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Low helicopter settled onto the lawn exactly on schedule and the members of Orion loaded smoothly, throwing their bound target in first. The back ramp closed as the bird lifted and they were winging for the coast, an Air Force escort of Stealth fighters flying cover overhead. The helicopter pilot kept them down in the treetops, using his terrain-following radar to keep off the Colombian Armed Forces radar screens. They would be back on board the carrier before anyone in the country even had an inkling of what had happened.
    Hawkins walked to the center of the cargo bay where the old man lay, the red night lights on the ceiling reflecting off the pale skin. He'd fouled himself already, shitting all over his pudgy thighs. Hawkins slid up his night-vision goggles and slowly pulled his black balaclava down, exposing chiseled features and slate-gray eyes. He knelt down next to the man and stared. He knew the professional interrogators were waiting on board the carrier and they would extract everything from the man's memory, but he'd paid a high price to get this man and he'd been on the hunt now for two weeks. He wanted to know. His executive officer-Richman-who'd been Tiger team leader on the assault, knelt next to him.
    "Did you buy one?"
    The man looked at him in confusion. "What?" he replied in Spanish.
    Hawkins shifted to that language and spoke just barely above the whine of the engines. "Did you buy one of the nuclear bombs?"
    "What nuclear bombs?" The old man shook his head. "What are you talking about?"
    Hawkins peered intently into the old man's eyes and felt a sinking sensation. His instincts told him the man was telling the truth. All this for nothing. He looked at Richman, who grimaced and shouted in his team leader's ears, "Another dry well."
    Hawkins wearily nodded, the adrenaline of the mission rapidly dissipating.
    Richman squeezed his arm. "Sorry about the girl. She was in bed with the man when we went in. I didn't see the gun."
    Hawkins ran a hand across his brow. "It doesn't matter." He went forward in the cargo bay, away from the other members of his team. He slumped down on the cargo web seat against the side of the aircraft. He peeled off his thin black gloves and the glint of gold on his left hand caught his eye. With his right hand he twisted the ring, feeling it cut into the flesh beneath. His eyes remembered the fear in the woman's eyes in the room. He didn't know who she was or why she was there. He had spotted the derringer a second before he fired, but he had no way of knowing for sure if she had intended to use it. It had been reflex-the killing reflex that had been drummed into him for years.
    Hawkins felt a black void open in his chest—a void he'd felt often in the past four years. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out all the memories, but failed. Unthinking, his right hand left the ring and stole down to his right hip and unsnapped the cover on his pistol holster. He pulled the Beretta 9mm out and instinctively flipped off the safety.
    A tap on the shoulder startled him.
    "Sir, we've got a message for you on SATCOM." A commo man stood there, holding out the headset for a satellite radio, looking curiously at the pistol in his commander's hand. Hawkins followed the man's gaze and blinked. He awkwardly put the gun back in its holster and took the headset. "Hawkins here."
    "Hawk, this is General Lowry. We've got an F-14 waiting on board the carrier all fueled and waiting for you. As soon as you get on board you go to that bird."
    Hawkins shook his head to clear it. "What about debrief?"
    "Don't worry about debrief. Richman will handle it. Something's come up."
    Hawkins felt the trepidation of another mission. "You have a line on the other nuke?"
    "No." There was a slight pause. "You get on that Tomcat and you go wherever it takes you. That's all I've got."
    "Can you give me an idea where it's taking me, sir?"
    There was a long pause. "From what I understand, you're going to