Hard Kill - Sample Chapters

men and one woman. Meyerstein looked up, as did her righthand man, Roy Stamper, who Reznick already knew. Plasma screens on the wall. She stood up and shook his hand.

“Glad you agreed to join us,” she said.

Reznick was introduced to everyone around the table. They included the head of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, a “special advisor” to the Department of Homeland Security, and a raft of high-level security-cleared members of the intelligence community – senior analysts from the CIA, NSA, Pentagon, State Department and Homeland Security. He shook their hands. He knew all about strategic analysts and rated their skills highly. The people who sifted raw data and tried to figure out the big picture, providing people like Meyerstein an understanding of what was known about a threat and what wasn’t. But they were also concerned with trying to determine what threats lay over the horizon.

“Take a seat, Jon,” she said after the formalities were over.

The only person who wasn’t identified was the man sitting to the left of Meyerstein.

Reznick sat down in his seat and looked up at the clock on the wall. 7.03am. “You mind telling me what this is all about?”

The man to the left of Meyerstein cleared his throat. “My name is Lieutenant General Robert J Black; I am employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency, although for the last year I’ve worked out of an office at the Pentagon. Now that we’re all acquainted, let me set out some ground rules.”

Black’s gaze lingered for a moment on each and every person around the table.

“What I’m about to tell you is not to be discussed and, secondly, is not to be acknowledged. Only the people in this room plus the President know. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.” A few nods round the table. “A senior diplomat – a defense attaché, Dennis O’Grady, who also worked as a national security advisor in a previous administration – didn’t