Excerpt

Attitude and choices. Those are the only things in life that you can control. That was what Jessica Saunders had believed. Now she wondered if you were propelled through life on a certain course and had no choice in the matter, but she still believed you could control your attitude, and hers needed an overhaul.

Before backing from her driveway, Jessica glanced at her house. As usual the sight caused her to reflect on a simpler, slower lifestyle. It had taken two years of hard work to renovate the hundred-year-old house, but it had been worth the effort. It was beautiful. Victorian homes lined her street, and as was true in most of Charleston, the yards were vibrant with blooms of azaleas.

During the drive to her job in Mt. Pleasant, Jess reminisced about a trip with her husband, Jay. Ex-husband, she reminded herself. They had spent the day on the beach building sandcastles with their five-year-old daughter, Andie. She missed those carefree times, times before Jay traveled weekly and worked seventy-to eighty-hour weeks.

Now, Jess was the one who worked long hours. Mainly to avoid the emptiness of the house since Andie had moved away to college. Even though she enjoyed the challenge of her job and the people at the ad agency, the long hours had taken a toll. She needed a vacation. She stopped to purchase a travel magazine.

Inside the familiar Food Mart, the aroma of fresh brewed coffee drew her to the coffee bar. She ordered a tall latte. The magazine rack stood at the back of the store. As she browsed, a magazine cover featuring an island surrounded by the aqua waters of the Caribbean caught her eye. That would be a great place to relax, she thought. She placed her coffee on a nearby shelf and picked up the magazine.

From behind a slightly open door, she heard hushed, angry voices that sounded Middle Eastern. The conversation didn’t concern her until she heard the word “jihad.”

She froze.

The disturbing tone of the men’s voices alarmed her more than the word. Jess stepped backward and bumped into a shelf behind her. Something fell. When she took another step, one of the men spoke in broken English. She leaned toward the door.

“But I do not harbor hatred toward Americans,” he said in a low voice.

The other man roared in Arabic.

His outburst startled Jess. Her eyes widened as she looked around to see if anyone else had overheard the men. No one was nearby. Why were these men arguing about a holy war? Could the conversation be about an attack? A prickle ran up her back as she considered the implications.

Backing away, she focused on the office door. Soon, it flew open and a dark-skinned, muscular man in his late thirties stormed out and disappeared through the front door.

A moment later, a younger man emerged. Jess gasped. It was Binyamin, one of the clerks who worked at the store. He was pale as he walked to the front counter. Bin was a lanky, bearded young man with a dark complexion. His unruly, black, curly hair framed his face, which generally bore an infectious smile. Today there was no smile.

Bin had worked at the Food Mart for the past year. He was pleasant and helpful to customers, especially the regulars. Jess recalled their last conversation several weeks ago. Bin had talked about the courses he was taking at the College of Charleston. He was excited about his second semester and his first year in America.

As Jess thought back, she realized the last couple of times she had been here, Bin had avoided her. It was difficult to imagine Bin involved in anything as sinister as a terrorist plot.

Jess started toward the front door. She forgot about her coffee, all she wanted was to get out of there. With each step, she feared her knees might buckle.

“Ms. Saunders, do you want to purchase the magazine?”
The manager’s voice jolted her. She looked down at the forgotten magazine clutched to her chest.

She cleared her dry throat. “Of course.”

Leaning against the counter to steady herself, Jess fumbled through her purse for money. She handed the manager the cash and slowly looked over at Bin. Bin’s face looked strained and he avoided eye contact. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead.

Bin turned to his manager. “Mr. Newton, I need the rest of the day off.”

“I’m not sure I can spare you on such short notice.”

“I am sorry. I would not ask off if it were not a family emergency. I will make up the time next week.” Beads of perspiration multiplied across Bin’s forehead.

“You seem to be having a lot of emergencies lately. I’ll see if I can find someone. In the future, Bin, you need to give me more notice.” Mr. Newton tramped off toward the office.

While they talked, Jess pretended to search her purse for the car keys. She hoped Bin would say something, anything, that would dissolve her fears. But Bin’s demanding the day off only added to her suspicions.

As she walked outside to her car, her feet felt like lead. She slid into the driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel. Had she just overheard someone plotting an attack against America, or was she being paranoid?

Although she hadn’t understood the majority of the conversation, their tone and the fact Bin said he didn’t harbor hatred for Americans made it sound threatening. Should I report this to someone? She would never forgive herself if someone suffered because she failed to notify anyone.

Afraid that the man Bin had argued with might be nearby, she decided to wait to call the authorities. As she drove through the parking lot, she cast a nervous side-glance at the parked vehicles.

After a few blocks, she pulled to the curb. Who should she contact? The FBI? Homeland Security? There was some new antiterrorist agency, but she couldn’t remember the name. She knew the FBI had a local office, but was unsure of the others. She took her cell phone from her purse and called information. Her hand shook so hard that the numbers she wrote were barely legible.

Jess held the phone to her chest and stared ahead. What should she tell them? She would simply tell them what she overheard and let them determine its importance. Jess took several deep breaths and then called.

A woman answered, “FBI Charleston, may I help you?”

Jess attempted to speak but nothing came out.

“Hello. May I help you?” the woman repeated.

Jess cleared her throat. “Yes . . . uh . . . my name is Jessica Saunders. I . . . uh . . . overheard a conversation that sounded like it could be about a threat.” Jess described what she had seen and heard.

“Ms. Saunders, please hold for an agent.”

A few moments later a male voice announced, “This is Agent Blake Conners. I hear you may have information regarding a threat.”

“I’m not certain if it’s an actual threat.”

Jess repeated what she overheard and gave him a description of the men at the Food Mart. The fact that Agent Conners listened so intently sent shivers through her. If he didn’t believe the conversation was about a real threat, why would he even take her call? Her pulse quickened.

“We need for you to come to Washington, D.C. so we can determine exactly what you witnessed and heard. A couple of agents will pick you up in an hour at your house,” Agent Conners said.

“I’m willing to do whatever is needed, but I can’t add anything to what I’ve already told you. Almost all of the conversation was in a language I don’t understand, so why do I need to go to D.C.?”

“I’m with the Terrorist Network Task Force based in Washington. I came to Charleston to help set up a field office. Most of my team isn’t here. It will help to have their expertise. You may be surprised at what valuable information you may have overheard. I can’t go into details over the phone, Ms. Saunders, but the fact that you don’t understand Arabic is not an issue. Agents Cummins and Taft will pick you up at nine to take you to the airport. You need to pack a few things. This may take a day or two. Now, what is the location of the Food Mart? We need to send someone there to obtain information about Bin. Do you know his full name?”

“He told me Bin was short for Binyamin, but I don’t remember his last name.”She gave him the address of the store, then began, “I live on the corner of Ashley Avenue”

“We have your address, Ms. Saunders. Tell your family you’re going on a business trip if that’s a possibility, and tell your boss that you have a personal matter to attend to. The less you tell anyone, the better. We’ll leave for Washington as soon as you arrive at the airport.”

He gave her his secure cell phone number. He told her to memorize the number and only call him from a land-based phone, unless it was an absolute emergency.

Jess’ entire body felt numb. A honking horn brought her back to the present. She glanced at the police officer in the squad car. He pointed to something along the curb. She looked over at the “No Parking” sign that she hadn’t noticed, then glanced back at the officer. He motioned her to pull in front of him.

As she crossed back over the Cooper River, the horror of what these men might have planned lay heavy on her mind. She tried to concentrate on what she needed to do before leaving. She needed to pack, but first she needed to call Andie.

The thought of Andie brought a slight smile to Jess’ face. Andrea had grown up in a neighborhood full of boys determined to keep her out of their group, but no matter what they did or said to deter her, Andie tagged along anyway. She used to pin her curly, auburn hair on top of her head and cover it with a baseball cap so she would blend in with the boys. Some days when she came home, there would be no clue that a beautiful little girl lurked underneath all the grime. The nickname “Andie” fit her perfectly.

For years, Andie planned to go to the University of Texas at Austin and major in interior design; it was the college that her parents had attended. Jess admired Andie’s independence, a trait her daughter had in abundance.

Jess’ palms sweated at the thought of lying to Andie. What could she tell her? Perhaps part of the truth would be best. It was almost seven in Texas. On Mondays Andie’s classes didn’t start until eight, so she should still be in her dorm room.

At a red light, Jess stared at her cell phone. Someone honked. When she looked up, the light was green. She drove forward and activated her phone by saying her daughter’s name.

“Hi, Mom. Did you forget about the time difference again?”

Jess forced a laugh. “No, babe, I wanted to catch you before you left for class.”

“What’s up?”

“A serious issue has come up at work and I have to go to D.C. today.”

“Mom, are you okay? Your voice is shaky.”

“Must be bad reception. I’ve been having problems with my cell phone lately.”

“You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m fine. I’ll call later and explain everything. I love you.”

“You better call me tonight. I’ll worry until I hear from you. By the way, I made an A on my physics exam last week.”

“That’s great. I miss you, sweetie.”

“I miss you too. Could you come to Austin this weekend or the next . . . maybe even talk Dad into coming with you? I realize that’s a big request.”

“I’ll let you know when I get back. I shouldn’t be gone more than two days.” Jess bit her lip.

“It sounds major. Good luck.”

“Thanks. Could you call your dad and let him know I’ll be out of town? He calls me every now and then. I’ve been having problems with my cell phone, and I wouldn’t want him to think something is wrong if he can’t reach me.”

“Why don’t you call him?”

“I don’t have time, and I don’t want to talk to him right now.”

“You never do.” Andie sighed. “I love you, bye.”

“I love you too. Be careful, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you later.”

Jess clicked off the phone and breathed a sigh of relief.

After parking in her driveway, Jess glanced down her street. Everything had appeared safe and serene earlier. But now a disturbing atmosphere hung in the breeze. Jess shuddered and rushed inside.

As she packed, Jess’ thoughts drifted to Jay. When Andie was young, Jay had spent hours reading and playing games with her. He had gone to all her sporting events, dance recitals, and helped her with school projects. Also during the early years of their marriage, they had gone camping, sailing, and enjoyed spending time together. Everything changed once Jay decided to climb the corporate ladder and become CEO. He went from a doting father and husband to almost a complete stranger.

After three years of Jay’s long hours and traveling, Jess quit her job. She hoped the free time would help their strained marriage. She even traveled with Jay. But to her disappointment, she either sat in the hotel room while Jay attended meetings or entertained his clients’ wives at dinner while the men discussed business. Even when they were alone, Jay continued to work on his next big business deal.

After being home for two years, she became dismayed over Jay’s growing distance and his lack of concern for their marriage, so she filed for a divorce.

One evening when he returned home late, she handed him the papers. “Since I’m already living alone, I decided to make it official.”

Jay studied the papers. “Maybe this is best,” he mumbled.

Jay threw some things into a suitcase and never looked back as he walked out into the night. Jess had hoped the fact that she had filed for divorce would shock him into concentrating on their marriage. But there had not been one word of protest from Jay. Devastated, she wept for hours. No matter how difficult the divorce had been for her, it had been harder on Andie. At first, Andie was angry at Jess, but over time they became close again.

After Andie left for college, Jess crammed her days with work, target practice, exercising, and kickboxing. All the exercise kept her in great physical shape, but that wasn’t what motivated her. Being active kept her too exhausted to be lonely. She filled any remainder of her time doing charity work.

After packing, Jess stared into her closet. It was difficult to focus on clothes as she tried to keep her emotions in check. Anger, fear, anxiety, you name it, they all surged through her at one time. She changed into a pair of black pants, a black-and-white, lightweight sweater, and a pair of black flats.

Jess began a mental check of things she still needed to do: the mail, the newspaper . . . suddenly she remembered her office. She was never late. They probably thought she had an accident.

Jess had gone to work for Stanley Marks right after she graduated college. She enjoyed her job, mainly because she liked working with Stan. He and his wife, Rosa, were like family.

As Jess dialed her office, she debated about what to tell Cindy, her assistant. Although she hated lying, she thought it was best, given the circumstances. She told Cindy an elderly neighbor had fallen on her steps. That since she lived alone, Jess planned to take her to the emergency room and stay home with her for a couple of days. With a sense of relief, Cindy bought the story.

Jess glanced at the clock on her nightstand. The agents would be there soon. She was ready to get this entire incident behind her. She grabbed her purse and suitcase.

As she walked through the den, she glanced out back. She froze in place when she saw Bin on the patio with a gun aimed at the back door. The sound of cracking wood filled the room and a hole appeared where the lock had been. She hadn’t heard the shot. That could only mean one thing. He had a silencer!

Overwhelmed by terror, Jess dropped her bags. As she raced toward the front door, Jess’ right foot caught the edge of her suitcase and threw her off balance. Bin grabbed her from behind and clasped his hand over Jess’ mouth.

At that moment the phone rang.

Copyright 2008 Barbara Blackburn. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

BAGHDAD, IRAQ
SEPTEMBER, 2004

It was a clear night. The moon was full. Rawid Ali and his family; sons Washi and Ben, their sister Alba, and mother Samina were on their way home from the local Mosque in Baghdad. The four lane highway had normal traffic on each side, except for a convoy of six U.S. Army vehicles occupying the inside lane, delivering supplies to the green zone. On the other side of the road coming in the opposite direction came a distinctive silver car with one driver. It drew Rawid’s attention because it only had one occupant. Most cars had two or were filled with families.

“Look at that car mother,” said Rawid. “The silver one over there,” nodding toward the other side of the road. As the car approached, Rawid could see the dark, solemn expression of the passenger. He made a mental note; the driver was in his mid or late twenties, medium complexion, curly hair that was connected with sideburns and a beard, dressed in a blue and red polo shirt. It looked as though the car was too low to the ground as if it was carrying extra weight for such a small vehicle.

Rawid turned to look at the road in front momentarily then turned back to look at the silver car. As the car got closer, he could see the dark expression of the driver.The driver smiled, hollered something, and sharply turned his car inward toward the Ali’s car and the U. S.Convoy.

In an instant, there was a crushing contact. A loud explosion,catapulting of bodies out of the Ali’s car and those vehicles in front, side and in the back.
Smoke and fire consumed a stretch of the highway. As the smoke cleared, you could see bodies, and body parts strewn everywhere. Arms,legs, torsos, brains, entrails, blood, people moaning, walking dazed,screaming, and crying out for help.

Vehicles burned while men attempted to squelch the fires with extinguishers and handfuls of roadside dirt to ward off any possible explosions.
Bodies were burning with people lying dead or wounded along the road and in the gutter.

Rawid with a blank stare, likewise his wife Samina. Alba and Washi looked as though they were sleeping peacefully. None were breathing, moving or making a sound. The Ali family, Washi age ten,Alba age nine, Rawid and his wife Samina were dead. Their faces and clothing were splattered with blood. Ben age six lay beside his mother barely breathing, burned, broken right arm…but alive. An ambulance arrived. The driver, Abdul and emergency medical person, Husain, along with Doctor Sultan went through a quick triage and started moving the victims. “Another suicide bomber!” said Abdul. “Yes, tried to get the American Convoy, but instead got the civilians. Looks like real carnage. Women, men, children, families, mostly returning from evening prayers at the Mosque. It’s a shame, there is really not a point to prove, or an excuse to make, especially where there is what they call collateral damage …and lots of it. They’ve taken everything these people have and everything they are ever going to have,” explained Dr. Sultan, shaking his head to accentuate the expression.
“Look, here is a small child still breathing. Bring over the oxygen and let’s get him into the ambulance.”

They lifted Ben onto a stretcher and loaded him into the red and white vehicle along with a couple of other victims.
With sirens blaring and emergency lights flashing they drove the ambulance to the El Haggani Hospital.

Little Ben Ali woke up the next morning in the children’s ward. His arm was throbbing with pain. His head ached and his face and shoulder bandaged. His right arm was in a cast, the smell of iodine, alcohol, and ointment filled his nostrils. He heard crying, whimpering,and calls for mother. He was hungry and wanted his mother. He called out, but there was no answer. He looked around.

The ward was painted green with white trim. White beds with side gates were dispersed along the room. About ten in all, five on each side. Each bed held a bandaged patient. Adults were scurrying around. Nurses dressed in white, some with “Berkas” others wore “Abayas” or ”Hijabs” administering to the small patients.

Nurse Khadeeja Mudhir, wearing an abaya, approached Ben. “How are you little one?” she asked.
“I want my mama,” he replied.

“I know you are hungry, let me get you some food, I will be back in a few minutes.”

Nurse Khadeeja left the room. He could see her talking to a male individual dressed in green hospital clothing outside the door who seemed to be in charge. He watched while the individual explained something to nurse Mudhir and saw her shake and bow her head in horror.

As a six year old, he did not know what to make of the nurse’s reaction, nor could he comprehend what they were discussing. He only knew that he wanted his family, his arm hurt, he was hungry, his neck and shoulders stung, and the other small children in the room with blood stained bandages were making him uncomfortable and afraid.

This was his first time in a hospital and he did not know what to expect. The man Ben saw outside talking to Nurse Mudhir came into the room and walked towards little Ben.

