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155 pages

English

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Description

Donovan Rourke, a CIA Special Agent, discovers a man named Katill will assassinate the world's eight most powerful leaders at the G8 Summit in Brussels in three days. The President asks Donovan to handle G8 security. Donovan agrees... but reluctantly. His wife was murdered there, and he blames himself. In Brussels, he sees the leaders are walking into the assassin's trap... and that it's too late to save them.

Sujets

True crime

Thriller

Informations

Publié par	Lighthouse Publishing
Date de parution	01 janvier 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780984617364
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0324€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

G8
Also by Mike Brogan
Business to Kill For
Dead Air
Madison s Avenue
G8
A suspense thriller
___________________________________
Mike Brogan
Lighthouse
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2013
by Mike Brogan
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-0-9846173-0-2 (Hardcover)
Library of Congress Control Number 2013952635
Printed in the United States of America
Published in the United States by Lighthouse Publishing
Cover design: Vong Lee
First Edition
For Marcie, Brendan, Chloe, Jay, and Ms. Brogan Dolata who s almost six.
Contents
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four
Twenty Five
Twenty Six
Twenty Seven
Twenty Eight
Twenty Nine
Thirty
Thirty One
Thirty Two
Thirty Three
Thirty Four
Thirty Five
Thirty Six
Thirty Seven
Thirty Eight
Thirty Nine
Forty
Forty One
Forty Two
Forty Three
Forty Four
Forty Five
Forty Six
Forty Seven
Forty Eight
Forty Nine
Fifty
Fifty One
Fifty Two
Fifty Three
Fifty Four
Fifty Five
Fifty Six
Fifty Seven
Fifty Eight
Fifty Nine
Sixty
Epilogue
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all my European colleagues, all you Belgian, French, English, Dutch, Italian, Scandinavian and German folks who provided me with the background and knowledge to make this story possible and for teaching this naive American the mysterious ways of Europe.
To my writing pals: Four-time Shamus Award winner Loren D. Estleman, and distinguished writers like Pete Barlow, Phil Rosette, Len Charla, Jim O Keefe, Annick Hivert Carthew, and gracious friends like John and Mary Ann Verdi-Hus - your helpful suggestions and guidance have made this story better. To Rebecca M. Lyles for her excellent, thoughtful editorial assistance and guidance.
And finally, to the late Elmore Leonard who advised me to spend a lot of time with the bad guys. I ve tried to do that in G8 .
ONE
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
K atill hid behind a thick oak tree in the For t de Soignes. He watched the lights go out in the master bedroom upstairs. Donovan Rourke and his wife, Emma, were going to sleep for the night.
Only one would wake up.
Two hours later, Katill pulled down his mask and climbed a rope to the second floor balcony. The balcony doors, as expected, were unlocked. He checked his suppressed Glock, stepped inside and walked past an exquisite Louis XV desk and an antique mahogany china cabinet. The scent of lemon curry lingered in the air.
He walked down to the master bedroom and entered. Moonlight filtered through the lace curtains onto a human shape in the large bed. One shape. Female. Emma.
Where is Donovan Rourke? I was told he was here! Most unfortunate.
So Plan B.
He moved to the bed and stared down at the woman. Attractive face inviting body.
Her eyes began to move beneath the lids. She seemed to sense his presence. He leaned closer. Her eyes opened, then her mouth. His hand muffled her scream.
Fighting back hard, she reached up and yanked his mask off and looked at his face. He was shocked! No one had ever seen him as he worked! Enraged, he slashed her neck with his knife. Her eyes widened as she realized what he d done. He watched blood pump from her severed arteries.
And moments later, he watched life drain from her eyes.
Noise. Behind him.
Donovan Rourke?
Stahl spun around. No one. He hurried down the hall, accidentally knocking the Mickey Mouse nightlight from the socket. The night-light was next to a door marked TISH in big sparkling letters. The door was open. He looked in.
Standing beside her bed, staring at him, was a young girl, maybe four. Old enough to remember.
She saw his face.
And maybe what he d done.
TWO
MANHATTAN
W ho s Fuzz ? Donovan Rourke asked on his cell phone as he sat in Heltberg s Bar , sipping his second beer.
BUZZ! Tish said.
Oh
Buzz Lightyear!
Who s he?
He s a space ranger!
Wow!
And he s at Macy s. Can we please go get him?
Hmmmmmm
Tonight, please ?
Hmmmmmm Well, okay.
Her squeal might have injured his eardrum.
After hanging up, Donovan admitted yet again that he was a push-over when it came to his beautiful, five-year-old daughter. Tish was the love of his life. He d do almost anything to make her happy, and help make up for the loss of her mother.
