After more than an hour's worth of dizzying passion, Colonel Xu Dingfa had fallen onto the bed, breathless and relaxed, with the comfort girl's head resting gently on his chest. He had vowed in the morning to ask her name and make arrangements to see her again.

He'd thought he'd been dreaming when the door had smashed inward, the faint light from the candle near the bed illuminating two figures, their faces concealed by masks, their night-vision goggles protruding like antennae from their heads. One was hunkered down, one stood, and as Xu's eyes had opened wider, he'd spotted their guns.

The reach for his own weapon was instinctual, worthless, really, but he couldn't just lie there.

Now, as the girl screamed and the first silenced rounds finished her, Xu wondered who was responsible for his death. Who had betrayed him? Fang? Had the man been lying in wait for these past four years, a tiger himself? No, it couldn't be. Could it?

The shots ripped through Xu's chest, and it took another second for the pain to register like a claw shredding his gut with slow, even strokes. He coughed, and his mouth immediately filled with blood.

Xu felt no sorrow for himself, only for his dear mother and father, whom he had failed. They would not see their lost children, and that was the greatest tragedy.

As the men rifled through his belongings, Xu thought of raising his fist in one last act of defiance, but the room had already grown dark around the edges, and there was only the strength for one final breath.

As Huang and Pan had stood facing each other on the balcony, Huang had realized that Pan was not going to leave and had every intention of shooting him.

So Huang had lashed out, seizing Pan's wrist to shift away the gun. Pan had fought against Huang's grip with one hand while clubbing Huang in the head with his flashlight.

Even as the blow seemed to reverberate through Huang's head, the gun had gone off, the round tearing through Huang's shoulder.

Pan gasped, muttered his disbelief that he had fired, and the gun slipped from his grip. Huang kicked the weapon away and shoved Pan against the railing with so much force that the warped and rotting wood cracked and gave way.

Pan flailed his arms and screamed as he fell back into the chutes of rain, plunging five stories to splash hard to his death.

Huang's wife was crying and rushed up beside him. Down in the courtyard, one of Fang's guards ran up to Pan's body and checked for a pulse. Then he gazed up at Huang and screamed, "I heard the shot! What's going on here?"

Clutching his bleeding shoulder, Huang was about to answer when a click sounded from below, and the guard's head snapped back before he toppled.

Huang gasped as a fresh volley of automatic weapons fire rattled loudly through the courtyard.

Buddha sat in the idling SUV, chomping on a chocolate bar and staring at the streaming video of the castle being fed to his laptop. Boy Scout was doing likewise and issuing his banal and obvious commentary on the action.

That first shot had been barely audible from their range, but Buddha had pricked up his ears and now leaned out the window, grimacing over a lot more gunfire.

"You were right," came Boy Scout's voice from the phone on the seat.

"About the noise, yes," Buddha answered. "I was hoping I would not be."

"We should get in closer. The cowboys will need us soon."

"We stay here."

"That's a mistake, old man."

"Shut up. Do what I say." Buddha wiped his hands on his jeans and stared at Boy Scout's SUV, just ahead.

If the kid acted rashly, he would not live to regret it.

Beasley had shot the guard who'd run into the courtyard, then he'd paused and frowned. There were two bodies lying there. He glanced up, saw an old couple staring down at him from the fifth-floor balcony, the railing busted away.

The other two guards had come in from the north side entrance of the building, and one of them had begun firing at Jenkins and Hume, who were about ten meters behind Beasley, close to the wall.

"Damn it, Jenkins, he sees you!" cried Beasley. "Move up and take him out!"

Just then Lieutenant Moch got on the Cross-Com with an intel update from his Predator: the power crew was at the fence, working on the gate, and yet another truck was inbound.

The news prompted Beasley to call the captain. "Ghost Lead, this is Bravo Lead. I'll need to blow that transformer within the next couple of minutes."

When Mitchell and Smith reached the south building, only one guard had remained outside, thanks to Nolan. Smith had just tagged the other guy with an impressive shot, and the main door had split under Mitchell's foot as though it'd been made of balsa, thanks to years of martial arts training.

Now, as they headed up the staircase, en route toward Major-General Wu's quarters and the remaining guard there, Mitchell drew in a long breath and spoke evenly over the radio, responding to Beasley's call: "Hold off on the fireworks as long as you can. Looks like Chen's on the move in the north building. Change of plan. You move in and take him out."

"Roger that. On our way."

"Diaz?" Mitchell called. "Help him out."

"Roger that," she said.

Mitchell and Smith reached the fourth-floor balcony. They crouched near the wall, taking about a dozen more steps toward the major-general's door.

Suddenly, that door swung open, and one of the guards hurried out. Behind him came Major-General Wu Hui himself, wearing only boxer shorts and brandishing a pistol. Both men thundered directly toward them.

Their expressions changed as they spotted the two men crouched near the wall, but they were already too late.

Smith got off the first shot, striking the guard just as he was lifting his rifle.

Mitchell cut loose with his MR-C, hosing down the balcony with suppressed rounds and sending the muscular Wu to the wooden floor.

As Mitchell dove forward himself, Wu began squeezing off rounds and hollering obscenities in Mandarin.

Smith issued a half-strangled cry as Mitchell kept firing until Wu's pistol fell silent.

"Paul!" Mitchell rolled onto his side, sat up, where Smith was clutching his right biceps.

"Stings bad."

"I'll tie it off quick."

Mitchell reached into his pack for his medical kit. Every Ghost carried one except Nolan who, as medic, toted the full medical bag.

Within two minutes Mitchell had Smith's arm tied off and a big trauma bandage slapped in place.

"Let's go take a look," said Smith, lifting his chin at Wu's quarters.

Mitchell nodded, and while Smith double-timed ahead, Mitchell rushed over to Wu, his blood spreading across the floor like a dilating pupil, dark and oily. He lifted the man's head, making sure the folks back home got a good picture of his face. Then he rose. "Ghost Team? Targets Bravo and Delta terminated. Two more to go!"

"Captain, we got more stuff," called Smith from behind Wu's open door.

They had already seized several flash drives and two portfolios of documents from Xu's room.

"Take it all," grunted Mitchell.

All that gunfire below left Diaz struggling to do two things: get a bead on that remaining sniper and get control of her breath.

Even as she sighted him, he was sighting her brothers in arms around the castle.

Although he had yet to fire, she could already hear the crack of his rifle in her mind. The bastard was set up on another rock, unflinching in the rain, as though he'd been there for a hundred years, calmed by the spirits of his forefathers and waiting for the perfect shot.

The rain tapered off, just a little, the forest growing more silent, as Carlos and Tomas began to voice their doubts.