Martinez shook his head. “You know where I been, Hendricks. You know what I’ve seen. I wasn’t talking to you, anyway.”

Luke glanced out the open bay door. Martinez was right. The night was cold and windy. Frigid dust blew across the pad as the choppers prepared for takeoff. Clouds skidded across the sky. It was going to be a bad night for flying.

All the same, Luke felt confident. They had what they needed to win this. The helicopters were MH-53J Pave Lows, the most advanced and most powerful transport choppers in the United States arsenal.

They had state-of-the-art terrain-following radar, which meant they could fly very low. They had infrared sensors so they could fly in bad weather, and they could reach a top speed of 165 miles per hour. They were armor plated, to shrug off all but the heaviest ordnance the enemy might have. And they were flown by the US Army 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, code name Nightstalkers, the Delta Force of helicopter pilots—probably the best chopper pilots in the world.

The raid was scheduled for a night with no moonlight so the helicopters could enter the operation area low to the ground and undetected. The choppers were going to use hilly terrain and nap-of-the-earth techniques to reach the compound without appearing on radar and alerting any unfriendlies—especially the Pakistani military and intelligence services, who were suspected to be cooperating with the Taliban in hiding the target.

With friends like the Pakistanis…

The low-slung buildings of the air base and the larger flight control tower squatted against the staggering backdrop of the snow-capped mountains. As Luke stared out the bay door, two fighter jets took off a quarter mile away, the scream of their engines nearly deafening. A moment later, the jets reached the sound barrier somewhere in the distance. The takeoffs were loud, but the sonic booms were muted by the wind at high altitude.

The chopper’s engine whined into life. The rotor blades began to turn, slowly at first, then with increasing speed. Luke glanced along the line. Ten men in jumpsuits and helmets, not including himself, were all compulsively checking and rechecking their gear.  The twelfth, Lieutenant Colonel Heath, was leaning into the cockpit at the front of the chopper, talking to the pilots.

“I’m telling you, Stone,” Martinez said.

“I heard you the first time, Martinez.”

“Good luck don’t last forever, man. One fine day it runs out.”

“I don’t worry because it ain’t luck in my case,” Wayne said. “It’s skill.”

Martinez sneered at that.

“A big fat bastard like you? You’re lucky every time a bullet doesn’t hit you. You’re the biggest, slowest thing out here.”