Senior Airman Mark Mitchell grabbed his arm. “Sir!” the radioman screamed into his ear to be heard over the north wind shrieking low across the island. He held up the handset connected to their AN/PRC-162 radio. “I’ve got contact with that Herky Bird. They’re on final right now! They want our guys off the runway, ASAP!”

Flynn snapped his head around and looked west. He spotted a faint glow low in the sky there. The HC-130J had its high-intensity landing lights on, spearing through the darkness and the curtain of blowing snow and ice. That glow was growing brighter fast. The big aircraft must be coming straight in at more than 150 knots. “Pass the word, M-Squared,” he yelled at the radioman. “Tell everyone to clear the strip! You go, too! Now!”

“Yes, sir!” Mitchell nodded frantically. Shouting into the handset to relay the order, he turned and jogged away.

Flynn swung around through a full circle and saw the rest of his men scattering off the runway. All except one. About a hundred yards away, the short, square-shouldered figure of Private First Class Cole Hynes hadn’t budged. The soldier had his head down while he stubbornly wrestled with another big piece of debris. He didn’t seem to have heard the order to get clear. And he was apparently too fixated on his task to notice that everybody else around him was bailing out.

Damn it, Flynn thought. Maybe the other man’s radio was broken. Or maybe its batteries were dead, drained by the subzero temperatures. He cupped his hands and yelled as loudly as he could. “Hynes!”

It was useless. The howling wind caught his voice and tore it to shreds.

Down at the far end of the runway, the big HC-130J appeared suddenly out of the darkness and snow. It was no more than fifty feet above the ground and descending rapidly.

Shit, Flynn realized. He was out of time. Frantically, he sprinted toward Hynes, who had his back to the oncoming Super Hercules. He didn’t waste any more breath yelling.

The aircraft touched down hard, bounced once, and then settled firmly onto the ground—thundering straight down the runway right at the two men. Plumes of pulverized snow and ice sprayed out behind its massive landing gear and whirling propellers.

At the last moment, Hynes looked up, brushing at the snow dusting his goggles with an irritated gesture. His mouth opened in surprise. “Hey, Cap—”

And Flynn, still running all out, threw himself forward—and slammed straight into the shorter enlisted man. The hard, diving tackle knocked Hynes backward off his feet, with Flynn ending up on top. Desperately, he buried his face into the icy surface of the runway . . . just as the left wing of the speeding Super Hercules slashed past right overhead.

For a split second, the whole universe became a hurricane-force maelstrom of shattering, deafening noise and pounding winds, snow, and razor-sharp fragments of ice. And then, blessedly, the noise and pummeling died away.