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  Hale shook the hands off of him and tried to stand up, then sank back to a knee. He felt like he couldn’t get any air, like he couldn’t inflate his lungs.

  Thomas checked him, then began to work, putting a plastic strip over an entrance and exit wound on his breast. He said, “You got an in-and-out. It’s sucking.”

  Hale saw the look of fear on his face and nodded. He slowly stood up, adrenaline alone willing him forward.

  “Let’s keep moving. Those fuckers will be back on us soon.”

  To confuse the enemy tracking them, they took a right turn, walked for about a hundred meters, then continued toward the LZ, now moving at a much slower pace. Hale was struggling to keep up, the gap between his diaphragm and left lung filling with air and preventing him from inflating it. He heard Thomas get confirmation that three helicopters were five minutes out, two slicks with gunship escort. Hale figured the team was at least thirty minutes from the landing zone.

  It dawned on him that with the loss of Houng, they were down to a normal team of six men, which could be extracted by McGuire rig—a simple sling seat that was dropped from both sides of the aircraft, three to a side, allowing exfiltration without having to land.

  “We aren’t going to make it to the LZ,” he said. “We get hit again, and we’re done. Tell Covey to pick us up here, with strings.”

  Thomas relayed while they moved. Minutes later, he was talking directly to the helo, coordinating the extraction with the team spread out in a perimeter around him.

  “I’ll pop smoke. You identify.” He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade, knowing it would be a beacon for the NVA but vital to get them out.

  The pilot’s voice came back calm and mechanical. “Roger. I see green smoke.”

  “Roger. That’s us.”

  The team could now hear the chopper and smell salvation. The first Huey was sliding into position when a 12.7mm heavy machine gun opened up from the camp, strafing the tail. The gunship immediately obliterated the fire with its miniguns, but the damage to the first helo was done. Hale watched it pull off and begin limping back toward the South Vietnamese border. He prayed it would make it.

  The second Huey came overhead and dropped the rigs, the rotor wash beating the brush around them in a mini hurricane. As the men were frantically getting inside the slings, one of the Yards began screaming and pointing. Out of the wood line, Hale saw Houng stumbling toward the hovering aircraft, weaponless, one arm dangling uselessly at his side, his face a bloody mess. In the distance behind him, he saw swarms of NVA drawn by the smoke and noise of the helicopter. He slipped out of his sling to give it to Houng.

  Thomas shouted, “What are you doing?”

  Hale looked at him with sadness and said, “You know what I’m doing.”

  Thomas started to leave his sling as well, tearing at the slip noose around his wrist. Hale stopped him.

  “No. You’re not getting off. Remember what I told you about the camp. Get that information back to the FOB.”

  “Fuck that! No way! You die, we both die.”

  Hale pointed to his chest and side, both freely bleeding from the multiple wounds. “I’m already dead. Go.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Hale turned and assisted Houng into the last sling. Thomas helped as tears left tracks through the greasepaint on his face.

  The NVA began running forward and firing through the trees in a desperate attempt to stop the extraction. Doing figure eights overhead, the gunship unleashed its twin miniguns, knocking soldiers down by the dozens as if they had been swatted by a giant hand.

  “Go, go, go!” Hale screamed. He turned and stumbled away, wobbling toward the brush while firing his last magazine into the advancing soldiers. The enemy paid no attention to him—not even realizing he was there. Instead they focused all of their fire on the helicopter as it lifted off. Hale crawled forward underneath a tree that had been shattered by lightning, pulling brush over his body in an attempt to hide himself, the fear of death coiling in his belly like a snake. Wheezing from his destroyed lung, he watched the team lift off, dangling beneath the helo like spiders on a web, heading toward safety. Toward home.

  He remembered he still had the camera in his rucksack, with the proof of the meeting. Intelligence of tremendous value to the war effort. He cursed himself at the oversight, knowing the information would die out here with him. Disappear as if it had never existed. At least Thomas would pass the basics along.

