning the militants through his night-vision goggles. The Arabs were scrambling to target the incoming Blackhawk.

'Doesn't matter. Their RPGs are only good up to a thousand metres. And their guns can only shoot half that distance. They won't know what hit 'em,' Meat said.

Climbing higher, Meat smoothly circled along a northerly course. 'Get ready,' he said to Jason.

He swung the chopper around, gained more alt.i.tude, and let the digital stabilization system a.s.sist in hovering the chopper. Luckily, there was minimal drag from the light winds moving over the plain. 'Go for it, Jay. Give 'em h.e.l.l.'

The roadway cut horizontally along the targeting display, sandwiched by the foothills on the back side, a deep ravine and dense wheat field in the front. The convoy lined up onscreen like a shooting gallery. Jason immediately knew that the Arabs' hasty attack was about to backfire horribly on them. He decided to use the same tactic that roadside bombers had so frequently employed when a.s.saulting US convoys - strike the lead vehicle first, then the rearmost vehicle next to immobilize everything in between.

Jason felt his stomach go into a knot as he zoomed in and panned the crosshairs over one of the trucks fanned out in the front of the convoy.

'Remember to keep the laser on the target until the missile hits,' Meat said.

'Got it,' Jason said. He squeezed the trigger control and a flashing red dot appeared on the display. He adjusted the aim, held the dot steady, and the crosshairs flashed from red to green. He slid his thumb over the red firing b.u.t.ton and pressed down on it.

The first missile hissed out from its pod, shot out in front of the chopper along a high arc, then bobbed and weaved as its...o...b..ard guidance system synchronized with the laser's coordinates. Jason kept his eyes nailed to the crosshairs, made slight adjustments for the side-to-side rocking caused by Meat's less than graceful attempt to hover the Blackhawk. Onscreen the missile struck with a brilliant flash.

'Nice!' Meat said.

'Now let's. .h.i.t them in the rear.' Intensely focused, Jason panned the crosshairs to the convoy's rear, picked his target and squeezed a laser mark. Keeping the laser dot steady over a pickup truck mounted with a crude machine gun turret, he hit the fire b.u.t.ton. The second missile hissed out from the weapons pylon, spooled and angled sharply towards the target. Within seconds, it hit - decimating the target with flawless execution.

Jam and Camel hooted and high-fived one another.

'Now pop 'em in the middle,' Meat said.

'Roger that,' Jason said. He targeted the remaining vehicles and fired a third missile.

Another explosion rocked the convoy's centre in a maelstrom of fire, hurling bodies and metal in every direction.

Meat pulled the cyclic to the left and the chopper banked. He spotted the Arabs charging north along the open roadway. 'They're on the run, heading north to the camp. Camel, you're up. I'll sweep in and you hit anything that moves with the mini gun.'

'Roger,' Camel said. He a.s.sumed a crouch position behind the six-barrel M134 Gatling gun pedestal-mounted outside the fuselage doorframe. He opened the ammunition container cover to check the supply. It was filled with 7.62 mm sh.e.l.ls. He flipped on the mini gun's master arm switch, then adjusted the gun scope's night-vision display. Gripping the fire control handles, he tested the swivel mount's action.

'You ready, Camel?' Meat called over the intercom.

'Ready,' he replied, steadying his thumbs over the trigger b.u.t.tons.

Meat manoeuvred the Blackhawk on a sharp trajectory, gliding low on approach, and hooking sharply along the road.

Camel lined the runners in the scope's crosshairs - all scrambling for cover. He opened fire at 3,000 rounds per minute, effortlessly cutting down the combatants and sending bodies tumbling off into the ravine. He even managed to strafe a trio attempting to climb over the foothill. In one sweep, he guessed that half of the fifteen surviving Arabs had been taken out.

Meat pulled up and banked out over the plain again.

'One more pa.s.s ... then the marines are on their own,' Jason said.

The Blackhawk's final sweep eliminated all but three Arabs, whose focus had turned from attack to retreat.

's.h.i.t, Camel,' Meat said, impressed. 'That was some nice shooting.'

