1. James “Rook” Callahan #2
Fathom’s voice came out barely above a whisper.
“They knew.”
Nobody spoke.
Landing coordinates.
Insertion time.
Call signs.
Approach route.
Extraction route.
Someone had given the enemy everything.
Farid Rahman wasn’t hiding inside that compound.
Farid Rahman was bait.
The enemy hadn’t guessed.
They hadn’t gotten lucky.
They had known.
Every detail.
Every movement.
Every secret.
Someone had sold them out.
A red laser appeared on Hammer’s chest.
For one frozen heartbeat, nobody moved.
Rook saw it.
Hammer saw it.
The entire team saw it.
The first shot cracked through the darkness.
Hammer jerked backward as the round slammed into his armor with enough force to throw him off balance.
“CONTACT!”
Rook’s roar shattered the silence.
Gunfire erupted from every direction.
Muzzle flashes appeared across the ridgelines like lightning breaking open in the darkness.
Red tracers sliced through the valley.
Machine guns opened from concealed positions.
The air filled with lead.
Hammer hit the ground behind a boulder.
“Still breathing!”
Another burst hammered into the rock above him.
Ghost dropped beside him and returned fire.
His rifle barked three times.
Three enemy fighters tumbled from the ridgeline.
“Left side!”
Bishop’s machine gun roared.
Enemy fighters disappeared behind cover.
For a heartbeat.
Then dozens more appeared.
Too many.
Far too many.
Rook’s stomach sank.
This wasn’t a militia guarding a bomb maker.
This was an army.
Someone had gathered hundreds of fighters and placed them exactly where they needed to be.
A rocket launcher flashed from the ridge above.
“DOWN!”
The missile screamed into the valley.
The explosion lifted dirt, rock, and fire fifty feet into the air. The shock wave punched through Rook’s chest, and smoke rolled across the battlefield.
Tex grabbed Ridge and dragged him behind cover before another burst shredded the ground where they had been standing.
“Move! Move!”
Sniper dropped to one knee.
The world slowed around him.
One breath.
One shot.
An enemy fighter fell.
Another breath.
Another shot.
Another body rolled down the mountain.
Caleb McDougal became death itself.
But even he couldn’t stop what was coming.
Every enemy they dropped revealed two more.
Rook fired into a cluster moving through the rocks.
Two fell.
Another took their place.
Then another.
The radio exploded with overlapping voices.
“Right flank!”
“Movement above us!”
“RPG!”
“Cover!”
The mountain became chaos.
Exactly what the enemy wanted.
Break the team apart.
Overwhelm them.
Destroy them piece by piece.
Another explosion erupted.
This one was closer.
Much closer.
Ghost disappeared inside a wall of fire.
Rook’s heart stopped.
“Ghost!”
Smoke rolled away.
Nothing remained where Ghost had been standing.
Nothing.
Rook felt the loss like a knife driven through his chest.
There was no time to process it.
No time to grieve.
Just gone.
Hammer saw it too.
The massive SEAL released a roar that echoed across the mountains.
Then he stood.
Completely exposed.
Machine gun in his hands.
“COME ON, YOU BASTARDS!”
The weapon thundered.
Enemy fighters dropped across the ridge. Bodies tumbled through the darkness.
Hammer advanced into the gunfire.
A force of nature.
An avalanche with a trigger.
Rounds slammed into his armor.
He kept moving.
Another hit.
Then another.
Still moving.
Still firing.
Still protecting his brothers.
A burst caught him from the side.
A gap in the armor.
Hammer stumbled.
For one impossible second, he remained standing.
Then he crashed to the rocky ground.
Rook felt something inside him tear.
Not Hammer.
Not the man who had always seemed too big, too loud, and too stubborn to die.
But the mountain didn’t care.
The mountain kept taking.
Another rocket streaked through the darkness.
It slammed into Bishop’s position.
The explosion swallowed stone and fire.
Bishop emerged from the smoke bleeding, but still standing.
Still firing.
The older SEAL looked almost mythical against the flames.
One man holding back an army.
Then he looked toward Rook.
Their eyes met.
For one brief second.
Rook knew.
Bishop knew.
Everyone knew.
This wasn’t survival anymore.
This was sacrifice.
Bishop gave him a single nod.
A warrior’s farewell.
Then he turned back toward the enemy.
“GET THEM OUT OF HERE!”
His voice thundered across the mountain.
The machine gun roared.
Enemy fire converged on him.
Hundreds of rounds.
Dozens of weapons.
Every fighter on the mountain trying to kill one man.
Bishop refused to fall.
Until another rocket found him.
The explosion turned night into daylight.
When the fire faded, Bishop was gone.
The machine gun had fallen silent.
Forever.
Rook clenched his rifle until his knuckles ached.
One brother.
Then another.
Then another.
The mountain was eating them alive.
And somewhere, the traitor who had arranged it was probably watching.
Certain the job was finished.
Certain no one would survive.
Certain, the truth would die here.
Not if Rook had anything to say about it.
“Tex!”
No answer.
Rook twisted around.
His stomach dropped.
Luke “Tex” Morgan lay twenty feet away, motionless.
Ridge was beside him, dragging him behind cover and trying to stop the blood pouring from his chest.
Rook sprinted toward them.
Bullets snapped past his head.
One clipped his shoulder plate.
Another slammed into the rock beside him.
He barely noticed.
Tex was trying to speak.
Trying to breathe.
And failing at both.
Rook hit the ground beside him.
The world narrowed.
For one terrible moment, there was only Tex.
Only his brother.
Only the man who had shown them a picture of his little girl less than an hour ago.
Blood coated Tex’s vest.
His hands.
The ground beneath him.
Too much blood.
Rook pressed both hands against the wound as though he could force life back into him.
“Stay with me.”
Tex gave a weak laugh.
“We both know…” He coughed, and blood stained his lips. “…that ain’t happening.”
“Shut up.”
Tex smiled.
Actually smiled.
Even now.
“My girl.”
Rook closed his eyes for one second.
He already knew where this was going.
“She’s waiting for me.”
“You’re going to tell her yourself.”
Tex looked at him.
Both men knew it was a lie.
A beautiful lie.
But still a lie.
“Don’t let her forget me.”
The words were barely more than a whisper.
Rook grabbed the front of his vest.
“You hear me?” Tex asked.
“I hear you.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
Tex nodded.
Satisfied.
Like he trusted Rook with the most important thing he would ever leave behind.
His eyes drifted toward the sky.
Toward home.
Toward a little girl waiting beside a lake with a fishing pole.
Then the light left them.
Rook froze.
Tex was gone.
“ROOK!”
Sniper’s shout snapped him back.
Enemy fighters were pouring down the mountainside.
Not dozens.
Hundreds.
Rook reached for Tex’s rifle, but Ridge shoved it into his hands first.
“I’ll cover you.”
Rook looked at him. “We move together.”
Ridge shook his head. Blood darkened the side of his uniform.
Rook hadn’t seen the wound.
“Ridge—”
“They’ve got the lower path blocked.” Ridge pointed toward a narrow ledge cutting across the mountainside. “Take the ravine. It’ll give you cover.”
“You’re coming with us.”
“Not fast enough.”
The words were calm.
Too calm.
Rook grabbed his vest. “I’m not leaving another man.”
Ridge looked toward Tex.
Something broke behind his eyes.
“You’re not leaving me. I’m staying with him.”
Gunfire ripped through the rocks above them.
Ridge pulled a grenade from his vest.
Then another.
“There’s enough fuel and ammunition in that storage building to bring half this mountain down.”
Rook understood.
“No.”
“You need time. I can give it to you.”
“That’s an order, Ridge.”
“So is getting the surviving members of your team home.”
Ridge clasped Rook’s arm.
His grip was still strong.
Still steady.
“Make this mean something.”
Rook couldn’t answer.
Ridge gave him a final nod, then turned toward the enemy.
“Go!”
Sniper grabbed Rook’s shoulder.
Fathom was already moving toward the ravine.
Rook stumbled after them.
Behind him, Ridge opened fire.
An enemy fighter fell.
Then another.
Then three more.
The gunfire grew closer.
Ridge waited until the fighters reached the storage building.
Then the mountain erupted.
The blast threw Rook to the ground.
Flames climbed into the night, swallowing the building and every fighter around it.
Rook looked back.
There was nothing left.
Ghost.
Hammer.
Bishop.
Tex.
Ridge.
Five brothers gone.
Then Fathom stopped in the ravine.
He stared at the tablet in his hands, his face pale with terror.
Rook shoved himself upright. “What?”
Fathom turned the screen.
More heat signatures.
Convoys approaching from the south.
Additional fighters advancing from the east.
Entire groups converging on their position.
The trap wasn’t ending.
It was tightening.
“They’re closing the net,” Fathom said.
Sniper stared at the screen. “No.”
“They aren’t trying to defeat us.” Fathom looked at Rook. “They’re trying to erase us.”
No prisoners.
No survivors.
No witnesses.
Whoever had sold them out wanted every SEAL on that mountain dead.
Rook looked back toward the battlefield.
Brothers he had fought beside for years lay scattered among the rocks.
Brothers he couldn’t save.
Now he faced the worst decision of his life.
Stay.
Or leave them behind.
Sniper saw it in his eyes.
“Rook…”
Rook didn’t answer.
There was no right decision.
Only terrible ones.
Another rocket exploded nearby.
Stone rained down around them.
The enemy was almost on top of them.
Seconds.
They had seconds.
“Fall back.”
Sniper stared at him as though he had been struck.
“No.”
“That’s an order.”
“We can’t leave them.”
The words tore out of him.
Rook agreed.
God help him, he agreed.
But if they died here, the traitor won.
If they died here, nobody would ever know what had happened.
“We live,” Rook said.
His voice was cold.
Hard.
Final.
“We find who did this.”
Sniper’s jaw clenched.
Fathom lowered his head.
Neither man argued again.
Smoke rolled across the mountain.
Rook ran.
Sniper and Fathom stayed beside him.
Bullets cracked overhead as enemy fighters poured down the slopes behind them.