It was a suicide mission. It should have been doomed as a heroic failure. But it didn’t fail. The simple, but well-planned elements of surprise, speed, then doing the unexpected, especially when added to the sheer cheek of it all, won the day. The scorecard revealed the facts. They rescued a do-gooder American lady doctor and left her six Al Qaeda abductors dead, five with their throats cut and one shot in the head. And it all happened in the middle of a heavily armed Al Qaeda camp. All done by just three superbly trained operatives. Two on the attack and one was the ferryman between the shore and the submarine. A Restricted Attack Team, a RAT. Formed to do quick, lightning-fast precision strikes on small restricted targets; like one, two or three-person rescues and then the removal of problems, mainly human. The teams were small for a reason; two or three men dressed in local garb can blend in and move fast. Ten or more can’t.
Al Qaeda is bitter. The Americans had come into their territory, rescued the lady doctor, their prisoner; killed six of their men, including their leader. Then to add insult to injury, early the next morning, two cruise missiles wiped out their compound and the personnel still alive. This was an escalation in their war with the great Satan; there had to be revenge.
They send operatives to America to hunt for the Doctor, Andrea Kilpatrick, and then to kill her. They know her name, where her parents live, so how hard can it be? After all, they are just returning the favor. You enter our territory and kill, we can do the same, and no American, anywhere, is safe from us. Andrea is now marked for death.
Back in the US, Andrea’s life quickly returns to normal. But she has never forgotten the strength and the bravery of the men who rescued her, particularly the strength and courage of the soldier who carried her on his back. He ran for miles with her clinging to his shoulder straps. She had inadvertently heard his name, Daniel, but now back in the US of A, protocols around the RATs meant she could never contact him. Now she works at a military hospital in Norfolk. A severely injured soldier comes in, lucky to be alive. Her skills and the skill of another surgeon help keep him alive and put him back together. The next day, she is doing her rounds, and checks the soldier’s charts, looks up, and sees it is her savior, Daniel, lying in bed, grinning at her. She is overjoyed, hugs him, and as the time passes and he heals, deep bonds form. But those bonds can’t last.
Daniel wants to return to his unit. One condition of service in the RATs was they could not marry or have girlfriends, just to avoid their families ever being compromised. Andrea knows the romance will have to end, but an attack on Andrea’s parent’s home in Boston suddenly changes everything. It is then decided, while Daniel slowly healed, he would guard her, and keep her safe from any more revenge attacks.
But will he heal well enough to pass the rigorous standards required for duty in the RAT?
The attackers now know exactly where Andrea is; it is the start of a determined attempt to kill her. But it’s not just the terrorists that want Andrea dead. Organized crime is now behind the attacks.
Just what did Andrea know or see in Yemen that made it so important to kill her?
Daniel’s mission is to protect her. He uses the lethal skills he has learned in the military, skills fine-tuned in the RATs. He takes Andrea to a safe place to hide, and he knows they will never find them. Andrea is wonderfully, joyfully happy. She is hiding in safety with the man she now deeply loves.
What could possibly go wrong?