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  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Chapter Ninety

  Chapter Ninety-One

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  Chapter Ninety-Six

  Chapter Ninety-Seven

  Epilogue

  About Jeffrey S. Stephens

  Scott Sumner

  for your enduring friendship, and for never allowing me to abandon the dream

  PROLOGUE

  OVER LAGO DE MARACAIBO, VENEZUELA

  JORDAN SANDOR WAS strapped into the small cockpit of the ASG-29 glider. The C-47 twin-engine that had been rigged to draw him up into the moonless night began its run down the tarmac. There was an abrupt tug as the towrope was yanked taut, then Sandor felt a second, more violent jerk as he was lifted into the air.

  Sandor had piloted gliders before, but never at night and never toward a destination that was essentially in the middle of nowhere. As he was hoisted upward into the cloudless sky, he was reminded again how different a glider is than a powered craft. The basic aerodynamics are the same, but in the absence of propellers or jet engines gravity will ultimately have its way, which presents a different mind-set. Staying aloft depends in part on climatic and geographic conditions, but mostly upon the skill of the pilot. There is no other winged aircraft that joins a man so completely to the act of flying.

  Sandor was clad in black commando pants and pullover, a Kevlar vest, and rubber-soled boots. He was wearing a helmet and had PNVG night vision goggles in place—the sooner he adjusted to the artificial lighting the easier it would be for him to navigate over the dark expanse of jungle. Through the goggles he could clearly make out the plane sixty yards ahead of him. It was an uncharacteristically helpless feeling for Sandor, knowing that for the moment he could do nothing but wait. He also knew his anxiety would have been far worse if he did not completely trust the three men in whose hands he had placed his life.

  “You okay back there?” It was Bergenn, his voice loud and clear in Sandor’s earpiece.

  “Just like a ride at Disney World,” Sandor replied into the helmet-mounted microphone.

  “Get yourself strapped in tight, the best is yet to come.”

  Sandor ran through his mental checklist one last time, reviewing every detail from landing; to objective; to the arrangements for his escape. The operation was beginning with a flight plan that was as simple as it was fraught with danger. They were rapidly ascending to a high altitude, traveling northwest and then circling back to the south, toward the mouth of the Gulf of Venezuela and beyond. They would remain above the sea at all times, never crossing land as they veered in a southwesterly direction, taking them perilously close to the shoreline border between Colombia and Venezuela. They wanted to avoid wandering too far into the airspace of either country, and so, before making landfall, the C-47 would make a quick descent, release the glider, and then return to base. It would then be up to Sandor to guide the fiberglass craft southeast along the shore of the Lago de Maracaibo until he turned inland and reached his intended landing point in the jungle, south of the town of Barranquitas.

  Bergenn’s voice interrupted his reverie again. “Hang on,” he said.

  Doug Carlton, who was piloting the C-47, expertly banked a turn. Towing the glider required him to maneuver each roll in a wide arc.

  “Still here,” Sandor told them.

  It was more than twenty minutes since takeoff when Bergenn said, “Almost time to go. You ready?”

  “All set.”

  “When we bank to the port side again, hit the lever to release the towline.”

  “Got it.”

  “Good luck.”

  “The only kind to have,” Sandor replied. “Going silent now.” Then, as the C-47 made its slow turn to the left, Sandor hit the manual handle that released the towline from the nose of the glider. He saw the rope drop into the darkness, then watched as the twin-engine plane disappeared into the night off his starboard side.

  He was alone.

  The sound of the C-47 engines quickly faded into the night, leaving Sandor amid an exquisite silence. The quiet could be mesmerizing, but he busied himself with the task at hand.

  At this hour of night he was not concerned about encountering other aircraft, especially as his altitude dropped, but he was alert to the dark sky before him as he took control of the instruments. Even a colli
sion with a flock of large birds could pose a deadly hazard.

  He had reviewed the navigation system with Craig Raabe. It was similar to the other gliders he had flown. A single stick controlled the ailerons, which governed bank and roll. This would have to be coordinated with the foot pedals that moved the tail rudder, regulating the glider’s yaw. A hand lever worked the flaps that would reduce speed as he came in for a landing.

