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Grog engineering, right down to the leather collar that kept the line from melting. The black-painted line acted as a fore sight when Ahn-Kha wasn’t shooting through the telescopic sight.
    Valentine felt impotent. “Tell Meadows it’s a breakout,” he said to Lewis. “I think the Kurians are trying to run for it with the helicopters.”
    â€œWhy didn’t they just land on a street in Dallas?” Lewis asked.
    â€œWe’ve got high-angle artillery there,” Valentine said.
    â€œSir,” the Arkansan shouted as the smoke clouds cleared. Some kind of bay doors had opened at the rear of the massive helicopter, which rested on thick-tired multiple wheels. The turtlelike thing, which looked to Valentine like a greenish propane storage tank crawling across the runway without benefit of wheels, tracks, or legs, had turned for the big chopper.
    Ahn-Kha’s gun coughed and Valentine’s nose registered cordite. Ahn-Kha didn’t bother to watch the shot. Instead he drew another highlighter-sized bullet from his bandolier and reloaded the gun.
    But the smoke was back.
    Valentine could just make out the helicopter through the thinning smoke. Explosions sounded from back toward the terminal, as another piece of the Razor military machine was blown up.
    Ahn-Kha must have been able to see the rear rotor for a second—he fired again. Valentine marked the strange tanklike thing entering the rear of the helicopter . . . it was like watching a film of a hen laying an egg run backward.
    â€œWhere’s the fuckin’ support?” the Arkansan asked, voicing Valentine’s thoughts exactly.
    Valentine heard engines on the ground. He looked to the south, where a few of the Razors’ strange conglomeration of transport and patrol vehicles—including two prowlers—were barreling past the statue of Flight at the edge of the airport buildings.
    â€œHoly shit, the cavalry!” the Arkansan shouted.
    Valentine recognized the salt-and-pepper hair of the man at the minigun in the lead prowler. Captain William Post. It was hard not to join the private in screaming his head off.
    The aircraft spotted the vehicles too. A twin-engine airplane swooped in, firing cannon at the column. Valentine saw one big-tired transport turn and plow into the garage.
    Ahn-Kha fired again, and the helicopter wobbled as it left the ground, rear doors still closing. The helicopter lurched sideways—perhaps Ahn-Kha had damaged the rear rotor after all.
    The pilot managed to get the helicopter, which was skittering sideways across the field like a balky horse, righted.
    Light caught Valentine’s eyes from above and he looked up to see muzzle flash from a big four-engine aircraft above. Some kind of gun fired on the approaching vehicles.
    But the Razors had guns of their own—and someone trained them on the staggering helicopter. Machine guns and small cannon opened up, sending pieces of fuselage flying. Black smoke blossomed from the craft’s engine crown, instantly dispersed by the powerful rotors.
    Ahn-Kha shot again.
    The Razor vehicles had to pay for their impertinent charge. The military turbofan planes swooped in—Valentine grimly noted a desert camouflage pattern atop the craft— and fired from some kind of cannon that created a muzzle flash as big as the blunt nose of the aircraft, planting blossoms of fiery destruction among the Razor attackers.
    Post’s armored car turned over as it died. Valentine couldn’t imagine what the wreck had done to his friend.
    Like sacrificing a knight to take the enemy queen, even as the prowlers exploded the double-rotored helicopter tipped sideways, sending its six blades spinning into the smoke-filled sky as it crashed. The helicopter’s crew jumped out with credible speed, and Ahn-Kha swiveled his cannon.
    â€œNo. I want prisoners,” Valentine said.
    One of the smaller helicopters swooped in and landed, even as tracer