Despite the severity of the situation, and the pressure that his company commander was under, Decon couldn’t resist. “This is Two Six, I acknowledge one kick in the ass to Three Six, over.”

In the silence that follows, Decon could imagine the look on his young company commander’s face as he swore at the hand mike he held. Then the CO came back on. “Bravo Two Six, Bravo Two Six, stand by to execute, over.”

In a flash, the leader of the first platoon came back. “Bravo One Six. Stand by.”

Then Decon keyed his mike. “This is Bravo Two Six. Standing by.”

After a brief pause, the company commander came back. “Fire when ready, out.”

Tossing the hand mike to his RTO, Decon pointed to the squad leader. “Fire!”

Without hesitation, the squad leader began the task of killing his fellow countrymen.

SOMEWHERE ON DEADMAN FLATS, IDAHO • 0318, NOVEMBER 11

Up ahead Captain Martin Aguilar could barely see the tanks of his second platoon and the Bradleys of the attached mech infantry platoon with his naked eye. After making a quick scan of everything to his front, he glanced down at the GPS mounted in the ring of his cupola. With his left index finger Aguilar hit the DISPLAY button on the GPS, then checked the location it gave him with the map that he had secured on a covered board fastened to the rear of his machine-gun mount. Letting go of the cupola ring, he thrust his right arm in front of his face and checked his watch. “We’re slow,” he told himself as his body swayed about to compensate for the rocking motion of his tank. “We should be at least two hundred meters farther west by now.”

Nervously he looked over his left shoulder at the M-1 that was lurking fifty meters to rear of his own tank. It was the colonel’s tank. As if he didn’t have enough stress to deal with, the commander of Task Force 3-68 had chosen to go forward with his company. From the beginning things had not gone well. First there had been the traffic snarl on the trail they had used to move off Black Mesa. Then there was the discovery that the ground they had to cross was more broken than anyone had anticipated. And on top of all of that, the rain had all but stopped. This left Aguilar’s vehicles, heated by their exertions, silhouetted against a ground that had been cooled by hours of rain.

Turning back to face the front Aguilar slumped down. Such things didn’t matter to the old man who was fond of reminding his officers that the maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters. Accomplishing the mission on time was all that mattered to him.