  The first order of business was a controlled descent. The ASG 29 is an expertly designed glider with high-aspect wings, and Sandor instantly discovered how sensitive the craft could be when he made his first attempt to roll the plane to the port side and begin downward.

  “Whoa,” he said aloud as the glider seemed to take off underneath him.

  He leveled out, then had another go at it. He was moving at more than 120 miles an hour and was rapidly approaching landfall.

  This time he banked more slowly, making a smooth transition into a descent that took him within view of the enormous lake below—Lago de Maracaibo was the size of a small sea. He followed with another roll, this time to the starboard side, dropping even lower. As he pulled out of that turn he spotted a small formation of gulls coming toward him, off the port side. Not wanting to hit them, but not risking an unduly quick maneuver, he eased farther to starboard, taking him off course but averting the impact.

  Sandor had a quick look at the LED readout of his digital compass. He needed to come back twenty degrees to port, which would return him to the planned route. The more populated areas were along the coast and, now that he was reaching the shore, he intended to move quickly west and get far enough inland so the chance of being spotted from the ground was, as Deputy Director Byrnes might say, within a tolerable degree of risk. The key to his mission was surprise—detection of any sort could prove fatal.

  Sandor was over land and, as he turned the glider back on course, he began to make out the outlines beneath him. The night vision goggles were not all that much help in the open sky, but now the landscape below came into focus. He was passing over one town after another—Campo Maria, Rosario, Machiques, and finally Barranquitas. He struggled to maintain the precarious balance between staying below radar levels and keeping his altitude high enough to reach his landing area before gravity and wind currents brought him down. He repeatedly worked the controls to raise the nose of the glider, then lower it again, resulting in something akin to an untracked roller-coaster ride as he and his unpowered craft raced through the dark night.

  South of the village of Barranquitas he made his final and most dangerous turn. At this low altitude, barely clear of the treetops, he would have to negotiate a 270 roll that would take him to the clearing where he intended to set down. Once again he was confronted with the difference between a glider and a conventional aircraft. There was no margin for error here, no second chance if he missed the landing. Sandor would have only one opportunity to get to the ground safely. If he failed, he and the glider would end up a shattered mess among the trees and vines below.

  His vision was in constant motion, moving from the jungle ahead as it rose up to meet the glider—having a look at the compass in his lap as it helped keep him on course—then swiveling back and forth to check the wing flaps as he worked the levers and foot pedals to slow the plane.

  Suddenly, as if an oasis had appeared in an endless desert, the clearing was visible among the dense, towering trees. Sandor pushed on the hand lever until the flaps were virtually perpendicular to the long, graceful wings. He held the foot pedals steady on a course of dead reckoning as he pulled the release switch for the water tank that serves as ballast beneath the fuselage. The rear of the aircraft released what might have appeared as some sort of liquid jet stream.

  Even with all of this, Sandor knew he was coming in too high and too fast. He had simply not seen the clearing early enough.

  Under the best of circumstances a glider this size would need more than five hundred feet of runway to come safely to a stop. Although the clearing appeared to be three times that long, Sandor realized that he was not going to get the glider on the ground until it was more than two-thirds of the way into the field, which would be too late.

  He strained against the lever to hold the flaps down, but that was not going to work; there was not enough time. He knew he had only one remaining chance. Atop the wings were his fail-safe mechanisms, the so-called terminal velocity air brakes. They would create a forced crash, something just short of a complete nosedive. Sandor did not hesitate. There was no time to weigh options; there was barely enough time to react. He let go of the flap control and reached out with both hands, tugging hard at the two emergency loops.

  The result was instantaneous. The glider shuddered as if he had hit a pothole in the sky. The nose of the plane dipped and Sandor felt himself careening headlong to earth.

  He strained to pull on the main lever again as the ground appeared to race toward him at a breathtaking pace. At the last moment he yanked at the controls to pull the nose up, then pushed himself back in the seat and braced for the crash.

