What a hypocritical ideology, she thought. Driving and going to school are forbidden, but women can become suicide bombers and saboteurs for the sake of jihad.
Today, Chase was flying with a Pilot who had been transferred from the U.S.S. Ramer, a carrier headed home for repair following a 9/11-style kamikaze dive that claimed the lives of nineteen Sailors. Each insider attack further degraded trust and morale; and the merging of Pilots from the Stellate and Ramer exacerbated the problem. Unfamiliar faces and unproven loyalties had everyone on edge.
A second Raptor glided into formation beside her, and they headed north toward the Japanese coast. Chase couldn’t help wondering about the other Pilot. Would he have her back? Or shoot her in the back?
On the horizon, floating like a child’s toy, she spotted the suspicious cruise ship. Two hundred miles off the southern tip of Japan, the vessel had issued a Mayday and continued steaming toward the carrier group, ignoring the Navy’s directive to alter course.
She frowned, imagining the propaganda coup: U.S. sinks cruise ship, killing thousands of civilians. Then she groaned considering the alternative: civilian vessel rams aircraft carrier, knocking it out of commission. Chase recalled the forty-foot gash in the U.S.S. Cole, a guided-missile destroyer rammed by a small, explosive-laden boat in the Port of Aden. Could it happen again on a more heinous scale?
The cruise ship enlarged before her eyes, continuously, smoothly, as if the cockpit were a zooming telephoto camera lens.
An explosion tore through the ship’s upper deck and ejected a hazy cloud above the bow.
A second blast erupted.
A third.
The detonations continued at perfect intervals, marching toward the ship’s stern, each inflating and expanding the smoky cloud like a massive glob of bubblegum.
Radiation sensors jumped to a hundred times normal levels.
Chase banked the jet and entered a steep climb to avoid the radiation, an invisible menace chugging at ten knots.
The vessel had never been in distress.
And it was not a cruise ship.
It was a well-disguised weapon of mass destruction.
128G
ABBY PEERED THROUGH squinted eyelids, trying to remember what had happened. Her head felt like it had been run over by a Humvee. She vaguely remembered tussling for the AK-47 and falling. But then what?
How long had she been unconscious? Abby’s legs and feet felt numb and tingly. Her right hand slid along her cargo pants, groping for her folding knife. She would not be brutalized like that girl at the swing set. If she was destined to die today, she would do it fighting.
A salvo of gunfire began reverberating through her skull, intensifying her headache.
Don’t move, she told herself. Play dead.
She concentrated on taking shallow breaths to minimize the rise and fall of her chest. She kept her eyes fixed beneath closed lids, knowing the subtlest sign of life could invite a spate of bullets.
The gunfire abruptly ceased. Footsteps were drawing closer, and Abby squeezed the knife, reminding herself to aim for the jugular.
129G
RYAN ANDREWS SAT IN the mess hall at Camp Sunshine, analyzing his food, unsure what it was. It looked like random cans of vegetables and mystery meat in a broth of watered-down catsup with a few mushy potatoes protruding above the slop.
It’s too nasty to be lethal, he decided; then defying his taste buds, he downed the food.
As he left the mess hall, Ryan saw Soldiers fortifying the adjacent FEMA camp with watchtowers, razor-wire fencing, and cement barricades. Would civilians be safer near the base? Or would it make them a target?
Terrorists had struck Camp Sunshine with mortars, a Predator drone, and a preschool suicide bomber—safety was an illusion.
His eyes swept the tent city, lingering on the massive steel towers flanking the main gate. In the name of security, a rational case could be made for all of it: the gun confiscations, the seizure of personal possessions, the collection of fingerprints and biometric data to be cross-checked against terrorist databases. Logical and sane given recent history, but he couldn’t help wondering if freedom would become collateral damage.
Ryan checked the time and hurried toward command quarters. As he entered the office, Captain Rodriguez was gnawing the end of his pen, lost in thought.
“Staff Sergeant Andrews reporting as ordered, sir.”
