Jan heard, in Nancy’s voice, the same dedication to a thankless profession that she had once felt herself. Though she wanted to shake this younger woman by the shoulders and tell her to wake up, she didn’t. As she saw it, eventually everyone wakes up to what is important and what isn’t.

Turning her attention back to the TV screen, Jan watched and listened to the two politicians talk about the future. As she watched the men on the screen, she wondered if they too would wake up to what really mattered to the people they served in time to do something about it.

… that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that government long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,
1776.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

ARTICLE II (COMPLETE TEXT),
THE BILL OF RIGHTS, 1787

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1787

Revolution is the locomotive of history.

KARL MARX

My Country, may she always be right. But right or wrong, my Country.

INSCRIPTION AT THE
UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

Also by

BOOKS BY HAROLD COYLE

Team Yankee
Sword Point
Bright Star
Trial by Fire
The Ten Thousand
Code of Honor
Look Away
Until the End
Savage Wilderness
Dead Hand
God’s Children
Against All Enemies
More Than Courage
They Are Soldiers

WITH BARRETT TILLMAN

Pandora’s Legion
Prometheus’s Child
Vulcan’s Fire

Praise for Harold Coyle

Praise for Harold Coyle

“Harold Coyle has been dubbed the Tom Clancy of ground warfare and it’s easy to see why. He focuses on the grunts because no matter how fancy the weapons are, eventually the military has to send in men to hold new territory.”

—The New York Post

“Coyle is a master at high tech suspense. He spins his story with such power that you’re swept along to the climactic finish.”

—Clive Cussler

“Nobody knows war like Harold Coyle and nobody writes it better.”

—Stephen Coonts

“When it comes to good military thrillers, Coyle is as good as it gets.”

—Booklist

“Coyle’s attention to detail, his intimate knowledge of small unit fighting is remarkable.”