Prologue

"War is delightful to those who have not yet experienced it."

-Erasmus

Day -4 – 03:20:31

Presidential Palace, Azadi Republic

They came for him in the dead of night. President Yasir Al-Fulani was woken by his security detail, his last line of defense in situations like this. He could immediately hear the crackle of distant gunfire: the Azadi Regular Army falling to the last man to defend their fledgling nation. They had worked so hard to rebuild this nation from the abuse of the old monarchy, Al-Fulani was not going to let their efforts be in vain. He would get out, and he would survive the coup.

He stumbled to his feet and found himself being bustled out through a secret passageway that quite ironically he had used to first enter what been the "King's Palace" only two years earlier. His guards were not speaking much, talking only in rapid and unintelligible bursts into their lapel radios. And for that, he silently thanked them. This was a luckless assignment, no matter how it may have seemed to be when they had first accepted their posts. Al-Fulani and his cabinet were under constant threat of personal attack. Anyone else would have long since fled the city, even the country. But not these men. They were loyal Azadi soldiers. They would do their duty and stand to the last to ensure that he would live. Loyal and willing to do what they could to preserve their nation and government. There was no higher calling.

The stone-walled passageway opened up into one of the many garages that the King had used during his reign. After assuming power, Al-Fulani had walled-off and converted a number of them into storage spaces. But not this one. Despite the fervor that had buoyed his administration, he knew that this passageway and garage were there for good reason. A battered white Mercedes van sat in the middle of the garage. Appearances were deceptive. Despite the dents and grime, it was armored to withstand anything short of a tank shell.

"Stay in the front of the cargo area, Mister President," one of his bodyguards said as he strapped a bulky and heavy bulletproof vest onto his principal along with a ballistic helmet. "If anything happens, stay there. We will handle the fighting."

"Thank you," Al-Fulani said shakily. He realized with a sinking feeling in his gut that he never knew this man's name. He would probably never know it either. "Are you coming along?"

"No, sir," he said, shaking his head as he removed his suit jacket in favor of a vest of his own. One of the other bodyguards handed him a black submachine gun. "We will try to hold them for as long as possible. Yusef and Matta will accompany you."

Matta he knew. Ever loyal Matta with his broad beard and ever-ready smile. He had always complained that the war had ended so quickly. Al-Fulani had known the man since he had protected him from schoolyard bullies in their home village. A steadfast man. He would have liked nobody else but him to be at his side.

"Yasir, we must go," Matta called from his seat in the van. "The insurgents are closing on the building."

He nodded and extended his hand to the man who had given him the vest. "It has been an honor."

The bodyguard shook his head as he grasped his hand. "The honor is ours, sir."

Al-Fulani turned and climbed aboard the back of the van, helped aboard by Matta and Yusef. He sat down and looked around as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. The compartment was stripped down with head-sized interlocking squares of some sort of ceramic composite coating the walls. Matta had a thermos which he passed over and Al-Fulani accepted gratefully. Inside was a thick, hot, and aromatic coffee.

"Just like the bad old days, yes?" Mattas asked with a vague hint of a smile. "One man with a vision of how the country should be. And one man responsible for keeping his unmentionables in one piece."

"Yes," Al-Fulani said, nodding as he took a swig from the thermos. "Just like it used to be."

The doors rolled shut to seal the three in darkness. Al-Fulani could hear Yusef checking his weapon, his breathing as ragged as his own. Only now did the complete implications of what was happening sink into his mind. He was running like a cornered animal from its hunters. The shame hit him like a sack of lead shot. His country had eaten itself apart from its core thanks to the Caliphate faction and their puppet of a leader Khaled Al-Asad. "The Lion" they called him. A two bit thug with delusions of grandeur was what he really was. But he certainly knew how to speak.

The Azadi Republic was so young, and already it was falling apart in the hands of its founders. The others who had accompanied him to topple the mad king were undoubtedly being presented with a very persuasive offer: spout their new party's line or face a swift execution like their false leader Al-Fulani would when they found him. He was divided, hoping that they would obey the madman to preserve themselves, and yet he knew that dying on your feet was as Zapata had said, better than living on your knees. Whatever path his friends would choose, he wished only for the best for them.

Their truck was now driving along the cobbled back roads of the Palace District, judging from how much the vehicle was bouncing. They were headed for a military airstrip where his salvation awaited. How could it have come to this? How were the people so easily swayed by so obvious a monster? Al-Asad had always been a terrorist and always would be. Those who rallied under his banner following his hollow promises would learn shortly what it meant to welcome a military force in as their government.

It was a silent trip, the dull rumble of the engine and the creaking of the suspension louder than anything else. Distant machine gun fire could be heard. Yusef had opened a bag of rations and was chewing quietly on a flatbread with a hand still on his submachine gun. Al-Fulani tried to calm himself and took another long drink from the thermos. Fear gnawed away at his gut like a festering wound. Despite his best efforts, he felt a wave of crushing despair over his situation. These sorts of middle-of-the-night evacuations were fairly effective, but it was the times that they weren't effective that he worried about. He didn't want to be just another statistic.

After a while, the vehicle slowed to a stop. They were at the airfield. Yusef got up first, his submachine gun sighted down at the door. When it opened, they found themselves face-to-face with a squad of Azadi Army soldiers. Loyal soldiers. Others would have discarded their arms and uniforms, and he didn't blame them. Yusef lowered his weapon slightly and stepped out. Matta followed him, only gesturing for Al-Fulani to follow after the two of them had performed a check of their own.

It was cold enough that his breath fogged. He looked around the field after returning the soldiers' salutes as best he could. Most of the lights had been doused and most of the planes looked like they had demolition charges attached to them. The Caliphate's thugs might take control of the country, but at least they would not have air assets for when the West responded in force. He only hoped that the civilians would be spared from the fighting. A futile hope when dealing with scum like the Caliphate.

The soldiers formed a bodyguard around him, supplementing Matta and Yusef. Their assault rifles were held loosely at their sides, ready in case of some attack. With Yusef leading the way, they walked toward the lone plane waiting in the gloom of the tarmac. He still felt disembodied as if watching this in a theater rather than actually being in his pajamas and wearing an ill-fitting vest and helmet and walking toward a cargo plane that was older than his nation. He was the President! They couldn't do this to-

Suddenly brightness. He looked up at the instantly-blazing halogen lights that customarily lit the fields. The soldiers around him dropped into defensive postures, rifles pointed outward and scanning for targets. And targets there were. Six Ural general-purpose trucks rolled in to surround them. Each of them had their beds loaded with a full complement of men wearing Caliphate colors and all of them carrying weapons. So they were too late.

"Drop your weapons!" they shouted from atop the truck beds, their own weapons waving slightly as they jockeyed with each other for a better shot or target. "Drop them now!"

"Drop yours first, traitors!" one of the soldiers shouted, his voice cracking. He couldn't have been older than twenty. "Drop your-"

He was interrupted. All of the soldiers were. Al-Fulani felt Yusuf and Matta tackle him and shield him with their bodies as bullets snapped overhead. He could already hear a ringing in his ears as the combined machine gun fire of the Caliphate rebels tore into the loyal soldiers. Loyal to the last. Yusuf and Matta both grunted as rounds struck them as well, knocking them breathless and senseless. It was perhaps a testament to their American-made body armor that both were still living while the soldiers around them died. There was a meaty thwack and he felt as if one of his legs had ballooned in size. He'd been shot.

Just as suddenly as the firing had begun, it stopped. Al-Fulani was aware of boot steps in the sudden quiet. The weight of his two bodyguards was suddenly removed, and he saw as Yusuf and Matta were pulled off of him. Then he was rolled over onto his back. Al-Asad. The Lion stood there, flanked by his men with an arrogant indulgent smile stretched across his face. In his hand was a long silver pistol. His infamous "Fist of Righteous Justice," one concession of many to his love of Americana.

"So, Mister President," he said in his nasal eastern Azadi drawl. "We meet at last. Your soldiers killed, your government sundered, and your nation under the people's control."

The wound in his leg was starting to hurt. Al-Fulani licked his dry lips before speaking. "The people do not want you, Khaled. They never will. Not so long as any one man, woman, or child who believes in what this republic had been founded-"

"Wrong!"

He felt Al-Asad grab his thinning hair and pull him up to look on as two rebels dragged Yusuf up on his knees. His heart seized, and it felt as if he were watching things in slow motion as Al-Asad raised his pistol and fired. Yusuf's head seemed to evaporate into a red mist with the thunderous crack of his weapon. The two rebels dragged the headless corpse aside.