“Son, how are you, do you hurt?” said the Doctor, he continued. ”I am Dr. Zalmay al-Jabouri, I work here at the hospital and you are my patient. Which means the nurses in this room and I will take care of you. Nurse Mudhir will be bringing your food soon. After you eat I will come back. We have a lot to talk about, ok?” Little Ben whimpered and nodded his head. The Doctor left as Nurse Mudhir arrived with a tray.

The nurse put the tray on a portable stand and started to feed little Ben. Th e gruel and bread was the fi rst little Ben had eaten in almost two days. The sweet juice tasted good washing down the gruel. The goat’s milk was refreshing along with a sweet flan-type pudding. It wasn’t like what his mother made, but he was hungry. He soon finished what was on his tray.

Nurse Mudhir complimented him on finishing the meal and got up and said; “Little one, I will leave you now. Dr. Jabouri will be in soon to talk to you.” With that, she left the room with the tray and remnants of little Ben’s meal.

Dr. Jabouri came into the room accompanied by a man, in his fifties, salt and pepper beard, mustache, dressed in a white muslin tunic shirt, sandals, and a white turban. He introduced him as Dr. Noor Omar,Head of the Baghdad Central Orphanages.

Jabouri started, “Ben, you are the last of your family. Your father,mother, brother and sister are gone. You will not see them anymore.” Tears welled up in little Ben’s eyes.

“What do you mean Doctor?”

“You remember what happened to you yesterday?” “Yes.”

“Your family was killed yesterday in the explosion; you are the only one left. We have arranged for you to be placed at one of the City’s orphanages. Th ere you will find children of your age and you can make a lot of new friends.”

L’il Ben tossed and turned all night, whimpering and sobbing in loneliness and pain. He thought of his mom and dad whom he would never see again. He thought of his brother Washi and the many times they kicked the soccer ball, and his sister Alba both of whom he will never see again. Finally, he fell into a deep sleep oblivious of his surroundings until he awoke the next morning and remembered that he was in a hospital ward.

That day a black van took Ben Ali, several other children, and dropped them off at various orphanages in the city’s Central Orphanage System.

Copyright 2008 Sr., Ralph L. McNeal. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

“Daddy, look at me,” Kim squealed, flopping down on her sled. With a shove of her boots, her sled took off down the hill, sliding to a stop at the bottom. Giggling, she rolled off the sled and stood. Clumps of snow fell from her pants as she waited for her father’s sleigh.
“Watch out, here I come,” he called. He threw himself belly down onto the sled, flying down the hill. He turned the sled away from Kim, sliding past her to a stop several feet away.
“Wow, Daddy, you went far,” Kim squealed, racing over to him.
Laughing, he stood and brushed off his pants. He should have worn his snow pants, but arguing with Donna had changed his mind. He couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. Grabbing the rope of Kim’s sled along with his own, he trudged back up the hill with Kim vigorously following him.
“Hard work getting up the hill, kiddo?” he teased, staring down at his daughter. Her cheeks were flushed as she shot him a bright smile.
“A little,” she breathed. At the top, she quickly got back onto her sled and went down the hill. As her sled slid to a stop, she giggled as her father went by her.
“Can I go down with you next time?” she called. “You go a lot farther than me.”
“Sure,” he replied, jumping to his feet. He grabbed her hand, helping her up the hill. This time he flung himself down onto his belly. With a joyful whoop, Kim jumped on his back, her arms practically strangling him as they flew off down the hill. At the bottom, Kim’s small body flung to one side, almost toppling them both.
Laughing heartily, they both rolled to their backs, staring into the bleak sky.
“That was fun,” Kim cried. “Let’s do it again.”
Several more times they doubled up, often spilling out of control. Peace invaded Mike’s senses as he enjoyed spending time with Kim. But as the sky darkened, he stared down at his watch. Five-twenty. It was still daylight. He glanced at Fanny’s Farm, which stood quietly in the distance; smoke puffing out of its chimney. Donna would be wondering where they were. Already angry with him, he didn’t want to push her panic button. And when it came to Kim, she was as protective as any mother could be.
Although he regretted his harsh words to her, he wasn’t sorry that he had pointed out just how dogmatic she was being. After all, Kim was his daughter too. Did she honestly think he’d do anything to bring Kim harm or take her anywhere that she could get hurt? Not that the pond could hurt her. The thing was frozen solid. The temperatures had been bitter cold for weeks. Squinting his eyes, he strained his gaze to the spot that hung so precariously on his mind. He could barely make out the area. Snow covered the ground, hiding the ice beneath. If not for the one boulder that stood out along the banks, he would have trouble even knowing where it was. As he stared, something moved in the bordering tree line.
His heart skipped a beat. What was that? It moved again.
“Come on, Daddy,” Kim said, tugging on his hand.
“I’m sitting this one out, honey,” he said softly. His gaze remained riveted on the tree area. Something was there. It was probably a deer. “You go down without me.”
Disappointed, Kim did as prompted.
Aware of just how shadowy it was getting, Mike waited until Kim trudged up the hill, offering his assistance at the top. “We better get going,” he told her. “It’s getting dark and your mother will worry.”
“Can we come tomorrow?” she quickly asked.
“We’ll see,” he said softly. “Here, sit on the sled and I’ll pull you home.”
Kim plopped herself down on her sled, glad for the invite.
As they trudge toward the back of Fanny’s farm, a bellow rang out. Stunned, Mike swung around just in time to see a cow lunging out of the distant trees, running toward them. Wildly it swung its head, snorting. Startled, he quickly reacted, scooping Kim off of the sled and running with her toward the nearest barn. At the back of the building, he flattened himself against the wall, pressing Kim behind him.
“Daddy, I’m scared.”
The wild cow slid in the snow, but continued toward them. Mike grabbed Kim’s hand and pulled her around the building. A boarded-up doorway offered little shelter. He quickly pushed Kim against the wood, standing protectively in front of her.
The angry cow raced by them, toward the house. When its feet touched the driveway, it slid across the snow before righting itself. Then before Mike could move, the cow raced up the driveway and rushed onto the roadway. A sickening screech of tires followed, then a heavy thud.
Breathing heavily, Mike looked down at Kim, whose eyes filled with tears.
“Are you okay, honey?”
“Yes,” she murmured, shaking her head. “What was wrong with that cow?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He took her hand and pulled her toward the back of Fanny’s house. In the distance, he saw the car’s owner standing in the road, staring at the body of the cow. He turned to Kim. “Stay on Fanny’s porch until I see if anyone is hurt.” Pushing her onto the enclosed porch, he sat her down on an old recliner. “I’ll be right back.”
“I want to come,” she cried.
“No, do as I say.” He was already halfway out the door when he turned to her. “Knock on the door and tell Fanny what happened. But no matter what, stay right here. Understand?”
“Yes, Daddy.” Kim sobbed harder, wiping at her frantic tears.

Copyright 2008 Tamera Lawrence. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Opening Correlation

In the early fifties there was devised a lamp with a light that glowed at a greater intensity as one turned its spring loaded dial clockwise. It was a sensation, as hippies to ultra conservatives alike flooded the hardware stores to purchase the item. Rival companies investigated the accomplishment and naturally attempted to better it by enhancing the basic two power settings to more. The competition grew fierce, where each inserted more positions until soon there were lamps that had ten or more lighting choices to get the wattage that an off-and-on apparatus would provide in a flick of a toggle switch.
I mention these variable intensity lamps because they remind me of the selections used in relating a human to their phenomenal capabilities. I am convinced that every person is endowed with that type of device inside their ever being. Although some push their light to greater heights than others, the opportunity to intensify and notches to rest it at different locations does exist in us all.
Turn the dial clockwise to the first setting and you possess a dull nightlight that you would dare not read by. It is barely enough illumination to comprehend the surroundings and justify one’s being. Twist to the right a few clicks and you are in what is considered the safe zone, where like most everyone else, you trudge through the day providing sufficient brightness to ensure there will be a tomorrow. More turns and you have a person that shines a bit more impressive than the norm. Additional twists takes you to a rambunctious idol status, admired by the many.
To ninety-nine percent of us, that is to the extent that we dare dream to experience in a lifetime. It is also where society posts its boundaries of acceptance. Nevertheless, there are some that persist past that 100-watts danger zone and dials further, where they venture into primping a cape, leaping tall obstructions, and soaring above certainty. If one has the fortitude to push their destiny by dialing higher, where indentations to rest are non-existent, they have a beam that is so bright that the human element exists only as much as they determine it should.
On the other hand, have you ever wondered what energy exists between those grooves and settings that are humanely diverse? Efforts to discover those gray areas are mostly futile due to the tension on the spring, somewhat like society, attempting to yank one back to a preconceived niche. It is places that are very difficult to experience and trickier to maintain as you maneuver brighter. It is between those zones that generate thrill seekers in the lower non-settings of, let’s say, the 17-watts luminous area. In the 32.6-watts, maybe the daredevils have explored for a short period until doubt disrobed them of further probabilities. Inventors would have had a brief residence at the 53-watts region to devise our future. Successful entrepreneurs discovered ways to vacation at the 72-watts domain. And the prophets established themselves well beyond the 107-watts, which obliterate what we conceive as actuality.
Now! If you are intrigued by what I have just slapped inside your rational perimeters, yet skeptical of its notion, then you can recognize that what I am about to suggest is ludicrous—I once believed the same. To discover a human reared to thrive between those life’s settings with no limits on their wattage is preposterous.
However, I found such a person—in a Black executive named Alexander Bryre—and this is his story:

Chapter 1
     The Whomp!

It was a late Thursday night on the 21st of November 1996, where Thanksgiving loomed on the horizon at the million-dollar estate of the forty-two year old executive, Alexander Bryre, and his wife of fifteen years, Cynthia. The moderate holiday exterior decor added a comfort sense to the two-story, forty-four hundred square feet, red brick home with spacious wooded acreage. It was situated just within West Los Angeles. Fresh carved pumpkin displays by their two children, thirteen-year-old son, Isaiah, and ten-year-old daughter, Cyrene, added a seasonal fragrance, and complemented the elaborate interior furnishings.
Alexander, which most referred to as Alex, was in his upstairs entertainment room with his daughter at his side. They were watching their first viewing of a recording of the past Sunday’s football game of his favorite pro team, the Dallas Cowboys, who were playing their archrival Green Bay Packers.
In a short robe, Cynthia joined them at the half after Alex’s disturbed words had softened from the insults directed at the television for his team settling on field goals instead of touchdowns. She sat on the open side of him on the sofa and gently caressed his thigh as to request some attention. “Let’s go downstairs and re-consummate some vows,” she whispered tenderly in his ear while she stroked her freshly manicured hand further up.
“Are you serious?” Alex inquired, feeling the four months of denial she had put him through due to an argument.
“Are you sure you are ready for this,” Cynthia continued her sexual stimulation of his ear. “You can have me any way you want…if you take me now.”
“What does re-consummate mean?” Cyrene the child genius interrupted to make them aware that she had taken notice of the flirting.
“We’ll let you know in a few years,” her mother answered. She seductively led Alex out the room, down the foyer stairs, and a left toward their master bedroom.
Once there, Alex rediscovered one of the many reasons he had fallen in love, as Cynthia placed him on the bed, locked the door, and shed her robe, exposing her tantalizing 5’7” majestic figure in a pink, Peek-a-Boo Cups, Babydoll. She had retained that soft look and appeal that Alex had admired at first site. Her light paper-sack skin tone glistened from the six small candles she had lit and situated throughout the room for the mood.
Alex had little chance to reflect on a room he had not slept in since the dispute. He had been restricted to sleeping in the entertainment room with the hide-away bed that failed to fit his two inches above six feet athletic frame. He questioned himself briefly of the possible reasons of his reprieve. Maybe my wife could resist my loving no longer, or maybe she had reconsidered her stance and the problem had gone away. He did however know the feeling he experienced as she strutted towards him and straddled his lap. That sensation preceded any more of his deliberations. He directed attention to his weakness, her voluptuous middle-sized breast with erected centerpieces. He called them his Babies, and his wife placed one directly in his face. He quickly disrobed it from her negligee and began suckling while she heaved sighs of delight.
“Take what you want of me, my love. We can relieve ourselves of all of our lost activity in one night—if you simply tell me who was there,” Cynthia whimpered.
Alex could hear her speak the words that had caused so much grief between them. Maybe if she’s stimulated more, the words will go away.
“Come on Alex. You can’t tell me you don’t want me. I can feel your swell,” she antagonized as she swayed slowly her hips, allowing her concealed labium to brush softly across his bulge that matured and firmed more with each majestic pass. “Tell me the truth and we can continue until you beg me to stop,” his Cynthia advocated, then gently pushed him away from the nipple and stared into his eyes for the white flag of surrender.
“Honey, I’ve told you the truth. Let’s forget this and go on,” he asked. As he attempted to resume his dish, he was once again peeled away.
It was then that Cynthia’s medium brown pupils turned a cold black and began to shrink until they were a minute speck. The whites of her eyes changed to a repugnant gray, accompanied by an abrupt shudder, as if some enigmatic force was infiltrating her body. Then came the creepy grunt Alex had heard on many occasions from her in their tribulations, prior to her showing her wicked side. Alex could not understand what was happening. Possibly a woman thing when they reach thirty-eight. Nevertheless, he had found that whatever it was could not be reasoned with. He had learned to absent himself and allow it to run its course, which varied from a few minutes to hours.
“Cynthia, I don’t know what you are digging for, I’ve told you the truth,” Alex tried to reason anyway in his excitement to continue what she had started.
“You lie!” voiced a harsher and more deepened voice from the lips of his wife. She lifted herself from him, picked up one of the candles from its holder, and tossed it at his feet. “You can fuck that, then!” she insisted, and then went to her closet to cover herself in a full-length Granny housecoat.
Alex stomped at the fire to extinguish its flames. “What is wrong with—” he attempted to ask before there was heard a screeching sound of car brakes from his driveway.

Cyrene, from up in the entertainment room, peeked through the blinds and saw that it was the white and blue security car with the lights on top that she recognized. “It’s Uncle Jesse!” she shouted with excitement as she ran down to greet him.
Although Jesse Taylor was of no kin, he and Alex were as tight as brothers, and Alex’s kids called him uncle due to it. Cyrene enjoyed the exhilaration he brought with his many visits. She usually needed to make use of a tissue after hearing his crackling laugh. Yet, without permission, she knew not to answer the door. Therefore, she curtailed her excitement while she waited on the bottom step for someone to allow him in.

“It’s your ace-boon-coon!” Cynthia accused sarcastically, as she had made her way to the kitchen window where she could get a good glimpse at the car. “And he’s drunk as usual,” she continued in showing her disapproval of the huge body that slowly exited the vehicle with a stumble.
Alex’s attention was on making sure the house would not burn down. He dashed the dime size burnt area in the plush rug with water from the bathroom and went about blowing out the other five candles.
“Damn he can’t even stay on the walkway. He’s staggering all over our damn grass,” his wife insulted as she conveyed her condemnation where she was very visible to Jesse through the shades.

Cynthia had been very accepting of Jesse until of late. At that point, she resented him as dragging her husband down with his ghetto jokes and mentality.

