“And you have the hostages. So why haven’t you hit the skies yet?”

  “Tangos are dead or bugged out, sir,” Burkett replied. “We’re secure.”

  “So you think you can sit on your hands?” Chance put in, joining the call. “By now Moscow knows what happened. You think Krozkov doesn’t have any friends in Moldova? Get out of there!”

  “We plan to,” Burkett said. “If we go to vertical right now it’ll interfere with our medic’s work on one of our casualties—one of your assets. Olek Syrkin. There was an accident. Friendly fire. He’s hit bad.”

  “He’s not a priority, I’m afraid,” Chance said. “How bad is he?”

  “Not good.”

  “Probably won’t make it either way. Go to vertical and take off. Bring the prisoners and Ildeva back to SubOrbital 3, ASAP.”

  “Can’t do it, Chance,” Burkett said. “Not without the Captain’s authorization. He’s loading the Light-Up.”

  “Why the hell isn’t Mayweather on this line?” General Carney demanded.

  “I thought I ought to field this myself.” Burkett’s mouth felt terribly dry and suddenly he was very tired. “Frederic Dupon is badly hurt, too. They crushed his leg. Multiple fractures. He needs to go to the nearest safe hospital. We figure we should drop him off at the NATO facility in Corinth. In fact, none of the prisoners—including Ildeva—have any experience with g-force or weightlessness. Last time we rescued prisoners, they went right to the nearest—”

  “Burkett!” Chance barked. “Listen to me. They’re not safe in Greece. They’re not safe in Turkey. Moscow’s got operatives looking for them. They don’t want them talking about what they’ve been through, do you understand? And there is the strong possibility of NDS. Moscow has prototypes…”

  NDS. That made Burkett shudder. Nano-Drone Swarms. A cloud of insect-sized machines that ferreted out their targets and cut them into little pieces… But taking the injured into orbit? Burkett shook his head. It wasn’t protocol, and it wasn’t smart.

  “You’re saying we have to take them directly back to base?” he said. “A smashed leg with all that g-force? We can be at the hospital in Greece in forty-five minutes. Might save Olek Syrkin’s life.”

  “No choice,” General Carney insisted. “You have the smart-netting to help them out. Hit the skies and bring ’em back here.”

  “This is Mayweather.” The Captain’s voice came on the line. “General?”

  “It’s me—and Chance, and your uncooperative first lieutenant,” General Carney snapped. “Captain, if you’re through shining up your vehicle—get the S-7 vertical and hit the skies with all possible speed. I am ordering you to bring the hostages and the prisoner back here, hot fast!”

  “That’s not protocol, sir, they should go to—”

  “Enough! You have your orders.”

  Burkett felt he had to say something, even if he risked demotion.

  “General—Olek Syrkin needs emergency medical attention right away. The g-force, the stress of going orbital… it would kill him, sir—”

  “I said—you have your orders!”

  Even over the headset, they could hear General Carney’s cold fury.

  “Yes sir,” Mayweather said. Not meekly, but professionally.

  “Report when you’re in orbit.” Carney broke the connection.

  * * *

  The air was especially close in the medical compartment. It smelled of blood, sweat, and antiseptics.

  “I’m not moving this man, sir,” Rodriguez said, his voice calm but definite as he checked Olek Syrkin’s pulse. “He can’t be moved into a seat. He’s got three bullets in him.”

  “We’re going to shift to vertical, Rod,” Burkett said gently, putting his hand on the medic’s shoulder. “Orders from the General.” He was squatting in a corner to talk to Rodriguez because Andrews and Lang were moving the groaning Ildeva to a reclining seat. Dupon, groggily drugged, was already out there.

  There was a defect in the design of the S-7’s medical compartment—at least Rodriguez had said as much. When the ship went vertical for specialized takeoff, the injured strapped into their clamped-down gurneys would end up vertical, as well. The solution, supposedly, was to move them to passenger seats, each of which could recline almost to horizontal. But moving the wounded could be dangerous for them, and the seats weren’t set up for IVs and monitors.

  “Rod,” Burkett said, his voice low but urgent, “we have to go. Some of them got away. Maybe they’re in touch with Moscow. Maybe we’ll be tracked. Too damn dangerous. I don’t want to end up like S-12, man.”

