the big Talib's face as Hawke headed for the door.
'What do you mean?'
'You said they wanted to get wasted, Harry. So waste them.'
'Cool,' Harry Brock said, as Hawke walked out of the fort, headed for his horse.
Four short bursts of automatic weapon fire reverberated inside the fort. Then Brock, Jones, and Patoo, grim- faced, emerged from the old fort and mounted up.
'Done,' Brock said to Hawke before swinging up into his saddle. Hawke kept his eyes straight ahead, gazing into the distance. Shooting unarmed men was not something he approved of. But neither was blowing up unsuspecting British soldiers. It was war. Tough shit.
'Good,' Hawke said.
And then they rode on, into the darkness. Into the jaws of death.
THE RAT PATROL SLEPT UNDER THE STARS that night. The three-part military sleeping bags, good to minus forty degrees, kept them all from freezing to death. At least they were bedded down in the lee of a massive curving sand dune. The towering dune provided protection from the howling wind and stinging sand that would have made getting any sleep at all impossible. And protected the horses, camels, and mules as well.
Hawke had assigned Brock and Patoo's skirmishers to form a perimeter around the makeshift camp. The seven men had dug shallow rifle pits in the sand and mounted their automatic weapons on tripods. Once this was done, Hawke walked the perimeter twice before attempting sleep. He checked to see that all the horses, camels, and mules were tethered and secure in one spot. The whole damn thing was far from perfect, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.
ALEX HAWKE LAY ON HIS BACK, hands clasped behind his head, gazing up at the crystal clear constellations, thinking about what lay in front of them and subconsciously calculating their chances of survival. C's words of warning about the danger he faced kept reverberating in his brain no matter how hard he tried to sublimate them. The presence of a civilian woman, especially one he cared for, didn't help matters. He'd faced dangerous situations before, but, somehow, this one felt-A figure swaddled in blankets was approaching him through the darkness.
'I couldn't sleep.'
'Sahira.'
'I want to be with you tonight, Alex. Do you mind?'
'Climb in this bag with me right now or I'm going to sleep without you.'
'I was hoping you would say that.'
Hawke pulled down the nylon slider that secured the bag and made room for her. She crawled inside and he resecured the bag against the chill.
'Cozy,' she said, embracing him, holding him against her body.
'Very.'
'Are you mad at me for doing this?'
'Are you insane?'
'It's very unprofessional of me.'
'So kiss me and I won't tell Lord Malmsey.'
'Oh, Alex, I have missed you so since-'
'Ssh. More kissing, less talking.'
He held her very close. She liked the pressure of his hand, urging her even closer. She cupped his cheeks with her palms, kissing him at last, but in a taunting way that made him want to kiss her brutally, take her now. Some women liked to be taken that way, roughly, and he suspected she was one of them. Lips, open a little in hunger, fed upon each other. His hands were two thieves: one holding her fast while the other made a desperate search; a hurried, clumsy thief pulling at buttons, tearing at openings.
'Do you think we can do this inside this thing?' she whispered.
'You're about to find out.'
'You seem very determined.'
'You've no idea.'
Fingers under her clothes, 'Yes…oh, yes.'
'Be still a moment,' he said, and she complied.
'We're going to make it through this alive, aren't we, Alex?'
'Of course we are,' he whispered into her ear as his body slowly slipped deep inside hers. 'Of course we are.'
FOUR HOURS LATER, ALEX HAWKE was awakened by Harry Brock. The man was kneeling beside him, squeezing his shoulder. Hawke opened his eyes, blinded by the light of the rising desert sun.
'Harry? What's going on?'
'Bad news, chief. We got a bunch of horsemen headed our way. Full gallop.'
'How the hell do you know that?'
'Patoo. Little guy puts his ear to the ground every sixty seconds or so. Been doing it all frigging night. This time he picked up riders. Lots of them. Damn it. Some shepherd or goatherd must have spotted us and told the bad guys we were coming.'
'Number of bad guys?'
'A very large group, he says. Very, very large.'
'How far out?'
'Thirty minutes. Maybe twenty. Do you think we can outrun them?'
'Only if we left all the camels, mules, ammunition, and supplies behind. Which we clearly can't do.'
'Yeah, right. So we can't run and we can't hide. Shit. Now what?'
Hawke said, 'Look, I've got an idea. Get Stoke and Patoo. Meet me at the base of the dune where all the livestock and horses are penned. Two minutes. Have Patoo get all the militia fighters up and ready and scared silly. Order them to use their pack shovels and start building a five-foot-high berm. Circular. Radius of thirty feet. And tell them to build it far enough away from this dune that we can't take fire from above. And make sure all the horses are tethered safely on the other side of that dune. We're not going anywhere without them.'
'Done.'
'Got it all? Hurry.'
Harry was gone.
Sahira peeked out from under the zipped-up bag. 'What can I do, Alex?'
'How are you doing with your M4 rifle?'
'I'd say, comfortable.'
'Ever killed a man?'
'Of course not.'
'Get ready, then, darling. Every bullet helps.'
FIFTY-SEVEN
HAWKE, ABDUL DAKKON, AND A NUMBER of solemn-faced Pakistani militia fighters led some of the livestock, the maximum number of mules and camels they thought they could spare, around the circular berm now being constructed by their brethren, who were digging madly. Hawke had never seen men move with such ferocious alacrity in his life. Like a scared sailor with a bucket on a sinking ship. The thing was about three feet high and thirty feet across. And it was almost complete.
Patoo was prone in the center of the ring, his ear to the ground.
'Patoo,' Hawke said, 'how long?'
'Another twenty minutes if we're lucky, sir.'
'Well, then I guess we have to be lucky,' Hawke said, with a reassuring smile.
Hawke then ordered the men to tether the big animals nose to tail in a large circle all around the exterior circumference of the makeshift redoubt, putting a space of about two feet between each camel or mule. When this was done, he pulled his pistol and told the others to do the same.
