The world is patched with all manner of deserts. There are the cold deserts of the Arctic and Antarctic, the rocky plains of Mongolia and western North America, the high plateau of Tibet, and the altiplano of Bolivia and Chile. But those that are most familiar to people, those that individuals see in their mind’s eye when they think of the word desert, are those composed of sand and gravel and heat.

  The CV-22 Ospreys that came screaming over the dune sea were probably flying in formation too close to one another. With no one around to chastise them, however, their crews felt free to indulge in a game or two, played at gallons of jet fuel per second.

  Certainly four of the men in the lead craft felt no particular compunction to adhere minutely to regulations that had been compiled by desk jockeys back in the Pentagon. Military life was hard enough without having to live every moment of one’s waking life exactly according to the book. Consequently, the interior of the rumbling aircraft was presently rockin’ not to the officially approved tracks of Stars n’ Stripes radio but to the irresistible beat of a choice snatch of Reggaeton hip-hop.

  That William “Wild Bill” Lennox had risen to the rank of captain was almost an accident of military history. Though only in his thirties, coincidence had combined with competence to raise him from the ranks to his present exalted and unexpected status. His comparative youthfulness allowed him to identify, if not exactly empathize, with the owner of the stereo that was snapping out the thump.

  Hailing from East Oakland, California, Technical Sergeant Epps had yet to encounter anything in Qatar tougher than his old neighborhood back home. Swaying and singing along with the music, he clung to the compact player as if it were a brick of aphrodisiac. Lennox caught his attention.

  “Who sings that song, man?”

  Still swaying, Epps responded without looking over. “Daddy Yankee.”

  “Right.” The captain pursed his lips. “So why don’t you let him sing it, and we won’t give him your fire missions.”

  A pained look crossed the tech sergeant’s face. “Don’t mock my gift, bro. One day I’ll win American Idol and you be wishin’ you knew me when.”

  On the other side of the fuselage, Chief Warrant Officer Jorge Figueroa looked pained. Though not much older than Epps, both his background and temperament were radically different. Not to mention his tastes in music. As he listened to captain and sergeant argue the merits of Reggaeton versus North Jersey back and forth, he muttered under his breath.

  “Sixteen months of this. Can’t wait for a lil’ taste o’ home.” A smile of remembrance played across his lips as his voice rose. “Plate of Mama’s alligator étouffée.”

  Epps’s face screwed up in a grimace. “Make note to self: at all costs, avoid dinner at Fig’s mama’s place.”

  “Fig” Figueroa met the other man’s gaze. “For real, Epps—gator tail’s got the most succulent meat.” His smile returned, broadened. He was tasting it in his mind, swirling the roux around his tongue. “Add a little sauce piquant, a little extra cayenne, some fried okra on the side …”

  Breaking off the music debate, Lennox glanced over at him. “So what you’re tellin’ us is that you can’t wait to get home so you can eat some of Mom’s homemade lizard ass.”

  A doleful Figueroa shook his head. “Why you gotta ruin it for me? This is my heritage we’re talkin’ here.” He lowered his voice, mumbling softly. “Tell you one thing, man. Gator beats camel any day of the week.”

  “Maybe so,” Epps chimed in, “but you can milk a camel.”

  Seeing that the warrant officer was taking the gentle jibing all too personal-like, Lennox decided it was incumbent on him to change the subject. “Hey, hey—weekends. Remember those?”

  Putting out a closed fist, Epps dapped his superior. “Heard that.”

  Figueroa sighed resignedly and turned to the captain. “What about you, Lennox? First thing you’re gonna do when you get home …?”

  The captain turned wistful, didn’t hesitate. “Hold my little girl for the first time. Imprint. Stare into her baby blues. Start teaching her how to say ‘Daddy.’ ”

  A chorus of drawn-out, gently mocking “awwws” filled the interior of the aircraft. Setting aside the music player, Epps dug into a pocket and pulled out a photo. It was scratched and bent and sand-scored. One corner was missing, but it was still perfectly viewable. From within the square, three little girls looked back at the viewer.

