Sam Dryden Series by Patrick Lee

Sam Dryden, retired special forces, lives a quiet life in a small town on the coast of Southern California. While out on a run in the middle of the night, a young girl runs into him on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she’s running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal—to kill the fleeing child... moreSam Dryden, retired special forces, lives a quiet life in a small town on the coast of Southern California. While out on a run in the middle of the night, a young girl runs into him on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she’s running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal—to kill the fleeing child. After Dryden helps her evade her pursuers, he learns that the eleven year old, for as long as she can remember, has been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. But she doesn’t know much beyond her own name, Rachel. She only remembers the past two months of her life—and that she has a skill that makes her very dangerous to these men and the hidden men in charge.Dryden, who lost his wife and young daughter in an accident five years ago, agrees to help her try to unravel her own past and make sense of it, to protect her from the people who are moving heaven and earth to find them both. Although Dryden is only one man, he’s a man with the extraordinary skills and experience—as a Ranger, a Delta, and five years doing off-the-book black ops with an elite team. But, as he slowly begins to discover, the highly trained paramilitary forces on their heels is the only part of the danger they must face. Will Rachel’s own unremembered past be the most deadly of them all? less

In the middle of the night, ex-Special Forces operative Sam Dryden gets a urgent call from an old colleague, desperate for his help in a last-minute secret mission. Without a moment's hesitation, Dryden agrees. The two race to a remote shack in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, where they break in, rescue four girls before the kidnapper can harm them, then flee into the hills just seconds ahead of the arriving police and FBI team... moreIn the middle of the night, ex-Special Forces operative Sam Dryden gets a urgent call from an old colleague, desperate for his help in a last-minute secret mission. Without a moment's hesitation, Dryden agrees. The two race to a remote shack in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, where they break in, rescue four girls before the kidnapper can harm them, then flee into the hills just seconds ahead of the arriving police and FBI team. It's then that Sam Dryden learns the real secret behind this mission. His former teammate has been working security of a very special, very secret government project. A project that led to the development of a device which revealed what would have happened to the kidnapped girls if they hadn't intervened as they did. But as Newton's laws predict, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. There are some very bad people determined to get their hands on this device, and every time Sam uses it, now matter how well intentioned, there are hidden and unintended consequences. Consequences that threaten to rip apart his very world and everything that he holds dear. less

From the author of Runner, Sam Dryden comes under attack from unknown forces as an unremembered episode from his past threatens more than just his life.On an otherwise normal morning, former Special Forces operative Sam Dryden is the target of an unsuccessful attempted abduction. Using his attacker's cellphone, he learns that another person, a woman named Danica Ellis, is also being targeted. Dryden arrives just in time to save Danica from the assault team sent after her... moreFrom the author of Runner, Sam Dryden comes under attack from unknown forces as an unremembered episode from his past threatens more than just his life.On an otherwise normal morning, former Special Forces operative Sam Dryden is the target of an unsuccessful attempted abduction. Using his attacker's cellphone, he learns that another person, a woman named Danica Ellis, is also being targeted. Dryden arrives just in time to save Danica from the assault team sent after her. But neither of them recognize the other, or have any idea why they are being targeted. The only clue is a heavily redacted, official-looking document given to Danica by her stepfather before he was killed.Dryden immediately recognizes it as a 'scrub file.' A scrub file is a record of what a subject knew before their memories were chemically destroyed. The redacted document refers to witnesses to a secret military site in Ashland, Iowa in 1989. Both Dryden and Danica Ellis lived in Ashland in 1989, when they were both twelve years old, though neither of them has any memory of the other.Switching back and forth between the present day, when Dryden and Danica try to elude the forces that are after them, and the past in Ashland, Iowa, when both were twelve, making a discovery that forever changed their lives, this latest Sam Dryden novel proves yet again that Patrick Lee is one of the most original, compelling thriller writers today. less