Rogue Operator

Three top secret research scientists are presumed dead in a boating
accident, but the kidnapping of their families the same day raises questions the FBI and local
police can’t answer, leaving them waiting for a ransom demand that will never come.

Central Intelligence Agency Analyst Chris Leroux stumbles upon the story, and finds a phone
conversation that was never supposed to happen. When he reports it to his boss, the
National Clandestine Services Chief, he is uncharacteristically reprimanded for conducting
an unauthorized investigation and told to leave it to the FBI.

But he can’t let it go.

For he knows something the FBI doesn’t.

One of the scientists is alive.

Chris makes a call to his childhood friend, CIA Special Agent Dylan Kane, leading to a race
across the globe to stop a conspiracy reaching the highest levels of political and corporate
America, that if not stopped, could lead to war with an enemy armed with a weapon far worse than
anything in the American arsenal, with the potential to not only destroy the world, but consume it.

J. Robert Kennedy, the author of ten international best sellers, including the smash hit
James Acton Thrillers, introduces Rogue Operator, the first installment of his newest series,
The Special Agent Dylan Kane Thrillers, promising to bring all of the action and intrigue of the
James Acton Thrillers with a hero who lives below the radar, waiting for his country to call when it most desperately needs him.

J. Robert Kennedy is the author of ten international best sellers, including the smash hit
James Acton Thrillers series. The Protocol has been on the best seller list in the US and UK since its release,
including occupying the number one spot for three months.

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Published Internationally by J. Robert Kennedy, Ottawa, ON
Canada

Copyright © 2013 J. Robert Kennedy

Cover and Inside Artwork Copyright © 2013 J. Robert Kennedy

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication
reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of
the publisher, J. Robert Kennedy, is an infringement of copyright law.

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 any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales
is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

For the 103.

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a
few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu
scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he
should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now,
I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that one
way or another.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Father of the Atomic Bomb

At the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia,
a wall of white Vermont marble, called the Memorial Wall, honors CIA employees
who died in the line of service. A star is carved into the marble for each of
the employees who have died in the line of duty.

The Book
of Honor, a black Moroccan goatskin-bound tome, sits beneath the stars. Inside,
when national security permits, it lists the names of those who are represented
by the stars, along with the year they died.

At the
time of the writing of this novel, only 77 stars have a name. The rest remain secret.
The first star belongs to Douglas Mackiernan. He died in 1950.

His name
wasn’t added to the Book of Honor until 2006.

Currently,
there are 103 stars.

Echelon Intercept, Received Today

Fort Meade, National Security Agency Headquarters

[CLASSIFICATION TOP SECRET
UMBRA GAMMA]

[DICTIONARY HITS: NONE,
NATSEC WIRE TAP AUTH XU11A43]

[SOURCE ILC INTERNATIONAL
LEASE CARRIER INTSAT-ALPHA]

[CALL ORIGIN: INTSAT
INTERCEPT, SOURCE UNKNOWN]

[CALL DESTINATION: SEATTLE,
WA, USA, LAND LINE 206-555-4178]

[# OF SUBJECTS = 2]

[SUBJECT IDENT: CALLER1 =
PETERSON, JASON IDENT SRC = OPS AGT Q4421X]

[SUBJECT IDENT: CALLER2 =
PETERSON, KATHLEEN IDENT SRC = TELCO]

[START OF TRANSCRIPT]

[CALLER2] “Hello?”

[CALLER1] “Hi, Mom, it’s me.”

[CALLER2] “Jason?”

[CALLER1] “Yes.”

[CALLER2] “Oh my God, it’s so good
to hear your voice. Where have you been, we’ve been so worried! I didn’t
believe them for a second when they said you were dead!”

[CALLER1] “I’m okay, Mom, don’t
worry.”

[CALLER2] “Are Maggie and the kids
with you?”

[CALLER1] “Yes. Everyone’s okay.”

[CALLER2] “Where are you? We’ve
been worried sick.”

[CALLER1] “I can’t say.”

[CALLER2] “What do you mean you
can’t say?”

[CALLER1] “I’m sorry, Mom, I have
to go. Listen, I just wanted you to know we’re okay. Don’t worry about us.”

[CALLER2] “I don’t understand. Why
can’t—”

[CALLER1] “I’m sorry, Mom, I’ve
got to go. Say hi to Dad. And Mom?”

[CALLER2] “What?”

[CALLER1] “Tell them not to look
for us.”

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]

Omega Bionetix Lab, Ogden, Utah

Three months ago

Jason Peterson stared at the screen, the magnification unimaginable
to the lay person, but to him, mere routine. But today was anything but
routine. Years of work were about to either pay off, or fizzle in yet another
disappointing failure. His heart pounded in anticipation, and he tried to calm
himself with deep, steady breaths.

