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Back The Short Drop Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. CONTENTS
  5. START READING
  6. PART ONE
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. PART TWO
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  49. PART THREE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  56. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  57. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY
  59. EPILOGUE
  60. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  61. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” Gibson said and reached for the ketchup. He poured a generous dollop onto one end of his plate, mixed it with a little mayo, and scrambled it into his hash browns the way his father had taught him when he was a boy. In the immortal words of Duke Vaughn, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, take a big bite and chew slow.”

Words to live by.

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Jenn Charles was parked across the street from the Nighthawk in the back of a white unmarked van. She felt pretty damned conspicuous out here—put her on a forward operating base near the Pakistani border and she was right at home, but white-panel vans in Northern Virginia weren’t really her style.

She checked her watch and noted the time in the log. Say what you would about Gibson Vaughn, the man gave predictable a bad name. On the upside, it made surveillance on him simple; on the downside, it got tedious quickly. The daily logs were virtually interchangeable. Vaughn’s morning began at five thirty with a five-mile run. Two hundred push-ups, two hundred sit-ups, followed by a shower. Afterward, he ate the same breakfast at the same diner at the same counter stool. Every damn morning, like it was his church.

Jenn brushed a renegade strand of coal-black hair behind her ear. She needed a shower and a good night’s sleep in her own bed. She could also use some sun. A pale lethargy was creeping over her after ten days in the back of a van, which was beginning to feel unpleasantly like home. It was crammed with surveillance gear that made it a tight squeeze for one. A small cot at the front allowed a team to work in shifts, but, apart from that, the van offered little in the way of amenities.

Living the dream, Charles. Living the dream.

If Vaughn stayed true to form, in twenty minutes, when the rush died down, he would move to the back of the diner to work. He was friendly with the owners, who let him use one of the back booths as a makeshift office during his job search. It had been three weeks since Vaughn had lost his job at a small, failing biotech firm, where he’d been the information technology director. He wasn’t having much luck finding work, and, given his history, Jenn didn’t expect that to change.

Dan Hendricks, her partner, was a top-notch surveillance man. He’d broken into Gibson’s apartment a week ago and wired it in ninety minutes flat. Motion-activated infrared cameras, bugs, the works. It gave them uninterrupted video coverage of the entire apartment, and the starkness of Gibson’s living conditions was informative.