The delusions of grandeur had faded quickly, though, leaving him with nothing but hard, ugly reality. While he had distinguished himself to some extent in both Iraq and Afghanistan, why would the new commander in chief have any idea who he was? And why would anyone pick an infantryman who had spent his combat career in the desert for this operation?

The pickup that Grant was riding in hit a particularly deep rut, nearly bouncing him from its rusty bed. Once stabilized, he went back to scanning the deep green of the surrounding mountains. There were probably more trees over one hundred square yards in Uganda than in the entire country of Afghanistan. He had virtually no experience fighting in this kind of terrain. He didn’t even have experience living in it. Arizona born and bred.

Grant turned his attention to the men sitting around him and wondered if they shared his background. Because he honestly didn’t know. He’d never fought with any of them and questions were very much discouraged. This wasn’t the Middle East. This was secret agent shit.

One thing was obvious: they were all around the same age and outfitted in a mix of eco-touristy, off-the-shelf outdoor gear that would briefly—very briefly in his estimation—fool a local into thinking they were there to snap photos. What wasn’t obvious is that all had M17 pistols hidden beneath their shirts and HK MP7s in their packs. In case things got ugly. Which he’d bet his meager life savings was exactly what was going to happen.

In the end, the situation was crazy and stupid, but not overly complicated. Four days ago, some egghead scientists may or may not have fled into the jungle when they’d been attacked by a psycho who thought he was God. The psycho in question had men—and children, apparently—searching for them, likely in hopes of securing a fat ransom. The Ugandan government didn’t want to get involved because they were afraid of psycho-guy as well as not wanting to piss off the Congolese. And the Americans couldn’t roll in a force of a few hundred men from Africa Command for political reasons that he didn’t fully understand.

Like the situation, the mission was also equal parts crazy, stupid, and straightforward. Starting from a burned-out hospital, he would lead his eight men into the jungle, dodge an unknown number of armed cult members, and find these scientists who, after four days, were almost sure to be dead. Further, he was to do this with no outside support and intel that could be summed up as “it’s two white guys and a Chinese chick. You can’t miss them.”

Piece of cake.