  “Enjoy it, my man,” he told Lennox. Or maybe it was a warning. “Once they start talkin’ back, they own you. Be like all ‘Daddy, Daddy, my My Little Pony needs a new hairbrush and a My Little Pony purse and, oh, the new My Little Pony Butterfly Island Adventure playset, and …’ ”

  An irritated Lennox interrupted him. “You through?”

  A grinning Epps put the picture away, eyed his fellow soldiers, and commented with the voice of experience. “He don’t know what he’s in for.”

  There was a slight jolt and the quartet went silent as they prepared for touchdown. Smoothly, the wings of the CV-22 swung from horizontal to vertical. In helicopter mode it settled gently to the tarmac below. Troopers emerged, Lennox’s small group among them.

  Younger than his comrades, Sergeant First Class Donnely caught up to them as the men made their way off the landing pad. A hand brushed a few grains of the omnipresent sand from his red hair. “Hey, anybody know if my Celtics won?”

  Epps replied before Lennox could respond. “Naw, they got thrashed.”

  Dejection slid down over the previously ebullient Donnely’s face as he adjusted his glasses. “You couldn’t just say, No, they lost. You’re rude, dude.” He looked crushed. “I had five hundred on those bums to cover.”

  Striding alongside, Lennox had to shake his head in disbelief. “A thousand miles from nowhere and he finds a way to call his bookie.”

  Like any warrant officer, Figueroa had an explanation for everything. “Fly boys have special privileges. Air force supplies bookies. Right, Epps?”

  “Hell yeah. ’Cause unlike army, we can actually count past ten, and understand the nuances of a point spread.” One hand described a shape in the air. “Missile spread, point spread: not all that much difference, y’know?”

  Their general laughter drew the attention of Mahfouz. Not Qatari and hailing from a poor immigrant family, he and his wandering clan had not shared in the general flood of oil and gas money that had inundated the country. He immediately sidled up to the captain.

  “Lennox, you cool! Did you bring chocolate?”

  The captain shook his head. “Sorry, kid. Already ate it.”

  “No, you lie!” The boy began dancing and hopping in front of the advancing officer. “Give it to me, or I will call down the wrath of Rakan and Jalila upon you!”

  Lennox had to smile. “Kids and comic book heroes: some things never change.” Reaching into a pocket, he extracted a Snickers and tossed it to the eager youngster. “Give us a hand with the gear. And let’s hustle, okay?”

  Mahfouz grinned as he peeled the wrapper from the chocolate. “Lennox man, you think I’d miss HBO tonight?”

  It was cooler inside the Joint Operations Center. Infinitely cooler. Normally it was also relaxing, but not now. At least, not for the air force staff sergeant who was staring intently at his console. A readout had materialized that he was unable to identify. The sergeant didn’t like unidentifiable readouts. They tended to portend trouble, or at the very least a curt reprimand. Still, he had no choice but to announce it.

  “Inbound unidentified infiltrator, ten miles out and closing.”

  Within seconds the watch commander was at his side, peering down at the same readout. He could make no more sense of it than the sergeant seated in front of the monitor. He could, however, react to it. The console’s omnidirectional mike picked up his formal warning.

  “Unidentified aircraft, you’re in restricted Qatari and U.S. military airspace. Squawk ident and proceed stat east out of area.”

  There followed what might have been a response, but it was lost in a wash of unintelligible static. Bad comm unit, the watch commander wondered—or a deliberate and calculated attempt to stall for time? In such situations he was not allowed time for extended contemplation and analysis.

  “Raptors One and Two: snap to heading two-five-zero for intercept. Bogie is in the weeds ten miles out and not squawking.”

  The Raptors on patrol located the intruding craft almost immediately. The massive MH-53 Special Operations Command helicopter below them made no attempt to conceal itself—or to alter its course. The much faster F-22s thundered past overhead. As they did so, the pilot of the lead fighter addressed what he hoped was the most opportune frequency.

  “Unidentified aircraft, we will escort you to U.S. SOCCENT air base. If you do not comply, you will be brought down. We will use deadly force. Repeat: we will use deadly force. There will be no second warning.”

  Moments later, after he had locked in his fighter’s weaponry on the low-flying chopper, the huge helicopter began a slow descent. Relieved, the pilot settled back into his seat and spoke again into his pickup mike.

