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he had lectured Ari. "There's nothing more important than Warrior's Reflex."

    The bus banked to the right and the whole world skewed as it slipped into the ditch, its hull ringing dully as the bus slammed into the far side of the ditch, bounced once and crashed down hard, slamming Ari against his safety straps.
    Hundreds, thousands, millions of guns were going off, most of them in his ears.
    "Make it stop, please make it stop," Yitzhak Slepak shrilled.
    Ari sagged forward against the straps, unable to move. All he could do was huddle there while the others emptied their weapons, some reloading, some kicking open the emergency exits on the far side of the bus.
    The shots were quieter than they should have been, each bang in the stream somehow more distinct than it ought to have been, than it ever had been in practice.
    His fingers, white against the stock of his rifle, couldn't move. It was supposed to be: click the fire selector to full auto, his thumb pushing hard on the selector's sharp checkering, then pull the stubby charging bolt back, aim and fire, the muzzle blast putting what was almost a beam of light on the target, but all he could do was huddle there, a dampness at his crotch.
    "Okay, everybody," Benyamin's voice said over his headset, calm and level, "out the far side."
    "The kid fr—"
    "Shut up. Help me with him." Two pairs of rough hands clutched at the shoulders of Ari's tunic, more carrying him than pushing him toward the window.
    "All even numbers: I need a quick spray to starboard. Do it now and reload." Shimon Bar-El's voice cut through the gunshots and the smoke and the decreasing whine of the bus's fans. "Everyone: as you exit, spray the bushes and stay down, in the ditch. There'll be claymores on the starboard side and we've got nowhere to run."
    Laskov and Lavon half-carried Ari to a window and half-threw him through it.
    Now, trained reflexes didn't betray him: when he hit the ground, he let his knees give, falling forward, breaking the fall with the butt of his Barak.
    "Where's Orde?" Benyamin asked.
    Laskov grunted. "Caught one in the eye."
    Ari crouched in the dirt, his rifle still clutched tightly in his hands, with nothing but his chestpack.
    That should be enough. It held his ammo and a spare knife and—
    "Shit, people, where the fuck are they?"
    It was all smoke and fire and sound. From off in the smoke, Baraks stuttered and the wounded screamed.
    Ari tried to bring his rifle up. But where should he aim? He couldn't just fire randomly.
    As if of its own volition, Ari's rifle jerked and shook, sending lead and flame into the leaves overhead.
    Into the ditch, that was what Shimon had said.
    But everything was silent on the squad freak; he puffed for the company freak.
    Benyamin was talking. "—lev One One Two One. No claymores to the east. Can't be," he said, almost too calmly, too casually.
    "Kelev Twenty. You sure?" Galil sounded more placid than Benyamin, if that was possible.
    "Kelev One One Two Two," Laskov rasped. "We're all alive, aren't we, asshole?"
    "Twenty. It's—"
    "He's right, Yitzhak," Shimon Bar-El's quiet voice cut through the shouting, accompanied by a high-pitched hum that announced he was talking in override mode.
    "There's no claymores and too many of us are alive—it's a hasty ambush, by no more than a platoon. Kelev One is going to have to take it; the rest aren't operational, won't be for five, ten minutes."
    It would be more than that, Ari thought; they'd have to retrieve their weapons from the cargo bays of the buses and somehow arrange themselves into squads.
    Bar-El's voice was seething with calm. "Take it, Yitzhak; it's yours," he said quietly, the judge passing a death sentence on God only knew whom.
    " Kelev ,"Galil came back, sharply. "Got it. Nablus Twenty—"
    "Nablus. We go north with our fucking handguns, while you cross south?"
    "Kelev. Do it, Meir. Grazing fire to keep their heads down—but stay in the ditch, this side. Don't cross; they'll cut you to