When he
could think of it.

It was
just too exciting. He and his partners had devoted almost their entire
professional lives to this research, bleeding edge by anyone’s standards, and
had never been closer to succeeding than they were now. It had taken months
just to set up the experiment, their new design requiring painstaking manipulation
where just one wrong move, and there had been many, meant starting over.

Hence
the requirement for steady hands. And breathing.

But
today there were no hands involved. Today they had flipped the proverbial
switch, and their experiment was on its own.

“There!”

He
looked where his partner—and friend—Carl Shephard pointed.

Could
it be?

He
touched the monitor and dragged his finger, redirecting the microscope to
center on a new location.

“Jesus
Christ!” whispered Phil Hopkins. “It’s working.”

And it
was.

And it
was beautiful.

The
three simply stared, and when it was over, only thirteen seconds later, Jason felt
tears running down his cheeks that had gone unnoticed.

“We did
it.”

It was a
statement, spoken sotto voce, to no one in particular, for it was obvious to
the three scientists that their life’s work had finally borne fruit.

“What’s
going on?”

It was Phil
who verbalized what his eyes had noticed.

The
experiment hadn’t stopped.

“What’s
it doing?” Jason whispered, zooming in for an even deeper look.

“The process
didn’t stop,” said Carl, the fear in his voice palpable, as he rushed over to
one of the workstations, furiously typing. “There must be a programming error!”

Jason
could feel his chest tighten as their experiment grew, exponentially, on
screen. What was supposed to be a single replication, had now doubled, with a
quadrupling already underway.

He
turned to see Carl poring over the code that had been used to configure the
experiment, Phil at the terminal beside him, examining another section of the
code.

“There!”
said Phil, pointing at his screen. They all gathered around to see a single
line of code commented out with a simple ‘//’. A line of code that triggered
the process to stop after it had completed, otherwise the process looped back
to the top to replicate again.

Jason
felt faint and grabbed the back of Carl’s chair. “How the hell did that
happen?” he asked, steadying himself, the implications of this one line of disabled
code beginning to be realized.

An alarm
sounded and all their heads spun toward the display. The screen was now filled,
a squirming mass eating its way through everything in its path.

“We’ve
lost integrity on the test environment!” exclaimed Phil as he read the error
flashing on his screen. “How’s that possible?”

But Jason
didn’t care how it was possible. He only cared about how to stop it.

“We need
to shut it down!” he yelled, the alarm blaring.

“How?”

“The
EMP. It’s the only way!”

Jason
reached for the switch on the wall, flipping open the protective cover. He felt
someone grab his arm. It was Phil.

“No, you
can’t! We’ll lose all our research. Everything! We’ll have to start over!”

Jason
wrenched his arm free.

“None of
that will matter if we don’t stop this. Everything, everyone, will be gone!”

“There
has to be another way!” cried Phil, lunging for Jason’s arm as he reached for
the large, round button.

“Look!”

They
both turned to see Carl pointing at the casing housing the experiment.

It was
disintegrating before their eyes.

“Press
the button, for the love of God!” pleaded Carl as the casing turned to a liquid
almost resembling mercury, and poured out onto the floor.

Jason
remained frozen, his mind a fog of what they had done, the horror they had
unleashed on the world.

“Press
the fucking button!” roared Carl.

Jason
tore himself from Phil’s grasp, his partner’s hold no longer strong, his will
to preserve their work apparently waning as the terror of what was unfolding
triggered his own desire for self-preservation.

Jason
slammed his palm against the large red button and the sounds of the massive EMP
generator powering up could be heard on the other side of the wall.

“How
long?” asked Carl as he backed away from the encroaching mass.

“Two
minutes!”

“It’ll
be ten times the size by then!”

A
display flickered on the wall, its LED numbers counting down far slower than Jason’s
heart slammed against his ribcage. He backed into a corner, as far away as he
could get from the mass as it seemed to regurgitate toward him, the
electromagnetic pulse engine still with far too much time left. His thoughts
were consumed not for the planet he had just destroyed, but for his wife and
kids, who would die without him, never knowing it was their own protector who
had unleashed the devastation upon them, and mankind.

I’m so
sorry.

Waterford Academy, Ogden, Utah

Last Week

Maggie Peterson looked at her watch.

Where
are those kids?
She didn’t have time for their
dillydallying today. Not with Jason away. In fact, with him away, she was being
run ragged.
I don’t know how single mothers do it!
She spotted Darius
sliding down the railing, her heart skipping a beat before he landed safely at
the bottom, the teacher monitoring the stairs wagging a finger at him, he
dipping his head in apology as he quickly walked by, then as soon as she was
out of sight—from his eight year old perspective—a smile spread across his face
and he waved, running for the car.