Predator's Game
Contents
Predator's Game
Acclaim for Wolfe
Copyright
Books by S.L. Shelton
Dedication
Dear Reader,
Prologue - Jan 18th
One - Feb 2nd
Two - Feb 3rd to 5th
Three - Feb 6th
Four - Feb 7th
Five - Feb 8th
Six - Feb 9th
Seven - Feb 10th and 11th
Eight - Feb 12th and 13th
Nine - Feb 14th
Ten - Feb 15th
Eleven - Feb 16th
Twelve - Feb 17th
Thirteen - Feb 18th
Fourteen - Splintered
Map South of France
Map Cayman Islands
Acknowledgments
Splinter Self
Predator’s Game
A Novel by
S.L. Shelton
The 6th novel in the Scott Wolfe Series
Acclaim for
S.L. Shelton’s
HEART-POUNDING
Action Thrillers
Waking Wolfe
“Waking Wolfe is a tightly written story with engaging characters and fast-moving events… Throw in loose nukes, colorful Russian mobsters, nefarious Serbs, and some CIA guys, and you’ve got yourself a thriller.”
—Susan Hasler, Former CIA Analyst
Author of Project: Halfsheep
“The pages of this novel are filled with nonstop action and atmosphere so rich you feel as if you are there. Shelton is amazing at keeping tension throughout the storyline, and it was incredibly difficult to put this book down… This is an amazing debut novel. There’s no wonder why S.L. Shelton has received high praise and five-star ratings from a slew of high-profile reviewers.”
—J.C. Wing
Author of Alabama Skye
“This was a great read. From the start it engaged my interest with an exciting setup that quickly drew me in… I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes spy or action thrillers. It's a roller coaster filled with great characters and nearly nonstop excitement.”
—C.C. Bradley
Author of Interim
“Shelton hits the bull’s eye dead center for political espionage with Waking Wolfe… Imbued with rich detail and realistic, high-powered adventure, this action-packed, cleverly-devised plot whisks the reader along for a nonstop ride where ‘boy-next-door’ techno geek Scott Wolfe evolves into amateur international spy.”
—Donna Cummins
Author of Rain of Terror and A Reason to Kill
“[Waking Wolfe] was one of those books where you jump in hoping for, at the very least, a semi-entertaining read, but instead end up craving more after turning the last page. Shelton's debut took me by surprise and I have to say, it was awesome.”
—Book Addict 24-7 Reviews
Bookaddict24-7.com
Unexpected Gaines
“Shelton has created in Scott Wolfe a character that may just rise in importance to the level of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan—this story will cover a mere two weeks of time, but the action that occurs is compacted so tightly that the timeframe is soon forgotten.”
—Grady Harp
Amazon Top 100, Hall of Fame Reviewer
“A gripping tale from cover to cover! Superb characters with flaws as well as heroic attributes, with a thunderous storyline that leaves you craving more! Excellent!”
—Amazon Reviewer
“If you liked Shelton’s first book then you will really like [Unexpected Gaines]. If you have not read his first book, then shame on you because you are depriving yourself of the chance to read one of the best new authors writing today.”
—LTC R. Huber
U.S. Army (Retired)
Danger Close
“I was a fan of this series from the very beginning. S.L. Shelton’s first novel kicked off a wildly entertaining ride, and his story just keeps getting better and better with each installment.”
—J.C. Wing
Author of Alabama Skye
“Certainly a book series just waiting for the big screen… True to form, the author has given us a spy thriller with all the action needed to get our attention… S.L. Shelton leaves us ready and eager for the next adventure. Awesome.”
—W.N., Amazon Reviewer
Wolfe Trap
“Wolfe Trap will grab you from the first sentence, and before you know it, you’re on the last page. The book is fast-paced and action-packed.”
—Melissa Manes
Author, Editor
“I’ve spent a good deal of time with Scott Wolfe in the recent months…he’s taken me on some hair-raising adventures. None so wild as this latest one. My advice to you, fellow readers? Buckle your seat belt, hold on tight, and enjoy the ride. You have no idea what’s in store for you…but I can absolutely guarantee that you’re going to love it.”
—J.C. Wing
Author of Alabama Skye
Harbinger
“S.L. Shelton is without a doubt one of the best spy/espionage novelists I have run across in a long time. I'd put his Scott Wolfe series in the same league as Lee Child's Reacher series. Fast paced, fun interactions between characters, and great action.”
—Chuck Hester
Author
“Like the first four in the series, this was spell-binding, filled with suspense, nail-biting action, thrills, and of course, lots of Scott Wolfe wizardry. I can't wait to see where Shelton takes his protagonist next.”
— Amazon Reviewer
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by S.L. Shelton
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Front cover, maps, and artwork contained in this book are Copyright © S.L. Shelton
The cover image is a modified and stylized rendering that includes portions of photos obtained through the Department of Defense photo library and photos from Creative Commons Deed, License CC0 Public Domain.
