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  Kill Chain

  A Delta Force Unleashed Thriller

  by

  J. Robert Kennedy

  From the Back Cover

  “One of the best writers today.” (Johnny Olsen)

  “A master storyteller.” (Betty Richard)

  WILL A DESPERATE PRESIDENT RISK WAR TO SAVE HIS ONLY CHILD?

  J. Robert Kennedy, author of the USA Today Bestseller The Templar’s Relic (#1 overall on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo), delivers another irresistible pulse-pounding, action-packed thriller with Kill Chain. If you love your stories filled with intrigue, suspense, a healthy dose of humor and a touch of romance, then prepare to lose sleep with this chilling torn from the headlines adventure the likes of which only Kennedy can deliver. With over 500,000 books in circulation and over 3000 Five-Star reviews, it’s time to join those who have compared him to Patterson, Clancy, Brown, Cussler and Rollins.

  In Seoul, South Korea, the daughter of the President of the United States disappears aboard an automated bus carrying the spouses of the world’s most powerful nations, hacked by an unknown enemy with an unknown agenda. In order to save all that remains of his family, the widower president unleashes America’s elite Delta Force to save his daughter, yet the more they learn, the more the mystery deepens, witness upon witness declaring with certainty they never saw any kidnappers.

  Only drones.

  It’s a race against time to prevent all-out war between North and South Korea, and save the lives of the innocents aboard the bus, forcing the President to make decisions not in the best interest of his country and the world, but for the last remaining member of his family—his teenage daughter.

  About J. Robert Kennedy

  With over 500,000 books in circulation and over 3000 five-star reviews, USA Today bestselling author J. Robert Kennedy has been ranked by Amazon as the #1 Bestselling Action Adventure novelist based upon combined sales. He is the author of over twenty-five international bestsellers including the smash hit James Acton Thrillers. He lives with his wife and daughter and writes full-time.

  "A master storyteller." — Betty Richard

  "A writer who tells what we are thinking but sometimes afraid to say." — Bruce Ford

  "Kennedy kicks ass in this genre." — David Mavity

  "One of the best writers today." — Johnny Olsen

  "If you want fast and furious, if you can cope with a high body count, most of all if you like to be hugely entertained, then you can't do much better than J Robert Kennedy." — Amazon Vine Voice Reviewer

  Get 5 Free eBooks!

  Get the J. Robert Kennedy Starter Library by joining The Insider's Club and be notified when new books are released!

  Find out more at www.jrobertkennedy.com.

  Books by J. Robert Kennedy

  The James Acton Thrillers

  The Protocol

  Brass Monkey

  Broken Dove

  The Templar's Relic

  Flags of Sin

  The Arab Fall

  The Circle of Eight

  The Venice Code

  Pompeii's Ghosts

  Amazon Burning

  The Riddle

  Blood Relics

  Sins of the Titanic

  Saint Peter's Soldiers

  The Thirteenth Legion

  Raging Sun

  The Special Agent Dylan Kane Thrillers

  Rogue Operator

  Containment Failure

  Cold Warriors

  Death to America

  Black Widow

  The Delta Force Unleashed Thrillers

  Payback

  Infidels

  The Lazarus Moment

  Kill Chain

  The Detective Shakespeare Mysteries

  Depraved Difference

  Tick Tock

  The Redeemer

  Zander Varga, Vampire Detective Series

  The Turned

  Table of Contents

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  Table of Contents

  Beginning

  Author's Note

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  71

  72

  73

  74

  75

  76

  77

  78

  79

  80

  81

  82

  83

  84

  85

  86

  87

  88

  89

  90

  91

  92

  93

  94

  95

  96

  97

  98

  99

  100

  101

  102

  Acknowledgements

  Don't Miss Out!

  Thank You!

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  For Serge Rivard, a good friend gone, but not forgotten.

  Repose en paix, mon ami.

  “We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion—guilt-free at last!”

  Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Catalogue

  “If the U.S. imperialists threaten our sovereignty and survival...our troops will fire our nuclear-armed rockets at the White House and the Pentagon—the sources of all evil.”

  Hwang Pyong-So, Director of the General Political Bureau, Democratic People's Republic of Korea

  Department of Defense Definition of Kill Chain

  A military concept related to the structure of an attack; consisting of target identification, force dispatch to target, decision and order to attack the target, and finally the destruction of the target. Conversely, the idea of “breaking” an opponent’s kill chain is a method of defense or preemptive action.

