Bio-Strike (Tom Clancy's Power Plays, Book 4) - Softcover

Jerome Preisler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425177351 ISBN 13: 9780425177358

Publisher: Berkley, 2000

Synopsis

A new strain of mass destruction threatens mankind in this thriller in Tom Clancy's bestselling Power Plays series.
 
The most dangerous man of this century has employed the most dangerous weapon yet. Criminal mastermind Harlan DeVane has developed—and spread—a deadly, genetically engineered “superbug” resistant to all known cures. A microscopic time bomb, it will lie dormant inside its human hosts until detonated by specific biochemical triggers.
 
DeVane plans to auction off the triggering elements to the highest bidder, but first he’ll use them to destroy the greatest threat to his operation: Roger Gordian, head of UpLink Technologies. As Roger falls prey to the disease, his medical and intelligence teams race to find the cause and the cure—but because in Roger’s fate lies the fate of the world.

About this title

About the Author:

A little more than thirty years ago Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore’s Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it “the perfect yarn.” From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgements

 

ONE - VARIOUS LOCALES

TWO - LA PAZ, BOLIVIA

THREE - MONTEREY BAY, CALIFORNIA

FOUR - BAJA PENINSULA, MEXICO

FIVE - VARIOUS LOCALES

SIX - SAN JOSE/SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

SEVEN - VARIOUS LOCALES

EIGHT - VARIOUS LOCALES

NINE - NATION CODE NAME: CAPE GREEN

TEN - VARIOUS LOCALES

ELEVEN - SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

TWELVE - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

THIRTEEN - CALIFORNIA/VIRGINIA

FOURTEEN - SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

FIFTEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES

SIXTEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES

SEVENTEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES

EIGHTEEN - CALIFORNIA

NINETEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES

TWENTY - VARIOUS LOCALES

TWENTY-ONE - CALIFORNIA

TWENTY-TWO - SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

TWENTY-THREE - VARIOUS LOCALES

TWENTY-FOUR - NORTHERN ONTARIO, CANADA

TWENTY-FIVE - VARIOUS LOCALES

TWENTY-SIX - VARIOUS LOCALES

 

EPILOGUE

THE BESTSELLING NOVELS OF TOM CLANCY

RAINBOW SIX

John Clark is used to doing the CIA’s dirty work. Now he’s taking on the world. . . .

 

“ACTION-PACKED.”

—The New York Times Book Review

 

 

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

The most devastating terrorist act in history leaves Jack Ryan as president of the United States. . . .

 

“UNDOUBTEDLY CLANCY’S BEST YET.”

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

 

DEBT OF HONOR

It begins with the murder of an American woman in the backstreets of Tokyo. It ends in war. . . .

 

“A SHOCKER CLIMAX SO PLAUSIBLE YOU’LL WONDER WHY IT HASN’T YET HAPPENED.”

—Entertainment Weekly

 

 

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

The smash bestseller that launched Clancy’s career—the incredible search for a Soviet defector and the nuclear submarine he commands . . .

 

 

“BREATHLESSLY EXCITING.”

—The Washington Post

 

RED STORM RISING

 

The ultimate scenario for World War III—the final battle for global control . . .

 

“THE ULTIMATE WAR GAME . . . BRILLIANT.”

—Newsweek

 

 

 

PATRIOT GAMES

 

CIA analyst Jack Ryan stops an assassination—and incurs the wrath of Irish terrorists. . . .

 

“A HIGH PITCH OF EXCITEMENT.”

—The Wall Street Journal

 

 

 

THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN

 

The superpowers race for the ultimate Star Wars missile defense system. . . .

 

“CARDINAL EXCITES, ILLUMINATES . . . A REAL PAGE-TURNER.”

—Los Angeles Daily News

 

 

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

The killing of three U.S. officials in Colombia ignites the American government’s explosive, and top secret, response. . . .

 

“A CRACKLING GOOD YARN.”

—The Washington Post

 

 

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS

The disappearance of an Israeli nuclear weapon threatens the balance of power in the Middle East—and around the world. . . .

