Chapter 20 - THE GLINT ON THE DEVIL’S SPINE
Kane pushed himself up from the ground, wiping the limestone dust from his face with the back of his hand. He looked at Claire Vance with an expression that combined utter disbelief, intense shame for his earlier condescension, and a profound, humbling respect that he had never felt for any flag officer in his entire thirty-year naval career.
"Major Vance," Kane began, stepping forward and extending his hand with uncharacteristic earnestness. "I don't know how I can ever repay what you did today. If you want a full reinstatement, a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, the Congressional Medal of Honor—I will fly to the Pentagon myself to make it happen."
Claire slung the heavy drag bag over her shoulder and looked at his outstretched hand. After a long moment, she reached out and gave it a single, firm shake. Her grip was calloused, steady, and unyielding.
"Keep your promotions, Admiral," Claire said quietly. "Just remember that the people who actually fight your wars don't always wear medals on their chests. Most of them are just trying to keep the dust out of their rifles."
She turned to walk back toward the Land Cruiser, Ellis following closely behind with the spare equipment. The extraction team below had secured the diplomat and was already speeding toward the medical staging area. The mission was an unqualified, miraculous success.
Kane took a deep, relieved breath, preparing to turn back to his command vehicle.
Suddenly, Claire stopped dead in her tracks.
She didn't say a word. Her athletic frame went completely rigid. Her head snapped toward the far northern ridge—a desolate, jagged pinnacle known as the Devil’s Spine, sitting two thousand meters away on a completely different topographical sector.
Kane blinked, confused. "Major? What is it?"
Claire slowly raised her compact tactical monocular to her eye, her jaw clenching so tight that the muscles beneath her cheek twitched violently.
"Ellis," she whispered, her voice dropping into a register of sudden, chilling dread. "Look at the high perch above the radio relay tower on the Devil's Spine. Bearing zero-two-zero."
Ellis lifted his spotting scope, sweeping it across the jagged northern skyline. For two seconds, there was silence. Then, Ellis let out a sharp, ragged gasp. "Oh God... that's impossible. They were supposed to be disbanded."
"What are you seeing?" Kane demanded, stepping toward the lip of the ridge again. "The ambush is broken! Who is over there?"
"That wasn't an insurgent sniper team down in the canyon, Admiral," Claire said, her voice dropping into a deadly, ice-cold whisper. "That was bait."
Through the lens of her monocular, Claire saw what no one else had noticed: sitting perfectly concealed beneath a thermal camouflage net on the high peak was an elite, military-grade heavy sniper platform—a Barrett M107A1, completely blackened, with advanced satellite telemetry gear mounted beside it.
And etched into the carbon-fiber chassis of that distant rifle was a very specific, deeply classified emblem: a silver trident pierced through a skull.
Kane’s own personal naval special warfare unit.
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Before Claire could utter another word, a sharp, metallic *TINK* echoed through the rocks behind them as the high-gain antenna on Kane's command humvee exploded into a shower of sparks.
A third shooter—one with high-level military clearance and impossible range—had just registered their exact coordinates, and the crosshairs were centered directly on the Admiral’s chest.
