Misled Read online

  Praise for Retribution by Anderson Harp

  “Tense and authentic—reading this book is like living a real-life mission.”

  —Lee Child

  “Want to see what the military’s really like? Harp knows his stuff. Retribution proves that the scariest story is the true story. Here’s the real intelligence operation.”

  —Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The Fifth Assassin

  “I seldom come across a thriller as authentic and well-written as Retribution. Harp brings his considerable military expertise to a global plot that’s exciting, timely, and believable. His characters are exceptionally well-drawn and convincing. If you like Tom Clancy’s work, you’ll love Retribution. Harp is very much his own man, however, and to say that I’m impressed is an understatement.”

  —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of The Protector

  “Anderson Harp’s Retribution is a stunner: a blow to the gut and shot of adrenaline. Here is a novel written with authentic authority and bears shocking relevance to the dangers of today. It reminds me of Tom Clancy at his finest. Put this novel on your must-read list—anything by Harp is now on mine.”

  —James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of Bloodline

  “Retribution by Harp is an outstanding thriller with vivid characters, breakneck pacing, and suspense enough for even the most demanding reader. On top of that, Harp writes with complete authenticity and a tremendous depth of military knowledge and expertise. A fantastic read—don’t miss it!”

  —Douglas Preston, #1 bestselling author of Impact

  “Retribution by Anderson Harp is a fast-paced, suspenseful thriller loaded with vivid characters and backed by a depth of military knowledge. Top gun!”

  —Kathy Reichs, #1 bestselling author of the Temperance Brennan and Tory Brennan series

  The Will Parker Thrillers by Anderson Harp

  NORTHERN THUNDER

  BORN OF WAR

  RETRIBUTION

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Retribution by Anderson Harp

  The Will Parker Thrillers by Anderson Harp

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Don’t miss Northern Thunder, a Will Parker Thriller by Anderson Harp

  Misled

  Anderson Harp

  LYRICAL UNDERGROUND

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  LYRICAL UNDERGROUND BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Anderson Harp

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational, or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018. Attn. Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Lyrical Underground and Lyrical Underground logo Reg. US Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: May 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0976-0 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-5161-0976-7 (ebook)

  First Print Edition: May 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0980-7

  ISBN-10: 1-5161-0980-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To Gaines Parker

  “To hear a coyote is dangerous. To see one is death.”

  —Apache saying

  Chapter 1

  Deep in the Yukon

  The arctic fox did not move when the aircraft narrowly cleared the tree line and crossed the open field. The animal was caught in the open, far from the protection of the tall pines and spruce, paralyzed by fear and sickness. His nearly pure-white fur blended perfectly into the blinding sunlit snow of the Yukon. The air had a sting in it from the subzero cold. His breath caused the faintest vapor cloud to form as he panted, his white-frothed tongue hanging from his mouth. The exhaustion had overtaken him. He was dying.

  In a daze, the animal tracked the airborne object above, head canting left and right as if he were drunk. As the engine’s throaty sound grew louder, he jumped and fell back into the snow. He tried again to run, but at a tilt, stumbling as if his internal gyroscope were off. He recovered his balance and made a desperate break for the protection of the trees.

  The DHC-3 Otter’s pilot circled the field, lining up what had once been an Army runway, putting his flaps down, and landing softly on the single strip buried under the snow. The sleds of the aircraft barreled through the drifts as the aircraft’s propeller churned the dry, powder-like snow into a cloud of white that followed the bright yellow Otter to the end of the runway.

  A lone person waited next t
o the runway with a backpack and a rectangular object next to her feet. The shape of her parka gave a clear impression that this was a woman, petite, not nearly tall enough to reach up and touch the aircraft’s wing. She held up an arm to shield her face from the blast of icy air from the propeller. A black, canvas-covered rectangular object near her feet shook as the aircraft approached, seeming to wobble on its own. Something alive inside moved the covered cage.

  The aircraft stopped at the end of the runway near the passenger and her cargo. The old Otter had black oil streaks across its yellow engine cowling. The tall propeller blades came to a stop and the engine silenced. With the motor halted, the sudden silence of the outback weighed heavily until movement in the airplane broke the quiet. The sound of metal echoed as the door handle was turned. The pilot’s door swung open and a man climbed down. Tall and built firmly, he jumped down from the cockpit with a subtle air of confidence. It didn’t seem to be his first trip to the backcountry.

