Abu Umarov stared forward through the windshield, in silence, absorbing what was said. This man was the killer of his Knez. It was a pledge of the Crni Labudovi to avenge the death of a Black Swan.

  “Why was Knez in London?” Yousef turned to Liaquat.

  “I didn’t want to say anything before because I knew how important Zabara was to you, but . . .”

  “Speak!”

  “The Bosnians had said that Zabara had changed. They suspected he had become a traitor. The Crni Labudovi had sent Knez to check out the rumors.”

  Yousef turned and struck Liaquat with the full force of his hand.

  “Why did you not tell me? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I was going to, but when we flew together, when I talked to him, I thought it was a lie. I knew how important this was.” Liaquat slumped down with his head in his hands.

  “Anis, can you reach Zulfiqar?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Tell him that we may have an American special-operations group in this valley and we need his warriors. Tell him to muster everyone!”

  Yousef looked flushed and was sweating in the cold wind. “Are you well, brother?”

  Yousef waved off the doctor’s concern. “It must be my son’s sickness. I have a fever. It doesn’t matter. I will hunt this infidel and cut his throat. Now, you go! Tell him where we are!”

  “I will get Zulfiqar here.”

  “Guide him through this storm!”

  They briefly stopped the truck, and Liaquat jumped out.

  “We will follow the trail. Hurry!”

  The fourth passenger in the truck was the young warrior from Indonesia, Malik Mahmud. Useless now, still in shock from seeing his friends blown into pieces and onto the windshield of the SUV that had followed theirs.

  “I go from here on foot.” Abu Umarov opened the door to the truck and also jumped out. “You keep following the trail with your lights on.”

  Umarov disappeared into the darkness and blinding wind.

  Yousef saw Liaquat running, in the glow of the brake lights of the truck, back toward the cave and help.

  “Mahmud, come up front here and make sure you have enough ammunition.”

  “Yes, Yousef.”

  “We need to find Sadik Zabara—and kill him.”

  CHAPTER 68

  The tent

  Parker had been mentally prepared to take a bearing as soon as he saw the light. It was an advantage that he had. He expected the light. They didn’t. The tent was to the west, up the valley, in the face of the rocks, ten degrees to his left. As a pilot, he knew how to take a bearing. More important, it was near a dark chocolate-colored rock that stood above a man’s height. But it was a chocolate-colored rock in a field of rocks in the dark.

  Where is it?

  And the sky was now gone. The stars had disappeared from sight. The wind had increased, now blowing directly at him.

  If I had a star.

  Parker’s mouth was dry, his fever relentless. The headaches continued to pound his skull.

  If I had Venus.

  As a child, Parker’s father would point out to him the brightest star in the early sky. It was called Anahita for over a thousand years. And then the Greeks called it Lucifer.

  The plan has changed.

  Parker’s original plan was to enter the camp, infect Yousef, and then try to escape. Simple. The disease would hit Yousef and spread to the leadership. Few would survive. And the propaganda would be that Allah had punished these wayward mujahideen. As the children of the local villages became ill, America would bring the antibiotics. America would become the hero. The villagers would turn against the visiting mujahideen, who only brought death.

  But now nuclear weapons were involved. The plan needed to change.

  I know how to find the second one.

  Parker tried to concentrate. It was now critical that he made it to the team. He had to make it to their radio. He looked back at what was once the sky.

  Abu Ali Sina.

  Parker’s mind started to wander, between the fever and the progression of the disease. He recalled his father telling him of Abu Ali Sina, the astronomer from Afghanistan, within a hundred miles of where he stood, who first discovered the transit of Venus.

  The transit of Venus. The planet’s passing across the face of the sun.

  As Parker moved through the dark, he knew he’d drift to the right without thinking. It was what a right-handed person did. Only a matter of inches, each step would be slightly to the right. In a hundred yards, he would be ten yards to the right. Unless he corrected for the unconscious step.

