Goliath by Steve Alten Read Free Book Online Page A

Raby at a death-defying speed, intent on saving his friend’s life or dying in the process.
    Plunging through rain that felt like thousands of stinging bees, Gunnar adjusted his trajectory, aiming for that speck in the lead gray distance he prayed was his friend. At 9,000 feet, the tumbling object became the unconscious commando. At 3,500 feet, Gunnar reached out and caught the man, then fumbled as he attempted to pull the cut-away handle that would disconnect Raby’s main chute. As the main chute released, the drag pulled the pin on the reserve chute.
    Gunnar fell away, pulling his own rip cord as Raby’s canopy blossomed open—a mere 650 feet from the ground. Moments later, the two student commandos found themselves knee deep in mud on a pig farm, two miles east of the drop zone.
    Hooah.
    Gunnar’s high-speed heroics not only saved Raby’s life, but forever bonded him to Colonel Jackson. He was the type of warrior Jackson wanted under his command. Brave. Compassionate. Patriotic. A true leader.
    In other words, everything the Bear had always wanted in a son.
    Under Jackson’s watchful eye, First Lieutenant Gunnar Wolfe was assigned to lead Second Platoon, Charlie Company, the First Ranger Battalion’s top company. Here he learned the art of demolitions and explosives, as well as advanced hand-to-hand combat.
    Two years with First Battalion was followed by the Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) course. Another six months spent completing Q (Qualification) Course at Fort Bragg, immersed in guerrilla-warfare training. Four months later, the Bear had him, on orders, transferred to SCUBA School in Key West, Florida, where he learned the art of military SCUBA diving. Then it was on to Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL (BUDS), to go through formal SEAL training.
    “ What is it you want, Wolfe ? ”
    “ Sir, I want to do whatever it takes to protect my country and her interests abroad .”

    It soon became obvious to all that Colonel Jackson was grooming his young protégé to be the ultimate soldier—the ultimate killing machine.
    A broken ankle forced the Bear’s “cub” to take a much-deserved leave. Laid up in Key West, the former engineering major resumed work on a design for a remote submersible he had toyed with at Penn State, a fast, stealthy two-man vessel that could be used to transport SEALS deep behind enemy lines. Computer tests on Gunnar’s designs impressed his superiors. Patterned after the contours of a hammerhead shark, the vessel was not only “theoretically” capable of advanced maneuvers, but speed to boot.
    The schematics eventually found their way to the Navy’s Warfare Division in Keyport, Washington.
    After nearly a year away from Special Ops, Gunnar returned to active duty. When the Gulf War broke out a few weeks later, Detachment Commander Wolfe found himself on board a transport plane with the rest of his twelveman infiltration unit, bound for Kuwait.
    The next seven years would be a blur. Mission after covert mission, his muscles twitching with adrenaline, his gut tightening in fear as he unleashed a calculated highly trained fury upon the enemies of his country.
    Military dictatorships. Guerrilla forces. Cause-intoxicated rebels.
    Gunnar was the consummate Army fighting machine, a trigger man for the long arm of the law—the United States military.
    Join the Army. See the world. Protect democracy.
    And Gunnar saw everything. Violence and hatred. Greed and corruption. Famine and pestilence. Bloody conflicts entangled with so much history, so much death, that right and wrong, good and evil no longer existed, only greed and hatred commanded the politics of the moment.
    Gunnar might have been a well-trained fighting machine, but he was still an American soldier, and American soldiers live by a creed.
    Soldiers fight to make a difference.
    Soldiers kill bad guys.
    Soldiers do not kill children.
    After seven years of violence, the Army’s most capable stallion finally bucked