  Rod shook his head. “I’ll think of something, but if we move him…”

  Alexi called out, his voice a little slurred. “Lieutenant—how did my brother get shot?”

  Burkett grimaced. “He went to get a hand-screen belonging to Ildeva. Said he would be right back, but he didn’t come right back—and we thought he’d decided to leave with TiL.”

  “You left him. Didn’t you, Lieutenant?”

  Burkett took a deep breath. “We couldn’t wait anymore. Then I heard him call out—he was coming up behind us… and he was running and he had that gun. Lieutenant Carney thought he was a gangster coming to take revenge or something. He…”

  “And he shot him.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Alexi, but… yes.”

  “Olek risked everything for the USA. You left him behind and you shot him. Maybe he was supposed to be shot. Maybe that was the plan. Maybe the CIA wanted him dead… Maybe—”

  “No, Alexi—just no. It was a stupid accident.” Caused by a stupid man. “We’re trying to save him. You know? He’s…”

  “He’s gone,” Rodriguez said tonelessly, reaching out to close Olek’s eyes. “Doesn’t matter if he’s moved now.”

  Syrkin said something in Bulgarian. The bitterness in his voice was translation enough.

  “Alexi—I’m sorry about your brother. It was…” But it wasn’t bad luck. It was stupidity—Carney’s. “I’m… I’m sorry you lost him.” There was nothing more he could say. “Lieutenant, let’s you and me move Alexi into a seat.” He didn’t want Syrkin to have to lie there contemplating the corpse of his brother. “I think he’ll be all right.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Alexi Syrkin said, laughing softly. “I’ll be just fine. Just fine…”

  * * *

  The orbcraft’s movable supports were flush with the hull on it’s underside. As they prepared to depart, two short, powerful struts under the rear hull were thrust out to either side of the front wheels.

  The top-section of the aft struts began to push forward, using up an enormous amount of stored power to do it. A technology more than a century old had been drafted for the next stage: two big titanium rack-and-pinion gears rolled up the groove from the aft toward the nose of the craft, the gears meshing with a ridged rack, their forward ends pressing against the resistance of the rocky soil to push the S-7’s nose upward.

  It was “going vertical”—slowly tilting up, shifting its angle a full ninety degrees with respect to the Earth’s surface.

  Additional sitting supports, wider on the bottom, extended from the rear to either side of the exhaust ports and held the tail in place on the ground, shifting a little for near-perfect vertical so that the orbcraft—its tail no longer in feathering position—was aiming straight up at the sky.

  Burkett now lay on his back, in relation to the ground.

  The engines on the wings and the enormous engine in the tail of the S-7 roared to life. The entire vessel shuddered, then began to lift up on the rockets’ thrust. The struts closed back into their grooves as, wobbling only slightly, the spaceplane rose steadily, flame lacing through billowing smoke all around it.

  And the orbcraft lifted above the little valley.

  Then Burkett felt a powerful punch in his back, transmitted from the tail of the orbcraft as full acceleration kicked in. It was as if its engines were kicking him, personally, toward orbit.

  Roaring upward, the orbcraft rose on a tail of fire, gaining speed, exerting itself against the pull of the entire Earth. The engines put out seven million pounds of thrust to break free. Faster, ever faster the vessel rose, with accompanying increase in gravitational force.

  Frederic Dupon screamed in pain.

  * * *

  The S-7 reached low-Earth orbit, two thousand klicks up—twelve hundred miles—when Burkett saw blood floating in the air.

  It was Alexi Syrkin’s fault. He’d been scratching at his scalp wound, which was sewed up and bandaged, but he’d loosened a suture and irritably pulled off the bandage. A fluid ounce of blood was floating up into the air. He hadn’t said anything about it. Alexi just lay back in his reclined seat, gazing up with a look of sour amusement at the blood droplets wobbling above, some of them merging into larger drops. Each little quivering dark-red sphere reflecting a fish-eye view of the S-7’s cabin.

  “I can see my face in them,” Syrkin whispered as Burkett floated up with a special suction device for liquid spills. After the small vacuum sucked up the crimson blobs, he called out.

  “Rod? Your patient’s bleeding over here.”

