Quotes from Brad Thor

You know where the term severance pay comes from, Scot?" said Longo as he hung the clipboard on a peg inside the cabinet and locked it again. "No, but you're going to tell me, right?" Ignoring Harvath's sarcasm, Longo continued. "It's also from England. When prisoners were going to be beheaded, they offered the axeman a little extra money to make sure he chopped their heads off with one, clean blow.

CHAPTER 31 The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park stretched a hundred eighty-five miles from Georgetown

Germany's famed GSG9 counterterrorism unit and until a bullet injury to his leg

Those who would trade a little liberty for a little added security, deserve neither and will lose both.

Hollywood was a lot like a Charles dickens novel. It could be the best of places; it could be the worst of places. Machiavelli, Dante, Shakespeare… all would have felt at home here. Tinseltown was a bustling contradiction. It was a modern day Zanzabar; a slavemarket were souls were bartered, sold, and stolen seemingly on the hour, every hour. It was also a place of incredible genius and beauty, where dreams still came true.

Carlton Group had been established to boldly do what the nation's politically correct, vote-chasing politicians and cowering cover-your-ass bureaucrats were too timid and too inept

The fundamentalism that drove them was a cancer. It infected almost everyone it touched. And yet the people best positioned to remove the cancer lacked the courage and the desire to do so. No matter how many atrocities were committed in the name of their religion and their God, the Muslim world was wholly incapable of combating the problem.

The weapon's rounds tore through it like an angry child stabbing a gingerbread house with a screwdriver.

The Russians wanted to enjoy the peace and prosperity of a civilized world, without the encumbrances of following any of its laws.

Everything was about state of mind and how he chose to perceive his situation. The people who felt powerless were the ones who wouldn't make it.

He spoke in hushed Arabic as he kicked off his shoes and began unbuttoning his shirt. He had dropped it to the floor and was just unbuttoning his pants when he stepped into the bedroom and saw Anne Levy standing there. In her hands was a suppressed, Elite Dark SIG Sauer P226, the same weapon carried by a lot of Texas Rangers and Navy SEALs. It was pointed right at him.

Carlton signaled and merged into a faster-moving lane. "Jacobson gave us his file with everything on the

Move or make a sound and you're going to the bottom of Dubai Creek. Understand me?

Insecure men with a patina of authority could be annoying. Give those same men actual authority and they could be deadly.

Cowles sat next to him. Upon his lap was a soft, leather briefcase. Inside, his left hand was wrapped around the butt of a suppressed 9mm Springfield XD pistol. Harvath had made it perfectly clear that if Hanjour tried anything at all, Cowles would shoot him in the genitals or the stomach, neither of which was a good way to die

Department of Homeland Security. "Each one of them is mid- to upper-level management in their agencies.

That was the difference between science and the intelligence field. Scientists came up with an answer and used it to find facts while intelligence operatives came up with facts and used them to find an answer.

You can't spell unprofessional, unethical, or unaccountable without the UN.

those who know don't talk, and those who talk don't know.

Ockham's razor. The simplest explanation was usually correct. They

Vin de Constance

The greatest thing India could do for its people was to keep the playing field as level as possible and work tirelessly to see to it that everyone was following the rules. After that, it was up to the individual to succeed based on their talent and hard work.

He had been working at a furious tempo and had just come off of a hellacious operation in Syria.

black-market information. He had made powerful enemies in his career. And though he had gone "straight," his two enormous white Caucasian Ovcharka dogs were always at his side, just in case. Professional job, Harvath's message read. Possible foreign intel service. Pull surrounding CCTV footage. See if you can track the hitter. Returning to the bedroom