"I love killin' officers " The gunner centered the sight for his 25 mm cannon. "On target, sarge."

For all his experience as a terrorist, Bock was not a soldier. He took the dark, square shape two blocks away for a large truck. His plan had worked. The American alert, so perfectly timed, could only mean that Qati and Ghosn had done their job exactly as he'd envisioned five months earlier. His eyes shifted as he saw what looked like a flashbulb and a streak of light that went over his head.

"Fire, hose 'em!"

The gunner had his selector switch on rapid fire. The a 5-millimeter chain gun was wonderfully accurate, and the tracers allowed you to walk fire right into the target. The first long burst hit the truck. There might be armed soldiers in the truck, he reasoned. The initial rounds went into the engine block, shattering it into fragments, then, as the vehicle surged forward, the next burst swept through the cab and cargo area. The truck collapsed on two flattened front tires and ground to a halt, the wheel rims digging grooves in the asphalt. By that time, the gunner had shifted fire and put a short burst through the staff car. This target merely lost control and slammed into a parked BMW. Just to make sure, the gunner hit the car again, and then the truck. Someone actually got out of the truck, probably wounded already from the way he moved. Two more 25mm rounds fixed that.

The track commander moved immediately. One does not linger where one has killed. Two minutes later, they found another surveillance spot. Police cars were racing down the streets, their blue lights flashing. One of them stopped a few hundred meters from the Bradley, backed up and raced off, the track commander saw. Well, he'd always known German cops were smart.

Five minutes after the Bradley departed for another block, the first Berliner, an exceedingly courageous physician, came out his front door and went to the staff car. Both men were dead, each torso ripped to shreds by the cannon shells, though both faces were intact except for the splashed blood. The truck was an even greater mess. One of the men there might have survived for a few minutes, but by the time the doctor got there, it was far too late. He found it odd that they all wore Russian officers' uniforms. Not knowing what else to do, he called the police. Only later did he realize how disproportionate his understanding of the events outside his home had been.

"They weren't kidding about the infrared signature. This must have been some bomb," the S&T guy observed. "Damage is a little funny, though hmph."

"What do you mean, Ted?" Ryan asked.

"I mean the ground damage ought to be worse than this must be shadows and reflections." He looked up. "Sorry. Shock waves don't go through things - like a hill, I mean. There must have been reflections and shadows here, that's all. These houses here ought not to be there anymore."