Tom Clancy Presents: Act of Valor

TEN

It was an excellent night for an over-the-beach operation, as there was no moon, and a spotty cloud cover blocked much of the starlight. But the sea was a problem. Four-foot waves rode atop the long Pacific swells coming out of the southwest, and their initial course for Cedros Island had the three CRRCs running on a due easterly heading. With the swells on their starboard quarter, the CRRCs slid down them in a wrenching, corkscrew motion while they pounded across and through the waves. The SEALs, with their gear tied down, clung to the spray and cross tubes and endured the misery. The fact was that the boats could take more than those riding in them. The SWCC coxswains had wedged themselves in the rear of their craft. They wore night-vision devices and, with one hand on the big outboard tiller and the other on a handheld GPS, guided their craft through the night. The swicks brought two more of their own along for security and to ride in the front of the third CRRC to hold down the bow. After an hour and a half of the continuous, uneven pounding, they skirted past the uninhabited Islas San Benito and rounded the northern tip of Cedros. Turning south, they came into the lee of the island and some relief from the sea conditions. They were well offshore, but they could see the lights of the village.

The tumultuous ride afforded Engel some time to think. Though he was being physically punished by the pounding of the CRRC, he could still think — and think clearly. Like most SEALs, he could detach mental activity from physical discomfort. So while he was being jerked this way and pulled that way without warning, he carefully reviewed the information Senior Chief Miller had sent to them from his interrogation of Christo. Although Christo had confirmed the nature of the threat and the methods of the attack vo ce=ching, corers, he had few operational details; they knew the how but not the all-important where and when. Christo had known nothing of Cedros Island, but on one thing he had been most specific. The explosive vests that Shabal now had in his possession were virtually undetectable by current screening technologies, and those recruited to carry the vests were from a Muslim sect in the southern Philippines who were completely dedicated. And the explosives were of a new and more powerful design — so new that dogs trained to find explosive materials would not have been trained to detect them. It was a formula for mass casualties and panic. This threat, and the knowledge of casualties these vests could inflict, occupied him as they bounded through the night for Cedros Island. Yet on occasion, his thoughts drifted to Jackie and their new baby. These thoughts were mixed with a longing and a regret that he could not be with her, but with some effort he pushed them aside and focused on the task ahead.

Cedros Island, or Isla de Cedros, “isle of cedars,” is close to twenty-five miles long and five miles wide, with a population of some fifteen hundred souls — most of whom live along the southern coast. Located sixty miles off Baja California in the Pacific, it was misnamed by early Spanish explorers who took the pine trees on Cedros for cedars. There had not been much activity or anything of real importance in the past two centuries to add to Cedros’s recorded history. Copper and gold were mined on Cedros at the turn of the last century, but the ore was marginal at best. The mining gave way to fishing, and the fishing gave way to ecotourism and smuggling. The small target village on the northern coast of this island was a hotbed of the latter. The village, if it could even be called that, had no name. It was a mile north of the old mining town of Punta Norte and consisted of a few shacks, some trailers, and a cantina. Those who lived there made a poor living from fishing, smuggling, and the transshipment of drugs, and the island authorities from the borough seat of Pueblo Cedros made it a point not to go there.

The lead CRRC with the Bandito squad aboard finally throttled back, and the other CRRCs followed suit. They drifted forward at idle, swicks and SEALs alike watching and listening. Engel’s coxswain leaned toward him with an iPad in a clear, waterproof housing.

“Sir, here’s the village,” he said in a low voice, “and here’s the insertion point some eighteen hundred yards due west. We’ll have an offshore breeze, so they shouldn’t hear us coming. I got zero-four-thirty-two. How do you want to handle it?”

Engel considered this. Not much could be gained by waiting out here; even this mild seaway would wear on his SEALs and make them less combat ready. And the sooner he could get his ground force ashore, the more time they would have with their approach to the target.

“We’re a little early, but not that early. Let’s stand in.”

“Roger that, sir.”

The swick coxswain turned the lead CRRC toward the beach, and they began to idle toward the island. Engel had neither to pass word for the other CRRC to follow, nor to alert those in the raiding force that they were heading for the insertion point. When the boats had come off step and gone to idle speed, the SEALs on both boats began to prepare for going ashore. They snapped their NODs on {thee bto their helmets and began to cinch down their body armor and combat vests. Ray, as the lead communicator, quietly began a radio check with the SEALs in both squads and the boat coxswains. They had done this just as they were leaving the Bonhomme Richard, but that was several hours ago and a kidney-pounding ride across forty miles of open ocean. All the SEALs in both squads were up and alert. Ray then shifted channels on his MBITR radio, the one that linked him to the TOC on the Bonnie Dick. He had a light, continuous wire cross-hatched on his combat vest, making himself a human antenna, and the LHD had a helo aloft — shadowing them but well out to sea, to serve as an airborne communications relay.

“Home Plate, this is Blackbeard, over.”

“Roger, Blackbeard, this is Home Plate, over.”

“Blackbeard here, we are at Point Alpha, over.”

“Roger, Blackbeard, hold you at Point Alpha. Rat Pack turning on deck, over.”

“Blackbeard, roger, out.”

Ray, who would never be far from Engel during the raid, touched his elbow. “Comm check good, Boss,” he whispered, “and the Rat Pack is turning on deck.” Rat Pack was the helo support team — two armed Knighthawks with the third squad of SEALs.

Two of the three CRRCs were now headed toward the shoreline at idle speed. The third CRRC would wait offshore. It was still dark, yet the SEALs now hugged the main and cross tubes of the boats to lower their silhouette. The odd splash of wave against rubber and soft murmur of the outboard were the only sounds. A hundred yards off the beach, the two CRRCs were virtually invisible to the naked eye. At fifty yards from the beach, the boats heaved to while A.J. and a SEAL from the Team One squad slipped into the water and swam ashore. Once they crawled onto the beach, they paused to listen and to survey the backshore with their NODs. Then they scurried up the rocky slope and into the sparse vegetation, pausing once more to look and listen. They could hear distant salsa music coming from the direction of the village, but there was nothing else. They waited for five minutes, then called the boats in. First one, then the other, came through the line of surf, disgorged their black forms, and returned back through the shallow breakers. For the SEALs and the SWCC coxswains, this from-the-sea evolution was a well-practiced maritime skill. It was something SEALs and swicks did again and again during basic training and on every pre-deployment training cycle. Once into the backshore, the SEALs went into a loose security perimeter, the Bandito SEALs rallying on A.J., and the other squad on their scout swimmer. Again they listened and waited. Nolan quietly moved from one Bandito SEAL to another to ensure they were up and ready, and had no equipment issues from the transit or the trip through the surf. The Team One squad chief did the same. At 0540, Engel judged they were fifty minutes from first light. It was time to move; he keyed his tactical radio.

“Tomcat, Blackbeard. Let’s do it, over.”

“Tomcat here. We’re moving, out.”

The Team One poin {Teae movint man led both squads quietly toward the village. The music grew louder, but there was no one moving about the half dozen or so scattered clapboard and adobe structures. There was enough light spilling from an occasional window for the SEALs, with their NODs, to see at least ten vehicles, mostly pickup trucks, and a potholed, gravel road running through the village. At fifty yards south of the first building, the Bandito squad halted, and the Team One squad continued on patrol. Their job was to set up fire-support stations between the harbor and village along the eastern edge of the village. They moved slowly and carefully as they skirted the village. The lives of their brother Bandito SEALs depended on their finding and establishing effective support-by-fire positions.

The Team One sniper and his spotter found an old semitrailer along the harbor-access road and carefully climbed to the top of the freight box. It was as good as they could do on this flat, rocky terrain. The other SEALs found shallow rises to set in an Mk48 machine-gun emplacement and their Mk46 squad assault weapon. They had a reasonable command of the village, and when the sun came up, it would be at their backs. After the platoon officer was satisfied with his squad’s deployment, he keyed his tactical radio.

“Blackbeard, this is Tomcat. We’re in position. Let us know when you’re moving, and good hunting, over.”

“Roger that, Tomcat, stand by, out.” Engel nodded to Ray to call in the start of their assault, which he did. On the Bonhomme Richard, two Knighthawk helicopters lifted off into the darkness with four SEALs in each helo. Rat Pack was now airborne, heading for an orbiting station ten miles out to sea and five minutes flying time from their village.

“Beacons on and radio check,” Engel spoke into his mic.

“A.J. here.”

“Ray here.”

“Weimy here.”

“Sonny here.”

“Nolan here.” Nolan rose so he could look along the line of SEALs with his NOD to verify that their IR beacons were all active. “We are up and active.”

“All right, brothers,” Engel replied, “let’s go take this town. Tomcat, we’re moving, over.” With one squad in an overwatch support position and the other standing by as a quick-reaction element, Roark Engel was free to lead the ground assault.

