1"There was nothing we could have done, John. Not a thing," Bellow said, giving voice to words that the others didn't have the courage to say.

2"Now what?" Clark asked.

3"Now I guess we turn the electricity back on."

4As they watched the TV monitors, three men raced to the child. Two wore the tricornio of the Guardia Civil. The third was Dr. Hector Weiler.

5Chavez and Covington watched the same thing from a closer perspective. Weiler wore a white lab coat, the global uniform for physicians, and his race to reach the child ended abruptly as he touched the warm but still body. The slump of his shoulders told the tale, even from fifty meters away. The bullet had gone straight through her heart. The doctor said something to the cops, and one of them wheeled the chair down and out of the courtyard, turning to go past the two Rainbow members.

6"Hold it, doc," Chavez called, walking over to look. In this moment Ding remembered that his own wife held a new life in her belly, even now probably moving and kicking while Patsy was sitting in their living room, watching TV or reading a book. The little girl's face was at peace now, as though asleep, and he could not hold his hand back from touching her soft hair. "What's the story, doc?"

7"She was quite ill, probably terminal. I will have a file on her back at my office.

8When these children come here, I get a summary of their condition should an emergency arise." The physician bit his lip and looked up. "She was probably dying, but not yet dead, not yet completely without hope." Weiler was the son of a Spanish mother and a German father who'd emigrated to Spain after the Second World War. He'd studied hard to become a physician and surgeon, and this act, this murder of a child, was the negation of all that. Someone had decided to make all his training and study worthless. He'd never known rage, quiet and sad though it was, but now he did. "Will you kill them?

9Chavez looked up. There were no tears in his eyes. Perhaps they'd come later, Domingo Chavez thought, his hand still on the child's head. Her hair wasn't very long, and he didn't know that it had grown back after her last chemotherapy protocol. He did know that she was supposed to be alive, and that in watching her death, he had failed to do that which he'd dedicated his life to doing. "Si," he told the doctor. "We will kill them. Peter?" He waved at his colleague, and together they accompanied the others to the doctor's office. They walked over slowly. There was no reason to go fast now.

10"That'll do," Malloy thought, surveying the still-wet paint on the side of the Night Hawk. POLICIA, the lettering said. "Ready, Harrison?"

11"Yes, sir. Sergeant Nance, time to move."

12"Yessir." The crew chief hopped in, buckled his safety belt, and watched the pilot go through the startup sequence. "All clear aft," he said over the intercom, after leaning out to check. "Tail rotor is clear, Colonel."

13"Then I guess it's time to fly." Malloy applied power and lifted the Night Hawk into the sky. Then he keyed his tactical radio. "Rainbow, this is the Bear, over."

14"Bear, this is Rainbow Six, reading you five by five, over."

15"Bear's in the air, sir, be there in seven minutes."

16"Roger, please orbit the area until we tell you otherwise."

17"Roger that, sir. I'll notify when we commence the orbit. Out." There was no particular hurry. Malloy dipped the nose and headed into the gathering darkness.

18The sun was almost down now, and the park lights in the distance were all coming on.

19"Who is this?" Chavez asked.

20"Francisco de la Cruz," the man replied. His leg was bandaged, and he looked to be in pain.

21"Ah, yes, we saw you on the videotape," Covington said. He saw the sword and shield in the corner and turned to nod his respect at the seated man. Peter lifted the spatha and hefted it briefly. At close range it would be formidable as hell, not the equal of his MP-10, but probably a very satisfying weapon for all that.

22"A child? They kill a child?" de la Cruz asked.

23Dr. Weiler was at his file cabinet. "Anna Groot, age ten and a half," he said, reading over the documents that had preceded the little one. "Metastatic osteosarcoma, terminally ill… Six weeks left, her doctor says here. Osteo, that is a bad one." Against the wall, the two Spanish cops lifted the body from the chair and laid it tenderly on the examining table, then covered it with a sheet. One looked close to tears, blocked only by the cold rage that made his hands tremble.

24"John must feel pretty shitty about now," Chavez said.

25"He had to do it, Ding. It wasn't the right time to take action—" "I know that, Peter! But how the fuck do we tell her that?" A pause. "Doc, you have any coffee around here?"

