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BOOKS BY

Books by Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson

Tier One

Tier One

War Shadows

Crusader One

American Operator

Red Specter

Collateral

Dempsey

Tier One Origins

Scars: John Dempsey

Sons of Valor

Sons of Valor

Sons of Valor II: Violence of Action

Sons of Valor III: War Machine

The Shepherds

Dark Intercept

Dark Angel

Dark Fall

W. E. B. Griffin’s Presidential Agent

Rogue Asset

Books Written as Alex Ryan

Nick Foley

Beijing Red

Hong Kong Black

Books by Brian Andrews

The Calypso Directive

The Infiltration Game

Reset

Books by Jeffrey Wilson

The Traiteur’s Ring

The Donors

Fade to Black

War Torn

SONS OF VALOR III

WAR MACHINE

BRIAN ANDREWS

JEFFREY WILSON

Copyright © 2023

by Organic Machinery Media LLC and Jeffrey Wilson

E-book published in 2023 by Blackstone Publishing

Series design by K. Jones

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-0940-9352-9

Library e-book ISBN 978-1-0940-9351-2

Fiction / Action & Adventure

Blackstone Publishing

31 Mistletoe Rd.

Ashland, OR 97520

www.BlackstonePublishing.com

For our loyal readers who have come along

with us on this amazing journey.

PART ONE

“When a man indentures himself to the whims, contradictions, and emotional needs of others, his soul can never find peace and purpose.”

–Hamza al-Saud

CHAPTER ONE

uss ohio (ssgn-726)

submerged five miles east of hualien, taiwan

philippine sea

2345 local time

Lieutenant Commander Keith “Chunk” Redman leaned against the outside of a retrofitted missile tube in the Ohio’s missile compartment upper-level, trying not to laugh. The “argument” going on between his LCPO, Special Warfare Operator Senior Chief Riker, and the sub’s weapons officer, Lieutenant Lisa Spence, was the kind of moment he wished he could record for posterity.

“This is not my first rodeo, ma’am. I’ve operated on submarines before,” Riker said, shaking his head. “And I know two things with certainty.”

“I’m all ears, Senior,” Lieutenant Spence said, hands on hips. “Enlighten me.”

“First, you squids are wicked smart, sadistic tricksters. You’re like Loki, the god of mischief, except your brains are oxygen deprived and irradiated, which makes you even more diabolical.”

“Okay, I’ll concede that point,” she said, smiling. “And the second thing?”

“The second thing is that that is not a lock-in/lock-out chamber,” he said thrusting his index finger at the open hatch on the side of the missile tube. “Like I said, I’ve been on plenty of submarines. On the LA’s we use the forward escape trunk, and on the new Virginia class, there’s a dedicated lock-out compartment big enough to hold nine of us. So why don’t you take us to the real lock-out chamber.”

Before this trip, the other Lieutenant Spence, the one of the male variety who wore a trident on his chest instead of gold dolphins, had read everyone into the Ohio’s secrets—everyone, that is, except for Riker, who’d been conveniently at a doctor appointment at the time. The Ohio, the first of her flight of nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, no longer carried nuclear weapons. Instead of being decommissioned, she had been repurposed to fulfill missions that some might argue had even greater strategic and tactical significance than nuclear deterrence. Capable of carrying over one hundred and fifty Tomahawk cruise missiles, an SSGN was an underwater stealth arsenal, with one and half times the firepower of a fully armed Arleigh Burke destroyer.

What most people did not realize, however, was that in addition to carrying cruise missiles the Ohio also had been repurposed to carry another class of weapon as well . . .

US Navy SEALs.

“So let me get this straight,” she said. “You think that the weapons officer on this submarine is trying to trick you into climbing into a missile tube by telling you that it’s been retrofitted into a lock-out chamber?”

“That’s right,” Riker said.

“To what end?” she asked.

“To make me look like an idiot in front of my team,” Riker said.

“Bro, you’re doing a fine job of that all by yourself,” the SEAL sniper, Saw, said with a slap on Riker’s back as he scooted by the SEAL to climb through the open hatch and into the tube.

The ruse, fully played out now, caused the rest of the assembled team to explode with laughter.

Red-faced, Riker turned on Chunk. “Did you know about this?”

“Yep,” Chunk said with his best mission complete smile.

“Not cool, Chunk. Not cool at all,” Riker said with a huff and followed Saw into the retrofitted lock-out chamber, but Chunk could see his shoulders shaking with laughter as he did.

Chunk looked back and forth between the Ohio’s Lieutenant Spence, wearing her underway uniform of dark-blue coveralls, and Gold Squadron’s Lieutenant Spence, who was dressed out in dive gear. Seeing the SEAL and his submarine officer sister standing side by side was a little surreal.

“What’s that look for?” Navy SEAL Spence said.

“I was just thinking that this underway explains a lot,” Chunk said.

“Yeah? How so?”

“I always wondered who got the brains and good looks in the Spence family, and now I know. She’s standing right there.”

“As entertaining as it is watching you guys ass grab,” submarine officer Spence said, “do you have any actual, legitimate questions for me before you go?”

“Just one,” Chunk said. “What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to your brother growing up?”

She smiled. “Buy me a beer next time we’re in port, and I’ll tell you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” SEAL Spence said, giving her the stink eye.

She chuckled and stepped in to give her brother a hug, “Good luck, LT. Be safe out there.”

“You too, LT,” he said. “And remember, we’ve got to drive these minisubs back, so don’t leave without us.”

“Never,” she said, stepping back to watch them finish loading.

As soon as they were inside the lock-out chamber with the hatch dogged shut, Riker turned to Spence and said, “Dude, I didn’t know you had an identical twin sister.”

“We’re fraternal twins,” Spence said defensively, too late to stop himself.

“Mmm, I don’t know,” Riker said. “What do you think, Saw? They look pretty identical to me.”

“Oh yeah, put a nice wig on Spence and I literally wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” Saw said as the chamber began to flood, filling up from the bottom.

“Bro, I think your sister’s hot,” Trip said. He touched a finger to Spence’s shoulder and made a sizzling sound. “Think she’d go out with me?”

“Dude, you’re a Neanderthal and she’s a nuclear engineer,” Spence fired back as he fitted his dive mask into place. “You don’t have a fucking chance with her.”

“Okay, I hear you, but . . . what about with you?”

Howls of laughter echoed in the rapidly filling lock-out chamber at Spence’s expense.

“All right, all right. Time to get serious,” Chunk said and popped the regulator for his rebreather system into his mouth. The Dräger LAR-V rebreather meant they would have stealth with no bubbles, and with radio blackout until they hit the beach, they had no need for the full-face mask Kirby Morgan rigs.

Tonight, they were old school.

A moment later, the chamber was completely full and an automated system equalized pressure with the ocean outside. With equalization complete, Spence opened the missile hatch door at the top of the tube and finned out into the black ocean. Chunk flipped down the DVS-100 waterproof night-vision goggles in front of his mask and clicked a button on his watch, starting the clock. They would be off the boat in the next ten minutes and the USS Ohio would be silently underway to the next way point where they would simulate launching cruise missiles, one of the many moving pieces in the complicated Red Cell op they were about to undertake.

Chunk helped Trip pass their gear bags up and out the hatch to Saw and Riker, who were station keeping above. The bags had been evacuated of air before stowing, so while not heavy in the salty water, they weren’t buoyant either. Dropping one meant a quarter of their gear would descend rapidly to the bottom of the Philippine Sea—an unacceptable blow to the audacious mission they were attempting. When they’d finished, Chunk finned out of the tube and scanned the massive topside deck of the 560-foot-long submarine. The gargantuan size of this warship, and the fact that it lived and operated underwater, boggled the mind. A fairing to accommodate the missile tubes—which penetrated the top of the hull—created a broad, flat surface wide enough to house their two Dry Deck Shelters side by side. Each DDS housed a single minisub.

In the murky water, Chunk performed a quick head count. For tonight’s Red Cell op, ten members from Gold Squadron would be participating—five from Alpha platoon, which he led, and five from Bravo, for which Spence was the OIC. Tonight, two SWCS, or Shallow Water Combat Submersibles, would be their stealthy taxicabs driving them from the Ohio to the Taiwanese coastline and dropping Alpha and Bravo Squadrons off in separate locations, with Alpha serving as the primary infiltrators and Bravo as decoys. The mission objective was simple: to breach the air base’s perimeter undetected and destroy the alert fighters to pave the way for the 75th Rangers to parachute in and secure the airfield.

The SWCS model had recently replaced the Mk 8 SDV, but for all intents and purposes, the two vessels looked and operated similarly. Unlike the longer range and much slicker Dry Combat Submersible, a.k.a DCS, the SWCS was “wet” inside, meaning the passenger compartment was flooded during transit and the SEALs remained on scuba for the duration of the op. The DCS was a more capable midget sub with a pressure hull, bigger batteries, and atmospheric control equipment to permit dry transit at one atmosphere of pressure for longer infils and exfils. As much as Chunk would have loved to be riding in style in the DCS tonight, the mission didn’t require the asset, and so they had the SWCS.

A wave from Riker got Chunk moving, and he finned over to the bullet-shaped SWCS which was in the process of being backed out of the DDS mid-deck via a rail mechanism. As soon as Alpha’s minisub was ready, Antman took the command seat in the minisub, powering up the electric motor and electronics while the rest of the team loaded their gear bags and settled onto the bench seats behind him. Trip, who also had training and experience as an SDV pilot, joined Antman in the navigator seat while Chunk settled in on the bench next to Riker. Beside them, Bravo Squadron was loading their minisub, with Spence and Morales taking the pilot and navigator chairs respectively. If everything went according to plan, Bravo would arrive first and draw the defender’s attention while Chunk’s Alpha squad played the role of infiltrator.

The ride would be cramped and miserable but better than an exhausting five-mile swim. Chunk smiled and gave the metal hull a pat with his gloved hand. Minisubs were shark-proof. He liked that. Next, he inhaled a deep breath and switched from his rebreather and mask to the full-face mask/regulator combo at his station. Full-face mask regulators in the SDV were more comfortable and allowed the operators to talk naturally, but they wouldn’t be jabbering tonight. This mission required complete stealth because there were hydrophones along the coast listening for them. Chunk looked over at Riker, who was grinning at him like an idiot despite his regulator and mask. Clearly still sore about being punked, Riker was dying to take another shot at Spence.

Saw, who sat opposite Chunk on the other bench, nudged Chunk with his boot. “We got him good with that one,” Saw signed, using American Sign Language. “He’s such an idiot.”

“Having Spence’s sister in on the ruse was the cherry on top,” Chunk signed back.

Riker, who had supposedly refused to learn ASL, signed his own reply—a single middle finger which he showed to both of them.

Chunk grinned and savored the moment.

God, I love these guys, Chunk thought.

It was good to see Saw engaging in some smack talk. The sniper hadn’t been himself since the events in Tampa seven months ago. Reserved by nature, Saw had never been a comedian like Edwards, a goofball like Riker, or a cocky ladies’ man like Trip, but ever since the attack on his family, he’d put up an invisible wall. Most guys on the team probably hadn’t noticed, but Chunk had. Saw was creating emotional distance between himself and the rest of the group. Knowing how Saw’s mind worked, Chunk understood why.

Saw was laying the groundwork to say goodbye . . .

Chunk had put off the conversation he needed to have with his most senior enlisted teammate long enough. After this op, it was time.

The gentle hum of the electric drive and a slight roll of the hull signaled they were underway. He flipped his underwater NVGs up and just became one with the soothing dark. The lithium-ion battery propelled their small sub almost silently through the water—silent to Chunk, at least. Trip maintained a snaillike pace, just fast enough to overcome ocean currents, to make the infil as quiet as possible. Settled in, Chunk let his mind run over the plan they’d put together. The west side of the base housed the alert fighters—their first objective. The opposition would expect any water infil to cross the field, maneuvering through the center of the base, under the cover of darkness.

So, they wouldn’t be doing that.

Team Spence had come up with a better idea—one that involved distraction, sleight of hand, and a good measure of theater. Also, it was a plan that would allow the Navy to put the new SWCSs through their paces and test coordinated operations between the USS Ohio and the Tier One SEALs. Chunk had immediately loved what the brainiac duo had come up with.

SEAL Team Two and the Taiwanese would have no idea what hit them.

Chunk closed his eyes, walking through each phase of the operation in his mind, aware that his right index finger twitched occasionally as he engaged targets in his mental walk-through. He imagined the rest of the team performed a similar exercise, except Spence and Antman, who focused on piloting the minisub. His mind deconflicted various theoretical scenarios on the approach and the securing of the enemy airfield. The tunnel hangars utilized on this base served as camouflage, which made them less observable by Chinese drones and satellites. Chunk and his team would be old-school UDT guys, “setting charges” to cave in the tunnels—trapping the lethal jets in the earth and rendering the alert fighters useless.

A gentle bump and scraping on the hull signaled that Antman and Spence landed the SWCS on the ocean’s sandy bottom. Chunk glanced at his Suunto watch and then his dive computer. They’d transited at an average depth of twenty-five feet for nearly an hour. Presently, the SWCS sat in forty feet of water, and the parking spot they’d selected should be only three-quarters of a mile from the beach.

No issues with decompression tonight.

Chunk swapped out his full-face mask from the internal air supply of the SWCS and slipped his rebreather regulator back in, then pulled on his mask and purged the saltwater from it. He flipped down his NVGs and glanced around the tiny sub as the team unbuckled and swam out the open side hatch, assembling on the ocean floor where Riker and Saw handed out weapons. Chunk looped the sling of the highly customized Sig MCX-Spear over his head and tightened the strap to snug it to his torso for swimming. Next, he checked the P229 pistol already secured in the drop holster on his right thigh. He ticked his fingers over the extra magazines in pockets on his kit as he finned into position beside Riker, who was checking the computer on his left wrist. Once everyone was set, the LCPO slow-chopped a hand in the water to the west, toward the shoreline.

The swim took only twenty minutes, and they maintained a shallow approach depth of fifteen feet for the duration of the infil. At the fifty-yard mark from the beach, they surfaced, scanned the shoreline for threats, then, not seeing any, submerged for the final push. Upon reaching the surf, Riker and Saw took the lead—rising slowly above the surface, weapons at the ready. With the duo providing cover protection, the rest of the team stripped off fins and doffed masks and rebreathers in exchange for their tactical helmets with full-color X27 NVGs. The SEALs dropped their dive gear beside Riker and Saw while Chunk scanned the beach through his Romeo 4 holographic sight—augmented by the Vortex VMX-3T behind it on the top rail.

Chunk led Trip and Antman out of the surf, fanning out and scanning sectors from the beach. A hand over Chunk’s head indicated it was safe to advance, so Riker and Saw doffed their diver gear. With all the gear snapped into nice, compact units, Trip and Antman concealed them among rocks forming a jetty, covering them with sand and seaweed. Chunk took a knee while Saw scanned north and east using the more powerful optics on his sniper rifle.

“Clear,” Saw whispered beside him a moment later.

Chunk signaled to the rest of the team who, seconds later, spread out in a semicircle beside them. After scanning their sectors for threats and finding none, Chunk checked in.

“Homeplate, Blackbeard One,” Chunk whispered into his boom mike. “Alpha is Tequila. Sitrep?”

“Roger, Alpha is Tequila,” the newly minted Chief Michelle Yi, Gold’s intel LCPO, replied in his headset, transmitting from her TOC which was located at an undisclosed location. “Be advised, Bravo called Tequila and is standing to infil on your mark.”

“Check.”

He led his five-man element swiftly along the beach side of the perimeter road to a blue king cab pickup truck and white full-sized van. Chunk checked the windshield, confirming the stickers of the Taiwan Air Force—ironically known as the Republic of China Air Force—were secured in the correct location.

“Van’s unlocked,” Riker said and pulled the slider door open, and all five of them jumped into the rear cargo compartment.

Once inside, they stripped off kits and wet suits, then quickly donned civilian clothes. They swapped out their headsets for wireless earbuds and tucked pistols into their waistbands. Then, with a wry grin, Riker handed each squad member a SEAL Team Two ball cap to put on. Next, they backed their kits, helmets, and rifles into oversized packs and zipped them shut.

“Let’s go,” Chunk said, grabbing his bag and climbing out of the van with Riker to hop in the pickup truck.

Saw took the driver’s seat of the van while Antman and Trip remained in the cargo compartment.

“Alpha is Gin,” Chunk called as he pulled away, leading the van along the road. “Bravo is a go for infil.”

“Roger, Blackbeard,” Yi replied. “Bravo, you are go for infil.”

“Bravo,” Spence answered from the beach to the north at the most tactically advantageous infiltration location for the operation.

Bravo Squadron would present the Taiwanese security forces with the exact breach scenario they expected, while Alpha Squadron caught them completely off guard with their pants down. It was a complicated and risky assault, but Chunk couldn’t wait to see if it worked as planned.

He looped the truck around the perimeter road and headed north, past the entrance to the commercial side of the dual-purpose airport before eventually turning west. Five minutes later they passed the base’s massive fuel farm and turned onto the access road that led to the main gate on the military side of the airfield. Upon reaching the security checkpoint, Chunk braked to a stop and rolled down his window to greet a Republic of China Air Force security guard, fully kitted-up in battle rattle with an assault rifle on his chest. When the sentry approached the vehicle, Chunk smiled and passed the security force soldier a Common Access Card.

The guard scanned the ID, then compared the picture to Chunk’s face. Satisfied, the guard repeated the exercise with Riker’s CAC.

“Where you are headed, sir?” the airman asked in heavily accented but clear English.

“The Special Operations compound. We’re with Team Two. Your supervisor probably briefed you on the joint training we’re conducting here on base.”

“I know. You will be here for two more weeks?”

“That’s right,” Chunk said, slipping his CAC into his pocket. “The van behind us is with us too, by the way.”

“Yes, but I still have to scan them.”

“Of course,” Chunk said. “Just giving you a heads-up.”

The man gave them one more close look, then handed Riker’s ID back and nodded to his fellow security operator inside the small but modern security shack. The steel barricades lowered into the ground and the bar rose. Chunk pulled the truck through and waited while the guard checked IDs for his guys in the van. Moments later they were driving on the main road circling around the north end of runway 21/03. This transit was the crucial point in the operation. If they were detected here, heading around the west side of the runway instead of running south on the main road toward the SOF compound—a small “base inside the base”—then Spence’s plan was over. They had a plan B, of course, but it would be a running gun battle against a talented and numerically superior force of enemy Special Forces and base security that would likely not end well.

“Homeplate, Blackbeard One—sitrep,” he said.

The pause on the radio was longer than Chunk would have liked.

“Blackbeard, Homeplate—satellite imagery shows base security has detected Bravo element and is mobilizing a defensive assault. We hold two groups of twelve leaving the SOF compound and heading toward Bravo. Also, the security forces are mobilizing to the perimeter road south in Humvees. Looks like it worked. You should have minimal resistance at the alert hangars.”

Chunk looked over at Riker and raised his eyebrows twice in his best Magnum P.I. imitation.

“Better to be lucky than good,” Riker said with a grin.

With Saw in the van following behind, Chunk accelerated and headed for the section of the base with the alert fighter wing. They passed a stone signpost with a placard displaying six overlapping blue circles beneath the wings and head of a bird, a sword laying atop, and the roman numeral V below. Chinese symbols were displayed along with “5th TFW” beneath the logo.

He navigated his way to a practically deserted parking lot that serviced alert Hangars One through Four. Saw, however, kept driving. He would drop Trip and Antman by a second set of four alert hangars clustered at the south end of the field then park at the service building where he would set up in overwatch.

“Looks clear,” Riker said, scanning through the windows and clearly itching to get kitted up and moving.

“Agreed, let’s go.”

Chunk exited the vehicle, slung a large gray backpack over his right shoulder, and followed Riker out of the parking lot and into a stretch of woods that served as a buffer between the runway and the perimeter of the base. In cover, they quickly kitted up. Chunk unzipped his backpack and pulled his heavy vest over his head. Then, he pulled out his helmet and NVGs and slipped them on his head. He snapped the dual night-vision tubes into place, the blackness of the woods disappearing, replaced by a full-color, near-daylight view of their surroundings in the new generation NVGs. He glanced at Riker, who gave him a thumbs-up.

They scanned right and left for threats, and finding none, Chunk chopped a hand toward the first concealed alert hangar. The two SEALs moved like shadows, legs churning in a tactical crouch as they arced around the base of the earthen mound housing and concealing a fighter plane. Unlike most hangars, these hangars were built into the earth, with turf and trees growing atop the dome-shaped mound that completely concealed the structure when viewed from above by satellite or reconnaissance aircraft. The massive hangar doors were kept open so the jets could taxi straight out of the mouth of the hangars and onto the concrete skirt that connected to the runway.

Riker paused at the entrance, took a knee, and held up two fingers. Chunk scanned inside the entrance and saw two sentries, posted on either side of the wide opening. Beyond his sight line and deeper inside the hangar, Chunk knew two F-16s or F-5Fs waited fully loaded on alert, the flight crew in quarters with their crew chief, dressed and ready to go. The stealth of the cave-like design, in Chunk’s mind, was outweighed by the vulnerability of the tunnel entrance.

To neuter the base’s air defense response, they didn’t need to destroy the jets. Carefully placed charges at the entrance would trap the jets and pilots inside a tunnel of rubble.

He nodded at Riker, pointed to himself, then chopped a hand south.

I’ll circle around and take the guy on the left.

Riker nodded.

Keeping low, Chunk sprinted up and over the mound to get to the opposite side. He took a knee at the edge of the brush line, a short four-foot drop to where the ramp tapered down from the entrance.

“One—set,” he whispered, his voice carried to his teammate on their secure channel.

“My count,” Riker’s whispered, his augmented voice crystal clear in Chunk’s left ear. “Three . . . Two . . . One . . .”

On the cadence of zero, Chunk dropped from the hill onto the cement and charged the hangar entrance in a low combat crouch, sighting through his holographic red dot sight. He set the red dot on the chest of the fully kitted-up sentry and squeezed the trigger twice, the suppressed rifle burping quietly. Two red splotches appeared on the Taiwanese guard’s chest, and he stumbled backward. He stared at Chunk for a moment in disbelief, then resignation washed over his face as he touched the wet red paint on the left side of his chest. Defeated, the sentry dropped to the ground where he lay quiet and unmoving, simulating death.

On the opposite side of the hangar, the other sentry was similarly felled by Riker’s surprise attack. Chunk covered the entrance from the shadows while Riker got to work pulling charges from his kit and setting them into the walls on either side of the tunnel. The entire evolution took less than two minutes before Riker was back at Chunk’s side.

“Hangar One neutralized,” Riker whispered. “Three to go.”

“Hangar Eight neutralized,” Trip said, chiming in. “Fifty bucks says we finish our four first.”

“You’re on,” Riker said.

“Opposing force is engaging Bravo element,” Yi announced in Chunk’s ear. He heard the head shake in her voice—they’d gambled and won again. Despite her skeptical analysis of their chances. “Estimate, Bravo will be out of the fight in five minutes.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” came Spence’s reply. “We’re not dying that easy.”

“If you die, I’m asking your sister out,” Trip said, unable to resist the jab.

“You do, and I’ll haunt you from the grave.”

“Five is now God,” Saw’s voice announced, ending the banter.

Speed had necessitated that Chunk and Alpha Squadron get right to work rather than waiting for their sniper to achieve an overlook position, but it felt good knowing Saw was there. He and Riker advanced on the second hangar and repeated the evolution—killing the guards and setting charges. Rinse and repeat two more times, and he called it in.

“Homeplate, One—Hangar Four is neutralized,” he said.

“Copy, One,” came Yi’s reply.

“One, Three—Hangars Five through Eight neutralized,” Trip reported with just the right amount of irritation that he and Antman had been beaten by the two old guys in the platoon.

“Homeplate, Blackbeard is Scotch,” Chunk announced, indicating all the hangar charges were set and this phase of the infiltration was done.

But they had to work fast now. On the east side of the joint airfield were plenty more ROCAF F-16s and F-5s, but at this hour they were unmanned, unarmed, and with no support personnel present. Disabling the alert fighters achieved the primary objective, but the mission also called for taking of the control tower and the Tactical Air Defense building. Without achieving that, the C-17s could not drop rangers onto the field to gain full control. With only four shooters in Alpha Squadron, taking the tower and TAD building by force would be mission impossible. But they didn’t need to take control to win. So long as the tower and TAD building went dark, they could achieve the desired outcome—loss of base radar, communications, and traffic control.

Leg muscles on fire, Chunk and Riker sprinted across the tarmac toward the power transformer station which was located at the north end of the alert fighter annex and fuel depot.

“Blue force is splitting, Blackbeard,” Yi called, her voice tense now. “They realized what’s happened . . .”

We’re so close. Just need a few more minutes.

“Homeplate, call the charges on the hangars,” Chunk said, his order coming in punctuated words between huffs of breath.

“Roger, detonating,” Yi said and he could hear the grin in her voice.

A second radio clipped to his kit—the one for monitoring the command and control overseeing the entire exercise—barked to life for the first time with Captain Bowman’s imposing baritone voice.

“red cell detonates charges on alert hangars. all eight hangar tunnels destroyed. aircraft and personnel out of the fight.”

“Blackbeard, you have incoming defense forces in trucks heading straight for your pos,” Yi said, her voice tense.

“How long do we have?” Chunk said, scanning for the incoming as they reached the chain link fence around the transformer station.

“Ninety seconds.”

Chunk knitted his fingers together to make a foot sling and crouched beside the fence. Riker, having played this game a hundred times, stepped into it and leaped as Chunk boosted him up and over the fence. The SEAL rolled over the top and landed with a heavy thud on the other side. Chunk whirled, took cover behind a metal box, and sighted over his rifle at the incoming defender SUVs which he could see, and hear, screaming toward them.

“Work faster!” Chunk yelled over his shoulder.

“Going as fast as I can,” Riker called back as he placed and set the charges.

The two inbound SUVs screeched to mirror-image fishtailing stops and Blue Shooters jumped into covered positions. Marker rounds sailed in both directions, and Chunk unleashed covering rounds as the Blue Shooters returned fire.

“Homeplate, Blackbeard is Rum,” Riker announced for them both, indicating the charges were set on the power station. “Homeplate, One, call charges on relay.”

“red cell destroys power relay,” Bowman announced on the command-and-control channel. “all power down to base.”

“Sniper executes Blue Shooters engaging Blackbeard at the power transformer station,” Saw reported on the comms channel, and the blue shooters who had been firing at Chunk and Riker went down.

With a victory adrenaline high, Chunk waited for Riker to hop the fence and rejoin him. Then, they jogged southeast to where they joined Antman and Trip. The Head Shed would be calling it any minute now, Chunk figured, but if not, Alpha could try to take the TAD.

“Team Two is going to be so pissed,” Riker said, grinning as they ran like teenagers who had just pulled off a high school senior prank.

“You know they’ll say we cheated,” Trip said on their comms channel.

“But if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’,” Chunk said, quoting the familiar NSW mantra.

“red cell secures air defense center. rangers inbound—ten mikes.” Then, on the Red Cell channel, Bowman said, “Red Cell operational success. Base defenses secure. All personnel secure from exercise. Gold platoon return to Hangar five ahead of next phase. Team Two SDV drivers—return the SDVs to the Ohio.”

“We won,” Riker said with a grin and clapped Chunk on the shoulder.

“We always win,” Chunk said, nodding. “We’re the Tier One.”

CHAPTER TWO

combined joint special operations task force tactical operations center

fifth tactical fighter wing command building, rocaf (taiwan)

chiashan air force base

hualien, taiwan

0615 local time

Whitney Watts, the lead intelligence analyst for Gold Squadron of the elite Navy Tier One SEAL Team, shook her head at Chunk as he strolled into the room. She watched him whisper something to newly minted Chief Petty Officer Yi, who sat across the conference table with her laptop open. Yi laughed at whatever self-congratulatory quip Chunk had said into her ear and took a long sip from her coffee tumbler.

“Feeling pretty good about yourself, huh, boss?” Watts said as Chunk dropped into the seat next to Yi.

“I am, actually,” he said with his best Texas grin. He ran a hand through hair that was becoming a bushy mop these days. She had to admit, it was a good look for him. Not that she would ever tell him so. “Thanks to Team Spence, we ran a perfect op.”

“But did you?” she said bobbing her head dubiously side to side so the sarcasm was unmistakable. “Embarrassing Team Two is one thing, but I’m not sure we achieved any diplomatic goals by humiliating our Taiwanese counterparts.”

Chunk seemed to consider the comment a moment before leaning in on his elbows and saying, “I respectfully disagree. If the Head Shed was looking to massage the egos of the Taiwanese special forces, they would have sent a white side platoon from Team Three or Five to run the Red Cell op. Better yet, they could have just had the 75th Rangers conduct an airborne infil for them to repel without our op to prep the field. We’ve worked closely with Taiwan’s SEALs in the past and have a great relationship. They’re the real deal and full-on pros. And we didn’t humiliate them. On the contrary, by bringing our A game we showed them great respect—showed them we don’t need to hand hold or stroke egos. Frankly, we treated them like equals, which I have no doubt they appreciate greatly.”

She considered that a moment, but he continued before she could respond, using the nickname she’d earned on her first day—her least favorite way to be addressed in a group, which he of course knew.

“And anyway, Heels, this ain’t like family Christmas where you let the nieces and nephews win at Monopoly,” he said, his southern drawl thickening somehow. “The Taiwanese asked us to help them prepare, both tactically and strategically, for a future Chinese invasion. China has made no secret of its desire to annex Taiwan back into the fold, and their military is ferocious, cunning, and deadly. Do you really think they won’t leverage embedded assets to sneak onto this base and pave the way for an attack? I would argue that we created a realistic security breach scenario for which the personnel on this base should be prepared. This engagement was never intended to be some team-building, trust-fall kind of exercise. On the contrary, we are preparing them for war.”

She pursed her lips but nodded. As usual, Chunk’s words made sense and betrayed the cunning intellect he hid beneath the good ol’ boy, aw-shucks persona he liked to wear like a softball team sweatshirt.

“The Chinese threat is real, Heels,” Spence added, dropping into the chair beside Chunk. The grin he wore confirmed that he too knew how much she hated that name. She kept her expression neutral, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a tell that it bothered her, which she’d learned just encouraged more ribbing. “Russia invaded Ukraine and nobody thought that would happen. What’s to prevent China from doing the same?”

“I hear you, but I’m pretty sure if a bunch of Chinese SOF guys show up in Team Two ball caps at the front gate, security is not going to let them in. You took advantage of Team Two’s authorized presence here on base to exploit a vulnerability that the Chinese could not,” she said, getting to the heart of what was bothering her and undoubtedly everyone else on the Blue side of the exercise.

“I disagree, and let me tell you why,” Chunk said, leaning in on his elbows. “We exploited the optimal vulnerability available to us. If we had tried to come on base as a Taiwanese catering company, they would have shut us down. And you are correct in saying that if a van of Chinese operators showed Team Two ball caps and DOD CAC cards, that would be a red flag and base security would stop them. But that’s not what they’d do. They’d use a NOC that makes sense for them, which is exactly what we did. The point, as far as I’m concerned, is that this base and its security personnel need to take a hard look at every contractor and organization with access and how that access might be exploited. What we did tonight was alert them to the reality that they’re vulnerable. We hit them with something they expected and something they did not expect simultaneously. Team Two and the Taiwanese worked fluidly and kinetically to rebuff the expected threat. They countered Bravo’s breach to the north expertly. And once they became aware of Alpha’s penetration, they secured the gates and ran a counteroffensive to prevent loss of the white side airfield. They surprised us with the embedded team at the tower . . .”

“Which you defeated with no casualties on our side,” she said.

“Because we’re so badass,” Riker said while packing a tin of Copenhagen Long Cut in his left hand. He opened the lid and slipped a pinch into his lower lip. “But they’ll do better next time. You don’t learn and adapt from winning. The best lessons come from losing.”

She knew all this, of course, because it was her job to know it. She didn’t need them to teach her, but the conversation reinforced a different point. Her brother SEALs were far more than just operators—more than just door-kickers. They were the PhDs of war fighting, thinking outside the box and using unconventional tactics and methods to push boundaries and test limits in every engagement. This Red Cell op, with all its trickery, proved that. Chunk’s logic about how the Chinese might exploit security with embedded agents in NOCs was valid—and so long as they explained it diplomatically, their hosts would probably, eventually, be grateful for the lesson.

“So, team,” Chunk said, kicking booted feet onto the table while simultaneously catching the can of Copenhagen Trip tossed him. “What lessons did we learn tonight and how can we use that to contribute to the after-action debrief in a few hours? What lessons can we share with the Taiwanese and what lessons can we share with our brothers at Team Two?”

“For Team Two—hide your stash of team ball caps when on deployment,” Riker said and the whole team laughed.

Chunk pulled the SEAL Team Two ball cap off his head and tossed it on the table. “Make sure we pack that for the Reagan. It’s going in our trophy room back in Tampa.”

A knock at the door turned her attention to the entrance to the conference room. A young support sailor in NSW digital BDUs looked right at her.

“Ummm . . . Ms. Watts?”

“That’s me,” she said, curious now.

“Ma’am, I’m from the Team Two comms shop. We have a call holding for you in our space. Are you available? The woman on the phone said it was urgent . . .”

“Go ahead. We’re just gonna bullshit here for a few,” Chunk said to Whitney, but his eyes held a message.

Better take it. You never know in the Tier One . . .

“And Commander Redman, I was told to inform you that your Head Shed needs you in the TOC.”

Now Chunk’s face looked surprised. “Okay, thanks for letting me know,” he said to the messenger, then turned to Spence. “Get started on the lessons learned and I’ll be back.”

“Roger that, boss,” Spence said.

“This way, ma’am,” the messenger said and led Watts down a short hall, the opposite direction from where Chunk turned to head to the TOC. He caught her eye over his shoulder, eyebrows up as they parted ways. It seemed unlikely their both getting called away was a coincidence—something must be brewing.

The small room the second-class petty officer led her to was clearly improvised to accommodate the SEAL Team Two Intel and Comms shop. The IT2 lead her to a corner in the rear where several laptops were set up on desks.

“On the middle laptop, ma’am,” he said. “Voice only, but I can give you a headset for privacy.”

She nodded and took a seat, accepting the headset with boom mike. She gave the sailor a nod and he tapped another young sailor, a woman with close-cropped brown hair and a serious face, and they headed to the far side of the room. All the privacy they could offer, she supposed.

She used the mouse to tap the icon over the Mute button, turning it from red to green.

“Whitney Watts,” she announced into the mike, her voice hushed.

“Whitney, it’s nice to hear your voice,” Lucy Kim said.

Whitney smiled. The East London accent instantly gave the MI6 agent runner away. Whitney had not talked with Lucy since she’d collaborated on the Hamza al-Saud case months ago.

“Hi, Lucy . . . How on earth did you find me?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t bloody track you down if that’s what you’re thinking. I routed a request up my own chain and some spooky bloke made the connection. I’m secure on my end, by the way.”

“Same,” Whitney said.

Whitney’s voice belied the tension she felt—or maybe it was excitement. On the US side, Whitney remained the lone voice in the wilderness when it came to what role, if any, Qasim Nadar had played in the al Qadar attacks of seven months ago. CIA and the JSOC chain of command considered the matter closed. The little details that still bothered her weren’t the kind of thing that kept Head Shed folks up at night. Unbalanced equations were more the norm than the exception in their line of work, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. Hamza al-Saud, the mastermind leader of al Qadar, had been killed by Chunk in Dubai. The sniper calling himself Juba had been eliminated by Saw in Tampa, in a gun battle near the SEAL sniper’s own home. With those two threads snipped, the command had considered the case closed and moved on.

And so had she . . .

As far as everyone else was concerned.

But Whitney had struggled to expunge Qasim Nadar from her mind. And she knew, from their lengthy debrief, that her doubts were shared by Lucy Kim. She could not think of any other reason why the MI6 officer would be contacting her so she decided to go for broke.

Glancing over her shoulder, she confirmed the sailors in the room were paying her no mind before saying, “Is this regarding Qasim Nadar and our previous work together, or something new?”

“New would be fun ’eh, but no, this is about Nadar. Or more specifically, it’s about the rubbish way we wrapped everything up.”

“Sounds like you were as equally unsatisfied with the outcome as I was,” she said, sensing Kim needed some encouragement that she was reaching out to the right person.

“I hate coincidences, Watts, and this case has way too many for me to just walk away,” Kim said.

“So, why did you?”

Kim laughed. “It wasn’t my call, obviously. It got political, and that’s the bloody truth of the matter. Turns out, it’s less paperwork to hail Nadar as a national treasure than to investigate him. And the press ate it up. They painted him a bloody hero, if you haven’t heard. He has a meeting coming up with the London mayor to talk about Muslim relations and discrimination in London.”

“I hadn’t heard that . . .”

“Oh, that’s not all. British Aero promoted him! Did you know that?”

“I didn’t,” she said, letting her British colleague vent.

“Yeah, and I’m the one who’s supposedly lost the plot . . .”

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, she scanned the room again. Discussing highly classified information was hardly out of the ordinary for SEAL Team Two’s intel shop, but Gold’s al Qadar work was still compartmentalized.

“I hear what you’re saying, but I’m having trouble reading between the lines here. What exactly are you trying to tell me, Lucy?”

“Right, let me cut to it then. I want to have another go at Nadar, and I need to do it before they knight the son of bitch and he becomes untouchable. You’re competent and you share my concerns. I could use your help. I’ve got two weeks. If I can make a case by then, we’ll have something, but if not . . .”

“They’re cutting the task force?”

“Something like that. So . . . fancy a trip to London? It’s lovely this time of year,” Kim said with heavy sarcasm.

“Are you serious?” Whitney said.

“I know it’s a big ask, but I could really use an ally. We could call it a by-name request—joint operation, team-building, international counterterrorism cooperation—or whatever you want.”

Whitney thought a moment. She hated how things had ended with Qasim. There were more questions than answers, but she’d thought only she was asking them. But it would seem Lucy Kim hadn’t been able to let go either.

The exercise is over, which means if there was ever a time for a short TAD in London, this is it.

“I think I could probably work it, Lucy,” she said, grimacing as she pictured Chunk’s smug grin, eye-rolling, and dog-with-a-bone jokes. But that didn’t matter. She’d trade five minutes of rib-poking in exchange for another shot at Nadar. “Let me get with my boss and get back to you within the hour. We just wrapped something up, so the timing might work.”

“That would be brilliant, Whitney. Thank you. This is my office phone, and here’s my mobile,” she said, calling out the numbers as Whitney jotted them down. “Let me know your travel arrangements once you’ve booked them, and I can fetch you from Heathrow. We can put you up at a hotel, or you can stay in my flat. Whatever works.”

“Sounds great,” Whitney said. “Back to you quickly.”

“Brilliant,” Kim said. “Cheers.”

And the call box disappeared from the laptop screen.

“Thanks,” Whitney called out with a wave to the IT2 as she hustled out the door. As she rounded the corner at a jog, she smashed right into Chunk.

“Shit—sorry,” Chunk said and grabbed her elbow to stop her from falling as she bounced off him like a bumper car. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, shaking her head to clear the stars. “Running into you is like hitting a brick wall.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I assume your call was about my by-name request from MI6?” she said, cutting straight to the point.

“What? No—what are you talking about?”

She gave him the summary of her conversation with Lucy Kim as they headed down the hall. They stopped outside the door to the makeshift TOC where the rest of Gold Squadron was still debriefing.

Instead of giving her a hard time and making quips, Chunk nodded, his face all business.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your opinion, Heels,” he said. “Do you think Agent Kim is full of shit or is she onto something legit? MI6 and CIA seemed content to clear him and move on. There were coincidences that bothered me, but I’ve moved on too. Something tells me you haven’t.”

She sighed. “The truth is I never liked how we left things with Nadar, but I also have nothing concrete enough to stake my career on. There’s no way I’m sounding DEFCON 1–level alarms like I did with the Mingora drone. Nadar is a British citizen and we handed him back to the Brits. Technically, he’s their problem.”

“But . . .” he said.

“But I think he’s a terrorist.”

He pursed his lips, then said, “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” she said.

“Well, we’re leaving tonight for the Reagan Battle Group off the east coast of Africa. The task force guys are tracking some ship with suspicious cargo headed for Europe. If the spooks uncover enough threads to warrant a hit, they want us staged and ready.”

She watched his face but didn’t want to bias him by interrupting. She was curious about this new possible target, but they could certainly manage the op without her . . .

“It’ll be days of sitting and waiting, probably, and these things often are nothing as you know . . .”

“So, does that mean I can go?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I’m sure I can clear it through Bowman to get you to London for a few days. TAD orders to MI6 with Agent Kim as POC. But if we need you, I’m going to pull you back. They intend to shadow whoever these dudes are on this ship around the Horn of Africa, so that should buy you plenty of time. Does that work for you?”

“Work for me? I’m not asking for a favor, Chunk. This is about—”

He held up a hand, cutting her off.

“Is this what you want?”

She nodded.

“Good. I trust you, Heels. If you think it’s important, I’ll support you on this.” He opened the door to the improvised TOC, where Edwards was throwing a balled-up piece of paper at an impromptu basketball hoop—Riker holding a trash can. “Nice to see our lessons learned in action,” Chunk grumbled, then turned back to her.

“Thanks, Chunk,” she said.

“Easy day,” he said and fixed her with a tobacco-stained smile. “Good luck, Whitney, and happy hunting.”

CHAPTER THREE

farmhouse

forty-five miles outside of london

danbury, united kingdom

1929 local time

Qasim Nadar sat at the head of the heavy wooden table, listening as his eight al Qadar lieutenants took turns updating him on the progress of their assignments and activities. Holding this monthly gathering was a risk for all involved, but a necessary one, because running a caliphate was not unlike running a company. Strategy, scheduling, project management, information technology, finance, and accounting—these were not words normally associated with terrorism. But Qasim was no longer in the terrorism business.

Qasim was in the business of building a caliphate.

When he first assumed command of al Qadar from Hamza al-Saud—after the visionary leader’s murder at the hands of the bloodthirsty Americans in Dubai—Qasim was rendered speechless. The scale, sophistication, and financial resources of the operation he’d inherited were astonishing. To be given the keys to such an organization had felt like being hired as the CEO of a multinational corporation. And so, this was exactly how Qasim had decided to tackle the problem: by thinking and acting like a CEO. In the beginning, he’d been overwhelmed and almost wilted under the pressure, but then in a moment of prayer and profound reflection he’d had an epiphany. Everything that had happened in his life up to and until that moment had happened for a reason, for a singular purpose—to prepare him to fulfill his destiny.

To lead . . . This is my destiny.

Jihad was not about terrorism, armies, or spilling blood in the desert. A true caliphate could only be achieved by conquering the West from within. Information, immigration, local politics, social media—these were the battlefields of the twenty-first century. Obtaining a zoning permit for a mosque to be built in a majority Christian neighborhood in a London suburb where it would play the Adhan on loudspeakers five times a day was worth more than two hundred IED explosions in Iraq. Ensuring a steady flow of Islamic immigrants into the UK, finding those immigrants jobs, and lifting them out of poverty was more impactful than any suicide bombing. Like Hamza before him, Qasim needed to think big.

Only by playing the long game could he change the world. In this regard, his analytical engineer’s mind was often his greatest strength—seeing the connections, the threads, the math.

“. . . which is why I believe the incumbent is vulnerable,” Masoud Bakir, al Qadar’s UK political strategist was saying. The man was an integral part of Qasim’s inner circle, but as CEO of a medium-sized tech company, he also had access to money and high-level political connections. In addition, he’d give Qasim access to his private jet—a small but capable Citation CJ2 that he kept at the London City Airport. Qasim had been taking flying lessons for many months and had already earned a private pilot license with an instrument and multi-engine rating, and would one day be able to fly the small private jet himself. “With the proper messaging, we can court the liberal white vote. All we need is six percent and we can flip the seat to our candidate. If we succeed we will have a majority of the seats on the city council, giving us the ability to change the bylaws and zoning ordinances in the township to permit a new mosque to be built across the street from the Protestant church. The transformation happens quickly after that. Non-Muslim locals start moving away, and we go from minority to majority in three years’ time.”

“Do you need additional campaign funds?” al Qadar’s chief finance officer asked.

“Yes, that would be helpful,” Bakir said.

“How much?”

“Twenty-five thousand pounds would allow us to double our mailings and run a three-week social media campaign with targeted ads before Election Day.”

“Consider it done,” the finance officer said. “The funds will be provided as three separate donations from local benefactors.”

“Anything else, Masoud?” Qasim asked.

Masoud shook his head, finished with his update and business.

Qasim turned to Din Faraj, his second-in-command and operations officer. Faraj had been al Qadar’s mainland Europe operations lead for the past two years, and a man Qasim had not met until after taking the reins. Initially, Faraj had been hostile and difficult to work with, challenging Qasim’s authority on multiple occasions. Qasim attributed this to Faraj’s ambition. Like Qasim, Faraj was young, educated, multilingual, and motivated. Moreover, he’d been recruited by Eshan and mentored by Hamza, as Qasim had. But where Qasim had never imagined himself taking Hamza’s place, Faraj had seen himself as the terrorist prince’s heir apparent.

When Qasim was named the head of the organization, Faraj had been angry and plotted a coup to usurp Qasim. As smart and competent as Faraj was, Qasim had anticipated this and shut it down. Instead of punishing Faraj with death, he’d spared the man’s life and given him a second chance. The decision, while risky, had earned him Faraj’s loyalty. And while Qasim would never admit it openly, the truth was he needed Faraj. He had no one else as decisive and competent in his employ. Without Faraj managing daily operations in his invisible war against the West, Qasim would not have been able to keep his job at British Aero and lead al Qadar from the shadows.

“Give me an update on the Dina Maltan?” Qasim said to his second, referring to the 6000 DWT cargo ship that al Qadar owned and operated under a Gibraltar flag.

“It is in the Mediterranean Sea, en route and on schedule to be in position for recovery of the asset,” Faraj said. “All the necessary modifications for aerial surveillance, camouflage, storage, maintenance, and refueling have been made topside and belowdecks.”

“Excellent work,” Qasim said and turned to al Qadar’s hacker in residence. “Fun Time, when will the mobile command center be ready to take over cyber operations full-time?”

“Still not ready, boss,” Fun Time said.

When the black hat didn’t elaborate, Qasim said, “When will it be ready?”

“Five more days, maybe six. Okay? It’s not so easy as flipping a switch, you know?”

“Moving our cyber footprint out of East London is my top priority,” Qasim said, anger flaring in his chest. He turned to Faraj. “Put every other project on hold and divert whatever resources you need to help Fun Time get this done. The Valkyrie testing schedule is set. We get one chance at this. One. If we fail to execute during the SINKEX, we’ll never have another opportunity. Since Fun Time isn’t able to get the job done, you’re in charge now. You have forty-eight hours. Do whatever it takes.”

Faraj nodded. “I will see it done.”

This was not the first time Fun Time had let him down, nor would it be the last. In the early days of his command, Qasim had secretly searched for someone to replace his cyber lead. The biggest problem wasn’t competence—despite his poor work ethic, the hacker was literally an IT genius—but rather the fact that Qasim didn’t fully trust the Muslim Uyghur. Fun Time was an opportunist, not a true believer. What motivated the man, as far as Qasim could tell, seemed to be some combination of money and dark-web glory. But none of the other hackers on the staff had the balls to do Fun Time’s job, and most of them had been recruited by Fun Time himself. If Fun Time disappeared, so would half of al Qadar’s cyber division. So, grudgingly, Qasim continued to tolerate the man.

The idea to move Fun Time and his cyber ops team from the basement of the spice shop to a luxury yacht had started as a joke. One of Fun Time’s favorite diversions was to hack the security systems of luxury yachts to track the rich and famous and get camera footage of celebrities and socialites. If cyber peeping was a martial art, Fun Time would be a fifth-degree black belt. And so when the black hat jokingly asked Qasim one day when al Qadar was going to buy a “super yacht” so he and his cyber team could have raves at sea with “super hot bitches,” it had sparked an idea.

The spice shop basement, while conveniently located, was extremely vulnerable to being raided by British counterterror forces. And raiding it was easy. But raiding a yacht registered under a foreign flag operating in international waters was an operation that required serious planning, logistics, and coordination. A tactical team could arrive in unmarked vehicles and could hit the spice shop with virtually zero warning. With the yacht, they’d see the enemy coming from miles away and have time to react. And so the joke had become a reality. Qasim had bought a yacht and was taking al Qadar’s command and control to sea.

The rest of the meeting went smoothly, with other principals making their status reports and requests. To be an effective leader, Qasim had no choice but to delegate heavily to his lieutenants. Given the time constraints of his full-time job at British Aero and his rising star in the who’s who of London politics and business, he did not have the luxury of micromanaging every decision. He’d once seen a nature documentary about octopi, and he’d learned something very interesting about the creatures. Unlike mammals, the central nervous system in an octopus was distributed with brain matter extending in the arms, thereby giving each tentacle literally a mind of its own. It was no accident that this was how he’d structured control of the organism that was al Qadar—with him functioning as a central, coordinating mind and his eight principals as independently thinking but connected operating divisions.

So far, the plan had exceeded his expectations.

He stayed until the others had all departed, except for Faraj. This had become their pattern—a one-on-one debrief after the monthly meeting, during which Faraj could speak freely without risking the appearance of insubordination or disrespect in front of the others.

“What is on your mind, Din?” Qasim said, clapping a hand on his second’s shoulder.

“Arham . . .” Faraj said, eyeing him closely. “Are you ready?”

Qasim nodded. “Thanks to Fun Time and his cyber team, a comprehensive digital history is in place to incriminate Arham, should an investigation take place after we make our move.”

“You misunderstand me, brother. Yes, the documentation is ready, but are you ready to do what needs to be done?” Faraj said, saying the quiet part out loud. “I know that you and Arham have become . . . close.”

Qasim bristled at the comment but quickly tamped down his irritation. The insinuation Faraj was making was valid.

Am I prepared to do this thing when the time comes?

Qasim pondered the question. The truth was, he liked Arham. The British Aero software engineer had impressed Qasim since he’d hired the young man five months ago. Originally, Qasim’s only aspiration was for Arham to be his fall guy—an unwitting patsy who would be framed as a terrorist in the event Qasim’s own activities drew renewed attention from MI5. But over the past few months, he’d often wondered if it wouldn’t be better to recruit Arham instead. In this young man, Qasim saw reflections of himself. Properly mentored, Arham would be capable of great and terrible things. Unfortunately, the audacious plan Qasim had in the works would make the Pterodactyl drone operation and attack on Kandahar that he and Hamza had executed look like child’s play. What he planned to do next would arm al Qadar with an asset that not even the American military could defend against.

“I am the leader of al Qadar, which means I am prepared to make any and all sacrifices necessary for the caliphate to rise,” Qasim said with cold certitude, putting the matter to bed once and for all. “My destiny is to lead. Arham’s destiny is to serve . . . whether he realizes it or not.”

CHAPTER FOUR

london heathrow international airport

london, england

united kingdom

day one

1205 local time

Backpack slung over her shoulder and dragging her roller bag behind, Whitney shuffled down the jet bridge with the other weary passengers deplaning. It had taken her eighteen hours to get to London, flying commercial from Taipei and connecting in Istanbul. She’d not slept a wink on the twelve-hour haul from Taiwan to Turkey, but she’d been practically comatose for the four-and-a-half-hour connecting leg.

After making her way through passport control, she walked outside to the ground transportation area where Lucy Kim was waiting for her.

“Whitney,” a female voice said off to her right, thick with a London accent. “Over here.”

She turned to find a young British Korean woman smiling and waving. She smiled back, realizing she’d never actually met the woman in person, but their several Zoom calls at least made her recognizable. She vectored toward the MI6 agent runner, who dressed casually in a T-shirt, sweatpants, and athletic shoes.

“Thanks so much for picking me up,” she said with a smile.

“Don’t mention it. You must be knackered. Did you get any sleep at all?”

“A little,” she said. “But I could use a coffee.”

“I know the perfect place. We’ll stop and get you coffee and a proper breakfast. Follow me, I’m double-parked,” Lucy said, trotting toward a row of cars.

“Thanks,” she said and jogged after her.

“I know it was short notice, but thanks for coming,” Lucy said once they were in the car and driving.

“Don’t mention it. Anything we can do to support your task force, we will,” Whitney said, gripping the armrest in the passenger seat as they merged into traffic. She’d not been to the UK before and driving on the “wrong side of the road” felt more disconcerting than she imagined.

“That’s what I hoped you’d say,” Lucy said and bit her lip, “because I, um, might have exaggerated a tad bit on the phone.”

“Exaggerated about what?”

“This and that . . .” Lucy said, cryptically.

Whitney narrowed her eyes at her host. “We’re not going to the office, are we?”

“My trackie bottoms tip you off, eh?” Lucy said with a chuckle.

“What’s going on, Lucy?” she said, tamping down the sudden rising irritation she felt.

“McLean shut down the joint task force and sent me back to MI6.”

“What? Why?”

“Because Nadar went from being on the terrorist watch list to a bloody national hero. After the attack in Dubai, British Aero promoted him as I said on the phone, and then they started parading him around like a show pony. His face is on their corporate website now in one of those feel-good, social harmony pictures. You know the kind I’m talking about.”

Whitney nodded. “So, there’s no active investigation running on Nadar?”

“Oh, there’s an active investigation all right . . .”

“Oh shit, this is unsanctioned?” she said, her stomach going to knots.

“No, of course not. My work is sanctioned,” Lucy said through a sigh, “just not supported.”

“Elaborate, please.”

“When I got back to MI6, I made the case to my boss why I thought Nadar was still a potential threat. My boss is a good officer, but every decision he makes is based on some cryptic internal cost-benefit analysis. As far as I can tell, the main criteria seems to be the potential impact on his career. If he shuts me down and I’m right about Nadar, it would be career ending for him. But, giving me enough leash to sniff around only ruffles feathers at MI5. So long as I don’t draw too much attention to myself or the office, he figures I’ll eventually get frustrated or bored and give up.”

“So you’re surveilling Nadar on your own?”

“As best I can.”

“What about the wife?” Whitney asked. “If memory serves you were trying to recruit her. Were you successful?”

“Diba,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “McLean shut that down, too, before I could set the hook.”

“You never made an offer or read her in?”

“No, but I’ve continued to cultivate the relationship,” Lucy said, then, almost as an aside, added, “Diba’s pregnant, by the way.”

“Really? How far along?” Whitney asked.

“Seven months, give or take.”

Raindrops began to spatter the windshield and Lucy turned on the wipers. “Bloody fuckin’ rain,” the Brit murmured, her originally chipper mood seeming to sour. “Can we just have one day, God, please, without the bloody rain?”

“Why am I here, Lucy?” Whitney asked, her patience beginning to deteriorate.

“Because I was hoping that maybe you could put in a formal request for me to be on your joint task force monitoring Nadar.”

“Lucy, we don’t have a joint task force monitoring Nadar.”

“Bollocks, I thought you did.”

Whitney shook her head in comical disbelief as she thought about the series of events that had gotten her here. “So, to summarize, you—a mid-level agent runner—had the balls to convince your bosses at MI6 to issue a by-name request through the State Department, and then, I assume, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, insinuating you wanted me—a mid-level JSOC intelligence analyst—to fly to London on my government’s dime to join your task force. But, in reality, you don’t actually have a task force, and what you really wanted was to beg me over coffee if you could be on the US task force—which you weren’t positive even existed. Did I miss anything?”

“When you say it that way, I sound like a total nutter,” Lucy said with a self-deprecating laugh. “But yes, that pretty much sums it up.”

“Well, first of all, congratulations, because it worked—you got me here. Now comes the bad news. I don’t work for a task force, Lucy. I work for the Naval Special Warfare JSOC element. I told you that on our very first call. Do you not remember?”

“I remember, but McLean and I both assumed you were CIA and the SEALs were the direct-action component of a task force. That’s how you Yanks roll, yeah? CIA running the show, but pretending otherwise.”

“But I told you I was with the N2 shop.”

“Right, but Americans lie,” Lucy said with a sideways grin. “About everything.”

“I don’t lie,” Whitney said. “Not to my teammates and not to my partners.”

Lucy nodded, and her face twisted in confusion. “If you don’t have a task force, then what’s your current status pursuing Nadar?”

“Zero, because we’re not pursuing Nadar,” she said, her tone a tad more churlish than she intended. “Look, Lucy, we got Hamza al-Saud in Dubai. And we took down the Lion of Ramadi and his suicide sleepers in Tampa. As far as the command is concerned, we cut the head off the snake that was al Qadar. After that, like McLean and MI5, we moved on. The fact of the matter is, we’ve got other, bigger problems we’re dealing with now . . . Russia’s aggression in Europe, China threatening Taiwan, and the growing instability in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. In coming here, I was under the misconception that you had something actionable on Nadar. Something pressing. The second my boss finds out what’s really going on here, I’ll be recalled, and there’s nothing I can do or say to change that.”

The windshield wipers indexed at maximum speed now as the rain picked up from a drizzle to a downpour. Brake lights flashed ahead as visibility degraded and traffic slowed en masse. Lucy braked and they slowed to a crawl on whatever road this was they traveled. They sat in silence for a long moment.

“Can I ask you something and get a no-CIA-or-joint-whatever-bullshit answer?” Lucy asked.

“Of course,” Whitney said, softening a touch. She liked Lucy, and she knew it was likely because they were a lot alike. “I told you, I’m honest and up-front with my partners.”

“Okay then. What does your gut tell you about Nadar?” Lucy said. “There was a time you were convinced that Qasim Nadar and Hamza al-Saud were the same person.”

“Yeah, but that was before I saw them both simultaneously in a nightclub in Dubai.”

“And don’t you find that at all troubling—that the leader of al Qadar and Nadar were together in the same club?”

“I didn’t say they were together. The British Aero contingent including Nadar had dinner at the club and al-Saud came in later under an alias. He was more interested in hitting on me than he was in Nadar. I don’t recall them even speaking.”

“Are you sure?”

“Well, they did bump into each other,” Whitney said, plumbing the hazy depths of her memory from that night out with Chunk. “But that exchange couldn’t have been more than two or three seconds. Regardless, we questioned Nadar after the attack, took his phone, and then handed him over to you guys for interrogation. Your people cleared him, remember?”

“Not my people,” Lucy said. “McLean . . . McLean cleared him. I wanted to continue surveillance. I wanted to recruit Diba.”

“Well, I’m sorry that didn’t work out for you.”

“Come on, Whitney,” Lucy said, her voice almost pleading. “You were the one who saw the connection in the first place. The border crossing at Torkham, Nadar with Eshan Dawar, remember that? That was how you convinced me to take Nadar more seriously as a threat. Did you close that thread to your satisfaction? Dawar was working with al-Saud—you proved that. Somebody had to configure the mobile GCU system to pilot that drone that attacked the base in Kandahar. That skill set is not something that your rank-and-file jihadi possesses. But an aerospace engineer who works with drones at British Aero—someone like Qasim Nadar—would be perfect for the job. So, I’m asking you, what does your gut tell you about Nadar?”

Whitney exhaled through her nose and said, “My gut tells me . . . that there are too many coincidences to ignore.”

Lucy pumped her left fist in the air. “I knew it. Thank you, Whitney.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t committed to anything and neither has my command,” she said, but her mind already worked the problem.

The truth was that she’d had trouble letting go ever since the events in Dubai seven months earlier. She’d been beside Chunk in the hotel room, questioning Nadar after the attack at the Dubai World Trade Center. Nadar had been an open book. He’d answered all their questions with plausible, common-sense answers, and he’d exhibited all the right emotions in all the right ways. Finding Nadar blameless had not required her to suspend her disbelief . . .

And yet, it had all been too perfect. Too neat. Too tidy. Too convenient. Chunk had given her the opportunity to black bag Nadar and disappear him for a real interrogation. He’d given her the final yes or no, and she’d said no. But that no had come with a caveat in her mind, which was that the British would give Nadar a proper interrogation. She’d felt comfortable handing Nadar off because she’d had faith that their partners would do what she was not really in the position to do herself. To learn now that MI5 had let Nadar walk without putting him through the wringer first made her regret her decision.

“What’s that look for?” Lucy said, glancing at her.

“I’m pissed off,” she said, resisting the urge to ball her fists.

“Because you had Nadar in Dubai and turned him over to our task force and we went and cocked it up?”

She nodded.

“Now you know how I feel,” Lucy said. “We should have put Nadar through a proper interrogation, but no, everybody just had a nice little chat over tea and biscuits and talked about our feelings. No pressure tactics. No post-interview surveillance. Nothing. Just a handshake and goodbye . . . It shouldn’t be, but at times ours is a political business.”

“It never would have come to that if I’d told Chunk how I really felt,” Whitney murmured, shifting the blame back to herself. “But I took the easy path because . . . because I was tired, and I didn’t want to have to go back into the ring and fight to justify my instincts.”

“I can relate to how you’re feeling because that’s the story of my career. Why do you think I’m such a hard-ass all the time? The woman you’re used to dealing with, the one that you met that first day on the video conference, that’s professional adaptation. That was me being who I need to be so that people will listen, without me having to explain everything all the time.”

Whitney thought back to Chunk’s parting pledge to support her in whatever she wanted to do, and she decided that she believed it was more than lip service. She listened to the wipers squeaking on the windshield, silently debating whether joining Lucy Kim’s one-woman rodeo was a good idea. Finally, she made up her mind.

“Sanctioned, but not supported . . . that’s your official situation?” she said.

“That’s right,” Lucy said.

“Well, I’d hate to fly all the way here for nothing . . .”

“So, you’ll stay? You’ll help me?”

Whitney nodded. “Yeah. My team is on task, so I’m not sure how much time I can give you, but at least a few days. Just know I have to keep my command in the loop, no bullshit, so I could get pulled at any time.”

“Of course,” Lucy said, smiling broadly.

“But I don’t give my first check-in for a bit. So, let’s see what the two of us can do when we put our minds to it.”

“Brilliant,” the MI6 officer said, grinning like a kid. “Thank you.”

“What exactly do you have in mind?”

Lucy shot her a sideways glance. “I want you to help me recruit Qasim Nadar’s wife as an agent.”

CHAPTER FIVE

combat information center (cic)

uss ronald reagan (cvn-76)

mozambique channel, indian ocean

one hundred and twenty-five miles west of morondava, madagascar

1445 local time

Chunk clenched his jaw to keep from grinning as Rear Admiral Tim Carr, Commander of Task Force 70, toyed with the young CIA officer standing at the nav plot. The game had been going on for several minutes now, and Chunk imagined the admiral would soon tire of it if the rookie spook didn’t wise up.

“What would be helpful, Admiral, is if we could be in a position to hear what’s going on aboard that ship,” the CIA man said, leaning over the digital nav plot and tapping the red square representing the target vessel and labeled Plentiful. The Myanmar-flagged cargo vessel’s actual name was a word nobody could pronounce, but it translated from Kachin as plentiful so that’s what they were going with.

