Archer squatted to the ground, revealed he had a small pistol, picked up the remote in the same hand, nursing his mangled hand across his chest the whole time. Looked at the little plastic box. Smiled. Content. Flipped the cover off the switch. He thought of that place his father had told him about, a little town of pedigree goat herders in Kashmir where Pashmina came from. Alexander’s caravan was said to have passed through there almost two and a half thousand years ago and the people there still have evidence of that today, with sandy hair and ruddy cheeks and blue eyes. Since a young boy he’d longed to see it—maybe death would bring him there. Suffering has its joyous side, despair has its gentleness and death has a meaning. Every death.

Hovering above the crowd, the side door of Marine One opened, an agent leaned out, fired three CS rounds directly below onto the LZ. The 40mm grenades from the M32 launcher took less than half a second to hit the ground fifty yards below. The tear gas had an immediate effect.

“No!” Chernayev shouted through a screen of running people.

Archer pressed the detonator.

Middleton closed his eyes. He thought of Charley.

Nothing happened.

Middleton opened his eyes. Archer looked at the remote, incredulous. He tucked the pistol into his belt, pressed the button again. Nothing. Again.

Again.

“Nice try, Archer,” Carson said.

She came down the stairs with Chang, who held up the POLENA handset that was wired to his backpack.

“He jammed the signal,” Middleton said. He’d seen Connie Carson and Chang in the brush nearby, signaling to him that it was all right to give up the remote control. Saving him from the very difficult decision: his daughter or the president.

Chang nodded, looked worn-out and relieved, like he might faint with the passing of the adrenalin. For all his advanced computer and science degrees and language skills that had aided the Volunteers from the comfort of his desk in D.C., never was a sight so welcome in the field as this slightly built Taiwanese-American before him.

“First, I thought they might be using a garage-door opener, but then I realized that the Secret Service must be wise to that sort of thing, from all the IEDs and stuff in Iraq,” he said, holding up his handset. He was taking comfort in tech-speak. “So I barrage jammed all frequencies as soon as the marines dropped us off.”

Middleton smiled, looked to Archer, who was now standing up, pistol still tucked in his belt, radio detonator in his useful hand. His eyes were darting around, then he seemed to relax.

“Nice work, Wiki.”

“No problem, boss,” Chang replied. He looked over at the commotion of Marine One hovering to land, the bubble of security protecting the president. “Holy crap,” he said, “it really is the president . . .