Raven Strike
A DreamlandThriller
Dale Brown
and
Jim DeFelice
Contents
Whiplash: Duty Roster
Raven
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Moral Dilemmas
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Targets Unknown
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Blowback
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Unexpected Consequences
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
About Dale Brown
Praise for Dale Brown
Also in the Dreamland Series
Titles by Dale Brown
Copyright
About the Publisher
Whiplash: Duty Roster
Lieutenant General (Ret.) Harold Magnus
Magnus once supervised Dreamland from afar. With Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian as its on-the-scene commander, the organization succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Now as deputy secretary of defense, Magnus hopes to repeat those successes with Whiplash. His handpicked commander: Bastian’s daughter, Breanna Stockard.
Breanna Stockard
After retiring from the U.S. Air Force to raise her daughter and help her husband’s political career, Breanna found herself bored with home life. She was lured back to a job supervising the development of high-tech wizardry under a combined CIA and Pentagon program. But will she be happy behind a desk when her agents are in trouble?
Jeff “Zen” Stockard
Now a U.S. Senator, Zen still keeps a close eye on national security matters—and his wife.
Jonathon Reid
Reid’s official title is Special Assistant to the Deputy Director Operations, CIA. Unofficially, he’s the go-to-guy for all black projects, the dirtier the better. He knows how to get around agency politics. More important, he knows where all the agency’s bodies are buried—he buried half of them himself.
Colonel Danny Freah
Fifteen years ago Danny Freah won the Medal of Honor for service far beyond the call of duty. Thrust back into action as the head of a reconstituted and reshaped Whiplash team, he wonders if he still has what it takes to lead men and women into battle.
Nuri Abaajmed Lupo
Top CIA operative Nuri Lupo is used to working on his own. Now the young CIA officer has to adjust to working with a quasi-military team—at least half of whom he can’t stand.
Chief Master Sergeant Ben “Boston” Rockland
Boston finds himself shepherding a group of young CIA officers and special operations warriors across three continents. To do it successfully, he has to be part crusty old dog and part father figure.
Captain Turk Mako
An Air Force pilot on special assignment to the Pentagon, Turk Mako thinks of himself as the last of a breed. Real live fighter jocks are being rapidly replaced by “back home boys”—pilots who control unmanned aircraft from hangars in the States. Mako is out to prove neither he nor his profession is obsolete.
Al “Greasy Hands” Parsons
Once responsible for the teams that kept Dreamland’s top aircraft in shape, the former chief master sergeant is now Breanna Stockard’s right-hand graybeard and fixer.
Raven
Chapter 1
Southeastern Sudan, Africa
It felt as if God himself were hunting him, circling beyond the clouds, watching every movement. An angry, vengeful god, a god obsessed with obliterating him. It felt as if God had singled him out above all to be the focus of his persecution, the modern-day Job. Except that this Job must die, and die harshly, in bloody fire and unimaginable pain. To survive, this Job must do nothing less than outwit God.
Such thoughts would have been blasphemous to a believer, but Li Han did not believe in the Christian god, let alone the vengeful, twisted Allah his paymasters had created from their own misinterpretations of scripture. To Li Han, all conceptions of god were superstition, tales told to children to get them to bed at night. Li Han had no religion except survival, and no ambition beyond that.
Once, he had dreams. Once, he’d even had desires beyond staying alive.
He was going to be rich. He desired this so badly that he would do anything for it. And he had. Like a fool.
Too late, he learned that wealth and comfort were illusions. The simplest facts had taken so long to understand.
The pilotless aircraft droned above. Li Han could hear it above as he rested at the side of the mine shaft. He had constructed a passive radar device to tell him where the aircraft was, but it wasn’t necessary now. All he needed were his ears.
Li Han waited as the engines grew louder. He saw it in his mind’s eye as it came overhead. It was the shape of a dagger, sleeker than the UAVs he’d seen farther south, different than the one in Pakistan that had fired at his car but missed.
It was a special UAV. He flattered himself that the Americans had built it just for him.
The noise grew to its loudest—God’s angry voice, calling him out.