Danny passed under a carved marble archway into a sauna area with a hot tub the size of his apartment in Benghazi. There was a bank of dead televisions on one wall and rows of showers on the opposite. He heard Yuri calling his name and he left the room after one longing glance at the crystal waters in the tub.

  "Sharif!" Yuri shouted, and pointed into another area off the great room. "You have to see this!" He ran through a pair of swinging half-doors and was gone.

  Danny followed into a dark room and had to shut and reopen his eyes several times to adjust them to the dim environment.

  A bar. Not just any bar. No casbah watering hole was this. It was an American bar, like the bars Danny had seen in movies about Las Vegas. A long saloon bar with dozens of plush stools in front of it. Polished wood façade and thick granite top and gleaming brass foot rails wrapped all the way around. Behind it were glass shelves with ranks of bottles, decanters, and flasks glowing under blue neon lighting. He recognized none of the names on the labels. The only alcohol that had ever passed his lips was a tepid beer his cousin in Al Marj sneaked into school one summer. Danny never knew there could be so many different brands and varieties. Scotch whiskey? Gin? What was Kahlúa?

  Yuri was hopping up and down and yammering incoherently as he thrust his AK toward a room behind the bar. Danny ran to catch up with him. They were alone and could easily run into one of Gaddafi's holdouts. To come this far and be gunned down by one of the Colonel's distant relations would be a bitter end to all he had been through.

  His sandaled feet skidded on linoleum tiles at the head of a broad stairway. Yuri bound up and down in one of the many aisles in a cavernous space piled with crates on palettes, and walls lined with shelves stacked with steel keg after steel keg, twelve feet high. Whiskey. Beer. Wine. Thousands, maybe millions, of liters of forbidden drink. Danny had no taste for it but was still in awe of the sheer amount before him.

  The Colonel presented himself to the people of Libya as a pious follower of the Prophet; one who never drank anything stronger than sweetened yogurt. But here was an actual warehouse of what had to be every kind of booze in the world. This sure went a long way to explain some of his public appearances.

  "The sins of Khamir!" a booming voice echoed through the room and Yuri stopped his giggling to look past Danny in alarm.

  Danny turned to see a man he knew only as Sarfaz standing with blazing eyes, and teeth set in a grimace.

  "The Colonel is an infidel! An apostate! He embraces the devils of the West and drinks their poison!" Sarfaz charged down the steps and shoved Yuri aside.

  The Tigers had picked up Sarfaz somewhere along the road to here. He was perhaps older than Danny, but it was hard to tell through the dense kinky beard that hid all but his eyes and nose under a filthy checkered keffiyeh. He had clambered onto the tailgate of one of their trucks as it passed through Al Jufrah. Sarfaz was quickly nicknamed 'the mini mullah' because of the uninterrupted stream of Quran doctrine that came from his mouth in place of conversation. He was not alone either. Every unit had a Sarfaz, and some rebel outfits seemed made up of them exclusively. Beneath his fear for his life every day on the road so far from home, Danny felt a growing anxiety of what might become of his homeland in the chaos that would follow after Gaddafi's departure. He was fearful of what his world would look like if the Sarfazes had their way in the days to come.

  Sarfaz was down among the cases and racks of bottles, and he was smashing at them with the butt of his rifle. The rich, astringent stink of mixed spirits quickly filled the space. Sarfaz ranted a stream of invocations without seeming to draw a fresh breath.

  "Forbidden! Forbidden! Strong drink is the infamy of Satan! It is spittle in the eye of God! It brings low the soul and turns the mind from the path to Paradise!" He brought the rifle down with all his force again and again and his tattered cotton suit became spattered with alcohol.

  Yuri could not help himself and began laughing.

  "You won't drink any of this, Sarfaz!" Yuri giggled and gestured around him. "But all you have to do is breathe and you'll be as drunk as any infidel!"

  Sarfaz jerked upright and sniffed the air. It was filled with a nauseating mix of smells that reminded Danny of a mash of spoiled fruit and the cough medicine his mother made him swallow as a child. Sarfaz's eyes grew even wider and he clamped his mouth shut with a hand which only made Yuri double over in renewed mirth.