"They love me, Yasir," Al-Asad said, pressing the still-hot muzzle against Al-Fulani's neck. "I will make them love me. But they will love me. Rest assured of that." He pulled away and let Al-Fulani drop back onto the tarmac. "Pile the filth and burn it. Let their republican plague be burned with them. Al-Fulani comes with me."

Al-Fulani looked on numbly as the rebels began dragging the bodies of his soldiers and bodyguards into a large pile. Some of the soldiers had only been wounded. Two rebels grabbed his arms and dragged him away from them, allowing him a perfect view as rebels doused the pile with cans of gasoline. He was aware of Matta looking at him, even from the distance. He stared back even as the rebels threw a lit book of matches onto the pile.

The screams followed him back into the darkness Al-Asad's SUV.

Day -2 – 09:23:22

RAF Hereford, England

"So glad of you to join us, Sergeant MacTavish," the lance corporal at the duty desk said, barely looking up from the folder. "Love what you did with the hair, by the way."

"Thanks," Sergeant John MacTavish said, self-consciously running hand over his freshly-shaved mohawk. "Got it for free for making the barber laugh. Where's Captain Price?"

"On the job, unfortunately," he said, doodling something in a small note pad. "Lieutenant O'Reilly is in, though. Bit of a prang-up last week during exercises. Tea while you wait?"

One of the things MacTavish still had to get used to in the Regiment was how easily the enlisted addressed anyone higher-up the food chain than they were. Back in the Parachute Regiment, the Ruperts would have put the lance jack on charges for not even looking up, and the sergeants would have given him no small amount of full-contact counseling. Even with the Artists there hadn't been much in the way of this level of fraternization. It felt something like being in an under-funded B-movie for him.

"Uh, thank you," he said, accepting a mug.

"Not a problem, Sergeant," the lance corporal said. "Says here that you transferred in fresh from the Artists. Paras?"

"Yes," MacTavish said with a nod before taking a sip of his tea. It was piping hot and surprisingly good. "Good tea."

"Should be. It's heated bog water." The lance corporal looked at him for a beat as MacTavish decided whether or not to spit the tea in his face. "Relax. Just buggering about. Bought the tea myself in town."

"Good to know," MacTavish said. "Is there anything I have to do now?"

"Your baggage has been dealt with, so I suppose you had best head over to the range and get started. The boys should be back in a tick from their morning stroll. It's a block down. Utilities should be fine."

"Got it."

MacTavish ignored the directions for the moment and turned and walked deeper into the barracks. They were intended to house a squadron's four troops at a time. With the four squadrons of 22 SAS, their barracks buildings were customarily quite busy recirculating operators returning from their various missions. In this case, his new unit—A Squadron's Air Troop—was out on morning PT. That left him with some time on his hands. He found his bags already laid out on his bed. Rather nice of them, really.

He pulled his duffels open to get at the rolled-up clothes within. Pulling out his No.12 uniform, he eagerly switched out of his No.2 Service in favor of the significantly more comfortable barracks uniform. MacTavish pulled his smock on over that mostly to ward off the chill outside. He actually rather missed being stationed out in the big sandy with the Paras. Even with the bullets and the intermittent mortar attacks, it was still a good bit warmer than home.

Packing away his bags into his new locker, he closed up and head back out of the barracks. The lance corporal was still doodling and grunted as he passed. Now with some time on his hands, MacTavish decided to have a look around the famed base. He'd only had time earlier to see what he could from the car that delivered him up the main road. After signing the papers formalizing his transfer, he'd been bustled into the barracks with little chance to see anything else.

Hereford was surprisingly large for a former RAF airfield, surrounded by idyllic pastures and right next to a lovely small town. It was a definite change of pace for him from the bustling days of working with the Artists in London. He walked along the worn pavement past more squadron barracks toward what was presumably one of the base ranges. An open-air arrangement, several operators were already practicing point-shooting with their P226s, C8 carbines, and a good mix of captured and specialist equipment laid out on a table with ammunition with a lone operator who was watching rather than shooting.

"MacTavish," he said to the operator as a way of introducing himself. He pointed at the table. "May I?"

The operator nodded and picked up an unloaded Heckler & Koch G36C along with two loaded magazines. MacTavish took them and picked a spot along the firing line that wasn't taken. He pulled a target from the stack and walked out to put it up, still slightly uneasy at the thought of bullets passing barely a feet away. SAS operators were trained to shoot straight, but the sound of 5.56 x 45mm full metal jacketed slugs hissing just past him awoke a primal fear. Hurrying back, he hefted the German-made carbine and loaded the first magazine. Chambering the first round, he took aim and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, a third time.