 

“CLANCY AT HIS BEST . . . NOT TO BE MISSED.”

—The Dallas Morning News

 

 

WITHOUT REMORSE

The Clancy epic that fans have been waiting for. His code name is Mr. Clark. And his work for the CIA is brilliant, cold-blooded, and efficient . . . but who is he really?

 

“HIGHLY ENTERTAINING.”

—The Wall Street Journal

NOVELS BY TOM CLANCY

The Hunt for Red October
Red Storm Rising
Patriot Games
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Without Remorse
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon
Red Rabbit
The Teeth of the Tiger

 

SSN: Strategies of Submarine Warfare

 

 

NONFICTION

 

 

Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship
Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment
Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing
Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force
Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier
Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces

 

Into the Storm: A Study in Command
(written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret.)
Every Man a Tiger
(written with General Charles Horner, Ret.)
Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces
(written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

 

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY

 

 

Splinter Cell

 

 

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY AND STEVE PIECZENIK

 

 

Tom Clancy’s Op-Center
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Games of State
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Acts of War
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Balance of Power
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: State of Siege
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Divide and Conquer
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Line of Control
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mission of Honor
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Sea of Fire
Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Call to Treason

 

Tom Clancy’s Net Force
Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Hidden Agendas
Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Night Moves
Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Breaking Point
Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Point of Impact
Tom Clancy’s Net Force: CyberNation
Tom Clancy’s Net Force: State of War
Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Changing of the Guard
Tom Clancy’s Net Force: Springboard

 

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY AND MARTIN GREENBERG

 

Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Politika
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: ruthless.com
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Shadow Watch
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Bio-Strike
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Cold War
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Cutting Edge
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Zero Hour
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays: Wild Card

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either 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.

 

TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: BIO-STRIKE

 

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with RSE Holdings, Inc.

 

PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley edition / November 2000

 

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2000 by RSE Holdings, Inc.

 

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form
without permission.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-00259-9

 

BERKLEY®
Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY and the “B” design
are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

 

 

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Marc Cerasini, Larry Segriff, Denise Little, John Helfers, Robert Youdelman, Esq., Tom Mallon, Esq.; the wonderful people at Penguin Putnam Inc., including Phyllis Grann, David Shanks, and Tom Colgan; and Doug Littlejohns, Kevin Perry, the rest of the Bio-Strike team, and the other fine folks at Red Storm Entertainment and Holistic Design. As always, I would like to thank Robert Gottlieb of the William Morris Agency. But most important, it is for you, my readers, to determine how successful our collective endeavor has been.

 

—Tom Clancy

ONE

VARIOUS LOCALES

OCTOBER 7, 2001

 

 

 

 

 

AMERICAN CITIES RUN BY THE CLOCK. THIS IS TRUEST of the largest and busiest, where the minute hand impels people through their routines without room for pause. The sleep-demolishing clatter of a five A.M. trash pickup, a breakneck dash to the subway, back-to-back conferences noted in a desk planner, business luncheons, happy hours, and more commuter sprints—these are distance markers on the constricted urban fast track, a daily marathon of appointments and schedules where it is only an apparent contradiction to say even the unpredictable occurs at predictable times.

It was largely because of its precise adherence to schedule, its tidal inflow and outflow of humanity, that the New York Stock Exchange was chosen to be ground zero for the northeastern seaboard of the United States, the epicenter of an explosion that would be neither heard nor felt by the thousands of souls it overtook, yet was potentially more catastrophic than a full-scale nuclear assault.

Inconspicuous as the weapon he was carrying, the man in the dark blue suit walked past the statue of George Washington in Federal Plaza to the impressive Greek Revival building on Wall Street amid a swarm of traders and clerks eager to make the opening bell. A tobacco-leather briefcase in his right hand, he climbed the broad outer stairs, passed under the stone pediment with its sculpted gods of finance and invention, and strode through the entrance onto the main trading floor. Once inside, he continued moving with the flood of conservatively dressed men and women as they pushed toward the brokerage booths, trading posts, and banks of phone and video monitors that linked the Exchange to the national and foreign market networks.

