But as she heard keys jingling, a siren began wailing from the pole-mounted megaphones.
The guards began screaming at each other in Chinese. Captain Tao looked worried, pointing and shouting. He began barking orders and the guards dispersed, leaving the prisoners in their locked cells as they ran out of the prison yard and into their barracks.
Then the lights went out, one at a time.
“What were they saying?” someone whispered from a cell nearby.
“Some sort of air raid,” someone else replied.
Victoria leaned back into the cell’s concrete wall, holding her knees tight, thinking about the chief. Another man who had perished under her command. Her thoughts flashed to images of shipmates being pulled under after she’d abandoned ship. The same sick feeling of helplessness. She had failed to save her men.
In the silent darkness, Victoria let the pain wash over her. She thought of her own father’s death, his carrier struck by a missile as she watched from her circling helicopter.
She gritted her teeth, not allowing herself to cry, as her emotions stirred into anger. Where was God in all of this? What was the point of it all? Why was she put here, if she couldn’t control the outcome of these events? She became numb as she gazed up at the misty clouds partially covering a half-moon.
Then two familiar shapes moved across the moon.
She sat upright in her cell, listening…
An unworldly noise rose over the calls of jungle insects and animals. The beating of helicopter rotors unlike any Victoria had heard before.
She glanced up at the guard towers. In the moonlight she could make out a few faces in the nearest tower. Young Chinese men, sweating while holding their rifles, waiting in fear, slapping mosquitos.
Wham.
One of the guard’s heads snapped back, and his body fell to the floor.
Wham.
Another guard flew off the tower backwards, falling forty feet and slamming into the dirt with a thud.
Then the night air erupted with the rattles of automatic rifle fire from multiple locations. Silent figures weaved through the camp. Special ops, Victoria knew. Dark shadows with four-tube night vision devices clipped to their cranial gear. They operated as one, spread out from each other, moving with quick precision. Every few seconds, the rapid bursts of suppressed gunfire emanated from their rifles.
The noise level increased as one of the aircraft landed in the prison yard. Victoria could see it better now. It was one of the stealth helicopters special forces pilots had flown in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
One of the American special operators appeared in front of her cell. “Commander Manning?”
“Yes.”
“How many prisoners are here?”
“Ninety-eight.” She shook her head. “Ninety-seven, I mean.”
“You know where this man is?”
The soldier used a dim light to illuminate a picture of Rojas.
She pointed. “They keep the scientists in a building one hundred yards over there.”
As the soldier spoke into his lip microphone, Victoria could see the Chinese guard barracks. The windows were lit up with gunfire like a thunderstorm. Up and down her row of cells, other American special forces soldiers used bolt cutters to open the locks.
Victoria heard the soldier say, “Affirm, ninety-seven. Roger.” They cut the lock, opened her cell, and she was free. Just like that.
“Ma’am, you’ll come with us.”
She followed two of the soldiers, who firmly guided her into a waiting stealth helicopter. The scientist and his wife were brought in seconds later.
“Wait, what about the other prisoners?” she said.
“Not enough room,” one of the crewmen replied.
Victoria’s eyes widened and she started to get out. “I can’t leave.”
One of the special forces men easily pressed her back down into her seat.
“Ma’am, please sit down. We’ve got two Chinooks en route. They’ve got room for the others. You’re going in here.” The aircrewman strapped her in. She was moving and thinking slow, still in shock from how quick the rescue had unfolded. Then she felt the familiar sensation of a helicopter lifting off from the deck and nosing over, and a moment later they were moving low and fast over a dark jungle.
33
Norfolk had always been one of the largest military centers in the world, but its military presence had increased tenfold since the war began. The city was home to several huge bases, all located within a twenty-mile radius of each other. Norfolk Naval Station was home to the Atlantic fleet, and nearby were Langley Air Force Base, FTC Dam Neck, Naval Air Station Oceana, and Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek.
Chase had never seen Norfolk like this. With the reinstitution of the draft, millions were put into uniform and trained in various military occupational specialties. The highways were crowded with convoys of Humvees and transport vehicles, and the roar of military jets was ever-present overhead.
Chase remained assigned to DEVGRU, also known as SEAL Team Six. The unit was one of the most elite teams in the world. Having spent the past few years with the CIA’s special operations group, returning to the military training regimen was an adjustment. He secretly hated much of the training, but Chase was getting in the best shape of his life, mentally and physically.
The High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jumps were exhausting and dangerous. The unit was requalifying everyone, making sure that new members of the team wouldn’t hesitate to follow procedures when it came time to execute.
After a few days of overland training, they began doing nighttime drops out of C-17 transports over the cold Atlantic. The paradrops transitioned into underwater operations, where the team swam with advanced gear and trained on the newest version of the SEAL delivery vehicle. They joined up with a Virginia-class submarine, and practiced entering and exiting through its specialized locks.
Chase and the team spent days on end in urban warfare training centers, practicing raids on buildings in the remote North Carolina woods. They also practiced confined area assaults, and operations both with and without the use of their high-speed comms equipment.
“Slide this sleeve on.”
Chase was in one of the urban warfare training centers, where a weapons instructor was training them on a new toy.
Chase placed the black sleeve over his left forearm. It reminded him of an NFL quarterback’s play-calling sleeve, although probably a bit heavier.
“What’s this for?”
“You’ll see,” said the instructor, handing him a set of clear goggles that looked like an expensive set of ski goggles. Chase and two other SEALs placed them on.
“Comfortable,” he noted.
“Ready?” asked the instructor.
“Yup.”
“Press the power button on the top left of your wrist device.”
The wrist device and his goggles came alive. The goggles allowed him a complete field of view but now fed in extra information and video projections.
“Damn. This is shit hot.”
“You haven’t seen the good part yet. Press this button, and select UAS One.”
Chase used his wrist-mounted control set to toggle through the choices painted onto the screen in front of him. He could still see the outside world clearly, and it was a bit uncomfortable switching to the text displayed up close.
“You’ll get used to it. Trust me, you’re going to like this thing…”
Chase selected the UAS One on his screen and a square video feed appeared on his heads-up display. Below it was an aerial map.