Jesse was half bent over and ignored her menacing stare as he stumbled his way to the door, disregarded the doorbell, and banged at the entrance with his usual obnoxious police-raid knock.
“Well, open the door!” Alex called out to Cynthia while he ground the water into the scorched spot.
“It’s your damn partner in crime. You let him in!” Cynthia replied and headed back toward the bedroom in defiance.
When Alex started toward the front door, their paths crossed, and he glanced at his woman as if to figure what her problem was. However, the cold bitter gaze she returned showed she could care less of his perception of her.
The harsh knock sounded again, along with a horrifying rasping voice from Jesse. “Let me in or I’ll break this damn thang down!”
As soon as Alex turned the knob, the massiveness of his 6’5” two hundred and eighty pound cohort leaning against it caused the door to fly open. By quickly stepping back, Alex was barely able to dodge the brunt of the swinging pine, and Jesse fell into his arms. Jesse had his uniformed clothes torn and blood covered his face and hands.
“What the hell happened to you?” Alex asked.
“Isaiah—go get your son!” Jesse commanded.
“Calm down,” Alex responded, then steered Jesse to a recliner in the spacious living room.
Cynthia heard the commotion and rushed from the bedroom to hear about her child.
“Your son; Go get your son!” Jesse shouted. “He’s at the Centerline Mall on Manchester Drive—the west side parking lot.”
Alex displayed his usual rational self. He was more concerned with comforting Jesse, to get more details from him, while Cynthia pushed Jesse to tell her about her child.
“I’ll go with you,” Jesse directed his words to Alex and commenced coughing up a mixture that included some of his vital fluids.
“No,” replied Alex. He rushed toward the kitchen to retrieve a warm soaked towel, bowl, and a cup of water to tend to Jesse. “It appears as if you have been through hell already.”
Cyrene closed the front door and headed to assist her Uncle Jesse, but Cynthia furiously tossed her out of the way and ordered her to go to bed. Cyrene ran up the stairs, yet stopped at the top rung to observe the happenings.
Cynthia next turned her rage on Jesse. “Where is my son? What have you done to my baby, you son-of-a-bitch?”
Jesse did not respond to her interrogations. He looked away with the same you-don’t-matter stance that she had reflected toward him. He felt Cynthia had no right to believe he would cause harm to either of her children that he had self-ordained himself to as their Godfather.
“What’s this all about, Jesse?” Alex asked when he returned and began administering aid.
“Go get your son, Damn-it!” Jesse insisted. “Forget about me. At the mall—Isaiah—on the side—get him out of there!” the words staggered from Jesse’s mouth between spits into the bowl.
Alex grabbed his jacket from the front room closet and headed toward the door.
“I’m going with you,” Cynthia insisted.
“No!” Alex stipulated. “You’ll only make matters worse.”
Jesse summoned Alex back by rising to his feet and gesturing for him to come closer. “Take this, you’ll need it,” he whispered as he motioned toward his concealed .38 special in his jacket pocket.
Alex knew instantly what Jesse was referring to and shook his head no. “I don’t need that. You know I disapprove of guns. I’ll get through this with reasoning.”
“Fuck—I mean—screw reasoning!” Jesse replied as he excused his cursing for Cyrene, who was peeking around a corner from upstairs in tears. “I promise you Alex, you will need it.”
As they continued to dispute about the pistol Jesse was licensed to carry, the door opened slowly and everything went quiet. Isaiah entered the room with bloodstains on his clothing.
“What happened in here?” Isaiah quizzed in a callous voice. “Am I missing something?”
They all stared at him in stupefaction for a second. Cyrene broke the abounding spell by running down the stairs and hugging her brother, relieved that he had safely made it home. Cynthia joined them.
“Are you okay?” his mother asked while she searched for wounds.
“I’m alright,” Isaiah replied.
Alex interrupted their greeting by questioning Isaiah about where he had been.
“Busy!” Isaiah retorted with a stare at Jesse that could melt diamonds.
Alex witnessed in Isaiah’s eyes a son that he did not recognize. He blinked his own for a moment and shook his head in disbelief at what he was seeing. Isaiah’s eyes were the same eerie gray as his mother’s. Alex let out a “what the hell” murmur. “Do you know that it’s after your curfew?”
Isaiah turned his belligerent gawk at his father.
“Let’s not make more out of this than we need to,” Cynthia recommended in an effort to defuse the situation. The transformation in her eyes and manner had returned close to their norm.

Cynthia was aware that Alex had the woodshed mentality in him, yet had not demonstrated it on his children. His correction of them had always ended with a pointed expression of disapproval. However, never before had either of the two challenged him in such a way. She remembered that attribute of I’m-going-to-kick-some-butt fix of his eyes from his Air Force days and her college ones. That was when they first met, and she witnessed firsthand what Alex could do with his anger unconstrained.
Two airmen harassing her and her girlfriend at the Non-Commissioned Officer’s Club had gone into the grabbing mode until Alex intervened. As soon as the two womanizers invited Alex outside for butting in, he accepted. When Cynthia and her companion were going outside to witness what would happen, Alex was coming back in unscathed, while the two guys lay half-conscious on the front lawn. Afterwards, Alex and Cynthia partied the night away together and fell in love. All the same, she remembered that fury in his eyes that night and had not seen it in him since, until that moment when his son was testing his authority.

“Let’s get you upstairs and into a hot shower,” Cynthia told Isaiah in an effort to whisk him away from the moment of annoyance.
Isaiah obeyed his mother’s wishes and allowed her to escort him to the stairs. He walked up a few steps, stopped, turned around to face Jesse defiantly, and said, “The business you mind old man—should be your own.” Then he continued his controlled strides up the flight of stairs with his mother and Cyrene.
Alex was astonished that his son was whatever he was. He took a seat by Jesse and asked him to start from the beginning of what had occurred.
Jesse, between coughs and gags, explained:
“Mary was getting worried about Robert, who was out longer than we anticipated. So she pushed me out of the house to find him. Hell! I didn’t know where to go, except Robert and Isaiah’s favorite hangout spot, the Centerline Mall. They were there all right, though not in the mall. I observed a large gang gathered on the edge of the parking lot, surrounded by many cars. The group was upper teenagers and young adults, except for two of them. It was dark indeed; still I recognized right off that the two younger ones were your Isaiah and my Robert with their baseball gear. As I approached, I noticed the heavy smoke as though marijuana was being done.”
“I called out their names and they walked toward me. Once they were close enough to hear, I asked them what were they doing there and wasn’t it time they be getting home, in hopes of luring them away from the gang bangers. A few of the older teens approached my car and questioned who I was. Isaiah told them that I was just his Uncle Jesse checking up on them. Right after, Isaiah came to my window and whispered for me to leave before it was too late. I told him, ‘Not without you and Robert in my car.’ Then they were led away by one hoodlum into the crowd. I exited and took chase after my sons, knowing that it would be stupid to grab my gun from the glove compartment. Damn Alex, they had more weapons than the LAPD.”
“Once I caught up to them, I let the punk know that those two were minors and told him that they could be locked up for giving that junk to kids. I ordered Isaiah and Robert to the car. Robert obeyed and headed back, while Isaiah took a step backwards and stared at me. The punk handed him a lit joint, and Isaiah took a couple of hits. I swear to you Alex, I wouldn’t have believed that was Isaiah in a million years.”
“The guy placed his arm around Isaiah and told me, ‘Too late old man, he’s ours now.’ The look Isaiah gave me after that was bone chilling. He called me a few curse words, raised his bat, and took a swing at me. I ducked it, but I didn’t evade the other ten or so assholes that tackled and beat me with all they had.”
“Somehow between the kicks and blows, I whipped enough of them to make it back to the car where Robert was sitting in some type of a stupor. I got the hell out-a-there. I dropped off Robert at home, and then came here.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Alex inquired.
“And get Isaiah and Robert thrown in jail for drug use? You know how much I trust our regulators,” Jesse responded. He leaned toward Alex. “Look man! I have seen some shit here tonight that I cannot begin to explain. The craziness in his eyes—his hateful attitude—that is not Isaiah in that body. Anyway, I’m going home and tend to Robert. If you need my help for anything—you know I’ve got your back.”
“Thanks for the save, Jesse. I owe you.”
“Not in this lifetime,” Jesse replied while displaying his pain as he attempted to rise.
“Are you going to be alright?” Alex asked. He helped Jesse up and to the door.
“I’m as tough as they come,” said Jesse. “On the other hand, you my friend need to tend to your business. I have always admired your children, and you know that. That’s why I’m advising you that you need to do what has to be done, before it is too late.”
“Yeah,” Alex responded in a whisper before he watched his long time partner wobble to his car and leave. Tend to my business…right. He shut the door and walked up the stairs to Isaiah’s room. Stepping into the doorway, Alex considered nothing except beating the reasoning from his son. Thank goodness that Isaiah was taking a shower or he would have instantly felt the rage that Alex had built up.

Alex had believed himself as a nurturing family man. He wore his Good Husband and Good Father name as a badge of honor. Yet, the last four months had been trying, to say the least. With his wife, he had bent over backwards to avoid her constant onslaughts, which were enough to make any strong man pathetic. Up until that night, Alex had handled her with the patience of a saint. Besides, she was an adult and had the right to be what she wanted. In contrast, his loving son’s transformation into a thug from the streets was not an option. It sent him well past the socially approved version of correcting a child. Alex’s approach clicked him back to his upbringing. His urges were to whip the shit out of him until the devil himself came out and apologized.

After the shower, Cynthia and Cyrene escorted Isaiah to his room. They walked past Alex as if he was not there and set Isaiah on the side of his bed. Cynthia comforted him with such expressions as “Things will be better in the morning,” and “We know you had nothing to do with what happened.”
Alex gazed at his son and wondered how such a well-mannered child could have been in such an altercation with his cherished Uncle Jesse, who treated him as his own. Jesse’s son, Robert, who was the same age as Isaiah, was his best friend. Isaiah spent many a day at his second home, his Uncle Jesse’s house. Alex never doubted that Isaiah was safe with them. He questioned how Isaiah could intentionally attempt to hurt the man whom he had so much admiration and respect for. Things just did not add up. Alex had previously believed his son had not a destructive bone in his body, and he fought to change his punishment-demeanor controls inside himself to a find-out-what-had-happened-first one. Despite the attempts, the whipping mode was prevailing.
Cynthia knew her husband was fuming, so she went to his side. “He is sick. Let’s allow him some sleep tonight and we can filter through this in the morning, when he is better,” she spoke softly.
Alex focused at his son, and his son stared back daringly with his tiny pupils sliding from side to side feverishly in unison.
“We’ve done a great job in raising our son,” Cynthia reasoned. “Let’s not blow this out of proportion behind your friend’s accusations and ruin everything that we have done so far with him.”
Alex’s eyes did not veer from Isaiah. “Do you see his eyes?”
“All I see is a scared little boy that needs some sleep,” Cynthia replied.
It hit Alex that he solely could see that particular change in his son. Cyrene would have been scared out of her wits had she noticed them. Yet, she was talking to him as if nothing outside of stubbornness was wrong with him.
“We have some business to take care of ourselves, in the bedroom,” Cynthia suggested in a passionate voice. “No inquiry or anything else this time. I promise, if you will just let this wait until the morning.”
Alex’s mind was fixed on one thing, so he ignored her advances. He felt that he had the responsibility to find out, at a minimum, to what had happened. Thus, he explored deeper into his son’s eyes in bewilderment and disbelief.
Cyrene was busy attempting to divert her brother’s attention away from her father and toward her. She was finally successful when she placed her hands on his cheeks, got into his face and asked, “But—did you stilled loved me?”

Isaiah and Cyrene were like most siblings who quarreled from time to time. Alex’s ways of resolving their conflicts were usually to have them look into each other’s eyes and each solicits, “But—did you stilled loved me?” Forever, would be the correct response. Afterwards, they would reply, “Then smile.” They were not allowed to leave until they made the process complete with smiles at each other. Alex made them go through those motions so they would realize that no matter what, their bonds were permanent. Those gestures on occasions took a moment, yet it always resolved their differences.

The gray of Isaiah’s eyes began turning lighter.
“But—did you stilled loved me?” Cyrene questioned again.
“Of course I love you, Cyrene,” Isaiah replied.
Cyrene turned her head to the side, placed her hand on her hips, and stared at Isaiah impatiently, as to request the correct response.
“Forever,” Isaiah finally told his little sister.
“Then smile!” Cyrene insisted. Afterwards, she turned her head to the other side, intensely awaiting the question from Isaiah.
Isaiah, in a less possessed state, responded with an okay, as if to go along with the game. “But—did you stilled loved me?”
“Probably,” his sister said with a childish giggle.
Alex turned his head in aping her and waited for the correct response.
Tears trickled down Cyrene’s face as she said, “Forever.”
Isaiah felt her sorrows and mustered a smile as he said in a scraggly voice, “Then smile.” Isaiah wiped away his little sister’s tears and she let out a weeping smile. Isaiah hugged and reassured her that everything would be all right. After a brief cheer-up conversation, he advised Cyrene that it was past her bedtime, and he walked her to her room.
Alex waited for his son’s return. He was determined to find the underlying reasons for what had transpired earlier. Cynthia was curious also, although her main objective was to get Alex back downstairs so he could cool down, hence she continued to entice him.
Alex was about to give in until he noticed something in the jeans that Isaiah had shed. They were on the floor of his partially opened closet. A piece of metal protruded from one of its pockets. Alex walked inquisitively across the room, reached down and pulled the object from the pouch. It was a double action revolver. He held it in disbelief, while his wife looked on.
Alex had never permitted firearms in his home. Yet, in less than an hour, he was exposed to two. He pondered the reasoning, and could figure that Jesse was always packing, unless he entered his abode. That one incidence could be forgiven for Jesse, due to the circumstance. In contrast, he could not come to grips with his son in possession of one.
Isaiah entered the room in his almost normal state and noticed his father holding the weapon.
Alex and Cynthia instantly fixed their eyes on Isaiah.
“What the hell is this?” Alex grilled.
“I guess my new friends gave it to me. It must be a pellet gun.”
Alex pushed in the ejector rod of the pistol, and with the swing out cylinder exposed, saw that the chambers were fully loaded with live ammunition. “If you had shot someone with these B-Bees they wouldn’t have survived to tell you how much it hurts. This is a real gun, son!” Alex enlightened. “Why would you want something like this anyway? And to bring it into this house!”
Isaiah was shocked that the pistol was real, and strained to gather his thoughts. Events of the night were unclear to him.
“Answer me!” Alex insisted.
“I don’t know,” Isaiah replied as he rigorously tried to recollect the day. “Robert and I were in the mall searching for baseball cards when these older guys approached and told us that they had some cards we could have for free—”
“And!” Alex interjected impatiently when Isaiah paused in his brain digging.
Isaiah, slowly remembering, replied, “And, we went to their car and, and—”
“And after that?” Alex drilled trying to rush his son.
“The next thing I remember is Cyrene in my face a few minutes ago,” Isaiah responded, then furiously searched his mind for reasons.
“Then, you did have something to do with your Uncle Jesse’s beating, didn’t you?”
Isaiah stared at his father in a confused sincerity and asked, “Uncle Jesse got beat—how? By who?”
Alex was dumbfounded that Isaiah had just witnessed his Uncle Jesse down stairs in a bloody mess and yet could not remember anything about his condition.
Isaiah searched the floor harder for the answers. The harder he searched, the more his body tensed up. Then Alex noticed his son tremble as if having an epileptic fit. Isaiah’s eyes, upon lifting, were once again of the repugnant gray, and his body went still.
“What do you want, old man?” Isaiah asked in the gruesome voice.
“Why did you bring this thing into our home?”
Isaiah fixed his ghastly eyes at his father and retorted, “Protection from your stupid ass!”
Alex requested Cynthia to leave the room. She questioned what he was going to do. Alex replied, “Whatever needs to be done.”
Cynthia, seeing the defiance in her son’s eyes, knew that a standoff was inevitable. She refused to leave, and demanded that Alex cease his assault on her son. “I’ll call the police,” she warned in a last ditch effort to stop Alex, “I’ll send you to jail alongside your barbaric ways.”
“Get Out!” Alex shouted with such thunder that Cynthia impulsively scampered out of fear. She had not heard that tone from Alex in the many years she had known him. She dashed down the stairs to her bedroom, picked up the phone, and dialed 91—. She stopped short of the emergency number when she reflected on her career and the media attention they would surely receive.
Alex slammed shut Isaiah’s bedroom door. Without hesitancy and in one motion, he placed the gun on the dresser, grabbed Isaiah by his pajama shirt, slung him across a chair, pulled his leather belt from his pants, and unleashed a punishment he supposed he would never have to administer. Never before had he placed a hand on his son in anger.
Alex had struck his child on his behind no more than five licks with the leather before he worked up a sweat. Isaiah’s struggling attempts to free himself were futile; his father’s grip was too strong. Isaiah could only sustain his ground of rebelliousness by not making a sound, to let it be known that the licks were not fazing him.
“I’ll beat that shit from you if it’s the last thing I do!” Alex barked as he continued the assault of the thrashing. After directing a few more licks, Alex began to tire, and his anger turned to concern for his son. He knew he had to exorcise whatever was in him before it consumed his spirit. He understood that no one else could or would do it, except him. Thus, he continued the whipping in a mode that carried no concern for fatigue, or the law.
The next few strokes of the belt to his son triggered Alex’s mind to the whipping his father gave him at about Isaiah’s age. It was an excruciatingly painful beating Alex’s father administered. Alex did not know what had gotten into him. He must have delivered a hundred direct hits, yet it was that one “Whomp!” lick that pierced his soul of understanding and headed him in the right direction. He remembered the talk his dad gave before he left the room. Alex understood his father after that, and labeled that one lick as being the strike that shocked his life back on the path it needed to be, or the Back-on-Track lick. Alex realized what his father had gone through that day, and the recollection of it reinforced his reasoning of what his duty to accomplish with Isaiah was.
The hurting from the licks began to penetrate the hard butt of Isaiah, and he let out a scream for mercy. “Mamma!” Isaiah called out in a child being tortured tone.
Alex witnessed what resembled a lucent fly exit Isaiah’s mouth with the cry, and felt more weakness as it flew into his own.

Cynthia was a nervous wreck in hearing the sound of the licks. Nonetheless, when she heard her child call out for her, her eyes reconverted to the hideous, and the shudder occurred to her body. She walked quickly in a trance like state back up to Isaiah’s room.

By that point, Isaiah had forced his way up from his exhausted father’s grasp. He stood in defiance, staring at his father with the ghoulish eyeballs. “What the hell do you think you are doing?” his deep voice taunted, “That’s why I brought protection.”
As Isaiah turned to go for the gun, Alex mustered all the energy he had remaining, took a quick long step to the side, and delivered one hell of a strike. “Whomp!” the leather sounded upon the flush connection to Isaiah’s behind so firm it knocked him to his knees. At least twenty more of the fly like creatures were catapulted from his mouth and into Alex’s. Once again, Isaiah’s eyes transformed back to their normal soft brown.

