Red Sky Mourning: A Terminal List Thriller (Volume 7) - Hardcover

Carr, Jack

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1668047071 ISBN 13: 9781668047071

Verlag: Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

With the walls closing in, Navy SEAL sniper James Reece is on a race to dismantle a conspiracy that has forced America to her knees in the latest high-octane page-turner that seems ripped from the headlines from the “hottest author on the thriller scene today” (The Real Book Spy), #1 New York Times bestseller Jack Carr.

You think you know James Reece. Think again.

A storm is on the horizon. America’s days are numbered. A Chinese submarine has gone rogue and is navigating towards the continental United States, putting its nuclear missiles within striking distance of the West Coast.

A rising Silicon Valley tech mogul with unknown allegiances is at the forefront of a revolution in quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

A politician controlled by a foreign power is a breath away from the Oval Office.

Three seemingly disconnected events are on a collision course to ignite a power grab unlike anything the world has ever seen.

The country’s only hope is a quantum computer that has gone dark, learning at a rate inconceivable at her inception. But during her time in hiding, she has done more than learn. She is now positioned to act as either the country’s greatest savior or its worst enemy. She is known as “Alice” and her only connection to the outside world is to a former Navy SEAL sniper named James Reece who has left the violence of his past life behind.

Will there be blood?

Count on it!

Will the forces that threaten to destroy the United States be enough to light the fuse of Reece’s resurrection?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jack Carr is a former Navy SEAL who led special operations teams as a team leader, platoon commander, troop commander, and task unit commander. Over his twenty years in Naval Special Warfare, he transitioned from an enlisted SEAL sniper to a junior officer leading assault and sniper teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a platoon commander practicing counterinsurgency in the southern Philippines, to commanding a special operations task unit in the most Iranian influenced section of southern Iraq throughout the tumultuous drawdown of US Forces. Jack retired from active duty in 2016 and lives with his wife and three children in Park City, Utah. He is the author of The Terminal List, True Believer, Savage Son, The Devil’s Hand, In the Blood, Only the Dead, Red Sky Mourning, and Targeted: Beirut. His debut novel, The Terminal List, was adapted into the #1 Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt. He is also the host of the top-rated Danger Close podcast. Visit him at OfficialJackCarr.com and follow Jack on Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube @JackCarrUSA.

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Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Kumba Ranch

Flathead Valley, Montana

“YOU SURE YOU STILL want to do this?” Liz Riley asked the man in the left seat of the small vintage 1976 Lake Buccaneer amphibious aircraft.

The plane floated comfortably on its hull at the western end of the lake, its fuel-injected 200-horsepower Lycoming IO-360 engine mounted atop the pylon behind the cockpit at idle.

The big man next to her did not answer immediately. His eyes were focused ahead on the light ripples visible on the dark water. He tilted his head to the right, looking to the skies above. Blue with scattered clouds. Perfect flying weather.

“You got this, Reece,” Liz said. Her voice was strong and confident, the southern accent a proud reminder of days lying in the grass in the backyard of her family’s house on the outskirts of Fort Rucker in Alabama, looking skyward, dreaming. The near-constant echoes of turning rotors from Black Hawk and Apache helicopters overhead had instilled in her a love of aviation. She would follow that passion into the Army’s Warrant Officer Flight Program and into the cockpit of an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter. Injuries sustained in combat cut short her Army career but did nothing to diminish her love of flying.

James Reece turned to his passenger, a passenger who in this case was also his flight instructor and dear friend, Elizabeth Riley. She looked perfectly at home in the confines of the aircraft, almost as if it had been built around her. It did help that she was a full seven inches shorter than Reece’s six-foot frame. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail under a crimson University of Alabama ball cap. Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses shielded her eyes from the glare. She was a professional in her element.

“What?” she asked, prompting him to explain the look on his face.

“You know, I intensely dislike flying.”

“You tell me that every time,” Liz replied. “What you mean to say is, you ‘used to intensely dislike flying.’?”

“Ah, that’s it,” Reece confirmed.

“And, as I recall, it wasn’t necessarily the flying; it was the taking off and landing.”

“Once again: true,” Reece said. “Just like jumping.”

