The DMZ

  Rick ran a hand through his hair so roughly, his camouflage cap fell off. “Julie, I’m aware of those factors, but you don’t understand!” His voice grated raw, and for a brief moment, Julie saw his iron control slip and anguish break through. “Don’t you get it, Julie? This is no well-planned operation with support and a backup plan. I don’t know if I’ll be coming back. And I can’t guarantee that you will either! You won’t even have my odds of getting away in the uproar. I can’t allow you to put yourself in that position!”

  He cleared his throat as he ran his hand through his hair again. “Julie, I … we don’t have time for this, and I swore I wouldn’t say anything until we were safe and could afford that kind of distraction. But in these weeks we’ve been together, I’ve come to care for you a great deal. I just—if I’m going to go in there, I want to be able to know you’ll be safe. Can’t you understand that? I don’t want you to get hurt!”

  As a declaration of love, it was a far cry from the one Julie had dreamed of, and the Special Forces officer looked more angry than anything at his admission. Julie had to suppress a hysterical impulse to laugh.

  “So you’ll sacrifice yourself instead of me!” Her voice wobbled. “Oh, Rick, don’t you see? I … I care about you too—so much that I feel sick at the thought of you going in there! I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’d give anything if the two of us could walk away right now and forget all this. But this isn’t about us anymore! It’s about millions of people who are going to die if we don’t stop this thing. And if it takes risking our two lives—even if we care about each other—then I don’t see that we have any choice.”

  There was an obdurate set to his jaw, but he was listening. Julie went on steadily. “You told me once that God made sense out of your universe. I said I wished He would make sense out of mine. But now, all this …” She made a gesture that encompassed not just the woods around her but the whole of her life experiences. “Growing up here in the jungle with the I’paa. Coming back here right now after all these years. Getting kidnapped like that. Even Carlos! It’s as though for the first time I can see a reason for it all. I mean, think of it! If I hadn’t been kidnapped and you hadn’t come after me when I escaped, we’d have never found that village. We’d have never found out what these people were planning in time to stop it. It’s as though God put every one of those steps into my life to bring me here to this place for this time.”

  She covered a fresh wobble in her voice with a wry twist of her mouth. “If I were running the universe, I sure wouldn’t have picked me for this job. And for sure, I know I’d never have volunteered. But we’re here now, and I don’t see anyone else, so I guess … I guess it’s up to the two of us to do what needs to be done—whatever happens to us.”

  Julie kept her eyes steady on Rick’s face to keep from wavering, and as she did so, she saw his expression change, the anger softening to tenderness, even wonder, and as he’d done once before, he raised his hand to her face, the callused hardness of his palm so inexpressibly gentle against her cheek that moisture once again stung her eyelids. “You really are a chip off the old block, aren’t you, Julie Baker? Just like your parents—you see someone in trouble, and you don’t stop to count the cost before throwing your own life over the line to help.”

  Julie swallowed back the tears in her throat. “Look who’s talking,” she said shakily. “Oh, Rick, you’ve got me all wrong! I’m no hero. I’m the girl who can’t think of anything but her career and that Pulitzer Prize. And right now I’m so scared I want to throw up. It’s just—there’s some things in this world worth dying for, that’s all—and a few million people is one of them!”

  Some things worth dying for. The words struck Julie with a force that took her breath away even as she said them. Oh, Dad! Mom! I get it! It was never a question of how much you loved me, of choosing Colombia over me. It’s just that some things really are worth dying for. And living for too. And even if we’d like to keep the people we love safe and make things pretty and easy for them, sometimes we just have to follow the path God puts in front of our feet and believe that if He knows what He’s doing with our lives, then He also knows what He’s doing with the people we love. You knew that, if I didn’t! You never abandoned me—you just gave me to God.

  “Like I said,” Rick’s voice came softly. “A chip off the old block.”

  He let out his breath. Though the grim line still tightened his mouth, it was as if a weight had suddenly fallen from his shoulders. “Okay, you win, Julie Baker! Let’s go save the world.”

