“Copy, Alpha. Standing by.”

“Get the heck out of there, Beta. Get back to the cliffs, you copy?”

“Copy, sir.”

Parlier tossed the mike back to Tim and signaled a retreat to Mark, who passed the signal back to Ben and Dave in the rear file.

“Go.” Graham slung the radio over his arm and moved out quickly.

Parlier turned and took one last look at the jungle that descended into the valley. Four days in the jungle and they’d seen only one other human being— and him for a brief moment before being cold-cocked. Now they had a man down. If they didn’t get some clarification by nightfall, he was coming back to finish this job on his own. Maybe bring Graham.

Parlier turned and retreated toward the cliffs.

ABDULLAH SAT at his desk and watched the clock. He’d never noticed its faint ticking before, but now it was louder than the soft clicking of the bugs.

Sweat trickled slowly down his chin and dripped onto a white sheet of paper on which he’d scrawled his first transmission. Several flies sat unmoving on his knuckles, but he hardly noticed them. His eyes remained fixed on that clock as his mind crawled through a fog.

He breathed steadily, in long pulls, blinking only when his eyes stung badly. Ramón sat cross-legged, staring at Abdullah through his one good eye, breathing, but otherwise motionless.

Something had changed. Yesterday the notion of detonating a nuclear weapon in the United States had been exhilarating, to be sure. But it had been a project. A plan. Even an obsession. But always more Jamal’s obsession than his.

Now it had become his own. A desperate craving—like a gulp of air after two minutes under water. He felt as if not pushing this little plastic button might suck the life from his bones.

The effect seemed surreal. Impossible, actually. His mind skipped through the chain of events as Yuri had described them so many times.

Who was he to change the world? Abdullah Amir. A tremor ran through him at the thought. He almost pushed the button then. A high ringing sound popped to life in his head and the clock shifted out of focus for a moment. Then his vision was back.

The Rangers now had five minutes to pass the perimeter defense wire. Abdullah mumbled a word of prayer for their failure. It was in Allah’s hands now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

RAMÓN WATCHED Abdullah and felt a new kind of fear overtake his soul. His right leg had fallen asleep fifteen minutes ago and his back ached from his static posture.