Rodriguez tossed the pen aside with a disgruntled sigh. “Your recent operation at the Astatula warehouse ... It has been alleged that you desecrated a Koran.”
The accusation hit like an emotional flash bang. “Sir, I have ripped the bolts from a few AK-47s and goaded the enemy into shooting at me, but I have never laid a finger on a Koran.”
“Then why would one of your colleagues report otherwise?”
“Because I know he instigated that firefight at Lake Louisa. He tipped off the enemy with a flashlight—”
“That’s your opinion. The other members of your team could not say with a hundred percent certainty that it wasn’t a lightning reflection.”
“And the hot ammo? Was that lightning too?”
Rodriguez’ eyes narrowed in displeasure. “There have been breaches in Army supply lines. All MREs and ammunition are being inspected. As for the issue at hand, I’ll be launching a full investigation.”
Ryan blinked in stunned silence, his thoughts fishtailing dangerously. Why is Rodriguez protecting a traitor? Is he one of them?
“With all due respect, when I requested an investigation, I was told a man’s career couldn’t be jeopardized based on an unproven accusation, sir.”
“The Army has a zero tolerance policy in these matters—”
“And a hundred percent tolerance when it comes to traitors? After DJ shouts, ‘Allahu Akbar’ and shoots me, are you going to chalk it up to workplace violence, sir?”
Rodriquez’ face reddened. The veins on his neck looked like they had exploded beneath his skin. “Don’t tell me how to do my job, Staff Sergeant! Dis-missed!”
130G
THE SIGHT OF ABBY’S blood-soaked hair made Bradley feel like his internal organs were shattering in slow motion.
This is my fault. I brought her here. I gave the order to engage.
Distraught, he grabbed the dead savage slumped atop Abby and hurled him against the metal hangar. Bradley’s knees buckled. He dropped onto the ground beside her, then her right arm swung wildly, wielding a knife.
He lunged backward.
The blade glinted an inch from his face. “Abby, it’s me!”
Pulling herself upright, she said, “Could’ve used that intel a minute ago.”
He wrapped his arms around her, listening to her breathe, feeling her heartbeat against his chest.
“Um, Bradley—isn’t hugging on the battlefield against protocol?”
“I thought I lost you. God, I love you.”
“Not tonight, honey,” she said, fingers probing her bleeding wound. “I’ve got a headache.”
Bradley zipped past the joke, focusing on the half-inch, swollen gash running parallel to her hairline. “What the hell happened?”
“A butt stock must’ve knocked me out.” She glanced toward the savage crumpled against the hangar. “And you saved my life—again.”
No, Bradley thought, rifling through his backpack for his first aid kit. I’m the one who put you in harm’s way.
He cleansed the wound with an antiseptic wipe; and once he’d stemmed the bleeding, he applied a glob of antibiotic ointment.
“Do you feel dizzy? Any blurred vision?”
“I’m fine,” she said, rising to her feet.
“Just sit down and take it easy.”
“Don’t start treating me like some fragile glass doll,” she said, flashing that pissed-off pout.
He looked away to avoid falling under its spell. “Abby, you almost got killed—”
“So did you. The other day at overwatch.”
“Listen, th
is isn’t a debate. You follow orders. Period!”
“Would you coddle your Marine buddies like this?”
She tagged a caustic “sir” onto the question that sent his temper soaring.
“Damn it, Abby, you are not a Soldier. You are sixteen.”
Tapping the heel of her hand to her forehead in mock revelation, she said, “You’re right. Instead of shooting Mr. IRGC, I should’ve been in my room, playing with my freaking coloring books!”
The underlying truth in her sarcasm only incensed him more; and through gritted teeth, he growled, “Abby, sit down, now! And that’s a freaking order!”
She settled onto the ground, arms barricading her chest, and leaned back against the radar truck’s front tire.
Bradley stomped toward the pallet of military supplies and began sorting its contents into piles: claymore mines and C-4, blasting tubes and detonators, grenades and ammunition.
Gramps was right, he thought. I never should’ve brought Abby here today.
