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  The only thing they saved was food—they would need what little they had—DEET for the bugs that would otherwise eat them alive, and medical supplies.

  No one argued with the LC. Not even the senior chief, who had a few burns and was cut up pretty bad but was managing to stand up by himself. Of course, the senior chief could have two broken legs and would likely find a way to stand up by himself. He was one of the toughest sons of bitches John knew, and given that John hung out with Navy SEALs all day, that was saying something.

  Senior Chief Baylor was the link—and sometimes shield—between the men and command. If there were problems, the men went to the senior chief. He was their leader, their teacher, their advocate, their confessor, and their punisher all rolled into one. To a man, they would follow him into hell and not look back. There was no one in this world John admired more.

  Officers like the LC were part of the team, but their rank kept them apart.

  John had mixed feelings about officers. Some were good. Some were bad. But as long as they didn’t get in the way or do something to fuck up one of their missions when it needed to be run up the flagpole for approval, he didn’t give them too much thought.

  He’d known the LC for years and respected the man as much as he did the rank, which wasn’t always the case, but he couldn’t say he really knew him. Officers had to keep themselves apart. They couldn’t let personal relationships interfere with or influence their decisions. Taylor could BS along with them, but he always kept himself slightly aloof.

  But it wasn’t until that moment that John truly understood the weight of the duty and responsibility that fell on an officer’s shoulders. There was no head shed—aka command center—to issue orders. Here they were all half-frozen, in shock, mourning the loss of their brothers, six thousand miles away from their base in Honolulu, in a hostile country, where if they were discovered they would hope to be killed quickly, with no one they could trust to help them, and it was on the LC to get them out of it.

  John had no idea whether the LC’s plan would work, but he had to give Taylor credit—he didn’t miss a beat. He didn’t show any hesitation or uncertainty in issuing his orders. They might have been on a training exercise in Alaska rather than on the other side of the world in one of the most inhospitable countrysides he’d ever experienced.

  The LC knew his role, and he was doing it.

  John knew his, too.

  As just six of the fourteen men who’d entered the prison camp four short hours before walked out, John took one last look back and forced the heaviness that rose in his chest down. Good-bye, brothers, he said to himself, and then aloud, “Hey, LC, I hear they have Starbucks all over Moscow now. Think there’s one in Vorkuta? I’d fucking kill for a latte.”

  There was a long pause before the LC picked up the ball and ran with it. “I thought your discerning palate was too refined for chains?”

  John grinned. “You know about the choices of beggars, LC.”

  “You and your girlie drinks,” Baylor grumbled. “If you try to order it with nonfat milk, I may have to shoot you myself.”

  “Good thing for me the LC is making you toss your gun.” John patted his rock-hard abs. “You don’t get this incredible body without a little sacrifice, Senior. I have a certain standard to uphold. Just because you don’t care what the ladies at Hulas—”

  “Dynomite,” the senior chief cut him off. “Shut the fuck up. My head hurts enough as it is. I don’t need to hear about your Barbie Brigade right now.”

  But that is exactly what he did need to hear about—what they all needed to hear about. And they did. For two of the most miserable days he’d ever spent, John drew upon every story he could think of to keep their minds off the brothers they’d left behind.

  Good thing he had plenty to draw on. But even he was tired of hearing his own voice by the time they reached Vorkuta. He wasn’t sure what he expected of a coal-mining town on the doorstep of Siberia, but it looked pretty much like any medium-sized former industrial American city that had reached its height of modernity in the seventies.

  They let Spivak, who with his Slavic languages and looks would be the most low-vis, go in first and do a little recon.

  When he came back, he turned to John. “Didn’t find a Starbucks, Dynomite, but I did see sushi.”

  “You gotta be shitting me?” It was his second favorite behind Mexican. “Think it would blow cover if I asked for a California roll? Although they probably use that fake crab crap, and avocado in Arctic Russia this time of year might be a little suspect. I know those brown spots are supposed to be safe to eat, but . . .”

  This time the senior chief wasn’t the only one who was telling him to shut the fuck up. And that was as much normal as John could hope for for a while.

  One

  WASHINGTON, DC

  TEN WEEKS LATER

  Brittany Blake tapped the steering wheel with her thumbs and glanced down at the clock in the dashboard. The bright green LED was just about the only light around on this deserted stretch of road.

  Zero dark thirty. That was what they said for twelve thirty a.m. in the military, right? It sounded much more ominous in the movies, which was probably why she’d thought about it. This felt like a movie. A really scary movie where the heroine was doing something supremely stupid and the entire audience was yelling at the screen for her not to do it.

  In other words, every horror movie ever.

  Why, yes, waiting for a “drop” all alone in a not-so-great part of town after midnight on a moonless night under a highway overpass in an old warehouse area in a spot much loved by drug dealers and other not-so-law-abiding folks sounded like a fabulous idea. Nothing could go wrong there.

  Jeez, she’d be yelling at the screen herself.

  On cue, a loud crashing sound made her—just like a horror movie audience would—jump. Heart now pounding in her throat, she peered into the darkness but didn’t see anything. It had sounded like breaking glass. A bottle dropped by a wino nearby maybe?

  She hoped that’s what it was, and not some serial killer roaming the streets and breaking the windows of stupid reporters sitting in their cars, asking for trouble.

  Slowly Brittany relaxed back into the cloth bucket seat, but her grip on the wheel didn’t lighten any.

  Sigh. So this definitely wasn’t her most brilliant moment, but neither was it the first time she’d been in a sketchy situation. It went along with the job. It was the “investigative” part of the reporting bit.

  But if this new source delivered on what they promised, the danger would be worth it—and then some. She had to find out the truth of what had happened to her brother, Brandon.

  Tap, tap, tap. The sound of her thumbs hitting the plastic steering wheel mixed with the gentle whir of the AC, which was gradually becoming less and less effective in combating the horrible humidity of the warm summer night the longer she sat here. She was starting to sweat, literally and figuratively.

  Her source was—she glanced down at the clock again—thirty-two minutes late.

  It can’t be a hoax. Please, don’t let it be a hoax.

  The caller had sounded so insistent, so knowledgeable, so official. She’d give them another ten minutes, and then—

  Who was she kidding? She’d wait all night if she had to. She needed this. She hated to use the word “desperate,” but if the proverbial shoe fit . . .

  She was desperate. She needed something concrete to prove that her suspicions were correct: that her brother, Brandon, was part of a top secret Navy SEAL team (along the lines of the now not-so-secret-anymore SEAL Team Six) who had gone on a mission and not come back.

  “The Lost Platoon,” she dubbed them in her articles, after the famous Lost Legion of Rome. Coincidentally—and eerily—they’d both been numbered nine.

  She’d thought the title was catchy, and it had certainly captured