The Long Shadow

Read the opening

Afghanistan Nine Years Earlier The desert night felt wrong. Not dangerous. Not yet. Just wrong. Chief Petty Officer Caleb Strickland stood at the edge of a ridgeline overlooking the compound and watched the darkness through night-vision lenses. The world glowed green. Mud walls. Corrugated roofs. A pair of rusted vehicles parked inside a courtyard. A handful of armed men moving through shadows. Everything appeared ordinary. That was what bothered him. The intelligence package had arrived less than twelve hours earlier. One hostage. Female. Alive. Held inside the compound below. The operation was supposed to be simple. A fast insertion. A clean extraction. Then everyone went home. Caleb lowered the binoculars and looked across at the rest of the team gathered around the dim red glow of a tactical tablet. Senior Chief Mike Harlan crouched over the display.

The sample pages on this site continue the opening — and the full book is available in print.