The way was cleared at last. The convoy was racing full out for the tunnel opening; a ramp leading up to a basement loading area beneath a market. Rukanah insisted on driving the lead vehicle himself; a Ford truck, up-armored with sandbags and metal plate. Every spare spotlight was attached with duct tape to the grill of the truck and the tunnel ahead was lit bright for a more than a hundred feet. Hand-picked men braced themselves in the truck bed armed with rifles and a belt-fed AKM mounted on the roll bar.

  Rukanah had the accelerator to the floor and the vehicles behind followed dangerously close. They knew there were enemies ahead and above. The men he sent into the access tunnel returned to say that the hatch up to the bunker's lowest level was weighted down with something. The rebels were inside his brother's fortress and had cut off their own retreat. Perhaps even now they were taking possession of the Ahhamid compound away from his big brother, the major.

  When he reached the surface, Rukanah faced a dilemma. He could race to his brother's rescue and a certain firefight or simply drive away. It might already be too late for Tazi and his men. It was a dilemma he could not deal with right now. For now, he could only think of making it clear out of the tunnel and past the ambush that was certainly awaiting them. Whatever he was to do, fight or flee, he would determine in the moment.

  The tunnel floor sloped upward at a twenty degree grade. The convoy was nearing the surface. Rukanah could see the answering glow of daylight beyond his headlamps' beams. Perhaps the rebel cowards fled and the way to the compound's gates were clear.

  That hope died as green tracers looped and arced toward him as if he were driving through a cloud of insects. Each round looked as though it was tearing right for him, as though to strike square between his eyes. Holes appeared in the sandbags strapped down to the hood. The windshield was punched through. The side view mirror vanished. Rukanah hammered on the roof of the cab.

  "Return fire, idiots!" he called. "Shoot back at them!"

  The gun atop the roll bar opened up, sending streaks of white tracers down the tunnel. The AKs in the hand of his riflemen joined the cacophony and the tunnel filled with an uninterrupted roar. Empty brass rained down on the cab roof.

  The big Ford emerged into the light with a jarring crash. It sent the boards and barrels of a hastily assembled barricade flying. Rebels were standing in the open in the broad garage area, firing small arms with their usual enthusiastic abandon. Rukanah hunched over the wheel and kept the truck aimed for the ramp at the far end of the basement garage. He could see the light of the sun beyond. A glance to the remaining side view mirror. Smoky contrails of RPGs crossed each other behind him. A confiscated airport van was struck and came to a rolling stop as the 40mm explosive round detonated within. The burning van was bashed aside by the Saladin armored vehicle and sent sliding away on its side.

  The Saladin came to a slewing stop out of the path of the following vehicles. The crew inside raked the garage with machine gun fire from the fortified ports along its sides. Rebels scattered as 7.62 rounds caromed off the floors and walls. The ports down one side concentrated fire on a clutch of men cowering behind a dumpster. One of the ragged bastards was caught in the shadow of the vehicle and struck by a long burst that threw him to the floor dismembered. From cover the rebels hammered impotently at the Saladin. They only succeeded in filling the air with more ricochets. Their rifle rounds did little more than gouge paint chips off the angled armor of the beast.

  At a reckless velocity, and blinded by the sunlight ahead, Rukanah powered the Ford up the steep ramp and entered a broad avenue with all four wheels momentarily off the ground. From the men in the back, terrified moans rose and fell. He brought the truck to a juddering stop against the far curb and climbed down from the cab with his own rifle, a custom-made Heckler Koch 94, in his fists.

  "Fire support for the convoy!" he shouted. The men in the truck sent rounds back toward the rebels who were already emerging onto the street outside the market. Trucks and vans roared up the ramp and turned sharply left to pass where Rukanah waved them on.

  A bearded rebel aimed an RPG their way, and Rukanah nailed him through the torso just as the trigger on the grenade launcher was depressed. The grenade struck the ground less than ten feet in front of the rebel. The resulting blast sent the rebels near him flying back in bloody tatters.

