“Why not. Since we’re not supposed to kill ’em if we can help it, at least we can scare the piss out of them.” With that, he lay his sight on the center of mass of the trail vehicle to permit the tracking system to compute the target’s rate of lateral movement while he ranged. When he was ready, the gunner moved the aiming dot off target and onto the road immediately behind the fleeing Bradley. Mashing the trigger, he let fly another burst that missed the Bradley by a hair, just as the other bursts had.

This last burst was a wasted effort. Everyone, from the track commander who was keeping his head as low as he could to the men crouching down inside, never heard or saw the Apache’s parting shot. To them, there was no shame in their flight. It was, Kelo thought as he struggled to collect himself and settle in one of the padded seats in the crew compartment, the smartest thing they had done in days.

BOISE, IDAHO • MORNING, NOVEMBER 8

The timing of a major attack takes many things into consideration. The period between two A.M. local and four A.M. is particularly favored. To begin with most military organizations that have to maintain twenty-four-hour operations usually do so with two shifts. Normally the best and the brightest members of the staff find themselves assigned to the day shift. The second shift is often reserved for the junior members of the staff or those staff officers whom section chiefs don’t want around when the boss is under foot. Routinely the deputy of a staff section is the senior man on deck at night, although some staff section leaders like having a strong number two close at hand throughout the day. In that case the number three man leads the night shift.

The second factor that comes into play during the golden hours of two to four A.M. is the body’s natural rhythms. Early Homo Sapiens lacked the keen hearing, acute sense of smell, or sharp night vision needed to become a night predator. This forced primitive man to hunt by day and seek the protection of caves, fire, or numbers at night when they slept. Thousands of years of evolution cannot be undone at the snap of a finger or by order of the commanding general. Nor can people accustomed to sleeping at night reverse their cycle. That leaves personnel relegated to the graveyard shift vulnerable to physical and mental exhaustion as they fight with their biological clocks.