“Out of planes?” Liz asked.

“Yeah. I always loved the actual jump. Not a big fan of the pull.”

“Why?”

“That was the moment of truth. Either that chute was going to open, or you were going to have a malfunction, in which case you would need to go through your EPs—your emergency procedures. After that you would have a clean canopy overhead or you were fucked and would have to cut away. Once you did that you were stuck to that last option. I’d pack my main, but our riggers would pack our reserves.”

“I can see how that could be disconcerting,” Liz said.

“That was one of the reasons we kept our parachute riggers happy with cases of beer on jump trips.”

“Wise.”

“I also didn’t like the fact that you had a bunch of other jumpers in the air you needed to account for and who needed to account for you.”

“And the landing?” Liz asked.

“Well, with a static-line jump your landing is a hot mess regardless. You do what they call a PLF—a parachute landing fall. It realistically requires about two days of training. The Army manages to cram those two days into three weeks at Fort Benning. The PLF does help reduce injuries, but most of the time it turns into feet, ass, head.”

Liz laughed.

“Didn’t they rename Fort Benning like they did Rucker?” she asked.

“Fuck if I know,” Reece replied.

“How about free-fall landings? Those look fairly graceful,” Liz said.

“With free fall it’s different. You can still hit hard, though, especially when you are loaded down with gear.”

“Well, in this case—no jumping,” she said.

“That’s good, considering we don’t have chutes,” Reece observed.

Liz ignored his comment.

“We are going to take off, spend some time exploring northern Montana, and then land right back at the lake. I’ll be here if you need me,” Liz said, motioning to the controls in front of her.

“That’s reassuring,” Reece responded sincerely. He turned back to the instruments.

“Might want to close the door,” Liz reminded him.

“Good tip,” Reece said. He reached up, pulled the gullwing door shut, and twisted the latch.

“What are our procedures if we have an engine failure?” Liz queried.

Scouting the channel ahead for debris, Reece replied: “If we are on the lake I’ll power forward. If we are in transition, I’ll make a judgment call—but please feel free to take over. If we are airborne over six hundred AGL I’ll turn back. Turn will be to the right to avoid the mountains.”

“Correct.”

Reece scanned the lake and the skies to his right and left.

“Skies and lake look clear,” he said.

“Clear,” Liz confirmed, doing the same checks from her seat.

Reece’s left hand went to the yoke. Liz’s eyes hesitated over his left ring finger, a finger that would soon be adorned with a wedding band. A stainless-steel watch she knew had been purchased by his father, Tom, in Saigon during Vietnam was on his wrist below a powerful forearm. Reece’s arms had once hoisted her to safety in violation of orders in the war-torn streets of Najaf, Iraq. To Liz, it felt like yesterday. She suspected it always would.

She would never be sure if it was the RPG or the resulting crash that had killed her copilot. Liz had struggled in an attempt to release his harness, the metal slick with blood. She screamed at him to wake up, even though his head was partially crushed and a large section of his upper-body cavity had been torn away. The unmistakable crack of AK fire from Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Militia penetrating the aircraft’s mangled frame forced her onto the streets of Old Town Najaf with her M4. She remembered thinking that being killed in the crash would have been preferable to what would befall her should she be captured by the Mahdi Militia. She also knew that she would not be alive today had it not been for James Reece.

Reece and his four-man sniper team had been in position just blocks away when they witnessed the helo go down. She found out later that he had radioed his command-and-control element back at the forward operating base and requested permission to move to the crash site. That request had been denied. A risk-averse higher command authority, concerned with the political fallout of losing five more SEALs in combat, had ordered Reece to stay in position to provide overwatch while an Army Quick Reaction Force was dispatched to the scene. When Reece heard Liz’s M4 start to mix with the sounds of AK fire, he moved to assist, in a clear violation of orders.

Liz’s helmet had been torn off in the crash, and she had ditched her body armor so she could move unencumbered as quickly as possible toward friendly lines. By the time Reece arrived, the adrenaline that had allowed her to escape the Kiowa had worn off. The back injury, the effects of which she still kept...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1668047071
• ISBN 13: 9781668047071
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 576
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande