A large twin-engine jet was passing overhead at less than a thousand feet. Incongruously, Alana could barely hear the roar of its exhaust. It was as if the engines were shut down and the jet was gliding. She knew of no landing fields in the area, at least on this side of the Libyan border, and guessed correctly that the plane was in trouble.

She noticed two details as the jet banked slightly away. One was a jagged hole near the tail that was stained with what she guessed was hydraulic fluid. The other thing she saw were words written along the aircraft’s fuselage: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Greg had stopped whooping. He placed his hand above his eyes, shading them from the sun, and he turned in place, tracking the path of the crippled government jet.

Alana gasped aloud when she realized what plane that was and who was on it.

Concentrating on getting the truck up the hill, Mike Duncan hadn’t seen a thing, so when Alana sucked in a lungful of air he thought something was happening with the tow cable, and asked, “What is it?”

“Get to the top of the hill as fast as you can.”

“I’m working on it. What’s the rush?”

“The Secretary of State’s plane is about to crash.”

Of course, there was nothing Mike could do. They were at the mercy of the slowly turning winch.

Alana shouted up to Greg, “Can you see anything?”

“No,” he replied over the rig’s snarling engine. “The plane flew over some hills a couple miles from here. I don’t see any smoke or anything. Maybe the pilot was able to set it down safely.”

For eight agonizing minutes, the truck climbed up the hill like a fly crawling over a crust of bread. Greg kept reporting that he saw no smoke, which was a tremendous relief.

They finally emerged from the dry riverbed. Greg unsnapped the tow hook from the cable and unwound it from a sandstone projectile the size of a locomotive. The cable had cut deeply into the soft stone, and he had to brace his foot against the rock to pull it free.

“It could have come down in Libya,” Mike muttered.

“What was that?” Alana asked.

“I said the plane could have come down across the border in Libya.” He spoke loudly enough for Greg to hear as well.

Alana was the team leader but she looked to Chaffee for validation, her suspicions that he was from the CIA making him the expert in this type of situation.

“We could be the only people for fifty or more miles,” Greg said. “If they managed to land, there could be injuries, and we have the only vehicle out here.”

“Who do you really work for?” asked Alana.

“We’re wasting time.”

“Greg, this is important. If we have to cross into Libya, I need to know who you work for.”

“I’m with the Agency, all right. The CIA. My job is to keep an eye on you three. Well, the two of you, since the good Dr. Bumford hasn’t left camp since we arrived. You recognized the plane, didn’t you?” Alana nodded. “So you know who’s on board?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to let her die out here because you’re afraid we might run into a Libyan patrol? Hell, they invited her. They aren’t going to do anything to us if we’re trying to rescue her, for God’s sake.”

Alana looked over at Mike Duncan. The rangy oilman’s face was a blank mask. They could be discussing the weather, for all the concern he showed. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I’m no hero, but I think we should probably check it out.”

“Then let’s go,” Alana replied.

They started off across the open desert. It was like driving on the surface of the moon. There was no hint of human habitation, no inkling they were on the same planet even. From the river to the string of hills Greg mentioned was nothing but a boulder-strewn plain devoid of life. This deep in the desert, only a few insects and lizards could survive, and they had the good sense to remain in their burrows during the torturous afternoons.

As they drove, Greg tried unsuccessfully to reach his superiors on his satellite phone. His had a dedicated government communications system, the same one used by the military, so there was no reason he shouldn’t get through but he couldn’t. He replaced the chargeable battery with another he carried in a knapsack.

“This piece of junk,” he spat. “Thirty-billion-a-year budget and they send me out with a five-year-old phone that doesn’t work. I should have known. Listen, you guys, you ought to know that this wasn’t really a priority mission. If we found Al-Jama’s papers, great. But if not, the conference was going ahead anyway.”

“But Christie Valero said—”

“Anything to get you to agree to come. Hey, Mike and I both know from playing the ponies that long shots sometimes pay, too, but this has been a farce since day one. For me, this mission is punishment for a screwup I made in Baghdad a few months ago. For you guys . . . I have no idea, but they sent me out here with crap equipment, so you figure it out.”

After Greg’s revealing outburst, the team drove on in silence, the mood in the truck somber. Alana was torn between thinking about what Greg had said and what they would find when they came across Secretary Katamora’s plane. Both options were grim. She had never met Fiona Katamora, but she admired her tremendously. She was the kind of role model America needed. To think of her dead in a plane crash was just too horrible to contemplate.

But to consider Greg’s words was painful, too, so she decided he was simply wrong. Who knew what baggage he carried that made him so jaded. Christie Valero and St. Julian Perlmutter had laid out a convincing case. Being able to undercut the justifications Islamic radicals used to validate their murderous actions would be perhaps the greatest stride yet in the war on terror. More than ever, she was certain that this mission, while admittedly a long shot, was critical to the upcoming peace talks, and she didn’t care what Greg said about it.

Mike steered them into a canyon between the hills, shaded and much cooler than the open desert. It snaked through the low mountains for a half mile before they emerged on the other side. There still wasn’t any evidence that the Secretary’s plane had crashed, no column of black smoke rising up into the sky. Considering how low the plane had been flying, it had to be on the ground by now, so Alana let herself hope it had landed safely.

They continued on for another hour, knowing that they had passed the unmarked border at some point and were now in Libyan territory illegally. Her only solace was Greg’s fluency in Arabic. If they ran into a patrol, it would be up to him to talk their way out of trouble.

The desert rose and fell in unending dunes of gravel and dirt that sent off shimmering curtains of heat. It made the distant horizon look fluid. The truck crested another anonymous hill, and Mike was about to take them down the far side when he braked suddenly. He rammed the gearbox into reverse and twisted in his seat to look behind them.

“What is it?” Alana cried as the vehicle plunged back down the hill they had climbed moments earlier.

Her answer came not from Mike but from Greg. “Patrol!”

Alana looked ahead as a military vehicle came over the hill, a soldier propped up in a hatch in the truck’s roof. He was hanging on to a wicked-looking machine gun. With its tall suspension, balloon tires, and boxy cab, the truck looked perfectly suited for the desert.

“Forget it, Mike,” Greg shouted over the keening engine. “Running from them is only going to make it worse.”

Mike Duncan looked undecided for a moment, then nodded. He knew Chaffee was right. He eased off the gas and applied the brake. When the truck came to a stop, he killed the engine and left his hands on the wheel.

The Libyan patrol vehicle stopped twenty yards away, giving the roof gunner an optimal position to cover the trio. Back doors were thrown open and four soldiers dressed in desert fatigues rushed out, their AKs at the ready.