Raven Strike by Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice Read Free Book Online

they’re doing,” Reid told her. “I have no facts. I know exactly what you’re thinking, but they’ve put up barriers, and I can’t just simply whisk them away with a wave of my hand.”
    “We need to know exactly what’s going on,” Breanna told him.
    “Beyond what we already know? Why? We have to recover the UAV. It’s already been located.”
    “What we don’t know may bite us.”
    “Granted.”
    “God, Jonathon, you’ve got to press them for more information.”
    “I have.”
    “Then I will.”
    “I don’t know that that will work,” said Reid. “I have a call in to the director. I am trying.”
    Reid could already guess what Herm Edmund was going to say—this is on a need to know basis, and you don’t need to know.
    “Jonathon, I’ve always been up front with you,” said Breanna.
    “And I’m being up front with you. It’s a UAV, it’s obviously an assassination program, though they’re not even saying that. Not to me, anyway.”
    “If one of our people gets hurt because of something we should have known—”
    “I feel exactly the same way.”
    The window folded in on itself abruptly. Breanna had killed the transmission.
    Reid sat back in his chair. One of the rock bed requirements of being a good CIA officer was that you stopped asking questions at a certain point. You stopped probing for information when it became clear you were not entitled to that information. Because knowing it might in fact endanger an operation, and the Agency.
    On the other hand . . .
    “Computer, show me the personnel file for Reginald Harker,” said Reid. “Same with Melissa Ilse. Unrestricted authorization Jonathon Reid. Access all databases and perform a cross-Agency search for those individuals, and all references to Raven. Discover related operations and references, with a confidence value of ten percent or above.”
    “Working,” replied the computer.

Chapter 15
    Southeastern Sudan
    M elissa rolled in the dirt as the motorbike flew out from under her. She threw her arms up, trying to protect her face as the rear wheel spun toward her. A storm of pebbles splattered against her hands as the wheel caught in a rut; the bike tumbled back in the other direction.
    Her shoulder hit a boulder at the side of the ditch. Her arm jolted from its socket and an intense wave of pain enveloped her body. Her head seemed to swim away from her.
    My shoulder, she thought. Dislocated. Something torn.
    I need the gun.
    Get the gun.
    Melissa pushed herself to her belly. Her eyes closed tight with the pain.
    For a moment she thought she was still wearing the night goggles, and feared that the glass had embedded in her eyes, that she was blind. She reached with her left hand to pull them off, then realized she hadn’t had them on.
    There was dirt in her eyes, but she could see.
    Get the gun!
    Her right arm hung off her body as she pushed herself to her knees. The bike was a few yards away, on the other side of the road. But where was her gun?
    Melissa crawled onto the hard-packed dirt road, looking for the MP-5, then shifted her weight to rise to her knees. The pain seemed to weigh a hundred pounds, throwing off her balance.
    Another wave of dizziness hit her as she got to her feet.
    The gun! The gun!
    Melissa turned back in the direction she’d taken. She started to trot, then saw a black object just off the shoulder on her left. After a few steps she realized it was just a shadow in the rocks. She stopped, turned to the right, and saw the gun lying in the middle of the road.
    “T he motorcycle has stopped following us,” the driver told Li Han.
    Li Han twisted in the seat, looking behind them. The men in the back were clutching onto the wrecked aircraft, holding on for dear life as the truck flew over the washboard road.
    One of the men leaned over the cab and yelled at the driver through his window.
    “They fired at us,” said the driver. “One of our men is hurt.”
    “How many were there?” asked Li