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Connor hadn’t even had an active role in the rescue, but he was still exhausted from all the stress. He pushed through a heavy steel door and stepped out onto the tarmac, taking a deep breath as he stared across the airfield at the horizon’s orange glow of the coming dawn. The air base was still closed, but he thought he could hear the faint bass drum of the Marine Ospreys making their way to shore from behind the hangar.

He tapped his foot, anxiously waiting to receive Lisa and begin the debriefing process. The stress of her rescue was one thing, but knowing she might be the only person who could prevent an attack ratcheted that up a notch. And he felt every ounce of the burden that had fallen on him to discover what knowledge she possessed and transmit it to Jax before it was too late.

The door behind him opened, and the watch commander stepped outside. He paused for a moment, then walked close and stood next to Connor in silence. Neither said a word for a few minutes as the thrumming sound of the tilt rotors grew louder and echoed off the surrounding buildings.

“You okay?” he asked.

Connor turned to him and nodded. He knew his fatigue was written all over his face.

“You probably don’t see stuff like that very often, do you?”

He laughed. “You do?”

The watch commander reached inside his coat pocket and removed a cellophane-wrapped cigar. He studied it in the dim lighting for a moment, then offered it to the CIA officer. “Stogie?”

“Is this a tradition of some kind?” Connor asked, accepting the gift.

The watch commander removed a second cigar, slipped it from the packaging, and inhaled the fragrant maduro wrapper before snipping off the tip with a cutter. Connor followed his lead, then held a match to the end while puffing on it until it glowed red. They stood in silence on the tarmac, letting the smoke billow around them and waft into the air.

Less than one hundred yards away, flight crew scrambled to prepare the specially configured Gulfstream G550 they had flown in from the States to carry Lisa home. They hadn’t planned to depart so soon and expected the Reagan’s medical staff to stabilize her aboard the aircraft carrier first. But with the ship under quarantine, their entire timeline had become compressed. Connor drew in another mouthful of the full-bodied cigar smoke, thankful it wasn’t his problem to deal with.

The door behind them opened and a voice called out, “They’re five minutes out.”

The watch commander blew a thick stream of smoke into the air, then sighed. “We’re on our way.”

“Guess quiet time is over,” Connor said. He dropped the cigar and ground the glowing embers with the heel of his boot as the watch commander disappeared inside the hangar.

He turned back to watch the pair of Ospreys materialize over the hills to the west and descend onto the runway. From a distance, they looked nearly identical to every other tilt rotor he had seen. But he knew these two were different. Aside from the olive drab coloring, he knew they carried Marines, SEALs, an air branch helicopter crew, and a woman who had endured more than he could ever imagine.

And a fighter pilot who had single-handedly salvaged the entire operation.

The Ospreys taxied closer, and Connor squinted through the dawn haze as the sound reverberated through his chest. He brought his fingers up to plug his ears while they parked side by side, less than one hundred yards from the idling Gulfstream, then fell silent as the massive proprotors spun to a stop.

Suddenly, the parking apron sprang to life. From behind him, members of the task force raced out to greet the returning SEALs. Medical personnel descended from the Gulfstream and jogged to the closest Osprey, where Connor assumed they would stabilize Lisa before bringing her on board the business jet. From behind the second Osprey, he saw the shadowed outline of a gaggle of men he suspected were the clean-cut Marines who had plucked the Super Hornet pilot out of the ocean before rescuing the others from the shoal.

“All right,” a booming voice called out. “Let’s get her over to the Gulfstream. I want to be wheels-up in ten minutes.”

The other men nodded, then carefully hoisted a litter and shuffled toward the Gulfstream, where two orderlies waited to carry Lisa the rest of the way. The CIA G550 was configured as a medevac with a dedicated medical bay outfitted with hospital-grade equipment needed to stabilize patients for long flights. From advanced life support capabilities to X-ray viewing equipment, the doctors and nurses on board would be able to get an early look at the extent of Lisa’s injuries during their flight home.

“You all set?” a bearded man asked.

Connor took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before answering. “That was a little more intense than I expected.”

The SEAL furrowed his brow, as if reading into the statement. “I don’t think anybody expected the Chinese to take it that far. But that’s why they sent us to get her.”