McLanahan was an emotional wreck right now—his brother dead, his wife blown to atoms, his men decimated, his mission failed and shattered. Did she actually expect him to be able to fight?

The quicker he was out of the country, she decided, the better.

CHAPTER 8

CORONADO, CALIFORNIA
 DAYS LATER

The answering machine picked up for the sixth or seventh time that evening; again, Patrick ignored it.

It was an exceptionally warm evening, so Patrick was out on the big bayview balcony, sipping a Grand Marnier and watching the activity in San Diego Bay. He could see all the way from the Thirty-second Street Naval Base to the south to North Island Naval Air Station and Point Loma Naval Base to the north. North Island, the home of the Navy’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Center, was a buzz of activity—it usually was, with aircraft of all sizes buzzing down the Pacific beaches of Coronado, right behind the Del Coronado Hotel, coming in for a landing. To the south on Coronado was the Navy Basic Underwater Demolition Service Training Center, the home of the Navy SEALs; one could usually see inflatable boats going up and down the coast all year long, day and night.

It was hard to tell from the level of activity in the harbor what was happening in the world. North Island had two carriers in port right now—that was unusual. Thirty- second Street Naval Base was busier than Patrick had ever seen it before—every pier looked occupied. Would it be busier if war was imminent as ships prepared for deployment, or would it be quieter because all available warships were heading into battle? Patrick didn’t know. A trained spy might be able to deduce the answer to that, but Patrick wasn’t a spy.

He wasn’t anything right now—not a military man, not a Night Stalker. Just a man with a young son, a missing wife, a dead brother, and not much else—not even a future.

After the last strikes against Libya by the Night Stalkers and the Sky Masters Inc.’s EB-52 Megafortress, Patrick finally got his men out of Egypt. They first flew by CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft to an isolated base in southern Israel, where they sanitized their gear and received civilian travel documents. They drove to Tel Aviv, flew via commercial airlines to London, then to Los Angeles, and finally to San Diego.