Books by S.L. Shelton:
Hedged
The Scott Wolfe Series:
Waking Wolfe
Unexpected Gaines
Danger Close
Wolfe Trap
Harbinger
Predator’s Game
Splinter Self (Coming 2017)
Back story: Lt. Marsh
Follow S.L. Shelton at:
wolfeauthor.wordpress.com
www.goodreads.com/WolfeWriter
facebook.com/SLShelton.Author
SLShelton.com
For Wayne and Margaret Waters
Dear Reader,
Thank you for making the Scott Wolfe Series such a huge success, putting it into the Top 100 Espionage, Political, and Techno Thriller Bestsellers for its main outlet, the Amazon Kindle. I watch with gratitude, overjoyed by the growing attention.
When I started this series back in May of 2012, I had intended to write it as a multiple-point-of-view third-person novel. I quickly realized that I wanted a much more personal point of view when it came to Scott Wolfe. After rewriting the first few chapters to address that desire, I realized I was much more satisfied as an author and was encouraged to continue in that direction by my early readers.
While it can sometimes be jarring to jump from Scott’s brain into third-person narration, I’ve taken steps to reduce those moments to “bonus” perspectives: gifts to you, the reader, to help give you a deeper awareness of what’s going on outside of Scott’s line of sight.
I hope as you read the series, yo
u enjoy the unfolding saga as much as I have enjoyed writing it. There is little more that an author can hope for than what you have already provided—being emotionally entangled in the lives of our characters.
Thank you once again for taking the time to discover Scott Wolfe, and I hope that if you enjoy it, you will mention it to others and post a review of your time with him. Scott and I both thank you.
Very best regards,
S.L. Shelton
Author
NOTE: Descriptions of facilities in this novel have been fictionalized for reasons of security and to reduce the number of future encounters the author might have with federal officers.
prologue
Tuesday, January 18th,, 2011
(The night of the attack on Camp Peary in Virginia)
3:25 a.m.—Defense Intelligence Agency Special Projects Section, research and training compound, Fort Detrick, Maryland
TRISSA, or Tris to those who knew her, stood in the back of the small control room watching Albert Emrick, head of the covert enhanced assets program for the Defense Intelligence Agency. She leaned comfortably against a concrete column, arms folded, almost bored with the need for her presence. But she knew it was best practice to have a Jagger in the control room during an Op—just in case insight into their unique capacity, their thought processes or tolerances, was required.
She was taut and lean and she saw everything—a veritable killing machine. Being in the DIA control bunker while her gene-paired, enhanced partner Gannon was at Camp Peary abducting a technician was almost a slap in her enhanced face. She was the stronger of the two—but it had been luck of the draw.
And so she waited.
“Harbinger, this is Team Leader Six,” came a squelched voice over the radio.
“Go ahead,” came a barrel-deep reply.
“Team Four has been retired.”
“Who’s Harbinger?” Tris asked Emrick.
“Shhh,” he hissed over his shoulder without looking at her.
“Six. How long ago?” this “Harbinger” replied over the radio.
“No more than five minutes,” came the reply. “There are two missing radios.”
“All units, switch to tomorrow’s encryption code,” Harbinger said, followed by a squeal over the speakers in the small room.
“Switch to the next encryption sequence,” Emrick said to one of the techs.
But before the tech could change the control room encryption sequence, the radio cracked to life again. “Spartan, ditch the radio.”
Two clicks popped across the air in response. The tech looked back to verify with Emrick that he still wanted the encryption key updated when the thick bass of Harbinger’s voice came across the speakers again. “You sound familiar.”
Tris pushed away from the bunker column, suddenly interested in the radio traffic. “Who’s Harbinger?” she asked again more insistently as she came up behind Emrick, placing a hand on his shoulder. Presumptuous under normal circumstances to lay hands on God, her maker. But she was well aware that her “god” was nothing more than a man who relied on the science of others to build his hidden, classified micro-empire—her hand on his shoulder was to remind him of his mortality.
“Gold Rush,” Emrick said after shrugging her hand off.
“I thought Gold Rush was an extinct program,” she said.
“It is,” he whispered, agitation shaping his mouth and his posture. “Only three survived retirement.”
She nodded her understanding before sitting at the empty listening station.
“Jagger, do you have team four’s coordinates?” Harbinger asked.
“Affirmative. Moving to intercept targets now,” came the voice of her gene-paired partner, Gannon. “Should make contact in two mikes.”
Though Gannon’s broadcast voice was vibrating from the sprint he was no doubt in, he wasn’t winded—it would take more than a ten-minute sprint to wind either of them.
“SwiftNet Three should be on the horizon now,” Emrick said to the tech in front of him. “Bring it up on the big screen.”