  “Did you see that fox?” Will Parker glanced toward the other end of the runway.

  “Did it have two tipped black ears?” the woman asked, carrying her backpack to the airplane.

  “Yeah.” He leaned against the cargo door. “Didn’t think he was going to move.”

  “Surprised he moved at all. That’s George.” She took off her mitten and pulled the strings on her backpack at her feet to ensure it was closed.

  “Another infected one?” He had already seen a few types of animal in the area infected with the rapidly spreading rabies virus. Mostly, the small varmints were the targets of the dreaded disease.

  She nodded.

  What a way to go, he thought. As a Marine who had served in special operations in some of the most dangerous places in the world, William Parker knew all about “ways to go.” Having spent much of his time in the arctic prior to leaving the Marines, he also knew that rabies was rare in such cold climates. Will had been a member of a small band of experts that instructed Marines in how to survive above the Arctic Circle. He knew what eighty-below could do to the human body. But brutal cold was an old and well-known threat up in the north. The rabies epidemic, on the other hand, was new. And growing.

  To pick up his cargo, Will had flown to this remote, abandoned airfield in Snag, Canada, deep in the Yukon and well east of the Alaskan border. Snag was an abandoned outpost of the Royal Canadian Air Force from World War II and it no longer hosted regular visitors, instead becoming a backcountry ghost town.

  Perfect for my Otter, Will thought as he walked around his aircraft, performing a post flight check. The Otter aircraft was designed to get down fast and land hard in a very short space. But flying in the arctic required much of a bush pilot. Something as simple as a slightly damaged strut could, in extreme, subzero temperatures, easily snap off as the airplane landed. Yet the unusual demands of flying in the bush were what had brought Will here. He’d long ago passed the ultimate challenge for a bush pilot: landing a Super Cub on a riverbank no wider than the wheels of the aircraft. But winter was something else again. Regardless of season, though, Will had found no place on earth that had flying like the Yukon.

  He had also come for the cargo.

  Dr. Karen Stewart visited Snag on a regular basis. Lying to the east of the Saint Elias Mountains, the flatlands ranging north and south drew a variety of wildlife to the local habitat. Karen had left Médecins Sans Frontières to take a position with the CDC’s unit in Alaska, monitoring zoonotic infections. Zoonotic diseases followed the movement of animals, and the most dangerous of the zoonotic illnesses was rabies. Alaska and the northwest had gradually become warmer each year and, as they did, the rate of rabies had increased. The rabies virus burned through the brain and progressed relatively quickly. But as winters became milder, the sick animals were able to move farther north before dying, thus interacting with more animals and continuing the rapid spread of the fatal disease. In joining the CDC, Karen Stewart had followed in her father’s footsteps, but by studying the spread of viruses among the animals of the extreme north, she’d blazed her own trail in this relatively new field.

  She and Will Parker had some history—he had saved her from a kidnapping by Al-Shabaab in the western frontier of Somalia. The purpose behind the raid on the Doctors Without Borders camp had been simple: Capture those whose families could pay the ransom. Like her father before her, Karen had worked with Doctors Without Borders in the meningitis-stricken Horn of Africa until it and terrorism caught up to her. After her close call in Africa, she’d taken the CDC job and been posted to Alaska. That’s when her father had called in a favor from Will Parker.

  “Just keep an eye on her,” was all Dr. Paul Stewart had asked after hearing that Will was flying as a bush pilot out of Anchorage.

  Will had agreed gladly. He owed the man who had saved his life.

  “Did you get one?” He hefted Karen’s backpack and fitted it into the Otter’s cargo space.

  “Yeah.”

  He walked to the canvas-covered cage, slipping on his leather gloves. “This one have a name?”

  “Juliet.”

  “She going to make it?” He managed to fit the cage in the rear seat of the cabin.

  “No.”

  Karen had been in the backcountry for several days already. Parker had wanted to join her, but she’d refused. She was fiercely independent and he respected that about her. Having been a prisoner of a terrorist group in Somalia and living face-to-face with death every day, Karen had plenty of reasons to take a nine-to-five in Atlanta. But, like Will, she’d had enough of being walled in by an office.