26"There." Weiler pointed.

27Chavez walked to the urn and poured some into a foam cup. "Up and down, sandwich 'em?"

28Covington nodded. "Yes, I think so."

29Chavez emptied the cup and tossed it into a waste-basket. "Okay, let's get set up." They left the office without another word and made their way in the shadows back to the underground, thence to the alternate command center.

30"Rifle Two-One, anything happening?" Clark was asking when they walked in.

31"Negative, Six, nothing except shadows on the windows. They haven't put a guy on the roof yet. That's a little strange."

32"They're pretty confident in their TV coverage," Noonan thought. He had the blueprints of the castle in front of him. "Okay, we are assuming that our friends are all in here… but there's a dozen other rooms on three levels."

33"This is Bear," a voice said over the speaker Noonan had set up. "I am orbiting now. What do I need to know, over?"

34"Bear, this is Six," Clark replied. "The subjects are all in the castle. There's a command-and-control center on the second floor. Best guess, everybody's there right now. Also, be advised the subjects have killed a hostage—a little girl," John added.

35In the helicopter, Malloy's head didn't move at the news. "Roger, okay, Six, we will orbit and observe. Be advised we have all our deployment gear aboard, over."

36"Roger that. Out." Clark took his hand off the transmit button.

37The men were quiet, but their looks were intense, Chavez saw. Too professional for an overt display—nobody was playing with a personal weapon, or anything as Hollywood as that—yet their faces were like stone, only their eyes moving back and forth over the diagrams or flickering back and forth to the TV monitors. It must have been very hard on Homer Johnston, Ding thought. He'd been on the fucker when he shot the kid. Homer had kids, and he could have transported the subject into the next dimension as easily as blinking his eyes… But no, that would not have been smart, and they were paid to be smart. The men hadn't been ready for even an improvised assault, and anything that smacked of improvisation would only get more children killed. And that wasn't the mission, either. Then a phone rang. Bellow got it, hitting the speaker button.

38"Yes?" the doctor said.

39"We regret the incident with the child, but she was soon to die anyway. Now, when will our friends be released?"

40"Paris hasn't gotten back to us yet," Bellow replied.

41"Then, I regret to say, there will be another incident shortly."

42"Look, Mr. One, I cannot force Paris to do anything. We are talking, negotiating with government officials, and they take time to reach decisions. Governments never move fast, do they?"

43"Then I will help them. Tell Paris that unless the aircraft bringing our friends is ready for us to board it in one hour, we will kill a hostage, and then another every hour until our demands are met," the voice said, entirely without emotional emphasis.

44"That is unreasonable. Listen to me: even if they brought all of them out of their prisons now, it would take at least two hours to get them here. Your wishes cannot make an airplane fly faster, can they?"

45That generated a thoughtful pause. "Yes, that is true. Very well, we will commence the shooting of hostages in three hours from now… no, I will start the countdown on the hour. That gives you an additional twelve minutes. I will be generous. Do you understand?"

46"Yes, you say that you will kill another child at twenty-two hundred hours, and another one every hour after that."

47"Correct. Make sure that Paris understands." And the line went dead.

48"Well?" Clark asked.

49"John, you don't need me here for this. It's pretty damned clear that they'll do it.

50They killed the first one to show us who's the boss. They plan to succeed, and they don't care what it takes for them to do so. The concession he just made may be the last one we're going to get. "

51"What is that?" Esteban asked. He walked to the window to see. "Helicopter!"

52"Oh?" Rene went there also. The windows were so small that he had to move the Basque aside. "Yes, I see the police have them. Large one," he added with a shrug.

53"This is not a surprise." But—"Jose, get up to the roof with a radio, and keep us informed."

54One of the other Basques nodded and headed for the fire stairwell. The elevator would have worked fine, but he didn't want to be inconvenienced by another power shutoff.

55"Command, Rifle Two-One," Johnston called a minute later.

56"Rifle Two-One, this is Six."

57"I got a guy on the castle roof, one man, armed with what looks like a Uzi, and he's got a brick, too. Just one, nobody else is joining up at this time."

58"Roger that, Rifle Two-One."

59"This isn't the guy who whacked the kid," the sergeant added.