After a few seconds, the positioning map that had been on the large main monitor vanished and was replaced with a black display, bracketed by coordinates, target tags, and other data from the SwiftNet satellite feed, streaming along its edges.
“IR track on the Jagger seven,” Emrick said calmly, staring into the black.
Abruptly, the screen changed to display a black and white image, spotted with moving white blobs, some tagged with labels, others without.
The angle of the view was long and distorted, and it took Tris a few seconds to orient her mind to the odd juxtaposition of the display.
“Orient to horizon,” Emrick muttered, annoyed.
On the display, Gannon seemed to be double the size of the other moving blips, his digital ID tag floating just above the white specter. It took a second for Tris to realize the image was the heat signature of two people, Gannon and another.
“Has he engaged?” Tris asked.
As if on cue, Gannon’s voice cracked across the radio. “Target located.”
“Shit. He didn’t kill him, did he?” Emrick asked rhetorically as the second white blob dropped to the ground in front of Gannon’s white blob, clearly revealing them as two separate bodies. “Zoom in.”
The display zoomed in, and Tris could now see the white thermal blobs had arms, legs, and heads.
One of the untagged figures seemed to pull a weapon on Gannon, prompting him to sprint forward to disarm and send him to the ground—a violent attack. A fast attack. Gannon was on top of his game this morning.
“That must be the target,” Emrick said. “He would have just shot anyone else.”
Tris nodded her agreement. She watched with jealousy as her partner engaged the target again, sending him to the ground a second time with a brutal combination.
Suddenly, another figure appeared from the edge of the screen and attacked Gannon’s white mark. The new attacker’s speed was greater, and he had far less hesitation than the other target had exhibited. They fought for several seconds in close contact before Gannon knocked him against a tree. The second victim seemed to be injured.
“Why’s he playing with them?” Emrick asked to no one in particular. “Take them out!”
Tris smiled, knowing full well what Gannon was experiencing at that moment. The pulse in his throat would be slow and steady. His eyes would be fully dilated and his breath would be controlled, counting each intake of air and each exhale to ensure perfect blood oxygenation. But more than that, he would be experiencing the sickeningly sweet rapture of toying with his prey before striking the final blow, like a cat that taunts a rodent with the promise of freedom so that he might draw out the euphoria of the kill—she could almost feel it herself, so tight was the pull of their gene bonding and pair conditioning. It was not a romantic connection; it was more of a virus-enhanced twin bond, reinforced with a hunting pair-oriented emotional/chemical cocktail brainwashing. Logically, she understood what had been done to them, that this link had been created in every sense of the word, but emotionally as far as she was concerned, half of her body was at Camp Peary, Virginia right now.
She envied Gannon…it had been weeks since she’d had an assignment worthy of her skills. This operation was unlike most of their other operations—the Jaggers normally worked in pairs, like twin lions isolating and then attacking their prey together. She had no doubt that Gannon was experiencing a much more heightened satisfaction running solo on this “hunt”, even if he did feel off-balance.
The primary target separated from the more confident late entrant and stood several feet away from Gannon. He appeared to be goading Gannon to strike.
“Cocky,” Tris muttered with a grin. “Gan will like that.”
Gannon’s lithe image slid across the screen in a perfect attack. But halfway through the approach, something changed that set Tris’s head to the side in confusion. The first target quickly assumed a different posture, seemi
ngly sidestepping the Jagger’s brutal drive. The figures collided momentarily before Gannon rolled away and stooped.
It was clear, even from the bad angle of the satellite image, that Gannon was favoring his right side when he returned to his feet.
“What was that?” Emrick asked, an edge of nervousness to his tone.
Tris leaned forward and stared at the screen more intently as Gannon reengaged the target with another round of close contact blows. Once again, it was Gannon who ended up breaking contact, circling for pause.
“Something’s wrong,” Tris muttered, feeling an odd tug, a disjointedness, from not being able to alter her posture or movement to rebalance the attack.
“Ya think?” Emrick said snidely without looking at her.
“Target is—”Gannon’s voice came over the speakers, but the target launched into an assault of his own this time, breaking the connection before Gannon’s message was complete.
Tris tensed. She could almost feel Gannon's vertigo, the sensation of not being in balance, aware of the absence of his other half, hundreds of miles away.
“Repeat message,” came the bass of Harbinger’s voice.
Gannon moved forward again, apparently going for a low attack…a move of desperation.
“We need to get him out of there,” Tris said, a tinge of nervousness in her voice that she couldn’t hide.
“Quiet!” Emrick snapped.
Before Gannon could recover from the third failed attack, the target moved toward him again, this time performing some sort of windmill kick that sent Gannon’s ghostly white image sailing to the ground once more.
They all watched as Gannon reached behind him before leveling his arm at the target—clutching a pistol, Tris realized.
“No!” Emrick yelled at the screen. “Alive! The target has to be alive!” But no one in Virginia could hear the people in the control room—it was observation only.