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Grease dropped his packs a short distance from the hangar and hulked over their transport. He opened the top of one and took out a large, T-shaped metal key, which he inserted into a panel near the front of the man bomb. He turned it and the claw doors opened. He took out two large packs—their parachutes—and some bags of gear from the interior. Satisfied that everything was there, he turned to Turk.

“You have briefing data?” he asked.

“In here.” Turk patted his ruck.

“Hand it over.”

Turk gave him the slate computer. Grease went back to his packs. He took out what looked like a large padded envelope, put the computer inside, then walked to a trash barrel just outside the hangar.

“Hey!” managed Turk as Grease dropped the bag into the can.

Fire shot from the top of the barrel. Turk ran over to rescue the slate computer, only to be grabbed by Grease before he got near. He was pulled back as the can rumbled with an explosion.

“Can’t risk it,” Grease told him. “Had to be destroyed.”

“You gonna blow up the controls, too?”

“Not yet,” said the trooper.

FORTY MINUTES LATER THE TWO MEN SNUGGLED UNCOMFORTABLY together as the man bomb was twisted upside down and then locked in the bay of a freshly fueled B-2. Turk had never felt so claustrophobic in an airplane before.

“Get sleep now,” said Grease as the plane began to move. “We ain’t gonna have much chance once we’re in Iran.”

“Pretty hard to sleep like this.”

Grease made a snorting sound. They were both in flight suits, wearing helmets and oxygen masks. Their sound systems were hooked into the plane’s interphone system; the crew could hear every word, so they were not supposed to talk about the mission.

“You do enough of this,” said Grease finally, “you learn to sleep anywhere, even on your feet.”

It was good advice, but Turk couldn’t take it. The bumps and the whine of the plane as it taxied, the sudden g forces as they rose, the strange sensation of being in a flying coffin—it all offended his innate sense of what flight was all about. He should be at the stick, and if not there, then at least able to sit upright and look around. He felt he needed to control some part of his destiny. Here, he was no more than a soon-to-be-dispensed part.

Turk tried to clear his mind as they flew, but this was futile, too. His thoughts drifted from the mission to Li, then back to the mission. He hadn’t quite memorized the maps; he didn’t realize they’d be destroyed.

As Grease slept, Turk felt as if he’d been packed into a bear’s den, and was stuck through hibernation season. The only thing worse than sleeping, he thought, would be waking up.

A HALF HOUR FROM THE DROP POINT THE PILOT SPOKE to them for the first time since takeoff, asking if they were awake.

“Yes,” said Grease, his voice thick and groggy.

“Captain Mako?”

“Uh—yeah.” Turk had drifted into a kind of fugue state, awake but not focusing his thoughts in a conscious way. He mumbled something in response, then began struggling to get his mind back in gear.

“We’re ready,” added Grease.

“Release point in twenty-nine minutes,” said the pilot. “We’re on course.”

“Thanks.”

“You sound cheery,” Turk told Grease. He meant it as a joke; there was no emotion in Grease’s voice. But Grease took it literally, and his voice sounded more enthusiastic than Turk could remember.

“I’m ready. We’ll do it.”

The next twenty-eight minutes passed so slowly they felt like days. Then time sped up. Turk braced himself as the bomb bay doors opened. The aircraft bucked—and then there was a whoosh, air rushing around him. His arms flexed involuntarily; Grease folded his own around him, cocooning Turk with his body as they fell.

“Arms out,” Grease reminded him.

Turk struggled to get his arms into the proper position, jerking them against the wind. It was as if something was holding them back—they were cramped and compressed, his muscles atrophied by the long wait in the hold of the plane.

“Just relax,” said Grease.

“Trying.”

“Do it.”

Opening the bay door made the B-2 visible to some radars, and while the flight plan had been designed to minimize the possibility of detection, there was still a chance that the bomber would be picked up by an alert Iranian crew. The plan, therefore, was to avoid opening the parachute until the plane was a good distance away. In effect, this meant waiting. And falling. It was dark, and stare as he might, Turk could not see anything on the ground, not even the little pinpricks of light the briefing had suggested he would see.

The altimeter on his wrist said they were at 17,000 feet.

“We using the chute?” he asked Grease.

“We’re not there yet.”

Turk closed his eyes, waiting.

Finally, it came: a sharp tug back into Grease’s chest as the chute deployed and the straps pulled him tight. His groin hurt where one of the straps pulled up sharp. He told himself it was better than the alternative, and tried to shift to relieve the pressure.

Now they were an airplane, flying to their drop spot. Turk was a useless passenger again, trying to stay as neutral as possible as Grease steered the chute with his togs.

There were lights in the distance, many lights. A city.

They turned in the other direction. Turk thought back to the satellite images of the landing zone, trying to see it in his mind. They were supposed to fall into a valley, right along a rarely used road.

Be just my bad luck to land when a car is coming, he thought.

But that didn’t happen. They hit the ground a fraction of a second sooner than he thought they would; he fell off to the side and Grease followed, thrown off by his passenger’s disarray. The sergeant quickly unbuckled the harness that held them together, unlatched the bags they’d jumped with, then began gathering up the chute.

By the time Turk had taken his helmet off, Grease had the nylon wing bundled and ready to hide. With their packs, they walked toward a rock outcropping about thirty yards from where they’d touched down. Turk remembered it from the satellite image—Grease had come down within millimeters of the planned spot.

As they started to dig, Turk heard a vehicle approaching in the distance.

“Our guys?” he asked Grease, clutching for the pistol in a holster under his jumpsuit.

“Should be. Stay behind the rocks.” The sergeant opened one of the large packs and took out a pair of rifle sleeves. He handed one to Turk. “AK. Don’t shoot me.”

The gun was an AK-47 assault rifle. The external furniture, folding paratrooper stock and all, was old and authentic; the guts of the forty-year-old weapon, however, had been refurbished with precise replacements.

Turk took the gun and ducked behind the rocks. He pulled off his jumpsuit, exposing his Iranian fatigues. The vehicle was still a decent distance away, coming from the south. It was a truck.

Not Delta, he thought. Not our guys. So relax. Just relax. It’s not real until our guys get here.

But it was very real. Grease perched near the road, gun ready. The truck’s lights swept the valley to Turk’s left as it came down the curve. It was a troop truck, an army transport of some sort, slowing as if the driver had seen something.

Turk’s finger tensed against the trigger guard.

The truck’s lights blinked as it approached. Grease stood up and ran to the vehicle. He spoke to the driver, then hopped on the side as the truck turned off the road and headed toward Turk.

Maybe it’s all been an exercise, Turk thought. Just a rehearsal, to make sure I’m ready. We aren’t really in Iran. We aren’t really in danger. I’m back in Arizona, still being tested.

He’d half convinced himself of that by the time the truck pulled up. Grease jumped off the running board and jogged over to him to get the packs. A man wearing plain green fatigues opened the passenger side door and hopped down.