He rehashed the argument as he worked, annoyed that she was twisting his concern for her safety into some kind of chauvinistic conspiracy. Of course he would treat the guys in his unit differently, and it had nothing to do with gender. They were adults; Abby wasn’t.
The thought was an electrical shock to his nervous system, and it spawned a damning question: If she’s not an adult, why the hell are you sleeping with her?
“These are so-o-o cool.”
His puzzled gaze seesawed from Abby’s last known position by the radar truck to the origin of her voice, behind him. Wonder twinkled in her eyes; her cheeks glowed with excitement. Bradley had seen that expression on a woman’s face before—in response to designer shoes and jewelry—but never grenades.
With equal parts exasperation and amusement, he said, “Didn’t I just order you to sit down?”
“Yes, but you never specified whether I should sit for one minute or one hour. So I used my own judgment.”
“FYI: you follow an existing order until you’re given a new one.”
Countering his scowl with an insolent smirk, she said, “According to Sun Tsu’s The Art of War, if orders are not explicit, it’s the commander’s fault.” Then she marched off and began collecting weapons from the dead paratroopers.
Muttering under his breath, Bradley dumped the contents of his backpack onto the grass, slid a roll of duct tape along his forearm, then put two claymore mines into his bag. He packed the remaining space with C-4 bricks and a wire spool with a blasting cap and detonator already attached.
He watched Abby drop rifles, handguns, and ammunition into a pile beside the missile battery, noting that she was walking with a slow, bumbling gait.
“Abby, why are you limping?”
She hesitated as if formulating a credible excuse, then said, “I, uh, tried to adapt one of those defensive moves you taught me to an AK-47, and a kick to the ankle knocked me on my ass.”
Aggravated that a butt stock to the head was not the full story and amazed that she hadn’t panicked, Bradley said, “Damn it, Abby, why didn’t you scream? I would’ve gotten there sooner—”
“Because the savage wanted me to bait you. But if I was going to die, I wasn’t about to take you with me.”
He gazed past her while his emotions and thoughts tangled into a knot of nausea.
Staring down the barrel of an AK-47, knowing damned well what these men were capable of—and she was trying to protect me?
It was the same courage that compelled a man to throw himself onto a grenade to save his squad—selfless and heroic for a Soldier.
Not for his girlfriend.
Seeing her bloodied on the ground, believing that he had gotten her killed—that moment had changed everything for Bradley. Suddenly, he hated the prospect of Abby engaging in firefights; and he felt a compelling and irrational urge to quash her Sniper aspirations.
131G
SNIPER OMID GHORBANI and his partner, Hamid Khadem, snapped to attention as the Captain entered the warden’s office inside the Jacksonville Women’s Correctional Facility, a makeshift base for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Prior to the EMP, they had infiltrated the porous U.S. border, secreted away by a network of radical safe houses patterned after the American Underground Railroad of the 1860s. Shia and Sunni jihadists, mortal enemies for more than a millennium, had pledged to suspend their hostilities and band together in order to purge the United States and Israel from the earth. Only then would Shia and Sunni square off against each other in the battle for the caliphate.
The IRGC’s mission—to act as advisors and facilitate the demise of America—had been hindered by undisciplined Sunni jihadists and well-armed infidels, making an infusion of additional troops necessary.
“Despite assurances of security,” the Captain began, “we encountered serious resistance at Haywood Field.”
“The embedded spy failed to provide warning?” Omid asked.
“Dajjal may have been compromised,” the Captain said, contempt for the Saudi Arabian Sunni evident in his tone. The Arabic word Dajjal meant deceiver, a fitting code name for a jihadist masquerading as a member of the Great Satan’s military.
“Our aircraft has been shot down,” the Captain continued. “Radio transmissions indicate that our airborne troops, who jumped prior to missile impact, came under fire. Although the U.S. fighter jets involved have been eliminated, the ground forces remain at large. Because our spies had no knowledge of the ground assault, we believe it could have been an off-the-books black ops team or a highly skilled group of military Veterans. They pose a grave threat to Operation Sunburn. Your mission is to hunt down these forces. And eliminate that threat.”
