“Status of our preparations for retaliatory strike?”

  Bertrand paused and then said, “General Rolfing would better answer that.”

  “Ma’am, we have two boomers in the Pacific ready to launch. Each carries somewhere in the neighborhood of two dozen SLBMs. Our silos are fully manned. Our aircraft are ready. Your directed-strike mission, as you can see, was successful, we believe. We’re still doing BDA.”

  “I want to know if we have any American casualties the minute we get any kind of confirmation. Are we getting boots on the ground? And I want to know the status of the Chinese ICBMs. We need to walk and chew gum here.”

  “I have SEAL Team Six in an airplane right now ready to go if you order it. They work for General Sinclair, anyway. They will be proud to do this mission. My only question, ma’am, is why didn’t we start with them instead of sending the general in to do this with a small team?” Rolfing asked.

  “Because, General, I obviously couldn’t trust my cabinet, and I’m left to wonder if I can trust anyone.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Rolfing said, looking at Bertrand, who was shaking his head as if to warn off the general from what he might say next.

  Kidman stuck his head in the door and said, “We can’t find Blankenship on the plane!”

  38

  THE BEAST LOST CONTROL and was plummeting to the earth. The shock wave of the MOAB had created a three-football-field-wide blast zone, violently disrupting the air for at least a mile.

  West had done all he could to speed away from the explosion, but that nagging dilemma of mission and men refused to overlap sufficiently for any sort of luck to happen. Because the doors were open, we were hanging on to anything that was secure, our nylon tethers straining against their anchor points. Even Malik was strapped in and now flying feet-first out of the cargo bay door as we spiraled out of control.

  The piercing whine indicated that the pitch of the helicopter blades changed. My shoulders were about to give out as I strained against the stanchion that housed the command-and-control suite. I caught a glimpse of West in the cockpit, and his head was thrashing violently as he kept his hands on the controls. Suarez’s helmet was banging against the plexiglass windscreen. The sense of uncontrolled lift, like a rocket blasting off with abandon, was overwhelming. Stomach in throat and then a loss of all equilibrium.

  Then, what was a near-flat spin into the skies suddenly seemed manageable. The sensation of utter reckless abandon, the sheer terror of violently thrashing and falling through the air, was replaced by a consciousness that we were either moments before impact or the machine in which we were hurtling was under some modicum of control.

  It was the latter.

  “I’ve got it,” West said over the headset.

  “Me, too,” Suarez said.

  “I have the controls,” West directed.

  “You have the controls,” Suarez assented.

  The aircraft wobbled and fought against the debris field in the air but seemed to break free of the raging turbulence that was vibrating over the landscape.

  “Smooth air,” West said.

  “Smooth air,” Suarez confirmed.

  “Status in the back?” West asked.

  “Stand by,” I muttered.

  Van Dreeves was huddled over McCool still. He had snapped his harness in with hers so that if either of them was thrown from the aircraft, they would go together. And if we burned in, he would be side by side with her for eternity.

  Hobart was clasped forearm to forearm with Malik, whose only lifeline was my wounded operator, who was hauling in the caravan leader after being slung around like a towed jumper in the turbulence. He was lucky to be alive. Hobart laid Malik’s body on the floor next to me. Hobart grimaced as he checked Malik’s head wounds. His eyes were open, though, darting around, perhaps wondering where he might be or what was happening.

  Wang and Black were strapped into their respective stations, hands on their machine guns, ready to take on whatever may come our way.

  “Still here,” I replied to West.

  “Headed to the Mole for one final check,” he said.

  We circled north of the MOAB debris field, which in total was a half mile in diameter, maybe more. Dust hung above the desert surface in a thin cloud, like morning fog in San Diego. I laid Hobart down, saying, “Let me check you out.”