  "The compound! The compound!" he shouted and gestured wide with his arm. He'd made his decision. Whether out of a sense of duty or the anger of the moment, Rukanah would never know. They were going to the compound to take away as many of his cousins as he could.

  The Saladin finally roared up onto the street, still spraying fire in all directions. That was all of them. They'd only lost the one van. Rukanah's confidence grew.

  I am coming, big brother, he thought.

  ****

  The rebels worked hurriedly to deny the loyalist vehicles an exit from the tunnel. They hastily stacked any lumber and barrels they could find around the garage before the opening to the tunnel ramp. Wolf positioned rifles and grenade launchers in a crossfire. And Taahid, as dizzy as he was from the effects of the blast, directed men in loading a large steel dumpster with concrete blocks. They lay all over the garage floor, broken from the edge of the loading dock. Even half full it would weigh almost a ton. They had the big steel box only partly filled when they heard the roar of engines coming from the throat of the tunnel.

  Taahid put a shoulder to the dumpster and yelled for the others to join them. The rest were opening fire down into the dark opening and falling back as automatic fire raked the garage. Bullets sang off the wall of the dumpster. They got the stubborn wheels rolling and trundled the big steel box only a few feet when the first truck burst through the flimsy barricade. Debris showered over the garage.

  Gunfire and explosions followed. Taahid remained under the cover of the dumpster as it shook under a rain of fire and shrapnel. The Wolf was roaring orders in mounting frustration as the vehicles of the loyalist convoy roared past despite constant streams of gunfire from all sides. The vehicles took punishment but never slowed their progress. Brigade men returned fire from the truck beds and cab windows. All the rounds went wide but it was enough to send the rebels scurrying for uncertain cover behind stacks of crates filled with rotting fruit. The garage was filling with a cloud of chemical stink from discharged grenades and smoke from the burning van.

  An enormous armored truck seemed to fill the garage. It came to a halt and laid down murderous fire that sent the Lions and the mujahideen scurrying to any available cover. The dumpster trembled under heavy machine gun fire. Taahid hugged the filthy metal box and prayed silently until the Saladin rolled on.

  The Wolf led a few of the most daring up the ramp into the daylight after the retreating loyalist trucks. They were forced back by suppression fire from a brigade crew in a Ford F-150 parked askew in the road. One of their RPGs went off in the street. The big pick-up only moved on when the last vehicle of the convoy was clear. It took off after the rest, spraying machine gun fire in its wake as it tore away.

  "They go to the compound to relieve their pigs of cousins!" the Wolf shouted. "They have not escaped us! We will follow in our own trucks! The day has just begun!"

  The day was over for a number of rebels who lay unmoving in the garage and the street. The man closest to the RPG blast lay in three separate pieces. One man rolled on the ground; he was clutching his gut to hold in his intestines. His screams were lending a tone of defeat to the Wolf's imprecations of victory. The Wolf walked over to the man and gazed down at him with a momentary expression of pity before firing three rounds into the man's head.

  "He is in Paradise now!" the Wolf cried and raised his smoking AK. "His worries are at an end! His pain is washed away in clean waters! And only because he was willing to die for the Cause and the Word!"

  The surviving mujahideen and Lions stared dumbly at him. Both groups were down to little more than half the number they started with arriving in Sirte. This latest exchange was devastating.

  "Can you do any less?" the Wolf shouted and turned to look each of them in the eye. "Can you do any less? Can you?"

  A few raised their rifles in the air. They shouted tired imprecations. All enthusiasm was spent. What was left was the bloody work of war. They would see this through to the end because there was simply no other choice left to them. If Taahid was ever to challenge the Wolf's authority over these men, it was now, in this moment when their spirits flagged. The right words and he could bring his fellow Misratis home with him. But he was tired and he let the moment pass.

