Arisen : Nemesis (56 page)

And Baxter just pointed.

Twenty-five hundred meters below, and perhaps four or five miles out to sea, something was cutting through the water, leaving a wake that was long, deep, and wide. The white churn trailed behind visibly for at least two miles. And the fact that they could see the vessel itself at this distance meant it was big – seriously big.

Baxter produced a pair of binoculars and handed them to Jake. He brought them up to his eyes, dialed in, and stared out to sea for a few seconds.

Wordlessly, he handed them to Kate, who did the same.

Her gaze lingered for the better part of a minute.

When she finally lowered the binocs, her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Finally, frustrated, Zack grabbed them from her and panned around until he found what had silenced the others.

His mouth opened and then closed again, as he recognized what it was. Recognized it, even if he couldn’t believe it.

It was a nuclear supercarrier – and one of only two Ford-class carriers ever built.

And it was steaming straight into the Gulf of Aden.

Miss the beginning of the end of the world?
Return with Zack and Baxter to Hargeisa and live through the fall from ground zero in:
ARISEN : GENESIS
, the bestselling first ARISEN prequel.

And the Zulu Alpha begins for real, in
ARISEN, BOOK ONE – FORTRESS BRITAIN
.

Love this book? Share the love, support independent authors, and make me your best friend forever by posting a quick review on
Amazon.com
or
Amazon.co.uk
  Thanks! - Michael

Want to be alerted when the next ARISEN book is released? Sign up for e-mail alerts at
www.zulualpha.co.uk/alerts
and we’ll keep you updated. (And we’ll never share your address or use it for anything else.)

You can also interact with other
Arisen
readers, plus the writers themselves, by liking the
Arisen
Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/ZulaAlpha

And you can follow Michael on
Facebook
,
Twitter
,
Google Plus
,
RSS
, or by
e-mail
.

Thanks and Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank indispensable uber-readers Amanda Jo Moore and Mark George Pitely.

Thanks also and as always to Anna K. Brooksbank, Sara Natalie Fuchs, Richard S. Fuchs, Virginia Ann Sayers-King, Valerie Sayers, Matthew David Grabowy, and Michael and Jayne Barnard, for their indispensable support. Also, Bruce, Wanda, Alec, and Brendan Fyfe. Eternal thanks to Glynn James for coming up with
Arisen
.

The following books were somewhere on the spectrum from totally indispensable to very helpful to just inspirational in producing this one:

• Chosen Soldier: The Making of a Special Forces Warrior
  , by Dick Couch
  
• One Hundred Victories: Special Ops and the Future of American Warfare
  , by Linda Robinson
  
• Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces
  , by Linda Robinson
  
• The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan
  , by Eric Blehm
  
• American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant
  , by Ann Scott Tyson
  
• Roughneck Nine-One: The Extraordinary Story of a Special Forces A-team at War
  , by SFC Frank Antenori, U.S. Army (ret) and Hans Halberstadt
  
• Modern American Snipers: From The Legend to The Reaper—on the Battlefield with Special Operations Snipers
  , by Chris Martin with
  SOFREP.COM
  
• Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown
  , by Eric Blehm
  
• The War of Art
  , by Steven Pressfield
  
• The Profession
  , by Steven Pressfield
  
• Bambi Vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business
  , by David Mamet
  
• Which Lie Did I Tell? More Adventures in the Screen Trade
  , by William Goldman
  
• The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories
  , by Christopher Booker
  
• Save the Cat
  , by Blake Snyder
  

(And, yes, if you’re wondering, my original story design for this long novel attempted to conform to the infamous Blake Snyder Beat Sheet. It kind of sprawled from there.)

These three articles were also pretty darned helpful:

• “Triple Nickel” at Bagram – Special Operations Forces and Operation Enduring Freedom”
  , by John D. Gresham in Defense Media Network
  
• “The Battle of Debecka Pass: Roughnecks at War”
  , also by John D. Gresham in Defense Media Network
  
• “A Female CST and Special Forces Enabler Speaks Out”
  , by Jack Murphy in SOFREP
  

And one podcast:

• Scriptnotes
  , by John August (“Segue Johnny”) and Craig Mazen
  

I owe a very particular debt to former Navy SEAL, Vietnam veteran, former CIA case officer, U.S. Naval Academy professor, and prolific author Dick Couch, who has done such an amazing job illuminating so many fascinating corners of the SOF world. Most of what I relate about U.S. Army Special Forces has come from his remarkable book about remarkable men,
Chosen Soldier
.

