And then there was the swamp. People had ignored the kid when she'd said there was somebody out there, but he'd been watching her and she was pretty serious about what she was doing. Just because she was five didn't mean she didn't have good eyes.

Wilder would have bet there was something out there. Someone out there. She'd said a ghost, and she wouldn't have said that if she'd seen an animal. Could be just a hunter, some good old boy wading through the swamp, but then why hadn't she seen him again?

Probably nothing to worry about, he told himself, and looked out into the swamp again.

Then Bryce came back in tiger-stripe camouflage fatigues with a combat vest whose most prominent feature was a massive upside-down knife on his left shoulder, so big it covered half his chest. Wilder refrained from shaking his head because he'd learned the weekend before at Fort Bragg that Bryce was quick to pick up any negative cues and wrap his mind around them so tight, it took an hour to unwrap it, and with his hangover still throbbing, Wilder didn't feel like unwrapping anything other than some aspirin.

Behind Bryce was a little woman with a pouty face that had too much makeup on it. Bryce pretty much ignored her as he said, "So what do you think?" squaring his shoulders to show off his knife.

"I think people here talk a lot." Wilder watched Armstrong lean closer to Gloom at the monitors. Not her lover after all, he thought. Wrong body language. He thought, Good, and then shook his head. Not good. This was the kind of job you did and got out fast. No staying behind to hit on the boss.

Bryce followed his eyes. "What? Lucy and Gloom? They're just trying to get up to speed, coming in at the end of everything like this, last four days of shooting. It's tough. The old director had a heart attack, really bad, right on the set at the end of shooting Friday." Bryce shook his head at the brevity of life and the unpredictability of death and then looked down the bridge and brightened. "Look, there's Althea. Come on. You have to meet Althea."

Wilder nodded and followed Bryce down the bridge, while the actor babbled on, saying, "If you're hungry, we can stop by Crafty, that's craft services, the table over there with all kinds of food. I like the Ding Dongs…"

Behind them, the little woman with the makeup pouted harder and then took out her cell phone.

"Who's that?" Wilder said, jerking his head back toward her.

"Huh? Oh, Mary Vanity,' Bryce said. "Makeup girl." He winked at Wilder. "Hot." Then he leered. "Sorry it took me so long."

Wilder's head throbbed harder. Good to know that while he was on a bridge with an armed stunt coordinator and a hostile Amazon, Bryce was having a quickie in the makeup frailer.

"That coin thing, is it some kind of secret thing?" Bryce asked.

"What?"

"The coin check thing. With LaFavre."

If it were a secret, why would I tell you? "Every Special Forces unit has a coin," Wilder said. "Your name gets inscribed on yours when you arrive at the unit, you carry it everywhere, and if challenged, and you don't have it, you have to buy the challenger a drink."

"Can I get one?" Bryce said. "One or those coins? For the movie?"

"Your character's a SEAL," Wilder said. "I don't have any SEAL challenge coins handy and they might not take too kindly to someone outside the unit carrying one."

Bryce looked hurt and Wilder tried to think of something to say to make him feel better but then Bryce said, "Althea!" and Wilder looked up to see the blonde Bryce was leading him toward and forgot his hangover.

It was a damn good thing he'd gotten rid of LaFavre.

She was sitting on the hood of the red convertible they were going to use in the stunts, and she was a little thing, but she had impossible breasts that stretched her tight red T-shirt to the breaking point, and her short white shorts were just as tight.

"Althea," Bryce said when they reached her. "You have to meet J. T. Wilder. J.T. is a real Green Beret."

Althea looked at J.T. and smiled.

Wilder hated to admit it, but he liked Bryce sometimes.

"So you're like Rambo?" Althea ran her hand through her blond curls.

Not exactly, Wilder thought as he tried to focus on her eyes.

Althea smiled even more warmly at Wilder and made him swallow as she held out her hand. "I'm very pleased to meet you, J.T."

Wilder took her hand-slender and cool in his-and nodded, at a loss for words, which was not Bryce's problem. The actor prattled on about how they'd trained together at Bragg-that was a joke right there-while Althea looked at Wilder from under her lashes, biting her lip.

Bryce kept talking as Nash came up behind Althea and checked the harness hidden under her skimpy top, which looked even skimpier under the strain her breasts were putting on it. Wilder shifted his gaze as Nash tugged on Althea's harness and made everything jiggle. Then he looked up to catch Nash shooting more looks his way, looks he ignored this time. There were more important things than pissing contests, such as the amount of Althea-skin being shown as Nash pulled up the back of her T-shirt and checked the harness.

Bryce was still talking, but Wilder's eyes stayed on Althea. He'd seen her in some movie, but he couldn't remember what, something to do with the Navy, he thought. LaFavre would remember; he never forgot a great pair of breasts. And now here she was, flesh and blood. If Wilder remembered the movie rightly, she had shown quite a bit of flesh, more than was currently being displayed. She smiled at him again, dimples this time, and he was pretty sure it was an invitation. He dropped his eyes to her long, thin legs and decided that as soon as he remembered the title of whatever she'd been in, he'd go to Savannah and get the DVD.

"And we've got a real helicopter pilot," Bryce was saying to him. "Karen Roeburn. She's Althea's stunt double, but she's a real pilot, too. She thought the helicopter stunt was okay." He finally ran down, uncertain. "But you said you don't like it because of the bridge cables, right?"

Wilder looked away from Althea's legs as Bryce's buzz penetrated. Female chopper pilot. His second ex-wife had been a chopper pilot.

Before he could say anything, Nash faced him. "I know what I'm doing. We can get the chopper down on the roadway with enough safety clearance."

Not if there's a wind, Wilder thought. The guy was a pro so he had to know that trying to land a helicopter on this bridge was dumb. What was up with him?