  “Tower—Bogie’s coming down. It’s an MH-53, tail ID number AF4. Be advised: it’s one of our Pave Lows. Still no response to repeated queries. Its transponder and comms may be out. Advise.”

  In the operations center the chief research tech promptly entered the declared craft identification into his computer and was almost as quickly rewarded with information. The trouble was that though there was a wealth of detail, none of it made any sense. Not in light of the most recent input to the relevant file. Frowning, he looked over at the watch commander.

  “Sir, says here AF4 was shot down three months ago. In Afghanistan.”

  The watch commander’s brow furrowed. Shot down or not, the question remained as to how an AF4 could make it from the Afghan theater all the way to Qatar while avoiding Iranian airspace. Even more tellingly, perhaps it had not avoided Iranian airspace. Either way, the ident they were getting from the patrol didn’t make any sense.

  “Gotta be a mistake. Too many things don’t add up. Get a reconfirm from intercept.” Turning, he headed upstairs. Not that he doubted the veracity of the two well-trained pilots, but he fully intended to see this mystery arrival for himself.

  It was growing dark out. When the sun went down in the desert, it went down fast. In the distance, the lights of numerous wells flaring off natural gas imparted a slight and unnaturally rosy glow to the belly of the atmosphere. The captain broke off helping his friends with the unpacking to answer the insistent ring of his cell phone.

  “Lennox,” he responded curtly. He was tired, hot, and in no mood for bureaucratic chitchat. Not with darkness and the prospect of a good night’s sleep so close at hand. Probably it was typical military stuff that could wait until morning. But he did not rank high enough to just ignore the call. When its subject was explained to him, he was glad he had answered.

  “Captain,” the voice on the other end informed him, “I’m pleased to report that we have a secure home-front connection for you.” His spirits leaped immediately and the day’s fatigue vanished. “Please hold and respond to the incoming link.”

  Working fast, he dragged his laptop from the pile of luggage and snapped the cell phone’s connector into the appropriate receptacle on the computer. As soon as his login was accepted, his wife’s face appeared: larger, clearer, and in far more achingly beautiful detail than would have been available on his phone’s sharp but tiny screen.

  “Hey there, baby girl,” he murmured softly, working to repress the lump in his throat. “How’re my ladies?”

  Thanks to the wide-angle camera pickup in the kitchen back home, he could see that Sarah was feeding the baby as she addressed the pickup. “Missing their guy,” she told him. It was a great connection, and there was very little time-delay between picture and voice. “It’s official now. She has your laugh.”

  Lennox felt he would bust with pride and break out crying all at the same time. He could have cared less about the consequent ribbing such an outburst would bring from troops working nearby, but he didn’t want to do anything that might upset his wife. His baby girl’s first laugh. Another of life’s precious moments missed, and here he was sucking sand halfway around the world. No point in laying that dejection on Sarah, though. It was hard enough him being so far away without her worrying about him any more than she already did. So for her benefit he did his best to sound upbeat when he replied.

  “She laughed? You sure it wasn’t just spit-up?”

  His wife’s giggle sent both joy and pain shooting through him. “No, it was a for-sure laugh. Her first real one, yeah.”

  “C’mon—must’ve been gas.”

  She shook her head and grinned mischievously. “What happened was, I was telling her about the night we got locked out of the house, how instead of going to the neighbors to ask for a key her daddy decided to build a campfire in the backyard, and nine months later—”

  “—Whoa, hey,” he interrupted her hastily, feigning distress. “I thought we’d wait till she was at least two before we got into the R-rated stuff.”

  Sarah’s eyes were dancing with the memory. “I started laughing when I told her the keys were in your jacket the whole time, and that’s when she laughed, too. But I think it was at you more than with you.”

  A sly smile spread across the officer’s face. “Ever think maybe I locked us out on purpose?”

  She pursed her lips in a challenge. “Ever think maybe I slipped those keys back in your pocket?” From half a world away her bubbling laughter lifted him higher than a kilo of khat. “Still coming home soon, baby?”

