The truck meant that the SF guys would have a SAW — a light machine gun — or maybe a.50-caliber, a bigger weapon than anything his men carried. But Wells and his squad would have surprise on their side. Wells waved his men forward, warning them to be quiet. They were excited now, excited at the chance to attack Americans. And Wells, though he hated to admit it, was excited too. U.S.S. Starker, Atlantic Ocean The ride out had been smooth, but Jennifer Exley felt her stomach clench as the helicopter landed and she stepped onto the gray metal deck of the Starker, fifty miles east of Norfolk, Virginia. In international waters, of course, so its precious cargo would remain outside the jurisdiction of American courts.

An old navy amphibious assault ship, the Starker was now a brig, a floating jail. Today the vessel held just one prisoner, Tim Keifer, a.k.a. Mohammed Faisal, a twenty-two-year-old American who’d been captured fighting for the Taliban near Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan. Fighting for the Taliban against the United States. Exley was still trying to get her mind around that one. The capture of John Walker Lindh, the other American Taliban, had been broadcast worldwide. But Keifer’s detention had stayed quiet. President Bush had signed an order declaring Keifer an

“enemy combatant” and suspending his rights, including his access to American courts. Now Keifer was literally floating in a steel limbo, a place where U.S. laws did not apply. Exley wasn’t sure she liked that decision, but maybe this wasn’t the time to worry about little things like the Bill of Rights. The ship twisted beneath her, and she yelped as she lost her footing on the slick metal deck. Her guide, a friendly young ensign, reached out a hand and steadied her.

“You okay, Ms. Exley?”

“Fine.”

He led her off the deck and down a brightly lit hallway. “Mohammed’s in the hospital,” the sailor said. “We try to be careful, but he keeps having accidents. Banging his head on doors, sh—” He remembered he was talking to a woman and caught himself, she saw.