It was up to Cabrillo to decide when he’d detach himself from the tow line. Behind him the first molten blush of the coming dawn spread like cobalt-hued ink. He knew from their combat briefing on the Oregon that sunrise was in fifteen minutes. But as colors spread across the desert he could just make out the blockhouse design of the Devil’s Oasis about a mile away. Without another thought, he untied the rope connected to a D ring on his combat harness. The line whipped out of his hands as the chute rose another hundred or more feet, no longer tethered to the truck.

One of Mafana’s men would be watching for it to tumble out of the sky and the convoy would come to a halt before it could be spotted by a sentry at the prison. The men had scant minutes to get into position.

Juan heaved down on the toggles to give himself the maximum amount of time aloft as the wind carried him toward the old penitentiary. It wasn’t the first occasion tonight that luck remained on his side. Provided the wind held, he had more than enough height to glide to the prison’s roof.

If anything, the breeze freshened, bearing him along like a leaf. He worked the toggles, changing direction slightly to keep the prison centered between his dangling boots. The sky was still a deep indigo when he crossed over the top of the Devil’s Oasis and no alarms had been sounded. He spilled air from the chute in a controlled descent and touched down so lightly that it felt as if he’d just taken the last step of a flight of stairs.

Turning, he quickly bundled the chute into his arms to keep it from blowing into the prison’s inner courtyard. He shucked off the harness and the backpack of rocket shells and temporarily used them as dead weight to keep the chute in check. He hefted the MP-5 and did a fast reconnoiter of the parapet. He noted where his team had earlier secured lines to descend into the prison. The ropes had been cut away, but the eyebolts were still drilled into the thick wooden roof. Peering over the outside wall he saw that the sand had been scratched up and he recognized the trails where the bikes had been ridden off. Two of them looped around toward the main gate while the third, Linc’s, vanished into the wasteland. There was another set of tracks, a truck’s, judging by their size, that disappeared into the east.

After tying his parachute to one of the eyebolts, Cabrillo quickly designated his targets and found the best vantage point for his attack. He had seven rockets for the RPG-7 and four targets, but he figured that after so many years a couple of the projectiles would be duds. Still, he liked his odds.