Also by Brad Taylor
One Rough Man
All Necessary Force
Enemy of Mine
The Widow’s Strike
The Polaris Protocol
Days of Rage
No Fortunate Son
SHORT WORKS
The Callsign
Gut Instinct
Black Flag
The Dig
The Recruit
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2015 by Brad Taylor
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
DUTTON—EST. 1852 (Stylized) and DUTTON are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Taylor, Brad, 1965–
The insider threat : a Pike Logan thriller / Brad Taylor.
pages ; cm
ISBN 978-0-698-19085-6
I. Title.
PS3620.A9353I57 2015
813'.6—dc23
2015009129
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
To Jodie and Allan, for always being there, no matter what.
CONTENTS
Also by Brad Taylor
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Acknowledgments
About the Author
IS are animals. They’re not human. They have a bloodlust the like of which I’ve never seen—it’s as if they enjoy killing. They revel in cutting heads off—it’s like their trademark.
—Kurdish refugee Ekram Ahmet, on witnessing atrocities in the town of Kobani after the Islamic State rampaged through it
You think you’re safe where you are, in America or Britain. You think you are safe, you are not safe. We are coming for you.
—Florida resident Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, the first United States suicide bomber, in a videotaped speech before his death in Syria
I say to America that the Islamic caliphate has been established . . . and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House.
—Abu Mosa, spokesman for the Islamic State
1
Jacob Driscoll watched the four men, fascinated that they showed no resistance whatsoever. Completely resigned to their fate. A fly landed on the forehead of the nearest one—the one he was to kill—and the captive let it crawl about, tasting his sweat.
Jacob listened to the spokesman continue to rail in Arabic, a small crowd gathered in the square, outnumbered two to one by the gunmen. He didn’t understand the language but could guess at what was being said.
These men are traitors. This is the fate that befalls all who oppose the Kalipha. Stand with us, or suffer the same.
Far from cheering, the small grouping of people looked cowed, as if they wanted to be anywhere but there. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. They’d rather be on the outside watching than on their bellies with their necks stretched out.
The spokesman droned on, building toward a grand spectacle, his black tunic covered in dust, the AK-47 swinging about with his body language, and Jacob knew it was coming close. Execution time. His first.
In the seven months he’d been inside the cult of death known as the Islamic State, he’d witnessed many, many executions, acting as a gunman on the periphery, but he’d never done one on his own.
Not that he minded killing. It hadn’t bothered him in the past, but the action had always been at the barrel of a gun, and he wondered how this would feel. In a detached, almost scientific way, he wondered if it would be different from carving the carcasses of the rabbits he’d killed in his youth. When he’d literally had to hunt for survival.
He looked at his partners, seeing Hussein fidgeting, the nervous tics growing more pronounced. He wasn’t built for this cauldron, and Jacob thought it ironic that Hussein was the one who had recruited them. Convinced them to come to this faraway land.
Not that they had many alternatives after fleeing the cesspool of “rehabilitation” they’d been placed within. Killing the guard had ensured that.
Carlos and Devon, now known as Yousef and Talib, showed no such hesitation. They had embraced the cult of death completely, changing their names and fervently soaking up the Salafist ideology like a cactus in the rain. They were on board one hundred and ten percent, considering this day a sacred one.