Charles A Stewart: Rogue Vengeance, Gebunden

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ROGUE VENGEANCE A Colt Hawkins Thriller When the White House aborts a covert CIA mission inside a joint Russian-Chinese black facility, Paramilitary Operations Officer Colt Hawkins and his Task Force 24 team are left stranded behind enemy lines. The mission-code-named Sky Thunder-was meant to expose a next-generation weapons platform capable of crippling U. S. satellite defenses. Instead, Washington buries it. Exposure, not failure, is what they fear. During exfiltration, team member Jesse Williamson is presumed killed-but he is captured and transferred to a Chinese black prison. Rather than authorize a rescue, the administration forces out CIA Director Marcus Durham and sidelines everyone connected to the mission. His successor, Dwight Prescott, is tasked with containing the political fallout. Disavowed and blackballed, Colt retires and returns to Montana to marry his fiancée, Dr. Liberty Starr, Director of NASA. He intends to leave the shadows behind. But Sky Thunder was never just a failed mission. Senior Presidential Advisor Landon Halston-secretly aligned with China-helped orchestrate its cancellation. Under the command of Senior Colonel Shun Chang, a covert death squad is activated to eliminate loose ends. On Colt's wedding day, they strike. The attack leaves Liberty in a coma and Colt severely wounded. What was political becomes personal. Operating outside agency authority, Colt begins hunting those responsible. His investigation uncovers a wider Chinese espionage network embedded in American universities and European technology sectors. Tracking two operatives to a Washington State safe house, he recovers encrypted communications linking their operations to Chang-and evidence suggesting elements inside U. S. intelligence were compromised to sabotage Sky Thunder. Before he can act, law enforcement identifies Colt as a suspect. Federal alerts are issued. Former teammates Bob Beard and Mike Rose, secretly assigned to monitor him, extract Colt and bring the intelligence to Director Prescott. Confronted with proof of coordinated Chinese escalation and assassination attempts on U. S. soil, Prescott chooses country over politics. He reinstates Colt and reactivates Task Force 24. When assassins attempt a second strike at Colt's Montana home, CIA operator Railee Bowers repels them, confirming the conflict has moved onto American soil. The hunt leads to Spain, where Task Force 24 confronts and kills Colonel Chang. Surviving operatives retreat toward Taiwan as Beijing escalates military "exercises" in the region. Meanwhile, impeachment proceedings begin in Washington after revelations about Sky Thunder's cover-up surface. The President and Vice President face removal. Speaker of the House Kandyce Morgan prepares to assume office. In Taiwan, the remaining operatives shift to reconnaissance-mapping infrastructure and identifying targets for invasion. Colt eliminates them, but the larger threat is already mobilizing. Task Force 24 inserts into mainland China to rescue Jesse from prison. The extraction succeeds at heavy cost. As they fight toward coastal exfiltration, Chinese naval forces deploy toward Taiwan. Missile systems activate. Global markets tremble. Outnumbered and hunted, Colt and his team escape by sea as bombardment begins near Taiwan. In Washington, the President resigns. Kandyce Morgan takes the oath of office just as Chinese forces strike near U. S. diplomatic positions. The silent war is over. Colt Hawkins tried to walk away. Instead, he stands at the center of a global conflict-betrayed by politics, driven by loyalty, and facing an adversary no longer operating in secret. The war is no longer covert. It is global. And Rogue Vengeance is only the beginning.