Echo of War Read Online Free PDF

changed his major to criminal justice.
    To fund his undergraduate degree in psychology, after Notre Dame he joined the army reserves and trained as an armored intelligence scout. On those weekends he wasn’t bouncing around inside a Bradley fighting vehicle, he made pocket money by giving golf lessons at nearby courses and flipping steak at a local diner.
    Time flies, Joe thought. From short-order cook to free-lancer for the FBI and the CIA. Time had also brought him some unexpected gifts, including a wonderful wife and a pair of sons—Joe Jr., a radiologist in Oklahoma, and Scott, an attorney in Ohio. Life was good—for him at least, watching the cops milling around the driveway. Something bad had happened here tonight. The question was, could he do anything to make it right? One way to find out.
    The deputy escorted him to the front door, where he was met by a man wearing a blue blazer. An FBI badge dangled from his front pocket. The agent extended his hand to McBride. “Collin Oliver.”
    â€œJoe McBride. You’ve got every cop within fifty miles here. What the hell happened?”
    â€œThree dead security guards, one who’s probably on the way out, a bypassed alarm system, and a missing woman. A neighbor walking his dog found one of the guards and called it in.”
    â€œThe husband?”
    â€œHe’s inside. Shaken up but unhurt.”
    â€œAny calls yet? Anything left behind?”
    â€œNothing.”
    McBride frowned. “Agent Oliver, I’m not sure why I’m—”
    â€œYou’ll see. Come on.”
    Oliver led him inside, through the living room, and into the kitchen. An elderly man with disheveled gray hair sat at the dining table. He stared into space, his hands curled around a steaming mug. Standing a few feet away a pair of State Troopers nervously shuffled their feet.
    Oliver stopped in the doorway and gestured for McBride to wait. He walked up to the man, whispered a few words to him, then gestured toward McBride. The man looked in McBride’s direction then nodded.
    The face looks familiar, McBride thought. As he tried to place it, Oliver waved him over.
    â€œJoe, this is the owner of the house, Mr. Root.”
    Root … Jonathan Root. That was it, that’s why he looked familiar, McBride realized. Jonathan Root was the former director of the CIA. Oh boy.
    Root looked up at him. “You’re McBride?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œYou’ve got to help me. They’ve got my wife. They told me they’ll kill her.”

3
    Tunis Mills, Maryland
    Even before Vetsch began recounting the few details he had of Susanna’s disappearance, Tanner had made his decision. There was nothing to think about, really. He was Susanna’s godfather; she his surrogate daughter. Gill could not go after her himself—which was tearing him apart—and Tanner refused to simply sit back and hope for the best. Even so, there were arrangements to be made before he could do anything. His work complicated matters.
    Not long after resigning his commission with the Navy and leaving ISAG, Tanner was approached with an offer by his late mentor, Chief Boatswain’s Mate Ned Billings. Billings was a part of a quasi-civilian intelligence group called Holystone. Run by Leland Dutcher, a former deputy director of intelligence for the CIA, Holystone was what is known in the espionage business as a “fix-it company,” a small collection of special operators and intelligence gatherers who handled the riskiest of jobs.
    Pitched to Dutcher by then President Ronald Reagan in the early eighties, Holystone was designed to address a blank spot in the U.S.’s intelligence community—namely, a group that could follow bad guys into the gray areas where military action was too much, diplomacy was too little, and standard intelligence measures were indefensible—in other words, a group that worked by “deniable methods.”
    For