  Author's Note

  All of the technologies described in this novel exist today, and most are available to the general public.

  1

  Bonggyo Industrial Bakery

  Seoul, Republic of Korea

  “That’s strange, we weren’t expecting any deliveries today.”

  Sujin signed the electronic pad, handing it back to the delivery driver.

  “Someone must be,” he said, waving the device.

  “But all deliveries go through me, and we’re not exp
ecting anything through your company.”

  The driver shrugged. “Well, they must not have told you because there’s no way you’d forget about something this big.”

  Sujin’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?” She rose from her chair and leaned over the counter, noticing for the first time that he hadn’t come in carrying or pushing anything. “Where’s the package?”

  The driver jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the door. “Outside. My partner is unloading it now.”

  As if on cue, there was a large thud, the entire room shaking. She rounded the reception desk and followed the driver to the door then gasped. “What is this?” Her eyes were wide with shock as she shoved through the door and rushed down the few steps to the parking lot. A massive shipping container now occupied at least a dozen spots, the truck that had delivered it idling in front.

  “Have a good day!” The driver jogged over to the truck and climbed up into the cab, immediately putting it in gear.

  “Wait! This can’t be for us! We’re a bakery!” The driver waved and began pulling away. She ran after him. “Stop! You’ve made a mistake!”

  He kept going but his window rolled down. “You signed for it so it’s yours now. Talk to the name on the invoice.”

  She came to a stop and bent over, hands on her knees as she gasped for breath, sampling the delicious baked goods they produced a too frequent habit. She turned her head, still struggling for air, and noticed some of the workers starting to empty out of the factory and stare at the container. She turned and walked back toward their unexpected delivery, staring at the massive chunk of metal now chewing up half their parking lot.

  She shook her head.

  It must be a mistake.

  She growled.

  And now I’m the one who has to fix it.

  The factory floor supervisor walked over to her, hands on his hips, staring at the monstrosity. “What’s this?”

  She threw her hands up. “No idea!”

  He nodded toward her hand. “What’s it say?”

  She stared at the forgotten shipping receipt gripped in her fist and her eyes narrowed, the owner’s name the recipient. “It says Mr. Yoo ordered it.”

  “Huh. You better call him.”

  “But he’s on vacation. He said not to disturb him unless we burnt the place down.”

  The supervisor motioned toward the container. “I think he’ll want to know about this.”

  She waved the paper. “According to this, he already does. He’s back on Monday. It can wait.”

  “You mean you’re not going to open it?”

  She stared at him for a moment then back at the container. “No, of course not.”

  He motioned at the invoice. “But doesn’t it say it’s perishable? You can’t leave it for four days. It might need to be refrigerated.”

  Sujin gripped her temples, massaging them as she squeezed her eyes shut. “I guess you’re right.”

  The supervisor held out his hand and someone tossed him a crowbar used for opening their expected shipments. He and two of the other men tapped out the locking pin and swung the doors open as she joined them.

  A buzzing sound started almost immediately.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

  “Bees!”

  The three men sprinted from the container as she backed away, she taught to remain calm around the insects.

  But it wasn’t bees.

  It didn’t sound right.

  Something moved inside the dark container and her heart leaped. The humming sound was extremely loud now, as if thousands of massive winged creatures had awakened and were ready to erupt from their prison.

  Something shot out toward her and she dropped to the ground, covering her head as the swarm emerged in a single mass, passing within inches of her shrinking form. She opened her eyes to see what was about to attack when she gasped.

  Drones!

  She slowly rose as hundreds if not thousands of serving tray-sized drones rushed past her then over their humble factory and out of sight, leaving everyone in stunned silence.

  What just happened!

  2

  Noksapyeong Road

  Seoul, Republic of Korea

  This is sooo boring!

  Nancy Starling leaned her head on the bus window, the gentle vibration comforting in this still strange new role thrust upon her over the past year. Her mother was dead, and her father still had a hard time letting her out of his sight, despite it a necessity most of the day. She had school, and he was busy being President of the United States. But now that she was old enough, and her mother was gone, she was his “plus one” whenever there was some affair of state that demanded his attendance.

  Like this week.

  A G20 conference in Seoul, South Korea.

