For the first time ever, Tom Clancy's greatest characters come together in one electrifying thriller.
For years, Jack Ryan, Jr., and his colleagues at the Campus have waged an unofficial and highly effective campaign against the terrorists who threaten Western civilization. The most dangerous of these is the Emir. This sadistic killer has masterminded the most vicious attacks on the West and has eluded capture by the world's law enforcement agencies.
Now the Campus is on his trail. Joined by their latest recruits, John Clark and Ding Chavez, Jack Ryan, Jr., and his cousins, Dominick and Brian Caruso, are determined to catch the Emir, and they will bring him in . . . dead or alive.
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Praise for Dead or Alive
"Heart-stopping action...entertaining and eminently topical."-The Washington Post
"The best characters from all of Clancy's previous novels are on the case....For fans of the genre, Dead or Alive is likely to provide a long weekend's pleasure."-Los Angeles Times
"Clancy is back at the top of his game...In-depth research, continuous suspense, and scores of fascinating characters."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
More Praise for Tom Clancy
"He constantly taps the current world situation for its imminent dangers and spins them into an engrossing tale."-The New York Times Book Review
"A brilliant describer of events."-The Washington Post
"No one can equal his talent for making military electronics and engineering intelligible and exciting...He remains the best!"-Houston Chronicle
A little more than thirty years ago Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore's Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October-the first of the phenomenally successful Jack Ryan novels-sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it "the perfect yarn." From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.
Grant Blackwood, a U.S. Navy veteran, spent three years aboard a guided missile frigate as operations specialist and pilot rescue swimmer. He is coauthor, with Clive Cussler, of the New York Times bestsellers Spartan Gold and Lost Empire. He is also the author of the Briggs Tanner series-The End of Enemies, The Wall of Night, and An Echo of War. He lives in Colorado.
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LIGHT TROOPS-Eleven-Bravo light infantrymen, according to the United States Army's MOS (military occupational specialty) system-are supposed to be "pretty" spit-and-polish troops with spotless uniforms and clean-shaven faces, but First Sergeant Sam Driscoll wasn't one of those anymore, and hadn't been for some time. The concept of camouflage often involved more than patterned BDUs. No, wait, they weren't called that anymore, were they? Now they were called "Army combat uniforms," ACUs. Same, same.
Driscoll's beard was fully four inches long, with enough flecks of white in it that his men had taken to calling him Santa-rather annoying to a man hardly thirty-six years old, but when most of your compatriots were an average of ten years younger than you . . . Oh, well. Could be worse. Could be "Pops" or "Gramps."
He was even more annoyed to have long hair. It was dark and shaggy and greasy, and his beard coarse, which was useful here, where the facial hair was important to his cover and the local people rarely bothered with haircuts. His dress was entirely local in character, and this was true of his team as well. There were fifteen of them. Their company commander, a captain, was down with a broken leg from a misstep-which was all it took to sideline you in this terrain-sitting on a hilltop and waiting for the Chinook to evac him, along with one of the team's two medics who'd stayed behind to make sure he didn't go into shock. That left Driscoll in command for the mission. He didn't mind. He had more time in the field than Captain Wilson had, though the captain had a college degree, and Driscoll didn't have his yet. One thing at a time. He had to survive this deployment still, and after that he could go back to his classes at the University of Georgia. Funny, he thought, that it had taken him nearly three decades to start enjoying school. Well, hell, better late than never, he supposed.
He was tired, the kind of mind-numbing, bone-grinding fatigue Rangers knew only too well. He knew how to sleep like a dog on a granite block with only a rifle stock for a pillow, knew how to stay alert when his brain and body were screaming at him to lie down. Problem was, now that he was closer to forty than thirty, he felt the aches and pains a little more than he had when he was twenty, and it took twice as long to work out the kinks in the morning. Then again, those aches were offset by wisdom and experience. He'd learned over the years that despite it being a cliché, it was in fact mind over matter. He'd learned to largely block out pain, which was a handy skill when you were leading much younger men whose packs undoubtedly felt much lighter on their shoulders than Driscoll's did on his own. Life, he decided, was all about trade-offs.
They'd been in the hills for two days, all of it on the move, sleeping two to three hours a night. He was part of the Special Operations team of the 75th Ranger Regiment, based permanently at Fort Benning, Georgia, where there was a nice NCO club with good beer on tap. By closing his eyes and concentrating, he imagined he could still taste the cold beer, but that moment passed quickly. He had to focus here, every second. They were fifteen thousand feet above sea level, in the Hindu Kush mountains, in that gray zone that was both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and neither-at least to the locals. Lines on maps didn't make borders, Driscoll knew, especially in Indian country like this. He'd check his GPS equipment to be sure of his position, but latitude and longitude really didn't matter to his mission. What mattered was where they were headed, regardless of where it fell on the map.
The local population knew little about borders, and didn't especially care. For them reality was which tribe you were in, which family you were a part of, and which flavor of Muslim you were. Here memories lasted a hundred years, and the stories even longer. And grudges even longer than that. The locals still boasted t
Über den Autor
A little more than thirty years ago Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore's Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October-the first of the phenomenally successful Jack Ryan novels-sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it "the perfect yarn." From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.
Grant Blackwood, a U.S. Navy veteran, spent three years aboard a guided missile frigate as operations specialist and pilot rescue swimmer. He is coauthor, with Clive Cussler, of the New York Times bestsellers Spartan Gold and Lost Empire. He is also the author of the Briggs Tanner series-The End of Enemies, The Wall of Night, and An Echo of War. He lives in Colorado.
Klappentext
For the first time ever, Tom Clancy's greatest characters come together in one electrifying thriller.
For years, Jack Ryan, Jr., and his colleagues at the Campus have waged an unofficial and highly effective campaign against the terrorists who threaten Western civilization. The most dangerous of these is the Emir. This sadistic killer has masterminded the most vicious attacks on the West and has eluded capture by the world's law enforcement agencies.
Now the Campus is on his trail. Joined by their latest recruits, John Clark and Ding Chavez, Jack Ryan, Jr., and his cousins, Dominick and Brian Caruso, are determined to catch the Emir, and they will bring him in . . . dead or alive.
Watch a Video