“Tomcat copies you moving, out.”

As one, the Bandito squad rose and approached the village on a skirmish line. One at a time, they crossed a rickety bridge that spanned a dry wash running past the village. On the other side, they reconstituted their line and continued on. From the fire-support positions, it was as if six dull, light-green bulbs in a ragged line moved to and into the small village. As they closed on the first structure, three of them, the clearing team, moved to the front entrance while the other three held security.

ee o"0" width="1em">The first two-room hut was empty, as was the second and third. They took them in sequence — carefully, slowly, and quietly, so as to leave cleared and secure structures at their back. The fourth hut was not empty and the two SEALs who entered slowly backed out.

“Uh, Boss, Weimy here. We got what looks like a mom and a bunch of sleeping kids.”

“Understood. Tomcat, mark this hut as unsecured with noncombatants, over.”

“Roger that, Blackbeard. Tomcat out.”

“Let’s keep moving, guys.”

“Roger,” Weimy whispered, “moving.”

There were only two more fixed structures: a small mud-adobe hut and the larger, wooden cantina still playing salsa music. Behind the cantina, the SEALs could now see two single-wide mobile homes. Sonny and A.J., along with Weimy, moved to set up on the adobe. Sonny stepped through the door and found himself standing at the foot of a single bunk with a dirty mattress. There were two children — one sleeping and the other nursing. He put his fingers to his lips to ask for silence, but it didn’t work. The mother screamed, and the scream brought a man from behind a curtained area in the rear of the hut. He wore only a soiled white shirt and undershorts, and held an AK-47 loosely at his side by the trigger grip. He moved, giving Sonny no choice. The element of surprise was now over; it was time for violence of action. Sonny took him mid-chest with a five-round burst from his Mk46 SAW. The woman continued to scream.

“One Tango down,” Sonny calmly reported on the tactical net, and he backed out the door. “Noncombatants still inside.”

On the command net, Ray called in the action. “Rat Pack, Home Plate, we are in contact. I say again, we are in contact, over.”

“Rat Pack, roger. We are inbound, out.”

“Home Plate, roger, out.”

North of Cedros Island, two MH-60S Knighthawk helos dropped to five hundred feet and headed south at best speed. The first signs of dawn were now making their appearance over Baja California, yet the aircrews and SEALs still wore their NODs. West of Cedros, the Bonhomme Richard was closing at flank speed.

Moments earlier in the cantina, a rough-looking Hispanic and the leader of the Filipino recruit contingent were carefully laying out explosive vests on a long table. Six other Filipinos sat quietly in a corner of the large single room drinking tea. At another table, three other men, with the sun-hardened look of fishermen, sat around a single bottle of tequila, playing dominos. Two others were drinking at a shabby bar made from low-grade plywood. When the short burst of Sonny’s SAW split the night, they all reacted, and within seconds, everyone had a gun. The Mexicans looked wildly around; the Filipinos were more disciplined and carefully moved to the doors and windows. They were Muslim extremists and prepared to die. I {rednosf it was to be their time, then so be it. One of them quietly slipped on one of the explosive vests.

“On me, Banditos,” Engel called over the tac net, and the five SEALs took a position on a line abreast with Engel, facing the cantina. “Tom, you have us?”

“Negative. You must be behind a building.”

Engel took a portable laser and pointed it skyward, moving it in small circles. The motion created an IR shaft of light marking his position.

“Now?”

“We got you, Blackbeard. Stay tight there unless you call out your move.”

“Roger that, Tom, and you are cleared hot.”

At that instant, three of the locals burst from the front door of the cantina and were immediately taken under fire by both the Mk48 and the Mk46. All three went down before they had gotten ten yards from the door, dead or mortally wounded. Then came the Filipinos, and it became an IR shooting gallery. They moved with good tactical discipline, but they were blind and had no cover. The SEALs all had LA-5 IR target lasers on their weapons. Through their NODs, it was just a matter of putting the green dot on the Tango and pressing the trigger. Two squirters bolted from the rear door and were picked up by the sniper on the top of the freight hauler. Then suddenly it became very quiet. That silence was quickly broken by the fast-approaching Knighthawks. They came in fast and low, tail-walking across the beach as they bled off airspeed and altitude. First one, then the other, touched down for but an instant and disgorged their SEAL fire teams. The two fire teams took up positions north and west of the cantina.

“Blackbeard, Tomcat, this is Rat Pack. We are in place, over.”

“This is Blackbeard and roger that. Welcome to the party, Rat Pack. We are going in by the front door. Three of us inside, two flankers, and one holding at the door. How copy, over?” Engel was now as much concerned with friendly fire as he was with clearing this last building. He listened as his Team One SEALs acknowledged. One of the Tomcat support-by-fire positions hurriedly moved so as to bring the cantina under a better field of fire.

“Banditos moving,” Engel called.

“Banditos moving,” the other two squads acknowledged.

Sonny and his SAW flanked left, and Weimy went to the right. A.J. led Nolan, Ray, and Engel to the door. The new dawn continued to grow in the east, but the cantina was now dark, with the front door half open. They were flattened at the front door frame, A.J. and Engel on one side, Ray and Nolan on the other. Engel nodded to Ray and Nolan, and all three pulled a flash-bang grenade from their vests and jerked out the pin.

“Three, two, one,” Engel quietly counted, and all three tossed their grenades inside.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A.J., as always, was first in, crossing right to left — then Nolan, left to right. Engel came straight in. Ray, the radioman, would hold security at the door. From behind the bar, a man with an old M79 40mm grenade launcher popped up. He could hear nothing but ringing in his ears from the flash-bangs and saw almost nothing but spots — almost. He did see enough to catch the outline of a form in the door against the coming dawn. He pointed and fired, and a fraction of a second later, the same man was double-tapped by Chief Nolan. A lone Filipino fled out the rear door. Ray fired twice, hitting him once, but it was a through-and-through shot. The man kept running.

Outside, there were a great number of SEALs looking for a diminishing number of targets. The man carrying Ray’s bullet ran like a man with a hot poker in his side, which, in effect, he had. He took but three strides before being cut down by tracers from both the support-by-fire positions and the blocking force.

Atop one of the trailer homes, a man with an RPG raised up and fired. With a loud WHOOSH, the rocket sailed over Sonny’s head and exploded in a fireball just behind the cantina. The gunner immediately became a magnet for tracer rounds. He was dead before he could take the launcher from his shoulder. Then muzzle flashes appeared from the windows of both trailers, and for ten full seconds, the two mobile homes were shredded by automatic weapons fire and rocked by grenade hits. There was no more fire from the trailers. The silence that followed was cut by Nolan’s voice on the tactical net.

“Man down! I got a man down! Get me a medic in here!”

The Team One platoon officer immediately stepped in. “Rat Pack, this is Tomcat. Hold your position. My element will be assaulting the target building from the southeast. Tomcat moving, break, Blackbeard, what is your status, over.”

It was Nolan again. “Blackbeard actual is down. Get your medic here A-S-A-P!”

“Roger that, Blackbeard. Tomcat, out.”

The eight SEALs of the Team One support squad made their way through the village on a skirmish line, moving quickly. Four converged on the cantina, while the other four moved to clear the two shot-up trailers. The platoon officer and his combat medic made straight for the front door of the cantina. Inside, headlamp beams cut through the smoke to converge on a man lying on his back on the floor. It was Roark Engel. He was breathing shallowly, but he was not moving. With Nolan at his side, the medic began cutting the straps to his combat vest and body armor. Then they began cutting away his clothing, looking for wounds. There were none. The medic shrugged as he took a pencil flashlight and lifted one of Engel’s eyelids. This got a reaction. The lieutenant jerked his head away from the offending light and tried to sit up.

“Whoa, easy there, sir,” said the medic. “You can talk, but don’t move. How are you feeling?”

Engel’s voice was scratchy but audible. “Like someone’s sitting on my chest.” He saw Nolan hovering {olaont> nearby with more than concern on his face. “Have you been sitting on my chest again, Chief?” Nolan sat back on his heels, the relief visible. “Hey,” Engel continued, “I think I can move, okay?”

Nolan and the medic helped him to a sitting position, but he clutched at them as his head began to spin.

“Easy there, sir,” said the medic. “Something knocked you on your ass. We’re just not sure what it was.”

“I think it was this.” Dropping to one knee beside them, A.J. was gingerly holding a 40mm grenade round, sans the propellant charge, in his thumb and forefinger.

“Take that fucking thing outside,” Nolan ordered. “Now!”

A.J. grinned but left with the grenade, still holding it carefully.

“Who… What was it?” Engel asked, still confused.