“If you think it would be helpful, we could just pull right up beside her and listen in.” Carr said.

It was like watching an alley cat toy with a mouse, so much so that Chunk almost felt bad for the spook.

Almost.

Carr, a salty former A-6 driver, told Chunk he’d finished out his flying career in F/A-18 Super Hornets before earning his flag. Below the gold wings on his nameplate was the call sign Cowboy, and beneath that simply CTF 70 Commander—which meant he oversaw both the Reagan’s Carrier Strike Group Five and the embarked air wing, CVW-5. One didn’t rise to such power without having a sense of humor, but also the brass balls to put folks in their place when necessary . . . something Chunk was getting see in action.

The CIA man shook his head. “I think to get close enough to hear anything they would notice us.”

“You think so, Einstein?” the admiral said.

And there’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The kid looked up and glanced back and forth between the admiral and Chunk.

“Look, I’m just trying to get some validating intel to help inform a decision,” the spook said, his cheeks going crimson. “While the crew aboard Plentiful seems clean enough—no demonstrable ties to terror or arms trafficking—there are two Malaysians aboard who are known smugglers. We know they’ve moved materials for the Chinese black market. We also suspect they have ties to the Ministry of State Security and have facilitated Chinese arms shipments to a half dozen groups laying the groundwork to undermine the stability of democratic republics in Africa. China has made massive direct investments in the continent over the past decade. But what you might not know is that Beijing is also running a quiet campaign, trying to spread its economic model of single-party authoritarian rule to Africa. The director has made it a priority to identify and stop these arms shipments. Which is why when I saw that the manifest showed eight non-crewmembers traveling under an unspecified charter at the same time as these Malaysian smugglers, it raised some eyebrows.”

“Are you insinuating the eight might be Chinese operatives?” Carr asked.

“I’m afraid I’m not really at liberty to say, Admiral,” the CIA officer said, his face deadpan serious.

“Oh, give me a fucking break,” Carr said. “You know I can kick your ass off this carrier with a single word, son.”

“He doesn’t know, is my guess, Admiral,” Chunk said, trying to regain a truce. He turned to the spook. “What specifically does your intel indicate is onboard that concerns you?” Chunk asked, already knowing the answer would be weapons of some kind.

“Weapons of some kind,” the spook said on cue.

The admiral shook his head and turned to Chunk. “Commander, as you can probably tell, I’ve run out of patience here. This kid doesn’t fall under my positional authority, but your team does. So, here’s the bottom line—I’m not green-lighting an infil of SEALs onto a foreign ship because some kid thinks a couple of smugglers may or may not be moving weapons of some kind.”

“Can you stop calling me kid?” the CIA man said. “My name is Jason.”

Carr ignored the comment and kept his gaze fixed on Chunk.

“Yes, sir, I get it. Trust me, I’m not suggesting we hit this ship based on the limited intel we’ve got. But we’re here on the authority of ODNI to support the CIA’s operation, so I’d hate to do nothing and find out later that these assholes delivered weapons that killed a bunch of innocents or helped topple an allied democratic government,” Chunk said.

“Agreed. So, what do you propose?”

“We have some bleeding-edge drone tech we brought with us that might allow us to get a closer look.”

“Microdrones?” the admiral said.

Chunk nodded.

“How close do we have to get to deploy it?”

“Couple of miles or so. But we can deploy it from an airborne platform. If we could hop on a Seahawk, we could get close enough. It’s two-stage deployment. Mother ship drone that deploys the microdrones from a little compartment.”

“We could pretend to be conducting an ASW exercise,” Carr said, nodding. “I’m assuming a night op?”

“You know how we love the night,” Chunk said.

The admiral nodded. “I think I can make that work.”

“Well, I’m not familiar with this drone you’re talking about,” Jason said. “How will it possibly help us?”

“The microdrones are really small, and they use AI to function semiautonomously. If we can get them aboard the ship, we might get facial recognition on some of the players, map out their security plan, and maybe even snoop around a cargo hold. It’s the kind of intel that could expedite a decision.”

“Okay, if it’s real,” Jason said, “that would be a game changer.”

“Here’s the plan,” the admiral said, ignoring the CIA dude and looking at Chunk. “Come by my stateroom after chow—you, your LCPO, and your intel lead. I’ll round up the CAG and the Reagan skipper, Captain Vance. I want them fully read in so the ship and air wing can maximally support you.”

“What about me?” the CIA man said.

“What about you?” Carr said, his grin finally returning.

“Am I coming to the meeting?”

The admiral tapped the nav plot. “I think it would be best if you kept an eye on things here. But if that red dot deviates from its expected track, I want you to tell the TAO to notify me.”

“Thank you, sir,” Chunk said. “See you in a few hours.”

The admiral gave a curt nod and walked off, leaving Chunk alone with the CIA man.

“Was he serious?” Jason asked, the heat back in his cheeks.

Chunk clapped a hand on the spook’s shoulder. “Yep, but don’t worry, I’ll fill you in after.”

Grinning to himself, Chunk headed back to the stateroom Yi had been given, a move meant to accommodate her need to work in a private intel space. He rapped on the door and received a curt, “Come in.”

“Oh, sorry, boss,” she said when he entered. “Didn’t know it was you.”

“Easy day, Michelle,” Chunk said and briefed her on the plan.

“Roger that,” she said with he’d finished. “Sounds good.”

“You heard anything from Watts?” he said, hoping she’d checked in

“Not yet.”

“Let me know when you do.”

“Will do, boss,” Yi said.

“I’ll be in my stateroom if you need me,” he said and stepped back out into the passageway.

His mind went from Watts to Saw. He needed to see where the man’s head was and what decisions Saw had made about his future with the Tier One.

The sat phone chirped in Chunk’s cargo pants pocket and he pulled it out, pursing his lips as he looked at the number.

“Yes, sir?” he answered.

“Let’s chat from your secure computer in your stateroom.”

“Yes, sir. I happened to be on my way there,” Chunk said.

“Very well, I’ll be standing by,” Bowman said and ended the call.

Less than three minutes later, Chunk was seated at his desk with the secure video chat window open and Bowman’s chiseled, scarred face filling the screen.

“How’s the team, Chunk?” Bowman said.

“Great, sir,” he said, not sure exactly what his CSO was asking him. “Working the intel on the op here so we can make good decisions. Probably going to run a collection event with drones, since we have some gaps,” he added, baiting his boss in case he had something more to share.

“Keep me in the loop, but do what you think is best, Commander,” Bowman said.

Autonomy and trust of his leadership—two of the things that Chunk loved most about this job . . .

“Chunk, how is Spence coming along?”

“Sir?” he asked, confused by the unexpected question.

“I want to talk to you about mentorship,” Bowman said, leaning back in his chair and dropping his thick hands into his lap.

“Okay,” Chunk said slowly.

“Let me start by reassuring you that Gold Squadron has exceeded expectations on all measures,” Bowman said. “From selection to green team to fully operational—Gold has become the go-to special missions unit in JSOC and you did it in record time. It’s quite impressive, Commander, and I’m proud of you and every member of the unit. But now, I need you to start thinking about what comes next.”

Chunk felt his forehead knit with the growing consternation he suddenly felt.

Am I in trouble or getting an attaboy?

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t follow . . .”

“Let me cut to the chase,” Bowman said, leaning in again, his face filling the screen. “This is not an indictment of your leadership. The men in Gold—in fact, the whole Tier One unit—would follow you to hell and back without question. They do this because you lead from the front and you fight shoulder to shoulder beside them . . .”

Chunk tensed, waiting for the but that was sure to come next.

“. . . but having an O-4 officer out on the pointy tip of every major operation is unorthodox, Keith. Because it works for you, I indulge it, but operational leadership is only one aspect of your job.”

“I get that, sir,” Chunk said, not sure if he truly did.

“If all we needed was for Gold to be ready to spin up and kick ass, then Bravo Zulu. Mission accomplished. But there’s more to being a squadron commander than that. Now that Gold is a well-oiled machine, it’s time to plan for what’s next.”

Chunk nodded, getting where Bowman was headed, he thought. “You’re talking about the evolution of the team.”

“As a unit but also individually. For example, Spence is a superb operator and officer—but are you developing him to lead at the next level?”

“Well, I would hope that the Red Cell operation we ran in Taiwan is proof that I am. That bait-and-switch strategy was Spence’s idea, and I let him run with it,” Chunk said, hating the defensive edge he heard in his voice.

“I know it was, but did you delegate the responsibility to him to come up with the mission package, or did he take the initiative and bring the idea to you?” Bowman asked.

“I suppose it was more of the latter.”

Bowman nodded. “Spence is a self-starter looking for leadership opportunities, so that makes being his boss easy, but not everyone is. Take Riker for example. The dude is a badass breacher to be sure, but as far as I can tell, he’s exhibited no aspirations for much else. What are you doing to develop him into the senior NCO he needs to be? As senior NCO, one of his jobs is to prepare Edwards and Antman to lead at the next level when they make chief. Is Riker doing that? If not, how are you going to push him to take on that mentorship role? You see how this is supposed to work—mentorship up and down the chain—and it all starts and ends with you.”

“I understand, sir,” he said.

Wow, how have I missed that? How have I missed that I’m letting the team’s development down?

“And it goes beyond the squadron level too. Everyone in your direct chain now has a future role in the Tier One for the long haul. Unlike other commands in the Navy, the Tier One is a unit where, once you’re in, many people stay until they retire. Which means you need to be thinking about attrition and ascension. Who from your squadron is the next to lead Alpha and Bravo from your enlisted ranks? Does Spence succeed you or does he take the helm at Blue? Alternatively, should he be a command OPSO? And does anyone from Gold seem a fit for the next command master chief? Saw, perhaps?”

“Sir, Saw is still sorting out what’s next for him. After what happened at home, he’s deciding what’s best for his family—”

“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about, Keith,” Bowman said, his voice sharp and hard. “Saw is a big boy. Obviously his family is going to factor into his decision, but as strange as this might sound, you get a vote too. The Tier One is better off with Saw in our ranks than without him. What are you doing to encourage him to stay? What are you doing to groom him for his next position in the unit?”

“Sir, after what happened in Tampa, Saw needs to make his own—”

“Bullshit, son,” Bowman said, catching Chunk off guard. “Do you know how much money the Navy has spent on Saw’s training and development? The bean counters estimate that number at a million dollars! That’s a helluva investment to let walk out the door without even a ‘Hey, we’d love for you to reconsider.’ Mission before self isn’t just a slogan for the battlefield. In Special Warfare, more than anywhere else, it extends into everything we do in garrison. Your job is to evolve the men and women of Gold into who they need to be for the place they next serve.”

“I understand, sir.”

“I hope so because my job is to mentor you. My job is to help you figure out where Keith Redman will best serve this unit and our mission to defend our great nation going forward. I can’t let you kick in doors at the pointy tip forever. Pretty soon, you’ll come into the zone for O-5. Where do I groom you to next serve?”

An uncomfortable silence passed while Chunk struggled with what to say. “For now, sir, I feel I’m serving right where I’m meant to be.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that, and for the moment, I agree,” Bowman said. “But that won’t last forever. When you get home to Tampa, we’ll have a drink and discuss this more.”

Have a drink? With Bowman? What the hell does that conversation look like?

“That sounds great, sir. I welcome the input.”

“Bullshit, but you’ll get it anyway. In the meantime, I want you to focus on mentoring your teammates and career planning. Hooyah?”

“Hooyah, sir,” he said, feeling very little of the emotion usually associated with the battle cry.

“Any word from Watts and her investigation with the British task force?” Bowman said, shifting gears.

“She just arrived in London, sir. We expect to hear more in the next twenty-four hours. I’ll keep you posted.”

“As you see fit, Commander.”

“Will do. Thank you, sir.”

He was about to say something else, something about future challenges and the like, but the screen went black.

Well, okay then.

Chunk closed his laptop and sighed. Within the Special Warfare community, there was no one he respected more than Captain Bowman. Yes, the man was a hard-ass and all business all the time—hardly Chunk’s leadership style—but Bowman was committed to exceptional leadership and thoughtfully serving his team, his Navy, and his nation.

That was the point Bowman was making tonight, right?

Reflecting on the conversation, he realized Spence should have been in CIC at his side during the conversation with Admiral Carr and the CIA officer. He should have tasked Spence to assess the intel package and come up with a plan to surveil the cargo ship. And he needed to stop putting off the conversation with Saw just because it would be hard and uncomfortable. And Riker—dear God, how do you mentor the unmentorable?

He exhaled as he rose from his desk and stepped out the door into the passageway.

I’ll start with Spence.

Baby steps . . .

CHAPTER SIX

lucy kim’s apartment

corner of acacia grove and arcadia mews

half block west of high street

new malden, united kingdom

day two

1235 local time

“Do a sound check,” Whitney said from behind her laptop as Lucy adjusted her necklace. The pendant the MI6 agent runner was wearing had a noise-canceling mike and high-res camera concealed inside. Gone were the days of body wires and bulky transmitter packs. This little gem linked wirelessly to Lucy’s phone via Bluetooth.

“Comms check, one . . . two . . . three,” the Brit said.

Whitney heard the transmission loud and clear in her headset. The slick little MI6 application she ran on her computer automatically recorded separate video and audio tracks with time stamps and displayed a running graph of signal strength, recording decibel level, and background noise.

“Comms check sat,” Whitney said. “Are you sure you don’t want to wear an earbud? There’s no way for me to talk to you using this setup.”

“Don’t need it,” Lucy said, dismissively. “I’m in no danger, and the last thing I want to do is spook her—which could happen if she noticed I was wearing an earbud.”

“What if there’s a problem?”

“Then text me.”

“All right,” Whitney said with a close-lipped smile. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” the MI6 agent runner said as she headed to the apartment door. “Help yourself to whatever you want in the fridge. You can eat all the leftover takeaway from last night.”

“Roger that,” Whitney said, slipping into her TOC persona even though for today’s op she’d be little more than a fly on the wall. And yet despite that, she still had pre-op butterflies in her stomach . . . not for herself, but for Lucy. The more time she’d spent with her British counterpart, the more she liked the woman and wanted her to succeed.

Whitney had never actually recruited an asset, and she was excited to see Kim in action. Agent runner was the MI6 equivalent to what the CIA would call an asset handler. There was an art to recruiting assets and a tremendous up-front personal time commitment required. Over dinner last night, Lucy had explained that she’d been fostering a relationship with Diba for months and how difficult it had been to get Nadar’s wife to trust her and open up. Finding a way to break that trust without imploding the relationship was the trick to a successful recruitment, Lucy had explained. The more you and the asset were invested in each other, the more “the reveal” would feel like a betrayal. After the betrayal, the recruiter had a finite window to make her case for why her dishonesty was the lesser of two evils—the more damning option being to do nothing.

When Whitney had asked if there was a standardized playbook for how the dance was done, Lucy had laughed.

“It’d be bloody helpful if there was, but unfortunately every person is different, so you have to customize the approach as you go along,” Lucy had said. “But there is one thing I think is true no matter who it is you’re recruiting.”

“And what’s that?”

“They need to believe you’re doing it for them as much as you’re doing it for yourself. Nobody likes the feeling of being used . . .”

Those words echoed in her head as she watched the live camera feed from Lucy’s pendant while the MI6 officer walked down High Street.

Nobody likes the feeling of being used.

There was nuance in that statement—a potentially profound nuance, she realized. People use, and get used by, other people every day. How the experience felt, however, was the differentiator. Sending the intern on a Starbucks run was hardly a soul-sullying experience. But building a fake friendship for months to spy on another woman’s husband? That was an entirely different level of exploitation. She was curious to see how Lucy accounted for Diba’s feelings as she navigated the reveal.

According to Lucy, Qasim Nadar kept a reliable daily work schedule. He rarely came home early and never had lunch out with his wife, despite his flat and the office being within walking distance of numerous restaurants. He did eat out with colleagues occasionally, but Lucy had timed her lunch with Diba on the later side to preclude that complication. Also, they were meeting at Imone, an authentic Korean eatery—a place she said she’d bet her left thumb Qasim would never patronize.

Lucy arrived first, as planned, and was quickly seated. The restaurant didn’t appear crowded and, listening from Lucy’s flat, Whitney zoned out while Lucy chatted with the owner in Korean until Diba arrived. When she did, Lucy stood and greeted Diba with a hug. The Afghan woman did not look like Whitney expected—short, stylish, and buxom. She wore a fashionable maternity dress and color-coordinated silk headscarf.

What did you expect, Whit? For her to show up in a blue burka?

Diba seemed completely at ease, laughing often and easily as the two women made small talk. The pendant camera had a wide-angle lens, so no matter how Lucy moved or turned, Diba was almost always in frame. When it was time to order, Lucy talked Diba through the menu and helped her make up her mind. Whitney had never actually tried Korean food, so none of the menu item names meant anything to her. After the order was in, the two women sipped hot tea and continued to talk, mostly about Diba’s pregnancy.

To Whitney’s surprise, she found herself immersed in their conversation, fully engaged and laughing along. After something interesting Lucy said, she even opened her mouth to chime in as if she was on a Zoom call with friends. Maybe it was a product of all the video conferences she’d been having lately or maybe it was a symptom of something else, something she was missing. Female companionship, maybe? Sure, she had Chief Petty Officer Yi, and thank God for that, but she didn’t have this in her life. She didn’t have a best girlfriend to go to lunches with, or to meet after work for drinks, or to casually hang out with on the sofa and get carryout like she’d done last night in Lucy’s flat.

What do I have? A bunch of tobacco-dipping, ass-grabbing, rifle-shooting rednecks who call me Heels and make fun of me because I can’t run five miles without puking. Certainly nobody to talk baby stuff with . . .

But why did that suddenly bother her?

She’d staunchly resisted flirting with motherhood—even the possibility of it—for as long as she could remember. She didn’t know how it was for other women, but for her the strange and miraculous ability she possessed to make another human being inside her body felt like a superpower. But like the superhero mantra goes: “With great power comes great responsibility”—and she certainly was not ready for the responsibility of becoming a mother. She’d never vocalized her misgivings on the matter, but her current opinion was that she wasn’t emotionally, professionally, or intellectually ready for motherhood.

And yet, looking at Diba—her smile, her joy, her certitude—a little voice in Whitney’s head asked an unprompted and terrifying question: Why not?

She shook her head.

No . . . just stop. You chose this life.

“Did you like it?” Lucy was saying, as their plates were being taken away by the server.

“Oh yes,” Diba said. “Different, but very good. I should like to come here again.”

“Great. Me too,” Lucy said, but Whitney could feel the unspoken heaviness in her voice. The time was now.

Lucy was about to jump the chasm of no return.

The camera panned as Lucy turned in her seat, probably checking to make sure no one was close enough to hear what she said next.

“Diba . . . there’s something important I need to talk to you about,” Lucy said.

Whitney watched the contented expression of a woman sated after a nice lunch disappear and morph into one of concern.

“Is everything all right?” Diba asked.

She heard a shaky exhale from Lucy. The MI6 officer’s heart was pounding so hard against her breastbone the pendant mike picked it up. “Diba, I have not been entirely honest with you about something . . .”

Diba went rigid. “Okay.”

“I work the register and tables at Nando’s, but that’s not my real job. In reality, I work for the British government,” Lucy said, leaning in. “And my job is to look after and protect you.”

Whitney watched all the color drain from Diba’s face. “What are you talking about?” Diba said, her eyes betraying her internal panic. “Protect me from what?”

“From your husband and the dangerous people he works with,” Lucy said, her voice velvet now as she gained control of her nerves.

“What are you talking about?” Diba said again, this time with a little less conviction. Whitney could practically see the gears turning in the Afghan woman’s mind as she ran through scenarios, probably planned but not adequately rehearsed.

“Diba, we both know that Qasim is leading two lives—one in public as a respectable aerospace engineer and upstanding British citizen, and another in secret as a member of the terrorist group al Qadar, where he helps support global jihad through finance and technology transfer.”

“No, this is a lie,” Diba said shaking her head. “A filthy, dirty lie. You’re doing this because we’re Muslim. Because we’re immigrants. He told me this could happen. He told me I don’t have to answer your questions. I’m going to leave now.”

“Diba, hear me out first, please. Then, if you want to go, you can go,” Lucy said with just enough authority that Diba—who had scooted her chair back from the table—remained in her seat. “Listen, I know you’re scared. I know that it’s confusing and upsetting how I’ve confronted you about this, but the alternative—which is me doing nothing—is much, much worse. My name is Lucy Kim, and I’m first-generation British-born Korean. My parents are immigrants too. We are not having this conversation because you are Muslim or because you are an immigrant. We’re having this conversation because your husband’s choices have put you and your son in grave danger. My number one priority is to protect you.”

Whitney found herself nodding along as Lucy made her case.

Damn, the girl is good.

“So, what are you telling me?” Diba said, both her voice and her expression wooden. “That you work for British Intelligence, and you want me to spy on my husband for you?”

“No,” Lucy said, “what I’m telling you is that I am your friend and a resource for you. If you are scared. If you are looking for a way out. You can talk to me. You can trust me.”

“Trust you?” Diba said with a laugh. “That is funny since you have lied to me since the day we met. You’re not my friend. You’re trying to recruit me. I’m new to this country and this language, but I watch Killing Eve, I know how this game is working.”

“It’s not like the TV shows,” Lucy said. “I get to choose who I support and how. This is a risk for me too. I’m putting my reputation and my neck on the line for you. I don’t have to do it, you know. When Qasim goes down, you’ll go down with him. Do you want to give birth to your son in a terrorist detention cell? Or, maybe, the judge won’t bother incarcerating you. They’ll just deport you back to Afghanistan. But the Afghanistan they send you back to is not the same one that you left. The Taliban is in control now. How do you think you’ll be received? What future lies in wait for you and your son under Taliban rule? Your life, your son’s life—these are the things I’m concerned about, I promise you. Diba, I’m offering you not only protection from Qasim and al Qadar, but also from the Taliban. If you choose me, I can guarantee that you can remain here in the United Kingdom and your son can grow up as a British citizen.”

Diba said nothing for a long time as she processed a possible future that, from the look on her face, she’d not considered. When she finally spoke, she stood and said, “My husband would never hurt me or my son.”

“Diba, wait,” Lucy called, standing up but not making a move to follow Diba out the door.

“All things considered, I think that went pretty well,” Whitney said, but then chuckled because duh, Lucy couldn’t hear her.

“Bollocks,” Lucy said, and Whitney could hear the defeated sigh that followed.

Whitney grabbed her mobile phone and texted Lucy a few words of encouragement, to which the MI6 agent runner replied verbally with a wistful. “I don’t know . . . I thought for a minute I had her.”

Whitney thumb-typed a reply:

Come back to the flat and we can talk about it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this job, is that it’s not over until it’s over, and this is definitely far from over.

She looked over her reply and hit send. Then, glancing around the chaos of the small apartment and the stack of dirty dishes in the sink, added:

And bring me something to eat. I’m famished.

CHAPTER SEVEN

high street

new malden, united kingdom

1341 local time

On the outside, Diba Nadar tried to project absolute calm. Inside, she was a tornado of panic. It took every fiber of her being not to run as she made her way north on High Street. Lucy Kim worked for British Intelligence.

British Intelligence!

And Lucy knew about Qasim.

Oh, dear God, what do I do?

Just put one foot in front of the other, she told herself. And breathe . . . you’re not breathing.

She forced herself to inhale through her nose and exhale through her mouth in slow, controlled breaths as she walked. New Malden’s main street wasn’t particularly crowded today, but Diba felt like everyone stared at her.

So, this was what paranoia felt like . . .

Crushing and paralyzing.

How many people know? she wondered. How many people has Lucy told about us?

Right foot . . .

What do I do?

Left foot . . .

Where do I go?

Right foot . . .

Think, think, think!

But she couldn’t think. Her mind was all chaos and fear.

They’re going to arrest us! Qasim is going to be so angry with me.

She reached the intersection of High and Cambridge Streets, but instead of turning left to walk home as had been her plan, she crossed the intersection and kept walking north. How could she go home knowing what she now knew? Had MI6 put hidden cameras and microphones in her house? Were there cameras in her bedroom? Had they seen her naked? Had they watched her make love with Qasim?

She shuddered at the thought and felt so . . . so . . . unclean and embarrassed.

Anger flared in her chest.

It’s not right to spy on people in their home. It’s not right to watch them doing private things . . .

Right foot.

Left foot.

Why am I worried about that? Them seeing me naked is the least of my problems.

Right foot.

Left foot.

Where am I going? What am I doing?

Qasim had warned her that something like this could happen. He’d warned her that British Intelligence might approach her. Also that they would be very convincing and that they would try to turn her against him. When she’d asked him what she was supposed to do in that situation, he’d told her to deny their accusations—which she had done—and to go about her day as if nothing had happened. In private, she was to inform him of the event and he would handle the rest. So, that’s what she should do . . .

Except, she couldn’t go home.

Not knowing that they would be watching and listening to her there.

I need to go somewhere safe.

Only one place came to mind—the spice shop. That is where Qasim had instructed her to go in case of an emergency. In the basement, he had told her, there was a hidden room where his people could hide them until arrangements could be made to sneak out of England. After she’d packed her “go bag,” Qasim had taken it to this place. She’d never been, but he’d made her memorize the address and the secret code word to validate her identity and grant her access.

Upon reaching the roundabout at the intersection of High Drive and Grafton, she used her phone to hail an Uber. The seven-minute wait for the car to arrive was torture, but she steeled herself and resisted the urge to constantly look over her shoulder like a paranoid person.

“Diba going to Greenfield Road in East London?” the driver, who she pegged for Pakistani, asked in accented English when she finally climbed into the rear passenger compartment.

“Yes,” she said.

“With traffic, it will take about an hour,” the driver said. “Is that okay with you?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” he said, and they set off.

The trip took every bit of an hour, and it turned out that an hour to fret and second-guess yourself while stuck in the back of a Ford Focus felt like an eternity. The charge for the Uber was much higher than she thought the trip should cost. She tipped the driver anyway using the app on her phone and stepped out onto Greenfield Road.

Qasim would probably be angry about this. He kept a very close eye on their finances and controlled all the money. He gave her a modest allowance she could use for shopping and dining out, the latter of which she told him was takeaway rather than dine-in. She’d intentionally downplayed her friendship with Lucy because Qasim was very possessive of her. He seemed happiest on the days she reported having not left the house. That had always bothered her, but now she saw that he’d been right. Lucy was not a real friend; she never had been. Their entire relationship was contrived.

The pitiful reality was that nobody cared about a married Muslim girl in New Malden. How she felt right now was how she’d felt when she’d first arrived in England. No—this was worse. Back then, she’d at least had hope. Hope that she’d meet people and find community. Now, that hope was expunged and replaced with a hollow resentment. She didn’t realize how much Lucy’s friendship had meant to her until this moment. How much it had buoyed her soul. Because no matter what Qasim said or did, no matter how indifferent the outside world felt, she’d had a friend.

Tears pressed and her bottom lip began to tremble.

Sadness suddenly overpowered the defiant anger that had been driving her since walking out of the Korean restaurant. She’d harnessed that anger and turned it into strength—the strength she’d needed to walk down High Street with her head held high, to hail the Uber, and to come here. But with despair came weakness and uncertainty. Maybe she should not have come to the spice shop? What if this did not rise to the level of an emergency that necessitated running? Qasim had urged her not to panic, but wasn’t she doing just that? Was this what Qasim would have wanted her to do? They hadn’t talked about such matters in months, and she’d witnessed a change in him lately. He was becoming a man of importance, always traveling and having dinner meetings. Most nights she ate alone. What if, despite what happened, Qasim wasn’t ready to run?

She could hear him scolding her in her mind: “This was my decision to make, wife. Not yours. Never yours!  ”

She wiped her eyes, swallowed, and looked around. The street was mostly deserted, and the only other person she saw had been walking the other way when her Uber arrived. She’d glanced out the back window many times during the drive from New Malden to East London, looking for Lucy’s bright-red compact SUV, but she’d not seen it. She’d not noticed any one particular car following her, but she also realized she wasn’t trained in such matters and probably wouldn’t notice a professional tail. In British spy dramas, tailing a vehicle usually involved a team of spies with handoffs so the person being followed couldn’t tell.

Like a bully shoving the shy kid out of the way, fresh paranoia dispatched her sadness. An overwhelming compulsion to run into the spice shop came over her, but she didn’t. Instead, she made a show of rooting around in her handbag for a moment—a woman perhaps making sure she had her credit card—before walking confidently into Afghan Importers.

She’d not been to the spice shop before, despite being curious about it. Qasim had told her the owner imported sundries from home, and she’d wanted to visit for the sake of curiosity more than anything else, but he’d forbidden it. Bells jingled as she pulled the shop door open and an aromatic, olfactory tidal wave hit her—drowning her in a flood of nostalgic memories and rich emotions. She knew that smell was a powerful trigger of memory, but she was not prepared for how stepping into this shop would affect her. In that instant, she felt warm and cozy, transported back to her childhood home.

“As-salamu alaikum,” said a middle-aged man with a substantial, but trimmed gray beard.

“Wa-Alaikum-asalaam,” she said with a little bow of her head, concluding he must be the owner. “Taso singa-yay?”

“Maha—bada nada,” the shopkeeper said, concluding the Pashto greeting. “May I help you find something?” he asked, switching now to English, his eyes intent and fixed on her.

“I . . . I’m just looking,” she said and shifted her gaze to a nearby shelf with trinkets and handmade jewelry.

Merchandise and spices packed tightly into the tiny shop, overly crammed she decided, leaving barely enough room to move about without bumping into things. She could feel his eyes on her as she browsed the silver chai sets on her way to the area where the spices were displayed.

“Are you looking for spice?” he asked, walking around from behind his counter to meet her at the long, narrow table where dozens of ceramic bowls were laid out with ground spices and serving spoons.

The secret code word phrase played in her mind: Five hundred grams of Anousheh blend . . .

Her mouth had gone bone-dry.

Did she dare say it?

There was no going back once she did.

“In addition to the pure spices, we have many interesting blends,” the man said, as if prompting her.

“I . . . I like to make my own chai,” she managed to get out.

He nodded, eyeing her and pursing his lips, and then pointed to a bowl with a little bilingual sign that said Chai Spice in Arabic and English. “This is our house blend, with clove, star anise, cinnamon, pepper, ginger, and, of course, cardamom.”

“I will take some of this,” she said. “Two hundred grams.”

The shopkeeper nodded but fixed her with a probing stare. “Anything else?”

Does he know me? she wondered. Has Qasim given him my picture?

“I’m still deciding,” she said, demurring as she took a step away from him.

In her mind, Lucy’s final warning echoed: “Do you want to give birth to your son in a terrorist detention cell? Or, maybe . . . they’ll just deport you back to Afghanistan . . . Your life, your son’s life, will be a living hell.”

She adjusted her headscarf, making it tighter, while she scanned the bowls with a rainbow of colored spices.

I can’t do it, she realized. I won’t . . . I won’t birth my son in a British prison. And I can’t live with him under Taliban rule.

Beside her, the shopkeeper spooned chai spice blend into a clear Ziploc bag, weighing it twice between dollops to get the correct amount. When finished, he zipped the mouth of the bag closed and looked at her.

“That will be all for today,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Very well,” he said with an inscrutable look that she could not decide signaled relief or disappointment.

She paid for the tea spice in cash and walked out of the store without a backward glance. Once outside, she walked—just walked—not paying attention at all to where she was going. This part of East London had a large Muslim population, and she passed several women in veils. The men she passed seemed to eye her with . . . with what? Condemnation? It felt different here than in New Malden.

“. . . the Afghanistan they’ll send you back to is not the same one that you left. The Taliban is in complete control now . . .”

She pulled out her mobile phone and hailed an Uber to take her home.

The car arrived in less than five minutes, and this time, the driver was a middle-aged white man. He smiled at her when she got in, but his gaze quickly drifted down to her bulging breasts, then settled on her even more bulging belly.

“Probably ready to be off your feet,” he said, his gaze flicking back to her face. “I ’ave three kids, and each time my wife was preggers, the thing she complained about most were ’er feet.”

Diba smiled. “Yes, by the end of the day, my shoes are very tight.”

He nodded, still smiling. “So, I’m Mike, your driver. You’re Diba, heading to Cambridge Street in New Malden, right?”

She nodded.

“All right. I promise to make the drive as smooth as possible. No ’ard braking and try to avoid ’itting pot’oles, that sorta thing,” he said, clipping his h’s in East London cockney.

“Thank you. That is very thoughtful of you.”

“Least I can do,” he said as the car pulled away. “My wife ’ated when I’d ’it pot’oles when she was preggers.”

Diba lowered her gaze to the bag of chai spice, which she realized she was clutching with a death grip in both hands in her lap. Qasim was away on a business trip, but the man in the spice shop would report her visit. No matter what she said, Qasim would be very angry with her. She exhaled and tried to swallow but her mouth was still bone-dry.

It is a no-win situation. If I tell him the truth about what happened, I could end up in Afghanistan. But if I lie and he discovers the truth, he will beat me and never trust me to leave the flat again. Oh God, I don’t know what to do . . .

CHAPTER EIGHT

secure testing hangar

raf coningsby

united kingdom

1352 local time

Qasim marveled at the irony as he walked around the most advanced war machine in the RAF’s inventory. Aptly named, the Valkyrie UCAV was a lithe and lethal killer of men. Unlike the rather spartan, propeller-driven Chinese Pterodactyl drone Qasim configured and piloted in Pakistan, Valkyrie had an exquisite divinity about her. Sleek, stealthy, and supersonic, her flying wing design looked like a shrunken version of the B-21 Raider. And like America’s next-generation stealth bomber, Valkyrie was designed to deliver precision ordinance on target without detection. That Qasim was the program manager for the UK’s most secret and important drone defied all luck and logic.

Because it is the will of Allah. And I am his chosen warrior in our jihad.

At times like this, he couldn’t help but imagine that at any moment a team of machine gun–wielding operators clad in black body armor would come charging into this cavernous hangar and end the charade with extreme prejudice. Maybe he would take a precision round to the face, both desecrating and erasing him in a hot second. Or maybe, he would die by salvo—their bullets flaying his flesh, bursting his organs, and shattering his bones. He’d developed a morbid and disturbing curiosity about how it would feel to die this way. Like his father and sister had. Like Eshan. Like Hamza. Like everyone he’d ever cared about.

But death didn’t come for him.

Not today anyway.

Inshallah.

The engineer took the lead, forcing both the terrorist and the husband to retreat into the recesses of his mind until they were needed. He ran his fingertips over the leading edge of Valkyrie’s ghost-gray fuselage like a lover’s caress. In lieu of a cockpit, she had a triangular-shaped air intake, integrated cameras, and a black box computer brain that linked via satellite to a pilot. As far as the press and public were concerned, Valkyrie was a prototype—a single proof-of-concept vehicle that would lay the foundation for a future production model to enter the fleet in numbers. This was a half-truth. Valkyrie was a prototype, but three fully functional drones had already been built by British Aero’s Skunk Works division. Each drone had conducted dozens of test flights and logged hundreds of hours in all kinds of weather and flight conditions.

This afternoon’s sortie, however, was special.

Today Valkyrie would be flying autonomously.

Today the human pilot and copilot—seated in GCU 3A on base—would act as observers, only intervening in the event of a malfunction or accident. For this evolution, the drone’s onboard AI would manage all facets of the test flight including takeoff and landing, station keeping, simulated ground attack sorties, and autonomous threat assessment with kill decision authority. The last element had everyone nervous. Giving an AI the autonomy to identify targets of opportunity and the authority to engage those targets was something that the British military establishment firmly eschewed. No one felt comfortable letting machines make kill decisions. And yet here they all were, testing the capability . . . because like it or not, this was the future of warfare, and somebody had to be first.

Is this how Robert Oppenheimer felt during the Manhattan Project, Qasim wondered, knowing that the atomic bomb would become an existential threat to humanity but building it anyway?

Because somebody had to be first . . .

Qasim looked over his shoulder at Arham Khan, a promising young Pakistani engineer and the only other Muslim on the project team. “Arham, come over here, please,” Qasim said.

Arham, who stood an uncomfortably distant ten meters from the drone, nodded and hurried over to Qasim who circled toward the rear of the aircraft.

“Yes, sir,” Arham said, nearly breathless as he came up beside him, not from exertion but from nerves.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you,” Qasim said, gently chiding the young engineer. “You will likely never be afforded the chance to stand so close and touch this drone again. It’s our property now, but not for much longer. Soon, this unbelievable aircraft will be property of the RAF, and after that, you’ll never be allowed to get this close . . . So go on, touch it.”

Arham reached out a tentative hand and touched the trailing edge of the starboard wing, just outside the flap.

“Look there,” Qasim said, pointing to the drone’s V-shaped slit exhaust port, “Valkyrie has a noncircular exhaust configuration. Why did we design it that way?”

“To minimize exhaust cross-sectional area and maximize mixing of hot tailpipe gas with ambient air. The greater the mixing, the lower the IR heat signature. The lower the signature, the greater the stealth.”

“That’s right,” Qasim said. “In addition, Valkyrie also makes use of a multistage infrared suppression exhaust system with a dynamic flow integrator to mechanically mix cooling air with the exhaust gas before it exits the fuselage. This system is unique, and to my knowledge, Valkyrie is the only stealth UCAV to incorporate such a design.”

“It is only for subsonic flight, correct?”

Qasim nodded, pleased that Arham had been doing his homework on the mechanical systems. “Yes, five hundred knots and below.”

“How is the preflight coming?” a low male voice called from behind them, thick with a heavy Manchester accent.

Qasim turned to find Colonel Joddle—the RAF program manager for Valkyrie and Qasim’s counterpart on the military side—walking up to meet them. Joddle had replaced the previous program manager less than a month after Qasim’s promotion, so the two men had been on this journey together. While Qasim knew the colonel had no love of Muslims, Joddle had always been professional and courteous. Qasim had put considerable effort into promptly addressing all Joddle’s inquiries and concerns. Establishing trust and a history of stellar performance with his military counterpart was critical to Qasim’s long-term agenda. When all hell broke loose, which it inevitably would, he needed Joddle to view him as an ally rather than a suspect.

Qasim smiled and greeted the military man. “Preflight is complete. Just doing one final walk around,” he said, then gestured to Arham. “Colonel Joddle, I’d like to introduce you to Arham Khan. Arham is one of our Autonomy AI programmers.”

“Good to put a name with a face,” the colonel said, extending his hand. “Now I know who to blame if this thing crashes into the ocean or tries to fly off into unauthorized airspace.”

Arham shook the colonel’s hand and laughed uncomfortably, clearly unsure whether Joddle’s comment was meant to be a joke or taken at face value. “Nice to meet you, sir,” Arham said, his voice pitchy with nerves. “If the system behaves erratically, the pilot can simply take manual control. You do not need to worry about such things.”

Joddle smiled in that distinct way that only military officers could. “Well, I’m sure you’re right, but as the program director, worrying about such things happens to be in my job description.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I only meant—”

“The colonel knows what you meant, Arham,” Qasim said, cutting the red-faced programmer off. “Relax, he’s just having a little fun with you.”

Arham chuckled uncomfortably and began to fuss with the messenger bag he carried.

He is me, before I found my strength, Qasim thought.

“Are we ready to open the hangar doors?” Joddle asked Qasim.

“Yes,” Qasim said. “I would like to watch it taxi out to the runway, then we can either observe from the GCU or control room. It’s up to you, sir.”

“The GCU can get a little crowded, so today I have a surprise for you,” Joddle said with a hint of a grin. “What do you say we take a ride and watch the exercise from the air?”

“Are you serious?” Qasim said, his engineer side now fully taking over, geeking at the idea.

“I’ve got a 135 standing by,” Joddle said, referring to one of three RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft under the Project Airseeker umbrella.

“By all means, let’s do that,” Qasim said, thrilled by the prospect, and patted Arham on the shoulder. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Joddle ordered the hangar doors open and radioed the pilots to start up and taxi. They watched the Valkyrie come to life and depart the hangar. Once on the tarmac, control was handed off to the drone’s Autonomy AI system with the UCAV instructed to idle while Joddle, Qasim, and Arham joined the rest of the observation team boarding the heavily modified, American-sourced RC-135.

The main compartment inside the RC-135 looked every bit a mobile command center, with a half-dozen workstations interspersed between equipment stacks that ran almost the full length of the starboard side of the aircraft. Unlike most jets, Qasim could actually stand up straight inside this cavernous flying electronic intelligence (ELINT) platform. Joddle introduced Qasim and Arham to the section lead, a RAF lieutenant whose name tag read “Longfellow,” and promised to give them a quick and dirty tour once they were airborne.

“Foxhound has been cleared for takeoff,” the pilot’s voice said on the cabin speaker system. “So please take your seats until we reach our cruising altitude. It’s clear skies with fifteen-knot winds from the south, so we expect smooth flying for the duration of the exercise.”

Qasim and Arham did as instructed, grabbing a section of empty bench seats along the port side of the fuselage. Longfellow sat next to Qasim and immediately started chatting.

“First time on one of these planes?” the lieutenant asked, gesturing broadly to the electronics all around them.

“Yes,” Qasim said. “I assume ELINT collection is your charter?” he asked.

“ELINT and SIGINT, but that’s only half the story with this bird. We have a full EW suite,” Longfellow said, referring to the plane’s electronic warfare equipment. “This asset is designed to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum both passively and actively as required by the activity and threat level in the theater of operation.”

Qasim nodded.

“What most people don’t realize is that controlling and dominating the EMS is essential to establishing and maintaining air superiority and for supporting airpower in relation to ground and maritime operations. My view is that the EMS is the warfighting domain of the future. Operating effectively and safely in any theater of conflict not only requires that we intercept enemy intelligence, but that we also detect, disrupt, degrade, or deny enemy radar activity and communications across the spectrum . . . while at the same time preserving lanes in that spectrum for our own use,” Longfellow said, in what sounded like a well-practiced mission statement. “In other words, without us, even a stealthy next-generation drone like Valkyrie cannot be deployed to maximum effectiveness and result.”

“I agree with everything you said, except for the last point,” Arham said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees to talk around Qasim. “The Autonomy AI system was imagined with a hostile EMS environment in mind. Our charter was to create a self-contained algorithm control unit that does not require data sharing or communications after takeoff. Because of her stealth and onboard processor, a Valkyrie operating on Autonomy can infiltrate an airspace where we do not have an asset like Foxhound in orbit to disrupt or control the radar and communications spectrum. In fact, I would be willing to wager that even the EW systems on this aircraft would not be sufficient to take down a Valkyrie.”

Longfellow laughed. “That’s a pretty tall order for a drone, even a ‘skyborg’ like the one you’ve built. I’ll take that wager.”

Qasim looked at Colonel Joddle, who’d been listening to the enthusiastic exchange between the younger men. The colonel seemed to read Qasim’s mind because he said, “While I could never condone betting on military hardware performance, I do applaud the spirit of the wager. Provided the scheduled testing objectives are met, if both aircraft have sufficient fuel reserves, I see no reason not to evaluate Valkyrie’s performance in a hostile EMS environment. What do you think, Mr. Nadar?”

“This type of testing is a milestone on the T&E schedule, but we haven’t started on that procedure,” Qasim said, the gears of opportunity turning in his mind. “We have a lot on our plate for today, but let’s get it on the schedule. Everyone in management wants to evaluate Valkyrie’s performance against an aggressor squadron. We can add another layer by incorporating Foxhound and a hostile EMS environment as part of the evaluation.”

This response was apparently what everyone had hoped he’d say, because the smack-talking about which aircraft would prevail in this future contest of champions began in earnest. Qasim smiled at Joddle, who gave him a nod of respect and smiled back. A few moments later, the pilot announced that they’d reached their designated altitude for the exercise, and everyone was up and out of their seats in an instant.

“Would you like a terminal to work from?” Longfellow asked.

Qasim replied in the affirmative and directed Arham to take a seat at the proffered drone’s data feed and opened a command channel. The young programmer double-checked that the approved flight plan was the one in Autonomy’s queue to be executed, then gave Qasim the thumbs-up.

“Colonel, Valkyrie is ready for takeoff whenever you are,” he said.

Joddle acknowledged and told Longfellow to obtain clearance from ground control for takeoff, which the lieutenant did.

“Valkyrie is cleared for takeoff,” Longfellow said.

“Roger, Valkyrie is cleared for takeoff,” Arham repeated. “Do I have permission to commence the exercise?”

“Permission granted,” Joddle said.

Qasim watched Arham type the authorization code for Autonomy to commence the exercise, then glanced at one of the nearby monitors which was live streaming a video feed of Valkyrie on the ground. The UCAV, which was already waiting its turn at the end of the runway, began to accelerate and seconds later lifted off, using an amazingly short portion of runway to become airborne. The triangular-shaped drone shrank and quickly disappeared from view.

“Valkyrie is airborne and climbing,” Arham said. “It will proceed to twenty-five thousand feet and then station keep until we give it tasking.”

“Valkyrie is squawking on the designated channel, but as expected we have no radar contact,” Longfellow said from a few meters away where he had taken position behind the row of his technicians manning their assigned workstations.

Over the next several hours, they observed Valkyrie perform a series of test objectives all under the direction of the drone’s onboard Autonomy AI. The first hour was dedicated to rudimentary station keeping, traveling between way points, and following the eastern coastline south to north from Great Yarmouth to Middlesbrough. These simple tests validated that the drone could execute flight commands without pilot intervention. This was not the first time Autonomy had been handed “the stick and throttle.” The AI had logged hundreds of hours of autonomous flying and done so without incident. Today’s goal was for Autonomy to make it through every task without human intervention. These first tests were expected to be a cakewalk for the AI and proved to be so.

Next, Arham tasked Valkyrie to perform aerial surveillance of the nearby city of Lincoln. A set of five GPS coordinates were given to the drone and categorized as potential “targets of interest” with no other qualifying information. Valkyrie’s job was to survey each one and then prioritize them based entirely on the intelligence it collected during the available time window. The first location was historic Lincoln Castle, the second was an empty field, the third a waste and recycling center, the fourth a retirement home, and the fifth was a warehouse. As part of the exercise, a team of spooks had been deployed to the warehouse to simulate the activities of a potential terror cell. The team members’ photographs had been uploaded into Valkyrie’s onboard database. Whether the drone would use this information to its benefit was one of the questions the exercise was designed to answer, as the AI was given no specific instructions to do so. Testing Autonomy’s creativity and decision-making was the entire point.

Qasim watched with great fascination as the AI-controlled drone went to work. Having been given no guidance on how or where to begin, Qasim assumed that Autonomy would search systematically, working through the list of possible targets in numerical order by flying to each location and taking a closer look, but that was not what the AI did. At altitude, the drone used the visual and thermal camera systems to zoom in on each location and conduct rudimentary scans. Using this cursory data, Valkyrie quickly ranked the targets from highest to lowest priority as the warehouse, the waste recycling center, the retirement home, Lincoln Castle, and the empty field.

Arham reported this information aloud as he stared at his monitor.

“How do you know that?” Longfellow asked, shuffling over to stand beside Qasim.

“This window here,” Arham said, pointing to a vertical scroll, “displays Autonomy’s running code. See all these Boolean expressions and conditional logic statements?”

Longfellow leaned in for a closer look. “I’ll be damned,” he said, looking over the quickly moving scroll. “How do you keep up with it?”

“Takes practice,” Arham said, “but this is what I do. We didn’t want a black box. We wanted to see how Autonomy processes the data and makes decisions. Sometimes the complexity is too thorny to parse, but usually, I can get it sorted.”

“What do you mean, ‘usually’?” Joddle asked, joining the discussion.

“Well, sir, Autonomy is not lines of code in the traditional sense. It needs to be flexible and adaptive, which is not something that can be achieved with traditional and more conditional programming, no matter how thorough or exhaustive. Like most advanced AI, Autonomy is a DNN or Deep Neural Network. It utilizes computational layers just like the human cerebral cortex does. Autonomy is a five-layer design with an input layer, three intermediate or hidden layers, and an output layer. What happens in the hidden layers is somewhat of a mystery to us. Robust processing is definitely happening there, but it’s like trying to make sense of what thousands of neurons are doing when they’re firing in the brain . . . impossible to know no matter how hard you try,” Arham explained.

“But you just said that data scroll is the logic the AI is using,” Longfellow said.

“No, the scroll is something we make Autonomy provide us. What you’re seeing is Autonomy’s best interpretation and explanation of what it thinks it’s doing”

Joddle cocked an eyebrow at Qasim. “Is he serious or taking the piss?”

“He’s serious, Colonel,” Qasim said. “A little bit unnerving, isn’t it?”

“A lot unnerving,” Joddle said, shaking his head. “Not sure I bloody well like a computer deciding for itself what information it wants to share with us.”

No one said anything for a long moment.

“What’s it doing now?” Longfellow asked as a flurry of entries on the logic scroll appeared on Arham’s monitor.

“It’s repositioning to take a closer look at what it thinks is the prime candidate—the warehouse,” Arham said.

“You’re telling me it picked the correct target right out of the gate?” Joddle asked, his expression going dubious.

“Yes, but it doesn’t know that,” Arham said. “I’m curious to see what the AI does next—what steps it will take to confirm its hypothesis.”

“So am I,” Joddle murmured, his expression much more serious now.

The operator sitting next to Arham tracked Valkyrie’s position on a map overlay using the drone’s transponder ping. Qasim watched the arrowhead-shaped icon turn and reposition south. Arham opened a new window on his monitor, displaying the drone’s camera and thermal imaging feeds—the same feeds the pilots were seeing down in the GCU. Once on station, Valkyrie conducted a thorough survey of the property cataloging the number of people and vehicles, and to everyone’s surprise, it put in a request for Foxhound to collect ELINT on the facility.

“Sir, the drone has requested an EMS survey of the target,” Arham said, looking back over his shoulder.

“Why is it doing that?” Longfellow asked.

“Because Valkyrie doesn’t have the same suite of antennae and ELINT processing hardware that Foxhound does,” Qasim said.

“I realize that, but how does it know that we do? It could have issued the request to the command, but that’s not what it did. It queried Arham’s terminal directly. That means it understands not only this platform’s capabilities but also that we are an asset available to it in real time,” the colonel said.

“I know, isn’t it great?” Arham said, grinning.

Joddle grimaced at Arham, then turned to Longfellow. “What’s the status, Lieutenant?”

“It’s a drill, sir, so we’re already monitoring,” Longfellow said. “The team down there are using burner mobile phones and acting according to the script.”

Joddle turned to Qasim. “It’s your test, what do you want the team to do?”

“I say we don’t give Valkyrie what it wants. Instead, let’s exfil the HVT from the warehouse and see what the AI does,” Qasim said.

“Okay,” Joddle said. “Lieutenant, make the call.”

Longfellow did as instructed, and the four of them watched with keen interest as three people exited the rear of the warehouse and walked toward an SUV parked some thirty-odd meters away. Valkyrie reacted instantly, the logic scroll populating with text as the drone repositioned and zoomed in. Within seconds, Valkyrie’s cameras had acquired facial imagery of the targets which it automatically compared to the facial rec library that had been preloaded into onboard memory before the drill.

An alert popped up on Arham’s terminal.

“Valkyrie sighted the HVT and confirmed his identity with ninety-two percent confidence. The other two persons in the party were also identified and cross-checked with the list at eighty-one and eighty-nine percent confidence level,” Arham reported.

“Okay, so it identified the targets. Now what? Will it ask for permission to engage?” Joddle asked.

“No, sir. For this exercise, Valkyrie was given the authority to make the kill decision based on a predetermined set of criteria. This is the precise scenario we wanted to put it in, to see what Autonomy will do,” Arham said, as a new incoming alert popped up on his monitor.

“Sir, the drone is changing altitude and repositioning,” one of the technicians at a nearby workstation reported.

“Very well,” Longfellow said. “Looks like we have our answer.”

“Yes, sir,” Arham said. “I just got an alert that Valkyrie believes the necessary engagement criteria have been met. It intends to take the shot.”

“Please tell me we’ve triple-checked that drone is unarmed?” Joddle said.

“I inspected the ordinance bays empty myself,” Qasim said, which was the truth.

Joddle nodded. Qasim knew the colonel trusted his people, but seeing Autonomy off leash evidently had the officer spooked.

“What’s it doing now?” Longfellow asked, seeing a burst of code in the logic scroll.

“A final collateral damage assessment, verifying the blast radius is clear of friendlies,” Arham said. “And now it’s reporting that it lacks the necessary ordinance to complete the mission.”

“Please tell me that thing’s not smart enough to kamikaze itself into that SUV,” Joddle said.

“It might be smart enough, but that action is specifically prohibited. It will continue to follow the target and issue a request for another asset to complete the mission in its stead,” Arham said, as an alert popped up on his screen. “Which it just has.”

“That was very impressive,” Joddle said turning to Qasim. “Your team has designed a formidable weapon.”

“Thank you, sir,” Qasim said.

“What’s next?” Longfellow asked.

“We could let Valkyrie track the target SUV around the city, or we can secure the exercise,” Qasim said. “We’ve hit all our evaluation milestones, right, Arham?”

“Yes,” Arham said.

“Very well, let’s secure and head home,” the colonel said.

Qasim told Arham to issue the commands necessary for Valkyrie to return to base and land under autonomous control. As expected, the UCAV landed without incident and the human pilots only took control during taxiing to the hangar.

While the RC-135 made its descent, Qasim and Joddle talked about the next test—a live ordinance SINKEX that would be coordinated with the British Navy the day after tomorrow. Despite the conversation being collegial and forward-looking, Qasim detected an unspoken undertone from the man. What Joddle had witnessed today from Valkyrie had left him impressed, but also unsettled. The Autonomy AI system performed at a level of sophistication that had taken both him and Lieutenant Longfellow by surprise. It had taken Qasim by surprise too, and he had known what to anticipate. Most rank-and-file military had no experience with or knowledge of Deep Learning Neural Networks. They understood and accepted unmanned aircraft, stealth technologies, thermal imaging, facial recognition software, and the like. They knew how all these discrete elements and advancements had been used successfully in the war on terror. But men like Joddle took great pride and comfort in viewing themselves as the node that connected it all—like the conductor of an orchestra. For today’s performance, Autonomy had been the maestro, and Joddle had been relegated to the audience. From the look on his face, Qasim could see that the colonel didn’t like that.

Didn’t like it one bit.

Fifteen minutes later, everyone deplaned. On the tarmac, Qasim and Arham said goodbye to their military counterparts. They walked to their rental car in the contractor parking lot, and Qasim walked to the front passenger door, signaling that his subordinate was to act as driver.

“Did you see the looks on their faces when Autonomy made the kill decision?” Arham said with a chuckle as he started the engine. “I wish I had a photo.”

Qasim nodded and said, “Did you expect it to perform so well?”

Arham twisted in his seat to look over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking space. “I thought it would do well, but I did not expect it to work so efficiently and expertly during the counterterror portion of the exercise. It crushed the op. Based on that performance alone, Autonomy is ready for real-world use. Of course, I doubt that will happen. Did you see how uncomfortable Colonel Joddle was when we gave Valkyrie the kill decision?”

“That’s because military officers don’t like the idea of giving command authorization to a machine.”

“But the command authorization and the kill decision are two different things,” Arham said, turning to look at Qasim. “The kill decision is the logic about when and how to pull the trigger. Command authorization is the permission to pull the trigger in the first place. Autonomy can’t make a kill decision without command authorization first.”

Qasim nodded. “Tomorrow I would like you to show me this core programming and how this logic is structured. It is something that must be one hundred percent secure. If the command authorization became compromised, the drone could theoretically ignore external commands and make kill decisions without a pilot being able to stop it.”

“Not theoretically . . .” Arham said, his expression suddenly grave. “In actuality.”

Qasim resisted the urge to smile as the final puzzle piece of the plan he’d been ruminating about for months clicked into place.

CHAPTER NINE

lucy kim’s apartment

corner of acacia grove and arcadia mews

half block west of high street

new malden, united kingdom

1645 local time

Whitney felt fatigue begin to creep in. She’d gone from the exercise in Taiwan to a long and sleepless flight from Hualien to London, to another night spent tossing and turning on Lucy Kim’s sofa. The MI6 officer had offered her a bed, and she should have taken it. She’d been put off by the stacks of clothes—dirty or clean, it was hard to tell—on the floor and bottom of the bed. The sofa had been relatively neat, though the coffee table was covered in junk, so she’d politely declined and taken what turned out to be a way too soft, worn-out sofa. Then, they’d planned the encounter with Diba Nadar and for the last couple of hours had gone around and around about what it meant.

The apartment was a disaster, something Lucy seemed completely unashamed of—chalking it up to the NOC she lived under: a waitress at the restaurant where she’d met Diba. As she got to know Lucy Kim these past hours, however, the apartment seemed exactly where the MI6 agent, who seemed constantly in a state bordering on mental chaos, would live.

“Okay,” Watts said, sighing and fishing for a last potato chip—crisps, Lucy had called them—from the now-empty bag on the small round dining table they sat at. “Time to pull the trigger. What does your gut tell you, Lucy?”

The MI6 agent runner rose and began to pace—again.

“Her indignation wasn’t contrived, but the fear in her eyes—that fear tells me we’re right. I didn’t see shock. I didn’t see disbelief. I saw the face of a woman whose worst fears had just become a reality.” Lucy stopped pacing and looked at Whitney. “Qasim Nadar is a terrorist and Diba knows it.”

“I agree,” Whitney said, nodding. She’d held back as Lucy had ruminated over the events as well as retreaded the myriad of far-too-numerous coincidences and conveniences. She didn’t want to bias her. But all of this, combined with her own gut and previous misgivings, made her certain. She wasn’t ready to say it, but she believed now that her initial instinct had been right. Qasim Nadar was Hamza al-Saud—or at least the “new” Hamza. “Now what? We read in your boss at MI6 and get the task force together?”

“Not yet,” Lucy said, wringing her hands. “We don’t have enough.”

“What more do we need?”

“Evidence,” Lucy said. “We’re not some JSOC task force like you guys. We’re run by lawyers and barristers—a bloody bureaucracy these days. I told you—with Nadar, it’s political. If I had been able to convince Diba to inform on her husband, then Bob’s your uncle it’s over. But without that . . . we’re no closer to building a case than we were before.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Whitney said. “When you read Diba in, it spooked her. She didn’t go home—where she might feel safe. She wandered around as if deciding what to do. We know from the GPS track on her phone she walked in circles. And then she headed to East London? Why? She didn’t run to that spice shop for spices. I’d bet my next paycheck that that spice shop is an al Qadar front business. If nothing else, it functions as a message hub.”

“You’re right, of course it is,” Lucy said, nodding. “That’s our next move. We stake out the spice shop—log and photograph everyone coming and going. Eventually, someone who’s on a watch list will pop on facial recognition. If I get that, I can beg resources to do things properly.”

“Okay, I’m in, but we’ll need to sleep in shifts because, frankly, I’m exhausted,” Watts said, sitting up and twisting at the waist to stretch her back. “I assume you want to go right away?”

“Yes. If Diba tipped them off, then they might be clearing out already. I don’t want to miss the window.”

Compared to the highly supported work she did at the Tier One, this would be one of the most half-assed ops Whitney had ever participated in, and yet the prospect was also strangely thrilling. Was it weird that she was having fun playing secret agent with this crazy, impetuous British MI6 officer? She remembered how nervous and paranoid she’d been on her first “solo” outing in Mingora when she’d met up with Bobby Theobald to interview a source. She smiled at the memory, which seemed like it happened a lifetime ago.

Have I changed so much?

Lucy ran to her bedroom and returned with a rucksack over her shoulder.

“Here,” she said and handed Whitney a subcompact Glock 43 in a pancake holster along with two extra magazines.

“What’s this for?”

“Just in case,” the agent runner said with a look that said, You never know.

Accepting the weapon sobered her. A stakeout might sound fun, but if they were right about the spice shop, it could turn deadly in a moment.

CHAPTER TEN

a1(m) highway, just south of peterborough

forty kilometers south of raf coningsby

1825 local time

Qasim slammed the phone down on the leather seat beside him, letting the air hiss through his teeth. According to the shopkeeper at the spice shop—a gatekeeper to the operations center he maintained in the basement—Diba had made a surprise visit today. That the visit was a surprise to the men working for him in East London was irrelevant. That it was a surprise to Qasim himself was an entirely different matter. According to his man there, she’d come alone and lingered only a few minutes before purchasing some chai spice and leaving without speaking the code word. He glanced at his watch. The visit had happened hours ago while he’d been unreachable, participating in the autonomous drone exercise.

“Is everything all right, Qasim?” Arham asked from the driver’s seat.

“Never get promoted,” he said through a laugh and shot the young programmer a faux smile. “I miss the days of just being an engineer and not having to be responsible for others. Many of our coworkers do not share our work ethic.”

“Perhaps they have less to prove,” Arham suggested.

And that is why you are perfect for my plan, my young friend.

“Perhaps so,” he said and looked out the window.

Questions screamed in his mind, demanding his attention. Why had Diba gone to the spice shop? Did something happen? Was she compromised? Was he compromised? Why hadn’t his second-in-command, Din Faraj, contacted him? Did Faraj know? Was MI5 surveilling Diba, and if so, did her incompetence lead them to his cyber operations center before Fun Time had completed the move?

I knew this would happen. I told him to make it a priority and to hurry. Stupid, lazy Uyghur.

Qasim clenched his jaw, realizing he was gripping the handle of the passenger-side door so tightly that his hand had begun to ache. The shopkeeper had assured him he had seen nothing suspicious since her visit, but still . . .

He opened a secure messaging app and texted Faraj, keeping the phone tilted away from Arham as he did.

Do you know about what happened today?

Yes

Has Fun Time completed the move?

No

Take charge. Assume shop is compromised and under surveillance. Do whatever is necessary to finish the job and safeguard operations

Understood

He let out a sigh and set the phone down.

Faraj will handle the spice shop. I will handle Diba.

The messaging app had been coded by Fun Time and worked similarly to Signal. Qasim had insisted on the functionality because on days like today, he couldn’t carry a burner phone without raising eyebrows. Regardless of where he was working or what company he was keeping, he needed the capability to communicate with his lieutenants in case of an emergency.

That decision now felt prescient.

He felt his initial panic fade, but now his mind went back to Diba and anger flared inside. Why had Diba gone to the spice shop? Had something happened to spook her, or had her natural curiosity gotten the better of her? He could not have been more explicit: only if she believed she was in real and imminent danger was she to go to the spice shop. He’d texted her—a benign and unassuming message—to inform her that he was driving home and what time she could expect him for dinner. Her reply had come almost instantly, but she’d made no mention of the spice shop. She simply said she’d have dinner ready and that she was looking forward to seeing him. Out of an abundance of caution, he prompted her with their secret challenge-response phrase to make sure she wasn’t compromised or under duress. She texted the safe word in reply, signaling all clear.