  He intentionally made every step slightly farther to the left.

  If I had Venus.

  They could light up the tent again, but if they did it would draw the hounds to him. In the original plan, the team was to stay away. Parker was to disappear in the night. There was a chance that Yousef might not even follow. In the original plan, Yousef wouldn’t have known what path Parker would have taken. And shortly, Yousef would be distracted by the illness, with others becoming sick rapidly. But the plan had changed; his team would now be improvising, just as Parker had been.

  He stopped. Nausea took his breath away. It had now been more than twelve hours since he’d chewed the gum. He was close to the point of no return.

  He walked another ten paces and stopped. The weight of his gun and the case were becoming impossible burdens. He moved a step to the left and walked another ten paces forward.

  God, I can’t find it.

  He leaned against a boulder. His thirst was overwhelming. He looked west toward what was once the mountain range. Visibility had reduced further. Suddenly, headlights lit up the rocks behind him. Yousef ’s truck had to be no more than a hundred yards away. He slid in behind the boulder, putting it between himself and Yousef and the wind. Parker put his hand on the rock. It was sharp and pocked with jagged edges across its face.

  Volcanic.

  Eons ago, this rock had been liquid.

  He felt for the next rock, for new and better cover from the approaching vehicles.

  But what Parker touched next didn’t feel volcanic. It felt like the smooth, man-made fabric of a tent.

  The lights from the truck suddenly went dark.

  Thank God!

  Parker felt for the tent’s zipper, found it, and slid inside. Darkness, complete. Parker moved his hands in the darkness along the inside edge of the tent. The wind continued to buffet the shelter, causing it to rock slightly back and forth. He came to the cold steel of the Windrunner rifle with a scope on top. Parker pulled the bolt back and used his finger to feel the brass cartridge in the chamber. It was ready to fire. He slid his hand down the length of the weapon, feeling the round cylinder of a silencer at the end. He put the AK-47 to the side, going with the better weapon, and left the device box on the far side of the tent.

  Parker kept moving his hands along the base of the tent.

  “There it is.”

  A small plastic ice chest tucked in the corner.

  “I don’t have much time,” he whispered to himself as he opened the chest and felt inside. A plastic zip-lock bag held a tube and a long needle. He put his hand back into the chest full of the liquid and ice and felt a second plastic bag.

  “All right, let’s get this going.”

  Parker turned around, putting his feet to the opening of the tent. As he did, he sat on a small metal object. His hand felt a .45-caliber automatic pistol with a long silencer attached to the barrel. He quietly chambered a round and cocked the hammer.

  He pulled off his shawl and pulled up the sleeve to his shirt. Every second mattered. He hung the IV bag, hooked up the tube, and took the needle. He had discussed this with Dr. Stewart at the CDC. It was best to put it in a vein on the back of his hand.

  Parker stuck his hand back into the ice chest and halfheartedly washed it off. It wasn’t sterile, but would have to do. He felt for that small bulge just to the outside of the back of his hand. He tied a rubber strip that came with the bag and made a fist. A distended vein stuck out on the back of his hand.

  He stuck the needle in the vein and then slid it slowly deeper. He released the valve to the IV bag and almost instantly felt the cold liquid enter his body.

  The wind rocked the tent, moving it back and forth as the gusts changed directions.

  Parker leaned back with his hand on his chest, in the dark, holding the pistol in the other.

  All he needed now was time.

  A shadow crossed over the tent.

  Parker tried to focus his eyes in the dark.

  A shadow?

  A shadow meant a source of light. It had to have been from the headlights of Yousef’s truck.

  God, I’m thirsty.

  Parker’s mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. His tongue seemed welded in place. He felt the IV bag. Still half full. But at least the vancomycin cocktail was passing into his body.

  The shadow passed again over the tent.

  Parker pulled the pistol up to his chest. The wind kept rocking the tent. He listened for a sound other than the howl of sand blasting against the rocks and tent.

