Ralph Pezzullo has 15 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.1★ across 22 ratings. The most-rated is Ghost.
Ghost
Summary
The explosive memoir of an FBI field operative who has worked more undercover cases than anyone in history Within FBI field operative circles, groups of people known as “Special” by their titles alone, Michael R. McGowan is an outlier. Ten percent of FBI Special Agents are trained and certified to work undercover. A quarter of those agents have worked more than one undercover assignment in their careers. And of those, less than 10 percent of them have been involved in more than five undercover cases. Over the course of his career, McGowan has worked more than 50 undercover cases. In this extraordinary and unprecedented book, McGowan will take listeners through some of his biggest cases, from international drug busts to the Russian and Italian mobs to biker gangs and contract killers to corrupt unions and SWAT work. Ghost is an unparalleled view into how the FBI, through the courage of its undercover Special Agents, nails the bad guys. McGowan infiltrates groups at home and abroad, assembles teams to create the myths he lives, concocts fake businesses, coordinates the busts, and helps carry out the arrests. Along the way, we meet his partners and colleagues at the FBI, who pull together for everything from bank jobs to the Boston Marathon bombing case, mafia dons, and, perhaps, most significantly, El Chapo himself and his Sinaloa Cartel. Ghost is the ultimate insider's account of one of the most iconic institutions of American government, and a testament to the incredible work of the FBI.
©2018 St. Martin's Press (P)2018 DawsAngeles LLC
Left of Boom
Summary
The explosive New York Times best seller! On September 11, 2001, Doug Laux was a freshman in college, on the path to becoming a doctor. But with the fall of the Twin Towers came a turning point in his life. After graduating, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, determined to get himself to Afghanistan and into the center of the action. Through persistence and hard work, he was fast-tracked to a clandestine operations position overseas. Dropped into a remote region of Afghanistan, he received his baptism by fire. Frustrated by bureaucratic red tape, a widespread lack of knowledge of the local customs and culture, and an attitude of complacency that hindered his ability to combat the local Taliban, Doug confounded his peers by dressing like a native and mastering the local dialect, making contacts, and building sources within several deadly terrorist networks. His new approach resulted in unprecedented successes, including uncovering the largest IED network in the world, responsible for killing hundreds of US soldiers. Meanwhile, Doug had to keep up false pretenses with his family, girlfriend, and friends - nobody could know what he did for a living - and deal with the emotional turbulence of constantly living a lie. His double life was building to an explosive resolution, with repercussions that would have far reaching consequences.
©2016 Douglas Laux (P)2016 Douglas Laux
Full Battle Rattle
Summary
With over 100 combat missions and 24 years as a Green Beret, Changiz Lahidji is an expert in military operations. Full Battle Rattle is the legendary audiobook memoir of a soldier who served America in every war after Vietnam. Master Sergeant Changiz Lahidji served on Special Forces A-teams longer than anyone in history, completing over a hundred combat missions in Afghanistan. Changiz is a Special Forces legend. He also happens to be the first Muslim Green Beret. Changiz served this country starting with Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, when he entered Tehran on a one-man mission to spy on Iranian soldiers guarding the US embassy where 52 US diplomats were being held hostage. Three years later he was in Beirut, Lebanon, when a suicide car bomb exploded in front of the US embassy, killing 83 people. Weeks after that he was shot by Hezbollah terrorists on a night mission. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, he led a convoy that was ambushed on its way to Fallujah. He was clearing houses in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993 when a US Black Hawk helicopter was shot down 50 feet away from him in the incident that inspired Black Hawk Down. In 2002 he dressed as a farmer and snuck into eastern Afghanistan and located Osama bin Laden for the CIA. Along the way, Changiz earned numerous commendations, including the Special Forces Legion of Merit, Purple Hearts, and many others. Last year he was nominated for induction in Military Intelligence Hall of Fame and cited as "the finest noncommissioned officer to ever serve in Special Forces". Written with Ralph Pezzullo, Changiz's story is an amazing audiobook of perseverance and courage, of combat and one man's love for his adopted country.
©2018 Changiz Lahidji and Ralph Pezzullo (P)2018 Macmillan Audio
Zero Footprint
Summary
A dramatic insider account of the world of private military contracting. Armored cars, burner phones, top-notch weaponry, and top-secret missions - this is the life of today's private military contractor. Like author Simon Chase, many PMCs were once the world's top military operatives, and since retiring from outfits like US Navy SEAL TEAM Six and the UK's Special Boat Service, they have devoted their lives to executing missions too sensitive for the government to acknowledge. Chase reveals here for the first time the operations too hazardous and politically volatile to be officially sanctioned by his employers. Working on behalf of the CIA's Special Activities Division, the US Department of Defense, the US State Department, and British government entities, he takes on jobs that require zero footprint, with no trace of their actions left behind. Chase delivers firsthand accounts of tracking Bin Laden in Afghanistan and being one of the first responders after the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. We see his teams defuse terrorist bombs, guard dignitaries, and protect convoys traveling through perilous territory - and then there are the really big jobs: top-secret "zero footprint" missions for the US government that include searching for high-value targets and setting up arms shipping networks. The missions in Zero Footprint will shock listeners, but so will the personal dangers. Chase and the men he works with operate without government backup or air rescue. If they die serving their country - they remain anonymous. There are no military honors or benefits. Contractors like Simon Chase are the unsung heroes in the war against terrorism, a strong but largely invisible force - until now.
©2016 Simon Chase and Ralph Pezzullo (P)2016 Hachette Audio
Inside SEAL Team Six
Summary
The ultimate story of America's dominant warriors.... When Osama bin Laden was assassinated, the entire world was fascinated by the men who had completed the seemingly impossible mission that had dogged the US government for over a decade. SEAL Team 6 became synonymous with heroism, duty, and justice. Only a handful of the elite men who make up the SEALs, the US Navy's best and bravest, survive the legendary and grueling selection process that leads to Team 6, a group so classified it technically does not even exist. There are no better warriors on Earth. Don Mann knows what it takes to be a brother of this ultra-selective fraternity. As a member of Seal Team Six for over eight years, and a SEAL for over 17 years, he worked in countless covert operations, operating from land, sea, and air, and facing shootings, decapitations, and stabbings. He was captured by the enemy and lived to tell the tale, and he participated in highly classified missions all over the globe, including Somalia, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. As a current training coordinator for several civilian SEAL training programs, and as a former Training Officer of SEAL Team 6, he was directly responsible for shaping the bodies and minds of SEALs who carried out the assassination of Osama bin Laden. But to become a SEAL, Mann had to overcome his own troubled childhood and push his body to its breaking point - and beyond. Inside SEAL Team 6 is a high-octane narrative of physical and mental toughness, giving unprecedented insight to the inner workings of the training and secret missions of the world's most respected and feared combat unit.
©2011 Don Mann (P)2011 Hachette Audio
The Walk-In
Summary
Gary Berntsen, longtime CIA operative and the field commander who cornered Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, writing with award-winning novelist Ralph Pezzullo, offers in this edge-of-the-seat thriller a terrifying vision of where the next threat to America may come from. When a highly placed Iranian intelligence operative walks into a U.S. embassy claiming to possess explosive information, counterterrorism officer Matt Freed is dispatched to interview him and is warned of an impending attack on the United States that could kill millions. But is the man's story precious truth or calculated fiction? Matt isn't sure, but with a possible catastrophe looming in less than two weeks, his superiors reluctantly prepare for the assault. Matt can't leave it alone, though. With questions still lingering about what is really going on, he defies his superiors' orders and launches his own investigation. As the clock ticks down, he searches frantically for the truth at an Afghan prison under siege, an abandoned Uzbekistan bio weapons facility, and a Moscow hospital where an arms dealer is dying of a mysterious disease. Ultimately, Matt's efforts brand him an out-of-control renegade, and he finds himself left out in the cold. Yet he may be the only one with the knowledge needed to avert unimaginable chaos. From a counterterrorism warrior who has spent a lifetime thwarting those who would do us harm, The Walk-In is an exhilarating plunge into tradecraft and terror.
©2008 Ralph Pezzullo and Gary Berntsen (P)2008 Random House, Inc.
SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Dragon
Summary
The North Korean government is days away from realizing its nuclear ambitions, and only the heroes of SEAL Team Six can stop it. Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Crocker of SEAL Team Six's Black Cell is in Las Vegas after conducting a training exercise in the desert with new members of the team. Lounging by the pool at Caesars Palace, he witnesses an argument between hotel security guards and three Asian men in corporate attire that quickly turns physical. Giving chase, he soon corners the businessmen, who claim to be Chinese diplomats under the protection of diplomatic immunity. Except the men don't respond when the head of hotel security - Crocker's old friend - addresses them in Mandarin. That night someone hacks in to the Nevada Power Company system, and Las Vegas goes completely dark. The businessmen set their hotel suite on fire and escape amid the chaos. At the same time, James Dawkins, a brilliant scientist with top-secret clearance, disappears from a conference in Geneva and wakes to find himself in a North Korean bunker with instructions to solve an engineering problem that will enable North Korea to launch nuclear attacks on its enemies worldwide. Chasing a trail of evidence that takes them from US soil to international waters to China and North Korea, Crocker and the rest of SEAL Team Six find themselves in the middle of an international plot with dangerous geopolitical ramifications. The North Korean government will stop at nothing to realize its long-held nuclear ambitions - but it'll have to get through some of America's most highly trained warriors first.
©2016 Don Mann and Ralph Pezzullo (P)2016 Hachette Audio
SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Leopard
Summary
Thomas Crocker's SEAL Team Six crew deploys to the Nigerian jungle to combat arms and human trafficking by Boko Haram, in Don Mann and Ralph Pezzullo's latest fiercely authentic military thriller. The charismatic Boko Haram leader Ratty Festus, also known as the Leopard, has been terrorizing drought-ridden Northeastern Nigeria: raiding villages, blowing up government buildings, and kidnapping schoolgirls. When Thomas Crocker and his Black Cell team, who are in the country on a special training mission, hear about a possible arms-for-schoolgirls exchange between Boko Haram and a Russian arms dealer on the Cameroon border, they convince a Nigerian Special Forces unit to join them in trying to stop it. The operation quickly goes south, with a deadly helicopter crash and an ambush. They can't manage to save all of the girls, even with assistance from a quick-thinking group of British private-security contractors. A week later, the Leopard seizes control of a 500-million dollar Gulf Oil natural gas plant, demanding a 50-million dollar ransom and safe passage out of the compound. Crocker has just 24 hours to plan and execute a high-risk, low-probability, mission to rescue all 80 innocent hostages - including two of his own who are trapped with the civilians.
©2019 Don Mann and Ralph Pezzullo (P)2019 Hachette Audio
Jawbreaker
Summary
In Jawbreaker, Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA's most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. With his unique mix of clandestine knowledge and paramilitary training, Berntsen represents the new face of counterterrorism. Recognized within the agency for his aggressiveness, Berntsen, when dispatched to Afghanistan, made annihilating the enemy his job description. As the CIA's key commander coordinating the fight against the Taliban forces around Kabul, and the drive toward Tora Bora, Berntsen not only led dozens of CIA and Special Operations Forces, he also raised 2,000 Afghan fighters to aid in the hunt for bin Laden. In this first-person account of that incredible pursuit, which actually began years earlier in an East Africa bombing investigation, Berntsen describes being ferried by rickety helicopter over the towering peaks of Afghanistan, sitting by General Tommy Franks' side as heated negotiations were conducted with Northern Alliance generals, bargaining relentlessly with treacherous Afghan warlords and Taliban traitors, plotting to save hostages about to be used as pawns, calling in B-52 strikes on dug-in enemy units, and deploying a dizzying array of Special Forces teams in the pursuit of the world's most wanted terrorist. Most crucially, Berntsen tells of cornering bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains, and what happened when Berntsen begged Washington to block the al-Qaeda leader's last avenue of escape. As disturbingly eye-opening as it is adrenaline-charged, Jawbreaker races from CIA war rooms to diplomatic offices to mountaintop redoubts to paint a vivid portrait of a new kind of warfare, showing what can and should be done to deal a death blow to freedom's enemies.
©2006 Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Jawbreaker
Summary
In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. With his unique mix of clandestine knowledge and paramilitary training, Berntsen represents the new face of counterterrorism. Recognized within the agency for his aggressiveness, Berntsen, when dispatched to Afghanistan, made annihilating the enemy his job description. As the CIA’s key commander coordinating the fight against the Taliban forces around Kabul, and the drive toward Tora Bora, Berntsen not only led dozens of CIA and Special Operations Forces, he also raised 2,000 Afghan fighters to aid in the hunt for bin Laden. In this first-person account of that incredible pursuit, which actually began years earlier in an East Africa bombing investigation, Berntsen describes being ferried by rickety helicopter over the towering peaks of Afghanistan, sitting by General Tommy Franks’s side as heated negotiations were conducted with Northern Alliance generals, bargaining relentlessly with treacherous Afghan warlords and Taliban traitors, plotting to save hostages about to be used as pawns, calling in B-52 strikes on dug-in enemy units, and deploying a dizzying array of Special Forces teams in the pursuit of the world’s most wanted terrorist. Most crucially, Berntsen tells of cornering bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains - and what happened when Berntsen begged Washington to block the al-Qaeda leader’s last avenue of escape. As disturbingly eye-opening as it is adrenaline-charged, Jawbreaker races from CIA war rooms to diplomatic offices to mountaintop redoubts to paint a vivid portrait of a new kind of warfare, showing what can and should be done to deal a death blow to freedom’s enemies. CIA Commander Gary Berntsen on... His eyebrow-raising style: “Most CIA Case Officers advanced their careers by recruiting sources and producing intelligence, I took a more grab-them-by-the-neck approach...I operated on the principle that it was easier to seek forgiveness than ask for approval. Take risks, but make sure you’re successful. Success, not good intentions, would determine my fate.” Doing whatever it took: “I didn’t just want to survive: I wanted to annihilate the enemy. And I didn’t want to end up like one of my favorite historical characters - Alexander Burns...He was one of the first of more than 14,000 British soldiers to be wiped out by the Afghans in the First Afghan War. Like Burns before me, I was also an intelligence officer and spoke Persian. This was my second trip into Afghanistan, too. The difference, I told myself, was that Burns had been a gentleman and I would do whatever it took to win.” Dealing with a Taliban official who controlled American hostages: “Tell him that if he betrays me or loses the hostages I’ll spend every waking moment of my life hunting him down to kill him. Tell him I’m not like any American he has ever met.” The capabilities of his Tora Bora spotter team: “Working nonstop, the four men directed strike after strike by B-1s, B-2s, and F-14s onto the al-Qaeda encampment with incredible precision. Somehow through the massive bureaucracy, thousands of miles of distance [and] reams of red tape...the U.S. had managed to place four of the most skilled men in the world above the motherlode of al-Qaeda, with a laser designator and communications system linked to the most potent air power in history…As I listened over our encrypted radio network, one word kept pounding in my head: revenge.” Also available as a Random House AudioBook
©2006 Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo (P)2006 Books on Tape
SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Viper
Summary
Don Mann and Ralph Pezzullo's shockingly authentic military thriller sends Thomas Crocker and his SEAL Team Six brothers to confront a notorious ISIS general, The Viper, during the occupation of Aleppo, Syria. Despite the efforts of the Assad government and its Russian and Turkish allies, Syria is succumbing to the Islamic State. While Crocker and his SEAL Team Six comrades try to help a small Kurdish border town organize a resistance army, he finds an unexpected connection with Severine, a French epidemiologist working for Doctors Without Borders. As Severine and her colleagues establish a makeshift hospital in besieged Aleppo, Crocker counsels caution. He knows too well that their NGO status will be no protection from the Viper, a notoriously vicious ISIS general with a deeply personal hatred of the West. When the Viper's men kidnap one of Severine's American colleagues, Crocker will pull every string at his disposal to launch a rescue mission. But in a situation where the US has no official business, he'll push every boundary of how far he's willing to go - and how far his SEAL brothers in arms will follow him - to save innocent lives.
©2018 Don Mann, Ralph Pezzullo (P)2018 Hachette Audio
SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Fox
Summary
In war-torn Syria, the heroes of the SEAL Team Six series defuse an ISIS warlord's explosive plot. After a meeting with a CIA source in Istanbul ends in tragedy, SEAL Team Six Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Crocker vows revenge. He suspects the men who attacked him and his contact are involved in the latest and most harrowing scheme SEAL Team Six is charged with preventing, in a region that grows more volatile by the day. Syria's government is unraveling, with the alliances among rebel groups increasingly complex and ISIS dangerously in the mix. Farid al-Kazaz, aka the Fox, leads the most threatening of the ISIS factions. The Fox believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered the murder of the Fox's brother and is planning a sarin gas attack that would wreak havoc across not just Syria, but the entire Middle East. It's up to Crocker and the rest of SEAL Team Six to stop a ruthless killer and keep an explosive plan from detonating. The SEAL Team Six series has been hailed by Special Forces veterans and members of the intelligence community as a fascinating, behind-closed-doors look at the real-life heroism of our country's bravest soldiers. Now, Mann and Pezzullo use their experience and insight to tell the story of a terrifying plot ripped straight from the headlines.
©2015 Don Mann, Ralph Pezzullo (P)2015 Hachette Audio
Hunt the Wolf
Summary
Navy SEAL Team Six commando Don Mann infuses his debut military thriller with the real-life details only a true insider can reveal. In the midst of a grueling training exercise, Thomas Crocker, USN, unearths a pocket of terrorism that leads straight from the slopes of K2 to the cities of Europe and the Middle East. Crocker and his team, who are trained for the most intense kinds of combat in the most extreme environments, must blaze through a perilous web of terrorist cells to track down a ruthless sheikh who is running an international kidnapping ring before his captives pay the ultimate price. Hunt the Wolf is an adrenaline-packed novel sure to appeal to fans of Vince Flynn and Brad Thor, featuring the world's most elite soldiers and based on the experiences of renowned SEAL Team 6 commando Don Mann.
©2012 Don Mann (P)2012 Hachette Audio
SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Jackal
Summary
Real-life SEAL Don Mann brings all of his insight and experience to the next installment of the SEAL Team Six series. When a senator's wife and teenage daughter are kidnapped, Thomas Crocker and SEAL Team Six are sent to Mexico's lawless countryside, where federal agents protect instead of hunting down violent narcotics kingpins. The two women have been kidnapped by the Jackal, a drug lord drunk on power and influence. He also happens to be a self-styled modern Che Guevara, who has undergone plastic surgery to disguise his looks and justifies his brutal methods and Machiavellian drug empire with the politics of social revolution. The Jackal is as ruthless as he is colorful, and he must be stopped. Crocker and the SEALs have only a matter of hours to track down and rescue the two innocent civilians held at the mercy of this madman. With dirty cops, dangerous cartels, lavish tropical estates, double-crosses and plenty of bullets, Hunt the Jackal places the team in perilous new territory and demonstrates how elite warriors can adapt to and fight in any situation. With insight into sensitive intelligence so top-secret it can only be hinted at in fiction, Mann and Pezzullo's extensive knowledge has for several books offered a look behind the curtain at the life-or-death, black-ops missions executed by only a handful of the bravest soldiers. Now, with Hunt the Jackal, the authors focus their lens even closer to home upon the dangers that lurk just across the U.S. border in a pulse-pounding thriller that ups the ante even as it sheds light on the real-life heroes and villains of the fight against narco-terrorism.
©2014 Don Mann (P)2014 Hachette
SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Falcon
Summary
SEAL Team Six and Thomas Crocker are back hunting their most elusive adversary yet: The Falcon. Hunt the Falcon finds SEAL Team Six chasing "The Falcon," an Iranian terrorist who has been stealing Libyan nuclear material. The hunt takes the team from Bangkok to Caracas in search of The Falcon's forces. Crocker convinces the powers that be to allow him to operate in Iran, and he and the team go in full black in order to take down their mark. Meanwhile, Crocker's estranged father-a former firefighter and hell-raiser who was kicked out of the Navy as a young seaman-reappears, forcing Crocker to recognize his life outside the shadows of SEAL life. It's not easy when work calls over 300 days of the year, and when it's this essential to take an enemy down.
©2013 Don Mann (P)2013 Hachette Audio