So why in the bloody hell did she go to the spice shop?

As much as it galled him, he would have to wait until he got home to learn the answer to that question. Instead of stewing in enmity, he decided to use the time to talk to Arham. The truth was Qasim liked Arham. At the farmhouse meeting, he’d told Faraj he was ready to do what needed to be done—and he was—but it wouldn’t be easy to sacrifice this younger version of himself.

“Tell me about growing up in Pakistan, Arham,” he said, giving the man another smile and making his tone collegial. “How big is your family? Do you stay in touch with your siblings and cousins?”

Arham talked freely for the rest of the drive to Qasim’s flat. By the time they arrived, Qasim knew Arham’s life story—everything he would need to craft a damning, false narrative about Arham’s secret double life as a programmer for British Aero by day, a radical and brilliant terrorist by night. He’d already infected Arham’s work computer with spyware, and ever since, Fun Time and his cyber minions had been busy laying the groundwork for an epic frame job. If necessary, Arham would be the scapegoat for everything Qasim had planned, and the poor bastard didn’t have a clue.

If necessary . . . but I hope it doesn’t come to that.

Qasim still clung to the possibility that he might be able to recruit Arham into the al Qadar ranks, using the same low-pressure tactics Eshan had used on him. Whereas Qasim had quietly doubted his choices, resented his timidity, and harbored secret fantasies of vengeance for the murder of those he loved, Arham’s life had been untouched by violence and loss. The young programmer had fully embraced the rhetoric of the West. Radicalizing Arham would be a difficult and risky proposition and was something Qasim did not have the time to invest in, given his role as leader of the caliphate.

Using Arham would be so much simpler and cleaner.

And yet, what if Hamza had made a similar decision? What if Hamza had not devoted the time to opening Qasim’s eyes to the truth of the world?

Then I would still be a trembling Muslim man, subservient to those who see me as lesser. Maybe recruiting Arham is Allah’s will. Maybe the plan will work, and I won’t need a scapegoat after all.

“Great work today, Arham,” he said, leaning into the open door. “It’s been a long day and you worked extra hours, so please feel free to come in late—perhaps by ten?”

“Thank you,” the engineer said. “I appreciate that, but I’ll likely be in at eight. I’m eager to look over the data as it comes in from the test.”

“I am lucky to have you, Arham,” he said. “I want you to know that I consider you more than just a direct report . . . I think of you as a friend.”

At first, the comment seemed to take Arham by surprise, but then his face brightened. “Thank you, I feel the same way. Goodnight, Qasim.”

“Goodnight, Arham.”

Qasim walked through the tiny courtyard in front of his flat but paused at the door, wondering how to handle Diba. He decided that the best approach was to confront her swiftly and directly. If she lied to him, which he expected, he would punish her severely. If she told the truth, he would take a more measured stance and try to understand her logic, then teach her the correct decision for next time. With a sharp exhale, he opened the door, stepped inside, and shut the door loud enough that it could be heard in the kitchen.

Diba came rushing to meet him in the foyer. He resisted the powerful compulsion to immediately reprimand her and forced a neutral expression on his face. What she did in the next few minutes would tell him volumes.

She hugged him tightly, then pulled back.

“Qasim, I need to tell you something,” she said, lowering her gaze. “I went to the spice shop today. I’m sorry, I should not have gone. I know it is only for emergencies . . .”

He gave her a moment to continue, but when she didn’t, he said, “Why did you go to the spice shop?”

“I . . . I panicked. I don’t know why it happened. I know this will make you angry, but it is the truth.”

“I appreciate you telling me the truth, but I don’t understand. Something must have happened to make you panic. Did a man from the government approach you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head and still looking down. “I had lunch with Soo Jin and after, when as I was walking home, I . . . I don’t know . . . I felt like everyone was staring at me. I felt . . . what is the English word, the feeling when people are watching you?”

“Paranoid?”

“Yes, this is how I felt.”

“But something must have happened to make you feel paranoid.”

“There was a man walking down the opposite side of High Street and he was staring at me. I looked away from him, and there was a woman walking toward me and she was looking at me. Then, I heard footsteps behind me and looked back and saw a different man walking behind me. And he looked at me too, and that’s when I got scared because everyone was looking at me. You told me that if someone was watching me, they would likely not be in a police uniform—that they might even be women. I suddenly felt so terrified. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t know where to go, so I called an Uber and went to the spice shop. I thought, if someone was following me, then your friends at the spice shop would keep me and the baby safe.”

Irritation bloomed in his chest. “Did anyone approach you and ask questions about me?”

“No.”

“What about on your way to lunch? Do you remember any of these same people staring at you then?”

“No.”

“What about when you went to the spice shop. Did anyone follow you or watch you while you were there?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“Diba, this is making no sense. I still don’t understand what happened that would have made you panic and go to the spice shop.”

“I’m sorry,” she said and began to cry. “I’m feeling very emotional right now. My mood is changing many times a day. I don’t know what is wrong with me.”

“I think it is your hormones, Diba,” he said, relaxing. He pulled her against his chest for a hug. “You’re pregnant. I think this could be the reason you’re feeling this way.”

He felt her nod against his chest and held her until she stopped sobbing. He had no actual experience with a pregnant wife, but it was common knowledge that during pregnancy women were emotional and subject to mood swings and illogical cravings. Diba had, thankfully, not demonstrated too much of this, but she was getting later in the pregnancy now. It was a possible explanation . . .

Another possibility was that British Intelligence had put a team on them, and she had made the plainclothes agents.

Unlikely. She is not trained in such things after all.

The third possibility was that she was lying.

“Diba,” he said, releasing her from his embrace and stepping back to look down on her from his full height. “I hope you’re not lying to me. Because if you’re lying to me, I would be very, very upset.”

She looked at her hands, and he watched the expression on her face morph from relief to confusion then to fear. This was what he wanted to observe, how she reacted to a sudden pressure after he’d just consoled her.

“Why would I lie to you about something like this?” she said, meeting his gaze. “I trust you with my life. With our son’s life. I rely on you to make the decisions for . . . for these sorts of situations.”

“Then why do you have such fear in your eyes?”

“Because I do not want to be the reason that . . .”

“You do not want to be the reason that what, Diba? Say it?”

“I do not want to be the reason you get caught,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “This is my greatest fear.”

He stared at her for a long moment, but his instincts told him she was telling him the truth. In her voice, he heard earnestness. In her eyes, he saw conviction.

Diba is a terrible liar. If she was deceiving me, I would be able to tell.

He blew air through pursed lip. “Diba, why did you not use the code word with the shopkeeper?”

“Because, once I was there, I realized I was being foolish. I—I just didn’t want to make things worse. So, I decided to buy some tea and come home.”

“I think that was the right thing to do,” he said. “You understand the mistake you made, and you know never to go there again unless it is a true crisis.”

“I understand. It won’t happen again.”

“Okay, enough of this,” he said. “I am going to change, and then we eat dinner. It smells delicious.”

“I made lamb lawand,” she said, which was one of his favorites—chunks of lamb sautéed with onions, tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms, cilantro, and yogurt served on challow rice.

Smart woman, he thought and chuckled to himself. I need to try to enjoy this time before my son is born and steals all her attention from me.

Placing his hands on either side of her belly, he bent and kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, Diba.”

“I love you too.”

“Go, prepare my meal. I will join you in a few minutes,” he said, sending her off.

She nodded and smiled at him before heading to the kitchen.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

hsm-77, mh-60r seahawk

call sign: saber one

one hundred and twelve miles east-southeast of port elizabeth, south africa

day three

0043 local time

“You’re sure this is going to work?” Chunk said to Edwards, who was sitting on the bench seat opposite him in the helo’s rear compartment.

“Of course I’m not sure,” Edwards said, using his booted feet to keep the suitcase-sized quadcopter from sliding around on the deck as the helo maneuvered.

“Dude, you’re our drone guy. I told Admiral Carr this tech would let us confirm that annoying spook’s intel.”

“First of all, I’m only the ‘drone guy’ because you made me the ‘drone guy.’ I’m not like some tech genie. I didn’t design these things. I don’t know how they work, which is something I distinctly remember telling you when you gave me this special collateral duty. You only picked me because I’m the best gamer in Gold,” Edwards said. “And second, you didn’t talk to me before you made that guarantee to the admiral. That’s all on you, Chunk.”

“Okay, I’ll concede on both points,” Chunk said. Then, he clapped a paw on Edwards’s shoulder. “But you do think it’s going to work, right?”

Edwards frowned.

“That confident, huh?” Chunk said and looked down at the impressive quadcopter that functioned as a mother ship for twenty microdrones.

This is the future warfare, he thought, and he decided he was glad that he’d age out before he was forced to face a weaponized “smart drone” on every engagement.

“Coming out of the dip,” the helo pilot said, and Chunk felt a pull into the deck as the pilot lifted the Seahawk sharply upward—simulating a dipping sonar hunt for subs or whatever it was they were pretending to do as a cover for this op. In four minutes, they’d dip again in another simulated drop. On that dip, they would deploy the quadcopter carrying the microdrones they planned to swarm the Plentiful with to get a closer look at the ship’s cargo and, hopefully, the crew as well.

Chunk technically didn’t have to ride along for this bit. He could have stayed behind on the Reagan and just let Edwards do his thing, but that’s not how Chunk rolled. He wanted to be here with Edwards. He wanted to be on the pointy tip, no matter what kind of spear Gold happened to be using.

“Stand by for the dip,” the helo pilot said, then, “Dip-ping . . .”

The helo dropped and Chunk clutched the bench rail. His stomach felt like it was on a roller coaster that had just crested the first big hill and was plummeting toward the ground.

God, I love this shit.

Once the helo had leveled out at the bottom of the dip, Edwards powered on the quadcopter using a joystick that looked similar to an Xbox controller. With a press of the Hover button, the quadcopter’s four rotors whizzed to life and the drone levitated briefly inside the helo, before drooping back down to the deck.

“Prep for launch,” Edwards said to Chunk, which was Chunk’s cue to more or less shove the thing out the side of the helo.

Chunk slipped off the bench seat and sat on the deck beside the drone. He gripped the quadcopter by the chassis handles, lifted it onto his lap, and scooted to the open cargo door until he was sitting on the edge and his legs were dangling out the side. He shifted his grip from the carry handles on top to hold the drone’s belly on the underside.

“Ready,” he said, turning to look at Edwards over his shoulder.

His SEAL brother nodded and pressed the Hover button. The quadcopter whirred to life once again, but this time Chunk gave it a shove—pushing it in midair out the side of the helo. The Seahawk’s rotor wash immediately sent the quadcopter spiraling downward, but damn if Edwards didn’t quickly reestablish control, stabilize things, and send the drone zipping on its way to the Plentiful. Chunk, for his part, lingered on the edge, enjoying the view and the breezy leg dangle until the drone disappeared completely from view.

“Cylon, away,” Edwards said, using the call sign he’d given the drone.

Chunk, owing to the fact he wasn’t a dork, was not familiar with the term. During the pre-op brief, Edwards had gone on to explain that it was the name for the evil robots in a sci-fi series called Battlestar Galactica, which Chunk had heard of but never watched. This Cylon had a maximum speed of seventy-five knots.

It reached Plentiful in less than ten minutes after the drop. Trip, who’d also decided to come along for the ride, was holding an iPad Pro that they’d linked to Cylon’s data stream for Edwards to watch while he piloted the quadcopter. The split-screen interface showed the mother ship drone’s camera feed in the top window and the microdrones’ feed in the bottom window. Since those hadn’t launched yet, that window was black. In the top frame, Chunk watched as Edwards made a sweeping perimeter loop around the deck of Plentiful from an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet. The merchant vessel had its deck lights on in addition to its running lights, so it wasn’t like they were trying to hide from anyone. A good sign in Chunk’s book, because it meant the Reagan Battle Group’s “dipping sonar” ruse had not gotten the Plentiful’s captain or crew’s antennae up.

“Just surveilling the target before deploying the payload,” Edwards said, “in case you’re wondering.”

Chunk nodded, but he’d figured as much. “Does this drone have a thermal camera?”

“Yeah,” Edwards said.

“I don’t see any sentries on the deck,” Chunk said. “You want to check for heat sigs?”

Edwards nodded and pressed a button on the controller with his left index finger. The top window on the iPad changed from X27 adaptive night vision to thermal imagery.

Plentiful was underway at seven knots—slow, but still a moving target—but this didn’t seem to bother Edwards’s piloting much. With the practiced efficiency of someone who did this sort of thing for a living, Edwards put the drone through its paces—banking, panning, spinning, and hovering as needed to position the camera and survey the superstructure and cargo deck of the ship.

“How many times have you practiced with this thing?” Chunk asked, looking at Edwards.

“Twice.”

“Damn, dude. You’re a badass drone pilot,” he said.

“And that surprises you? I’m pretty badass at everything I do,” Edwards came back.

“Try to compliment a guy and that’s what I get for it.”

“What altitude are you going to deploy the minis?” Trip asked.

“Like, ten feet above the cargo deck,” Edwards said. “You agree?”

Trip nodded. “Yeah, and I was thinking you do it near that open ladder well, port side about two-thirds of the way back. Give the little bastards an easy entry point.”

“Yaaas,” Edwards said with a little smile, his eyes glued to the iPad screen as he switched from thermal back to augmented night vision. “The deck is clear. Request permission for me to, uh, drop my load?”

“Far be it from me to tell another man when and where he can drop his load,” Chunk said, shaking his head. “Drop away.”

Edwards piloted the mother drone down toward the open ladder well hatch, established hover, then pressed a blue button on the controller which deployed the microdrones. The bottom window on the iPad came to life with a much less stable streaming camera view that switched frenetically between different feeds.

“How are you choosing which microdrone feed is showing?” Chunk asked.

“I’m not, the program is selecting the one it thinks is most relevant,” Edwards said.

“Can you override that?”

“Of course, I can scroll through them with this button,” Edwards said and started pressing an orange button on the controller. With each push, a new camera feed took over the window.

“How do you pilot all of them at the same time?” Chunk said, watching Edwards working the joystick.

“The minis pilot themselves; I’m only flying Cylon.”

“How do they know where to go?”

“Chunk, were you not listening during the training?”

“I wasn’t at the training, Jamey,” he said.

“Oh yeah, I forgot. You just sent me.”

“I sense sarcasm in that statement.”

“They basically function like a Roomba vacuum. Please tell me you know what that is,” Edwards said with a quick sideways glance.

“Bro, I’m not that old,” Chunk said.

“Anyway . . . they work like a Roomba—they just sorta fly around trying not to bump into things while they make a digital map and record imagery of everything everywhere they go.”

“For how long?”

“Until I call them back or they run out of power.”

“Uh-oh, look out,” Trip said as one of the minis came face-to-face with a crew member. “It almost went in his mouth like a bug.”

The three SEALs laughed like kids as the Asian man tried to swat at the drone, as seen from the drone’s POV. To Chunk’s surprise, the microdrone evaded the swat and zipped around the dude.

“We’ve been made,” Trip said.

“Yep,” Edwards said.

“You going to call them back?”

“Nope. We don’t have much yet. See that seventeen percent icon in the corner?” Edwards said.

Trip nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s how much of the ship we’ve mapped so far. If I call them back, the data collected won’t be much. But, Chunk, if you think I should, I will.”

Chunk shook his head. “We planned for losses. Let ’em run.”

Within fifteen minutes, the crew of Plentiful was awake and chasing down the microdrones, trying to knock them out of the air with whatever implements they could find. A man they decided must be the ship’s cook was the most successful with a spatula, taking out three units. But the crew’s mobilization accomplished exactly what Chunk had hoped for, which was to get footage of their faces to feed into the NSA’s facial rec database. Also, while the crew chased the microdrones around, Edwards filmed every container and wooden crate on the cargo deck.

Edwards scrolled through in real time to give them eyes on various areas of the ship but reminded Chunk again that all the streaming data would be collected for later analysis. They watched twice as a feed he’d selected suddenly turned to white static as a microdrone was destroyed by the crew. In the end, only seven of the minis were recovered, but Cylon made it back to the Seahawk and was retrieved using a basket and rescue diver after the helo’s rotor wash proved too much for the quadcopter to overcome.

“Nice work tonight,” Chunk said, giving Edwards’s shoulder a squeeze as the Seahawk flared for landing on the Reagan. “I think our annoying spooky friend is going to be impressed with all the data we collected.”

“He better be,” Edwards said, “and if not, he can kiss my ass.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure that the crew knows someone is spying on them now, so there’s that,” Trip said.

“Well, I’m guessing a direct-action mission onto the ship was gonna tip our hand anyway,” Edwards said.

Chunk looked over at Trip who was laughing to himself now.

“What are you laughing about?”

“I was just thinking,” Trip said. “When CIA is done with the confidential footage, I’m going to make a TikTok montage of all those Chinese jackasses cursing and dancing around, trying to swat those minis. That was hilarious.”

“You better not, bro,” Chunk said.

“I know, I know . . . but what about just for the command? We can play it on a loop on the TV in the trophy room, right below the Team Two ball caps,” Trip said.

Chunk pursed his lips but then a tobacco-stained grin split his beard. “That would be pretty fucking funny. All right, Trip, but only for the trophy room.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

16 roslyn road at the corner of greenfield road

east london, england

united kingdom

0312 local time

Whitney sat in the passenger seat of Lucy’s Mini Cooper, eating a Nestlé Lion candy bar and staring out the windshield. From their vantage point, they had a clear view of the entrance of Afghan Importers three-quarters of a block north on Greenfield. Their current location was one of three positions they’d used so far to keep watch on the store, and even this one was quiet, the restaurants on Roslyn having closed hours ago. Foot traffic during the afternoon had been minimal near the spice shop and nobody had come or gone farther up Greenfield since the shop closed at five o’clock. Despite nothing noteworthy having happened yet, both women were undeterred. The night was still young with a few hours until sunrise. Plenty of time to catch a midnight messenger making a run.

Lucy was absolutely convinced that the spice shop was a front—either concealing an al Qadar safe house inside or serving as a message-routing node. Modern terrorists understood intelligence and counterintelligence methodologies used by the West. They often used couriers or face-to-face verbal communication with vetted intermediaries when passing sensitive information. Neither she nor Lucy believed that Diba’s coming here was a coincidence. If Qasim Nadar visited the spice shop anytime during the next forty-eight hours, then Lucy felt like she had enough to go to her boss and ask for surveillance on the Nadars.

Despite the late hour and dearth of activity, Whitney felt alert and energized. She was having fun and feeling like a rebel. Hanging with Lucy Kim had that effect on her because rebel seemed to be Lucy’s default vibe.

“We don’t have these in the US,” Whitney said, holding up the half-eaten candy bar.

“Really? You like the Lion bar?”

“Oh yeah, this is like Nestlé Crunch, wrapped around a Twix,” she said, chewing. “I don’t usually eat candy, but since we’re on a stakeout, I’m making an exception. Fun fact for you—this is my first one.”

“Never been on a stakeout?” Lucy said, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Are you taking the piss, Watts?”

“What does that mean, ‘taking the piss’? I’ve heard you say it a couple of times.”

“You don’t know that one, eh?”

She shook her head.

“It means you’re messing with me. You know, like, pulling my leg, I think you Americans say,” Lucy said.

“That’s what I thought, but you also say pissed when somebody’s drunk, right?”

“We do. For example, Whitney had five pints and now she’s so pissed she can’t walk straight.”

“In America, when we say pissed it means angry. Or that you actually went pee.”

“Oh yeah, same here.”

“So, you guys have four different meanings for the word pissed  ?”

Lucy chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose we do. Figuring out which one is a matter of context.” The agent runner tore open the wrapper of a Lion bar for herself. “So, this is really your first stakeout? I’da thought you’d be staking out terrorists all the time in your job.”

“Not in the traditional cop show sense, where two partners are hanging out in a parked car all night. In Special Warfare we don’t use the term stakeout. We call it Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance—ISR. And it’s not the same. I’m usually in the TOC and the guys are in the field. Plus, we’re using drones most of the time,” she said. She laughed at the mental image of Chunk and Riker on this stakeout, dipping and spitting and endlessly bullshitting.

“What’s funny?” Lucy asked.

“I was just thinking about my boss and how if he were here, how bored he’d be, and also how nice it is not to be immersed in tobacco-spit smell.”

“Do SEALs really chew tobacco all the time?”

“I don’t know about all SEALs, but mine do,” she said with a smile.

Lucy checked her watch, then started the engine. “Time to change cars.”

She pulled out of the spot on the south side of Roslyn and immediately turned right, heading south on Greenfield toward Seven Sister Road a few blocks down. There, they would turn right and swap cars with another they had waiting for them in the lot near the London Business College.

“Why do you have three cars, by the way? In America, a big family having three cars is common, but this is London, and you’re single.” Whitney asked as Lucy made a U-turn to head toward the nearby parking lot.

“An excellent question,” Lucy said, straightening out. “The Alfa Romeo Stelvio is mine. I bought it myself, with my own money, because it’s hot and I wanted it. The Vauxhall was my mom’s, and I inherited it when she passed away last year.”

“I’m so sorry,” Whitney said, feeling bad she’d even brought up the subject.

“It’s all right; you didn’t know,” Lucy said. “As far as this Mini, well, that’s another story . . .”

“I’m pretty sure we’ve got time,” Whitney said with a smile. “We’re going to be here all night.”

“Sure, why not. Probably cathartic for me to talk about it. You see, my dad died one year before my mom . . .”

Whitney felt like she was melting into her seat. “Oh God, Lucy, I’m really sorry. I should have just let it go. You don’t have to—really.”

Lucy smiled, but her eyes looked a little wetter than they had a moment ago. “Like I said, it’s probably good for me to talk about it. Dying is part of living, I guess . . . It’s just unfortunate that my parents were ill at the same time. Anyway, for his whole life, my dad was a proper saver. He never bought anything posh or expensive, especially for himself. He drove the same car, a Ford Focus, for almost twenty years. But on his sixty-third birthday, he surprised everyone by driving home in this Mini Cooper five-door with the Union Jack on the roof. You should have seen him. He was so chuffed with himself.”

“It’s a cool car,” Whitney said, “and it’s immaculate.”

“That’s because it never left the garage,” Lucy said.

“You mean he was afraid it would get scratched or something, so he rarely drove it?”

“No, I mean it literally never left the garage, because he died the very next day . . .”

“Oh . . . that’s terrible.”

“I know. Life’s not fair, is it?”

“No. I don’t suppose it is,” Whitney said, looking down at her lap.

“But there’s a lesson to the story.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t be like my dad. If there’s something in this life that you want—something that will bring you joy and happiness—then don’t fuck around for twenty years thinking about it. Just pay for it and enjoy yourself because you never know when your ticket is going to get punched.”

Sudden movement in her right peripheral vision caught Whitney’s attention.

“Look out!” she shouted as a gray van pulled suddenly across from Birstall Road to their right, lights out, and stopped in front of them to block the way ahead.

Lucy hit the brakes, slamming Whitney into her seat belt while screeching to a stop a mere foot from the crossing vehicle. The sound of squealing tires reverberated on the empty street as a second vehicle, an SUV, pulled up behind them, blocking them now in both directions.

Whitney scanned frantically as armed assaulters poured out of the vehicles to surround the Mini.

“Fuck,” Lucy snapped, as all the color drained from her face. “We’re buggered.”

Footfalls and commotion reverberated outside the Mini as Whitney pulled the compact pistol from her small-of-the-back holster.

“Don’t do it,” Lucy said, as Whitney brought the weapon up to sight on one of the masked shooters armed with an assault rifle. “Too many of these assholes. We’d be dead in seconds.” The MI6 officer placed her hands on the steering wheel.

Whitney’s mind, amped up on adrenaline, quickly crunched the numbers and determined their probability of survival in an engagement was in the single digits. The alternative was not much better.

“They mean to take us,” she said.

“I know,” Lucy said, her voice the Grim Reaper.

“I don’t want to be raped,” Whitney said, the fear straight from her subconscious and the admission taking her a little by surprise.

“Neither do I,” Lucy said, raising her hands now in surrender.

“Or tortured,” she added, training her iron sight on the center of the closest shooter’s face.

“Look, either we die here or we buy ourselves time. Maybe we can escape or maybe they send a team to rescue us.”

“Put down your weapons and step out of the car,” a shooter on Lucy’s side of the vehicle said in accented English.

“I accidentally missed my last check-in,” Whitney said, realizing how fortuitous that error could prove to be. “When I miss my next one, Chunk will get concerned and start making calls.”

“I have a morning check-in I’ll miss,” Lucy said. “Don’t worry, someone will come for us.”

Teeth gritted in frustration and fear, Whitney lowered her pistol and set it on the floor between her feet. She raised her hands. Lucy unlocked the door, unbuckled her seat belt, and climbed slowly out of the car. Whitney followed suit on her side and was rewarded for her compliance with a rifle butt to the stomach. The blow buckled her at the waist and sent a nauseating explosion of pain throughout her midsection. While she coughed and gasped for air, they slipped a black bag over her head, bound her hands behind her back, and took the mobile phone from her pants pocket.

Working quickly, two men lifted her and shuffled a short distance, then shoved her into the back of a vehicle. She landed hard on her left shoulder and her face smacked the floor. Stars danced against the pitch-black background inside her hood. They threw Lucy in beside her, and she heard her colleague grunt with pain from what Whitney imagined was a similarly brutal landing. Boots clomped on the floor as one of the shooters jumped into the van.

“Hey, partner, you okay?” Whitney said, intentionally not using Lucy’s name.

“No talking,” the man in the back of the van said. “Or I hit you with rifle.”

Lucy didn’t answer, but Whitney did hear what she thought were two taps of her foot on the van floor.

Whitney had no sense of direction and only a limited feel for their speed. They could be driving in circles for all she knew, but she started a silent count in her head anyway. The total time elapsed was data and could be converted to a very crude estimate of distance traveled. More important, the exercise kept her mind busy and helped her manage her fear.

At seventeen minutes and fourteen seconds, Whitney concluded they were on a highway leaving London. Highway driving and city driving had very different rhythms and this was definitely the former. A terrible thought occurred to her—one she’d not contemplated before this moment.

What if they take us out of the country? Sneak us onto a private plane . . . That would be bad. Very, very bad. Chunk would never find us.

She suddenly felt cripplingly claustrophobic. The fabric of the hood seemed to suck up against her mouth when she inhaled, and each breath felt like she wasn’t getting enough air. Impregnated with panic, her chest began to throb and felt like it might burst.

I need air!

“You’re hyperventilating, partner,” Lucy whispered, her voice calm and confident. “It’s all right. Slow it down. You’ve got plenty of oxygen, mate. We’re going to be okay . . .”

Focusing on Lucy’s soft voice, Whitney walked herself back from the abyss. This was the second panic attack she’d experienced in her professional career. The first time had been in Mingora, Pakistan, when terrorists stormed the hotel she was staying in. That night, death had felt imminent but chaotic. This felt different—pending, but certain—like a scheduled execution. They weren’t going to kill her tonight, but they would kill her . . . once they’d extracted every bit of value from her mind and body.

Harnessing her inner operative and clinging to the training she’d received from the CIA at the Farm, what felt now like a lifetime ago, she forced herself into a four-count breathing pattern, the same one the SEALs used—the one Chunk had taught her.

Inhale, two, three, four . . .

Hold, two, three, four . . .

Exhale, two, three, four . . .

Hold, two, three, four . . .

It took five rounds, but she wrangled the panic attack under control.

“You doing better, partner?” Lucy said.

“No talking!” their minder snapped.

Whitney tapped her toe on the deck twice.

“Stop that,” he said and kicked Whitney in the shin.

The pain made her angry, and she harnessed that anger and turned it into action.

I need to keep counting, she told herself and added two minutes to the total where she’d left off.

Time passed . . .

At thirty-one minutes and forty-eight seconds, Lucy shouted, “Oi, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? Stop that!”

“What’s happening?” Whitney called to her.

“This fuckin’ punter just shoved his hand down my fucking pants!”

A stern rebuke in Arabic came from the front of the van and a heated argument ensued between their keeper and someone in the front. The terrorist up front must have won because the next thing Whitney heard was Lucy say, “You’re a fucking perv, and if you ever fuckin’ touch me again, I’ll—”

A dull thud—followed by a yelp—abruptly ended Lucy’s threat-laden diatribe.

Whitney heard their guard grumble something in angry Arabic, then he kicked her too. The unexpected blow slammed into her ribs, just below her right breast. Pain mushroomed in her chest and looped around her back to her spine; it was so intense it made her cough involuntarily and her eyes teared up. She reflexively rolled over—putting her back to her abuser—and curled into the fetal position.

A second, angrier rebuke came from the front seat and this time the brute in back apologized, sounding effusive and repentant. She hadn’t spoken any Arabic when she joined the unit, and she’d not taken to the language like she’d hoped she would. Knot theory and mathematics—the language of numbers and patterns—that was her jam. Linguistics, not so much. And yet, the tone of the exchange told a story.

They threatened him, she thought. The leader must have given instructions for us not to be harmed or violated before delivery and whatever it is they have planned for us.

More time passed. Whitney continued to count. Eventually, she sat up, pressing her back against the wall. Sitting with her arms bound behind her back was almost more uncomfortable than lying on the ground. The tops and front of her shoulders burned like mad and no amount of squirming or repositioning relieved the pain.

At forty-two minutes and eighteen seconds, the van slowed.

At forty-two minutes and forty-nine seconds, the van stopped.

It waited at idle for a few seconds, then drove forward at a slow speed before stopping again. This time she felt transmission put in Park.

We pulled into a garage or warehouse, she decided. Oh God, this is it.

Her heart rate picked up and cold sweat streamed down her face and her armpits dampened.

A conversation began between the man in the front and their minder in the back. Then, commotion followed, and she heard the unmistakable sound of the side cargo door of the van rolling back. She wasn’t 100 percent sure, but it sounded like someone else climbed into the back of the van with them.

“Hold her down,” said a male—not their minder—in accented English.

“What the fuck are you— Ow, shit,” Lucy said.

“Now the other one,” the voice said.

“What’s happening?” Whitney said at the same time she felt strong hands wrestle her to the floor of the van in a prone position.

“They just injected me with something,” Lucy said, slurring at the end.

Whitney felt a pinch, then a burn in her left deltoid.

Fresh terror gripped her, and she felt another panic attack coming on. But before she could even start to hyperventilate, a tidal wave of drowsiness washed over her. Her arms became instantly and impossibly heavy, and she felt herself slump. Rough hands grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her limp body across the floor of the van.

As sleep took her, one final, pitiful thought floated in her mind.

Not like this, please, God, not like this . . .

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

isc michelle yi’s stateroom/gold squadron intel space

uss ronald reagan (cvn-76)

indian ocean

one hundred and twelve miles south of madagascar

0712 local time

“What time was Watts supposed to check in?” Chunk asked, but he already knew the answer.

“Scheduled for 0600,” Yi said. “But it’s early and all, so I gave her a bit of a pass. Then 0700 came and went, so I called her.”

“And?”

“It went right to voicemail. She missed check-in last night too, but when I texted she got right back. She apologized and said she forgot. A little while later, she called me.”

“What did she say?”

“She’d made her connection, which I assume means Officer Kim from MI6 and the task force. She said they had a lead to track down and hoped to have more to report soon.”

“Did she sound worried or anxious?” Chunk asked.

“Not particularly,” Yi said, but her own voice was a tight band of worry. “She sounded, I don’t know, like she always does. A little stressed, but in the zone. Said she would check in at 0600 and hoped to have more to share.”

Chunk pulled at his beard and frowned. “Try her again.”

Yi nodded, but her eyes told him this was a pointless exercise as she dialed and put the satellite phone on speaker.

“Nothing,” she said, holding the phone in the air and letting the automated voicemail recording play as if to prove it before placing the phone back into its charging cradle on her desk. “Straight to voicemail.”

“Okay,” he said, dropping into the chair beside her. “Let’s get the British task force guy on the line—McLean was his name, right? Let’s see what he knows.”

“Roger that,” Yi said, turning to her laptop to find a number to call. “Stand by . . .”

“Is something up?” a voice said behind them.

Chunk turned to see Saw standing in the doorway.

“Trying to track down Watts,” he said. “She missed her check-in, and her phone goes to voicemail.”

“Maybe she met some dashing 007 from MI6 and decided to elope,” Riker joked from the passageway as he walked up behind Saw, trying to lighten the mood but failing.

“Fellas, come on in and close the door,” Chunk said, shutting down the banter.

Watts had never let go of the idea that Nadar was connected to Hamza al-Saud, despite Nadar getting cleared by the Brits after Dubai. She’d brought it up more than once, but every time Chunk had convinced her that the British Joint Terror Task Force—the “JTAC” they called their NCTC equivalent—was more than capable. In Chunk’s mind, if Qasim Nadar was a terrorist, the Brits would know.

“Boss, McLean says Lucy Kim doesn’t report to him anymore. He’s transferring me to her boss at MI6,” Yi said, interrupting the thought and conversation. “One more second.”

Chunk nodded.

A rap on the stateroom door shook the slab, then it opened part way and Spence poked his head in.

“Party and no invite for me?” the SEAL officer joked.

“Lost comms with Watts in London,” Chunk said, his voice even but serious.

Spence nodded. “Hmm, okay. You look worried. Is there something going on?”

“Not sure,” Chunk said. “We’re waiting to get connected to Lucy Kim’s boss at MI6.”

“While we wait, do you want to talk about that drone footage we got on the Plentiful  ?” Spence said. “It definitely has my antennae up.”

“Me too. You know what it reminds me of ?” Riker said, squinting at Spence. “Remember when we hit that Pakistani freighter in the Arabian Sea way back when and we capped all those dudes in unmarked BDUs? These guys look like those guys.”

“He’s right,” Saw said, turning to Chunk. “Remember the spook patrol that showed up after to inventory everything? And the lead got all bent out of shape when you asked him why there were Chinese operators on board a Pakistani freighter?”

“Yeah, I remember that guy,” Chunk said. “He said something like, Who says they’re Chinese.”

“The crates in the cargo hold on this last hit had Chinese writing on them,” Spence said. “At least I’m pretty sure that’s Chinese. I know it’s CIA’s job, but if you want, I can have Edwards run character recognition on the imagery. Might as well answer the question for ourselves.”

Chunk nodded, but his gut churned. Talk about like déjà vu. “When we hit that Pakistani-flagged vessel, we didn’t know what was going on, but we do now. Those were Chinese drone parts and surface-to-air missiles that were making their way into al Qadar’s hands. I think our young CIA spook was right to be concerned that these are weapons bound for Africa. Spence, what do you think?”

The younger SEAL officer pulled at his beard and accepted the can of snuff handed to him by Riker. “Same playbook, different ship.”

“I’m glad we decided to surveil before we hit this ship,” Chunk replied. “We’re going to need to run this one up the—”

“Hey, boss, I have Officer Burton on the line for you,” Yi said, interrupting and handing him the phone.

“Officer Burton?” Chunk asked, keeping the strain from his voice as best he could.

“Supervising Officer in Charge George Burton,” came the clipped British voice on the line.

“Mr. Burton, you’re speaking with Commander Keith Redman,” Chunk said, unsure what title, exactly, one was expected to use for a British Supervising Officer in Charge. There might not be time for pleasantries, but in Chunk’s experience, pleasantries mattered when dealing with the Brits. “I’m with an American Joint Special Operations Task Force. We were transferred to you by Officer McLean—”

“I’ll need you to get to the bloody point, Commander,” the man interrupted. “We’ve got a bit of a tempest at present—what you Americans would call a shitstorm. Missing agent.”

Chunk felt his chest tighten. “Lucy Kim?”

“Yes,” the man on the other end said, drawing the word out slowly. “How in the bloody hell did you know that?”

“Because my intelligence lead, Whitney Watts, was working with Kim on the task force investigating al Qadar and affiliates. Watts missed her check-in.”

“Your girl is here, in London?”

“Yes.”

“Son of a bitch . . .”

“You didn’t know?” Chunk said, screwing up his face and looking at Yi.

“I did not.”

“What can you tell me about the situation?”

“Not much, Commander. We’re just getting up to speed now. Agent Runner Kim is missing as of last hour when she didn’t check in. Still assessing the situation, you might say.”

“We’d like to help,” Chunk said. “We can come to London immediately. Is that all right with you?”

“I suppose so, if your agent was with Kim, you certainly have cause. When can you get here?”

“From my current location, twelve hours, give or take. Can you give contact information—mobile phone number and office address—to Chief Yi?”

“Of course, Commander. And I’ll clear things with C here to bring you in.”

“I’m sorry—who is C?” Chunk asked.

“Sorry. That’s the Chief of Service. Two missing agents in London is no small thing, Commander. God knows what they may have stumbled onto.”

But we do know, right ? They have a task force investigating Qasim Nadar, don’t they? Shouldn’t we start there?

He almost said as much but decided if Burton were confident in the security of their comms he’d offer more about the status of the Nadar investigation himself. The real “read in” would have to wait until they were in person.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Burton,” Chunk said. “I’m handing you back to Chief Yi to share details and coordinate our arrival. See you soon.”

He handed the phone back to Yi, whose face had gone pale with worry. He turned to his teammates as she spoke to Burton.

“I’m taking Riker, Edwards, and Trip with me to London to find Watts. Spence, you’re OIC here with the rest of the squadron while I’m gone. I want you to plan and lead any ops from here on the Reagan, but I think . . .” Chunk said but paused when Spence started to say something. The little voice in Chunk’s head reminded him to mentor.

“Go ahead. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt,” Spence said.

“No, you go. What were you going to say?”

“All I was going to say is we might want to loop Malkin in and pull a platoon from Blue Squadron to augment, just in case the Head Shed decides they want to hit the Plentiful and confiscate the cargo,” Spence said. “Last time, we caught those Chinese shooters unaware. There’s no guarantee this time will be a turkey shoot like it was last time.”

“You read my mind,” Chunk said, glad he’d let Spence make the recommendation instead of covering all the bases himself. “But before you call Malkin, can you get with Admiral Carr and see about getting us a ride off this boat and direct travel to London? ASAP.”

“On it,” Spence said, but on his way out the door, he turned to add, “Don’t worry, Chunk. We’ll find her.”

Chunk nodded. Yes, they all loved giving Watts a hard time, but that was only because she was universally loved and respected. The look in Spence’s eyes said it all. One of their own was missing, and they would scour the ends of the earth to bring her home safe if that’s what it took.

Yi, who was now off the phone with Burton, looked at Chunk. “Do you want me to get Captain Bowman on the line so we can get his nod?”

“Once again, you read my mind,” he said.

“I’ll grab Trip and Edwards and get packing,” Riker said.

“Make sure those boys pack both tactical and civilian clothes,” Chunk said. “I don’t know what the arrangement is going to be for us over there.”

“Roger that,” Riker said and left, leaving only Saw standing by the door.

“Bowman’s wrapping up a meeting with a three-star. He’ll be on the line in five mikes,” Yi said.

“All right, thanks, Michelle,” Chunk said.

“A word?” Saw said and gestured with his head to the hallway.

Chunk pressed to his feet. “Get me if Bowman jumps on early,” he said to Yi, who nodded, before he stepped out into the passageway to join Saw.

“I want to go to London in Edwards’s place,” Saw said, cutting straight to the point.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to hang here?”

The SEAL sniper screwed up his face, confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Chunk squeezed the man’s shoulder. “Look, bro, after Tampa I know you made certain promises to Ellie. I have no idea what sort of hornet’s nest we might be walking into in London. If it’s better for you to stay here . . .”

“Ellie has my back, Keith,” Saw said, fire in his eyes. “We’re still working through what decision is best for our family. When I’m home, I’m all hers, but when I’m here, I’m on mission, one hundred percent. This is Watts we’re talking about, bro. There’s no way in hell I’m not going with you.”

“To be honest,” Chunk said, “I was hoping you’d say that.”

Ever since his own “mentoring” session with Bowman, Chunk had been thinking about the big talk with Saw he needed to have. His plan was to give Saw an alternative exit to retiring from the Teams—a path to being the command master chief via a two-year billet heading up Green team. Now did not feel like the right time to have that discussion.

“If al Qadar so much as touches one hair on her head, I will rain so much fire down from above that there will be nothing left but ash.”

“In that case, make sure you bring extra magazines,” Chunk said, with a crooked grin. “Why don’t you go give Edwards the bad news while I talk with Bowman.”

“Roger that, boss,” Saw said.

Chunk watched him go.

Unlike Saw, Chunk only had one family, and that was Gold Squadron. He would die to protect his family. And that included Watts.

“We’re coming, Heels,” he mumbled under his breath. “No matter what it takes, we’ll find you.”

Fists clenched, he walked back into Yi’s stateroom.

“Is he on yet?” Chunk asked.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Listen, Michelle, best-case scenario it takes us twelve hours to get to London. We’re already trying to play catch-up, and we can’t afford to waste that time sitting on our hands. Do you get me?”

She nodded. “What do you have in mind?”

“I want you to dig in hard into Qasim Nadar. I want to know where he lives. What kind of car he drives. I want his mobile number, his passport number, the tag number on his car. I want eyes in the sky on his house starting immediately. And I want you to scour the high side briefs for any mention of his name and all possible affiliates that tie him to al Qadar.”

“I hear you, boss, but the Brits will already have all that information at their fingertips. All you’ll have to do is ask,” she said. “And also, we’re not even sure her disappearance is related to Nadar.”

“If Watts is missing, it’s related to Nadar,” he said with a sarcastic laugh. “This guy already outfoxed us once, and I’ll be damned if I let it happen again. And as far as the Brits sharing intelligence goes, in a perfect world they would open their arms and show us everything they have. But it ain’t a perfect world. It’s a political world. It’s a cover-your-ass-and-drag-your-feet world where bureaucrats tell operators what to do. Not this time. When our boots hit the ground in London, I want a trail to follow. Do you understand? I want a trail that will lead me from Qasim fucking Nadar to Whitney. I know it’s asking a lot, but can you do that for me?”

Her jaw set, Yi slow-nodded, the helpless anxiety that had been in her eyes replaced with fiery purpose. “Hell yes, I can do that, sir.”

“Good,” he said.

He refused to let his mind drift to the very real possibility that it might already be too late.

PART TWO

“You never know when your ticket is going to get punched.”

–Lucy Kim

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

emerging technology office

british aero defence systems

new malden, united kingdom

0914 local time

Qasim had never seen Arham more anxious, and that pleased him. He wanted the young programmer off-balance and distracted. In this state, Arham would be easier to manipulate and control. For the plan to work, he needed to stay two or three steps ahead of everyone, and that included Arham.

“To be honest, the questions you’re asking are making me very uncomfortable,” Arham said but kept his gaze fixed on his computer monitor.

“Good,” Qasim said. “They should be. That’s the point.”

“But you’re asking me to show you how to compromise Valkyrie’s core operating objectives. That is very dangerous, sir.”

“I know, and it is precisely why we are having this conversation. I told you yesterday to be ready for this. Do you think that the Russian, the Chinese, and the Iranian cyber warfare teams are not having a similar discussion? And if they are not having them now, they will be. As soon as Valkyrie is operational and conducting missions in denied airspaces around the world, our enemies will take notice. What you and I are doing right now is vital to the viability, reliability, and longevity of the Valkyrie program. Foreign actors—or even tech-savvy terrorist groups—will try to hack into this drone. I have seen what these groups are capable of and it is chilling,” Qasim said, not bothering to keep his voice down.

He’d chosen to have this conversation at Arham’s workstation in the middle of the engineering-and-programming cube on purpose. It would be better if he had witnesses to vouch for his diligence, his foresight, and his commitment to making Valkyrie secure. In fact, he decided to make that very point.

“My job as program director is to set a goal for this drone to be the most secure UCAV in the RAF inventory. Your job as the Autonomy integration programmer is to make that goal a reality. Do you understand?”

Arham nodded.

“Good,” Qasim said. “Now that we’re on the same page, please answer the question.”

“Sir, many of our colleagues within earshot do not have the proper security clearance to be listening to this conversation,” Arham said in a low, somber tone.

“A valid concern. Let’s move to one of the secure conference rooms.”

Arham breathed a visible sigh of relief, logged off his workstation, and grabbed his notebook computer. Qasim led the way, walking ahead of Arham to the smaller of the two secure conference rooms. He badged in using the card reader next to the door. An LED flashed green and the door unlocked. He held it open for Arham, let the junior man enter, then closed the door behind him. Once inside, Qasim saw Arham visibly relax.

“I was not comfortable discussing this topic at my desk,” Arham said, taking a seat at the table and opening his notebook computer.

“I understand. Are you more comfortable now?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Qasim said and sat in the chair next to Arham on the same side of the table. He watched the young programmer log in and noted that Arham’s username and password had not been updated. Three weeks ago, Qasim had logged into Arham’s notebook computer to install malware which allowed al Qadar’s cyber team remote access to Arham’s files as well as a back door into the Autonomy AI interface with Valkyrie.

“Now, I can answer your confidential questions,” Arham said, pulling up the interface. “Fire away.”

“Yesterday I asked you if the command authorization became compromised, could the drone theoretically ignore external commands and make kill decisions without ground control being able to stop it? You said yes. So, are you telling me there is a risk of the drone doing whatever it wants and ignoring us humans? A rogue Valkyrie acting against command interests is a very real concern for Colonel Joddle and the RAF.”

“Here is the important distinction to understand. If command authorization is compromised, then yes, the drone will ignore external commands and default to its neural network to make decisions. But what I should have explained at the time is that this is virtually impossible because command authorization is coded into Autonomy’s architecture. As built, Valkyrie does not have the ability to ignore commands from RAF ground control or relayed commands from British Aero.”

“I don’t want your assurance, I want you to prove it to me,” Qasim said.

“Okay, no problem,” Arham said and navigated to a section of code. “It’s managed here, in the input processing hierarchy.”

“I was hoping it would be obvious, but I don’t see it,” Qasim said, after perusing the code for a long moment.

“You thought it would be like a toggle switch. Turn it on and the AI is forced to listen to the humans, turn it off and it’s got free will?”

“Something like that,” Qasim said, trying not to sound as deflated as he felt.

“Something that simplistic would be problematic on many levels, so we handled the problem with architecture instead,” Arham said. “Incoming commands are routed into the neural network as inputs and get evaluated just like sensor data. Both are in-processed at the top of the decision tree and passed to Level Two in the hierarchy. As a reminder, Level Two is where self-generated commands created at Level Five get routed—that never-ending internal feedback loop is the foundation of Autonomy. At Level Two, self-generated commands are compared to sensor data and any input commands in the register waiting to be executed. If an input command is present, the neural net will always give priority to the input command over a self-generated one. After that, the neural network advances the input command to Level Three for processing and clears the logic command from the Level Two register. Does that make sense?”

“Yes, I believe so,” Qasim said. “To use a human metaphor, if a child is trying to decide between action A and action B, but the child’s parents tell the child to do action A, then the child must perform action A because the parents are in charge. Did I get it right?”

“Not exactly, because a bad child can know the parents are in charge and still choose not to listen. For example, my father wanted me to be a doctor in Islamabad, but here I am,” Arham said with a chuckle. “Valkyrie cannot be a bad child because the architecture prevents it. For your metaphor to be correct, the child would need to be physically incapable of disobedience, something parents have been wishing in vain for since the beginning of time.”

“In a couple of months, I will know this reality very well when my son is born,” Qasim said with a laugh.

On the outside, he smiled, but on the inside, his mind was racing. He needed to use Arham’s compromised computer to deliver a software update to the Valkyrie mid-flight that would allow the drone to ignore RAF input commands and follow al Qadar commands instead. To accomplish that, he needed Arham to show him how.

“I see you’re not convinced,” Arham said. “Tell me your concerns and I’ll try to explain it better.”

“How does the drone know which external commands are legitimate and which are not?” Qasim asked. “What if an enemy hacker breached the firewalls and tried to inject overriding commands?”

“There are several layers of protection for this,” Arham said. “The firewall, as you noted, and the data encryption keys, but also the handshake protocol. And even if the hacker managed to somehow defeat all these things and inject commands directly into the neural network at Level Two, Autonomy would ignore them as lower priority inputs . . . but you know all of this.”

“Yes, yes, but that’s not the point. What we are doing here is stress-testing the code, looking for weaknesses and vulnerabilities,” Qasim said, a fresh idea coming to him. “Let’s return to the parent-child metaphor. You said that the child, Autonomy, cannot disobey the parents, British Aero and RAF, because in architecture the parents have command authorization.”

“That’s correct,” Arham said.

“What if Autonomy didn’t know its parents? Then what would happen?”

“I don’t understand?” Arham said.

“What if it doesn’t recognize its parents? Then, maybe it would not listen.”

“The only way for that to happen would be for someone with command authorization to make changes to the core architecture, but again, that would require defeating all of the security measures in place.”

“But it is possible?”

“Yes, it’s possible. Just as it’s possible for you to change your contact information for your own bank account. But this is no different than any electronic system. If you own it, you can change it.”

“Of course, of course,” Qasim said and patted Arham’s shoulder. “I’m just making sure you’re ready for Colonel Joddle, in case he asks during the live-fire exercise tomorrow.”

“Ah, good thinking.”

“Excellent,” Qasim said. “I want to continue to exceed our client’s expectations. Meeting performance and delivery milestones early is uncommon in this business, and I want our team to break the mold.”

“I have learned a lot from you,” Arham said, turning to look at Qasim. “You’re always thinking ahead. You never blame others for failures, but always share credit when we succeed. That makes you a good manager and a good boss. Thank you for mentoring me. It would be much more difficult for me here if it weren’t for you.”

Arham’s compliment took Qasim by surprise, and he felt a sudden pang of guilt. His mind flashed back to his early days as an engineer at British Aero, before he’d met Hamza al-Saud, before he’d married Diba, before his eyes had been opened to the reality of the world. Those days had been difficult for him. Lonely. How he’d wish for a Muslim boss he could have bonded with. How he’d wished for a mentor. How he’d wished for a friend. Ironic, how fate works. Qasim was now in a position to be all these things to Arham, but he couldn’t let himself get distracted.

The plan must take priority.

“You have a bright future ahead of you, Arham, and I promise to help make sure you actualize your potential,” he said with a smile and clasped the top of Arham’s shoulder. “Let’s trade personal mobile numbers. You can call on me anytime, even outside of work, whenever you need help or guidance.”

“Really? Thank you, sir,” Arham said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”

Qasim nodded and they exchanged personal mobile phone numbers. Then, rising from his seat, he said, “I’ll leave you to your work. Let me know if you find any issues during the sims.”

“I will,” Arham said but stayed seated, signaling he intended to work from the conference room.

Qasim shut the door behind him, his mind racing. He finally understood what was required to steal the Valkyrie. As much as he wanted to turn the job over to Fun Time and his team of cyber gurus, Qasim wasn’t confident they would be able to deliver in time. This was something he needed to do himself. It would take him most, if not all, of the day to study Autonomy AI’s architecture and figure out how to change Valkyrie’s “parents.” On the way to his office, he stopped by his personal assistant’s desk to clear his calendar for the afternoon.

Before he could get a word out, however, she was handing him a note.

“You’ll never believe this, Mr. Nadar,” Eileen said, grinning large. “But the mayor’s office called. They’ve invited you for a meeting and plan to invite you to be on the London Muslim and Minority Business Council. It’s a new initiative his office is starting. What an honor.”

He took the piece of paper and looked at it. The requested time was Friday at eleven fifteen.

“Please call the mayor’s office back and tell them I’d be honored to attend,” he said, feeling his cheeks flush with pride. This was the next step he’d been networking and pushing so hard for.

It’s finally happening. My star is beginning to rise.

“I’ll call straightaway,” she said.

“Oh, Eileen,” he said. “Please clear my calendar for the rest of the afternoon. I have some pressing Valkyrie work to do in preparation for tomorrow’s exercise. I won’t be able to make the staff meeting or my two o’clock. Go ahead and reschedule with Robert for next week.”

“Not a problem, Mr. Nadar,” she said. “I’ll tidy everything up and make sure that nobody bothers you.”

“Thank you,” he said and made for his office.

On the way, he checked his phone. The secure messaging app he used for al Qadar business showed a notification. The message icon waiting for him was red, indicating that it was both urgent and high priority. His heart rate spiked, but he forced a calm, neutral expression on his face. Then, he returned his phone to his pocket and casually walked from his office to the elevator, which he rode to the ground floor. Humming happily to himself, he walked to the lobby.

“Hey, Qasim,” said one of his coworkers, who’d just cleared security.

“Good morning, Mark,” he replied.

“Where are you off to? More field testing?”

“Not today,” he said. “I’m just going to get coffee. Would you like me to pick one up for you?”

“I appreciate the offer,” the engineer said and lifted the silver tumbler in his left hand, “but I got mine right here.”

Qasim nodded and headed out of the building. Once outside, he turned left to walk in the direction of several nearby cafés and coffee shops. After walking a block, he pulled out his mobile phone and opened the secure messaging app. The message’s time stamp was two hours old.

Spice shop was under surveillance last night

Moving operations observed. Had to take action

Qasim’s heart fluttered with palpitations as he thumb-typed his reply:

Explain “take action”

While he waited for Faraj’s reply, his mind raced a thousand miles an hour, jumping from one worst-case scenario to another. Finally, the answer came:

Captured two possible agents

Preparing to interrogate

Why in God’s name have you done this?

We are compromised now!

We were compromised already

My actions minimized the damage

Qasim’s hands were trembling with rage so badly he could barely hold the phone to type:

Where are these agents now?

On CC2

Question and confirm identities but do NOT kill them. I will contact you on a secure line when I am able

When no response came, he typed:

Confirm you understand

Understand. Standing by for your call

Qasim pressed the trash can icon in the app and the entire text thread disappeared. Cold sweat ran in rivulets from his armpits over his ribs and down his sides. What in Allah’s name was Faraj thinking ? If he really did take British agents then not only was the spice shop compromised but now any counterterror operation being run by MI5 would be escalated. Qasim wanted to scream. Why had Faraj done this without consulting him first?

Because you delegated the job of moving the cyber command out of the spice shop to him, a voice said in his head. You gave him forty-eight hours and told him it was the top priority. He did exactly what you ordered.

Panic was welling up inside him, triggering the fight-or-flight reflex. The compulsion to run, to flee London entirely, was overpowering, but this was the primitive part of his brain trying to take control. He couldn’t let it. Cool, calm intellect was required to manage this situation. He forced himself to take three slow, deep breaths to collect himself.

What would Hamza do in this situation? He would approach the problem methodically. He would first try to find out exactly how much the snooping agents knew. Then, he would begin damage control by relocating al Qadar assets, shuttering compromised locations, and initiating contingency plans.

Hamza had always had contingency plans in place for when the unexpected happened.

I am the head of the octopus. If I have to sacrifice an arm, then I sacrifice an arm. An arm can grow back, but the head cannot.

Feeling back in control, he resumed his trek to buy a coffee. This was the reason he’d supposedly left the office, so he needed to follow through. The little details mattered. He would work the rest of the day as if nothing had happened. It was imperative that he not do anything to jeopardize the next Valkyrie test.

It was smart of Faraj to take the spies to the yacht, Qasim suddenly realized.

At sea, escape was impossible, and disposing of the bodies would be much easier. With a clear head, he recognized that his second-in-command might have made the best decision in a bad situation after all.

I don’t have all the information yet.

Now came the hard part . . .

The waiting.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

somewhere

sometime later

Whitney woke.

Her mind felt sluggish and disoriented.

She was having trouble opening her eyelids, so she went back to sleep.

The next time she woke, it was because someone was talking to her.

Chunk?

No, not Chunk.

A man, but not an American.

“Wake up . . .” he was saying, and she got the sense he’d said it many, many times.

“I’m awake,” she mumbled and opened her eyes.

Like a dead car battery getting a jump start, the face she saw snapped her out of her drowsy fugue. The stakeout with Lucy, the kidnapping, the hooded ride in the van, the injection—it all came back to her. Her mind, now switched on, quickly performed a personal sitrep. She was in a hotel room—small but nice—lying on a bed, wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing when she was taken. But her wrists were no longer bound behind her back, and the hood was off, obviously. The man talking to her sat in an armchair, just out of reach. He wore a black face mask, the N95 variety, and dressed in black jeans and a gray sweatshirt. He had brown eyes, brown skin, black hair, and sat with a very relaxed posture.

“Okay, we start simple. Tell me your name,” he said in accented English.

“My name is Wh—” She caught herself, thank God.

He’s trying to take advantage of my post-anesthetized state.

“Say it,” he said.

“My name is Woman,” she said.

The response got a chuckle from the man. “That was clever. Let’s try again. What is your name? And this time no games.”

She surveyed the room again, with fresher eyes. “Where is my friend, the other woman you took?”

“I don’t think you understand your situation,” the man in the chair said, his gaze an unblinking stare. “This is the best it gets for you. Cooperate and you stay in this room—with food, water, bathroom privileges, no hood, no plastic ties on your wrists, no torture, and no rape. Okay? But, every time you don’t cooperate, I take away something. It gets worse and worse. You understand?”

She nodded.

“Your name?”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

The man in the chair sighed heavily, causing his mask to puff out. He seemed to consider the request before pointing to a door across the room. “This will be the last time you have this luxury if you don’t cooperate. Think about that while you relieve yourself.”

“I understand,” she said and scooted off the bed on the opposite side from him. Vertigo swept over her when she stood and the floor momentarily felt like it tilted, but the feeling passed quickly and she maintained her balance. She walked to the bathroom, glancing over her shoulder at her interrogator as she crossed the threshold into a small but tidy bathroom. She shut the door and tried to lock it, but the lock latch spun freely and would not engage.

She turned and looked at herself in the mirror. No black eyes or lacerations . . . so she had that going for her.

Think, Whitney, think. What would Chunk do in this situation? she wondered. He would hydrate and make a plan. That’s what he’d do.

She bent at the waist and got a long drink of water from the spigot before dropping her pants and squatting over the toilet. Quite frankly, she was shocked she’d not pissed herself while she’d been unconscious. Her bladder was definitely full. After she finished, she didn’t flush. She glanced at the urine in the bowl and found it to be bright yellow, bordering on orange. While she hadn’t pissed herself, she was clearly dehydrated. Time had passed, but how much? She pulled up her pants, lowered the toilet lid, and took a seat. She figured she had two to three more minutes to organize her thoughts before her interrogator ordered her out of the bathroom.

It wasn’t much but it was something.

She closed her eyes and her mind drifted back to a conversation she’d had with Chunk after they’d visited a black site to question the man they’d thought to be Hamza al-Saud.

“What would you do if the situation was reversed?” she asked him.

“You mean if terrorists captured me and hauled my redneck ass off to some shithole compound?” he said.

“Yeah, would you try to escape?”

“That would depend on the extent of my injuries,” he said with a chuckle. “For them to take me alive, I’d have to be unconscious or hamburger meat.”

“Just humor me, Chunk, okay?”

“All right, all right. If I was taken, I would focus more on staying alive than trying to escape. It’s not like the movies. Escape has a low probability of survival. Getting rescued is the goal.”

“What about torture?” she said.

“What about it?”

“Torture is pretty much a given. How do you prevent yourself from breaking?”

“Part of becoming a SEAL is going through SERE training. We get subjected to, um, some pretty intense enhanced techniques.”

“Like what?”

“Waterboarding, sleep deprivation, dehydration—staying hydrated is very important, by the way, I can’t stress that enough in these situations—and, of course, physical abuse. I hear they’ve toned it down since I went through, but it was pretty hard-core in my day.”

“Hmm,” she said. “So, did you break?”

“Me? Nah, but that’s only cuz I knew the evolution had constraints. And a time limit. It’s not like they were going to break my shins or lock me in a box for six months with no human contact. I mean, it sucked, but in my mind, I always knew it was training . . . I just had to outlast the clock.”

“Makes sense,” she said.

“But, Whit, in real life, everybody breaks. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said.

“Then what’s the goal? What’s the strategy?”

“The strategy,” he said, packing himself a fat lipper, “is to remain useful to your captors for as long as possible. You see, when you’re a hostage, your very presence is both a liability and a pain in the ass. You need to be housed, fed, observed, and tortured. It’s a lot of work. So, if you’re too cooperative too quickly, they’re liable to decide that you’ve given up everything you know, and they can get rid of you. That’s especially true if they have no intention of using you as a bargaining chip. That’s something you have to try to figure out real quick. Are you alive because they’re after the information in your head, or do they mean to trade you for somebody or something else?”

“That makes sense.”

“Also, Heels, this goes back to my original point. Your number one goal is to buy yourself time. Because if someone ever takes you, you can bet your ass that me and the boys are going to get you out, even if we have to tear the whole damn planet apart to find you.”

“So, it’s inevitable that I’ll have to give up something?”

“Oh yeah. And if they break out the pruning shears and start threatening to lop off your fingers, or toes, or—God forbid—your nose, go ahead and tell ’em whatever they want to know. It’s not like you have the nuclear codes memorized or something. There’s no lost intel from this unit that we can’t recover from. You’re too important to us to come back in pieces. Besides, you’ve got a cute nose and pretty fingers. I’d hate for you to lose ’em on account of my advice.”

“What about my ears? You didn’t mention them,” she said.

“I know,” he said with a crooked grin. “Your ears stick out a bit. They could probably stand a trim . . .”

She couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory, in spite of everything.

Be useful enough to buy myself time so Chunk and the boys can get me out, she told herself. That’s the plan.

“What is taking so long?” the man called from the room, his voice ripe with irritation.

“Just finishing up,” she called and flushed the toilet.

Then, with a hard exhale, she stood, took another long drink from the washbasin spigot, and walked back into the hotel room.

Although, looking at it with fresh eyes, she realized it wasn’t a hotel room at all. It was a stateroom. And it wasn’t drug-induced vertigo she was feeling as she walked, it was real vertigo because the floor was actually tilting.

Fuck . . . I’m on a boat.

“Yes, you’re on a boat,” the man in the chair said, as if reading her mind. “Even if you try to escape, there is nowhere to go but into the water, where you will certainly drown.”

She looked around for a place to sit. She didn’t want to sit on the bed; that felt creepy and vulnerable. Finding no other chairs, she walked to the far side of the bed and stood, leaning her back against the stateroom wall.

“My name is Whitney,” she said, hating herself as she said it. “Thank you for letting me go to the bathroom.”

“What is your surname?”

“Watts,” she said after a beat, pretty sure he probably already knew that. Al Qadar had already proven itself to have a capable cyber division. They’d hacked the Pakistani military satellite data stream, and they’d conducted a social media intimidation campaign against the SEALs. They’d found Saw’s home address. Surely, they’d already photographed her and run an image search. But, if they did find something on her, it would surely be no deeper than her OC—her official cover for her assignment with the Tier One, right? They might have even taken her fingerprints when she was unconscious. She looked at her fingertips for signs of residual ink but didn’t see anything.

