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Mason stopped a second before a hail of bullets slammed into the corner. “No kidding,” he thought before running after Zeus. The grenade exploded behind them, and Zeus ducked off into a ruined shop with Mason fast on his heels.

  Inside, the ceiling had collapsed, and the debris left behind formed a ramp leading up to the adjacent building. Zeus closed the door behind Mason, who, ignoring the pain in his ankle, thundered up to the top.

  He reached the top and searched for a way forward. Most of the floor was gone, but a metal beam provided a narrow crossing to the other side. “Come on, Zeus.”

  He could feel the floor creaking under his weight as he crossed, and on the other side Mason saw a stairwell partially blocked by wooden beams and concrete blocks. They were able to squeeze through a tiny, jagged opening, and made their way back down to the ground floor.

  The distant gunfire rose and fell in sporadic pops and cracks followed by moments of ear-shattering silence. Mason knew that the fighters were probing the strike team’s perimeter and prayed Renee could hold on.

  A firefight reminded him of a conversation between strangers. It started and stopped awkwardly until both sides felt comfortable and then it picked up in urgency.

  Mason pushed down the hallway, heading toward the back of the building, where part of the wall was missing. Hugging the shadows, he had a clear view of the street and the thick column of smoke drifting over the buildings.

  “What do you think?” he whispered as Zeus moved behind him.

  “Going out there is suicide, so I’m sure you’re going to want to do it,” he replied.

  Mason gave him a slight push, a grin slipping across both their faces.

  Zeus was right: the street was swarming with jihadists, the majority of whom were spraying the sides of a building twenty feet away. A man knelt down with an RPG and prepared to fire. Just before he pulled the trigger, his head snapped back, and Mason noticed a helmet disappear below the edge of the rooftop.

  “Looks like we found them,” he muttered.

  “So what do you want to do?”

  The two men didn’t have many options, and Mason had no intention of leaving cover without a plan. He was still trying to devise one when a technical screeched to a halt outside their position and began unloading fighters. A gunner stood behind the DShK mounted in the back, scanning for targets. Mason noted him carefully, intent on taking advantage of the opportunity before it passed. It was obvious that the men deploying in the street received some form of training. They ensured that they had interlocking fields of fire, but none of them bothered to check the building behind them, allowing Mason to choose when to strike.

  He waited until five men had their backs to the gunner before panning to the opposite side of the hole. A tall Arab stood talking on a tiny cell phone, a cigarillo clutched in his hand. Unlike the rest of the men, he was armed with only a pistol, and his camo uniform was relatively clean.

  “Yes, yes, we are about to attack,” he said into the phone, kicking at a piece of expended brass with the toe of his boot. “What do you mean, more helicopters are coming? This is not what I was told.”

  The man looked up just as Mason punched his muzzle through the hole and fired. He didn’t wait to watch the man fall; he simply pivoted toward the gunner and fired two rounds into the man’s back.

  “Grab that phone, Zeus,” he yelled, jumping out into the street and clambering into the back of the Toyota Hilux.

  The driver turned to see what was going on behind him, and the truck lurched forward as Zeus fired through the back window. The jihadist’s brains spattered across the windshield and Mason manhandled the DShK onto target.

  “Holy shit, dude,” he yelled at Zeus, “Can’t you wait until I’m out of the way?”

  Zeus shrugged, moving to cover while Mason opened fire.

  The recoil from the heavy machine gun jarred Mason’s forearms as he swept the barrel down the street, cutting the high-explosive rounds across the backs of the men shooting at the building. He worked methodically, pausing to engage a man firing wildly at him from the hip.

  A bullet whined past his head, forcing him to duck. Yet Mason never took his finger off the trigger. The expended brass pinged off the metal bed and an RPG screamed overhead, exploding behind him. “Get this thing moving,” Mason yelled.

  The Libyan threw open the door, yanking the corpse from behind the wheel, and dumped him unceremoniously onto the ground.

  More rounds cracked past Mason’s head, thumping into the cab of the truck. His brain yelled for him to get down, but he wasn’t going to allow Zeus to get hit.

  Zeus grinded the truck into gear and slammed on the gas. Mason lost control of the DShK and tumbled backward, barely managing to grab onto the mount that had been welded crudely to the floor. Mason reached up for the DShK and pulled himself to his feet, firing at the fighters caught in the open.

  “Friendlies,” he screamed as they sped toward the building he hoped Renee was using for cover, careful to keep the barrel pointed down the street.

  The front left tire blew, sending shards of rubber thumping into the wheel well and the rim cutting into the road. Zeus fought for control, trying desperately to veer away from an imminent collision with the building. He locked up the brakes, spinning the wheel hard to the right, and once again Mason’s grip slipped off the gun.

  He was already off balance when the Hilux finally skidded to a halt, and unable to check his forward momentum Mason went tumbling out of the bed and onto the ground.

  “Blue, blue, blue,” Zeus yelled, using the US military’s code for friendly forces.

  He threw the door open, his AK chattering in his hand as Mason lay awkwardly on the ground, the breath knocked out of him.

  “Get up,” Zeus shouted, grabbing Mason by his wounded arm and dragging him around the corner toward the door, which suddenly swung open.