  Finally his thirst became overwhelming. Parker reached for the small cooler and stuck his hand back into the icy water. It became irresistible. He pulled the cooler over, putting his hand into the cold liquid and bringing a handful up to his mouth. He swallowed the water with a small piece of ice. So good. He lifted the cooler and drank the cold water.

  More time; just need a little more time.

  He reclined again with the pistol on his chest. Lights flickered above, bouncing up and down, in silhouette against the roof of the tent. And then a shadow passed over again.

  “Allah!”

  Umarov’s blade sliced through the tent, narrowly missing Parker’s head. Parker grabbed Umarov’s wrist as it came through the opening in the fabric; as he did so, the IV ripped out of his hand. Umarov’s body fell on Parker’s other arm, with his weight on the pistol, but as it did a silenced round fired from the gun.

  Whish.

  The silent bullet tore through the tent and ricocheted off the larger boulder nearby.

  “Srati!” Umarov growled at Parker. He swung again with the knife.

  Parker caught his hand again, holding the knife just above his head.

  “Srati!” Umarov screamed, shifting his weight to his right arm and the knife. The blade was just above Parker’s throat, the steel point pressing into his flesh.

  Parker pushed up with his body and, as he did, for a flash of a moment his other hand came free.

  Whish.

  An animal cry as a second silenced bullet from Parker’s pistol tore through the flesh of Umarov’s right forearm. He pulled the knife away from Parker’s throat but then came back down, sticking the blade into the upper part of Parker’s right arm.

  Umarov kicked the pistol away into the rocks. The tent was now shredded around the two men as they struggled.

  Umarov pulled back up against the rocks, lifted the IV bag, and looked at its label, recognizing not only what it was but also what it was for. He used the knife to cut the tube from the needle.

  Parker crouched, looking for an opening. But he had no gun he could reach and no knife to match Umarov’s.

  “Yousef!” Umarov yelled out.

  “Umarov?” A voice came from well behind the rocks.

  “They have infected us.”

  “Umarov! Where are you?”

  The sand came in gusts, stopping for a second and then bearing down again.

  “Here! I am here! I have their medicine.” Umarov stood up, holding his side with the one hand and the IV bag with the other. He looked at Parker, a growing pool of blood at his feet, and smiled.

  “Maybe you should die like this.”

  Umarov turned and then stopped, seeing the pistol lying nearby.

  “And then, maybe not.”

  He reached down to the .45-caliber automatic and picked it up, with the intent of putting a final round into Parker’s face.

  Just as he turned, Parker hefted a large stone that he’d managed to palm and struck.

  Umarov fell in a heap.

  “Maybe not.” William Parker, on his knees, cradled his injured arm across his chest, panting for breath, and realized that he had survived.

  CHAPTER 69

  Just beyond the tent

  “Umarov? Umarov?”

  No answer. Yousef assumed the worst and fired his AK-47 blindly into the howling wind, aiming toward what he thought was the last echo of a sound.

  In the past Yousef had seen the Chechen kill, be severely wounded, and then kill again. It was an impossible thought that any man could put out the life of this Crni Labudovi.

  “Umarov?”

  Yousef yelled the name once more as he scrambled to the passenger side of the SUV and knelt down between the open door and the body of his truck. The SUV’s lights still shined up the valley.

  “I need more ammunition.”

  Mahmud also crouched outside the truck, in the back, behind the second door.

  “Mahmud, ammunition. Now!”

  Mahmud stood up briefly to hand Yousef a loaded clip over the open door.

  Whack!

  The sniper’s bullet passed through the glass of the window, striking Mahmud in the forehead. He collapsed like a rag doll dropped to the floor.

  Yousef sprayed the darkness with another magazine, firing from under the side door. He had never been on the battlefield alone before. He could feel his heart pounding as he hugged the rocks and dirt. The wind was mercilessly howling in gusts, surging up and then down. One moment it would scream and then the next it would be silent. Like a turbine engine being turned on and off, it would spin up to a roar and then spin down to a stillness before it rose again.

