His eye to the scope, DeMarco had enough time to see the bore of the sonofabitch’s rifle swing toward him in the treetop, just enough, the sniper absolutely still and steady up in the treetop except for that one conspicuous movement.

DeMarco could hear his pulse somewhere between his ears as he squeezed back Big Daddy’s trigger and felt the recoil against his shoulder, a 20-mm smart round flying from the rifle’s titanium upper barrel, the micro-computerized sight processing range and position, automatically calculating the round’s best point of detonation for target acquisition, setting it for airburst rather than on-impact explosion. And then an earsplitting blast, the treetop igniting into an orange bouquet of flame, its trunk blowing apart, spewing everywhere, obliterated into countless fiery chunks, shaves, and splinters of wood.

DeMarco felt his heart stroking. Later he would recall his half-surprised glance down at himself as if to confirm it really was still beating inside him, that he really hadn’t gotten slugged in the chest—here, unbeknownst, was the crowd grabber of War Story Number One for the books.

He returned his eye to the rifle sight, looked through the smoke into the thicket. The gunfire around him had gotten more sporadic. He could hear the whap of copter blades closer overhead. Good signs. Very good signs.

“Chief!” Scanning the vegetation, scanning. His back pressed against the side of the Rover, his comlink channel to Nimec was open again. “Chief, come in, I’m trying to get a visual—”

“I hear you,” Nimec said. “Can’t see a damned thing, though. Smoke’s too thick. Best estimate, I’m ten yards back of the Rover, twenty yards or so deep in the brush.”

DeMarco swung his rifle barrel to the left, picked up a pair of low TIs—one man propped on his arms, the other flat on the ground.

“Think I’ve got a visual on you, chief, hold up a hand . . .”

It rose ghostly and shimmering in his scope’s eyecup.

DeMarco breathed.

“Okay, it’s you all right,” he said. “Hang tight, I’m on my way over.”

“Remind me to kick you down for insubordination when you get here.”

“Will do,” DeMarco said, and tore forward into the vegetation.

Watching the explosion rip through the treetops through his glasses, listening to the sound of a helicopter in the not-too-distant eastern sky, the headman knew it was time to call off his raid, knew irrevocably that it had come to almost total failure. The man marked for assassination was alive, the cargo he’d meant to hijack out of his grasp. Several of his band had been killed or wounded. Any financial compensation he stood to gain from having stopped the vehicles would not offset his losses.