  As the helo got smaller, another heavy machine gun opened up. The tracers arced through the sky and cut into the aircraft, punching through the thin skin to the avionics beneath. Hale watched the bird lose tail-rotor function and begin spinning out of control, the team now flung out on the end of the ropes like a pinwheel from the centrifugal force. He watched in disbelief as the helicopter slammed into the earth in a fireball. He heard the NVA cheering.

  The fear left his body, replaced by despair at the futility of it all. He closed his eyes and drifted into unconsciousness.

  2

  Two Years Ago

  Central Sudan

  Brett Thorne’s head jolted forward, snapping him awake, as the decrepit Japanese pickup hit another rut. He gazed at the stars above his head as they drove through the Sudanese desert, the sky infinitely brighter than anywhere he had been in the States.

  He nudged a form in front of him with his boot. “How much longer?”

  The man, a tall, lanky member of the Zaghawa tribe from the Darfur region of western Sudan, said, “Another hour, maybe less. Are you regretting your decision to ride back here with us? I can have him pull over.”

  Brett shook his head. As a CIA operative, he could have easily traveled in the cab of the pickup, but he wanted the ability to fight—and run—without restriction. The cab was too confining. Even if it meant being crammed in the back with five other men, all smelling like they hadn’t bathed in over a month. It was like riding in a basket of clothes that had been dipped in sour milk.

  Brett leaned out into the wind, catching the dust from the truck ahead of them but enjoying the escape from the fetid air. He sat back down and reflexively patted the rucksack at his feet.

  If they fight half as ferociously as they stink, we might not need this anyway.

  The truck abruptly slowed, shutting off its headlights and driving with parking lights alone. Brett stood up and noticed the lead truck had done the same. He heard excited murmurings from both trucks in the tribe’s native tongue, something he couldn’t understand.

  He turned to the tribesman who spoke English. “What’s going on? Why are we stopping?”

  “Janjaweed. Over there.”

  He pointed to the north, and Brett could make out several sets of headlights bouncing across the desert, moving closer.

  “You don’t know they’re Janjaweed, and even if they are, this mission is more important than killing some low-level militia. If any get away, we’re screwed.”

  “Nobody else drives around in convoys at night. It’s Janjaweed.” The tribesman smiled, his teeth gleaming white in the moonlight. “And I agree with you, Mister Brett, but I cannot make the others agree. They have suffered many times at the hands of the Janjaweed and will not be denied. We just need to make sure we kill them all.”

  Brett muttered under his breath, cursing his boss at the Special Activities Division in Langley and cursing his poor, dumb luck to be born African American. Because of it, he was always chosen for any mission in Africa that involved infiltrating with the natives, regardless of the fact that he was a five-foot-five-inch fireplug of solid muscle, and the Zaghawa were all six-foot string beans. He looked nothing like them, although he’d known that before he’d crossed the border at Chad. At the time, he’d laughed about it because all of his buddies in SAD had been denied a seat on the trip based on the color of their skin, no matter how hard they bitched that Brett looked about as native as they did. Bigotry at its finest.

  Now, as he often did when plans started falling apart four thousand
miles from help, he was wondering about his career choices. He tried one last time.

  “We lose a single man, and I’m aborting the mission. The refinery is much, much more important than a random militia patrol. Think about that. You’re risking a strategic gain for a tactical one.”

  The tribesman didn’t answer. He simply slipped over the side of the truck and faded into the darkness, along with everyone else. Brett cursed again and jumped over the side himself. Instead of following, he hunkered down next to the cab of the pickup, intent on hauling ass if things went bad.

  The Janjaweed, an amorphous group of militias comprised of nomadic tribesmen, were responsible for a campaign of terror in Darfur, committing atrocities as a matter of course in an effort to run out all of the sedentary farming tribes, such as the Zaghawa. In response, the farmers had banded together, forming militias of their own. The Zaghawa tribe belonged to the Sudanese Liberation Army and had formed ostensibly to take the fight to the Sudanese government for the perceived injustice of the government’s lack of effort to stop the Janjaweed from raping and pillaging. The plan had backfired. Instead of stopping the Janjaweed, the government, fearful of the threat, began arming them.

