Rogue Operator Read online

  From the Back Cover

  Three top secret research scientists are presumed dead in a boating accident, but the kidnapping of their families the same day raises questions the FBI and local police can’t answer, leaving them waiting for a ransom demand that will never come.

  Central Intelligence Agency Analyst Chris Leroux stumbles upon the story, and finds a phone conversation that was never supposed to happen. When he reports it to his boss, the National Clandestine Services Chief, he is uncharacteristically reprimanded for conducting an unauthorized investigation and told to leave it to the FBI.

  But he can’t let it go.

  For he knows something the FBI doesn’t.

  One of the scientists is alive.

  Chris makes a call to his childhood friend, CIA Special Agent Dylan Kane, leading to a race across the globe to stop a conspiracy reaching the highest levels of political and corporate America, that if not stopped, could lead to war with an enemy armed with a weapon far worse than anything in the American arsenal, with the potential to not only destroy the world, but consume it.

  J. Robert Kennedy, the author of ten international best sellers, including the smash hit James Acton Thrillers, introduces Rogue Operator, the first installment of his newest series, The Special Agent Dylan Kane Thrillers, promising to bring all of the action and intrigue of the James Acton Thrillers with a hero who lives below the radar, waiting for his country to call when it most desperately needs him.

  Praise for J. Robert Kennedy

  J. Robert Kennedy is the author of ten international best sellers, including the smash hit James Acton Thrillers series. The Protocol has been on the best seller list in the US and UK since its release, including occupying the number one spot for three months.

  "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

  Books by J. Robert Kennedy

  The James Acton Thrillers

  The Protocol

  Brass Monkey

  Broken Dove

  The Templar's Relic

  Flags of Sin

  The Special Agent Dylan Kane Thrillers

  Rogue Operator

  The Detective Shakespeare Mysteries

  Depraved Difference

  Tick Tock

  The Redeemer

  Zander Varga, Vampire Detective Series

  The Turned

  Rogue Operator

  A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller

  by

  J. Robert Kennedy

  Published Internationally by J. Robert Kennedy, Ottawa, ON Canada

  Copyright © 2013 J. Robert Kennedy

  Cover and Inside Artwork Copyright © 2013 J. Robert Kennedy

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher, J. Robert Kennedy, is an infringement of copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4

  For the 103.

  Rogue Operator

  A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller

  Table of Contents

  The Novel

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that one way or another.”

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Father of the Atomic Bomb

  Preface

  At the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a wall of white Vermont marble, called the Memorial Wall, honors CIA employees who died in the line of service. A star is carved into the marble for each of the employees who have died in the line of duty.

  The Book of Honor, a black Moroccan goatskin-bound tome, sits beneath the stars. Inside, when national security permits, it lists the names of those who are represented by the stars, along with the year they died.

  At the time of the writing of this novel, only 77 stars have a name. The rest remain secret. The first star belongs to Douglas Mackiernan. He died in 1950.

  His name wasn’t added to the Book of Honor until 2006.

  Currently, there are 103 stars.

  Echelon Intercept, Received Today

  Fort Meade, National Security Agency Headquarters

  [CLASSIFICATION TOP SECRET UMBRA GAMMA]

  [DICTIONARY HITS: NONE, NATSEC WIRE TAP AUTH XU11A43]

  [SOURCE ILC INTERNATIONAL LEASE CARRIER INTSAT-ALPHA]

  [CALL ORIGIN: INTSAT INTERCEPT, SOURCE UNKNOWN]

  [CALL DESTINATION: SEATTLE, WA, USA, LAND LINE 206-555-4178]

  [# OF SUBJECTS = 2]

  [SUBJECT IDENT: CALLER1 = PETERSON, JASON IDENT SRC = OPS AGT Q4421X]

  [SUBJECT IDENT: CALLER2 = PETERSON, KATHLEEN IDENT SRC = TELCO]

  [START OF TRANSCRIPT]

  [CALLER2] “Hello?”

  [CALLER1] “Hi, Mom, it’s me.”

  [CALLER2] “Jason?”

  [CALLER1] “Yes.”

  [CALLER2] “Oh my God, it’s so good to hear your voice. Where have you been, we’ve been so worried! I didn’t believe them for a second when they said you were dead!”

  [CALLER1] “I’m okay, Mom, don’t worry.”

  [CALLER2] “Are Maggie and the kids with you?”

  [CALLER1] “Yes. Everyone’s okay.”

  [CALLER2] “Where are you? We’ve been worried sick.”

  [CALLER1] “I can’t say.”

  [CALLER2] “What do you mean you can’t say?”

  [CALLER1] “I’m sorry, Mom, I have to go. Listen, I just wanted you to know we’re okay. Don’t worry about us.”

