Stephen Coonts

Every war has its "bridge"--Old North Bridge at Concord, Burnside's Bridge at Antietam, the railway bridge over Burma's River Kwai, the bridge over Germany's Rhine River at Remagen, and the bridges over Korea's Toko Ri. In Vietnam it was the bridge at Thanh Hoa, called Dragon's Jaw.For many years hundreds of young US airmen flew sortie after sortie against North Vietnam's formidable and strategically important bridge, dodging a heavy concentration of anti-aircraft fire, surface-to-air missiles and enemy fighters. Many American airmen were shot down, killed, or captured and taken to the infamous POW prisons in Hanoi. But after each air attack, when the smoke cleared and the debris settled, the bridge stubbornly remained standing. For the North Vietnamese it became a symbol of their invincibility; for US war planners an obsession; for US airmen a testament to American mettle and valor.Using after-action reports, official records, and interviews with surviving pilots, as well as previously untapped Vietnamese sources, Dragon's Jaw chronicles American efforts to destroy the bridge, strike by bloody strike, putting readers into the cockpits, under fire. The story of the Dragon's Jaw is a story rich in bravery, audacity, sometimes luck and sometimes tragedy. The "bridge" story of Vietnam is an epic tale of war against a determined foe.

Every war has its "bridge"--Old North Bridge at Concord, Burnside's Bridge at Antietam, the railway bridge over Burma's River Kwai, the bridge over Germany's Rhine River at Remagen, and the bridges over Korea's Toko Ri. In Vietnam it was the bridge at Thanh Hoa, called Dragon's Jaw.For seven long years hundreds of young US airmen flew sortie after sortie against North Vietnam's formidable and strategically important bridge, dodging a heavy concentration of anti-aircraft fire and enemy MiG planes. Many American airmen were shot down, killed, or captured and taken to the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" POW camp. But after each air attack, when the smoke cleared and the debris settled, the bridge stubbornly remained standing. For the North Vietnamese it became a symbol of their invincibility; for US war planners an obsession; for US airmen a testament to American mettle and valor.Using after-action reports, official records, and interviews with surviving pilots, as well as untapped Vietnamese sources, Dragon's Jaw chronicles American efforts to destroy the bridge, strike by bloody strike, putting readers into the cockpits, under fire. The story of the Dragon's Jaw is a story rich in bravery, courage, audacity, and sometimes luck, sometimes tragedy. The "bridge" story of Vietnam is an epic tale of war against a determined foe.

IN THE LATEST BLOCKBUSTER FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR, JAKE GRAFTON FACES A NIGHTMARE THREAT FROM A CHINESE SLEEPER CELL.While the US navy is distracted by hostile activity in the South China Sea, a nuclear weapon has been planted in the harbour of Norfolk, Virginia - the world's largest naval base. Jake Grafton, promoted to director of the CIA following the murder of his predecessor, is unaware of the insidious plot. Though he has received intelligence informing him that an attack is imminent.He does not know where. He does not know when. But he does know who to turn to in a time of crisis.Faced with the horror of a disaster that would eclipse Pearl Harbor in scale, Jake and his right-hand man Tommy Carmellini return in this explosive race-against time thriller.Loved The Art of War? Then read Flight of the Intruder, and join Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini from the very beginning . . .

The Chinese dragon is flexing its muscles. As its military begins to prey on neighbors in the South China Sea, attacking fishing vessels and scheming to seize natural resources, the US goes on high alert. But a far more ominous danger lurks closer to home: a Chinese sleeper cell has planted a nuclear weapon in the harbor at Norfolk, Virginia, the biggest naval base on the planet. The target: a secret rendezvous of the Atlantic Fleet aircraft carriers and their battle groups. When the CIA director is assassinated and Jake Grafton is appointed to take his place, he gets wind of the conspiracy, but has no idea when or where the attack will occur. In the meantime, a series of assassinations, including an attempt on the life of the President, shake the country and deliberately mask a far more sinister objective. Can Jake Grafton and his right hand man, Tommy Carmellini, stop the plot to destroy the US Navy?

