Coming in sight of the front gate now, Baxter could see Kate standing out front, rifle slung, looking up at the sign, lost in thought. He gave a single sharp whistle – their signal for “friendlies, coming in” – and trotted up as she turned to face him.
“Where’s Jake?” he asked, breathing hard.
From his demeanor and the tone of his voice, Kate gathered Baxter hadn’t had a routine patrol – but rather had something urgent to report. Her brow furrowed. The most likely thing would be another herd.
She exhaled mournfully. They were all going to be homeless again. And this time, she thought, we’ll be living out of our boots…
“In his hooch,” she said.
Baxter grabbed her elbow and the two of them went and found Jake.
“What’s up?” he said, rising from a crouch as the two stuck their heads in.
“I’ve got to show you something,” Baxter said. The cadences of his speech were different, even from six months ago. Confident. He’d come into his own.
“How about you give us a preview?” Jake said.
Baxter shook his head. “No. You wouldn’t believe it if I did. You have to see this.”
“Okay,” Jake said. He grabbed his shit, including a weapon, and he and Kate followed Baxter out the gate and then toward the back side of the mountain. They picked up Zack from his garden along the way, then the four survivors climbed up the steep but passable back side of the summit, emerging onto the mountain’s bare and stark granite crown. As they crested it, coming over to face the seaward side, a vast vista of coast and ocean opened up beneath them.
And Baxter just pointed.
Twenty-five hundred meters below, and perhaps four or five miles out to sea, something was cutting through the water, leaving a wake that was long, deep, and wide. The white churn trailed behind visibly for at least two miles. And the fact that they could see the vessel itself at this distance meant it was big – seriously big.
Baxter produced a pair of binoculars and handed them to Jake. He brought them up to his eyes, dialed in, and stared out to sea for a few seconds.
Wordlessly, he handed them to Kate, who did the same.
Her gaze lingered for the better part of a minute.
When she finally lowered the binocs, her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Finally, frustrated, Zack grabbed them from her and panned around until he found what had silenced the others.
His mouth opened and then closed again, as he recognized what it was. Recognized it, even if he couldn’t believe it.
It was a nuclear supercarrier – and one of only two Ford-class carriers ever built.
And it was steaming straight into the Gulf of Aden.
Miss the beginning of the end of the world?
Return with Zack and Baxter to Hargeisa and live through the fall from ground zero in:
ARISEN : GENESIS, the bestselling first ARISEN prequel.
And the Zulu Alpha begins for real, in
ARISEN, BOOK ONE – FORTRESS BRITAIN.
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Thanks and Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank indispensable uber-readers Amanda Jo Moore and Mark George Pitely.
Thanks also and as always to Anna K. Brooksbank, Sara Natalie Fuchs, Richard S. Fuchs, Virginia Ann Sayers-King, Valerie Sayers, Matthew David Grabowy, and Michael and Jayne Barnard, for their indispensable support. Also, Bruce, Wanda, Alec, and Brendan Fyfe. Eternal thanks to Glynn James for coming up with Arisen.
The following books were somewhere on the spectrum from totally indispensable to very helpful to just inspirational in producing this one:
Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior, by Dick Couch
One Hundred Victories: Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare, by Linda Robinson
Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces, by Linda Robinson
The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan, by Eric Blehm
American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant, by Ann Scott Tyson
Roughneck Nine-One: The Extraordinary Story of a Special Forces A-team at War, by SFC Frank Antenori, U.S. Army (ret) and Hans Halberstadt
Modern American Snipers: From The Legend to The Reaper—on the Battlefield with Special Operations Snipers, by Chris Martin with SOFREP.COM
Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown, by Eric Blehm
The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield
The Profession, by Steven Pressfield
Bambi Vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business, by David Mamet
Which Lie Did I Tell? More Adventures in the Screen Trade, by William Goldman
The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, by Christopher Booker
Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder
(And, yes, if you’re wondering, my original story design for this long novel attempted to conform to the infamous Blake Snyder Beat Sheet. It kind of sprawled from there.)
These three articles were also pretty darned helpful:
“Triple Nickel” at Bagram – Special Operations Forces and Operation Enduring Freedom”, by John D. Gresham in Defense Media Network
“The Battle of Debecka Pass: Roughnecks at War”, also by John D. Gresham in Defense Media Network
“A Female CST and Special Forces Enabler Speaks Out”, by Jack Murphy in SOFREP
And one podcast:
Scriptnotes, by John August (“Segue Johnny”) and Craig Mazen
I owe a very particular debt to former Navy SEAL, Vietnam veteran, former CIA case officer, U.S. Naval Academy professor, and prolific author Dick Couch, who has done such an amazing job illuminating so many fascinating corners of the SOF world. Most of what I relate about U.S. Army Special Forces has come from his remarkable book about remarkable men, Chosen Soldier.