Cynthia, witnessing the last lick when she ripped the door open, snatched the pistol from the top of the dresser and pointed it with both hands at Alex. The last infiltration of the lucent creatures had zapped Alex’s energy such that he could barely stand. He gagged, then spat out the semi-transparent flying pest, and they burst in mid air.
“Stop—or I swear I’ll blow your guts into the next galaxy!” Cynthia declared before she cocked the hammer.

Cyrene had covered her tear drenched face under her pillow until she heard her mother’s shrilling threat. She jumped from her bed and ran down the hall to Isaiah’s room.

Alex turned toward his wife, saw the hideousness in her eyes, and calmly pled with her to put the weapon down. Instead, Cynthia slowly squeezed the trigger. Cyrene plunged herself into her father’s arms and in the path aimed at. Alex had no time or strength to push her from harms way before he heard the Click, Click, Click of Cynthia pulling the trigger three times and the gun not firing.
Alex, with his daughter in his arms, reached out and snatched the pistol from his wife’s hands.
Cynthia gave no resistance in giving up the handgun, nor did she show any remorse at what she had tried to accomplish. “I’m sick of this shit!” she attested, then ran down the stairs and back into her bedroom.
Fatigued from administering the licks and the ramifications afterwards, Alex sat on the side of Isaiah’s bed to catch his breath. Cyrene went to the comfort of her brother, who was sitting on the floor wondering what had happened.
“Daddy, what’s wrong with me?” Isaiah inquired after a few moments of silence.
“You’re going to be fine, son,” Alex said as he slowly stood and placed the gun in his pants pocket. “Both of you need to get some sleep. We have had enough excitement for one night. We’ll sift through this in the morning.”
Isaiah and Cyrene did what they were asked, and went to bed.
Alex went downstairs, exited through the patio door, and walked outside to the exterior wall of the garage. He had to get the firearm out of the house. As he reached the trashcan, he wondered what was wrong with the gun. He could not resist pointing it into the sky and pulling the trigger. “Bang!” the gun sounded off loudly as it fired with no problem. Alex was astonished, and imagined the possibilities of harm that could have occurred to him and his daughter. He did not much concern himself with why it had not fired before, merely grateful that it had not.
Alex’s nearest neighbor was a city block away; nevertheless, he noticed their lights come on as they searched for the source of the noise. Alex unloaded the rest of the bullets from its chamber by tilting the opened cylinder. He placed the bullets in his pocket, the gun amongst the trash at the bottom of the garbage can, and then hastened into the house through the patio door. During his closing of the sliding glass, he heard his wife starting her vehicle. He rushed to the garage and stood defiantly behind her silver 96 Toyota Camry, to stop her from backing up and leaving. She repulsively stared at him through the rear view mirror.
“This is not the way to settle anything,” Alex told her while he was making his way to the driver’s side of the car. “You can’t keep running away like this.”
Cynthia remoted the garage door open and placed the car in reverse. “I’m not running away—I’m running to,” she countered, then sped backwards out of the garage, barely missing Alex, who had leaped against the wall. Cynthia continued down the long driveway and into the street, where she quickly drove out of sight.
“I guess you can,” Alex said as he rose and slowly walked back into the house, fatigued, as if he had played four straight sets against Arthur Ashe. His concern for his Cynthia leaving was nonchalant. He had become accustomed to her departures at night and returning home the next morning after he had gone to work. Her disappearances had also started following his return from his father’s funeral, four months earlier.
His wife’s transitions had become more horrific as days went by, and Alex wondered if his son’s would be the same. He checked on his kids, and only after he was satisfied that they were at peace, did he retire to his hideaway bed in the entertainment room, speculating what adventures he had been enthralled in.
After Alex finally relaxed, he heard the voice of his late father in his head repeatedly requesting him to remember, until it faded away with his drifting off to sleep. A dream shortly followed of a huge man’s face. The sequence had occurred every night since he had returned home on that day in July.
The dream was of a Black man that he had never seen. The man’s face was very strong. He wore a thick beard and had curly black hair. He did not say anything, just gawked as his piercing eyes threatened. The dream would last for only a short period; still it would cause Alex to wake with his sheets soaked from his sweat. Alex never told anyone about the sequence, and dismissed it as his remorse for not reconciling with his father before he passed. He had no idea if and when the guilt feeling would leave, though he hoped it would soon go away, along with the other problems he had encountered in the past few months.

Alex had handled many difficulties in his life with the stick-it-out-stance; the do what you can and keep turning the page to the next day approach. Through experience, he understood that the sunshine would return and the bad situations would be overtaken by the good. The technique had not failed him yet. However, the predicament he was in at that stage of his life was not a “Dorothy of OZ” fantasy that would leave in time with the clicking of some magic loafers. He had not yet come to grips with what he would soon face: that his passage for survival would launch him through some of those modes on his dial into transformations where few had ventured and returned. It was merely the beginning of an adverse rest of his life, which would force him to lie down and die, or journey straight through the un-sanctimonious trenches of hell.

Read more about DE FACTO ADJOURNMENT and Sylvester Berry Jr. HERE.

Copyright 2008 Sylvester Berry Jr.. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Chapter 6
A Red Jaguar Stamp

“MR. GILLY?”
Cameron raised his head from folded arms and looked up through narrow slits at the two men standing with their backs to the brightly illuminated cafeteria counter.  It took a few seconds to remember where he was and to recognize the taller of the two men.  “Yeah, it’s me, doctor.  What is it?  What’s going on?”
“Your daughter’s doing fine, Mr. Gilly,”  Sharrard said.  “May we sit down?”
“Yeah, sure.  Have a seat.”   He gestured across the table to the two empty chairs and then pushed his tray, with a half-eaten hamburger and cold cup of coffee, out of the way.  “What the hell time is it, anyway?”
“It’s a little after four o’clock,”  Sharrard said, sitting down directly across from him.  The other man, also wearing a doctor’s lab coat, took the adjacent chair.
“In the morning?”
“Yes.  Mr. Gilly, this is Dr. Lassiter.”
Lassiter held out a hand gnarled apparently with arthritis.  “Jeffrey Lassiter, Mr. Gilly.  Nice to meet you.”   They shook hands.
“He’s a toxicology specialist, Mr. Gilly, an expert in identifying drugs and poisons, that sort of thing.  He’s been looking at that stamp you brought in.”
“Oh?  What did you find?”
Lassiter took from his coat pocket a small plastic vial, which he set on the table between them.  Inside the vial was the red Jaguar stamp.  “Where did you get this?”
Gilly looked over at Sharrard.  “Didn’t you tell him?”
“I thought it would be best if you did.”
Exhaling, Gilly rubbed his eyes and then his temples.  “It came in yesterday’s mail.  It was in one of those stupid sweepstakes things.  Didn’t you get the envelope?”
“Yes, I got it,”  Lassiter said, glancing briefly at his colleague.  “Mr. Gilly, you have to understand our legal obligations in matters like this.”
“What do you mean?”
Sharrard leaned forward against the table and spoke in a low tone.  “Mr. Gilly, we’re required by law to notify the authorities in cases where there’s any evidence of illegal drugs or child abuse or foul play.  I’m not sure which category if any this falls into, but you understand we had to report this.”
Gilly looked suspiciously at the two men and then at the stamp.  “What did you find?  What’s on that thing?”
“Nothing,”  Lassiter said, picking up the vial, turning it this way and that.  “At least nothing I’m familiar with.”
“What does that mean?”  he asked hotly.
“It means what it means, Mr. Gilly.  I ran the usual battery of chemical tests on it, put it through the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, the UV spectrometer and all that, and everything came up negative” no known drugs, no known toxins.”   He paused for a breath.  “But there’s certainly something besides glue on this stamp.  When everything else failed, I prepared a small sample and injected a mouse with it.  Right now that mouse appears to be in the same condition as your daughter.”
Sharrard cleared his throat.  “Any idea where this thing came from, Mr. Gilly?”
Cameron shook his head.  “You’ve got the return address on the envelope.  That’s all I know.”
“I had to turn that envelope over to the police,”  Lassiter said, apologetically.  “I suspect they’ll be getting in touch with you soon.  You’ll want to save everything that came in the original letter.”
Gilly gave a tired nod.  “It’s all still lying there on my kitchen table, right where my daughter left it.”
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions,”  Lassiter continued, “but there was a somewhat similar incident out in California a year or so ago.  Somebody mailed some kind of questionnaire to a bunch of students out in San Francisco.  Apparently, the return envelope was tainted with this new drug, KC.  It’s an extremely powerful hallucinogen.”
“I know what it is,”  Gilly said.  He seemed to recall reading something somewhere about the incident.
“If I’m not mistaken, a couple thousand students fell for it.”
“But they didn’t end up like my daughter.”
“No, that’s right.  But whatever this is,” he paused to hold up the vial, ” for shear potency, it beats anything I’ve ever seen or heard of.  There are some very potent nerve agents, a few of them predictably fatal in concentrations of a milligram or so, but even that’s a hell of lot more than you’re going to get from a lick of a stamp.”
“Besides,”  Sharrard interjected, “your daughter shows absolutely no symptoms of poisoning.  As I told you earlier, her blood and urine look perfectly normal.  The radiologist told me her CT-scan was picture perfect” no scarring, no hemorrhaging, no evidence at all of any brain damage.  Whatever is on that stamp, it’s had no affect whatever on her respiratory, digestive or circulatory system.  In short, there’s no evidence of it at all, other than the curious effect of regressing her to infancy.”
“And so?”  Gilly prompted him for the bottom line.
“And so there doesn’t appear to be any damage to the physical brain.  That’s not to say there isn’t some major chemical imbalance going on.  I think it’s pretty clear there is.”
“So what are you going to do for her?”
Trading glances with his colleague, Sharrard said, “Frankly, Mr. Gilly, I don’t know what more we can do for your daughter.  We don’t even know how she got the way she is.  We’ve got no experience base from which to make a prognosis.  On the bright side, she seems to be stable at this point and doesn’t appear to be in any immediate danger.  I’m afraid all we can do is keep her under observation, make sure she gets adequate nourishment, and see what develops.”
Gilly looked at one, then the other, and finally shook his head.  When he sighed, his entire body slumped with the expelled breath.  “Can I see her?”
Sharrard smiled.  “Sure thing, Mr. Gilly.  That was the other thing I came to tell you.  I’ve had her moved up to pediatrics.  If you want, we can have a cot put in her room so you can stay with her.”

THE CORRIDOR WALLS were done up in brightly colored murals of Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters.  Somehow, Gilly found that anything but uplifting.
“When I checked on her a little while ago,”  the nurse said, slowing as they came to the last door, “she was fast asleep.”
Taped to the door was a computer printout with Amanda’s name on it.
“Let me just take a peek”  She opened the door and stuck her head in.  “Yep.  Still asleep.”   She turned in the doorway and flashed sparkling blue eyes at him.  “Would you like us to bring in a cot for you, Mr. Gilly?”
“No, I won’t be staying long.”   He stepped quietly just to the foot of the bed.
“Okay, well, let me know if you change your mind.”   She turned to leave and then stopped.  “Do they know what’s wrong with her?”
Gilly shook his head, afraid that if he tried to speak, he would bust out bawling.  Curled up in a fetal ball under the covers, his fourteen-year-old daughter was sucking her thumb.

Read more about Voices of Babylon and Ken Jasper HERE.

Copyright 2008 Ken Jasper. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

CHAPTER 3
Langley, Virginia ““ Present day

The CIA’s Information Center lay at the east end of the building. Metal detectors covered the entrance arch, and sliding steel doors bore a security warning. The floor area inside was covered by blocks of beige cubicles, occupied by analysts all networked to the CIA main computer database.
A larger windowed cubicle bore the sign: “˜IC: Primary Domain Controller.’ Inside was Robert K. Kugler, a thin-faced young man with blue-gray eyes, shaggy blond hair, wearing jeans and a faded Hawaiian shirt. A pop-up appeared on his monitor screen. The expressionless visage of IC Deputy Director Roger Coleman, Rob’s Division boss, spoke from a twitchy, pixel-painted window.
“Kugler, my office, ten-thirty.”
The pop-up vanished. It was ten twenty-six. Rob grabbed a cane and started down the aisle past lines of identical cubicles.
“Ah, beige in the morning,” he sneered, limping along.
Coleman was scanning Kugler’s folder at his desk when his secretary entered.
“Kugler’s here, sir.”
He nodded. She left and Rob replaced her in the doorway. Coleman was curt.
“Come in, close it.”
Kugler hobbled into a chair with more theatrics than necessary, Coleman smiled.
“You seem abnormally weary for a twenty-seven-year-old, Mister Kugler – finding IC work fatiguing?”
“No, sir.”
“Perhaps you’re bored?”
“No sir, worked late again last night – only had a few hours sleep.”
“Really?”
“Right, sir.”
“I must speak to Marsden about this.”
“Marsden?”
“Security Director Marsden, I had him audit you. He reports you’ve never stayed a minute past eight hours since first gracing us with your presence. “
Rob was an unreadable blank.
“I strive to be regular, sir.”
“I think you’ve rusted on us, Kugler.”
“Rusted, sir?”
“A one-hundred-ninety-six IQ, two ivy-league PHD’s, and you play dumb with me?”
Coleman flips open a folder.
“Apparently, you’ve been using Agency gigabytes to traffic in foreign stocks.”
Rob nods agreement.
“You’ve hit on it, sir – boredom. I do miss field research since my unfortunate accident. Not a lot of stimulus administering a nerd herd, sir.”
“Then luck has arrived.”
“Sir?”
“Your tedium ends – you’re suspended until further notice.”
“Sir, somewhat extreme – everyone here dawdles on a computer.”
“Ah, but your computer is the only one dawdling on a single pursuit.”
“There are others, too.”
“Don’t interrupt. You are kiting two-dozen banks.”
“Factual oversight, sir, my accounts are real.”
“Of course they are ““ ten dollars in each – except the one day a month when you slip in an interest-eligible sum from your merry-go-round list of previous banks – just before that new bank verifies your account and pays the interest. In your battle with boredom, Kugler, you’ve swindled twenty-four banks and seven credit card companies in eight states, by continuously pumping cycled amounts through them ““ and, let us not overlook your associations with various online brokerages too, where you additionally cycle the credit margins they offer new account holders. Define criminal fraud, Mister Kugler ““ presumably, you can further enumerate ways we haven’t yet discovered.”
“You wrong me, sir, it’s all legal”¦ah, in those particular eight states”¦ah, considering their account transaction rules – absolutely no violations involved. I’d stake my reputation on it.”
The Deputy Director gapes at him.
“Wow. “¦Oh, I see. You used state law idiosyncrasies to circumnavigate the intent of those laws?”
Rob confirms with a nod.
“Adverse to risk, sir.”
“So your entire, conniving, miscreant scheme slithers through legal cracks?”
“Can’t make court, sir. In a precise interpretation of relevant law – to paraphrase a highly respected executive branch leader – there’s “˜no controlling legal authority’ there, ah”¦here.”
Coleman twists in his chair and groans ““ then leans forward and stares at Kugler.
“Be assured Internal Enforcement will check every transaction, every sentence, every word, every punctuation of your delivered written explanation, Mister Kugler. Until then, deliver your keys to your Section Head, and get the hell out of the building.”
Rob pauses at the door.
“May I keep my CIA soup mug, sir?”
“Kugler, for you, things could easily become far more unpleasant.”
“Yes, sir. Good-afternoon and thank you, sir.”
Section Head Runyon Brinnell was half-interested in a computer manual when Rob hobbled in and dumped keys on his desk. Recently appointed to his post, Brinnell was a stocky, quiet man with jet-black hair – and a complete mystery to Rob. He showed himself naturally calm and thoughtful, yet it was plain that much greater humor and strength lay within. Rob theorized that he was a field man in hot water who was put behind a desk to become invisible for a while.
Brinnell tossed the manual aside.
“What?”
“Coleman wants you to have these.”
“He suspended you?”
“Yes.”
Brinnell stopped himself from asking more.
“Recommendation?”
“My replacement?”
Brinnell nodded impatiently.
“Yes.”
“I’m pretty much irreplaceable.”
The comment won zero tolerance from Brinnell.
“- But Nady and Vosolev can handle my routine work.
Brinnell scribbled the names.
“Is your contact information current?
“Yes.”
“That’s all.”
Brinnell picked up the manual again, but Rob had more – Rob always had more.
“I must confess, sir, it’s been like working for a father figure.”
Brinnell looked up from his reading. Something like a smile flickered across his eyes, then he waved final dismissal.
Rob emptied his desk. Before leaving, he gave Nady and Vosolev a “˜heads-up’ about their new responsibilities. Vosolev listened, nodded, and offered routine sympathy before returning to work. East Indian Nady peppered him with questions. Halfway through, Rob grew irritated and referred him to Brinnell. After his belongings were screened at the rear exit, Rob hobbled to his car in a reserved handicap slot.
His leg, fractured in an accident skiing with Marie in New Hampshire nine months ago had long since healed, and he could walk quite normally now, but he kept limping at work to keep the parking spot. Maintaining the act also engaged his overbearing curiosity. He should have been challenged long before now, but people simply grew accustomed to his hobble. He decided to test how long it could last.
Marie lathered with pink liquid soap, and noticed the tan lines on her buttocks and breasts were faded. She bowed under the showerhead to rinse shampoo when hairy arms slipped around her waist and squeezed her against a scratchy body.
“Oow!” Dammit, Rob, this is my shower. Get out!”
Rob worked his arms along her soap-slippery torso.
“Dimensions beyond belief – must verify,”
“Out! – Or I’ll alter your dimensions!”
Girl, you already have.”
His erection slapped up between her legs.
“Oh-no! ““ Out!”
Reluctantly, he released her – she turned and pulled him back.
She soaped his lower abdomen, and his erection sprang higher.
“Stopping showed obedience, now, you may do me a favor.”
“What?”
She stroked his member with both hands until it pointed straight up, then brushed her lips on his.
“Put this someplace.”
Later, they lay in bed entwined, Rob’s half-consciousness submerged in the clean scent of her hair.