"Connor," Bryce said. "You should listen to J.T. He's my consultant."

Nash snorted. "He the one that got you that knife?"

"No, no, I got it." Bryce unsnappcd the leather stay and pulled the huge pig-sticker out or the leather sheath. "I had the props department order it special after I saw how my role was rewritten. I told them my character, Brad, would have a big knife. They got it custom made by this guy in Alabama. Same one who did Rambo's knife in First Blood."

Wilder truly believed he was going to have to get a rifle, climb a tower somewhere, and start shooting if one more person here said "Rambo." The blade was at least a foot long, the front edge honed razor-sharp, the back side serrated for-well, Wilder had no clue what Bryce would use that for other than cutting down a tree. If Bryce had shown that thing at Fort Bragg, the howls would have been heard all the way to Smoke Bomb Hill, where Special Forces had been founded long ago by manly men doing manly things with other men in a manly way. Wilder's first team sergeant had told him that line. He'd have told Bryce, but then he'd have had to listen to it for the rest of the shoot.

Bryce slashed the knife awkwardly through the air, making Althea step back.

"Careful," Wilder said automatically. "You never draw a weapon unless you mean to use it."

Bryce slashed again, almost nicking Althea, and Wilder slipped his hand under Bryce's extended arm, caught it at the wrist, twisted, and applied just a little pressure. Bryce screamed and dropped the weapon.

Wilder let go, feeling guilty, especially when Bryce turned those big puppy eyes on him. "What did you do that for?"

People were watching, including Althea, who was staring at the two of them as if making a decision. Wilder bent over and picked up the monstrosity. He felt the balance. Actually pretty good; he was sure the guy in Alabama knew what the hell he was doing. It was Bryce who didn't have a clue.

"Sorry." Wilder flipped the knife and caught it by the blade, extending the handle to Bryce, who eyed the proffered knife warily. He snatched it, almost slicing Wilder's palm open, slid it back in the sheath, and fastened the leather stay to keep it from falling out and impaling his foot.

"I don't get it." Bryce sounded like a kid whose mother had just questioned the drawing he'd done in school that day. "What don't you like about the knife? I got one for you, too, because you're going to be my stunt double."

"Thank you," Wilder said, trying to mean it.

"He's not doubling for you," Nash said, quiet but firm. "I heard your double left, but Doc can cover you." He nodded toward the round-faced stuntman in glasses hitting the craft services table. "He's an ex-Green Beret, just like your pal here."

"Doc doesn't look anything like me," Bryce said.

Wilder smiled, not his forte. "Please, coach, put me in?"

Nash smiled back at Wilder, and he was much better at it than Wilder was, even though the smile didn't reach his eyes. Perfect teeth. Fanned skin. Probably never had hangovers.

Nash shook his head. "He hasn't even read the script," he said to Bryce.

So you had to be a reader to make Nash's team? Yeah, that was tough. What the hell did these people know about being on a team anyway? There was only one kind of team for Wilder, a Special Forces A-Team, the eleven great guys he'd-

Althea shifted into Wilder's field of vision, and he lost his train of thought. He noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra under her thin, tight T-shirt. And the April evening was evidently a little chilly for her. Got to get that DVD.

"We about ready here?" he heard from behind him and turned. Armstrong stood there, the anti-Althea, tall and strong and in charge, not flirting with anybody, which was too bad. That would be something to see, Armstrong smiling, giving somebody the come-on. Probably that asshole Nash. Jesus.

"J.T. doesn't like my knife," Bryce said, and Armstrong turned those dark, steady eyes on Wilder.

Tough woman, he thought, his pulse picking up. Nothing like soft, bouncy Althea. Then he remembered the wind blowing her shirt back. Maybe a little bouncy-

"So I guess we'll have to change it," Bryce went on, close to whining. "I really want the knife, but once I saw the new ending, I went all the way to Fort Bragg and hired J.T. to help me make this real, so we should listen to him. For the movie."

Good for you, Wilder thought.

"And I would have been with you on that," Armstrong said, "if only you'd brought him in at the beginning. But it's the last four days of shooting and we can't afford to reshoot without the knife. I agree that authentic is good, but you filmed with the knife all last week, so that ship has sailed. Now let's get-"

"J.T.?" Bryce said.

Oh, fuck, here we go. Wilder felt bad for saying anything more, but Bryce was paying him to keep things authentic. "It's just not what Bryce's guy would wear. I know this Brad character is supposed to be an ex-Navy SEAL, and they are studs, no doubt about it."

Bryce stood slightly taller, trying to look the description. Wilder tried not to look at him.

"But they spend a lot of time in the water. That knife would tip a canoe over, never mind a swimmer. They carry dive knives. On their calves. And even if his character is only operating on land, you want something that can kill quickly. Your SEAL isn't going to get in a sword fight with a Roman gladiator and that's about all that knife is good for. He's going to sneak up behind someone late at night and slice his throat wide open or, just as good, but more difficult unless you're a pro, jam the blade up into the jaw to the brain so it's a quick and silent kill."

Armstrong winced, and Wilder ignored her.

"So, optimally, you want something slender, pointed, and double-edged. About six to eight inches long. And he's wearing it wrong." Wilder tapped the upside-down sheath that Bryce had the pig-sticker locked into. He stepped behind the actor, grabbed the handle, jerked it down and clear of the sheath, the leather stay giving way easily, then brought it up, the point a quarter inch from Bryce's jugular before Bryce could turn his head. "You want it in a place where you can easily access it, but the bad guy can't. And hell, if you got to use a knife, the shit has hit the fan anyway. I prefer a gun. Ten millimeter at ten feet. Double-tap in the forehead. Lights out."