Vice Admiral Cai Ming (Target Charlie)
Major-General Wu Hui (Target Delta)
Deputy Director Wang Ya, CMC Political Department
Captain Fang Zhi
USS
Commanding Officer Captain Kenneth Gummerson
Lieutenant Commander Sands, Executive Officer
Master Chief Suallo, Chief of the Boat
SEAL Chief Tanner
SEAL Chief Phillips
Lieutenant Jeff Moch, Predator Support
Lieutenant Justin Schumaker, Predator Support
MAPS
ONE
Master Sergeant Scott Mitchell blinked at the sweat in his eyes and pushed on through the rubber plants, their leathery leaves brushing against his boonie hat and cheek. Ahead lay a slight clearing in the otherwise dense, twilit jungle, and Mitchell used his M4A1's barrel to lift a thin branch as he hunkered down at the edge.
Captain Victor Foyte, his detachment commander, moved ahead beside an uneven stretch of wilting palm fronds still dripping from a storm that had rolled in several hours ago. 'Ricochet, this is Road Warrior 06,' the captain whispered into his radio. 'Think I see something. And I hear some buzzing, like flies. Let's check it out, over.'
'Right with you, Boss,' answered Mitchell.
Although Foyte outranked him, Mitchell was the team sergeant, responsible for fighting all twelve members of Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 574. The captain and warrant officer coordinated with the twelve-man Filipino and Taiwanese teams they'd been cross-training with for the past two weeks.
Mitchell started forward as up to his right a snake coiled around an overhanging limb, its tongue fluttering. Special Forces operators ate bad guys for breakfast and snakes for supper; consequently, they weren't unnerved by either. Nevertheless, Mitchell grimaced and got out of there to join the captain.
Barely three steps later, a whoosh of musty air, a rustle of leaves, and the sharp crack of a rope sent lightning bolts through his gut. He looked up and gasped.
The captain had been moving toward a pole stuck in the ground. Atop that pole was a human head with long, brown hair flowing around it.
A twenty-one-year-old American missionary had recently been captured by Abu Sayyaf, the local pseudo- Islamist terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda. Military and police forces had been combing the island, looking for her and for Abu Sayyaf's stronghold, hidden somewhere deep in the mountainous interior.
It seemed the captain had found the missing woman — and much more. A rope had snapped taut around one of his ankles, and now he was being hurled three meters into the air, screaming, 'Ambush!'
Mitchell was about to get on the radio when the captain swung forward, a human pendulum heading straight for a tree impaled by rows of razor-sharp
Captain Victor Foyte was only twenty-four years old, and in the next breath he slammed back-first into the
The team had been operating light, forgoing body armor in the rainy, hundred-plus-degree jungle. Foyte shrieked and gurgled as the stakes grew slick with his blood.
Chief Warrant Officer 02 James Alvarado, who'd been positioned about a dozen meters behind them, burst forward crying, 'Captain!' Alvarado cut loose multiple rounds below the tree where Foyte now hung, inverted and bleeding to death.
Again, Mitchell keyed his mike, ready to issue orders, but Alvarado's gunfire cut him off.
This was Mitchell's first live mission as a Special Forces operator. He was an experienced infantryman and team leader from an Opposing Force (OPFOR) recon unit at Fort Irwin. He already had an impressive resume and was hoping to make a name for himself in the Special Forces community — yet in a flash, he'd already lost his first CO.
A strange thumping noise sounded as Alvarado ceased fire and advanced into the clearing. The warrant suddenly clutched his neck, where a tiny dart extended from between his fingers. He screamed as he tugged it out.
Mitchell dropped onto his gut as more thumping sounded behind them. Alvarado wobbled forward then crumpled to the ground, poisoned and probably dead.
The team was, it seemed, being attacked by loinclothed savages whose traps and blowguns had ironically overpowered the men with their thunder sticks.
'Mitchell?' called the captain, his voice burred by the agony, his face now drenched in blood. 'Mitch… ell?'
Unable to stare at Foyte any longer, Mitchell finally got on the radio. 'This is Ricochet. Ambush! Ambush! The captain and warrant are down!'
Before he could continue, the terrorists somewhere out there, crouching in the wet foliage, revealed they were not the loinclothed savages of Mitchell's imagination but were, in fact, ruthless and modern killers.
So much automatic weapons fire blasted through the clearing that it sounded as though a thousand men with machetes were cutting apart the trees and fronds. Rounds from AK-47s and machine guns popped and boomed, wood splintered, and birds squawked and flew off as holes appeared in the leaves, the debris tumbling down on Mitchell as he rose to his elbows and spied his first pair of muzzle flashes.
At the same time, voices erupted over the radio:
'Ricochet, this is Rumblefish,' called the team's weapons sergeant, Jim Idaho. 'We're taking fire from both flanks! Can't get any shots from here! Need orders!'
'Ricochet, this is Red Cross. Got two men down,' reported Lance Munson, the team's senior medic. 'I need to evac these guys now!'
'Ricochet, I think we got incoming mortar—'
That last voice belonged to Rapper, one of the team's engineers, who was cut off as a flash lit up the jungle just northeast of Mitchell's position. A second later, the ground trembled, and a powerful explosion boomed across the landscape as showers of shrapnel and debris needled through the zone.
These terrorists were reckless, stupid, or insane, perhaps all three. They were laying down mortar fire on their own position. They didn't care how many of their own they took out, so long as they killed the Americans.
Willing himself not to panic, reminding himself of who he was and the countless hours of training he had gone through, Master Sergeant Scott Mitchell, twenty-six, took command of the ODA team. 'This is Ricochet! Listen up! Rumblefish? You and the rest of Bravo Team get to those wounded men and fall back south to our first waypoint. Rutang, Rockstar, and Rino, regroup on me. Move out!'
The team had been operating as two six-man units: Alpha and Bravo, with all radio call signs beginning with the letter
