A Time for Patriots: A Novel (Patrick McLanahan)

A Time for Patriots: A Novel (Patrick McLanahan)

“A master….[Brown] puts readers right into the middle of the inferno.” —Larry Bond New York Times bestselling thriller-master Dale Brown delivers a story for our times. A Time for Patriots is one of his most explosive novels to date—a frightening, all-too-possible look into the near future, when the nation’s economic collapse turns thousands of Americans against their own government. In the midst of chaos, Patrick McLanahan—hero of Executive Intent, Rogue Forces , and many other previous adventures—must enlist the aid of his son and his fellow citizens to hunt down terrorists any way they can. In A Time for Patriots , Dale Brown brings the battle home! “Assuredly the year’s best techno-adventure, military, aviation thriller.” - Chicago Tribune “A master of mixing technology and action. He puts readers right into the middle of the inferno.” - Larry Bond Welcome to Battlefield America When murderous bands of militiamen begin roaming the western United States and attacking government agencies, it will take a dedicated group of the nation's finest and toughest civilian airmen to put an end to the homegrown insurgency. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant-General Patrick McLanahan vows to take to the skies to join the fight, but when his son, Bradley, also signs up, they find themselves caught in a deadly game against a shadowy opponent. When the stock markets crash and the U.S. economy falls into a crippling recession, everything changes for newly elected president Kenneth Phoenix. Politically exhausted from a bruising and divisive election, Phoenix must order a series of massive tax cuts and wipe out entire cabinet-level departments to reduce government spending. With reductions in education and transportation, an incapacitated National Guard, and the loss of public safety budgets, entire communities of armed citizens band together for survival and mutual protection. Against this dismal backdrop, a SWAT team is ambushed and radioactive materials are stolen by a group calling themselves the Knights of the True Republic. Is the battle against the government about to be taken to a new and deadlier level? In this time of crisis, a citizen organization rises to the task of protecting their fellow countrymen: the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), the U.S. Air Force auxiliary. The Nevada Wing—led by retired Air Force Lieutenant-General Patrick McLanahan, his son, Bradley, and other volunteers—uses their military skills in the sky and on the ground to hunt down violent terrorists. But how will Patrick respond when extremists launch a catastrophic dirty bomb attack in Reno, spreading radiological fallout for miles? And when Bradley is caught in a deadly double-cross that jeopardizes the CAP, Patrick will have to fight to find out where his friends' loyalties lie: Are they with him and the CAP or with the terrorists? With A Time for Patriots , the New York Times bestselling master of the modern thriller Dale Brown brings the battle home to explore a terrifying possibility—the collapse of the American Republic. Dale Brown is the  New York Times  bestselling author of numerous books, from  Flight of the Old Dog  (1987) to, most recently,  Eagle Station  (2020). A former U.S. Air Force captain, he can often be found flying his own plane in the skies of the United States. He lives near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. A Time For Patriots A Novel By Dale Brown William Morrow Copyright © 2011 Dale Brown All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-06-198999-5 Chapter One I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and brave ever in a majority? ?Henry David Thoreau The recent thunderstorms had turned the yard?if you could call their little patch of dirt, grass, and rocks a yard?into a brown crumbly paste, like soggy half-baked green-colored brownies. The unpaved streets were in a little better shape, having been compacted by automobile and construction traffic, but it was still a wet, sloppy mess that sunshine hadn?t yet been able to ameliorate. This could have been war-torn Iraq or Afghanistan, or some remote Chinese village instead, it was a relatively new subdivision in the community of Battle Mountain, in north-central Nevada. Battle Mountain began life as a small railroad depot and mining camp in post?Civil War north-central Nevada, nothing more than a small collection of warehouses, shops, saloons, and brothels. Although it became the seat of Lander County, the community never got around to becoming an incorporated town, city, or even a village. Even when the interstate highway was built nearby and the U.S. Army set up a B-17 bomber crew training base outside of town, the community never really grew far from its mining-camp, bump-in-the-road past. And that?s pretty much what Bradley James McLanahan thought of Battle Mountain: yet another bump in his road. Just one month away from his eighteenth birthday, tallish like his deceased mother but husky and blue-eye