New York Times bestselling author David Hagberg continues his successful Kirk McGarvey series in Tower Down , a searing thriller about terrorist attacks on NYC's pencil towers. A freelance killer, code-named Al-Nassar, “the Eagle,” topples a New York City pencil tower and sends it crashing down onto the street. Hundreds of people are killed―both the multi-billionaires inside and the innocent bystanders on the sidewalks more than one thousand feet below. It's like 9/11 all over again. CIA legend Kirk McGarvey believes that someone in the Saudi Arabian government is behind the attack. The internal pinch of sharply declining oil revenues and the escalating costs of defending its borders against ISIS have made the Kingdom desperate. The Saudis hope to force the US to return to the Mideast and destroy their enemies, including ISIS. But no one in the White House or even in the CIA wants to believe that their loyal Saudi allies would do such a thing. Only McGarvey, his partner, who is also the woman he loves, and his long-time friend, the computer genius odd-duck Otto Rencke, accept the truth and understand that another attack on a Manhattan skyscraper is imminent. Can they stop the terrorists in time? “David Hagberg is the pros’ pro, the plot master we all wish we were.” ―Stephen Coonts, New York Times bestselling author “If you want yesterday’s headlines, read The New York Times . If you want tomorrow’s, read David Hagberg.” ―Ward Larsen, USA Today bestselling author "David Hagberg consistently delivers thrillers that truly thrill, with an uncanny ability to anticipate future headlines." ―Ralph Peters, New York Times bestselling author David Hagberg (1942-2019) was a New York Times bestselling author who published numerous novels of suspense, including his bestselling thrillers featuring former CIA director Kirk McGarvey, which include Abyss , The Cabal , The Expediter , and Allah’s Scorpion . He earned a nomination for the American Book Award, three nominations for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Award and three Mystery Scene Best American Mystery awards. He spent more than thirty years researching and studying US-Soviet relations during the Cold War. Hagberg joined the Air Force out of high school, and during the height of the Cold War, he served as an Air Force cryptographer. Tower Down By David Hagberg Tom Doherty Associates Copyright © 2017 David Hagberg All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7653-7871-2 CHAPTER 1 A tall man wearing a dark business suit stood at the open rear door of the Cadillac Escalade waiting for his clients. He was a Saudi intelligence special operations subcontractor whose code name was Nassr, "the Eagle." And he was very good at killing people because he was well trained and he had absolutely no conscience. He had done other jobs around the world, for other intel agencies, But for this specific op he was working directly for a Saudi intelligence officer, whom he suspected was in turn a paid operative of ISIS. It was the only thing that made sense to him. But he didn't care. The money was good, and the thrill of the hunt and the kill were even better. The Alouette III helicopter coming from JFK appeared low over the East River as it made its way to Atlantic Aviation's East Thirty-fourth Street Heliport, shortly before eight-thirty in the evening, thirty minutes past the facility's closing time. No one had given the slightest thought of denying the incoming flight. The passenger, Khalid Seif who owned PSP, Dubai's main offshore bank, had an estimated net personal worth in excess of thirty billion dollars. People in his category were never denied anything. Eagle, whose real name was Kamal Al-Daran, had come to kill the man, along with his mistress Alimah, and as many as three or four dozen other billionaires in the AtEighth penthouse on Eighth Avenue and West Fifty-seventh, and one thousand or more on the ground at Carnegie Hall. The blame would go to ISIS, of course, as would the downing of a second pencil tower here in Manhattan with even more devastating results than this evening's act of terrorism. Bringing down the two towers would be a copy of al-Qaeda's destruction of the Twin Towers, only this time airplanes wouldn't be needed. It was thought by his control officer that the attacks would be even more devastating to New Yorkers and to the entire nation than the ISIS attacks in Paris and Brussels and elsewhere. The U.S. military would be ordered to take out the entire ISIS war machine as Operation One, saving Saudi Arabia the bother. Kamal was a handsome man, with a skin tone light enough, and facial features Western-looking enough, so that he could pass for just about anyone from Europe, but especially England because of his cultured British accent. With hazel contacts in his naturally black eyes, makeup, a five-hundred-dollar haircut, and a mustache, he was a close enough match to Khalid to fool anyone at the penthouse party thi