Read more about Area 217 and Gary Gamage HERE.

Copyright 2008 Gary Gamage. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
Chapter One
The Precious Dead

When a man dies in the desert, he is completely alone. At thirty-nine, Ian McCabe knew this simple fact. He had spent most of his life working the demanding seasonal jobs that kept Australia’s rural towns alive. He had seen a flat tire turn deadly, and knew that beauty and danger were the sisters that bore the land.
Ian was not a tall man but a shock of blond hair added inches to his height. Quick blue eyes and a steady aim were useful in his career as a kangaroo culler. Every night the slim .22 found its target between the shine of an animal’s eyes. On cattle stations hundreds of kilometers wide, engine trouble and the bite of the brown snake posed constant threats.
Ian’s white Land Rover was nearly twenty years old and it still ran like a lizard drinking–non-stop and practically unstoppable. In the rear a skillet, bedroll and a case of green beans were strapped onto narrow shelves. A bottle of port nestled in its own padded compartment, and a few golf clubs were tied to the wall. Sleep, slurp and sport, he called the collection, everything a man could want in one mobile space.
He eased the truck down the track. The spur was rough, really a strip of earth scraped clean of boulders, but it saved nearly half an hour. Besides, the less traveled a road was, the happier Ian felt. Cities, he knew, were for suckers. Why squeeze into a rabbit hutch when the outback was right next door?
This area, so close to the Davenport Ranges, was typical of the Northern Territory. Wide plains of twisted mulga trees reached southwest to Alice Springs. A network of creeks and rivers that ran only during the Wet sustained gum trees taller than most buildings. Cockatoos raised their young in the hollow trunks, and after a rain lorikeets gorged on the nectar in the blossoms.
Grass was sparse, edged out by the ubiquitous spinifex that cut flesh as cruelly as broken glass. Only the toughest creatures survived and half-feral Brahma cattle were the breed of choice. To a rancher beleaguered by drought and debt, every blade eaten by native animals robbed them of beef. Roo shooters were always welcome. And judging by the sun, Ian would arrive at the station house in time for dinner.
A flash of metal caught his eye. Through binoculars, he watched a red SUV beetle across the property. The truck stayed behind the ridges and moved slowly enough to keep its dust cloud low. The same stealth kept Ian from sight as he followed.
Eventually the trespassers parked beside a hill topped by a stone pinnacle. Ian stuffed the Land Rover under a mulga tree and watched as a pair of men hiked up the slope. The first, a sturdy white fellow about thirty years old, clutched a rifle. His legs were bowed so severely he rocked as he mounted the boulders.
The other man, an Aborigine who might have been in his sixties, moved steadily upward. He was wiry yet had the grace of a predator. The outback was filled with men like them, drifters who found the bush far removed from the law.
At the top, the elder found a cleft in the rock. From this cache he retrieved a board nearly as long as his arm.  Ian had seen dancers perform with similar objects and knew they were supposed to be magical. The cubby surrendered perhaps a dozen other artifacts. All would fetch a small fortune on the black market.
While the older man worked steadily, the bowlegged bloke couldn’t keep a proper watch. First he rubbed his nose with the back of his arm. Then he adjusted his shorts. He scanned the landscape, rifle at ready. Then he swatted a fly. Rubbed sweat through his hair. Tugged at his crotch. Abruptly he was alert again, scowling while the gun grew hot in the sun.
As they retreated, the Aborigine erased his footprints with a leafy branch. Ian let the SUV jangle out of sight before picking up the trail. They traveled faster now and corkscrewed across their original path. When the spur intersected a paved road, dusty tread marks headed toward the Stuart Highway, the only paved north-south road through the Territory. The pair could pick from dozens of unmarked byways. The artifacts would disappear.
Ian pushed the Land Rover to its limit. Although the old truck handled beautifully in the bush, it was as sluggish as a fly in winter. The needle was still climbing when Ian saw the red SUV parked beside the highway. If he pulled over, the men would surely notice when he followed them later.
The Toyota, a new model free of dents or scrapes, faced the road. The younger man smirked and the lines around his mouth twisted. Again Ian was struck by the elder’s expression. White pipeclay severed his forehead and chin, and his face was a jigsaw of violence.
“So you’ve seen me,” Ian murmured, “and I’ve seen you.” He adjusted the rearview mirror but couldn’t make out the tag number.
A roadhouse a quarter-hour away was a convenient place to watch for the men but they never appeared. It was possible they had turned east toward the coast. More likely they had dodged off into the bush. As night covered the sky, Ian had plenty of time to consider his next action.
He didn’t need a fraction of it. The kangaroos could wait.
* * *
Thousands of kilometers to the east, Gabriel Branch loaded the last of his bags into the hatchback. At six feet tall, Gabe barely fit behind the wheel even with the seat pushed all the way back. But the rear compartment was roomy enough to hold all his diving gear, and the hatch was easier to use than a station wagon. He squeezed in and steered for the coastal highway out of Townsville.
The next few days would be spent an hour or so south on the Whitsunday Islands. In the forty-five years Gabe had lived in Queensland, he rarely traveled more than a hundred kilometers inland. The neighbors never quite understood why his vacations didn’t take advantage of the expansive desert at their back doors.
They didn’t understand the…complications of Gabe’s life. Oh, they knew about Aboriginal land rights issues that had consumed the media for decades now, and had heard about the children adopted by white families in an effort to assimilate the race. But they didn’t know what it was like to be caught by those issues against their will. Only a biracial Aborigine who had been assimilated at the age of three could tell them that. And Gabe wasn’t talking.
Nor was he interested in drawing attention. Black faces were scarce in Australia, so he stuck close to the coastal cities that hosted international travelers in all their rainbow colors. He blended in better there and no one asked many questions about his background. Even if they had, they would have been met with silence.
Silence had kept his life on the smooth, orderly track he worked so hard to create. Last week he had hit a bump–a big bump–in his relationship with a Jamaican woman. Chance hadn’t been in the country more than a few years. But she had some definite ideas about how much Gabe should say about his experiences and how loudly his voice should sound.
They had fought about it more of late. He supposed it was the same with all couples, as if money or household chores or work schedules were the cause of their problems instead of a symptom. Whatever the real reason, Gabe and Chance had split up last week. Ostensibly the separation was temporary, just a little breathing and thinking room, but Gabe knew where that would lead.
If Ian had been available, Gabe would have talked things over with him. In fifteen years of friendship, the men had seen each other through a number of breakups. None had been as serious as Chance, though, and Gabe wished Ian would call. He already missed her rapid-fire commentary and her odd machine-gun laugh. Before the split, Gabe had been thinking of proposing. But courage in one person required courage in the other. And that, he knew, was the real reason their separation would be permanent.
When Ian did call, Gabe heard only the clack of sugar cane as he sped past the farms.
* * *
Ian tracked the men for days without coming within twenty kilometers of the truck. The outback was so big and its population so small, a little luck and a few calls let him keep tabs on the thieves as they passed through different roadhouses. At a tourist site called Devil’s Marbles, a vendor remembered the odd pair and pointed to a faint track heading west.
When he located the Toyota, he parked some distance away and hiked in for a better look. Perhaps a dozen coffins had been removed from crevices in a wadi. The thieves were stealing bodies. Ian trotted back to the Land Rover and gunned the engine, all but honking to make sure they heard as he rattled toward the ridge.
The thieves took the hint. After the Toyota disappeared, Ian walked into the gully to inspect the damage. The coffins, each a cradle for the precious dead, were lined up in the center. Tarps and coils of rope had been left behind, along with cigarette butts and candy wrappers. The urine drying on the cliff face was still sharp.
Then Ian spotted the truck tucked under a ledge. It was the same one he had seen leave, he was sure of it. The guano he had noticed days earlier was still smeared on the side window. Yet the culvert had no other entrance except the one he had just walked through.
A bullet spun him off his feet. He heard nothing, not even the echo of the shot, as his shirt soaked in a red tide. The blood was brilliant at first, like the eyes of the metallic starlings that congregated around his boyhood home. He saw the Aborigine kneel beside him and his breath fled past his tongue.
The man was older than he had thought, much older, and carried with him the aura of ancient things. He wore little more than a string belt, a pair of shorts, and bands on his arms and legs. Tufts of cockatoo feathers framed a radiant face. On his chest a swirl of dots and circles, made hypnotic by his breath, pulled Ian into a galaxy of red.
He was terribly confused. He tried to separate the ringing in his head from his memories. They ran away, he thought. He had seen them drive across the plateau that drained west of the escarpment, had watched them until they were out of sight. The tire tracks he had crossed floated in his mind. Only one set of tracks, he realized. The truck had never left. How could he have been so wrong?
As if to offer comfort, the elder caressed Ian’s forehead. The man’s hair, shot with gray, looked nutmeg. It was as if his great age had worn the shine off the strands and leached away the pigment. His eyes were luminous, though, beyond the touch of time. Ian thought of the dingoes that gazed into his spotlight. The dogs always waited, knowing he would leave the kangaroo’s heart and liver and kidneys for their feast.
Suddenly he understood. This man was a shaman. Ian had been lured into the culvert just as he had been tricked into speeding down the highway. He smiled and reached up.
“There, now,” the man soothed, and flicked his blade across Ian’s throat.

Copyright 2008 Laine Cunningham. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Chapter VII

In the dimly lit cafe a few patrons milled about staring at the various pastries and desserts behind glass counters. John sat an obscure, marble-topped table toward the back. A waitress came and spoke to him in Hungarian.
“I can only speak English,” he said.
She stared at him blankly.
It was too late for coffee but it was the only Hungarian word he could summon.
“Kave.”
She nodded, smiled faintly, left and returned shortly with a steaming cup of very strong coffee.
Thereafter, a tall man, broad shouldered and burly with short black hair, a thick mustache and intense, small  brown eyes, walked toward him.
“Rudolf?” John whispered, and the man swung onto a chair at his table abruptly.
“Dr. Bishop,” the man muttered in the same rough voice recognizable from the phone conversation. “Did you come with anyone?”
“No.”
“No one followed you?”
“No.”
“No one knows where you are?”
“Not really.”
“Not really?”
“Just the concierge. I had to let her know because I didn’t feel safe in this meeting.”
“That was stupid, doctor.”
“Thanks.”
“Very stupid. You can not trust the concierge.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“That is a shame. There is much at stake here besides your life and my life. You will have to forgive me if I am brusque with you. I need to jar your senses awake. You have stepped on the tail of the dragon and you do not know it.”
“I was beginning to get that impression on my own. Who are you anyway?”
“I can not tell you that. Besides it is not in your interest to know. Nor mine. I give you three messages. Because of your blunder this will have to be very quick.”
“Tell me. I have traveled thousands of miles for information.”
“One. I am from an underground organization at the University, a very small group of intellectuals. We are fighting what we believe to be some very dangerous technological developments or perhaps you could say the dangerous applications of these developments.”
“By your government?”
“Not really.”
“Not really? What the hell does that mean?”
“That’s all you need to know. Point number two. Dr. Hopp had two degrees, doctorates in sociology and biology. He did all his research in biology and became famous for it. That’s why Eva Bentley found him useful.”
“How did you know about her?”
“She is very important. A key player as you say.”
“Tell me more about Eva. That’s who I really want to know about.”
“Point number three.. The forces in this country, against which I fight, know about your trip and your purpose. For them you know too much and thus now they want to kill you. Assassination is one of their strengths. Stay more than two or three days and you are a dead man. So my last message is, get out. Fast. Take the next plane out of here. Now I must leave the Angelika and so must you but separately from me.”
“You came just to warn me?”
“Yes.”
“But why do you care about me?”
“I would like to care about you, Dr. Bishop, but I don’t have that luxury. No. Your lawsuit situation in America is important to us. If you die then the lawsuit and your investigation dies and that would not be good for us. I am here to get you out of Hungary alive and to give you important clues to help your investigation along.”
“And what clues are they?”
Rudolf sighed wearily.
“Once again. Ferenc Hopp was a world class biologist doing research with very powerful applications and potential, and that is why Eva Bentley made him her friend.”
“She used him.”
Rudolf shrugged his shoulders as if to say what else? From beneath the table he pulled a brown, letter-sized envelope and pushed it over to John.
“What’s that?”
“Take it. It will help your investigation. Now I am going. Leave five minutes after me. Goodbye.”
The large man got up and walked briskly out of the shop without looking back.

Read more about The Griffon Trilogy: Part I and Andrea Murphy and Doug Murphy HERE.

Copyright 2008 Andrea Murphy and Doug Murphy. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
Chapter 6

Jake Delaney’s oxygen alert system told him he had less than a minute to live.
He had made a quick survey of the tunnel, but other than a few pipes, panels, lights and other bits and pieces on the walls and ceiling, there was nothing.
Then, Delaney remembered the second doorway. The large thin groove in the left hand side of the tunnel. The second panel with the button.
Three loud beeps in his headset shot through his ears.
Thirty seconds.
It was the door or nothing. Surely there would be something in there. Breathing apparatus, oxygen tanks, an elevator back up to Gateway”¦ or he was going to buy it on this desolate rock in space”¦ alone. Not the way for a marine to go out.
Not the way for “Devil” Delaney to finish his career.
Another beep.
Fifteen seconds.
Delaney raced to the door, the panel teasingly close as the seconds ticked away.
Then he reached it. He slammed the palm of his hand onto the flat, round button.
There was a clunking noise, then the door started lifting upwards, impossibly, frustratingly slowly.
“Come on, come on!” Delaney willed the door to rise faster.
Clunk!
The door stopped!
Eight inches above the floor.
Beeeeeeeeeep. The final warning in Delaney’s headset. No time left. Replace your heliox canister immediately.
I would if I fucking had a spare one, lady!
Delaney hit the button again. He pounded it frantically, sucking up the last breath of air in his backpack. His lungs screamed.
He gasped into his helmet.
His eyes widened in terror.
Then, Delaney’s body spasmed grotesquely, and he fell to the ground silent and unmoving.

