Vigilantism is not the answer. The government feels free to disregard its laws and principles and continues to use assassination abroad as a technique to deter the spread of the Islamic State, but whether it is with drones or teams of Navy Seals, or lone CIA assassins, a program of targeted killing is not going to solve the problem and does nothing more than give the politicians something to brag about in the next election.
One more thing…
I hope you have enjoyed this book and I am thankful that you have spent the time to get to this point, which means that you must have received something from reading it. I would be honored if you would post your thoughts, and also leave a review on Amazon. The easy way to do it is just flip through to the last page of this book on your Kindle and Amazon will give you an easy way to rate the book, give a review if you like, and share with your social networks. If that feature is not working on your device, just go to the landing page of the book and leave a review by clicking here. Please also feel free to share your thoughts about the book or any of my series by sending an email to:
[email protected]. I love to hear from readers, whether it is bad or good.
Best regards,
Kenneth Eade
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OTHER BOOKS BY KENNETH EADE
Brent Marks Legal Thriller Series
A Patriot’s Act
Predatory Kill
HOA Wire
Unreasonable Force
Killer.com
Absolute Intolerance
The Spy Files
Decree of Finality
Beyond All Recognition
Involuntary Spy Espionage Series
An Involuntary Spy
To Russia for Love
Stand Alone
Terror on Wall Street
Non-fiction
Bless the Bees: The Pending Extinction of our Pollinators and What You Can Do to Stop It
A, Bee, See: Who are our Pollinators and Why are They in Trouble?
Save the Monarch Butterfly
CONTINUE THE ADVENTURE!
Aleppo, once an idyllic jewel between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean, was the oldest inhabited city in Syria. Robert had been in many battle zones before, but this was nothing like he had ever seen. Aleppo had been decimated. It reminded him of those surreal black and white photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atom bomb had been dropped. One a thriving metropolis, now a graveyard inhabited only by terrorists and their mostly unwilling civilian subjects – slaves, held captive by the boundaries of their destinies.
Robert set up his shot from the seventh floor of an abandoned, blown out building, once part of the modern city, which could hardly be distinguished from its ancient ruins, now themselves almost completely obliterated by all the bombing.
He gripped his Dragunov SVD sniper rifle and simulated the shot he was about to take, beginning his breathing protocol as he observed the place where he would send General Abu Muslim al-Basara, once the pride of Sadaam Hussein’s Royal Guard, now an ISIS terrorist, to Jahannam. Robert watched as al-Basara’s colonel spread the battle plan out on the desk. This was to be their moment of glory, the day they drove out the last of the infidels and strangled the life out of what was once the largest city near the Turkish border. The day which would pave the way for their growth to metastasize into and infect the land that had been conquered by the Romans and retaken by the Muslims – only to be forsaken again and was now sitting in the clutches of the cursed Jewish empire of the United States.
Robert scanned the target zone through his sight. In front of the building, men in flak jackets holding automatic weapons were milling around, but that wasn’t going to make any difference. From 500 meters it would be a turkey shoot. He looked through the small window and saw the colonel studying the battle plans. Robert’s optics were so precise, he could count the hairs on the Colonel’s beard. He was target number two. Breathe and wait, breathe and wait.
When the prime target finally came into focus, Robert unclenched every muscle, relaxing everything except for his eye and his trigger finger. He placed the cross-hairs right on the forehead of the target and squeezed, every so softly, as if he were caressing the most intimate part of a woman. He immediately fired another round to the chest as he watched the general’s head explode as the first bullet make contact, and then took out the surprised colonel with a shot to the head and one to the chest.
Robert abandoned his equipment, vacated what was left of the room and scurried down the seven flights of destroyed stairs, sometimes leaping over patches of nothingness as he descended. He could hear the commotion and turmoil from across the street – orders being screamed out, the roar of trucks coming closer. He slipped out the exit, and briskly walked the half block to the designated pickup area, but the pickup vehicle was not there.
Shit!
Robert knew that there was no such thing as a perfect plan. Every good one fell apart in the field, especially when you depended on someone else.
Someone’s head’s gonna roll for this one.
He ducked into an alley, just as a Humvee and six Toyota trucks, courtesy of the U.S. Government, and packed with jihadists holding automatic weapons, pulled up in a cloud of dust and jumped out, invading the building like an intrusion of cockroaches. Halfway down the alley, Robert pulled several bags of trash off a garbage pile, revealing a motorcycle hidden underneath. He rolled the motorbike out of the trash, jumped on it and kicked it to life. The roar of its engine echoed down the alley and caught the ears of his pursuers as he flew out the other side in a cloud of exhaust. Robert’s Plan B packed a punch – strapped to the back of the bike was a Fagot ATGM. He was, literally, a mobile army.
Dodging piles of rubble, Robert headed for higher ground. He had no Commo set, nothing to call for an extraction, and nobody would be coming for him anyway. He wasn’t officially there.
Why the hell do they need a covert op in a shithole like this anyway? Why not just send in the cavalry?