  Taahid looked for the German girl and found her seated on the ground behind a bullet-riddled cement column. She had a Kalashnikov across her knees and was intently thumbing keys on the iPhone she had picked from the corpse in the tunnel. She was coated in gray dust and her pale blonde hair was matted with blood down one side of her head. A filthy strip of cloth was tied around her head over her broken nose and deep circles of bruises were spreading from under her eyes. Except for the rifle in her lap, she looked the picture of a wretched war orphan.

  "We are going," he said.

  "Where?" she said without taking her eyes from the tiny screen.

  "Does it matter?"

  "No," she said and stood. She spat a gobbet of blood to the ground. Then she followed him and the shambling column of rebel fighters now marching back the way they came.

  She held the phone before her as she walked, taking in the images of the exhausted men making their way around heaps of rubble. She held it as though it were a lantern that would somehow show her the way to the truth.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  LEVEL FOUR

  They were one-eyed men in the land of the blind.

  Loyalist soldiers in various stages of dress were shuffling around in the dark all around them. It reminded Flame of a zombie movie; or maybe a crowd of swabbies the morning after a binge. In the aqueous glow of the night vision lenses he could see the Ahhamid brigade soldiers taking baby steps and feeling before them with reaching fingers. Their eyes looked like marbles and their mouths were slack. They called out one another's names and asked one another what was happening and where were the lights.

  Flame stopped himself from remarking on the surreal nature of it all to Heath who was moving ahead of him across what looked more like a recreation room than a bunker chamber. There were foosball and ping pong tables and a cooler for non-alcoholic drinks. Except for all the rifles and RPGs everywhere it could be the basement at the Y.

  He squinted as a bright light glimmered on to his left. The glare was painfully magnified through the lenses. Flame's vision began to pixelate as the digital adjustments in the lenses sorted what he could see in his vision area. A hadji was holding a big barrel flashlight and starting to train it around the room, seeking the faces of his buddies. Flame took three steps to the man and reached out to cover the man's hand and depress the flashlight switch bringing back the abyss and restoring the SEAL's edge.

  The man demanded to know who had grasped his hand. Flame answered by driving stiffened fingers into the man's windpipe just above the collar bone. He used enough force to crush the man's larynx and the man dropped to the floor twitching. Flame calmly undid the cap at the back of the flashlight barrel and let the batteries drop to the floor.

  Immediately the others began calling a name.

  "Shazeb!"

  "Shazeb!"

  "Answer me!"

  The name struck Flame as funny. Shazeb. Wasn't that what Gomer Pyle used to say? He stifled a laugh. Whoa. Where'd that come from? Wire your shit up, Sailor, he silently warned himself.

  He shouldered a man aside to follow the others and felt a hand plant a firm grip on his shoulder. He whirled, fingers forming a dagger for another strike. His limited field of vision filled with the scowling face of Heath who only grunted and pulled Flame along with him.

  At the far end of the long room, Manny found the door to the next level and yanked it open only to find a pair of glowing green orbs staring back at him. A big, beefy son of a bitch in a Russian-made night rig similar to Manny's. The guy brought up his AK and Manny grabbed the end of the barrel and pulled it aside. The AK roared and the barrel heated up in his hand. Despite the burn Manny wouldn't release it. He felt the furnace heat of the muzzleflash near his leg. Manny brought up his silenced handgun and put two through the man's head. The big guy stumbled back on nerveless legs into some more of his pals crowded onto the landing in the stairwell.

  Using their fleeting confusion, Manny rushed into the stairwell behind the falling body and fired his pistol into the packed mass. Blood spray. Screams.

  The hadjis back in the rec room were already worked up. One of them found the form of Shazeb who was reaching room temperature. The boom of the AK and sudden flashes and series of pops from Manny's Czech niner pushed them over right the edge.

  Those that had weapons in hand, and that was most of them, began spraying fire into the ceiling to provide seconds of illumination. All were crying out; making war noises. Hot rounds ricocheted off the concrete ceiling to pepper the already confused brigade men. The smell of blood and piss filled the confined space as they raged in fear and fury at an enemy they could not see.

