“When talking with the President, it occurred to me that you give us the best of the both worlds—the Special Response Team is a civilian law enforcement agency, but is loaded with former military special operators. The FBI Director has green-lighted your participation, and Don was kind enough to call this meeting at short notice.”

He looked at the group. “With me so far?”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

The colonel was controlling the video screen from his laptop. A map of northern Alaska appeared, along with a sliver of the Arctic Ocean. A small dot out at sea was circled in red.

“This is a rapidly developing situation. What I can tell you is that an hour and a half ago, an oil rig in the Arctic Ocean was attacked and overwhelmed by a group of heavily armed men. There were approximately ninety men stationed on that rig and the artificial island that surrounds it, and an unknown number of those men were killed in the initial attack. A number were also taken hostage, though we do not know how many.”

“Who attacked the rig?” Luke said.

The general shook his head. “We don’t know. They have refused our attempts at contact, though they have sent video of oil workers gathered in a room and held at gunpoint by men in black masks. Audio from monitoring equipment at the rig has been made available to us by the company that owns the rig. The sound is poor quality, but it does pick up some voices. Besides the English spoken by the oil workers, there appear to be men speaking an Eastern European, possibly Slavic language, though we have no real evidence to back that up.”

On the screen, the map changed to aerial imagery of the rig and the camp surrounding it. The oil rig, probably thirty or forty stories high, dominated the first image. Below the rig were numerous Quonset hut–type buildings, as well as walkways between them. Surrounding the tiny compound was a vast, icy sea.

A blown-up image appeared. It showed the compound and the buildings in close detail. There were no people standing upright anywhere. There were at least a dozen bodies lying on the ground, some with halos of blood around them.

Another image appeared. Stretched across the ground was a large white banner with hand-painted black lettering.

AMERICA LIARS + HYPOCRITES.

“That’s quite a message,” Swann said.

“Admittedly, we have very little to go on. The banner you see certainly suggests an attack by foreign nationals. All of our drone footage shows us a compound devoid of personnel. The attackers appear to have taken all of the surviving workers indoors. Whether that is inside these buildings you see, or aboard the rig itself, we don’t know.”

For a moment, the screen went blank.

“We have a plan to take back the facility, neutralize the terrorists, and rescue however many civilian personnel are still alive. The plan involves an infiltration and assault, primarily using active-service Navy SEALs, but also yourselves. To carry out that plan, we need to get you to the Alaskan Arctic. Which means we need to hurry.”

Ed Newsam raised a hand. “When do you intend to carry out this plan?”

The general nodded. “Tonight. Before first light. Every experience we’ve had with terrorists over the years suggests that allowing a situation to become protracted is a recipe for failure, and even disaster. The public becomes involved, as do the politicians. The media puts it on the twenty-four-hour television doom loop. Second-guessing the government response becomes a national pastime. A long standoff excites and inspires terrorist fellow travelers in other places. Images of blindfolded hostages held at gunpoint…”

He shook his head.

“Let’s not explore that path. The group in question attacked without warning, and so will we. Hitting them before sunrise, under cover of darkness just hours after their own assault, allows us to take back the initiative. A successful incursion, and I have every confidence in its success, will demonstrate to other terror groups that we mean business.”

Stark must have seen the stares coming from the SRT personnel.

“We believe the Special Response Team is the right civilian agency to participate in this operation. If you don’t agree…” He let that hang there.

Luke had to admit he didn’t like where this was going. He had just left his wife and baby son in bed. Now he was supposed to go to the Arctic?

“The Alaskan Arctic has to be four thousand miles from here,” Swann said. “How are we supposed to get our people there before first light?”

Stark nodded again. “Closer to forty-five hundred miles. You’re right, it’s a long way. But we’re four hours ahead of them. At the oil rig, it’s not quite seven thirty p.m. We’ll take advantage of the time difference.”

He paused.

“And we have the technology to get you there faster than you might imagine.”

* * *

“What is he not telling us?” Luke said.

He was sitting in Don’s office, across the wide expanse of desk from the man himself.

Don shrugged. “You know they always hold something back. There’s something classified about the oil rig, perhaps. Or they know more about the perpetrators than they’re letting on. Could be anything.”

“Why us?” Luke said.

“You heard the man,” Don said. “They need civilian participation and oversight. That comes straight from the President. The man is a long-time liberal. He thinks the military is a big scary bogeyman. Little does he know that the civilian agencies are all packed with ex-military.”

“But look at how small we are,” Luke said. “No offense, Don. But NSA is a civilian agency. The FBI is, too. Both have a much longer reach than we do.”