  His eyes were weak. Van Dreeves lifted his head and looked over at us, his face grief-stricken, understanding that this was perhaps the last of us. I slid an IV into Hobart’s arm as I used scissors in my aid kit to cut away his shirt. He had taken a 7.62 mm round to his back, directly in the right scapula. The brass was lying against the white bone, having most likely ricocheted to diffuse some of its energy, probably saving Hobart’s life. I poured alcohol on the wound and patched it as best I could in the chattering airframe. I pushed gauze into the wound and taped it in place.

  Landing on the backside of the Mole, I leaped out and ran into the cave we had used as our rally point. Empty combat ration wrappers and water bottles littered the floor. The burned eucalyptus still smoldered. Shell casings were everywhere.

  Farouk, Zoey, and Champollion were nowhere to be found. There had been a fight here. Bloodstains marked the walls of the cave. There were two straight lines in the dirt. Someone had been dragged from the cave. Sanson or his henchmen had been in here and had taken someone.

  I followed the tracks out of the cave and down the backside of the ridge. We hadn’t spent much time studying the entire terrain feature, which was a mile in circumference, at least. We had inhabited the center and highest peak, but there were other lower peaks that cascaded away on either side.

  After counting my pace to two hundred meters, the body of a man I recognized was lying inert on the ground. A second man was moaning, but not long for this world. They were a few of the men who had been sitting off to themselves during Malik’s briefing. Security for Sanson. They had attacked the Mole, and Zoey and team had fended them off from this second cave.

  Inside this shallow depression was Zoey, who was holding Farouk, rocking him as if he were a baby. She was lost in her thoughts, whispering, “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.”

  “Zoey,” I said.

  She startled and snatched her pistol with a shaky hand.

  “It’s me, Garrett Sinclair.”

  Her eyes were wild. Teeth bared. The gun wobbled. Farouk’s head was in her lap, half-missing.

  “Fucking animals,” she spat.

  I knelt next to her and removed the pistol. She was in shock. Farouk was dead. His head was torn apart by a large-caliber bullet or piece of shrapnel. Zoey was sobbing. I took her hand and lifted her away from Farouk’s body.

  “Jeremy, need some help here,” I said. “Send Wang and Black.” Then to Zoey, I said, “Evelyn?”

  “They took her. The monsters took her.”

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Two dead out there and two others. They put her in a helicopter. Big men.”

  A minute later, Wang and Black were carrying Farouk’s body back to the helicopter while I cradled Zoey in my arms, her head tucked into my shoulder, her body heaving.

  We loaded into the Beast and secured everyone to the safety harness. I saw an IV drip set up above Sally McCool, followed the dripline into her arm, and looked up at Van Dreeves. Finally able to focus on her mortal condition and unable to accept reality, he was frantically pushing on her chest. Checked the IV drip. Felt her for a pulse. Held his head to her ear. As the aircraft took off for Dakhla, Van Dreeves shouted, “No!”

  Then he looked at me with mournful eyes, pleading for me to change what had happened. To take us back in time.

  But the truth of the matter was that Sally McCool was dead.

  39

  AFTER A STOP IN Chinguetti and another remote, unnamed airfield for fuel, we landed at the hangar in Dakhla, where everything had started a couple of weeks ago with the mission to retrieve the hostage Stockton. The darkness was beginning to ebb, the slightest hint of gray in the eastern horizon across the gulf toward the mainland of Mauritania.

  As we approached, I had used Farouk’s radio to call ahead to General Atouk, the Moroccan area commander who had responsibility for the airfield. I gave him the status of my team and requested medical assistance. I still didn’t know who I could trust in the U.S. government because Sly’s notes didn’t end with this action to nuke New York City with hypersonic glide vehicles. The endgame was much more sinister.

  We had flown low across the ocean and circled back in from the northwest when Colonel West landed the Beast with a roll in front of the open hangar doors. Once inside, Moroccan soldiers slammed the hangar doors shut. Atouk was standing there waiting for us in his plain green uniform with red epaulets.

  When I greeted him, I said, “I’m sorry about Farouk.”