Through the Tasco red-dot scope, he examined the three holes placed neatly between the head and torso. Not exactly a clean kill. A tango would have spent the last seconds of his life gurgling as his blood poured out of the three holes torn through his neck. Certainly didn't beat that GSG-9 sniper's kill nearly a decade ago. In the circles that the SAS travelled in, that had been a particularly nasty take-down. He had probably received a reprimand for going for a gut wound instead of something quicker.

He tapped out another set of rounds after adjusting his sights. Better. Adjusting his grip, MacTavish then moved up to automatic fire. The G36 handled much better than the L85 he had been issued back with the Paras. But he'd left that behind with his old nickname. Emptying out the rest of his magazine, his hands fumbled as he used his other magazine to tab the magazine catch to drop the empty. Sliding the magazine into place as soon as the emptied one dropped, he pushed it home until he felt the clasp lock in place. Pulling the bolt handle back to chamber a round, he prepared to continue firing before a whistle blast stopped him in his tracks, accompanied by the distinctive bellow of a regimental Sergeant-Major.

"Check! Cease fire!"

He immediately lowered his carbine and safed it before turning to see what was the cause for all of the fuss. The Sergeant-Major was recognizable even with the official title of 'Warrant Officer' or the insignia. Few people in the armed services exuded such an air of undeniable and overwhelming superiority. If a commanding officer was God, the sergeant-major was his prophet. Nobody disobeyed him. Seeing the two men accompanying him, MacTavish felt his jaw fall slack when he recognized the older of the two.

Sergeant Jimmy Doyle was a legend amongst the operators of the Special Air Service. There was the classic Americanism of being all you could be. Doyle was everything he could have been and then some, if official records were to be believed. The man and legend had originally started out as a draftee with the RAF of all things. After a bombing raid gone south, he'd managed to survive the destruction of his plane to land in the middle of occupied Holland. Linking up with an SAS-backed resistance cell, he had then gone on to blow up a vital rail bridge between Amsterdam and Antwerp that very same night. And he'd apparently picked up a taste for making shrapnel after that, joining up with the SAS proper with scores that still stood half a century later. He'd gone on to Sicily, France, and even Germany later on in the war, engaging in raids and covert operations that were required reading for new and veteran SAS operators. Some of his feats seemed like they had been taken from a bad American action movie. Riding out of an exploding German gun battery in a motorcycle before escaping to the docks and then to the sea on a captured German gunboat, engaged in a running gun battle throughout? Some things could be made up, but the man was a bloody legend.

The other operators realized this just as quickly, many of them snapping to attention and offering salutes to the man. Even in his mid-nineties and confined to a wheelchair after a career-ending plane crash, Doyle returned their salutes crisply.

"A pleasure, gentlemen," he said. "But there's no need to stop on my account," he added, glancing meaningfully at the sergeant-major.

Several of the operators took the opportunity to gather together their spent casings. Elite special forces unit or not, the quartermaster was likely just as retentive as the rest of the accountants in the Army. All casings had to be accounted for. Eyeing his own pile, MacTavish bent down to scrape up the brass to deposit in the small buckets. Thirty forty-five millimeter-long brass casings were surprisingly small in his hands. As he got back up, he was aware of a set of shoes in front of him.

He snapped to attention with another salute. "Sir!"

"At ease. Bloody Eliza, I'm retired," Doyle said, waving his hand dismissively. "What's your name, trooper?"

"MacTavish, sir!" he said, still looking straight ahead.

"Well, MacTavish, you're not with the regulars anymore, so ease off with the 'sirs' and salutes," Doyle said. "Sort of remind me of myself when I was your age," he added pensively. "How long have you been with the Regiment?"

"First day here, sir," MacTavish said. "I spent a month with the Artists before getting transferred, two years with the Paras before that, sir."

"Aye? Then you'll be all right, then. You've got the makings of greatness in you, lad," Doyle said, seizing his hand. For someone nearing a century in age, he had an alarming strong grip. "Here's to hoping I live long enough to see that greatness," he said with a smile and a few pumps of his hand. Then he looked at his escort, a lieutenant in full dress but sporting a week's worth of beard. "Come on now, I believe I had an appointment with the Colonel, don't I, O'Reilly?"

"Yes sir," he said. He then looked at MacTavish and nodded. "Sergeant."