  With a strangled cry of fury Sarfaz pulled a hand grenade from the same shoulder bag where he kept his Quran. He pulled the pin even as Danny called out a warning. It was an RGD-5 frag grenade manufactured in Russia. Five-second delay nominal, but three seconds practical.

  Sarfaz flung the grenade toward a far corner of the room and covered his ears. Danny screamed to Yuri and turned to run, hoping the boy would follow him out.

  Danny was through the doors and threw himself over the bar to tumble down into a tangle of stools, as the deep crump of an explosion was followed by a massive fireball of ignited alcohol that washed over the bar. Danny's clothing was scorched, and he clung to the floor as more gouts of white flame exploded over the room, turning the shelves behind the bar into a sudden hot cloud of blazing alcohol and flying glass shards. He crawled over the tiles, struggling to breathe as the room filled with dense smoke from burning upholstery. He coughed and retched and clawed across the cerulean blue wall-to-wall. Patches of carpet were melting in the heat.

  The flames inside the liquor storeroom raised the temperature in the enclosed space to flashpoint, preventing Danny from ever making it back to the great room. The entire stock within the room exploded at once and fractured the walls all around, exposing a weapons stockroom hidden behind the secret booze stash. The thousands of rounds of machine gun ammo, mortar rounds, and artillery charges began to cook off.

  Rebels still in the midst of their destructive celebratory orgy were blasted to vapor as the entire azure palace lifted from its foundations and flew apart in a violent eruption fueled by a million tons of high explosives. Dozens of rebels were killed in a second, and a deep crater a hundred feet wide was all that remained when the smoke cleared.

  The destruction and friendly-fire deaths were blamed on misdirected bombs dropped from US Navy planes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CAMP LIBERTY, BAGHDAD

  There was a sense of the last week of school all over the AO.

  Explosions still echoed in the city a few times a week, and every now and then a spray of automatic fire could be heard. In spite of that, throughout the camps, there was a feeling of drawing back; a zeitgeist of something ending. Sure, there'd be the frenzy of packing up and pulling out. But then the Iraqis could have the whole shitpile back and it was their problem from then on. They could get back to wasting one another in earnest with the infidels far away. Happy New Year, motherfuckers.

  Unless, of course, some Iraqi-based jihadist did dirty on American soil again. Then shock and awe would roll back into town to ruin everyone's day.

  The SEALs in-theater were still forward positioned, waiting to see what brand of crap hit the fan next in this Arab Spring everyone was hollering about. No one knew where the next blaze was going to start. Until anyone knew what was what and what to do about it, the SEALs would stay sharp and focused. Bricks Three, Five, and Seven had taken over a corner of Camp Slayer; part of the massive Liberty complex protecting Baghdad International. Three squads of SEALs and their support staff moved into a climate-controlled warehouse that had recently had all of its stock containerized and transshipped to Bagram for use in that "other" war.

  Other war. Same shit, different AO. Same enemy fighting for the same cause. Hell, sometimes it was the same personnel. Kill enough jihadis and there was always a ratio of Iranians in the pile. How is that two wars?

  In any case, what was once SEAL Team Six, and then DEVGRU, and now designated by a name only known to a handful of top players with White House-level clearance, found a new home away from home at Liberty.

  The warehouse was a big steel hangar building about an acre in size with more than enough room for the teams. Four bricks, and some of their support personnel, were bunking there. It was air conditioned inside with lots of storage for their guns, gear, and goodies. They used the welcome downtime to convert empty steel cargo containers into apartments. They cut the tops off them so the walls could provide privacy but allow the chilled air from the monster units on the ceiling to cool them off. Camo-netting was stretched over the top. The effect inside the makeshift barracks was like a leafy glade; albeit a leafy glade that smelled like gun oil and sweat socks, with a light spray of Axe.

  A basketball court was set up in the middle of the hangar, and they "found" some weight machines and treadmills over at the Ranger command area when no one was looking.

  The SEALs still trained hard and asked for seconds. There was no rest time for them as long as the sun was up. They ran their distances and did their PT and used the rifle range. They arranged competitions between the bricks to make it interesting. No one was losing their mojo. Not getting shot at or blown up was all they asked of downtime. But as the strangling heat of the day changed to the stifling heat of the night in late Iraqi Summer, their new home became party central. Subwoofers boomed, beer flowed, and all female personnel were welcome.

