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Yarkoni lowered his chin. The darkness of those bull's eyes deepened. "All right. Go. And may God look after you."

"Thank you," August said. The men exchanged salutes, after which the American officer hurried up the stairs.

Master Sergeant Vilnai downloaded the maps onto diskettes. Then he followed August to the staging area just inside the barbed-wire barricade.

Ten minutes later the four Fast Attack Vehicles were tearing through the hilly, heavily treed countryside at eighty miles an hour. They were moving in wedge formation, with two FAVs in the front and two behind them at a forty-five degree angle. They bracketed the six desert bikes which were arranged in two rows of three. The FAVs'.50-caliber machine guns and 40mm grenade launchers were armed, the gunners ready to repulse any attack with warning fire first, deadly force second.

Colonel August was in the lead FAV. From Tel Nef, the ride to the border was twenty minutes. Israeli gunships would take off in five minutes from Tel Nef and cross the border to create a distraction. Once the Lebanese and Syrian troops were drawn away, Colonel August and his Strikers would be able to drive in. From there, it would be less than a half-hour drive to their destination.

The satellite-generated maps had been loaded from the diskettes onto the code-operated computers onboard the FAVs. As Striker sped through the lush terrain of northern Israel, the greenest section of the country, August and Sergeant Grey reviewed attack options and exit strategies. If there was any indication that the hostages were still alive, the Strikers would use any means necessary to get them out. If it were possible to save the ROC, they would. If not, they would destroy it. If they had to kill to achieve any of these goals, August was prepared to do so.

When he and Grey were finished, the colonel slipped on his sunglasses. He hadn't been on a combat mission since Vietnam, but he was ready. He gazed through the thick trees at the smoky mountains in the distance. Somewhere among them Mike Rodgers was a prisoner. Striker would rescue Mike or, if his oldest friend were dead, August was prepared to do one thing more.

He would personally take out the sonofabitch who had killed him.

* * *

FORTY-THREE

Tuesday, 2:24 p.m.,

Damascus, Syria

Paul Hood's impression of Damascus was that it was a gold mine.

Perhaps he'd been Mayor of tourist-friendly Los Angeles for too long, or perhaps he'd become jaded. The mosques and minarets, the courtyards and fountains were all spectacular, with their ornate facades and meticulous mosaics. The gray and white walls surrounding the Old City in the southeast section of Damascus were at once battered and majestic. They had helped protect the city from attacks by the Crusaders in the thirteenth century, and they still bore signs of those ancient sieges. Long stretches of wall had been destroyed or breached, and had been left in historic disrepair.

But as he looked at the sights from the darkened window of the embassy limousine, Hood wasn't thinking about the past. His one thought was that if this region of the world were at peace, if this nation were not a sponsor of terrorism, if all people could come and go freely here, Damascus would be a more popular tourist destination. With that money Syria could find ways to desalinize water from the Mediterranean and irrigate the desert. They could build more schools or create jobs or even invest in poorer Arab nations.

But that isn't the way of things, Hood told himself. Though this was an international city, it was still a city whose leaders had an agenda. And that agenda was to carry Syrian rule into neighboring nations.

The meeting with the President was going to take place in the heart of the Old City, at the palace built by Governor Assad Pasha al-Azem in 1749. This was partly for security reasons. It was easier to guard the President behind the still-formidable walls of the Old City. It was also to remind the citizens that whether they agreed