Chapter 1130: Reunion With Old Friends (Patreon)

Creak, creak. A lounge chair on the rooftop groaned under the strain.

"Do you like my ponytail?" The female knight on top twisted her waist seductively, smiling with shameless charm.

Compared to her, Stanley Goodsby’s expression was far more contorted as he muttered to himself, desperately trying to redirect his focus. "So perky... so cute... damn it, Italian cream walnut cake... spicy hotpot... charcoal-grilled beef..."

Then the phone rang.

The moans from the woman turned into a wail. "No way—don't answer it!"

"Damn it!" Stanley groaned in frustration, his body trembling a few times before he steadied himself.

"I have to take it—they know where I am, they know I’m at home."

"How could they possibly know you’re home?" the woman pouted softly, collapsing weakly onto Goodsby’s chest.

Goodsby rolled his eyes. "Have you forgotten I work for the FBI, sweetheart?"

He reached out to the phone vibrating on the small table beside them and pressed answer. "Yes, this is Goodsby."

Jack’s voice came through. "Doctor, put on your bathrobe immediately. That includes the lovely lady next to you."

"What?" Goodsby didn’t even have time to ask why Jack was calling. He instinctively grabbed the robe beneath him and wrapped it around both himself and his fiancée.

The next moment, the sound of helicopter blades chopped through the air. A chopper rose into view from below the rooftop. Jack, wearing noise-canceling headphones, yanked open the side door with a beaming smile on his face.

—

"I need an explanation."

Though Jack had left a good impression on Stanley Goodsby during the Korea operation—and had even treated him to an extravagant meal afterward with amazing hotpot, premium baijiu from Cerys, and authentic Cuban cigars that the doctor still remembered fondly—having his perfect proposal ruined still left him quite irritated. He now followed Jack off the helicopter, grumbling under his breath.

"7.8 million innocent people in the Bay Area need your expertise." Jack's single sentence shut Goodsby right up.

In the elevator heading straight to the underground Pentagon conference room, Jack briefly summarized the current situation and added a key reminder.

"This isn’t some small skirmish like Korea. We're up against a highly determined general. A single misstep could cost tens of thousands of lives."

"Bullshit. VX again? That goddamn devil’s brew should never have been invented. I don’t get it—this country already has enough nukes to destroy most of the world. Why stockpile this shit too?"

Compared to Jack, Goodsby still had some scholarly righteousness in him. He muttered angrily to himself.

Ding. The elevator doors opened. Jack nodded toward the heavily guarded conference room doors and joked, "Maybe those big shots inside can answer that for you. You should go ask them directly."

Of course he wouldn’t actually do that. Goodsby only dared grumble around Jack. When he stepped into the room and saw all those senior officers adorned with stars and medals, he immediately went silent and answered every question obediently, like a helpless little quail.

—

"An airborne assault is off the table. It’s the full moon these days, and weather conditions are perfect for visibility." Now addressing the generals confidently was yet another familiar face: Jason Hayes, commander of SEAL Team Bravo.

"We’re dealing with men who’ve also received advanced special ops training. According to the latest intel, of the thirteen soldiers who followed General Hammer to seize Alcatraz, at least half have carried out multiple high-security missions with him over the past decade—they’re veterans.

So storming the beach is an enormous risk. If my team is discovered, Hammer may launch the missiles immediately.

I’ve worked with his expeditionary recon company before—they’re every bit as elite as the SEALs."

In combat missions, the Marine Corps forms combined arms task forces known as MAGTFs—Marine Air-Ground Task Forces—tailored to specific operations.

The expeditionary force is the largest MAGTF level. The Marine Corps is structured into three such forces, and Hammer had long served as a frontline commander of a recon company in one of them.

The recon company’s history dates back to the WWII-era amphibious recon battalions. After the war, those units were briefly disbanded but soon reconstituted under the name MCTU—Marine Corps Tactical Unit.

MCTU can be considered one of the earliest special forces units, pioneering recon techniques like HALO (high altitude, low opening) jumps and helicopter infiltration—methods Jack had trained in.

Theoretically, MCTU even predates the SEALs, who were established to replace amphibious recon. But since the Navy and Marine Corps are separate branches, MCTU was never officially disbanded. It was instead reorganized into the current recon company.

During the Vietnam War, the recon company often partnered with Army Green Berets and Navy SEALs for covert operations. Though they might not match Tier 1 units in reputation, they were intimately familiar with one another.

Alcatraz may look like a tiny speck on a map, but it isn’t much bigger in real life—only 0.0763 square kilometers, about the size of eleven football fields.

The island only got the name "Alcatraz" after the federal government built a prison there. Before that, native people called it "Pelican Island," and later San Franciscans simply referred to it as "The Rock."

A layperson might think thirteen men is too small a force to cover such ground, but intel confirmed that Hammer and his soldiers didn’t row over in rubber dinghies.

Rubber boats can’t possibly carry fifteen nearly three-meter-long VX missile systems across the two-mile stretch from the mainland.

They used an MH-53 Pave Low heavy-lift helicopter and an MH-60R Seahawk armed with Hellfire missiles.

The MH-53 can carry up to 16 tons—plenty for the VX missiles and launch gear, plus additional supplies. It’s also outfitted with advanced maritime radar and sensors.

Combined with Alcatraz’s elevated, cliff-ringed geography and lack of beaches, it’s a fortress—hard to reach, harder to assault.

Thirteen special-ops trained men defending a high-ground fortress? Even someone like Jason Hayes found it daunting.

Most attendees were seasoned combat veterans, and after Jason’s layout analysis, they all wore grim expressions.

But Jason soon changed tack. "There’s only one viable option—through the tunnel beneath the prison."

He dropped a thick stack of blueprints on the table, releasing a wave of moldy air.

"Before it was a prison, Alcatraz was an old military outpost. Those ruins are still sealed beneath the cellblock foundation. Before that—back during the Gold Rush—the underground was mined for gold.

The island still has an abandoned factory with a sewage system connected to these old mine tunnels. My plan is to infiltrate the center from those tunnels and strike from within.

If we’re lucky, we might reclaim the missiles without a single shot fired."

But Jason immediately frowned. "I’ve studied the building layouts on the way here. After multiple renovations and over a century of history, these tunnels are a maze. I need first-hand intel."