  “We need to get out of here.” Will glanced west at the Saint Elias Mountains and the darkening skies above. “A bad one’s coming.”

  She nodded, hauled herself up into the copilot’s seat, and pulled back her parka hood. Her short, shaggy haircut and well-tanned face made for an attractive, athletic woman who could live in the outback with no makeup and look no worse for the wear.

  He climbed into the pilot’s seat, buckled in, and started running through his preflight checklist. “You know, that’s a good name,” he said as he worked.

  “What?”

  “Juliet.”

  She gave him a false frown.

  “Dr. Juliet.” Will smiled, knowing it was her middle name.

  The Otter’s engine roared with a throaty growl. Will spun up the turboprop to a deafening roar, turned the aircraft into the wind, and sped along the runway until the sleds started to leave the surface. As the plane lifted, he banked to the southeast, heading away from Anchorage.

  “Why this way?” she asked through her mike.

  She had donned earphones to hear Will above the guttural sound of the engine. The radial Pratt & Whitney engine on the Otter was as old as the 1967 aircraft, but more than once it had been taken apart piece-by-piece and rebuilt. An engine like this was meant to be overhauled. Its parts were made of heavy castings for repeated use until it ended up in a graveyard or short of a runway in a bad crash. No matter how it died, the Otter’s body would be cannibalized for its knobs, handles, and gauges like a transplant donor. In that way, it would keep on living for decades. But for now, it had thousands of landings to go and many years of flying to come.

  “We need to skirt the storm.” He pointed to a dark line that crowded the tops of the peaks that stood between them and Anchorage. “There’s a valley to the south that we can pass through.” Some of the mountains in the Saint Elias Range topped out at 19,000 feet. Will’s Otter was not made for such high altitudes.

  Suddenly, the cockpit’s electronics panel shuddered. At the same time, the aircraft’s engine sputtered.

  “What?” Karen’s voice betrayed her fear.

  “We’re okay.”

  Will knew immediately what had occurred: A solar flare. The weather report that morning on takeoff had mentioned a risk of the flare’s arrival. The sun had un
leashed a magnetic shockwave that had traveled millions of miles through space until it collided with the earth and overloaded the electronics of the airplane. Like being knocked down by a wave, the avionics on the cockpit’s panel sputtered, then went black.

  It shouldn’t have affected the engine, Will thought as he loosened his grip. A nervous pilot only made matters worse. He kept the yoke steady and the wings level, going through the mental checklist that an experienced pilot would use to check each system quickly. He looked at the fuel gauge, then tried to turn the engine over, but the big radial simply coughed and went silent again.

  Probably some bad fuel. Will scanned the panel again. He had landed at a small airport to refuel after crossing the mountain range. It didn’t take much water in the fuel to cause havoc, especially when combined with an electrical failure.

  Will Parker knew one thing about the Otter: It was made to land in any condition and on any surface.

  Give me the space between home plate and first base…that’s all I need. Ninety feet and he could put the airplane safely on the ground.

  He scanned the terrain ahead for that much room, keeping the nose of the aircraft tilted down to maintain his airspeed. Without power, some airplanes can glide for miles as long as a calm hand can keep the nose down.

  “Hand me that radio.” Will pointed to a small handheld in a storage pocket next to her seat. The battery-powered radio was a must for flying in the bush. It could serve as a most important backup.

  He radioed air traffic control. “Anchorage Control, this is November one-one-two.” He hesitated to use the word mayday. A quick landing, with an equally quick passing of the solar interference, did not qualify for a mayday.

  The SP-400 radio only crackled.

  “We can land this…no problem.” His voice was intended to calm his passenger—and himself. He looked straight ahead for a likely landing spot, as a turn would only cause the plane to lose critical airspeed. Air slowing down as it passed over the wing meant the loss of lift.

  Easy, Will thought as he relaxed his hands again. It never helped to fight an airplane, even in a situation like this. He scanned his panel to make sure that something obvious was not missing. Engine failure in the arctic didn’t happen every day, but this was not Will Parker’s first.