They wouldn’t need ink though, she thought. They could take a digital scan with a fingerprint reader.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he said.

“Where’s my friend? Is she okay?”

“You don’t ask the questions . . . I do.”

She studied his eyes for a clue to Lucy’s status, but his blank stare gave up nothing.

“Who do you work for?”

“I’m tired. Can I get some rest, please?”

“No. Answer the question.”

She looked down at her feet. How long could she stonewall before the torture started? A half an hour? Ten minutes? Five? It’s not like she’d been arrested by a legitimate authority in a first-world country. She didn’t have any rights here. There was no attorney working behind the scenes for her safe and unmolested release. She’d been kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. They didn’t care about her rights. They didn’t have empathy for her. She was the enemy. Worse than that, she was a woman with a position of knowledge and influence in the enemy’s fighting ranks. That made her someone to be both condemned and despised.

“Who do you work for?” he said, anger coloring her captor’s voice for the first time.

When she said nothing, he rose from his chair and marched over to her.

“Answer the question,” he shouted, his face inches from her own.

She cowered, hunching reflexively. Despite wanting to, she was unable to meet his gaze. He was so close. She could smell the musk of his sweat and body odor.

As quick as a serpent’s strike, his hand shot out and grabbed her jaw under the chin. Squeezing painfully tight, he jerked her face up to look at him. “Last chance before I lose my temper,” he said, his voice a low growl.

She was about to answer but a sharp knock on the door stopped her.

“What?” he shouted, still clutching and squeezing her face.

The answer came in Arabic or maybe Pashto—she still couldn’t tell the difference.

He grunted his irritation and shoved her by the face as he released his grip.

“While I’m gone, I want you to think about your situation. Nobody knows where you are. Nobody is coming to rescue you. There is no escape,” he said, glaring at her from the door. “When I return, we will continue this conversation. If you resist, then I will have no choice but to make your life very unpleasant. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

He glared at her for a moment then left the room.

She heard the door lock and heard her captor give terse instructions to someone she assumed was an armed guard posted outside her door. Her legs turned to jelly and she shrunk into a sitting position on the floor, back against the wall and knees hugged tight to her chest. She hated that she was trembling, but she had fear to thank for that. Her life was about to get very unpleasant.

There would be pain.

There would be humiliation.

There would be dehumanizing suffering.

To survive she needed to keep it simple; to survive she had to focus on a single goal.

Buying time . . . that’s all that matters.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

special intelligence service (mi6) building

vauxhall cross

85 albert embankment

vauxhall, london

united kingdom

1935 local time

Chunk ground his teeth in frustration and paced the lobby of Britain’s vaunted spy headquarters. Time was not their friend and they were burning it like an F/A-18 burns jet fuel in an afterburner. They’d spent half a day getting to London, and he’d assumed that during that time significant gains would have been made by British Intelligence to locate Lucy Kim and Watts. But since their arrival, they’d spent thirty painful minutes waiting to learn if that was true.

He walked back to the security desk.

“Are we cleared to go up yet?” he asked the uniformed young man behind the desk.

“Sir, I have examined your credentials and found them to be quite in order,” the man said with diction that would make Mary Poppins proud. He handed back their passports and DOD paperwork. “Nevertheless, I do not—as I have made quite clear—see your name on the list. Are you certain that Mr. Burton is expecting you? It is well past working hours. Perhaps you should come back in the morning?”

Chunk resisted the urge to reach across the desk and choke the man into unconsciousness.

“Look, every minute we waste debating this is a minute—”

“Just ring Burton up on the telephone, asshole,” Riker interrupted. “For Christ’s sake, do you not understand the concept of an emergency? Two agents’ lives are on the line. One of ours and one of yours. Do you not care?”

Chunk held up a hand.

“If you could just phone Mr. Burton and let him know we’re here. I assure you he wants to see us.”

“As I’ve said, it is after hours. Perhaps you could collect yourselves and return in the morning,” the man said, shooting a relatively unmenacing glare at Riker. “While I realize this is how you Americans normally conduct yourselves, here in the UK—”

“Mr. Berryman,” Chunk said, reading the nameplate on the man’s starched blue jacket, “I can promise you a couple of things. The first is that we will, one way or another, talk to Officer Burton tonight. The second is that if you don’t help us, I will personally be sure to mention your name when I call the United States ambassador and explain what’s going on here.”

“Forget the Ambassador,” Riker said, packing himself a dip and spilling snuff dust all over the security desk counter. “Let’s just call Jarvis directly. That’s right, we know the Vice President. He used to serve at our command. He’ll straighten things out real quick, bro.”

“You know what, fine,” Berryman said, picking up the phone with a clever smirk on his face, clearly intent on proving them wrong. His eyes opened wide a second later. “Good evening, Mr. Burton. I didn’t expect to get you, sir. I do apologize, but there are some Americans . . . Yes, one moment,” he said in response to some unheard question. “A Commander Redman, sir. He says it’s urgent. Of course, sir. Yes, sir, I’ll tell him.”

“Well?” Chunk said, crossing his arms.

“Mr. Burton told me to tell you to check into your hotel, grab some dinner, and come back in two hours’ time. He asks me to inform you that he is presently marshaling resources and has nothing of consequence to report at the moment. He did, however, tell me to ask you for your contact information in the event he needs to reach you sooner.”

For one of the few times in his professional career, Chunk thought he might lose his temper, but a sudden and ironic calm quenched his rage.

“Very well,” Chunk said, then told Berryman his mobile phone number.

“Dude, c’mon, we’re not really going to take this from these guys, are we?” Riker said.

“Thank you, sir,” Berryman said with a grin. “I’ll be sure to pass your number along as requested.”

Chunk clapped his arm around Riker’s shoulders and pulled his brother SEAL away from the desk.

“Wanker,” Riker said, sniffing the air as he turned to leave.

“Stop it, bro,” Chunk chastised, unable to suppress a grin. “Play nice.”

“Seriously, Chunk. What are we doing?”

“I’ll tell you once we get out of here,” Chunk said. Saw and Trip were sitting on chairs in the waiting area. Chunk nodded to his teammates, who stood and joined them on the way out the door.

Five minutes later, they were in their rental—a black Ford Galaxy van—having a team meeting.

“Dude, we cannot let these blue bloods stonewall and push us around,” Riker said. “We don’t have time for that sort of bullshit.”

“I know,” Chunk said. “Tier One problems require Tier One solutions. This might be the Brits’ sandbox, but we’re going to play in it.”

“Hooyah,” Saw said, holding his fist up for a bump from Trip. “That’s how we roll in Gold.”

Chunk pulled out his sat phone, dialed Yi, and put it on speaker. He’d already notified her of their arrival, but he’d not spoken with her since giving her the “deep dive” assignment on Nadar.

She answered on the second ring. “Chief Yi.”

“Michelle, it’s Chunk. Here’s the thirty-second sitrep: we’re sitting in the MI6 parking lot in London. Burton pushed us off two hours, but we’re going to get to work on our own. Tell me what you’ve got.”

“Whitney’s last known location based on her phone’s GPS position was in East London. I’m sending you the GPS coordinates now,” she said.

“Is that where she was staying?” he asked.

“No, she was staying in New Malden, which is west of London. Again, based on GPS historical data, she spent the night in the same building where Lucy Kim rents a flat. Not a hundred percent guaranteed, but ninety-nine percent chance she stayed in Kim’s flat.”

“What time was her last pos in East London?”

“Zero three forty-seven.”

“Yi, it’s Saw,” Saw said. “Were you able to get any sat imagery of the scene or CCTV footage of the vehicle she was in?”

“Negative, but I’m still working on that. I was really hoping the Brits would have all that sorted out by now. I don’t have direct access to their raw data, obviously.”

“What about your deep dive on Nadar?” Chunk said.

“I have his home address and his POV make, model, color, and tag numbers. I have his work address and mobile phone number as well, all this in an email on your high side,” she said. “But to save you some time, I’ll just tell you. Nadar lives in New Malden. Now, before you get too excited, this is not surprising because the British Aero office he works at is also in New Malden. So it’s not surprising that Kim keeps a flat there as well. He’s been on her personal watch list for a year. I found almost a dozen confidential reports authored by Kim that mention Nadar while she was assigned to JTAC.”

“Wait a second, are you saying Kim’s not on the task force anymore?” Chunk said, confused.

“I don’t believe so.”

“That explains why McLean said she doesn’t report to him anymore, and transferred us to Burton.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Yi said.

“Hold on,” Riker said. “I thought you told me you were letting Watts go on this boondoggle because the JTAC put in a by-name request for her?”

“That’s what Watts said,” Chunk said. “I guess she lied.”

“Why the hell would she do that?” Saw asked.

“I don’t think she did,” Yi said. “I looked into it, and Kim routed the request through Burton. I think Whitney just assumed this was task force business like all of us did. I don’t think she knew.”

“Shit,” Chunk said, scratching at his beard. “That explains why this whole thing seems to have caught Burton with his pants down. I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I’d bet that Kim was surveilling Nadar on her own. A little side-hustle action.”

“Because she’s convinced he’s fucking terrorist,” Trip said.

“That’s right, and so is Watts,” Chunk said.

Riker whistled. “And they saw something they weren’t supposed to see, so Nadar had somebody grab them.”

“Makes sense,” Saw said.

“All right, then it’s obvious what we need to do,” Riker said. “We drive to Qasim Nadar’s apartment, put a black bag over that fucker’s head, and we talk to him real nice until he tells us where Watts is being held.”

“As much as I’d love to, you know we can’t do that. Nadar is a British citizen, and he’s been cleared by the task force,” Chunk said. “We wouldn’t make it two blocks with Nadar before the Brits had us in cuffs. I imagine this incident with Kim and Watts has shifted the spotlight back onto Nadar. I’m sure he’s being watched. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to wait for him to slip, or for MI5 to grow a pair and bring him in.”

“Then what’s our next move?” Riker said.

“We need to help expedite the British bureaucracy,” Chunk said.

“And how do you propose we do that?” Trip said, his expression dubious.

“By doing their job for them,” Chunk said. “Yi, what else did you find? We need a trail to Watts that’s connected to Nadar, but doesn’t require us to take Nadar. Do you have anything else?”

“I have two possible leads you could explore. The first one is his wife, Diba Nadar. I don’t have hard proof of this, but reading between the lines in Kim’s reports, I think she was working the wife. Kim’s title is Agent Runner for MI6, so it would make sense she either intended to recruit the wife, or possibly did recruit the wife,” Yi said. “You could attempt to make contact with Diba Nadar and see if she knows what happened to Kim and Watts.”

“And option two?” Chunk said.

“Option two is a man named Masoud Bakir. His name crops up in several reports concerning fundraising and local politics for Muslim candidates, and almost every time it’s an event somehow tied to Nadar—he attended, he fundraised, etc. He’s in Agent Kim’s reports twice as a possible connection that might link Qasim Nadar to al Qadar or another cell. She seemed to feel there was a link but found nothing solid. His record in the UK is squeaky clean, but his brother is on several terrorist watch lists, and I found a photograph of that same brother with Eshan Dawar. That seems to be what got Agent Kim’s radar up.”

“Wait, what? He’s connected to both Nadar and Eshan Dawar?” Chunk felt adrenaline surge into his bloodstream.

Watts was right . . .

“Isn’t that the dude who we shot in the face in Mingora—the one that Watts had Edwards make a sketch of ?” Riker said.

“One and the same,” Yi said.

“Okay, let’s say we want to shake him down,” Chunk said. “Where do we find him?”

“I thought you might like option two best,” Yi said, “so I took the liberty of getting eyes in the sky to watch his flat in East London.”

“Is he there now?” Chunk said.

“Nope,” she said. “He drove to a house in the country that I’m watching as we speak. Four thermals.”

“Yi, if you were here, I would kiss you,” Chunk said with a grin, following it up quickly with, “but that would probably get me fired, so I take that back. Instead, I would give you thumbs-up with no physical contact. How’s that sound?”

“I think I’d prefer the kiss,” she said, and he heard the smile in her voice. “GPS coordinates coming to you now.”

Saw, who was in the driver’s seat, put the transmission in Drive and vectored out of the parking lot as Trip entered the coordinates into the nav system.

“You wanna be Mother for this short-fuse op?” Chunk asked him.

“I’ve been waiting twelve hours for you to ask.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

somewhere

To Whitney’s surprise, her interrogator did not come back in five minutes, or ten minutes, or even thirty minutes. He didn’t come back for hours, a surprising development and one that she took as an increasingly ominous sign the longer he was gone. Terrible thoughts gnawed at her like a piranha, taking tiny painful bites and draining her of courage and hope.

They must be torturing Lucy, that’s why it’s taking so long . . .

They’re building a dossier before they question me, just like the CIA does . . .

If they’re not questioning me, it’s because they already know who I am . . .

They don’t need to question me . . . they’re just going to kill me.

When the door finally did open, she was sitting in the corner, hugging her knees, barely keeping it together.

Oh God, this is it . . . I’m going to die.

This time her interrogator brought a folding chair with him. He carried it across the tiny stateroom so that he could sit close to her, his body blocking the aisle leading from her corner around the bed.

“Hello, Whitney,” the man said, greeting her with what sounded like a smile beneath his black N95 mask.

“Hello,” she said.

“I’ve given you many hours to think about your situation while I talked with your friend—who, I must say, has not been very cooperative,” he said and made a tsk-tsk sound as if he were talking about an unruly toddler instead of a grown woman and MI6 officer.

Whitney didn’t say anything.

“I’ve had no choice but to punish her for her obstinance,” he said and made a point of adjusting the leather belt he wore, tightening it a notch.

The unspoken message made her already queasy stomach turn to acid.

So far, Lucy had been the one buying them time.

Now it’s my turn . . .

“Who do you work for, Whitney?”

“The US government,” she said.

“What part of the US government?”

“The terrorist catching part,” she said, feeling suddenly and strangely obstinate.

“Do you think this is a game? Do you think you are funny?”

She shook her head.

“Then I will ask you one more time, and if you do not answer me, I will move you to less comfortable accommodations. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“What part of the US government do you work for?”

“I work for NCTC—the National Counterterrorism Center,” she said, testing the water with her first lie, albeit a strategic one because her last job had been at NCTC—and, according to her official cover and the public record, she still worked for NCTC. After operation Crusader One, everyone who worked at the Tier One had robust OCs, and this was hers.

“What do you do at the National Counterterrorism Center?” he asked.

“I’m an analyst,” she said, watching his eyes.

“What type of analyst?”

“A counterterrorism analyst,” she said, keeping her voice flat.

Good Lord, this is happening too fast. I’ve got to slow things down.

“Why are you in London?”

She hesitated. She had no idea how much Lucy had confessed, nor what details the agent runner had shared. This was why interrogators always separated their subjects—to use the uncertainty of what the other captive had said to coax new information out of the one being questioned. Things were getting thorny now, and Whitney knew she had to be careful.

“Answer the question,” he said, leaning forward elbows on knees.

“I’m here on vacation,” she said.

“That’s a lie,” he said. “Tell me what you and your friend were doing in East London at such a late hour?”

He still doesn’t know Lucy’s name, she realized and felt her courage rekindle.

“We’d been clubbing and not had any luck with guys. We were drunk, so we decided to go slumming, hit the pubs in East London . . . You know, pick up a couple of real men.”

“I warned you what would happen if you played games.” He abruptly stood, walked to the stateroom door, and pounded the heel of his fist against it twice.

The door opened and an armed guard, also wearing a mask to hide his face, entered the room. A lightning-quick exchange in Arabic transpired, and the enforcer marched toward her. She was already backed into the corner, leaving her nowhere to run or hide in the tiny stateroom. When the brute reached for her, she shoved his forearm away. He slapped her across the face, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and started dragging her toward the door.

She cursed and clutched his wrist with both hands so he didn’t rip out half the hair in her scalp. The pain was far worse than she expected, and several pitiful yelps escaped her lips as she stumbled to keep up with him. A little voice in her head reminded her that she should be trying to take in as many details about the ship as possible, but that was easier said than done.

When he got to a stairwell, he threw her down the flight, kicking her in the back to make sure she couldn’t stop herself from falling. She did at least two somersaults, possibly three, as she tumbled down the steps. She landed with a thud on her back, her legs splayed out before her in a wide V and the back of her head smacking the ground.

White-hot pain flared in two places—her left pinky finger and her right elbow.

Groaning, she held up her left hand for inspection and saw that her pinky was dislocated at the middle knuckle, with half the finger sticking out to the side at an unnatural angle. The sight of it made her gag and she looked away. She flexed her right arm. It worked, but nerve pain flared from her elbow down into her hand.

At the top of the stairs, the leader shouted in Arabic at the guard who’d thrown her down the flight, and she thought she heard him slap the man. Despite the pain, she used her right hand to push herself into a sitting position. Behind her, two pairs of footsteps reverberated as the men joined her at the bottom of the stairwell. Her interrogator squatted on her left side and took her left arm by the wrist.

“You dislocated your little finger. I’ll put it back,” he said and made good on the statement.

It popped, she screamed, and it felt better.

“Get up,” he said but helped lift her to her feet. “Follow me.”

As she walked behind him, she looked down at her pinky, which was realigned but already discolored and swelling. The asshole who had thrown her down the stairs followed behind, but he didn’t touch her. The leader stopped beside an open hatch in the middle of the carpeted floor.

“We’re going belowdecks to your new accommodations,” he said, then began climbing down the ladder. “I suggest you follow of your own accord, or my brutish friend will throw you down the hole. We know how that worked out last time.”

She complied without comment.

Her right arm was all pins and needles now, the nerve pain from hitting her funny bone dissipating. Other aches and bruises began to make themselves known as she gingerly descended the ladder rungs. Her ribs throbbed where she’d been kicked. Her shoulder blades and the back of her head hurt too. When she got to the bottom, she surveyed the space and recognized she was in the ship’s engine room. She’d never been on a yacht before, but that’s what this vessel clearly was.

“Sit there,” the interrogator said, pointing to a pipe that ran horizontally along the floor but made a ninety-degree turn to vertical and went up to the ceiling.

She sat sitting cross-legged in front of the pipe.

“Put your hands over your head,” he said.

She did as instructed and her captor used plasticuffs to bind her to the pipe, not so tight to cut off circulation, but snug enough there was no way she’d slip them.

“I want you to think about your new accommodations,” he said, squatting in front of her so that his face was a mere foot from her own. “When I come back, I expect you to be more cooperative.”

“What if I need to go to the bathroom before then?” she asked, holding his gaze.

“Then go to the bathroom,” he said, and she could tell he was smiling behind his mask.

He held her gaze until she looked away, something she vowed to not let happen again.

When he was gone, she felt her courage melt away and self-pity took its place. Tears pressed and, despite hating herself for it, she began to cry.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

the nadar residence

new malden, united kingdom

2025 local time

Qasim had been forced to work late at British Aero, with both his legitimate and extracurricular work gobbling up the hours. The irony of how the day had unfolded still made him smile. In questioning Valkyrie’s AI, Qasim had prompted Arham to doubt the security and reliability of the Autonomy design. Consequently, the talented young software engineer had spent nine hours coding a software patch addressing possible vulnerabilities, calling Qasim to the conference room repeatedly to discuss the soundness of his logic and the mechanics of the updated code. Clearly, this was Allah’s divine hand at work.

By using Qasim as a sounding board, Arham had unwittingly helped Qasim write the very software patch al Qadar could use to take control of the drone via the command authorization protocol. While Arham coded a patch to close key vulnerabilities on his computer, Qasim worked in parallel on a patch to exploit them. Now, the only thing left to do was for Fun Time to hack into Arham’s computer tonight and replace the helpful patch with the nefarious one. On base tomorrow morning, when Arham uploaded the software update to Valkyrie, he would unwittingly install the compromised version instead. Joddle and his team would observe Arham do this—one more damning piece of incriminating evidence to divert blame should an investigation ever target Qasim himself.

But even if the malicious software patch got uploaded and worked without a hitch, to successfully steal the Valkyrie, a dozen variables beyond his control would also have to cooperate—the weather, the Royal Navy’s actions, the RAF’s response, Valkyrie’s stealth, military satellite coverage, Valkyrie’s VTOL landing on the Dina Maltan, and so on and so on . . .

If Qasim was being honest with himself, the odds of success were probably less than 15 percent. On top of that, his own personal performance during the event would have to be flawless. He would need to come off just as genuinely shocked and confused as everyone else when Valkyrie suddenly and inexplicably goes rogue.

Thankfully, he’d become quite adept at acting over the past six months, slipping in and out of his different personas with the flip of the switch. Once upon a time, he’d simply been Qasim. But these days, he had many faces. Compartmentalization, he learned, was an important skill to master, and something he relied on with increasing frequency to perform at the high level necessary in each of these roles. Without compartmentalizing, it was difficult for him to stay focused and easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of demands placed on each of these Qasims. As a general rule, he refused the let the exigencies from one sphere of his life intrude on the others.

Which was why, despite the temptation, he’d refused to check in with Faraj during the day about the identities of the two British spies who’d been taken in East London. Now, with the Valkyrie preparations complete, he turned his attention to this pressing problem.

Despite the late hour, he’d sent Diba to grocery shop at the Aldi on Kingston Road which stayed open until ten p.m. He needed her out of the flat while he videoconferenced with his al Qadar lieutenants. For cyber security purposes, he preferred face-to-face meetings off the grid, but he did not have time to make the four-hour round trip to the farmhouse in Danbury tonight. He’d had his flat swept multiple times for bugs and he used a rock-solid VPN in combination with IP masking software, but even so, he worried. God only knew what tricks GCHQ and the NSA had up their cyber-magician sleeves.

He logged into the video chat to find the others present and waiting on him. Five of his principals were assembled at the farmhouse, while Faraj and Fun Time were calling in from the yacht, and Tabrez was in from Liverpool where he oversaw operations in the north. The grim looks on the assembled faces told him everything he needed to know.

His team was worried.

“Good evening, everyone,” Qasim said, putting on his command face—confident and poised. “Let us begin with a prayer . . . In the name of Allah, the Gracious and the Merciful, we seek refuge with you from Satan, the Accursed. We seek knowledge and enlightenment from your light. We seek courage and certainty from you in our journey to see your will done here on Earth. And we seek your protection in the battle to come. Tomorrow, we have an opportunity to take from the enemy a powerful weapon that will allow us to strike the Great Satan, anytime, anywhere. We ask only that you grant us the knowledge, courage, and protection to see your will done. All praise and glory be to you.”

Echoes of the praise sounded across the assembled.

“Faraj, let’s begin with you,” Qasim said. “What have you learned about the two possible spies you have taken from East London?”

“This is the first of the two women,” Faraj said, and a photograph of a white woman with brown hair appeared in his video chat window. “Her name is Whitney Watts. She’s an American, age twenty-nine, who works for the National Counterterrorism Center. She provided this information during questioning which we have confirmed against limited public records and archived historical social media. She maintains no active social media accounts. She has been minimally cooperative, although truthful about her identity and job function. She refuses to answer questions about the other agent or her tasking. So far, she has resisted moderate physical and mental interrogation techniques. I would like to escalate.”

Qasim felt the blood drain from his face at this unfortunate news. That the Americans were back on his tail was very problematic. Instead of responding, he stared at the picture.

I’ve seen this face before . . .

A flashbulb memory of a sexy girl in a silver slip of a cocktail dress in the Cavalli Club in Dubai popped into his mind. He’d noticed her talking to Hamza al-Saud at the club the night before the attack at the Dubai World Trade Center. His heart skipped a beat as another memory surfaced of this same woman but in disguise. He’d not made the connection before, because the second time he’d seen her she’d been dressed in regular clothes with eyeglasses and a ball cap.

This is the same woman who questioned me in the hotel room, with the American operators. It seems she is still tracking me.

“What about the other agent?” Qasim said, collecting himself and trying to appear unrattled.

“The other spy is also a woman, but she has been very uncooperative,” Faraj said, the picture changing to a young Asian woman. “She claims her name is Sarah Park, but I don’t believe her. During capture, she spoke with a British accent, but since her revival, she has spoken exclusively with an American one. She will not answer questions about the other agent, her tasking, her knowledge of al Qadar personnel in the country, or her unit’s future operations. So far, she’s been resistant to all moderate physical and mental intimidation tactics.”

“What about a social media presence? Have you not found anything at all?” Qasim asked.

“Not yet,” Faraj said. “She has zero digital footprint.”

Qasim looked up at the ceiling and sighed with aggravation. Both women were intelligence officers, that was undeniable. He was surprised that the second woman had no internet footprint. Should he direct to Faraj escalate the interrogation and authorize torture? Or should he simply have them executed and their bodies dumped in the sea? Paralyzed by indecision, he scrubbed his face with his hands.

“So you know,” Faraj continued, “neither woman has been disfigured or mutilated. Both are still presentable for camera appearance if you want to film proof of life or intimidation videos. We can hold them here as long as you want, or I can kill them now and dispose of the bodies at sea.”

“I have my opinion about what to do, but I want to hear your thoughts, Faraj,” Qasim said, bluffing.

“I would like more time with these women,” Faraj said. “I’m just getting started, and with time I think I can break both, but the American for sure. I think it is important for us to discover exactly how much they know about our operations. Clearly, they were monitoring the spice shop, so that location is compromised. But what else do they know? Do they know about the farmhouse? Do they know about you? If so, I think you would have already been taken into custody, but maybe they are still building a case. We are going to need to make operational adjustments and relocate personnel. Also, it is nice to have a bargaining chip.”

Qasim nodded. All of Faraj’s points resonated with him. “Will their presence on the ship detract from your ability to execute the mission tomorrow? This will be the only opportunity we get to steal the Valkyrie,” Qasim said.

“Not at all. Their presence will have no impact on tomorrow’s operation.”

“Very well. Continue interrogating. Do not mutilate or disfigure their faces or hands. I want to be able to put them on camera, but you can escalate your methods if necessary to find out the identity of the other agent. I want to know her name and who she works for,” Qasim said.

“Understood,” Faraj said. “It will be done.”

Qasim turned his attention to his cyber lead. “Fun Time, report your readiness status. Have all cyber operations been migrated from the spice shop to CC2?”

“Yeah, boss,” Fun Time said. “We ready to rock and roll.”

“Have you studied the Autonomy software exploit I sent you?”

“Yeah, yeah. What you did is sick. Very sneaky. I love it, but one question, boss,” Fun Time said, taking the lollipop he was sucking out of his mouth. “Once we have control, you expect me to land the drone on the Dina Maltan? Because I no pilot. It’s going to go very bad.”

“No, the drone can land itself. All you need to do is enter the real-time coordinates of the Dina Maltan once the drone goes dark. The AI will do the rest.”

“If you say so,” Fun Time said, the ball of the lollipop back inside and bulging out his right cheek.

“As soon as this call is over, you need to replace the software file on Arham’s computer with the one I sent you. Make sure the time stamp matches the last time he saved it. Arham is detail oriented.”

“Yeah, boss,” Fun Time said. “I do it right for you.”

The next set of orders he gave concerned the spice shop. Knowing how his enemy operated, Qasim considered it extremely likely that the spice shop would be raided in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. He would take a page from Hamza’s playbook and make sure the Americans and the Brits—who he assumed were now working together—would find exactly what they were looking for at Afghan Importers.

But he would also make sure they found something else . . .

Something they did not expect.

The team talked another thirty minutes, finalizing everyone’s assignments. After closing with a prayer, Qasim ended the meeting by expressing his confidence in his team and their ability to weather this storm. No mattered what happened to any of them individually in the coming weeks, the caliphate would endure. Al Qadar was now too big and too deeply embedded to fail. As soon as the call ended and the connection was severed, he collapsed back into his chair—the weight of a hundred possible futures crushing him.

He inhaled deeply, then slowly blew the air out through pursed lips.

He’d delegated everything except his role in the Valkyrie operation to his team, and he instructed them not to contact him until tomorrow afternoon when it was over. For the next twenty-four hours, Faraj was in command. Tonight, Qasim desperately needed sleep. He could not face Colonel Joddle and manage Arham if he was exhausted and harried.

Delegation.

Compartmentalization.

And his faith in the Almighty’s master plan would see him through the tempest.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

the a12, outside chelmsford

en route to the suspected al qadar safe house

2152 local time

Chunk tapped his right foot rhythmically against the floor mat from where he sat in the front passenger seat of the van. His pent-up nervous energy was getting the better of him . . . not something that happened very often.

“Dude, do you have to do that?” Saw said from the driver’s seat.

“Is it bothering you?” Chunk said.

“Yeah, lots. And it has been for the past forty miles,” Saw said. “It’s bad enough that I have to drive on the wrong side of the road. Last thing I need is to be constantly annoyed on top of it.”

“Sorry,” Chunk said and pressed his foot into the foot well.

Yi had uncovered what seemed to be a solid clue that might lead them to Watts. Was it a stretch? Maybe—there were sure to be far more than one terrorist organization operating in the UK these days. But one that had links directly to Eshan Dawar—Qasim’s friend and a man clearly linked to the al Qadar terror cell in Mingora? They were way beyond simple coincidence now.

Yi had been able to monitor Bakir heading to the farmhouse, but had observed four others arriving as well—three vehicles and five people. Some sort of meeting seemed to be taking place, and with his ties to Dawar and Nadar, this Bakir asshole might well be the one man who could clear this shit up.

In any case, it was the one clue they had.

“We’re going to find her,” Riker said from the back seat. “I can feel it.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling it,” Chunk said. “Cuz I sure ain’t.”

His mind went back to his other pressing concern—MI6 and the agent in charge, Mr. Burton. When Yi had found the trail to this farmhouse, with its apparent links to both al Qadar and Nadar, he’d contemplated trying again to connect with him. Bowman was right: they couldn’t cowboy this shit like they might in Yemen, or Iraq, or Afghanistan—they were just outside of London, for God’s sake. But the man who had refused to see them on arrival seemed, to Chunk at least, like he was a bureaucrat who might dick up their one chance to find a lead at this farmhouse.

Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right ?

He clenched his jaw. Usually, that was true in his world, but this had the makings of a big deal if things went south. He tossed the worries away.

They were committed now. It was too late to worry about it.

“Cowboy, this is Ranch,” Yi said in their collective earbuds. “I’ve got activity at the target location.”

“Talk to me,” Chunk said.

“Looks like whatever meeting these guys were having just wrapped up,” she said. “I think some or all of them are getting ready to split.”

“Shit,” Chunk said, his voice a Texas growl. “What’s our ETA to target?”

“Sixteen minutes,” she came back.

He unloaded a string of curses that would make Davy Jones proud, then said, “I know I asked you this already, but I’m going to ask it again anyway. Do you have anything on thermals that suggests two female captives in the mix of heat signatures?”

“Negative, Cowboy,” she came back. “All five warm bodies sat at the table during the meeting. None of them are handcuffed or appeared to be pushed around by the others.”

“What’s the plan, boss?” Riker said from the back seat.

“I don’t know. Let me think for a second . . .” After a long beat, Chunk said, “Mother, give the play-by-play the rest of the way inbound. As long as everyone doesn’t leave, we’re still going to hit this place. Our only objective is to find a trail to Watts. All it takes is one dude.”

“And what happens if they all scatter?” Saw said.

“Then, Ranch, you need to pick a target for us to intercept,” Chunk said.

“Copy that,” Yi said. “Looks like we’ve got two departing. I have heat signatures heading to the driver’s seats. Three heat sigs appear to be staying behind in the house.”

“Check,” Chunk said and then added a little silent, Thank you, God, to himself.

“What’s the ROE for this hit?” Trip said, posing the most important question of the night.

“We need to take these guys alive,” Chunk said. “I want to go in more SWAT than SEAL tonight. The objective is surrender. We hit them fast and before they have time to put their hands on weapons. Also, it greatly simplifies things for us if we don’t leave a house full of dead bodies for our British hosts to contend with. The last thing we need is to get detained, or worse, booted out of the country.”

“Love that,” Trip said, with just a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“I know,” Chunk said, “but that said, it’s big boy rules. I trust you completely. If you need to drop a threat, you drop the threat. But what I don’t want to do is go in there and hose down everyone whether they’re shooters or not.”

“I gotcha,” Trip said.

“Trip’s just asking cuz he’s not a precision shooter like the rest of us,” Riker said with a tobacco-stained grin.

“Oh, really,” Trip said. “If I recall, I whooped your redneck ass on the last kill house run.”

“Well, there’s the kill house and there’s real life,” Riker said. “Just sayin’.”

“Two tangos have departed in separate vehicles and they are heading in opposite directions. Two have returned to the table, and the third appears to be using the facilities,” Yi said.

“Eight mikes out,” Saw said, reporting the time to destination on the GPS screen.

Chunk unbuckled his seat belt and climbed between the front seats into the cargo compartment of the van. “Let’s kit up, fellas.”

“Do you want me to breach with you in twos, or do you want me to set up in overwatch outside?” Saw asked.

Chunk caught himself a split second before his reflexive answer, which was to have Saw hang back and set up outside. Is that because that’s where I need him, or because it’s the lower risk option? If he had five, then using Saw as overwatch was a no-brainer. Having a shooter outside to cover their six and mop of squirters was standard operating procedure. But he’d only brought three with him, and breaching in pairs—two in front and two in the back—was the safest and best tactical option for the team.

“You’re breaching,” Chunk said, his decision made. “You and Riker take the front, me and Trip get the back.”

As he said it, he was looking at Riker who was the best breacher in Gold—maybe in the whole Navy. Riker gave a subtle nod of affirmation, something Chunk appreciated since his own headspace had been so conflicted of late.

“Roger that,” Saw said. “Mother, Cowboy—based on what you see, what’s the optimal place to park?”

“A half mile from the target, there’s a neighboring homestead. Based on thermals, the house is unoccupied and it has been all day,” Yi said. “I recommend you pull in and stage from there. Dropping the coordinates to your GPS now.”

“Received,” Saw said and glanced over his shoulder at Chunk who nodded his agreement.

Six minutes later, they were cruising down the unoccupied home’s driveway with lights off. Saw found a secluded spot along a row of trees, parked nose out, then joined Chunk and his brothers in the back to quickly kit up.

“The target house is lit. Do you want to try to cut power and go in on NVGs?” Riker asked. “Breach with unaugmented eyes?”

“We’ll go in with lights on,” Chunk said.

“Flash-bangs—yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Cowboy, Mother—all three heat sigs are back at the table. They appear to be working on laptops,” Yi said.

“Check,” Chunk said and checked his loadout one last time. “Y’all ready?”

Three nods, and Riker opened the van’s rear slider door and they all stepped out into the cool, English countryside air. Chunk chopped a hand toward the target house, and they instantly transformed into the tireless, undaunted war machine that the Navy had trained them to be, moving like a single organism through the dark. With fluid, quiet strides, they crossed the hilly terrain in diamond formation with Yi watching them from above.

As they closed the final hundred meters to the target, Yi reported no change in the targets’ behavior and no incoming vehicles. Thirty meters from the house, they split into their breaching pairs with Riker and Saw moving to the front and Chunk and Trip looping around to the back. A quick peek through a window in the back revealed that the door they’d be breaching through led to the country home’s kitchen. Trip quickly set a breacher charge in the gap between the door handle and the jamb, then unfurled the detonator wires.

“One and Three are in position and set,” Chunk whispered from his crouch beside the door as he pulled a flash-bang from his kit. “Two, count us down when ready.”

“Check,” Riker said. A long moment later, the SEAL performed the countdown, “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”

On the zero beat, Trip detonated his breacher charge simultaneously with Riker and Saw at the front. The charge blew a hole in the residential-grade wooden door where the lock had been, and Trip kicked the door in. Chunk tossed his flash-bang and closed his eyes. A heartbeat later, a double whump, whump pulsed inside the country house as both breacher teams’ grenades percussed front and back. Trip entered first, clearing left, followed by Chunk clearing right. With the kitchen secure, they advanced on the dining room where the targets were located. A muzzle flash and staccato pop from Riker kicked things off as he and Saw arrived in the dining room a second before Chunk and Trip.

Instead of following the collapsing target, Chunk’s eyes automatically assessed the two remaining threats. Despite being seemingly disoriented by the flash-bangs, the two targets both pulled weapons from holsters.

“Weapons down, or we shoot,” Riker shouted, beating Chunk to the punch by a millisecond.

Instead of complying, the men both unloaded multiple rounds into their laptop computers before turning their pistols on Saw and Riker.

Riker’s round took off the top of his target’s head.

Saw, on the other hand, had dropped his target with a potentially nonfatal shot to the upper right chest.

Chunk moved in quickly to try to disarm the man, but the jihadi—despite having just been shot—pressed the muzzle of his pistol to his temple and squeezed the trigger. His body fell to the floor, limp.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Chunk said, lowering his weapon to scan the carnage. “This is exactly how I did not want this to go.”

“I’m sorry, boss, but somebody puts a muzzle on me,” Riker said, “they’re getting dropped.”

Chunk gritted his teeth but nodded. These fighters were not coming alive, that would seem clear.

“They were definitely committed to dying,” Saw said. “Did you see the guy I shot? He offed himself.”

“Dude, I’ve seen my share of young and dumb, brainwashed into strapping on suicide vests, but I ain’t never seen that before,” Trip said, walking over to check the bodies.

“Yeah, that dude knew we were going to take him. He even tried to annihilate his computer first. These guys were committed to not getting taken or giving up information,” Saw said.

Chunk let his rifle hang from the strap around his neck and put his hands on his hips, scanning the bodies.

“Does that look like Masoud Bakir?” he asked, pointing to the man faceup on the floor, with part of his lower jaw missing. If not, maybe at least they hadn’t killed the man.

Saw leaned over the dead man, comparing the damaged face to the image on his tablet.

“I think that’s him, boss,” he said, looking up grimly.

Awesome.

“Talk to me, Ranch. You have eyes on the other two vehicles?”

There was a long pause, and he knew what the answer would be.

“Stand by,” Yi said finally. After a moment she added, “I’ve got pretty limited resources here. I have a single tasked asset and needed to be your eyes during the hit. Working it now . . .”

Chunk and Saw locked eyes. Saw shook his head grimly.

“Okay. Do your thing,” Chunk said. He sighed. If she didn’t find them soon, they would be in the wind. It wouldn’t take long for the bad guys to realize their farmhouse had been hit. Maybe they already did.

“What now?” Trip said, turning to Chunk. “These guys won’t be answering any questions.”

“We photograph them and get prints. Then, we tear this place apart looking for anything that might point to Watts or Kim. Take their phones. Bag their computers and take any other tech you find,” Chunk said.

“What about the bodies?” Riker asked.

“Leave ’em,” Chunk said.

“And the house? We could torch it.”

“What’s the point? We’re going to have to tell the Brits either way.”

“I’m sorry, boss,” Riker said, apologizing again, which was unlike him. “I know it’s not how you wanted it to go down.”

Chunk turned and, finally able to meet his gaze, said, “What’s done is done.”

They spent the next fifteen minutes tossing the house.

Chunk watched as Riker dumped a bag of trash onto the floor beside the dead bodies, Saw slipping the laptops into his backpack. The single gunshot to the computers wouldn’t keep the IT experts from extracting data, he felt sure. Suddenly, he noticed a familiar object in the pile Riker was sifting through with the barrel of his assault rifle.

“Holy shit,” Chunk said, his heart both soaring and squeezing with pain simultaneously. He reached a hand into the trash and pulled out a slender cell phone. “I found Watts’s sat phone,” he shouted.

“Are you sure?” Trip said, running over to join him.

“Pretty sure,” Chunk said as he studied the smashed unit. “Same make and model. Mother, have you got the serial number on Watts’s phone handy?”

“I do,” Yi came back and read it off in clear, punctuated syllables.

“That’s a match,” Chunk said, gripping it tight in his hand. “She was here . . . or at the very least, these guys had a role in her kidnapping.”

“Now what?” Riker said, standing in the doorway and looking in.

“We head back into London, regroup, and hope to God the King doesn’t send us packing before we can find our girl,” he said. He gripped the phone, Whitney’s phone, tight in his hand. “I think that Burton dude is gonna have a hard time stonewalling us now.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

park hyatt london river thames

london, england

united kingdom

day four

0626 local time

Chunk woke with a start to his mobile phone buzzing on the bedside table.

Disoriented, his mind took a full second to boot up before he remembered he was in London and what he was doing here. He glanced at the clock on his phone—he’d been asleep only a couple of hours. They’d decided to wait and explain what had happened at the farmhouse to the Brits once they were “summoned” to meet with Burton. There was little they could do until then, and Yi was working hard with the data they’d sent her—mostly fingerprints, pictures for facial recognition, and photos of the scant documents they had found. The real information, if there was any, was in the shot-up computers, but they would need the British tech weenies to extract it.

The phone rang again. Chunk looked at the number, which was not blocked. It was a London number.

“Commander Redman,” Chunk said, taking the call, his voice a throaty octave lower than usual. He was expecting either an assistant, letting him know what time they could come to the MI6 offices, or Burton himself, screaming about a farmhouse full of dead bodies.

It was neither.

“Commander, this is Holden McLean calling from MI5. I got your number from Chief Yi,” the officer said, and Chunk heard something unexpected in the man’s tone.

Concern?

“That’s right,” Chunk said, steeling himself nonetheless for the pissing match that he assumed was about to begin over the events of last night.

“I learned less than an hour ago that your agent Watts and our Lucy Kim are missing,” McLean said. “And I’m gutted about it.”

“With all due respect, I find that hard to stomach. Chief Yi called you yesterday. I was standing next to her in a stateroom on the USS Reagan. But instead of offering to help, you transferred her to Officer Burton.”

“That’s true,” McLean said, “but only because I interrupted her before she had a chance to fully explain the reason for her call. It’s a bad habit of mine, and I apologize. When she told me she was trying to reach Agent Runner Kim, I told her that Kim didn’t work for me anymore and that she’d need to contact her boss at MI6. That’s why I transferred you to Burton. But that’s neither here nor there. The important thing is that we have two agents missing, one of whom I care quite a lot about. I imagine you feel the same way about your missing teammate, and we’re wasting time. Can you come to Thames House straightaway?”

Chunk thought about asking the man if he planned to arrest them on arrival, but he decided McLean probably would have led with that. “We’ll be there in fifteen,” he said. “We’re waiting for a meeting with Mr. Burton, from MI6,” he added.

“Come here instead,” McLean said, “even if he calls you. Come here first, is what I’m telling you. It’s best for you, but mostly best for Kim and your Ms. Watts, I believe.”

“On our way,” Chunk said.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Chunk had fallen asleep the second his head had hit the pillow and apparently hadn’t moved because his left arm was all pins and needles. He’d been up for thirty-six hours straight at that point and had pushed himself to the point of exhaustion. He felt pretty good now, however, and since he’d slept in his clothes, he was already ready to go. He called Riker, Saw, and Trip and got everyone rolling. They met in the lobby ten minutes later, Trip carrying a large backpack with all their spoils from the farmhouse, and took a taxi to the MI5 headquarters located just on the other side of the river.

Unlike their experience at MI6, McLean met them in the lobby of Thames House.

“You must be Commander Redman,” said a middle-aged man with receding hair and a weathered face. He extended a thick, calloused hand with a grip strong enough to surprise Chunk.

“My friends call me Chunk,” Chunk said. “Officer McLean, I assume?”

“Call me Holden,” McLean said. “I took the liberty of prepping security for your arrival.”

Chunk grinned at this. He already liked this guy.

In less than ten minutes, they were badged and riding the “lift” up to four. After stepping out of the elevator, McLean turned right and led them down a short hall. They passed the frosted glass doors with Defence Security Service etched onto thick, beveled glass panes. Beneath the header, a griffin—a winged lion with a long, curved serpent’s tail instead of rear legs—decorated the center of the pane. And beneath that, inscribed in Latin, were the words Regnum Defende. Despite the early hour, Chunk could see through the glass that this office was staffed and busy.

Instead of entering, however, McLean walked straight past the door, stopping in front of a far less ornate one down the hall with a keypad beside it. The MI5 officer punched in an access code, the door clicked open off its magnetic lock, and he led Chunk’s SEALs into a small hallway flanked with a series of secure conference rooms. Moments later they were all taking a seat at a conference table.

“Who wants to go first?” McLean said, plopping his elbows down on the table and looking directly at Chunk.

“It’s your sandbox,” Chunk said. “So, why don’t you lead?”

“Very well. I know what you did last night . . .” McLean said, leaning back in his chair and letting the words hang in the air.

This opening curveball took Chunk by surprise. He almost launched into a diatribe about how pitifully the Brits had handled everything so far. He caught himself and instead just nodded, sensing that his host’s reaction hinged very much on how Chunk responded.

“. . . and I don’t blame you,” McLean added at last. “If I was in your shoes, I probably would have done the same thing, especially after the welcome you received at SIS across the Thames.”

Chunk shot Riker a look that said, If you run your mouth, I’ll kill you.

The corners of Riker’s lips curled, but he smartly held his tongue.

“In hindsight, it was probably a mistake,” Chunk said, turning back to McLean. “It didn’t go down like we’d intended. We were hoping for a zero-casualty engagement. Our goal was to get warm bodies to question.”

McLean’s gaze shifted from Chunk to Trip’s backpack. “Is that everything you collected?”

“Yes,” Chunk said.

“Since you brought it with you, is it safe for me to assume you were planning on turning the contents over to us?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then in my report, I can call it a joint operation,” McLean said with a close-lipped smile. “And instead of having you arrested and kicked out of the country, we can work together to try to affect a mutually satisfying outcome. That is, getting our girls back with God’s speed. How does that sound to you, Commander?”

“It sounds damn skippy,” Chunk said.

“Good, then we have an understanding,” McLean said. “How about you read me in on what happened last night?”

Chunk recounted the op and ended by saying, “We found Watts’s satellite phone smashed and in the trash can. We don’t know if she ever spent any time in the house, but we know those guys were involved in her disappearance. We think they’re al Qadar or al Qadar affiliates, and we think Qasim Nadar is involved.”

McLean nodded. “I have a team at the house as we speak. They’re taking lots of samples, checking for Kim’s and Watts’s DNA. My hardware techs will see what we can extract from the computers and phones you harvested.”

“They’re beat to shit,” Riker said. “These guys unloaded their magazines into their computers before turning their muzzles on us.”

“Well, let’s hope they didn’t know what they were aiming for,” McLean said with a wry grin. “Hopefully, they didn’t hit the important bits.”

“Do you know what Agent Runner Kim was working on when she contacted Watts?” Chunk asked.

“I can only assume Nadar,” McLean said. “As you Yanks are fond of saying, she was a bit of a dog with a bone when it came to Nadar. Never could let it go, even when he was cleared.”

“Why did you clear Nadar? It was you who cleared him, was it not?” Chunk said, risking poking the bear a little now that they’d developed trust.

McLean shifted in his seat at the comment. “I didn’t take any pleasure in doing it. I’ll tell you that. But it got political. We had lots of circumstantial and coincidental indicators on Nadar, but nothing definitive I could build an ironclad case about.”

“So, the task force didn’t turn up much on the cells you were investigating?” Chunk asked.

“Oh, I didn’t say that. I said we became unfashionable. In fact, our task force was effective. We uncovered a handful of mid-level terror cells operating in England and rounded up two British citizens who were deeply involved. We thwarted three major terror attacks, I’m proud to say.”

Chunk got it. Politics, optics, personal agendas . . . these were the unfortunate reality that both intelligence officers and operators alike had to contend with in today’s world.

“Why do you think Kim would have put in a by-name request for Watts? Only thing I can think of is that something must have broke loose with Nadar.”

“Well, I’m quite sure I don’t know, but let’s get George Burton on the line and ask him.”

McLean reached over for a phone on the desk and punched in a few numbers. Chunk could hear someone pick up on the other line.

“George, it’s Holden,” McLean said into the receiver. “Yes, I know and I’m handling it . . . I never said it was your bloody fault, did I? . . . No, not yet, but I have my teams scouring the house for clues as we speak . . . Not specifically, no. How about you? I assume you have GCHQ reviewing all archived CCTV and satellite data from the night Kim disappeared? Good. Listen, George, you were a little vague about what Kim was working on . . .”

There was a long pause and McLean looked over at Chunk, his lips pursing and his head nodding.

“That would have been terrific information for everyone to have forty-eight hours ago so Kim could have been properly supported. I’m not about to get into some pisser over rice bowls here, but I could have helped if I’d been read in from the beginning.” The MI5 officer’s face was tight and turning red. “Yes, well, I didn’t withhold intelligence from you, now did I? Too late for that . . . Absolutely not. I intend to run point on this at Thames House, this being a domestic matter and all. Interesting that now you want to work together, George, but something tells me that it’s more about you covering your arse than finding Kim . . . I’ll fucking break you in half if you hold things back from me again. We’re clear on that, are we, George? Lovely. Send over everything that you have . . . In that case, fine, I’ll head to Vauxhall . . . Yes, they’re with me and I’m bloody well bringing them along.”

He slammed the phone down, then gently smoothed the sleeves of his shirt.

“Sorry for the unpleasantness, gentlemen,” McLean said. “Bit of a miscommunication. Apparently, Kim was still pursuing Nadar. She requested Agent Watts, and Burton indulged her. Says he didn’t think there was anything there but wanted to let her get it out of her system so he could put it to bed once and for all.”

“ ‘Get it out of her system’? What the hell does that mean?” Chunk asked and felt a surge of anger.

“It means,” McLean said, “that Burton was covering his arse. When the task force was shut down, I sent her home to MI6, but would have given anything to keep her on with us. She’s one hell of an agent, in fact, and I would have supported her instincts had I known. It means if Burton didn’t let her run with it a bit, and she turned out to be even partially right, he believed that it would be his biscuit to eat and it would hurt his career. So, he indulged her, but also gave her no resources so that she’d fail to build a case and he could wash his hands of the business once and for all.”

“Tell us what you really think about Nadar,” Riker said, his face all business. “We want your no-bullshit opinion.”

McLean sighed.

“We bugged Nadar’s flat. We watched and listened to Nadar and his wife for months before and after Dubai and collected nothing even remotely interesting. We put a bloody team on him for six weeks. Followed him everywhere he went. If he’s a terrorist, he’s a bloody talented actor. And yet, there’s too many coincidences to ignore . . .”

“I don’t much believe in coincidences,” Chunk said.

“Nor do I, Commander, and now we have another one to add to the list,” McLean said and ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it a ruffled mess. “The last confirmed location of Agent Runner Kim and your girl Watts was in East London. There’s a spice shop called Afghan Importers within a couple of blocks from where Kim’s car was found in a parking garage. I believe they were staking out Afghan Importers when they were taken.”

“Do you believe Afghan Importers is a front for al Qadar?” Chunk asked.

“I do now,” McLean said, “and I’d bet my pension that Kim thought so too, which is why they were surveilling it.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

McLean nodded. “We already ran a ‘joint’ operation last night. Would you like to run another? I want to hit Afghan Importers tonight.”

“After last night, I assumed you were going to lock us in this conference room for the remainder of the investigation,” Chunk said.

“Hardly. Your no-bullshit approach to problems is something I sorely miss, Commander. And on top of that, how can I say no to having the elite Tier One SEALs aboard?”

Chunk’s eyes went wide, then he narrowed them at the MI5 man at the head of the table. “Who said that? We’re with a . . .”

“Yes, yes, yes—you’re with a bloody ‘joint task force’ or some such rubbish. I was seven tours downrange working joint terror with the coalition in the day. Did six months in northern Afghanistan with our SBS boys and your Navy Tier One operators. I know a door-kicker when I see one, so don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” McLean said.

“We’re all in,” Chunk said with a nod.

“In that case, I have some calls to make. I’m going to blow this up, whether George Burton likes it or not.” He turned slightly in his chair and picked up the desk phone again. “Jeremy, it’s McLean. Sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I need you here. Grab Millington as well. Get me all the Task Force Seven information on Qasim Nadar and come ready to work. We’ll meet here, but will be moving to Vauxhall directly. Yes, of course. Oh, and Jeremy, do tell Elizabeth thanks and sorry.”

He hung up the phone with a finger and dialed again.

“Hello, Margaret, it’s Holden,” he said now, his tone quite different and deferential. “Thanks again for the assistance last night; both the Americans and I are grateful. Listen, Margaret, I’m going to formalize this thing into a task force operation . . . Yes, reading in the director in as we speak,” he shrugged and grinned at Chunk, “and I’m sure he’ll make it official with the PM, but we’re running against the clock as it were. Can you send your lead over to coordinate for us with Manchester and Cheltenham . . . Yes, George is on as well and we’ll form a team at Vauxhall . . . No, not thrilled but I gave him no bloody choice in the matter . . . That’s right . . . I will, and thank you, Margaret.”

The counterintelligence officer hung up, sighed, and pulled at his face. “What a bloody fucking mess.”

“How can we help?” Chunk said.

“I’d like you to augment a team I’m bringing in from Poole, Dorset. They will take the lead on tonight’s op.”

“Poole . . . that’s where your SBS is located, right? We’ve worked with those guys before. They’re pros and good people,” Chunk said.

“Indeed. In the meantime, I’ll get those laptops and phones to our tech folks,” McLean said, rising from his chair. He showed Chunk a tight smile. “I know it’s been a painfully slow start, Commander. But I kicked the beehive this morning. Rest assured things are going to spin up rather quickly now.”

“Thank you, Holden. Watts is a teammate and . . .”

“I know,” the MI5 man said when Chunk couldn’t finish the sentence. “We’ll find her. We’ll find both of them.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

raf rc-135

call sign: foxhound

twenty-nine thousand feet over raf coningsby

united kingdom

1119 local time

It felt like déjà vu for Qasim.

He was standing in the exact same spot, with the exact same people, on the exact same RC-135 aircraft, supervising another Valkyrie drone exercise. Only this time, there were some key differences. One: today’s test drone was the Valkyrie B model—a VTOL version capable of vertical takeoffs and landings thanks to a creative engine-pivoting-and-thrust-vectoring design. Two: the test drone was armed—carrying its maximum payload of four next-generation Spear 3 air-to-surface missiles, the same mini cruise missiles to be carried by Britain’s future F-35 fleet. And three: this time he was going to steal it.

The Valkyrie B model flying today was the only VTOL prototype that had been built by British Aero, and it cost twenty million pounds more than its sisters. The other three units produced were all A models. Everyone on the project team referred to this Valkyrie drone simply as “Bravo,” the shorthand being easier to remember and more convenient than its tail number. Despite being the third unit commissioned, as the only VTOL demonstrator, Bravo had logged the most flight hours in the test fleet. To date, Bravo had proven itself to be a reliable and predictable flier. Its VTOL performance had exceeded all expectations—both the British Aero team and their RAF sponsors couldn’t believe it worked so well. These successes were largely credited to Qasim, and something the engineer in him took great pride in.

Today’s exercise was not the first time Bravo had carried an ordinance, but it was the first live-fire exercise for the project team. For safety reasons, it had been unanimously decided to conduct a SINKEX instead of striking land-based targets on a range. A target barge had been towed eighty nautical miles off the east coast of Britain and now loitered in the North Sea. The HMS Dragon (D35), a Daring class destroyer with advanced air surveillance radars, provided maritime observation and tracking. Dragon would also simulate defending the barge from Valkyrie’s attack, the same way it would defend an aircraft carrier as a battle group escort. If Valkyrie could evade a Daring class destroyer’s advanced Sea Viper air defense system, then it presaged a new era of tactics and mission packages for the RAF and Royal British Navy—something British Aero management was extremely keen to explore.

Qasim had very different plans in mind for the prototype. If he managed to pull off the coup he had planned, then al Qadar would possess a weapon that the West could not defend against. He cast a short, sad glance at Arham, seated a few feet away. The young engineer had installed the compromised software update upon arriving at the base that morning, and he’d been none the wiser to the fact that the files had been swapped by Fun Time last night. Qasim’s fantasies of mentoring Arham as his acolyte in al Qadar seemed foolish and distant now. The pressure Qasim felt was stifling, and he resisted the urge to loosen his collar. In a moment of weakness this morning, he’d checked his secure messaging app to see if any notifications had arrived from Faraj about the identity of the second agent, but found none.

I told Faraj he was in command until after the exercise. He is following orders.

“Sitrep,” Colonel Joddle said, snapping Qasim from his ruminations.

“Bravo is turning circles over the Wash,” Arham said from his workstation, referring to the buttonhook-shaped bay that separated the curved coast of East Anglia from Lincolnshire. “Data link is good. Eighty-five percent fuel remaining. Ready to commence the exercise, sir.”

“Very well,” Joddle said, in a field marshal’s stance, hands on hips as he surveyed the wall of monitors in lieu of a battlefield. “What about HMS Dragon? Are they ready?”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Longfellow said, turning to look up at the colonel. Today Longfellow was seated at a workstation and wore a headset. “I’m in direct communications with the combat systems officer. They are standing by.”

“Are they tracking Bravo?”

“Bravo is squawking one-six-aht-five, and they have a fire control solution.”

“What about radar? Do they hold Bravo on SAMPSON?” Joddle asked, referring to the destroyer’s adaptive radar array.

“Yes, but if Bravo wasn’t squawking a transponder code, they’d have no bloody idea where to look,” Longfellow said with a little grin. “They have no primary radar return.”

“That’s because Valkyrie has the radar cross section of a honeybee,” Arham said, beaming with pride. “It’s brilliant.” He shot a look at Qasim, part colleague and part adoring child.

Joddle nodded at Qasim. “Are you ready to commence the run?”

“Yes, sir,” Qasim said.

“Very well. Take Bravo radio silent and commence the scouting run,” the colonel said.

“Yes, sir,” Qasim said and instructed Arham to give the drone’s Autonomy AI neural network the command code to commence the scouting run.

He watched as Arham entered the code, authorizing the drone to execute a choreographed search-and-destroy sequence of maneuvers against the barge.

“Bravo has accepted the command code, stopped squawking, and gone dark,” Arham announced.

“Confirmed,” the ELINT operator sitting next to Arham said. “Foxhound has lost Bravo on radar.”

“We’re bloody invisible,” Longfellow said, rubbing his hands together in glee. “It’s brilliant.”

Qasim resisted the urge to fidget. The track that he’d suggested was for the drone to loop around to the south, following the coastline until it reached Great Yarmouth, and then to travel east until intersecting the longitude of the barge. At that point, Bravo would turn north and make a high-altitude surveillance pass. Joddle liked the track and approved it without modification. HMS Dragon had not been briefed on Bravo’s track or tactics. All the ship’s captain knew was that the stealthy drone would conduct a dry run on the barge first, under radio-silent conditions, and it was his job to acquire it and make a simulated kill.

If Dragon could not detect Bravo, which everyone suspected would be the case, then before commencing the SINKEX, they would secure the stealth run. Bravo would recommence squawking 1-6-0-5 on its transponder so that it could be seen on the radar. That way, the drone’s attack-run track coordinates could be shared with the destroyer for safety.

At least that was the plan.

But Qasim had other ideas, if all went according to his plan.

Qasim walked over to look at the navigation plot on one of the technician’s workstations, which showed a bird’s-eye view of the section of the North Sea where both the HMS Dragon and the target barge were located. Presently, the destroyer was cruising on a heading of two-three-five and a speed of fifteen knots.

“They’re running a diamond-shaped polygon around the drone,” the technician said as Joddle stepped up beside Qasim. “Looks like they expect either an east–west or north–south axis attack run.”

“I don’t understand,” Qasim said. “Why does it matter?”

“Probably because they don’t want their arse end pointing in the direction the drone’s coming from,” Joddle said.

“Like that will matter,” Longfellow said with a chuckle. “They’re not going to see Bravo coming, no matter what direction they’re steaming.”

“Where’s Bravo now?” Joddle asked.

“Bravo has gone dark, sir,” Arham said. “The transponder is off and it’s not transmitting data of any kind on any frequency band.”

“I know it’s not squawking, but I thought it was going to be streaming encrypted position data to the satellite for us.”

“No, sir. That would create an EMS signature that Dragon could exploit,” Arham said.

The look on Joddle’s face told Qasim that the colonel must have had a disconnect in his mind during the brief and was suddenly wrestling with reconciling what was an embarrassing and obvious oversight.

“I’m not sure I bloody well like that. Rather prefer that we can see the damn thing,” Joddle grumbled, confirming Qasim’s suspicion.

Qasim had come to understand military men quite well during his time at British Aero. They were accustomed to detailed information at their fingertips, all of it available on demand. Satellites, aerial ELINT platforms, drones, submarines, and boots on the ground all provided overlapping and confirming data streams that gave military commanders like Joddle an accurate and detailed picture of assets and activity in the battle space. Take that information away and suddenly they felt powerless.

“To truly test the technology—both the stealth and autonomy of Bravo—meant having no signature for Dragon to exploit. It removes the human bias factors we felt would be present on the part of the crew. Subconsciously at least, no one likes to have their ass handed to them,” Qasim added, trying to sound like the men inside the RC-135.

“Well, where do we think Bravo is?” Joddle said, red-faced.

“I am running a simulation using the programmed route and speed we selected for the scouting run—dead reckoning, if you will. It will deviate from reality over time due to the winds, but I imagine it’s relatively close to reality right now,” Arham said.

Joddle sidestepped to look over Arham’s shoulder. “Looks like Bravo is making the turn north.”

“Yes, sir. We predict that to be the case.”

“Lieutenant, do we hold anything on radar?” Joddle asked.

“No, sir,” Longfellow said. “Nothing at all. Not even shadows.”

“What about Dragon? Are they tracking Bravo?”

“No, sir. Bravo is a ghost.”

Joddle clapped a hand on Qasim’s shoulder. “It appears your company’s drone is performing as advertised. The Sea Viper aerial defense suite on that destroyer is the most capable radar targeting system in His Majesty’s Navy. It can track two hundred simultaneous contacts at a range of four hundred kilometers. If Dragon can’t find Bravo, nothing can.”

Qasim resisted the urge to shrug off the man’s hand. He hated how Western men liked to put their hands on his shoulder under the guise of bonding. He knew the real purpose was to try to make him feel subservient.

“I am confident that Valkyrie will be the most formidable asset in the RAF’s order of battle,” Qasim said, forcing a smile on his face until the colonel removed his hand.

They waited in the blind for fifteen minutes, nerves on edge, until finally, Bravo broke radio silence.

“Burst transmission detected bearing 091,” one of the ELINT technicians reported from her console.

“That was Bravo,” Arham said. “Receiving a scouting report via satellite relay now.”

Qasim and Joddle walked over to stand behind Arham’s chair so they could both see his monitor. High-resolution photographic images of the target barge annotated with latitude and longitude populated the screen. Then, another set of images began to download.

“Is that the HMS Dragon?” Joddle asked.

“Yes, it appears so,” Arham said.

“Did you tell the drone to do that?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why is it scouting Dragon?”

