“Then pay attention.”
“To what?”
“What’s going on around you.”
“We’re rescued,” Gary said belligerently. “All we gotta do is shoot some footage of the UN troops, and we’re home free.”
“Then OneWorld is sending you home?”
“I’ve asked to be sent back home.”
“Did they say yes?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Then they’re not going to send you home yet. They need a cameraman over here.”
“I told them I’ve had enough.”
“Have you stopped and wondered what this is about?” Danielle asked.
“What what’s about? The war? The Syrians have always-”
“No. The reinforcements. Why now?”
“Maybe this was as soon as Carpathia could make it happen.”
“Doesn’t reinforcing Sanliurfa seem like a lost cause to you? What do we need to hold here? There are no oil fields, no natural resources. Most of the civilians have cleared away, and the ones who have stayed can’t be viewed as our responsibility.”
Gary remained silent.
“And if reinforcing this city was a good idea, don’t you think the previous secretarygeneral would have thought of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think he would have,” Danielle said.
“Maybe he had trouble selling it?”
“Then how was Carpathia able to sell it to the rest of the United Nations?”
“Don’t know. I’ve listened to the guy talk. He’s awfully convincing.”
Danielle silently agreed. “What if Carpathia wants Icarus?”
“Now you’re scaring me.”
“Why?”
“Conspiracy theories aren’t my thing.”
“They’re not mine either.”
“Then we should be out there on the street interviewing some of those UN soldiers.”
“I can’t do that.”
Gary sighed.
At that moment, across the street, Alexander Cody stepped back into the wan moonlight pouring down from the darkened sky.
“Bring your camera over here,” Danielle ordered.
Outside Sanliurfa
Local Time 2116 Hours
Goose inched across the muddy ground. In his mind, he was just another layer of mud. And he moved slow as molasses, oozing across the slippery ground rather than sliding. Mud caked his face. Half the time when he breathed, he sucked in dirty water from the ground.
His first objective lay eighty yards away. He felt certain the burned and blasted remnants of the tank provided sufficient cover.
Unless those guys gunning for you have moved around. Goose tried to keep from thinking about that. Likewise, he tried to keep from thinking that the unknown gunners were even now creeping up on Miller and Icarus. There was no way you could bring them with you. They’re not trained for this.
Goose dug his boot toes into the ground and started oozing forward again. A sharp stone dug into his face. He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t make an adjustment. He just slid over the stone and kept going.
Long minutes later, he reached the tank. Smoke, diesel, and the distinct odor of burned flesh clung to the broken metal. Goose remained low and got his bearings. The muted moonlight splashed across bodies of the dead. The rain had washed the blood from the corpses, and the thirsty ground had drunk it in. But the horrible wounds remained visible. Torn flesh, limbs that had been ripped away, incomplete heads-all of them lay before him.
Goose steeled himself against the sight. He’d seen worse, but there in the darkness, with only the whisper- soft voice of the rain all around him, he couldn’t remember the last time death had affected him so deeply.
He thought of Chris and the way his son had vanished. He thought of the young Rangers he’d seen die. They were just boys. Not much older than Joey.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. They weren’t supposed to be abandoned behind enemy lines. They weren’t supposed to be left here to die.
My son was not supposed to be taken from me. The anger that had nourished Goose since the beginning of the Syrian attack simmered inside him. His hurt and uncertainty dwindled, but he knew it would be back. As soon as his thoughts turned back to living past the moment, he’d regard the future with as much fear and hate as he had since he’d learned of Chris’s disappearance.
“God took your son,” Joseph Baker had said. “ He took that little boy on up to heaven to watch over him till you get there.”
There aren’t any guarantees that I’m headed there, Goose thought. I got left behind.
“I’m going to heaven,” Baker had told him. “ When I die, when my time comes, even if I last through these next seven years, I’m going to heaven.”
Did you? Goose thought. Is that where you ended up, Baker? He moved toward one of the bodies and searched the man’s assault rifle. It was an AK-47, standard issue. The rifles of the next three corpses were the same.
Lord, You’re gonna have to cut me some slack, Goose thought. Reason dictates that at least some of the men accompanying these tanks as they moved forward would be snipers. Gotta be a range-finding laser here somewhere.
He searched three more mutilated bodies before he found a Russian sniper weapon equipped with a range- finding laser.
Cautiously Goose used his Swiss Army knife to remove the range finder from the weapon. Then he started the laborious trip back to Miller and Icarus.
Downtown Sanliurfa
Local Time 2120 Hours
Excitement flowed through Danielle as she studied the CIA section chief. Her heart thudded.
Cody was barely visible in profile against the doorframe leading to the balcony. Moonlight made the man’s face look bone white. He smoked a cigar and drank straight from a bottle as he stared out through the rain.
For a moment Danielle thought he was staring at her; then she realized he was still focused on the battlefield. His lips moved. She increased the magnification.
She wasn’t an expert lip-reader, but the skill wasn’t as hard as many people believed, and she’d starting picking it up as a girl while spying on her older brothers. It just required concentration, visibility, and some experience. Most people could pick it up easily, which was one of the problems sports networks faced when they stayed in close on an upset player.
Cody’s lips moved again.
“Gary?” Danielle said.
“Yeah.”
“The camera?”
“I’m on him.”
“Tight on his face. I want to see what he’s saying.”
“’Kay.”
Danielle hoped the night lenses could filter in enough light to illuminate the scene.
Cody wasn’t alone. Another man, one Danielle hadn’t seen in the bar downstairs, stood beside Cody. She concentrated on the men’s lips.