  They dubbed it Fort Med.

  E-5 Maureen "Mo" Singleton, USMC, leaned in and touched the vibrating needle to the hard tanned flesh. She wiped the sweat and blood away and touched again. The petite redhead was applying the beginning of a drop shadow under a three-dimensional cross. The elaborate outline of the cross was tattooed at the top of the spine of a SEAL straddling a chair before her. The cross was only a few inches in length and placed above some older ink and below fresh lettering in gothic black letters.

  She couldn't hear the buzz of the stylus over the speakers pounding out a rough mix of heavy metal, hip-hop, and country. The shifts in music types were met with a combination of groans and applause as the ears of each was offended or rewarded. Shitkickers howled in derision as Jay-Z or Ludacris cranked up and gangstas booed at the first twangs of Trace Adkins or Gretchen Wilson. Under this aural assault, an assortment of male and female personnel were lifting weights, running on treadmills, playing golf on a Wii, shooting hoops, or just lounging around on sofas, knocking back brews.

  The SEALs sure are a different breed, Mo thought to herself. The rules simply did not apply to them the way they do to other military members. Beer drinking on base. Setting up a command fiercely independent and set apart from the rest of the military functions on the base. It was more like a frat house with guns than a sanctioned unit of the coalition force. But these guys were no slackers. They were more like Vikings back from a raid.

  "How's it looking, Mo?" her subject asked.

  "Just fine," she said and daubed away the blood seeping from the artfully inflicted wound. "Someone did a righteous job on this cross."

  "I had it outlined in Manila before they shipped us here," Flame said. "But they rousted us out before I could have any tones done. A dude I know on the Chuckie V said you do good ink and to look you up here if you were still on-station."

  "The shading will make it pop." Mo sat back on her own chair and looked at her work. The SEAL's muscular back was expertly etched with tats dominated by a skull with an anchor behind it. The big black and indigo design covered the Sailor's back from between his shoulder blades to the waistline of his BDUs. The skull had a large "6"on its forehead that was wrapped in anchor chains. She knew the tattoos were all part of the Navy experience going back to the beginning but sensed that these had a more practical purpose. She could feel dense ropes of scar tissue under some of the designs where the skin of her arm brushed them as she worked.

  "What's it mean?" she asked.

  "Huh?"

  "Re-Pete," she said and traced the word inked on his neck, just below the collar line, where it would be invisible under a uniform, as required by Navy regs.

  "A buddy," Flame said. "A stone solid warrior."

  "Sorry," she replied, but not as an expression of sympathy; she was apologizing for asking the question. These guys not only didn't like talking business, as a matter of national security they were sworn never to discuss their work.

  "It's okay," Flame said and turned his head to smile back at her. Ice-blue eyes under red eyebrows and a dimple where the smile creased his cheek. Big-time Irish charm and just the kind of guy she'd melt for. Steady girl. Just laying down some ink here and scuttling back to my bunk.

  Alone.

  Flame turned and she went back to her work. His smile faded away, and he leaned forward on the chair back. The rhythmic buzzing lulled him, and his thoughts wandered to Re-Pete.

  They lost him back in Sarawak on a mission none of them could ever talk about. The team was down to five now. Actually it was four, with Pig rehabbing back at Ramstein after fucking up his leg on the same mission. All that shit flying, and the dumbass falls down all on his own. Chili, the unit's ace sniper, took a round through the leg, but not enough to lay him up.

  The brick was three weeks back and recovered enough to get bored. But they were told to sit on their asses until the next gunfight. With the whole damned region blowing up from Yemen to Tripoli, and the tactical situation shifting moment by moment, they could be diving, dropping, or humping into damned near anywhere in the world on a few hours notice. So they partied. And while they partied, Flame wanted a tribute to his dead friend inked on him. Re-Pete's name above the cross he loved was the best memory Flame could offer. The other guys agreed.

  If they leave us on the hook much longer, we're going to get ourselves in some real trouble, he thought. Then he realized this tattoo job was making him greasy with sweat.

  "Manny!" he called out. "Spare one of them?"