“Because it has identified Dragon as a potential threat and secondary target. Bravo issued a sitrep with the imagery,” Arham said, reading the simple assessment in which the Autonomy system properly identified Dragon by name and hull number as a Daring class destroyer, solved for the ship’s course and speed, and predicted it was a protection escort for the primary target.

“That’s impressive,” Joddle said, “but also bloody problematic. We can’t risk it deciding on its own to target Dragon in addition to the barge during the SINKEX.”

“Not to worry, Colonel,” Arham said. “Each target requires a command code. Bravo can’t fire on a target without it. It’s impossible.”

Joddle stared at Arham for a moment before turning to look at Qasim.

“You know, Nadar, whenever someone tells me something is impossible, the impossible becomes reality five minutes later far too bloody often. I’m wondering if we should have the drone pilots who are standing by in the GCU complete the SINKEX. I think I’d feel a lot better about a human taking the shot, rather than letting the AI make the kill decision.”

Qasim’s chest tightened. He’d not contemplated this scenario.

If they transferred control to the pilots, then command authorization for giving Valkyrie the kill decision would never be issued. He’d needed an input to transfer command authorization from the RAF and British Aero to al Qadar’s cyber command on the yacht. The command code had been the perfect solution because he needed the drone to perform normally and under Arham’s control until that very moment. Without the command code, the malware would not execute, and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to steal the drone would be lost. Equally important, it was all part of the theater of the heist. To everyone watching, including Arham, it would appear that the moment Autonomy got command authorization, the drone went rogue. No one would suspect that the command code triggered a control shift to an unseen third party. The solution had been so elegant, pure, and simple that Qasim had been blinded to the possibility that Joddle might chicken out and not run the test.

Now, more than ever before, Qasim’s acting skills would be put to the test.

Qasim rubbed his chin, as if in deep thought. From what he knew of Joddle’s personality, the harder Qasim tried to argue the counterposition, the more the colonel would dig in. Persuading Joddle would require a delicate dance.

“I’m inclined to agree with you, Colonel. It’s best to err on the side of safety.” Then he paused, as if another thought had occurred to him. “Of course, the only other thing to consider is that this SINKEX is the safest way to test Autonomy’s kill decision functionality. It’s much safer than a land-based sortie where the target could be confused with, say, for example, a factory full of workers or a boarding school packed with kids. The target barge is out in the middle of the ocean and there’s no confusing it with another structure.”

“I hear you Nadar, but Bravo scouted Dragon,” Joddle said.

“Yes, that’s my concern as well. I’m an engineer and not much of a risk-taker, like you real warfighters tend to be.” He gave a deferential nod. “I will say, however, that by conducting a surveillance run on Dragon, the Autonomy AI proved that it understands the difference between the two vessels. It knows the destroyer is not the barge and vice versa. That’s a good thing, Colonel. The drone can issue sitreps all day long, but without a command code from Arham’s console, it simply cannot fire on any object other than that barge, even if it determines that to be the best course of action.”

“Yes, you make good points, but what’s the harm in postponing?” Joddle said, and Qasim could see the man was operating in self-preservation mode. He did not want to be blamed if Valkyrie fired on HMS Dragon.

Qasim pivoted his tactics to go after Joddle’s risk-aversion from a different angle.

“You’re right, we don’t have to satisfy this milestone today, Colonel. We can postpone the test until you’re comfortable, but no matter how long we delay, it is a milestone that needs to be validated. Autonomous warfare capability is one of the primary objectives of the Valkyrie program. If we refuse to evaluate and test it, the big bosses will find someone else who will. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s better to let someone else take the risk . . . but then again, I’m no fighter pilot,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

Joddle inhaled deeply through his mouth and then blew the air out his nose. “You make good points, Nadar. And I’d hate to miss the milestone and be forced to repeat this exercise. I imagine the squadron commander wouldn’t be happy to haul the barge back into port . . . All right, let’s proceed. But out of an abundance of caution, let’s have Bravo keep its transponder squawking for the remainder of the exercise. We’ve proven Bravo is invisible to radar. I want to keep tabs on that drone during the attack run, and I’m sure the skipper on the Dragon probably does too.”

“I think that’s a perfect solution,” Qasim said, barely able to contain his victory smile. “What about you, Arham? What do you think?”

“Absolutely. Stealth performance was only a tertiary consideration for this exercise. It’s all about evaluating Bravo’s autonomous target acquisition and strike capability,” Arham said. “And, keep in mind, I can issue a command code to retake control at any time if we don’t like what we see.”

“That’s right. Very good point, Arham. That makes me feel much better, actually. So, Colonel, do we have the green light?” Qasim asked Joddle.

“Have Bravo turn on the transponder and have it remain on, and you have permission to commence the exercise,” Joddle said. “Lieutenant Longfellow, notify the CSO on Dragon that we are commencing the SINKEX. They should reposition per their OPORD to observe while maintaining a safe standoff distance.”

Qasim watched Longfellow repeat the order, then communicate with the operations officer on the destroyer. At the same time, Arham turned on Bravo’s radio transponder.

“Foxhound has reacquired Bravo,” the radar operator announced. “Bearing zero-six-seven. Negative primary return, but positive identification as transponder squawk one-six-aht-five.”

“Confirmed,” Arham replied. “Bravo is squawking one-six-zero-five.”

“Very well,” Joddle said, and Qasim saw the colonel visibly relax.

“How many missiles do you think it will take to sink the barge?” Qasim asked Joddle.

“That’s a very good question. I’ve not seen a Spear 3 in action, but it’s supposed to pack quite a punch. If that drone hits the sweet spot, it might only take one, but my guess is it will take two,” Joddle said.

“Two was my guess as well,” Qasim said.

“Personally, I hope the barge does not sink on the first pass. I want to see how Autonomy handles multiple sorties,” Arham said.

“Me too,” said Longfellow from his console beside Arham.

“Arham, enter the command code to Bravo and commence the attack on the target barge,” Qasim said, trying to give the order like a military man might.

“Entering the command code now,” Arham said. “Command code accepted. Here we go . . . Looks like Autonomy intends to use a north to south attack vector.”

Three seconds later, the radar operator visibly tensed.

“Colonel, Bravo has stopped squawking and has disappeared from radar.”

“Satellite relay comms have stopped as well,” the ELINT technician reported. “What the bloody hell?”

“Colonel, the CSO on the Dragon is asking what’s going on. They’ve lost contact on the drone as well,” Longfellow said, his voice strained.

“I said I wanted Bravo to squawk for the remainder of the SINKEX. Nadar, what in the bloody hell is going on?” Joddle said, his cheeks flushing crimson.

“I . . .I don’t know. Arham, what is Autonomy doing?” Qasim asked.

The young programmer’s fingers were flying on the keyboard, entering commands like mad, but clearly to no effect. The Trojan horse malware that Qasim’s al Qadar cyber team had created had been lying dormant, waiting for the attack command code to be issued. As soon as that happened, the malware spoofed Arham’s computer and issued a new set of command codes: codes instructing Bravo to do as only Qasim wished. He suppressed a satisfied smile. Valkyrie Bravo had disappeared and already would be flying north where it would loop around Scotland and rendezvous with the Dina Maltan, conducting a covert vertical landing onto the deck of the cargo ship. And once it did, the most lethal weapon in the RAF inventory would belong to al Qadar.

“Answer me,” Qasim shouted at Arham, playing his role perfectly.

“Something’s gone wrong,” Arham said, flustered. “Autonomy is not responding to my commands.”

“What do you mean it’s not responding to your commands?” Joddle said, brushing up right next to Qasim.

“This has never happened before. It’s almost as if Autonomy stopped recognizing my terminal as a valid command-and-control device,” Arham said.

“You assured me that Autonomy could not fire without a command code. You also assured me that you could retake control of the drone at any time if we didn’t like what the AI was doing. Well, I don’t bloody like what it’s doing. I order you to retake control this instant!” Joddle shouted.

“I’m trying, sir,” Arham stammered as he worked frantically at his keyboard. “There is no indication my commands are being received. Nor do I receive any data streaming from the drone. It’s just—gone.”

“Wait . . . What do you mean gone? Could it have crashed? Would that explain the sudden loss of signal and streaming data?” Qasim asked, planting the seed.

Arham looked up at him with wide eyes.

“I . . . I just don’t know. It is possible. It would explain the sudden loss of signal.”

“Is it possible that it is still in flight and simply ignoring us?” Joddle demanded.

The chaos was serving Qasim perfectly.

“Ignoring us? No, sir. I don’t see how . . .”

“You didn’t see how any of this could happen. Is it fucking possible or not?”

“I really don’t know, Colonel,” Arham said, his face pale and his eyes wet. “I don’t believe so, but I can’t say for sure.”

“We need to know what happened, and we need to know right bloody now.”

“Colonel Joddle, out of an abundance of caution,” Qasim said, his voice calm and even, “might I suggest we secure from the SINKEX and advise the HMS Dragon to exit the vicinity with great haste.”

“You’re right. Lieutenant, secure SINKEX and get the skipper of the Dragon on the radio with me immediately,” Joddle said.

“Yes, sir,” Longfellow said and did as instructed.

“Radar operator,” Joddle said, shifting his gaze to the technician at the primary radar workstation.

“Sir?” she answered.

“I want your eyes glued to that screen, do you understand me?” he said. “The instant you pick up anything—and I mean anything—on your sweep, I want you to report it. I don’t care if you think it’s an artifact or a false return,” he said. “Find me that drone.”

“Yes, sir. I understand, sir,” she said.

Joddle turned to Longfellow.

“We need the ministry on the line right now. I need to task a satellite over the area immediately. If this damn thing crashed, we need to find the site. If not, if it’s flying, we need to take it down immediately.”

“It can’t be flying, can it?” Qasim said to Arham, loudly so everyone would receive the seed he planted. “Our safety protocols prevent such a thing, right?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. It must have crashed, but I have no idea why.”

Qasim watched and listened as Joddle talked with the commanding officer of the HMS Dragon and explained the situation. The ship’s driver was not pleased to hear that an untraceable stealth drone with four surface-to-ground missiles and an AI brain had gone rogue. After that, Joddle got an earful from the base commander, the air wing commander, and a two-star RAF general at High Wycombe, in that order. For thirty minutes, the tension in Foxhound’s control room ramped to a crescendo, culminating with the normally collected Joddle throwing a foot-stomping, expletive-laden tantrum the likes of which Qasim had never witnessed. A sortie of standby Tornado fighter jets were scrambled with orders to shoot down Bravo on sight, but after two hours of scouring the North Sea, no trace of the stealth drone could be found.

“I’m going to be getting a call from the PM himself,” Joddle muttered after giving the defeated order for Foxhound to return to base. “Whether Bravo crashed or flew off on its own doesn’t change that bloody truth.” He rubbed over his forehead, pulling at his face. Then he turned to Qasim with rage in his eyes. “So, this is how my career ends . . . Yours and mine. And it’s all your bloody fault, Nadar.”

Qasim hunched his shoulders and said nothing.

On the outside, he was cowed and beaten. But on the inside, his soul was on fire with victory. He’d managed to steal the most deadly stealth drone in the world from under the noses of the RAF and British Aero, and there was nothing that Joddle—or anyone else—could do about it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

the m1

north of london and heading south

1934 local time

The after-incident debriefs at RAF Coningsby had taken five hours and had been bloody murder, with Qasim and Arham put through the proverbial wringer by lots of men in uniform with stars and eagles on their lapels. Qasim had expected this and been prepared. On behalf of British Aero, he’d accepted the blame unconditionally and made no excuses. He’d promised the company would take full responsibility while at the same time doggedly building a narrative that the Valkyrie B must have crashed at sea.

It was, after all, the only logical explanation.

The drive back to London from the base had been equally painful. Instead of being berated by the RAF and Royal Navy, this time Qasim had been forced to rehash the events while British Aero execs yelled at him over the phone. He’d had two calls with the CEO already. And after those calls, he’d been forced to listen to Arham’s nervous, nonstop chatter about how such a thing could not possibly happen. For his part, Qasim participated in the conversation—brainstorming with Arham whether hardware or software was to blame.

“. . . you know how it will look for us,” Arham said.

“And how will it look?” Qasim asked.

“Oh, please,” Arham said, holding the steering wheel with a death grip, perspiration dappling his forehead. “An Afghan and a Pakistani are assigned to one of the most highly classified weapons systems in the UK, and it fails and disappears?”

“Are you saying they will say we are less qualified because of our national origins? That our engineering was not sound?” he asked, feigning ignorance at the implication.

“I’m saying they will claim we are responsible,” Arham said, his voice shrill. “They will say we are enemies—that we are terrorists.”

“Who will say such a thing, Arham?”

“Everyone,” Arham said, his voice rising still more. “But the engineering and my code are sound. That is one thing they will have to acknowledge, but that makes the mystery only deeper, and their suspicions of us will grow logarithmically. They will think we have sabotaged the drone.”

“I suppose . . . it’s possible,” Qasim said. “But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I’m sure management will defend us.”

Arham eyed him with a dubious sideways glance. “If you believe that, then your experience in New Malden has been quite different from mine.”

Silence hung in the air between them.

Qasim’s mind’s eye turned to other urgent matters demanding his attention. He’d compartmentalized all day and played his role as Qasim the dutiful project director to perfection. Now, Qasim the leader of al Qadar needed to be sated. He had so many questions:

Had the drone landed successfully on the Dina Maltan?

Was it hidden and safe?

Had the identity of the second agent been discovered?

Had anything else gone wrong while he was out of communication with his principals?

Turning his phone so Arham could not see the screen, he logged into his secure messaging app and was bombarded by updates both magnificent and terrible. As he read the messages, his emotions were taken on a roller-coaster ride the likes of which he’d never felt before.

The drone had been recovered by the Dina Maltan and was hidden on the cargo deck by a rolling camouflage structure that looked like the tops of shipping containers from above. The elation he felt at this news was quickly replaced with rage to learn that the farmhouse had been hit last night by mystery infiltrators, who had killed three of Qasim’s lieutenants. Worse, one of the dead was Masoud Bakir, part of his trusted inner circle and a genius at political strategy.

They’re closing in. They will be coming for me soon if I don’t hand them a scapegoat. It’s time . . .

“Is everything okay?” Arham asked, glancing over at him. “Your face has gone pale.”

“No, everything’s not okay. Pull off the motorway, we need to talk.”

“I don’t understand,” Arham said, his voice uncertain.

“Get off at this next exit,” Qasim said, pointing at the upcoming ramp.

“Okay, okay,” Arham said.

“Pull into that petrol station.”

Arham did as instructed, and once the transmission was in Park, he turned to Qasim.

Qasim exhaled, his breath unsteady, his actual emotional state matching the one he wanted to convey. “Arham, I am sorry to say this, but your greatest fear has come true. The British authorities want to bring you in for questioning.”

“What? Wait, how do you know this?”

“Because I have a friend in counterterrorism at MI5,” Qasim lied. “He just texted me.”

“Oh, dear God, what do I do?”

“Tell me the truth, Arham,” Qasim said, steeling his voice. “Are you working with one of these extremist groups?”

“One of what groups?” Arham stammered. “Are you asking me if I’m a terrorist?”

Qasim nodded.

“No, no, I would never. It’s preposterous.”

“What about your cousin?”

“What about my cousin?”

“My contact says one of your cousins in Pakistan has been flagged as tied to a terror network?” Qasim lied.

“I . . . I . . . I don’t know. This is news to me, but I suppose anything is possible . . . I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Listen to me very carefully, Arham,” Qasim said. “They need someone to blame for what happened today, and they’ve picked you.”

“But I’m innocent. I didn’t do it!”

“I know,” Qasim said, grabbing Arham’s hand and clutching it tightly. “But they are going to try to make you confess. They will use pressure tactics to get a confession out of you. Have you ever been waterboarded?”

“They can’t do that. It’s illegal. What about due process?”

“Don’t be naïve,” Qasim said, staring into Arham’s panicked eyes. “You are a brown man in a white man’s nation. They have just lost a top secret multimillion dollar stealth drone and you are the programmer. Your cousin in Pakistan has ties to jihad. Do you really think your case is going to be managed by the police? No, this is going to be handled by MI5 and MI6. It’s serious.”

“Then what do I do? Tell me what to do, Qasim?” Arham stammered, his higher brain functions fully subsumed by fear.

“They’re waiting at your flat to arrest you when you arrive home,” Qasim said. “So, you’re not going to go home. You’re going to drop me here and drive straight to the address I put in your phone’s GPS. You’re going to wait there while I make some calls and sort things out. Do you understand?”

“Yes, okay. I understand,” Arham said, then shook his head. “No, wait. I can’t do that, because then I’ll look guilty. If I run, if I hide, they’ll see that as an admission of guilt.”

“I’m not telling you to run. I’m not telling you to hide. I’m telling you to delay going home until I can make phone calls and buy you some time so that everyone can calm down.”

“Who can you call that will do that for me?”

“London Mayor Sadiq for one. I’ve talked with him several times, and I’ve been asked to be on one of his high-profile councils,” Qasim said. “I will also get the CEO of British Aero involved. He is a very rational man, and after he’s calmed down, I will talk to him.”

“Okay, that makes sense. We use political pressure,” Arham said, nodding manically. “And you would do this for me?”

Qasim squeezed Arham’s hand tightly. “We are brothers. And we’re in this together . . . to the end.”

“I don’t know what I would do without your guidance. Thank you, Qasim,” Arham said, tears welling in the corners of his eyes.

“You’re welcome,” Qasim said and released his grip on Arham’s hand. He snatched the programmer’s phone out of the cradle on the dashboard. In the navigation app, he replaced his home address with the address of Afghan Importers in East London. “My uncle runs this spice shop. I will call him and tell him you are coming. He’s very kind and accommodating. It should only be a couple of hours, but should you need to spend the night, you can stay in his flat. Okay?”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Arham said. “But what about you? How will you get home?”

“I’ll hire an Uber,” Qasim said with a smile.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” Qasim unbuckled his seat belt, grabbed his briefcase, and stepped out of Arham’s car. “I’ll keep you updated throughout the night. So, keep your phone on,” he said, leaning on the door.

“I will. Thank you,” Arham said from the driver’s seat, bowing his head deeply.

With a pang of guilt, Qasim watched Arham drive away. It was crucial that Ahram’s phone remained on—it would be a beacon for those who would soon hunt him.

After hailing an Uber, Qasim dialed Nathaniel Worthington, the executive vice president of corporate security at British Aero, and one of the men who’d been on the post-incident video conferences with the RAF all afternoon.

“Are you back home?” Worthington said, picking up Qasim’s call on the second ring.

“No, are you?”

“Hell no. The C-suite is going apeshit over this. Heads are going to roll, Nadar,” Worthington said, with a good measure of blame in his voice.

“I would expect as much. Mine probably first . . .”

“I hope you’re calling with news about the drone. Have they found it yet?”

“Not to my knowledge, but that’s not what I’m calling about,” Qasim said. “I’m calling because I have security concerns about my lead programmer—Arham Khan.”

“What kind of concerns? Is he okay?”

“I don’t think so. Arham was my ride home from the base, but he dropped me at a petrol station on the M1, north of London.”

“Why on earth would he do that?”

“He’s panicked.”

“What are you saying, Nadar?”

“Since the debrief, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about things—little things that maybe should have been red flags for me . . .”

“Are you insinuating that Arham was involved in today’s incident? That he may have done something nefarious?”

“I’d never want to believe such a thing, of course. Arham always seemed a decent chap, but the last few weeks . . . I don’t know, his behavior has been off. And now this. I’m just saying it might be worth taking a look at his browser history. Maybe track his mobile. See where he goes.”

“Mm-hmm,” Worthington said, and Qasim could practically hear the gears turning in the man’s mind.

All it takes is a seed . . .

“I understand the implications. I am head of this project, after all. But if Arham has somehow been radicalized and we missed it . . . I don’t know. I worry that any delay investigating him might be dangerous for Britain, but also look bad for the company as well.”

“Quite right. Thank you for sharing this with me, Nadar,” Worthington said. “I’ll look into it. Do you need me to send a car to pick you up?”

“No, thank you. I hired an Uber.”

“I’m sorry, Nadar,” Worthington said, unexpectedly. “I know it’s been a difficult day for you.”

“I appreciate that, but it’s been a difficult day for us all,” he said. “I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.”

Qasim smiled as he broke the connection. The one thing he could count on was for Worthington to be a good little soldier. In an hour, MI5 would open a case on Arham. In two hours, the cyber sleuths at GCHQ would find all the incriminating digital breadcrumbs that Fun Time’s team had dropped all over cyberspace. In five hours, they’d raid Afghan Importers. If not tonight, it would happen tomorrow. All Qasim had to do was keep Arham from leaving until they did.

Unfortunately, the raid will not unfold like they anticipate . . .

Because Qasim had one more surprise up his sleeve.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

break room

thames house (mi5 headquarters)

london, england

united kingdom

2055 local time

For Chunk, the day had been the worst kind of SEAL torture—waiting and bureaucracy.

It had been hours since they’d seen McLean, and Chunk was beginning to wonder if the guy had been booted from the emergency task force. The salty career MI5 officer had earned Chunk’s unequivocal respect after he’d shielded Chunk and his team from the blowback they honestly deserved. After the unsanctioned hit last night, the Brits could have thrown Chunk and the boys in the kind of detention center that would have taken White House intervention to get them out of. Instead, McLean had handled everything quietly, off book, without feeling entitled to rip Chunk a new asshole in front of his team, and without the classic quid pro quo—you owe me one.

The dude is the last of a dying breed, that’s for damn sure, Chunk thought to himself as he tossed a plastic energy drink bottle back and forth with Riker.

“What in the name of all that is good and holy is taking so frickin’ long?” griped Saw, who was normally the quiet, collected one in the group.

“I’m beginning to wonder if these guys know their eyes from their assholes,” Trip said.

“It’s elbows from their assholes, dumbass,” Riker said, stopping the game to stare at the junior SEAL.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure,” Riker said and resumed throwing the bottle to Chunk.

“But elbows doesn’t make any sense,” Trip said.

“Neither does eyes.”

“Sure it does, because with your eyes, you can see what’s going on. If you try to look around with your asshole, well, that’s a problem.”

“Sometimes it boggles my mind that this group is the best of the best,” Chunk said, zinging the bottle back at Riker with some heat.

Riker caught the bottle with a loud smack. “Oh, now that’s what I’m talking ’bout,” he said, shaking out his catching hand before whipping it back at Chunk with fastball speed.

The bottle, which was half-full of liquid and not round, juked all over the place and Chunk missed the catch. It slammed into the wall beside his head and behind the sofa, leaving a dent in the wall.

“I always wondered what Navy SEALs did in their spare time,” McLean said from the doorway. “Now I know.”

“We’re sorry about that,” Chunk said, with a glare at Riker. “US Navy will pay to fix that dent.”

“That dent is the least of my worries,” McLean said and waved his hand for them to follow him.

Chunk popped to his feet and so did the boys. They followed McLean out into the hall, practically jogging to keep up while the MI5 man walked and talked.

“I’m sorry to have kept you in the dark for so long, but it has been a very busy and frustrating day getting all our ducks in a row. But that’s neither here nor there. Here’s what we know. First, using data points from numerous hits from traffic and business cameras, we reconstructed the getaway track of the van that we believe took Kim and Watts from the parking garage in East London. It headed northeast out of London on the A12 traveling in the direction of . . .”

“The farmhouse we hit last night in Danbury?” Chunk said.

“Precisely,” McLean said.

“Do you have recorded footage of the van at the farmhouse?”

“Unfortunately, no,” McLean said, leading them to an elevator, “because there was no satellite tasked to track it at the time, and contrary to the rumors, we actually do not have CCTV cameras installed everywhere in Britain. Once the van left London, we only have a smattering of traffic cameras to sample.”

“So, you’re saying you still don’t know where they are,” Chunk said, following McLean into the elevator car.

“Unfortunately, we do not,” McLean said as he pushed the bottom button on the stack. “But we are still working the problem. We have police in Chelmsford and Colchester engaged in the search for that van.”

“Any luck finding the cars that squirted before the hit on the farmhouse last night?” Saw asked, stepping up beside the British agent.

“No, sorry,” McLean said. “Your Chief Yi shared the feed she had recorded, but there is not much there other than a best guess on make and model. No license plates or anything, and no track since she stayed focused on the target while you conducted your operation. As I said, there is very little CCTV coverage in the countryside. We have nothing so far.”

“What about the laptops and phones we pulled off the X?” Riker asked.

“We’re making progress there too,” McLean said. “One of the two laptops has an intact SSD and the techs have harvested the data. It’s all encrypted, but it’s only a matter of time. The mobile phones have a secure messaging app that we believe they were using to communicate. We’ve got GCHQ working with the telecoms to get all the phone records and reconstruct everywhere these guys have been over the past week.”

The elevator arrived in the basement, which turned out to be an underground parking garage.

“Where are we going?” Chunk said.

“I’m driving you to your hotel so you can pick up all your gear, and then I’m driving you to East London where you will join up with the SBS in a safe house to prep and participate in a raid on Afghan Importers,” McLean said with an understated British grin.

“Hooyah,” Riker said. “It’s about damn time.”

“My sentiments exactly,” McLean said, using a key fob to locate and unlock a white panel van. “There ’tis.”

Once they were all seated and underway, McLean continued. “One last important detail to share: we received a tip from the executive vice president of corporate security at British Aero that an employee in the drone division may have been involved in a classified incident that took place earlier today. After the incident, this gentleman fled and is currently hiding out inside Afghan Importers. Our electronics forensics team has found damning evidence in cyberspace and on his personal computer linking him to al Qadar.”

“So, we’re finally going to get the bastard,” Riker said with a toothy grin.

“It’s not Nadar,” McLean said with a grimace. “His name is Arham Khan, and he is one of Nadar’s direct reports.”

“Oh, for shit’s sake,” Riker said. “How much more proof do you blue bloods need to black bag Nadar?”

McLean sighed. “I feel your pain, old boy, but we have to take it one step at a time.”

“That makes this raid a capture op,” Chunk said. “We need this guy alive. He’s our best shot at connecting Nadar to al Qadar.”

“Agreed,” McLean said, as he piloted the van over the bridge across the Thames. “Which is why we have the green light to hit Afghan Importers tonight. So long as you and the SBS succeed, I would expect to get Khan talking by morning. If that happens, we should be able to take Nadar into custody before lunch.”

Chunk nodded and genuinely smiled for the first time since they’d arrived.

Hang on, Heels . . . Just a little bit longer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

new malden, united kingdom

2115 local time

Qasim sat on a park bench by the traffic circle where Kingston met High Street and watched the cars go round. He’d had the Uber driver drop him here instead of at his flat. He wasn’t ready to go home. He wasn’t ready to face Diba with her concerned eyes and her gentle, probing questions. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, he needed to be alone.

He needed to think.

It would be a very long and stressful night.

His soul ached for Arham.

Is this how Eshan felt when he manipulated me into going to the warehouse in Mingora? Did he feel the same guilt playing upon my naivety, exploiting our friendship, capitalizing on my trust? I took Arham by the hand and led him down a road of no return. Am I a monster?

He took a deep breath.

No. Arham has a role to play, and Allah will reward him accordingly, even if the boy does not understand this himself.

The secure messaging app on his phone chimed with a new notification. He had three unread messages waiting for him. He wasn’t ready to look at them. He didn’t want to know what new calamity had happened over the last hour.

Just a few more minutes, and then I’ll look . . .

Even if everything went perfectly and MI5 raided the spice shop and his trap worked, eventually they would piece everything together. He’d managed to stay a step ahead of them until now, but the wolves were closing in. Watching. Circling. Panting and licking their lips in anticipation of the kill. He harbored no illusions about his situation. Running was not an option.

Not anymore.

The caliphate is my cage.

Time passed and he let his mind wander, and in the wandering he found clarity.

A captain goes down with the ship . . .

He’d never understood the significance of that old naval adage until this moment.

Of course, it cannot be any other way, for a true captain is the ship, and the ship is the captain. The same was true for him.

I am the caliphate, and the caliphate is me.

One cannot exist without the other.

Strangely, this epiphany did not cripple him. It did not shake his faith. Quite the opposite. He felt bolstered. Reinvigorated with purpose. It reaffirmed that he had been chosen for this one true and divine purpose. If he failed, it would not be for lack of trying. It would not be for lack of courage.

Until he’d met Hamza, Qasim had never been a spiritual man. He’d never been a man of faith. His engineer’s mind could not understand why intelligent, rational people would put their faith in some invisible, silent god. But that was before his eyes and ears had been opened. He saw the invisible hand of Allah at work in everything that happened to and around him now. He felt its gentle pressure, guiding him onto this path or that. And he heard Allah’s whispers and encouragement in his mind whenever he was confused or afraid.

Like tonight . . .

Tonight, here on this park bench, Allah had reminded him of his destiny and lifted his darkened spirit. It was moments like this, moments of communion with his god, that he found the most rewarding.

Look how far I’ve come, Hamza.

He had been so afraid of being discovered. So afraid of being captured. So afraid of losing that he’d let that fear influence his decisions. Not anymore.

My destiny is in your hands, Allah, he prayed simply and silently. I am but your humble servant.

His fear and uncertainty purged, he finally checked the messages waiting for him. The first message was from the shopkeeper at the spice shop. Arham had arrived and had already asked to spend the night.

Good.

The second message was from Faraj. It included a picture from a security camera in the farmhouse, which showed the face of one of the operators who’d conducted the raid. At this, gooseflesh stood up on the back of his neck.

I know this man . . . He’s hunting for his partner, the woman.

Instead of feeling anxiety at seeing Americans on British soil, he took a perverse pleasure in the knowledge. At first, Qasim had been furious with Faraj’s decision to take the two female agents, but now Qasim saw it for it what it truly was—Allah’s divine hand at work.

I have your woman, you American devil. And you can’t touch me so long as I do.

He opened the last message from Faraj, and this message too had a photograph, an image Qasim had not seen before. It took him a moment to understand. The people in the foreground, a young couple smiling at a table, were nobody that he recognized. But in the background, he saw her—the Asian female they’d captured and were currently holding at sea. In the photo, she was working as a cashier in a restaurant Qasim recognized.

Nando’s.

The caption Faraj had included read: Image harvested from Instagram feed. Tags Nando’s in New Malden.

Qasim zoomed in on the Asian woman and performed a screen capture. Then, he popped to his feet and set off for home to confront Diba.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

somewhere

For the first time since she was a toddler in diapers, Whitney pissed her pants. She’d held it for twelve hours, maybe more. She’d held it until the pain was unbearable and she worried that her bladder might explode, flooding her insides with urine. She wasn’t a doctor and had no idea if bladders could explode, but it certainly seemed possible. So, she’d given up—or, given in—and let go. After, she’d felt so much better, but ever since, she’d been forced to sit in it.

When the terrorist leader came down to check on her, she could see him smiling behind his mask. This is what he’d wanted, to dehumanize her. He’d stared at the soaked crotch for a long moment before asking her if she’d like a clean, dry pair of pants. All she had to do was answer another question. She’d refused, which had earned her a narrow-eyed stare and the promise of future punishment.

That was over an hour ago, and thankfully he’d not come back yet.

Unfortunately, she was already feeling the need to pee again, which was crazy because she was dehydrated, barely drinking, and it hadn’t been that long since she’d gone. She resigned herself to hold it as long as possible anyway, although she wasn’t sure why.

Dignity, maybe?

The thought made her laugh. She was sitting in her own piss and zip-tied to a pipe. What dignity did she have left?

Dignity is a gift you give to yourself . . .

She couldn’t remember where she’d heard that, but it felt right. It felt true. She couldn’t deny her body’s biological requirements indefinitely, but like with all things in life, it was the effort that mattered. Sloth, selfishness, gluttony, laziness—these things were easy. Being resilient, being noble, being disciplined . . . these qualities were what separated the weak from the strong. It was the difference between the men of the Tier One unit and common street thugs.

Footsteps above snapped her out of her rumination and fear blossomed in her gut. The leader was coming back, and with him the promise of more pain and humiliation. Her mind kept going back to the conversation she’d had with Chunk and his dreadful comment about a torturer using pruning shears to lop off her fingers or her nose. The thought made her shudder. Disfigurement was where her resolve would crater.

The hatch in the ceiling opened with a loud clank. Booted feet descended the ladder rungs a moment later, and she recognized them as belonging to the asshole who’d kicked her down the stairs. She exhaled a shaky breath, dreading whatever abuse he was coming to inflict on her. When he reached the bottom, instead of turning to her, he looked up and raised his arms to receive a limp body that was lowered through the hatch.

Oh my God, Lucy . . .

Cradling the MI6 officer, the masked man shuffled over to where Whitney sat, handcuffed to the pipe. Lucy, who appeared to be unconscious, was a wreck. She’d been badly beaten. Her lips, both top and bottom, were split, puffy and lopsided. Her left eye was swollen shut, black and blue, and a trickle of dried blood ran down from her right ear. While the thug zip-tied Lucy to Whitney’s pipe, the terrorist leader descended the ladder and walked over to join them.

“Your friend has not been as cooperative as you,” he said, staring at Whitney. “She is still claiming to be an American, but I know her identity. She is Lucy Kim, agent runner for MI6 . . .”

When Whitney didn’t say anything, he continued.

“What I do not know is who in our network she is running. You see, Whitney, we know she has an agent inside our organization, but she stubbornly refuses to share this information. Maybe you can answer this question and save the both of you a lot of pain.”

“Qasim Nadar,” Whitney said without hesitation. Why she said this, she didn’t know, but somewhere in the mathematics of her subconscious, it felt like the right choice.

The lead terrorist froze for a moment, then laughed. Long and loudly.

“That is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time,” he said after getting control of himself.

At first she thought she’d messed up, but it was her captor who had unwittingly leaked critical intelligence. By laughing at the absurdity of her comment, he’d just confirmed that Nadar was an active and ranking member of al Qadar. She watched the humor dissolve from his eyes and saw it replaced with recognition of his mistake, then anger.

He slapped her so hard that stars filled her vision and she tasted blood in her mouth.

“Look at your friend,” he said. “That is what I will do to you if you continue to play games.”

He slapped her again, just as hard, and this time the blow brought tears to her eyes.

He paused, as if considering, but blasted her a third time, this time hitting her in the side of the head and smacking her left ear.

She yelped in pain and let out an involuntary whimper.

Ears ringing, she felt disoriented and shell-shocked.

“Self-righteous bitches.” The leader turned to his brutish, masked friend, and they conversed in Arabic for a moment before he said, “My colleague wants to know when he can have his turn with you. Would you like that, Whitney?”

She shook her head, tears running down her cheeks.

“When Lucy wakes up, I want you to talk to her. It is why I brought her to you. Ask her to explain the price of her belligerence. Make her explain what happens when you don’t cooperate. This is not a game, Whitney. Starting in one hour, it is your turn in the chair.”

She nodded but said nothing, then watched them depart and shut the hatch.

It’s hopeless, Whitney thought, staring at Lucy’s battered face. Chunk doesn’t know where I am. If he did, they would have already come for me.

Wracking sobs consumed her, inspired by pain, fear, and self-pity. She’d tried to follow Chunk’s SERE game plan. She’d tried to stretch out the interrogation with measured cooperation, making herself moderately helpful without giving up everything. But she didn’t have much in reserve. When they’d extracted all the useful information and sadistic pleasure they could from her mind and body, they’d put a bullet in her brain and throw her corpse into the North Sea.

In Mingora, when the Taliban had attacked her hotel, she’d been certain she was going to die. In the terror, she’d faced paralyzing fear and stared down death only to come out the other side whole. But that night, she’d had trained operators at her side—experienced shooters for whom violence of action was fundamental to their profession. Yes, she had fired a weapon that night and shot a man. She’d fired hundreds of rounds on the range in the time since so the next time she’d be ready. But this was different. She was alone and unarmed, with no Navy SEALs to take the lead . . .

Lucy moaned, snapping Whitney out of her rumination.

“Lucy? Are you okay?” she heard herself ask in a tender voice that reminded her of her mother. Of course, Lucy wasn’t okay, but that wasn’t the point of the question. Compassion and solidarity in their shared misery, that was what mattered.

“My face hurts . . . What’s wrong with my lips?” Lucy mumbled.

“They beat the shit out of you. Your lips are really swollen.”

“Oh yeah, now I remember.” Lucy lifted her weary head and met Whitney’s tear-rimmed eyes. “It’s that bad, huh?”

Whitney nodded.

“What have you told them?” Lucy asked.

“They know who I am and that I work for NCTC,” she said, careful to be consistent in case she was being filmed or recorded. She hadn’t seen any cameras down here, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. “And they know who you are, but I didn’t tell them. They figured it out on their own.”

Lucy gave a weary nod. “I suspected they did.”

“They think you have an agent in their ranks. They want to know who it is. The leader said he’s coming back for me in an hour and then it’s my turn ‘in the chair.’ ”

She watched Lucy’s expression darken as she swallowed with some difficulty.

“Did they rape you?” Whitney asked.

“Yeah.”

A grueling silence hung between them as the gravity of the admission made Whitney feel cold and hollow.

“I’m sorry,” she said, becoming acutely aware of the white nylon ties biting into her wrists. “I guess it’s my turn next.”

Lucy’s expression went stoic. “We’re not going to let that happen to you.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think we have much say in the matter.”

“When they come for you,” Lucy said, her voice a whisper, “we make our stand.”

“How?” she whispered back.

Lucy’s head sagged, her chin falling to her chest. The performance was so authentic that Whitney thought her friend had lost consciousness again, but then, lips barely moving, Lucy laid out the plan. “They’re going to have to cut your plasticuffs to get you off the pipe. You’ll have a two-second window to act. We’re going to work together . . .”

Whitney listened without interruption, and when Lucy was finished, she whispered, “Chunk told me that if I ever get taken, trying to escape has a low probability of survival. The best strategy is to persevere and wait for rescue.”

“He would say that, and in most situations, I think it’s sound advice, but he’s not here getting raped and tortured,” Lucy whispered, still feigning unconsciousness. She must have thought about cameras as well. “The longer we wait, the weaker and more damaged we become. And I don’t think our people know where we are, or they would have come already. So, we can’t count on being rescued.”

“I know . . .” she said, admitting the heartless truth for the first time.

“Okay, so are we doing this?”

“What if they both come down to get me?”

“Then we’re buggered,” Lucy said. “Our only chance is if they send the helper. He’s big, but he’s overconfident. If you do exactly as I say, we have a chance.”

“That brute has at least seventy pounds on me. Maybe more. He’ll toss me around like a toddler. There’s nothing I can do to him.”

“You’re right. You can’t win a fair fight against him. Your only chance is to hit him with unexpected, savage violence,” Lucy said. “Can you do that for me?”

She exhaled through pursed lips. “Okay, I’ll try.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

the nadar residence

new malden, united kingdom

2211 local time

Diba had seen very little of her husband over the past several days. It had been her new normal over the past four months, as he became an ever busier and more important man. But this was different. These days he shared little, if anything, of consequence with her, but she could tell when he was stressed. And right now, he was immensely stressed. As much as she’d wanted to go to bed, the little voice in her head had told her to wait up for him.

When she heard him fumbling with his keys at the front door, she felt a wave of panic surge inside her. She’d been lying on the sofa, swollen feet up on two pillows, watching reality television on ITV. Bad enough that her husband might find her lying around, but to be watching a show about non-Muslim celebrities—that was liable to enrage him. She switched off the TV and hustled to the kitchen to resume putting away the dishes she had washed earlier.

The door opened, and she heard Qasim drop his keys on the small table beside the door.

“Qasim? Is that you?” She walked to the kitchen door to find him waiting for her.

“Who else would it be?” he said, with dark eyes that no longer shone with even a glimpse of old Qasim.

Something is wrong . . .

“You look upset?” she said, swallowing and afraid to approach him. “Did something happen at work?”

He pressed his lips together and glared at her for a long moment before speaking. “Have you seen your friend lately?” he said, his voice now a low growl. “The Chinese one, who works at Nando’s. What’s her name again?”

“Soo Jin,” she said, then despite knowing better added, “And she’s British Korean.”

His lips curled into a truly disturbing smile. “That’s Soo Jin, the British Korean cashier who conveniently works at Nando’s and befriended you.”

Oh, dear God, he knows.

Diba’s heart rate jumped and panic blossomed in her chest, but she forced herself to stand her ground and remain calm.

“Well, answer the question: Have you seen your friend, Soo Jin, lately?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve not seen her in days.”

“How many days?” he asked, looking very much a like predator waiting for just the right moment to pounce.

“I . . . I don’t know,” she said.

“I bet I know. The last time you saw her was on the day that you panicked and went to the spice shop. Does that refresh your memory?”

Her mind performed a rapid risk/reward calculation on whether to try to maintain her original deception or tell him everything. Either way, for the first time in her marriage, she feared for her life.

“I realized on my way home that I’d never actually met your friend. You never invited her to the house and never arranged for us to meet out in town. To be honest, it didn’t bother me because I didn’t care about this woman. If you wanted to be friends with a server at Nando’s, it was okay with me.” He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and showed her the image taken off Instagram. “Is this your friend, Soo Jin?”

Diba nodded.

“Mm-hmm,” he said and then swiped to a new picture. “What do you think of this picture?”

In this image, Soo Jin was tied to a dirty pipe. Her face was battered and bruised, and her lower lip swollen and bloody. There were spatters of blood on her shirt, and her eyes looked glassy.

“What . . . what happened to her?”

When she looked up from the phone screen to meet his eyes, all she saw was a blur. His open left hand smashed into the side of her face with such force that he knocked her into the wall. She managed to catch herself and not fall to the ground, but stars filled her vision. The right side of her face burned with pain, and she tasted the coppery blood from where her lip had been driven into her teeth. She hugged her pregnant belly, suddenly terrified he might punch her—punch her in the womb where their son now squirmed from the sudden jolt.

“You idiot!” he screamed from above her, and she tucked her chin to her chest, waiting for the next blow. None came. She heard his feet stomp away and then return, and she braced herself again.

Qasim towered over her, looking down on her with all his height.

“Look at me, Diba,” he commanded and she did. There was no softness in his face. No remorse. No love. The angry man above her loathed her in that moment. She sobbed and felt blood trickle from her mouth onto the floor. “This woman is a British agent. She’s not your friend. Her job is to spy on us. To build a case against me so they can arrest me and lock me away. I know she confronted you. That’s why you went to the spice shop. Don’t lie to me.”

She opened her mouth, but her voice failed her.

“What did you tell her, Diba?” he raged. “what . . . did . . . you . . . tell . . . her?”

“Nothing of importance,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “We . . . we talked about recipes. We talked about London and the royal family. We talk about celebrities. We complain about being immigrants in England.”

“What did you tell her about me?”

“Only basic things,” she said again. “I told her you were an engineer at British Aero, and that I was proud of you. We only talk about normal things—family things. We talk about the baby most of all. She doesn’t ask about you. I swear . . .”

“Did she ask you to spy on me? Is that why you ran to the spice shop?”

She didn’t think, just answered the question quickly and on reflex. “No, we had a nice, normal conversation. It wasn’t until I was walking home that I thought people were watching me.”

He stared at her, his eyes like machines boring into her. She wanted to wipe away the blood from her chin and what felt like blood running from her nose, but she didn’t dare move. In that moment, she found herself wondering what level of violence he was capable of.

She feared for her baby.

She feared for her life . . .

“I am sorry,” she said, dropping to her knees and prostrating herself before him. “I did not know . . . How can I serve you? How can I make this right?”

He did not answer for a long moment, and she held her low bow despite how difficult the position was with her pregnant belly.

“I forgive you,” he said at last, “but there is a cost for what you have done. A cost for me and my mission, and now one for you . . .”

She kept her head bowed, wanting penitently for her sentence.

“It is no longer safe for you and my son here in London. It is only a matter of time before they come for us. Nothing must happen to my son; therefore, you will be returned to where it is safe. You are going back to Afghanistan.”

“Afghanistan?” she said, looking up in disbelief. Did he not know what was happening even now in their home country, after the withdrawal and the return to Taliban rule? Was he completely insane? “You would send me there despite the Taliban and all the violence?”

He nodded. “This is Allah’s will.”

She felt the overwhelming need to vomit but choked it down.

“Yes, husband,” she murmured.

“I will make the necessary arrangements,” he said.

“Where will I go?”

“To your home village to live with your father and mother until I summon you or return myself.”

“And what will happen to Soo Jin?” she asked, regretting it immediately. But the flash of rage she saw in his eyes was replaced almost immediately by something else. Something even more dark and terrifying.

“She will never hurt you again with her lies, Diba,” he said. “In a few hours, she will be gone forever.”

He walked away, leaving her on the floor in the foyer.

Diba remained on her knees, almost unable to move, sobbing as quietly as she could. She wiped her chin with the back of her hand and looked at her blood mixed with tears.

Blood and tears . . .

Is this my destiny?

No, I refuse to spend the rest of my days married to a monster.

And I refuse to be mother to one as well. If I have this baby in Afghanistan, my son will grow up to be no different than his father.

She placed a hand on her belly and felt her baby move against it. She knew what she had to do. She only prayed she had the strength and courage to do it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

east london, england

united kingdom

day five

0015 local time

Chunk stopped at the corner of Fieldgate Street and the alley that ran behind Afghan Importers. As he took a knee beside Trip, he felt Riker’s hand on his left shoulder. The fourth member of their squad, Saw, was out of Chunk’s sight line and moving to high ground to set up in an overwatch position. Less than fifty yards to his right, a four-man assault team of Special Boat Services operators were concealed in the shadows in front of the Maryam Center. The SBS assaulters hailed from C Squadrons and were led by a Royal Marine captain who looked familiar to Chunk. Of course, all operators—especially bearded operators like Gold Squadron and the men of the UK’s elite SBS—tended to look the same. If not for their accents, these guys could be any of the SEALs he had worked with for the last fifteen years.

The simple op, which was always best, had been put together by the SBS officer whose name was Ian Reynolds. Chunk was grateful for the opportunity to be included, so he hadn’t pressed or tried to take the lead. They were guests in the UK, and after last night’s incident, the SEALs’ participation in tonight’s op was more of a courtesy than they could reasonably expect.

In a nutshell, the plan was for SBS to charge down Greenfield Road and breach the front of the spice shop, while Chunk’s three-man squad provided coverage from the alley behind the building in case of squirters. Two snipers, a British SBS sniper and Saw, would set up in opposing corner positions on rooftops to cover the front and rear entrances of the spice shop respectively. If called upon by Reynolds, Chunk and his assaulters would breach the rear door. It all depended on what kind of resistance SBS encountered inside.

The mission objectives for the raid were simple: neutralize enemy fighters, take Arham Khan and any other leadership figures alive, confiscate all electronics and anything of value, stand security until MI5’s forensic teams arrive, and—God willing—find a fresh clue to Watts and Kim’s location.

“Vader One through Four is set at Jaguar,” came Reynold’s voice in Chunk’s ear.

A heated debate in pre-mission planning had erupted over call signs and checkpoints, resulting in the bizarre hybrid of Star Wars call signs and automobile brands for checkpoints. Once that had been decided, Riker and Reynolds had further debated the superiority of American cars versus British brands. SBS’s rank and home-field advantage had trumped at the end of the day, resulting in famous British car brands winning out.

It’s the little things that make this job fun.

“Vader Five, we’re MG,” Chunk replied.

“Eight is now Jedi One,” Saw announced, indicating he’d transitioned to overwatch. “Rear alley and entrance are clear.”

“Jedi Four in position,” came a clipped British voice, the SBS sniper. “Clear.”

“Vader One, this is Palace—we hold two thermals on the main level, both seated in a rear room. We suspect there is a cellar, but structural interface prevents us from getting any read,” said a young-sounding female voice on the line—the radio talker in the JTAC TOC. Her accent was clipped, proper British, quite different from the Scottish lilt he heard in Vader One’s voice. “You are a go. I repeat, the mission is a go.”

“One,” the SBS lead said, confirming the go order.

“Five,” Chunk said, in acknowledgment for his three-man stick.

He snapped his NVGs into place and circled his left hand over his head, then surged forward. In a low combat crouch, he scanned for threats and sentries as he led Riker and Trip toward the objective. The alley was full of parked cars and dumpsters, plenty of potential vessels for explosives or crouching shooters. Add to that a dozen or more darkened windows looking down on them from above, where a sniper could be hiding, plus all the innocent civilians cluelessly watching TV in their flats . . . This “simple” op was a tactical nightmare.

Man, I hate urban operations.

“Vader Five, Jedi One—alley is clear. I hold no movement. No signs of shooters in windows,” Saw said, as if reading his mind.

“Five,” Chunk acknowledged as he eased forward in his tactical crouch and rapid scan.

“Vader, hold. Vader, this is Palace, and I say again, sir, hold.”

Chunk gritted his teeth, took a knee beside a blue metal dumpster, and held up a closed fist to halt his team. Whatever the hell was going on, he refused to freeze here mid-alley for long. If an enemy sniper scanned the alley from a nearby building, they would be fish in a barrel.

“Vader is holding just twenty yards short of Bentley,” came the tense, irritated voice of the SBS officer. “Bloody hell, Palace, we’re exposed here . . .”

“One moment,” came the terse reply. “We have a vehicle that just turned north on Greenfield from Commercial Road two hundred meters from your pos . . .”

“I see it, Palace. We’ll need to leg it back to Jaguar if it keeps coming,” Reynolds said, then under his breath added, “I knew we should have blocked the bloody road.”

“The car is turning down Coke Street,” she said, relief in her voice. “Hold for three more seconds . . . All right, Vader, proceed to the target.”

“Roger, Vader One is on the move,” came the SBS officer’s voice.

“Vader Five, you’re clear to advance,” Palace said in Chunk’s ear.

“Five,” Chunk said and chopped a hand forward.

The alley behind the spice shop did not extend down to Coke Street like Greenfield Road did. Instead, it ended in a dead end where two adjacent buildings met. In this space, the alley widened into a small parking area deep enough for delivery vehicles to conduct three-point turns. Like the bottom of a backward-facing L, the little leg was where Chunk wanted to stage instead of directly behind the spice shop’s rear door, where the alley was barely wider than a car. Setting up in the L put them at a thirty-degree angle from the rear door, but he was fine with that. The firing lines were good and his gut just told him it was a safer place to be.

Chunk moved swiftly, eager to be in position before Vader One breached the front. He felt Riker and Trip moving stride for stride, flanking just behind him. Reaching the parking alcove, he whirled and took a knee in a partially covered position between a parked car and the wall of a building. Trip and Riker fell in on either side of him.

Any moment, the SBS team would call Rolls Royce, and then Chunk would wait for the call to breach the rear.

But the call never came.

Instead, Chunk was blinded by an enormous flash of light and deafened by the roar of an explosion. A sulfur-tinged pressure wave slammed into him and bowled him over. Acute pain flared in his left ear, and a distant part of him wondered if it was his left eardrum bursting—again. From his back, he looked up to see the impossible—a white van, windshield gone, sailing upside down over his head.

That’s going to be a problem . . .

Along with the flying van, a torrent of debris—dust, bits of wood, and large chunks of brick and concrete rained down. He rolled over and made himself into a ball.

Pain shot through his pelvis as something heavy landed on his left hip.

The van landed a microsecond later on top of the car they’d covered beside, crushing it and then rolling toward Chunk.

I’m a pancake, he thought as it dropped . . . stopping inches above his face as it became wedged between the vehicle it crushed and the side wall of the building.

“Hooyah!” Riker bellowed in Chunk’s right ear, his voice a crazy hee-haw. “I thought we were frogman roadkill for a second.”

Chunk spat, his mouth a coppery mix of blood, dirt, and grime.

“Trip, you all right?” he asked, rotating in place to turn to Trip who huddled beside him, pressed against the building.

“I love you guys,” the young SEAL said with a pained grin, “but not like this.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“I’m five by, boss,” Trip said, “but let’s get the fuck out of this car coffin before that van falls on our heads.”

Chunk blinked away the stars in his eyes, and they all shimmied out of the confined space created by the van, the parked car, and the side of the building.

“Vader—sitrep,” called the female radio talker in the TOC. Her voice now had a tinny, muffled tone to it—something he imagined was related to his own head and inner ear rather than the nearly indestructible radio.

He stared at the gap in the row of buildings where Afghan Importers had been moments ago. He could see straight through to Greenfield Road on the other side.

Had the SBS guys made it all the way to the front door?

If so, they were gone . . .

“Palace, Vader Five,” he choked, aware his voice felt and sounded raspy—sandpaper on wet stone. “Five is intact and in the fight. There was an explosion—the target . . . the target building was rigged to blow . . .”

“Yes, the building is bloody incinerated, Five. What is the status of your team?”

“Stand by,” he choked. He’d already heard from both Riker and Trip, but he turned to give them a look up and down in case they’d understated their injuries, as SEALs were apt to do.

“Seven is in the fight,” Trip said, but Chunk could now see blood streaming down his face from dozens of small gashes on his forehead and right cheek. The little streams of blood stopped and formed large drops on his chin, dripping onto his kit. Next, he turned to Riker, who was scanning the alley north to south, searching for tangos, without a mark on him. His clothing wasn’t even torn.

“Thanks for blocking the blast with your little fire hydrant body for me, boss,” the SEAL said with a grin over his rifle.

Chunk just shook his head.

Charmed son of a bitch.

A wave of nausea swept over Chunk as he stared at the remains of the building.

“Palace, Jedi One—I had no line on the front. Jedi Four, do you?” Saw asked.

“They’re just . . . they’re gone,” said the SBS sniper, his voice quivering with pain at the loss of his brothers. “Evaporated . . .”

“Vader Five, you are now lead. We have EOD and EMS en route and a team from MI5 as well as local police.” The voice of the female radio talker at Palace cracked with emotion. “I have C en route as well and our lead who will be there shortly.”

He assumed she meant McLean.

“We’re clearing the alley and then moving to the front,” Chunk said, waving his left fist over his head to move his crew. “Interrogate the perimeter. If this was detonated remotely from nearby and timed for the breach . . .”

“We’re looking,” came the woman’s voice, perhaps a notch more in control now.

“I’ve seen no vehicles pulling away or others egressing the area,” Saw said.

“Me either,” the SBS sniper said, “but they could just as well have triggered it from a nearby residence, or a drone even . . .”

“Alley is clear,” Chunk said. “We’re headed to the front to check for survivors.”

Anyone inside—including Arham Khan, their HVT of opportunity—was gone.

A little too convenient, Chunk thought.

Maybe the assault team had been the target, maybe Khan had been “martyred,” or maybe both. Thank God Watts and Kim had been relocated out of the city instead of held here.

What if they brought them back?

He shook the thought away as not only a distraction but ridiculous. Why would they do that?

He stumbled on some rubble, looked down, and barely avoided stepping on a forearm and hand—male, with the watch still on the wrist.

Son of a bitch. What a goat rope . . .

He sent up a little prayer that Watts was still okay, and if so, that she could hang on just a little bit longer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

somewhere

Whitney heard footsteps on the deck above and went rigid with fear. The most perilous moment of her life was upon her.

“You can do this. I believe in you,” Lucy said, her voice barely audible as she slumped to feign unconsciousness in preparation for their ruse.

Whitney nodded and began four-count tactical breathing to try to manage the fear.

From somewhere deep in her subconscious, a line from Dune bubbled up to the surface: Fear is the mind-killer.

She’d been a closet sci-fi geek in high school, devouring everything by Herbert, Dick, Asimov, Gibson, and others. The problems that humanity faced in the future always seemed to have more weight and significance than the corrupt power grabs and warmongering that dominated life on this earth. In science fiction epics, the heroes were fighting for something larger than themselves—for the evolution of humanity to a more meaningful state.

For transcendence.

Her concerns, on the other hand, were immediate. Base. Absolute.

Her legs were trembling beneath her as she stood, arms bound to the vertical run of pipe.

Fear is the mind-killer because fear is the great incapacitator.

Fear was racking her mind with doubt and making her second-guess herself. Fear was stealing the analytical part of her brain to generate alternate, self-preserving strategies that were not part of the plan. Fear was trying desperately to steer her down a less dangerous road. And on a primitive level, this made perfect sense—fear was trying to shift the survival calculus from fight to flight. She and Lucy had chosen to fight, but now, as the moment approached, the primitive part of her brain wanted her to scamper and hide, like a terrified little mouse.

But I’m not a mouse. I’m a—

Like sleeping lions roused to action, the yacht’s twin diesel engines abruptly roared to life, giving her a start. The luxury vessel shuddered momentarily as the props engaged and began churning water. Whitney, who’d done plenty of amateur sailing with her father as a girl, hoped the yacht’s captain had gotten underway to manage sea state rather than to transit. The surface action had been steadily picking up over the past hour and it was time to drive into the waves instead of getting tossed around.

Which is exactly why I have to fight. There’s no running, no hiding, no waiting the storm out. It’s time to be a lion, not a mouse.

The hatch clanged open and booted feet descended the ladder rungs, the same boots that had kicked her down the stairs. She wasn’t a religious person, but she said a quick prayer that menace had come alone.

A few moments later, her prayer was answered. She’d taken position on the side of the pipe closest to the hatch, which meant putting her back toward the hatch—which she hated—but it was a necessary part of the plan. Lucy, whose wrists were bound beneath Whitney’s, was lying sprawled on the deck in the middle of the aisle.

The man approached with an arrogant, sadistic confidence that practically oozed from his pores, as rank and offensive as body odor. He mumbled something in Arabic when he reached them and looked down at Lucy. Whitney couldn’t tell if he was concerned or pleased to find her in this state.

“Your turn,” he said in heavily accented English, turning to look at Whitney.

He was still hiding his face behind a mask, but the anticipation in his eyes was impossible to miss. His hand disappeared into his right front pocket and reappeared holding a pocketknife. With a flick of his thumb, he opened it, revealing a glinting drop point, serrated blade.

The ship’s bow angled up and crashed down hard as they took a roller, causing the propped open hatch to slam shut, making Whitney jump.

He laughed at her and pointed to her bound hands. “I cut your plastic now.”

She exhaled and stepped clockwise around the pipe to reposition her wrists toward him, then she angled her palms and fingers out to create space for him to cut the thick, black, plastic tie. At the same time, she shifted her feet into a more balanced stance with her knees slightly bent. He slipped his knife into the gap and tried to sever the binding with a single swipe, but the zip tie was too stout and the blade slipped off. With an exasperated sigh, he repositioned and began to saw.

Despite the growl of the diesel engines, she could hear her pulse pounding in her eardrums. Her mouth had gone completely dry, and her knees were knocking.

You got this, Heels, she heard Chunk say in her head. Give him hell.

One stroke, two, three, four . . .

Snap.

Lucy shifted below, drawing his attention, while Whitney capitalized on the moment. Hands unbound, she shoved the brute in the chest. Reflexively, he tried to step back, but Lucy had made herself into an obstacle behind his knees, and he dropped like a felled tree. He hit the deck hard and square on his back, smacking his head and losing his grip on the knife in the process. The knife clattered to a stop on the floor, two feet from his outstretched right hand. Operating entirely on reflex and adrenaline, Whitney hurdled her MI6 colleague and scooped up the knife while the man ripped the mask off his face and gasped for air like a fish trying to breathe out of water.

Gripping the knife blade down, she leaped on top of him and started stabbing. Stab, stab, stab. Her arm churning like a piston, she drove the three-inch blade into the soft spots, trying to put as many holes into him as fast as she could.

Stab, stab . . .

She was surprised how easily the knife went in and out . . . and even more surprised that the thought occurred to her while she was trying to murder him.

Stab, stab, stab.

He punched her in the face, knocking her backward and senseless for a moment. She blinked and rolled and realized she was lying across his stomach. She felt him moving underneath her.

The femoral artery runs along the anteromedial part of the thigh within the femoral triangle . . .

The information came to her—regurgitated from somewhere deep in memory, high school Anatomy and Physiology class, maybe. Her eyes zeroed in on a patch of his upper inner thigh directly beneath her.

Stab, stab, stab . . .

He grunted in agony.

Something slammed into her upper back, between her shoulder blades, causing her to drop the knife. She frantically scrambled to grab it while the thick, muscular body beneath her did the same. He bucked her off and she landed on her side. Her ribs flared in pain while she watched helplessly as his fingers picked up the blood-soaked knife.

Blood was raining down on her from the ceiling as he tried to stand. No, not the ceiling, from him. From his neck. Red-black stains were growing all over his torso and inside his right thigh, bleeding through the fabric of his shirt and pants. He clutched at the side of his neck with his free hand, and she saw fear and recognition in his eyes as his brain processed the extent of his injuries.

He gurgled and scarlet ooze poured over his bottom lip like dark water over a spill gate. He lunged for her, diving with the point of the knife aimed straight at her chest, but she rolled clear and he landed with a wet thud. He moaned and sputtered, then tried to army crawl toward her, his palms and knees slipping in the puddles of his own blood.

Lucy, who was on her feet now, kicked the man’s hand and sent the knife spinning toward Whitney. “Cut me free, hurry!”

The order snapped Whitney’s mind into focus, redirecting her attention away from the grotesque creature writhing slowly on the floor. She picked up the knife, wiped the slippery handle on her shirt, and ran to Lucy.

“Hurry, Watts,” Lucy said, as Whitney sawed at the zip tie, being careful and deliberate so as not to slip and open one or both of Lucy’s wrists with an errant stroke.

After the sixth cut, the zip tie snapped and Lucy was free. The agent runner took a knee beside the now-still body of their torturer and frisked him for a weapon.

“Damn, no gun,” Lucy said and looked at Whitney through her eye that wasn’t swollen shut.

Whitney extended the knife to Lucy. “Take this.”

“Are you fuckin’ mental? You were savage with that blade. You keep it,” Lucy said, scanning the engine room. “There has to be something else down here I can use as a weapon.”

“There,” Whitney said, pointing to a fire extinguisher box mounted on a nearby pillar.

“I guess it’s better than nothing,” Lucy said with a grimace and trotted over to the box to retrieve the chemical extinguisher. She pulled the pin and nodded at the ladder. “Let’s go.”

“Hold up—what’s the plan?” Whitney said.

“Simple. Get the fuck off this boat without getting shot,” Lucy said.

“And then what? Tread water until we get hypothermia and drown?”

“Of course not. We steal a life raft and hopefully drift far enough away they can’t see us.”

“What if it’s daytime? Life rafts are bright colors. They’re meant to be seen,” Whitney said.

“I’m open to other suggestions if you have any.”

Whitney pursed her lips. She’d not actually thought she’d survive the attempt to get free, but now that she had, stealing a life raft and drifting away sounded absurd.

“Look, Whitney, if this fire extinguisher was a machine gun, I’d say we could make a run at trying to take the ship,” Lucy said, “but it’s not. Which means our best play is to try and escape via life raft.”

Lucy was right. They had no idea how many terrorists were on the yacht, and most of them would be armed.

Then, in the corner of her eye, Whitney saw the ceiling hatch opening. She pointed at it and dove for cover behind the port diesel engine. Lucy followed her lead and crouched in a mirror image behind the starboard one.

“What is taking so long?” the voice of the leader called down from above, his voice barely audible over the din of the engines.

When no reply came, he started down the ladder.

Whitney didn’t plan to rush the ladder while he was climbing down. The decision was driven by some split-second statistical calculus in her subconscious which determined he was at his most vulnerable while descending. She attacked, leopard-like—emerging from cover, low, silent, and quick—catching him unaware mid-descent. She drove the stubby knife through the gap between two ladder rungs and into his gut. Lucy attacked a split second later, blasting the man in the face with a jet of chemical fire retardant which knocked him backward off the ladder. He landed hard on his back on the deck, momentarily stunned.

Teeth bared like a banshee, Lucy vectored around the ladder and continued hosing him down. He flailed wildly, coughing, choking, and trying to shield his face with his arms. When the extinguisher went dry, she bashed the butt of the metal cylinder into his face, flattening his nose into a bloody pancake. Without giving him an instant to recover, Lucy slammed it into his face again, and again, and again—destroying the terrorist torturer rapist with maniacal rage and fury.

“Fuck you,” Lucy said and spit a bloody glob onto the corpse’s chest.

“I think he’s dead,” Whitney said, unable to look at what used to be the man’s face.

Unlike the first terrorist, who’d been unarmed, the leader had been carrying a pistol which had slipped out and onto the floor beside him. Lucy knelt, picked it up, and chambered a round.

“Are you a good shot?” Lucy asked, her expression back to all business.

“I’m fair but getting better. You?”

“I’m a deadeye on the range, but have zero combat experience,” Lucy said.

“I think that constitutes combat experience,” Whitney said, gesturing to the mess of murder on the floor. “You keep it.”

Lucy nodded and headed for the ladder. On gripping the first rung, she stopped and turned to Whitney. “Did you happen to catch the layout of this ship? I was unconscious every time they moved me.”

She shook her head, which was easier than trying to explain that she’d seen nothing other than a flight of stairs she’d been kicked down.

“Okay, it doesn’t matter. We’re getting off this damn boat if it kills me,” Lucy said through gritted teeth and set off up the ladder.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

henry ward for ageing and health

st. thomas’ hospital, ninth floor, north wing

westminster bridge road

london, england

united kingdom

0202 local time

“Almost done, bro,” Chunk said to Riker.

“I need to get the hell out of here,” Riker said, eyeing the door.

The look on Riker’s face suggested that this was more than a request. He had the urgent look of a claustrophobic shoved into a coffin. Despite his bulletproof history on the most impossible of missions, Chunk knew the SEAL breacher’s kryptonite. Riker despised hospitals—had a borderline pathological anxiety about them. He didn’t even want to visit people inside a hospital if he could help it, much less be evaluated in one. There was likely a backstory behind the phobia, but Chunk had never been able to glean it. Add to that the stress of the ticking clock with Watts, the uncertainty of what these al Qadar assholes might do next, and the fact that he was watching Trip get his chin sewn up, and Riker teetered just shy of becoming a basket case.

Losing their newfound SBS brothers didn’t help either.

“Riker, dude, chill. It’s not your face getting sewn up,” Trip said, obviously just as annoyed as Chunk.

“Of course not,” Saw grumbled from the corner, where he sat cross-legged in a chair, arms folded on his chest. “Because apparently his skin is made from titanium.”

“And that’s the cruel irony,” Trip said. “No one would even notice a mark on his ugly mug, and here I am getting stitches in a face otherwise bordering on perfection.” Most of the small lacerations the SEAL breacher had suffered had been closed with simple Steri-Strips, but he’d needed a half dozen stitches in his forehead and a few on his chin.

“Which will go much faster and look far prettier if you stop chatting with your mates and remain still,” said the Royal Navy surgeon closing up the last laceration on Trip’s chin.

Chunk rolled his head on a stiff neck, grateful to have learned that his eardrum had not, in fact, been ruptured. His hearing had returned nearly to normal over the last few hours, though he couldn’t get rid of the background hum annoying him since the blast.

The geriatric ward sat on the ninth floor of the city hospital, barely a half mile north of the SIS headquarters in Vauxhall, off Lambeth Palace Road and directly across the Thames River from the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. The twenty-eight room ward held another secret. In very James Bond–like fashion, behind the geriatric ward was another, closely kept secret ward—and emergency room of sorts—for members of the military and civilian covert operations teams operating in London with MI5 and MI6. Complete with treatment rooms, a lab, a small radiology suite, and a CAT scanner, the ward even had an elevator leading directly to a trauma OR in the operating suites several floors below them.

“Any word on Patten?” Chunk asked, and the question quieted the team.

They’d been shocked to learn that two of the SBS operators had somehow survived. When the first pair of breachers approached the front door of the spice shop to set charges, Sergeant Patten and Captain Reynolds had been providing cover from across the street partially shielded by parked cars, just as Chunk and his team had been. Reynolds had suffered multiple contusions and a face full of lacerations from flying glass and a blow to the head that left him with a likely TBI, though he’d been awake when he’d left by ambulance. Patten had been less lucky. The powerful blast had rolled the car he covered behind over on him, crushing his pelvis and leaving him with a flail chest and collapsed lung. He had been in surgery since their arrival.

“He’s still in the operating theater,” the Navy doc said, putting Steri-Strips now on Trip’s chin and pulling away the blue drape. “I know they had to remove his spleen, that he had some bleeding in his liver that they were able to stop, and a contusion to his kidney. He was stable last I heard, but the bone doctors are caging his pelvis now. Lots of blood loss, but it appears that’s mostly behind him.”

“When can we leave?” Riker asked, his voice insistent, but somber and respectful at the update of the British operator.

“I’ll have your CT scans looked at straightaway,” the doc said, snapping off surgical gloves and tossing them in a round silver trash can by his feet. “You all seem otherwise all right, though I suggest taking it easy a few days, no matter what the CAT scans show.”

“We’re done here, fellas,” Chunk said. “It’s time to find McLean and get an update on what the techs found at the site.”

They didn’t have to go far. McLean was waiting for them, pacing, just outside the door to the surgery suite.

“All stitched up?” the MI5 officer asked, his voice pleasant enough but unable to hide the emotional burden he was carrying as things kept going from bad to worse.

“We’re fine,” Chunk said, “and Patten and Reynolds will be too, eventually.”

McLean nodded then gestured for Chunk and his boys to take a seat. The waiting room was deserted, and since they were in a secret ward, they were probably nearly as secure as being in a SCIF. Once everyone was seated and looking at him, McLean began.

“Here’s where we are. It appears there were only two occupants in the building when the charges went off. Arham Khan and the shopkeeper who owns—well, owned—Afghan Importers. We’ve confirmed both men’s remains via DNA.”

“That matches with thermal imagery from the op,” Chunk said. “What about the basement? Did the building have a basement?”

Asking the question gave him butterflies in his stomach because of the remote chance that Watts and Kim had been covertly moved back to the spice shop or the van that had appeared to drive them out of London had been a decoy. Chunk’s face must have telegraphed his thoughts because McLean shook his head.

“I know what you’re really asking because it’s been haunting me too. But on this front, I have good news. There was a cellar, but we didn’t find any bodies. Watts and Kim were not in the building when it blew.”

“Oh, thank God,” Chunk heard himself say, the words coming out of his mouth unbidden. The thousand-pound weight he didn’t know he’d been carrying suddenly vanished from his back.

Saw pulled a cross out from under his shirt and brought it to his lips, and both Riker and Trip exhaled with relief.

“We did, however, find something very interesting in that cellar,” McLean said. “This spice shop did appear to be a cover operation. The cellar looks to have been outfitted for cyber operations. The techs found the remains of server racks, workstation furniture, and lots of data cables.”

“But no bodies?” Chunk asked.

“No, and strangely, very little hardware . . . which leads me to believe that whatever cyber operation existed in this building was recently moved.”

“Because they caught Watts and Kim staking it out. They knew it would be raided, so they relocated the operation and set a trap.”

McLean made a finger pistol and pulled the imaginary trigger. “Precisely, Commander.”

Chunk scratched at his beard. “It was no accident that Arham Khan was there. Whether he went there as a martyr or a pawn, he was meant to die in that explosion. Those digital breadcrumbs you told us about . . . We were meant to find those.”

“Agreed,” McLean said.

“You said that MI5 was tipped off about Khan by someone at British Aero. Someone other than Qasim Nadar, correct?”

“Correct. The tip came from Nathaniel Worthington, the executive vice president of corporate security.”

Chunk snorted at this. “I wonder who tipped him off ?”

“I’d bet my right nut it was Nadar,” Riker said, in typical Riker fashion.

McLean let out the sigh of a man whose hands were tied. “I’m going to bring Worthington in tomorrow morning for questioning.”

“What about Nadar? Don’t you think it’s time?” Chunk said.

McLean ran his fingers through his hair, mussing it something terrible, and said, “There’s something else I haven’t told you gents . . . not because I didn’t want to, but because I’m not authorized to.”

Chunk perked up at this. “The thing is, Holden, none of us have very good memories, do we, Riker?”

“No, sir, we do not,” Riker said, putting on a straight face. “It’s a professional liability, so we pretty much forget everything we see and hear. How long does our short-term memory usually last, Saw?”

“Oh, a couple hours give or take. Never longer than the duration of the op,” the sniper said with a deadpan delivery.

“That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear,” McLean said and loosened his necktie. “Yesterday—er, I think it was yesterday; the days are all blending together now—the RAF was testing a top secret drone prototype called Valkyrie. This drone, I’m told, is very similar to your RQ-170 Sentinel drone—a jet-powered flying wing design capable of carrying air-to-ground missiles. In addition, it has a stealth design that makes it invisible to radar. Also of note, this particular model uses an advanced artificial intelligence architecture called Autonomy. I am by no means an expert on such matters, but as it was explained to me, this AI allows the drone to operate and conduct missions without a pilot.”

“Wonderful,” Riker said, shaking his head. “A flying Terminator.”

“Quite right,” McLean said. “And the one being tested yesterday disappeared during a live-fire exercise.”

“Disappeared?” Chunk said, screwing up his face.

“That’s the unofficial story.”

“What’s the official story?”

“That it crashed into the ocean,” McLean said, “but my sources tell me that no wreckage has been found.”

“Who makes the Valkyrie drone?” Chunk said, already knowing the answer.

“British Aero, of course, and Qasim Nadar is the project director. Arham Khan was the lead programmer. According to the RAF, Khan uploaded a software patch prior to the exercise.”

Chunk popped to his feet. “Holden, listen to me. What you just described is straight out of the al Qadar playbook. They know they can’t beat us with IEDs and suicide bombers. Hamza al-Saud was not your father’s terrorist. He was the next generation, tech-savvy and strategic. Can’t you see Nadar is carrying on his legacy? We never proved that it was Nadar behind the Kandahar Air Base attack, but he’s a drone engineer and was in Pakistan when that Pterodactyl drone was launched.”

“I remember,” McLean said. “Kim briefed all about it when it happened.”

“Look, Nadar is a clear and present danger,” Chunk said. “He’s brilliant. He’s diabolical. He stole the Valkyrie out from under your noses, framed Khan for it, and the next thing he’s going to do is use it against you.”

“I agree.”

“Then let us hit Nadar’s residence,” Chunk said. “I swear, it won’t be like the farmhouse. We’ll bring him in alive. You have my word as a SEAL and an officer.”

McLean shook his head. “It’s out of my hands now. JTAC is running the show, with the big bosses from MI5 and MI6 collaborating with RAF. I was just informing you of this development as a courtesy.”

“Please tell me that someone in your chain has the balls to bring this guy in?” Chunk said, his voice practically pleading.

“I know it’s not happening with the speed you’d like, but a plan is in place. British Aero’s security division is working the night to review both Nadar’s and Khan’s work computers and the Valkyrie code. Nadar has not been informed of this, and Worthington is going to pretend that we’re only looking into Khan. Nadar’s work mobile is being monitored by GCHQ. According to his calendar, Nadar is scheduled for meetings all morning in New Malden with BA management to debrief the Valkyrie incident. He has a council meeting with the mayor of London tomorrow at 1115. His passport has been flagged, and he will be detained if he tries to leave the country. We know exactly where Nadar is going to be and when. C wants to take the morning to dot all our i’s and cross our t’s, but after that, I’m told he will give the green light for Nadar to be quietly detained.”

“So, you’re going to let a known terrorist continue to wander around London, rub elbows with the mayor, and hope nothing terrible happens? Is that what I’m hearing?” Chunk said, a raging fire burning in his chest.

“Suspected terrorist, Commander,” McLean said with sarcasm so thick you could spread it like butter. “And yes, until I’m directed otherwise, the plan is the plan.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

the engine room

Whitney watched from below as Lucy climbed the ladder leading out of the engine room.

Just below the open hatch, Lucy paused, shifted her index finger onto the trigger, and quickly popped her head out for a look. She ducked down low and mouthed the word “clear” before climbing completely out. Whitney closed the knife, slipped it into her pocket, and climbed out of the engine room. The passageway Lucy was crouching in was dim and rigged for night ops, with the only ambient light coming from amber accent strips along the floor and ceiling. If anyone entered the passage, they would be spotted immediately, but that wasn’t the point. What mattered was that it was night, which dramatically increased their probability of escape. Whitney climbed out onto her knees and eased the hatch shut without making a sound. Lucy gestured a hand aft, and Whitney nodded. But dancing lights on the wall ahead caught her eye.

Whitney held up a finger: Gimme a minute.

Lucy shook her head.

“I need to know,” Whitney whispered so quietly only two of the syllables were audible.

Lucy pressed her lips into an angry line, but Whitney crept low and slow down the passage toward a door, the source of the lights. Her pulse rate was back in the stratosphere as fresh fear blossomed in her chest. What she was doing was a tremendous risk, but if they did manage to escape and survive she needed to confirm this hunch.

When she was within a foot of the doorframe, she stopped. The door to the compartment beyond was shut, but there was a rectangular window at chest level. She took a long cleansing breath, then peeked for a two-second count. Inside, she saw exactly what she’d expected—a full-on cyber command center.

It appears al Qadar has taken its cyber operations on the road, or rather, out to sea.

The compulsion to look again nearly overpowered her, but she turned and crept back to where Lucy waited.

“Cyber suite,” she whispered.

Lucy nodded, then, sighting over her pistol, moved aft. They ducked sequentially as they passed two doors with porthole windows. Upon reaching the hatch at the end of the corridor, Lucy dropped into a low crouch with both hands on the weapon, ready to clear, while Whitney grabbed the door handle.

“Three, two, one,” Whitney whispered and pulled the lever to disengage the latch. At just that moment, the boat hit a swell and the bow rocked upward.

The weight of the hatch suddenly fell away from Whitney on the outswing and caused her to lose her grip. The heavy fiberglass door swung full open into the outside doorstop with a reverberating crash. Whitney winced as she stumbled into the cool night air on the yacht’s rear deck. Lucy was scanning for threats while Whitney gained control of the hatch door a fraction of a second before it slammed shut in the other direction as the boat crested the swell and tipped forward.

“They’ll have definitely heard that. Let’s go,” Lucy said as Whitney dogged the hatch.

Whitney dropped into a crouch and followed as the MI6 officer quickstepped in a buttonhook pattern—looping aft around the main cabin structure to the starboard rail, then forward. The sea state was rougher than Whitney had expected. Whitecaps reflected silver in the moonlight, and spray soaked them from head to toe as they advanced along the starboard rail.

“I don’t see a lifeboat,” Lucy called over her shoulder.

“There,” Whitney said, pointing at a white FRP clamshell-style canister raft mounted in a cradle to the starboard rail.

“That white box?”

“Yeah, there’s an inflatable life raft inside of it.”

Lucy stopped beside it, gripped the top of the railing with her free hand, and looked at Whitney with a befuddled expression. “Do you know how to work it?”

“I think so,” Whitney said, stumbling and catching herself as the yacht rolled hard to starboard.

Growing up, their family sailboat had a deck-mounted Revere canister raft on the bow. She’d never actually deployed it, but her dad had talked her through the basics. Thankfully, she had a detail-oriented mind and had been fascinated by the ingenuity of the system, so she remembered the lesson. Feet spread wide and knees bent like shock absorbers, she took position next to the canister as the yacht pitched and rolled in the increasingly rough seas. She talked herself through the process as she worked.

“First, you disconnect the free end of the painter line from the canister, pull some slack, and tie it off to the boat so we don’t lose the raft . . .”

This raft’s painter line had a handy carabiner clip on the free end which, after wrapping the braided nylon strap three times around the deck rail support pillar, she clipped to the line itself. She was about to start pulling additional line from the canister when she hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” Lucy said, stopping her scan for threats.

“Normally, when you deploy a life raft, the boat isn’t moving,” she said, realizing the conundrum they were in. “But we’re cruising at least fifteen knots.”

“So?”

“So, the raft is going to get dragged behind the boat and towed at fifteen knots. When we jump overboard, there’s almost zero chance we’ll be able to grab it. Also, the painter line could get sucked under and wrapped up in the props. We could get run over too,” she said.

“Okay, then we don’t tie it to the yacht. We throw it overboard, jump in, and swim to it,” Lucy said, nodding as she did.

“That won’t work,” Whitney said, dread settling in her stomach. “In this sea state, the raft would drift away from us so fast we’d never catch it. Even if we were Olympic swimmers, we couldn’t swim fast enough to overcome the currents and wind.”

“Then what do we do?” Lucy said, panic creeping into her eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said, gripping the deck rail with both hands and blinking salt water from her eyes. “I need to think . . .”

“Well, think fast,” Lucy said.

Finally, an idea came to Whitney, and as much as she hated it, it was the only thing she could think of.

“Listen up, here’s what we’re going to do,” she said, disconnecting the painter line from the deck rail support and undoing what she’d just done. “I’m going to pull out minimum slack on the painter line, approximately forty feet, and tie it around each of our waists. Then, we’re going to eject the canister overboard and immediately jump in after it. That way we’ll be tied to it so we can’t lose it. We’ll tread water until we’re clear from the ship, then we’ll inflate the raft.”

“What about getting run over by the boat and chopped up by the propellers?” Lucy said.

“When we jump overboard, we need to jump as far as we can and pray the current and wind drive us away from the boat and not into it. I think we’re on the leeward side, so we should be okay.”

“What do you mean, ‘you think’?” Lucy said, over the roar of the wind and waves.

“I’m an analyst, not a sailor.” Whitney gestured to the tempest of chaos all around them. “Can you tell which way the wind’s blowing?”

“No,” Lucy said and flashed her a mad, fatalistic grin. “All right, let’s do it.”

Pulling hand over hand, Whitney drew the painter line from the canister until there was a haphazard series of coils on the deck. Then, she tied the painter line around Lucy’s waist, knotted it, slid ten feet down the line, and looped it around her own waist twice, clipping the bitter end to the line itself.

“I’m going to disengage the pelican clasp to free the canister from the stowage cradle,” Whitney said. “It shouldn’t fall into the water, but it might, so be ready to jump.”

Lucy nodded and Whitney flipped the metal clasp, releasing the band securing the canister to the cradle. The top end of the band snapped into the back of her thumb as it let go.

“Fuck,” she yelped.

“You okay?” Lucy called, over the roar of the sea.

“Clasp got me on the rebound,” she said, shaking her hand in pain, wondering if she’d broken her thumb.

“Hey, what are you doing?” someone shouted from behind.

Whitney and Lucy turned in unison to see a darkened figure standing twenty feet away, holding a rifle. Panic and fresh adrenaline surged in Whitney’s veins as Lucy brought her pistol around and fired on the guard.

Driven by reflex, Whitney kicked the back side of the canister, dislodging it from the cradle and sending it overboard and into the sea. Meanwhile, the guard returned fire, sending tracers screaming past them in the night. The slack pulled out of the painter line and snapped taut, jerking Lucy by the waist into the railing.

“We’ve got to go now,” Whitney screamed and swung her left leg over the railing, while Lucy drove the guard back by emptying her magazine with a prolonged volley, buying them precious seconds.

Lucy climbed over the railing and turned to look at Whitney.

“Now,” she shouted, and they jumped in unison into the churning black ocean.

The frigid cold hit Whitney like a body slam, shocking her muscles and making her involuntarily exhale most of the air she’d gulped in during the jump. After a second to collect her wits, she kicked and pulled upward, breaking the surface as her lungs were beginning to burn. She sucked in a breath of air but also took a mouthful of salt water too, which she somehow managed to swallow instead of choke on. A swell lifted her upward and she scanned for Lucy.

“Lucy!” she shouted, frantically.

Not seeing her partner, she sank into a trough.

Then, a whitecap crashed over her and drove her underwater.

She kicked upward, at least she thought it was upward, but she couldn’t find the surface. Panic consumed her as she opened her eyes to look for the light. The salt water burned like hell, and she couldn’t see anything in the inky black. She noticed her right foot kicking air and fought to orient herself right side up. When her face broke the surface, she gasped, filling her lungs with both air and sea spray. Flailing and coughing, she battled to stay on the surface and breathe.

I’m so going to drown . . .

“Whitney!” Lucy screamed from somewhere, not far off.

“Lucy? Where are you?” she shouted, turning in a circle while treading water.

Another wave crashed over her.

She fought back to the surface. Still not seeing Lucy, Whitney remembered the painter line tied to her waist was also tied to Lucy’s waist. Hand over hand, she pulled on it—reeling herself toward her friend.

“Lucy,” she shouted desperately and realized that the MI6 officer must be underwater.

With every ounce of strength in her depleted body, she hauled Lucy to the surface, where Lucy coughed out a jet of water before sucking in a lungful of air.

“I thought I was fuckin’ goner,” Lucy said in between hacking coughs.

“We’ve got to get this raft inflated,” Whitney said, “or we’re going to drown.”

“Wave,” Lucy screamed, and Whitney sucked in a breath.

A split second later, a wave crashed over them, sending them under for a few seconds before they bobbed back up to the surface. Eyes burning, body freezing, and lungs heaving, Whitney grabbed the section of painter line connecting Lucy’s waist to the raft and, hand over hand, she dragged the floating canister toward them. When it was close enough to touch, she shouted for Lucy to grab onto it. Lucy complied and used it for flotation while Whitney maneuvered to the opposite side and slung her left arm over the top.

“I’ve got to pull all the slack out of the painter line before I can deploy the raft,” she shouted over the wind.

“Okay,” Lucy said, her skin pale, almost silver in the moonlight.

Coughing, choking, and panting, Whitney pulled what had to be a hundred feet of painter line from inside the canister until it finally went taut.

“I’m at the end,” she said. “You’ve got to let go so I can deploy the raft.”

Lucy nodded and let go of the hard FRP shell. She didn’t look so good.

“One, two, three,” Whitney shouted and jerked the painter line, but instead of activating the inflation sequence, all she managed to do was pull the case into herself.

Shit! I don’t have any leverage.

“Is it broken?” Lucy called.

“I don’t think so,” she said and repositioned to try another approach.

Floating on her back, she aligned the painter line between her legs and pressed the bottoms of her feet against the side of the case. As soon as she worked the slack out of the line, she yanked it toward her chin. This time, she had sufficient leverage to activate the internal inflator. A heartbeat later, the clam-shell canister cover popped open, jettisoning the raft. Compressed air inflated the raft in less than twenty seconds as Whitney and Lucy battled to keep their heads above water.

“You first,” Whitney said, hauling the bright-yellow hexagon-shaped raft with an orange tent toward them using the painter line.

Lucy nodded but disappeared underwater.

“Lucy!” Whitney shouted and grabbed the MI6 officer by the shirt before she disappeared into the black. “C’mon, you can do it, grab that strap handle and use the rope ladder to climb up.”

Lucy struggled to lift herself even part way out of the water before collapsing back into the sea. “I can’t do it,” Lucy said, and Whitney noticed that the other woman’s eyes looked glassy.

“Okay, I’ll go first and pull you in,” she said.

Whitney’s body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, but thanks to the rigid aluminum foot rungs on the ladder, she urged her legs to climb up and through the tent opening. She flopped over the top of the ballast tube like a seal and landed with a wet thud on the neoprene-coated, insulated fabric floor. Panting, she scrambled back to the opening and leaned over the ballast tube.

“Take my hand,” she called to Lucy, reaching as far as she could without falling out. When Lucy didn’t comply, Whitney used the painter line tied around Lucy’s waist to haul her up to the edge of the raft. “C’mon, Lucy, I can’t do this without your help. Reach up and grab the strap handle.”

Lucy did as instructed and Whitney grabbed her forearm with both hands and pulled, but there was too much dead weight below her center of gravity and Lucy slipped back down.

“Use your legs, Lucy. You’ve got to step up onto the ladder.”

“I’m trying,” Lucy said, her voice barely audible.

“There you go . . . just a little more,” Whitney said and heaved with all her might to pull the MI6 officer up and over the ballast tube into the raft.

They landed on their sides, facing each other, and Whitney started laughing. “I can’t believe we made it.”

A wan smile curled Lucy’s lips, but she wasn’t laughing.

Whitney scrambled to a kneeling position and began checking her friend over. “Lucy, are you hurt?”

“I took a round to the stomach,” Lucy said, her voice barely audible over the roar of the sea.

“Oh no, oh no,” she said, seeing blood pooling at the bottom of the raft in the depression where Lucy lay. Ocean spray surged through the tent opening and into the raft as wave action tossed them around like a cork in a blender.

She quickly battened the tent flaps to keep out the ocean, then scanned the inside of the raft for a first aid kit. Secured to a D ring on the internal perimeter strap, she found a cinch bag, which she untied and emptied onto the floor.

“Thank God, there’s a first aid kit,” she said, inventorying the contents. “It’s okay, I got this. I’ll get the wound packed, stop the bleeding, and you’ll be fine.”

“Watts?” Lucy said.

“Yeah,” she said, turning to look at her friend.

“I’m scared.”

“I know, but just hang in there. I’ll get you stable, then I’ll call British Coast Guard with the radio and they’ll pick us up.”

Lucy’s mouth was open, but she didn’t answer.

“Lucy? Lucy, talk to me,” she said, shifting over to cradle Lucy’s head in her lap.

Lucy didn’t answer.

“Oh no. No, no, no . . .” she said, tears mixing with the seawater on her face as she gently combed errant strands of wet and matted black hair from Lucy’s pale, pretty face. “Don’t go . . . please . . . don’t go.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

the raft

Whitney couldn’t stop shivering.

And vomiting.

And looking at Lucy.

The trifecta of human agony—hypothermia, seasickness, and grief. Her guts felt like somebody had ripped them out, stomped on them, then shoved them back inside. She’d never felt more miserable, afraid, and alone than in this moment.

It had been a brutal storm, but she’d made it through without the al Qadar yacht finding her. She credited the sea state and the darkness for their escape. After she’d given up doing CPR on Lucy, she’d immediately pulled the battery from the LED flasher on the top of the tent. After that she’d spent all her energy trying to keep the raft from capsizing, which it had nearly done on multiple occasions. Whether the yacht was actively searching for them she did not know, but she assumed they were. Maybe finding a tiny unlit raft in the ocean in the middle of a storm was harder than she thought. Or maybe they’d just assumed she and Lucy would not survive the storm.

Only one of them had.

The waves were still punishing, but no longer terrifying. It didn’t matter. The situation seemed hopeless. A fresh wave of nausea washed over her and she retched. Nothing came up, but it still hurt. Hours of dry heaving had offered zero relief. She clamped her jaws together to stop her teeth from chattering, which seemed to make the rest of her body shiver more violently.

How long until sunrise? she wondered. It can’t be much longer, can it?

The night had already felt infinitely long.

She’d contemplated taking her own life several times over the last hour, something she’d never, ever, imagined doing. Lucy had lost their gun in the ocean, but even so, there was another way. A few minutes in the ocean, a lungful of water, and it would all be over. Yes, there would be momentary pain, but she could stop fighting. After, she could rest—a peaceful, painless, dreamless sleep in the ocean’s eternal embrace.

And Lucy wouldn’t be alone anymore.

She reached out and caressed Lucy’s cold, beautiful face. Lit by the light streaming in from a nearly full moon in a now-cloudless sky, her own trembling white-purple fingers matched Lucy’s deathly pallor.

There’s strength in death, she thought. I could be eternally fearless too . . .

“Heels, what the fuck are you doing?” Chunk said, his strong, confident voice snapping her out of the moment.

She popped her head up to look at him.

“Chunk? What the hell . . . How did you get here?” she said with disbelief.

He sat cross-legged in the raft on the opposite side of Lucy. Not surprising, he was fully kitted-up and using a toothpick to clean his teeth. “I’m a SEAL,” he said. “I go where I’m needed most.”

“I’m hallucinating,” she murmured and reached out to touch him, not trusting her senses.

“Oh, you want this?” he said, grinning and offering her his toothpick.

“Ew, gross,” she said through a laugh.

“Good, you still got your sense of humor,” he said, popping it back into the corner of his mouth while he talked. “Of course, you’re hallucinating. But whatever. Here I am. We’ll do it together. All is not lost.”

“But it’s not looking good,” she said and let her gaze drift down to Lucy, once again drawn to the sweet seduction of death.

“Hey, don’t look at her. Look at me,” he said.

She lifted her gaze and studied him. She knew he had to be a hallucination, but he looked so real. Every detail was perfect, down to the little patch of blondish hair flanking his chin in his otherwise brown beard and the way his left eye squinted just a little bit more than the right. He put his palms on the raft floor and pushed down a couple of times, rocking the boat.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Does this feel a little squishy to you?”

She shrugged. “It’s a raft.”

“When’s the last time you heard the regulator hiss on the compressed air cylinder?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It auto-inflates to keep the pressure up. You heard it going off for hours. When’s the last time you heard it hiss, Heels?”

“I don’t know . . . a while,” she said, his comment jump-starting the dead battery that was her brain. “Which means the canister is out of air.”

Something clicked into place for her. Chunk was more than a hallucination. His appearance, his voice—they were her inner, logical, mathematical self, vying for her attention with details her subconscious needed desperately to get in front of her.

“Yep,” he said from that part of her mind, chewing the toothpick. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re losing air. You’ve probably got a small leak somewhere. Bad seam or a tiny hole . . .”

Cold dread washed over her. “Oh fuck . . .”

“Yeah, it’s not good.”

“What do I do?” she said, panic replacing the dread.

“Have you done an inventory of that emergency kit you dumped out?”

“No.”

“Well, get to it. There’s probably a patch kit,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

In a moment of thoughtless panic, she’d dumped everything out of the cinch bag. Now those items laid scattered about the inside of the raft. Some items were floating on the water the raft had taken on during the storm, while others had settled into the crevice between the floor and the bottom inner tube at various places along the perimeter. Despite the moonlight, it was too dark to see into the water inside the tented raft. She scooped up the cinch bag first, then methodically started picking up the items and holding each up in a shaft of moonlight, talking as she did:

“Flashlight, perfect. I need that most of all. Paddles, a bucket with a handle—”

“That’s a bailer,” Chunk said, interrupting her. “You should use that to get some of this water out. It’s sapping your heat and the extra weight will just make the raft sink faster.”

“Noted.” Clicking on the flashlight, she spotted a knife in a floating scabbard and grabbed it. “Oh look, this could be helpful.”

“There’s probably food in that silver foil case,” Chunk said when her beam drifted across a floating mylar brick about the size of a lunch box. “You should eat to keep your strength up.”

“I’d just puke it out,” she said, the thought of food bringing on a surge of nausea.

“There’s probably seasickness pills in that first aid kit over there,” he said, looking at her like she was an idiot for not checking already.

“I highly doubt that,” she said, grabbing the plastic box with a red cross on top. Using Lucy’s unmoving chest as a table, and holding the flashlight in her teeth, she opened the kit and inventoried the contents.

“Told you,” he said, as she found a foil pouch with eight individual doses of chewable Dramamine.

She took the flashlight out of her mouth and glared at him as she ripped open one of the little pouches. She popped the citrus-flavored tablet in her mouth and chewed.

“Give it five minutes, then start sipping water.”

“I don’t have any water.”

“There has to be water somewhere,” he said. “Trust me.”

She closed the first aid kit, shifted onto her hands and knees, and began searching the raft. She spied a clear plastic bag wedged into a crevice behind Chunk and fished it out. When she held it up, she saw it contained what looked like a dozen or so white-and-blue pouches banded together in a bundle. The top pouch read: Emergency Purified Water. 4.22 ounces. Five-year shelf life.

“See,” he said. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, Heels. Hydration is key in survival situations. As soon as that Dramamine kicks in, you need to drink.”

“Are you always this annoying in the field?”

“Only when I’m right . . . which is most of the time.”

She swallowed the little bit of saliva she had in her mouth, and it didn’t make her want to instantly puke. Also, the horrible, hollow, grinding ache in her stomach was starting to lessen.

“Dude, I think the Dramamine might already be starting to work,” she said, hopefully.

“It kicks in fast, but give it another couple of minutes.”

She nodded and grabbed a floating pouch drifting by her left arm. “What’s this?” she said and held it up. “Para rocket flares— Ooh, score.”

She shoved it into the sack and continued her crawling assessment of the scattered items in the raft. A glint of reflected silver got her eye, and she fished a chrome whistle from under the water and slipped the lanyard around her neck.

“This could be handy,” she said, her voice hopeful.

“What’s that there?” Chunk said as her eyes spotted a bulging royal-blue nylon zipper pouch bobbing along the inside edge of the inner tube.

“It’s a . . . patch kit!” she said.

“Jackpot! Okay, Heels, listen up, remember when you were a kid and you used to play in the bathtub with your little toys, and you’d take them underwater and watch the air bubbles would come dribbling out.”

“How do you know about that?” she said, turning to look at him.

He chuckled at this.

“You know I’m not really here, right? I’m just your mind’s way of trying to get you on target. You know what you need to do to survive,” he said, his Texas twang coming on strong now. “You’ve just been feeling sorry for yourself and slacking off.”

She blew air through pursed lips and suddenly felt tears pressing.

“I’m going to pretend you’re real,” she said, looking at him. “That would be better for me.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” he said with a grin. “No pun intended.”

She chuckled and sloshed her way around to the bundle of water packets. Her nausea and dizziness were definitely on the retreat now. Feeling good enough to drink, she tore open the foil top of the water pouch and poured it into her mouth. The water tasted metallic and a little stale, but getting the salt tinge out of her mouth was a huge morale boost.

“What were you saying before, about bath time when I was a kid?” she asked after finishing the four-ounce sleeve of water.

“Bubbles, Heels,” he said gesturing in a circle around the inside of the raft. “Look for bubbles, and that will tell you where the leak is.”

“Good idea,” she said and got back to her hands and knees to crawl the perimeter in search of bubbles using the flashlight. After doing a complete loop around the raft, she said, “I don’t see any, Chunk.”

“Okay, I was hoping we’d get off easy, but I’m not surprised. We’re in the suck,” he said, shifting the toothpick in his mouth to the other side. “Now, I want you to listen for the hiss of escaping air. You can also pour water with the bailer over the top inner tube. If you pour water over the leak, you’ll see it sputter.”

“Good idea,” she said and got to work scooping water from the bottom of the raft.

Methodically, she poured water with the bailer over the entire perimeter of the top inner tube, watching and listening for a leak as she did. When she completed one full revolution with no luck, she slammed the bailer down hard against the floor, splashing herself, Lucy, and Chunk with water.

“We’re totally fucked,” she said, noticing that the tent canopy was starting to droop and the raft was sagging in the middle much more than before.

“It’s all right, Heels, we’ll figure it out,” he said.

“No, we won’t. I’m going to die out here. Just like Lucy.”

He didn’t say anything, which caused her to look up.

“Aren’t you going to say something?”

“What do you want me to say?” he said, reclining against the inner tubes and knitting his fingers behind his head like he was ready to take a nap.

“How about some encouragement!”

“I gave you encouragement and you shot me down.”

“I thought SEALs never quit,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “I never figured you for someone who’d give up so easily.”

He winked at her. “I could say the same thing about you.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he fired back. “Now why don’t you put that ginormous brain of yours to work tackling this problem.”

She slowly nodded and her gaze drifted to Lucy. Eventually, the deflating raft would not be able to support them both. She needed to reduce the weight and stay afloat as long as possible. Once she was in the water, without a wet suit she’d succumb to hypothermia in short order.

“It’s okay, Whitney,” he said, his voice taking on a more tender and empathetic tone. “Lucy understands. It’s what she’d want you to do.”

“But they’ll never find her body. She’ll not have a proper funeral . . .”

“Her parents are both dead. You’d do more to honor her now, burying her at sea, than MI6 will in some sterile state funeral.”

“I don’t know, Chunk,” she said, taking Lucy’s cold hand in hers. “She’s my friend. She protected me and took the brunt of the torture . . . How can I let her go?”

He sat up and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I know it’s hard, but if Lucy knew that holding onto her would put your chance at survival in jeopardy, she’d want you to say goodbye.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. It’s time,” he said, looking from Lucy to the tent flaps.

“God give me strength,” she whispered, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, she grabbed Lucy Kim under the armpits and dragged her toward the raft egress. With trembling fingers, she undid the ties and flipped the triangular fabric flaps open and looked outside the raft for the first time since boarding. Moonlight glinted off black-gray swells which undulated all around her, and a cool breeze chilled her already cold and clammy exposed skin. Both the wind and sea state were significantly reduced from the storm, but the rollers were still at least five feet from trough to crest. Almost no whitecaps though, so that was good.

She glanced back over her shoulder at Chunk, halfway expecting him to be gone, but he was still sitting in his usual spot. He nodded, the message implicit: You can do this.

She’d not been to many funerals, so she’d probably mess it up.

“I’ve never eulogized someone before . . . I don’t know how it’s done,” she said, looking at her hands.

“Just talk from the heart,” he said. “That’s all anyone can ask for.”

She took a deep breath. Lucy looked beautiful in the silver moonlight, defiant and radiant even in death.

“We didn’t know each other very long,” she said, fixing her friend with a sad, pitiful smile. “But from the moment we started working together, I felt an immediate connection. It’s like finding out that you were the big sister I never knew I had. Strange . . . I don’t know if you were older or younger than me, but you were definitely the brave one protecting me. You made yourself the focus of the interrogation and took the brunt of their anger to shield me . . . at least that’s what it seemed like.” Tears flowing now, she started choking on her words. “I think if they hadn’t killed you, we would have become . . . really good friends. You’re an incredible agent runner . . . and a badass, Lucy Kim. I’m so, so sorry this happened to you . . . I’m going to miss you.”

She kissed Lucy’s cold, pale forehead. Crying, she half dragged, half lifted the MI6 officer over the top inner tube and into the ocean. With sobs shaking her torso, she watched the deep take Lucy.

PART THREE

“There’s no running, no hiding, no waiting the storm out. It’s time to be a lion, not a mouse.”

–Whitney Watts

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

al qadar yacht

french-flagged luxury yacht dauphine

the english channel, heading west

0444 local time

Fun Time was in charge now.

He hated being in charge. Hated it. Hated it. Hated it.

After the crazy bitches killed Faraj, Fun Time had become the ranking lieutenant on Dauphine. Yeah, there was the ship’s captain, Abdul, but he was a contractor. And stupid. Thank God, Laith had been murdered too, because if Laith was still alive, he’d try to take command, and he was even stupider than Abdul.

Fun Time hated being in charge, but not as much as he hated being told what to do by idiots.

After the bitches had jumped into the sea, a big fight happened between him, Abdul, and Payam, who was Faraj’s errand boy. Al Qadar was full of guys like Payam. Guys who thought they were hot shit and deserved to be the boss. But they were afraid of being the boss too. So, Fun Time won the argument and made the decision not to look for those crazy bitches. It was dangerous to have the crazy bitches on the yacht. The British were looking for them. What did these al Qadar fools think would happen when the Royal Navy came on the ship to find their women beat up and raped? Better to let them drown in the ocean.

He’d ordered all the blood cleaned up and dumped Faraj and Laith in the sea too.

No trace of murder.

No trace of bad behavior.

Dauphine is a rich boy’s party yacht. Nothing to see here, Royal Navy.

Qasim still didn’t know that Faraj was dead and that the crazy bitches escaped. The last time Qasim checked in, he had ordered Faraj to keep the girls alive as insurance. Qasim was asleep now, so Fun Time had a few more hours before he had to talk to that crazy motherfucker.

Qasim will go fucking insane when he finds out, Fun Time thought as he sipped at his Monster energy drink, spinning in his gaming chair in the cyber command center.

He hated Qasim, but Qasim was smart AF. Maybe smarter than Hamza, but with no charm. Fun Time missed Hamza, but Hamza never bought Fun Time a yacht for his cyber team like Qasim. If someone buys you a yacht for your job, then they the GOAT.

“Fun Time?” a serious voice asked behind him.

“Yeah, man?” he said swiveling to face Abdul, the ship’s captain.

“You still haven’t given me a destination,” Abdul said, his voice irritated. “Where are we going?”

“Away, okay. That’s where we going. Far away. As long as we have satellite connection, it doesn’t matter where we go.”

“It does matter because in two more days we’re going to run out of fuel!”

That got Fun Time’s attention. He’d not thought about fuel. “Hmm, good thinking. Where can we get petrol where nobody bothers us?”

“I suggest we head for the Bay of Biscay. That way, we can hug the French and Spanish coastline and make port when we need to. We can also spend time at anchor, which we cannot do in the Celtic Sea.”

“Yaas,” Fun Time said. “Let’s go. Bay of Biscay, all the way.”

Abdul made no attempt to hide his opinion of working for Fun Time, but Fun Time didn’t give a shit. He had more important things to do and slid over to his workstation next to the girl hacker who went by Kimchi Love. They’d been fucking for months, but on the yacht, she’d been crazy horny and was living in his stateroom with him. She glanced at him, and he gave her his best smolder face, which she responded to with an eye roll.

Party yacht, baby.

He shifted his attention from her to his computer terminal, which was linked to Valkyrie B’s Autonomy AI neural network via an encrypted satellite connection. Having this drone gave him a hard-on. Right now, sitting on the deck of the Dina Maltan, the drone’s neural network was active, processing data. The fucking thing was thinking! This was the future. He needed to learn this type of code. He needed to understand how it worked.

He wanted to talk to it. He wanted to talk to a computer that could think.

He didn’t care about Qasim’s stupid caliphate, but he had no choice.

Because without Qasim, there would be no yacht, no Valkyrie, and no Fun Time.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

the raft

Whitney stared down into the deep, dark ocean, even after she couldn’t see Lucy anymore. She couldn’t help herself.

So cold . . .

So cold . . .

“You should probably get to bailing,” Chunk said.

“Can you give me a moment?” she snapped.

“You’re shivering,” he said. “You need to keep moving. Get your core temperature back up.”

Angry, she grabbed the bailing bucket and went to work. It took longer than she thought to evacuate the pooled water at the bottom of the raft, but eventually she got most of it out. Turns out he was right, the activity was good for her, warming her core from exertion and giving her mind something to focus on besides grief. When she was finished, she grabbed the ties to close the flaps.

“Hold up there, Heels. You might want to scan the horizon for land or a passing boat before you close those flaps,” Chunk said, with a hint of sarcasm to his voice. “In case getting rescued is still something you’re interested in.”

She shot him the stink eye, then turned and stood up in the tent opening to get some height. She almost fell overboard as she did, but caught herself before tumbling into the sea. The raft was lighter without Lucy, but also less stable. Bracing herself, she scanned the horizon.

“See anything?” Chunk asked.

“Nope,” she said, ducking inside the tent, “but I can only survey about a hundred and eighty degrees. After sunrise, I’ll have better vis.”

He nodded at one of two plastic paddles. “I don’t know if this raft is going to make it to sunrise.”

“You know, it would be nice if you actually helped out around here,” she said as she climbed inside to fetch the paddle.

He reclined and spread out, crossing his legs at the ankle. “This is me helping,” he said with a Texas-sized grin. “I thought that was obvious.”

Grunting, she leaned over the inner tube and paddled to spin the raft clockwise. When it seemed like half a rotation, she stood up for another look.

“I think I see something,” she said, her voice cracking with hope.

“What do you see?”

“A flashing light . . . on top of a miniature oil well thingy.”

“You’re somewhere off the coast of Great Britain. I seriously doubt it’s an oil well.”

“Good point. I bet it’s a buoy . . . Yep, it’s a buoy. I can see it swaying.”

“How far away is it?”

“I don’t know,” she said, lifting her thumb to the horizon. “It’s maybe half a thumb tall.”

“Well, you’re pretty low in the water and buoys aren’t very tall, so for you to see it, means it’s probably less than a mile away.”

“Do you think I could row to it?”

“Depends on the winds and the current,” he said. “If the combination of the two is pushing you generally that way, then it’s possible.”

“I’m going to try for it,” she said, grabbing the stubby paddle.

“That’s my girl,” he said, still reclining and making no effort to help.

After ten minutes of rowing, she was panting hard and getting frustrated.

“How’s it going?” he asked, packing himself a dip.

“As it turns out,” she said, in between breaths, “rowing a half-deflated raft by yourself in the middle of the ocean with a single oar is basically fucking impossible.”

“So you’re not any closer?”

She held up her thumb and her heart fluttered when she measured the buoy at three-quarters of a thumb. “Actually, we are closer. Not much, but it’s three-quarters of thumb tall now.”

“Good. Get yourself a drink and keep after it.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know, if you’re not careful, I might throw you overboard like I did Lucy.”

He winced. “Me and sharks, um, we don’t exactly get along . . .”

“Then you better behave or you’re fish food.”

“Okay, I’ll behave,” he said and crossed his heart with his index finger. “Scout’s honor.”

They both laughed at this as she ripped open another pouch of water and treated herself to a protein bar from the food pouch she’d found. Thank God for Dramamine because her seasickness felt like nothing but a distant, terrible memory. Energized and replenished, she went back to rowing.

Time passed, and soon both her spirits and the skin on her hands were blistered and raw.

“This is pointless,” she said, collapsing against the inner tube next to Chunk. “After all that, it’s still only one thumb tall.”

He pursed his lips.

“What’s that look for?” she said.

“Listen to me. You need to get to that buoy, Whit, or you’re in big trouble. This raft is running out of air. Pretty soon you’re going to be in the drink, and without a wet suit, you’ll get hypothermia and die.”

She ran her fingers through her salt-crusted hair and combed the tangles with her fingernails. He was right. The raft was super squishy now and the inner tubes were deforming easily under the weight of her back.

“Maybe I can swim to it?”

“You’re not listening,” he said sharply. “Get up on top of the tent and row.”

“Okay,” she said, but didn’t move. She was just so damn tired.

“Pack everything you want to take with you in that cinch bag, and tie it to your body. That buoy is going to be home until somebody spots you. It could be days.”

With gritted teeth she did as instructed, packing the first aid kit, rocket flares, knife, water, food, and a thirty-foot length of coiled line into the cinch bag. Why the manufacturer of this raft didn’t include a solar-powered radio—the most useful possible piece of survival gear—was beyond her.

Idiots.

“I will definitely note this in my scathing Amazon review of this product,” she said with a slaphappy cackle as she looped the cinch bag strap across her chest like a messenger bag. She turned to ask Chunk how she looked, but he was gone.

“Chunk?” she said, scanning the raft. Panic flooded her brain. “Chunk! Chunk! Where are you . . . Please don’t leave me!”

“I’m out here,” he said a moment later. “C’mon, you need to get rowing.”

She climbed out of the tent opening and on top of the raft to find Chunk standing tall with his chest puffed out. Instead of his normal operator garb, he was dressed as an eighteenth-century British Naval officer in a scene straight out of Master and Commander.

He chopped a hand toward the buoy. “Row that way, wench. Double time.”

“Since when do you talk to me that way?” she snapped.

“Since you started putting words in my mouth. I’m not really here, remember?” he said with a smile.

She rolled her eyes, then squirmed onto her belly, squishing the tent beneath her as she got into position. After five minutes, it was obvious that rowing on her stomach was not going to work, so she shifted back into a kneeling position just inside the inner tube, the top of which was now only six inches above the waterline.

Shit . . . I’m not going to make it.

“For a math whiz, you sure aren’t much of a sailor,” Chunk said, looking down at her with judgment.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means why are you rowing straight at the buoy?”

She smacked her palm to her forehead. “Set and drift! How could I be so stupid? I’m getting set, so by pointing at the buoy, I’m not rowing the shortest distance between two points.”

“Exactly,” he said.

She stopped rowing and sat up. “The problem is, to figure out set and drift, I need two fixed points and all I have is one . . .”

“You’ll have to think old-school then,” Chunk said, straightening his Master and Commander officer hat.

She nodded and crawled back inside the tent to inventory the items she’d not packed in her cinch bag. “This and this should do the trick,” she said, grabbing a four-inch yellow sponge and the other paddle.

Feeling rising hope, she climbed back outside and sat cross-legged on top of the raft tent, squishing it down. Next, she cut a strip of fabric from the bottom of her shirt and tied it to the handle end of the spare paddle to make a streamer. Then, she raised it over her head to see which way the wind was blowing. No surprise, the wind was blowing toward the buoy, but with an offset to the left. On her right, she could just make out the faintest bit of glow on the horizon. Sunrise was coming.

“Okay, so that’s east, which means west is to my left and puts the buoy to the north,” she said building herself a mental map. “The wind is coming from, let’s say one-five-zero, so it’s blowing thirty degrees west of the buoy. Now, I need to see what the current is doing.”

She squeezed out all the water from the yellow sponge, threw it overboard, and watched.

“It’s moving with me because we’re both floating, but this raft has more mass and, with the stabilizers, more drag,” she said, trying to talk herself through the measurement process. Natural separation was inevitable, but she needed to speed up the process. “If I paddle, then I’ll get to see what it does relative to me . . .”

She elected to paddle with the wind directly at her back, approximately on a course of 330. As she did, she noted the sponge begin to drift away to the east.

“Okay, the current is roughly east, setting me east. The wind is helping me by blowing northwest, but I need to row more west to offset the current. I also could use a sail to get additional wind help, but I don’t have the time or the supplies to make one. So, the tent is the best I’ve got . . .”

Feeling proud and annoyed with herself at the same time, she climbed back inside the raft to let the tent pop up. The rate of air loss seemed to be picking up because the inner tubes were super squishy now.

“I’m not going to make it,” she said.

“Don’t say that,” Chunk said, back inside the raft and dressed in his Navy camo BDUs with a ball cap.

“They should have included a pump for this raft.”

“Yes, they should have.”

“I don’t want to get eaten by a shark, Chunk,” she said, dread settling over her as she got to work rowing, pointing west of the buoy and praying she made it before the raft sank.

“You’re preaching to the choir, but it’s not going to happen.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I won’t let it,” he said with a grin. “You see, me and the sharks have an understanding.”

“And what’s that?”

“If they’re going to eat somebody, they gotta eat me first.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

park hyatt london river thames

london, england

united kingdom

0526 local time

Chunk woke from the nightmare, panting and drenched in sweat.

He sat up in bed, checked the clock, then collapsed back onto his pillow. He’d gotten less than three hours and doubted he’d be able to fall back asleep now. In the dream, Watts was being tortured in a horror show of blood and dismemberment while Qasim Nadar filmed it all. Chunk shuddered at the gut-wrenching mental imagery and tried to nuke it from his mind’s eye. He’d always prided himself on his ability to sleep like a log in true blackout fashion. He rarely dreamed and wasn’t the type who took his worries and fears to bed with him.

But this situation with Watts was doing a real number on him.

He’d let her come here, with no questions asked.

It’s my fault she was taken.

Watts’s natural reluctance to conduct field operations had colored his assumptions about the whole thing from the beginning. He’d assumed she and Agent Runner Kim would be working from an office in Vauxhall for the duration . . . not conducting stakeouts of an al Qadar safe house without backup.

This had been a failure of leadership on his part.

Just like I’ve failed to mentor Saw, Spence, and Riker.

But micromanagement was not in Chunk’s DNA. He’d always been the type of leader that encouraged and empowered his people to take chances, think for themselves, and problem solve. If they fell down, he’d tell them to brush off their britches and pick themselves up. If they needed a hand to do it, he was always ready to extend his own and help pull them up. But once they were steady and standing, he always let go. Hand-holding wasn’t in a Navy SEAL’s vocabulary.

Now, lying in the dark and trying to purge the guilty nightmare from his thoughts, he thought he might understand. He could practically hear Bowman’s voice in his head:

“Leading by example is not your problem, Chunk. Your people will follow you to hell and back. Your problem is that you’ve become too comfortable letting your people make their choices by themselves and accepting their decisions regardless of what those decisions might be. Mentorship and delegation are not synonyms. It’s a nuance, but what your team needs most from you is tough love. They need your guidance, not your unconditional acceptance of their shortcomings.”

But hand-holding and micromanaging weren’t the solution.

The solution was much more difficult, time-consuming, and mentally taxing.

But I need to change.

I need to do better.

He snatched his mobile phone off the nightstand and texted Saw:

You up?

Check

Can’t sleep

Me neither

I’m going to hit the hotel gym. You game?

Yup, see you there

He didn’t actually want to work out. He was sore all over from the blast, but a run on the treadmill would clear his head and give him a chance to do something he’d been putting off—have a real talk with Saw. He changed into his workout clothes, grabbed his room key, and headed to the hotel gym.

Saw arrived at the same time. “Sup?” the SEAL sniper said.

“I can’t stop thinking about Watts and Nadar,” Chunk said as they walked over to a pair of treadmills.

“Yeah, me too. Chunk, help me understand something.”

“What’s that?”

“Why the hell don’t these Brits just arrest Nadar? It’s obvious he’s involved,” Saw said, his voice an angry growl as his treadmill came up to speed. “Bunch of pussies, if you ask me.”

Chunk nodded. “I think it’s for the same reason politicians get away with corruption and breaking laws, but when a regular person does the same shit they get arrested and thrown in jail. Like it or not, Nadar is high profile now. He’s connected with power brokers, like the mayor and the CEO of Britain’s biggest defense contractor. And MI5 and MI6 already cleared Nadar. Nobody wants to lose face and look incompetent or complicit.”

“So, their solution is to be like an ostrich and stick their heads in the sand? Act like if they pretend it’s not happening, the problem will go away?”

“Yeah, I definitely think there’s a bit of that going on.”

Saw cleared his throat and swallowed. “Fucking cowards.”

“That’s why bureaucrats ain’t SEALs.”

“Do you think McLean will stand for it? He seems like good people.”

Chunk nodded, pressing the up arrow on the treadmill to increase the speed from a jog to a run. “I agree. McLean’s our best hope, but I don’t know if he has the pull. He’s middle management.”

“Maybe we just black bag the guy ourselves. If they don’t arrest Nadar today, I say we disappear him tonight.”

“We already used our get-out-of-jail-free card, bro. If we black bag Nadar, we get deported, and he hires lawyers. Then, after he sues Crown and country, he’ll walk away scot-free and play the victim card. The media will eat it up. Back home, we’ll get our asses kicked because we caused an international incident and get booted out of the Tier One. I don’t know man, seems like a lose/lose situation.”

“Yeah, that will all happen, but not before we beat Heels’s location out of him.”

Chunk smiled. “There is that . . .”

They ran in silence, both men hating the situation they were in, but also powerless to realistically do anything about it.

“Hey, Saw . . .” Chunk said, forcing himself to take the difficult next step, one he needed to take.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to finish that conversation we’ve both been meaning to have?”

“You mean the one we haven’t started?” Saw said.

“Yeah, that one . . .”

“Sure. What’s on your mind, boss?”

Chunk collected his thoughts for a moment, then began. “I’ve been thinking about your future . . .”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

the raft

“I’m not going to make it,” Whitney said, eyes fixed on the maritime buoy, which was blinking at her less than fifty yards away.

“Don’t say that,” Chunk said, finning effortlessly beside her in the water. “You’re almost there.”

She nodded at the ghost-Chunk her mind had created. Sweat poured from her brow and the muscles in her arms burned like fire as she paddled desperately to reach floating salvation. The life raft had deflated to the point that it no longer supported her weight, forcing her to straddle it awkwardly in the middle. The sag caused the air to bulge in the front and back, creating a hammock effect which made rowing inefficient and difficult. Every instinct told her to ditch the raft and swim for the buoy.

“I’m going to swim for it,” she said, panting hard.

“No!” he snapped. “Without fins, the current will take you. It will be the last bad decision you ever make.”

“Chunk, I can’t . . . I can’t do this.”

“Get the line from your survival bag. Wrap it around the raft in bands to make it into a log shape. You need to force the air to be evenly distributed so you can paddle something streamlined.”

“Like a surfer on a board?”

“Exactly. Do it now.”

She swung her cinch bag around on her torso and fished out the nylon rope. She stuffed the stubby paddle inside the bag so as not to lose it, then got to work trying to do what Chunk had suggested, a distant part of her aware that it was her own subconscious, masked as the specter of Chunk, telling the panicked part of her brain how to stay alive. The stupid raft fought her at every turn, the air squishing this way and that as she tried to force it into a log shape. When she finished, she stretched out prone on top of it. The cold water momentarily took her breath away as the ocean water sapped the heat from her torso.

“Paddle, Watts,” Chunk barked. “Double-time it.”

She imagined herself as a surfer and paddled with alternating strokes, but instead of a longboard, she was riding a hot dog–shaped monstrosity bobbing just below the surface. At first, she made good progress. The swimming motion shifted the load to different muscle groups than she’d been using while rowing with the plastic paddle, but in short order fresh lactic burn set in.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed on.

“For Gold Squadron . . .” she growled, her voice a raspy sputter.

She rowed.

“For my parents . . .”

She kept paddling.

“For Chunk . . .”

Arms screaming with pain, she rowed some more.

“For Lucy.”

At ten yards, she realized she was going to miss the buoy by a few feet. She turned ten degrees west to offset the current even more.

“Dig deep, Watts,” Chunk said, practically shouting at her. “Paddle, paddle, paddle!”

With a warrior’s battle cry, she pulled at the water with long powerful strokes, using the muscles in her back to help augment her burning biceps and triceps.

Fifteen feet.

Ten . . .

You can do this!

Five feet.

Almost there . . .

Up close, the buoy was bigger than it looked from a distance. Painted bright mariner yellow, the squat, cylinder-shaped base had to measure at least eight feet across. The words “No. 1 Landing. Property of Plymouth Maritime Science” were stenciled in black just above the waterline. A rectangular metal tower—at least fifteen feet tall and topped with multiple antennae—swayed back and forth as the buoy rocked in synchronicity with the waves. A small white windmill spun on one side, and solar panels were affixed to the metal cage on the other. If she could just climb on the base, she might actually survive.

Lungs burning and arms on fire, she pushed her body harder than she’d ever pushed it before. Harder than she thought possible. She was a wild thing at the nexus of life and death, fighting for survival against the ocean—the world’s most unforgiving and indifferent foe. For hours, she’d battled the currents to traverse a distance that, had she been on land, she would have been able to walk in twenty minutes. With the wind at her back and a persistent paddling effort, she’d barely been able to keep a slight edge on the current. Now, salvation was an arm’s length away. She made a final frantic and furious paddle for the buoy. Her fingertips made contact with metal—nails scraping against the smooth, round base of the buoy as she and her raft drifted by.

“No!” she screamed, clawing for purchase like a mad woman.

One foot, two, three . . . it was slipping away from her.

Fuck it, it’s now or never.

She slid off the front of her raft and swam toward the buoy, kicking furiously and windmilling her arms like an Olympic swimmer. With a burst of power, she closed the distance and hit the metal base with her right arm. She looked up and saw a metal stanchion with an eye hook, a length of rusty chain attached and hanging down under the waterline. She grabbed the chain with both hands.

“Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you,” she murmured, shivering and bobbing in the water, tears running down her cheeks.

She clung to the chain, hanging in the water, panting and grinning like an idiot until she’d caught her breath. Then, she shifted her grip from the chain to the metal stanchion and tried to pull herself up onto the buoy. But she only managed to lift herself a foot out of the water before her trembling arms couldn’t lift anymore. It felt as if her body weighed a thousand pounds. She tried to swing her leg up, but the freeboard of the buoy was over two feet, too high for her to get her knee onto.

“Are you friggin’ kidding me?” she said, incredulous anger replacing the joyful triumph she’d felt just seconds ago.

“Remember all those times I asked you to join me for PT and you said no?” Chunk said, looking down at her from the buoy. He stood casually next to the metal tower, toothpick back in his mouth and in his familiar digital woodland BDUs, arm hooked casually around the metal frame. “I bet you wish you’d worked on doing a pull-up now.”

“I hate you,” she said, glaring up at him.

She tried to pull herself out again, but this time her arms gave out even sooner, and she sank back into the water. The shivering wasn’t helping the situation either. She exhaled a shaky breath and stared at the deck of the buoy.

“If you could give me hand, that would be great,” she said to him.

“I wish I could, Heels,” he said.

“What do I do? I’m so tired . . . and it’s too high. I don’t think I can pull myself out of the water, Chunk.”

He nodded and made a show of looking around the deck of the buoy. “I don’t know what to tell you, Whit. I guess I’m going to default back to my go-to response, which is I suggest putting that big brain of yours to work solving the problem.”

She nodded and tried to think of the conundrum in terms of physics.

I need a pulley or a lever . . . something to halve or reduce my body weight to something my arms can manage . . . but I don’t have a pulley or a lever in my bag.

“How do old and fat people get out of a swimming pool?” Chunk asked her. “Think back to when you were a kid.”

“They use the stairs or a ladder,” she said.

“Bingo.”

“But I don’t have a ladder.”

“Then you need to MacGyver one, because your legs are a helluva lot stronger than your skinny little bird arms,” he said.

She shot him the stink eye, but he was right.

That’s when an idea came to her.

“I wonder . . .” she mumbled as she hooked her arm around the chain and dug out the floating knife from her cinch bag. She removed the plastic sheath and eyed the four-inch serrated steel glinting back at her from the orange sunlight now peeking over the horizon. Then, she checked to see if she could insert the blade into one of the chain links. The fit was tight, almost too tight, and exactly what she needed. “I think this might work,” she said and ducked underwater to work the blade into one of the links two feet below the waterline. By rocking the handle up and down as she pushed, she worked the serrated teeth until the blade was wedged up to the hilt inside the link.

Grinning, she surfaced and blew out her breath.

“Here goes nothing,” she said.

“You might want to put that plastic sheath back on the pointy end,” Chunk said. “I’d hate for you to slit your leg open as you climb out and bleed to death.”

“Good thinkin’, Lincoln,” she said, using that stupid expression for the first and last time.

She ducked back underwater, put the sheath over the exposed blade tip, and surfaced again.

“All right, Whit, you got this,” Chunk said with a smile.

She nodded and shifted her grip up to the stanchion. “Here goes nothing,” she said and pulled herself up by her arms while at the same time finding the hilt of the knife with her right foot to use as a ladder step. She tried to step up, but the chain twisted immediately when she applied pressure. Her foot slipped off and she felt the plastic sheath rake the inside of her left thigh as she slipped back into the water.

