“Helo 2 malfunctioned, it’s returning to base. The original plan is scrapped. We’re only cleared to extract the three of you. The rest will have to exfil out on foot!”
The voice of the Alpha Team soldier boomed right into Long Zhan’s ear, competing with the helicopter’s rotors.
“The others have to exfil on foot?”
The words hit Long Zhan like a thunderclap. His gut clenched, first with dread for his teammates still trapped inside the building, then with a sudden spark of something else.
Opportunity.
He had already buried the thought of taking Samir’s hidden stash of gold. Now however, the heavens seemed to have handed him another chance.
“I thought the money had slipped away from me, but it appears fate isn’t done with me just yet.”
His blood surged with the realization. In that moment, Long Zhan embodied the old saying, a man will die for wealth, as a bird will die for food.
He unclipped the safety rope without hesitation, turning his back on the easy ride back to safety. With a twist of his body, he slid down the steel spiral ladder toward the ground below.
The Alpha Team soldier stared at him, dumbfounded. “What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
“My teammates are still down there! I’m not leaving them behind. We’re a team. We fight together, whatever happens, we face it as one!”
Long Zhan shouted back, his voice ringing with conviction.
And it wasn’t all a lie.
Yes, the gold burned in his thoughts like wild fire. But his words weren’t just a cover, there was truth in them. He felt nothing for the American government, but the same didn’t apply for his fellow soldiers. As a warrior, he owed respect to every man who had fought by his side.
Greed for money, women, and power, those were human flaws he accepted. But abandoning his comrades? Betraying the brotherhood between them? That crossed a line.
Long Zhan’s code was simple, a man must have a certain line he won’t cross.
The Alpha Team soldier stared at him for a beat, then stopped shouting. Instead, he raised both hands and gave Long Zhan two rigid thumbs up.
In that instant, Long Zhan’s defiance, the willingness to walk back into hell for his brothers, earned him the man’s respect.
At the edge of the rooftop, Brock was already moving toward the dangling ladder, ready to board. But when he saw Long Zhan sliding back down, he froze.
“What the hell are you doing? Why are you going back down?”
The plan had been simple. Get the hostage to the roof, then evacuate. Brock and Long Zhan were supposed to leave with the hostage. Jason, Sonny, and the other three would handle Samir and depart on the second helicopter.
“There’s only one Helo left,” Long Zhan called, already moving toward the stairwell door. “The others have to retreat on foot. I won’t leave Clay and the others behind, I’ll stay behind and help.”
He pulled his night-vision goggles back over his eyes, checked his weapon and turned the safety off once again. One last glance at Brock, and then he was gone, slipping into the stairwell like a ghost, racing toward the basement and the hidden tunnels he remembered from the TV plot that played in his head like a guide.
His words had been carefully chosen. He put Clay’s name first, the only other trainee here, and only then did he mention the rest of Bravo team. This way, his reason for jumping into the fire sounded more natural.
“Damn it!”
Brock, infuriated by the news, raised his middle finger at the helicopter, venting his frustration with Alpha Team’s inability to complete their end of the mission.
Anger aside, he wouldn’t abandon the others either. Rifle in hand, he strode right after Long Zhan, disappearing into the stairwell.
Brotherhood. Team spirit. The unwritten law of never leaving a man behind. These weren’t slogans, they were truths ingrained deep into every SEAL, forged in years of blood and training.
If a foreign aid like Long Zhan could throw away safety and dive back into danger for men who weren’t even his teammates, how could Brock, a veteran of Bravo team, do any less?
The bond was primal, simple, and absolute. And in this moment, it rang louder than orders, louder than fear.Their actions didn’t go unnoticed. The helicopter pilot reported the decision up the chain of command, and within minutes, the information reached the operations center.
Eric and Mandy, who had been pacing like caged lions, finally allowed themselves to relax a little, relief flickering in their eyes.
Especially for Long Zhan, the foreign aid. He was just a temporary attachment, not even a part of DEVGRU. Yet here he was, proving his worth in the only way that mattered.
If earlier they had thought that he was merely promising, now they were convinced. Long Zhan had earned the right to be recognized as a Tier 1 operator.
Meanwhile, in the tunnels…
Jason led Sonny and Trent forward. When they reached a corner and looked to the left, they saw a gray cloth blocking the entire passage.
The light filtering through the cloth suggested it must be brightly lit inside.
“Underground chamber,” Jason muttered under his breath. The glow was too steady, too bright to be anything else.
He raised two fingers, flashing quick hand signs to Trent.
“You take the left, I’ll take the right.”
Trent nodded once, calm and focused.
Jason’s eyes stayed locked on the curtain. He lowered himself into a crouching position, sliding silently until he was only inches away from the curtain. Rifle ready in his right hand, he raised three fingers with his left, silently counting down.
Three…Two…One!
On one, his hand shot forward. The curtain ripped aside. Jason lunged through the gap in one fluid motion, his rifle sweeping toward the far-right corner.
Trent burst in right on his heels, weapon tracking left.
As expected, he was there. Samir, their target.
Samir, startled by the sight of Jason and the American soldiers, leaped to his feet, his eyes filled with fear and panic.Jason's heart also tightened when he saw what Samir was wearing.
Cylindrical charges encircled his torso, each one laced with wires that snaked into a crude circuit board. In his hand he clutched a white detonator, his thumb hovering above the red trigger switch.
One press, and everyone in that room would be vaporized.
Jason’s instincts screamed at him. A dead man’s vest. A kill switch. One wrong move, and the whole team was gone.
Jason certainly didn’t want to die here, but he knew what type of person Samir was.He had studied Samir, he knew the type. He knew that he wasn’t a true martyr himself despite preaching it his whole life, and that’s the main reason why he was willing to bring his men down here to arrest him.
After seeing Samir’s reaction, Jason was even more certain that Samir didn’t want to die. He had a chance at persuading him to surrender.
Slowly, deliberately, he tilted the barrel of his rifle upward, away from the man’s chest, away from the bomb. His voice softened as he tried to calm him down, “easy, friend. Take a breath. No one’s here to kill you. We can talk this through.”
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