Mogadishu, Somalia. A luxury cruise liner has been captured by Somali pirates, with 860 lives at the mercy of the ruthless hijackers. Jake Grafton, head of Middle Eastern covert Ops for the CIA, has contacted his uniquely talented operative Tommy Carmellini, requesting his presence. Grafton's veins of ice and nerves of steel make him Washington's go-to man in a crisis, while Carmellini has the skillset Grafton needs when he knows he won't be playing by the book. With the pirates holding firm to their demands, together they must launch an offensive explosive enough to blow their enemy firmly out of the water...

Airplanes, adventures, life and death in the skies: The Sea Witch brings together three dramatic tales - from three periods of history - of men and women at war: The Sea Witch: A rookie WW2 seaplane pilot is thrown in at the deep end on a mission to locate a missing colleague during the Battle of Guadalcanal. The 17th Day: Seventeen days is the average life expectancy of a British aviator during WW1. Today is Paul Hyde's seventeenth day. Will he live to see the next? Al-Jihad: 2001 - an ex-US Marine becomes caught up in a rogue plot to avenge the terrorists who killed his former commander. This collection, born of Coonts's lifelong love for military aviation, shows his trademark storytelling at its most scintillating, passionate and powerful.

From New York Times bestseller Stephen Coonts comes the second novel in his Jake Grafton series. 1973. The skies over Vietnam have finally gone silent. America has pulled out, the war is over. But for Lieutenant Jake Grafton, USN, fresh from two combat cruises and a harrowing shoot-down over Laos, the personal battle is just beginning...His country has not welcomed him home with open arms, but with closed minds and closed fists. When his girlfriend's father called him a murderer, Jake walked away. But when a stranger in a bar challenged his honor, the man was not so lucky - the guy landed in the hospital. Jake landed in jail. And Grafton's shore-duty commander, who bailed him out, has devised the perfect punishment for his ace flight instructor: an eight-month cruise on the aircraft carrier Columbia teaching jarheads--Marines--the nuances of carrier aviation. Flying missions over Vietnam was a living hell; now, as a Navy man working side by side with Marines who have no carrier aviation experience, Grafton's about to discover another world of fresh hell. The Marines may be made of tempered steel and brass balls, but taking off and landing from a slippery flight deck, on a choppy sea in a pitch-black night, there is no margin for error - or for animosity. And men like Marine Captain Flap Le Beau, his bombardier and navigator, have a real gift for pushing Jake's buttons. But he's going to have to learn to live with him...or die trying. They belong to the same society of warriors, they fought in the same war, they drink the same whiskey to toast fallen comrades. Now they must fly together in the same cockpit, must lock into each other and into their million-dollar machine, and make the split-second decisions which will insure that, tonight, their fellow pilots won't raise a glass to them.

Rear Admiral Jake Grafton must stop a Middle Eastern terrorist group from obtaining nuclear weapons in Moscow and avoid an assassination attempt on his life from rogue conspirators within the CIA before it's too late. As the infrastructure of the Soviet Union crumbles before the world's eyes, twenty thousand tactical nuclear weapons, once under the command of the Soviet military, are up for grabs--and U.S. intelligence believes they may soon appear on the open market. Rear Admiral Jake Grafton, Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, is dispatched to Moscow. His assignment: ensure that the weapons are destroyed before the disappear into a Middle East terrorist pipeline. But Grafton discovers that unidentified American officials want his mission to fail--and will go to any length of stop it. Meanwhile, off the coast of the Canary Islands, the body of British billionaire and media magnate Nigel Keren has been found floating in the sea near his yacht. Grafton's contracts in Israeli intelligence have evidence that he was the victim of hit squad from within the CIA. It's the kind of knowledge that could prove fatal, but Grafton can't back off: if the freelance operation succeeds, Middle East hostility could explode into an international conflagration. The only thing Grafton knows for sure is that he has been targeted for an assassination, and the conspiracy is clearly stamped: Made in America.

