Only the Dead: A Thriller (Volume 6) (Terminal List) - Softcover

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Jack Carr is a former Navy SEAL who led special operations teams as a team leader, platoon commander, troop commander, and task unit commander. Over his twenty years in Naval Special Warfare, he transitioned from an enlisted SEAL sniper to a junior officer leading assault and sniper teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, to a platoon commander practicing counterinsurgency in the southern Philippines, to commanding a special operations task unit in the most Iranian influenced section of southern Iraq throughout the tumultuous drawdown of US Forces. Jack retired from active duty in 2016 and lives with his wife and three children in Park City, Utah. He is the author of The Terminal List, True Believer, Savage Son, The Devil’s Hand, In the Blood, Only the Dead, Red Sky Mourning, and Targeted: Beirut. His debut novel, The Terminal List, was adapted into the #1 Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt. He is also the host of the top-rated Danger Close podcast. Visit him at OfficialJackCarr.com and follow Jack on Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube @JackCarrUSA.

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Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

United States Penitentiary

Florence Administrative Maximum Facility

Range 13

Special Housing Unit

Fremont County, Colorado

DARKNESS.

Suffering.

Prison.

Of the mind.

His soul in chains.

His body in solitary confinement.

Nothing but darkness.

All life is suffering, Reece remembered.

How long have I been in here? Days? Weeks? Certainly not a month.

It was hard to tell when you were living in darkness.

But he wasn’t living in silence.

The voices were his companions.

What are you looking for?

“Salvation,” Reece said.

What truth do you seek?

“I seek a reckoning.”

You’ve found it.

“Have I?”

You are going to die in here, Reece. You deserve to die in here. In the dark. Alone. Your wife died alone.

“No, she didn’t. She had Lucy.”

And an unborn child. You failed them, Reece. You failed them all. Just as you failed your men in Afghanistan. Freddy died on that rooftop in Odessa because of you. You deserve what’s coming.

“And what is that? The grave?”

Death would be too merciful for you. You killed them, Reece.

“No!”

You are beyond redemption. You killed your wife and daughter. Had you been home, had you hung up the gun years earlier, they would still be alive. It was an unwinnable war. You knew that from the start. You studied your history. Those who sent you neglected to study theirs.

“Imperial hubris,” Reece whispered.

They failed you and those they sent to fight. For twenty years. They filled the coffers of their defense industry allies, enjoying dinners and drinks with lobbyists, none of whom had the balls to step into the breach. You knew it. You went anyway. And you didn’t do it for God and country.

“Then who did I do it for?”

You did it for you.

“No.”

Where is your faith?

“It’s gone.”

Gone or dormant?

“I don’t know.”

It never fully disappears.

“I feel forsaken.”

You should. By surviving the ambush in Afghanistan, you sentenced your family to death. Had you died in the Hindu Kush, they would not have been killed in your home. You know it’s true.

“I wanted to hold those responsible accountable.”

But accountability wasn’t enough, was it?

“There needed to be consequences.”

Consequences?

“Yes. I believe in consequences. Judgment.”

Darkness.

Pain.

Suffering.

Is vengeance yours? How does it feel?

“I did what was necessary.”

Did you?

“Yes.”

Or was it because that is all you know? Because that is what you do best? Because that is where you feel most alive?

“I wanted to die.”

You needed to die. Death becomes you, Reece. War—it’s in your blood. You became war.

“It was the only way.”

And you are beyond redemption.

“I know.”

You brought it home. You brought war home to those who sent a generation into combat. You put the fear of God into those growing fat off the dividends of death. You got what you wanted.

“I wanted justice.”

No, you didn’t.

“I wanted revenge.”

You became vengeance.

“A reckoning.”

Did you get it? And what of Katie?

Reece tensed.

If you stay with Katie, she will die.

“I’ll protect her.”

The way you protected your wife and daughter? The way you protected your troop? The way you covered Freddy on that rooftop?

“I need to get out of here.”

You won’t leave this cell. Its walls are already closing in. Soon, even you won’t be able to survive.

“I will.”

Are you a survivor, Reece?

“I’m a fighter.”

Every fighter goes down.

“But they get back up.”

Darkness. Welcome it. Become it. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. You are sealed in your tomb. Forever.

“Bullshit.”

Life is pain. Life is suffering. Why didn’t they just kill you? Why didn’t you kill yourself? Save Katie. She deserves her life.

“There’s a safe-deposit box I need to find.”

What’s inside is poison. And now Katie has the safe-deposit box key. A key to a box you will never find. You put her in danger again. If she dies, you are responsible.

“What’s in it?”

Your father knew.

“What was his tie to Russian intelligence?”

What do you think?

“I don’t know.”

You will rot in this cell, Reece. You will die in darkness. You will never get answers.

“Where there is darkness, there is light.”

Somewhere, but you will never see it again. Death is on the wind.

“No.”

Yes.

“Then this is what I deserve.”

It is what you deserve.

Suffering.

Darkness.

This room will drive you to madness.

“I know.”

All you have is your mind. Your mind and one meal a day. Why do they want you locked up?

“Who is ‘they’?”

Did Alice betray you?

“She warned me.”

Maybe she did both. Is she friend or foe?

“Alice, where are you?”

All those who killed Lauren and Lucy are dead.

“I know.”

You killed them. The man behind 9/11; you killed him, too.

“I did.”

The man responsible for Freddy Strain’s death.

“Dead.”

The man responsible for your father’s death?

“Dead.”

Is he?

“They are all dead.”

Then what of Russian intelligence? Why would Mikhail Gromyko take his own life? The head of the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, went to the grave with your father’s list on his last breath. The list and Thomas Reece. What was Gromyko protecting? Who was he protecting? You will never know, Reece.

“I will.”

You are not leaving this cell alive. Be it a day or decades, you will die here. Your brain will deteriorate, and you will spend whatever time you have descending into madness. You should smash your head against the wall until death comes. Force yourself to choke on what passes for food. Get creative. End it. Everyone will be better off without you.

“They will.”

No one even knows where you are.

“Someone knows I am here.”

You don’t exist.

“The food coming in once a day tells me someone knows where I am. Existence is enough.”

Is it?

“It has to be. There is still work to do.”
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