  As has happened throughout history, the conflict had escalated out of control until it was genocide, with civilians bearing the brunt of the damage.

  Brett knew all of this, but he wasn’t emotionally involved in any way. He was simply, as Clausewitz said over a century ago, the continuation of politics by other means. In this case, Chinese means.

  Over the past decade, China’s appetite for resources had grown along with its economy, until it was now a rapacious beast. China had begun pouring money into Sudan, becoming the largest investor in Sudan’s petroleum industry, and the largest consumer of Sudanese oil. Thus, China had more influence in Darfur’s war than perhaps any other country.

  Unfortunately for the victims of the genocide, China had little interest in Sudan’s conflict. Chinese arms kept the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed fighting, and because of it, a symbiotic relationship had been created: Sudan favored the Chinese for their support, and China used its sway within the UN Security Council to prevent any meaningful UN action.

  Brett hoped to change that equation, if he could keep these backwater natives focused on the mission.

  He patted the rucksack again, ensuring the device was with him, then crouched next to the cab of the pickup, hearing the tick of the engine and the clink of weaponry around him as the men deployed in a half-assed tactical manner. Eventually, he heard the groan of the Janjaweed vehicles, steadily growing louder.

  The Zaghawa tribesmen had tucked inside a small wadi, preventing him from seeing the approaching vehicles, which was the only tactical thinking that Brett could spot. There was no security to the flanks or rear, no discernible ambush line, and no way they would ever know if anyone escaped. He sighed. Another kindergarten fight.

  He prayed the Janjaweed were just as bad. He pulled on a pair of night observation goggles, the darkness immediately replaced with an eerie green.

  He saw the glow of headlights against the brush on top of the wadi, bouncing in and out and growing stronger, along with the Zaghawa tribesmen waiting to ambush the convoy in a formation that guaranteed failure. The lead Janjaweed truck reached the edge of the wadi and stopped, its headlights silhouetting the Zaghawa formation. He heard the shouting of the men in back, then the night erupted into gunfire.

  It seemed that the Zaghawa had surrounded the trucks and were now firing wildly into them, regardless of the friendly men on either side. Tracer fire arced through the air, most of it harmlessly over the heads of the Janjaweed. Miraculously, they began pouring out of the trucks unscathed, shooting just as wildly as the Zaghawa tribesmen.

  Jesus H. Christ. Fucking idiots.

  Brett threw his AK-47 to his shoulder and began firing controlled pairs, dropping everything he aimed at in the dim glow of the headlights, his NODs giving him an unbeatable edge. An RPG sputtered through the air and managed to find the lead Janjaweed truck, exploding the gas tank into a fierce ball of fire and throwing Brett backward.

  He rolled to the rear of his pickup, still snapping rounds, then realized he no longer had the rucksack. No way could he allow the Janjaweed to get it. If they lost this fight, he needed to ensure it was destroyed.

  He sprinted bent over, losing the depth perception in his NODs, forcing him to pat the ground until he hit the rucksack. He snatched it up and continued forward, climbing the wall of the wadi. Rounds were blasting from all sides, going both in and out, the tracers and the fire from the exploded truck causing his NODs to white out. He ripped them off and surveyed the damage.

  He was outside the ring of the fight and saw his intrepid Zaghawa tribesmen leaping forward, spraying rounds, then leaping back again. From all sides. Jesus. A circular ambush. Are they retarded?

  The Janjaweed were more disciplined, controlling their fire in a synchronized manner. And they had an edge: Using their trucks for cover, they could fire indiscriminately out three hundred and sixty degrees without worrying about hitting anyone friendly. With the Zaghawa’s poorly chosen formation, the fire would devastate any ability to mount an assault. In an instant, Brett saw they were going to lose. They had maybe a minute to gain the upper hand before the Janjaweed men began a systematic attack on a flank and rolled up the entire crew. Brett knew his men would either die or throw down their weapons and run off into the darkness.