Gateway was preparing for the worst.
The approaching FAVs were now clearly visible to the naked eye as they rumbled across the red landscape.
Sinclair and Kemp had taken up flanking positions amongst rocks on either side of the ATVs.
Pancho Sanchez sat behind a tripod-mounted M249 squad automatic weapon, just to the left of the group. A box of several hundred linked rounds sat on the ground beside him. He was digging into the dirt with his boots, fashioning a spot to push into for when he needed to support himself against the raw power of the SAW.
Lena and Wells were busy ferrying equipment into the cave. In the event of a retreat they would follow in Jake’s footsteps and take their chances below the surface.
“Make sure you get that transceiver unit into the cave, Wells,” Lena practically ordered the gaunt scientist, who seemed to be dallying, and at this point was only clasping a single silver briefcase-sized box tightly against his chest.
Buffalo Bill and Royce Simms would make the second line of defense at the mouth of the cave to ensure the two scientists would escape unharmed if things turned to shit.
It was decided Corporal Dwayne Foster would act as frontman for the unit to establish first contact with the approaching  Chinese vehicles. Actually, the decision was more of a self-imposed voluntary action by Foster, who always put his hand up first for the hard jobs. He alone would determine their intentions and give the signal for retaliation if required.
He was fairly certain though that they weren’t coming for a friendly chat.
Foster stood several yards in front of the camp facing northeast, directly in the path of the oncoming vehicles.
He estimated they were about three hundred yards away, traveling at twenty miles an hour.
Any minute now”¦
Foster gripped his M4 carbine tightly, keeping it aimed at the ground, but prepared to raise and fire if need be.
No point appearing hostile, he thought. Just keep the weapon down. Get ready to use it, but don’t look ready”¦
Besides, the Chinese were here on Mars for the same reasons as us. To explore, carry out scientific exploration. They had the same right to use a military unit for precautions as we did. I mean, Christ, it’s  an integral part of an away team. Probably just coming over to borrow a cup of sugar”¦ yeah, right.
Foster tightened the grip on his weapon.
At two hundred yards, he could make out the yellow suits of the PLA military space uniforms.
They were basically similar to his own. An extended cold weather clothing system made of modified Gor-tex. Water resistant and insulated for use in extreme cold.
He could see the twelve men in each vehicle now. Two up front, and two rows of five facing each other in back. Apart from the standard vehicle-mounted machine guns, Foster couldn’t see any other weapons.
But why would they send so many?
Kemp, Sinclair and Sanchez readied their weapons.
“Make sure you keep me covered guys,” Foster said into his headset.
“Anything moves and I’ll nail it, Corporal,” assured Sanchez, who was noticeably itching for action. He grabbed the tripod-mounted gun by its two handles and swiveled it left and right, making certain it was free and smooth-gliding.
“That’s what I like to hear, Pancho,” said Foster. “Okay, get ready.”
The Chinese vehicles were less than a hundred yards away now. Foster eyed them carefully, looking for a sign””any sign””that would spell an attack.
Abruptly, they veered apart in a wide arc, now presenting two moving targets.
“Shit! They’re splitting up!” Foster yelled.
“I see it, Corporal,” said Sinclair. “I’ve got the one on the left! A.K., the one on the right is all yours.”
“No problem,” Kemp said confidently. He raised his M4 to his shoulder, trailed the vehicle on the right down the length of the barrel. “Just make one false move, you little bastards”¦” he whispered.
Foster, meanwhile, was trying to keep his eye on both vehicles.
Fifty yards.
At the cave entrance, Buffalo Bill’s view of the oncoming soldiers was hampered by his own ATVs and poorly placed stacks of equipment. He was torn between staying put and moving out into the open, but had enough confidence in his men to let them handle the initial skirmish. It was important, he decided, to remain as backup for the two scientists.
“Keep your heads down and your asses tight, marines!” Buffalo said, attempting to keep in touch at least verbally, if not physically.
“You’ve got that right, Sarge,” agreed Sinclair. His adrenalin was starting to pump hard. It was the one reason that almost had Delaney reconsider him for the team.
A marine’s survival was dependent on the ability to remain calm in any situation. Panic was a soldier’s worst enemy. But, Sinclair had proven himself to Delaney where it counted, in battle on previous assignments. That was all the Lieutenant asked for.
In fact, it was quite possible Sinclair’s excitability was what gave him the edge he needed. The one thing that got him through a fight when it counted. And hell, they all needed an edge.
Thirty yards.
The Chinese APCs were now charging in on a parallel path, about thirty yards apart. Smoke billowed in a bubble above each vehicle.
Then Foster saw it!
At first, just a glint of light in the waning afternoon sun. But it was unmistakable.
One of the Chinese soldiers had lifted a Norinco Type 95 assault rifle off the floor between his legs.
Foster saw another. Then two more!
In a few seconds they had all lifted their hidden weapons.
“Fuck! The bastards are going to”” ”
Crack!
Foster’s faceplate shattered as a bullet slammed into his forehead.
The other marines heard the deafening crack through their headsets, and looked over at their corporal. He was still standing, legs wobbling.
A torrent of thick, red blood spewed from his helmet.
Then Foster’s body crumpled and fell.
“Motherfuckers!” yelled Sanchez.
He engaged the SAW’s firing mechanism and started shooting in sporadic bursts towards first one FAV and then the other. A hail of metal cascaded over the vehicles as they continued their approach. A frenzied firework of sparks shot up from the hoods of the FAVs.
“How do you like that, fuckers!” Sanchez screamed, as he rocked the large gun back and forth, unleashing waves of molten projectiles towards the vehicles.
He seemed to be wreaking havoc against the Chinese soldiers, who leapt from their vehicles and continued their approach on foot. He saw a wall of yellow uniforms rushing towards Gateway.
With all the firing, Sanchez had only managed to take out two of the enemy, whose bodies lay idle in the bullet riddled carriers.
Now, Sinclair and Kemp opened fire against the approaching soldiers.
Crack! Crack!
Kemp watched in amazement as two of the Chinese helmets exploded.
None of the marines had ever witnessed somebody being shot in a pressure suit before. The damage to a human body was both horrific and instant.
Kemp saw a fountain of blood erupt from the top of a yellow helmet. The liquid spurt shot three feet straight up.
“Jesus! Did you see that!” Kemp shouted, not even realizing he was talking aloud.
“Stay focused AK!” Sinclair responded.
Bullets pinged off the rocks all around them.
Small clouds of magenta clay dust puffed up every time a Norinco round struck a rock.
Sanchez was sweeping his machine gun in a wide arc, back and forth. He held the trigger firmly, letting loose a barrage of hot metal.
Several yellow-suited figures turned partially red and dropped to the ground.
There were still fifteen Chinese soldiers alive. Some of them ducked behind rocks, while others continued their ground assault. Somehow, all fifteen made it through the next volley of shots.
They reached the edge of the encampment, running hard, and ducked into a large outcrop of rocks and boulders that were positioned to the left and right twenty feet in front of Sanchez.
Sinclair and Kemp, also positioned amongst the rocks, no longer had a clear field of vision to the enemy troops.
“Where the fuck did they go, Lenny?” screamed Kemp.
“Keep it down, A.K”¦. I’m looking for “˜em,” Lenny replied, trying to keep his cool.
Buffalo added to the conversation. “Sinclair, Kemp, status report, now!”
Sinclair crept down from his rocky perch and weaved through some boulders. “Sarge”¦ we have several targets at close quarters”¦ we””huh? What the fuck was that?””A.K. is that”” ”
“Jesus, Sinclair how many targets do you have”¦ Sinclair”¦.”
There was a short silence, then Sinclair’s voice came back online. “It’s ok”¦ thought there was something”¦ Sarge, we have enemy troops”¦a dozen, maybe more.”
“Lenny, I’m not seeing anything,” Kemp said nervously. He was taking small, measured steps, his eyes fully open as he looked around every rock, into every dark hole.
Buffalo squeezed his rifle hard. “Fuck this”¦ I want you guys to pull back now”¦ pull back towards the cave”¦ Sanchez, keep an eye out for anything, and I mean anything. If it’s wearing a yellow uniform, you fucking kill it, understand?
“Got it Sarge,” Sanchez answered.
Sinclair was about to back up when a couple of yellow flashes streaked past in front of him. They continued running, somehow not noticing he was standing there.
“Fuck this”¦” he said, and began climbing back up to the relative safety of his original position on top of the rock.
Kemp was in an equal amount of trouble now. He saw yellow uniforms dodging around in front and back.
The rocks were a maze.
And now they were all in that maze together”¦

Inside the entrance to the cave, Buffalo turned to Lena and Wells.
“Okay, that’s it! Time for you two to go!” he said. “I’m sending Simms down with you. I’ll stay behind as a final defense.”
Simms spun around.
“Sarge, you can’t be serious! I’m”””
“That’s an order Private. Now get moving!”
Lena quickly set up her radio gear on a large rock, and switched on the transmitter.
“What are you doing?” Wells asked nervously.
“I’m sending a mayday to Spacecom,” Lena said. “With a little luck, if any of us survive this, they might be able to send a rescue mission to pick up the survivors”¦ or at least the bodies.” She started speaking into the transceiver as the others scurried about the cave.
“Are you sure that’s necessary?” Wells asked.
“What?” said a stunned Lena.
“My dear, we hardly need to get Spacecom involved at this point.”
Lena glared at the pale scientist. “What the hell are you on about Wells?”
“It’s just that I”” ”
The pinging of stray bullets ricocheting around the small cave interrupted his protestations.
Simms picked up whatever heliox and other necessary equipment he could carry, along with the remainder of the gear they would need to strap to their suits.
“How much heliox have you got?” Buffalo asked Lena as she packed up the comset.
Lena did a quick count.
“Enough for about two hours each. We’ll leave a bottle here for you.” She said, opening one of the silver briefcases.
Buffalo smiled. “Keep it. I’ll refill from one of the ATVs as soon as we take care of these bastards.”
“And what if you can’t “take care” of those bastards, Sergeant?” asked Lena.
“Then I won’t be needing this oxygen, will I ma’am?”

Sanchez had little time to react as four soldiers moved out from behind their cover in a coordinated move and began firing at him. Sanchez flung himself backwards into the dirt and flattened out.
Small explosions of dust puffed up all around him.
He rolled to his left, and grabbed hold of the machine gun with one hand, pulling the trigger. The Chinese soldiers dived to the ground.
Sanchez fired blindly through the haze towards the rocks. His helmet visor was caked with dust on the outside and smeared with condensation on the inside.
Then without warning his machine gun stopped firing.
He was out of ammunition!
Sanchez could barely make out three blood spattered uniforms laying on the ground a few feet in front of him. A hazy mist of dust had created a curtain between him and the bodies. But something was wrong. There were only three bodies”¦
Where was the fourth?
He reached for the box of MPMG rounds that lay to his side. As he did, he felt something prod the back of his neck.
It was the last thing Sanchez would ever feel. There was a sharp click.
The bullet seared down the barrel of the assault rifle, through his airsuit, severing his spinal cord at the base of his brain. Sanchez’s eyes bulged with a last second realization of what had happened.
His helmet filled with blood.
Sanchez’s body slumped forward over the gun tripod.
Now it was two against twelve.

Sinclair climbed onto the ledge that looked down over the entire encampment. He felt better now he was back above the soldiers who were weaving through the immediate area.
He could see several figures darting through the labyrinth of craggy rocks below him.
Three of the Chinese soldiers were winding through the maze towards his position, single file, guns raised to their shoulders. The one in front signaled the others to split up, and they veered off in different directions.
Sinclair was looking slightly down on them, about five yards in front of their path. He could still see all three for the time being. Fortunately, they hadn’t seen him yet.
Sinclair took aim and fired at the leader of the small group.
The bullet ripped through the soldiers left arm. A rush of escaping gases burst out through the unfortunate soldier’s thermal suit. He doubled over and fell to the ground, gripping his suit in a useless attempt to stop the flow of precious oxygen.
His two compatriots watched in horror for a moment as the life was sucked out of his suit, and blood replaced the escaping air.
Quickly they dodged into the rocks to avoid being next on Sinclair’s list. Now they new his exact location.
The two soldiers split up and encircled Sinclair’s position from either side, like a pair of lions circling their prey.
Sinclair moved quickly from one side of his high perch to the other, trying to keep an eye on the soldiers. He whispered into his mike, “Sarge, Kemp”¦ if you guys can hear me, now would be a good time to give me some backup.”
Suddenly, a burst of gunfire sprayed the rock he was standing on. Puffs of dust flew up all around his feet.
Sinclair spun around.
One of the Chinese was crouching at the base of his position, shooting directly up at him.
“Aghh, shit!”
Sinclair held his M4 over the edge of the rock with one hand, and fired downwards hoping to hit something””anything. A geyser of red liquid exploded upwards, coating his gloved hand in the unlucky soldier’s blood.
There was still one more nearby.
Sinclair couldn’t see a damn thing. He stuck his head out over the rock face to get a better view, and was met by””
A rifle barrel!
Hard up against his face shield.
“Fuck!” he screamed, and jerked himself backwards just as a molten projectile flew out of the gun and whizzed past his head.
The only problem was, Sinclair had now lost his balance.
He continued to fall backwards in one long motion. Backwards over the flat top of the rock tower, and down the steeply angled side. He crunched and cracked his way to the bottom.
Sinclair landed with a heavy thud on a hard flat rock.
He groaned into his mouthpiece, then laying motionless, he slipped quietly into unconsciousness.

Kemp was moving silently through the maze. Left. Right. He darted from boulder to boulder. He could sense the presence of the enemy troops all around him. A marine’s instinct. Barely visible shadows and movements caught in his lateral vision. He noticed a wide natural hole at the base of a towering boulder.
If only he could get to it. It might provide some temporary shelter. Give him time to formulate a strategy, maybe sniper the bastards off one by one.
He maneuvered stealthily past a few large rocks. Turned right, and””
Thump!
He hit something. It was a Chinese uniform!
Kemp and one of the Chinese soldiers had both been moving around the same large rock, and were now facing off.
Kemp looked through the two layers of helmet glass, his and the enemy’s. He was looking right into the soldier’s face. Terrified. Just like his face was right now, he imagined.
They stood facing each other without moving. Neither dared to move. Just waiting to see what the other would do. Neither man willing to give away their next move.
Then slowly the Chinese soldier’s brow began to furrow. His mouth tightened into an angry snarl, and Kemp watched in shock as the young soldier yelled ferociously into his soundproof helmet.
It was odd to be so close to such a display of rage without hearing a thing.
Then Kemp noticed the slightest of movements in his enemy’s arm, but the wily marine had already unsheathed his utility knife during the face-off. He tried not to make it obvious as he raised the knife just above his waist. Keep it slow”¦ steady”¦
Just as the Chinese soldier was about to make his move, Kemp brought the knife smoothly and quickly upwards and plunged it into the soldier at stomach height.
There was a disgusting hiss of escaping air and blood.
Kemp continued watching the man’s face contort with pain. He saw the realization of death in the soldier’s eyes. The same eyes that a few seconds ago had shown only rage. He was staring at Kemp, pleading”¦ wishing this wasn’t really happening and wondering why it was necessary.
Now, when he was about to die, everything seemed so pointless. He gurgled a small amount of blood that began seeping out of the corner of his mouth.
The eyes remained open as the body fell.
The dead soldier’s comrades must have heard his moans of agony, because suddenly they were running towards Kemp from all directions.
“Oh shit!” he said into his mouthpiece.
He ducked as low as he could and began to shoot.
“Lenny! Lenny! Oh fuck”¦ man, help me!” Kemp pleaded.
Crack! One down.
Crack! Crack! Two. Three. He was firing like a man possessed. They fell all around him, twisting, screaming, and bleeding all over the place. Anything to survive.
Just keep shooting.
And he did.
He swept his gun right and left””point, shoot, point, shoot””no time to aim. Kemp was running on auto-pilot, all his training coming to the fore, operating with prescribed movements that had been drilled into him over years of exercises.
Flashes of yellow and red filled his vision. A blur of uniforms and blood”¦ death.
But there were too many.
A wall of searing bullets slammed into Kemp and knocked him six feet backwards. He screamed a futile scream into his helmet mike. He was dead before his body hit the ground.
Now there were six Chinese soldiers left.
And they were moving towards the cave.

Buffalo was alone in the cave entrance.
It was like a spacious foyer, a few scattered rocks at the mouth with very little to take cover behind.
The cave extended back about thirty feet to the descent point where Lena, Wells and Simms had just said their goodbyes.
Buffalo had a reasonably good view of the area immediately in front of the cave, and he figured he could pin the enemy down as they tried to wind their way past the boxes of gear strewn around the ATVs.
Nevertheless, he did move slightly back into the cave””into the cover of darkness, and waited for their approach.
It soon came.
Three yellow uniforms were crawling along the ground under the closest all terrain vehicle.
Buffalo shouldered his M4 and took aim. Fired.
Ping!
The shot was accurate. It entered through the top of the unlucky soldier’s helmet as he crawled across the dirt. His head erupted like a volcano, red foamy brain matter pumping out through the newly created hole in his helmet and skull.
His two comrades, realizing their vulnerable position, hurriedly jumped to their feet and charged towards the cave.
The first Chinese soldier made it approximately four feet before one of Buffalo Jackson’s standard NATO rounds ripped a grotesque hole in his chestplate.
The soldier screamed and twisted in agony as his organs were sucked out into the low pressure atmosphere.
The second soldier ran a few feet further, then did something completely unexpected”¦
Just as Buffalo was about to send him to an early grave, the soldier stood still, dropped his weapon, and raised his arms above his head in surrender.
Buffalo was bewildered.
This was just what the other three Chinese soldiers, who were on a ledge above the entrance to the cave, wanted.
The ploy gave them just enough time to drop down in front of the cave, about twelve feet from where Buffalo stood, with their Norincos at the ready.
“Sons of”” ”
Crack! Crack! Crack!
All three fired in quick succession into the cave. It was sheer luck that none of the bullets hit Buffalo. The Chinese soldiers had taken him by surprise, but in doing so they hadn’t given themselves time to acclimatize to the darkness of the cave.
Now, they blocked the entrance completely, making it even darker.
Then, in a fit of something akin to insanity, Buffalo made a move that was beyond imagination”¦
He lunged forward, rifle raised, and rushed headlong like a locomotive straight into the Chinese troops!
The move made their surprise attack look lame.
They were in complete shock as this hulking giant of a marine barreled down on them with the full force of a football tackle.
Buffalo slammed into them with a bone shuddering crunch.
The soldiers toppled like bowling pins as the large man charged through them like a battering ram, his M4 held across his chest.
One of them was hurled backwards and slammed into the wall of the cave. His head smacked sickeningly against a sharp rock and he fell straight to the ground.
But it didn’t end there.
Buffalo continued running out into the open area of Gateway, gun still raised.
The soldier who had been standing out there with his arms raised, watching his comrades being bowled over by the hulking sergeant, realized he was no longer holding his weapon.
His eyes widened in horror, and in a move Buffalo had never seen in battle before, the hapless soldier turned and ran””
Right into the side of the ATV.
Buffalo kept right on charging at him. He slammed into the soldier with such force, his body left a dent in the side panel of the vehicle. The soldier dropped, his faceplate completely shattered and covered in red goo.
Buffalo stood dazed for a moment, but was soon brought back into reality by more bullets pinging off the panels of the ATV. Now was a good time to make a strategic withdrawal.
He ran past the ATV and ducked behind some rocks. From there, he fired off the rest of his magazine in a frenzied burst.
He saw one of the uniforms change color from yellow to red.
Now he was out of ammunition. Fuck!
And then, the Chinese soldiers made another unexpected move. Instead of coming out after him, they slowly turned and moved back into the darkness of the cave.
They had other plans”¦

Chapter 15

Twenty-one thousand feet above Ayers Rock, the Chinese SU-32 High Altitude Troop Deployment squadron was preparing to release its payload.
The squadron consisted of thirty planes, most of them filled with yellow thermal suit-clad soldiers. Over a thousand in all. Four of the large-scale planes contained vehicles and crates of equipment””the same sort of equipment the great Luhu-class ship carried into Giza.
Inside the SU-32s, lights were flashing, alarms sounding.
Soldiers made last minute checks of their gear, each one leaning forward awkwardly, in obvious discomfort at the bulky PPC powered parachutes strapped to their backs.
The parachutes were HALO, high altitude-low opening design, meaning the wearer could be deployed from a radar-safe height and freefall quickly to the lowest possible release ceiling, effectively coming in unnoticed.
The PPCs also had the added benefit of a powered landing and take off. Each one was basically a fan with a two-stroke engine attached to the jumper’s back, allowing for three hours flight at up to forty miles an hour flight speed.
The lead plane signaled the squadron that the drop zone had been reached.
Slowly, the big rear fold-down door opened. An icy wind blew ferociously into the cargo bay.
Green light filled the rear of the plane.
The soldiers rose to their feet in unison and trudged rearward against the wind in two lines toward the opening.
A man in red coveralls hooked a safety line to an overhead cable and walked down the narrow passage between the soldiers to the end of the plane.
He signaled the soldiers to adopt the ready position for the jump, then made his way back through the men ensuring each one was hooked onto the release line.
The final alarm sounded over the tinny speaker system, and the troops yelled a chilling battle cry as they jumped in pairs out into the troposphere.

