Silent Assassin Read online

  Praise for the New Thriller Master Leo J. Maloney

  “From the bloody, ripped-from-the-headlines opening sequence, Silent Assassin grabs you and doesn’t let go. Silent Assassin has everything a thriller reader wants—nasty villains, twists and turns, and a hero, Cobra, who just plain kicks ass.”

  —Ben Coes, national bestselling author of The Last Refuge

  “Silent Assassin is a terrifyingly thrilling story of a man on a clandestine mission to save us all from a madman hellbent on murder, written by a man who knows that world all too well.”

  —Michele McPhee, award-winning author of A Mob Story

  “Leo J. Maloney is the new voice to be reckoned with. Every word of Termination Orders rings with the authenticity that can only come from an insider. This is one outstanding thriller!”

  —John Gilstrap, New York Times bestselling author of Damage Control

  “Taut, tense and terrifying! You’ll cross your fingers it’s fiction—in this high-powered action-packed thriller, Leo Maloney proves he clearly knows his stuff.”

  —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity winning author

  “A new must-read action thriller that features a double-crossing CIA and Congress, vengeful foreign agents, a corporate drug ring, the Taliban, and narco-terrorists . . . a you-are-there account of torture, assassination, and double-agents, where ‘nothing is as it seems.’ ”

  —Jon Renaud, author of Dereliction of Duty

  “Leo J. Maloney is a real-life Jason Bourne.”

  —Josh Zwylen, Wicked Local Stoneham

  “A masterly blend of Black Ops intrigue, cleverly interwoven with imaginative sequences of fiction.

  The reader must guess which accounts are real and which are merely storytelling.”

  —Chris Treece, The Chris Treece Show

  “A deep ops story presented in an epic style that takes fact mixed with a bit of fiction to create a spy thriller that takes the reader deep into secret spy missions.”

  —Cy Hilterman, Best Sellers World

  “For fans of spy thrillers seeking a bit of realism mixed into their novels, Termination Orders will prove to be an excellent and recommended pick.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  ALSO BY LEO J. MALONEY

  Termination Orders

  SILENT ASSASSIN

  LEO J. MALONEY

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for the New Thriller Master Leo J. Maloney

  ALSO BY LEO J. MALONEY

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  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

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  This book is dedicated to all the brave men and women who serve in the armed forces and put their lives on the line, with many making the ultimate sacrifice so that we have the freedoms we enjoy.

  I also dedicate this book to my parents, Leo and Marguerite Maloney, who encouraged me to trust my instincts and supported all my decisions as a young adult. I miss you every day.

  PROLOGUE

  Paris, December 14

  At 8:22, the train headed toward La Défense began pulling in to the platform at the bustling Metro station of Châtelet-Les Halles, located right in the heart of old Paris. Bright fluorescent lights illuminated the white-tiled arch of the tunnel and the throng of people who stood waiting, windswept in the air displaced by the incoming train. The crowd, typical of the French capital, was a heterogeneous mixture of races and cultures: along with the European-descended Parisians were descendants of Algerian immigrants, dark-skinned sub-Saharan Africans in colorful flowing garb, Japanese businessmen in fussed-over grey suits and young Scandinavians, coming in red-faced from the cold, wearing oversized backpacks on their backs. As the passengers on the platform heard the whine of the approaching train, they crowded in close to the edge, and those who’d had the good fortune of finding seats against the subway walls had already stood up to board.

  At 8:22, Auguste Lefevre, sleep-deprived, running late for work with a vomit stain on his shirt courtesy of his three-month-old and his suit jacket hanging from his bent arm, stumbled on to the platform, relieved at the first break he had caught that day by making this train.

  At 8:22, on the first car of the train, Maureen Lipton wrangled a map of Paris on her husband Hal’s back, looking for the way to Rue Montorgueil as their red-haired ten-year-old Adam griped about being out of bed so early. They all had to grab the railing abruptly in order to keep from tumbling down as the train started to brake.

  At 8:22, Henri, the sixty-six-year-old busker with wild grey hair and bulldog jowls fingered his accordion as he called out huskily to the young women who passed by, smiling at them with only half a mouthful of teeth.

  And then, at 8:23, all hell broke loose.

  The first bomb went off as soon as the train came to a standstill. It exploded at the far end of the platform, so that it was impossible to tell whether it had come with the train or been there all along. The scene after that was pandemonium. Deafening alarms went off, and then the sprinklers. The stampede began toward the far end of the platform, away from the smoldering metal on the train, the blackened floor, the seared flesh. In the train, people frantically banged against the unopened doors and scuttled toward the far end as smoke wafted from the first car down.