  * * *

  There was something about abandoning all hope that thrust out fear as well. Julie felt curiously alert as they slipped through the woods toward the encampment, every sense intensified to catch the minutest detail around her. The gathering shadows alive with hidden life. The musty, ancient scent of the rainforest. The chitter of a monkey hushing its offspring as the two Americans passed beneath its home. The moist pulsation of a tree frog under Julie’s groping fingers. The barest whisper of her feet against the forest floor. Was this how soldiers felt when they went into combat?

  Rick had chosen another spot from which to make their entrance. It was closer to the F-117, and there was no embankment except the cleared border that sloped down to the airstrip. In the final glimmer of twilight, it was hardly necessary to avoid the surveillance cameras. The designers of the base were evidently counting on the motion sensors and the locals’ fear of the dark for nighttime security measures.

  Bellying down in the underbrush, Julie saw the stealth fighter, not far to their left, the Quonset hut behind it. The cockpit canopy was still standing open, the ladder ready for the pilot to mount. But the weapon doors under the belly were closed, and the trolley that had carried the spray mechanism was pushed back against the shed and empty—an ominous sign.

  Two sentries stood at attention on either side of the plane, and two others patrolled the runway, one pacing along the perimeter edge where Rick and Julie were bellied down, the other on the far side in front of the buildings. The rest of the base lay surprisingly quiet and empty until Julie caught the sound of raised voices and a clatter of tin plates from the cambuches beyond the hangar. A hearty meal before committing mass murder.

  Though not everyone was at supper.

  Julie saw them just as Rick stiffened beside her. Four men emerging from the cambuches to walk around the side of the storage shed and toward the brick building with the satellite dish on its roof. It was too far in the growing gloom to make out features, but the white coat of one and the black turban of another identified the technician who had supervised the loading of the deadly anthrax spores and the head of Iranian intelligence, Taqi Nouri. Behind them walked a man dressed in standard-issue camouflage. Julie guessed him to be a guard, because he carried a weapon ready for instant use and constantly swiveled his head as though surveying the perimeter for danger.

  But it was not those three who drew Julie’s astonished gasp. It was the tall, broad form marching directly in front of the guard and between the terrorist leaders. He stood a head above the others, his hair not dark but so blond it looked silver in the light, and Julie would have recognized that confident stride anywhere.

  Tim McAdams!

  So this was where they had brought him! And he was alive and well and no more cowed, it would seem, by his prolonged captivity and the men flanking him than he had been the last time Julie had seen him.

  Julie had half-risen when she caught the warning shake of Rick’s head. She subsided into the brush as the three men climbed the steps of the brick building. Rick was right. Their only thought now had to be that plane, not rescuing a hostage.

  She watched instead as the door opened, letting out a slit of fluorescent lighting that glimmered on something metallic under Taqi Nouri’s armpit. The butt of a weapon in the largest shoulder holster Julie had ever seen. Still, even as the door shut behind them, Julie felt her heart lighten. Tim might be a prisoner, but it made a difference t
o know they had one more ally in the camp.

  Rick didn’t give the signal to move out immediately but waited until the gloom under the huge camouflage nets had darkened. By then, Julie and Rick’s faces were just a pale blur to each other. Out on the runway, the lighting was perfect, not yet dark enough for lanterns to have been brought out, though Julie could see a yellow glow back among the cambuches, but dark enough that the sentries were just shadowy outlines.

  Julie’s stomach tightened—with anticipation, not fear, she assured herself—as Rick rose to a half crouch beside her. There was no need for more discussion. Everything had already been covered back in the woods. His voice was almost inaudible against Julie’s ear: “Once this goes down, I’ll be back for you, okay? You just hang in there!” She felt a quick brush of his hand across her hair and down her face, and then he was gone.

  Julie counted to fifty before slithering back to where she could stand up without being seen. The near perimeter guard had passed the F-117 and was strolling back. A few more paces would bring him past her. Drawing in a steadying breath, Julie got to her feet. O God, don’t let me mess this up for Rick! Then she stepped out through the underbrush and walked down the bank.

  The shrill whine of the alarm as Julie crossed the line of the motion sensors provoked the reaction they had counted on. The near guard, a few paces past her to the right, spun around, raising his weapon as he spotted Julie stepping onto the runway. As his finger tightened on the trigger, Julie called out hastily in Spanish, “Please, I’m lost! Can you help me?”

  The guard’s grip on his weapon eased, but he didn’t lower it as he sprinted toward Julie. The other guard who had been patrolling the opposite side of the runway was now running toward her as well. Down the runway, the sentry stationed on the closer side of the F-117 took a step away from the wing. In the cambuches, the clatter of supper did not miss a beat, but the door of the brick building slammed open and black silhouettes erupted down the steps. Julie didn’t dare glance sideways, but at the edge of her peripheral vision, she caught the shadow that was Rick, his own breach of the perimeter timed to the alarm she had set off. He was striding rapidly toward the F-117, his dark head and camouflage fatigues indistinguishable even to her from those hurrying toward her.

  She raised her hands above her head to indicate she was unarmed. “Please, I’m lost! Can you tell me where I am?”

  Only someone watching for it would have noticed the noiseless movement under the belly of the stealth fighter, the sudden slump that could have been a shadow or a body. The two perimeter guards were pounding up to Julie, and the sentry by the plane had swung around to watch. Julie must have been as dark a figure to them as they were to her. First one, then the other of the guards switched on a flashlight, blinding her as the glare of their beams caught her in the eyes.

  And wiping out their own night vision as well.

  Julie quickly swung around, her movement seemingly aimless, but leaving the two guards as they followed her movement with their backs to the plane and their search beams away from it. Loudly, she repeated, not only for them but for the running steps she could hear across the airstrip, “Please, I’ve been lost in the jungle for days! Can you help me?”

  The two guards’ swift exchange was gibberish to Julie, and whether they had understood her, she couldn’t tell. But something in her tattered appearance and thin, travel-worn face must have conveyed her meaning; they lowered their search beams from her face and eased their hold on their weapons. A flashlight played over her makeshift foot-coverings. Then one of the guards snatched a hand radio from his belt and spoke rapidly into it. The shrill sound of the alarm was abruptly cut off.

  Behind the guards, Julie saw a shadow detach itself from under the swept-back wing of the F-117 and glide up behind the remaining sentry, whose eyes were still on her. The sentry slumped, and his body disappeared under the belly of the plane. The shadow began climbing the ladder. It was working! If Julie could keep attention on herself only a few seconds longer.

  Already in these last minutes, the tropics’ quick transition from twilight to night had taken place, and even knowing he was there, Julie could hardly make out Rick’s crouched shape clambering past the open canopy onto the black shell of the F-117. He had explained earlier what he planned to do. The difficulty with their limited arsenal was to inflict enough damage to the stealth fighter to keep it from taking off, preferably disabling it permanently. Slapping the Semtex against the RAM (radar absorbent material) shell that encased the plane’s aluminum skeleton might do it—or it might only make a dent. Only its engineers could tell them that.

  Rick had opted for the fuel opening on the dorsal spine of the plane behind the canopy, where under normal flight conditions a U.S. Air Force tanker plane would insert the long tube of its fuel probe for in-flight refueling. With this “gas cap” pried open and the Semtex thrust inside, the fuel itself would make a blazing fireball of the plane.

  O God, I think we’re going to do it! Julie swung around as footsteps approached across the concrete, no longer running, since the alarm had shut off, but at a brisk walk. She braced herself as the search beams shifted to the oncoming men. Another party had been added to the group she’d seen enter the brick building—the pilot, still in his flight suit with his helmet under one arm. Beside him strode the Iranian intelligence agent, Taqi Nouri, with his weapon now out of his shoulder holster—an Uzi automatic pistol like the one Victor had carried.

  But it wasn’t the long, deadly shape of that weapon that widened Julie’s eyes with dismay. It was the man tagging along behind him, the white-coated technician at his own heels, his blond head a glitter of gold under the play of the search beams. Julie had hoped to see Tim Me Adams again. But not now—not like this!

  Please don’t say anything! Don’t let them know you recognize me! Don’t—

  But it was too late. Tim’s eyes were already widening in startled recognition, and a moment later, his vigorous preacher’s voice boomed out, “Julie! What are you doing here? Where—?”

  Before Julie’s frantic signal could stop him, he had swung around, instinctively searching. His action had the effect Julie had feared. The flashlight beams swung toward the F-117

  The pilot was the first to spot Rick. With a shout of rage, he dropped his flight helmet and sprinted toward the ladder. Julie found herself suddenly forgotten as the two guards broke into a run behind the pilot. One paused to drop to one knee and raise his machine gun.

  Rick had to have heard the pilot’s shout, but he didn’t move from his crouch. Julie, glimpsing a rectangular object in his hands and the combat knife with which he’d been prying open the fuel cap, knew he was working frantically to place the Semtex charge before they reached him. Then she saw the machine gun lifted to the guard’s shoulder and his finger tightening on the trigger.

  “No!” The scream ripped from Julie’s throat as she launched herself at the guard. The impact knocked him sideways, and the machine gun flew upward, the burst of gunfire spraying harmlessly into the air.

  A heartbeat later, the butt of the gun struck Julie across the face so hard, she was thrown backward onto the concrete. By the time she scrambled frantically to her feet, the guard was raising his gun again. Only now the pilot was up the ladder and launching himself at Rick so that it was impossible to fire at one without hitting the other. Lowering the gun, the guard broke back into a run toward the plane.

  Julie started after him, but she had taken only a step when a steel grip snatched her back. Struggling, she glanced up to catch sight of the black turban. Below it, Taqi Nouri’s teeth glinted white against the black beard, but not in a smile, and even in this darkness his eyes glittered with fury and hate. Julie fought against his hold, but he held her easily. The muzzle of the Uzi pistol grinding painfully against her cheekbone froze her into immobility.

  On top of the plane, the pilot and Rick were fighting. Rick was unable to bring his AK-47 to bear but was using it to block the pilot’s attack. As Julie
watched helplessly, the force of the pilot’s assault knocked both men from their feet, their grappling bodies rolling over the edge of the dorsal spine and landing with a thud on the wing. The AK-47 flew through the air to clatter at the feet of the guard below. Over and over the two men rolled along the length of the wing. Briefly, Rick managed to separate himself from the pilot and scrambled to his feet. Nouri’s Uzi left Julie’s cheek to level on the Special Forces officer. Then the pilot launched himself at Rick, knocking his legs out from under him and sending him over the edge, and the barrel of the Uzi dropped.

  Rick hit the concrete at a roll, then was back on his feet and diving for the AK-47. But the second guard had now reached them as well, and he kicked the assault rifle under the belly of the plane while his companion threw himself at Rick. Rick’s vicious kick swept his attacker’s legs out from under him. Then, in a series of movements too swift for Julie to follow, one guard went down with a heavy grunt. Rick slammed into the concrete with the other on top of him. As he hit the ground, he kept rolling, throwing the guard over his head. The guard’s machine gun skittered across the concrete to land just a few feet from Julie.

  But these men, too, were trained soldiers, and even as Rick rolled back to his feet, the pilot launched himself from the wing onto Rick’s back. One of the guards was up again, his weapon in hand. He brought it up, again hesitating only because the pilot was in the way. Why didn’t Rick duck under the cover of the plane? Julie wondered desperately. And why did he have one arm down to his side instead of using it to defend himself

  With shock, Julie realized Rick wasn’t trying to escape his attackers but to complete his mission, maneuvering himself close enough to toss the grenade hidden in his hand into the canopy that still stood open above him.