  She liked seeing the world, though now that she had a boyfriend—a secret boyfriend—she’d rather be at home where she could at least see him at school. Instead, she was stuck on the bus with a couple of dozen people, mostly spouses of other world leaders and their translators, while one of their South Korean hosts droned on about the sights they were seeing as their fully automated bus took them on a tour.

  Her assistant, for lack of a better word, had been sent on ahead to finalize lunch arrangements with Nancy’s father, he sneaking out of the conference to spend some time with her. It meant she was unaccompanied at the moment, yet hardly alone. Though there were no American personnel on the bus, there were Korean security officers at the front, and there were two police vehicles escorting them with Secret Service agents in the back of both.

  Her assistant, Jenn, had been disappointed to miss out on experiencing the automated vehicle, but those were the breaks when juggling the schedule of the most powerful man in the world so he could dine with his only child. Nancy had been disappointed as well, she actually liking Jenn, though it had given her an opportunity for some surreptitious texting that would have been otherwise impossible under the woman’s watchful eye.

  A robot bus. That part’s cool.

  Her boyfriend, Jeff, had definitely been excited about it. He was a bit of an über dork when it came to technology, he and his friends creating some sort of hacker collective recently, inspired by Anonymous. They were harmless, she was sure, otherwise the Secret Service that seemed to vet every part of her life would have had him transferred to another school. But it did make him a bit of a rebel, someone with a slightly shady side that she found oddly compelling.

  And keeping the relationship secret from her dad made the whole thing even more exciting.

  Though she did hate lying to him.

  It’s not lying if you don’t say anything.

  And she didn’t tell him anything about Jeff. He was the one thing in her life that she felt was her own. At school, the kids now seemed used to who she was, and pretty much treated her like everyone else, except for the fact she was never invited anywhere. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been to a birthday party, the security screening necessary just so much of a hassle for everyone else, that after the first time, no other family had been willing to go through it.

  She closed her eyes, gripping her phone, waiting for it to vibrate with another message from the only person she could talk to on the entire planet. She used to tell her dad everything, though after her mom died, that had all stopped. He had his own problems. He had the world’s problems. He wasn’t over her mother’s death, and with his job, he had never really been given the time to mourn in private. Their family’s grief had played out for the world to see, the state funeral after the events in Mozambique large, emotional and completely impersonal.

  When they had gone home, to the privacy of the West Wing, they had cried in each other’s arms for what felt like hours.

  Then barely spoke of it again.

  I miss you, Mom!

  Her memories of that time flooded back and she felt her body tense. The plane crash, the gunmen, her mother’s suffering.

  And the cute Asian D
elta Force guy.

  Niner!

  She felt her stomach flip for a moment.

  Sooo cute!

  She smiled.

  And funny!

  He and the others had saved their lives that day, but no one could have saved her mother. She realized that now, though there was still plenty of blame she could toss around. Her mother died because of what happened in the air, not on the ground.

  She opened her eyes and stared out the window.

  Mom would have loved this.

  Her mother had been fascinated by all things Asian, loving the trips to China and Japan, South Korea on her “bucket list”, whatever that was. Jeff said it was a list of the things you wanted to do before you died. It sounded morbid to her, though maybe when you were old like her parents, those types of things were considered normal. She wondered what else was on her mother’s bucket list that she had never had the chance to complete. She wished there actually was a list, a real list, written down somewhere, that she could try to complete for her. She believed in Heaven, that her mother was watching over her, that someday she’d see her again, and if she could see and do the things her mother had wanted to do, then that would mean her mother was also experiencing those things.

  She sighed and stared at the front of the bus. A tastefully dressed Korean woman was standing there, describing in English what they were passing, several translators quietly doing their jobs, most of the dignitaries already speaking English fluently.

  The only men on the bus were two Korean security personnel seated at the front, and the German Chancellor’s husband, a man her mother probably would have described as “charming”, though she wasn’t entirely clear on what that word actually meant. When she thought of someone as “charming”, she thought of someone who was trying to get in your pants.

  Ewww!

  She glanced over at him, listening attentively to the tour, he not requiring a translator, his English flawless with an interesting accent.

  He is nice.

  He had been particularly excited about the driverless aspect of their bus, it a prototype showing off the Korean’s technical prowess. He seemed as excited as Jeff had been when he found out. Apparently, the vehicle was bristling with sensors and computers that could react to any type of situation. Her dad’s security people had been hesitant about letting her on board, it only allowed when they promised to keep the bus under thirty.