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There were days that changed your life forever, though at first they felt perfectly ordinary. You got up, you got dressed, you prepared to go to work and Charlie Mike the hell out of the day. Continuing the mission was what Colonel John “Viper” Mendez lived for. Every day he sent teams around the world to save pieces of it, and every night he went to bed knowing that tomorrow would be more of the same.

He lived for the mission. He played sometimes, but not often, and when it was over he went back to work. He’d been doing it for so long that it was normal and expected. If he got up tomorrow and didn’t have a mission, he’d probably go out of his mind.

But today… Today there was still a mission.

Mendez—he’d long ago stopped thinking of himself by any name but that one—watched the news while he got dressed. It was the usual roundup of horror and mayhem, but there was one particularly discordant note. The Russian ambassador to the United States had been assassinated in Moscow while America slept. It wasn’t a particularly shocking occurrence these days, but it would definitely make the job harder as Washington reacted. They’d want to pull resources from other areas and concentrate them on Russia, and he’d have to argue for continuing the mission in many of the other places that needed it.

The storm hadn’t broken yet, so for now he fielded the usual calls about operations and statuses as he prepared for the day. His aide pulled up to the curb at precisely five thirty a.m., and Mendez prepared to walk out the door.

His phone rang again and he lifted it to his ear with a clipped “Mendez.”

“Good morning, Colonel,” a cheerful voice said.

Mendez stopped. “Black? What’s up?” Because Ian Black never called unless there was something important going on. Something that Mendez would want to hear. Maybe he knew something about the Russia situation.

“I’m saving your ass today, Colonel.”

Lieutenant Connor waited patiently in the car as Mendez stared out the window.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’ve got news you need to hear. Today, around nine a.m., the military police will arrive at HOT HQ. They’ll be accompanied by a general officer who’s there to relieve you of command. They’ll probably arrest you, by the way.”

Iron formed a ball in his gut. It wasn’t fear. It was fury. “Why? And where did you hear this?”

“Why? Because the Russian ambassador is dead, and Vice President DeWitt has finally convinced the president that you’re dangerous and need to be stopped.”