Kill Chain by J Robert Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page A

but it didn’t matter. The President’s kids went to this
school.
    End of discussion.
    And with social media not
at her disposal, she had lost touch with most of them.
    Though as time passed,
she made new friends, Jeff the highlight. When he had arrived several months
ago, she had decided to be ambassadorial and welcome him into the group.
    They were almost
inseparable since.
    At least inside the
school walls.
    He was a secret, there no
contact outside of the school beyond their messaging, no chance of photographs
by the Secret Service or the paparazzi, little sign of affection even among
friends, just in case someone violated the school’s policy against cellphones.
    They couldn’t risk it.
    If her father found out,
he’d have the Secret Service crawling up poor Jeff’s business like there was no
tomorrow.
    And if that didn’t scare
him off, her dad would probably find some way to have him transferred, he
ridiculously overprotective since her mother’s death.
    She didn’t blame him.
    She was all he had left.
    He was all she had left.
    She closed her eyes for a
moment.
    I miss you, Mom!
    The drone got even
closer, snapping her out of her reverie, her eyes wide now as she stared at the
barrel six inches from her head. She stepped forward, eyeing the other drones,
it now immediately obvious to her that they all had weapons attached to them.
    How did I miss that?
    The Chinese woman must
have figured that out, which was why she was shooting the drones. It hadn’t
occurred to Nancy that her actions hadn’t made much sense. Why shoot drones?
Shoot the shooters who lay in the darkness.
    Yet that hadn’t been what
was going on at all, and their heroine had realized that. If she had been able
to take out the drones, there would have been no one to shoot them.
    But she had failed, there
simply too many.
    She moved forward,
feeling slightly better for some reason, perhaps the thought that there was
probably no one lurking in the shadows, waiting to reach out and grab her, providing
a slight amount of comfort. Enough comfort that she covered the remaining
distance quickly, climbing the ramp into the back of the truck.
    “Please take a seat,
Miss Starling.”
    She flinched, stepping
back before she realized it was another speaker, the electronically altered voice
still creeping her out, though probably less than if a real, live human was
standing in the darkness.
    She blinked rapidly, her
eyes adjusting enough for her to see benches lining the long walls of the
truck.
    She sat and closed her
eyes, wondering who she would choose if she were given the choice of one person
to be with her here, now, in the middle of all this.
    Would it be Jeff? Her
father?
    She smiled.
    Niner.
    She pictured the handsome
Delta Force operator who had helped save her life in Mozambique, her heart
fluttering slightly at the thought, her cheeks flushing.
    If only he were
here…
     
     

16

    Embassy
of the United States Seoul
32
Sejongno Street, Seoul, Republic of Korea
     
    “Any
progress?”
    President Starling could
tell by the Delta operator’s face that if there was news, there wasn’t any that
was good.
    “I wouldn’t characterize
it as progress, sir, however we do have a theory.”
    Starling leaned back in
his chair, his eyes narrowed slightly as the operator, who he had heard called ‘Red’
in the jungles of Mozambique, continued.
    “We’ve confirmed
eyewitness accounts that suggest the escort vehicles drove intentionally into
the fuel truck. Langley thinks they might have been hacked.”
    Starling’s eyebrows shot
up. “Hacked? Is that even possible?”
    “Yes, sir. A lot of new
cars today have Internet access built in, and if the firewalls aren’t properly
configured, the car’s computers can be hijacked, and with pretty much
everything drive-by-wire now, that means full control in some cases.”
    Starling shook his head,
remembering the briefing he had received after the nightly news demonstrated just
such a hacking.