  Mason worked to catch his breath, seemingly content to let his friend drag him to safety once inside. Zeus dumped him in a corner just as a soldier slammed the door shut behind him. The soldier turned, and Mason smiled at the mixture of surprise and relief covering her face.

  “What’s up?” he coughed.

  CHAPTER 16

  * * *

  SecDef Cage knew that President John Bradley was pissed. What had started out as a simple smash and grab had turned into a shit sandwich, and since it was technically his operation, he knew he had to take a big ol’ bite.

  He’d done his best to give the president plausible deniability, but he couldn’t keep a lid on the fact that the situation in Syria had gone sideways. There was a thin line between strategy and stupidity, and according to President Bradley he’d taken up permanent residence in the latter.

  “How could you be so . . . fucking stupid?” Bradley shouted.

  The president hated profanity, and Cage knew that on the rare occasions when his boss cursed, it was because he was furious. Not that the SecDef blamed him, especially after the briefing he’d just finished giving.

  The SecDef hated the White House Situation Room. It was too small and way too clean. He was used to making decisions on the battlefield, in the dirt with his men, but, unfortunately, that time had passed. He waited for Bradley to calm down, hoping he still had enough stroke to calm the leader of the free world.

  The burnished mahogany table and light-blue walls made him feel like he was in the conference room of a hotel, as opposed to the bowels of the White House. At the far end of the table, General Madewell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sat stoically in his Marine Corps uniform, his medals glinting from the overhead lights.

  It seemed a lifetime ago that Cage had that very same job, and he could almost guarantee he knew what was going through the man’s mind.

  “Answer me,” Bradley yelled, forcing Cage to return his attention to the president.

  “Sir, it was a routine operation; it just went bad,” National Security Advisor Simmons said from his spot to the right of the president.

 
“When this appears on CNN in the morning, do you think it’s going to look ‘routine’?”

  What no one else in the room realized was that Simmons and Cage had prepared for this meeting four months ago, and now all they needed was a moment of calm so they could redirect the conversation.

  “Mr. President, if I may.” Craig O’Neil, Bradley’s chief of staff interjected, placing his hand on his boss’s shoulder. The president looked up at his most trusted advisor, his face red with anger. “Mr. Secretary,” he went on, “can you please explain why you thought it was a good idea to launch a military operation inside a sovereign nation without bothering to inform the president?”

  Cage cleared his throat and prepared to deliver the lines he’d been rehearsing in his head.

  Bradley had originally brought Cage on as his national security advisor in hopes that the ex-chairman of the Joint Chiefs could help him deal with the Middle East without being pulled into another war. Eight months ago, the administration found itself in the exact situation Bradley desperately wished to avoid when Colonel Barnes—the commander of an off-the-books black-ops team—went off the reservation and tried to drive the US into a war with Syria.

  Unbeknown to the president, Cage had been neck deep in Colonel Barnes’s plan but, at the last moment, Mason Kane managed to thwart the unsanctioned operation. Cage had barely managed to shift the blame onto the acting secretary of defense, and when Bradley asked him to take the now vacant position, the president unknowingly played right into his hands. Ever since, Cage had been biding his time, waiting for another opportunity to avenge the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan and keep the promise he’d made to his dying wife.

  “Well, the operation was time sensitive, and since it fell under joint DOD and CIA control, I had to make a decision or risk losing our window.”

  The president held up his hand. “Stop right there,” he said sharply. Then, turning to Simmons: “Jacob, did he confer with you on any of this?”

  “Yes sir, and I backed it a hundred percent. I completely understand your anger, but you have to realize that there is a very good chance that we just killed one of al Nusra’s top commanders, along with a high-level Iranian operative.”

  “This is total bullshit,” Craig exploded.

  Cage had been waiting for the outburst, and, like a lion pouncing on a gazelle, he attacked. “Your job is to advise the president, mine is to keep this country safe,” he began. “You can say what you want about the operation, but not only did my decision save American lives, but it also provided the president with the plausible deniability that he needs.”

  Bradley liked the sound of that better. “Duke, you know how I feel about us all working together on these tough issues, but you have to understand my point of view. I mean, how the hell does it look to have my secretary of defense running operations without my approval?”

  “I totally understand that, sir,” Cage replied, pretending to be contrite. “This one is on me, sir.”

  Bradley was appeased, and the SecDef could see that the president was ready to welcome him back into the fold. It was time to capitalize and maybe gain a few much-needed approval points.

  “How sure are you that we got the two targets?”

  “Sir, we need to clear the objective before we get any hard evidence, but I feel really good about it. It was a clean strike,” he lied.

  “Tell me about this Khalid fellow.”

  Simmons, also sensing the shift in momentum, motioned grandly to the packet in front of President Bradley. It was a seamless transition, and the others in the room never realized they were being played.

  “Khalid al Hamas’s primary job is to enable state actors to prosecute actions against the US and Israel,” Simmons began. “He has been actively arming rebels in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon for the last five years.”

  Cage allowed Simmons to lay out Khalid’s bona fides, and almost felt bad that he was keeping one piece of information to himself. He hadn’t told his friend that the Iranian had managed to capture Boland a few weeks before the operation kicked off, and he sure as hell didn’t tell him about the equipment he’d taken off their operative.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Simmons, but Cage had learned long ago that successful operations needed to stay compartmentalized.

  “So he was in Syria on a visit?” Bradley asked.

  “Well, actually, he was there on behalf of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS in Iraq.”

  “Whoa, hold on. There is a connection between them as well?”

  “Yes sir. Baghdadi needs al Nusra’s fighters to back his power play in Iraq.”

  “Craig, I thought you said he wasn’t going to be a problem,” the president said pointedly to his cowed chief of staff.

  “Mr. President, this is all speculation—” O’Neil began.

  “That is not entirely accurate,” General Madewell suddenly added. “As much as I hate telling two army boys that they are right,” he said with a barely perceptible smile, “I believe that they are dead-on with their assessment.”

  The president shot an angry glance at O’Neil. Cage knew this was not what Bradley wanted to hear, especially given that he’d already dodged one bullet in Syria. Bradley had no interest in tempting fate, but the facts they were presenting didn’t give him many options.

  “How long before the media finds out that we have two helos down?”

  Cage seized control of the discussion. “Sir, there isn’t any media in the area, and even if there was, who cares? The media isn’t the problem here; the problem is the fact that unless you authorize us to put more assets in the area, we aren’t going to be able to ascertain if the two targets are down or get our men out.”

  “The last thing I want to do is send troops back to the Middle East,” the president warned.

  “No one is asking for more troops,” Cage said. “We know they are heading to Iraq. If we can slip the reins off the task force and get a few eyeballs across the border, we have a good chance of nipping this thing in the bud.”

  “Damn it, Duke, you’re asking for a lot.”

  No matter what the president decided, Cage was done watching politicians tiptoe around the fact that there was still a war going on. He believed firmly that a storm was building on the horizon, and in the end, the president was going to be seen as either a coward or a hero. It really didn’t matter to him which one.

  “General Madewell, do you agree?” Bradley asked, turning his gaze to the JCS chairman.

  “The Joint Special Operations Command was built for this type of thing, sir. If you want to smash it before it gets out of hand, all you have to do is give the word,” Madewell replied.

  Bradley was wilting under the triple attack. “So are we talking about limited strikes, or what?”

  “I think we let the commanders see what they can do with a limited footprint; maybe put a handful of advisors on the ground, and then we just pound the shit out of them,” the general said, not wanting to limit his options.

  “What about our guys on the ground?”

  “Well, hell, sir, that’s not a problem at all.” General Madewell smiled, his famous Texas drawl on bold display. “You give me the word, and I’ll have a couple of F-18s bomb those assholes back into the Stone Age. Then we’ll walk on in and get our people back.”

  Bradley looked like he was in pain. This was exactly the course of action he didn’t want to take, as Cage knew very well.

  “Damn it, okay, go get our people back. But I want your word that this is going to stay contained.”

  “Mr. President, please,” O’Neil begged.

  The president held up his hand again to forestall any further argument. To Cage he said, “Get it done.”

  “Yes sir,” the SecDef replied, fighting the impulse to pump his fist in victory.

  CHAPTER 17

  * * *

  Savage 6, this is Edge 2. We are coming in hot from the northeast. How copy?” The pilot’s voice sounded calm as Renee studied the map
spread out in front of her.

  “Edge 2, Savage 6 Romeo, you are cleared hot.”

  The strike team was running low on ammo, and by now the men at the other crash site were most likely dead. It was a somber, frustrating feeling, but with the F-18 Hornets on station, Renee felt a glimmer of hope.

  She had passed the pilot their grid, and now they were hunkering down, waiting for the Super Hornets to clear the street.

  The 20 mm cannons made a tearing sound as the first F-18 came in low. The men on the roof yelled, “Hell, yeah,” as the Hornet’s pilot strafed the jihadists before pushing the throttle forward and kicking in his afterburners.

  While Renee waited for the second aircraft to roll in, she could tell that the rest of her team obviously didn’t approve of Mason’s and Zeus’s arrival. They looked mistrustfully at the two men talking in the far corner, but no one had the balls to say anything.

  Warchild in particular stared hatefully at Mason. He had told Renee in no uncertain terms that he considered Kane a traitor, and he made no effort to hide his contempt for the man, despite the fact that Mason had saved their lives a half hour before.

  The pilot came back on the net, forcing her to focus. “Y’all might want to keep your heads down on this next pass. We’re gonna drop some JDAMs to your east to clean up some of the mess.”

  “Roger that,” she replied. The Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, was a satellite-guided bomb, and even though Renee knew it was extremely accurate, she still put a warning out over the net.

  “Tell the guys on the roof to keep their heads down,” she relayed.

  “Yeah, we got it,” Warchild said with a sneer. “You just listen to your radio, okay?”

  Renee rolled her eyes. Nothing she did would ever be good enough for Warchild.

  She carried the radio over to where Mason was seated and immediately noticed that he’d been hit. Both men looked like hammered shit, and she knew they had to be operating on fumes.

  “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.