Mitchell took control of the drone with his wireless controller and steered it directly toward the chopper on the right.

"Keep up that fire!" he ordered as both helicopters swooped down to strafe them.

Shifting the drone's camera to a forward view, Mitchell took the UAV into a dive, then came right up toward one of the gunners leaning out his open door.

The gunner looked up, frowned, as Mitchell throttled up and slammed the drone directly into the guy's head, even as he continued on, bringing the Cypher inside the chopper.

"Zai jian," Mitchell muttered.

He thumbed a button.

The drone exploded inside the chopper with a small flash and subsequent puff of smoke. Despite the relatively small charges, the self-destruct was still powerful enough to take out both gunners and blind the pilot, who suddenly pulled up, breaking off in an erratic turn.

"Put your fire on him!" ordered Mitchell.

But he'd failed to realize that the second chopper had dropped like a hawk, talons extended to snatch a fish from the water. Streaking now off their port side, the chopper edged closer, the gunner opening fire as Beasley and Smith answered in unison with their MR-Cs, while Diaz released a salvo at the cockpit window.

Ramirez, one-handing his MK14, directed his bead at the smoking chopper, automatic fire chewing into glass and metal.

"Joey!" shouted Smith.

Mitchell craned his head as Ramirez took a round to his left side, near his waist, a round that punched him back, over the gunwale, and into the waves.

"We lost Ramirez!" cried Beasley, his words nearly drowned out by the chopper off their port side, the gunner there now dead, the pilot wheeling off hard to the right.

SAND SPIT
XIAMEN HARBOR, CHINA
APRIL 2012

SEAL Chief Tanner lay on his belly near the last cluster of trees before the long, sandy beach washing out behind them. Phillips was at his side.

The six sailors from the Chinese patrol boat who had launched in the Zodiac must have either spotted them or decided that the infiltrators had used the spit for their exfiltration, because all six of them, armed with pistols and rifles, had come ashore and were combing the forest.

Tanner imagined what must be on their minds. They had just witnessed the destruction of their beloved patrol boat. They had watched their comrades die. Their hearts were hard and aching for revenge.

And damn, Tanner wished he didn't have to confront them, but he and Phillips had no choice. Tanner had thought that they could don their Draegers and simply hide in the waves while these men searched the spit, but if Mitchell was going to double back and bring the fishing boat around to the east side of the spit to pick them up and take them past the gap (well beyond their own swimming capabilities), then these Chinese sailors needed to die here and now; otherwise Mitchell would have yet another firefight on his hands.