Prologue

       Anbar Province, Iraq

      THE SPIT of machine-gun fire and the acrid stench of burning oil and scorched metal filled the air. First Sergeant Chase McCormick surveyed the battle through a pair of high-optic binoculars from his perch atop an armored Humvee. He and his special ops team had just extracted a pair of Marine snipers from a site twenty miles away when they’d received reports of a large U.S. supply convoy traveling through the dangerous Anbar province. They’d immediately made a detour to intercept the convoy and escort them through the region, but they’d arrived too late.

      Insurgents, hidden in an orchard on one side of the dusty road and in a crudely dug trench on the other, had attacked the convoy, which was now taking heavy fire from both sides. Chase had to give the truck drivers credit; along with their security detail, they were some tough sons of bitches and were holding their own.

      Despite the fact the insurgents had managed to destroy two Humvees and the lead supply truck, their smallarms fire was mostly inaccurate and ineffectual. Chase had seen enough combat to know that this battle would be over shortly, but the entire scenario had him pissed off on a level so deep that he had to shut that part of himself down or risk losing his focus on the immediate mission.

      While Al-Qaeda had, for the most part, been neutralized in the Anbar province, there were still pockets of rebellion and several attacks on the U.S. troops had occurred in recent weeks. Chase had received intel reports that the insurgents were hiding twenty miles to the north, where the sniper team had been conducting reconnaissance for the past five days. But in reality they had been here, digging their damned trenches and stockpiling their IEDs and rocket-propelled grenades.

      As he watched, a driver exited one of the supply vehicles. Chase saw she was female, and she was aiming her weapon at the tree line, focused on some hidden target that even Chase couldn’t see. In the next instant a second soldier, who up until that moment had been manning a fifty-caliber gun mounted on top of one of the convoy’s gun trucks, abruptly abandoned his position and swung to the ground, apparently intent on intercepting and protecting the woman.

      “Son of a bitch,” Chase muttered beneath his breath, and swung his gun around to cover the man. Didn’t he realize his best option for protecting the girl was to stay with his weapon?

      As the soldier sprinted toward the woman, he took a direct hit from the assailant hidden in the trees, and went down on his knees before pitching face forward onto the ground. Chase swept the tree line with machine-gun fire, but was forced to stop when the female soldier stepped directly into his sights. She shouldered her weapon and bent to drag the wounded