Cirrus@Austlit

'Old soldiers never die. They just come back for more.

'Three terrorist missiles have struck three jetliners filled with innocent people. America knows this shock all too well. But unlike 9/11, the nation is already on a war footing. The White House and Pentagon are primed. All they need now is a target and someone bold–and expendable–enough to strike it.

'That someone is retired Gen. Douglas Freeman, the infamous warrior who has proved his courage, made his enemies, and built his legend from body-strewn battlegrounds to the snake pits of Washington. Using a team of “retired” Special Forces operatives and a top-secret, still-unproven stealth attack craft, Freeman sets off to obliterate the source of the missiles, a weapons stockpile in North Korea. Some desktop warriors expect Freeman to fail–especially when an unexpected foe meets his team on the Sea of Japan. But Freeman won’t turn back even as his plan explodes in his face and the Pacific Rim roils over–because this old soldier can taste his ultimate reward. . . .' (Publication summary)

'General Cheng has studied the American strategy in the Iraqi war from top to bottom, back to front, and now he is massing his divisions on the Manchurian border. To the west, Siberia's Marshal Yesov is readying his army. Their aim: To drive the American-led U.N. force back to the sea.

'The counterstrike: Unleash the brilliantly unorthodox American General Douglas Freeman. If this eagle can't whip the bear and the dragon, no one can....' (Publication summary)

'At Manzhouli, near the border of China, Siberia, and Mongolia, the Chinese launch their charge into the woods. There is the roar of fire–and from the other side, the eruption of the SAS/D's Heckler & Koch 9mm parabellums firing at over eight hundred rounds a minute, the crash of grenades, and the terrible whistling of flechettes. Suddenly the sky is aglow with phospherous flares like shooting stars, as the ChiComs' four 120-pound Soviet-type Aphid missiles streak toward the B-52 at 2,800 meters per second. It's all-out war....' (Publication summary)

'The American tanks smashed through the snow blockades in the terrible minus-seventy-degree Arctic battle. But they were outnumbered by troops of the Siberian Republic by five to one. In this, the worst winter in twenty years, blizzards wreaked havoc with U.S. air cover, and the smart money was on the Siberians. Their forebears had destroyed the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad. Now they would do the same to the Americans–unless the colorful and highly unorthodox U.S. General Feeman could devise a spectacular breakout....' (Publication summary)

'NATO armored dividions have broken out from near-certain defeat in the Soviet-ringed Dortmund/Bielefeld Pocket on the North German Plain. Despite being faster than the American planes, Russian MiG-25s and Sukhoi-15s are unable to maintain air superiority over the western Aleutians...On every front, the war that once seemed impossible blazes its now inevitable path of worldwide destruction. There is no way to know how it will end....' (Publication summary)

'From beneath the North Atlantic to the coast of Cornwall off of England, from northern Germany to across the Korean peninsula, thousands upon thousands of troops are massing, protected by the greatest and most stunning armaments yet see on any field of battle. The time is now. The war that once seemed impossible is raging everywhere. Every nation, every individual, is both hunter and prey.' (Publication summary)