“Alpha, MATCHSTICK, roger, over.”
“MATCHSTICK, Alpha, confirm target ID, over.”
“Alpha, MATCHSTICK, roger, standby. Our analyst says that the lead vehicle contains our target. Target is heading toward the missile launch command and control building. It is mission critical that we stop that from happening, over.”
“Roger MATCHSTICK, request air support on target vehicle, over.”
“Alpha, MATCHSTICK, we have UCAS lock on the lead vehicle. Time on top, fifteen seconds. Out.”
Lena bounced and jostled as they drove, four of them facing each other in the vehicle’s back seat. The first rays of morning light now shined over the ocean, illuminating the long, sandy road they traveled on. Ahead was a peninsular, a launch platform at the tip and a two-story rectangular building nearby.
The strategic missile commander said, “That’s it. We must get General Chen and me inside. Then our biometric information will unlock our ability to fire the missile.”
“Biometrics? My fingerprints?”
“And retina. Yes, General.”
Lena watched as the general’s head of security placed his hand on his earpiece and began speaking. “Yes. When? Are you sure? Who…” His voice trailed off, and Lena could see him fighting the urge to look her way. Instead he leaned toward her father and whispered something in his ear.
General Chen’s pupils dilated. He turned toward her, chest heaving. “Our communications specialists detected a message sent from our aircraft. They believe it was you.”
Lena didn’t answer.
“Have you betrayed me, daughter?”
Lena now saw the head of security point his pistol at her. He called out to the two security men in the front of the vehicle, and the one in the passenger seat turned to face the rear, drawing his weapon. The strategic missile commander backed away, attempting to melt into his seat.
Lena mentally calculated the distance to her opponents, weighing the probability that she would survive versus the importance of achieving her mission.
She was about to make her move when the earth exploded underneath them.
A third drone circled eight hundred feet overhead, launched directly from the USS Jimmy Carter. About the diameter of a kitchen table, it was primarily used for surveillance and reconnaissance. It did, however, have a limited offensive capability.
The drone fired two miniaturized missiles, each armed with a five-pound warhead. The weapons struck the Chinese presidential vehicle in rapid succession. One hit the engine block, destroying it. The other struck the left rear, igniting the fuel tank and causing it to flip the vehicle over.
Chase stopped their vehicle near a small sand dune twenty yards away from the wreckage. Two Chinese escort SUVs skidded to a halt next to the damaged vehicle, the occupants exiting and forming a perimeter around their leader. Some began pulling people out of the burning debris.
Chase tapped on his wrist and saw the video image from his mini drones.
“Seven… no… nine personnel. At least two are injured. One looks dead. They’ve got about fifteen yards to travel between there and the building. I’m sending in the LMAMs.”
“Roger.”
The two mini drones Chase controlled could be used as kamikazes. The US military termed them Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile systems, or LMAMs. Chase used his keypad to toggle onto his targets and then gave each an attack command.
Like fragmentation-capable giant hornets, the two LMAM drones flew toward the group of Chinese officers and security personnel now huddled behind the three vehicles. As the first drone approached, its buzzing rotors now audible, some of them looked up.
At a height of ten feet, the fragmentation device underneath the drone exploded, sending shards of hot metal out in a fifteen-foot kill radius. Instantly, the group went down. Some clutching their wounds, others mostly stunned but uninjured. Two were dead.
The second drone exploded seconds later, magnifying the damage.
Chase and the SEAL team leader were already on the move, firing at their targets while they held the advantage. Then gunfire rattled behind the Chinese vehicles and sand kicked up around them, halting their advance.
Lena and her father were the only ones still alive in the rear of the overturned vehicle. In the front seat, one of the few remaining security men had squirmed out of his seatbelt and was firing a rifle from the prone position, partially hidden from the approaching American soldiers.
Lena saw that her father was bleeding from the neck. The wound looked very painful, but it wouldn’t kill him if he received medical attention.
She, on the other hand…
Lena looked at her hands, which were covered in dark blood flowing from her abdomen. The pain was excruciating. But she knew it wouldn’t last long.
She was going to bleed out.
Lena could already feel the energy draining from her body. It took everything she had to stay focused. Her mission wasn’t over. She thought about her child again. About her life’s work, however misguided. About her own flaws, and her pathetic attempts to overcome them. Did these last efforts even matter? Would anything make up for the sins she had committed?
She didn’t know. Life had been cruel to her. But life was cruel to everyone. She could only control her own actions. And she could only act for a few moments more. She could only affect what was in front of her. Lena hoped it would make a difference.
“You betrayed me, daughter,” her father whispered, looking at her. “You ungrateful wretch.”
“You betrayed me, father.”
A pop of gunfire from the driver’s seat as the security man took another shot.
One of the few remaining military officers outside the vehicle stuck his head in. “General Chen, we have radioed our troops on the other side of the island. They are sending reinforcements. Only two Americans are here. We will hold them off until our reinforcements arrive and then get you into the building.”
Lena looked at him. “You gave away your only child. For what? Promotion and power?”
General Chen said, “You are a naïve fool. Greatness comes only to those who take it. I do whatever it takes.”
Lena saw movement in the corner of her eye. She turned and looked out the window, concentrating on a silhouette in the sand a dozen yards away. She squinted, trying to focus…
Impossible.
But it was him. Chase.
He was part of the team that had come to kill her father. To stop his insane act of vengeance upon the world.
He didn’t see her yet. It was dark underneath the overturned car, she realized. He wouldn’t see any of them, hidden here in the shadows.
She looked at her father, took a deep breath — like it was her last — and screamed Chase’s name.
Chase heard the scream and his eyes snapped to the overturned vehicle’s dark interior.
“What was that?” asked the SEAL. Sand still kicked up around them as rounds whizzed by.
It was Lena’s voice. She had just screamed his name. And then, in English, “He’s in here.”
“She’s telling us where to shoot.”
Chase flipped his weapon to three-round burst, took aim, and began firing.
Lena watched as rounds tore through the SUV and its occupants. Her father’s face and chest imploded into chunks of red and gray. The security man in the front seat was shot multiple times and killed. And then Lena felt a burst of white-hot pain in her shoulder as a round tore through her, too.
Through the ringing in her ears, she heard more gunfire, and footsteps closing in.