  E-6 Emmanuel Levitz was passing by with his finger through the empty loop of a six-pack. He grinned as he walked over and slapped a cold Heinie into Flame's hand.

  "One for my date?" Flame asked.

  "I need my hand steady, thanks," Mo said, with a brisk shake of her head. "And we are not on a date, Sailor."

  "Not yet." Flame popped the top and winked at Manny.

  "Smart girl," Manny said. "Flame's married with three kids back in Norfolk. And I think he picked up some strangers at a whorehouse in Manila. The little eight-legged kind."

  "You lying bastard!" Flame said, and began to straighten up. Mo pushed him back in place and went back to needling.

  "I don't care if you flew home to Vermont after they repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell and married your high school football coach," she said. "You were never getting into my pants. In this lifetime anyway."

  "Still banging that Keebler elf, Manny?" Flame asked, ignoring the slight.

  Manny'd been hot with a squeaky blonde who was a civilian over with KBR (Kellogg, Brown, and Root), a civilian contractor. She ran the base commissaries that oversaw the supply to the food courts that served the troops all over Liberty. The American fighting man may go to the four corners to stamp out world jihad, but he still expected his pizza crusts double stuffed and his cheeseburgers tripled stacked. Manny was spending a lot of time over at their more upscale corporate digs at Baghdad International and it looked as though it was doing him a lot of good. He had lost the wasted look he had when he returned from Sarawak.

  "Yeah, but her contract's coming up and she's back home at the end of the month. All the civvies are packing, stacking, and getting their asses out of here ahead of our deadline," Manny said.

  "Can't blame 'em," Flame said. "They don't want to be relying on their own security bitches when the hadjis take the keys from Uncle Sugar."

  "Fucking-A to that," Mo said, without looking up to see the amused look the SEALs exchanged.

  "Heath's waitin' on me to play some horse," Manny said. He left Flame another beer and trotted off to join a tall, broadly muscled black man twirling a ball and waiting for him, center-court.

  "You mean that about my chances?" Flame asked, craning to look back at Mo.

  "With me?"

  "You."

  "Probability of mission success: zero."

  "I've beat those odds before, babe." Flame flashed the dimple.

  She put a touch more pressure on the oscillating needle than was necessary and he flinched.

  "Tough guy," Mo smiled and daubed away the welling dot of blood.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Chili was in agony. But it was a good pain.

  He lay back on the bench of the abduction machine and willed his leg to press the left pedal slow, slow, slow. His skin was beading with sweat. His knee was on fire. He had two hundred pounds on it. That was pushing it. The doc on the Chuckie V told him to bring it along slow. To hell with that. If the team got called into the grind, he wasn't going to get left behind.

  Three weeks before, an AK round took him, right through the meat of his left calf; in and out without a whole lot of tissue loss. The round missed the bone and the major vessels. The biggest danger he was in was from the fragments of his own filthy BDUs that got punched into the wound. They flushed the wound once back on the carrier, and packed it and showed him how to change the dressing. He escaped infection and the through-and-through hole closed up fine. All that remained was an angry red pucker about the size of a quarter on each side of his leg.

  The rest was rehab. Only three weeks out and he slowly lost the sharp binding pain that felt as if the muscles in his leg were being twisted around a hot poker. Now it was a duller ache, and it no longer hurt to put his weight on it. He did a five-mile run with no problem the day before and after applying heat, then cold, the calf lost the swollen feeling.

  E-4 Willard Repp, né Chili, couldn't remember a time when he was frightened by getting shot. He knew it used to scare him but couldn't recall why. In the movies, you see people get shot and they drop to the ground stone dead. Sure, it happened like that sometimes. But most times the victim didn't feel the shot, and it was never enough to knock him off his feet. In Chili's experience, it hurt a lot more to take shots in the armor than through flesh. Take a round in the Kevlar and the impact was dispersed, spread out, it felt more like taking a kick from a horse; and he'd had that pleasure often enough back on his dad's farm in Skyline, Alabama. But a shot to the flesh came with a shock that sometimes numbed the pain until later. Also, he'd seen few men die from a single gunshot and never instantly. He knew, from killing men himself, that human beings were a resilient species that could take a lot of punishment before laying down for good.