As so often, the vast majority of the characteristics and background details of characters in this book are taken from real-life military personnel (and, in most cases, I hope, mashed up beyond recognition of any one person). In this case, most of them came from the books Chosen Soldier, which is about scores of unbelievably skilled and devoted men going through SFAS and the Q Course, and One Hundred Victories, which is about the operational history of Special Forces doing counter-insurgency for a decade in Afghanistan. A few more tidbits come from the real SF guys in Masters of Chaos and The Only Thing Worth Dying For (the amazing and terrifying story of ODA 574). Point being: whatever you love and admire about the characters in this book are actually real characteristics of real Army Special Forces soldiers out there somewhere. They are that awesome – except doing it all for real. May the existence of real-life superheroes inspire you in your life and work as it has me in mine.
Here’s the real-life Kate, by the way:
Act Three of this book probably owes a debt to Lone Survivor, and the valor and brotherhood, in the direst extremity and even at the very end of everything, of Navy SEALs Marcus Luttrell, Michael Murphy, Danny Dietz, and Matt Axelson.
The descriptor “from nodded out to lethal in two seconds with no warning” was swiped from the awesome Steven Pressfield in his super amazing future-techno-military novel The Profession. Ditto “trying to melt into micro-features of the terrain” and “trying to crawl up into their own helmets”. If you like m
y stuff, you should really read this; it’s better.
The line about the goat and the slinky comes from Special Forces Alpha Geek.
The joke about the difference between an ODA and a Boy Scout troop is from Loren Schofield in SOFREP.
The expression “out there shooting people like it’s cool” is from Corporal Josh Ray Person in Generation Kill.
The whole description of why nobody brings a knife to a knife fight is from retired Unit sniper John “Shrek” McPhee, as recounted in Modern American Snipers. (You should seriously buy and read this book, by the way – the author has more and better access to real Tier-1 guys than almost anything I’ve ever read.) It also includes the account of Delta Master Sergeant Don Hollenbaugh’s single-handed defense of that Fallujah rooftop, for which he was awarded the Silver Star, and which is worth the price of the book alone (it’s why I bought it).
Knowing “how to suffer, how to shut up and keep humping” is a critical trick taught by Steven Pressfield in The War of Art.
The line “One problem at a time, Sarge. One problem at a time…” is from former Unit operator Frank MacAlyster, spoken after jumping out of an exploding airplane without a parachute, as related in perhaps the best special operations military memoir of all time, Inside Delta Force, by CSM Eric L. Haney. “Sergeants Major are the walking, breathing embodiment of Everything That’s Right in the U.S. Army.” is also from Haney.
Thanks to William Goldman for the concluding lines from the perfect ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The various debts owed to James Cameron’s Aliens probably need not be belabored.
Thanks to the amazing Tom Weber at MILPICTURES for the as always awesome cover artwork (he also did Books Two and Four of Arisen).
The entire playlist I wrote this book to is available here. Very special extra recognition goes out to:
Family Force 5, “Sweep the Leg” (which I played over and over and over every time I was exhausted and needed a boost)
Hollywood Undead, “Day of the Dead”
OPM, “Stash Up”
Rammstein, “Mein Teil” (if anybody out there knows a song with half as much energy as this, or that’s half as good to write over-the-top action to, I implore you to tell me about it)
Thanks also to The Royal Geographical Society, London (especially Annette); Antisocial, my unyielding, unhearing, unquittable taskmaster; and Transcribe Pro, for helping me deal with hundreds of hours of voice notes, all of it spoken around heavy panting.
ARISEN
Hope Never Dies.
Fans of the bestselling ARISEN series are calling it “Staggeringly good - the most consistently excellent franchise in zombie literature” … “Wall to wall adrenaline - edge of your seat unputdownable until the very last page” … “totally stunning in its originality” … “jaw dropping” … “moves like an avalanche” … “You can smell the smoke, feel the explosions, and hear the rounds headed down range” … “edge of the seat, nail biting, page turning mayhem” … “had me holding my breath more times than I could count” … “a knock down drag out kick ass read - the best ZA book series around, period” … “rolls along like an out of control freight train” … “Left me shaking at the last page…”
Humanity will return in
ARISEN, BOOK NINE – CATACLYSM
They are the most capable, committed, and indispensable counter-terrorist operators in the world.
They have no rivals for skill, speed, ferocity, intelligence, flexibility, and sheer resolve.
Somewhere in the world, things are going horrifyingly wrong…
Readers call the D-BOYS series “a high-octane adrenaline-fueled action thrill-ride”, “one of the best action thrillers of 2011 (or any year for that matter)”, “a riveting, fast paced classic!!”, “pure action”, “The Best Techno Military Thriller I have read!”, “Awesome!”, “Gripping”, “Edge of your seat action”, “Kick butt in the most serious of ways and a thrill to read”, “What a wild ride!!! I simply could not put this book down”, “has a real humanity and philosophical side as well”, “a truly fast action, high octane book”, “Up there with Clancy and W.E.B. Griffin”, “one of the best Spec Ops reads I have run into”, and “hi-tech and action in one well-rounded explosive thriller.”
Arisen : Nemesis Page 43