“That dead Tango behind the bar,” Nolan explained, “center-punched you with a forty mike-mike round when you stepped inside. It takes about fifteen feet for that round to arm itself coming out of the tube. You were only about ten feet away.”

“Lucky me,” Engel managed. Then to the Team One platoon officer, “We secure?”

“We are, and your communicator has called us in secure. My guys are conducting a cordon and search of the area right now. And there are some FBI agents and Homeland Security people inbound from the Bonnie Dick. This place will soon be crawling with civilians.”

Engel considered this and nodded, still not thinking too clearly. Then he jerked his head around, “Anybody hurt?”

“Just you, Boss,” Nolan replied, looking at the bruise that was now beginning to form on Engel’s chest. “Just you.” He was trying to make light of what had just happened, but when he had turned and found his platoon officer unconscious on the cantina floor, his heart had leapt into his throat. “And sir, don’t ever do that to me again.”

“Help me up, will you?”

They pulled him to his feet. His gear was still on the floor, and his assault uniform was in rags, but he still clutched his M4. Soon helicopters began to arrive with inspectors, analysts, and intelligence professionals. In the growing light, they inspected, photographed, and tagged the ceramic-ball vests. Explosive ordnance technicians watched as an FBI forensic specialist individually bagged them. Outside in the growing daylight, Roark Engel walked around the cantina flanked by Chief Nolan and A.J. Three steps from the front door, one of the Filipinos was facedown in the rocky soil with a bullet in his brain. He was wearing one of the explosive vests, his hand motionless on the activation lanyard.

“C’mon, Boss. Let’s get you to the helo and back aboard the Bonnie Dick for a {ck< width= good going-over by the ship’s doctor.”

With the Bonhomme Richard closing on the island, it was but a fifteen-minute Knighthawk ride from the village to the ship. The platoon from SEAL Team One stayed behind to provide security for the investigators, while the Bandito squad was lifted out. Lieutenant Engel said he was fine, but Chief Nolan insisted he first go to sick bay and get himself checked out. He was still in his sliced-and-diced assault uniform when he arrived at the Bonnie Dick’s sick bay. He looked like a tramp in a train yard. Ray had radioed ahead that his officer would need some attention, and a doctor and a corpsman were standing by. The medical officer, a full commander, wasn’t happy when Nolan declined to leave while the doctor examined Engel.

“Y’know,” Nolan said while the doctor checked him, “that was a pretty stupid thing to do, stepping in front of the forty mike-mike grenade just to keep it from traveling the arming distance. Not one of your better moves, Boss.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Now, if you had just stepped a little to one side, Ray could have taken that round. Course, he was farther away, and it might have had time to arm itself.”

“Might have,” Engel replied.

“How’s he doing, Doc?”

The physician ignored Nolan and kept prodding at Engel. Then he again listened with his stethoscope for several minutes.

“No permanent damage,” he finally announced, “but we’ll give you a chest X-ray just to be sure. It’s like you were in a head-on collision at moderate speed and the air bag deployed. Your vest and body armor sufficiently disbursed the force of the round or it might have cracked your sternum, perhaps with fatal results. But it was the chest plate in your body armor that made the difference — that and the grenade not going off. That bruising on your chest will probably become more pronounced, and you’ll have some discomfort, but I think you’ll be fine. You’re a lucky man, Lieutenant.”

“Tell me about it, sir.”

“You want something for the pain? Or something to help get you to sleep?”

“I think I’ll be okay, sir. We’ve been up awhile, so I’ll have no problem going to sleep.”

“Well then,” the doctor offered, “I’d tell you to take it easy, but I’d probably just be wasting my breath.”

Engel grinned. “I’ll do what I can to get some rest, Doctor, and thank you.”

When they reached the SEAL compartment belowdecks, the Banditos were overhauling their equipment. It was standard SEAL procedure: equipment first. Once they had their gear and weapons cleaned and set up, they would eat, shower, and then maybe get some sleep. Engel quickly pulled o {ckld tn a fresh set of cammies and began to disassemble his M4 to prepare it for cleaning. Out of curiosity, he found his combat vest and took out the chest plate. There was a shallow indentation in the ceramic armor, but it was otherwise intact. It was advised that a plate be replaced after it received a strike, but he pushed it back into its carrier on his armor. It was a lucky plate.

After cleaning his rifle and reloading his magazines, he took his radio from his vest and set it on the charging bank. Then he laid down on his bunk for just a minute to rest before finishing up with his gear. He was looking forward to a shower and some hot chow. And that’s the last thing he remembered until Chief Nolan shook him awake.

“Wha — what is it, Chief?” He came awake quickly and would have bolted upright but for the pain in his chest. It was excruciating.

“Easy, sir. Maybe you ought to sit up slowly.” And he did.

With his feet on the deck, he managed to take a full breath. The pain was still there but manageable. Engel looked around and saw that his boots were off and that his combat gear was set up and staged on a folding chair at the foot of his bunk. He frowned at his own inattention; a SEAL was supposed to take care of his own gear. Nolan again, he suspected, although it could have been any one of them.

“How long have I been down?”

“About six hours. They want us up in the TOC. Something’s come up.”

He stood and found the pain in his chest a little more bearable. “I got time for a shower?”

“I think they want us now, Boss. The master chief from the intel shop just left. Seems there may be a follow-on operation in the offing.”

“The fun never stops, does it?” With some discomfort, he sat back on his bunk and began to lace on his boots. Then he noticed a donut and a steaming cup of black coffee on a chair beside his bunk.

“Pretend you’re in the Navy and have some coffee, Boss. It’ll do you good.”

He did, and as the warm liquid surged down into his chest and stomach, it did indeed feel good.

The little TOC off the Bonhomme Richard’s large CIC was once again crowded. There was the ship’s intelligence officer; the man from the NSA, who seemed very nervous; and Lieutenant Susan Lyons. She greeted Roark Engel and Dave Nolan warmly.

“Thanks for coming up here so quickly, and I never did get the chance to thank you for getting Dr. Lisa Morales out of that hellhole in Costa Rica. And she asked me to again thank you.”

“How is she doing?” Engel asked.

“Quite well, actually. She’s come a long way, but as you know, there was a { th"0" widlot of physical and psychological damage. She’s getting help with both. I’ll tell her you were asking about her. Now, the reason for this meeting is a follow-up to the operation on Cedros Island. There’s good news and there’s bad news.”

Engel noticed that the intel commander and the NSA man deferred to her, so she was definitely something more than a Navy lieutenant or a Navy intelligence officer. Engel guessed CIA or Homeland Security, with strong liaison connections to one or the other. Both Engel and Nolan assumed the lieutenant cover was just a means to allow her to blend in with the ship’s company and move about a little easier.

“The good news is that we now have a dozen of those explosive vests and at least eight of those who were slated to enter the U.S. on a mission of terror. There were five men and three women that we’ve positively IDed. The bad news is that we can’t account for the other vests or the terrorists. Or Shabal for that matter. And since all of those on Cedros were killed in the fighting, we have no one to interrogate. One of the women was still alive after the shooting, but she’s since died of her wounds.” She unintentionally made it sound like an accusation.

“Well, between all the grenades and the rockets and the automatic-weapons fire coming our way,” Nolan said evenly, “I guess we just got carried away.”

If she perceived some censure in Nolan’s comment, she didn’t let on, and continued. “The follow-on search teams did find a few cell phones, a satellite phone, and an iPad computer. Isaac here,” indicating the NSA man, “and his people are examining them for anything that might give us a clue to where the other vests and the terrorists might be.”

For his part, the National Security Agency man appeared restless. He seemed fixated on his Apple laptop while absentmindedly twirling a pencil in a rolling manner across his fingers, pointer to pinkie and back again.

“We’re working on it,” he mumbled, “but what they brought us from the island was pretty beat up. The computer had a bullet hole in it and most of the cell phones had been drenched in blood. Do you know just how corrosive human blood is?”

Nolan started to say something, but Engel placed a hand on his shoulder. “So where does that leave us?”

“We’ve confirmed that the Tupolev landed at the airport at Isla de Cedros Aeropuerto,” Lyons continued, “which was no small thing to get that plane onto a five-thousand-foot strip. The ‘passengers’ were taken away in open pickup trucks, and the plane immediately left. There is daily air service to Guerrero Negro, and we’re checking their bookings as we speak. And there are small craft that routinely cross the channel between Cedros and Baja. It’s safe to say that the other vests and the other terrorists, and probably Shabal as well, have made the crossing. We can only assume that they are headed north for the border. So the Bonhomme Richard is now steaming north to the Baja-U.S. border. But this will do us no good unless we can pinpoint where they are and where they plan to cross.”

“So,” Nolan said, “we stand by to stand by and wait for something {foro s to break.”

Lyons shrugged. “Unless you have a better idea. We’ve alerted all our border contacts to be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, but we’ve stopped just short of a terrorist alert. At this time, it would serve no purpose. We have, however, let the Mexican authorities know that there may be terrorists attempting a border crossing, but we’ve given no details on just how serious this threat is. They’ve moved one of their tier-one special- operations units to the border where they are on standby. If it comes to mounting another operation on Mexican soil, either they will be working with you or you will be working with them. The State Department and Homeland Security are working out the liaison details.”

“You mean,” Engel said evenly, “that we might be working side-by-side with, or even under the tactical control of, these Mexican SPECOPs types?”

“That’s right, the Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales, or GAFE — Mexican special forces. I’ve been led to believe they’re very good. Maybe not as good as you SEALs, but we’re south of the border here. It’s their turf, so it’s their game. The Cedros Island venture was a one-time, offshore thing. Maybe if you hadn’t, well…”

“Yeah, we know,” Nolan interjected, “if we hadn’t killed so many people and broken so much stuff.”

“Look,” Lyons replied, with a measure of anger in her voice, “it is what it is. They are cooperating, but there are limits to that cooperation. And we’re the beggars here; the terrorists are targeting us, not them. It took a lot of log rolling to allow you to go onto Cedros. Now we want to put an armed military unit on their mainland — even a small team, which is what you will have to go in with. So we have boundaries. Their special-operations people are supposed to have good capabilities. They operate against cartel security, which is every bit as nasty as the Taliban. So there it is; we do it this way or sit back on our side of the border and wait for them. If Isaac and his people can find them, then we have a target. If not, then we’ll have to wait for a break and watch the border smuggling routes.

“We’ve already received some help from the GAFE. They operate almost exclusively against the drug smugglers, and they say that the most numerous routes and most porous border points along the southwest border regions are in and around Mexicali. We understand that these crossing points are also the most closely guarded and defended by the cartels. They feel that if the terrorists and the smugglers are indeed in bed with each other, then they will try to cross in the Mexicali area. But that still takes in a lot of border. Meanwhile, I recommend that your team get ready to marry up with the Mexican GAFE team. They’re already set up at a small airstrip just outside of Mexicali. We can fly you off as soon as you’re ready.” She paused and seemed to soften a little. “And, I understand that you, Lieutenant, were hurt on the island raid. Are you up to this?”

“I’m up to it,” he answered, then paused to frame his words. “We can be ready to go in two hours, three at the outside. It’ll take that long to set up a communications plan and get our radios encrypted. We also have to put together a small support package. I’ll take my squad, all six of us, as the primary as {he lan andsault element, and I’ll want a sniper and a communicator from the Team One platoon, if their platoon officer approves.”

Nolan started to say something, but Engel again put his hand on his shoulder. “We need to get to our SEALs and start getting them ready. We’ll keep you advised on the progress of our preparations. You don’t have anything, do you, Chief?”

“Well, since you put it that way, Boss, I guess I don’t.” He rose and walked out of the TOC with Engel on his heels.

When they were out of earshot, Nolan turned to face him. “Look, sir, this is fucked. We don’t even know…” Engel raised his hands in an act of surrender and to interrupt.

“I know, and I hear you, Chief. We have no intelligence, and we know nothing about these Mexican special operators. But I think we have no choice but to go along, at least for now. We need to get ashore and in a position to react if we do get better intelligence. And I’ve got some ideas on how we can work around this. Now I want you to go and get the guys turning and burning. And talk to the Team One platoon chief; see if we can borrow a sniper and a backup SEAL communicator. I’m going to have a private little chat with Ms. Lyons to see if I can get some ground rules in place as well as a little more detail.” Engel paused and looked at his chief, who waited, arms folded, to hear him out. “I know this is not how we like to do business, but this could be a crucial operation, Chief — one that could prevent a lot of Americans from getting killed. So I, we, have to bend a little and go with the flow. As always, none of us steps out into the deep linguini unless both of us say it’s a go. Fair enough?”

Nolan smiled, relenting. “Fair enough, sir. But this Mexican SPECOPs unit bothers me. What do we know about them? How do they operate? Hell, we don’t even know what kind of radios they have.”

“Again, I hear you, Chief. Seems a bit strange, doesn’t it? We’ve worked with the Iraqi SOF and the Afghans and the Canadians and just about every NATO SPECOPs component in the world, but never with the Mexicans. And now, to have a shot at some really bad guys who are about to attack our country, we may have to. So?”

Nolan shrugged. “So we go with the flow, I guess. I’ll go and get the boys cracking, and I don’t think there’ll be an issue with the two guys from Team One. Hell, they’ll all want to go.”

Engel started to head back to the TOC, thought better of it, and headed up to the flight deck, where his Iridium sat phone worked best. He hit number one on the speed dialer. It took a few moments for the encryption to click in and the call to go through.

“Extension 3725,” came the sleepy voice on the other end.

“Good afternoon, Senior Chief, or I guess it’s good morning there.”

“It’s morning all right, very early morning. What can I do for you, sir?”

“You still have our friend there, right?”

“We do. He’s no longer on his yacht but doing nicely in a guarded stateroom here on the Makin Island. He’s in isolation and, so far, very cooperative. I’m just not sure that operationally, he knows all that much.”

“Here’s where we are, Senior,” and he gave him a brief breakdown of the Cedros Island operation and of the missing terrorists and explosive vests. “We don’t know where they are, and we don’t know where Shabal is. If there’s anything you can get from him that might lead us to where they are or where they might cross the border, it might be our only shot. Otherwise, they could slip into the country, and we’ll never know where they are until they strike.”

“Understood, sir. Give me a few hours. No promises, as he just may not know, but I’ll do what I can from this end.”

“Thanks, Senior. That’s all we can ask.”

“And, sir, you take care of yourself. I understand that you’ve been confronting large-caliber objects at close range. Most unwise, sir.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Senior,” he said and cut the connection.

As he headed for the TOC, he wondered how Miller had heard about his close call with the 40mm grenade. On further consideration, he realized there were Navy communication channels and Navy chief-to-chief communication channels. And the latter were the faster of the two.

When he reached the TOC, one of the ship’s communicators handed him a message. It was a set of orders — and a notice of his promotion to lieutenant commander. The orders were to the White House for a two-year tour as a junior military aide-de-camp. He smiled. For the first time since he was a high school running back, he would carry “the football.” He couldn’t wait to tell Jackie — two full years and he’d be home most every night. This would please her to no end. Then he frowned as he thought about telling Dave Nolan and the others that he was leaving. He’d wait until after this operation was over. And, he reflected, it would probably be his last one as leader of the Bandito SEALs. Promotion to lieutenant commander meant that he would be leaving the operational platoons.

He tucked the message into his shirt pocket and set off to find Lieutenant Susan Lyons.

“You say that they are all dead? All dead! And the vests gone as well?” Shabal paced as he shouted into the cell phone. “How could this have happened?… Very well… There is nothing to be done. Immediately destroy your cell phone and stay out of sight!”

Shabal threw his own phone to the floor and crushed it underfoot. He continued to pace while several swarthy Mexican smugglers sat at a nearby table and watched him. These were hard, fierce men, but this violent and mercurial Chechen scared them. They watched as Shabal paced, the rage etched on his feature {n hhe rs. How could they have found the other contingent of recruits on Cedros, he wondered? And what bad luck. In another few hours, they, too, would have been on the mainland and moving to their border-crossing point. So be it, he reasoned, we will make do with what we have left.

For his part, he had done everything he needed to do, and done it to perfection. He shook his head. Was it ego, or was it just a fact of life? If he left it to others, they made a mess of it. And Christo wanted him to deal with his intermediaries. What a crock! This was too important to leave to intermediaries. Perhaps too important to leave to those who did not believe as he believed.

They had made it to Cedros Island and made the channel crossing to Baja. Now they were in a safe house in Mexicali. He didn’t trust these Mexicans, but they were useful to him — at least for the moment. He pulled aside the dirty window shade on the second floor bedroom and looked down on the dusty Mexicali street below. A hairless dog wandered down the street, looking for food scraps. Soon they would be at this place they called the milk factory and their border-crossing point, and nothing could stop them from there.

Long ago Christo had explained the vast tunnel system running from Mexican border towns north into the United States. It was one of the things he liked about Christo. He didn’t describe them as a clandestine or an illegal network for smuggling drugs and people into the United States — a network that had made Christo wealthy beyond imagination. These details were simply a part of his business empire. They were but a means of transportation as normal to Christo as the U.S. Interstate Highway system was to truck drivers.

But now that Shabal was here, the tunnels were no longer an abstraction. They were part of the tactical plan he needed to execute to consummate his assault on America. With half of his recruits dead and half of his vests gone, he needed to ensure the remaining vests produced maximum carnage. He must now carefully prioritize the targets. Even so, he thought, with eight targets and thousands dead, it will still make 9/11 pale by comparison.

He now sat with the one Mexican he could communicate with — but never fully trust. Christo had already transferred a considerable sum of money to the man’s offshore account. The man knew that once Shabal told Christo this part of the mission was complete, and Shabal and his eight martyrs were safely across the U.S. border, another great sum of money would be sent to that same offshore account. The man needed no further motivation. Money, Shabal knew, was all these Mexicans wanted.

“So tell me again why you picked this tunnel system here,” Shabal said as he stabbed his finger at a hand-drawn map.

“Yes, well, you can see, my friend, it is close to this safe house,” the man who called himself Sanchez began. He was a younger man, handsome in a vaguely exotic way, and urbane compared to the thugs who guarded the safe house. “And even more importantly, the entrance to the tunnels is as well guarded as anything in this country.”

“How do you mean?” Shabal asked.

“Look, it is vastly m {t i>only business. You looked around this town as the bus brought you here, no?”

“Yes,” Shabal replied. He wanted information, not a lecture, and Sanchez was starting to irritate him.

“Yes, just so. Forget about the drugs for a minute, something that made our friend Christo a wealthy man. Think about people. Think about how many millions of poor Mexicans want to enter the United States. If we just let anyone into these tunnels, they would be clogged with many thousands wanting to go north. No, we control who enters, eh?”

“All right, I see that.”

“I’m not sure you do, or if you realize how lucrative it is for us, and important for us to control this access.”

Sanchez nodded toward one of the big men sitting on a battered sofa.

“See Antonio over there. He has two sons. One is at Duke, the other is at Colgate. Most Americans can’t afford to send their children to private colleges, let alone Ivy League schools. Antonio has three more kids, younger ones, and they’ll all attend university in the United States. So, you see, we control it. We control the access, and so we control the profits.”

“I see,” Shabal replied.

“So, here, here is where we will insert you,” Sanchez said, drawing his finger to a point on the map. “It is our most well-protected location. It is a compound that is as closely guarded as the homes of some of our richest citizens. No residents of this city dare come within a hundred meters of it. You are paying us well, so we will take you to our best and most secure route to the north.”

“How will we get there?”

“Not by the bus that brought you here. That would attract too much attention. No, we move in thirty minutes. This is the time of day when the delivery trucks make their deliveries to the restaurants and cantinas. We can fit all nine of you in the back of one of them. In the compound they know we are coming, and they know what our truck looks like. It is as simple as that, my friend.”

“It is never simple,” Shabal snarled.

The two MH-60S Knighthawks set down on a hardstand near the small airport’s single strip. The reinforced Bandito squad and their gear were quickly unloaded, and the Knighthawks lifted off. They would await any call to action from a military airfield twenty miles to the south. There was little to be gained by the conspicuous presence of two American military helicopters sitting on a civilian airstrip near Mexicali. After the helos lifted off, the SEALs surveyed their surroundings. Just off the airstrip were a series of heavily locked self-storage units and a few light aircraft tied down nearby. Most were old tail {werings-draggers. The complex was surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence with coils of razor-wire running along the top. Captured plastic shopping bags dotted the rusty chain link. But most noticeable and pervasive was the smell. Nearby and, unfortunately, upwind, a large column of birds circled over a garbage dump. A parade of open dump trucks were making their pilgrimage to the waste site, dumping loads of refuse, and heading back into Mexicali for more.

Parked near the hardstand, well back and off to one side, were four battered Ford Explorers. As the SEALs moved toward the vehicles, a single figure in a tailored black combat uniform stepped out from a group dressed in a variety of shabby, civilian attire. Except for the lone figure in black, they looked like an undercover narcotics squad. Given their area of operations, this was not surprising.

“Well, well, what have we here?” Nolan said quietly.

“I’ll talk to the jefe,” Engel replied under his breath. “Why don’t you and the others mingle with their troops and get a feel for them. I’ll want to know what you, A.J., and Ray think of these guys.” Nolan could understand more Spanish than he could speak. A.J. and Ray were fluent. As the other Banditos peeled off to one side, Engel made straight for the tall man in black. He dropped his gear, came to attention, and saluted.

“Good afternoon, or buenos dias, sir. I’m Lieutenant Engel, SEAL Team Seven.”

The man was tall and slim with fine Castellón features. He wore only the oak leaves of a lieutenant colonel on his buttoned-down cloth epaulettes and a badge on his left breast that read Todo por México—“all for Mexico.” Stopping in front of Engel, he, too, came to rigid attention and rendered a parade-ground salute. He had high cheekbones and a pencil-thin mustache. Yet for all his bearing and formality, Engel thought he detected a twinkle in his eye.

“Welcome to México, Teniente. I am Commandante Juan de Rio de la Ribandeo. Or,” an easy smile now accompanied the twinkle as he extended a hand, “until we finish this unpleasant business, please call me Juan. And your Christian name is?” His English was precise and impeccable.

“Uh, it’s Roark, sir.”

“Please, Roark, it’s Juan — I insist. And before we get started, let me say it is a privilege to be working with the Navy SEALs. We are honored — all of us.” He paused to regard his men, who were now mingling with the Banditos. “They may not look like much, but they are good boys, and brave. You Norte Americanos have your overseas ventures that keep you quite busy. We here in Mexico don’t have to go far to confront evil. Our war is right here. Our enemies are well financed, well armed, and committed to their enterprise. So our operations, like yours in Afghanistan and Iraq, are deadly and ongoing. Like you, I’ve lost some good men, and as with you and your wars, there seems to be no end to it.” He paused a moment, “But then, we are not here today to talk about the burdens we warriors must bear. We have our duty. More to the point, I understand we have a job to do. I look forward to hearing all about it.” And Roark Engel brought him up to speed with what he knew so far.

Dave Nolan spoke just enough Spanish and Sargent Primero Lopez just enough English for them to get a feel for not only each other but the capabilities of their special operators. Senior enlisted leaders the world over are very good at getting to the point, and when it comes to the issues that relate to risking their men in battle, brutally honest. Nolan could have this same conversation with an Israeli Rav Samal Rishon or a German Hauptfeldwebe, and with the same results. There is something about the prospect of mortal combat that causes men who must lead other men into danger to be candid and truthful. Up the chain of command, politics might enter into the equation, but not at the troop level. In the U.S. and other armies, they call it ground truth, and that was what was taking place between Chief Nolan and Sergeant Lopez.

“So what do you think of these guys?” Engel asked after they were off by themselves. He watched as Sergeant Lopez and De la Ribandeo, over by their vehicles, seemed to be having the same conversation.

“They’ve seen a lot of combat and probably have more trigger time than our guys do. Tactically, I doubt they are as good as we are, but they’ve been in a fight, and it seems they know how to fight. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by integrating our guys with theirs unless we’re dealing with local noncombatants. But if it comes to a fight, I believe they’ll stand tall. How about their jefe?”

“I’m not sure, but I think he’s okay. More to the point, what do his troops think about him?”

“They seem to like him. He’s obviously a dandy and a blue blood, but they call him El Lobo, “the wolf.” It seems he’s been known to show up before a raid and jump into the assault element. He’s a fighter. He’s also the number two guy in the GAFE. I guess the commander is a regular-army colonel who no one ever sees. But the operational teams see a lot of this guy.”

While the other SEALs continued to mingle with the GAFE soldiers, Nolan and Engel were joined by A.J. and Ray.

“What’s your take?” Nolan immediately asked them.

“I think they’re all right,” Ray said. “They seem to have both a respect and a hatred for the druggies. For them it’s personal. It’s like if the Taliban or al-Qaeda controlled some of our neighborhoods in San Diego, and we had to fight them here, not over there.”

“And speaking of neighborhoods,” A.J. offered. “I talked to a couple of them who grew up right here in Mexicali. They say that the border-crossing routes are drug turf, and there’s no way to get to the actual crossing points without being detected. I guess half the kids on the streets have cell phones, and they’ll know we’re coming long before we get there. He says they probably already know we’re here, and they’ll know when we leave.”

Engel digested all this. “What about helicopters, coming in low and fast?”

“They don’t like helos,” A.J. continued. “The bad guys have RPGs {uys

“So Cedros Island was a cakewalk?” Nolan asked.

“We’re up against the varsity here, Chief,” Ray said. “The druggies have good weapons, they’re not afraid to die, and there’s lots of them. So it could be anything but a cakewalk. I don’t know what they pay these GAFE guys, but it’s not enough.”

“So what we’re talking about here,” Engel summarized, “is opposition that’s every bit as dangerous as anything we go up against in Kandahar or al-Anbar.” Both Ray and A.J. nodded.

“And without the support we have over in the sandbox,” Nolan added.

Engel looked over to where Juan, Sergeant Lopez, and the other members of the GAFE were gathered. They were all smoking and laughing. De la Ribandeo seemed to move easily among his men. Then his satellite phone began to vibrate. He stepped away to answer it.

“Engel here.”

“Sir, its Senior Chief Miller. I understand you’re now on border patrol.”

“Border patrol standby, Senior. We have a target but no target location. Any luck on your end?”

“I’m not sure. I again took our friend through his conversations with Shabal, and it seems Shabal purposely kept a lot from him. He did overhear him while he was on a coded cell phone, talking about a milk factory. Something about getting them all to the milk factory. It’s not much, but it may be something. If I get anything more, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Senior. Keep me posted.”

Nolan was at his elbow. “Anything?”

“I doubt it, but we’ll see.”

They made their way over to where De la Ribandeo and his sergeant were talking. The tall GAFE leader took out a gold cigarette case and offered one to Engel, then to Chief Nolan, but both politely declined. It seemed as if all the GAFE smoked, while none of the SEALs did. Lopez gratefully accepted and De la Ribandeo made a show of tapping his cigarette on the case before lighting it.

“Sir, I mean, Juan,” Engel began. “I just received a call from one of our intelligence people. He had little for us except for the mention of a place called ‘the milk factory.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

Engel and Nolan watched this register. Lopez, in spite of his dark complexion, seemed to grow a shade lighter. De la Ribandeo drew heavil {o drd Std">Ey and thoughtfully on his cigarette and exhaled slowly.

“It means,” the GAFE commander said easily, “everything. We know the place, and your ‘intelligence people,’ as you call them, could not have given us a more difficult objective. It’s an abandoned milk-processing and packaging complex. And it is indeed a border crossing, the location of a border-cross tunnel complex. Your terrorist friends could not have chosen a better location from their perspective, nor a more difficult one from ours. It’s in an area totally in their control. We seldom go there, and the local police never do. And there’s no way to get there undetected. There are concentric rings of well-armed security retainers around the milk factory. The element of surprise, which I know you are so fond of, is not an option here. We’ll have to fight our way in.”

Engel considered this. Maybe, he thought to himself, and maybe not. He had an idea how they might go about this. Normally, he would have liked to have gone over this with Chief Nolan in private, but there simply wasn’t time.

“Do you have a map of the city?”

Sergeant Lopez pulled a dog-eared, laminated map from his jacket and spread it on the ground. The four of them squatted around it.

“We are here,” De la Ribandeo pointed, “and the milk factory is here, just south of the border. And the whole area underneath it is a warren of tunnels. There’s a good chance that while we are fighting our way to this place, those whom you wish to capture will be filtering out the other side and on their way north.”

“How would you go in?” Engel asked.

“In those,” indicating the battered Explorers. “We do not have up-armored Humvees, and if we did, it would only announce our presence that much sooner.”

“How about if we went in two or three of those,” he said as he pointed toward the dump.

It took a moment, then a broad smile began to crease De la Ribandeo’s handsome features. “And I thought you were only about your expensive equipment and the huge salaries they pay you. I see now that you SEALs are clever as well.”

“Juan, do you understand what a blocking element is?”

De la Ribandeo drew himself up formally, but there was still a twinkle in his eye. “I am a graduate of your Infantry Officer Basic School at Fort Bragg and I have earned my Ranger Tab.”

“That is good to know,” Engel replied. “Now, here is what I propose…”

Deep inside the underground warren beneath the heavily guarded compound above, Shabal and his recruits worked feverishly to complete the last assembly of their vests and make preparations to deploy through the tunnels and into the United States on the fina {s oht="0">l leg of their journey to inflict jihad on the hated Americans.

Shabal alternated between urging his recruits to hurry and make the vests ready for wearing — due to their destructive power, they didn’t dare travel with them fully assembled — and reviewing the map with Sanchez.

The recruits were bent over some old wooden tables Shabal had Sanchez bring down. The tables were positioned under the few fluorescent lights hung from the concrete ceiling. The lights cast a cool, white glow as the recruits used several tables to assemble their vests, treating them with the same care a parachutist might pack his chute. Every time Shabal urged them on they just grew more and more nervous, and it actually slowed their assembly.

On another nearby table, Shabal and Sanchez reviewed the hand-drawn map of the tunnel maze.

“Here, Shabal,” Sanchez said, alternately pointing at the map and to a darkened passageway to their right, “Here is the passageway you must all travel down. It is a little more than 150 meters long.”

“I see,” Shabal replied.

“Then, you must break up into smaller groups. There are three smaller tunnels that go deeper and then actually cross the border, here, here, and here,” he offered, pointing to the primary smuggling routes on his maps.

“Then these are the ones you use most? Are they secure?”

“As I told you at the safe house, this is our business, and we are good at it. No one we have sent through these tunnels has been stopped at the U.S. side of the border — absent some gross stupidity, like hitchhiking on a major highway. But you must decide who goes through which one, though I do advise you to use all three — as a precaution.”

“Yes, I will decide that when I give each of them their final assignment,” Shabal replied, waving a number of envelopes at Sanchez, envelopes that contained the name of an American city and an exact location where each martyr was to detonate his or her vest, as well as ample American currency to travel and fake identification for each one. Each envelope also carried a precise time that they were to make their attacks — the same time in each case. Above all else, Shabal had told them time and again that this must all be done simultaneously.

As the first recruit finished the final vest assembly and donned her deadly vest, Shabal walked over to her and handed her an envelope.

“Open it, please.”

The woman opened the envelope and gasped at the amount of money it contained. Then she pulled out the postcard. It read: WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS!

“You will be there by tomorrow night, my dear.”

“B {ard be thereut… but… how will I get there?” she began to protest.

“It’s all in your envelope. A taxicab stop is close to where you will emerge on the U.S. side of the border. Follow the map and the instructions in there. The taxi will take you to a bus terminal. It will be a long bus journey, but you will get there safely. The MGM Grand — the picture of that hotel complex is also in your envelope — is your target. Look at it carefully once you are on the bus. There is a major convention at the hotel. You will be on the convention floor at the time indicated. Now, I must go check the others.”

Shabal checked each of his recruits in turn, wanting to hurry but also knowing that once they passed through that first long tunnel and branched out into separate ones, his ability to give them instructions was over. He had trained them all for almost a year, and now it came down to this… hurried instructions just before the last leg of their journey.

“I urge you to hurry,” Sanchez shouted as Shabal was checking one of the last of his recruits. “We can’t linger here too long.”

Forty minutes later, they were in two dump trucks and charging through the residential districts of Mexicali. De la Ribandeo drove the lead truck, with Ray riding shotgun. Both wore old work coats over their body armor and combat vests. Some thirty yards behind them, the second dump truck followed, with Lopez driving and A.J. riding in the passenger’s seat. The GAFE squad, less three of their number, rode in the dump bucket of the lead truck. With them were Sonny and the two Team One SEALs. The other Banditos and three of the GAFE were in the second truck. The trucks were equipped with canvas roll-top appliances that helped to keep refuse from flying out from a loaded bucket on the way to the dump. It provided concealment while allowing the SEALs and GAFE to peer out from underneath the canvas covering. As they approached the abandoned milk factory, they began to see idle teenagers on the streets, then teens with guns. Finally, there were armed men on rooftops with guns and bandoliers of ammunition.

Ray, riding with De la Ribandeo in the lead truck, had an old stocking cap pulled over his ears to hide his earphones and partially cover his lip mic. “Boss, you copy?”

“Right here, Ray.”

“We are entering an armed enemy base camp. I’ve never seen so much security, at least not out in the open.”

“I hear you. How much farther?”

There was a pause, then, “The GAFE leader says about three more blocks, unless we get stopped. Get ready.”

“Okay, guys,” it was Nolan coming on the net, “let’s get our game face on and stay sharp. This is probably going to be a dick-dragger.”

The security gunmen gave them puzzled looks as they rolled past, but no more than that. De la Ribandeo, with a cigarette dangling from his lips and {hist="0" an Uzi in his lap, smiled and waved to everyone. This guy, Ray thought, is a gamer. As they approached the main entrance to the milk factory complex, an old stretch Mercedes rolled out to block their path. De la Ribandeo slowed as if he were going to stop, then slipped the transmission into low range and mashed the gas. He hit the Mercedes on the nearside quarter panel and spun it off to one side. Two guards were taken out along with the car. As he drove past, De la Ribandeo killed another with his Uzi. The dump truck was through the gate before Ray could get his M4 up and into action. As they roared past, the guard who dove to the right of the gate to avoid the oncoming truck rose and began shooting at the rear of the fleeing truck. But he only got off a few rounds. A.J., coming in the second truck, saw it all. He leaned from the window and put two rounds in the guard’s back.

The two trucks stopped ten yards from each other and began to disgorge SEALs and GAFE. In the lead truck, Sonny and the Team One sniper rose through a hole they had cut in the canvas shroud and began to look for targets. Per their plan, De la Ribandeo, Sonny with his SAW and a heavy ammo load, and the two Team One SEALs were to hold the entrance to the main building and, if possible, get the sniper and a GAFE rifleman or two up to a perch, where they could command as many building entrances as possible. Their job as the blocking element was containment and isolation. They would shoot any hostiles who came out of the building and shoot any hostiles who approached the building. For now, all was quiet. They had taken out the inner circle of security and the gate guards. But those gunmen on the outer rings of security would soon be collapsing back in on the milk factory, so there would be no shortage of bad guys inbound to their position.

The Team One communicator was to stay with De la Ribandeo and serve as a relay between the GAFE commander and his men outside and the assault team inside. He was also on both his sat and cell phones, letting anyone and everyone know they were in contact, in Mexicali, and within sight of the border. Sonny found a good shooting position, where he could command both the gate and the main entrance to the building.

De la Ribandeo stepped to where Engel and Nolan were preparing to enter the building. “I think Sergeant Lopez and his men can stand with your men here,” he said in a conversational tone. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll join you inside.”

Engel started to protest but knew he hadn’t the time nor, he rightly guessed, the authority to overrule him. Aside from that, the twinkle was no longer there; the slim Castellón was all business. Engel nodded, and the assault team moved to the building.

Sergeant Lopez and three of his men ran to the sandbagged guard shack by the gate and dragged the dead sentries aside. When the first of the cartel gunmen cautiously approached, they casually waved to them. When they got close enough to see that all was not right, Lopez and his men opened fire. From then on it was a gun battle, and the bodies began to collect in the street outside the abandoned milk factory.

Engel, assuming the front door might not be the best entry point, led his team to the loading dock, and a single steel door next to a series of loading-bay doors rolled down. They paused for a moment while Weimy quickly taped a breaching charge to the door. It had a command initiator. After a “Fire in the hole!” the d {ole After aoor was hurled inward by the force of the explosion, and the squad filed in through the smoke. A.J., once more, was the first man in and almost tripped over the body of the cartel gunman who had been guarding the door.

Several floors below in the subbasement, Shabal and Sanchez looked at each other when they heard the explosion. They and one of the Filipino recruits were bent over a map of Southern California. On a nearby table, a dozen explosive vests were neatly laid out. The building was concrete, as were the floors, and this was their first warning that they were under attack. Shabal instantly knew it had to be the Americans.

“No,” he seethed. “First Cedros and now here! This cannot be happening!” Christo, he reasoned; it had to be Christo. If I live through this, he vowed, I will find him and his precious family, and I will kill them all.

“How many men do you have down here? How many?” Shabal demanded harshly.

Sanchez hesitated, his eyes wide with fear. “I don’t know, not many,” he admitted. “They are all up on the street.” He was both puzzled and frightened — puzzled that a Mexicali or the federal police force was in the building without his knowing about it. He had paid them all off, and there were dozens of his gunmen for blocks around the abandoned factory. And he was scared not so much from the authorities; they could be reasoned with or bought off. But this Chechen madman was different. He could neither be reasoned with nor bribed.

“We must hurry,” Shabal said as he scooped up an armload of vests, about half of them. “Get whatever men you can find and hold them off.”

“What if we can’t hold them off?”

“You will hold them, or as surely as Allah is Great, I will kill you.” Sanchez knew he meant it. He went off to round up whatever men he could find in the basement. There were but a handful. Sanchez gave them their instructions and hurried after Shabal and the safety of the basement tunnel complex. Just ahead of him, Shabal was rallying his Filipino recruits. There was now shouting and gunfire coming from the main basement stairwell.

On the street level, the battle raged, but it was a controlled rage. Initially, there was much bravado in the young cartel bucks who charged at the milk factory. Most were veteran gunmen in that they had ambushed rival gangs and preyed on the families of policemen and federales. But they had never been exposed to the disciplined, interlocking fields of fire presented by the SEAL and GAFE defenders. Sonny and the Team One SEALs melded well. They had never before worked together, but they immediately fell into their roles. Sonny with the Mk46 light machine gun suppressed enemy fire and broke the early en masse charges. The SEAL radio man guarded Sonny’s exposed flank and took up the slack when Sonny changed ammo drums on his gun. The Team One sniper and his SR25 7.62 semiautomatic sniper rifle found a ladder to the top of the building and took up a position there. Both Sonny and the other SEAL called out targets, and he took them out. Soon the GAFE riflemen were calling out targets. The spotters were needed, as the SEAL sniper had to move after each shot or risk counter-sniper fire. He popped over the shallow roof abutment, took his {entnd shot, and ducked back behind cover.

Before taking up their defensive positions at the gate and behind the building, the GAFE soldiers had gathered the weapons and ammunition from the security contingent at the gate. For now, they had plenty of ammo. But the Tangos kept coming. And there was a Darwinian component to the battle. As the defenders killed the younger and more inexperienced fighters, smarter and more seasoned ones took their place.

In the basement of the old factory, Engel, Nolan, and the others began the deadly business of clearing the dark recesses of an unknown building. Had they been able to find the power source and extinguish the lights, they could have moved much more quickly and safely. In the shadows, dimly lit hallways, and bright splotches of bare bulbs, they were constantly going from NODs to naked eyes — IR targeting lasers to visible red-dot lasers.

Without direction or commands, the SEALs and the GAFE fell into a rhythm. The SEALs — Weimy, Ray, and A.J. — cleared one room, while the three GAFE soldiers cleared the next. Engel, Nolan, and De la Ribandeo served as security and led the file down the hall to the next room. As the basement level had multiple hallways and corridors, they had to be prepared for threats ahead of them as well as behind. Nolan, with his NOD, picked up one such Tango following them and shot him dead. In one of the rooms, they found a dozen or more cartel hostages. Most were bloody and showed signs of torture. There was a low, collective moan as the GAFE clearing team kicked in the door. After a quick consultation, De la Ribandeo elected to leave two of his men with the hostages, and the others moved quickly on. On occasion, they could hear footsteps receding down the hall.

At one point they came to the room with the maps and leftover vests. Engel quickly looks at the maps and map notations while Nolan counts vests.

“Boss, we don’t have all the vests.”

“And the others are headed for L.A. and other points north,” Engel replies. “We gotta find these guys.”

They hear scrambling down one of the passageways leading away from the room, toward the rear of the factory subbasement. They head down the passageway. Soon the concrete floor gives way to dirt. They’re moving quickly now, accepting the risk that comes when forced to do so. From a window, one of the cartel gunmen sprays a short burst into their corridor, before De la Ribandeo turns his Uzi on him and kills him.

Engel, now on point, is rounding a corner bathed in shadows, with the firing now behind him. Suddenly he is shoved against a wall by a small man, one of the Filipino recruits. The man is surprisingly strong. He has only a pistol, but he manages to parry the barrel of Engel’s M4 and bring the pistol up. Engel blocks the handgun, but the man begins to fire. The rounds splash against the concrete near his head, and are getting closer. For his part, Engel releases the pistol grip of his M4, slides a sheath knife from his lapel, and inserts it between his attacker’s ribs and into his heart. As the Filipino slides to the floor, Engel takes the pistol from the dying man’s hand, tosses it aside, and resumes heading down the hall.

“Everyone, okay?” Engel calls back.

“Took a ricochet in the calf,” A.J. says, “but drive on. I can keep up.”

They move on with A.J. now in trail, but he’s watching their back.

“Hey, Boss, you there?”

“Copy, Sonny, but I’m kind of busy. What you got?”

“We’re getting low on ammo here, and there’s no shortage of Tangos. I have one GAFE down hard and another wounded.” Engel pauses and looks back at Nolan.

“Let’s send A.J. back with some of our ammo. One way or another, we won’t need that many more rounds.”

Engel nods. “Hold on Sonny. A.J.’s coming back with some bullets.”

“Roger that, Boss.”

Nothing more needed to be said. A.J. works his way up the file, collecting magazines. Then he turns and hurries back up the passageway, half limping and half jogging. With the prospect of more ammunition on the way, Sonny and the two Team One SEALs easily repel the next assault. There is no more extra ammo for the sniper on the roof, but every round he has left, he makes count. Like all snipers, he’s in a zone — one shot, one kill. Soon, the new milk factory defenders on the ground have a new supply of ammo, and A.J.’s gun is in the fight.

