choosing only to follow his target with the rifle barrel - waiting for his sights to settle on the other man's head. He ignored the bullets shrieking off to his right. At this range, the American could not possibly hope to hit him with unaimed fire.
But then he heard the smooth hum made by the drone aircraft's fourteen electric motors change pitch - roughening in fits and starts as they shorted out or lost power. Bits and pieces of shattered plastic and carbon fiber spun away across the tarmac.
Terce saw the huge plane swinging toward him, veering wildly off-course. He scowled. The American's last gamble would not save his life, but the damage to one of his three irreplaceable attack aircraft would infuriate Nomura.
Suddenly Terce stared in disbelief at the thin-walled plastic cylinders slung under the huge wing, noticing for the first time the rough-edged star-shaped punctures torn through so many of them.
It was only then that he felt the murdering east wind gently kiss his face. His green eyes widened in horror.
Terror-stricken, Terce stumbled backward. The assault rifle fell from his shaking hands and clattered onto the concrete.
The auburn-haired man groaned aloud. Already he could feel the Stage IV nanophages at work inside his body. Billions of the horrid devices were clawing their way outward from deep inside his heaving lungs - spreading their poisons wider with every fatal breath. The flesh inside his thick transparent gloves turned red, sloughing off his muscles and tendons and bones as they disintegrated.
His two surviving men, temporarily secure in their gas masks, looked up at him from their firing positions. Eyes wide in fear, they scrambled to their feet and began backing away.
Desperately he raised his haggard melting face in mute appeal. "Kill me," he whispered, choking out the words past a tongue that was falling to pieces. "Kill me! Please!"
Instead, panicked by the horror they saw before them, they threw their rifles aside and fled toward the ocean.
Screaming again and again, the last of the Horatii doubled over, wracked by incomprehensible and unending pain as the teeming nanophages ate him alive from within.
Smith ran north along the runway, moving fast despite his fatigue and the terrible punishment he had taken. His jaw was set, held tight against the pain from several cracked ribs grinding under his body armor. He stumbled once, swore under his breath, and pushed himself onward.
Keep going, Jon, he told himself savagely. Keep going or die.
He did not look back. He knew the horror he would see there. He knew the horror he had deliberately set in motion. By now the nanophage cloud was spreading west across the whole southern end of the airfield-drifting on the wind toward the Atlantic.
Smith came pounding up to the grounded Black Hawk. The rotors were still spinning slowly. Torn blades of grass and lingering traces of missile exhaust swirled lazily in the air around the waiting helicopter. Peter and Randi saw him coming. Their worried looks vanished and they moved toward him, smiling and laughing with relief.
"Get aboard!" Jon roared, waving them back to the Black Hawk. "Get that thing spooled up!"
Peter nodded tightly, seeing the shot-up drone careening off the runway out of control. He knew what that meant. "Give me thirty seconds, Jon!" he called.
The Englishman swung himself back aboard the helicopter and scrambled into the pilot's seat. His hands danced across the control panel, flicking switches and watching indicators lighting up. Satisfied, he rotated the throttle, pushing the engines toward full power. The rotors began spinning faster.
Smith skidded to a stop beside the troop carrier's open door. He noticed Randi's left arm dangling at her side. Her face was still pale, drawn with pain. "How bad is it?" he asked.
She smiled wryly. "It hurts like hell, but I'll live. You can play doctor some other time."
Before he could react, she glared at him. "And you will not make any smart-ass comments. You hear me?"
"I hear you," Smith told her quietly. Hiding the pain from his own injuries, he helped her climb up into the Black Hawk. Then he swung himself aboard. His eyes took note of the two other passengers - recognizing both Hideo and Jinjiro Nomura from their pictures in the files Fred Klein had made him study so long ago in Santa Fe. So long ago, he thought coldly. Six days ago. A lifetime ago.
Randi dropped into a rear-facing seat across from Hideo. Wincing, she cradled the M4 carbine in her lap, making sure its deadly