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Gray rushed forward, yanked away the mask, then ripped back the covers. He exposed what had been so chastely hidden.
Tucker fell to his knees in horror.
They were too late.
16
July 2, 8:30 A. M. EST
Washington, DC
“NO!”
The anguish in that single word, that long, sustained note of pain and grief, echoed off the walls of the small conference room. The First Lady swung away from the screen, covering her face as if to make the sight go away.
Her husband stood stiff, frozen, staring unblinking at the screen.
No one said a word—Teresa’s cry encompassed everything.
The last image remained fixed in Painter’s eye, when Gray pulled back the bedsheets. Someone had operated on Amanda, sliced her open from rib to pelvis, exposing the ruins of her empty uterus. They’d performed a C-section, stolen the baby, and left Amanda’s dead body behind like an empty husk.
On the screen now, Painter watched Gray swing away, grabbing up Tucker from the floor. The image bobbled wildly as the two men and the dog fled the cabin. He understood their haste. They’d all seen the barrels of kerosene, the glow of the explosive charge, and the timer counting down.
An image of running legs, a distant forest—then a bright blast that sent everyone tumbling forward. A fireball rolled overhead. The second barrel of kerosene rolled off to the side, jettisoned clear by the blast wave, leaving behind a trail of oil before it vanished out of view.
The audio feed frazzled, then went silent.
A moment later, Tucker’s face appeared as he checked on his dog. His mouth moved, but there was no sound. In the background, Gray got up on his hands and knees, hurriedly shrugging free his shoulder pack, which was on fire. He threw it aside and rolled in the dirt to put out the smoldering back of his shirt.
They’d live.
Painter should have felt relief—but he was not there yet.
Teresa burst out of her seat and into her husband’s arms. It was not to seek comfort. Her fists pummeled his body, sobs shook through her, weakening the effort. Tears flowed down her face.
“This is your fault!” she yelled into his chest as James Gant pulled his wife tight to him. “All our fault … they … they cut my baby open!”
She sagged in her husband’s arms, pressing her face into his chest, still shaking her head, trying to dismiss what she saw.
He held her up, looking over the crown of her head at Painter.
Anger burned through the raw grief in his stony eyes, directed at Painter, at Sigma.
The president’s brother stood and gently coaxed the grieving parents toward the door. “Go, Jimmy,” Robert urged. “Take care of your wife. We can handle matters from here. ”
Gant didn’t resist. The pair, still wrapped together, bonded by unimaginable grief and horror, slipped out of the room, gathering Secret Service men in their wake.
The defense secretary, Warren Duncan, placed a hand on Robert’s shoulder. “Sir, why don’t you go, too? Family should be together during times like this. ”
Robert’s normally gentle and even tone turned acerbic. His gaze passed over Painter, scorching him with his bitterness. “Someone in the family should bear witness to the end of this fucked-up mission. ”
Painter’s boss closed his eyes and gave the smallest shake of his head, utterly embarrassed and defeated.
On the screen, the dog’s-eye view showed a pair of trucks careening into the campsite, guns silently blazing from their side windows.
Despite the futility of the operation, it wasn’t over.
3:34 P. M. East Africa Time
Cal Madow mountains, Somalia
“Go for cover!” Gray hollered.
He ran with Tucker and Kane away from the blasted ruins of the cabin. Black smoke swirled across the camp as flaming debris littered the ground and continued to drift down in flaming bits of tent fabric. The thick pall of smoke offered them enough cover to make a break for the forest as two Land Rovers skidded into the camp from the road.
Automatic fire sprayed from windows, mostly directed back the way they’d come, aiming for the others hidden in the forest. A furious firefight continued back there; likely his team had managed to ambush the third vehicle from the roadblock, but that battle was still far from over.
Before Gray, Tucker, and Kane could reach the shelter of the forest, their retreat was spotted. Gunfire ripped toward them. Kane yelped and sped faster. Tucker gave chase—but not before Gray grabbed the man’s rifle out of his fingers.
He swung it toward the Rovers and fired, cracking one of the side windows and forcing the shooter to duck.
“Go!” Gray yelled to Tucker. “Make for the others!”
Gray ran to the side, drawing fire. One of the Rovers fishtailed in the sandy soil and sped back toward the road, intending to go to the aid of the embattled third truck. The last Rover circled the smoking ruins of the cabin, coming around to face Gray head-on.
Then a new noise cut through the peppering blasts.