60"Okay, good, thank you."

61"Rifle Three has him, too… just walked over to my side. He's circulating around… yeah, looking over the edge, looking down."

62"John?" It was Major Covington.

63"Yes, Peter?"

64"We're not showing them enough."

65"What do you mean?"

66"Give them something to look at. Policemen, an inner perimeter. If they don't see something, they're going to wonder what's going on that they cannot see."

67"Good idea," Noonan said.

68Clark liked it. "Colonel?"

69"Yes," Nuncio replied. He leaned over the table. "I propose two men, here, two more here… here… here."

70"Yes, sir, please make that happen right away."

71"Rene," Andre called from in front of a TV screen. He pointed. "Look."

72There were two Guardia cops moving slowly and trying to be covert as they approached up Strada Espana to a place fifty meters from the castle. Rene nodded and picked up his radio. "Three!"

73"Yes, One."

74"Police approaching the castle. Keep an eye on them."

75"I will do that, One," Esteban promised.

76"Okay, they're using radios," Noonan said, checking his scanner. "Citizen-band walkie-talkies, regular commercial ones, set on channel sixteen. Pure vanilla."

77"No names, just numbers?" Chavez asked.

78"So far. Our point of contact calls himself One, and this guy is Three. Okay, does that tell us anything?"

79"Radio games," Dr. Bellow said. "Right out of the playbook. They're trying to keep their identities secret from us, but that's also in the playbook." The two photo-ID pictures had long since been sent to France for identification, but both the police and intelligence agencies had come up dry.

80"Okay, will the French deal?"

81A shake of the head. "I don't think so. The Minister, when I told him about the Dutch girl, he just grunted and said Carlos stays in the jug no matter what—and he expects us to resolve the situation successfully, and if we can't, his country has a team of his own to send down."

82"So, we've gotta have a plan in place and ready to go—by twenty-two hundred."

83"Unless you want to see them kill another hostage, yes," Bellow said. "They're denying me my ability to guide their behavior. They know how the game is played."

84"Professionals?"

85Bellow shrugged. "Might as well be. They know what I'm going to try, and if they know it ahead of time, then they know how to maneuver clear."

86"No way to mitigate their behavior?" Clark asked, wanting it clear.

87"I can try, but probably not. The ideological ones, the ones who have a clear idea of what they want—well, they're hard to reason with. They have no ethical base to play with, no morality in the usual sense, nothing I can use against them. No conscience."

88"Yeah, we saw that, I guess. Okay." John stood up straight and turned to look at his two team leaders. "You got two hours to plan it, and one more to set it up. We go at twenty-two hundred hours."

89"We need to know more about what's happening inside," Covington told Clark.

90"Noonan, what can you do?"

91The FBI agent looked down at the blueprints, then over at the TV monitors. "I need to change," he said, heading over to his equipment case and pulling out the green-on-green night gear. The best news he'd seen so far was that the castle windows made for two blind spots. Better yet, they could control the lights that bled energy into both of them. He walked over to the park engineer next. "Can you switch off these lights along here?"

92"Sure. When?"

93"When the guy on the roof is looking the other way. And I need somebody to back me up," Noonan added.

94"I can do that," First Sergeant Vega said, stepping forward.

95The children were whining. It had started two hours earlier and only gotten worse. They wanted food—something adults would probably not have asked for, since adults would be far too frightened to eat, but children were different somehow. They also needed to use the restroom quite a bit, and fortunately there were two bathrooms adjacent to the control room, and Rene's people didn't stop them from going—the restrooms had no windows or phones or anything to make escape or communication possible, and it wasn't worth the aggravation to have the children soiling their pants. The children didn't talk directly to any of his people, but the whining was real and growing. Well-behaved kids, else it would be worse, Rene told himself, with an ironic smile. He looked at the wall clock.

96"Three, this is One."

97"Yes, One," came the reply.

98"What do you see?"

99"Eight policemen, four pairs, watching us, but doing nothing but watching."

100"Good." And he set the radio down.

101"Log that," Noonan said. He'd checked the wall clock. It was about fifteen minutes since the last radio conversation. He was in his night costume now, the two-shade greens they'd used in Vienna. His Beretta .45 automatic, with suppressor, was in a special, large shoulder holster over his body armor, and he had a backpack slung over one shoulder. "Vega, ready to take a little walk?"

