Although Sergeant Marcus Brown was born and raised in the windy city of Chicago, he and cold weather still had a hate-hate relationship. The blood had never thickened, he liked to say. He was a rebel to the core, battling against his parents, nature, and the entire universe. He wouldn't have it any other way.

Swearing over the subzero breeze, he skulked around the back of the house, drawing his Russian-made Tula Tokarev (TT-33) with silencer.

Brown wasn't fond of the old pistol, which was once a status symbol among the Taliban in Waziristan. He preferred the more accurate, more reliable, more-of-everything Px4 Storm SD, thank you. Still, familiarizing yourself with as many weapons as possible, especially those of your enemies, was part of every Ghost's training.

Brown unsheathed his Blackhawk Masters of Defense Nightwing and took it into his left hand in a reverse grip. He wasn't expecting to use it, but you never knew. The fixed blade had a fiberglass nylon handle with wing-walk inserts, a black tungsten diamondlike carbon (DLC) finish, and a serrated spine, giving him a secondary edge for back cuts and draw cuts. The blade was 5.9 inches of pure death, and he considered it the American Express card of knives--because he never deployed without it.

Some of the Ghosts teased Brown about his affection for the knife. Everyone carried one type of folder or fixed blade for utility purposes; you wouldn't find a soldier who didn't. Odd thing was, Brown had earned his reputation not as a knife-wielding martial artist but as a gunner carrying the heavy Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) and its variants through the deserts of Africa during his early Special Forces assignments.

Prior to that he'd served with the Second Infantry Brigade in Iraq, and he rarely shared the story of that night in Fallujah, when his squad had been ambushed while on dismounted patrol--and his knife had kept him alive.

They'd been moving through an alley toward several residences where a suspected insurgent and his brother were living. They never made it. Withering gunfire came from everywhere, it seemed.

Brown pulled three wounded squad mates to safety and continued to hold off at least a half dozen insurgents for fifteen minutes until he'd run out of ammo and couldn't reach his fallen brothers' packs. Then, before his backup arrived, the bad guys moved in.

He could have panicked. He could have done something rash like trying to evacuate the others, one by one, but he knew that would only get him shot.

So he did something desperate, something he thought only worked in the movies. He'd had no choice.

Brown instructed the others to play dead, and he did likewise.

The first guy drew up on him in the dark, leaned over, and that's when Brown sat up and punched him in the heart with his Nightwing.