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rested just below where the warhead should have been. Would be, if they did not disable the missile. Jace covered his six while Archangel took the rest of the C-­4 and shaped his charge, then clambered onto the vehicle’s back wheels to set it.
    A vehicle roared to life. It was the sheik’s own Jeep. The Sheik and a large man, as well as two soldiers, dove into the vehicle. Another soldier raced toward them, motioning for them to stop, and the vehicle barely avoided hitting him as it roared down the dirt road. Jace and Archangel turned and ran straight up the hill, reaching the lip and tumbling over it just as the C-­4 blew. It pushed Jace the rest of the way to the ground as hands grabbed his uniform and dragged him behind the rocks where Alex and Sandman knelt.
    â€œCut it a little close, don’t ya think?” yelled Sandman, pausing to swap out his magazine.
    â€œIt was perfection,” said Jace, grinning like a maniac. His blood pumped, and adrenaline roared like fire through his body. He peered back down to the SCUD. The flight guidance system lay in wrecked fragments across the desert floor. “Mace, take out the Jeep.”
    Mace unstrapped the LAW—­light antitank weapon—­and snapped it open. If they fired it immediately, it would blow the Jeep, and anyone in it, straight to hell. Mace set it onto his shoulder and sighted through it. Three bullets pinged off the rock next to him in rapid succession. Shards of rock sprayed, one hitting Mace’s face. He flinched. His shot went wide, exploding harmlessly near the Jeep, which raced its engine and roared out of sight. He swore, loudly and inventively.
    Below them, the insurgents rallied. “Time to boogedy,” said Archangel. The four started running east, up the hillside and away from the camp.
    Jace keyed his mike. “Break off, guys. Rally point bravo. Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”

 
    Chapter Six
    August 16. 1:41 A.M.
    Somewhere in Sari Daru Province, Azakistan
    U NDER NORMA L CIRCUMSTANCES, Jace would not doubt their ability to evade the enemy soldiers milling in the dark. By the time they organized and began to search in earnest, the A-­Team would be safely on board a bird and flying back to Camp Delta.
    Still. The terrorists could get lucky. It had happened before.
    Before his mind could conjure up an image of his former teammate Dougie’s bloodied corpse, he forced himself back into the here and now. Once they left the burning camp behind, he and Archangel snapped their night vision goggles into place.
    â€œWe wanna know what they were searching for inside the camp? No way did they make us.” Archangel jerked a thumb back toward camp.
    â€œNot our business,” Jace answered. “We disabled the SCUD and blew the munitions. Our job now is to get to the landing zone before our ride goes home for dinner.”
    Archangel looked like he wanted to argue, but finally just shook his head and shouldered his rucksack. In silence, they moved out toward their predesignated rally point. Once they linked up with the rest of their team, who would take a different route to throw off any pursuers, they would hoof it back to the landing zone and meet their extraction helicopter.
    Despite his answer to Archangel, the sudden furor in the camp tickled at the back of his skull. His Arabic was barely adequate. Earlier, the guards had gossiped about al-­Hassid’s latest . . . pig. Maybe. Most Muslims did not eat pork. Maybe he’d gotten the translation wrong. Yes, in retrospect, he probably had the wrong noun; the terrorists later had speculated when it, or a pincushion, would be gifted to them. They probably would not be as excited about a pincushion. Maybe it was pork, after all. Too bad he hadn’t seen a bunch of mangy terrorists chasing around after a pig; that would have been amusing.
    Thanks to whatever put the terrorists into a tizzy, he could not stick around and