Siege
Chapters (25)
Title Page
Contents
Contents
Title Page
SPECIAL FORCES CADETS
Chapter 1: Striding Edge
Chapter 2: Dülfersitz
Chapter 3: Valley House
Chapter 4: The Watchers
Chapter 5: The Rules
Chapter 6: White-Out
Chapter 7: R.E.J.
Chapter 8: Semi-Automatic
Chapter 9: Paracord
Chapter 10: Green Thunder
Chapter 11: Overruled
Chapter 12: Covert Comms
Chapter 13: Advance to Target
Chapter 14: Block Green
Chapter 15: The Past
Chapter 16: T7
Chapter 17: Lightning Fast
Chapter 18: State Your Name
Chapter 19: Kill Switch
Chapter 20: Train Hard, Fight Easy
Chris Ryan
Copyright
SPECIAL FORCES CADETS
Siege
Look out for
Missing
Justice
Ruthless
Hijack
Assassin
1
Striding Edge
It was the weather that changed Max Johnson’s life.
Max knew it would be bad, because he knew about clouds. He spent hours staring at them. He knew their names. Cirrus. Altocumulus. Cumulonimbus. And he knew what they predicted. That cold January morning he had seen the high-stacked layers of nimbostratus moving in from the west. ‘We shouldn’t climb today,’ he said to Cory, their team leader. ‘A storm’s coming.’
But Cory – a hard-bitten climber with a leathery, lined face and a steely grey beard so bushy that you couldn’t see his lips – had other things on his mind. He had come down with food poisoning the previous night and was in no state to lead them up the mountain. A gap-year student called Mickey was to take his place. ‘Mickey knows what he’s doing, lad. He says it’s fine.’ And Cory quickly took himself back to his sick bed.
Max didn’t agree. All his life he had studied his surroundings: the moss on one side of a tree trunk that indicated which direction was north and which was south. The faint track on a wet path that told him what type of animal had recently passed. The distinctive pattern in the stars of Ursa Major that taught him how to navigate at night. It was hardwired in him to observe. It was part of his DNA.
And his DNA told him that nimbostratus meant a storm was brewing. He voiced his concerns to Mickey, a lanky young man with scruffy hair and a slightly dopey demeanour.
‘Nah, I’ve checked my app,’ Mickey reassured him, holding up his phone. ‘We’ll be up and down in no time. Come on – you don’t get a chance like this every day.’