Stephen Coonts and William H. Keith's Deep Black: Death Wave continues the bestselling technothriller series. Deep within the NSA is Desk Three, a top-secret unit of special operatives inserted into the field when the threat is great and the response demands sensitivity and invisibility. Charlie Dean, a former Marine sniper, is a senior officer. With his colleagues Lia DeFrancesca and newcomer Ilya Akulinin, they form the core of a high-tech team known as Deep Black. Off the coast of Africa lie the beautiful Canary Islands, a resort destination of millionaires. Underneath this idyllic paradise is one of the most volatile fault lines in the world. There, an alliance between radical Islamic terrorists and a rogue element of the Chinese government is planning to unleash an act of unimaginable geological terrorism that could devastate the U.S. East Coast, striking it with waves up to a thousand feet high. They plan to set off nuclear devices to precipitate a gigantic landslide that will send a death-dealing tsunami across the Atlantic. In the Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan twelve nuclear warheads, stolen by the Russian Mafia, are about to be smuggled out of the country and delivered into the hands of the conspirators. Charlie and Ilya go on an intercept mission, but before they can retrieve them, the weapons vanish. Meanwhile, in a hotel in New Jersey, a bestselling author is assassinated to prevent the release of his stranger-than-fiction story about an Islamic plot to change the course of history. Lia, Charlie's girlfriend, is sent to Berlin to infiltrate the empire of a ruthless Chinese billionaire whose machinations have come to the attention of the NSA. She risks immediate execution if her true identity is revealed. Their paths all converge in the Canary Islands. Unless the Deep Black team intervenes, the islands could be the epicenter of an apocalypse, with millions of lives---and the entire world order---at stake.

The theft of nuclear artillery shells spells disaster for Charlie Dean. He leads the National Security Agency's crack undercover team, Deep Black: Desk Three, whose job it is to neutralise the threat. The terrorist plot is headed by an Islamic terrorist codenamed 'the Jackal'. He aims to destroy the West by detonating the shells deep inside the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma, Gran Canaria. This would send a tsunami across the Atlantic Ocean, straight to the East Coast of America. Charlie and his team have only days to prevent the devastation of the Western World.

Off the coast of Africa lie the beautiful Canary Islands, a resort destination of millionaires. Underneath this idyllic paradise is one of the most volatile fault lines in the world. There, an alliance between radical Islamic terrorists and a rogue element of the Chinese government is planning to unleash an act of unimaginable geological terrorism that could devastate the U.S. East Coast, striking it with waves up to a thousand feet high. They plan to set off nuclear devices to precipitate a gigantic landslide that will send a death-dealing tsunami across the Atlantic. In the Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan, twelve nuclear warheads stolen by the Russian Mafia are about to be smuggled out of the country and delivered into the hands of the conspirators. Charlie and Ilya go on an intercept mission, but before they can retrieve them, the weapons vanish. Meanwhile, in a hotel in New Jersey, a bestselling author is assassinated to prevent the release of his stranger-than-fiction story about an Islamic plot to change the course of history. Lia, Charlie s girlfriend, is sent to Berlin to infiltrate the empire of a ruthless Chinese billionaire whose machinations have come to the attention of the NSA. She risks immediate execution if her true identity is revealed. Their paths all converge in the Canary Islands. Unless the Deep Black team intervenes, the islands could be the epicenter of an apocalypse, with millions of lives and the entire world order at stake."

A terrifying thriller from an internationally bestselling author on the threat of the Iranian nuclear arsenal.

Two massive ships are on a dual path to destruction. One is a freighter carrying nuclear materials to Japan; the other, a cruise ship heading for the Mediterranean. Neither will reach their destinations. Two factions-Japanese eco-terrorists and Middle East extremists-have joined forces to infiltrate the ships, incapacitate the crew, and change course toward a common target: The United States of America.In Washington, Charlie Dean and a team of commandos are dispatched on a life-or-death mission to blow the hijackers' plot out of the water. Their plan: board the ship unnoticed, pose as ordinary passengers, and overtake the terrorists. But time is running out. The seized ships are crossing the Atlantic with the combined strength of a full-scale nuclear torpedo. And New York City is just on the horizon....in Stephen Coonts' Deep Black: Sea of Terror, cowritten with William H. Keith.

