“Whoa!” Peter shouted as he watched the spinning car crash into the welcome center and explode.
King ignored the explosion filling his rearview mirror and focused on driving through the chaos. Soldiers ran in every direction, some firing over the car at something he couldn’t see. Explosions plumed all around, some bearing the telltale signature of fragmentation grenades, but other, larger and more fiery explosions looked like fuel depots or large vehicles exploding. And others, composed primarily of brick and concrete debris, looked more like invisible wrecking balls were tearing the base apart from the inside.
Which wasn’t far from the truth, King realized, as a dark blur ran up beside the car. With the car, and the object outside it, moving so fast he couldn’t make out any details, but its intentions were clear. “Hold on!” King shouted, intending to hit the brakes, but never getting the chance.
A massive force struck the rear side of the car, sending it into a three-hundred-sixty-degree spin. As the tires squealed, filling the air with the scent of smoldering rubber, King caught a quick glance of a largely shapeless, but four-legged, mass still in pursuit despite the constant bombardment of rounds fired by concealed special ops soldiers.
King yanked the wheel, compensating for the spin, and setting them back on course. He gunned the engine and shouted to his parents. “Everyone okay?”
Lynn slapped him on the shoulder three times. “Just go, go, go!” She watched over her shoulder as the thing gave chase. For a moment it appeared they would outrun the monster, but a sudden shake, followed by the left rear wheel’s rubber shedding off and rolling to the side of the road, slowed their progress.
King saw the creature gaining once again and made the final turn toward the barracks where he knew the highest concentration of soldiers would be—and, he hoped, Fiona.
At least one of his hopes proved true. Rounding the corner, he saw a line of Delta operators armed with a vast array of heavy-hitting weapons, from grenade launchers to antitank missile launchers laying in wait.
Knowing the speeding car with three passengers was not the enemy, the soldiers split and allowed them to pass. King stopped the car and directed his parents to the nearby barracks. “Hide in there. I’ll come get you.”
To his relief, his parents followed his orders, moving into the building, weapons high and ready … like people trained to handle weapons. Trained to kill. He forced the thought of his mother killing a man from his mind and joined the men at the line.
“Where’s my team?” he shouted to Jeff Kafer, a fellow Delta team leader with a blond mop of hair and a thick mustache. He didn’t know him well, but Rook and Kafer were friends. Both were loud and liked to tell jokes at the bar. Both had several sisters. And both loved their weapons like children.
“Not on base, King,” Kafer replied. “And you know I don’t know where.”
“Have you seen Fiona?”
Kafer motioned toward the garage fifty feet behind them. “Saw Aleman back there. Looks injured, but he might know.”
“Here it comes!” one of the men shouted.
Kafer raised his voice to make sure everyone heard him. “Wait on me!”
The line took aim at the charging mass of stone and waited.
King did not. He turned and ran for Aleman, who he could see slumped against one of the large garage doors, a smear of blood stretching down to the back of his head. He didn’t get ten feet before Kafer yelled, “Fire!”
The air filled with the sounds of launching ordinance one moment and a rapid succession of explosions the next. King turned and saw the giant creature charging through the onslaught. Several explosions sent pavement flying into the air. Direct hits shot chunks of its body flying. A few misses shredded parked vehicles. Despite the brute force of the attack, the thing showed no response, felt no pain. It simply charged forward. When one of its legs burst free, it ran on three.
It wouldn’t be stopped.
As the line of men realized this, and knew just as surely that they couldn’t get out of its way in time, they raised their arms and turned their heads, as a natural reaction to being trampled. King raised his M4 and fired, just as the beast reached the line of men.
But the useless bullets King fired never hit their mark. Instead, they sailed straight through a cloud of dust that burst out and over the line of men. The giant had disintegrated. Whether from the attack or some other reason, King didn’t care. It was gone, and Aleman was down.
As King rushed to Aleman’s side he heard the pop of gunfire cease around the base. The battle was over.
“Lew,” he said, kneeling down by Aleman’s body. “Lew, wake up.”
Aleman’s eyes blinked open. “King…”
“What happened?”
Aleman tried to sit up, but a stab of pain kept him down. “Took a hit to the head. Shrapnel I think.”
“Where’re the others?”
“Gone,” Aleman said.
“Fiona’s with them?”
Aleman frowned and King knew the answer before the man said the words. “They took her.”
King clenched his fists. Fiona was gone.
His daughter was gone.
At that moment all of King’s fears became realized—Jack Sigler never would be, nor should be, a father. And if he were somehow able to bring her back alive, he would find a better, and safer, home for her. King picked up his friend and headed for the barracks where a makeshift triage was already being set up.
As King passed, Peter saw a flicker of something in King’s eyes, an anger bordering on primal, screaming for revenge.
“What’s going to happen?” Lynn asked her husband as he closed the door.
“I’m not sure,” he said, meeting her eyes with a strong gaze that communicated more than words, “but whoever did this…” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be them when Jack comes calling.”
“Are you sure this isn’t more than he can handle?” she said, lowering her voice to a strong whisper.
Peter took her arm. “He’ll handle it.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if something happened and we—”
Peter took hold of her other arm and pulled her close. “He’ll handle it. We Sigler’s are hard to kill.”
“I hope that’s true,” she said. “For both of them.”
SEEK
SIXTEEN
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
DESPITE AN UNCEASING urge to find out who was behind the attack and where Fiona had been taken, King was duty-bound to aid in the rescue efforts under way around Fort Bragg. Collapsed buildings buried the dead and dying. Triages treated burns, puncture wounds, and crushed limbs, some of which had to be amputated. Outside of a war zone, he’d seen nothing like it.
And neither had America.
The attack, seen and heard for miles around, was impossible to hide from the media. At first, news helicopters had hovered outside the no-fly zone, zooming in for close-up shots of the rescue operation under way, but they had since been chased away by several deadly attack helicopters now securing the aerial perimeter. Shots from visitor camera phones flooded YouTube. And a few reporters, who were already on the base when the attack occurred, took advantage of the chaos, hiding in the ruins and snapping photos of bloodied soldiers, destroyed buildings, and parking lots filled with overturned vehicles.
By the time the military launched a full-scale search to find and remove press from the base it was too late to contain the story. The world knew about the attack on Fort Bragg. The images of destroyed buildings and dead soldiers revolted each and every American who saw them.