  “Yes. Me, too. And I am sorry about your pilot,” General Farzad Atouk said. He was the commander of the Dakhla Peninsula Moroccan forces and responsible for the airfield we had used many times previously. He was a short man with a round belly, a thick black mustache, and typically a jovial attitude, dampened today only by the sight of my men and his soldier, Farouk. I felt bad for having involved him in our mission, but he had proven to be an invaluable asset.

  “Incalculable loss,” I said. I was operating on fumes and blocking, blocking, blocking the overwhelming grief.

  “He was my best soldier,” Atouk said.

  “As she was mine,” I said.

  His eyes cast downward. “It seems we are brothers in loss. I am close to Farouk’s family. I gave you my best support. He respected you and your team, and there is something much bigger here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Chinese. They are at the opposite end of the runway in a hangar with a small force and maybe thirty soldiers, with two trucks. The French have already come into town with a high-level delegation. Lots of cars, lots of soldiers.”

  “Thanks,” I said, though I was not sure what to make of the information. I got to the business at hand and helped to ferry our wounded into the backs of ambulances that were parked inside the hangar nose-first against the wall. Atouk had done us right. Each was like a separate operating room with a doctor and a nurse. Hobart went first. Then Zoey just for observation and to clean up her previous wounds. Then Malik.

  A doctor pronounced Farouk dead as he lay in the back of the helicopter and hurried a team over to prepare his body for processing to his family.

  Then he fought past Van Dreeves, who was holding McCool in the corner of the hangar, lightly brushing her hair. The doctor argued with Van Dreeves for a minute and then pronounced McCool dead.

  Van Dreeves continued to hold her, lie with her, until he couldn’t take it any longer. He walked over to me and stared hard for a few minutes. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Tears, mud, and bloodstains streaked his face. He was the most naturally lighthearted person I knew. He acted throughout his life as if there was nothing that could ever go wrong—and, up until this point, nothing major had. He had chosen to love Sally, and their love was unrequited in many ways, especially now.

  Perhaps he blamed me for not keeping her alive, but he knew better than that. More likely, he blamed himself, and that was my concern. I stepped toward him and put my arm around his shoulder, pulled him with me until we were outside. The rising sun was peeking over the Sea of Dakhla as we kept walking to the water’s edge. We sat down on some rocks and watched the ocean churn. A storm was brewing in the west, and it wouldn’t be long before waves were lashing this bulwark.

  “She’s gone, sir,” Van Dreeves said.

  “I know, Randy.”

  I pulled him tight into my side and held his head against my chest. He was a shattered soul. It would have been bad enough if she were just a teammate, but of course she was so much more than that to him.

  Zoey’s words rang in my mind: You’re in the wrong business, then, General. All sorts of “this” is going to happen and has been happening …

  Van Dreeves sobbed and held me tightly. Soldiers become brittle from too much operations tempo. Our psyches become enmeshed with our missions and brothers and sisters in arms. Losing a foxhole buddy was normally enough to send a good soldier to the psych ward. Losing a soul mate and lover was something I had experienced with the death of Melissa less than two years ago. I think Randy understood that. I interpreted his tight grip as an attempt to channel whatever wisdom I had developed from coping with loss. The bad news was it just sucked every day. There was no replacement for true love. You found happiness where you could. The soldier’s burden was that they saw the brutality of killing and knew what their buddies and loved ones endured. McCool had suffered. She had hung on, and I had believed she would survive but knew it would be close.

  The lack of support from higher headquarters. The need to do this mission off the books very well may have killed her, while at the same time we might all be dead if we had revealed our hand. As it was, cabinet officials had outed us to Gambeau and Sanson, ruining our surprise.

  If not for that, we had a chance.

  “Jesus,” Van Dreeves muttered.

  After fifteen minutes, he went limp and lay back against the sand.

  “There’s nothing that will make it go away, but killing Sanson will make you forget about it for a minute.”

  Van Dreeves looked at me and nodded. “Let’s go,” he said.

  We had a mission to execute, and despite my own incapacitating grief, I had to rally my troops. With Van Dreeves blocking it out as best he could and my charges tended to, I walked back into the hangar, where Colonel West was lighting up a bent cigarette. He stepped outside, nodded at me, inhaled deeply, exhaled an audible sigh, which maybe it was, and looked at me with intelligent eyes.

  “That shit was insane, Garrett,” he said. When you’ve been on enough objectives the following morning to see the sun come up, you lose pretense. I was just Garrett Sinclair, and he was just Jeremy West. Rank didn’t matter. Two humans who had survived the impossible. He had saved us, and my team had saved New York City. Another day at the office. But even I had to admit that riding the cresting wave of a MOAB blast radius into the sky and then free-falling until the most talented pilot in the inventory was able to stabilize the machine in the air was, as Jeremy put it, “insane.”

  “No other word for it,” I said.

  “Sorry about Sally. She would have been a ten-star general.”

  “At least that.” I grabbed his cigarette and took a long pull. I hadn’t smoked a cigar or cigarette in forever, but I needed to punish myself. The hot smoke burned my lungs. I held it and then spit it out in a cough of smoke.

  “Jesus, Garrett, this isn’t weed.”

  I shrugged, feeling stupid. We stood in the morning chill, the sun rising above the Sea of Dakhla. I was still thinking about Sally and Randy Van Dreeves. They would have had beautiful, athletic children. That thought brought another wave of crushing guilt.

  I was soon distracted by some activity across the runway. A tricolored French flag flew on the hood of one of the black limousines. At the very south of the runway was some minor activity—a few soldiers in olive uniforms milling around—that would not have appeared unusual if Atouk had not informed me of Chinese military on the premises. Beyond the soldiers, on the horizon to the south, was a large, lumbering airplane headed toward the runway.

  Jeremy blew out a long puff of smoke, squinted, and said, “If I weren’t high on adrenaline, I would bet a paycheck that plane is Air Force One.”

  The closer the aircraft came, the more convinced I was that he was correct. Why would the president be landing here? I understood that she had to relocate from Washington, D.C., given the hypersonic glide vehicle threat posed by China. But why land here on the Dakhla Peninsula? Then the rest of Sly’s discovery made complete sense.

  We walked inside and moved over to a window to watch the presidential aircraft touch down.

  “Think she’s on it?” he asked me.

  “Most likely. It’s not like that airplane goes anywhere without her,” I said.

  The plane lumbered onto the runway, smoke boiling from the rubber tires burning onto the cement. It taxied quickly to the opposite end of the runway, where a convoy of khaki-colored cargo trucks and Chinese WZ-551 fighting vehicles burst from a large hangar similar to ours.

  I turned to General Atouk and asked, “Does anyone else know we’re here?”

  He shook his head. “This is a special operations hangar. No one knows what happens here.”

  “Keep it that way.”

  * * *

  INSIDE THE OFFICE of Air Force One, President Campbell looked at the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Rolfing, and her director of national intelligence, Koby Bertrand. Also seated across from her were her chief of staff, Quad Jordan, and her national security advisor, Benito Kidman.

  “Can you give me an update, Koby?”

  Instead, Rolfing spoke. “The bomb struck the nerve center of the Chinese operation to guide the hypersonic glide vehicles into precise targets. As such, the weaponized aircraft struck randomly in the Atlantic Ocean, clear of any U.S. interests.”

  “But didn’t they land in the ocean prior to the bomb landing in the desert?” Campbell asked.

  “It’s sort of a photo finish. We believe that the operator could hear or feel the MOAB coming in and tried to run,” Rolfing said.

  “I know what I saw, General,” Campbell said. “And I’m unclear why I’m being bullshitted.”

  “Pardon me, ma’am, but no one is bullshitting you. Given that the country is under attack, it’s our belief that we have to manage the situation, which includes managing you.”