102"You betcha," Oso replied, glad at last to be doing something on a deployment.

103As much as he liked being responsible for the team's heavy machine gun, he'd never gotten to use it, and, he thought, probably never would. The biggest man on the team, his hobby was pumping iron, and he had a chest about the dimensions of a half-keg of beer. Vega followed Noonan out the door, then outside.

104"Ladder?" the first sergeant asked.

105"Tool and paint shop fifty yards from where we're going. I asked. They have what we need."

106"Fair 'nuff," Oso replied.

107It was a fast walk, dodging through a few open areas visible to the fixed cameras, and the shop they headed for had no sign on it at all. Noonan slipped the ground-bolted door and walked in. None of the doors, remarkably enough, were locked. Vega pulled a thirty-foot extension ladder off its wall brackets. "This ought to do."

108"Yeah." They went outside. Movement would now be trickier. "Noonan to command."

109"Six here."

110"Start doing the cameras, John."

111In the command center, Clark pointed to the park engineer. There was danger here, but not much, they hoped. The castle command center, like this one, had only eight TV monitors, which were hard-wired into over forty cameras. You could have the computer simply flip through them in an automatic sequence, or select cameras for special use. With a mouse-click, one camera was disabled. If the terrorists were using the automatic sequence, as seemed likely, they probably would not notice that one camera's take was missing during the flip-through. They had to get through the visual coverage of two of them, and the park engineer was ready to flip them off and on as needed. The moment a hand appeared in camera twenty-three's field of view, the engineer flipped it off.

112"Okay, twenty-three is off, Noonan."

113"We're moving," Noonan said. The first walk took them twenty meters, and they stopped behind a concession stand. "Okay, we're at the popcorn building."

114The engineer flipped twenty-three back on, and then turned off twenty-one.

115"Twenty-one is off," Clark reported next. "Rifle Two-One, where's the guy on the roof?"

116"West side, just lit up a smoke, not looking down over the edge anymore.

117Staying still at the moment," Sergeant Johnston reported.

118"Noonan, you are clear to move."

119"Moving now," the FBI agent replied. He and Vega double-timed it across the stone slabs, their rubber-soled boots keeping their steps quiet. At the side of the castle was a dirt strip about two meters wide, and some large box-woods.

120Carefully, Noonan and Vega angled the ladder up, setting it behind a bush. Vega pulled the rope to extend the top portion, stopping it just under the window. Then he got between the ladder and the building, grabbed the treads and held them tight, pulling the ladder against the rough stone blocks.

121"Watch your ass, Tim," Oso whispered.

122"Always." Noonan went up quickly for the first ten feet, then slowed to a vertical crawl. Patience, Tim told himself. Plenty of time to do this. It was the sort of lie that men tell themselves.

123"Okay," Clark heard. "He's going up the ladder now. The roof guy is still on the opposite side, fat, dumb, and happy."

124"Bear, this is Six, over," John said, getting another idea.

125"Bear copies, Six."

126"Play around a little on the west side, just to draw some attention, over."

127"Roger that."

128Malloy stopped his endless circling, leveled out, and then eased toward the castle. The Night Hawk was a relatively quiet aircraft for a helicopter, but the guy on the roof turned to watch closely, the colonel saw through his night-vision goggles. He stopped his approach at about two hundred meters. He wanted to get their attention, not to spook them. The roof sentry's cigarette blazed brightly in the goggles. It moved to his lips, then away, then back, staying there.

129"Say hello, sweetie," Malloy said over the intercom. "Jesus, if I was in a Night Stalker, I could spray your ass into the next time zone."

130"You fly the Stalker? What's it like?"

131"If she could cook, I'd fucking marry her. Sweetest chopper ever made," Malloy said, holding hover. "Six, Bear, I have the bastard's attention."

132"Noonan, Six, we've frozen the roof sentry for you. He's on the opposite side from you."

133Good, Noonan didn't say. He took off his Kevlar helmet and edged his face to the window. It was made of irregular segments held in place by lead strips, just like in the castles of old. The glass wasn't as good as float-plate, but it was transparent.