He took evasive moves, but could hear the rat-a-tat-tat of the AK-47’s and RPK’s behind him. He looked over his shoulder and took a sharp left, leaning to the ground and almost scraping his knee to it, like a motorcycle racer, but one of the nimble Toyotas followed and was still gaining on him. Robert looked for cover. If he could find something to protect himself from their fire, he could hold his ground and fight it out with the ATGM, but most of Aleppo had been laid to waste. It was if a giant earthquake had flattened half of it to the ground. As he rode, turning randomly everywhere he could, he looked for a suitable building to hole out in and make his stand.
Damn!
Robert heard the chopping blades of a Black Hawk helicopter in the distance and could see it was coming for him, and fast.
Need to hide, need a diversion. Anything!
He ducked behind a bombed out building, set up the ATGM and trained it on the helicopter, which was closing on him fast. He could see the muzzle fire from its machine guns as the bullets pelted the buildings around him. He aimed, fired, and the Blackhawk exploded in a spectacular firebomb, raining shrapnel from a cloud of smoke.
Robert got back on the motorcycle, hoping that downing the helicopter had bought him more time, but the Humvee and its convoy were fast approaching. They were too close to outrun. He reloaded the ATGM and fired a direct shot, blowing up the Humvee, and sending two of the Toyotas off the road. He jumped back on the bike and zipped away, confident that he had bought at least a few precious seconds.
Up ahead, Robert flew through the archway of what used to be a grand market and now was nothing but a huge concrete rat hole, and made his way to the opening on the other side. He maneuvered through brick and stone, pipes and crushed furniture, looking to the light at the end of the huge building which would be his salvation
. That light darkened when a Humvee rolled in front of the opening. Robert saw the flash of an RPG and swung to the right side down another corridor just as the grenade exploded, raining concrete particles and dust. He jammed the throttle with his wrist all the way back in a sprint for the new exit. He could see it getting closer and closer.
It’s clear. Almost there, almost…
Suddenly, a Toyota truck screeched to a halt, blocking Robert’s way. He veered toward a crack of opportunity on the right – an opening – slid, and the back tire hit the bumper of the Toyota, propelling it and Robert airborne. He landed with a thud in the street. He was, for a moment, phased, and struggled to stand up so he could make a run for it. That was impossible. When he stood up, he was staring down the barrels of a six-man firing squad.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning and best-selling author Kenneth Eade, best known for his legal and political thrillers, practiced law for 30 years before publishing his first novel, "An Involuntary Spy." Eade, an up-and-coming author in the thriller genre, has been described by critics as “one of our strongest thriller writers on the scene, and the fact that he draws his stories from the contemporary philosophical landscape is very much to his credit.” Critics have also said that “his novels will remind readers of John Grisham, proving that Kenneth Eade deserves to be on the same lists with the world's greatest thriller authors.”
Said Eade of the comparisons: "John Grisham is famous for saying that sometimes he likes to wrap a good story around an important issue. In all of my novels, the story and the important issues are always present.” Eade, the recipient of the 2015 Beverly Hills Book Award and a 2016 Reader’s Favorite Award, has written fourteen novels, which have been translated into four languages.
Eade is known to keep in touch with his readers, offering free gifts and discounts to all those who sign up at his website, www.kennetheade.com.
Copyright 2016 Kenneth Eade
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Reviewers may quote brief passages in the context of a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persona, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted material.
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[1] Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment
[2] Terrorist Screening Database
[3] Pfeiffer, Alex, 31 Suspected ISIS Terrorists Have Been Arrested in the U.S. In the Past Year, The Daily Caller, August 6, 2016
[4] Goldman, Adam, The Islamic State’s suspected inroads into America, The Washington Post, August 8, 2016
[5] Bocuher, Richard, Daily Press Briefing, United States Dept. of State, March 27, 2002
[6] Mauro, Ryan, Muslims of the Americas (MOA), The Clarion Project, February 12, 2013
[7] Brown, Carol, Muslims of America training compounds, American Thinker, September 20, 2015
[8] Hossenball, Mark, Another Holy War, Waged on American Soil, Newsweek, February 28, 1994
[9] Mauro, Ryan, Muslims of the Americas (MOA), The Clarion Project, February 12, 2013
[10] Brown, Carol, Muslims of America training compounds, American Thinker, September 20, 2015
[11] The Blaze, For the Record, Sleeper Cells Inside Our Nation?, Febraury 19, 2014
[12] Is There a Muslim Terrorist Training Camp Near You?, The Conservative Papers, May 7, 2013
[13] Brown, Carol, Muslims of America training compounds, American Thinker, September 20, 2015
[14] Muslims of the Americas: In Their Own Words, Anti -Defamation League, http://archive.adl.org/extremism/moa/
[15] NCTC website: https://www.nctc.gov/index.html
[16] Best, Richard A., The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Responsibilities and Potential Congressional Concerns, December 19, 2011, Congressional Research Service
[17] White House, Office of Press Secretary, Statement by the President After Briefing at National Counterterrorism Center, December 17, 2015
[18] Bardin, Jeff, What it’s like to be recruited by ISIS online, May 22, 2015, Business Insider
[19] Geiger, Gloria, This is How ISIS Uses Social Media to Recruit American Teens, November 20, 2015, Teen Vogue
Kenneth Eade, Paladine
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