"Sir," MacTavish saluted. O'Reilly? Wasn't I supposed to report to a Lieutenant O'Reilly?

Day -2 – 08:09:22

National Military Command Center, United States of America

The advantages of rank.

Major General Steven Shepherd returned the salutes of the two MPs as he strode into the war room. Freshly shaved and showered, he hardly looked like he'd spent the last forty-eight hours drawing up plans for an increasingly-likely invasion of the Azadi Republic or whatever the coup leaders were calling it now. A tiny country out in the Middle East, it hardly warranted any attention save its placement on the jugular of trade routes through the area. A takeover of the Republic threatened to destabilize the whole Middle East. That made it the world's problem. And that made it the United States' problem.

"Talk to me," he commanded to his aides, sitting down at his customary seat at the long table. Glancing across, he nodded and smiled to the other half of the Army contingent, a freshly-minted colonel he'd worked with before. "JT."

"Sir," the younger man said with a nod. For a man who was technically not supposed to be out in the field with operational detachments, Colonel Tisnewski kept in immaculate shape and was unreasonably awake for a morning briefing at the Pentagon. He'd have to find out what brand coffee the colonel drank. "Any trouble with the traffic?"

"None," Shepherd said as he accepted a stack of folders. "You were briefed?"

"My team was one of the initial surveillance units," the colonel said. "I think we can I'm reasonably acquainted with the information."

"JT, what have we said about playing favorites?" Shepherd chided with a faint smile as he flipped through the documents.

Not good news. Not good at all. Khaled Al-Asad, leader of the Caliphate party of the Azadi Republic, blah, blah, blah, formally declared himself ruler of the new Unified Arabic Caliphate after overthrowing President Yasir Al-Fulani and the standing government of the Azadi Republic, blah, blah, blah, nationalized corporations, blah, blah, blah. He sounded to Shepherd like just another pot-metal dictator with delusions of grandeur. But his anti-American and anti-Western attitude could use a little adjusting. Probably with a few Joint Direct Attack Munitions and some Tomahawks. It looked like the plans he had drawn up were going to be put to use.

"Can we extract Al-Fulani?" he asked Tisnewski. "Get Delta in there and get him out of there? I seem to recall spending a lot of time and money to support his government."

The colonel shook his head. "Not at this time. As much as it pains me to suggest it, we could probably get better results by sending Marine Reconnaissance in on a snatch or neutralization mission. See if we can decapitate the new leadership."

"I like that idea," Shepherd said. He looked at the door. "Heads up, the boys are here."

The two Army officers stood and nodded to the rest of the Joint Special Operations Command leadership as they entered the room. Collectively they were responsible for all special operations conducted by the United States military. Any usage of SOCOM assets anywhere in the world would have to first be juggled here before being passed up to the President. And considering what they were looking at, Shepherd had a sinking feeling that the big man in the Oval Office would be signing off on these orders shortly.

"Gentlemen, let's put this simply," General McNulty said, walking in with an unlit cigar firmly clamped between his teeth and contrary to what his doctors had told him. "What are we looking at?"

"The Azadi Republic," Tisnewski said to his former direct superior. "We helped their President with his coup a few years back."

McNulty's brow crinkled. "Al-Fulani, right? So what happened? Did his popularity rating take a dump or something? Why the hell am I hearing about this new Al-Asad guy?"

"Sir," Shepherd started. "Khaled Al-Asad is a mad dog, whores out to the highest bidder while claiming it to be for the greater good. Whatever can get him more recruits to continue his war, he'll do. Extremely charismatic. If we want to free the Azadi, we'll have to get this guy first. And it won't be easy."

"Personal experience, Shepherd?" McNulty asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I got my stars hunting his 'Caliphate' movement, sir," Shepherd said after a moment. "Four years of chasing him. If anyone knows what the fucker will do, I do."

"I like the sound of that, don't you, JT?" McNulty laughed, looking at the colonel. "Mad dog shaking his ass to get some funding?"

"Sounds like home, sir," Tisnewski said with a smile and a chuckle. When he addressed Shepherd, all emotion was suddenly and completely drained from his voice. This was a side of the special operations commander had never revealed to him. "Tell me, Lieutenant General Shepherd, how would you like a second crack at finding Khaled Al-Asad?"

He smiled. "You know anyone better?"

-

Author's Notes: So it begins. Just something to pass the time while my brain cools down. C&C is always welcome.