132G
BRADLEY PEELED AWAY the green casing on a dozen bricks of C-4 and molded the plastic explosives into a large block. He jabbed a blasting tube into the center, bent the wire, and taped it in position to be sure it would not pull loose; then he repeated the process.
After loading enemy handguns, rifles, and magazines into an empty missile canister on the Patriot battery, Bradley inserted a wired block of C-4. He let the spool drop, unwinding as it plummeted to the ground, then he jumped down from the truck.
He wedged the second block inside the landscape trailer, amidst ten stolen Stinger missile launchers, then piled cases of air-dropped grenades and claymore mines on top.
The late afternoon sun had vanished behind a wall of ominous clouds, and the breeze was carrying intermittent peals of thunder.
We need to get moving, he thought, slinging his backpack and Abby’s onto his shoulder.
“I can carry my own bag,” she said, irritated by the gesture.
“I crammed all my stuff into your backpack, so it’s heavier than usual. And you don’t need extra weight on that ankle.”
She glanced at the layer of duct tape Bradley had applied, an improvised ace bandage, and nodded grudgingly. Then they crossed the runway heading southwest, unraveling two thousand feet of wire, stepping around dead paratroopers.
From each plastic spool, Bradley detached the detonator, a small T-shaped plunger that needed to be pulled outward. “You want to set one off?”
Abby chewed her fingernails feigning fear. “Sounds dangerous. The blast wave could mess up my hair.”
He tilted his head side to side as if evaluating her locks. “Trust me. It could only help.”
Smirking, she snatched the plunger from his hand.
An enormous shock wave raced through ground and air. Bradley could feel the destructive power buzzing against his skin, and he couldn’t stop grinning. Columns of smoke rose against the sky, roiling and twisting with a morbid gracefulness. Blinding white flares shot skyward and sliced through the churning blobs, which seemed to spit them out like streaks of lightning.
Abby was laughing hysterically, even more thrilled than Bradley. “Un—be—lievable. Can I have some C-4?”
Looking askance at her, Bradley said, “Hell no. Come on. Let’s get
out of here.”
“Did you ever think you’d see the IRGC airborne over Florida?” Abby asked.
“What makes you think they’re Iranian troops?”
From the cargo pocket of her pants, Abby produced a handful of black headbands, the same type he’d removed from two of the dead savages at Sugar Lake. “They weren’t wearing them. I found them stuffed in pockets.”
Eyeing her suspiciously, Bradley said, “Are you withholding any other information I should know about?”
“Their uniforms were U.S. Army, complete with common surnames—Smith, Johnson, Williams, Jones. Rank insignias ranged from Corporal to Sergeant. Rifles were M4s with six extra mags; handguns, Beretta 9mm with one extra mag. Seven of your shots hit center mass, one to the throat, one to the head. Three guys were hit twice; left shoulder, right elbow, and left thigh.”
“And what did they eat for breakfast?”
“Unclear,” she told him. “But seven were sporting boxers and two were going commando.”
Bradley felt his jaw drop.
Abby broke into a wide grin. “Smart-ass questions will be met with smart-ass answers, sir!”
Ping-ponging between respect for Abby’s observational skills and the urge to throw her and her rifle into the lake, Bradley noted that her stride had slowed noticeably. Worse still, the wind was picking up; the storm front was closing; he needed to find shelter.
“Abby, hold your rifle up over your head.”
With a quizzical squint, she followed his order. He squatted slightly, wrapped his left arm around Abby’s thighs, and lifted her onto his shoulder.
“You can’t carry me all the way back.”
“The hell I can’t.” This would be a cakewalk compared to the nine-hour, twenty-three-mile trek during Sniper training. Would Abby survive those grueling demands? Mentally, she was tough, able to think and act in high-stress situations, but could she physically lug an injured Soldier? The question magnified his internal battle, his conscience rooting for her, his heart rooting against her—in the name of safety.
“Come on, Bradley. Let me walk. I hate being carried.”
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