'He's the G.o.dd.a.m.n Terminator!' Jam said.

As the chopper pulled away, Jason was fixated on the roadway, which in less than five minutes had been transformed into a living nightmare of carnage and fire. His nerves were buzzing with adrenaline, fingers trembling. Though he feared the emotional swirl of satisfaction, euphoria and indifference that this perfect devastation evoked, he allowed himself to embrace the primal urge awakened deep in his core - the l.u.s.t for vengeance; the driving force that pushed otherwise rational men to commit unspeakable acts to exact justice. That's for Matthew. Burn in h.e.l.l ... all of you.

But the vendetta was far from complete.

'Now let's get Al-Zahrani back,' Jason said.

54.

LAS VEGAS.

If there was an economic slowdown in Las Vegas, it certainly wasn't evident at the bustling work site of Our Savior in Christ Cathedral, Flaherty thought. An armada of construction vehicles commandeered the sprawling parking lot - cement mixers, flatbeds piled with steel framing and ma.s.sive cable reels, and HVAC vans. Throughout the lot, building materials were organized into sectors: rows upon rows of tinted-gla.s.s panels; mountains of honey-coloured marble floor tiles; hundreds of porcelain restroom fixtures sorted by colour. And stacked three-high were cl.u.s.ters of shipping containers bearing various import seals.

Flaherty steered the rental car around dozens of pallets stacked with pale limestone blocks. The clear plastic wrappings were stamped: 'AUTHENTIC JERUSALEM STONE, INC.'. A forklift had just removed a batch and was heading to the building's south side where a huge gla.s.s-domed amphitheatre ab.u.t.ted the mountainside.

Near the cathedral's main entrance, he parked in a designated visitors' lot.

'You think it's smart to just barge in there?' Brooke said, peering out at the building. 'Shouldn't the police be here or something?'

'This place has a lot of windows. The pastor might make a break for it the second he spots a police car.'

'So how do you propose we handle this?'

'I propose we get married,' he said, deadly serious.

'Excuse me?'

'Just follow my lead and you'll get the idea,' he replied coolly.

He turned off the car, pocketed the keys and opened his door. 'Let me come around and get you.'

Baffled, Brooke waited for him to circle to her door. He opened it and proffered a hand. 'Come, darling. I think you'll love this church. I hear the wedding ceremony is breathtaking.'

Then she caught on to the ruse. 'Ah, very clever. We're posing as customers. I like it.'

'Works in the movies,' he said with a shrug.

When Brooke clasped his hand, he noted her gold Irish Claddagh ring - two hands clasping a heart and surmounted by a crown. It could easily pa.s.s as an engagement ring ... If she wore it differently.

'First, let's fix this,' he said. Keeping her hand out of view, he pointed at her ring, explaining: 'This says you're romantically available. Not good for our charade. May I?' he said, pinching the ring with his fingers.

'Of course.'

He pulled the ring off her finger and slid it back on with the heart facing outwards. 'There we go. Now that that says you're engaged.' says you're engaged.'

He turned and pushed her door shut. Unexpectedly, he felt Brooke's arm hook him around the waist.

Peering at him with doting eyes, she said, 'Let's make it look genuine, shall we?' She leaned in and pa.s.sionately kissed him on the lips. 'Just in case anyone's watching. How's that?'

For a moment, he revelled in the magic of a first kiss. 'Good,' he replied finally, trying like h.e.l.l to pa.s.s it off as meaningless. He cleared his throat. 'Very authentic.'

She threaded her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. 'Shall we?'

'Yeah. Of course.'

Flaherty locked the car, and they set off for the main entrance. 'Is this guy Stokes for real?' he said, trying to take in the sheer scale of the church, its opulence. 'Look at this place. Talk about excess.'

'This place makes the Crystal Cathedral look like a tool shed,' she said. A ma.s.sive shallow gla.s.s dome was central to the building's architecture, and Brooke was sure it covered the building's nave. 'Looks to me like his architect borrowed this design from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.'

