That last voice was Dougie's! Now what was he up to?

"Dougie, come back in the house!" Frances yelled. "Help me with these girls! Dougie, I need you in here."

There was a gunshot outside! A loud, lightning-bolt crack exploded from one of the rifles.

Frances ran to the screen door-here she was, running again-and saw two U.S. Army soldiers standing over Dougie's body.

Oh my God, Dougie isn't moving. Oh my God, oh my God! The soldiers had shot him down like a rabid dog. For nothing! Frances started to shiver and shake, then threw up lunch.

Her girls screeched, "Yuk, Mommy! Mommy, yuk! You threw up all over the kitchen!"

Then suddenly a soldier with a couple of days' facial growth on his chin kicked open the screen door and he was right in her face and he was screaming, "Get out of this trailer! Now! Unless you want to die, too."

The soldier had the business end of a gun pointed right at Frances. "I'm not kidding, lady," he said. "Tell the truth, I'd just as soon shoot you as talk to you."

Chapter 4

The job-the operation, the mission-was to wipe out an entire American town. In broad daylight.

It was some eerie, psycho gig. Dawn of the Dead, either version, would be mild compared to this. Sunrise Valley, Nevada; population, 315 brave souls. Soon to be population, 0. Who was going to believe it? Well, hell, everybody would in less than about three minutes.

None of the men on board the small plane knew why the town was being targeted for extinction, or anything else about the strange mission, except that it paid extremely well, and all the money had been delivered to them up front. Hell, they didn't even know one another's names. All they had been told was their individual tasks for the mission. Just their little piece of the puzzle. That's what it was called-their piece.