As so often, the vast majority of the characteristics and background details of characters in this book are taken from real-life military personnel (and, in most cases, I hope, mashed up beyond recognition of any one person). In this case, most of them came from the books
Chosen Soldier
, which is about scores of unbelievably skilled and devoted men going through SFAS and the Q Course, and
One Hundred Victories
, which is about the operational history of Special Forces doing counter-insurgency for a decade in Afghanistan. A few more tidbits come from the real SF guys in
Masters of Chaos
and
The Only Thing Worth Dying For
(the amazing and terrifying story of ODA 574). Point being: whatever you love and admire about the characters in this book are
actually real characteristics of real Army Special Forces soldiers out there somewhere
. They are that awesome – except doing it all for real. May the existence of real-life superheroes inspire you in your life and work as it has
me in mine
.

Here’s the
real-life Kate
, by the way:

Act Three of this book probably owes a debt to
Lone Survivor
, and the valor and brotherhood, in the direst extremity and even at the very end of everything, of Navy SEALs Marcus Luttrell, Michael Murphy, Danny Dietz, and Matt Axelson.

The descriptor “from nodded out to lethal in two seconds with no warning” was swiped from the awesome Steven Pressfield in his super amazing future-techno-military novel
The Profession
. Ditto “trying to melt into micro-features of the terrain” and “trying to crawl up into their own helmets”. If you like my stuff, you should really read this; it’s better.

The line about the goat and the slinky comes from
Special Forces Alpha Geek
.

The joke about the difference between an ODA and a Boy Scout troop is from Loren Schofield in
SOFREP
.

The expression “out there shooting people like it’s cool” is from Corporal Josh Ray Person in
Generation Kill
.

The whole description of why nobody brings a knife to a knife fight is from retired Unit sniper John “Shrek” McPhee, as recounted in
Modern American Snipers
. (You should seriously buy and read this book, by the way – the author has more and better access to real Tier-1 guys than almost anything I’ve ever read.) It also includes the account of Delta Master Sergeant Don Hollenbaugh’s single-handed defense of that Fallujah rooftop, for which he was awarded the Silver Star, and which is worth the price of the book alone (it’s why I bought it).

Knowing “how to suffer, how to shut up and keep humping” is a critical trick taught by Steven Pressfield in
The War of Art
.

The line “One problem at a time, Sarge. One problem at a time…” is from former Unit operator Frank MacAlyster, spoken after jumping out of an exploding airplane without a parachute, as related in perhaps the best special operations military memoir of all time,
Inside Delta Force
, by CSM Eric L. Haney. “Sergeants Major are the walking, breathing embodiment of Everything That’s Right in the U.S. Army.” is also from Haney.

Thanks to William Goldman for the concluding lines from the perfect ending of
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
.

The various debts owed to James Cameron’s
Aliens
probably need not be belabored.

Thanks to the amazing Tom Weber at
MILPICTURES
for the as always awesome cover artwork (he also did Books Two and Four of
Arisen
).

The entire playlist I wrote this book to is available
here
. Very special extra recognition goes out to:

• Family Force 5, “Sweep the Leg”
  (which I played over and over and over every time I was exhausted and needed a boost)
  
• Hollywood Undead, “Day of the Dead”
  
• OPM, “Stash Up”
  
• Rammstein, “Mein Teil”
  (if anybody out there knows a song with half as much energy as this, or that’s half as good to write over-the-top action to, I implore you to tell me about it)
  

Thanks also to The Royal Geographical Society, London (especially Annette);
Antisocial
, my unyielding, unhearing, unquittable taskmaster; and
Transcribe Pro
, for helping me deal with hundreds of hours of voice notes, all of it spoken around heavy panting.

ARISEN
Hope Never Dies.