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tried to orient himself along the flight path of the aircraft, which he remembered from the isolation brief. They were heading south-southwest. Sure that he knew where they were, Riley turned away from the window. No one else on the team had bothered to look out. They were all too busy clapping each other on the back, congratulating themselves for a job well done.
    Seeing a gesture out of the corner of his eye, Riley made his way up to the pilot.
    “I’ve got trouble with my left engine. Don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m going to have to shut it down.”
    Riley nodded. “You might have taken some rounds in it when we took off.”
    “Yeah, right.” The pilot turned his attention back to the control panel. The roar of sound on the inside of the aircraft lessened slightly as the pilot began to turn off one of his two engines. Riley could see that a couple of the team members noted the change but had no idea what happened. Riley leaned over and yelled in Murphy’s ear. “The pilot had to shut down one of his engines.”
    Murphy was startled and looked up at Riley with questioning eyes. He sat there for a few moments, then leaned to the man next to him to pass along the information. Riley turned his attention back to the pilot.
    Five minutes later, the pilot shook his head. “I’ve got problems with the hydraulics. My primary is down and the secondary is sluggish. I’m going to have to set down. If I lose my backup hydraulics, we’re history.”
    Riley looked over the pilot’s shoulder, scanning the landscape ahead. “Any idea where you can put down?”
    The pilot gestured with his chin, both hands on the controls. “There’s a landing strip up ahead there to the left. See the control tower?”
    “An airfield?” Riley said. “That means there will be people there.”
    The pilot shook his head. “It’s blacked out. There’s nobody there this time of night. It’s all automated. If I was a friendly I could turn on the airfield landing lights by dialing up the correct frequency and just breaking squelch. But I ain’t a friendly. Fortunately. I don’t need the landing lights to touch down there. We’ll get down all right. After that, it’s your show.”
    Riley immediately passed the news to Murphy. He then sat down and braced himself as the plane descended in abrupt jerks. The ride was so rough that the only way Riley knew they had touched down was when the back ramp started opening and the pilot applied the brakes. The plane came to a halt as the ramp touched the concrete of the runway.
    “Everyone out!” Murphy yelled. The team ran down the ramp in a muddle of confusion, the rescued prisoners in their midst. Riley followed them off as the pilot shut down the aircraft.
    The team was spread out behind the aircraft in an unorganized arc. One of the men took charge: “Assemble here! Two hundred meters back of the tail. Let’s go! Let’s go.”
    Riley joined the group. They were all gathered around, staring at Captain Murphy. The team leader took a few moments to collect himself, shifting from the exhilaration of an apparently successful mission and exfiltration to this emergency landing in enemy territory. He shook himself out of his stupor. “Let’s get a perimeter here, off the runway in the grass.” The team members turned and hastily set up a loose perimeter, then lay down and faced out in all directions.
    Riley knelt next to Murphy, who turned and asked, “Do you know where we are, Chief?”
    Riley nodded. “I do. Do you?”
    Murphy shook his head.
    Riley pointed to the west. “See that? What does it look like?”
    “A control tower for an airfield.”
    “Good. What airstrips lie along the planned exfil route?”
    Murphy’s brow furrowed in concentration.
    Riley didn’t wait long. “Do you have your one to two-fifty map covering the exfil route?”
    “No.”
    Riley took a deep breath and held it, then slowly let it out. He reached into his pocket and took out his own 1:250,000 scale