  For once in the course of his seemingly endless deployment Lennox did not have to fake an encouraging response. “We’re due for a rotation. Colonel assures me no bull this time. I’m right at the top of the list.” Across one ocean and a couple of continents he tried to make eye contact with his daughter. “Hear that, Annabelle? You’re gonna meet your daddy any day now …”

  The picture broke up, shattering into confused pixels as static filled the laptop’s screen. “Sarah …?” Fragments of the music that was her voice crackled back at him from the computer’s speakers. There was no indication of panic on her part. He was not calling from the corner fast-food market, and she was familiar with such unforeseen interruptions. But that did not make them any easier to take, he reflected unhappily. For either of them.

  A few quick work-arounds showed that he was not going to be able to get the connection back. Reluctantly, he closed the rubber-armored clamshell as the thump-thump of heavy rotors began to fill the night air. Epps wandered over and the other troops paused in their unloading to look up as the big chopper settled neatly to the tarmac not far away. Lennox reflected that it was one of the better night landings he had witnessed. Whoever was piloting the copter knew how to handle their instruments.

  Unexpectedly, as it touched down it was immediately surrounded by a flotilla of armed Humvees. Lennox’s interest in the arrival suddenly doubled. He was startled to see that the encircling vehicles’ heavy machine guns and grenade launchers were fully manned and aimed at the chopper. What the hell was up?

  Spotlights swept across the helicopter as its blades continued to slow. One high-intensity beam settled on the cockpit to pin the pilot in its unrelenting glare. He was wearing a tan flight suit, a mustache, and a blank expression. That was strange, Lennox found himself thinking. Whatever the circumstances prompting the confrontation, with a dozen heavy weapons aimed in his direction you’d think the guy would wave, make a face, give the Humvee gunners the one-fingered salute, or something. Instead he continued to just sit there, staring straight ahead as if paralyzed. Except that paralyzed pilots couldn’t bring an aircraft as complex as an MH-53 gently to ground.

  Inside the tower the anxious watch commander picked up a pair of binoculars and promptly focused them on the big helicopter’s tail. “AF4,” he muttered to himself. “All the way from Afghanistan, without us getting a copy of a flight plan. And why come here? Why not head for a closer base in Pakistan? Something’s definitely not right.” Raising his voice, he directed it toward his headset’s pickup. “MH-53 pilot, shut down all systems and have your crew step out now. Nothing personal, but just to make base security happy, show no weapons as you come out.”

  Lennox and the watch commander up in the tower were not the only onlookers unsettled by the chopper pilot’s subsequent lack of response to this order. The troops manning the surrounding Humvees were equally ill at ease. Nervous fingers hovered close to well-oiled triggers. As MPs working overseas they had been trained to respond to a whole gamut of exotic possibilities they would never be expected to have to deal with back home, but indifference was not among these.

  “Hey …” The gunner in the nearest Humvee suddenly pointed.

  Inside the chopper’s cockpit, the man in the tan suit disappeared. Well, he didn’t exactly disappear. To the gunner it looked as if he suddenly turned into a bad television picture, a sort of three-dimensional electronic frizz. Then he, and the visual static that had taken his place, vanished completely.

  The penetrating, disquieting, ear-tingling shriek of a high-pitched energy pulse filled the desert night air, rising rapidly in intensity. Somewhere, something inorganic was screaming. It originated from within the helicopter.

  Within the SOCCENT operations center the image on every screen and computer monitor suddenly turned to electronic mush. Readouts went berserk. Even the center’s chronometers went crazy, with no two telling the same time.

  “Systems failing,” a tech declared, his own voice rising sharply. “Radar’s jammed.” Involuntarily, he turned to look over his shoulder. With the apparent failure of his instrumentation, the only sensors he had left that he could trust were his own eyes and ears. “It’s coming from the chopper.”

  His gaze now fixed unblinkingly on the copter that had become the center of everyone’s attention, Lennox found himself backing slowly toward the big tent where he and his men and the helpful Mahfouz had been stacking supplies. Behind him, Donnely had his hands to his ears, trying to shut out the earsplitting electronic squeal. It didn’t trouble the music-manic Epps nearly as much. The tech sergeant’s hearing was already damaged.