  The second pickup of Janjaweed militia shifted attention to his side of the perimeter, the flames from the burning vehicle negating any edge his NODs would have provided. He could hear the second truck yelling to the third truck, and knew the assault was close. Rounds ripped the air around him, forcing him to push his face into the desert floor, worming backward for any low ground that would protect him. Bullets snapped through the fabric of the rucksack on his back, causing him to freeze and wonder if he would even feel the devastation should the device go off.

  The shooting shifted to his right, and up the line, he saw the men from the third truck massing to flank, unmolested because of the protection provided by the fire from truck two. Need to intercept them.

  He jumped up and raced through the darkness, screaming at any man he saw to follow him. None did. Shit… No English speakers.

  He reached the apex of the perimeter just as the men from truck three began to move. He had run far enough to put the assault element from truck three between him and the covering fire from truck two. He dropped to a knee and began pulling the trigger, his aim much, much more devastating than any of the tribesmen around him. He hit five before the assault was broken, the men retreating back to the safety of the vehicles, unsure of who was killing them.

  He followed at a sprint, needing to finish the job before they could regroup. He reached the trucks in the confusion of the enemy running back, with nobody realizing he was among them. He dropped the AK and pulled out his Glock 19, firing so close to the men that they didn’t realize he wasn’t shooting out. Within seconds, truck three was dead.

  Not wanting to lose momentum, he grabbed a PKM machine gun and sprinted the forty meters to truck two, mowing men down from their unprotected rear like he was working a scythe. The last two men realized that someone other than a jittery tribesman was after them, and turned to face the threat just as the belt ran out on his machine gun.

  Brett threw the heavy weapon into one man, knocking him to the ground, while he dove into the other. He grabbed a fistful of hair and pounded the man’s skull into the rocky ground until he felt no resistance, then turned and jumped on the other Janjaweed recruit, using his knee to crush his face. He rolled off and drew his Glock again, looking for another threat. None came, and the fire had slacked off to nothing from outside.

  Slowly, men came forward, looking incredulous at his actions. The English speaker found him, his eyes wide.

  “You are truly a lion among men.”

  The adrenaline still burning, Bre
tt spit on the ground and grabbed him by the chest. “Get me the leader.”

  He saw that the tribesman’s grasp of English wasn’t strong enough to follow, so he got belligerent, like an ugly American tourist. He raised his voice, speaking slowly and distinctly.

  “Get. Me. The. Fucking. Leader.”

  Forty-five minutes later, he dropped down from the bed of the pickup truck, the land around him glowing from the myriad of lights emanating from the refinery. The tribesmen themselves were milling about with little thought to security, making Brett antsy.

  This refinery was built with Chinese dollars, manned by Chinese engineers, and guarded by Sudanese government troops. He had no doubt they were better than the Janjaweed he had just fought, which meant they were exponentially better than the men who accompanied him. He needed to find the critical components of the refinery and trigger his device, then get the hell out. If the tribesmen here wanted to continue attacking, so be it. He wasn’t going to stop them, since it would help him escape to the south, where his exfiltration vehicle was staged.

  He pulled in the English speaker, reiterating what he had said before. “Nobody fires until I initiate. When you hear my explosion, start tearing it up. You understand?”

  “Yes, yes. We will wait. Where will you go?”

  “I’m going to cross the fence. You guys wait out here. Whatever you do, don’t initiate. Got it?”

  “Yes. We are lions too. We will wait.”

  Brett smiled and patted him on the shoulder, thinking he was about to take his life into his own hands. He turned and scaled the chain-link fence, then scampered into the first area of darkness he could find.

  He put on his NODs and scanned the refinery one hundred meters away. He’d learned all sorts of terms when studying the critical components of the average refinery—from atmospheric and vacuum fractionating towers to fluid catalytic crackers—but the key wasn’t learning how they worked, only what they looked like. He had determined that the fractionating towers were the components to attack, given the parameters of the device he intended to use.