Most of the large group of Aboriginals at Ayers Rock had split up and dissipated overnight, and returned to their various tribal groups.
The few that remained were waking up to the morning sun. About thirty men, women and children had camped at the base of the mammoth rock.
Scattered embers from the previous evening’s bonfire still glowed red.
One of the elders was still laying on the hot, hard sand.
He rolled onto his back and squinted his eyes as the bright sunlight struck him in the face.
It was Jardarra. The old man who had spoken of the singing rock to Oliver Benson last night.
As his eyes adjusted to the dawn, he lay still, staring into the wide blue expanse above him. High up, a couple of spinifex pigeons circled lazily. He watched them dreamily through half-closed eyes.
Then abruptly, the pigeons stopped circling, and darted off in different directions.
Jardarra noticed some smaller birds, tiny specks, higher than the pigeons had been. Little specks of yellow”¦
But they weren’t flying””they were falling!
And growing bigger.
The old man strained to sit up. He shielded his face from the sun’s glare to get a better view. The specks were now misshapen blobs. He had never seen creatures like these before.
Some of the other tribespeople began milling around Jardarra. They saw the concerned look on his face, and they looked up too.
One of the men began to recognize the shapes. People!
There were people falling through the sky”¦ but, like nothing he had ever seen.

The first wave of PLA paratroopers switched on their rear-mounted fan engines. The roar could be heard from the ground.
The soldiers, who had been rapidly falling, now powered away spectacularly as the fans kicked in. They quickly leveled out to a shallow decline, speeding through the air at forty miles per hour, and steering left and right with the aid of handles that rolled comfortably over their shoulders and met in front of their chests.
The soldiers were communicating via headsets with earpieces and chin mikes.
The drop leader shouted directions to his men as they approached the steep face on the side of the rock opposite to where the Aboriginals had been.
Jardarra watched as hundreds of the troopers cascaded downwards in a slow-moving spiral that covered several hundred square feet in a perfectly balanced formation.
Each soldier in turn released his chute, powered up his fan, then steered towards the rock face.
Some of Jardarra’s people decided to take a closer look.
A group of fifteen of the fittest young men began running across the hot sand around the rock. They carried boomerangs, nulla nullas, and spears.
Jardarra noticed the men taking off and frowned. He wasn’t particularly happy with this idea. As beautiful as the parachute display had been, something deep inside him, some instinctive warning, told him there was nothing friendly about these people at all.

Twenty miles to the northeast, another force of soldiers was speeding towards Ayers Rock.
Sitting in two rows in the back of a MH47 D/E Chinook helicopter were twenty-four of the most professional, highly-trained, experienced and motivated, battle-tough hardass special forces in the world””the 75th Ranger Regiment.
The Rangers were the elite of the elite army special forces, attached to USASOC, the US Army Special Operations Command at Fort Benning. They had a history of rapid deployment under extreme conditions, infiltration and exfiltration, conducting direct action operations in any location around the globe.
This particular group had been stationed in South Korea, gathering intelligence, offering support to partisans at the border to the north. Their Ranger ready status meant they could be packed up and shipped out within hours, battle-prepared.
The Rangers had swapped their jungle greens on the journey from Korea, and were now dressed in jumpsuits sporting the dull pink and yellow patterns of desert camouflage.
The pilot of the Chinook turned to his navigator.
“How’re we doin’?” he said in a gravelly voice.
The navigator was perched in front of a bewildering array of high tech equipment””TFR Terrain Following Radar, FLIR Forward Looking Infrared, ECM Electronic Counter Measures. He busily pushed buttons and turned dials.
A screen showed the desert terrain to the southwest. Dry river beds and trees and rocks and plains were all shown in bright multicolored graphical images. A large object in the centre, colored in dark red pixels, portrayed Ayers Rock.
The navigator punched a button on the keyboard, and instantly a grid appeared, superimposed over the terrain map. The grid had measurements shown in five mile by five mile squares. Ayers Rock was two and a half squares away.
“Almost there, boss”¦ coupla minutes,” said the navigator.

Twenty paratroopers wearing yellow jumpsuits buzzed across the north face of the rock, then turned sharply under the power of their bulky fans. They flew in like airplanes landing on a runway.
As they hit the ground, they began sprinting to compensate for their landing airspeed, at the same time shutting down their fans and slowly coming to a complete halt. It was a maneuver they had practiced hundreds of times, and was perfect in its execution.
Each one then ran into the shadows of the rock, and watched as others circled down and landed in groups of twenty.
The first few groups removed their powered chutes and took up positions in covered areas amongst the boulders and crags.
The majority of the remaining paratroopers glided down in pairs, each pair physically guiding a large crate or small vehicle attached to a soft landing parachute.
And finally, the last fifty or sixty soldiers remained airborne, circling the region in a wide sweep on their PPCs.
These troops were heavily armed, carrying stingers and grenade launchers along with their standard issue Type-95 Bullpup assault rifles.
On the desert floor, approximately four-hundred Chinese troops were now methodically transferring equipment from the drop zone to the north face of Ayers Rock. The operation had been planned down to the finest detail, each man knowing exactly which crate to carry, or vehicle to move.
At the face, almost directly in the centre, was a crevasse just wide enough to allow a vehicle, a Beijing Jeep, to pass through.
Some soldiers had already gone ahead of the vehicles into a little known section of the rock that had not been accessible to the throngs of tourists that visited the area.
There was no access by road to this part of the rock, and anybody who was adventurous enough to attempt the journey on foot was usually turned away by the Aboriginal caretakers who had declared it sacred ground.
Even if a tourist had made it this far, it was unlikely he would know what the Chinese soldier who was leading this expedition knew.
The soldier had passed through the crevasse into a large open area surrounded by red stone walls rising hundreds of feet upwards, curving inwards to almost meet in the middle at the top, and thereby creating an open seam about a foot wide.
The seam allowed just enough sunlight through to adequately illuminate the natural land bay.
The soldier walked seventy yards across the land bay to the wall furthest from the entry point, and watched as the jeeps continued rolling in.
Behind the vehicles, hundreds of troops guiding boxes and crates and other pieces of machinery on motorized trolleys, and still more troops loaded to the hilt with all manner of weapons followed closely.
Once the area was completely filled with troops and vehicles and equipment, the lead soldier took a few steps up onto a small flight of stairs that had been formed from the rocks. Bizarre symbols and markings in purple””purple rock that had been inlaid on the existing rock””guided the man as he stepped up. It was obvious these symbols weren’t of Aboriginal origin.
The stairs led to a hollowed out section of the main wall. The soldier climbed into the hole and disappeared from view.
Inside the hollow, the soldier reached up and found a small ledge hidden in the darkness above his head. Carefully, he ran his hand along the ledge until he found what he was searching for. Something small, round and flat.
A disk mounted on a panel.
It was a button.

The soldier pushed the button. There was a bone-shuddering clunk! The ground shook, and he ducked out of the small niche and vaulted back down the rock stairway to join the other troops standing in the bay.
All of a sudden, the entire bay began to vibrate.
Around the edges, where the ground met the walls, the sand began to resonate. The vibrations became deeper, more resonant, and the army of men used whatever means they could to stop themselves from falling.
Abruptly, the vibration stopped.
One more loud, metallic clunk.
Then slowly and smoothly, the entire area where they stood, began to sink and lower into the desert floor like a gargantuan elevator platform.

The five US Army helicopters led by the Chinook arrived at Uluru traveling at over one hundred and fifty miles per hour and maintaining altitude at forty feet above the ground.
Their speed and low altitude gave them only a brief advantage though, and within seconds, the Chinese forces hiding amongst the rocks on the main rock face were retaliating, firing with every available weapon.
A dozen vapor trails shot out from the rock towards the choppers, signaling the release of stinger missiles. The choppers peeled off in five different directions, narrowly avoiding the rockets.
Two of the choppers circled around in a small arc, back towards the outskirts of the rock and then stopped where they were, hovering for a moment.
Suddenly, a dozen nylon ropes snaked out from the side of each chopper, and in an instant two dozen Army Rangers and Air Commandos abseiled to the ground.
As the choppers sped off, the men scattered in every direction, taking cover in tufts of tussock grass or behind rocks and trees. Within seconds they were returning fire at the Chinese soldiers.
The Ranger commander, Captain Deveson Greig, took four of his best men aside. “We have to take out those stingers on the rockface!” he shouted above the noise.
Two of the blackhawks were now lending air support to the rangers on the ground. They flew in tandem directly towards the rock, firing their twin six-barrel miniguns.
Tiny explosions shattered the hard rock and sent splinters of shale flying as the guns peppered a forty by forty foot area of the wall.
Captain Greig and his small team rushed directly towards the rock, firing with everything they had.
“Go! Go! Go!” the commander yelled.
Above them, the choppers zoomed in at full speed, firing the whole time until, at the last moment, they pulled up sharply narrowly missing the wall, and skimmed over the top of the huge monolith.
Dozens of yellow uniforms lay scattered and spread over the rocks, covered in blood and dust.
The rangers on the ground moved in closer, stealthily darting from cover to cover, sometimes crawling on their bellies along the ground amidst the tall desert grasses until they were at the base of the monolith.
Behind them, another wave of Rangers closed in.
There were about twenty of them, seventy yards from the rock, taking turns to fire in small groups as another group reloaded, and another group advanced. Yard by yard, they repeated this advancing procedure as they closed in on the Chinese.
Then without warning, came a series of loud gun cracks from nearby.
Six rangers fell to the ground simultaneously, shot to pieces.
Their comrades looked around””then”¦
Up!
Out of the sky, fifty PPC motorized Chinese paratroopers circled above the rangers, shooting down on them. It was like picking off chickens in a chook yard. No cover, no protection.
Then things got worse”¦
Some of the paratroopers were carrying grenade launchers. They were firing down on the vulnerable ground soldiers with grenades!
“Spread out!” Greig ordered his men.
The 75th regiment fanned out wide, dropping to the ground in a single movement, rolling onto their backs. Then they started returning fire. Laying on their backs, they aimed up into the air and picked off the flying Chinese squadron, who themselves now became sitting””or flying””ducks.
One of the blackhawk pilots saw what was happening and decided to join the action.
He sped away from the battle at the rock and flew straight towards the PPC troopers, miniguns blazing.
The powerful guns cut down ten of the Chinese soldiers instantly.
Half of them exploded violently as the bullets ripped through their fan engines and ignited the fuel tanks. The other half were simply ripped to shreds by the searing metal bullets, and plummeted to the desert floor under the power of the engines mounted on their backs.
The blackhawk buzzed through the pack of PPCs, flew a few hundred yards along its flight path, and then turned sharply for a second run.
This time the Chinese were prepared.
Four stinger launchers were raised as the chopper headed back towards the group.
On the ground, the rangers desperately tried to pick off the soldiers who were holding the rocket launchers.
Captain Greig ran forward, then dropped to one knee and carefully aimed upwards.
Crack! One down.
The Chinese trooper’s body started flitting around erratically, driven by the fan motor on his back. Completely out of control, he powered awkwardly downwards and slammed chest first with a sickening crunch into a craggy boulder.
But there were too many paratroopers in the air returning fire. More rangers were hit as the chopper continued speeding in.
Three stingers on the rock. Three stingers in the air.
The ones in the air took aim.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh.
They all fired at the same time. This time the chopper was unable to evade. The rockets slammed into the blackhawk. It exploded in a thunderous ball of heat.
And, in a twist of irony, the momentum of its speed kept the molten mass of steel and fuel moving forward into the pack of Chinese paratroopers, right towards two of the very soldiers who fired the stingers.
The twisted wreckage slammed into the men and carried them downwards, screaming all the way to the ground.
The group of paratroopers became abuzz like a swarm of angry bees, flitting about, darting down towards the rangers, firing their weapons rampantly at anything that moved.
Suddenly, two rockets exploded in mid air. Right amongst the paratroopers. Body parts flew out in every direction. Blood and guts rained down on the Special Forces soldiers who were diving for cover anywhere they could.
The Chinook came screaming in from the direction of the rock, firing another volley of rockets which slammed into another cluster of Chinese soldiers hovering above the rangers.
More explosions.
More body parts.
Only fifteen of this group of sixty PPC troopers remained.
On the ground, the Rangers casualties were less, but still substantial. Of the twenty-four who made the drop from the choppers, sixteen were still alive, fourteen able to continue fighting, not counting the Commander’s primary group.
Those fourteen now made a direct run for the north face of Ayers Rock, dodging the hailstorm of bullets and grenades raining down on them from the sky.
The Chinese soldiers amongst the rocks were pretty much pinned down by two of the blackhawks, which were firing a relentless tirade of minigun rounds in a wide-area pattern, plus Captain Greig’s group who were concealed below, and letting off round after searing round towards the Chinese.
The Chinese scattered themselves amongst the rocks like cockroaches.
A few moments later, the rest of the Rangers hit the wall at full speed, disappearing into the shadows below the Chinese troops. They moved stealthily through the shadows along the wall, and then climbed to a position just feet below the Chinese soldiers.
To the surprise of the Chinese forces, the blackhawks ceased firing and turned away.
What they didn’t know of course, was that this was done to allow the Rangers below to scale safely up the rocks right under their noses to pull off a shock skirmish.
It happened the instant the blackhawks turned away.
As the PLA troops moved out of their cover to see what was happening, and to fire off some chaser rounds, the 75th Regiment rushed upwards through the rocks and let loose with a barrage of assault weapon ammunition.
The assault was instant and decisive.
Most of the Chinese on the rock face didn’t stand a chance as they were hit from below.
A wave of bullets tore through their yellow suits, instantly staining red with blood. The Rangers had to dodge the falling bodies as they continued firing.
The mini-coup was over in less than a minute, the rock littered with dead Chinese soldiers.
At that moment came another loud explosion.
A second Blackhawk had been hit whilst attempting to finish off the remaining PPC troopers buzzing around a couple hundred yards above the desert floor.
The fan-powered paratroopers decided to cut their losses and took off  to the east.
Another Blackhawk helicopter gave chase, flying off into the sun as the Rangers on the rock began their short descent to the ground.

Deep inside Ayers Rock, the gigantic platform was still slowly descending.
Although completely artificial, its appearance was remarkably natural. Sand and small stones covered the entire surface. A few scattered boulders added to the authenticity, easily fooling anyone who might have made it past the native landlords, they themselves not even aware of the rock’s amazing secret.
A secret that had lain dormant for thousands of years.
And now, on this strange moving elevator where hundreds of men in yellow suits stood with machines and weapons were hidden fifteen very curious and very frightened young Aboriginal men who had managed to slip in with the soldiers unnoticed, and were wishing very strongly they hadn’t.

