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there unless you did something stupid like step on a branch or fall over your own two feet. All of the SEALs were wearing the NVDs now, and the scene below them glowed in eerily shining greens, blacks and silvers.
    â€œHere! L-T!” Higgins said. “They’re forming up and coming this way!”
    While perhaps half of the Yugoslavian troops stayed near the helicopter, the rest were drawing out in a long line along the highway, with eight or ten meters separating each man from his neighbors. NCOs wielded flashlights and barked commands. Sixteen men started forward, walking up the hill toward the waiting SEALs.
    â€œWe could go around them, Lieutenant,” Mac pointed out. “Cross there, to the left, then move back up the beach behind the wall.”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Murdock replied. “Look there.”
    A convoy was coming up the road from the direction of Dubrovnik, seven Army trucks, each crowded with troops. From the look of things, they were dropping men off along the road. One stopped several hundred meters further on. Five more grumbled past the tableau on the highway below, edging past the point where the helicopter blocked the road, then racing further toward the east as though they were in pursuit of the other helicopter. The seventh truck pulled to a halt just before it reached the Hip, and men began piling out, calling noisily to one another and tossing helmets and weapons down from the back of the vehicle.
    â€œDefinitely regular army,” Murdock said, studying the men through his binoculars.
    â€œThey sure are loud,” Roselli said. “You’d think they wanted us to know they were there.”
    â€œThey may want to spook us back up the mountain,” Mac pointed out.
    â€œYeah, or they may not care,” Magic said. “Shit, they’ve got an army down there.”
    â€œSo what?” Roselli replied. “Since when is an army a match for seven SEALs?”
    The line of men grew longer as men ran up the hill to join it ... and longer ... and longer still. Flashlights probed and stabbed the darkness, flashing now toward the waiting SEALs, then away. The troops were closer now, perhaps fifty meters, and a searchlight mounted inside the helicopter’s cockpit was being directed at the hillside.
    â€œA cordon,” Murdock said, his voice grim. “They know we’re up here somewhere. They mean to stretch out a cordon and catch us like fish in a net.”

5

0508 hours
Above the beach east of Dubrovnik Croatia
    Roselli waited, watching the soldier he’d picked out moving closer. The Serb troops were still noisy as they tramped up the hill through the field, but the shouts and catcalls had died away as each of the soldiers concentrated on his steps across the slightly uneven ground with its holes and unexpected mounds of matted grass.
    There was no time to try to sidestep the search cordon. In the open field, there was just light enough that one of the advancing soldiers would spot a running, black-clad shape even without night-vision gear. The only option, then, was to sit tight and let the cordon pass. It was Roselli’s job to make sure the opening between one soldier and the next was big enough for the SEALs to slip through unobserved.
    One of the soldiers was moving directly toward Roselli’s position. Had he been just a few meters to either side, Roselli would have let him pass, but there was too great a risk that he might see one of the SEALs lying flat on the ground . . . or step on one.
    Roselli tensed, the dull ebon length of his diving knife held tight in his hand. The soldier walked slowly closer, paused two meters away, listening, then took another step—
    The SEAL swept up from the ground, left hand sweeping around the soldier’s head, hand clamping down over nose and mouth, right hand gripping the knife, snapping up and sharply down. Roselli went for a straight stabbing takedown, rather than a