  Manny and Chili led the way up the steps, firing controlled bursts at more soldiers coming down from Level Three. A few of those men, the officers, wore night vision gear. These were the priority targets. Once the sight-enabled were down, it was simple murder as the SEALs shot men down at will from only a handbreadth distance. The SEALs moved up close to each target and stepped over them where they dropped. In a fight like this they were trained to work in close; inside their enemy's arc of fire.

  Heath pulled Flame into the stairwell. Behind them, on Level Four, all hell broke loose. The freaked out brigade men fired at targets unseen and imagined. A full scale firefight cranked up among unfriendlies. They had no clue as to what was happening or who they were shooting at. This was Libya in a microcosm; men killing men with little idea of why and no plan beyond discharging their weapon in anger.

  The next move these geniuses would make was for the door. Heath tossed a stick grenade low to skid across the floor and slammed the steel door closed behind him. A basso crump within the room was followed by shrieks of terror and pain.

  The men coming down the steps from above weren't the usual conscripted losers. They were fully equipped and hard for a fight. The higher they went in the bunker, the more expert the troops. It was the opposite of the way the SEALs expected the loyalists to be deployed. The raw troops should be near the surface closer to the fight. The situation must have gone to shit inside the compound and the most hardcore troops were higher up to keep the rest from deserting.

  The guys coming down the stairs now weren't a force sent to turn the lights back on. Unlike the assholes burning each other down on the floor below, these guys knew for sure the bunker was compromised. The convoy down in the tunnel must have radioed ahead. The SEALs lost one of their advantages.

  But they still had the dark.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  LANGLEY

  "Dana, they're back," Bob said.

  Dana moved to behind Bob Teranaka to see the four dots back on the map screen. Then there were three dots. Then two. Then four again.

  "The signal's intermittent," Bob said. "It just means they're still getting interference from ground details."

  "They reached the Ahhamid compound," she said. "And they're moving closer to the surface. We should have direct contact with them soon."

  Dana moved behind Bouchard and Spivey at the monitoring stations for the Predators circling live at three thousand feet above Sirte, five thousand miles away.

  "What's the picture from where you sit?" she asked.

  "Fresh activity at the compound," Bouchard said. She moved a joystick and re-ran HD video taken by the Predator she piloted. A crystal clear image of the road leading past the rear of the compound came into focus. A column of vehicles were streaming down the road and turning into the compound to vanish inside a low building. Trucks, vans, SUVs and at least one armored vehicle.

  "How long ago is this?" Dana asked.

  "Less than ten minutes," Spivey said. "It could be they're going there to join the others forted up in there."

  "More likely it's the Ahhamids looking to get the hell out," Dana said. "That's their getaway transport. This falls into line with intel we're getting indicating that Gaddafi's going to make a run for it. This could be good for our team on the ground. But we can't count on that. We can't count on anything. We need to try and reach them."

  Speaking to the room, she said, "Everyone get your game on. This is where every second counts. I want you focused. These guys are counting on us and the whole situation is liable to break wide. I need your full effort. And I need to hear any ideas if you have them."

  "How are they on the mission clock?" It was DeStefano behind her, showing off for his underlings. In her euphoria at seeing the SEAL brick on site and mobile, Dana had forgotten he was still here.

  "They made good time," Dana said, her eyes remaining on the monitor. "But unlike most SEAL missions this one's not on a strict event-by-event schedule. This team specializes in operations that remain fluid throughout. Until we hear from them direct or through our agent on the Newport News, we have no projections yet."

  "This bunch sounds like cowboys," DeStefano said with a sniff.

  "You say that like it's a bad thing, sir," she turned and smiled sweetly.

  "I've met them," Marberry spoke up. "They're more like thugs than active duty American servicemen."

  Dana held her tongue pressed against her teeth.

  She returned to the four dots fading and re-appearing like fireflies on the map graphic. They were signs of life and that's all they were. She could have no idea what kind of shit they were in at the moment. She only knew that they were still on the move.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE