10

WASHINGTON, D.C.—13 MAY

Annie Stewart awoke in the darkness.

Alone in her town house.

In a damp T-shirt. Her hair matted. Her hands trembling.

It had been a long time since she’d let herself think about the day she’d first met Marcus Ryker. Then again, did a nightmare qualify as letting herself think about it now? It was certainly a day she would never forget. But it was also so tangled up in such primal and unresolved emotions she wasn’t sure it was one she wanted to remember.

Annie slipped out of bed and headed into the bathroom. She splashed water on her face and pulled her hair back in a scrunchie, then threw on running shorts and a fresh T-shirt and a new pair of trainers and headed out for her morning run. It was earlier than usual. The sun was not yet up, but she knew she’d never get back to sleep.

As she hit the pavement, she decided to rewind the tape in her head. There were, after all, good parts to that day. She remembered arriving in Kabul with her new boss, Senator Robert Dayton. It was her first overseas trip with the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and as a deputy press secretary, Annie was excited to be on the front lines in America’s war on terror. Climbing into the Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion, she was struck by the friendliness of the young Marines assigned to protect the senator. Pete Hwang had certainly been a gentleman, as had Nick Vinetti, God rest his soul. Bill McDermott had been a little too friendly, shamelessly flirting nonstop on their flight to Kandahar. But she had to give him credit for one good deed—introducing her to a shy but ruggedly handsome young man showing her no interest whatsoever.

“Now, the guy you really want to stick close to, Miss Stewart, is Lance Corporal Ryker here,” she recalled McDermott saying.

“Really, and why’s that?”

“Because Vinnie and I are notorious bachelors,” McDermott said, grinning. “And St. Pete—well, don’t be fooled by his cherubic face. But Ryker here, he’s a good Christian and a real family man. When the chips are down, you can count on this guy.”

No sooner had the words come out of McDermott’s mouth than they all heard and felt the explosion. Annie could still see the lead chopper erupting in a ball of fire. The antiaircraft fire erupting below them. The pilots taking evasive action. Marcus tightening his own shoulder harness, then reaching over and tightening hers as their Super Stallion dove for the deck and finally slammed down on the side of the mountain.

So much of what happened next was a blur. Billowing smoke. Raging fires. Gunfire erupting. McDermott shouting orders. Vinetti, a sniper, taking out enemy forces approaching them. Marcus scrambling down the mountainside to reach the senator in the other chopper. Pete, a medic, attending Dayton, whose leg was badly wounded. Marcus carrying Dayton up the mountain to a cave that would serve as their temporary shelter.

She remembered Taliban and al Qaeda fighters approaching in a caravan of pickup trucks. Vinetti picking off one fighter after another and taking out several of the lead vehicles. And Marcus racing down the mountain, darting around burning vehicles, dodging bullets, heading for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher lying on the side of the road.

Annie slowed her running pace and shook her head, trying to forestall the mental image of Marcus, hit by an enemy bullet, writhing on the ground yet still trying to reload the RPG launcher. All too vividly, she remembered Marcus struggling to get the launcher to his shoulder and steady his aim. Yet just then he was hit again by incoming rounds. Lurching back, he dropped the grenade launcher. She recalled watching in horror as he collapsed just inches from a burning truck. He pulled a sidearm from its holster and fired again and again as one Taliban fighter after another came around the back of the truck. She saw two fighters go down. But then the pistol was empty and five more pickups filled with at least thirty more men were heading straight for him.

The last thing Annie remembered was the deafening roar of an A-10 Thunderbolt. It swooped down from the sky out of nowhere and lit up the road with 30mm shells, annihilating everyone and everything in its path.

The good guys had finally arrived, and not a moment too soon.