Goose leaned his head back and got as comfortable as he could in the foldout seat despite the helo’s constant vibration and noise. He tipped his helmet down to shade his eyes, even though the dim light inside the cargo area would have made a firefly’s tail look like a comet by comparison.
He thought about Megan and Joey. The phones in Sanliurfa still hadn’t come back online so he hadn’t been able to contact his wife to find out how they were doing. He prayed that they were doing well. And he thought about Chris as well. The ache in his chest wasn’t all about the coming battle. His loss was still there, a constant agony that he could ignore only when duty or sleep took all his attention. So it wasn’t surprising that, when he finally nodded off to sleep for a few minutes, he met his son in his dreams.
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0623 Hours
Captain Cal Remington stood in the command center and stared at the big wall screen that showed the flight paths of the two Chinook helicopters streaking toward the west. A readout in the upper left corner gave their altitude as 1,232 feet, well below the helo’s practical ceiling of 14,000 feet. Running nap-of-the-earth as they were, they looked like they were trying to avoid possible antiaircraft weapons. Still, they were on a straight route to Diyarbakir City with no sign of trouble so far. The readout also noted that they were moving at 223 kilometers per hour, near the copter’s max of 259 kph.
“They don’t look particularly threatening or suspicious, do they?”
Turning, Remington gazed at Felix Magureanu.
Despite the early hour, Felix looked well rested and bright eyed. He had on a dark silver suit that looked like it had just been pressed. The creases in his pants legs stood out sharp as razor blades. The burgundy turtleneck he wore beneath the unbuttoned jacket looked as dark as fresh blood but captured red highlights. He stroked his copper-colored goatee in self-satisfaction. The gesture made him look a bit like a cat. The wraparound sunglasses he wore, despite the low light in the command center, hid his eyes.
“No,” Remington answered, “they don’t look suspicious. They’re not supposed to.”
“If I were the Syrian army commander,” Felix said, “I’d believe you were trying to transport wounded to Diyarbakir City.”
“Good. That’s just what I want the Syrians to think.” Remington had put that particular rumor into circulation right after he’d given Goose and the two lieutenants their orders. Goose had been the only one he’d called to the command center for the briefing. Goose was also the one Remington most trusted to see the mission through to the bitter end. The others would give their lives if they had to, but Goose had always been able to come up with a little bit more than any normal soldier—or even any extraordinary sergeant, for that matter.
That was one of the reasons Remington had decided to take the OCS route, to break his constant competition with Goose that the other sergeant never even seemed to notice. To Goose, they were equals, brothers in arms. And Goose’s lack of recognition of the competition between them had been just as insulting in its own right as the fact that Remington often came up short. Goose was winning without even knowing he was in a race.
But once Remington had made officer, there was no more competition. Remington had won, had proven himself the better man by stepping into the ranks of the military’s power structure. Then he’d gotten attracted to the power of command, the attention officers got from each other as well as the media and the politicians.
Goose, though, remained an excellent sergeant, one of the best weapons in Remington’s arsenal.
“Still,” Felix went on, “as bloodthirsty as the Syrian army is apparently getting to be, what with dropping the bodies of your own dead among you, I’d think that two helicopters flying all alone and so close to the earth would be tempting targets.”
“Maybe, if it wasn’t raining.” For the first time, Remington noted that Felix’s suit was perfectly dry, even the trouser cuffs. How could he have gotten to the command center without getting soaked like the rest of them? But even as he noticed that, he decided that the detail didn’t matter. Only the fact that Felix was helping him mattered. His help was essential, in fact. They couldn’t do the job without it. And that was why Remington had granted the man the freedom to roam through the command center.
“I don’t know,” Felix said with a grin. “I think I’d still make a try for them.”
“I’m glad you’re not the Syrian commander then,” Remington said. “I’m hoping he’s paying no attention whatsoever. Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Magureanu?” Remington remained polite. After all, the man had patched him into a network of satellites that essentially used much of Nicolae Carpathia’s system—though with deniability, in case it came to that. From the looks of things, Remington could tell that Carpathia was well on his way to sliding into the U.N. secretarygeneral’s seat. If other members of the world’s nations found out that Carpathia was shading the war between Syria and Turkey, the fact would cause him to stumble and possibly wreck his momentum.
“No, Captain Remington,” Felix said, “I don’t require anything. I just thought I’d come down to watch the festivities.”
“The real festivities won’t start for another fourteen hours,” Remington said. “That’s when Alpha and Bravo hit ground zero at the Syrian encampment.”
Felix checked his watch. “It will be dark again by then.”
“Yes.”
“Will you be able to