  Rodriguez was seated forward and hadn’t seen the blood. The medical specialist was brooding because he hadn’t been allowed time to do a quick g-force training session with the released hostages—and because of the agony Dupon had gone through. Now the medic whipped off his seat belt and netting. He floated up, one hand holding a white and red bag, turned with his knees tucked up against him so he didn’t accidentally kick anyone, and used a ceiling ring to tug himself to the aisle and back toward Syrkin.

  “Alexi, I hope you didn’t do that on purpose,” Rod said, drawing himself down into the empty seat next to his patient. “That’d be way against regs. Also, hella unhygienic.”

  “I don’t think it was intentional,” Burkett said. “I saw it from back there—he was scratching. The thing was annoying him…”

  “I could feel blood coming out in the takeoff,” Alexi said, absently, as if he was thinking about something else entirely. “Squeezed out of me like juice from a blood orange. Started to itch.”

  “G-force got it started,” Rodriguez said, catching another ascending drop on a piece of gauze. “Hold very still now…”

  Burkett went forward to the freed hostages. Dupon was reclined, and snoring. The medic had given him another shot. He floated down beside Professor Dhariwal.

  “You look like a ghost in the cinema when you do that,” Magonier said.

  “I feel pretty solid,” Burkett replied, smiling. “Damned tired, to tell you the truth. You fellas seem to have gotten through the climb, though—how’s the microgravity treating you?”

  “Queasy,” Dhariwal said, “but I manfully keep from throwing up.”

  “Good job. It can be hard to clean up. Rod’ll show you how to use the ol’ space toilet, if you need to vomit or pee or whatever. Personally, I hope to get back on solid ground before I have to use one. Hate those things.”

  Magonier gazed around him in wonder. “They say we still have weight in orbit, but I do feel weightless. Everything is quite strange. I’m so glad to be here and so shocked to be here, all at once. C’est fou.”

  “You probably don’t feel like eating yet?”

  “No, just some water, if you please,” Magonier said.

  Dhariwal nodded. “Me, too.”

  “I’ll see that someone gets it to you.”

  “And Lieutenant,” Dhariwal said, “thank you. I thank all of you. I saw one of your Rangers was shot. Will he be all right?”

  “I believe so. It wasn’t too serious.”

  “Tres bien,” Magonier said, leaning back and closing his eyes.

  Dhariwal took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I’m surprised we didn’t go to a hospital somewhere, maybe Turkey?” He set the glasses absentmindedly in his lap and they began floating away. Burkett grabbed the glasses and handed them back.

  “I was surprised too, Professor. Some orders are… surprising.”

  PFC Dorman drifted up to them. “Can I get anything for our guests, sir?” he asked.

  “Squeeze-bottle of water, show ’em how to use it up here. Anything they ask for, if we have it. Maybe wet cloths, for a little clean up.”

  “Roger that.”

  Burkett noticed Mikhail Ildeva, scowlingly shifting in his seat across the aisle. He was wearing only a sleeveless T-shirt above the waist, so that Rod could get the battlefield dressing on his wounded shoulder. Ildeva noticed Burkett looking at him.

  “Captain sir,” the Bulgarian called, awkwardly waving a hand cuffed to the armrest. Burkett floated over, tugged on a ring, drew his legs in so his feet didn’t clop anyone. “I’m a lieutenant, not a captain.”

  “Yes, yes,” Ildeva said impatiently, his accent thick. His English seemed limited. “It was you, put bullet in me—pain is too much.”

  “I’ll ask the medic to give you a shot. He had to dig around a bit to get the bullet out, so it’s going to hurt for a while. You’ll be okay.”

  Ildeva stuck out his lower lip and furrowed his brow, mentally translating.

  “What you do with me?”

  “You’re going to the USA to tell us what you know. You’re an internationally known criminal, so maybe after a nice long interrogation you’ll be turned over to Interpol.”

  “You will torture? The water boards?”

  “They outlawed all that in 2030. No torture of any kind,” he replied. “That’s all I can tell you, because it’s all I know.”

  “If I’m hungry?”

  “Are you?”

  “No. I am sick in this place!”

