Lobato had raised his MP5 and had clicked on the small infrared snlperscope searchlight, which would provide bright illumination for anyone wearing PV-5 goggles, when suddenly the stranger whispered loudly, "Hey, Marine, I here. Here."

Butler swung around, saw the stranger, and was about to fire when the 'nan said quickly,

"Top of the morning, Marine, top of the morning," in a thick, Transylvanian-sounding accent.

"Hands up!" Lobato hissed, praying silently that Butler wouldn't pull the trigger._He didn't._The man's hands shot up in_the_air._His right hand was empty; his left held a thin briefcase. "Drop the briefcase!" Lobato shouted.

"No!" the man shouted back.

In a flash Butler leaped toward the man, driving the butt of his rifle into the stranger's solar plexus and dropping him to the ground. With an animal-like wooof' of air forced out of his lungs, the man collapsed, and Butler jumped on top of him, scrambling for the man's hands.

Two other assault-team members rushed to Lobato's side. They pried the man's fingers off the briefcase, and one Marine took it away to examine it away from the others in case it was booby-trapped. Lobato knelt to the man and searched him, loosening all his clothing, running his gloved hands next to his skin to check for wires or weapons. It took several seconds, but finally the man began to regain his breath, grunting, "Top of the morning, top of the morning," in a hoarse whisper.

The sound of the helicopter was getting closer-this guy's identity had to be verified before they dared take off with him. "Midnight jaybird," Lobato challenged. It was one of the code-word challenges devised with a nonverbal response, used in just these situations where the subject was unable to speak or wearing a gas mask. Butler took his knees off the man's wrists, and he promptly interlaced his fingers together, thumbs bent. It was the right response. Wordlessly, Lobato ordered Butler to gag RAGANU and bind his hands in front of his body; then he reached down to his web belt and activated a tiny radio transmitter.

No sooner had he done that than a brilliant searchlight flared to life. The intense white beam focused squarely on the small group of American soldiers at the edge of the trees. The CIS

attack helicopter had suddenly popped out from over the trees and had emerged practically right on top of them.

"Pilot, engineer, pickup signal." The PAVE HAMMER CV-22's crew chief, Master Sergeant Brown, dared not say anything more on inter-phone because he knew they were only milliseconds away from going into battle-or dying in a fiery crash. They had to save themselves before going back to save the assault team.

The PAVE HAMMER CV-22 was skimming over the dark waves of the Baltic Sea, less than six hundred feet above the surface-it would have been lower, except the north winds had picked up considerably and the turbulence threatened to throw them into the sea at any moment. Forty feet in front of the CV-22, at the same altitude, was the MC-130H COMBAT