The gunplay lulled for a breath as the others heard it, too.
The thump-thump of a helicopter grew louder.
Gray searched the skies, knowing it was too soon for the SEAL team to arrive—and he was right. A familiar military-gray chopper rushed across the treetops, coming from the direction of the main road. It was the same attack helicopter that had laid waste to the UNICEF base.
It seemed all of the hens were returning to roost.
A whistling rocket screamed from the chopper’s undercarriage, blazing a trail of fire and smoke. It streaked down and slammed into the hood of the Rover headed toward the forest. The truck flipped end-over-end—then exploded as it landed.
Gray crouched, stunned.
Overhead, gunfire chattered from the open door of the chopper’s rear cabin as it rushed past. A familiar figure hung out the door, pointing his weapon below.
Captain Trevor Alden.
Gray remembered his last view of the British soldier, manning the turret of the Ferret armored car, guns blazing. He must have somehow forced the chopper down and commandeered it for the British Special Forces. Then he’d come looking for them.
A decision the captain might still regret.
The second Rover, which had braked to a stop with the arrival of the helicopter, believing them allies, gunned its engine and raced across the camp. The chopper had to swing around, twisting in midair to bring its rockets to bear.
A soldier popped out of the Rover’s open sunroof, hauling and balancing the black tube of a grenade launcher on his shoulder. At such close range, the shooter could not miss.
Gray lifted his rifle, but the Rover zigzagged crazily across the fiery camp. He’d never hit the soldier holding the launcher. But he found something that wasn’t moving.
The second barrel of kerosene, blasted free by the explosion, lay on its side in a pool of leaking oil. The Rover, its driver focused above, sped toward it—or at least close enough. Gray couldn’t trust firing into the barrel itself. Despite what had been portrayed in movies, such shots seldom caused an explosion.
Instead, he needed to light the barrel’s wick.
Cocking his eye to the scope, he fired into a neighboring smoking section of floor planking. The wood exploded and rained fiery slivers across the pool of kerosene. Flames flared where they landed and chased across the oil’s surface, aiming for the leaking barrel.
The Rover then sped across and blocked his view.
Had he timed it—?
The explosion blew a fireball into the sky and shoved the truck to the side. Flaming oil blasted through the open windows, setting fire to everything.
Screams rang out.
A door fell open, revealing the hell inside.
Then the stockpile of grenades exploded within the cabin, shattering apart the Rov
er.
Gray ducked.
The helicopter dove away, churning through the smoke.
Straightening back up, Gray realized—after his ears stopped ringing—that all the gunfire had ended. He turned and saw Kowalski and Seichan enter the camp from the road, shouldering the thin form of Jain between them. The trio must have dispatched the last truck on their own, but not without a cost. The major limped on one leg, the other bled fiercely.
“She’s shot!” Kowalski bellowed.
Jain frowned up at him. “I’m fine. It’s your bloody body odor that might kill me before this little scratch. ”
Still, Alden must have witnessed the injury to his teammate.
The chopper tilted to the side and sought a safe place to land.
Tucker also returned from the forest with his dog. Gray noted the eye of the camera facing him. His satellite phone was likely melted to slag inside the ruins of his smoldering shoulder pack.
The sting of the burn along his back flared as he searched the debris. He needed to communicate with Painter. This couldn’t wait. But the director had warned him that the audio pickup was crap on the dog’s video feed. Gray could not let this next message be misconstrued.
He found a piece of tent fabric, burned at the edges, and used the tip of a charred stick to write a short note.
He prayed it reached Painter.
8:44 A. M. EST
Washington, DC
Smoke obscured most of the view of the fiery camp. There was little else to see on the video, especially as the helicopter landed, stirring up a whirlwind of debris.
Painter wasn’t the only one to realize the same.
The defense secretary still stood beside Robert Gant with a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Go,” Duncan said. “This is over, Bobby. Join your family. They need you now more than we do. ”
Robert continued to stare at the monitor, but Painter suspected he didn’t see anything, lost in the depths of the tragedy.
Finally, a rattling sigh escaped him. He stared at Painter, but the fire there had snuffed out in his eyes, leaving only a dull grief. He looked a decade older than his sixty-six years. He simply patted Duncan’s side and exited without a word.
But the defense secretary was not done. He pointed at Painter’s boss, his voice stone-cold. “I would have a word with you, General Metcalf. In private. ”
“I understand. ” Metcalf cast Painter a withering glance.
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