134Okay. He reached into his backpack and pulled a fiber-optic cable with the same cobra-head arrangement he'd used in Bern.

135"Noonan to Command, you getting this?"

136"That's affirmative." It was the voice of David Peled. The picture he saw was distorted, but you quickly got used to that. It showed four adults, but more important, it showed a crowd of children sitting on the floor in the corner, close to two doors with labels—the toilets, Peled realized. That worked. That worked pretty well. "Looks good, Timothy. Looks very good."

137"Okay." Noonan glued the tiny instrument in place and headed down the ladder.

138His heart was racing faster than it ever did on the morning three-mile run. At the bottom, he and Vega both hugged the wall.

139The cigarette flew off the roof, and the sentry got tired of looking at the chopper, Johnston saw.

140"Our friend's moving east on the castle roof. Noonan, he's coming your way."

141Malloy thought of maneuvering to draw the attention back, but that was too dangerous a play. He turned the helicopter sideways and continued his circling, but closer in, his eyes locked on the castle roof. There wasn't much else he could do except to draw his service pistol and fire, but at this range it would be hard enough to hit the castle. And killing people wasn't his job, unfortunately, Malloy told himself. There were times when he found the idea rather appealing.

142"The helicopter annoys me," the voice on the phone said.

143"Pity," Dr. Bellow replied, wondering what response it would get. "But police do what police do."

144"News from Paris?"

145"Regrettably not yet, but we hope to hear something soon. There is still time."

146Bellow's voice adopted a quiet intensity that he hoped would be taken for desperation.

147"Time and tide wait for no man," One said, and hung up.

148"What's that mean?" John asked.

149"It means he's playing by the rules. He hasn't objected to the cops he can see on the TV, either. He knows the things he has to put up with." Bellow sipped his coffee. "He's very confident. He figures he's in a safe place, and he's holding the cards, and if he has to kill a few more kids, that's okay, because it'll get him what he wants."

150"Killing children." Clark shook his head. "I didn't think—hell, I'm supposed to know better, right?"

151"It's a very strong taboo, maybe the strongest," Dr. Bellow agreed. "The way they killed that little girl, though… there was no hesitation, just like shooting a paper target. Ideological," the psychiatrist went on. "They've subordinated everything to their belief system. That makes them rational, but only within that system. Our friend Mr. One has chosen his objective, and he'll stick to it."

152The remote TV system, the park engineer saw, was really something. The objective lens now affixed to the castle window was less than two millimeters across at its widest point, and even if noticed, would be mistaken for a drop of paint or some flaw in the window glass. The quality of the image wasn't very good, but it showed where people were, and the more you looked at it, the more you understood what initially appeared to be a black-and-white photograph of clutter.

153He could count six adults now, and with a seventh atop the castle, that left only three unaccounted for—and were all the children in view? It was harder with them. All their shirts were the same color, and the red translated into a very neutral gray on the black-and-white picture. There was the one in a wheelchair, but the rest blended together in the out-of-focus image. The commandos, he could see, were worried about that.

154"He's heading back west again," Johnston reported. "Okay, he's at the west side now."

155"Let's go," Noonan told Vega.

156"The ladder?" They'd taken it down and laid it behind the bushes on its side.

157"Leave it." Noonan ran off in a crouch, reaching the concession structure in a few seconds. "Noonan to Command, time to do the cameras again."

158"It's off," the engineer told Clark.

159"Camera twenty-one is down. Get moving, Tim."

160Noonan popped Vega on the shoulder and ran another thirty meters. "Okay, take down twenty-three."

161"Done," the park engineer said.

162"Move," Clark commanded.

163Fifteen seconds later, they were in a safe position. Noonan leaned against a building wall and took a long breath. "Thanks, Julio."

164"Any time, man," Vega replied. "Just so the camera gadget works."

165"It will," the FBI agent promised, and with that they headed back to the underground command post.

166"Blow the windows? Can we do that, Paddy?" Chavez was asking when they got there.

167Connolly was wishing for a cigarette. He'd quit years before—it was too hard on the daily runs to indulge—but at times like this it seemed to help the concentration. "Six windows… three or four minutes each… no, I think not, sir. I can give you two—if we have the time."

168"How sturdy are the windows?" Clark asked "Dennis?"

169"Metal frames set into the stone," the park manager said with a shrug.

170"Wait." The engineer turned a page on the castle blueprints, then two more, and then a finger traced down the written portion on the right side. "Here's the specs… they're held in by grouting only. You should be able to kick them in, I think."

171The "I think" part was not as reassuring as Ding would have preferred, but how strong could a window frame be with a two-hundred-pound man swinging into it with two boots leading the way?

172"What about flash-bangs, Paddy?"

173"We can do that," Connolly answered. "It will not do the frames any good at all, sir."

174"Okay." Chavez leaned over the plans. "You'll have time to blow two windows— this one and this one." He tapped the prints. "We'll use flash-bangs on the other four and swing in a second later. Eddie here, me here, Louis here. George, how's the leg?"

175"Marginal," Sergeant Tomlinson replied with painful honesty. He'd have to kick through a window, swing in, drop to a concrete floor, then come up shooting… and the lives of children were at stake. No, he couldn't risk it, could he? "Better somebody else, Ding."

176"Oso, think you can do it?" Chavez asked.

177"Oh, yeah," Vega replied, trying not to smile. "You bet, Ding."

178"Okay, Scotty here, and Mike take these two. What's the exact distance from the roof?"

179That was on the blueprints. "Sixteen meters exactly from the level of the roof.

180Add another seventy centimeters to allow for the battlements. "

181"The ropes can do that easily," Eddie Price decided. The plan was coming together. He and Ding would have as their primary mission getting between the kids and the bad guys, shooting as they went. Vega, Loiselle, McTyler, and Pierce would be primarily tasked to killing the subjects in the castle's command room, but that would be finally decided only when they entered the room. Covington's Team-1 would race up the stairs from the underground, to intercept any subjects who ran out, and to back up Team-2 if something went wrong on their assault.

182Sergeant Major Price and Chavez looked over the blueprints again, measuring distances to be covered and the time in which to do it. It looked possible, even probable, that they could carry it off. Ding looked up at the others.

183"Comments?"

184Noonan turned to look at the picture from the fiber-optic gear he'd installed.

185"They seem to be mainly at the control panels. Two guys keeping an eye on the children, but they're not worried about them—makes sense, they're just kids, not adults able to start real resistance… but… it only takes one of these bastards to turn and hose them, man."

186"Yeah." Ding nodded. There was no denying or avoiding that fact. "Well, we have to shoot fast, people. Any way to string them out?"

187Bellow thought about that. "If I tell them the plane's on the way… that's a risk.

188If they think we're lying to them, well, they could start taking it out on the hostages, but the upside is, if they think it's about time to head for the airport, probably Mr. One will send a couple of his troops down to the underground—that’s the most likely way for them to leave the area, I think. Then, if we can play some more with the surveillance cameras, and get a guy in close—" "Yeah, pop them right away," Clark said. "Peter?

189"Get us within twenty meters and it's a piece of cake. Plus, we kill the lights right before we hit. Disorient the bastards," Covington added.

190"There's emergency lights in the stairwells," Mike Dennis said. "They click on when the power goes down—shit, there's two in the command center, too."

191"Where?" Chavez asked.

192"The left—I mean the northeast corner and the southwest one. The regular kind, two lights, like car headlights, they run off a battery."

193"Okay, no NVGs when we go in, I guess, but we'll still kill the lights right before we hit, just to distract them. Anything else? Peter?" Ding asked.

194Major Covington nodded. "It ought to work."

195Clark observed and listened, forced to let his principal subordinates do all the planning and talking, leaving him only able to comment if they made a mistake, and they hadn't done that. Most of all, he wanted to lift an MP-10 and go in with the shooters, but he couldn't do that, and inwardly he swore at the fact.

196Commanding just wasn't as satisfying as leading.

197"We need medics standing by in case the bad guys get lucky," John said to Colonel Nuncio.

198"We have paramedics outside the park now—" "Dr. Weiler is pretty good," Mike Dennis said. "He's had trauma training. We insisted on that in case we have something bad happen here."

199"Okay, we'll have him stand-to when the time comes. Dr. Bellow, tell Mr. One that the French have caved, and their friends will be here… What do you think?"

200"Ten-twenty or so. If they agree to that, it's a concession, but the kind that will calm them down—should, anyway."

201"Make the call, doc," John Clark ordered.

202"Yes?" Rene said.

203"Sanchez is being released from Le Sante prison in about twenty minutes. Six of the others, too, but there's a problem on the last three. I'm not sure what that is.

204They'll be taken to De Gaulle International Airport and flown here on an Air France Airbus 340. We think they'll be here by twenty-two-forty. Is that acceptable? How will we get you and the hostages to them for the flight out?

205Bellow asked.

206"A bus, I think. You will bring the bus right to the castle. We will take ten or so of the children with us, and leave the rest here as a show of good faith on our part.

207Tell the police that we know how to move the children without giving them a chance to do something foolish, and any treachery will have severe consequences. "

208"We do not want any more children harmed," Bellow assured him.

209"If you do as you are told, that will not be necessary, but understand," Rene went on firmly, "if you do anything foolish, then the courtyard will run red with blood. Do you understand that?"

210"Yes, One, I understand," the voice replied.

211Rene set the phone down and stood. "My friends, Il'ych is coming. The French have granted our demands."

212"He looks like a happy camper," Noonan said, eyes locked on the black-and- white picture. The one who had to be Mr. One was standing now, walking toward another of the subjects, and they appeared to shake hands on the fuzzy picture.

213"They're not going to lie down and take a nap," Bellow warned. "If anything, they're going to be more alert now."

214"Yeah, I know," Chavez assured him. But if we do our job right, it doesn't matter how alert they are.

215Malloy headed back to the airfield for refueling, which took half an hour. While there he heard what was going to happen in another hour. In the back of the Night Hawk, Sergeant Nance set up the ropes, set to fifty feet length exactly, and hooked them into eyebolts on the chopper's floor. Like the pilots, Nance, too, had a pistol holstered on his left side. He never expected to use it, and was only a mediocre shot, but it made him feel like part of the team, and that was important to him. He supervised the refueling, capped the tank, and told Colonel Malloy the bird was ready.

216Malloy pulled up on the collective, brought the Night Hawk into the air, then pushed the cyclic forward to return to Worldpark. From this point on, their flight routine would be changing. On arriving over the park, the Night Hawk didn't circle. Instead it flew directly over the castle every few minutes, then drew off into the distance, his anticollision strobe lights flashing as he moved around the park grounds, seemingly at random, bored with the orbiting he'd done before.

217"Okay, people, let's move," Chavez told his team. Those directly involved in the rescue operation headed out into the underground corridor, then out to where the Spanish army truck stood. They boarded it, and it drove off, looping around into the massive parking lot.

218Dieter Weber selected a sniper perch opposite Sergeant Johnston's position, on top of the flat roof of a theater building where kids viewed cartoons, only a hundred twenty meters from the castle's east side. Once there, he unrolled his foam mat, set up his rifle on the bipod, and started training his ten-power scope over the castle's windows.

219"Rifle Two-Two in position," he reported to Clark.

220"Very well, report as necessary, Al?" Clark said, looking up.

221Stanley looked grim. "A sodding lot of guns, and a lot of children."

222"Yeah, I know. Anything else we could try?"

223Stanley shook his head. "It's a good plan. If we try outside, we give them too much maneuvering space, and they will feel safer in this castle building. No, Peter and Ding have a good plan, but there's no such bloody thing as a perfect one."

224"Yeah," John said. "I want to be there, too. This command stuff sucks the big one."

225Alistair Stanley grunted. "Quite."

226The parking lot lights all went off at once. The truck, also with lights out, stopped next to a light standard. Chavez and his team jumped out. Ten seconds later, the Night Hawk came in, touching down with the rotor still turning fast. The side doors opened, and the shooters clambered aboard and sat down on the floor.

227Sergeant Nance closed one door, then the other.

228"All aboard, Colonel."

229Without a word, Malloy pulled the collective and climbed back into the sky, mindful of the light standards, which could have wrecked the whole mission. It took only four seconds to clear them, and he banked the aircraft to head back toward the park.

