The radio crackled. We have a negative contact on Reaper 1's transponder. However, we are tracking a stationary GPS signal from the colonel's encrypted smartwatch. He's on route 9, approximately 8 mi from the base perimeter. He hasn't moved in 6 minutes.

Sarah's blood ran cold. Route 9 was a desolate stretch of highway. If David was stopped there, something was catastrophically wrong. A breakdown, a medical emergency, or something much more insidious, given the town's notorious local police force. Command, request permission to break holding pattern and conduct a lowaltitude visual sweep of Route 9 on our vector to the memorial park.

Sarah demanded, her hands tightening on the flight stick. There was a pause. The request was highly irregular. A lowaltitude pass by four Strike Eagles over civilian infrastructure would rattle windows and trigger car alarms for miles. But this was the wing commander they were talking about.

Reaper 2, command. Permission granted. Keep it above the hard deck. Valkyrie, find the boss. Copy that, command.

Reaper flight. Rolling in, Sarah commanded. She shoved the twin throttles forward. Down on the boiling asphalt of Route 9, Officer Mitchell Briggs was oblivious to the violent mobilization of air power occurring directly above him. He was completely consumed by his own petty, intoxicating display of dominance.

His Glock 19 remained pressed against the back of David's neck. the metal burning hot under the punishing afternoon sun. "You think you're smart, boy?" Brig sneered, misinterpreting the distant low rumble of the approaching jets as rolling summer thunder. "You think looking at me like that makes you a man? You're nothing but a" He never finished the sentence.

The sound arrived before the aircraft did. It didn't just fill the air. It compressed the atmosphere, stealing the breath from Briggs's lungs. It was a physical concussive wave of acoustic violence that vibrated through the soles of his boots and rattled his teeth in his skull. The cicadas instantly went silent.

"What the hell?" Toby Miller yelled, dropping his clipboard and clapping both hands over his ears, his knees buckling under the sheer oppressive weight of the noise. Suddenly, the sky tore open. Four F-15E Strike Eagles flying in a tight diamond formation at barely a thousand ft above the treeine screamed directly over the highway. The twin afterburners of the massive jets left streaks of compressed scorching air in their wake.

The noise was apocalyptic, a deafening, bone shaking roar that sounded like the sky itself was being ripped apart by metallic claws. The physical shock wave hit the ground a microsecond later. The heavy pine branches along the highway whipped violently. The cruiser's suspension bounced. The pristine windows of David's Mustang rattled so hard they threatened to shatter.

Briggs gasped, his entire body flinching in pure involuntary terror. He stumbled backward, his equilibrium completely shattered by the sonic assault. His finger slipped dangerously close to the trigger of his weapon as he flailed, his eyes wide, looking up at the gray underbellies of the terrifying war machines disappearing over the horizon. Through the entire apocalyptic event, Colonel David Henderson had not moved a single muscle. He remained on his knees, his back perfectly straight, his hands resting on his thighs.

He hadn't flinched. He hadn't blinked. He merely stared straight ahead into the treeine, a portrait of unbreakable discipline amidst absolute chaos. "Jesus Christ," Briggs panted, his chest heaving, his gun now waving erratically. He looked at David, completely unnerved by the man's supernatural stillness.

What is wrong with you? Did you know they were coming? David finally turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto Briggs's panicked, sweatdrenched face. "They are looking for me, officer," David said softly, his voice echoing in the sudden ringing silence left behind by the jets. "And now they have found me."

Up in the cockpit of Reaper 2, Sarah Jenkins hit a button on her flight stick, capturing highdefinition aerial reconnaissance footage of the scene below. Even at that speed, the advanced targeting pod on the F-15 painted a terrifyingly clear picture. "Command Valkyrie!" Sarah yelled into her mask, her voice shaking with unprecedented fury. "I have a visual on Reaper 1.

He is out of his vehicle on Route 9. He is on his knees and there is a Fair View police officer holding a firearm to his head. I repeat, a civilian police officer has a gun to the commander's head. Get the MPs out there right now. General Robert Hayes, commander of the United States Air Force Combat Command, stood rigid in his dress blues near the grandstand of the Fair View Memorial Park.

The crowd was a sea of patriotic colors, murmuring in anticipation of the missing man formation fly over. Hayes was a towering figure, a man who possessed a reputation for being fiercely protective of his personnel. He checked his watch. 14:15 The jets should be overhead in exactly 3 minutes. His aid to camp, a young frantic-l lookinging major, suddenly sprinted up the grassy incline, completely ignoring protocol.

He leaned in, his face pale, and whispered directly into the general's ear. General Hayes, sir, we have a code red situation. Colonel Henderson, is not airborne. He has been detained on Route 9 by a Fair View police officer. Aerial surveillance confirms the officer currently has a service weapon pressed against the colonel's head.

For three terrifying seconds, General Hayes did not blink. The blood drained from his face, replaced by a dark volcanic flush of unadulterated rage. "Mobilize the quick reaction force," Hayes commanded, his voice dropping to a dangerous grally whisper. "I want heavily armed military police on that highway yesterday. I want state troopers.

Call the governor if you have to. If that backwater cop pulls that trigger, I will personally raise this town to the ground. Yes, sir. MPs are already rolling out, the major stammered, backing away. Hayes pulled a secure smartphone from his inner pocket and dialed a number he rarely used, but always kept on file.

Inside the airconditioned woodpanled office of the Fairview Police Department, Chief Hal Montgomery was leaning back in his leather chair, eating a powdered donut and watching the local news. Montgomery was a lazy corrupt administrator who spent more time covering up the brutal misdeeds of his officers, especially Mitchell Briggs, than he did enforcing the law. The heavy red rotary phone on his desk, a direct emergency line from the Air Force base began to ring. It was a harsh, jarring sound that hadn't been heard in his office for nearly a decade. Montgomery frowned, wiped powdered sugar from his thick mustache, and picked up the receiver.

Chief Montgomery speaking. "Hal, this is General Robert Hayes." The voice on the other end didn't sound like a man. It sounded like an incoming ballistic missile. General, well, this is a surprise.