Hunter Killer
Page 36
He walked a few feet and then said, “That’s not the answer they want.”
I saw Amena glance back at me, walking slowly with Kylie, looking like she wanted to return.
I said, “I don’t give a shit what they want. I just spilled blood for them to scream at me right up until they cheered me on. Get it done. It’s the perfect solution. She boards with them while we’re gone doing Taskforce missions, then she can see us when we’re home.”
He said, “Can you get her into the school?”
“Yeah. We can do that with a little help from your end.”
“I’m not sure I’ll get that help.”
I stopped walking and said, “Bullshit. Amanda Croft can make one phone call to get her in. I’d prefer it to be discreet, but if you want to make a stink about it, I’ll do it loudly. She’s not going back to Syria.”
He said, “Hey, hey, don’t get upset. I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.”
Which set me off. I snarled, “Sorry, sir, but this was actually the last conversation I had with Kurt Hale. You might want to have someone start your car for you after today.”
Jennifer latched on to my arm, squeezing, and I calmed down.
She said, “I’m the one who did the research. This will work. It’s the best solution.”
I saw Amena coming back to us, running through the grass, having changed her mind about leaving with Kylie. As if she knew her fate hung in the balance of our conversation.
George sighed and said, “You know someone will have to officially sponsor her. Do you have anyone for that?”
“Yeah, me.”
He laughed and said, “Pike, a lone bachelor with a shady past can’t be a sponsor. We’re going to need something more than that for the State Department records.”
“Well, Jennifer, then.”
“Same thing. Look, I’m not shooting down your plan, but we need to think it through.”
“So you need a stable married couple? Someone who is vetted, guaranteed not to talk, that sort of thing?”
Amena reached us, and he whispered, “Yeah, something like that. Now you see the problem.”
I said, “You got it. Right here.”
Jennifer snapped her head to me, wondering where I was going.
Her expression trying for carefree, but the angst leaking out, Amena said, “What are you guys talking about?”
I looked at her and said, “We’re talking about you.”
George’s face showed consternation. Amena went from me to Jennifer, then back to me. She said, “What did you decide?”
I said, “Looks like you’re going to be a part of our family.”
George said, “That’s not how it works. You need to be married. You can’t just legally call yourself a family.”
I said, “I understand that, sir. That’s what I’m saying.”
Amena caught on before Jennifer did, jumping up into my arms. Jennifer said, “I don’t get it. What married couple are you talking about?”
Her head on my shoulder, Amena said, “You. He’s talking about you.”
Jennifer’s mouth fell open, and I said, “If you’ll have me.”
Acknowledgments
I had no intention of writing about Brazil and South America for this book, but as usual, something piqued my interest and caused me to focus there. In this case, after Daughter of War, I still had alerts up for stories about Wagner and/or Russian mercenaries causing havoc in the world. I read a story about Wagner men surreptitiously entering Venezuela, and zoomed in for a closer look, trying to ascertain the significance of it all—not for a novel, but because it interested me. I started studying the geopolitics of the region and came across the presidential elections in Brazil. Unbelievably, an ex-president was running for re-election from prison because of the Carwash scandal, the largest corruption case in history—and was winning. He was so popular that the largest off-shore oil find in the last thirty years, something Russia would love to control, was named after him. That was just crazy enough for a story.
As usual, I had my deputy commander of everything plan the trip, and as expected, she slipped in some spots that had nothing to do with the book because she wanted to go there. First up was a four-day stay in the Amazon jungle, which included everything from Cayman hunts in the dead of night to walks through the jungle eating everything the guide plucked from the ground and shoved in our face. While the stay was absolutely fascinating, I had no intention of using this setting in the book. I just couldn’t see how it would fit. The hotel drove us to the Amazon lodge in a bouncing van over pocked pavement for a nearly three-hour hell trip, with me complaining about wasting research time and Elaine about to vomit. When we arrived, I saw a seaplane land on the river. I asked how we could take the seaplane back to Manaus instead of riding in the van, and was told primary election voting was scheduled for our departure day, and the plane was dedicated to a candidate. So right then and there, I decided to blow it up in the book. Make me take another three-hour hell trip? Suffer the consequences.