Chunk tapped his temple and grinned. “Safety first.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said and repositioned for another attempt.

This time, she concentrated on pushing straight down with her foot so as not to spin the chain. It worked.

Augmenting her arms with the power of her right leg was enough to raise her torso out of the water and onto the deck of the buoy. The whole thing tilted immediately under the lopsided load, and she imagined herself looking like a bloated walrus on a too-tiny ice floe. Despite not wanting to move, she pulled her legs up onto the buoy deck and scooted toward the middle. The tower structure in the center of the buoy was nothing more than a rectangular metal cage. Three of the four sides were closed by X-shaped metal trusses, but one side was open, leaving access to a box with dimensions just large enough for her to climb inside . . . which she did.

“I can’t believe we did it,” she said, settling her ass onto a flat plate of steel and pulling her knees up to her chest.

“You did it, Heels,” Chunk said. “You’ve got grit—as much as any SEAL.”

Positioned ideally over the buoy’s center of gravity, she sat and shivered as it rocked like a metronome to the cadence of the sea. A wave of exhaustion hit her, and she felt her eyelids begin to droop.

“You should probably strap yourself in before you pass out. A big roller could dump you back into the sea,” Chunk said, but his voice was quiet and very far away.

“Yeah . . . good idea,” she mumbled, but she couldn’t muster the energy to open her eyes.

Despite Chunk’s protests and her better judgment, she surrendered to sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

the nadar residence

new malden, united kingdom

0626 local time

Qasim stared at the ceiling, wide awake and troubled.

He’d slept but not well.

A captain goes down with the ship . . .

He couldn’t get the mantra out of his head, so he’d stopped trying and let it repeat and repeat and repeat.

Diba lay beside him, but based on her breathing, she lay awake, feigning sleep. She was afraid of him now—terrified of what he might do to her. It was an unjustified fear. He loved her. She was the mother of his unborn son; he would never truly harm her.

The sound of her breathing gave him comfort.

He didn’t know why.

“I want to name our son Eshan,” he said abruptly, verbalizing for the first time the sentiment he’d felt for months.

The impromptu proclamation gave her a start and she jerked, then rolled onto her side to face him, her big beautiful eyes wide in the dim light.

“I thought you might,” she said.

He weighed his response. The name would be his choice, but maybe he should make her feel like she had a voice in the matter.

“Do you agree?”

“Yes,” she said and exhaled softly through her nose, an unspoken acknowledgment that his seeking her consent was more procedural than meaningful.

“The name means to trust in. Someone who can be leaned on. That is the type of man that Eshan was, and the type of man I wish our son to become.”

“It’s a worthy name. Eshan was a good friend . . .” she said, before letting her voice trail off.

And the man who recruited you to become a terrorist, he imagined her thinking.

A terrible silence hung between them until she said, “Are you going to meet with Mayor Sadiq today?”

“Why would you ask me such a question?” he said, snapping at her.

“I know you were excited for this meeting,” she said, sheepishly, “but after last night I thought . . . Never mind.”

Her probing nature angered him, but there was no point in striking her and ruining one of their last days together. Soon, she would be back in Afghanistan, and he would be free to lead the caliphate without her incessant prying.

He rolled out of bed and dressed in the dark into joggers and a T-shirt.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“For a walk,” he said and left her alone in bed.

Burner phone in hand, he walked out the front door of his flat and turned left. Once he had traveled a half block, he phoned Faraj. Voice communication was risky, but he had no choice. He needed to talk with his second-in-command. Much had gone unsaid between them using the encrypted messaging app. It was time for them to have a real conversation to discuss everything that had happened and how they would respond.

An unexpected but unmistakable voice answered the call on the third ring.

“Hey, boss,” Fun Time said.

“Why are you answering this line? Put Faraj on the phone.”

“Boss, I got bad news. Faraj is dead.”

Qasim’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“Those crazy bitches he took—they killed him.”

“Fun Time, this is no time for jokes. Put Faraj on the phone,” Qasim said, losing his patience.

“Not a joking matter, man. I am serious. They killed him, and Laith too,” Fun Time said.

“How is that even possible?”

“They’re MI6, man. Double Oh Seven—what do you expect?”

Qasim couldn’t believe it. He simply couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t angry or panicked. He was in denial. Complete and total denial. “Where are the women now? I assume one of them is pointing a gun to your head as we speak?”

“No, bruh,” Fun Time said, his voice entirely too chipper for the situation. “They jump into the fucking ocean in middle of a fucking storm. I’m telling you, they some crazy bitches.”

Qasim stopped walking and stared at nothing, his mind shifting into some weird, calculating machine. In a moment of profound divinity, he felt Allah enter his mind and he became a vessel. Brilliant insights and stratagems came to him and his mouth began giving orders for the final battle to come.

If I go down, then they go down.

“Fun Time, I want you to listen very carefully, and do exactly what I say . . .”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

plymouth maritime science center

westcott place

plymouth, united kingdom

0657 local time

Harold Partridge, whose name made him sound three decades older than his thirty-three years, arrived first to the office. Margery Beasley, zooplankton analyst, always beat him in regardless of how early he arrived. He didn’t know what zooplankton did to warrant such commitment on her part, but whatever it was must be very interesting.

Fornicating, he thought with a chuckle. If you’re a zooplankton, the ocean’s an orgy, I reckon.

He didn’t even know what zooplankton looked like, and truth be told, he didn’t want to know. He was a maritime Big Data man, and the L5 Deep Water Autonomous Data Collection Buoy was his baby. Deep-moored ten nautical miles south of Looe, L5 was equipped with a suite of sensors to measure a dozen atmospheric and marine parameters including air temperature, wind speed, wind direction, barometric pressure, water temperature, salinity, oxygen concentration, chlorophyll levels, turbidity, fluorescence, and nitrate concentration. The buoy collected data continuously and sent hourly updates via satellite uplink to the lab. It was also equipped with multiple camera systems which enabled him to spend way more time watching the ocean than he should.

But that’s because he loved the ocean, and he worried deeply about it.

Pollution, overfishing, warming, and acidification were slowly destroying the world’s most biologically diverse and least understood ecosystem. Data scientists like himself would be the ones equipped to save it.

That was why he’d gotten his doctorate in maritime data science.

He would make a difference.

He would get through to them.

If not today, then someday . . .

He flipped the light switch and moseyed over to his workstation, quite chuffed with himself for being first. He was convinced Margery slept at the lab, and he’d once wasted half a morning wandering around looking for hidden bedding stashed in some nook or cranny. He’d not found any, but that didn’t mean his instincts were wrong.

“Well, I’m first today, so take that, Beasley,” he said as typed his username and password into his computer.

After logging in, he opened the L5 data application. While it loaded, he wandered over to the break room to make himself a Nespresso.

“I think I’ll live dangerously and have a Ristretto today,” he said and grabbed a sleeve of black espresso capsules. He was normally a green pod Capriccio guy, but today he was feeling bold and would go for intensity.

The Nespresso machine whirred and chugged as it forced pressurized hot water through the little capsule packed with ground espresso and dribbled the juice into a tiny white porcelain cup he’d positioned beneath the spout. When it was done sputtering, he stirred in a single brown sugar cube and carried his one and a half ounces of liquid lightning back to his desk, only to spill it all over his shirt upon seeing the live video feed from L5 streaming on his monitor . . .

“Is that a girl riding your buoy?” Margery Beasley said from behind, giving him a start. He didn’t even have to turn to know it was her.

Where the hell did she come from?

Perhaps next he should look for a secret room somewhere in the lab . . .

“Uh . . . it appears so,” he said, staring, mouth agape at the live video of a young woman waving her hands and screaming at the wide-angled colored lens on the L5.

“Well, Partridge, looks like you better put a call into His Majesty’s Coastguard,” Margery said, her tone seeming to imply this was his fault. “Looks like we’ve got another nutter on our hands. At least this one has her shirt on.”

“Look, I think she’s trying to say something,” he said, squinting at the screen.

“Yeah, I think that’s pretty obvious,” she said with a chuckle. “She’s saying, ‘Get me off this bleeping buoy, you bleeping bloody data scientist.’ ”

“I don’t think that’s what she’s saying,” he said, turning to look at her for the first time. “Looks like she saying help, to me.”

“Oh, Harold, you really do need to develop a sense of humor,” Margery said and pulled up a chair.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“What does it look like? I want to see her get rescued. This is better than reality TV,” she said with an impish grin. “Now pick up the phone and call the bloody Coastguard. The poor waif is so cold she’s purple, for God’s sake.”

Harold nodded, grabbed the receiver on his desk phone, and made the most exciting and unexpected phone call of his professional career.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

park hyatt london river thames

london, england

united kingdom

0852 local time

Chunk had just slung his backpack over his shoulder to head for the lobby and meet the guys when his mobile phone rang.

“Commander Redman,” he said, taking the call.

A breathless McLean greeted him on the line, “You’re not going to believe this, but His Majesty’s Coastguard just picked up your girl Watts.”

“What! Where?” Chunk said, his pulse rate jumping.

“Apparently, she was clinging to a maritime data collection buoy ten nautical miles south of Looe,” McLean said. “They’ve patched her through; she’s on hold, desperate to speak to you, Commander. I’m going to connect you . . .”

“Do it,” he said, pacing in front of his hotel room’s massive picture window that looked down on the Thames.

“You should both be able to hear each other now,” McLean said.

“Talk to me, Watts. Are you okay?” Chunk said.

“Oh my God, Chunk, it’s so good to hear your voice. I don’t even know where to start . . .”

“Are you hurt?” he said, jumping into the pause.

“Not gonna lie, I’ve been better, but I’m alive and . . . I’m safe . . . and that’s what matters.”

His chest went tight hearing her voice crack and the tearful emotional release on the other end of the line.

“What about Lucy?” McLean said, his voice tight. “Is Officer Kim with you?”

“Is that McLean there with you?” she asked. Chunk heard her take a shaky breath. “I am sorry to report that Lucy didn’t make it. She was tortured, raped, and took a bullet to the abdomen during our escape. I . . . I buried her at sea.”

The line went dead silent for a moment, then McLean let out an expletive-laden rant that summed up exactly how Chunk was feeling.

“Ms. Watts,” a new voice said, making her presence known for the first time. “My name is Margaret Meadows. I’m with MI6 and the JTAC officer in charge of this case. I’m here with Officer McLean. I know you have just been through a horrific ordeal and this must be a difficult time to answer questions, but we could really use some answers. How in God’s name did you end up on a maritime buoy? We’re all very confused here.”

“I know, which is why I initiated contact as soon as I was aboard the rescue vessel,” Watts said and recounted what had happened to her.

Chunk listened as Watts confirmed that she and Kim had been taken while surveilling Afghan Importers, the spice shop in East London. She also provided the critical and missing piece of information that she and Kim had been taken aboard a yacht by al Qadar terrorists. She detailed her interrogation onboard, her harrowing escape, and her battle to stay alive on the raft. Then, she began apologizing for not being able to collect more intelligence during her ordeal.

“Listen, Watts, do not apologize,” Chunk said, cutting her off during her mea culpa. “Never apologize for this. Got that? The fact that you’re alive and managed to escape is all that matters. Do you understand?”

“I hear you,” she said, and he heard her sniffle.

“Can you give us any description of the yacht? Anything at all might be helpful,” Meadows pressed.

“I can’t tell you much. We were kept isolated, and we escaped at night,” she said. “But I can give you approximate dimensions and the few details I remember.”

She gave her best description of the yacht—size, shape, color, and general layout. She mentioned a large sundeck on the stern as well as an ornate gold scroll decorating the bow.

“Did you get all that?” McLean said, obviously talking to someone else. “Start with the location of the buoy where they found her, study the winds and tides and times, and work backward. Task every aerial surveillance asset we have. Scan the entire Atlantic Ocean if you have to, but find me that vessel!”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir,” a muted voice in the background said.

“There’s two other things I know that are even more important,” Watts added.

“What’s that?” Chunk asked.

“Before we escaped, I managed to sneak a peek inside some sort of command center on the yacht. It wasn’t the bridge, I know that with certainty because it was in the middle of the main deck.”

“Can you describe what you saw?” Meadows asked.

“A bunch of black hats sitting in the dark at computer workstations,” she said. “I only got a two-second glimpse, but it was a cyber operation for certain.”

“Commander, remember what I told you last night about the basement of Afghan Importers?” McLean asked.

“I do,” Chunk said, “and I know exactly what you’re thinking. What if al Qadar took their cyber operations to sea? It’s easy to raid a basement in East London. Much harder to track down and hit a moving maritime target.”

“Very, very clever,” Meadows said.

“Ma’am,” McLean said, likely addressing Meadows, “I know it’s a stretch, but what if this yacht was in the vicinity of the drone exercise, hacked into Valkyrie, and took control of the asset from the RAF?”

“Holden, you just gave me chills,” Meadows said. “I think you’re onto something. We need to find and commandeer that vessel immediately.”

“What are you guys talking about? What is Valkyrie?” Whitney asked.

Chunk didn’t give the Brits a chance to play the we’ll-read-you-in-later card, and quickly brought her up to speed on the “missing” drone and the theory that it was stolen, that Qasim Nadar was involved, and that it was potentially under al Qadar’s control at this very moment.

“Ms. Watts, while you were held captive, did you overhear or observe anything about the Valkyrie drone?” Meadows asked.

“No, this is the first I’ve heard of it, but it’s not my first time dealing with a rogue al Qadar drone,” Watts said, and Chunk could hear the fire in her voice. “But the second thing I have for you is just as vital,” she said, and Chunk heard that fire grow even more. “I can confirm that Qasim Nadar is involved with the cell operating on the yacht.”

“That’s incredible, Whit. Well done,” Chunk said.

“How do you know this, Ms. Watts?’ Meadows asked, her voice far more measured. “Did you observe him at the spice shop? Was he aboard the yacht?”

“No,” Watts said, but with no less conviction. “But during my interrogation, the man questioning me let his involvement slip. I’ll tell you more when I see you, but I can assure you it’s true.”

Silence hung on the line for a moment, and Chunk got it. She’d said nothing that would confirm Nadar’s involvement, but he knew her far better than the Brits. If she was willing to say aloud that Qasim Nadar was confirmed to be part of this thing, then it was the absolute truth.

“I want to help. Can you order the Coast Guard to deliver me by helo to your TOC?”

“No, Ms. Watts,” Meadows said, stepping in. “You’re going to hospital for IV fluids, treatment of your injuries, and rest. You’ve done your bit and we are grateful. We’ve got this quite in hand. Your only job now is to recover.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, I’m—”

“Hey, Whit, I’ve got to side with Officer Meadows on this one,” Chunk said, cutting her off. “As soon as you get an all clear from the docs, you can join the party. I promise. Okay?”

He could imagine her giving him the finger at this order, but her voice almost sounded relieved. “I guess I could use a little rest . . . but when you hit that yacht, I want to be in the TOC.”

“Roger that,” he said with an emotional grin. “And Heels . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re safe. Everybody in Gold has been worried sick. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come back to us.”

“I couldn’t have made it through without your help,” she said, her voice cracking.

“My help? All I’ve been doing is pacing a groove in the floor. What did I do?”

“I’ll explain later,” she said. “Just get those bastards on the yacht for me, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, “and I promise to make them regret the day they were born.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

the nadar residence

new malden, united kingdom

1019 local time

Reclined on her living room sofa, swollen feet propped up on a pillow atop the coffee table, Diba couldn’t pull her eyes from the television.

“. . . the Royal Navy continues to search the North Sea for remnants of an aircraft that crashed during an exercise earlier this week. The aircraft—which Channel 4 has learned was designed and built by British Aero Defence Systems—is a next-generation unmanned stealth drone that uses artificial intelligence to fly and operate without human guidance. Channel 4 has reached out to both the Royal Air Force and the defense contractor for comment, but neither organization provided new details.”

“This is your doing, isn’t it?” she said, addressing her absent husband, who at this very moment was driving into London to meet with the mayor.

That drone did not crash.

She knew what his job at British Aero involved. She knew he was a project director in the drone division. He thought he was so clever, and that she—because she was uneducated—was stupid.

But I’m not stupid. I listen. I learn. I pay attention.

She heard him complaining about the testing schedule. She knew he was going for meetings at RAF Coningsby. Now, she searched the internet to see where this base was and what it was used for. Most of the information was secret, but British Aero had announcements about the Valkyrie drone on the company website. They were proud of the program and needed to brag to the world that they would supply Britain with the next generation of advanced stealth drones. Yes, the specific details were kept secret, but she was not stupid.

This was the drone her husband was working on.

This drone had been stolen by Qasim, out from under the noses of the company he worked for and the military men who’d come to trust him. She didn’t know how he’d accomplished it, but that didn’t matter. Qasim had the will and the motive to see it done. He would use this advanced war machine to kill innocents and create chaos and fear. This would be his revenge for Saida, and his father, and Eshan. He would repay the wrongs done to him a thousandfold.

For days now, she’d been a woman standing at the edge of a cliff, resolved to jump, but unable to muster the courage.

I have to warn them. It is my duty.

Her anger at Soo Jin’s betrayal felt like something she’d experienced in a dream.

But I am awake now, husband, she thought, clenching her fist. Clearheaded and no longer willing to sleepwalk away my life in a world ruled by your lies. And I will not let you send me back to Afghanistan.

Feeling suddenly brazen and empowered, she got up from the sofa and walked into the bedroom to change. This was the moment that would change her life. A moment of action.

A moment of courage.

She changed into presentable clothes and donned her Nike trainers—the only shoes that comfortably fit her swollen feet. Qasim was probably having her watched, so she needed to be quick. From the moment she stepped outside their flat, she was on the clock.

Best to have a hired car pick me up in front of the house.

Using the Uber app on her mobile phone, she booked a ride from New Malden to Vauxhall Cross. Soo Jin had been her only contact with the British Secret Intelligence Service, but that didn’t matter. Everyone in the world knew of MI6 and where the headquarters were located. The famous building even appeared in the James Bond movies. Simply ask Google and it told you the address.

“I will go to the lobby. I will ask them to question me. I will ask them for help and for protection, and in exchange, I will tell them everything I know. I will tell them the truth,” she said, aware that she was rambling but also aware that this self-talk was what she needed.

The Uber app indicated the driver was eleven minutes away. If Qasim had installed spyware on her phone, one of his men would probably kick down the front door before the hired car arrived. She walked to the foyer, heart pounding in her chest, and paced. The next ten minutes were the most emotionally agonizing of her life—even worse than the walk down High Street after that fateful lunch with Soo Jin. Only by forcing herself to take slow, deep breaths did she manage to stave off a panic attack.

Precisely in sync with the arrival countdown on the Uber app, a black SUV stopped along the curb out front. With a steeling exhale, she slung her purse over her shoulder and walked out of her flat . . . leaving her hijab and her life with Qasim behind forever.

CHAPTER FORTY

henry ward for ageing and health

st. thomas’ hospital, ninth floor, north wing

westminster bridge road

london, england

united kingdom

1045 local time

In her dream, Whitney was on the yacht, bound to a pipe in the engine room. Only when she looked at her wrists, she didn’t see any plasticuffs. The boat was rocking, and she had to pee, really, really badly. Instead of peeing her pants, she held it because . . . she wasn’t wearing any pants.

Huh?

She stared down, perplexed at her bare feet. Instead of clothes, she was dressed in a paper-thin hospital gown which hung from her shoulders like a poncho, decorated with little flowers.

What the hell is going on?

She steadied herself against the pipe and scanned for Lucy.

“Lucy?” she called, but no answer came.

A paralyzing sense of malignant dread crept over her, and gooseflesh stood up on her arms and neck.

I’ve got to get out of here.

She crept to the ladder leading out of the engine room. The ladder rungs chilled her feet as she climbed to the closed hatch overhead. She expected it to be locked, but when she pushed, it lifted and opened easily on its hinges. Heart pounding, she peeked her head into the corridor and scanned for threats. Instead of terrorists, she saw Lucy, crouching and holding a pistol. The MI6 officer’s skin was ghost gray, and her glossy black hair was wet and crusted with salt. She looked like a corpse. A massive crimson stain discolored Lucy’s blouse where she’d been shot in the abdomen.

“Hurry,” Lucy whispered. “They’re coming.”

Whitney nodded and climbed up into the corridor, but dancing light in her peripheral vision caught her eye. She turned and looked down the corridor.

“I think that’s their cyber hub,” she said, glancing back at Lucy. “I need to check it out.”

But instead of Lucy, Chunk crouched in the hall and was waving for her to follow. “There’s no time,” he said. “C’mon, the raft is this way.”

“I have to do this,” she said, shaking her head. “Wait for me.”

He frowned at her, then vanished.

She turned back to the lights and crept down the hall. When she reached the door to the terrorist command center, instead of peeking inside, she turned the doorknob and brazenly walked into . . . the OGA drone annex on the Kandahar Air Base in Afghanistan.

What the hell?

“There she is,” Paul Bertrand said, walking up to greet her. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Paul, is that really you?” she said, screwing up her face as she shook hands with the CIA mission planner.

“In the flesh,” he said in his down east Maine accent. “Your lips are purple. Do you want to borrow a sweater?”

“What? No,” she said, her head spinning. Why was she reliving this situation? She checked the digital clock on the wall. An al Qadar drone attack on the compound was imminent, but there was still time. “Paul, I need to tell you something important.”

She tried to warn him of the incoming threat, but Bobby Theobald appeared out of nowhere to interrupt and greet her with a warm hug. When she tried a third time to warn them, both men just laughed and carried on making pointless small talk. Their voices blurred together into an incomprehensible din, and the room began to spin. Heart pounding and brow dappled with sweat, she’d finally had enough and stood up on a table in the middle of the operations center.

“May I have your fucking attention please?” she screamed, turning in a slow circle and eyeing the crowd of spooks and analysts who were looking at her like she was a crazy woman. “There is an armed Pterodactyl drone inbound and we’re all going to die if you don’t shut up and listen to me!”

But it was too late.

An explosion knocked her off the table as the first missile slammed into the compound, showering the room with fire and shrapnel . . .

Whitney sat bolt upright in bed.

Confused and disoriented, she scanned the room.

A middle-aged woman in light-blue scrubs with navy-blue piping stood with her hand to her chest. “Oh, good Lord,” the British woman said. “You scared the dickens out of me.”

“Where am I, and who are you?” Whitney muttered.

“You’re a patient at St. Thomas’ hospital, and I’m your staff nurse,” the woman said.

Whitney blinked at the nurse, then looked down at the IV line in her right hand. “What is my condition?” she asked, her foggy memory grudgingly starting to cooperate.

“Well, love, you were dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia and had scores of bumps and scrapes, but no broken bones or internal trauma,” the nurse said.

“How long have I been out?” Whitney wiped what felt like a quarter-inch thick slab of slimy Vaseline from her lips onto the back of her left hand, on which the pinky finger was splinted.

“Nearly three hours.”

“Three hours!” she said, dread in her chest.

“Yes, but that’s a good thing, love. You needed rest.”

“I’ve gotta pee, like, really bad,” she said, suddenly and acutely aware of her near-to-bursting bladder. She threw back the layers of blankets covering her and swung her legs off the side of the bed.

“IV fluids will do that. Here, let me help you,” the nurse said and walked the rolling IV stand behind her toward the en suite bathroom.

“I can take it from here,” Whitney said at the threshold. “Thank you.”

After a marathon pee, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d looked so dreadful.

“Whatever,” she said through a sigh and returned to the room.

“How is your pain, love?” the nurse asked.

“It’s fine,” she said, scanning the room for her clothes. “I need to get to Vauxhall Cross.”

“You’ve not been discharged.”

I’ve got to get to the TOC . . .

“I know,” she said and extended her left hand to the nurse. “Can you take this IV out please?”

“I’m sorry, love, but before I can do that we need Dr. Thompson to take a look at you,” the nurse said.

In the movies, the hero rips the IV out of their hand and sprints out of the hospital—with doctors and nurses in the chase—to get back into the fight. She’d always found those scenes absurd, but in this moment that was precisely what she wanted to do. With a deep calming breath, she said, “Where are my clothes?”

“In a bin, under the bed,” the nurse said. “But like I said—”

“I know,” she interrupted, squatting to retrieve the plastic basket with her things. “I’ve not been discharged.”

Instead of the damp, salt-crusted, ripped clothing she’d arrived in, she was surprised to see a clean, folded outfit and fresh undergarments with a note written in Chunk’s blocky print handwriting:

Heels, I took the liberty of having someone pick up your suitcase from Lucy Kim’s flat. Here’s a change of clothes. Your bag and the rest of your things are at our hotel. I’ve also left a burner phone and a little something else. Speed dial 1 is my number. Speed dial 2 is Holden McLean. Speed dial 3 is Margaret Meadows. I know the first thing you’re going to try to do is run to the JTAC TOC, but please, please rest. We got this.

Chunk

“I could kiss you for this,” she said as she quickly rummaged through the stuff to find a Glock 43X subcompact 9 mm, a pancake holster with clip, and a burner phone. Grinning, she turned on the burner phone. As soon as it powered up and found service, she pressed number one on speed dial. The call rang five times and went to voicemail.

Of course, he doesn’t pick up.

“Would you like me to fetch Dr. Thompson?” the nurse asked from the doorway.

“Yes, please,” Whitney said, turning to her. “I need to be discharged as soon as possible. Lives might depend on it.”

“I understand,” the nurse said with a knowing nod, and only then did Whitney realize that maybe the woman had been read in, to a limited extent, on the situation.

“Thank you,” she said and pressed number two on speed dial.

The call was answered on the second ring. “Director McLean,” a gruff male English voice answered.

“Director McLean, this is Whitney Watts calling,” she said.

“Ah, Ms. Watts. How are you feeling?”

“Better. Have you found the drone?” she said, getting straight to the point.

“Unfortunately, not yet,” he said.

Unlike the drone that had attacked Kandahar, this was a stealth drone. It could be airborne and inbound to strike London and all the air defense radars wouldn’t see it.

“What about the yacht? Have you hit the yacht yet?”

“Ms. Watts, you’re not on a secure line,” he said. “We shouldn’t be having this discussion in the clear.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. But just a yes or no answer. Please . . .”

“We believe so,” he said.

The Kandahar dream was her subconscious trying to warn her. She didn’t have proof of course, but it felt the same. Nadar had to know it was only a matter of time. The walls were closing in around him and if he accepted that there was no escape, then God only knew what he would do. An angry man backed into a corner had a tendency to react with extreme violence.

“Ms. Watts, are you still there?” McLean said.

“I want to come in. I want to help.”

“I’ll send a car to pick you up straightaway. Phone me when you arrive, and I’ll come down to security.”

“Thank you, Officer McLean,” she said and prayed it wasn’t already too late.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

valkyrie b model

twenty-four thousand feet over southern england

en route to target

Autonomy compared its current GPS coordinates to the estimated track and the deviation measured 0.0093%.

Correction Required: 0

Time on Target (est):

17 minutes 18.03 seconds

Threat Assessment:

QTY 2 aircraft detected on Valkyrie radar

A07 squawking on civilian aviation channels

A08 squawking on civilian aviation channels

A07 flight vector matches published route of civilian aircraft

A08 flight vector matches published route of civilian aircraft

Threat Level: Low

Action Required: 0

Report Findings to Command:

Action Denied due to Governing Parameter.

Fuel Remaining: 47%

Probability of Completing Mission

Objectives with Remaining Fuel: 99.4%

Aerial Refueling Required: 0

Avionics Systems Check:

Running . . .

All systems green.

Primary and Back-up Battery System Check:

Running . . .

Primary charged at 92%

Back-up charged at 99%

First Target:

SIS—MI6 Building Vauxhall Cross

Second Target:

Palace of Westminster

Ordinance Prioritization:

SIS Building Vauxhall Cross: 2 missiles

Palace of Westminster: 2 missiles

Causality Estimate

(Range and Median Predicted):

SIS Building Vauxhall Cross: 498—689/584

Palace of Westminster: 330—570/410

Autonomy compared its current GPS coordinates to the estimated track and the deviation measured 0.0087%.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

fast boat

call sign: vengeance two

the english channel

1050 local time

Chunk gripped the starboard rail of the odd-looking, blunt-nosed fast boat as it zipped across the swells and whitecaps with seemingly impossible smoothness. These cutting-edge hydrofoils, top secret additions to the British SBS operators’ arsenal, could make well over fifty knots. And their armored hulls, at least according to a very proud Lieutenant Commander Campbell, made them practically unsinkable. Judged on appearance alone, however, the boat’s seaworthiness seemed dubious to Chunk.

Damn things look like they should sink like rocks at the pier, he thought, but here we are flying over the water at ludicrous speeds.

“Nearly to the IP, mate,” the SBS boat driver everyone called Gremlin said with a clap on the shoulder.

Chunk glanced off their port side where a second boat, Vengeance One, ran a parallel course a half mile off and slightly astern. The plan called for them to stage at the IP, a way point three miles out with the call sign Mary, until an RAF drone in orbit over the target delivered final intel. That pass would include a look with thermal imagery at the number of tangos on board and their positions. The target yacht was underway, steaming south, but only making twelve knots.

Probably just enough time for Watts to make it to the JTAC TOC before the op kicks off, he thought with a smile. During his final check-in with McLean, the MI5 officer had told Chunk that Watts had rested, received fluids, and been discharged from the hospital. He also said he’d send a car to pick her up and bring her to the SIS building where the JTAC TOC was fully staffed and supporting the op. Even though she wouldn’t be in his ear, just knowing she was listening in on the op and safe in the most secure building in all of Britain gave him a warm fuzzy inside. Well, at least as much of a warm fuzzy as he was capable of feeling.

The boat driver pulled the throttles back to idle and the flying brick instantly slowed. The hydrofoils disappeared underwater and the chassis squatted to a stop while twin outboards grumbled in protest at having been reigned in.

“Vengeance is Mary,” Gremlin said into the boom mike at his mouth. “Awaiting data and a green light,” he added, in case anyone left in London didn’t know how eager they were to begin the assault on the terrorists who had killed and wounded their SBS teammates in East London.

“Roger, Vengeance. We show you Mary. Stand by,” said the same, clipped British female voice who’d been their radio talker on the spice shop op. Just like before, she was using the call sign Palace.

Chunk glanced back at where Riker and another SBS operator now rose from a bench seat, both pacing in anticipation of action to come. He watched their hands unconsciously tapping compartments on their kits, confirming their load out.

“Vengeance, latest overflight imagery streaming to you now,” said Palace. “Target is confirmed and you are green light. No nearby vessels of concern for QRF. Target is alone, flying French colors, and vessel name is Dauphine, painted on the stern.”

“Roger, Palace. Vengeance is green light,” came the voice of Campbell from the other boat. Perhaps he was asserting his authority as the SBS leader—they were in British waters after all—or perhaps he was just as eager as Chunk and his boys to get some payback.

“Roger, Vengeance,” said Palace. “Report Victoria and happy hunting.”

The fast boat assault teams would call Victoria when they had arrived on target and were boarding the yacht. The jackpot call—when they controlled the vessel and captured or killed the terrorists aboard—would be Elizabeth, in honor of the late Queen.

With that, the twin engines roared to life and the boat surged forward. The blunt nose rose out of the water, seemingly defying gravity, as they lifted on the hydrofoils that dropped the hull’s drag coefficient to practically zero by getting it out of the water. Chunk glanced at the speed indicator and grinned as they pushed toward fifty knots.

The bearded Scot at the controls grinned at him. “Have us there in a jiff,” he said.

Chunk pulled a tablet out of his left cargo pocket and looked at the live streaming thermal imagery from the drone circling above. A total of a dozen tangos milled about the boat. Five were located mid-deck, likely in the cyber command center that Watts had described. Two manned the modest-sized bridge above the main salon—probably the captain and helmsman. One appeared to be stationary in the bow of the yacht, and the other four were patrolling in two groups of two, one pair forward, one pair aft.

Chunk glanced up at the yacht growing larger on the horizon. Dauphine was underway, which dictated how they would board.

Chunk’s hands flew across his kit, validating he’d loaded extra magazines, flash-bangs, grenades, a radio, and a blowout kit in his right thigh pocket. Since this was a daytime raid, his helmet held no NVGs, so nothing to check there. His right hand ended with a gentle caress across the olive drab Micarta canvas handle of the knife in a scabbard on the left side of his kit—a talisman as much as a weapon he’d used to draw blood with more than once. The knife blade was thick and stocky—just like him—and parkerized a deep black to make it corrosion-resistant and stealthy. It had been made especially for him, a gift from a friend named Matt Gaskill he’d run across when visiting home, many years after they’d played baseball together in high school. The man now made high-end functional knives from a shop connected to his house and had surprised Chunk with the gift and a note saying, simply, Thank you for your service. Gaskill was a patriot, using his gift for knife-making to raise money for a variety of military and veteran charities, including the SEAL Legacy Foundation run by a former teammate of Chunk’s.

“Vengeance, this is Palace—the aft deck is clear and so is the roof deck. All thermals are inside, it would appear, though hard to judge what deck they’re on. Two thermals inside the cockpit forward and one in the open outside in the bow, but he should have no lines on your approach aft,” the radio talker said.

Chunk’s hands finished their rite-like flow across his gear by caressing across the Sig pistol secure in the drop holster on his thigh, and finally by checking the magazine in his assault rifle. Then, gripping his instrument of vengeance and death in his shooting hand, his index finger tapped a war drum rhythm against the trigger guard as the fast boat slowed by half.

This was the most dangerous part of the assault, as they would be visible to any lookouts. The faceted armored shell of the hydrofoils had radar-absorbing skin and a geometry that minimized radar signature, similar to the retired F-117 stealth fighters, so the Dauphine’s commercial navigation radar had little chance of picking them up, but human sentries certainly could. But according to the last report from Palace, the alert level on the yacht appeared to be low.

Why? Chunk wondered. Is the ship’s captain so overconfident that he thinks they’re untouchable, just because they’re at sea in international waters?

The SBS boat driver vectored toward the yacht from the left side of her wake, with Vengeance One performing a mirror image approach off Dauphine’s starboard side. Chunk gave a nod to Trip who sat ready on the port rail of the other boat, his right hand on his long gun. Saw, their sniper for the op, already stretched prone on the roof of the fast boat’s cockpit to snipe any sentries who might charge out and assault their approach.

Above the expansive swim deck, written in blue cursive script on the stern, he saw the name Dauphine. His mind drifted to what kind of hell Watts and Lucy Kim must have suffered on this ship . . .

He shook away the images.

But he clung to the rage. The rage would serve him well in battle.

“Go, Two,” came the calm, gravelly command from Campbell aboard the other boat. “Clear to board.”

Chunk’s fast boat accelerated and closed the gap to Dauphine. The boat driver, Gremlin, pulled expertly alongside but eased into a position where he could manage the Bernoulli effect—the tendency for two vessels traveling on parallel courses to get “sucked” together due to the low-pressure zone created between the hulls by the water accelerating in the gap. Since their fast boat was up on hydrofoils, the risk was much lower, but a quick glance at the pilot’s face told Chunk the man knew his craft. The freeboard of the yacht’s stern gunwale was a good four feet above that of the fast boat, which meant aluminum hook ladders were required. While Chunk scanned over his rifle for targets, an SBS operator known as Boots hung the hook ladder off Dauphine’s gunwale.

“Set,” Boots shouted over the wind, and he clambered up the rungs like a spider monkey and disappeared over the gunwale.

Riker went next, but just as he went to reach the ladder, a swell opened the gap between the boats.

“Oh, no you fucking don’t,” Chunk heard Riker say as the SEAL leaped from the fast boat’s gunwale across the gap and caught the ladder with a victorious whoop.

Chunk stepped up, but decided to give Gremlin at least a chance to narrow the gap.

If I try what Riker just did and end up in the drink, I’d never hear the end of it . . .

A five count later, Gremlin had the gap closed and steady.

Rifle slung, Chunk stepped up on the gunwale with his right boot and pushed off. He caught the hook ladder rails with both hands, and his left foot found a ladder rung. Hooyah, his inner SEAL barked as he did his own primate impression—more gorilla than spider monkey—and climbed up and over the hook ladder onto the aft deck of the yacht.

Boots and Riker had already cleared left and right respectively. Chunk’s eyes registered and counted the three operators mirroring their clearing technique on the starboard side of the yacht, which meant everyone in the assault force had made it. The party deck had a hot tub, sun chaises, and even a giant bed-like sofa, but instead of being filled with bikini-clad women like one might expect on a vessel like this, it was completely deserted. Rifle up, Chunk scanned beyond, his target designator going straight to the glass slider doors leading to the salon. Behind him, he was aware of the two fast boats slipping aft and opening range. Vengeance One would reposition to open lines of fire for Saw to take out any would-be enemy sniper directed to the yacht’s upper deck.

“Vengeance—you have a tango heading aft. He’s stepped out onto the port rail walkway,” came the calm report from Palace in Chunk’s ears as he took the lead position of a three-man arrow formation moving toward the salon. “He’s moving leisurely. No indication he’s detected you.”

“God has the shot,” Saw said in the half whisper he used when in the zone.

“Hold, God,” Campbell said in a whisper, amplified in Chunk’s earpiece. All their rifles were suppressed for this op, but not Saw’s sniper rig. “See what he does. Let’s not lose our stealth.”

They waited, clustered in two groups, port and starboard, crouching inside the sloping wall that lead from the aft party deck to the main cabin and salon. Chunk, who had been keeping an eye on the interior through the glass sliders, glanced at Campbell for direction. The SBS officer pointed to him, drew and finger across his neck, then pressed the finger to his lips.

Take him out. Do it quietly.

Chunk nodded, then raised a fist to Riker and Boots who nodded. He pointed to himself, eased his rifle to his chest, and drew the thick, curved Gaskill blade from its scabbard. Knife at the ready, he crept aft to the edge of the smooth white fiberglass wall, which tapered down from deck above to ground level at a thirty-degree angle. Not an ideal blind corner to ambush someone from, but he’d have to make it work. He crouched low, muscles primed and ready, his free hand open for a strike and his right gripping the razor-honed blade.

“Fifteen feet, Vengeance. Tango is still unaware,” Palace said in his ear, the drone circling above serving as her eyes.

Chunk felt a paradoxical calm spread over him, as it always did at such moments, and rolled forward on the balls of his feet in his Oakley boots.

“Five feet . . . He’s shaking out a smoke . . .”

Chunk heard the dull sound of the footfalls as the sentry moved aft just on the other side of the sloping wall. The leading edge of a shadow appeared, creeping into his sight line on the deck . . .

The attack, one he’d performed dozens of times, was not unlike that used by a leopard or jaguar in the wild—stalk, surprise, immobilize by the throat, deliver the death blow. When the man’s shoulder emerged past the sloping edge of the wall, Chunk exploded around the corner, catching the sentry completely by surprise. Like the best of nature’s predators, Chunk executed the sequence with punishing speed and efficiency. First, he clamped his gloved hand onto the man’s windpipe so hard that he felt a crunch. The man’s cigarette dropped from his lips and a shower of sparks bounced off the back of Chunk’s gloved hand. Next, Chunk dragged the man off the port walkway and around the edge of the wall where his team had the area secured. With the expert efficiency of years of combat, he sunk his curved black blade into the soft space beneath the base of the man’s skull, driving it upward. He twisted the knife once, severing all connections between brain and body, and the sentry’s body instantly went limp. As he lowered the dead man to the deck, the foul stench of urine and feces filled his nostrils as the body lost all control.

Chunk pulled the knife from the man’s brain, wiped both sides on the back of the dead man’s shirt, and returned the blade to its sheath on the left side of his kit. He caught Campbell’s eye, who gave him a respectful nod, while the other assaulters scanned for new threats. The SBS commander hand-signaled that his squad would clear the salon, and that he wanted Chunk’s stick to take the main deck—one level up—via the stairwell the starboard rail. Other than the soft thrum of the yacht engines, the swish of water across her hull, and the pulse pounding in his temples, Chunk heard nothing.

“Tango One is down,” he whispered in his boom mike.

“Roger, Vengeance,” Palace said. “Three sentries remain. One is sitting on the open bow, and two patrols assessed to be on the main deck.”

A double click from Campbell served as silent acknowledgment of the update.

They needed to move quickly now, while they still had the element of surprise. Campbell was up already, chopping a hand forward to clear the salon as Chunk shifted into position at the handle of the tinted glass slider door. Campbell gave him a nod, and Chunk slid the door open, revealing a plush but empty salon. Campbell’s stick, which included Trip, surged forward one at a time, clearing left, right, then forward. Chunk and his squad backpedaled to round the starboard wall and clear forward.

It’s what you don’t see, and what the TOC operators think they know, that kills you . . .

He glanced at the two fast boats trailing behind them, wondering when the skipper of the yacht would finally notice they had company and sound the alarm. The answer to that question came seconds later.

“Game’s up, mates,” came the cool voice from Palace. “You have thermals up and moving toward your pos. Tango Two from the bow is moving down the port rail. Thermals for Tangos Three and Four are splitting port and starboard, can’t ID their level.”

“Tango Two on the port rail is KIA,” came Saw’s soft and melodic cadence, announcing he had dropped one shooter from his sniper position on the roof of the fast boat.

Riker and Boots had already cleared the starboard rail and were in position to breach the ascending starboard stairwell.

Chunk heard the pop pop of suppressed fire, followed by flashes of light and roars of unsuppressed gunfire as Campbell’s team engaged one or more tangos in the salon.

A shooter, armed with a machine pistol, came flying down the starboard staircase, intent on flanking the assault force in the salon. Clearly, he wasn’t a special operator or he would have cleared first before charging into action. A half-dozen suppressed pops from Riker and Boots overlapped as they tore the terrorist to pieces, his machine pistol harmlessly strafing the ocean as he collapsed dead on the stairs. From his covering position on the forward rail, Chunk took care of the next surprise. Just like he’d predicted, a tango that Palace had missed burst out of a hatch from a ladder well leading to belowdecks, raising a machine gun. Chunk put his red dot on the man’s head and squeezed. His bullet exploded the top of the tango’s head, a split second before Riker put a second round through the upturned face. The man’s compact machine gun clattered to the deck as he slumped over, half in, half out of the hatch.

Chunk surged forward, with Riker moving stride for stride beside him, to clear the bow while Boots covered their six. He would not risk another surprise.

“Salon clear, two tangos down. We’re headed to secure the bridge. Two—clear the command center,” Campbell announced.

“Two,” Chunk replied in acknowledgment. “Bow is clear.”

With no one to flank them, Chunk looped back to rejoin Boots and move on the primary objective of the op—securing the cyber command center. He pulled up a mental image of the yacht from their pre-op brief and the drone’s thermal imagery. Watts had reported that the cyber command center was located on the main deck. The manufacturer’s plans for this model of yacht showed three port-side suites, but based on Watts’s description, al Qadar must have knocked out the dividing walls to make it a common space. That meant the three doors on the starboard side would now all open into the command suite, but they wouldn’t know for sure until they got there.

Chunk chopped a hand up the stairwell and Boots took the lead, followed by Riker. The SBS operator cleared left upon reaching the main deck, and Riker cleared right. Chunk followed in third position, but upon reaching the main deck, he took the lead. Moving aft, he rounded the corner to breach the main corridor of the main deck.

This glass slider door apparently had a motion sensor and slid open the second he advanced into the sensor eye, making him tense, expecting someone to come through the dark-tinted door. Chunk reflexively dropped to a knee and cleared the deserted, dimly lit corridor, straining his eyes as he waited impatiently for them to adjust to the low light. Riker and Boots quickly joined him in the corridor and the tinted glass slider closed behind them. Boots nodded at the three doors ahead—one for each of them—which matched the mental map in Chunk’s head. Chunk dropped into a tactical crouch and quickstepped to the forward door, with Riker taking the center, and Boots aft. His eyes finally adjusted, Chunk mouthed a three-count cadence, head nodding on each silent beat.

On three, he crashed through the door and turned and cleared left, knowing Riker was clearing center, and Boots right. Five cyber techs, four men and one woman, sat in high-backed gaming-style chairs at computer workstations. A short Asian man whirled in his chair to face Chunk and immediately shot his hands up in the air.

One of the other men made the mistake of reaching for something on his workstation. Perhaps moving to type a command into his keyboard, but they would never know because Riker ended him with a double tap to the head. The man collapsed forward in his chair, what was left of his head smacking with a wet thud and forming a growing pool of dark blood.

“Whoa, whoa, don’t shoot. Don’t kill us,” the Asian guy said, his hands reaching even higher.

Chunk scanned the remaining occupants—all hackers from the looks of it—paying special mind to their torsos, looking for S-vests.

“Bridge secure. The vessel is ours,” Campbell reported on comms.

Seeing no weapons or bulging vests to indicate willing martyrs in their company, Chunk turned his muzzle on the Asian kid. “You in charge here?”

“I’m in charge of computers, bruh, but I’m not a bad guy.”

Chunk scowled at this comment. “If you’re working for terrorists, that makes you a bad guy in my book. And here you are . . .”

“Dude, I am no jihadist,” the Asian said in a thick accent, remaining very still with his hands above his head. “I’m an opportunist—a capitalist even. You don’t want to kill me. Not if you want to stop what is coming.”

While Chunk stared down at this ass clown, in his peripheral vision he saw Riker and Boots taking care of the three remaining living and breathing hackers—forcing them to the floor and securing their hands with zip ties.

“And what’s coming?” Chunk asked, but he knew already.

“Hell from above, dude,” the man said, his hands still up. “It starting soon.”

Behind the ringleader, Chunk spied multiple monitors set up like a flight simulator, complete with twin joysticks, a throttle, and a keyboard with a trackball. The center screen, a display that looked to Chunk like the heads-up display on a fighter jet, streamed live video of cloud cover. A second display showed a navigation plot on a green screen with the track of what he assumed to be a drone leading from a square in the ocean to an arrowhead at the front of the line over land.

That’s southern England, he realized, and the sprawling city where the arrowhead pointed was London. Oh shit, it’s already airborne and inbound!

“Where’s the pilot?” Chunk said, scanning the zip-tied idiots on the floor, none of whom screamed drone pilot. “Are you flying it?”

“No pilot, bro. It don’t need us to launch him, dude,” he said, smiling with yellow teeth in his pudgy face. “He fly himself. Smart computer. Do it own self. What’s the word?”

“Autonomous?” Chunk said.

“Yeah, yeah. Autonomy. He got autonomy, dude. He already launch his own self. Now, he flying to target.”

“Then stop it,” Chunk said, stepping up and leveling the muzzle of his rifle at the hacker’s face.

“Dude, not that simple. Code is loaded.”

“I don’t give a shit! Go to that terminal, grab the joystick, and turn it the fuck around.”

“Okay, but it not going to work,” the hacker said, tentatively lowering his hands. “I show you, but don’t shoot me. I’m cooperating. This is not a trick.”

“Just do it,” Chunk said.

The hacker nodded and slid his task chair over to the console where he grabbed the joystick and jerked it hard left. Chunk watched the monitors, but nothing happened. The clouds didn’t roll. The altitude and heading readouts didn’t change. And the arrowed track on the nav plot didn’t adjust.

“See, I tell you,” the hacker said. “Autonomy.”

“Try again,” Chunk growled.

The hacker did as instructed with the same result, only this time a notification flashed on the screen:

Valkyrie operating in Autonomous Mode.

Enter Command Code to abort mission.

“Enter the command code,” Chunk said, his patience running out.

“I don’t know code, bro,” the hacker said and put his hands up as he said it.

“Bullshit,” Chunk said and moved his finger off the trigger guard and onto the trigger.

“He’s telling the truth,” the female hacker said from the floor. Chunk whirled to look at her. She brazenly met his gaze. Then, in accented but perfect English, she said, “Nadar didn’t give us the codes. He doesn’t trust us. We loaded the mission package, and he entered the codes from his terminal this morning.”

“Qasim Nadar?” Chunk asked, shock and vindication competing for his emotions at hearing real confirmation for the first time. “From British Aero? He’s in charge?”

“Yeah, dude,” the Asian hacker said. “He the boss man. He run the show. He one badass jihadist that one, bro.”

You were right, Watts. You’re always right.

But there was time for that later. They had serious work to do.

“How else can it be stopped?”

“No other way,” the female hacker said.

Chunk looked at Riker, his eyes asking the question: Do you believe them?

Riker shrugged. “I don’t fuckin’ know, bro.”

Chunk looked back at her. “If that’s true, what airfield did you hide it at?”

“That model is VTOL—vertical takeoff and landing. We didn’t need an airfield.”

“Then where did it take off from?” Chunk asked, his gaze going back to the icon in the ocean where the drone track seemed to originate.

“From a merchant vessel transiting the Irish Sea. Like he said, it doesn’t need a pilot.”

“How do we stop it?”

The Asian hacker laughed. “Only one man stop it now. Qasim. You find him and get code.”

“Palace, Two—are you hearing all this?” Chunk said, lowering his weapon to a ready carry.

“Roger, Two,” the British radio talker said, her voice super tense. Then, a different voice, male and baritone hopped on the line. “Commander, this is Colonel Joddle of the RAF. I’ve just arrived at the JTAC TOC, and I am familiar with this asset. When the drone is operating in autonomous mode, there should be a screen that looks like a dashboard. In this dashboard, you’ll see a logic scroll of the AI’s internal processes, as well as a summary of critical parameters . . .”

“This is the one,” the female hacker said, nodding with her head to a screen to the right of the heads-up stream.

Chunk walked over to the display. “I’m standing in front of it now, Colonel,” he said, scanning the interface.

“There should be a Time to Target field? How much time do we have, Commander?”

“Six minutes and twenty-two seconds,” Chunk said, his throat getting tight as he did.

“Scramble alert fighters,” he heard Joddle say.

“They won’t get there in time, sir,” he heard someone else saying. “And even if they do, they won’t be able to find her because of her stealth.”

“Damn it, Longfellow, tell the CAP to scramble them anyway,” Joddle shouted.

Chunk scanned the screen for the next urgent piece of information and found it just as Joddle asked for the target.

“You’re not going to believe this, sir, but the target is you. It’s got two missiles allocated for the MI6 headquarters,” Chunk said, and his stomach instantly turned to lead.

Oh God . . . Watts is arriving at MI6 right about now.

Like some cruel, sadistic nightmare . . . it was happening again.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

in front of the special intelligence service (mi6) building

vauxhall cross

85 albert embankment

vauxhall, london

united kingdom

1128 local time

Oh my God, that’s Diba Nadar!

Whitney recognized the terrorist’s wife instantly, despite the woman not wearing a headscarf today.

“Stop the car. I need to get out,” Whitney said to the driver, her gaze fixed on the woman standing at a crosswalk on the other side of Albert Embankment, one of central London’s major thoroughfares.

“Ma’am, I can’t stop here,” the driver said.

“Just do it! I need to get out immediately,” she said, her hand already on the door latch.

The driver, a young officer McLean had sent to pick her up from the hospital, braked and swerved along the curb on the southbound lanes of Albert Embankment Road.

“Tell McLean that Diba Nadar is across the street from MI6 and that I’m going to talk to her and try to bring her in,” she said through the open door after stepping out. She pointed across the five lanes of traffic. “That’s her, right there.”

“Straightaway, ma’am,” he said as the first car stopped in the line of traffic behind them blew its horn. “Oh, bugger off, you,” she heard him say to the honking driver as she slammed the door.

Heart pounding, she brushed her right hand along the small of her back to make sure the Glock was still in the pancake holster clipped inside her waistband. Unlike Chunk and the SEALs, she rarely carried a weapon and was not used to this type of holster. God forbid the weapon had slipped onto the seat during the drive from the hospital to Vauxhall. With the back of her hand, she felt the pistol grip.

Weapon confirmed, she looked left, then took a single step off the curb to cross the street. A horn blared and a giant red bus zipped past a mere foot from her face, almost flattening her because she’d looked the wrong way. Heart in her throat, she leaped backward out of the street and onto the traffic island. Her mind compiled a quick list of all the ways she’d almost died since joining the Tier One—by Taliban attack on her hotel in Mingora, by drone attack on Kandahar, by terrorist kidnapping and torture, by drowning, by hypothermia . . .

Only an American intelligence analyst would survive all that to die by double-decker bus.

She took a deep breath to center herself. Then, paying attention this time, she looked right. When a gap appeared in traffic, she sprinted to the divider island between the north- and southbound lanes.

She silently chastised herself for being an idiot and this time she looked left, scanning for a spot to cross the street, which was packed with London lunch-hour traffic. “Come on, damn it,” she said, shifting her weight back and forth between her feet, waiting for a break. But the cars just kept coming.

“How friggin’ long does it take to get a red light around here!”

When an opportunity to cross finally did appear, she darted across three lanes and onto the wide, tree-lined promenade that ran north–south across the street from the iconic and imposing MI6 building. Thanks to the mild weather, Londoners were out in droves—mothers pushing baby strollers, suited professionals walking to lunch, and tourists taking pictures. She scanned the crowd for Diba but couldn’t find her. Her mobile phone vibrated and rang in her pocket, but she ignored it. Panicked and confused, she jogged toward the crosswalk where just seconds ago the terrorist’s wife had been standing and staring at the SIS building.

Maybe she crossed at the same time as me? Whitney thought and whirled to scan across the street, but the sidewalk in front of MI6 was practically deserted.

Could I have been hallucinating?

No, that was definitely Diba, she told herself. She’s wearing the exact same outfit as she did the day Lucy tried to recruit her. No way that’s a coincidence.

Whitney felt an upswell of panic as she turned back around to scan the faces of the people moving along the promenade.

There’s no way I could have lost her already.

Unless . . . I’m losing my mind.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

in front of the special intelligence service (mi6) building

vauxhall cross

85 albert embankment

vauxhall, london

united kingdom

Diba felt Qasim’s presence before she saw him.

“I knew I would find you here,” he said, addressing her from behind.

She recognized his voice instantly, of course, but it had a strange, disembodied tenor to it. A chill chased down her spine as she turned to face him. He was dressed in his finest suit and looked very distinguished and proper. The silk tie he wore, a refined design with angled purple stripes, had been her gift to him when he got his promotion. The woman at the store had told Diba that the color purple signaled both strength and regality. Diba had looked the latter word up after she bought it, but seeing him wearing it now, she agreed. His hands were low and clasped in front, right hand atop the left.

The muzzle of a compact pistol he held—a model so compact his hands nearly concealed it entirely—was angled down toward the ground.

“What are you doing here?” she said, crossing her arms over her chest as she lifted her gaze to his face. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your meeting with the mayor?”

“When you asked if I still planned to attend the meeting this morning, that’s when I knew . . .”

“That’s when you knew what?” she said.

“That you would betray me. And I was right—here you are,” he said with a victorious smile which abruptly faded to a scowl.

Mustering her courage, she unfolded her arms and stood as straight as possible despite her bulging belly, “I’m sorry, Qasim, but I don’t love you anymore. And I don’t want to be part of this hateful and violent life you have chosen for yourself.”

“I’m sorry too. I’m sorry that you’ve turned your back on your god, your husband, and your son’s future. But I can’t let you go to the MI6 building. It’s not safe for you there.”

“You’re not the boss of me anymore. I’m going, whether you like it or not,” she said, defiance burning in her like she’d never felt before.

“No, you’re not,” he said, and quick as a viper, grabbed her by the arm and marched her down the sidewalk, the barrel of his gun pressed into the small of her back.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

joint terrorism analysis center (jtac) tactical operations center

special intelligence service (mi6) building

vauxhall cross

85 albert embankment

vauxhall, london

united kingdom

Holden McLean had never seen so much fear and pandemonium in Britain’s most advanced tactical nerve center as he did in this moment. To their credit, everyone in the room continued to do their jobs. While his colleagues struggled with panic, he had to restrain himself from laughing. Was he the only one who recognized the beautiful irony of the situation? At the exact same time as they were hitting Qasim Nadar’s command center on Dauphine, Nadar was hitting theirs at Vauxhall.

Bloody brilliant!

“Should we evacuate, ma’am?” someone said nearby.

“Too late,” Meadows, the JTAC officer in charge, said. “Sound the alarm and give the order to shelter in place. Personnel need to move to fortified locations in the building. Our only hope now is that the building’s air defenses can protect us.”

McLean had tried to phone Watts to tell her to reverse course and not come in, but the call had rung to voicemail. Her life, it seemed, was in God’s hands now. As far as the rest of their fates were concerned, according to Colonel Joddle—the RAF officer who’d arrived from RAF Coningsby not ten minutes ago by helo—their only chance to stop what was coming was to locate Nadar and force him to give the command code that would abort the attack.

Everything was happening too slowly.

McLean had been in enough crises to know when a leadership vacuum had formed.

It’s time to take charge, he decided and climbed up onto a chair.

“Has anyone located Qasim Nadar yet?” he yelled.

Dozens of eyes turned to him.

“I just got off the phone with the mayor’s office,” a young woman said. “Nadar was a no-show for his 1115 meeting.”

“Where is my GCHQ liaison?” McLean shouted, scanning the room.

“Here, sir,” a young man with glasses at a workstation to McLean’s left said.

“I thought we were tracking Nadar’s phone? I was told he was traveling by car to the mayor’s office per schedule?”

“Nadar’s phone pings in the lobby of city hall.”

“And what does CCTV show? Is Nadar there?” McLean said, his anger rising that he seemingly had to do the thinking for everyone. “He probably gave it to a courier. Assume he’s in the wind. Run facial rec now and find him!”

“Yes, sir, straightaway—”

The building-wide alarm went off, interrupting them. When the wailing stopped, a security officer announced on the PA for everyone to shelter in place.

McLean felt someone tug on his jacket sleeve and looked down to see Meadows.

“Holden, please come down from the chair,” she said.

Red-faced and angry, he did, but what happened next, he did not expect.

“Assuming we survive this attack,” she said loud enough for Joddle and those around her to hear, “I want you to personally take a tac team, find Nadar, and end the threat. The time for building a case is over. And in any case, you heard the hackers on the yacht reveal him by name, and that should be enough. I’ll take the fall if it comes to that.”

“Ma’am, are you sure?” he said.

“Yes,” she said grimly. “I should have made the call sooner—ties to the damn mayor be damned. Just do it.”

He nodded, feeling pride and vigor the likes of which he’d not felt in years.

Meadows then turned to Joddle. “There must be some other way to stop it, Colonel. What can we do?”

The RAF man shook his head, his expression solemn. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Without that command code, we’re sitting ducks.”

On the massive, two-story center screen on the far wall of the command center, a countdown clock was now displayed, along with dozens of live camera feeds streaming different views from around the SIS building as people scrambled to shelter in place. The timer showed two minutes and twenty-one seconds. Whether they would survive the attack or not, McLean didn’t know.

But either way, he’d have a front-row seat to watch it unfold.

With two minutes to burn, he pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and decided to try calling Watts one more time.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

albert embankment east promenade

across the street from the special intelligence service (mi6) building

vauxhall, london

united kingdom

Whitney was about to give up when she spotted her—only now, Diba wasn’t alone. A tall man in a suit was quickly herding her north, holding Diba by the arm.

Holy crap, that’s Qasim Nadar.

Throwing caution to the wind, Whitney pulled her Glock and sprinted after them. Before she could close the gap, however, the couple turned right and seemed to disappear. At first, she thought they’d ducked into a restaurant called the Pico Bar. But when she got to the spot where they’d turned, she saw instead that they’d disappeared into an arched tunnel that served as an underpass for the elevated train tracks above. A single-lane road for car passage ran down the middle of the tunnel, and a brick sidewalk stretched along the right side. Turning the corner, she saw Diba and Nadar halfway down the passageway. Whitney darted into the tunnel after them, her footsteps echoing loudly off the arched ceiling as she did.

Hearing her footsteps, Nadar stopped and turned, swinging Diba around as a shield in front of him. When he saw her, his eyes widened in surprise, then filled with rage. Only then did Whitney notice that his right hand held a gun, which he raised and pressed to Diba’s temple.

Whitney felt an unexpected rage of her own rise inside her, as images of Lucy filled her mind: Lucy awkwardly informing her during the car ride from the airport that they were on their own; eating leftovers and laughing together in Lucy’s disheveled Malden flat; Lucy confiding her past during the stakeout outside the spice shop . . . and Lucy’s body disappearing into the dark, deep ocean when Whitney buried her at sea.

Whitney raised the muzzle of the Glock and shifted into a firing stance. She aligned the iron sights on his face, but she held no illusions about her skill as a marksman. On her best day, she couldn’t make this shot. And even if she thought she could, the risk of hitting Diba was too high. Qasim had obviously come to the same conclusion because her taking aim had zero impact on his demeanor.

“Agent Watts,” Nadar said with a look of incredulity, his voice a low growl. “Of all the people in the world I would turn to find, you are the last person I would have imagined.”

“Despite your men’s best efforts, I survived,” she said, practically spitting the words at him. “The same can’t be said for Lucy Kim.”

She saw Diba flinch at the mention of Lucy’s name.

“You’re like a bad penny I just can’t seem to get rid of,” he said, his eyes narrowing.

Her gaze ticked from Qasim’s eyes to Diba who looked terrified.

I need a different tack. I’m not Chunk or Saw or Riker or Trip. I’m not gonna shoot him in the forehead and miraculously miss Diba.

The words that came out of her mouth took her by surprise. Not a threat, not an order to drop his gun, but a question. “Why are you doing this?”

From the look on Nadar’s face, this was not the reaction he’d expected from her either, because he took a moment before answering.

“Because it is my calling—my destiny,” he said, and his maniacal grin told her the rest. Nadar had either gone mad or lost himself in jihad. She couldn’t really tell the difference, if there even was one.

An air-raid siren went off behind them, giving her a start, but she didn’t take her eyes off Nadar.

“You’ll probably want to stay in here with us for the next few minutes,” he said. “It’s the safest place to be.”

“Did you target the MI6 building with Valkyrie?”

It was a stupid, obvious question, but she needed to keep him talking.

He nodded. “And I hope it burns to the ground, along with everyone in it.”

“Qasim, please . . . let Diba go,” she said, using both their given names as if they’d known each other for years. “She doesn’t need to be a part of this.”

“You know, I never wanted it to end like this,” he said, almost wistfully. “I never wanted any of this, but on my sister’s wedding day, you sent a drone to kill my father. That same drone killed my sister as well. It was the worst and most important day of my life because, on that day, I realized that love, life, and destiny stand no chance against a drone. Stand no chance against an air-to-ground missile. Stand no chance against the West and your weapons of hate. What I’m trying to say, Whitney Watts, is that you created me. You made me into the man I am today. Standing in front of you now, I am unapologetic and unmoved to stop what is about to happen. This is my purpose.”

Suddenly, her mobile phone rang in her pocket. In her earpiece, Siri asked if she wanted to answer it.

“Yes,” she said softly, steadying her shooting hand with her left and letting out a long sigh.

Qasim smiled.

