He had known some men who preferred the intimacy of killing with a knife. He’d never liked or trusted any of them because of it, but he was familiar with the techniques and had employed them more than once. Killing with a knife was filthy work, and those that took to it, in his experience, did it more for the life they took than for furthering the goals of their mission.

It was difficult to survey the scene. His view was obstructed starting inches from his face, so it was difficult to place himself in the sixth man’s mind and guess where he had positioned himself to secretly watch over his comrades digging to get the chunk of satellite.

At the ten o’clock position from where Juan lay, the undergrowth was thinner because several trees towered over it and blocked sunlight from nourishing the ground cover. This would give a gunman a better field of vision. Cabrillo decided that was where his man was waiting. He was just about to start out. He knew he would circle around, come at the Ninth Brigader from the back, then he and Mike would take out the rest. Juan drew his knife, made a fractional move to his left, and froze.

Voices.

A dozen or more, shouting and laughing, as they charged through the jungle like a pack of wild boars. It was a mix of soldiers and loggers, the men who had slogged up the mountain. The satellite’s location had been radioed to them, and they had rushed to the scene.

Cabrillo stayed still. Any action now would be suicide. Wary of the still-missing sixth squad mate, he resisted the urge to use the radio to call up Murph and Pulaski. Better they all remain as motionless as possible and wait to see what opportunity would present itself.

For the hour it took the men to wrest the seventy-pound power cell from the earth, Juan watched silently while next to him Mike slept. Somewhere in the jungle behind them, he knew either Mark or Jerry was also catching some much-needed sleep.

They were close enough to the impact crater for Juan to overhear a Lieutenant’s call down to the command post. “We have it, Jefe . . . I’m not sure. It’s about half a meter long, rectangular, and weighs maybe thirty kilos . . . What? . . . I don’t know, some sort of scientific apparatus if I had to guess. I have no idea what its function . . . No, sir. It will be easier if we carry it back to where they are loading logs. We saw that they have a couple of pickup trucks. We’ll use those to get back down to the camp. The pilot should have found the electrical short in the chopper by the time we get there, and we can get back to base in time for cocktails at the O club.”

Cabrillo had heard enough. He knew their plan, and that was the edge he needed. He tapped Mike on the shoulder. The former rescue jumper came awake instantly but silently. His combat awareness was acute even in sleep. Together, they backed away from near the impact crater, making sure not to disturb vegetation overhead and marking their position. They met up with Jerry and Murph a quarter mile back.