  At that moment, the second bomb went off. It had been placed near the back end of the train, close to the platform stairs, and caught the crowd as they attempted to leave. Inchoate screams pierced the chaos—of terror, of pain, of grief, calling out for a missing child or parent or friend, and lone heroes doing what they could to shield the wounded or otherwise helpless from the human tide. The doors of the train wrenched open; people began to funnel out. The distant wail of sirens drew closer.

  After a few minutes, the scene had practically cleared. What was left, under the drizzle of the sprinklers, were t
he train, both ends charred; the bodies of those who had been claimed by the explosions or trampled underfoot; and those who could not bear to leave their loved ones behind and cried desperately, holding their bodies. Just as inert as the dead was an accordion, bent and smashed, with half its keys broken off and scattered on the platform floor.

  The bomb squad arrived first on the scene, six men in full protective gear, who analyzed the premises for any active threats. Once they had cleared the platform, it was mere minutes until it was swarming with police, fire, and ambulance personnel. They removed the survivors first, in a mad rush to reach the hospital before they expired, and then removed from the scene those who had lingered behind. Some forensic experts photographed the scene while others analyzed the blast sites and still others scoured the floor for evidence.

  This was the scene that Bernard Chaput, from the terrorism department at the Direction Centrale du Ren-seignement Intérieur, the French intelligence agency, saw when he arrived at the train station. He surveyed the damage with horror, treading carefully on his polished black dress shoes so as not to interfere with any evidence. He asked several of the men working there for their preliminary opinions. He first made a call to his boss at the DCRI, filling him in with the details. Then he made another to someone a continent away, across the ocean.

  CHAPTER 1

  Washington, D.C., December 14

  “So what have we got?”

  William Schroeder’s voice came across as tired, mechanical and unceremonious. Philip Chapman—“Buck” to just about everyone who knew him—sat along with the rest of the Emergency Task Force in their conference room in the Pentagon, with its dark hardwood table, which was arrayed with telephones and Ethernet outlets and surrounded by ten chairs and blank monitors. The room was bare and sterile compared to Chapman’s situation room back at Langley, where he led a Crisis Response Team that he had personally handpicked. There, the walls were covered with clippings and photos forming complex diagrams, and boxes of takeout littered the floor, with none of the people on the team having had the time to stop and clean up in days. This was the kind of fancy, official room that Chapman had never gotten used to, where things were discussed but never done. Schroeder, who was a Section Chief at the DoD but was currently serving as Task Force Chair and Special Liaison to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, commanded the head of the table. Chapman, as the principal CIA representative at the table, was at his left. Populating the other chairs were representatives from various other government agencies, from the FBI to the NSA.

  Schroeder’s heavy brow was furrowed into a stony scowl, and he looked no one in the eye. His face was pale, with heavy, dark bags under his eyes, his shirt wrinkled and his collar undone. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, and all energy had been completely drained from him. Chapman could sympathize.

  “Death toll is at thirty-two at the moment,” said Chapman, relating what his contact in the French Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence had reported. “Three Americans among them. Tourists on vacation. A couple with their young son.”

  “Jesus,” said Schroeder. “I’ll let the Director of National Intelligence know. The President is going to want to mention them in his address to the nation. Do we have names for the family?”

  “I’ll find out and make sure to send that along to you,” said Chapman.

  Chapman’s exhaustion didn’t stem from the fact that he’d gotten pulled out of bed at 2:30 AM for this meeting; he was as used to being pulled out of bed at all hours as anyone who worked in foreign affairs. And it wasn’t his having to burn the midnight oil every night besides. No, it was the relentlessness of this crisis. Three months now since the first attack, since the New York – bound airplane had crashed in Atlanta, streaking across Interstate 20 minutes after taking off from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Everyone on board, a hundred and seven people, was dead, plus six more on the ground who had been in the path of the crash. Chapman remembered vividly where he had been, running on his treadmill and watching the morning news, when the announcement came. Along with probably most of the country, he had thought terrorists from the moment he’d heard about the disaster. After that, every hour that passed with no terrorist group taking credit for the attack was a relief. Horrible as it might have been, an accident was self-contained and its repercussions were limited. People would not have to live in fear of the next one. No wars would be launched because of mechanical failure. There was a cold comfort in that.

  But then came the early forensic reports. The pilots and most of the passengers had been dead by the time the plane hit the ground. Toxicology screens had found that they had been poisoned with mustard gas. Hidden canisters had been found near the plane’s air filters. They had begun releasing their deadly payload into the cabin just moments after takeoff.