“So you agree,” he said smugly, misinterpreting her reply as she hoped. “You are the only one who always knew. I could tell, in the hotel in Dubai, that you knew it was me. Everyone else was fooled, but never you . . .”

There was a strange kind of respect in his voice.

“Watts?” It was McLean’s clipped voice in her earpiece. “It’s McLean. Don’t come to the MI6 building, it’s been targeted by the drone,” he said, the words coming fast and hard.

“Qasim, why do you want to kill all these innocent people at Vauxhall?” she asked Nadar, trying to manage both conversations simultaneously. McLean was smart, and she needed to covertly read him in on her situation as best she could. “Hasn’t the UK welcomed you? Haven’t they given you a life, a home, a purpose other than terror?”

“What purpose have they given me? To be a cog in their global war machine? Do you not see the irony of this—that I rose to power in a company that manufactures the same technology and weapons that killed my sister and father? That I’m now standing across from you—the very analyst who, in cooperation with British Intelligence, sent a SEAL team to murder my best friend?”

“Watts, listen to me,” McLean said, his voice urgent. “If you’re there with Nadar, we might have a chance to stop this. We need the drone’s command code to stop the attack. We have fifty seconds before the missile launch, and he’s the only one who knows it.”

Her heart skipped a beat at this news. She swallowed, her mind reeling to find a bargaining chip she could use. She knew better than to offer him some kind of mercy or false hope of escape. He was far too intelligent for that.

Her gaze dropped to Diba’s pregnant belly. “Qasim, there’s no way out for you now. But you can still save your wife. You can still give your son a future. Give me the command code to stop the missile launch. Please don’t let your family suffer the same fate as you.”

A strange smile spread across his face. “No . . . We are a family, united in the service of Allah.”

“You do not speak for me any longer,” Diba said, talking for the first time, her face a picture of defiance and courage. “The command code is Eshan.”

Whitney watched a flash of rage ripple across Qasim’s face, confirming it was the truth.

“McLean, the code is Eshan,” she said.

Diba capitalized on the distraction to strike a second blow to her husband and captor, this time a physical one. With a spin and a flash of silver, she was out of his grip. But she stumbled on the lip of the curb and, turning her ankle, fell to the pavement while clutching a kitchen knife in her hand.

Qasim looked at his lower abdomen, then at his wife. “How dare you strike at me!” he roared and brought his pistol to bear on Diba.

Whitney fired first, the report deafening in the tunnel.

Her aim was better than expected, but not the kill shot Chunk would have accomplished. Her bullet hit just as the roar of Qasim’s pistol filled the tunnel, an echo to her own. Whitney’s 9 mm round struck Qasim’s upper arm, spoiling his aim. Chunks of asphalt exploded beside Diba, Qasim’s bullet narrowly missing his wife’s head. The al Qadar leader howled in either anger or pain, she didn’t know which, as he turned his weapon on Whitney.

She dove right.

His muzzle flashed fire.

She expected the bullet to tear through her, but it zipped past her left ear. Her right shoulder hit the pavement and electric pain shot down her arm. She felt her grip fail on her pistol, heard it clatter to the pavement.

Sirens wailed nearby.

When she looked up, Nadar was sprinting away down the tunnel.

I have to stop him.

She searched for her pistol, finally finding it in the gutter beside the curb. In a frantic scramble, she scooped it up and took a kneeling firing stance, intent on shooting him in the back . . .

But when she scanned for him, he was gone.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

french-flagged luxury yacht dauphine

the english channel

As a Navy SEAL and commander of one of JSOC’s most elite and deadly Special Operations teams, Chunk was familiar with a great many feelings. Pride. Patriotism. Brotherhood. Love. Confidence. Commitment. Even loss.

Not on that list was the one he most felt now.

Helplessness.

The center screen of the Valkyrie stealth drone no longer showed clouds, but instead a growing picture of downtown London.

“Twenty seconds until launch,” the Asian hacker said from where he was sitting in front of the terminal.

“Commander Redman, this is Joddle,” an urgent voice said on the comms circuit.

“Go for Redman,” Chunk said.

“Enter the command code Eshan,” the colonel said. “E-S-H-A-N.”

Chunk repeated the order to the lead hacker, who complied immediately.

“It work,” the black hat said. “He take the code!”

“Then why are the missile bay doors opening?” Riker said.

Chunk glanced at the on-screen timer which was at fourteen seconds. “It’s still counting down. It didn’t terminate the launch. Do something!”

The hacker froze. “What the fuck! Why it no stop?”

Chunk leaned in and scanned the interface, looking for something, anything, that looked like an Abort or Cancel button.

“Nine . . . eight . . .” Riker called, stepping up beside them to give the countdown.

Heart pounding like tympani in his chest, Chunk didn’t know what to do.

Fuck it.

He grabbed the joystick and yanked it back and to the right. The view on the drone’s heads-up display instantly changed in attitude and angle. The buildings along the Thames disappeared out of frame as the camera drifted skyward. Then, an alarm sounded and a pop-up window appeared on the screen, warning of excessive g-forces.

“The counter just reset to eighteen seconds,” Riker said.

Chunk grinned, but his grin quickly faded when the drone began to right itself. He jerked the joystick hard left, but this time nothing happened.

“Autonomy lock you out,” the hacker said. “It still on mission.”

“Do something!” Chunk screamed.

“The command code gives you access, but that’s all. You need to delete the target from the register, Fun Time,” the female hacker on the floor shouted.

“Gazaaaah!” the black hat screamed and his fingers flew on the keyboard.

“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .” Riker said.

“Done!” the hacker shouted and threw his hands up in the air in victory. Then he turned to the girl on the ground. “I love you, babe.”

Chunk, heart still pounding, scanned the screens to confirm. The countdown timer had disappeared. The drone had leveled out and no longer appeared to be zeroed on the MI6 building.

“Palace, this is Vengeance Two,” he said on the party line. “Command code accepted. Attack aborted!”

Riker whooped, and on the comms circuit, Chunk heard cheering.

“You did it, Commander,” said Colonel Joddle’s elated voice above the din. “Thank God, you boys did it.”

The lead hacker, who apparently went by the handle Fun Time, suddenly cursed. “Um . . . dude, we got big problem.”

Chunk scanned the screens. The drone was changing course, and from all the parameters he was seeing, it looked like a new mission package had been loaded.

“What did you do?” Chunk said, his voice a growl.

“I didn’t do nothing. He do it himself,” Fun Time said, thrusting a finger at the command screen. “He change to secondary target!”

“Okay, no problem,” Chunk said as he leaned over the kid. “Just enter the command code and do what you did last time and delete the target.”

“He won’t let me,” the hacker said, using the trackball and keyboard to no effect. “Different command code for second mission package.”

“You mean Eshan isn’t working?”

“That what I said. Need new command code.”

“Fun Time, what’s the target?”

The crazy black hat spun in his seat to look up at Chunk. “Parliament. It going to blow up Westminster Palace.”

Nadar, you sneaky bastard, Chunk thought with gritted teeth.

“Colonel Joddle,” he said, keying his mike, “we’ve got a new problem . . .”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

new springs garden walk tunnel

across the street from the special intelligence service (mi6) building

vauxhall, london

united kingdom

Whitney moved quickly to Diba’s side.

“Are you okay?” she asked the terrorist’s pregnant wife, who hadn’t moved since she’d fallen. Diba wore a shell-shocked expression on her face. “Diba, are you hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Diba said, tears now spilling onto her cheeks. “I can’t believe he . . . he was going to kill me—to kill our child . . .”

“It’s over now,” Whitney said, squeezing Diba’s shoulder. “You’re safe.”

“I was coming to Vauxhall,” Diba said, struggling to get the words out. “I was coming to tell them all I know—to try and stop him.”

“I know, Diba. I know you were.”

“I . . . I should have done it so much sooner. I should have helped when Soo Jin asked. I should have been brave.”

“Soo Jin’s real name was Lucy,” Whitney said and felt a tear spill onto her own cheek. “I know you think she betrayed you, but I want you to know that it wasn’t like that. Lucy cared about you. She thought of you as a friend.”

Sobs racked Diba’s body as Whitney’s words hit home. “Yes . . . Lucy. I know. I am so sorry. It’s my fault she died. I was a coward.”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t cause any of this. And you were very, very brave just now.” Whitney glanced over her shoulder toward the SIS building and realized that no explosions had occurred. She smiled. “You saved a lot of lives, Diba. You stopped a terrible, terrible thing from happening.”

She wrapped her arms around the sobbing woman.

Only then did she realize that she still had McLean on the line. “McLean, are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here. I heard gunshots. Are you okay? What’s happening?” the MI5 officer said.

“I’m okay . . . We’re okay,” she said, meeting Diba’s wide-eyed stare. “Nadar is in the wind. He escaped east through the tunnel into Vauxhall Gardens.”

“Oh, dear God, that’s most unfortunate,” he said, “because Valkyrie has selected a new target. It’s going to blow up Westminster Palace and the command code Eshan isn’t working. We need a second code to stop it.”

Whitney’s heart sank at the news.

She looked to Diba. “The drone has a new target, and the old command code isn’t working. What else can we try?”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

french-flagged luxury yacht dauphine

the english channel

eighteen nautical miles south-southeast of bournemouth, england

Chunk stared at the countdown timer as Valkyrie maneuvered into position for its attack run on Westminster Palace. Forty-two seconds until missile launch.

Forty-two seconds remaining in the nightmare that never seemed to end . . .

“Try Saida,” Colonel Joddle said, spelling the word in Chunk’s ear. “It’s the name of Nadar’s sister.”

Chunk relayed this to Fun Time who typed it in.

“No. He don’t take it,” the black hat said, fingers flying on the keyboard.

“Negative, Colonel. Saida is a fail,” Chunk said, then an idea came to him and he clapped a hand on Fun Time’s shoulder. “Try Hamza. H-A-M-Z-A.”

“Good one,” Fun Time said and entered the characters, but an Access Denied pop-up appeared on the interface window.

“Damn it!” Chunk said, and turned to the clever female hacker who was still lying on the floor with her wrists bound behind her back. “Do you have any ideas? Any ideas at all?”

“No,” she said, without empathy in her voice. “Without the command code, it’s impossible.”

He ran his tongue between his lower lip and the gum of his bottom front teeth. God, he wished he had a dip as he turned back to the countdown timer to see only twenty-nine seconds remaining.

How do you outsmart a computer? It’s like trying to argue with a calculator. Pointless, he thought, shaking his head. I’m an operator, not a programmer. Gimme a target and I’ll hit it, but don’t ask me to crack passwords.

In that way, he and Valkyrie were very much alike—both fearless war machines with a singular focus: executing a mission package with precision and without question.

But that’s not always true, he realized. I am allowed to question. I’m allowed to change the call when the conditions on the ground don’t jive with what the planners anticipated.

Epiphany struck him.

He turned to look at the scrolling lines of code appearing in real time, which Fun Time claimed showed what the AI’s computer brain was “thinking.” The Valkyrie drone was not a mindless machine after all. That was the whole point of the Autonomy AI design—to give it the ability to be kinetic and adjust in the field. The designers had been tasked with creating a lethal machine that did have the ability to change its mind.

“Fun Time, we need to find a way to make Autonomy change his mind without using a command code. How do we do that?’ Chunk said.

“What you mean, ‘change his mind’?”

“I don’t know, like, convince it that Westminster Palace isn’t an authorized target. Or that the collateral damage will exceed some acceptable threshold. We need to make it reevaluate the missile launch criteria and abort on its own. For example, when a SEAL team is on mission, if a certain parameter changes in a negative way, we can abort or change the plan. Valkyrie was designed to do that too.”

“Ohhhh, very smart. I see what you say. Think, think, think . . .” Fun Time said and manically scratched his scalp with both hands as if his head were covered in ants. “I got it! I change target in database he using. Don’t need command code for that.”

Chunk watched the hacker go to work at the keyboard, fingers flying like a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall.

“Missile bay doors just opened,” Riker said. “Fifteen seconds . . .”

But Fun Time didn’t flinch. He just kept doing whatever it was he was doing.

Upon the counter reaching ten, Riker started counting down.

“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

Chunk clenched his right fist. Come on, Fun Time, you can do this!

“Seven . . . six . . .”

Chunk watched Autonomy’s logic scroll as the drone assessed the situation in real time. A heartbeat later, a pop-up alert appeared on the screen:

Target mismatch. Reevaluating . . .

“The missile bay doors are closing!” Riker said as a second pop-up appeared.

Mission success criteria not satisfied.

Mission Abort, returning to base.

“Hooyah!” Chunk shouted and pumped his fist as he watched the drone turn away from Westminster Palace and change altitude. Speaking into his boom mike, he gave everyone at Vauxhall the good news, “Palace, this is Vengeance—mission aborted. Valkyrie is standing down. The threat is secure.”

Whoops and hollers filled Chunk’s ears as the JTAC TOC erupted in celebration.

Grinning large, he looked at Fun Time. “How did you do it?”

“I change geo coordinates for Westminster Palace in database. Make him think it in Hawaii. He don’t have gas for that trip, so he give up,” Fun Time said with a yellow-toothed grin.

“Strong work,” Chunk said.

“No way, dude. It your idea, I just make it happen,” the black hat said with a deferential nod.

Chunk was interrupted by a new voice in his ear, one that filled him with even more joy.

“Chunk, it’s Watts.” The strain in her voice made him realize there might be more to come. “McLean connected me and is with us. Qasim Nadar is in the wind. We have to find him. He’s never going to stop, Chunk.”

“Commander, it’s McLean,” came the clipped, steady voice of the MI5 agent. “I have teams kitting up, and we’re scouring every CCTV feed we can get our hands on. We’ll find him.”

“I can help . . . I want to help,” said another voice in the background.

“Chunk, I have Diba Nadar with me,” Whitney said.

“Does she know his exit strategy?”

“We’re working on that . . .”

“I’m on my way,” he said. Chunk turned to Boots. “Flex-cuff this asshole and stay with him until we get someone here,” he said. “Campbell, Riker, Trip—with me.” Chunk no longer had time for international courtesies, and to his credit, Commander Campbell said nothing. He merely gathered his gear and whispered something to Boots, who was approaching Fun Time, flex-cuffs in hand.

“What? I save everybody!” Fun Time said with a shocked expression as he looked back and forth between them. “I tell you, I not a bad guy.”

“That’s for the British government to decide,” Chunk said, slinging his rifle over his head and onto his chest again, “but I’ll be sure to throw in a good word for you.” He turned to Campbell. “I assume your air asset will give us a lift back into London?”

“Have us there in a jiff,” Campbell said.

CHAPTER FIFTY

the prince of wales pub

less than half a mile from special intelligence service building at vauxhall

cleaver square, kennington

london, england

united kingdom

Disappearing in the chaos of air-raid sirens and public panic in the streets of London had proven easier than Qasim feared.

When fleeing through Vauxhall Gardens, it had been with the fatalistic hope that the command code had not been entered in time—that Valkyrie had launched its missiles and that he would enjoy a final moment of triumph as MI6 headquarters exploded and burned to the ground. He expected to perish from a sniper’s bullet, but the idea of doing so while watching his enemy’s intelligence headquarters burn was enough. And in that moment, perhaps, all he professed to be true might be true, and that he could wake up in paradise . . .

But no missiles streaked from above. No explosions shook the ground. No fire rose into the sky, consuming the infidels who had killed everyone he cared about.

In that moment of defeat, he’d considered returning to the tunnel to make Diba and his unborn son casualties of a war of his enemy’s making and to finish off Agent Watts, thereby avenging Eshan’s murder. But despite his heart’s thirst for vengeance, his head commanded his legs to keep running. Allah had called him to a purpose, and with the absence of explosions at the SIS building, that purpose was as yet unrealized. Perhaps, Diba would not guess the second code and Parliament would soon be rocked with death from above.

At least the al Qadar caliphate was still in place, was it not?

Some of his lieutenants would be swept up in the aftermath, but the tentacles of the monster he had created for this war went deep into the very fiber of London society. Most of his brothers would escape.

And they would need a leader.

He could still be that leader.

Like Bin Laden before him, he would find refuge in the Middle East and lead his caliphate from afar until Allah willed his return. His next success would be his best revenge.

During his escape, Qasim had systematically disguised himself. He’d snatched a leather driving cap from a man’s head, which the man had not even noticed while running from the air-raid sirens. On a bench, he’d found an abandoned suede jacket, which seemed to match the cap for style, and slipped it on, concealing his bloody arm. Lastly, he’d nicked sunglasses from a woman’s purse. The cap and glasses and chaos had apparently proven enough to defeat the facial recognition programs scouring London’s CCTV feeds in the hunt for him.

Now, he was biding time in a pub until he could arrange transportation out of London.

“Get you another, mate?” the bartender asked, looking skeptically at the half-full pint in Qasim’s hand.

“In a few moments, perhaps,” he said with a cordial smile and took another draw. The Quran allowed him to break rules—like consuming alcohol—for the good of the caliphate. The beer tasted and felt good, but he would need a clear head to escape.

He flexed the fingers of his right hand.

His right arm ached, but was no longer on fire. He’d removed his T-shirt in the men’s room after ordering his beer, cleaned the grazing wound to his shoulder and staunched the bleeding. Raising the arm was an exercise in agony, but it was a concealable trauma. He’d also had to deal with the puncture wound from Diba’s knife strike. He’d been lucky there too, with the point of the knife hitting the boney leading edge of his pelvic bone. Had her aim been even an inch to the left, she’d have severed his bowels and he’d be dying. He took this as a divine sign that his work here was not yet finished.

The burner phone vibrated in his pocket. He retrieved and answered it.

“Yes?”

“We are on our way,” said the voice of Asfand, his most trusted and most lethal lieutenant after the death of Faraj. What the quiet man lacked in network and connection, he made up for in tactical prowess—something Qasim himself sorely lacked. The man had fought beside ISIS before escaping into Europe to further the cause.

“How many?”

“Myself and four others. Should I send more? I had thought a low profile would be best.”

“It is plenty,” he said simply. And it was.

“Pick up at the address you texted?” Asfand asked.

Qasim had seen no cameras on the corner, nor any ATMs nearby. He’d chosen this pub because it was set back from the main road.

“Yes,” he said.

If destiny wanted me dead, I’d be dead already. Inshallah . . .

Feeling the bartender’s eyes on him, he swiveled on his stool and lowered his voice. “Were you able to reach Masoud’s flight crew?”

There was a pause.

“I thought it best to not try,” Asfand said. “Masoud was killed at the farmhouse. They will be watching his assets carefully. Perhaps it is best we drive you out of the city.”

“No,” Qasim said. “They will establish checkpoints in and out of the city. Heathrow, bus stations, train stations—all will have a police presence.”

The London City Airport would as well, he supposed, but he had no intention of going to the commercial terminal. His life had changed after death had come from the sky. His destiny had nearly been fulfilled from above as well. The sky would provide him flight to the next life Allah willed for him.

He could do this.

“Very well. Pick up in forty minutes,” Asfand said and ended the call.

Realizing he was going to be here for a while, he turned back to the bartender to make small talk and keep an eye on the man. “Say, mate, what’s your favorite ale on tap?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

jtac tactical operations center

special intelligence service (mi6) building

vauxhall cross

85 albert embankment

vauxhall, london

united kingdom

Chunk burst into the SCIF conference room where Watts and McLean were debriefing Diba Nadar. He was kitted-up, amped up, and dirty from battle, but his work wasn’t finished yet. Qasim Nadar was in the wind and that meant innocent lives were in still in danger. Whitney looked up at him with eyes that immediately sent a thousand messages, some of which he got. He also saw a dark haunting in those eyes—pain, and loss, and trauma she’d suffered over the past forty-eight hours that tugged at his heart. That she was here with Diba Nadar, still doing her job after everything she’d been put through, was astounding.

He turned to Trip who, along with Campbell, had followed him in, “Make sure everyone checks gear and gets restocked. We could roll again at any time.” He slipped his rifle over his head, tore the Velcro cummerbund of his tactical vest open, and pulled the heavy kit over his head. He got an unpleasant whiff of himself and winced, but there was no time to fix that. He handed his gear to Trip.

“You got it, boss,” Trip said and took Chunk’s rifle and kit.

Campbell, the SBS lead, stepped up beside Chunk and read the room. “Check in with me straightaway when you finish debriefing, Commander . . .” Campbell said, his gaze fixed on the emotionally distraught wife of the most dangerous terrorist since Bin Laden, “If anything presents itself, we need to be ready to roll.”

“Roger that,” Chunk said.

Once Campbell and Trip were gone, Whitney gestured for Chunk to take a seat in the chair across from her and Diba. McLean gave him a nod but still said nothing. Clearly, Whitney had things in hand with Diba Nadar, and McLean was letting her run with it. Chunk wasn’t sure what he could contribute to this session, but he sat down anyway.

“Let me just get my colleague up to speed, okay, Diba?” Whitney said softly, a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Diba was on her way here, to SIS, to bring us information on her husband, when he tried to kidnap her.”

Diba straightened in her chair. “I would have come to MI6 sooner, but I was afraid. I tried to convince myself Qasim could change, that if I loved him enough, he would pick me and his son over jihad. But when Soo Jin . . . I . . . I mean Agent Kim . . . approached me for help, it confirmed all my fears. Qasim had risen too high. He was changed by the power. I knew then, he would never stop, but I was a coward. I was afraid he would hurt me and my baby, and so I did nothing . . .”

“We understand the difficult position you were in, Diba. You did what any expectant mother would do. And you are very brave for being here now—for helping us,” Whitney said, her voice soft and empathetic. Then, she shifted her gaze to Chunk. “Diba told us that Qasim had given her instructions that, if she felt like agents were coming for her or if she believed they were compromised, she was to go to the Afghan Importers spice shop. They had a code word she was to use, and the men there would keep her safe until Qasim could arrive and take her away.”

Chunk nodded, but the terrorist was most definitely not heading to the spice shop now. If there was one thing he could count on, it was that Nadar had a contingency plan—and a sound one at that. The man had been one step ahead of them since Mingora, it would seem—or ahead of Chunk, at least. He glanced at Whitney, who put an arm around Diba’s shoulders. If he’d only listened to Watts and her Spidey-Sense about Nadar when they had the bastard in Dubai, then none of this would have happened.

He shook the unproductive thoughts off. There were no mistakes in covert operations, he’d decided—only lessons learned. He’d made the best decision possible in the moment with the information available at the time.

“Let’s imagine you were at the spice shop with Qasim right now. Where would he take you next, Diba?” Chunk asked gently, intentionally using the woman’s first name. “What was the escape plan?”

Diba shook her head, staring at the shredded tissue in her left hand and caressing her pregnant belly with her right. “I was just supposed to go to the spice shop. I don’t know the plans after, but recently, he threatened to send me . . . me and my son back to Afghanistan.” She looked up at Chunk, and he saw a fire in her eyes. “What kind of a man would send his wife and child to Afghanistan under Taliban rule? What husband sends his family to live in fear and poverty under a brutal regime?”

Chunk nodded, unsure what to say. The woman across from him was a strong woman indeed—even if she didn’t know it herself.

“A bad man,” he said softly. “A bad husband.”

“That’s not going to happen, Diba,” Whitney said. “You’re safe now. You can live your life here.”

“Only if you find him,” Diba said, turning to Whitney now. “He is obsessed with our child being the heir to his caliphate. If he is out there, I will never be safe. We . . .” again she caressed her belly, “. . . will never be safe.”

“Then help us find him, Diba. Where else could he go? Think about anything that might make sense from the conversations you had. Help us catch him before he gets out of London.”

Diba took a sip of water, her hand trembling as she did. “I don’t know.”

“Did the two of you ever talk about places you would travel to? Places you would go as a couple, as a family—you know, on holiday?” Whitney asked.

A nostalgic smile spread across Diba’s face, then faded.

“I wanted to go to Paris. I talked about this all the time. He promised me many times we would go, even said we would go very soon. He even brought home brochures a few weeks ago for me to see.”

“Did he mention any specific places in Paris?” McLean asked, speaking for the first time.

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. “But he told me we would take the Eurostar high-speed train and that it would be quite luxurious. He said we would have a wonderful meal onboard, and he talked about how fast the train was and what an engineering marvel it was. He likes these sort of machines.”

McLean looked at Chunk and raised an eyebrow.

“The Eurostar has several nonstop departures to Paris from the St. Pancras station. That’s not even five miles north of here, across the Thames. He could get there easily.”

“Pretty thin,” Chunk said, glancing at the pregnant woman who now had hope in her eyes. “He’ll know we’re watching the train stations and airports.”

“And we’re placing a police presence on roadways out of London,” McLean said, “but the train station at St. Pancras is a zoo. Shops and restaurants . . . bit of a tourist trap. It would be possible to blend in and disappear, especially if he has help.”

“He’ll have help,” Diba said, the words like a bad taste in her mouth. Chunk looked at her. “He has built a network of people all over London.”

“Do you know some of his friends? Mates he might turn to?” McLean asked.

“Qasim doesn’t have mates,” she said with a snide smile. “He has partners in jihad. They will get him where he needs to be. I promise you this.”

“I’m going to send a tactical team to St. Pancras,” McLean said, rising from his chair. “Do you want to go along?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Get things together, and I’ll let the team know we’re heading out in a few minutes. Are you going to stop the trains?”

McLean considered for a moment. “No, not yet. If Nadar is at St. Pancras, I don’t want to spook him. We can run facial rec on passengers boarding, so if he’s slipped through and is aboard a train, we’ll know.”

“What if he gets off before your team arrives?”

“Not bloody likely,” McLean said with a grin. “Eurostar is a high-speed train, and it travels through the Chunnel. No stops beneath the English Channel, mate.”

He nodded as McLean took his leave. This felt good. This felt like a real lead. Maybe he should grab Riker and Trip and augment the Brit’s tactical team.

“Anything else you can tell us, Diba? Any other way you can think of that he’s likely to travel?” Chunk asked.

Diba shook her head, but then stopped and seemed to think a moment. She raised her head and locked eyes with Chunk. “He knows how to fly.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s been taking flying lessons for months. It honestly was the only thing that seemed to make him happy. He’s an aerospace engineer. Aviation is his one true love. Flying a plane was special for him. When he flew alone—I think he called it ‘solo’—for the very first time, he was like a happy child.”

“What airport did he fly from?”

She shook her head. “He never took me with him. I don’t know.”

Chunk’s mind started racing. “We’re going to need a list of small airports within a hundred mile radius of here.”

“Does Qasim rent different planes or fly the same one every time?” Whitney said, perhaps seeing a thread he missed.

“When he was learning, I think he flew the same one. I think it was somewhere close to Malden. But once he got his license, he started flying with a businessman he knows. I once heard him say this man’s company owns several planes.”

“Do you know at what airport this businessman keeps the planes?” Whitney said.

“I’m not sure. Maybe in London, or maybe in New Malden. I don’t know.”

“Do you remember the businessman’s name?” Chunk asked, leaning in.

“Masoud, I think,” Diba said, looking at the ceiling as if searching for the name.

“Masoud Bakir?” Chunk asked, his pulse quickening.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember,” Diba said, looking defeated. “I’m not sure I ever even heard him say the surname.”

Chunk looked over at Whitney, who was bent over her laptop, fingers flying. He didn’t know if she was doing a search, messaging someone from the JTAC team, or both. Whichever it was, her eyes went wide and she looked up at him.

“Masoud Bakir’s company has two planes. One is a business jet at London City Airport.”

“And the other?” Chunk asked, feeling hope rising inside.

“The other one doesn’t matter,” she said, “because Masoud Bakir requested the jet at London City Airport be fueled and ready for takeoff immediately. Do you think Nadar reached out to him and asked for help getting out of London?”

“No,” Chunk said, on his feet now. “Because Masoud Bakir was killed in the farmhouse raid two nights ago.”

McLean walked back into the room. “We’re heading to St. Pancras now if you want to go along,” the agent said.

Chunk turned to him with a grin. “Send the tac team, but you’ll want to come with us,” he said.

“And where the bloody hell are you going?” McLean asked.

“We’re headed to the London City Airport,” Chunk answered. “I’ll grab Campbell and my guys and meet you on the rooftop helipad. Campbell has an SBS bird still on standby up there.” Chunk turned to Whitney. “Get me everything on that airplane—flight plan, destination, pilot’s names, everything,” he said.

Whitney shook her head. “I’m going with you, Chunk,” she said. “The JTAC can run this inquiry better than I can. I’m coming with you.”

He was about to protest, but the look in her eyes told him it wasn’t a request.

“Kit up in the gear room,” Chunk said. “Riker will load you out.”

“I’ll get the JTAC analysts working on it,” McLean said, running toward the door, “don’t leave without me, Commander.”

Chunk nodded feeling the press of time.

Before leaving, he locked eyes with Diba. “You’ve shown great courage, Diba. We’re forever in your debt.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

london city airport

private jet centre lounge

hartmann road

london, england

united kingdom

“Excuse me, Mr. Nadar?” a woman’s voice said.

Qasim’s chest tightened at the sound of his own name, something he would have to get used to until he could change it. He’d been thinking for the last few minutes about who, exactly, he should become.

“Yes?” Qasim said, looking up and doing his best to smile at the female flight coordinator standing at the door to the VIP lounge. It made no sense for him to use a fake name now—he’d been here with Masoud dozens of times. This woman knew him. If his name was splashed all over the news, in wake of the air-raid sirens in London, then they were coming for him already.

“Sir, will Mr. Bakir be flying with you today?” she asked.

“Yes, Jennifer,” he said, remembering the woman’s name. “But Captain Thompson will not. He’s on a trip. But our contract pilot, Mr. Khan, is quite capable.” He nodded at Asfand, who shot a very Western smile at the girl.

“Certainly,” Jennifer said but looked uncomfortable. “It’s just that we’ve been trying to reach Mr. Bakir to confirm the flight schedule, with no luck, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I wish you had asked me,” he said smoothly, rising from the comfortable leather chair. “He texted me a few minutes ago and is about fifteen minutes out. He’s on an important conference call. Mr. Khan and I were just about to go preflight the jet. Mr. Bakir will be anxious to get underway promptly when he arrives.”

Jennifer looked unconvinced.

“I promise I will not be stealing my best friend’s jet today, Jennifer,” he said with a chuckle that seemed to make her relax. “But I also get that there is a certain discomfort when dealing with people who look like us . . .”

“Oh God, no. No, that’s not it at all,” Jennifer insisted, horror on her face at the thinly veiled accusation of racism. “It’s more just a policy thing. But, you’re fine, of course. You’ve flown here so many times, and I know who you are. You’re a bloody hero, you are, saving all those people in Dubai.”

“If you’d rather we wait to get started until he arrives,” Qasim said with an understanding smile, but he knew he had her.

“No, of course not. The line crew has the jet right out front, so please go ahead and preflight and get yourselves situated.”

“Thank you so much, Jennifer.”

“Safe travels,” she said, her posture more relaxed now.

He nodded at Asfand, who picked up a flight bag and followed him to the door. Then, to the three jihadists posing as businessmen sitting in the lounge with him, he added, “Gentlemen, we’ll be on ground cart for power, so you can get settled in the plane if you like.”

Qasim had worried that the jet would be flagged after Masoud had been killed at the farmhouse. Perhaps he had not yet been identified among the dead? He remembered how the American’s bullets had destroyed his childhood friend’s face in Mingora. Or perhaps they just hadn’t thought to watch the company’s corporate jet?

Or perhaps it was simply Allah’s will that they get away cleanly.

Inshallah . . .

Jennifer buzzed the glass door open and rounded the desk, and Qasim led his new team out onto the ramp, approaching the small business jet with a smile. If he’d been allowed to make it this far, then surely he would be smiled upon to fly them to safety. He had only five hundred hours of flight time total and only fifty or less in Masoud’s jet. But the damn thing nearly flew itself once the integrated navigation and flight management systems were properly programmed, and he was quite good at programming, after all.

All he needed to do now was get airborne and into international airspace as quickly as possible.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

royal navy aw150 wildcat helicopter

call sign: yankee one

on approach to london city airport

Chunk looked over at Watts, who sat beside him on the bench in the helo’s passenger compartment. She was staring at the opposite bulkhead, her hand slack on the grip of the SOPMOD M4 rifle that Riker had secured for her. She looked a bit like a kid in the slightly too-large plate carrier vest and helmet she wore. Chunk wondered what horrors she might be reliving as they approached what he prayed would be a final showdown with Nadar. It would take time for her to purge the nightmare she and Lucy Kim had been subjected to on that yacht, and he knew from experience that the trauma would never leave her completely.

“Four minutes,” McLean said from up front where he sat in the left seat beside the pilot. “We’ve confirmed that the jet used by Masoud Bakir’s company is, indeed, on the ramp and fueled to go. They have a flight plan filed to Barcelona.”

Chunk nodded.

“We don’t know that Nadar is there, do we?”

“We do, actually,” McLean said with a grin. “He just went out to the plane with a group of businessmen and a contract pilot—or that’s who they claim they are. We spoke to the air desk dispatcher.”

“He’s not heading to Barcelona,” Chunk said, his mind turning over the geography of Spain in his head. Once made, the plane could drop down low and be in any terrorist stronghold in Northern Africa in fifteen or twenty minutes.

“I agree,” McLean said.

“Well, we’ve got him,” Trip said in Chunk’s earpiece, leaning over from the rear bench and squeezing Chunk’s shoulder.

“We have coordination with air traffic control,” McLean said. The MI5 man had his own black tactical vest on and a short-barreled HK MP7 machine pistol slung on his chest in a combat carry. Despite still wearing a silk tie that bunched up under the vest, the Brit looked like a capable, badass operator. Chunk wondered, again, about McLean’s pedigree. “As far as we know, they’re not tipped off that we know they’re here. Air traffic control will slow-walk clearance to taxi if needed, but they already received their flight clearance and will be asking to move in a few minutes.”

“We’ve got him,” Chunk said when Whitney looked over at him. “Even if Nadar gets airborne, he’s ours. We can shoot the asshole down if we have to.”

“The fewer explosions over London the better, Commander,” McLean said. “I’d prefer to drop him into a deep dark hole where we can extract all the information on his affiliates and network.”

“Me too,” Whitney said with a tight smile.

I’m all right, her eyes said.

He nodded, satisfied.

A moment later they were flaring to slow, and Chunk slid back the heavy cargo door, revealing the long, single runway of the airport just a half-dozen miles east of central London. A small airliner was lifting off, nose high, as their own nose flared and settled onto the large square ramp on the west side of the field. In the distance, Chunk could see the passenger jets parked on the tarmac at the small terminal. Closer, a handful of corporate jets were lined up in front of the general aviation terminal. Immediately, Chunk spotted the single jet pulled up to the front of the blue-and-white building just a couple hundred yards away, a small red carpet by the door.

“I see them,” Chunk said, then, shifting his gaze to Watts, added, “Let’s go get our man once and for all.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

cockpit

citation cj3, tail number: g-2567w

in front of private jet centre

london city airport

“We have a problem,” Asfand growled from the right seat. Qasim was bent over the Collins Pro Line 21 flight management system where he finished programming the assigned departure and flight routes, altitudes, and weights for the aircraft. He looked up and out the windshield, watching as the Royal Navy helicopter landed. For a moment he thought to ask Asfand if he thought the helicopter might be there on routine business—he’d seen military helicopters land and even refuel here before—but he stopped himself. He knew.

They are here for me.

He keyed his microphone with the push-to-talk switch on the yoke.

“Ground, Gulf-two-five-six-seven-Whiskey is ready to taxi with information India.”

There was a pause, just long enough from the routine rapid-fire radio traffic of a commercial airport, for Qasim to know for sure.

“One moment, six-seven-Whiskey,” the controller said smoothly after a beat. “We have conflicting ground traffic from the main terminal, a CityJet CRJ-900 taxiing to runway nine via Alpha. I’ll have you on your way once he’s clear.”

Qasim indeed saw the small airliner pushing back from the terminal, but he could easily be airborne before that jet got to Alpha. The short taxiway to the threshold of runway nine was only a few dozen yards away. He watched as the Royal Navy helicopter began closing on their position at the GA terminal.

“We have to go,” Qasim said, looking out the windshield to be sure no fuel trucks or service vehicles were in the way. Then he smoothly pushed the twin throttles forward and released the brakes, accelerating toward the taxiway that led to runway nine.

“Six-seven-Whiskey, you are not cleared to taxi. Hold on the GA ramp, sir,” the controller said, his voice giving away the ruse.

“Six-seven-Whiskey will be immediately departing runway nine,” Qasim growled into the boom mike, “so I suggest you clear arriving and departing traffic.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

yankee one

london city airport general aviation ramp

london, england

united kingdom

Chunk watched the target jet accelerate its taxi toward the runway.

“He’s onto us,” the helo pilot called. “He’s heading to the runway.”

“Do not let that jet make it to the runway, Major,” McLean barked at the pilot. “You stop him by any means necessary.”

“Any means, sir?” the pilot asked in an even voice. This wasn’t the man’s first rodeo. He served in a UK Special Operations air asset equivalent to the 160th SOAR unit.

“You bloody well heard me. Stop that plane!” McLean shouted.

The pilot aborted their landing and zipped along the tarmac on a collision vector with the taxiing jet. “Don’t fire unless you have a clear shot,” Chunk said to Trip, shifting into position at the open door. “We don’t know who else might be on the aircraft with Nadar.”

“Fire at what?” Trip asked, holding the aluminum frame of the bench seat for dear life. “We don’t have a line on shit.”

That changed a moment later, when the British Special Ops pilot expertly dropped their helo directly into the path of the rapidly approaching Citation in a game of airport chicken. Then, he spun the helo counterclockwise so the starboard side faced the plane. Chunk raised his rifle and sighted out the open door. He took aim on the pilot’s seat through the windshield, but a blinding glare from the sun prevented him from seeing inside. With great restraint, he stayed his finger from pulling the trigger, not willing to shoot an innocent pilot unwittingly caught up in the action. The Citation braked hard at the last second, coming to a halt. At the same time, the helo pilot slid their low hover to within yards of the nose of the jet.

“Put her down,” Chunk barked, and the HMA2 pilot dropped the helo onto the ramp with a thud.

Chunk and Trip were out and moving toward the target aircraft instantly. Trip aimed through the windshield of the jet, behind which Chunk could only see the silhouette of a man at the controls and another beside him in the copilot seat.

“Is it him?” Watts asked, shuffling into place beside Chunk, with McLean moving in a tactical crouch beside Trip.

“I don’t know,” Chunk said.

“That plane has an emergency exit on the starboard side,” McLean hollered over the roar of the helo’s engines and rotor wash.

Chunk understood and signaled for McLean and Trip to take the starboard emergency door while he and Watts covered the primary cabin door located on the port side of the jet, just aft of the cockpit. In his peripheral vision, he saw Watts moving in a combat crouch like a seasoned operator beside him, her assault rifle up and at the ready.

Gunfire erupted, but Chunk couldn’t see from where.

“Man down,” Trip hollered, his voice loud in Chunk’s earpiece.

A heartbeat later, gunfire from Trip’s FN Scar cut through the din as the SEAL unloaded on targets visible only from the other side of the plane.

Just then, Chunk saw a head pop up from the far side of the aircraft, peering at him and Watts over the fuselage. The head disappeared as Chunk sighted over the fuselage, but he held. A split second later, a weapon and upper torso materialized to shoot at them over the roof of the jet, and Chunk squeezed twice, then watched the shooter pitch backward out of view.

Another barrage of fire sounded, and Chunk saw Trip drag McLean beneath the nose of the jet, out of the line of the terrorists who apparently were firing from the emergency exit door on the far side.

“Fuck this,” Trip said in Chunk’s ear, and the SEAL left McLean to reengage. Rapid-fire pops from Trip’s Scar quickly ended the battle from the emergency exit. “Three tangos down.”

Chunk didn’t know how many passengers the small jet could hold with full fuel, but it couldn’t be too many more. The main cabin door was still shut, so he placed his red dot on the pilot’s side window, ready to shoot. They’d taken fire and had a man down—it was weapons-free now, as far as he was concerned. But the pilot’s seat was empty, despite the fact that the engines were still running. He circled, sidestepping around the nose of the jet until his aim was through the front windshield. His scan found the copilot’s seat empty as well.

Shit.

“Main cabin door is opening,” Watts called.

Chunk backpedaled and swiveled right.

“I will kill the pilot,” a familiar voice called.

Chunk moved in an arc, his rifle raised and at the ready, the holographic sight bobbing. He was aware of Watts moving with him, stepping in time, like a perfect dance partner as they repositioned to cover the port side exit as they swung forward, and then the airstair came all the way down and stopped.

Nadar stood on the top step, hunched over as he emerged from the low oval doorway. In front of him, a terrified man, presumably the pilot, begged for his life as Nadar held a pistol to the man’s head. The hostage’s hands were behind his back, bound perhaps.

“Agent Watts—why am I not surprised,” Nadar said, his face barely visible behind his captive. “Oh, and look, you brought your pit bull from Dubai with you this time.”

“It’s over Nadar,” Watts shouted. “Drop your weapon.”

Chunk hovered his red dot on the tiny sliver of Nadar’s forehead he could see behind the pilot’s head. The margin was razor-thin, but maybe . . .

Suddenly, the pilot jerked free from Nadar’s grip. At first, Chunk thought the man was fighting for his life and trying to give him a shot, but then he saw the short-barreled machine pistol appear from behind the hostage’s back. It took only a microsecond for Chunk to unravel the ruse, shift his red dot to the right, and squeeze.

The left side of the surprised shooter’s face exploded in a cloud of blood, bone, and flesh as Chunk’s round found its target. There was a brief burst of machine-gun fire which harmlessly strafed the tarmac fifteen feet away as the terrorist pitched forward and toppled over the edge of the airstair. The body hit the ground and didn’t move in a growing lake of crimson.

Nadar, still standing at the top of the steps, raised his hands in surrender.

“You’re mine, you son of a bitch,” Watts said beside Chunk. He would never have heard her over the roar of jet noise if not for their noise reducing and voice enhancing earbuds.

From the tenor of her voice, Chunk knew in that instant that Nadar was about to die. The promise of bringing the terrorist in for interrogation to unravel the depths of the al Qadar network instantly evaporated in Chunk’s mind. He saw the bloodlust in Watts’s eyes, the tension in her jaw, as she prepped her kill shot.

Reflexively, almost without thinking, he pushed her muzzle wide and spoiled her shot.

Before she could regroup, he took aim and fired twice in rapid succession. His rifle burped and two red spots appeared on Nadar’s chest. The terrorist mastermind looked at Chunk, then back down at his chest. Nadar’s face twisted in confusion as he watched the scarlet flowers grow on his white shirt, as if unable to believe what had just happened. He seemed to mouth a word that looked like, “How?” but Chunk couldn’t be sure.

Then, Nadar tumbled down the airstair onto the tarmac.

The terrorist’s body came to rest on his side, facing them, while he gasped for air and little bloody bubbles formed on his lips.

Watts turned toward Chunk with a feral look in her eyes.

Then, she lunged at him and began to pummel his armor-covered chest pointlessly with her fists.

“Why did you do that?” she shouted. “Why? I had the shot. I earned that shot!”

Chunk wrapped her up with his left arm, his right still covering the empty doorway with his rifle in case another shooter lurked inside the jet.

“I saved you from it,” he said softly.

“Save me from what?” she sobbed, her face in his neck now. “From the vengeance I deserve to mete?”

“Exactly,” he said softly. “Because shooting an unarmed man, even one as evil as Nadar, isn’t the same as trading gunfire with someone trying to kill you. You can never come back from that. The demons don’t let you.”

“You did,” she protested through sobs.

He nodded. “Those demons are already mine. And they are still with me every day.”

“Clearing the jet,” Trip said in Chunk’s earpiece. “Entering through the emergency hatch on the other side.”

“Check,” Chunk said and continued to sight on the open cabin door until Trip appeared in the doorway.

“Clear,” the SEAL said and looked down the airstair at the two dead bodies. “Target secured, five tangos down.”

Chunk nodded, lowered his rifle, and let Watts cry in his arms.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

achin district of nangarhar province

afghanistan

sometime

Somewhere in his mind, Qasim knew he was not home in Nangarhar. Not really. He had watched the blue sky above the private jet turn gray, while Agent Watts’s frantic voice faded slowly into silence. And the burning, tearing pain in his chest seemed to disappear to somewhere else. But this room—his room, his childhood room—was as real as anything he’d ever seen.

“Qasim, come to dinner,” his mother called from the other room, and at her voice, the air filled with the lovely scent of her goat stew—his very favorite meal—and bread cooking on the fire. He felt his mouth water, but then he drooled onto his chin. Embarrassed, he wiped it away, looking at his hand to see dark blood. He knew that should worry him—should scare him—but it didn’t.

“Are you not hungry, brother?”

He glanced to his left, and there stood Eshan, bent over at the waist, his hands on his knees. But it wasn’t the slick-haired, dark-suited Eshan who had called on him a lifetime ago, taking him down the rabbit hole and into the world he knew, somehow, he would slip away from in just a few moments. No, this was young Eshan. This was twelve-year-old Eshan in his tunban tunic with his favorite green vest. As usual, he was not wearing his pakol cap. Likely, he had lost it—again.

“How are you here?” Qasim asked. He felt happy until he blinked.

Childhood Eshan disappeared and was replaced by adult Eshan, in dark trousers and a white shirt, covered in blood.

“How is it that you are here? Have you failed in your jihad?”

Eshan did not look angry. He looked sad.

Then Qasim’s father was beside him, hands clasped in front of him. His sister, Saida, was there as well. Not the broken body he usually saw when he closed his eyes, leg ripped off in the drone attack. Here was the lovely Saida in her wedding dress, her hair adorned with flowers and her veil back on her head. She also looked sad.

Hamza appeared behind them. He was smiling.

“You have done well, my brother. You have brought the fight to the infidels in their own country. You have done things I only dreamed of. You may come home now.”

Eshan nodded and smiled.

Qasim looked at his sister, but she turned away. His father looked down at the floor.

“Saida, Father . . . why won’t you look at me? Everything I did, I did for you!” he shouted, anger and confusion swirling like a tempest in his mind. “To avenge you! To achieve retribution against the infidels who stole you from my life.”

His father shook his head.

“The dead care nothing for retribution, Qasim. Have I not told you this time and again? Have you not heard my words? Revenge is for the living. What you did, you did for yourself, my son. Your death brings us no joy. No satisfaction. What you did, you did for yourself and yourself alone, Qasim.”

“No, that’s not right,” Qasim said, fear and anxiety consuming him. “Hamza, tell them . . . explain it to them so they will understand.”

But Hamza was gone.

Disappeared.

“Father, all I did, I did for all of us. I did it to make right the wrongs committed against our family. To make right all that was taken from me. Did you not work with the Taliban against the Americans?”

“Qasim, I did for the Taliban what I had to do to keep our family safe. I cared nothing for the Taliban and their jihad. Just as I cared nothing for the Americans and their war. I cared only for you—for your mother, your sister. All I did, I truly did for you. What you did was for yourself. Can you say it was truly for your family? For me? For Saida? And what of Diba? What of your son?”

His father turned and walked toward the open door from which bright light now streamed.

“Father, no,” he called after him, but his father disappeared into the light.

Only Saida remained, tears now on her cheeks.

“Are you angry with me, Saida?” he sobbed. He felt dizzy and the world tilted. “Do you hate me?”

“No,” she said and placed a gentle hand against his cheek. “I could never hate you, Qasim. You are my brother. But I feel so very sad for you . . .”

Then, she was gone and he was alone . . .

Truly alone.

But he still had his memories.

As if hearing this thought, his childhood home began to fade, like the way color bleaches from a vibrant photograph left in the sun. And the lovely smell of stew, and the laughter of children playing outside . . . that faded too.

Then the light was gone.

And the dark consumed him.

EPILOGUE

south bank of the river thames

london, england

united kingdom

two days later

1522 local time

Whitney turned to look at Chunk in the back seat of the black cab they shared.

“What?” he said, turning to catch her staring at him.

“Nothing,” she said, smiling at him. This was the first time they’d had a chance to really talk since everything had gone down, and she was desperate to spill her guts, but also nervous at the same time.

Wait ’til it feels right, she told herself.

“Have you talked to Diba?” Chunk asked.

“Just once, after the debrief.”

“And how’s she holding up?”

She bobbed her head side to side. “It’s hard to tell. It’s not like we were close or anything . . . I think she’s still in the trying-to-process-everything mode. Nadar abused and manipulated her, but he was also the father of her child and had kept her dependent on him. And Lucy, who was her only friend, is gone too. She’s alone in a foreign country with no family or friends to lean on. It’s going to take some time to get her feet back underneath her.”

“Completely understandable,” he said. “Are the Brits going to let her keep her citizenship and stay in the country?”

“As far as I know,” she said. “That was the offer Lucy made originally in exchange for her help. I believe McLean will honor that. He’s a good man.”

Chunk nodded. “If it wasn’t for Diba, hundreds of people would be dead. Without her courage, we might not have won.”

“Here we are,” the taxi driver said from the front seat, interrupting their conversation as he pulled the car to a stop along the curb. “That will be thirteen pounds, twenty-two p.”

“Here you go,” Whitney said and handed the man fifteen quid. “Keep the change.”

“Ta,” he said.

She didn’t know what ta meant, but figured it was like the British verbal equivalent of a fist bump.

“As for you, close your eyes,” she said, turning to Chunk.

“What? No, I’m not doing that . . .”

“I told you it’s a surprise. C’mon, you have to,” she said, egging him on.

“Fine,” he grumbled and used his right hand to block most of his view as he stepped out of the taxi and onto the sidewalk. Only then, did he actually close his eyes. “There, you happy?”

She turned him by the shoulders so that he was facing the unmissable one-hundred-and-thirty-five-meter-tall London Eye in the near distance.

“Okay, you can open your eyes,” she said. When he did, she added an excited, “Ta-da!”

“This is your surprise?” Chunk said, taking off his ball cap to run thick fingers through his shaggy mop of hair as he looked up. “You want me to ride a Ferris wheel?”

“It’s not a Ferris wheel,” she said and, adopting a posh British accent, added. “I believe the proper term is a cantilevered observation wheel.”

He chuckled. “They just call it that so they can charge more. How much did you spend on the tickets?”

“I’m not telling.”

“That much, huh?”

“C’mon, let’s go.” Like a kid at the gates of Disney World, she grabbed his hand and gave it a tug, pulling him toward the Queen’s Walk along the river.

Big yikes. Whaaaaat are you doing? said the bossy part of her brain.

I don’t know.

Well, stop it, bossy brain said, and immediately released her grip on his hand and trotted ahead.

“All right, all right, I’m coming,” he said, putting his ball cap on and jogging to catch up with her.

There was no reason to have butterflies in her stomach, but she did anyway. Ever since their “date night” at the Cavalli Club in Dubai, she’d experienced occasional tugs of attraction for Chunk—like when magnets get too close together—but the feeling always evaporated with physical space and a few seconds for her higher brain to recalibrate. It had just happened again, but this time the feeling had felt somehow deeper. Like they’d already shared an intimate moment together, which they most certainly hadn’t.

It felt weird, but good weird.

He wasn’t there on the raft with you, bossy brain said. That was me, projecting. You know that right?

I know. Just go away for now, please.

During her training at the Farm, she’d had a passionate, albeit brief, relationship with a fellow recruit. They’d managed to keep it secret, but it had done a number on both of their heads and hearts. After that, she vowed to keep her work life and love life completely and totally separate. Fraternization was a professional hazard in jobs like the military and intelligence communities where close quarters, shared suffering, and comradery were necessary ingredients in the recipe for success. One drunken mistake was all it would take to potentially derail not only her career, but Chunk’s as well. This was one line she simply would not cross.

“You have the tickets, right?” Chunk asked while staring at the zigzagging queue at the base of the London Eye.

“Of course,” she said, tapping the bulge in her right butt pocket of her jeans.

“That’s your phone,” he said.

“Tickets are all digital these days, Chunk. Are you thirty-five or fifty-three? Sometimes I wonder.”

“Just a tech-challenged redneck is all,” he said with a crooked grin.

The wait didn’t take as long as she thought it would because each ovoidal-shaped capsule, or pod, held well over a dozen people. Most of the patrons in line seemed to be families or tour groups, and so when it was their turn to board, they were put with two families—one speaking what she guessed was either Russian or Bulgarian, and the other Japanese. Enclosed entirely in glass, each pod provided a 360-degree view of the city. She’d read on Wikipedia that the London Eye was once the highest observation point in London until The Shard skyscraper was built. The pods were designed to index via an external track on the outside of each capsule that maintained the pod level by shifting the attachment point as the large wheel rotated. While at the bottom, the pod hung from the underside of the wheel by its ceiling. At the top, the pod’s floor was sitting atop the wheel structure.

In the center of the pod, a surfboard-shaped wooden bench was present for sitting, but all the kids in their party ran straight to the railings to look out the curved glass panels.

“How long does the ride last?” Chunk asked as they found an open spot to stand side by side on the railing, looking southwest across the Thames at Westminster Palace—which he guessed would be a pile of rubble if not for the incredible team he felt honored to be a part of.

“Thirty minutes,” she said.

“Hmm, that’s slow.”

“It works out to be approximately ten inches per second travel speed,” she said.

“Did you just do that in your head?”

“Of course, it’s just math.”

“Oh my God, Heels, you’re such a nerd.”

“I was just kidding. That little factoid was on Wikipedia,” she said, giving him a playful nudge with her shoulder that didn’t move his fireplug body an inch. “But it’s easy math.”

Neither one of them said anything for a long moment as they stared out the window. When she started to speak, he said something at the exact same time.

“Sorry, go ahead,” he said, with a laugh.

“No, please, you first,” she said, relieved to punt the verbal football back to him.

“I’ve been meaning to, uh, ask you something that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since you said it,” he said and scratched at the scruff on his neck.

“Sure, ask away,” she said, keeping her smile up while nervous dread percolated in her chest.

“After you got rescued off that maritime buoy, you said that you couldn’t have made it without my help. What did you mean by that?”

She bit her lower lip, debating how much she should tell him.

Screw it—I’m just going to tell him everything.

“As the Brits would say, this is probably going to sound mental, but while I was on that life raft, I was totally hallucinating that you were there with me.”

“That’s because you were probably dehydrated.”

“Yeah, Hallucinated Chunk was constantly saying that and harping on me to drink. Hydration was, like, your mantra.”

He nodded and ran his tongue between his teeth and lower lip. “I like him already. What else did imaginary me say?”

“Well, basically, you were very bossy and annoying, but through it all, you kept me focused. There were so many times when I didn’t know what to do, and you gave me suggestions about how to adapt and overcome. You made me do the things I needed to survive.”

“That sounds like me.”

She socked him playfully in the arm again.

Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, she felt tears pressing as her mind took her back to her darkest moment on the raft.

“What is it, Whit?” he said, his eyes earnest and empathetic.

“When Lucy died,” she said, her voice cracking. “I . . . I was so sad and cold . . . and hopeless that I thought about just letting the ocean take me. It seemed like death was the best option, but you talked me out of it. You gave me strength. You gave me hope. You gave me the will to persevere,” she said.

Then, in a low voice, she unloaded on him a jumbled, nonlinear, and emotion-laden recap of everything that had happened to her from the moment she was kidnapped until she was rescued from the maritime buoy, including how she’d brutally stabbed one of the terrorists to death. When she finished, he pulled her tight against his chest for a long, wordless hug, which she let herself melt into. She had no idea how many minutes passed, but when he finally let her go, she looked up and saw that his eyes were misty.

Now it was his turn for a shaky exhale. “I’m glad you told me that, but a part of me feels profoundly guilty having heard it, because the truth is, I wasn’t there for you. I should have been. I wish I’d been, but I wasn’t. We both know that wasn’t me on the raft with you. You saved yourself, Whit. That was all you.”

“But it felt so real. You were there with me.”

“I’m sure it did . . . but I wasn’t.”

They locked eyes, and the compulsion to kiss Chunk was stronger than Whitney had felt with any man before.

No, no, no . . . you can’t. Don’t do it, her brain screamed.

Heart pounding like a bass drum in her chest, she abruptly turned from him to grip the railing and look out the window.

“Would you look at that . . . we’re at the top,” she said, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

“Whitney?” he said, the tenor of his voice strange.

“I know,” she said too quickly. “You don’t have to say it.”

“But you don’t know what I was going to say.”

“Yes, I do, and you don’t need to say it because I’m a big girl and—”

“What I was going to say,” he said, talking over her, “is that lately, I’ve been struggling with my personal feelings for you. While you were missing, I was consumed with worry . . . and it was more than what is probably appropriate for a teammate.”

Upon hearing this, she desperately wanted to look at him, but she held her head rigid and kept her gaze fixed on the London skyline. “Is this your way of saying you’re going to transfer me to another unit?”

“God, no,” he said and did his Texas chuckle.

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m trying to say that I think we both need to walk it back a little bit. Emotionally, if that makes sense?”

She nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Maybe we spend a little less time together.”

“Right. Good idea.”

“And we don’t do things just the two of us, alone, like take rides on fancy Ferris wheels.”

“Or cantilevered observation wheels,” she said, “which is technically what this is.”

“Those too.”

“Okay . . .” she said and swallowed hard despite her mouth having gone dry. “Shouldn’t be a problem. When we’re together, we just make sure we’re with the team.”

“Exactly,” he said.

They stood in awkward silence for a long moment.

“Chunk?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for not letting me take the shot on Nadar,” she said, getting the last and most important thing she needed to say off her chest. “I wasn’t myself in that moment.”

“I know,” he said. “And you’re welcome . . .”

“Chunk?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I could really use one more hug,” she said, finally turning to face him. “This will be the last time I ask . . . I promise.”

“No problem,” he said with an easy smile and pulled her in tight.

GLOSSARY

AI Artificial Intelligence

ASW Antisubmarine Warfare

BDU Battle Dress Uniform

CAC Common Access Card

CAG Combat Applications Group

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CO Commanding Officer

CSO Chief Staff Officer

DCS Dry Combat Submersible

DDS Dry Deck Shelters

DNN Deep Neural Network

DOD Department of Defense

ELINT Electronic Intelligence

EW Electronic Warfare

Exfil Exfiltrate

GCU Ground Control Unit

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters; British equivalent of NSA responsible for Signals Intelligence and support

HVT High-Value Target

IED Improvised explosive device

Infil Infiltrate

IR Infrared

ISR Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

JSOC Joint Special Operations Command

JTAC Joint Terrorism Analysis Center; British equivalent of the NCTC

KIA Killed in Action

MI5 British Domestic Counterintelligence and Security Agency; British equivalent of the FBI

MI6 Foreign Intelligence Service; British equivalent of the CIA

NCTC National Counterterrorism Center

NCO Noncommissioned Officer

NOC Nonofficial Cover

NSW Naval Special Warfare

NVGs Night Vision Goggles

OC Official Cover

ODNI Office of the Director of National Intelligence

OGA Other Government Agency, frequently refers to CIA or other clandestine organizations

OIC Officer in Charge

OPORD A military Operational Order

POC Point of Contact

POV Privately Owned Vehicle

QRF Quick Reaction Force

RAF Royal Air Force

ROCAF Republic of China Air Force

ROE Rules of Engagement for a military operation

SAS Special Air Service; British Special Operations forces equivalent to Green Berets

SBS Special Boat Services

SCIF Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility

SEAL Sea, Air, and Land Teams; Naval Special Warfare

SERE training Military Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training

SF Special Forces; Refers specifically to the Army Special Operations Green Berets

SINKEX A military maritime exercise involving the sinking of a simulated enemy vessel

SIS Secret Intelligence Service; the formal name for MI6

SITREP Situation Report

SOAR Special Operations Aviation Regiment

SOF Special Operations Forces

SWCS Shallow Water Combat Submersibles

TAD Temporary Additional Duty

TAO Tactical Action Officer

TBI Traumatic Brain Injury

The Farm Slang for the CIA’s training facility

TOC Tactical Operations Center

UCAV Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle

UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

USN United States Navy

VTOL Vertical Takeoff and Landing

PARTNER PAGES

Andrews & Wilson actively promote and partner with veteran-owned small businesses that demonstrate a mission of giving. The organizations featured here donate to and support the health and well-being of US service members as well as their families. We encourage you to learn about and support our partners and to spread the word about the important and uplifting work that they do.

Tim Cruickshank is the founder and CEO of Bonefrog Coffee Company. A Veteran-owned and operated premium, small-batch coffee roastery located in the Pacific Northwest.

After serving 25 years in the US Navy, he created Bonefrog Coffee Company as a tribute to the “Brotherhood” of US Navy SEALs, the Naval Special Warfare community and to all Americans who bravely served, or who are currently serving, in our United States Armed Forces. Each label they create tells a story to remind us of battles fought and great American heroes who answered the call.

www.bonefrog-coffee.com

The SEAL Legacy Foundation is a 501(c)(3), nonprofit organization dedicated to providing support to families of wounded and fallen United States Navy SEALs, educational assistance for SEALs and their families, and other charitable causes benefiting the SEAL community. The Foundation was established in 2011 by SEALs to preserve their legacy of no one left behind.

www.seallegacy.org

Force Tier One operator Tom Satterly and award-winning filmmaker Jen Satterly, the All Secure Foundation provides resources, education, Post-Traumatic Stress Injury Resiliency training for active-duty units, warrior couples workshop retreats, and family counseling for Special Operations warriors and their warrior families. We believe that every family member deserves tools to heal from war trauma and that no one is left behind on the battlefield on the home front.

WWW.ALLSECUREFOUNDATION.ORG

Email: information@allsecurefoundation.org

As a former Navy SEAL, founder Brian Dougherty was instilled with a higher purpose, a purpose that guides his company today. It is not just about creating watches with fine craftsmanship, flawless design, or uncompromising standards. It’s also about his desire to create a meaningful legacy and a company that his sons can be proud of for generations to come. This is why, to Brian, watchmaking is not just a business—it’s a time-honored tradition.

Every Declan James piece pays tribute to the heritage of watchmaking. They honor not only those who came before us but also those who will come after. The company’s history is rooted in service. They continue this lineage of humbly serving their customers with pride, integrity, and dedication.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Navy veterans Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson are the writing team behind the number one bestselling Tier One series. Brian is a nuclear engineer and Park Leadership Fellow who served as an officer on a fast-attack submarine. Jeff is a trauma/vascular surgeon who conducted combat operations with an East Coast–based SEAL team. Their other novels include the Sons of Valor and Shepherds series. They’re also writing Act of Defiance, the twenty-fourth installment of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series. Sign up for their newsletter at www.andrews-wilson.com.

Jeffrey Wilson has worked as an actor, firefighter, paramedic, jet pilot, and diving instructor, as well as a vascular and trauma surgeon. He served in the US Navy for fourteen years and made multiple deployments as a combat surgeon. Wilson is the author of three award-winning supernatural thrillers: The Traiteur’s Ring, The Donors, and Fade to Black. He and his wife live in Southwest Florida with their four children.

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