Brazil is an enormous, beautiful country, and I really wish I could have captured everything I saw on my trip, but it became impossible—like trying to capture the entire United States. Salvador was my favorite spot, with its blending of the old and new, and I decided to laser in on discrete aspects of the country versus trying to capture an overall feel. The town was fascinating, but like Rio de Janeiro, it held its own dangers. For the most part, Brazil is safe—in the tourist districts—but I needed to go a little farther. To that end, I’m indebted to several locals for showing me just how far I could go before I reached a bad place. (One guide said he had been afraid to return to his car the night before. I felt like a heel for keeping him out until the sun set.)
A special thanks to the man who showed me around the Brazilian Jungle Training Center zoo on the outskirts of Manaus. It’s a place that’s very similar to our own Birds of Prey encampment here in South Carolina, in that they take wounded animals from the Amazon and rehabilitate them, only putting the ones that can’t be returned to the wild in the zoo for patrons to see. Unfortunately, there is no piranha lake for real, but come on, that death was pretty cool, wasn’t it? And I got in free because I’m a veteran!
After seeing a bunch of tourist destinations in Manaus, I finally heard about something that truly interested me—the secret tunnel underneath the Manaus Opera House. I begged the guy showing us around to take me there, because it was most decidedly not on the menu, and he agreed. We snuck over the ropes and he led me to it. Sometimes not being the ugly American pays off.
Everyone in this novel is a fabrication with the exception of one: I donated a name for an auction at the American Heart Association’s Charleston Heart Ball, and Clyde Marion won. I told him he’d be a Russian traitor, and he was unfazed. If you’re wondering why the owner of Monte Cristo Analytics changed his name—there it is.
As usual, the tech and weapons in this novel are real, but I sometimes use artistic license to make it something else. Not that it couldn’t be done, but simply because nobody has done it yet. The Switchblade loitering munition is real and is being used in Afghanistan as we speak. The Nailclipper is my own invention, but it most certainly could exist. The leaps and bounds in artificial intelligence and facial recognition are real, and it is a threat that we haven’t given near enough consideration (say . . . that sounds like an idea for my next book). Alexa is, in fact, listening to you, and it can, in fact, be hacked. The Sunflower drone perimeter protection is real, as are all the other tagging, tracking, and locating technologies. The world is moving to a scary place, but as with everything in evolution, it creates both a pro and a con. I always research the con, because it scares the hell out of me.
Finally, this is my first book with William Morrow, and I’m indebted to my editor, David Highfill, for making the move as seamless as possible. Any change in life involves angst, and I’ve had very little. I’m looking forward to working with this team for a long, long time. If
my DCOE doesn’t kill me in the Amazon first. . . .
About the Author
BRAD TAYLOR, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), is a twenty-one-year veteran of the U.S. Army Infantry and Special Forces, including eight years with the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta, popularly known as Delta Force. Taylor retired in 2010 after serving more than two decades and participating in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as classified operations around the globe. His final military post was as assistant professor of military science at The Citadel.
Brad has written thirteen New York Times bestsellers. When not writing, he serves as a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies. He lives in Charleston, SC, with his wife and two daughters.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Brad Taylor
Daughter of War
Operator Down
Ring of Fire
Ghosts of War
The Forgotten Soldier
The Insider Threat
No Fortunate Son
Days of Rage
The Polaris Protocol
The Widow’s Strike
Enemy of Mine
All Necessary Force
One Rough Man
Novellas
The Ruins
The Infiltrator
The Target
The Recruit
The Dig
Black Flag
Gut Instinct
The Callsign
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
hunter killer. Copyright © 2020 by Brad Taylor. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover design by Lisa Amoroso
Cover photographs © LoudRedCreative/Getty Images (book cover); © FlamingPumpkin/Getty Images (passport); © PhilipYb Studio/Shutterstock (bullet holes); © Cody Parmenter/Shutterstock (blood)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Taylor, Brad, 1965- author.
Title: Hunter killer : a novel / Brad Taylor.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : William Morrow, [2020] | Series: Pike Logan ; 14 | Summary: "Pike Logan tracks highly-trained Russian assassins to Brazil in this blistering, action-packed thriller from New York Times bestselling author and former Special Forces Officer Brad Taylor"— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019032489 (print) | LCCN 2019032490 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062886026 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780062978882 (softcover) | ISBN 9780062886040 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062886033
Subjects: LCSH: Logan, Pike—Fiction. | Terrorism—Prevention—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3620.A9353 H86 2020 (print) | LCC PS3620.A9353 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032489
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032490
Digital Edition JANUARY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-288604-0
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-288602-6
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