Whiplash

The ground had a specific smell to it, too, a scent unlike others you’d ever crawled through, either as a child or a soldier. Many times, dirt smelled like death, or the precursor to death, hot sulfur and electrified metal. Sometimes it smelled of chemicals, and other times of rot and refuse. This dirt smelled like impervious stone, absorbing nothing, and obscuring the senses, just as the rain made it difficult for the night glasses to work properly.

“Turn twenty degrees to the right and proceed forward ten yards,” said the Voice.

Da

The mines around the Sudanese army post where Tarid and the other prisoners were kept had been laid in a complicated pattern. They’d also been placed very close together. Most soldiers would have found it impenetrable; indeed, at least two would-be saboteurs and a smuggler had been blown up in the fields over the past twelve months.

But the Whiplash team had an advantage other infiltrators did not—the Voice had mapped the mines by looking at infrared satellite images from the past few nights. The mines were all slightly warmer than the surrounding ground when the sun went down, making them easy for the computer to spot. By watching Da

“Turn now,” said the Voice.

Da

“We’re in position,” said Nuri over the radio circuit.

“Roger that. We’ve still got a ways to go.”

“The guard change is in ten minutes.”

“Roger. Ten minutes. We’ll be ready.”

Da

The prisoners were being kept in an open pen about thirty yards from the perimeter fence. Tarid was there. So was Tilia.

She’d been shot twice in the leg, but it wasn’t until she ran out of ammunition and passed out from the blood loss that the soldiers had captured her. They threw her in the back of a captured rebel pickup and drove her to the compound, unconscious; her leg was bound but otherwise left untreated. In a way, she was lucky—if she hadn’t been recognized as one of Uncle Dpap’s lieutenants, she would have been killed on the battlefield.

After being raped. So far, she had been spared that as well.

When Da

“McGowan, stop,” he hissed. “Stop!”

Everyone stopped, not just McGowan.

“What’s wrong?”

“You went off course. Don’t move.”

Da

“You went right between two mines,” he told him after studying the image. “You’re about six inches from the next mine. And there’s one right behind you.”

“You sure?”

“No asshole, he’s just trying to scare the crap out of you,” snapped Hera.

“All right. Let’s all relax. Flash, come on forward. Follow the lines I made.”

“It’s getting hard to see with the rain,” said Flash.

“Yeah, I know. Do it, though.”

Da

“All right. You two get working on the fence,” Da

He took off his rucksack, leaving it and his rifle on the ground near the edge of the minefield. Then he dropped to his hands and knees and started back for McGowan. The rain was becoming heavier, washing away the markings he and the others had left. The water also started to soak the field, making it more slippery. Even with the Voice to guide him, he had a difficult time staying on course.

“This isn’t good, huh?” asked McGowan when he finally got close.

“There’s a mine right here,” said Da

“Can I go right?”

“No.” Da

“How slightly?”

“Hold on.”

The cloud cover was making it harder and harder for the system to see McGowan from the Owl. Da

The Voice objected that he was going off the established trail.

“Affirmative,” he told it. “Guide me toward McGowan.”

“Subject ca

“He hasn’t moved.”

“Data insufficient to confirm.”

“Warn me if I’m too close to a mine,” Da

“Get on my back,” Da

“Huh?” said McGowan.

“The computer will tell me where to go. Rather than taking a risk and following me, I’ll just carry you out. It’ll be easier.”

“Hey, Colonel, I can do this.”

“Get on my back, soldier. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.”

WHILE DANNY WAS GUIDING HIS MEN THROUGH THE MINEFIELD, Nuri and Boston were on the opposite side of the camp, preparing an assault. Or what would look like an assault to the men inside.

Nuri was on the north side of the road, Boston the south. They’d split the mercenaries between them. They didn’t have nearly enough men to take the camp, but they had more than enough to make it look as if they wanted to.

The rain continued to fall, blocking not only the Owl’s view, but making it hard to see with the night glasses as well. Nuri could barely tell where the machine-gun position was.

There were three minutes to go before the guards were due to change watch.

“Da

“Stay on schedule. We want to hit while the guards are changing.”

“You sound like you’re straining.”

“I’ll explain later.”

HERA CLIPPED THROUGH THE LAST OF THE WIRE AND PUSHED it back. Then she stepped through, holding it for Flash so he could get in.

“This way,” she said, pointing toward the prisoners’ pen.

Aside from some smaller lights on the buildings, the only illumination in the complex came from a pair of floodlights mounted on a telephone pole at almost the exact center of the camp. Their light formed an arc that took in about two-thirds of the prisoners’ area. The area between the two fences where Hera and Flash were was cast in a deep shadow.

Before the rain started, two guards had been watching the prisoners, walking back and forth in the area that was lit. The heavy rain had sent them into the trucks, though Hera and Flash couldn’t see them from where they were.

“What happened to the guards?” asked Flash.