Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5), George Wallace [100 books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

Arabian Storm

Wallace and Keith

ARABIAN STORM

Copyright © 2020 by George Wallace and Don Keith.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Severn River Publishing

www.SevernRiverPublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-64875-903-1 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-64875-906-2 (Hardback)

Contents

Also by Wallace and Keith

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

Epilogue

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About the Authors

Also by Wallace and Keith

The Hunter Killer Series

Final Bearing

Dangerous Grounds

Cuban Deep

Fast Attack

Arabian Storm

Warshot

Hunter Killer

By George Wallace

Operation Golden Dawn

By Don Keith

In the Course of Duty

Final Patrol

War Beneath the Waves

Undersea Warrior

The Ship that Wouldn't Die

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Our world is a dangerous place. It always has been, but with today’s technology, the potential for killing people and blowing up stuff is greater than ever before. As we have seen, a limited number of madmen or an alliance of nations with ill intent can indelibly and in a deadly manner change the course of history while claiming innocent lives. That is why we should be so very thankful for the men and women within freedom-maintaining intelligence agencies around the world who work so hard to keep track of those rogue groups and countries. And especially for members of the military that remain strong, well-trained, and vigilant, determined to do what is necessary on our behalf to preserve peace.

We would like to dedicate this book and the others in the series to those people, most of whom get no medals or parades, but whose work is by far the strongest deterrent against bad actors around the planet.

Don would also like to dedicate this book to his wife, Charlene, their three children, and a growing brood of grandkids, all of whose future is far safer and more secure, thanks to the Tom Donnegans, Joe Glasses, Jim Wards, TJ Dillons, and Bill Beamans who are really out there.

And George would like to also dedicate this book to his wife, Penny, their two daughters, sons-in-law, and grandson.

Prologue

Norman Rothbert held his arms against his chest and blew into his closed hands. God, it was cold! Even in the middle of summer, the temperature at this altitude was bitterly, bitingly frigid. His fashionable camel hair topcoat, perfect for a Manhattan winter stroll, seemed tissue-paper thin in the brittle wind that hurled shards of ice and snow against his cheeks.

The banker consciously labored to suck air into his lungs. At just over fourteen thousand feet up, this godforsaken village would be more than twice as high above sea level as Rothbert’s chalet in Aspen. And, of course, far more elevated than his Upper West Side townhouse in New York City, even if it was the penthouse of a sixty-five-floor luxury high-rise. The high peaks of the Hindu Kush range towered over them, soaring up into the clouds, overshadowing the cluster of mud and stone hovels that made up the rude village and the helicopter that had delivered him.

Rothbert’s first thought was to climb back into the aircraft and instruct the pilot to go right on back to Islamabad or wherever the closest international airport might be. But before he could, the local guide roughly pulled him away from the chopper toward an ancient, rusty, dented Toyota pickup truck.

The helicopter immediately lifted off, laboring to find enough air, then disappeared back into the mist down the mountain valley.

With the helicopter gone, there was no choice. Far more accustomed to stepping around the flotsam on New York City sidewalks than avoiding piles of yak manure, Rothbert carefully followed the guide to the truck, once again questioning his decision to respond to the request that had brought him to the very end of the Earth. To a spot his research staff confirmed showed as a black, empty hole at night from space, even if the place was not all that far from some of the planet’s most densely populated territory. To an area that included many of the world’s highest mountain peaks and a most inhospitable climate. To an area ravaged for centuries by war, and much too near for comfort to places where modern warfare raged at that very moment.

But Norman Rothbert already knew why he had not followed his instincts. Declining the invitation was never an option.

The summons had come secretly but directly from Shaikh Babar Khalid, better known in the press as Nabiin, the Prophet, a figure who hid very far in the background but wielded immense power. The Prophet’s reach extended as easily to the very highest levels of finance as it did into the depths of Islamic terrorism. But no one had ever seen the Prophet. His picture had never appeared on the nightly news. The man was an enigma, largely relegated to myth status. No one knew for sure that he truly existed, much less where he might be hiding.

The very day he received the cryptic summons, Rothbert ordered his team to learn all they could about the man, his home, his business interests. Dealings with Starling-Rothbert as well as with others. Within minutes, a cryptic text from a telephone number in Switzerland ordered, “Do not delve any further into my affairs.