Chapters (39)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgements
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
"Ghost Lead, this is Diaz. Wind speed is getting worse and can really mess up my shot, sir."
Give the order, Mitchell!
"Bravo Lead, this is Ghost Lead," said Mitchell. "Stand by. And Diaz, hold."
"Captain Mitchell? This is Lieutenant Moch, Predator support, sir. We've identified a power company truck en route to your transformer station. ETA approximately ten minutes, sir."
Keating clenched his fist and imagined himself screaming at Mitchell: What's the holdup, son? I need those Spring Tigers taken out now!
Despite his frustration, Keating knew that senses and intuition captured in real time by a commander on the ground far outweighed any digitized picture transmitted over thousands of miles.
Special Forces truth: Human beings were more important than hardware. What's more, Mitchell's own tactical assessment could be very different than what they viewed at USSOCOM. If the captain were waiting for something, then he had a damned good reason.
However--and this was a big however--he'd made no attempt to explain himself, and that was highly unlike him.
Damn it, Mitchell! Attack!
HAKKA CASTLE
XIAMEN, CHINA
APRIL 2012
More voices echoed in Mitchell's earpiece, and more faces appeared in his HUD, but he just lay there, mouth hung open.
At the moment the power had been cut, Mitchell had ordered Smith to launch the MAV4mp Cypher. In the minutes that had followed, Mitchell had navigated the drone high above the central building and had been able to identify the positions of every guard posted there: three at each of the silos, two at the central building with one on the roof, and the two snipers. His threat assessment, replete with flashing red diamonds, was complete and available to his people.
Mitchell steered the drone as low as he dared, and just as he had tapped the joystick, ready to fly the Cypher home, the guard on the roof turned to reveal a cane fixed to his belt.
With jittery hands Mitchell zoomed in with the drone's camera, trying to pull up a more detailed side view and muttering to himself that no, it couldn't be, that these kinds of Escrima sticks or canes or other martial arts clubs were commonplace among military men, that after ten long years, there was no way in hell that this guy, on top of this roof, in China of all places, could be Captain Fang Zhi.
But the camera's zoom worked remarkably well. And Mitchell knew that cane. That face. Those eyes.
Was it a remarkable coincidence? Fate? Was Mitchell being forced back through an open door that had never closed?
What the hell was Fang doing in China? Had he defected? Mitchell had lost track of the man--and purposely so--because he'd had to go on with life. That was the advice he'd given Rutang, and that was the advice he'd lived by.