Which was why neither of them had noticed the tribesman in bulky robes coming around the other side of the Jolly Green II’s fuselage. Unlike the others, this man was anything but casual in his movements. He was walking slowly, but very deliberately, toward the helicopter’s open cabin.

That is so not good, Flynn thought, feeling abruptly cold despite the bone-dry heat. He increased his pace to intercept the tribesman. “Alsalam ealaykum ya sidiqi. Hal yumkinuni musaeidatuk bashi’an?” he called out politely in Arabic. “Peace be upon you, my friend. Can I help you with something?” The local Teda clans had their own Nilo-Saharan language, Tedaga, but he didn’t speak it. And Arabic was the de facto lingua franca throughout North Africa.

Surprised, the robed man swung toward him and stopped. “Ah, la. Ah, no,” he said hesitantly. “Shukrana jazila. Ana jidi. Thank you. I’m fine.”

Fine, my ass. Flynn could hear that the tribesman’s voice was slurred. He’d also gotten close enough to see that the other man’s pupils were dilated. The son of a bitch was drugged, he realized. Bad. Bad. Very bad. His right hand dropped to the Glock 19 pistol he carried in a chest rig on top of his armor. “‘Akhraj min hna! Alan!” he snapped. “Get out of here! Now!”

The tribesman’s eyes widened in sudden panic. He fumbled at the opening to his robe, pawing for something inside.

Flynn caught a split-second glimpse of wires and a bulky vest. He reacted instantly. With his left forearm, he slammed the other man’s hands aside. And in that same action, he drew his pistol, slid his finger inside the trigger guard as he swung it on target, and fired twice. Both 9mm rounds hit the tribesman squarely in the face, tore through, and exploded out the back of his skull. Already dead, the would-be suicide bomber dropped to his knees and then slumped to the ground.

With the ear-splitting crack of the two shots he’d fired still ringing in his ears, the world around Flynn seemed to blur into slow motion as adrenaline flooded his system. He slid the Glock back into his chest holster and grabbed his M4A1 carbine instead.

Through the HH-60W’s open door, he could see Bill Wade looking back over his shoulder at him in stunned surprise. On the other side of the helicopter, Dykstra and Kasper were doing the same thing, caught completely off guard by the sudden eruption of violence.

Beyond them, the group of white-robed men who’d been ambling down the sandy slope had also frozen in their tracks. But they were no longer smiling. Instead, their expressions were taut, with their eyes narrowed and intent—the look of men determined to kill.

“Hostiles! On the dune!” Flynn yelled as he sprinted forward at an angle to get a clear shot. “Take cover and engage, for Christ’s sake! This is an ambush!”

Now the remaining tribesmen were grabbing the weapons they’d hidden under their robes, awkwardly dragging out a mix of Soviet-era AK-47s and AKMs. One of them yelled an order, waving his arm wildly toward the grounded American helicopter.