Ron stepped up onto the ramp and shouted, “Last man!”

Dave watched him collapse in a heap next to the Agency officer, then moved quickly through the cabin to complete a head count. The last thing he wanted to do was leave anybody behind.

“All aboard,” Dave shouted, tapping Charlie on the shoulder. The pilot nodded and raised the collective, lifting the Russian-made helicopter from the sand. Less than ten seconds after the last SEAL stepped onto the ramp, the air branch pilot had the helicopter nosed over and accelerating away from the island. Exhausted, Dave slid to the floor and watched the SEALs on the door guns continue to spew thin tails of fire into the darkened jungle behind them.

Slowly, the gunfire ebbed, and the SEALs flipped off the miniguns’ electric motors and locked their mounts in place. As the sound of the beating rotor blades and wind whipping in through the open doors replaced the sound of gunfire, Dave plugged his Peltor headset into an intercom jack on the bulkhead. He surveyed his surroundings and saw bullet holes pocking the fuselage and brass casings and steel links littering the aluminum floor.

“Scar Nine Nine, Dusty One, the package is secure, proceeding to mom,” Charlie said.

Dave breathed a sigh of relief, thankful to be out over the water and heading home. But his relief was short-lived.

“Copy all, Dusty One.” The voice paused. “Chatter indicates the Chinese have launched fighters to intercept.”

“How long—”

Roger’s voice chimed in. “Looks like we’re leaking fuel.”

Well, shit.

33

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76)

South China Sea

Colt groaned and shifted his weight to try to find a modicum of relief from the discomfort caused by his parachute harness digging into his thighs after four hours strapped to the ejection seat. He brought his Garmin Fenix in front of his face and pressed the button to light it up so he could read the time.

Only ten more minutes, he thought.

He had come to regret his decision to volunteer for a second back-to-back shift and gave up on his Kindle in favor of staring out into the pitch-black nothingness to pass the time. He looked over at the jet on the catapult next to him and saw what looked like the flicker of a screen lighting up his wingman’s face.

“Hey, Ducky, how’s your night vision?”

Ducky looked up and glanced in Colt’s direction. “Great. You still over there?”

He shook his head and reached down to further dim his cockpit lighting, but no matter how dark he made it, he still couldn’t make out a defined horizon. It was just one of those nights.

A loud banging on the side of his jet drew his attention down to the bottom of the ladder, where he saw his plane captain, a third class petty officer whose name he couldn’t quite remember.

Ramirez or Rodriguez? Something like that.

“Sir, I think your relief is coming,” he yelled up to him.

Colt nodded and felt a glimmer of hope that he would finally be released from his prison. His stomach growled at the thought of descending from the flight deck for the dirty shirt and a slider at mid rats, but he had to take his PC’s word for it. Sitting on the bow catapult, he had an unobstructed view of the ocean but couldn’t see anything other than Ducky’s Super Hornet on the adjacent catapult.

What’s his name? Rosales?

Colt put the thought from his mind and started cleaning up the nest he had made for himself. He stuffed the trash in his helmet bag’s side pocket next to two emptied and crushed water bottles, then turned up the cockpit flood lights to make sure he hadn’t missed any Clif Bar wrappers. Satisfied he wasn’t leaving a mess for his relief, he uncapped his last water bottle and drained it in one long pull.

It’s Martinez.

As the blood began flowing again to his limbs, Colt reached down and started unstrapping his leg restraints so he could finally climb out of the seat. He froze with his hands on the buckles when the 5MC’s loudspeaker boomed across the flight deck.

“Launch the Alert Five aircraft!”

What did he just say?

He sat up and turned to Martinez with a shocked look on his face. “What did he just say?”

But before Martinez could reply, the 5MC flight deck address system blared again. “All crew on the flight deck, start up the Alert Five aircraft. Launch the Alert Five aircraft, initial bearing heading two seven zero.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Colt saw his plane captain stow his ladder and give him the waggling three-fingered signal to start his Auxiliary Power Unit. Without thinking, he reached for the APU switch and flipped it on while simultaneously lowering the canopy in place to shut out the soft whine of four jets starting up.

One minute.