Unmanned

Zusatztext “Timely and disturbing. . . . An exciting story! expertly told.” — The Washington Post Book World “Smart and thoughtful. . . . Fesperman understands that in the brave new world of modern warfare! there are complicated questions with no neat answers.” — The Wall Street Journal   “A first-class thriller. . . . Unmanned  reads as the real world of Edward Snowden pollinated with the fictional world of Dave Eggers’s novel  The Circle .” — Financial Times Informationen zum Autor DAN FESPERMAN's travels as a writer have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. Lie in the Dark won the Crime Writers’ Association of Britain’s John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel, The Small Boat of Great Sorrows won their Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller, and The Prisoner of Guantánamo won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the International Association of Crime Writers. He lives in Baltimore. Klappentext As an F-16 fighter pilot, Darwin Cole was a family man on top of his world. Now, he's a washout drunk, living alone in a trailer in the Nevada desert. Haunted by what he saw on the display of the Predator drone he "piloted"-an Afghan child running for her life-he reluctantly joins three journalists seeking to discover the identity of the anonymous, and possibly rogue, intelligence operative who called the shots in his last ill-fated mission. On the trail of this operative, Cole and his new allies will discover the dark heart of our surveillance culture, with connections to intelligence, to the military, and to the unchecked private contractors who stand to profit richly from the advancing technology . . . technology not just for use "over there," but for right here, right now. Leseprobe CHAPTER ONE Thirty seconds to impact. On the video display, Captain Darwin Cole watches black crosshairs quiver on a mud rooftop. He doesn’t budge the stick and rudder. No piloting needed now. All that matters is the missile, which Airman Zach Lewis guides by laser from a seat to Cole’s immediate right. Ten seconds pass while Cole wiggles his toes, numb from the air-conditioning. No one speaks into their headsets. Even the chatter screen is calm, as if everyone in their viewing audience was holding his breath. It is 3:50 a.m., and Cole’s sense of detachment is so profound that he has to remind himself this is not a game, not a drill. It is death in motion, as real as it gets, and for the moment he is reality’s instrument of choice, the one whose name will go on the dotted line now and forevermore. His kill. A sobering thought anytime, but especially when you’re sitting in a trailer on the floor of the Nevada desert, drowsy from breathing air that smells like warm electronics. Cole is a grounded fighter jock, as wingless as a plucked housefly, yet here he is about to zap a roomful of bad guys on the other side of the world. The upholstery creaks as he shifts in his seat. Nearly four hours in the saddle. Numb butt, numb toes, numb brain. Zach begins the countdown in a voice edgy with youthful eagerness. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four .?.?.” On the screen, sudden movement. The door of the house opens and a girl appears at the threshold. On Cole’s eighteen-inch monitor she is only three inches high, but the afternoon sunlight paints her vividly—red shawl, white pants, blue scarf. She looks young, ten or eleven, and for a disastrous second she gazes straight at the lens before she darts left, disappearing from the screen just as two small boys run out the door behind her, sandals flopping. “What the fuck!” Cole says. “Can you—?” “Too late.” Zach shoves the joystick anyway, but it will take two seconds for his command to reach the missile across seven thousand miles of space and wiring, and by then the ...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Dan Fesperman
• Editore: Vintage USA
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 23.06.2015
• EAN: 9780345806987
• ISBN: 978-0-345-80698-7
• Pagine: 336
• Dimensioni: 135 mm x 205 mm x 20 mm
• Serie: Vintage crime/Black Lizard; Vintage crime/Black Lizard
• Categoria: Narrativa > Gialli