If there’s one thing Jack Ryan, Jr’s father taught him, it’s that freedom isn’t free, but nothing can prepare Jack for the price he must pay in the latest electrifying entry in the #1 Jack Ryan Jr. is in a world of trouble.; When a benign surveillance operation takes a deadly turn, Jack finds himself locked in a struggle with an unseen enemy bent on destroying the Campus.; The chase leads Jack to the South China Sea where a midair collision between aircraft from rival nations threatens to serve as a flash point for the entire region. As Jack frantically tries to put the pieces of the conspiracy together, the Campus is hit with a crippling attack.; When the dust settles, Jack is one of the few operators still standing and the Campus’s de facto leader. But the fight is just beginning.; As tensions escalate, Jack’s mysterious adversary executes a brilliant campaign to paralyze the American government even as China inches closer to invading Taiwan.; With the odds stacked against him and no help in sight, Jack and his shattered team must stop the world’s two remaining super powers from stumbling into war even as the noose around the Campus grows ever tighter. Every operation has a cost. This time the bill might just be too much to pay.

Autorentext

Don Bentley

Klappentext

If there’s one thing Jack Ryan, Jr., learned from his father, it’s that freedom isn’t free, but nothing can prepare Jack for the price he must pay in this electrifying entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

Jack Ryan, Jr., is in a world of trouble. When a benign surveillance operation takes a deadly turn, Jack finds himself locked in a struggle with an unseen enemy bent on destroying The Campus. The chase leads Jack to the South China Sea, where a midair collision between aircraft from rival nations threatens to serve as a flash point for the entire region. As Jack frantically tries to put the pieces of the conspiracy together, The Campus is hit with a crippling attack. When the dust settles, Jack is one of the few operators still standing and The Campus’s de facto leader. But the fight is just beginning. 

As tensions escalate, Jack’s mysterious adversary executes a brilliant campaign to paralyze the American government, while China inches closer to invading Taiwan. With the odds stacked against him and no help in sight, Jack and his shattered team must stop the world’s two remaining superpowers from stumbling into war, even as the noose around The Campus grows ever tighter.

Every operation has a cost. This time, the bill might just be too much to pay.

Leseprobe
1

University of Regensburg

Regensburg, Germany

"Entschuldigung-wo ist die Fakultät für Mathematik?"

Jack Ryan, Jr., did in fact know the way to the mathematics department, but not because he was an aficionado of the Pythagorean theorem. In fact, Jack's last math class had been under the tutelage of Father O'Neil, whose love of equations and variables was rivaled only by his adoration for the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Jack had escaped the class with a C-plus, much to the chagrin of his surgeon mother, who took a dim view of any mark less than a B.

Jack's familiarity with the University of Regensburg's quaint campus was not the result of a newfound thirst for knowledge or a desire to right his past collegiate wrongs characterized by too much time on the football field and not enough in the library. Neither had Jack's familiarity come from strolling along the campus's network of pedestrian paths under the azure sky and brilliant German sunshine. No, Jack knew where the math building was for the same reason he was seated at a section of tables in the cobblestone-paved common area that formed the university's heart.

Jack was running a surveillance operation.

But he couldn't say this to the cute blonde dressed in a white half-shirt, black Lululemon leggings, and white cross-trainers. While Jack hadn't thought much of college math, there were certainly some aspects of the higher-education experience he'd found enjoyable.

"Sorry," Jack said with a smile. "I'm not a student."

The girl smiled back, and Jack's grin widened.

At six foot two and two hundred twenty pounds, Jack was a big boy. Now that he was closer to forty than twenty, he had to hit the gym harder to maintain his athletic build. But his blue eyes were still bright, his face unwrinkled, and his brown hair thick and curly.

Judging by the coed's reaction, Jack must not be aging too terribly.

He still had it.

"Of course not," the girl said, laughing, as she switched to German-accented English. "You are much too old to be a student. I thought you might be visiting your child for parents' weekend?"

Or perhaps not.

"Nope, no child," Jack said, fighting to keep his grin from withering. "Just here for a conference."

"Oh," the girl said, her face reddening. "Sorry. Could you tell me where the mathematics building is located?"

"Sure," Jack said. "Quickest way is through there." He turned in his chair to point to the doors of the University Student Office behind him. "It'll be the first building you see on the other side."

"Danke," the girl said.

She offered Jack a final smile that reeked of pity before heading into the building.

Jack gritted his teeth as he waited for the other shoe to drop. As jolting as it had been to learn that he could no longer pass as a college student, he knew the worst was still to come. As if on cue, a feminine voice echoed from a Bluetooth-equipped combination transmitter/receiver lodged deep in the canal of his right ear.

"Do we have a med kit?"

"Why?" Jack said, instantly alert.

"Thought you might need something for your bruised ego."

The raspy tone engendered images of raven hair and vanilla-scented olive-toned skin. Unlike Jack, who was seated at a flimsy metal table with a doner kebab wrapped in aluminum foil for company, his coworker and girlfriend, Lisanne Robertson, was lounging in the grass on the south side of the University Student Office. In fact, if they'd been the only two operatives on the net, Jack might have broken protocol long enough to tell the Lebanese American woman how he'd accidentally mixed salt into his coffee after seeing her in "college attire."

Jack didn't.

This was partly because he was still trying to navigate the pitfalls of working clandestinely with someone who was also a love interest and partly because