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  The man waved a small, handheld device. “Nice try with the camera, Captain, but I just fried all your electronics,” said the assassin. “Mine, of course, were shielded. Back in Chad, I expect your colleagues are trying to work through the problem, but it’ll be too late for them to help you by the time they figure out what is going on. They’ll be especially puzzled by the fact that your satellite has also stopped working. An encoded message was sent to your satellite by a person in our pay, who has disabled it for the next six hours. Plenty of time for my men and me to accomplish our mission.”

  “I take it you’re here for the drone?”

  “Naturally. Why else would we be here?” replied the man, taking Grant’s weapons from him.

  Grant discreetly glanced around the cavern and counted four men. Two covered him, while the others kept watch on Maclean. “Since you’re probably going to kill us, what I’d like to know is, how did you get here before we did?”

  “Your military satellite’s security codes were ridiculously easy to access. We’ve known about the location of this object for almost as long as you have. All we had to do was stage our arrival around the times your satellite was not in orbit high above the plateau, so that we wouldn’t be seen. To be honest, we got here not long before you did.”

  “I take it we can’t come to some arrangement?”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “How about you let us go, and we’ll promise not to tell anyone that we bumped into you.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain, but I have very specific orders to make the two of you writhe in agony before leaving you here to die.”

  “Charming,” said Grant under his breath.

  “Now move over by your friend, so we can get this started,” said the assassin, giving Grant a shove.

  “I thought this was a quick dash-in-and-out assignment,” said Maclean to his friend. “No one said we were going to get a visit from the goon squad.”

  The man with the Slavic accent drew a razor-sharp, curved blade from his belt. “This, gentlemen, is a skinning knife, typically used to cut away the hide from a dead animal. However, in your case, you’re both going to be alive when your skin is removed.”

  Grant tried to swallow but found his mouth drier than the desert above.

  “I think I’ll skin the Australian first,” said the man, twirling the knife in his hand.

  Before Maclean could move, two of the killers grabbed hold of him by the arms and held him tight.

  “No!” hollered Grant. He took a step forward, only to have a rifle barrel thrust into his face.

  “Don’t!” warned the gunman.

  The assassins’ team leader walked over and removed Maclean’s helmet and undid his vest, letting both fall to the ground. The man patted a small camera attached to his suit. “My superiors are going to enjoy watching me remove your face.”

  “Screw you,” snarled Maclean, defiantly spitting on the man’s faceplate.

  The knife came within a millimeter of Maclean’s face, when, suddenly, the cave lit up in a brilliant orange glow.

  All eyes turned to see the drone silently hovering ten meters off the ground.

  Grant no longer cared about the alien probe, not while his friend’s life was at stake. He dropped his right hand and grabbed the barrel of the rifle and pushed it away from him. The killer pulled the trigger, but the rounds flew wide. With his free hand, Grant smashed the weapon as hard as he could into the man’s throat. Unable to breathe, the assassin reached up to clutch his crushed windpipe. Grant yanked the rifle from the man’s hands, spun around, and fired off a burst into one of the men restraining Maclean, sending him to the ground.

  With only one attacker left, Maclean pivoted on his heel and smashed an elbow into the stunned man’s stomach, doubling him over. He snarled angrily as he reached for the assassin’s weapon.

  The leader threw his knife aside and reached for a pistol on his belt. Grant brought up his rifle and shot him through his helmet before he could finish drawing his gun.

  A burst from the weapon in Maclean’s hands told Grant the fight was over. All four gunmen were dead. Grant’s heart beat wildly. He ran over, snatched the camera from the dead leader’s chest, and glared into the lens. “You bastards had best hope Sergeant Maclean and I never get our hands on you, or we’re going to make you wish you had never been born.” With an angry cry, he smashed the camera onto a rock.

  “Dave, the probe,” said Maclean, looking up.

  The drone began to spin in the air, alternating between orange and white lights. Grant raised a hand to block the bright glare. The probe shot soundlessly out of the opening and raced up toward the stars.

  “Well, this was almost an unmitigated disaster,” said Maclean, looking at the bodies lying at his feet.

  “Not really,” countered Grant. “At least we now know there is a traitor working for these SOBs with access to my country’s military satellites.”

  From the ground, a faint voice called out. Grant looked around and saw the glass faceplate on one of the thugs had split open, exposing an earpiece. He dropped down beside the corpse and listened.

  “Team Gold, report your status,” said a man with a thick French accent.

  Grant removed the dead man’s helmet, picked up his headset, and placed it on his head. With a flick of a switch, Grant said, “Your golden boys are all dead. I’m sure you can no longer see their life signs on your monitor, wherever you are.”

  “Is this Captain Grant speaking?”

  “The one and only.”

  “How unfortunate. Adieu, mon captaine.”

  Grant looked at Maclean. “What the hell could he have meant by that?”

  An ear-shattering explosion rocked the cave as rockets smashed into the roof of the cavern, sending massive pieces of rock hurtling to the ground.

  “Run!” yelled Maclean, dragging his comrade away from the falling rocks. They bolted through the debris raining down from above, dodging the larger rocks, desperate to reach the far side of the cavern before they were crushed to death.

  Like a pair of baseball players coming into home plate, both men dropped and slid down into a dry riverbed. They rolled over onto their stomachs with their hands over their heads. For close to a minute, rubble fell in the cave, covering the soldiers in a thick cloud of dust.

  Grant waited until he couldn’t hear any more rocks falling before rolling over and opening his eyes. He brought out a Maglite, switched it on, and waved it in front of his face. Even with the light, it was hard to see more than an arm’s length in front of him. “Jim, are you okay?” he asked.

  There was no reply.

  Grant twisted around and saw his friend wasn’t lying in the ditch with him. He called out again. As before, there was only silence. He feared something had gone wrong. A hand reached out of the swirling dust and grabbed his shoulder. Grant let out a surprised cry and spun to look into Maclean’s dirt-encrusted face. “Jesus, Jim, you nearly scared the crap out of me.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” replied Maclean. “You’ve got to see this.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Follow me.” Through the cloud, they walked beside the riverbed until they came to a crack in the rock wall. “You’re not going to believe your eyes.” Maclean turned sideways and slid through the opening.

  Grant, being somewhat larger in the chest than his friend, removed his vest and squeezed his way into the crack. It took only a couple of seconds before he stepped out into another cave. Right away, he could see what had excited Maclean. The room shone with gold. There were numerous cups, statues, plates, even animals made out of gold strewn about the chamber. A tall shelf packed with scrolls stood against one wall.

  “Quite the find, ain’t it?” said Maclean, smiling from ear to ear. “Before you say anything, just think of the retirement we could have living off this find.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing, but I suspect the government of Libya may have a thing or two to say abou
t it.” Grant walked to the dust-covered shelf and examined a pile of scrolls he guessed were made of papyrus. “This treasure trove is worth a king’s ransom. I bet there are things in here going back to the Roman Empire.” He ran his hand over an ancient leather bag and wondered what was inside. For a moment, Grant imagined himself a ship’s captain, sailing the Mediterranean under a hot, summer sun.

  The unnerving sound of rock splitting apart made both men look up at the roof. A crack appeared above them and slid like a snake toward the far wall. Dust and rocks began to fall.

  “Time to leave,” said Grant, dropping his vest and grabbing the bag off the nearest shelf. With Maclean pushing him, Grant was through the opening in record time and back out into the first cavern. There was a loud rumbling noise, like waves hitting the surf, followed by the sound of rocks smashing into one another as the treasure was buried under tons of rock.

  “So much for my retirement fund,” quipped Maclean wryly.

  “At least we know it’s there,” replied Grant, stashing the bag under his shirt.

  The dust in the room began to settle. With the cave roof missing, Grant could see the stars in the night sky. He tapped his colleague on the arm. “Come on, let’s climb out of here and greet the choppers.”

  Maclean checked his watch. “Dave, I don’t want to be a pessimist, but aren’t they more than a little late?”

  Grant nodded. “You’re right. I wonder where they could be.”

  3

  Forward Staging Area – Chad

  The mood in the tactical operations center was tense. Set up inside a large military tent, the TOC was filled with people sitting behind their computer workstations. A row of blank monitors hung from the roof.

  Colonel Andrews watched as the techs tried to sort out why they had lost contact with his people. His sour mood wasn’t helped by the fact that the extraction team leader was badgering him every thirty seconds for permission to cross over into Libyan airspace.

  A young technical sergeant looked up at Andrews. “Sir, Eagle-Six is again asking for permission to carry on to the objective.”

  “The answer is still no,” said Andrews. “Until I know what’s happening on the ground, I won’t risk the lives of the men in those choppers.” Although not his fault, the loss of a dozen special-operations soldiers in Georgia due to poor intelligence still haunted Andrews’ nightmares. He knew the two squads of Rangers sitting in the back of the rescue helicopters would be chomping at the bit to carry on, but he wasn’t going to risk their lives without knowing what was happening down below.

  “Sir, there might be another way to see what’s going on,” said Hayes.

  “I’m all ears, Professor. What are you recommending?”

  “As our satellite mysteriously went offline just when we need it the most, might I suggest you revector one of the two drones we have been using to keep an eye on the rebel forces to the west of the cavern over to the objective.”

  Andrews shook his head. He should have thought of that long before a civilian scientist. He was rusty, and it showed.

  “I’m on it, sir,” said a lieutenant as she typed in the commands on her laptop.

  “Will we be able to get live feed from the Reaper?” asked Andrews.

  “Yes, sir,” replied the lieutenant. “They’re using a different satellite than ours to send their information.”

  “Okay then, will someone please put up a visual on one of these monitors?” A couple of seconds passed before the center screen lit up. The camera image was sharp and clear. “Thanks,” said Andrews.

  “Sir, ETA to the objective is fifteen minutes,” reported the young officer.

  Andrews nodded. He tapped a foot on the ground. As far as he was concerned, fifteen minutes was an eternity when his people’s lives were on the line.

  4

  Grant and Maclean scrambled over the rocks until they were able to climb out of the cavern. They took cover and studied their surroundings to see if any of the assassins’ accomplices were still hanging around.