  “When you’re hungry, you’ll eat. If you need the bathroom, our medical specialist will take you to it.” Burkett called to Rodriguez, “Give the prisoner some morphine, Rod, will you?”

  “Sure thing, Lieutenant.”

  Burkett turned, tugged on a ring, let himself drift to the flight deck. He caught the edges of the hatch to keep from bumping into Mayweather, who was once again crouching in the air behind Ike and Linda.

  The S-7 was still on the dark side of the Earth, and Burkett could see stars through the windshield, above the arc of the planet. They would soon vanish in the glare as the S-7 orbited to the sun-washed side of the Earth.

  They were going home, and he was free to think about his family. About Ashley and Nate. Was Ashley still family? It still felt that way to Burkett, but did it feel that way to her?

  Worrying too much, he told himself. It was the let-down, the crash from the adrenaline high of battle. Now he really felt the ache, the deep bruise left by the bullet that had hit his Kevlar. If it’d been up a few inches it would’ve hit him above the armor, smashed its way into his chest. One well-placed bullet from a Dragunov, one well-hidden landmine, one scattering of friendly fire, and Ashley would get the official visit.

  And then she’d have to tell Nate.

  Friendly fire. Lieutenant Carney. Olek Syrkin. Would there even be an inquest? The op was covert, big time covert, and it’d probably be buried. Like Olek Syrkin.

  Alexi’s brother had been a United States asset. He’d risked his ass to make the mission possible. Sure, the CIA had offered him incentives—a big paycheck at some point, citizenship in the USA, all of it—but he’d risked being caught and shot or, more likely, tortured to death to find out who’d recruited him. He’d have died hard.

  Instead, Olek “died stupid.” Shot by a blundering amateur whose old man had eased his way through West Point, had gotten him on the mission so he could sweeten his record.

  Hadn’t he seen how Burkett himself had been reacting to Olek, back in the monastery? Talking to him.

  I didn’t have my gun pointed at him.

  But little Kenny Carney hadn’t assessed the situation. He’d opened fire—shooting damned close to his own XO. Second Lieutenant Carney could easily have accidentally shot First Lieutenant Burkett, too. His own XO.

  Burkett shook his head. He experienced a depth of disgust he hadn’t felt in many years.

  * * *

  MOSCOW, RUSSIA

  Vladimir Krozkov filled the little china cup with coffee poured from the brass samovar, added a lemon peel, placed it carefully on its saucer and carried it neatly back to the glass table where Feodor waited at the edge of the balcony.

  The balcony was enclosed by bulletproof glass; overhead it was darkly tinted, for shade. It was a sunny day in Moscow, and as Krozkov sat down across from Feodor Smyrnoi, he could see much of the Kremlin. Across the square were the colorful domes, the overwrought architecture of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The sun made the colors bright, as if the Kremlin were brand new. As always, at this time of year, tourists—mostly from America—were taking pictures of the cathedral.

  My little American friends, Krozkov thought, amused.

  The glass had other qualities besides being proofed against bullets and small missiles. It looked iridescent from the outside, so no one could see in, but he could see out. He’d always been wary of lipreaders. This penthouse was his home as well as his primary office, and he had given it plenty of thought. He had it swept for listening devices twice a week.

  Krozkov regarded his visitor. Feodor was his top aide, but the man was a bit absurd. A pinch-faced fellow with red-brown hair and a beard clipped with near-microscopic precision, he had a tan that looked too dark for him—without it he was pasty as an uncooked roll. He spent far too much time under the sunlamp. Like Krozkov, he wore casual summer clothing: khakis, and a butter-yellow shirt for Krozkov; Feodor in a white one, sleeves rolled neatly up to show his skinny walnut-colored arms.

  Feodor looked into his empty coffee cup. “Perhaps I need another,” he said, in colloquial Russian. He was indirectly asking for permission.

  Krozkov’s Russian was a little more formal. “Feodor Ivanovic, you have had two coffees and this my first—and I will have no more. Such strong coffee! It’s your health I’m thinking of. Already you’re a nervous man, very tense. Endless coffee, and you’ll give yourself a heart attack at only fifty years of age. Here.” He pushed the plate of tea cakes toward Feodor, beside the hand computer that held the purpose of their meeting. “Enjoy the tea cakes.”