“Luke, we are the FBI.”

Luke nodded. “Yes, but the Bureau proper has field offices close to the action out there. Instead, they want to fly us across the continent.”

Don stared at Luke for a long moment. For the first time, it really hit Luke how ambitious Don was. The President wanted the SRT for this gig. But Don wanted it just as badly, if not more so. These missions were feathers in Don’s cap. Don Morris had put together a team of world-beaters, and he wanted the world to know it.

“As you know,” Don said, “the field offices are full of field agents. Investigators and police officers, basically. We are special operations. That’s what we’re designed for, and that’s what we do. We are fast and light, we hit hard, and we’ve earned a reputation, not only for success in difficult circumstances, but also for total discretion.”

Luke and Don looked across the vast desk at one another.

Don shook his head. “Are you having cold feet, son? It’s okay if you are. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, least of all me. But at this moment, your team is out there gearing up.”

Luke shrugged. “I’m already packed.”

Don’s broad smile suddenly appeared. “Good. I’m sure you’ll all do fine, and you’ll be back here for breakfast.”

* * *

“Let’s go, man,” Ed Newsam said. “This mission ain’t gonna happen by itself.”

Ed was at Luke’s door. He stood there, shouldering a heavy pack. He did not look gung-ho. He did not look excited. If Luke could use one word to describe how Ed looked, he would say it was resigned.

Luke sat at his desk staring at the telephone.

“Chopper’s on the pad.”

Luke nodded. “Gotcha. I’ll be right there.”

They were about to leave. Meanwhile, Luke was suffering from an ailment he called thousand-pound telephone syndrome. He was physically unable to pick up the receiver and make a call.

“Dammit,” he whispered under his breath.

He had checked and rechecked his bags. He had his standard gear for an overnight trip. He had his Glock nine-millimeter, in its leather shoulder holster. He had a few extra magazines loaded for the Glock.

A garment bag with two days of clothing changes was draped over the desk. A small bug-out bag packed with travel-size toiletries, a stack of energy bars, and half a dozen Dexedrine pills sat next to the garment bag.

The Dexies were amphetamines—speed. They were practically in the instruction manual for special operators. They would keep you awake and alert for hours on end. Ed sometimes called them “the quicker picker-uppers.”

These were generic supplies, but there was no sense trying to get more specific. They were going to the Arctic, the operation was going to require specialized gear, and that gear would be provided when they landed. Trudy had already sent everyone’s measurements on ahead.

So now he stared at the phone.

He had left the house with barely a word of explanation to her. Of course, she had been asleep. But that didn’t change anything.

And the note on the dining room table didn’t explain anything.

Got called in for a late meeting. May need to pull an all-nighter. Luv you, L

An “all-nighter.” That was rich. It sounded like a college kid cramming for the final exam. He had gotten into the habit of lying to her about the job, and it was becoming a hard habit to break.

What good would it do to tell the truth? He could call her right now, wake her out of a sound sleep, wake the baby and get him to start crying, all to tell her what?

“Hi, honey, I’m heading up to the Arctic Circle to take out some terrorists who attacked an oil rig. There are dead bodies all over the ground. Yeah, looks like I could be walking into another bloodbath. Actually, I might never see you again. Okay, sleep tight. Give Gunner a kiss for me.”

No. Better to just take his chances, do the operation, and trust that between the Navy SEALs and the SRT, they had the best people to get the job done. Call her in the morning, after it was over. If all went well and everyone was in one piece, tell her they had to fly out to Chicago to interview a witness. Keep the fiction rolling along that working for the SRT was mostly some kind of detective job, marred by the occasional outburst of violence.

Okay. That’s what he would do.

“You ready?” a voice said. “Everybody else is boarding the chopper.”

Luke looked up. Mark Swann was standing in the doorway. It was always a little startling to see Swann. With his ponytail, his aviator glasses, the wisp of scraggly beard on his chin, and the rock-n-roll T-shirts he always seemed to wear… he could practically be wearing a sign around his neck: NOT MILITARY.

Luke nodded. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

Swann was smiling. No, cancel that. He was positively beaming, like a kid at Christmas. It was an odd thing to be doing when faced with a tedious flight across North America, followed by a nerve-wracking shoot ’em up against an unknown enemy.

“I just found out how they’re getting us there,” Swann said. “You won’t believe it. Absolutely incredible.”

“I didn’t realize you were even coming on this trip,” Luke said.

If anything, Swann’s smile grew even broader.

“I am now.”