  The Emergency Investigative Task Force, the group Chapman was sitting with right now, had been convened immediately. It had been bracing at first. Energizing. They had been full of righteous anger, and it was, in its own way, intoxicating. He remembered their first meeting. They had been ready—pumped even—to find the culprits and rain vengeance upon them. It was an energy that he brought back to his people at the CIA. But then, no one claimed responsibility. No indication that any of the usual suspects, domestic or foreign, had been involved. The chatter, of course, had recently escalated, and the anti-American message boards had been abuzz with activity. But intelligence agencies had been turning up nothing of value. Little by little, they ran out of places to look. Their intelligence resources exhausted themselves, and they were no closer to catching the culprits.

  It made no sense. Armchair psychoanalyzing aside, terrorists did what they did for a political purpose. The point was to make it public. Why create terror but not tell people why? What was the reason?

  Weeks after the crash, when they had been almost lulled into believing that the attack had been an isolated incident, perhaps a lone madman, it happened again. Three bombs in a coordinated attack in a trade fair in Barcelona this time. There was nothing to connect the two events, except the utter silence from the perpetrators. There were those who said they couldn’t possibly be related, that it had to be coincidence. And even Chapman had had his doubts. Until the bombs had gone off in the Port of Oslo.

  The process had been constant stress and frustration for them. Their energy and anger had quickly seeped out of them. The strain had ground them all down to a hard kernel, wearing away all courtesies and politeness and leaving behind only a grim determination to see the task through.

  And now another one. Christ.

  “Tell me we’ve got something on whoever is behind this Paris bombing,” Schroeder demanded of the room. He scanned the people present, and downcast eyes gave him his answer. Schroeder cast a glance, and Chapman followed his eyes, to NSA liaison Dick Browning.

  “Chatter’s through the roof, but we’ve still got no credible intel,” he said. “Our agency analysts are just sorting through it all at the moment. Lots of gloating and celebrating, but nothing actionable. I’ll be the first to tell once something of interest comes up.”

  “What about forensics?”

  “The French are playing this pretty close to the chest for now,” said Browning. “I think we’re going to have to wait—”

  “They’re still combing the site,” Chapman cut in. ”But preliminary reports aren’t promising. The Paris bomb squad experts said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the explosives, at least at first glance. The devices were expertly built, no amateur work, but beyond that, nothing much. Absolutely no materials that might turn your head and no signature details.”

  Schroeder cursed. “Nothing new then.”

  “We should wait for the full reports, but—”

  “Right,” said Schroeder. “We’ll manage our expectations on that. George, what’s your take?”

  That was George Stanley, the group’s expert consultant on terrorism—the egghead. He was a professor type, balding, with long hair and a twe
ed jacket with shoulder pads. He spoke softly, at a high register and with a slight stammer that was made worse by the tension of the moment.

  “W-well,” said Stanley, with as discouraging a tone as Schroeder had ever heard, “taking into account the p-precise location and nature of the attack—w-well, it fits no discernible pattern. At this juncture, there is nothing to tell us who might have done this.”

  Well, there had been claims, of course. After the dead silence following the Barcelona attack, fledgling anti-Western terrorist groups had tripped over one another to claim responsibility. Even a couple of the big ones had gotten in the game. And meanwhile, whoever was really behind this was sitting quietly in the shadows, playing the greatest intelligence community in the world for fools.

  “W-what remains is what we already knew,” continued Stanley. “The c-continued anonymity of the perpetrators tells us we’re not dealing with ordinary terrorists. Political terrorism hinges on the doers of the attack—and the m-motives behind it—being well publicized. All this mystery makes no sense at all, in that respect. The persistent silence after today’s attack tells us that this isn’t political, at least not in the ordinary sense. And with the g-goals still so obscure, we’re left knowing—”

  “Precisely nothing,” cut in Schroeder. “Great. Anyone got anything else they need to share?” No one moved to speak. “Goddammit,” he said, slamming his fist into the table. “We reconvene in three hours. Find me something. Anything. Just do your goddamned jobs and get us something to go on. Go. Go!”

  As they got up to leave, he said, “Buck, stay behind a minute. I gotta talk to you.”

  Chapman waited as the others shuffled out. When they were alone, Schroeder sat across from him and looked him straight in the eye. “I’ve got to talk to the Joint Chiefs, and I want your honest opinion. How likely are we to come up with anything actionable on this?”