Off the Grid (Joe Pickett, #16)

by C.J. Box

THERE IS A MOMENT when a peregrine falcon, hundreds of feet in the sky, identifies a target below. The raptor stalls for a moment in the thermal current, draws in its wings, and gracefully does a 180-degree rotation to its back. Now bullet-shaped and sleekly aerodynamic, the peregrine falls through the sky, gaining more and more velocity until its speed reaches more than two hundred miles an hour. It is the fastest creature on earth, and as it shrieks through layers of changing crosscurrents and atmosphere, it subtly keeps a perfect bead on its prey by slightly shifting a wing or moving its head a degree. As it drops, the falcon’s focus narrows until the target—whether an unsuspecting duck rising from a pond or a rabbit foraging for young shoots of grass—becomes the one true thing to the exclusion of everything else. As the peregrine closes in on its target at tremendous speed, its talons descend like the landing gear of an airplane on final approach. The talons are balled into fists. It is known as the state of yarak to falconers, and the end result is a concussion of blood and tissue from the target as the peregrine strikes home.