Robert Ludlum's The Treadstone Rendition (A Treadstone Novel, Band 4) - Softcover

Hood, Joshua

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593419847 ISBN 13: 9780593419847

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

The final days of the American presence in Afghanistan bring Adam Hayes a summons he can't ignore in the latest electrifying thriller from the world of Robert Ludlum.

Adam Hayes has stepped away from the field for the last time. He's promised his wife that he won't put his life on the line any more, and there's nothing that will make him break a promise to his wife. 

Well...almost nothing. With America withdrawing from Afghanistan and the Taliban closing in, Abdul Nassir reached out to his old friend. Ten years ago, he saved the American's life, and the time has come for repayment. The Afghan is desperate to flee his homeland. Like most of his countrymen, he is petrified by the Taliban takeover, but he also can't trust the Americans. He’s the only eyewitness to a massacre committed by a rogue team of CIA contractors. Not only can he identify the butcher who directed the bloodbath, he also has photographic proof. He’ll only be safe when those pictures are made public.

Now, there’s just one man he can trust to get him to safety--Adam Hayes.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of the Jason Bourne series—The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum—among other novels. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001.

Joshua Hood is the author of Warning Order and Clear by Fire. He graduated from the University of Memphis before joining the military and spending five years in the 82nd Airborne Division. On his return to civilian life he became a sniper team leader on a full-time SWAT team in Memphis.

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1

Maidan Wardak Province, Afghanistan

August 15, 2021

The CIA-contracted Mi-17V raced over the ridgeline, the pilot chomping hard on the stick of gum as he cleared the ridge and dove for the spiderweb of wadis-water channels, bone dry in the summer heat-that crisscrossed the valley floor. Like everyone else aboard the helicopter, he was all too aware of the valley's reputation as a Taliban stronghold, and with the American withdrawal from Afghanistan already underway, the last thing he wanted was to get shot down in Indian country.

The pilot had been desperate for a way out of this mission ever since they'd taken off from the CIA compound in Kabul, but with the target area rapidly approaching, he knew he was running out of time.

He was beginning to give up any hope of aborting when a quick look at the instrument panel showed both the oil pressure and the RPM gauges dangerously close to the red, a clear sign that he was pushing the aged Russian helo too hard. The prudent move would be to ease up, decrease the power, but instead, the pilot sensed the chance for a last-minute reprieve. He reached for the collective, wondering how much more throttle it would take before something on the aircraft finally failed.

He wouldn't get the chance to find out. As he began to increase power, a silver-haired man stepped into the cockpit from the helo's cargo bay, the lights of the instrument panel glinting off of the pistol in his hand.

***

Dominic Porter wasn’t a maintenance officer, but after ten years in the Navy SEALs and another decade as a CIA paramilitary officer, he’d logged more hours in the air than most pilots. From fresh off the assembly line UH-64 Black Hawks to the Eastern Bloc relics favored by third-world dictators, he’d spent enough time in darkened cargo holds to know the good sounds from the bad.

It had taken Porter about five seconds of listening to the high-pitched roar of the Mi-17's turbine to know that something was seriously fucked.

He was on his feet in an instant, his hand on the butt of his Glock 19 as he squeezed past the squad of heavily armed mercenaries packed in around him.

"What is it?" the team leader asked.

But Porter ignored him, not sure if he was being paranoid or if Ground Branch had stuck him with another spineless pilot. The moment he stepped into the cockpit, he could smell the pilot's fear over the caustic burn of aviation fuel and transmission fluid that permeated the cabin. Sweat streamed down the pilot's face as he white-knuckled the controls.

His eyes darted to the instrument panel, and the red-lined gauges he found there confirmed what he'd suspected since taking off from Kabul thirty minutes prior: the pilot was trying to sabotage the mission.

Fucking coward.

Before the pilot could register his presence, Porter drew his pistol and jammed the barrel hard into the man's neck, the cold press of steel against warm flesh sending the man stammering over the internal comms.
 
"Wh-what the hell-"

"Back it down," Porter told him. "Now."

