Armored

Auteur
Mark Greaney has a degree in international relations and political science. In his research for the Gray Man novels, including Relentless, One Minute Out, Mission Critical, Agent in Place, Gunmetal Gray, Back Blast, Dead Eye, Ballistic, On Target, and The Gray Man, he traveled to more than thirty-five countries and trained alongside military and law enforcement in the use of firearms, battlefield medicine, and close-range combative tactics. With Marine LtCol Rip Rawlings, he wrote the New York Times bestseller Red Metal. He is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers Tom Clancy Support and Defend, Tom Clancy Full Force and Effect, Tom Clancy Commander in Chief, and Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance. With Tom Clancy, he coauthored Locked On, Threat Vector, and Command Authority.

Texte du rabat

A novel inspired by #1 New York Times best-selling author Mark Greaney's Audible Original drama, Armored.

Joshua Duffy is a Close Protection Agent-a professional bodyguard-and he's one of the world's elite operatives. That is, he was until his last mission in Lebanon. Against all odds, Josh got his primary out alive, but the cost was high. Josh lost his lower left leg.

There's not much call for an elite bodyguard with such an injury. So, Josh has to support his family working as a mall cop in New Jersey. For a man like Josh, this is purgatory on earth, but miracles can occur even in Paramus.

A lucky run-in with an old comrade promises to get Josh back in the field for one last job. The UN is sending a peace mission into the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico, an area so dangerous it's known as Espinazo del Diablo-the Devil's Spine. Only a fool would think they could broker peace between the homicidal drug cartels in the region, and only a madman would sign on to keep those fools alive.

Résumé
A novel inspired by #1 New York Times best-selling author Mark Greaney’s Audible Original drama, Armored.

Joshua Duffy is a Close Protection Agent—a professional bodyguard—and he's one of the world's elite operatives. That is, he was until his last mission in Lebanon. Against all odds, Josh got his primary out alive, but the cost was high. Josh lost his lower left leg. 
 
There's not much call for an elite bodyguard with such an injury. So, Josh has to support his family working as a mall cop in New Jersey. For a man like Josh, this is purgatory on earth, but miracles can occur even in Paramus. 
 
A lucky run-in with an old comrade promises to get Josh back in the field for one last job. The UN is sending a peace mission into the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico, an area so dangerous it's known as *Espinazo del Diablo—*the Devil's Spine. Only a fool would think they could broker peace between the homicidal drug cartels in the region, and only a madman would sign on to keep those fools alive.

Échantillon de lecture

Chapter 1

 

A hazy sun descended over the azure waters of the Mediterranean and shone orange across the coastline of western Beirut, the early evening glow glinting off the high-end sunglasses worn by most of the fifteen American high-threat security operators spread around the outskirts of the crowd.

 

The entire protection detail, minus the team's three drivers, stood in a horseshoe-shaped formation around a parking lot next to a marina and across a wide boulevard from a row of high-rise waterfront apartments. Their protectee stood at a lectern on a stage before an undulating crowd of some five hundred souls who surged and receded, both energized by and contemplative of the words of the speaker, and the shifting movements of the gathering looked like the gentle waters of the Med lapping in the slips of the marina next to them.

 

On the western side of the horseshoe, a pair of security officers stood just feet apart on a low wall that separated the parking lot from the docks. The men were outfitted similarly to each other, and much the same as the rest of the team: long-sleeved moisture-wicking shirts, body armor, ball caps, jeans. Athletic boots and G-Shock watches, Oakley shades and Peltor headsets.

 

And rifles across chests festooned with body armor, pouches for ammo, pouches for medical supplies, pouches for radios, and pouches for a myriad of backup weapons and other gear, both lethal and less-than-lethal.

 

It was the job of these men to meet violence with superior violence, and they stood at the ready.

 

The pair on the low wall were distinct from each other, however, in that one of them was well into his forties, whereas the other was still in his twenties. Their sector responsibilities included watching both the gathering itself and the boats docked in the slips of the marina behind them, and while doing this, they could also feel the energy from a small group of men standing on the outskirts of the event in the parking lot of a sketchy waterfront hotel adjacent to the rally.

 

This was a campaign speech, so it was no surprise protesters were there to oppose the candidate, but the malevolence from this group of fifteen or twenty men was palpable.

 

The people in view were the main burden to the protection detail's work, but beyond the throngs there were dark apartment windows, shadowy alleyways, and a busy thoroughfare, as well as the marina full of boats and an ocean beyond.

 

Danger could come from any vector; the Americans knew this well.

 

The older security officer didn't transmit over his radio; instead he just whispered to the man next to him, "Ain't this a shit show?"

 

"These things are always a shit show, boss."

 

"We need another dozen Joes to secure this scene. Panther acts like he's fuckin' bulletproof."

 

The younger man glanced to the protectee, passionately speaking Arabic into the microphone. Then he looked back to the dark-eyed men on the periphery. "Hope none of those jokers over there try to prove him wrong."

 

The older security officer chuckled at this as his eyes worked the scene. He, like his teammates, expected an attack at any moment, because it had happened before.

 

The Americans had arrived in Lebanon three weeks earlier to replace what was left of another executive protection detail. The first team were locals, trained well enough to deal with some threats, but they'd been nowhere close to proficient when facing a well-trained unit of combatants, which was exactly what they'd come up against in the city of Sidon. Four of the candidate's bodyguards had been killed and another five were injured, but the candidate and his wife, who always traveled with him, had miraculously survived the attack unscathed.

 

The candidate then made the politically questionable decision to outsource his campaign's protection to an American firm, and since then, no one had tried anything.

 

Yet, anyway.

 

The bustle of the major metropolitan city seemed to grow in the lulls of the speech pounding from the speakers set up in the crowded lot, and all the bodyguards were certain that, somewhere out there in this metropolis, another gang of assholes was planning another attempt on their principal.

 

The older security officer again spoke softly to the younger. "You feel it, Bravo Five?"

 

The young man's eyes swept right and left. "I feel it, One."

 

Nothing else was said between the two; their heads just scanned back and forth, their grips tightened on their weapons, and they stole the occasional glance out to sea at the setting sun. It was seven p.m. now; there was less than an hour of light left, and the bodyguards looked at the onset of nightfall with trepidation. They wanted their protectee-the team had given him the code name Pan…