  [CALLER2] “I don’t understand. Why can’t—”

  [CALLER1] “I’m sorry, Mom, I’ve got to go. Say hi to Dad. And Mom?”

  [CALLER2] “What?”

  [CALLER1] “Tell them not to look for us.”

  [END OF TRANSCRIPT]

  Omega Bionetix Lab, Ogden, Utah

  Three months ago

  Jason Peterson stared at the screen, the magnification unimaginable to the lay person, but to him, mere routine. But today was anything but routine. Years of work were about to either pay off, or fizzle in yet another disappointing failure. His heart pounded in anticipation, and he tried to calm himself with deep, steady breaths.

  When he could think of it.

  It was just too exciting. He and his partners had devoted almost their entire professional lives to this research, bleeding edge by anyone’s standards, and had never been closer to succeeding than they were now. It had taken months just to set up the experiment, their new design requiring painstaking manipulation where just one wrong move, and there had been many, meant starting over.

  Hence the requirement for steady hands. And breathing.

  But today there were no hands involved. Today they had flipped the proverbial switch, and their experiment was on its own.

  “There!”

  He looked where his partner—and friend—Carl Shephard pointed.

  Could it be?

  He touched the monitor and dragged his finger, redirecting the microscope
to center on a new location.

  “Jesus Christ!” whispered Phil Hopkins. “It’s working.”

  And it was.

  And it was beautiful.

  The three simply stared, and when it was over, only thirteen seconds later, Jason felt tears running down his cheeks that had gone unnoticed.

  “We did it.”

  It was a statement, spoken sotto voce, to no one in particular, for it was obvious to the three scientists that their life’s work had finally borne fruit.

  “What’s going on?”

  It was Phil who verbalized what his eyes had noticed.

  The experiment hadn’t stopped.

  “What’s it doing?” Jason whispered, zooming in for an even deeper look.

  “The process didn’t stop,” said Carl, the fear in his voice palpable, as he rushed over to one of the workstations, furiously typing. “There must be a programming error!”

  Jason could feel his chest tighten as their experiment grew, exponentially, on screen. What was supposed to be a single replication, had now doubled, with a quadrupling already underway.

  He turned to see Carl poring over the code that had been used to configure the experiment, Phil at the terminal beside him, examining another section of the code.

  “There!” said Phil, pointing at his screen. They all gathered around to see a single line of code commented out with a simple ‘//’. A line of code that triggered the process to stop after it had completed, otherwise the process looped back to the top to replicate again.

  Jason felt faint and grabbed the back of Carl’s chair. “How the hell did that happen?” he asked, steadying himself, the implications of this one line of disabled code beginning to be realized.

  An alarm sounded and all their heads spun toward the display. The screen was now filled, a squirming mass eating its way through everything in its path.

  “We’ve lost integrity on the test environment!” exclaimed Phil as he read the error flashing on his screen. “How’s that possible?”

  But Jason didn’t care how it was possible. He only cared about how to stop it.

  “We need to shut it down!” he yelled, the alarm blaring.

  “How?”

  “The EMP. It’s the only way!”

  Jason reached for the switch on the wall, flipping open the protective cover. He felt someone grab his arm. It was Phil.

  “No, you can’t! We’ll lose all our research. Everything! We’ll have to start over!”

  Jason wrenched his arm free.

  “None of that will matter if we don’t stop this. Everything, everyone, will be gone!”

  “There has to be another way!” cried Phil, lunging for Jason’s arm as he reached for the large, round button.

  “Look!”

  They both turned to see Carl pointing at the casing housing the experiment.

  It was disintegrating before their eyes.

  “Press the button, for the love of God!” pleaded Carl as the casing turned to a liquid almost resembling mercury, and poured out onto the floor.

  Jason remained frozen, his mind a fog of what they had done, the horror they had unleashed on the world.

  “Press the fucking button!” roared Carl.

  Jason tore himself from Phil’s grasp, his partner’s hold no longer strong, his will to preserve their work apparently waning as the terror of what was unfolding triggered his own desire for self-preservation.

  Jason slammed his palm against the large red button and the sounds of the massive EMP generator powering up could be heard on the other side of the wall.

  “How long?” asked Carl as he backed away from the encroaching mass.

  “Two minutes!”

  “It’ll be ten times the size by then!”

  A display flickered on the wall, its LED numbers counting down far slower than Jason’s heart slammed against his ribcage. He backed into a corner, as far away as he could get from the mass as it seemed to regurgitate toward him, the electromagnetic pulse engine still with far too much time left. His thoughts were consumed not for the planet he had just destroyed, but for his wife and kids, who would die without him, never knowing it was their own protector who had unleashed the devastation upon them, and mankind.

