They moved in a kind of springing hopskip, bodies leaned out and away from the slope, backs straight, legs spread wide, treaded boot bottoms scuffing along the furrowed rock face. Their braking hands were down, their opposite hands raised to guide them along the rope-lengths.

The satellite maps had indicated firm, hard slope along most of the decline--favorable conditions--and that was essentially what they encountered. The last ten yards were more difficult to traverse, a scree of pebbles and stones that crumbled out from underfoot in gravelly spills.

Still, they made it down fast and without injuries.

Again they gripped their ropes, this time looking upward. Again they gave five tugs to test the fastness of the ropes--and to indicate they had successfully reached bottom to those above.

Seconds later, the next group of five began their descent.

They found the base camp completely deserted. There were empty tents, some left standing, some partially folded. There was a single dusty, abandoned jeep with a flat tire. There were mounds of burned and buried rubbish, odd, scattered personal articles and pieces of equipment--entrenching tools, butane cookstoves, spools of rope, a metal bucket, first-aid kits, a disposable razor, four D-cell batteries, a pair of sunglasses missing one lens, an overturned wooden table, a commercially available Hammond map of the area with no penned-in notes or highlighted route markings.

The departed occupants of the camp had made a more or less clean sweep of it, leaving behind not a single weapon or round of ammunition, not a single clue to where they had gone.

Carlysle spat on the ground, then switched on his radio headset to contact Batter Two's pilot.

"Roger, team leader, how's it going?" the pilot responded.

"We've missed the party," Carlysle said in disgust. "That's how."

Megan helped Thibodeau settle comfortably back against his pillow, lifted his campaign hat off his head, and laid it on the table beside the bed. He looked weary and haggard, and the ward nurse had reported that his temperature was slightly elevated--nothing of serious concern, she'd assured Megan, but an indication that it was time for him to get some rest. Though she'd left a plastic cup of painkillers on his tray, he had refused to take them, having insisted on staying awake and alert until word arrived from the strike teams.

Now that it had, Megan poured some water into his glass and handed him the pills.

"Bottoms up," she said.

He grumbled something under his breath, tossed the pills into his mouth, and washed them down with a single gulp.

Taking the glass from him, Megan pressed the button to recline his backrest, pulled the sheets up over his chest, and bent to kiss him on the cheek.

"Night, Rol," she said. "I'll see you in the morning."

He looked soberly up at her.

"Them prisoners won't talk," he said. "You know that."

She nodded. "I doubt they will."