  After flying in total silence, the sounds of the glider smashing to pieces all around him was deafening. The wings acted as land-based pontoons until they were finally shattered, and the torque of the violent impact caused the windshield to explode into pieces. But the reinforced cockpit held fast as the remnants of what remained of the glider skidded along the soft, vegetation-covered ground until it came to a jarring stop against a stand of trees at the end of the clearing.

  Then everything became quiet and dark.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE PREVIOUS WEEK, CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  A WEEK EARLIER, SANDOR’S boss at the Central Intelligence Agency, Deputy Director Mark Byrnes, had not only refused to sanction the proposed mission into the Venezuelan jungle. He had specifically ordered Sandor not to undertake the operation.

  Sandor had been careful not to make a formal request for approval when he discussed his idea with Byrnes. He had merely floated a trial balloon.

  The DD shot it down without hesitation.

  “We’re not in the vendetta business,” Byrnes told him. “We’ll take care of this in due course.”

  It had been less than a month since Sandor and his team prevented an attack on American oil refineries along the Gulf Coast, but Sandor argued it was past the time for them to address the unfinished business of that mission. Although the main damage had been averted, several soldiers had died in the process of disarming one of the explosive devices. Before that, terrorists had taken down a commercial airliner in the Caribbean, followed by a deadly assault on a communications center. All told, those attacks cost the lives of hundreds of civilians and military personnel. And then there was the matter of a CIA operative, Sandor’s close friend, who was killed in action during an incursion in North Korea where the terrorist plot was first uncovered.

  The mastermind behind all of these calamities had never surfaced, keeping a safe distance from the action as he played out his murderous scheme. Rafael Cabello, a Venezuelan known in the intelligence community as Adina, had orchestrated the entire affair, never putting himself in harm’s way as all of those innocent people died in the wake of his treachery.

  Sandor was not inclined to wait for action in due course, as the Deputy Director suggested. He was determined to act now.

  “Sir, there’s no telling what Adina may be up to next. At the very least a reconnaissance mission could gather some valuable intelligence.”

  Byrnes fixed his subordinate with a knowing stare. “Reconnaissance? Come on Sandor, we didn’t just meet this morning. I know exactly what you have in mind.”

  Sandor responded with the most innocent look he could muster. “Sir?”

  “You’re not thinking about intelligence gathering. You’re thinking about liquidating Adina.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Byrnes stood up, walked around his desk, and leaned against the edge, looking down at his agent. “Of course I am
. But losing you or Raabe or Bergenn isn’t going to help me right now, is it?”

  “That would be impossible, sir. I’m your punishment from God. You’ll never lose me.”

  Byrnes treated Sandor to one of his famous scowls, a look that was somewhere between indigestion and a reaction to a rotten odor. Byrnes was a patient man, but he was not renowned for his sense of humor. “Spare me your witty repartee. I’m ordering you to stay away from this. We’ve met with DHS and we’re developing plans with the NCTC to deal with what happened. And, just so you know how far up the food chain this goes, the Director of National Intelligence is all over this as well. You’re on a need-to-know basis, and right now you don’t need to know.”

  “If plans are being made I think I’ve earned the right to be read in.”

  “I’ll be sure to make a note of that in the file,” Byrnes said as he returned to his chair. “Meantime, let me remind you that you’re an agent of the United States government under my command, and you’ll do as I say. Is that clear?”

  “Completely.”

  “Venezuela is a hostile nation. If one of my agents were caught in an act of espionage within that country, the repercussions would be severe. Are you clear on that, too?”

  “Not exactly. Are you saying that the key is not to get caught?”

  “Sandor . . .”

  “I understand.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “I’m entitled to some leave. I was planning to take a week, if that’s all right.”

  “That’s fine, you really should take some time. You’ve certainly earned that.” As Sandor stood, the DD added, “But mark my words. You head off on some escapade of your own and I promise you, none of the good you’ve done will stop me from turning your world upside down. You read me?”

  “Completely,” Sandor said again, then turned and was gone.

  ————

  Bergenn and Raabe had been on the mission in North Korea with Sandor and they shared his views of Adina. When Sandor invited them for drinks that night and explained what he had in mind, there was no need to ask twice if they wanted in.

  “You should know that Byrnes warned me off any nonsanctioned activities.”