  I’m so sorry.

  Waterford Academy, Ogden, Utah

  Last Week

  Maggie Peterson looked at her watch.

  Where are those kids? She didn’t have time for their dillydallying today. Not with Jason away. In fact, with him away, she was being run ragged. I don’t know how single mothers do it! She spotted Darius sliding down the railing, her heart skipping a beat before he landed safely at the bottom, the teacher monitoring the stairs wagging a finger at him, he dipping his head in apology as he quickly walked by, then as soon as she was out of sight—from his eight year old perspective—a smile spread across his face and he waved, running for the car.

  Maggie waved back, her head shaking, but smiling, as she urged him on with a wave of her hand.

  “Where’s your sister?” she asked as Darius climbed into the car, smacking every conceivable surface with his backpack as he removed it, his coordination skills still developing into what she feared would be his father’s.

  He shrugged, the one thing he seemed to be able to coordinate no matter what he was doing.

  “I didn’t see her all day.”

  Maggie frowned and was about to fish out her cellphone when she saw her twelve year old daughter Ayla saunter down the stairs with several of her gaggle, as if they owned the place.

  Seniors. Is she ever going to be shocked when she’s the youngest at her school next year.

  Maggie honked the horn and Ayla cast a disapproving glance. The gaggle exchanged hugs, then Ayla continued her saunter toward the car.

  “Let’s go!” yelled Maggie through the open passenger side window. “We’re already late!”

  Ayla picked up her pace. Slightly.

  Maggie was about to let her have a burst of impatience when she instead sucked in a deep breath and turned away from the sight of pre-teen disrespect, squaring herself with the steering wheel, her mind drifting to what she had to look forward to with full-blown teenaged rebellion.

  God, Jason, why do you have to go on that stupid fishing trip every year!

  But she knew why. His job. No, it wasn’t work related, but it actually was—sort of. He and his two research buddies would go every year. They had since they were all hired away from Boeing almost fifteen years ago. Cherry-picked for being the best, they were also the three newbies brought in to save a top secret weapons research department the existing staff felt had no need of saving.

  So they had bonded, and every year went on a fishing trip together, this year, despite the layoffs announced, being no different. Jason was probably safe, but if he weren’t, he hadn’t mentioned anything to her, nor would he. She had only found out through Phoebe, Carl Shephard’s wife—one of the three stooges now probably catching nothing—that there were major layoffs at the company, some contract apparently lost.

  She smiled at the thought of three scientists fishing as the car door finally opened. Jason was brilliant, and a wonderful husband. But coordinated he was not. Him working a fishing line, actually trying to cast—

  She giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  She looked at Ayla, finally gracing the family with her presence.

  “Nothing, just picturing your dad fishing.”

  Darius giggled as she put the car in gear and checked her mirrors, pulling out of the pickup loop at the exclusive private school. As she approached the gate, the security guard gave her a nod and smile as he checked off her license plate from the list.

  She gave him a wave, then pulled into traffic, leaving the walled compound meant to secure and educate VIP children, behind. She remembered when they had first arrived in Ogden. She had read the company briefing papers, and had laughed at the suggestion it contained about sending their future children to Waterford Academy. They
had both actually laughed at the prospect.

  But when Ayla was born, and ready for school far too quickly, she had called the local schools to make appointments. She had only gone to one.

  “Where does your husband work?”

  “Omega Bionetix,” she remembered telling the principal.

  “Oh, then you shouldn’t be wasting your time with us. You should be going to Waterford Academy.”

  “I’d rather not. I’d prefer my kid to go to a regular school.”

  The principal had closed the file and pushed it aside.

  “Mrs. Peterson, if you value your child’s life, you will send them to Waterford.”

  It had scared her to the core, and when Jason had returned home, he found her huddled in her bedroom, hugging her pillow, her tear streaked face leaving no chance even he, the distracted scientist, could miss.

  “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “You! You! That’s what’s wrong!”

  His eyebrows had shot up, his chin dropped, and he gave her that questioning, “what the hell did I do now?” look. She told him about the meeting at the school, and he nodded, sitting down beside her.

  “Perhaps it’s time you found out what I do. At least an idea of what I do.”

  “What do you mean? You’re a medical researcher!”

  He shook his head and took her hand.

  Five minutes later she had left a message on the admissions department voice mail at Waterford.

  She adjusted her rearview mirror and tapped her brakes, her subtle hint to the black SUV behind her it was getting a little too close. It backed off, and she turned the corner to head to the grocery store.

  “Where are you going?” asked Ayla.

  “I need to pick up a few things at the grocery store, it’ll only take a moment.”