  “We need to find a way to contact the colonel and let him know we’re all right,” whispered Maclean.

  “I know,” replied Grant. “But we may be out of luck. Our comms gear is useless, and anything the opposition was carrying on them is buried under the rocks.”

  “I bet they didn’t walk across the desert to be here. Ten-to-one, there’s a chopper or vehicle waiting nearby for them. All we have to do is find it.”

  Grant motioned to the north. “We didn’t see anything when we came up from Chad, so it has to be that way.”

  Maclean nodded and took the lead. They crept forward using the rocks for cover. After a few minutes, the aroma of a cigar wafted in the night air. Maclean raised a hand and dropped to one knee.

  Grant moved over beside him. “What is it?” he asked softly.

  “Cigar smoke coming from the bottom of the gully right ahead of us,” explained Maclean.

  Grant dropped to his hands and knees and edged forward until he could look down into the gulch. He froze when he spotted two men standing next to an all-terrain vehicle. The man smoking the cigar reached inside the vehicle and grabbed hold of a radio handset. Grant couldn’t make out what the man was saying; he was speaking an unfamiliar Slavic language. As quietly as he could, Grant made his way back to Maclean. He held up two fingers.

  Grant blinked, startled, when, even in the dark, he saw Maclean’s eyes suddenly widen. His friend jumped to his feet and hauled Grant with him.

  “Run!” hollered Maclean.

  With his heart pounding away in his ears, Grant sprinted after Maclean. They had barely gone ten meters when Maclean turned and pushed Grant to the ground. A split second later, the sound of a missile going supersonic filled their ears. A bright flash followed by an enormous explosion lit up the spot where they had been mere seconds before. Jagged pieces of rock shot through the air like shrapnel. Grant felt a projectile bounce off the side of his liquid body armor. He silently thanked the person who had invented the lightweight device. He waited a couple of seconds before getting up on one knee and checking his body to make sure he hadn’t been hit any place else. Grant hadn’t heard the drone circling above them. Luckily, Maclean’s hearing was better than his.

  “Come on, we’ve got to find some cover before that drone operator realizes we’re not dead,” said Maclean.

  They got to their feet, ran to a deep wadi, and slid down into it. Both men drew the pistols they had concealed behind their backs and flipped off the safety.

  “There,” Grant said, pointing at a rocky outcropping. They ran over and took cover beneath the overhang.

  “Hopefully, they won’t be able to spot us now,” said Maclean.

  “Tonight hasn’t really gone according to plan,” mused Grant wryly.

  “No, it hasn’t. Let’s hope the opposition gets bored of looking for us and heads home, because if they don’t, we could be stuck under here for the next twenty-four hours.”

  “That long?”

  “I’m taking an educated guess. The newer the drone, the longer the time it can loiter on target.”

  “Colonel Andrews won’t wait that long to come looking for us.”

  “Dave, you’re forgetting what he said before we boarded our chopper.”

  Grant tried to recall what was said. Andrews’ face filled his mind, and the man’s words echoed in his head. “Gents, stay safe, but remember I won’t risk the team to save one, or in this case, two men.”

  “Ah, damn it all to hell,” muttered Grant. “Looks like we’re trapped here until tomorrow evening and then we’re going to have to hoof it all the way back to Chad.”

  “At least we’ve got some—” Maclean stopped mid-sentence, sat up, and looked around.

  “Hear something?”

  Maclean raised a finger to his lips and pointed above them.

  Grant heard the crunch of boots on rock heading toward their hiding spot. He cursed the person operating the drone as he must have se
en them take cover and directed the two killers over to them.

  “We know where you are,” said a man with a British accent. “Come out, and I promise we’ll make this quick.”

  “Screw you!” yelled back Maclean. “You want us, come and get us.”

  “Have it your way, mate.”

  Grant was desperate to find a way out of their predicament. There was no way in hell they were going to surrender to a pair of murdering psychopaths. He was at a loss to know what to do.

  “Got them, I think,” said the drone operator in the TOC.

  Andrews stared at the screen. He could see a couple of men holding G11 rifles standing back from a riverbed. “That’s not them. Those aren’t my people.”

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “What do you want to do, Colonel?”

  “If they take any offensive action, blast them into a million pieces.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied the operator before relaying the information back to the people flying the drone from a secure base in Kuwait.

  “Now what do we do?” Maclean asked his friend.

  “I don’t know,” responded Grant. “They seem to have the jump on us. If we stick our heads out from under this rock, they’ll blow them right off.”

  With a dull thud, two grenades landed in the sand next to the soldiers’ hiding spot.

  Both men dove out, rolled over, and took cover behind a boulder less than a second before the grenades went off, showering the soldiers with sand, dirt, and rocks.

  “Drop your weapons and stand up,” warned the British assassin.

  Grant bit his lip and shook his head. If he was going to die, he was going to do so fighting. He steeled himself and got ready to jump up on one knee when he heard the telltale sound of a missile speeding down from the heavens. The projectile detonated right behind the killer, sending the man flying up into the air like a child’s rag doll. His partner was killed an instant later by the concussive force of the blast.