Pandora's grave

Hossein smiled, eyeing his companion’s crisp, spotless dress uniform. Rising, he laid a greasy, oil-soaked hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You’re in command now. Do whatever Allah wills you to do. I’m going to go see if the showers still work around here.”

11:00 A.M.

The hides overlooking LZ OSCAR

“FULLBACK, check in.”

“All quiet, EAGLE SIX. Nothing’s moving.”

“Roger,” Harry replied quietly, ending the transmission. “Let’s pray it stays that way,” he added, almost to himself.

The next moment his ears pricked up, catching a noise, off to the south. Past Tex’s position, way past it. Coming closer.

A helicopter. “EAGLE SIX to all, keep your heads down. This ain’t the cavalry.”

He lowered his binoculars from the slit of the hide, reverting to the naked eye. Nothing that could be picked up, no glint to be detected from the air. The young woman rose up from the bottom of the hide and came to stand beside him. “What is it?”

She hadn’t heard the chopper. No matter. He wouldn’t have either save for the fact that he was listening for it.

“Lie down in the hide,” he ordered crisply. “Stay as low as possible. We have an enemy helicopter coming in for a look-see.”

Harry glanced at his watch. Just past eleven hundred hours. They had another nine hours before it would be dark enough for the Pave Low to cross the border and pick them up. By that time, the hills would be swarming with soldiers. But there was no other option-no clever way to throw them off trail, to distract their attention elsewhere. This wasn’t the movies.

And in it came, an Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship sweeping low over the ridge, the chin turret swiveling menacingly. Its pair of 23mm cannon could rip the hides to shreds if they were detected. They possessed nothing capable of taking it down. Which meant one thing.

They would not survive detection…

3:29 A.M. Eastern Time

A residence

The suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Vibration jarred Michael Shapiro awake. He slipped his hand carefully to his pillow and retrieved his cellphone from under it. Flipping it open, the screen lit up with a number he knew all too well.

The CIA’s deputy director(intelligence) slipped from the bed, casting a glance back at his sleeping wife. A good woman. If only he had been as good a man.

“Here.”

“What news?”

“Are we secure?”

“You’re at home, aren’t you?”

“I was in bed with my wife till you called,” Shapiro retorted curtly.

“That’s nice,” the voice replied. “We’re secure. What do you have?”

“Nothing. I haven’t heard status on the team since several hours before I left work. They may be out by now.”

“They’re not. I need their position.”

“How do I get that?”

“You’re the head of the intelligence directorate, aren’t you? Everything crosses your desk.”

“I don’t know-” Shapiro hesitated, casting a glance backward at the partially-open bedroom door. “There’s something going on-I’m out of the loop, I don’t understand why.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lay’s running this one straight through Kranemeyer and the NCS. They’re working their own intelligence through several of their own analysts-they’re not talking to me.”

“Well, find a way to get it out of them. Get to work and find out,” the voice ordered, its tone brooking no argument.

“Right,” Shapiro acknowledged after a long silence. “Let me just get dressed here and I’ll get right in.”

“This has turned into a mess, and you understand the terms of our agreement. Get in there and make it spotless.”

The other end of the line went dead with an ominous click.

“What’s going on, dear?” The DD(I) turned to find his wife standing in the doorway of their bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

“I need to go in to work,” he replied, pushing past her and grabbing his pants off the closet door. He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the face.

“But it’s three o’clock in the morning!”

“I know what time it is…”

12:28 P.M. Local Time

An undisclosed location near Tel Aviv

Israel

“What did they want? Why did they attack your team? Why?” Gideon turned back to the archaeologist, his frustration slipping through the veneer of calm he had endeavored to compose.

Tal’s face was expressionless, a mask that revealed nothing and everything at the same time. “You left them to die,” he repeated, his voice no more than a whisper, his words the same ones he had repeated over and over again since the rescue.

“That doesn’t matter now, blast it!” Gideon exclaimed. “What matters is what the Iranians are planning to do now, not to your friends, but to your country. Your country! The reason you took your team into danger in the first place.”

Moshe’s gaze wavered and he looked down at his hands. “I never should have. Never…”