“Yeah, I’m not real happy about having an audience, either.” Flynn was uncomfortably aware that they didn’t have enough spare personnel to maintain a secure perimeter around the crash site. Most of the OGA black ops team was busy around the C-130’s cargo compartment. And Wizard One-One’s flight crew—Dykstra, Kasper, and Wade—were fully occupied watching over their own helicopter. The same went for the Mi-17’s two pilots. White had posted one of his ex–Special Forces contractors on guard near the tail section of the downed plane, but otherwise there was just him.

Flynn’s subconscious had started sending up flares the moment Zalewski confided his suspicions that this crash wasn’t an accident. Well, he decided, it was high time he started paying attention to those danger signals from his lizard brain. Whoever had brought the cargo plane down might have bigger plans—plans that could prove dangerous to the health of Mama Flynn’s dark-haired boy . . . and every other American in the vicinity. Which made it imperative that he take a long, hard look at their surroundings and tactical situation.

So, as soon as the PJ squeezed back inside the C-130’s damaged forward fuselage, Flynn made the long trudge upslope to the top of the dune. Loose sand slid out from under his combat boots with every step. By the time he made it, he was drenched in sweat. Little swirls of sand danced along the knife-edge-like crest, kicked up by occasional gusts of wind that were as hot and dry as if they had come straight out of a bake oven. His shadow stretched away to the left, lengthened by the sun slanting lower in the west.

Squinting against the glare, he raised his binoculars and scanned across the sea of dunes toward the Wath Oasis. Its tiny cluster of buildings marked the only source of water for more than sixty miles in any direction. Any trouble was likely to come from that direction.

There were tracks down the nearest slope off to the south, heading this way. They continued across the desert floor, coming to an end among a small herd of camels tethered down at the base of this sand dune. They were about a couple of hundred yards from his position on the crest. Two more of the white-robed locals squatted close to the camels, evidently guarding them.

Flynn focused in on them. Under those head wrappings, it was hard to get a good look at their faces, but they appeared to be young and fit, certainly not more than thirty years old. The hard work needed to survive in this waterless, harsh climate aged people fast.

Slowly, he lowered the binoculars. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen any women or children among those who’d arrived to gawk at the wrecked Super Hercules and the Americans working the crash site. Nor had he noticed any of the elders who ordinarily controlled the daily life of this region’s seminomadic clans.

A flash of movement off to the south caught his eye and Flynn got his binoculars back up just in time to catch sight of another white-robed man stationed high up on the next dune over. He was vigorously waving at a rider mounted on a camel that had just lumbered over the crest. Unlike the others, this rider was dressed in the bright-colored clothes favored by local women. Obediently, she turned the head of her beast around and disappeared down the other side again. Apparently satisfied, the watcher sank back on his haunches.