R Patterson - The Shadow Hunter

“I thought I would wrap up with you two about what we were able to learn from Admiral Miller’s private communications as well as Reaper’s,” she said. “But before I do any of that, I want to thank you for helping us on this mission. I know it wasn’t what we set out to do, but it ended up being the mission our entire country needed. President Norris wanted me to make sure that I conveyed his gratitude to the both of you.”

“We’re a team,” Hawk said. “We all had a role to play in this.”

“But you were the one out there risking everything,” Morgan said. “And, Alex, you were too. We’re grateful.”

“Happy to serve,” Alex said.

“On that note,” Morgan said, “let’s move on to the purpose of this meeting. I’m going to turn things over to Mia, who’s going to tell us about what she found.”

Mia nodded. “Thank you. Now after hours of work and some help from Dr. Z, we were able to crack the password for Admiral Miller’s burner phone. And what we found was that he was receiving messages instructing him what to do. We tried to trace the number to someone, but were unable to do so, which means it was a burner phone paid for in cash. Making things even more impossible was the fact that the phone was never used in the same place twice. But based on what we gathered from his computer, he was receiving handsome payments deposited into an offshore account he owned. The source of those payments proved even more difficult to pinpoint.”

“So where does that leave us?” Hawk asked.

“As I was searching through his computer, I found one document outlining his protocol for contact. The name of the group listed was one called The Alliance. Up until now, The Alliance was little more than a myth, concocted to explain the unexplainable. But we don’t think that’s the case now.”

Hawk leaned closer toward the screen. “And what about Reaper? Did he know who he was working for?”

Mia shrugged. “I’m not sure about that yet, but we do know that he had contact with another person before Miller started handling him.”

“That’s good,” Alex said. “Apply a little pressure on Reaper, and he should help connect the dots for us.”

“There’s only one problem with that,” Morgan said. “Last night, Reaper escaped CIA custody.”

“How?” Hawk asked.

“He was preparing to be flown from the Dominican where he’d been since you caught him to another foreign black ops site on an agency jet. But in the middle of the flight while going to the restroom, he overpowered one of the agents, grabbed a parachute, and dove out of the plane. The CIA is searching for him, but they haven’t been able to locate where he went down.”

“Sounds like we have our work cut out for us,” Hawk said.

“We?” Morgan asked. “I thought you were only going to help us with this one mission. Hunting down Reaper would be an entirely new one.”

“I know,” Hawk said. “But Alex and I have been talking about it, and we’d like back in—that is, if you’d have us.”

A grin spread across Morgan’s face. “Absolutely.”

“As long as we can continue living out here,” Alex added.

“Of course,” Morgan said. “Welcome back.”

I am grateful to so many people who have helped with the creation of this project and the entire Titus Black series.

Brooke Turbyfill was a big help in editing this book.

I would also like to thank my advance reader team for all their input in improving this book along with all the other readers who have enthusiastically embraced the story of Titus Black. Stay tuned … there’s more Titus Black coming soon.

If you would like to stay up to date on R.J. Patterson’s latest writing projects with his periodic newsletter, sign up here.

R.J. PATTERSONis an award-winning writer living in southeastern Idaho. He first began his illustrious writing career as a sports journalist, recording his exploits on the soccer fields in England as a young boy. Then when his father told him that people would pay him to watch sports if he would write about what he saw, he went all in. He landed his first writing job at age 15 as a sports writer for a daily newspaper in Orangeburg, S.C. He later attended earned a degree in newspaper journalism from the University of Georgia, where he took a job covering high school sports for the award-winning Athens Banner-Herald and Daily News .

He later became the sports editor of The Valdosta Daily Times before working in the magazine world as an editor and freelance journalist. He has won numerous writing awards, including a national award for his investigative reporting on a sordid tale surrounding an NCAA investigation over the University of Georgia football program.

R.J. enjoys the great outdoors of the Northwest while living there with his wife and four children. He still follows sports closely.

He also loves connecting with readers and would love to hear from you. To stay updated about future projects, connect with him over Facebookor on the interwebs at www.RJPbooks.comand sign up here for his newsletterto get deals and updates.

“R.J. Patterson does a fantastic job at keeping you engaged and interested. I look forward to more from this talented author.”

“Patterson has a mean streak about a mile wide and puts his two main characters through quite a horrible ride, which makes for good reading.”

“Like a John Grisham novel, from the very start I was pulled right into the story and couldn’t put the book down. It was as if I personally knew and cared about what happened to each of the main characters. Every chapter ended with so much excitement and suspense I had to continue to read until I learned how it ended, even though it kept me up until 3:00 A.M.

“Small town life in southern Idaho might seem quaint and idyllic to some. But when local newspaper reporter Cal Murphy begins to uncover a series of strange deaths that are linked to a sticky spider web of deception, the lid on the peaceful town is blown wide open. Told with all the energy and bravado of an old pro, first-timer R.J. Patterson hits one out of the park his first time at bat with Dead Shot . It’s that good.”

“You can tell R.J. knows what it’s like to live in the newspaper world, but with Dead Shot , he’s proven that he also can write one heck of a murder mystery.”

“This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I didn’t really want to put it down. R.J. Patterson has hooked me. I’ll be back for more.”

“In Dead in the Water, R.J. Patterson accurately captures the action-packed saga of a what could be a real-life college football scandal. The sordid details will leave readers flipping through the pages as fast as a hurry-up offense.”