"Keep going!" Shane yelled from the back seat of the Mercedes as it careened through the Baghdad street. He looked out the back window at the two Opel sedans as they turned the corner in hot pursuit. Shane turned back to the driver. "They're gaining on us."

This is a bloody train wreck, Shane thought, as the car took a sharp right and he was flung against the side door. He glanced over at the other man in the back seat, Ahmed Salim, the scientist he was trying to get out of Iraq. Salim's normally dark skin was an ashen grey and he was reciting something that Shane recognized as coming from the Koran.

"We're almost there," Shane told Salim in Arabic. He silently hoped that wasn't a lie and, once again, cursed the ISA analyst who said that Salim was not being watched by the Iraqi secret police. The two cars behind them said otherwise.

"How much farther," he called in English to the driver, a young ISA agent named Malik Abbas. Malik had been born in Baghdad and seemed to know the lie of the land quite well. Shane also wondered why he had instinctively gone back to English when Malik spoke fluent Arabic. Stress, most likely.

"Just a few more blocks," Malik called out, as the car took a hard left, propelling Shane into Salim.

Sitting back up, Shane looked again out the back at the first car chasing them. He spotted a man leaning out of the passenger-side window with a gun in hand. "Get down!" he yelled, switching back to Arabic, as he shoved Salim toward the floor. Shane heard the sound of breaking glass as the back window became a spider web. He glanced up and saw a hole in the passenger seat where the bullet had penetrated.

The Mercedes took another sharp turn and Shane raised his head high enough to glance out the front. The airfield was in sight. "You get Salim into the chopper," he yelled. "I'll get it started."

There was a wooden swinging barrier at the entrance to the air field, but Malik didn't stop. The Mercedes tore right through it, as the wood splintered and flew in all directions. The car did not stop until it was about ten feet from the helicopter.

Shane jumped out of the car, dragging Salim with him. Malik was out too and grabbed the scientist, while Shane raced for the helicopter. Their pursuers were close behind and Shane heard the squeal of brakes as their pursuers' cars came to a stop.

Not exactly much time for a pre-flight check, Shane thought. He did what he could as the rotors built up speed. Behind him, Malik was exchanging fire with the Iraqis. "Hang on," Shane shouted, as he jerked the cyclic and the helicopter lurched up and forward. It accelerated quickly and soon they were away from the pursuit and heading south from Baghdad.

For the first time in the past hour, Shane felt like he could breathe. Behind him, he could hear the sound of someone retching. A minute later, Malik sat down in the seat next to Shane's. "Our friend's just been a little sick. Guess he wasn't really prepared for this."

"Who was?" Shane said. "When I find that 'there's nobody watching Salim' analyst, someone's head will roll." He asked Malik, "You okay?" This was one of the young agent's first assignments. Sometimes Shane forgot that he was only 21. Still a kid, really.

"Fine," Malik said. "How long until we reach the Saudi border?"

Shane checked the controls for the current speed. "About an hour and a half." Still a long way to go, he thought. He heard more retching from the back. "Do me a favor," Shane said to Malik. "Go check on Salim. After what we just went through, I'd hate to have him die from hacking up a lung or something."

Malik chuckled as he disappeared into the back. Shane continued to keep the helicopter flying at top speed, but he kept his eyes moving, scanning the airspace around them. Something told him that Saddam Hussein was not about to lose his top nuclear scientist without more of a fight. Just to be on the safe side, Shane pulled on his safety harness and strapped himself to the pilot's seat.

Twenty minutes later, Shane spotted the jets in the distance. Damn, sometimes I hate being right, he thought. The planes were making up ground on them quickly, flying far faster than the helicopter's top speed.

"Hang on back there," he yelled, as he began swinging the cyclic from side to side in the hope it would make the helicopter a more difficult target. He knew they had little chance of evading the jets. Shane was a decent helicopter pilot, but nowhere close to being that good. Flying in the mountains to look for some missing people was one thing; evading jets with heat-seeking missiles was something entirely different. However, he also did not relish the thought of landing the chopper in the middle of the Syrian Desert, so Shane looked out at the broad expanse of brown sand, hoping, at least, to spot an oasis or some sign of water. Nothing.

Time's up, he realized as one of the planes buzzed the chopper. The jet wash nearly caused Shane to lose control as the resulting turbulence buffeted the helicopter. In the back, someone cried out in pain.

He swung his head around, trying to spot the planes, but they were nowhere in sight. Not a good sign. Shane kept the helicopter moving south and tried to fly closer to the ground in the hope it would be too low for the planes. "Malik," he yelled. "Get up here and help me spot them."

Malik poked his head forward between the two front seats, looked around for a moment, and then shouted. Shane's head turned to the right and he spotted one of the planes bearing down on them. He pushed the cyclic down, just as he heard the roar of its guns. The jet pilot was smart enough to know he didn't need a missile to take down the helicopter.

That pilot's a pretty smart man, Shane thought, ruefully, as the helicopter was rocked. Shane had no idea what the bullets had hit, but he knew it was important. The tail end of the helicopter dropped while the front end pitched upward. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Malik disappear from sight. Shane fought the controls, trying to stabilize the chopper, but it was no use. The helicopter spun in a circle in the air and began a freefall toward the ground.

Shane pulled back on the cyclic with all his strength trying desperately to slow the fall, but it was futile. The chopper plummeted, tail first, and Shane's last thought before they crashed was that maybe they would luck out and hit a soft spot in the desert sand.