Chief Warrant Officer 3, Grace Whitaker.
160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
8 years active service.
217 combat missions.
Distinguished Flying Cross.
Two Purple Hearts.
Bronze Star with Valor device.
Air Medal with 10 Oak Leaf Clusters.
Stone’s voice trailed off.
— There’s more. Classified operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen. She was part of… Neptune Spear support package.
— Neptune Spear? Ivy Martinez spoke up from her console. That’s the Bin Laden raid.
Harris finished, his voice hollow.
— She was one of the pilots.
Mitchell had gone from pale to green.
— I called her… I said she was—
He couldn’t finish the sentence.
Major Reed stood frozen, tablet forgotten in her hands. She’d spent years fighting her way up through a military that questioned whether women belonged in combat roles. She’d internalized that fight, turned it outward, become the harshest critic of other women to prove she wasn’t soft.
And she’d just tried to block the most decorated female combat pilot in recent military history from saving American lives.
The radio crackled.
— Razor 6 to Warthog. We’re loaded. Medevac inbound. Request you maintain overwatch.
— Copy, Razor 6. We’re not going anywhere.
