Time of Attack Read Online Free Page A

many hours. He winced when Marta reached back and grabbed him over both hip pockets, drawing him to her. Sitting for hours in airplanes and pickups had given him some kind of sore at the base of his spine.
    Bedford was a soldier, a father, and a husband. The soldiering had taken up all his time for the last three hundred and thirty-six days. The fatherly stuff he’d get to later, when the girls came home. He wasn’t about to let a little jet lag and a pimple on his butt keep him from the pressing husbandly duties before him. Any thought of discomfort or sleep or Afghanistan bled from his mind as he gathered his wife in his arms and pushed her back inside the door.
     
     
    The governor of Oregon stepped away from a budget meeting at his office in Salem and answered his second cell phone, the one his aides were not allowed to touch.
    “Yes?”
    “Peace be unto you,” Qasim Ranjhani said, a strange lilt in his voice.
    “And to you,” McKeon said.
    Ranjhani’s voice buzzed with excitement. “It has begun.”
    “Excellent.” With over seven hundred fifty thousand people of interest on the government’s terrorist watch lists, McKeon didn’t waste much time with worry over whether or not anyone was listening to his phone. “Our friend has his people in place. He will be ready.”
    “I have to tell you”—Ranjhani’s breath whistled through his nose—“this man we do business with is a cause for grave concern to me.”
    “Focus on the possibilities ahead,” McKeon said, glancing around to see that he was alone. “We will prevail, Allah willing.” He ended the call, preferring not to discuss the specifics of mercenary help in a holy war. In truth, he was as concerned as Ranjhani. Allowing outsiders to assist with their plan could have deadly consequences. But most of the assets his father had worked so hard to put in place had been hunted down and killed—a fact that a certain American agent would very shortly come to regret.

P ART O NE

    The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
    —P ROVERBS 28:1

C HAPTER 1
    U.S. Air Force Academy
    Colorado Springs
     
    J ericho Quinn wished he was on a motorcycle. The mess dress uniform, the tie, the crowds of wedding guests he didn’t know, all left him with the urge to step away for air. He could put on a good face for a short time, socialize, tell polite stories. He was, after all, an officer and a gentleman trained on the very grounds of this hallowed institution. But it didn’t take long before such talk grew thin and he found himself longing for that quiet place inside his helmet—on a long ride. It really didn’t matter where.
    Gunnery Sergeant Jacques Thibodaux stepped up beside him, dipping a Marine Corps high-and-tight toward Quinn’s ex-wife’s date. Air Force Captain Gary Lavin strutted around like a peacock, giving advice to anyone who would listen about all on which he was an expert, which, according to him, was everything under the Colorado sun. Kim appeared to agree.
    Jericho couldn’t help wincing every time the man opened his mouth.
    “You know, ‘Because he needed killin’ ain’t a valid defense in court,” Thibodaux grunted. His voice was steeped in a gumbo-thick Cajun rhythm. Huge shoulders threw Quinn and much of the real estate around him into shadows. A black patch covered an injured eye, courtesy of flying shrapnel from a gunfight in a Bolivian jungle just weeks before.
    Both men were OGAs—Other Governmental Agents, detailed from their regular assignments to report directly to the president’s national security advisor. Quinn with Air Force OSI, Jacques from the Marine Corps.
    Quinn chuckled. “Whatever. He’s Kim’s business.” He nodded at Thibodaux’s patch to move the subject away from his ex-wife’s love life. “How’s the eye?”
    “It is what it is.” Thibodaux shrugged. “Doc says getting my vision back is still touch and go. I don’t really mind, though.” He gave Quinn a