Scanning the room, he discovered an unoccupied phone stall, jostled toward it, placed his briefcase on the floor near his feet, and lifted the receiver.

His hand on the hook, he randomly keyed in a number and pretended to make a call.

He would stand there waiting until the time was right.

A few moments later, the bell rang out from the platform, and the nation’s most powerful engine of commerce jolted into high gear. The buzz of voices around him became an enthusiastic clamor, the loud outcries of stock auctioneers carrying up to the vaulted ceiling, tantalizing their bidders like bright flashes of gold and precious gems.

He felt sure that no one was paying attention to him. He was invisible in his conformity, to all eyes just another securities professional touching base with his office as the early quotes hit the board.

The silent phone cradled between his chin and shoulder, he leaned down and pushed a catch beside one of the briefcase’s combination locks. The latch did not snap open. Nor had that been his intent.

Still bent over the case, he heard a low sound issue from its side panel.

Hissssss.

Like a venomous snake.

The device was patterned after the modified attaché cases once found by authorities in the compound of Japanese Aum Shinrikyo terrorists, the same extremist cult responsible for the 1995 Tokyo subway attack that killed a dozen riders and left over 5,000 people grievously injured from exposure to sarin nerve gas. Like the Aum’s delivery system, it had been contrived from a small aerosol canister, a battery-operated handheld fan, and a nozzle running to a camouflaged vent in the shell of the briefcase. His single improvement to their original design was the lock-catch triggering mechanism, which eliminated any need to raise the lid and reduced his chances of drawing unwanted attention.

Lifting his case, the man in the dark blue suit hung up the receiver and stepped back into the crowd. Someone immediately shouldered past to take his place at the phone, scarcely noticing him. Good, he thought. In the general commotion, the expulsion of aerosol couldn’t be heard. He had only to wind his way around the room a bit, insuring the agent was spread throughout, and his job here would be finished. His targets would do the rest with their scrambling between appointments, their five o’clock cocktail gatherings, their close-packed bodies on homebound trains and buses. Mingling with coworkers, casual acquaintances, and friends, kissing their wives and hugging their children, going around and around in relentless, cyclical patterns of high-speed movement, they would very effectively do the rest.

Soon he left the Exchange and turned onto Broad Street, the canister in his briefcase emptied of its unseen contents. In his mind, he could still hear the noise from the vents: hissssss.

The memory raised the hairs at the back of his neck. He’d been guaranteed there was nothing to worry about, and the assignment had paid handsomely enough to help compensate for any lingering anxiety. Still, he was glad to be outside the building, and he welcomed even the thick, unseasonably warm air of Manhattan in fall . . . knowing he hadn’t really left anything behind. Not anything that couldn’t follow him.

If what he had released wasn’t already out there on the street, it would be.

Soon enough, it would be everywhere.

 

The Air Tractor AT-802 turboprop is a mainstay of the agricultural aviation industry and a common sight in the sky above central Florida, a region that accounts for almost 70 percent of the nation’s total citrus production. Aboard the plane is an 800-gallon hopper that may contain any of a wide range of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides. Pumps beneath the fuselage drive the chemical from the hopper into wing-mounted booms equipped with either special nozzles, in the case of liquids, or spreaders, in the case of solids, for spraying the vast groves of orange, grapefruit, lemon, and lime trees.

On this particular morning, an AT-802 launched from a grass airstrip west of Clermont for a spray run with something worlds removed from the products normally used by ag pilots. To prevent its degradation in storage and transport, the material had been lyophilized, or freeze-dried, into an ultrafine, whitish powder that resembled confectioners’ sugar to the naked eye. The particles were then embedded in tiny granular spheres composed of a biodegradable organic compound, increasing their stability and ensuring a controlled and uniform rate of release. Perfectly smooth and free-flowing, t...

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0425177351
• ISBN 13: 9780425177358
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 464