Donovan looked around the bar. Some New York University students drinking pitchers of beer. A businessman nursing his third scotch. A fat guy sleeping on a barstool who hadn t moved a muscle in thirty minutes. The guy could be dead.
Dead like Benny Ahrens, Donovan thought. Benny, his friend, was killed because of a piece of paper. The same paper Donovan now held in his own hand.
A cute, green-haired waitress walked by and winked at him. He smiled back and figured he must not look too bad for a thirty-four-year-old guy who d spent the last ten years of his life avoiding people trying to end it.
So far, no bullet scars above the neck. Four limbs that worked. The family jewels intact. And a six-foot-two inch frame that could still run five miles in thirty-six minutes, and even faster if he was being shot at, which was quite likely because of the paper in his hand.
Green Hair placed a bowl of roasted peanuts on his table.
Peace, she said, winking and sashaying away.
And may Benny Ahrens rest in peace.
Yesterday, Benny, a Mossad agent, had discovered the deadly note. The message on it was written in some ancient cryptic symbols that meant absolutely nothing to Donovan.
But meant death to Benny. And Donovan feared it could mean death to Professor Sohan Singh who was meeting Donovan here in twenty-five minutes, unless Donovan phoned him and told him not to come.
But Donovan had strict orders - Give the message to Singh. He s our best shot at translating it. And orders must always be followed, right?
Wrong. There s a time to screw orders. Like when his gut told him to. Like now. He pulled out his phone, dialed Sohan s cell and was bounced into voice mail and left a message saying, Sohan, everything worked out. We don t need your help now. But thanks anyway. I ll call you later.
It bothered Donovan that he lied so easily. But then his job paid him to lie.
As he hung up, the bar door opened. A strong blast of Manhattan bus fumes swept in along with Professor Sohan Singh, twenty minutes early. Singh, a slender, well-dressed man in his early sixties looked around and smiled at Donovan.
Donovan waved his former NYU French professor over. They shook hands and sat at the table.
So, Singh said, you re going to beg me for another racquetball rematch?
Donovan smiled. I m going to beg you to walk back out of this bar.
Singh stared back.
This thing is too risky, Sohan.
A translation thing?
Yeah.
Singh glanced down at the note in Rourke s hand.
Would that be the translation thing?
It would.
Donovan scanned the bar and made sure no one was paying attention to them. No one was.
Sohan this note is deadly.
Green Hair appeared. Singh ordered a Heineken and seconds later she set a frosty bottle in front of him.
Why so deadly?
We don t know yet. But my Mossad friend was just killed a mile from here because of it. He intercepted the message and told me it was very serious and very urgent. The NSA cryptographers are at a loss to translate it. They re convinced the symbols are some very ancient Middle Eastern language. They say you can translate it much faster than they ever will.
Singh sipped his beer.
But Sohan, trust me, this note is -
Hazardous to my buns?
Very.
And one s buns are still pro-choice, right?
Donovan nodded.
And this note is important to our country s security?
Benny Ahrens said it was.
So give me the damn message or I ll bore you again with amazing but true saga of how my poor dear mother scrubbed floors on a Calcutta steamer coming to this land of the unwashed masses yearning to be free.
As Donovan started to protest again, Singh snatched the paper from his hand and began studying it. Singh sipped some beer. A drop splashed onto the message, but he didn t seem to notice. Donovan studied his former professor. Still scholarly and relaxed. Maybe a bit more gray around the temples, another crinkle around the eyes, an extra liver spot on his hand. His brown tweed sports coat matched his turtleneck. And his pipe ashes, as usual, had sprinkled onto his Hush Puppies.
Donovan worried that Singh was helping.
But then the CIA paid Donovan to worry. And lie. And get shot at.
The NSA is right, Singh said.
Very old symbols?
Old as dirt. In fact, they were first written in dirt. I m quite certain they re Sumarian, maybe Mesopotamian. Around 3,500 B.C. Each cuneiform pictogram, or mark and symbol represents a word.
Can you translate it?
Depends
On what?
On whether certain symbols are in some old books at my apartment. Which reminds me, I have to get back there. My daughter, you remember Maccabee, she s coming in from Princeton tonight and I promised to cook dinner. I ll call you as soon as I have something.
Donovan nodded and remembered Singh s daughter. Singh had been incredibly proud of her when she followed his footsteps and became a professor of foreign languages.
How is Maccabee?
Singh smiled. Beautiful, and smart like me.
* * *
Dumb like you! whispered Milan Slavitch, a thickset man, sitting in a dark blue Toyota van ten feet from Heltberg s Bar . He d listened to Rourke s conversation with Singh through a laser eavesdropping device that picked up their voice vibrations from the bar s window.
Slavitch sipped absinthe from a silver flask, then