Autorentext
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, where he was awarded the lifesaving medal. Currently he works as the Director of Veteran Outreach for the American Warrior Initiative.

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.

Klappentext

"The most pressing issue on Adam Hayes' mind is planning his son's upcoming 5th birthday party. After years of operating in the world's most dangerous spots for Treadstone, he's ready to call it quits, but the feeling isn't mutual. Levi Shaw, Treadstone's director, calls Hayes back for one more mission. It's a walk in the park. You don't even have to go in with the strike team. I just need you to set up the safe house. You'll be home in time to pick up the birthday cake. But nothing is ever easy where Treadstone is concerned. When the mission is blown only Hayes is left alive, and everyone, it seems, is determined to correct that oversight."--Provided by publisher.

Leseprobe
1

Grant County, New Mexico
 
Adam Hayes opened his eyes, instantly awake and ready. He lay there assessing the darkened bedroom, left hand snaking across the sheets, seeking the reassuring warmth of his sleeping wife, his right searching for the cold steel of the Archon Type B under his pillow.
 
Finding both where they were supposed to be, Hayes turned his attention to the digital clock by the television.
 
It was four a.m.
 
Might as well get up, he thought.
 
Careful not to disturb his wife, Hayes secured the pistol in the Vaultek safe mounted to the nightstand before easing out of bed. He got to his feet and crossed to the chair by the window, the puckered scar tissue from the bullets he'd taken in Luanda tight across his thigh.
 
Hayes dressed in the dark-pulling on the black running shorts, gray T-shirt, and a worn pair of Salomon trail runners he'd laid out the night before-snagged a faded beanie from the dresser, and slipped out of the room. Hayes tugged the hat over his shaggy blond hair and started down the hall. He paused to look in on his son, Jack. Seeing the boy had kicked free of his blankets during the night, he stepped in to cover him.
 
But he wasn't halfway across the room when Tr, the black Malinois he'd bought to protect his family, was growling at him from his spot on the bed.
 
"Stil," he said. Quiet.
 
The dog went silent but remained on guard, its eyes tracking Hayes all the way to the bed like a pair of aiming lasers. "Braaf," he whispered, giving the dog an affectionate scratch behind the ears before turning his attention to his son. Well done.
 
Being back with his family was the dream that had kept Hayes going during his government-imposed exile to Africa, and discovering that Jack no longer slept in a crib was one of many surprises he'd found waiting for him upon his return. When he'd left, Jack was just learning to walk; now he was on the verge of turning four. Covering the boy, Hayes couldn't help but reflect on how much he'd missed.
 
How much time they'd stolen from him.
 
"I promise I'm going to make it up to you," he whispered, kissing Jack lightly on the forehead before stepping out of the room.
 
The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was dark and still, the only light the pale white glow from the security panel that illuminated the weighted vest and headlamp sitting by the door. Hayes picked up the vest and strapped it to his torso, his mind already compiling a list of reasons why this was a bad idea.
 
It is too early and way too cold out there for this crap. Stay inside, forget about this nonsense.
 
Hayes silenced the chatter and typed his code into the security panel, disengaging the interior alarm and the motion detectors he'd emplaced around the house before throwing the lock on the Level 3 GSS security door.
 
He stepped outside and closed the door behind him, the chunk of its multipoint locking cylinders sliding into place muted by the howl of the early morning wind. With the door secure, Hayes tugged the headlamp on and stepped off the porch, cursing the cold and forcing himself into a stiff-legged jog.
 
Located two and a half hours south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Lazy A was as isolated as it was beautiful, a three-hundred-acre paradise of desert grassland, pine-studded foothills, and mesquite-tangled canyons nestled in the shadows of the Black Range.
 
It was an untamed land, a remnant of the once great wildernesses that covered the southwest. The kind of place where a man could leave his past behind and start a new life, which was exactly what he'd been looking for since returning home, and the reason he'd bought the ranch from his brother-in-law nine months prior.
 
Unfortunately for Hayes, it wasn't the ranch's natural beauty but the ache in his knees that had his attention.
 
He'd never liked running, and even as a younger man he'd seen it as an annoyance, an unnecessary suffering that was to be ended as fast as humanly possible. But with the big 4-0 just around the corner and with Hayes feeling every ding and broken bone that he'd collected during his tenure with Treadstone, that annoyance had blossomed into a full-on hatred.
 
So why not make it worse, right, macho man? the voice chided him.
 
Hayes knew the voice wasn't real, knew that it was a synthetic by-product of the behavior mods the Treadstone docs had used to turn him into a genetically modified assassin. He'd tried to get rid of it, to purge it from his brain. But despite his best efforts to remove it, the voice remained, buried like a splinter in the recesses of his mind.
 
So instead he tried to ignore it and focus on his breathing as well as the rhythmic bob of the headlamp off the gravel beneath his feet. He maintained the slow jog for a quarter mile, letting his legs loosen up before starting the timer on his watch.
 
Hayes cut east across the pasture, the downward slope of the terrain and natural cushion of the buffalo grass beneath his feet a welcome reprieve from the unforgiving hardpack of the gravel drive. Taking advantage of the conditions, he snugged the weighted vest tighter across his shoulders and raced down the slope, hitting the first mile thirty seconds ahead of time.
 
He continued to push his pace and by the end of the third mile, Hayes had gained a full minute. He was flying, but more important than that, he was in position to conquer the course that had been beating his ass for the past month and a half.
 
Might want to keep something in the tank, the voice warned.
 
The advice was solid, but Hayes was in the zone and with his body running like a machine, he wasn't interested in holding anything back.
 
It's payback time.
 
Hayes was on his last mile and still pushing hard when the undulating terrain and the steady bounce of the forty-pound vest against his diaphragm began to take their toll. The cramp started small, a stabbing pain beneath his right rib cage that forced him to loosen the vest.
 
Maybe you might stop trying to prove how tough you are.
 
"The hell with that," he said, eyes locked on the graphite shadow to his north that marked the final leg of the run.
 …