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have ejected him before . . .”
    Hauk’s eyes flew back to the screen. All the blips were active, the pulse charging.
    “He’s still alive!” Hauk said. “Where the hell is he?”
    “Here,” Rehme said, excitement flavoring his words. “Over here,”
    Hauk moved to the man. He was standing by a bank of green glowing machines. Rehme’s hand was shaking as he pointed to a schematic screen.
    It showed a geometric, three-dimensional image of Air Force One. The computer was forming the image, inventing it from radar information. The plane tracked through the air. Then, a three-dimensional image of a skyscraper moved into the frame and silently, artistically, the plane collided with it, everything breaking apart in beautiful, mathematic symmetry. From the rear of the plane a blinking red dot arched slowly away from the hulk of the aircraft.
    “The escape pod,” Hauk said, and his voice came out hoarse.
    Rehme had a pocketcom in his hand, fingers flying across the keyboard. “Forty degrees,” he said.
    The view from the invert screen pulled wider and the red dot fell away from the plane, making a parabolic arc down to street level.
    “Fifty yards from crash site,” Rehme said,
    Hauk started for the door. There were no decisions now, just action. “I’m going in,” he said. “Pinpoint the crash and get to me on the pads.”
    He was out the door and moving. It was going to be a long night.

VI
    RED ALERT
    8:30 P.M.
    The rain hadn’t started yet. The moisture was straining the dark clouds, stuffing them full like infection clogging a wound. Bob Hauk wasn’t thinking about the rain anymore, though. He was thinking about war.
    The helicopters stretched out before him on the wide landing field, props beating the air, whipping it to frenzy. Their sound was grating and malevolent.
    There were twenty copters; they were all painted flat black. They were screaming and angry, straining at the leash, ripping at the air with their whirring blades. They were all going crazy with the smell of blood.
    Hauk was out of the air control bunker and moving toward the copters. He yelled at the first black suit that he saw. “Backpack!” he called.
    The man stopped walking, his face filled with confusion. “BACKPACK!” Hauk screamed, trying to get above the horrible whines that filled the air. He pointed to his back.
    The man nodded in understanding, gave him the thumbs-up sign and hurried off. Hauk started for the choppers again. He was through with war; he really was. And this was too much like it.
    Leningrad had iced it for him. He took an early retirement after that one and, somehow, when he packed and came home, he had forgotten to pack his medals. It made him think of Snake Plissken for just a second. He had almost gotten to meet the man who had kept the USPF on the run for nearly five years. Now he didn’t know if he’d ever get to. Once you were dumped in the city—that was it. You were gone.
    Bob Hauk knew that for a fact.
    The blackbelly with the backpack ran up to him. Hauk took the black canvas sack from him with a silent nod. The man smiled broadly, his eyes glazed with the excitement. Hauk tightened his lips and moved on.
    He was into the field of copters, caught in their vortex. The air swirled angrily around him. He wanted to remove himself mentally from the whole business, but he couldn’t. He’d spent too many years in the military, too many years giving and receiving orders. He would do what was expected of him. Always what was expected of him.
    Black figures were blurring past, troopers in full battle dress: backpacks with survival gear, helmets, rifles, infrared goggles. Their mouths were open full, screaming, but Hauk couldn’t hear them above the helicopter noise.
    He slipped off his jacket and threw it to the ground, then looped his arms through the straps of the pack and snugged it up against his back.
    He kept as much distance from the whole thing as he could, tried to stay right on the edge of it.