  I need Zulfiqar!

  Yousef fumbled with his cell phone. It was the wrong one. This one was the international one with the number of the American cells. He reached in again, in the truck, keeping low, searching for the second cell phone.

  “Allah, please, Allah.”

  He found the second cell phone and hit the Call button. It rang and rang.

  “Zulfiqar, come now, come now!”

  “Let it go.”

  Vaatofu Fury whispered the words as his sniper partner squeezed the trigger. It was the spotter’s signal to the sniper to fire the bullet. Villegas’s Windrunner .338 Lapua made a muffled thump as the silenced round left the barrel.

  Fury kept the thermal bi-oculars on the target. The wind-blown sand was blinding, but they could keep track of the target from the warm red shape of a head above the cold blue of the truck body.

  The bullet tore through the glass and knocked the terrorist back a foot. The unknown and unnamed red shape disappeared behind the cold blue outline of the SUV.

  “We have one more out there,” Fury whispered to his sniper and Kevin Moncrief.

  “What about Parker?” asked Moncrief. “Can you see him?”

  “He hasn’t moved. Not since that last shot.”

  “Any other movement?”

  “There’s one more out there. I think he’s behind that front door, but I don’t have the angle.” Fury kept scanning the area around the truck with his AN/PAS-28 thermal bi-oculars. The letters AN/PAS were the military designators used to signify that it was a government-bought device and hence the designator Army/Navy. Using the invisible infrared light, the bi-oculars amplified the vibrating photons through sensitive optics that made dark objects visible.

  “I’m going to get my Marine.”

  “Don’t you want to wait a minute, Gunny?” asked Villegas. “You can’t help much if that last one gets you.”

  Gunny Ndee had a smile, more of a smirk, on his face.

  “If you could see me, you would be reading my lips right now, Villegas.” The gunny pulled the .45-caliber automatic out of his shoulder holster and pulled the slide back, checking the round in the chamber. He twisted the Titan silencer to make sure it was tight.

  “Got it?” Villegas asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Here’s an extra one.” Villegas handed him another clip of ammunition. “Keep your head down.”

  “Hold on a minute, Gunny.” Fury held his hand out. “We’ve got company.” Fury scanned down the valley with his thermals. The lights of several trucks were shining on the rocks down the valley and behind Yousef ’s truck.

  “Shit. One, two, three, four.” Fury stopped counting. The trucks looked like a convoy. He switched to his throat mike and radio. “Slashing talon six, this is slashing talon one, over.”

  “One, this is six.” Furlong was keeping the conversation to as little as possible.

  “One-zero-zero plus coming up the valley.” Its meaning was clear to Furlong. A force of more than a hundred was making its way toward them.

  “Got them; pull out to alternate bravo.”

  “Six, this is one. We copy.” They were to pull out from their forward position and move back up the valley to a preplanned, alternate meeting site under the protective fire of the second sniper team.

  “You fellows go ahead,” said Moncrief. “I’m gonna go get my man.”

  “You sure, Gunny?”

  “Hell, yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Then we ain’t going anywhere. We’ll cover you.”

  “We don’t have time to debate this.” Moncrief pulled out a small pill packet, ripped it open, and swallowed two more super-pills.

  “Shit, Gunny, I almost feel bad for the army coming up the hill.”

  “You got that right.” Moncrief flashed a smile, then dashed down the rocky slope, navigating as best he could at speed through the lunar landscape. The truck still had its lights on, which marked its spot for Zulfiqar’s men, but also helped Moncrief keep a bearing on the rock where the tent was. He could hear the trucks coming up the valley and see the beams jumping up and down on the rocks. As he neared the tent, the lights of the others suddenly turned upvalley, toward him, and started to reflect light off the rocks that surrounded him.

  “Will?”