Martindale nodded. “Good. You’re the heart of this team, Patrick—I hope you know that,” he said sincerely. “We’d exist without you, but we wouldn’t be the same— not nearly as dedicated, not nearly as hard-charging. I’d move heaven and earth to keep you here.”

“Thank you, sir,” Patrick said. “That means a lot.” Patrick and Hal followed Martindale into a secure conference room in the main headquarters building of the Sky Masters Inc. campus, a large industrial and research center in what was the old Blytheville Air Force Base in Arkansas, now called the Arkansas International Jetport. They warmly greeted Patrick’s brother Paul, one of the first members of the Night Stalkers and the most experienced Tin Man battle armor user, along with Chris Wohl, a retired Marine Corps master sergeant and Hal Briggs’s longtime partner. Martindale took his place at the apex of the conference table while Patrick secured the room, then motioned for Chris Wohl to begin:

“We are closely monitoring developments on the border between Libya and Egypt,” Wohl began. “Libya has recently sent several thousand troops to the Sudan, on Egypt’s southern border, supposedly to support the president of the Sudan against rebel insurgents that are using Chad as a safe haven. However, the insurgency was crushed last year, and Libyan forces remain deployed in three Sudanese bases—all within a day’s armored vehicle march of five major Egyptian oil fields. Egypt has reinforced its armed forces in the region and maintains a rough parity with Libyan forces.”

“So Libya wants to take Egypt’s oil fields?”

“That’s nothing new,” Martindale said, “although they’ve preferred in the past to try to form a partnership with Egypt in developing its oil reserves. However, Egypt wants to form a consortium with some Western oil companies to tap its oil fields.”

“Lots more money that way, I’d guess,” Briggs offered.

“Exactly right—and ExxonMobil and Shell don’t bring troops with them to the contract-signing ceremonies,” Martindale said. “The consortium wants to build a four- hundred-and-sixty-mile-long pipeline from southern Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea capable of shipping two million barrels of crude per day, along with building refineries. It’s a three-billion-dollar project that Libya desperately wants to get involved with.”

“Doesn’t Libya already export oil?” Paul McLanahan asked.