230"A/C lights off," Malloy told Lieutenant Harrison.

231"Lights off," the copilot confirmed.

232"We ready?" Ding asked his men in the back.

233"Goddamn right, we are," Mike Pierce said back. Fucking murderers, he didn't add. But every man on the bird was thinking that. Weapons were slung tight across their chests, and they had their zip-lining gloves on. Three of the men were pulling them tight on their hands, a show of some tension on their part that went along with the grim faces.

234"Where is the aircraft?" One asked.

235"About an hour and ten minutes out," Dr. Bellow replied. "When do you want your bus?"

236"Exactly forty minutes before the aircraft lands. It will then be refueled while we board it."

237"Where are you going?" Bellow asked next.

238"We will tell the pilot when we get aboard."

239"Okay, we have the bus coming now. It will be here in about fifteen minutes.

240Where do you want it to come?

241"Right to the castle, past the Dive Bomber ride."

242"Okay, I will tell them to do that," Bellow promised.

243"Merci." The phone went dead again.

244"Smart," Noonan observed. "They'll have two surveillance cameras on the bus all the way in, so we can't use it to screen a rescue team. And they probably plan to use the mountaineer technique to get the hostages aboard." Tough shit, he didn't add.

245"Bear, this is Six," Clark called on the radio.

246"Bear copies, Six, over."

247"We execute in five minutes."

248"Roger that, we party in five."

249Malloy turned in his seat. Chavez had heard the call and nodded, holding up one hand, fingers spread.

250"Rainbow, this is Six. Stand-to, repeat stand-to. We commence the operation in five minutes."

251In the underground, Peter Covington led three of his men east toward the castle stairwells, while the park engineer selectively killed off the surveillance cameras.

252His explosives man set a small charge on the fire door at the bottom and nodded at his boss.

253"Team-1 is ready."

254"Rifle Two-One is ready and on target," Johnston said.

255"Rifle Two-Two is ready, but no target at this time," Weber told Clark.

256"Three, this is One," the scanner crackled in the command room.

257"Yes, One," the man atop the castle replied.

258"Anything happening?"

259"No, One, the police are staying where they are. And the helicopter is flying around somewhere, but not doing anything."

260"The bus should be here in fifteen minutes. Stay alert."

261"I will," Three promised.

262"Okay," Noonan said. "That's a time-stamp. Mr. One calls Mr. Three about every fifteen minutes. Never more than eighteen, never less than twelve. So—" "Yeah." Clark nodded. "Move it up?"

263"Why not," Stanley said.

264"Rainbow, this is Six. Move in and execute. Say again, execute now!"

265Aboard the Night Hawk, Sergeant Nance moved left and right, sliding the side doors open. He gave a thumbs-up to the shooters that they returned, each man hooking up his zip-line rope to D-rings on their belts. All of them turned inward, getting up on the balls of their feet so that their backsides were now dangling outside the helicopter.

266"Sergeant Nance, I will flash you when we're in place."

267"Roger, sir," the crew chief replied, crouching in the now-empty middle of the passenger area, his arms reaching to the men on both sides.

268"Andre, go down and look at the courtyard," Rene ordered. His man moved at once, holding his Uzi in both hands.

269"Somebody just left the room," Noonan said.

270"Rainbow, this is Six, one subject has left the command center."

271Eight, Chavez thought. Eight subjects to take down. The other two would go to the long-riflemen.

272The last two hundred meters were the hard ones, Malloy thought. His hands tingled on the cyclic control stick, and as many times as he'd done this, this one was not a rehearsal. Okay… He dropped his nose, heading toward the castle, and without the anticollision lights, the aircraft would only be a shadow, slightly darker than the night—better yet, the four-bladed rotor made a sound that was nondirectional. Someone could hear it, but locating the source was difficult, and he needed that to last only a few more seconds.

273"Rifle Two-One, stand by."

274"Rifle Two-One is on target, Six," Johnston reported. His breathing regularized, and his elbows moved slightly, so that only bone, not muscle, was in contact with the mat under him. The mere passage of blood through his arteries could throw his aim off. His crosshairs were locked just forward of the sentry's ear. "On target," he repeated.