'Isn't Hagia Sophia a mosque?'

'The Ottomans converted it into a mosque in the fifteenth century, added minarets and other Islamic touches. But it was originally a Christian basilica built by Emperor Justinian I in the sixth century.'

He gave her a how-in-G.o.d's-name-do-you-know-this-stuff look. 'The same Justinian that tried to reunite the Holy Roman Empire but was stopped by the bubonic plague, right?'

'That's the guy.'

They approached the bank of entrance doors, set beneath a soaring archway. Above the doors, Flaherty eyed a ma.s.sive bronze placard shaped to resemble an unfurled scroll. The incised gospel excerpt read: 'COME, FOLLOW ME,' JESUS SAID, 'AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN.'- MATTHEW 4:19 Flaherty shook his head. 'All this place is missing is the slot machines and swim-up bar.'

'Don't be too hasty,' Brooke said. 'We haven't seen the inside yet.'

55.

Randall Stokes's mind was in a fog as he listened to Crawford's painful account of a siege staged against the encampment by Al-Zahrani's supporters. The death toll among the platoon was remarkable, given the fact that the militants who'd come for Al-Zahrani had only guns and RPGs. However, Crawford insisted that the squads a.s.signed to clearing the cave were late to respond to the attack. Had the contract soldiers not commandeered the unit's Blackhawk and staged a potent counter-attack, Crawford conceded, the entire mission might well have been jeopardized.

Stokes squeezed the phone's receiver. 'And where is Al-Zahrani now?'

'I had him moved, just like you wanted. Problem is I don't think he'll make it.' His next words were tinged with dissension. 'This isn't good, Randall. You should have waited to-'

'Let's not play the blame game,' Stokes warned, his voice hoa.r.s.e. A coughing fit came over him and he held the phone aside until it subsided. During the past three hours, his breathing had become progressively strained and gritty. It felt like his chest had been filled with pebbles.

'You sound like s.h.i.t,' Crawford said.

'Don't worry about me. Just don't make the same mistake as Frank. Don't lose your backbone. Hear me? We stick to the plan.'

'Wait ... what about Roselli? Did he get cold feet?'

'You could say that.' Out the window, he noticed a silver sports sedan winding its way through the parking lot.

'This plan of yours has gone to s.h.i.t!' Crawford blasted. 'How am I supposed to explain this grand f.u.c.kup to the major general? I'm calling for backup.'

'You'll do no such thing,' Stokes said, his tone grave. Another coughing fit came over him, more intense this time. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the square-folded handkerchief from his suit jacket's breast pocket and held it over his mouth. When he pulled the handkerchief away, he was stunned to see that the crisp white linen was speckled with red dots. As he stared at the blood long and hard, a chilling realization hit him: this was no mere physical response to stress.

'Randall? You there?'

He pressed the receiver to his ear. 'Do nothing until that cave is cleared out. Understand?'

'Let's be sensible about this. Al-Zahrani's been infected ...'

Infected. The word lingered in Stokes's mind as he stared at the handkerchief. Infected?

'So maybe we can use that to our advantage.'

'After all our preparation and planning, there is no way in h.e.l.l that I'm going to rely on one catalyst. You heard what Frank told us: rapid transmission is critical. It's the whole purpose for what we've done inside that cave. If Al-Zahrani is isolated, the whole thing fizzles out. There'll be no back-pedalling now. We've come too far for that.'

'Technically, we have no idea what the real effect might be,' Crawford challenged indignantly. 'Remember, none of Frank's scientists knew how this thing would be used. We have no guarantees. These aren't lab mice ...'

'Fine. We're hunting with a shotgun instead of a sniper rifle,' Stokes quipped. 'So be it.'

Outside, the driver had just gotten out from the car and was making his way around to the pa.s.senger side. Stokes didn't recognize the man's face. 'There's no such thing as a perfect plan,' Stokes said. 'Now sc.r.a.pe your men together and open that tunnel. Anyone asks questions, you tell them you've got four more terrorists to pull out of that hole. That's all anyone needs to know.'