Chapter 26

Delaney, Lena, Buffalo and Sinclair were now in the north section of the tunnel. A catwalk similar to the one they were on earlier extended as far as they could see.
As they walked along its shiny black surface, the water rushed past a few feet below them.
The noise of the rushing water, along with the roar of the giant hydro-turbine blades was almost unbearable. Delaney found himself breaking into a slow jog along the narrow catwalk just to escape the raucous sound.
Lena stuck right behind him. She wasn’t going to let him out of her sight again.
Buffalo and Sinclair found the going a little tougher, which was to be expected considering the extent of their injuries.
They had traveled about a hundred yards when Delaney said, “Let’s keep moving guys. I don’t want to be anywhere near that thing when”” “
BOOM!
A shockwave.
A massive shockwave, practically visible in its intensity, pulsed out from the area directly above the turbine cage, and unfolded itself along the tunnel walls right towards where Delaney’s team was standing.
The catwalk shook violently. All four of them were sent crashing to the deck by the force of the shock.
Delaney shouted back to his marines as they struggled to make their way along the platform.
“Come on, keep moving!” he said.
Then he saw it”¦
Something in the distance, just behind Buffalo’s right shoulder. Something black”¦ it was getting bigger, rapidly.
It was the door to the pyramid!
Blown away by the force of the explosion, it was now hurtling along the catwalk towards them.
“Down now!” Delaney shouted.
He gripped Lena by the shoulders and wrenched her down hard to the platform.
Buffalo and Sinclair hit the deck as the door flew past them at what would have been head height if they were still standing.
“Fuck me!” yelled Sinclair.
The door continued screeching along the catwalk railing. Sparks flew in every direction like fireworks, as the door disappeared into the dark distance of the tunnel.
Delaney was half sprawled over Lena, who was coughing and spluttering from being winded when she was unceremoniously thrown down. Buffalo was clutching his wounded arm as he lay there moaning.
But it wasn’t over yet.
“Oh, shit”¦ get up”¦ get up right fucking now!” said Delaney looking past the others towards the hole where the door had been a few seconds ago.
What Delaney saw was the bright orange glow of a fireball that was about to erupt from inside the chasm.
“Quick, get up!” he said, pulling Lena back to her feet like a rag doll. “Run!”
In a matter of seconds, the four of them were on their feet and running along the catwalk again.
The fireball burst out into the tunnel with a savage hiss.
It scorched the walls near the entrance of the white lobby, and continued out onto the catwalk, chasing them like a seething tumbleweed of flames.
Steam hissed up from the water, as the fireball vaporized the top few inches of the torrent near the turbine.
Buffalo, at the rear of the team, could feel the heat through his thermal suit. It was gaining on them.
“Fuck me”¦ you guys”¦” he shouted.
“We know,” Sinclair acknowledged, trying his best to keep up with Delaney and Lena, who were about twenty feet in front.
The fireball remained strong as it neared them.
Suddenly, it was obvious they couldn’t outrun it. And there was only one thing left to do.
They would have to jump into the rapids.
Buffalo jumped first. He leapt the railing in midstride, and went straight over the edge without a hitch.
Another few seconds and he would have been barbecue meat.
Buffalo hit the water with a great thump, and was immediately tossed about like a cork.
Sinclair had been a few paces in front of his Sergeant. He looked into the water and saw Buffalo tumble past him, arms waving wildly. He couldn’t help laughing as he watched, then realized the flame was about to burn him up.
“Oh shit.”
Sinclair hurled himself over the rail without so much as touching it. He splashed into the water and went straight under. He was soon flapping and spluttering about in the surging water, and looked even more ridiculous than Buffalo.
Delaney and Lena were further along the catwalk, still running from the searing heat.
“Lena”¦ we’re going to have to jump,” Delaney said, sucking in his breath as he ran hard.
“I”¦ I”¦ can’t make it”¦ over that edge,” Lena panted.
She was right. As fit as she was, a maneuver like that was the sort of stuff only trained soldiers or gymnasts could pull off smoothly. If she baulked for a second, or slipped and fell back onto the platform, she’d be caught up in the fireball for sure.
Delaney didn’t have time to argue.
He quickly spun one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to face Lena, and in a mind-boggling move, swept her up in a fireman’s carry, turned swiftly on his heels, and continued running away from the huge ball of flame.
A few more paces to steady himself, and he jerked Lena up in his arms, so that she was now resting on the barrel of his chest and the upturned palms of his hands.
“What are you doing!” she managed to scream.
And then, with a mighty heave, in full flight, Delaney grunted and tossed Lena’s supple body over the railing and into the river below.
A second later, he lunged out with his left leg and caught the rail, then brought his right leg up on top of it, and like an Olympic athlete, dived out over the edge of the catwalk in a perfect swan dive, just as the powerful ball of flames exploded past him.
Now, all four of them were being swept along the tunnel by the current of icy water which surged through the turbine.

The shockwave of the pyrozine explosion had resonated throughout the tunnel. It had fanned out from its epicentre above the turbine, along the walls and through the body of water.
And, in its wake, halfway up the southern end of the tunnel, it had caused something else to occur”¦
The vehicle””the bug””that Delaney had abandoned in a small alcove, was being buffeted back and forth by the ripples of the shockwave.
Slowly, it rocked loose out of its niche in the tunnel wall. It floated barely inches off the floor, bobbing up and down slightly, then back down again under its own weight.
Then, slowly, the force of the rushing water took hold. The bug was jostled about roughly. Back and forth, back and forth.
Suddenly, it pivoted. Its centre of gravity was being shifted into the oncoming current.
And like a small toy truck in a creek, the vehicle was swept along steadily towards the turbine.

Delaney and Lena and Buffalo and Sinclair were also being swept along by the great river of icy water surging through the tunnel.
The four of them were bobbing around madly, trying to keep their heads above the choppy surface.
Delaney watched the blue tunnel lights rapidly flicking past.
The water was pushing them along at a phenomenal speed.
Suddenly, he noticed little splashes of water erupting up all around them. It was like somebody was throwing pebbles into the water.
Then he heard the muted crack! crack! of gunfire coming from further down the tunnel.
They were being shot at!
“Stay”¦ as”¦ low as”¦ you can!” he managed to shout to the others through gulps of icy liquid.
Sixty or so yards in front of them, on the gantry, stood four yellow figures. Each one holding an automatic assault rifle.
“Oh fuck!… how many”¦ of these”¦ fucking guys”¦ are there?” Buffalo spat out.
The bullets continued to splash into the water, narrowly missing the four hapless bodies tumbling along in the rapids.
In a few seconds, the Chinese soldiers would have a direct, very close, line-of-fire at them.
“Under!” yelled Delaney. “Swim as far as you can under the water!”
Lena and Sinclair each took a deep breath and duck-dived as hard as they could.
But borne of some military instinct or comradeship from serving together for so long, both Delaney and Buffalo remained floating above the surface of the water””each knowing what the other had in mind.
“Now!” shouted Delaney.
And then, in unison, Delaney and Buffalo brought their weapons up and out of the water and began shooting towards the walkway.
Before they had a chance to realize what was happening, two of the PLA soldiers were hit with a throng of bullets to their heads. Their skulls burst like watermelons.
The headless bodies defied gravity for a second before toppling over the rail and falling into the torrent.
The two marines sailed past the remaining soldiers, bobbing up and down with the swell, keeping their eyes focused firmly on the catwalk the whole time.
The Chinese soldiers ran along the deck, chasing Delaney and Buffalo, and shooting aimlessly into the water.
As they did, Lena and Sinclair bobbed back up, having run out of breath.
Lena screamed as she came face to neck with one of the dead bodies floating in the water. The body’s arms tangled around her, like a walking-dead zombie trying to grasp at her.
Lena arched backwards and kicked at the body. “Get”¦ the”¦ hell”¦ off me!” she yelled angrily at the headless yellow suit.
Sinclair came to her aid, just as the body drifted past, then suddenly they were being shot at again by the soldiers on the catwalk.
Bullets smacked into the water near Lena’s face and she quickly went under again, struggling to find any more breath in her lungs.
The Chinese soldiers continued firing and running, but were unable to keep up with the fast pace of the rapids. They were about to give up the chase.
Then, just at that moment, everything came to a halt.
There was a hideous crunching of metal, and the water level dropped abruptly as it flowed away towards the runoff tunnels at the northern end.
Delaney and his team found themselves wading in a foot of water.
Everybody, including the Chinese soldiers, looked back down the tunnel curiously. The water had stopped pumping through the turbine.
Or”¦ something was blocking the water.
Crunch!
The sound again. Metal on metal. Grinding, churning.
Lena started to walk northwards. She looked at the others. “What the hell are you waiting for?”
“Uhh”¦ Lieutenant”¦” stammered Sinclair.
“Move Private,” said Delaney. He also began to walk towards the north end.
Buffalo looked up at the soldiers on the walkway, some sixty feet above him. They had the same idea, and were moving rapidly away from the crunching noise.
“Sergeant, will you be joining us any time today?” Delaney asked sarcastically.
There was another horrific metallic crunch.
“Hell yeah!” Buffalo said.

They were practically sprinting. The sort of run you attempt when you have to be somewhere urgently, but you’re completely exhausted. Arms and legs moving in an erratic dance of spasticity.
“How far to the end of the tunnel, Lieutenant?” Sinclair panted.
Delaney looked across at him as if to say how the hell would I know?
“There!” shouted Lena, pointing ahead of them. “What’s that?”
They ran another hundred yards.
And found themselves standing at the nexus of the three tunnels.
In front of them was a small tunnel sloping upwards to a large sealed door. To the left and right were the massive runoff tunnels sloping downwards””deep downwards””into blackness.
There was no sign of the Chinese soldiers.
The floor trickled with an inch of running water.
It’s dripping echoed eerily as it drained away into the depths of the runoffs.
Lena walked a short way into the left tunnel. She shone her wrist light out in front. The tunnel curved around on a wide arc and downwards into total darkness.
“Don’t go too far, Lena,” Delaney warned.
Lena wasn’t planning on going any further. Her feet slipped a little on the smooth surface as she walked back to join the others on the ramp tunnel sloping up to the door.
Lena noticed there was no control panel visible on this door.
Buffalo stepped up in front of it. He raised his hands high in the air, like Moses parting the red sea. “Open Sesame,” he bellowed.
Lena laughed. With exhaustion more than humor. Delaney and Sinclair just shook their heads.
“Okay, that didn’t work,” said Buffalo. “Any suggestions?”
“Look around for a control panel, or a button”¦ anything,” Delaney suggested.
There was another loud crunch in the distance.
“And make it quick,” he added.
The team fanned out in different directions, searching along the walls where the tunnels joined. Their halogen wrist lights formed ghostly silhouettes on the black surfaces.
“Lieutenant,” said Sinclair after a few moments. “You’d better take a look at this.”
“Tell me you’ve found a door switch, Private, and I’ll recommend you for a month’s paid leave when we get back.” Delaney said.
Delaney, Lena and Buffalo joined Sinclair at the apex of the main tunnel and the left-side runoff tunnel.
They focused their lights on the wall near Sinclair.
“It’s not a switch, Lieutenant,” said the young Private. “But it’ll sure blow a fucking big hole in that door.”
They were looking at the explosives Pak’s men had planted earlier.
“Nice job, Lenny,” Buffalo said sarcastically.
“Hey, don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger.”
“Fuck me!” Delaney said. “Everywhere we go, there’s a fucking bomb!”
Sinclair was staring intently at the linked charges. He followed the wires up and across the wall to an electric detonator box.
“Uh oh,” he said.
“Uh oh, what?” asked Delaney.
“Uh oh, we’ve got three minutes until this shit goes off, sir.”

Delaney’s team was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Behind them, some god-awful crunching thing was threatening to come rushing down the tunnel, probably bringing an even bigger torrent of water with it.
In front of them was a sealed door, and two uninviting steep, dark tunnels leading to nowhere.
And right where they stood were enough explosives to wipe out several city blocks, and they had two and a half minutes to decide what to do.
“Any chance you can defuse that thing, Sinclair?” Delaney asked hopefully.
Sinclair screwed up one side of his mouth. “Sir, this thing’ll go off if you look at it the wrong way.”
Delaney looked around in frustration.
Sealed door. Explosives.
Everything always turns to hell”¦
“Fine”¦ they want hell, I’ll give them hell. The Devil’s own brand,” Delaney muttered under his breath.
“What was that, sir?” Sinclair asked.
But Delaney was already moving. Towards the C4 charges.
“Buff’, Private, help me with these.”
Buffalo and Sinclair looked at each other, then followed Delaney’s lead.
“Okay”¦ we can’t touch the detonator, right?” Delaney said. “But, we can move these charges.”
Sinclair thought for a second.
“As long as you don’t sever the connections between the charge packs, you can do what you like with them,” the young soldier said, now beginning to understand what Delaney had in mind.
“Good!” said Delaney. “I figure there’s enough spare wire between these charges to move them from here to that door. Start pulling them down off the wall.” Then he added, “Very carefully.”

They had the C4 in place with just over a minute to spare before the timer was set to go off.
Lena looked at Delaney. “Now what?” she said quietly.
Delaney hadn’t considered the “now what” part of his plan. He thought about it for a second.
“Quick! Down the runoff tunnel!” he shouted to everyone. “Oh, and check your suits and close your helmets up. The oxygen containment field might not be the same at this end of the tunnel. Switch your headsets to their external speaker system, so we can still communicate with each other. ”
All four of them pushed their retractable helmet return buttons, and headed to the right side tunnel and entered its black depths.
The surface was as slippery as oil, and much steeper than Delaney had reckoned. They found it difficult maintaining a foothold on the floor, even with their ribbed boots. It was as if the tunnel had a coating of slimy algae built up from the constant flow of water over it.
“How much further do we need to go, Jake?” Lena asked. Delaney could sense the trepidation in her voice.
“It’s more a question of how far can we go, ma’am,” Buffalo put in.
Delaney focused his halogen ahead into the murky darkness. “Just stick close to the wall and follow the curve around. Those charges are gonna go off any second, so hold tight.”
Lena had been walking further out from the wall than the others.
Suddenly she screamed out.
The three marines turned sharply, aiming their wrist lights in Lena’s direction. She was gone.

Copyright 2008 Jeff Edis. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Houston, Texas Wednesday, November 15, 2007
Megan Andrade glanced at her watch”ten minutes early, just as she had been most mornings. Neatly arranged on her desk were the same deportation documents that she had not had time to finish reviewing the day before. She had no sooner faced her computer to start her work than her friend, Jaime Cordova, from Detention and Removal, tapped on her office door.
“Hi, Megan,” he said. “Looks like you’re getting an early start.”
“Don’t tell me you’re bringing more for me to do,” she said without looking up.
“No uh, no,” he replied. “It’s not that. I need a favor.”
“Sure, what’s going on?”
“I have an illegal from Mexico in my office an eleven year-old boy. He was brought in by a Border Patrol agent”picked up by a constable at a wreck scene and turned over to the agent. I’m having trouble communicating with him.”
“Why is that?” she asked. “You don’t need me; you speak Spanish as well or better than I do.”
“I think he understands most of what I’m saying,” he said. “I don’t think it’s language. The boy has no physical injuries just scared, almost in a shock-like state. The chief thought you might be able to get him to talk.”
“How about family”any other family members in the wreck?”
“He’s the only survivor a horrible accident. I have sketchy reports: his mother and father were killed, the coyote was killed instantly also.”
“How sad the little boy is all alone.”
“Yeah, and we can’t get any information from him,” he said. “Do you have a few minutes to try?”
“You knew how I would answer that before you asked.”
Jaime laughed. “Guess I have been around you long enough to know. The chief said you would.”
“Let me finish this one report, and I’m with you won’t take long.”
“I’ll wait.”
“How’s Jeff?” asked Jaime, as they headed toward his office.
“Working too hard,” she answered. “His law firm is considering making him a full partner. Right now he’s trying to be as productive as possible. Today he’s trying a case out of town, won’t be home until almost midnight.”
“I’m sure he’ll make partner,” said Jaime. “You two make a good pair. I see you starting early every morning and staying late at night. Ever regret working for ICE?”
“It’s tiring work and it’s depressing at times, but I like it. How do you hold up to it seeing these destitute people flooding in here, only to have to be deported?”
“It is depressing. These people need so much help. Seeing this boy, thinking what he faces now without parents this is about the worst I’ve seen in a long time.”
“What’s his name?” asked Megan, as they approached Jaime’s office.
“Ignacio Narvaez,” replied Jaime. “It has taken all morning just to get his name. Take your time with him. We might have rushed him too much earlier” you’ll see what I mean. I’ll wait outside.” In the far corner of the large conference room, Ignacio sat on the floor with his legs pulled against his chest. His head rested on his knees as he stared vacantly toward the outside window. He didn’t move when Megan and Jaime entered.
“Ignacio,” said Jaime. “This is Megan. She’s here to help you. She’s going to ask you some questions.”
Ignacio looked at Megan briefly, his face devoid of any expression of recognition, and then turned back toward the window. Megan froze in her tracks; her raised eyebrows and dropped chin reflected her expression of astonishment. She stared at Ignacio for a few moments, shook her head, and edged back toward the door without speaking. Jaime came to her side.
“Megan are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“I I don’t know he, he resembles.”
“I’m sorry we can wait.”
“No, no I can do it.” She turned back toward Ignacio, appearing more composed. “I apologize, Jaime. I’m all right.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine, Give me some time with Ignacio.”
“I’ll be next door if you need me.”

Copyright 2008 Charles Clark. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.