Pandora's grave

Lay cleared his throat. “Meaning we finish what we started in 2011, Barney. Just make sure our hands stay clean.”

12:49 A.M.

The cruiser

The Mediterranean

They were in international waters now. Harry took a look at the GPS screen and mentally calculated their distance to the drop zone. Thirty minutes out, at their current rate of speed.

Tex had the wheel, if you could use that metaphor to describe the sophisticated control console. The big man had a lot of experience with boats, dating back to his time in the Marine Corps.

Hossein stood near the rail, calmly puffing a cigarette as he watched the spray kicked up by the rapidly-moving craft. He had gotten a light from WHIPPOORWILL, but Harry didn’t know where he had obtained the cigarette. He must have had another pack stashed somewhere they hadn’t found it.

Abu al-mawt. The father of death. Harry turned and spat into the sea. He and a team of Green Berets had spent five months tracking the insurgent leader through the Iraqi desert. Five months of fruitless search.

And now to have him right here. He could close his eyes and see Juan Delgado’s mutilated torso, feel the bile rise in his throat as he thought back. They had never found his severed head. Perhaps it was just as well.

“You hate me, don’t you?” Harry jerked his head up to see Hossein looking across at him, a strangely enigmatic look playing across that sharply-chiseled Persian face.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you say that?” he asked, taking a step toward the Iranian major. Another step and they stood side by side.

“A feeling, perhaps,” Hossein replied, looking out at the churning foam.

“I wouldn’t feel the slightest compunction in putting a bullet through your head, if that’s what you mean.”

Hossein exhaled, watching the smoke blow away in the wind. “That’s what I thought,” he said, still seeming utterly composed. “I must confess a curiosity as to whether this hatred is personal or professional?”

“There’s no such thing as professional hatred,” Harry responded, frankly baffled by the man’s calm. “You should know that. And I have killed a good many men whom I did not hate.”

“Too true. Then, I take it that we have a history?”

There was no answer to his question.

Hossein finished his cigarette and tossed it into the sea, watching as the glowing ember was extinguished in the foam of their wake. “Quite like a life, don’t you think?”

A nod served as his reply.

“Iraq?” Hossein asked, glancing sideways at Harry.

“I don’t know where you think you’ll get with a game of ‘Twenty Questions’,” Harry sighed.

“Truth, perhaps.”

Harry snorted in disbelief. “You beheaded a friend of mine in Iraq. Sergeant Major Juan Delgado, United States Army.”

“I remember him,” the Iranian replied simply. “A brave man. We didn’t get anything from him. His death gave me no pleasure, if that’s what you were wanting to know.”

A moment passed, then Harry turned to look at him. “Is that all you can say?” he asked, his voice little more than a hiss. His hands trembled with barely-contained anger.

Hossein shrugged. “It is as you say. I, too, have killed many men whom I did not hate. We are warriors, you and I, and killing is our birthright.”

“Warriors?” Harry asked, unable to escape the irony of the comment. “You and I? Where is the heroism in beheading a man whose hands are tied?”

The Iranian shook his head. “Should I tell you I regret his death and stay your hand of execution? You’ve made up your mind already. And I see no reason to lie now…”

12:57 A.M.

The C-130 “Hercules”

It was time. Hamid checked the fastenings holding the Zodiac against its plywood backing for the last time and knelt down beside it, his arm braced.

Davood knelt opposite to him, ready to help push it out the back. The young agent’s face was pale in the eerie red lights of the cabin.

Gears meshed and ground, the back ramp of the C-130 folding down before their eyes. Cold air swept into the cabin, biting at Hamid’s face.

The light went green.

“Go, go, go!” he screamed, throwing his weight against the palleted raft. With all three men pushing, it gathered speed, heading for oblivion at the end of the ramp. Nine thousand feet down.

And then they were in free-fall-descending at an average speed of one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour. A thousand feet every five seconds.

Hamid kicked away from the raft and threw out his hands, body slicing through the air as he fell into the pitch-black night.

The raft’s parachute would automatically open when its onboard altimeter hit two thousand feet above sea level. In theory.

A GPS locator would enable them to find it. Once again, in theory. Theories had a way of clashing with reality.

A parachute opened somewhere off to his left, the sound jarring him to his senses. Thomas sucked in a breath of ice-cold air, checking his altimeter. Twenty-three hundred. Pull at two thousand. His fingers closed around the rip cord. Pull!