The F-lll streaked southward over the desert, then Satherwaite banked hard to starboard and executed a hundred-and-fifty-degree turn that would bring them back over the coast a hundred kilometers west of Tripoli.

Wiggins said, 'Nice flying, Skipper.'

Satherwaite didn't acknowledge, but said, 'Keep an eye out for the Libyan Air Force, Chip.'

Wiggins adjusted the knobs on his radar screen. 'Clear skies. Gadhafi's pilots are washing their underwear about now.'

'We hope.' The Fill had no air-to-air missiles, and the idiots who designed it hadn't even put a Gatling gun on board, so their only defense against another jet was speed and maneuver. 'We hope,' he repeated. Satherwaite sent out a radio signal indicating that Karma 57 was among the living.

They sat in silence waiting for the other signals. Finally, the radio signals began coming in: Remit 22, with Terry Waycliff piloting and Bill Hambrecht as wizo; Remit 61, with Bob Callum piloting, Steve Cox, wizo; Elton 38, with Paul Grey piloting, Jim McCoy, wizo.

Their whole flight had made it.

Wiggins said, 'I hope the other guys did okay.'

Satherwaite nodded. So far, this was a perfect mission and that made him feel good. He liked it when everything went as planned. Aside from the missiles and the Triple-A, which in any case had not done him or his flight mates any harm, this could have been a live-bomb training mission over the Mojave Desert. Satherwaite jotted an entry in his log. 'Piece of cake.'

'Milk run,' Wiggins agreed.

Asad Khalil kept squeezing, and this had the intended effect of making her stop screaming. She looked at him with wide bulging eyes. He squeezed harder, and she began to thrash around beneath him. He squeezed even harder and the thrashing turned to muscle spasms, then even those stopped. He kept the pressure on her throat and looked into Bahira's eyes, which were wide open and unblinking.

He counted to sixty and released his hands from her neck. He had solved the problem of the present and all the problems of the future with one relatively simple act.

He stood, put his Koran on the prayer mat, rolled it and tied it, put it over his shoulder and went down the stairs and out the building into the street.

All the lights in the compound were out, and he made his way through the darkness toward his home. With every step he took away from the building where Bahira lay dead on the roof, he was that much more removed, physically and mentally, from any involvement with the dead girl.

A building in front of him was in ruins and by the light of the burning structure, he saw dead soldiers lying all around him. A man's face stared up at him, the white skin reddened by the reflected flames. The man's eyes had popped out of his skull and blood ran from his eye sockets, his nose, his ears, and his mouth. Khalil fought down the nausea in his churning stomach, but he caught a whiff of burning flesh and vomited.

He rested a moment, then pushed on, still carrying his prayer mat.

He wanted to pray, but the Koran specifically prohibited a man from praying after he had intercourse with a woman, unless he first washed himself, including his face and hands.

He saw a ruptured cistern pouring water down the side of a building, and he stopped to wash his face and hands, then washed the blood and urine from his genitals.

He moved on, reciting long passages from the Koran, praying for the safety of his mother, sisters, and brothers.

He saw fires raging from the direction he was headed, and he began running.

This night, he reflected, had begun in sin and ended in hell. Lust led to sin, sin led to death. Hellfires raged all around him. The Great Satan himself had delivered punishment to him and to Bahira. But Allah the merciful had spared his life, and as he ran he prayed that Allah had also spared his family.

As an afterthought, he also prayed for Bahira's family and for the Great Leader.

As Asad Khalil, age sixteen, ran through the ruins of Al Azziziyah, he understood that he had been tested by Satan and by Allah, and that from this night of sin, death, and fire he would emerge a man.

CHAPTER 17

Asad Khalil continued running toward his home. There were more people in this quarter of the compound- soldiers, women, a few children, and they were running, or walking slowly as if stunned; some he realized were on their knees praying.

Khalil turned a corner and stopped dead in his tracks. The row of attached stucco houses where he lived looked strangely different. Then he realized there were no shutters on the windows, and he noticed debris strewn in the open square in front of the houses. But even more strange was the fact that moonlight came through the open windows and doors. He suddenly realized that the roofs had collapsed into the buildings and blown out the doors, windows, and shutters. Allah, I beg of you, please, no…

He felt as if he were going to faint, then he took a deep breath and ran toward his house, stumbling over pieces of concrete, dropping his prayer mat, finally reaching the doorway opening. He hesitated, then rushed inside to what had been the front room.

The entire flat roof had collapsed into the room, covering the tile floor, the rugs, and the furniture with broken slabs of concrete, wooden beams, and stucco. Khalil looked upward at the open sky. In the name of the most merciful…

He took another deep breath and tried to get himself under control. On the far wall was the wood and tile cabinet that his father had built. Khalil made his way across the rubble to the cabinet, whose doors had been flung open. He found the flashlight inside and switched it on.

He swept the powerful, narrow beam around the room, seeing now the full extent of the damage. A framed photograph of the Great Leader still hung on the wall and this somehow reassured Khalil.

He knew he had to go into the bedrooms, but he couldn't bring himself to face what might be there.

Finally, he told himself, You must be a man. You must see if they are dead or alive.

He moved toward an arched opening that led further back into the house. The cooking and eating room had suffered the same damage as the front room. Khalil noticed that his mother's dishes and ceramic bowls had all fallen off their shelves.

He passed through the destruction into a small inner courtyard where three doors led to the three bedrooms. Khalil pushed on the door to the room that he shared with his two brothers, Esam, age five, and Qadir, age fourteen. Esam was the posthumous son of his father, always sickly, and was indulged by his sisters and mother. The Great Leader himself had sent for a European doctor once to examine him during one of his illnesses. Qadir, only two years younger than Asad, was big for his age and sometimes mistaken as his twin. Asad Khalil had hopes and dreams that Qadir and he would join the Army together, become great warriors, and eventually become Army commanders and aides to the Great Leader.

Asad Khalil held on to this image as he pushed on the door, which encountered some obstruction on the other side and held fast. He pushed harder and managed to squeeze himself through the narrow opening into his room.

There were three single beds in the small room-his own, which was flattened under a slab of concrete, Qadir's bed, which was also buried in concrete rubble, and Esam's bed, across which Khalil could see a huge rafter.

Khalil scrambled over the rubble to Esam's bed and knelt beside it. The heavy timber had landed lengthwise on the bed, and beneath the timber, under the blanket, was Esam's crushed and lifeless body. Khalil put his hands over his face and wept.

He got himself under control and turned toward Qadir's bed. The entire bed was buried under a section of concrete and stucco roof. Khalil's flashlight played over the mound of debris, and he saw a hand and arm protruding from the concrete pieces. He reached out and grasped the hand, then quickly let go of the dead flesh.

He let out a long, plaintive wail and threw himself across the mound of debris covering Qadir's bed. He cried

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