Don Pendleton: Maelstrom

“Last week I got my first live-fire demo. They put fifty-seven thousand grenades into an area no larger than a football field in under a minute.

“I’m telling you, John, this is heavy duty ordnance you’re dealing with. If you or Hal are connected with the people charged with tracking down whoever stole the prototypes, you’re going to have your work cut out for you. But I think I can help.”

“That would be appreciated,” Kissinger replied. “And you’re right about our people. If they have to go up against any force of considerable size, it’s my responsibility to arm them with the proper tools. That’s their only chance for success. I need to get my hands on some of those weapons.”

“Fight fire with fire.”

#12 BLIND EAGLE

#13 WARHEAD

#14 DEADLY AGENT

#15 BLOOD DEBT

#16 DEEP ALERT

#17 VORTEX

#18 STINGER

#19 NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE

#20 TERMS OF SURVIVAL

#21 SATAN’S THRUST

#22 SUNFLASH

#23 THE PERISHING GAME

#24 BIRD OF PREY

#25 SKYLANCE

#26 FLASHBACK

#27 ASIAN STORM

#28 BLOOD STAR

#29 EYE OF THE RUBY

#30 VIRTUAL PERIL

#31 NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR

#32 LAW OF LAST RESORT

#33 PUNITIVE MEASURES

#34 REPRISAL

#35 MESSAGE TO AMERICA

#36 STRANGLEHOLD

#37 TRIPLE STRIKE

#38 ENEMY WITHIN

#39 BREACH OF TRUST

#40 BETRAYAL

#41 SILENT INVADER

#42 EDGE OF NIGHT

#43 ZERO HOUR

#44 THIRST FOR POWER

#45 STAR VENTURE

#46 HOSTILE INSTINCT

#47 COMMAND FORCE

#48 CONFLICT IMPERATIVE

#49 DRAGON FIRE

#50 JUDGMENT IN BLOOD

#51 DOOMSDAY DIRECTIVE

#52 TACTICAL RESPONSE

#53 COUNTDOWN TO TERROR

#54 VECTOR THREE

#55 EXTREME MEASURES

#56 STATE OF AGGRESSION

#57 SKY KILLERS

#58 CONDITION HOSTILE

#59 PRELUDE TO WAR

#60 DEFENSIVE ACTION

#61 ROGUE STATE

#62 DEEP RAMPAGE

#63 FREEDOM WATCH

#64 ROOTS OF TERROR

#65 THE THIRD PROTOCOL

#66 AXIS OF CONFLICT

#67 ECHOES OF WAR

#68 OUTBREAK

#69 DAY OF DECISION

#70 RAMROD INTERCEPT

#71 TERMS OF CONTROL

#72 ROLLING THUNDER

#73 COLD OBJECTIVE

#74 THE CHAMELEON FACTOR

#75 SILENT ARSENAL

#77 FULL BLAST

#78 MAELSTROM

Maelstrom

AMERICA’S ULTRA-COVERT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Don Pendleton

For Mr. William Fieldhouse—mentor, colleague, friend

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

Adelaide, Australia

He watched the puffs of smoke rise into the air as the weapon cycled through sixteen 40 mm grenades at the rate of four per second.

Wallace Davidia knew the shells were nonlethal—their noses packed with iridescent orange powder versus high explosives—but they weren’t the object of his attention. The mechanism of delivery was what took center stage. That weapon, and the others like it, being demonstrated at the fifth annual Defence Science and Technology Organisation Land Weapons Conference, was what had brought the Resurrected Defense League to Australia. It was this technology that he wanted—no, had—to possess, and the reason the men with him now sat and waited patiently, professionally.

Davidia lowered the binoculars and looked at the shadowy figures seated near him, illuminated only by the small opening in the side of their shelter. The fourteen-foot moving truck stunk of sweat mixed with anticipation and fear. Davidia knew those scents well; he’d known them from his adolescent years growing up in the heart of Brooklyn. Those had been the hardest times of his life. He was the youngest son of Jewish parents who barely escaped the Holocaust only to find another war for survival going on in their own neighborhood. Nonetheless, he’d done his part for his country, serving four years in the Marine Corps, including a stint in Operation Desert Storm, and returned to New York afterward to become a police officer on beat patrol in his old stomping grounds. Life hadn’t always been easy, but he’d been happy until called off shift early one morning to have the police chaplain tell him a surprised burglar murdered his wife, a burglar whose attorney got him off on a technicality by proposing that the police had discriminated against the man because he was Palestinian.

Determined to right a wrong, Davidia joined the Jewish Defense League and even spent a short time with a radical Jewish activist group conducting underground operations in New York City, but one too many protests in the streets, one too many acts of violence, eventually led to a demand for his resignation. Davidia didn’t go quietly. He found his wife’s murderer and put a bullet in the guy’s head before renouncing his citizenship and fleeing America. Eventually, Davidia founded the Resurrected Defense League. He trained his mind and his body, honing the military skills Uncle Sam taught him and the terror tactics gleaned from membership in the Kach-Kahane Chai to a sharp edge. It had all led up to this day. This would be the day that he would reveal his abilities for the first time since his self-imposed exile. The RDL was about to make a statement the world would never forget.

Davidia nodded with assurance to his lieutenant before raising his voice just loud enough. In Hebrew he said, “We move in two minutes. Weapons check.”

They had timed the operation down to the final second, laid out every part of the demonstration grounds to the last detail. His men knew every corner of this area and they were familiar with every street in Adelaide. They had spent months visiting the area, mapping various escape routes and planning for every possible scenario. They had to do this to insure the success of their mission and secure escape. Davidia knew the weapons he sought were prototypes, but the RDL’s engineers were waiting at a secret location far from here, a location known only to him and his lieutenant, Boaz Rasham. If something happened to one of them, the other could still accomplish the objectives. If both of them bought it, the mission was terminated and the men were under clear orders to cover and conceal, and escape by any means possible. Capture or surrender was unacceptable.

His organization wasn’t large, maybe 150 in membership with about triple that in financial supporters, but it was a force big enough to implement Davidia’s plans. Years before, the Kach-Kahane Chai had attempted to utilize a technological device to effectively end the conflicts on the West Bank once and for all. Unfortunately the plan had failed, thwarted by Mossad agents and Americans from an unknown organization. Davidia left the Kach-Kahane Chai and took his staunchest supporters with him. He knew that ending the war between Israel and the Palestinians would never truly stop the oppression. No, the only way to stop their sworn enemies was to utterly eradicate them. Davidia’s plans called for the total extinction of those vermin, and the most ingenious part was that the nations of the world would do most of the work—starting with America.