LaFavre shook his head. "Have to be a real hotshot pilot to get a chopper down on that roadway without doing a major crash and burn. If you fast rope in, you can't get back out unless you use STABO, and even that will be touch and go with the limited space between the cables. Hate to get a STABO line caught in one of those cables. Take out the man and the chopper."

Wilder knew LaFavre had lost Bryce even though the actor was nodding his head as if he completely understood.

"But they're not going to land it," Bryce said. "They're just going to bring it in low enough so that the bad guys can put the loot into the cargo net that hangs underneath it. Nash has it all storyboarded out."

"What kind of chopper are you using?" LaFavre asked, keeping one eye on the brunette, probably in case she took her sweater off.

"A Huey," Bryce said, clearly proud that he knew the name.

"Well, hell, boy, forget the net and just load it in the Huey. Damn things are big. Not that you're ever going to get it down on this bridge." LaFavre nodded at the cranky brunette, who was glaring after the guy with the gun-Nash-as he headed for them again, looking mad as hell. "She ever been in the movies?"

"No," Bryce said. "So they wouldn't have a cargo net?"

He sounded crushed, so Wilder tried for damage control. "They'd need one if they had a lot of people in the Huey. Five or six-" He stopped because Bryce was shaking his head.

"Only one. The head bad guy kills the others."

"Dumb bad guy," LaFavre said. "So you got any actresses around here?"

'Til have to check with Nash on this cargo net thing," Bryce said in a low voice, sounding worried.

Yeah, Wilder thought. Tell him the cargo net isn't right. That's going to make me popular. He jerked his head, trying to signal LaFavre to leave, but the pilot missed it, staring down the bridge past Nash, who'd stopped a good ten feet away, his jaw set.

"What the hell is this?" Nash said, and Wilder almost winced when he heard the Australian accent. Made him think of beer commercials.

Bryce said, "Hey, Connor! Meet Captain J. T. Wilder and Major Rene LaFavre. Guys, this is Connor Nash, you know, I told you, he's our stunt coordinator?" He sounded like an anxious puppy, looking from Wilder to Nash and back again.

Wilder nodded, and Connor Nash's head twitched, not quite a nod, which Wilder took to mean that he wasn't happy to see him.

Bryce walked between them to clap Nash awkwardly on the shoulder, and Wilder thought, Get out of the kill zone, you idiot. Bryce, he'd learned in the past two days, had absolutely no survival instincts.

"My, my," LaFavre said, and Wilder followed his eyes as Nash turned and looked, too.

A tall woman, her hair in a long dark braid over her shoulder, was coming down the bridge toward them, her blue shirt blowing back in the wind to reveal a well-filled-out white T-shirt that made Wilder rethink white T-shirts. Amazon, Wilder thought. If Nash hadn't been standing there, he'd have looked longer and possibly smiled, but the stunt coordinator was a wild card, mad as hell about something and not to be ignored. Mission first, women later.

A tall, gangly man followed the Amazon, holding a little blond kid. He was grinning at Nash, but it wasn't a friendly grin. More a fuck-you grin. Wilder liked him.

"She an actress?" LaFavre asked Bryce, dropping his voice as he nodded toward the Amazon.

Bryce squinted and then dropped his voice, too. "No. I think that's the new director. Nash's ex-wife. She directs dog food commercials or something up in New York so he got her this gig. It's her big break."

"Healthy-lookin' woman," LaFavre said with appreciation, and Nash evidently heard, because he turned his stare on LaFavre.

Not so ex, then, Wilder thought and looked at the woman again as she came closer. She was tall, probably six foot, and she looked determined. Powerful. Hot. Yeah, she would be a hard woman to walk away from.

Maybe she was the one who'd walked. That sounded better.

Bryce added, still under his breath, "Nash'll still run things. It's mostly stunts this last four days. I think she's just here to make things look right."

She's got her work cut out for her, Wilder thought, and put his eyes back on Nash.

"Looks right to me," LaFavre said, still staring at the Amazon, and Nash's face darkened. "Does she like heroes? I could show her my medals. Women are usually real grateful to heroes."

"Go away," Wilder said, seeing disaster loom. LaFavre would hit on her, and then Nash would kill him. Or try to. LaFavre was remarkably hard to kill.

Right now he just looked wounded, or as wounded as anybody could look in aviator sunglasses. "What about my actresses?" he said.

"I'll get you one later."

"Let's go get a drink, then. Fly with me back to Hunter. There's a strip club-"

"No. Go away."

"Coin check."

"Screw you." Wilder fished his Special Forces coin out of his pocket and held it up. "Now go away."

LaFavre grinned, tipped his World War II flight hat to Bryce and then belatedly to Nash, smiled warmly up the bridge at the Amazon, and ambled off toward the chopper.

"What's a coin check?" Bryce said, watching him go.

"Special Forces thing," Wilder said, keeping an eye on LaFavre to make sure he kept on going.

"Bunch of bullshit," Nash said.

Bryce nodded at the Amazon as she reached them. Her dark eyes swept them all and, Wilder was pretty sure, missed nothing.

"Lucy Armstrong?" Bryce said.

She smiled and held out her hand to Bryce, walking between Wilder and Nash to reach him. Into the kill zone, Wilder thought. These people wouldn't last five seconds in a gun battle.

"Bryce McKay." The Amazon shook his hand, her profile to Wilder. "Very pleased to meet you."

"Welcome aboard." Bryce nodded at her once, looking oddly serious.

"I cannot see," the little kid said, and Wilder looked down to see her holding up her binoculars, surrounded by adult legs, her face perturbed under its blond bowl-cut.

The Amazon-Armstrong, Bryce had called her-stepped back to let the kid out of the circle as Bryce said, "I want you to meet Captain J.T. Wilder, my new military consultant."

Armstrong turned those eyes on him and said, "Hello." She put her hand out and Wilder took it, still watching Nash, trying not to get distracted. Her grip was solid. And warm. He met her gaze and liked what he saw: Somebody was definitely at home in there. He'd been looking at Bryce for too long. Bryce's eyes said, "Back in a minute." Armstrong's eyes said, "Brace yourself, I'm coming at you."

"J.T. is a real Green Beret, just like Rambo," Bryce was saying to Armstrong, and Wilder flinched as Nash laughed.

Armstrong shot Nash a look that could have cut glass.

Rambo, Wilder thought. Fuck.

"Hey," the little kid said, but Armstrong had already turned back to Wilder.

"A Green Beret," she said. "Very impressive." She sounded as if she meant it, and Nash lost his sneer.

Wilder felt better.

"This is my assistant director, Gleason Bloom," she said, and the smile she directed to the lanky guy was affectionate. "Gloom, you know our star, Bryce McKay-"

Wilder watched while Bryce stood straighter when she said "star."

"-And this is Captain J. T. Wilder, his… friend."

"Military consultant," Bryce said, and Gloom shook first his hand and then Wilder's. Good strong grip with nothing to prove, Wilder thought. Armstrong had traded up if she'd gone from Nash to Gloom.

The little kid was staring out at the swamp through her binoculars, staying very still, leaning forward, and he followed her eyes but couldn't see anything. "Hey," she said, looking up at Armstrong, reaching up to tug on her shirt.