Back underground, one of Shabal’s diminishing number of recruits decides that she has had enough. She pulls a pistol from her waistband, turns, and runs back at her pursuers. The team is in yet another room, trying to decide which of the two passageways is the right one. Engel hears her running toward him long before he sees her, and takes a knee. Chief Nolan is checking out the other tunnel, but De la Ribandeo is at Engel’s side. Seeing the backlit silhouettes, she begins firing wildly as she runs. The two men at the mouth of the passageway, seeing the muzzle flashes, return fire, killing her instantly.

“Well,” Nolan remarks, stepping back from the other passageway, “at least we know which way they went so we can… Aw, shit, no!”

On the dirt floor is Commandante Juan de Rio de la Ribandeo, lying on his back with a bullet entry in his high, aristocratic forehead. His dark, sightless eyes stare at the ceiling as a pool of dark blood begins to collect around the back of his head like a crimson halo.

Engel sits back on one heel, his M4 pointed up and his head lowered. “Dammit!” he says quietly. Then he rises and sets off at a run, down the passageway where the woman had come from. He is followed by Nolan, Weimy, Ray, and the last remaining GAFE. As the GAFE soldier passes the woman’s body, he puts two rounds into her head.

The woman had brought the pursuer {t tsp;*s hot on their heels, but she had also given Shabal an idea. At the next room opening — a small cavern lit by a single small-wattage bulb — he halts with Sanchez and now only three of his recruits, a woman and two men. He selects the woman. She is anxious, her forehead glistening with sweat.

“Sister,” he says in Tagalog, “are you ready to be with your martyred husband in paradise?”

She nods, not trusting herself to speak. He quickly slips one of the vests on her and removes the safety shunt from the initiator. Then he pulls the final safety clip.

“You know what to do. Allahu Akbar.”

“Allahu Akbar,” she mumbles back, but she does not move.

“Now!” Shabal commands. She turns and begins to walk back up the passageway.

The five pursuers pause at a cross tunnel to listen, unsure if Shabal and the others have continued on or have taken one of the side paths. It’s dark in the passageway, and the four SEALs have on their NODs. The woman is walking slowly with only the aid of a small flashlight. Engel sees her first, and in the glow of the small light, he sees what she is wearing.

“Bomb!” he yells, and the SEALs all dive into the side tunnels. The SEALs make it, and the GAFE almost does. His legs don’t clear the edge of the tunnel. His lower torso is shredded by the force of the blast and several of the ceramic balls. The SEALs all have on Peltors, so they still have their hearing. The GAFE soldier can’t hear or feel anything. Nolan gets to him first and drags him by the collar into the cross tunnel, not that it will do much good now.

“No es bueno, eh, Jefe?”

“Su es un Mano, amigo. Es tambien,” replied Engel, but the soldier merely smiles and grips Nolan’s hand.

“Anybody else hurt?”

“I took a ricochet under my arm, Boss,” Weimy says. “It went through, but I don’t know how bad it is. I don’t think it’s a sucker.” What Weimy was saying was that he didn’t think it had penetrated his chest cavity, meaning that he may not be a pneumothorax candidate. But there was no way to be sure. Engel makes a quick decision.

“Weimy, radio check,” he says on his radio, and Weimy responds, which means his radio and Weimy’s are both still working. Then audibly, “I want you to stay here with our GAFE brother. Call me if that wound starts sucking or you collapse a lung.” SEALs can talk like that to each other; they’ve all either seen it before or experienced it.

“Roger that, Boss. Go get that son of a bitch.”

Engel looks at Nolan, then at Ray. “Ready?”

“Ready, Boss.”

“Let’s do it.”

Ray is on the move quickly, beating them both to the passageway entrance, where he takes off at a run. The first man is almost always at risk. They keep a ten-yard interval and move quickly. The next room, or cavern, presents them with three alternative passageways. Ray quickly studies each with his NOD and sees a faint glimmer coming from one of them, a glimmer that immediately extinguishes itself.

“They went this way,” he says and they’re off again.

The tunnel leads them to a small cinder-block enclosure with doors on both ends, one leading into the room and one leading out. As they regroup in the center of the room, a sprinkling of dust drifts down from the ceiling. Too late, Engel looks up and sees one of the Filipinos. He’s waiting for them crouched atop a steel I-beam. Engel shoots him twice, but he has already dropped the grenade. It’s a standard American-made M67 hand grenade — effective, reliable, and lethal. The cinder-block room was a ready-made killing enclosure. In just a blink of an eye, Roark Engel takes it all in. He sees the grenade that will kill or disable them all. He knows there is no escape for any of them in the small enclosure. And he knows Shabal will then be able to come back and kill those who survive the blast at his leisure. He also knows that Shabal still has several of the vests, and a clear path to continue his journey north into America. All this is clear to Lieutenant Engel — in that moment. There is only one course of action open to him, and he takes it. Had he minutes, even hours, to think about it, there was still only one course of action to take.

Roark Engel dives onto the grenade, cradling it to his chest and the same ceramic plate that had stopped the other grenade less than twenty-four hours ago. Only this grenade is much more powerful, and it does not need a distance of travel to arm itself, only time. The explosion lifts Engel eighteen inches into the air and deposits him back onto the hard-packed dirt floor. He absorbs most of the blast and a good portion of the detachable-link, circular shrapnel band that was wrapped around the explosive core. Both Dave Nolan and Ray Diamond absorb some of the shrapnel but little of the blast. They will live, but their lieutenant will not.

Nolan gets to him within seconds of the blast, but he knows it’s too late. Already Engel’s eyes are beginning to dilate. He exhales once and it’s over. In that brief terrifying moment, Roark Engel is gone. He had no other choice. It was how he was raised, trained, and lived: the mission first, next his men, and then himself.

“Stay with him, Ray,” Nolan says as he takes up his M4 and heads out the other door. Ray, who has taken only a few more pieces of shrapnel that Nolan, retrieves his rifle and crawls over to his lieutenant. He sits close and presses Engel’s cheek close against his thigh with one hand. He holds his rifle at the ready with his other.

“Boss… Boss. Why did it have to be you?” He begins to cry, but he never takes his eyes off the door that Nolan just went through.

Dave Nolan grimly moves forward through a tunnel that is now all hard-packed dirt — floor, ce {tis greiling, and both walls. Like an old mine shaft, there is knob-and-tube wiring that services an occasional bare lightbulb. Nolan senses danger and advances slowly, the butt of his M4 in his shoulder and looking over the front sight. He comes to the next node in this seemingly endless series of tunnels and rooms, where three forms are pressed up against the walls of a small room, just out of his line of sight. One of the Filipinos comes at him, pistol in hand, and Nolan cuts him down with a short burst. Next, Sanchez steps out to get a better firing angle, and Nolan immediately fires and kills him. He stays with Sanchez a nanosecond too long. He’s shifting aim to the other side of the room when the bullets begin to strike him. They are rounds from Shabal’s AK-47.

The first several rounds tear into his trigger hand and knock his rifle away. The next ones slam into his chest plate, driving him back against the wall. Without conscious thought, Nolan draws his secondary weapon, a Sig Sauer 9mm, with his good hand. A single Filipino, the last one, darts up the tunnel. Nolan puts three rounds into his back, and he goes down. But there are more rounds slamming into him, into his plates and into his bowels below the plates. He sees the muzzle flashes and takes aim, but a round slices through his remaining good gun hand, severing his thumb. The Sig is slick with his blood and hard to hold, but he keeps firing. Finally the slide locks to the rear — empty.

Nolan slides to the floor and to a sitting position with his back to the dirt wall. Without looking down, he begins to fumble at his ammo pouches for a fresh 9mm mag. Shabal hears the slide go back and knows he has this man. He checks his AK quickly to ensure he has at least one more round and moves forward. Nolan’s eyes lock on Shabal’s as he desperately tries to fit a new magazine into his weapon with his crippled hands. Shabal himself has been hit twice, but he is now focused only on Nolan. This American now represents all his frustrations and his hatreds and his thwarted attempts at retribution. He is now but five feet from the prostrate Nolan; he wants to stand over him when he kills him. Then something like a fist punches into his chest. Then another blow, and another.

Shabal tears his eyes from Nolan and looks down the dimly lit tunnel. The form of yet another Navy SEAL coalesces around the muzzle flashes. By the time Ray steps into the dimly lit room, Shabal has gone to his knees, his weapon has fallen away. His hatred holds him upright — the hatred and the overwhelming disappointment of what might have been. How did it come to this? Then Ray sends a bullet through his brain, and all is blackness.

Dave Nolan, now a bystander, watches this drama unfold in detached fascination. He’s aware of the firing behind him; he sees Shabal drop to his knees and the AK-47 fall from his hands. Yet all is taking place in slow motion. Then it all fades away.