Dead Zero

From New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Hunter comes a thriller that pits former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger against the only man who might be able to outshoot him.A marine sniper team on a mission in tribal territories on the Afghan-Pakistan border, Whiskey 2-2 is ambushed by professionals using the latest high-tech shooting gear. Badly wounded, the teams sole survivor, Gunnery Sergeant Ray Cruz, aka the Cruise Missile, is determined to finish his job. He almost succeeds when a mystery blast terminates his enterprise, leaving a thirty-foot crater where a building used to beand where Sergeant Cruz was meant to be hiding. Months pass. Rays target, an Afghan warlord named Ibrahim Zarzi, sometimes called The Beheader, becomes an American asset in the region and beyond, beloved by State, the Administration, and the Agency. He arrives in Washington for consecration as Our Man in Kabul. And that brings Ray Cruz out of hiding. Swagger, the legendary hero of seven of Hunters novels from Point of Impact to last years bestselling I, Sniper, is recruited by the FBI to stop the Cruise Missile from reaching his target. The problem is that the more Swagger learns about what happened in Zabol, the more he questions the US governments support of Zarzi and the more he identifies with Cruz as hunter instead of prey.