Gideon's War / Hard Target

One day as Gideon was waiting to hear back from Phnom Penh about some minor point of protocol, a boy ran into the village, sobbing uncontrollably. Several of the children Gideon played soccer with had chased a ball into the jungle. Normally they might not have, but this was a brand-new ball, which Gideon had given them.

Searching for the ball, the boy’s younger sister had stepped on a mine. As Gideon had learned, some antiperso

The little girl had heard the click of the trigger and realized that if she moved, the Bouncing Betty would blow her head off. So she froze. And now, between breathless sobs, her brother was explaining what had happened. Unless somebody could defuse the mine while she was standing on it, the girl was dead. Gideon went to get Horst, but the bomb expert’s face had gone ashen, his hands were trembling like leaves. For a moment, no one spoke. Then Horst stood and said, “Gideon, you need to be my hands.”

A dozen villagers followed them into the jungle, where they found the little girl standing in a clearing, remarkably composed even as her mother wailed and cried. Her khaki-colored eyes followed Gideon’s movement with absolute trust as he followed Horst’s instructions. Gideon lay on the ground and carefully brushed away the dusty earth surrounding the mine, so he coul goÑ€†d describe the trigger mechanism. Horst confirmed it was an M2A4 bounding mine, then proceeded to talk Gideon through the process until he’d disarmed the trigger. The girl’s mother swept her up into her arms and wept, thanking Gideon through her tears.

It took another three months to finalize the agreement and end the long civil war between the Tampuan and the Cambodian government. During those months, whenever Gideon wasn’t at the negotiating table, he went with Horst on de-mining missions, learning everything he could from the German about mines and munitions—from pressure plates and percussion caps to arming plugs and fuse retainer springs.

Kate listened to his story, rapt.

“So bottom line is, yeah, I think I can disarm the bomb.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve been here ten minutes. Let’s get back down to D Deck and see if the coast is clear.”

Gideon slung the tool-laden canvas bag over his shoulder, then he cracked the door open and looked both ways. The corridor outside the electrician’s supply room was empty. Kate suggested he follow her, since she knew the rig best, so they started moving toward the mechanical shaft hatch. Gideon heard a toilet flushing behind a door he was approaching. Kate turned at the sound, meeting Gideon’s eyes, but she’d already gone past the door, which now started to open outward. As it eclipsed their view of each other, Gideon mouthed the word Run, but before Kate could get very far, the door banged open. Whoever was coming out would spot her immediately. Sure enough, Gideon heard the crackle of a radio and a voice on the other side of the door, shouting in a heavy Malay accent, “A Deck! She’s on A Deck!”

Gideon kicked the door out of the way and tackled the man in front of him, spearing him to the floor, when he realized he’d made a mistake. The man wore a lemon yellow jumpsuit and had his wrists shackled behind him with flex cuffs, while a jihadi stood several feet in front of them, his radio raised to his mouth. Only then did Gideon realize what had happened: the jihadi had taken the hostage to relieve himself.

“What are you doing, you moron?” The hostage was a sandy-haired guy with the physique of a college wrestler, and small resentful eyes. The jihadi dropped his walkie-talkie and swung his AK toward them, but Gideon managed to grab the rifle and deflect its barrel as it spit out a volley of automatic gunfire.

Gideon drove back the jihadi—an average Mohanese weighing a good sixty pounds less than Gideon—and propelled him backward until they smashed against the exit door, which opened under their combined weight.

The rain was nearly horizontal in the hurricane wind, and Gideon’s feet went out from under him on the rain-slick decking. He landed hard on his back and lay for a moment, stu

A horrible scream briefly pierced through the howling wind, then abruptly died away.

Gideon found himself alone on the walkway.

It took him a moment to understand that he had not only propelled the jihadi over his head but had also flung the man clear over the railing. Fightian&Ñ€†ng the wind, Gideon stood and looked over the railing into the water. Sheets of foam sluiced down the face of the massive waves.

The jihadi was gone.

Gideon yanked open the door and was about to reenter the hallway to retrieve the hostage, when he froze. The hostage was lying dead in his own pooling blood. A jihadi holding a Makarov pistol was standing over him and now fired a second shot into the dead man’s head. Then he shouted toward yet another jihadi, who was approaching from the far end of the corridor. Gideon peered around the corner. What he saw triggered a response in his nervous system that caused him to feel as if he were ru

They were going to execute her, too.

Only then did Gideon remember that he was holding the AK-47 of the jihadi he’d thrown over the railing. He had never shot an AK before, had never even held one. But it felt familiar and easy. His fingers knew this thing, knew what to do with it before his mind could even begin to process what his body was doing. He pressed the stock to his shoulder and sighted the target.

Gideon's War and Hard Target

Gideon fired once, and the first man fell, his Makarov...

Seeing this, the second jihadi pulled Kate in front of him to use as a human shield, but a bullet from Gideon’s AK drilled a hole through the bridge of his nose.

Gideon felt as if he were watching a film of a shattered mirror ru

He fired a second shot into the jihadi before he hit the ground.

Then he snatched up the tools and collected as much ammunition as he could carry from the dead jihadis. He felt Kate trembling as he wrapped his arm around her and swept her past the pile of dead men. Without a word, they made their way toward the bomb on D Deck that Tillman was threatening to detonate less than ten hours from now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHUN WAS ON A Deck, reading the ID badge of the dead hostage whom Omar had let take a piss. What Chun found there was worse than he’d imagined. Aside from the hostage, Wafiq and Abbudin were also dead, and Omar was missing. Chun’s voice tightened as he gave Timken a damage report, grateful that he was delivering the news over the radio instead of face-to-face. “ID says he’s a diver-welder. His name’s Garth Dean.”

“How the hell did he get loose?” Timken asked.

“He didn’t, sir. Not exactly. His cuffs are still on.”

“So you’re telling me that an unarmed woman and a hostage with his hands tied behind his back took out three armed men?”

“It looks that way.”

Chun heard the anger in Timken’s silence. What Chun didn’t hear were the ball bearings rattling in Timken’s pocket as he formed a simple plan.