The air in the belly of the Osprey was thick with the thrum of its engines. Caitlyn Doherty sat on the cold metal bench, her rifle resting across her lap. Across from her, Tommy O’Malley was checking the magazine on his own weapon for the third time. His face, illuminated by the dim red light of the cabin, was a mask of grim determination. The uncontrolled rage from the wake was gone, replaced by a cold, hardened resolve.

  Gema’s voice, clear and calm, crackled in their headsets. She was miles away in a mobile command center, but it felt like she was sitting right beside them. “Amir has updated the intel. The target compound is nestled in a box canyon in the Atlas Mountains. One way in, one way out by vehicle. Natural fortress.”

  A 3D schematic of the stronghold materialized on a tablet held by Declan, the Saighdiúir squad leader. It showed a cluster of reinforced concrete buildings surrounded by high walls, with watchtowers at each corner. Red icons marked known machine gun nests and a mortar position on the eastern cliff face.

  “Their leader, Abu Khalfan, is presumed to be in the central command bunker,” Gema continued. “The place is a hornet’s nest, Caitlyn. At least eighty fighters, well-armed and dug in deep.”

  “My teams are already in position on the ridges,” Caitlyn’s voice was flat, betraying no emotion. “Team Alpha will scale the east cliff and neutralize the mortars. It’s the key to the whole assault.”

  “And my team, what’s the craic?” Tommy asked, finally looking up from his rifle.

  “You’re the sledgehammer, Tommy,” Caitlyn said, meeting his gaze. “You and Declan’s squad are Team Bravo. You will create a diversionary frontal assault on the main gate. Draw their fire. Keep them focused on you while Alpha gets into position.”

  The old Tommy would have bristled at being a “diversion.” The man sitting here just nodded. He understood. In the last few days of ghost operations, he’d learned the difference between a brawl and a battle. Discipline was its own kind of weapon.

  “You draw their attention, we take their eyes,” Caitlyn finished. “Once the mortars are down, you breach the gate for real. We’ll converge on the command bunker from two sides.”

  “No prisoners,” Tommy said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Intelligence is the priority,” Caitlyn corrected him coolly. “Anything and anyone that can give us the full scope of their network. But anyone who resists… becomes a message.”

  The Osprey’s rear ramp began to lower, revealing a sky full of cold, bright stars and the jagged black silhouette of mountains. The air that rushed in was thin and bit with alpine cold.

  “Thirty seconds,” the pilot called out.

  Caitlyn stood, her team rising with her in a single, fluid motion. “Team Alpha, with me.”

  Tommy stood as well, clapping Declan on the shoulder. “Let’s go make some noise.” He looked at Caitlyn, a silent understanding passing between them. This was for their fathers. This was the final act of vengeance.

  Caitlyn gave a sharp nod and led her team of five specialists off the ramp and into the darkness. They vanished into the rocks like smoke.

  Tommy watched them go, then turned to his own squad. Twelve men, all of them hard-faced veterans, looked to him. “Listen up!” he shouted over the wind and rotors. “Our job is to kick the front door until it breaks. We’re loud, we’re angry, and we’re going to give them hell. Let’s go make some noise lads!”

  They leaped from the ramp, hitting the rocky ground running. The Osprey banked hard and roared away, leaving them in a profound, ringing silence.

  Below them, a half-mile down the sloping scree, the lights of the serpent’s nest glowed like malevolent eyes.

  The climb was exhausting. Caitlyn moved with a climber’s economy, her fingers finding sure holds in the cold rock. Her team followed, bound by ropes, moving in professional silence. Below, she could see the sporadic flashes of flashlights from the enemy patrols. They were oblivious. Arrogant. They believed their mountain fortress was impenetrable.

  “One hundred feet to the mortar pit,” Killian, her second-in-command, whispered over the comms.

  Caitlyn paused, anchoring herself to the rock face. “Bravo team, what’s your status?”

  Tommy’s voice came back, tight and breathless. “In position. Ready to knock.”

  “Wait for my signal,” she ordered. She looked up. The lip of the cliff was just above them. Easy. Too easy. Her instincts screamed. “Hold,” she whispered to her team. She unclipped a small fiber-optic scope and carefully snaked it over the edge.

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  The screen on her wrist showed not two, but four men at the mortar pit. And next to them, mounted on a heavy tripod, was a DShK heavy machine gun she hadn't expected. Amir’s intelligence was good, but it wasn't perfect. A frontal assault against that gun would be a massacre, diversion or not.

  “Gema, we have a heavy machine gun on the east cliff. Unexpected.”

  “Copy that, Caitlyn,” Gema’s voice replied, unflustered. “Adjusting the plan. How do you want to play it?”

  Caitlyn scanned the position. The four men were relaxed, sharing a cigarette. The HMG was aimed down at the main gate approach, right where Tommy’s team would be.

  “Tommy,” she said into her comms. “New plan. When you open up, I need you to have one of your men put a few rounds high on this cliff face. Draw their attention up here for just two seconds.”

  “You got it,” he replied instantly.

  “Alpha team,” Caitlyn whispered, pulling the scope back. “Killian, you and I take the HMG crew. The rest of you, the mortarmen. On my mark.”

  She took a deep breath, the cold air burning her lungs. “Tommy. Mark.”

  The night exploded.

  Down below, the muzzle flash from Tommy’s team was a sudden, violent strobe light. Heavy automatic fire hammered against the main gate, the bullets sparking off the steel. Shouts of alarm echoed up the canyon.

  As Caitlyn had predicted, the men at the cliff-edge position instinctively looked down at the source of the attack. Then a few rounds from Tommy's designated marksman zipped over their heads, smacking into the rocks behind them. They flinched, turning their attention upward.

  It was the only opening Caitlyn needed.

  She and Killian vaulted over the edge. Caitlyn’s suppressed rifle coughed twice, and the two men at the heavy machine gun collapsed without a sound. At the same moment, the rest of her team swarmed the mortar pit. In a flurry of silent, brutal movements, it was over. The mortar crew was dead before they knew they were under attack.

  “Mortars and HMG are ours,” Caitlyn reported, her voice steady as she pushed one of the dead men off the controls of the big gun. “Bravo team, the gate is all yours. We'll provide support from up here.”

  Tommy’s voice came back, laced with grim satisfaction. “Copy that. Feckin’ breaching now!”

  A moment later, a bright, concussive flash lit up the main gate, followed by the screech of tortured metal as the heavy doors were blown inward. Tommy and his squad poured through the gap, their rifles spitting fire.

  Caitlyn swung the heavy machine gun around and sighted down its iron sights. A group of fighters was rushing out of a barracks to intercept Tommy’s team. She squeezed the butterfly trigger. The DShK bucked in her hands, sending a stream of heavy 12.7mm rounds down into the compound. The enemy soldiers were ripped apart, their bodies thrown back by the sheer force of the impacts.

  “Push!” she yelled into her comms, providing a curtain of covering fire. “Push to the bunker!”

  The battle for the compound was pure chaos. Tommy felt a round tear through the sleeve of his jacket, the heat of it searing his skin. He didn’t flinch. He fired back, dropping the man who had shot at him, and kept moving. He and Declan moved from cover to cover, a brutally efficient two-man team. Tommy’s raw aggression was now channeled, focused. He wasn't just fighting for revenge; he was fighting for the men beside him.

  “Second building clear!” Declan shouted, tossing a flashbang into the next doorway. They stormed in after the bang, clearing the small room in seconds.

  The cost was mounting. Two of his men were down, caught in a crossfire from a fortified watchtower. From the cliffs above, Caitlyn’s purloined heavy machine gun roared again, stitching a line of impacts up the tower until it exploded in a shower of concrete and shrapnel.

  “Tower is down! Keep moving!” Caitlyn’s voice commanded from on high.

  They fought their way through the central plaza, the ground littered with bodies, theirs and the enemy's. The training and superior firepower of the Saighdiúirs were winning the day, but the enemy’s fanatical defense made every foot of ground a struggle.

  Finally, they reached it: a square, windowless concrete blockhouse in the center of the compound. The command bunker. The steel door was thick, and the area in front of it was a kill zone.

  As Tommy’s team laid down covering fire, Caitlyn and her four remaining Alpha team members rappelled down the cliff face, landing behind the bunker and taking the defenders from the rear. The firefight was short and vicious.

  Caitlyn and Tommy met at the bunker door, both breathing heavily, their faces smudged with soot and cordite. Tommy had a nasty gash on his cheek, and Caitlyn’s arm was bleeding from a piece of shrapnel. They ignored their wounds.

  “We lost four men,” Tommy said, his voice raw. “Two from my squad, two from the gate breach.”

  “We lost one on the cliff,” Caitlyn replied, her face grim. Five men. For this. The price was high.

  Declan, his face a mask of grim determination, placed a heavy breaching charge against the reinforced steel door. The remaining Saighdiúirs formed a semi-circle, their rifles pointed at the door, ready for whatever was on the other side.

  “Gema, we are at the final door,” Caitlyn stated into her comms, her voice tight. “Ready to breach.”

  “The Clann is watching, Caitlyn,” came Gema’s reply. “Send ‘em our regards. Breach.”

  Caitlyn looked at Tommy. Their eyes met over the barrels of their rifles. This was it. The man who gave the order. The head of the snake.

  Tommy gave a single, sharp nod. “Let’s do this cousin!”

  Caitlyn signaled Declan.

  The world dissolved into a flash of white-hot light and a deafening roar as the charge detonated. The heavy door buckled and ripped inward off its hinges, thrown into the darkness of the room beyond. Smoke poured out.

  “Go!” Caitlyn yelled.

  They stormed through the breach, a wave of vengeful fury. Tommy went left, Caitlyn went right, their rifles sweeping the room, ready to engage the leader of the Holy Islamic Army and his bodyguards. They fanned out, their weapon lights cutting through the smoke-filled bunker.