“I know,” Jonathan replied. “You’ve been shot. Are you Chris?” Until this moment, he hadn’t considered the possibility that “Chris” might have been a Christina.

“I think I’m dying.”

Jonathan nodded. Very softly, he said, “You are. It won’t be long. Are you the last, or are there more of you out here?”

For a moment, it appeared as if she wanted to answer, but then her eyes grew hard.

“Answer me,” Jonathan pressed. “I’ll stay here with you till it’s over.”

Her pupils seemed unnaturally bright as they reflected the moon. “Fuck you,” she said.

Jonathan smiled, squeezed her hand gently. He’d seen a lot of people die in his time, and he always admired the ones who accepted their fate with guts. Good guy or bad, heaven reserved places for those who showed courage to the end.

He continued to hold her hand as he fished his flashlight from his web gear and thumbed the switch. The white light hurt. He held the light in his teeth, and with his free hand he started patting her down. “Let me know if any of this hurts,” he said.

“Who are you?” the girl moaned.

Blood soaked into the waistband of her jeans as Jonathan reached into the front pocket and found an Indiana driver’s license. “You’re Christine Baker,” Jonathan read aloud. In this light, it was finally get naked and make love, it was supposed to be a wonderful thing. Tiffany would have been his first. But then it turned to blood and violence.

They flew in complete darkness. The silver glow of the moon on the meaningless landmarks below was Thomas’s only evidence that they were flying at all. It wasn’t till his eyes adjusted fully that he noticed the pilot was wearing night vision goggles.

Their flight lasted less than half an hour. From what Thomas could tell, they landed in a dark field in the middle of nowhere. The rotors were still turning at nearly full speed when the commando at his side unclasped his seat belt and rose to an awkward, half-standing position. He took a half-step forward and said something in the pilot’s ear, soliciting a nod and a thumbs-up, and then he turned to face Thomas.