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Someone was standing behind her. All Katzen could see were his legs through hers.

"You men down there!" shouted a voice from above. "You have a count of five to surrender. If you don't come up your people will be shot in turn, beginning with this woman. One!"

"He'll do it," Falah whispered to Katzen.

"Two!"

"I know," Katzen replied. "I've seen how they work this drill. I've got to give myself up."

"Three!"

Falah put a hand on his arm. "They'll kill you!"

"Four!"

"Maybe not," Katzen said. He got up slowly, painfully. "They still need me." He looked up. They were doing a fast count, the bastards. "I'm hurt!" he shouted. "I'm coming as fast as I can!"

"Five!"

"No, wait!" Katzen screamed. "I said--"

Suddenly, blood exploded from the top of the slope and sprayed darkly across the blue sky.

"No!" Katzen screamed, his face distorted as Mary Rose fell to her knees and the blood rained toward them. "God, no!"

* * *

FORTY-NINE

Tuesday, 3:35 p.m.,

Damascus, Syria

The floor of the palace security office was slippery with blood.

The Diplomatic Security Agents were dead. So were the two- and three-agent security forces for the Japanese and Russian ambassadors respectively. They had been gunned down in the small office, a dark and windowless room with two stools and a large, slanting console consisting of twenty small black-and-white television monitors. The images showed bedlam at nearly every entrance, every room.

The man who presumably had shot them, a blue-uniformed palace guard whose station this must have been, was also dead. There was an automatic rifle on the floor beside him and a pair of bullet holes in his forehead. One of the Russians had been able to draw his own pistol. Apparently, the head shots were his.

Paul Hood did not want to linger in the security office. He checked the men for signs of life. Finding none, he remained on his hands and knees and poked his head into the hallway. The sounds of gunfire were all around him. They were no longer distant. The reception room, though only about two dozen yards away, seemed incredibly far. In the other direction, the outside door was much closer. But he wouldn't leave without the others. Tactically, it would make more sense if he could get them here.

Then he remembered Warner Bicking's cellular phone.

Hood turned back into the room. The DSA agents both had cellular phones. One had been shattered by gunfire. The other had been busted when the man fell. None of the other agents had phones. Hood sat back on his heels. He looked around.

This is a security office, goddammit! he told himself. They have to have a telephone.

He ran his hands along the console. They did have one. It was in a lidded recess to the right of the lowest right-hand monitor. Hood lifted the receiver. The lighted numbers were on the handset. He held it in his trembling palm and punched in Bicking's number. Bicking was probably still on the line with Op-Center. Hood wondered if anyone else in history had ever used call waiting in the middle of a firelight.

Hood went back to watching the monitors as the phone range. It beeped twice before Bicking picked up.

"Warner, it's Paul."

"Jesus God," Bicking laughed nervously, "I'd hoped it wasn't a wrong number. What'd you find?"

"They're all dead in here," Hood said. "Anything from Op-Center?"

"They've got me on hold while they try to get someone to us," he said. "Last I heard was from Bob. He told me something's up but couldn't tell me what."

"He was probably afraid the lines are being monitoned." Hood shook his head. "I'm looking at the monitors, though, and I don't see how anyone's going to--hold it."

Hood watched as what looked like a contingent of Syrian Army troops made their way through one of the corridors.

"What's going on?" Bicking asked.

"I'm not sure," Hood said, "but the cavalry may have arrived."

"Where?"

"Looks like it's the other end of the corridor from where I am," Hood said.

"Closer to us?"

"Yes."

"Should I go out and try to meet them?" Bicking asked.

"I don't think so," said Hood. "Seems like they're