Promise To Defend

Upon seeing his comrade pitch to the ground, the second terrorist dropped into a crouch and fanned his AK-47 over the horizon, while his free hand scrambled for his cell phone. Encizo triggered the crossbow. An instant later the gunner froze as a bolt jutted from his ribs.

The little Cuban checked his watch: 9:07 p.m.

Right on time.

“Two down, Cal,” he whispered into his throat mike. “Your status?”

A moment passed without reply. Then another.

“Cal? Cal?” Encizo whispered again, this time more urgently. The only thing that filled the silence was the plummeting sensation in his stomach. Before he could utter another word, gunshots rang out across the compound.

#13 WARHEAD

#14 DEADLY AGENT

#15 BLOOD DEBT

#16 DEEP ALERT

#17 VORTEX

#18 STINGER

#19 NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE

#20 TERMS OF SURVIVAL

#21 SATAN’S THRUST

#22 SUNFLASH

#23 THE PERISHING GAME

#24 BIRD OF PREY

#25 SKYLANCE

#26 FLASHBACK

#27 ASIAN STORM

#28 BLOOD STAR

#29 EYE OF THE RUBY

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

#47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#76 GATHERING STORM

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

To my wife, Robbie, my parents, Dennis and Anita, and my brother, Tony, without whom there’d be no writing career for yours truly. And to O. C. Hayden, who sang like an angel long before he was called to join them.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

Washington, D.C.

His face a stony mask, hands clasped behind his back, David Campbell stood at the window of the safehouse’s third-floor library, staring at the nation’s capital. Although he saw the endless rows of stately marble buildings, the throngs of people, the carpet of lights, they barely registered with him. Other things occupied his mind.

The same landscape, but consumed.

Consumed with fire.

Unspeakable carnage.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Campbell tried to banish the images, but found they only returned with a greater vigor. So be it, he thought. He was a man of vision, a man chosen to lead the nation, hell, the world, to greater things. And men of vision suffered. If that was his price, his burden, he’d shoulder it, like the good soldier his father had trained him to be.

Both his father and grandfather had been great men, laying the groundwork for all that would transpire during the next few days. Not that they ever would have envisioned it unfolding as it would, a hellstorm of blood and fire sure to shake the country to its very core. They’d been good men. No, great men. But they never could have envisioned the current circumstances that drove Campbell to do what he was about to do.

There’d be fire, but it’d be a cleansing fire, a rebirth, something that in a dozen years would be celebrated as ushering in a new era for the country. That he had been called upon to marshal such forces and channel them into this pursuit was humbling, indeed. Campbell considered himself a simple man, like his forebears. Not stupid, but simple. A man who saw things in black and white. And he knew, like the Campbell men before him, he’d do the right thing just as they would have done, were they here to see the complexities he faced in his solemn family duty.

A door opened from behind Campbell, and he whirled to greet the visitor. A thick man, his lumpy head shaved clean, entered, stood at attention, waiting for permission to speak.

Jonas Barrins was Campbell’s most trusted confidant. Like Campbell, he was dressed in crisp khakis, a black turtleneck and steel-toed boots. A 9 mm Beretta rode on the man’s left hip, the handgun’s butt jutting forward in a cross-draw position, also just like Campbell.

Other than their mode of dress and their armament, however, the two men differed greatly. Campbell towered six inches over his lieutenant. His body, conditioned by hours of exercise, dwarfed the other man’s slender frame. His steel-gray eyes, wide and intelligent, bore into Barrins’s piggish brown eyes that never seemed to blink.