From Stephen Coonts comes a novel of high octane excitement, featuring Tommy Carmellini in his most dangerous mission yet: The Assassin. In the finale of Coonts's last novel The Traitor, the ruthless and brilliant Al Qaeda leader who nearly succeeded in blowing up a meeting of the Group of 7 in Paris slipped the noose and escaped. But Abu Qasim has another trick up his sleeve: he has offered to pay the Mafia a fortune to help him bring New York to its knees. The CIA learns that something is up and a worried president sends his best--Jake Grafton and his secret weapon, Tommy Carmellini. Tommy is soon in grave danger as he tries to piece the deadly puzzle together. Set amidst ticking bombs and flying bullets, the stakes have never been higher. Will Tommy put it all together in time t stop the disaster? Or will the terrorists set events in motion that will leave America reeling?

Following the success of his New York Times bestseller, Cuba, Stephen Coonts once again combines masterful storytelling with a frighteningly plausible scenario set in one of the world's most volatile hot spots. This time, however, for Admiral Jake Grafton the stakes will be chillingly personal. Jake Grafton takes his wife, Callie, along when the U.S. government sends him to Hong Kong to find out how deeply the U.S. consul-general is embedded in a political money-raising scandal. And why not? Jake and Callie met and fell in love in Hong Kong during the Vietnam War, and the consul-general is an old friend from those days, Tiger Cole. The Graftons quickly discover that Hong Kong is a powder keg ready to explode. A political murder and the closure of a foreign bank by the communist government are the sparks that light the fuse . . . and Tiger Cole is right in the middle of the action. When Callie is kidnapped by a rebel faction, Jake finds himself drawn into the vortex of a high-tech civil war. Drawing on the skills of CIA operative Tommy Carmellini, in order to save his wife Jake Grafton must figure out who he can trust-both among the Western factions vying for control of the volatile situation, and among the Chinese patriots fighting for their nation's future-and make sure the right side wins.

A PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCEWhen he is assigned to Paris, CIA officer Tommy Carmellini joins his old boss Jake Grafton on a bold mission: To locate a French intelligence agent who has secret investments in the Bank of Palestine. Together they work to unravel a tangle of espionage, deception, and murder...and develop an elaborate strategy to infiltrate the highest levels of Al Queda.AN ALLIED STRUGGLEMeanwhile, the leaders of the G-8 industrialized nations will soon meet in Paris-an event that would make a tempting terrorist target. Throw into the mix the beautiful, clever daughter of the French ambassador to Washington and an Israeli spy or two, and the stage is set for a tour de force of deception and drama.A FIGHT FOR SUPREMACY...In "The Traitor," Carmellini and Grafton unearth a horrifying plan to shake the West as never before. But can they stop the conspiracy without compromising the intelligence source that could bring down Al Queda once and for all?"An assured international thriller."-"Publishers Weekly""Vintage Coonts...plenty of action and intrigue."-"Dallas"" Morning News "on "Liars & Thieves"

RECRUITED: A crack team of cover agents.Word is out to ex-Marine sniper Charlie Dean and his team of the National Security Agency: Infiltrate the highest stratum of Peruvian political power and derail a renegade general from acing an election. All Dean has to do is find a way inside an impenetrable bank vault protected by armed guards round the clock-it's all in a day's work for the men and women of Deep Black. ENGAGED: A violent political coupBut things get complicated when Dean and company discover the renegade general's second plot. The military madman's ruse--a nuclear weapon he claims is in the hands of Marxist guerillas, a bomb that only he can rescue...and control. IGNITED: A devastating terrorist plot.When the general and his plot are exposed, the NSA concludes the greatest threat is over. But in fact, it's only just beginning...in Stephen Coonts' Deep Black: Payback, cowritten with Jim DeFelice.