Brad Thor - The Athena Project

The women laughed.

“Are you making fun of my man?” Rhodes joked. “’Cause we can take it outside right now, Rob. You say they word and it’s go time.”

Rob smiled. “You all did a really good job. I’m very proud of you.”

They smiled in return and thanked him for the compliment.

“That said,” he continued, “I really want to talk to you about Burma.”

“Why, Rob? What’s so important about Burma?” asked Casey.

Hutton set down his wineglass. “We think we have a lead on a group called the Amalgam. We think that might be who Abressian was working for.”

Casey took the wine bottle from Cooper and filled Hutton’s glass right to the rim.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” he asked.

Gretchen smiled, “If that’s what it’ll take to get you to give my girls a rest, then you’d better hand over your car keys now.”

Hutton relented. “All right, we don’t have to talk about this tonight. We can discuss it tomorrow.”

“Not too early, though,” replied Rhodes as she jabbed Ericsson and pointed at the bar.

“Why not?” asked Rob.

“Because Cooper may have a very late night tonight,” stated Ericsson.

Alex looked up at one of the men who had entered.

“Let me guess,” said Hutton. “Mr. Right has just walked in.”

Cooper took a big sip of wine and stood. “I don’t know about Mr. Right, but he definitely looks like he could be Mr. Right Now.”

Hutton shook his head and the ladies cheered for Alex as she squared her shoulders, put a smile on her face, and made a beeline for the bar.

I introduced the Athena Team in my thriller Foreign Influence and am very happy to have given these incredible women their own book. As with all of my novels, I would not be able to do what I do without the generous support of many people.

I want to thank my good friends Barrett Moore, Ronald Moore(no relation to Barrett), Scott F. Hill, PhD, James Ryan, Rodney Cox, Cynthia Longo, Jeff Chudwin, Mitch Shore, Frank Gallagher, Steven Bronson, Gary Penrith, Chuck Fretwell,and Steve Hoffafor all their help.

I also wish to thank my terrific readersand all the wonderful booksellerswho have helped introduce so many people to my work. My thanks as well go out to the fantastic moderatorsand membersof the BradThor.com forum.

At Simon & Schuster, there are many extraordinary people to thank: my editor, Emily Bestler;my publishers, Judith Curr, Louise Burke,and Carolyn Reidy;my publicist, David Brown;the Atria/Pocket sales staff, artand production departments;the audio division;as well as Michael Selleck, Kate Cetrulo, Sarah Branham, Irene Lipsky, Cristina Suarez, Mellony Torres,and Lisa Keim.

I also wish to thank my incomparable literary agent, Heide Lange,of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, Inc. as well as the exceptional Jennifer Linnanand Rachael Dillon Fried.

My thanks as well go to my outstanding attorney and good friend, Scott Schwimer.

Last, but not least, I want to thank my beautiful wife, Trish.She was not only my inspiration for this book, she is the inspiration for everything else I do. Each of the Athena Team members has a little something special from her. Thank you, honey. I love you.

Brad Thor studied Creative Writing at the University of Southern California under renowned author T.C. Boyle. He created and hosts an MTV-style travel series called 'Travelling Lite'. It debuted in 1997, and 23 episodes and two seasons later, the show now appears worldwide, including UK, France, Spain, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Brazil and the US. His Emmy Award-winning company, Thor Entertainment, has recently won a Platinum "Best of Show" Aurora Award and a Communicator Broadcast Award of Distinction and his programs are also part of Quantas Airlines' in-flight entertainment.