Master sniper Bob Lee Swagger protects a group of political hostages during a perilous standoff in this razor-sharp, white-knuckled thriller from Pulitzer Prize winner, New York Times bestselling author, and “one of the best thriller novelists around” ( The Washington Post ) Stephen Hunter. After his successful takedown of a dangerous terrorist, Bob Lee Swagger learns that no good deed goes unpunished. Summoned to court by the United States Congress, Swagger is accused of reckless endangerment by a hardheaded anti-gun congresswoman. But what begins as political posturing soon turns deadly when the auditorium where the committee is being held is attacked. Swagger, the congresswoman, and numerous bystanders are taken hostage by a group of violent criminals. Soon, the very people who had accused him are depending on him to save their lives. Trapped in the auditorium and still struggling with injuries from his last assignment, Swagger must rely on his instincts, his shooting skills, and the help of a mysterious rogue operator on the outside in order to ensure that everyone makes it out alive. A heart-pounding and crackling action-packed novel, Targeted proves that Stephen Hunter is “a true master at the pinnacle of his craft. No one does it better” (Jack Carr, Former Navy SEAL Sniper and author of The Terminal List ). "With this inventive nail-biter, Hunter sets a new bar for both himself and the genre. " ― Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Ingenious…Swagger’s adventures are escapist fun." ― Kirkus Reviews "Hunter writes action scenes as well as anyone in the genre…tremendous suspense and a great sense of timing." ― Booklist (starred review) "Entertaining…Swagger, that old dog, battered and bruised beyond mere mortal possibility, still has a few more tricks left in him." ― The New York Times Book Review "Hunter is an American treasure." -- Newt Gingrich "Another stunning story from a thriller writer without peer." ― Men Reading Books "Totally shocking and totally surprising and totally captivating.” -- John Gibson Stephen Hunter is creator of the Bob Lee Swagger novels as well as many others. The retired chief film critic for The Washington Post , where he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, he has also published two collections of film criticism and a nonfiction work, American Gunfight . He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Chapter 1: Mordor CHAPTER 1 Mordor It was just July, and Northern Jersey was crud-luscious. Petroleum by-products in the form of iridescent goo accrued on all surfaces, leaving them slippery and gleaming. Vegetation of no species or color known to earth rioted and crept everywhere. Three-foot-long bull crickets, albino and pink-eyed, chirped in the marshes as if meat was on the menu for tonight. It sounded like saws on radiators. Brooks burbled, rivers gurgled, sewers clotted, algae mutated. Superheated sea zephyrs floated in over the swamps and townships, bearing the fragrance of small, dead mammals or large, dead Italians. The rust was general except on wood, where rot was general. To the north, in the refinery zone just below Newark, various vapors and gasses drifted to the ionosphere, forming a plate on the industrial entities below, trapping an atmosphere full of carcinogens and other poison fogs. Here and there spurts of flame lit the clouds, giving the landscape a wondrous satanic cast. It looked like Mordor. A few miles off the turnpike that bisected this slough of despond and connected Philly to New York, Ace’s Truck Stop addressed the darkness with flickering fluorescent lights—those that weren’t out, that is—and eighteen pumps of diesel and only four of gas. It was strictly for lower-tier trucking companies, not the big boys closer to the big road, on tighter schedules. If you wanted fuel and state troopers, you stayed on the turnpike; if you wanted fuel and discretion you came here. Around 4 a.m., a high-end Peterbilt hauling sixteen wheels’ worth of van slid into the station, though not progressing immediately to the pumps. The truck—it was a huge beast, definitely the King Tiger of cross-continent haulage—kept its options open for a few minutes. In time, the doors popped open, and a lean figure debarked and quickly disappeared under the van. In a few seconds he emerged, and to watch him move was to know him. He was lithe, slim, quick, attentive, perhaps more lizard than man. A high-capacity pistol clearly nested under the shoulder of his otherwise unnecessary coat, and a Tommy Tactical baseball cap sat atop his crew-cut crown. He moved with a kind of unself-conscious precision, still the schoolboy athlete. He looked like he knew what he was doing. And he did, which is what made him different from most men: formed by Texas high school football, Ranger School, Special Ops, and nine years with Combat Applications Group Delta, then ten years in service under contract to various alphabet-lettered entities the world over, some