The pilot stared at him, his pupils wide as eight balls.

"Back it down. Or you're a dead man."

But the man was vapor-locked, his mind flatlined by the 9-millimeter pressed to his throat.

Porter turned to the copilot, who'd to this point only watched, wordless, as the drama played out. "You've got the controls," Porter told him, and without waiting for the man's reply, turned back to the pilot, backhanding him across the face with the barrel of his Glock.

The pilot slumped forward, blood gushing from his flattened nose, and the helicopter dipped crazily toward the craggy outcroppings below, the terrain avoidance radar toning loud in the cockpit.

"Get him off the stick!" the copilot shouted.

Porter holstered the pistol and grabbed the unconscious pilot by the back of his flight suit and hauled him off of the controls. He pushed the man's limp body against the firewall, and expertly unhooked his harness. Once the copilot had regained control of the aircraft, Porter jerked the pilot from his seat.

Porter threw the man back into the cargo hold and motioned a thick-necked mercenary forward. "O'Malley, drop your gear and get in the pilot's seat," he ordered.

O'Malley frowned, confused by the order, but like every man in the mix of contract mercenaries and Afghan commandos in the cargo hold, he'd been handpicked by Porter for the mission at hand. Aware he was being paid handsomely to obey without a moment's hesitation, he dutifully dropped his kit and climbed into the right-hand seat.

"What the hell is this?" the copilot asked.

"An insurance policy," Porter replied.

"I don't understand."

"Just fly the fucking bird." Porter turned to O'Malley. "Make sure this man doesn't forget why we're here."

Then he was back in the cargo hold, pausing to snatch his HK416 and helmet from the nylon bench. He slung the rifle across the front of his blood-spattered plate carrier and strapped the helmet tight over his head, then moved to open the troop door. He held up his hand to the men around him, all five fingers extended. "Five minutes."

***

At forty-three, Porter had almost two decades on the men around him, but their cocky smiles and easy confidence as they stretched and double-checked their weapons and gear reminded him of when he’d first come to Kabul as a twenty-four-year-old Navy SEAL with bright eyes and an eagerness to make a difference.

"Loyalty to Country and Team" was the code he'd lived by, and that loyalty was the reason Porter and so many of his brothers had returned to Afghanistan, again and again. But somewhere during the twenty-year war, Porter had lost faith in the mission. He'd grown tired of risking his ass for a country and a people that at best didn't seem to want his help, and at worst tried every way it possibly could to kill him.

Osama bin Laden was dead. The lives of innocent Americans back home were no longer at stake here, not the way they'd been when Porter had first arrived in-country. Still, the war dragged on, and Porter could see no real benefit to it except to line the pockets of the weapons manufacturers back home who kept feeding the machine, sending young American lives to be slaughtered thousands of miles from their homes.

Somewhere along the way, Porter had grown sick of risking his life and getting nothing in return. He'd given twenty years to this godless place. He was damn sure going to walk away with something for his trouble.

"One minute," the copilot announced.

Porter raised his index finger and the men pushed themselves to their feet and shuffled toward the rear of the helo, past the door gunners hunched expectantly behind the pair of M134 miniguns mounted behind the cockpit.

Ordinarily, Porter would have preferred to land short of the target and close the distance on foot, using the cover of darkness and perhaps an orbiting AC-130 gunship or a CIA drone to mask their approach. But this little excursion was in no way a sanctioned hit, and Porter didn't have any air assets to protect his men. If something went wrong, this was going to have to be a down and dirty fight.

"Target building coming up," the copilot advised over the radio. "Looks like we've got a welcoming party out front."
 
"I see 'em," the door gunner said, spooling up the minigun.
 
"Light them up," Porter told him. Knowing that the Taliban fighters gathered below wouldn't be expecting the ambush-and that even if they were, there wasn't a hell of a lot they could do about it now.
 
The pilot brought the helo in low and fast, and Porter braced himself against the strut watching the first tracers come...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593419847
• ISBN 13: 9780593419847
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland