Mecca , livre ebook

Ecw Press - William Deverell

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

233 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

'Arthur Ellis award winning William Deverell s 1983 bestseller An extremist warlord is about to unleash the world s deadliest shock troops. The Rotkommando an army of expert terrorists, political fanatics, and psychotic killers is armed with a failsafe masterplan. Codeword Mecca. Now the Rotkommando is poised on the brink of a crazed kamikaze mission to nuke Israel and ignite World War III. Only three people on Earth have the power to stop them: a burned-out poet with delusions of grandeur, a devout nymphomaniac with a taste for blood, and a desert guru who communes with camels. From Montreal, New York, and Washington to Paris, Berlin, and Saudi Arabia, Mecca thunders at white-knuckle speed through the knife-edge worlds of espionage and terrorism, where violence is a way of life and time is always running out '

Informations

Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	14 juin 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781773059495
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Mecca
William Deverell

Contents Praise for William Deverell Also by William Deverell Dedication Part I 1 2 Part II 3 4 5 6 7 8 Part III 9 10 11 12 13 14 Part IV 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Part V 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Part VI 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 Part VII 47 48 About the Author Copyright

Praise for William Deverell
Needles
“Deverell has a narrative style so lean that scenes and characters seem to explode on the page. He makes the evil of his plot breathtaking and his surprises like shattering glass.” — Philadelphia Bulletin
High Crimes
“Deverell’s lean mean style gives off sparks. A thriller of the first rank.” — Publishers Weekly
Mecca
“Here is another world-class thriller, fresh, bright, and topical.” — Globe and Mail
The Dance of Shiva
“The most gripping courtroom drama since Anatomy of a Murder .” — Globe and Mail
Platinum Blues
“A fast, credible, and very funny novel.” — The Sunday Times
Mindfield
“Deverell has a fine eye for evil and a remarkable sense of place.” — Globe and Mail
Kill All the Lawyers
“An indiscreet and entertaining mystery that will add to the author’s reputation as one of Canada’s finest mystery writers.” — The Gazette
Street Legal: The Betrayal
“Deverell injects more electricity into his novels than anyone currently writing in Canada — perhaps anywhere . . . The dialogue crackles, the characters live and breathe, and the pacing positively propels.” — London Free Press
Trial of Passion
“A ripsnortingly good thriller.” — Regina Leader-Post
Slander
“ Slander is simply excellent: a story that just yanks you along.” — Globe and Mail
The Laughing Falcon
“ The Laughing Falcon is, simply, a wonderful book.” — Sara Dowse, Vancouver Sun
Mind Games
“Deverell is firing on all cylinders.” — Winnipeg Free Press
April Fool
“A master storyteller with a wonderful sense of humour . . . one hell of a ride.” — Quill & Quire
Whipped
“[A] smart, funny, and cleverly plotted series.” — Toronto Star
Kill All the Judges
“Compelling. . . . For all its seemingly lighthearted humour, this is a work of great depth and complexity.” — Globe and Mail
Snow Job
“Fine writing and tongue-in-cheek delivery with acid shots at our political circus, and so close to reality that it seems even funnier.” — Hamilton Spectator
I’ll See You in My Dreams
“[Beauchamp is] endearingly complex, fallible, and fascinating.” — Publishers Weekly
Sing a Worried Song
“[Deverell] may be the most convincing of all writers of courtroom stories, way up there just beyond the lofty plateau occupied by such classic courtroom dramatists as Scott Turow and John Lescroart.” — Toronto Star
Stung
“William Deverell returns with another Arthur Beauchamp legal thriller: Timely! Nail-biting courtroom finish!” — Margaret Atwood

Also by William Deverell
Fiction Needles High Crimes Mecca The Dance of Shiva Platinum Blues Mindfield Kill All the Lawyers Street Legal: The Betrayal Trial of Passion Slander The Laughing Falcon Mind Games April Fool Whipped Kill All the Judges Snow Job I’ll See You in My Dreams Sing a Worried Song Stung
Non-Fiction A Life on Trial

Dedication
For my mother, Amy Grace, who possessed the gift of caring

Part I The Confessional
A wide variety of names have been coined for the art of obliterating one’s enemy. In one country they put him to death “ legally ” by an executioner and call it the death penalty; in another, they lie in wait with stiletto blades behind hedges and call it assassination; in another they organize obliteration on a grand scale and call it war. Let us, then, be practical, let us call ourselves murderers as our enemies do, let us take the moral horror out of this great historical tool. If to kill is always a crime, then it is forbidden equally to all; if it is not a crime, then it is permitted equally to all. Murder, both of individuals and masses, is an unavoidable instrument in the achievement of historical ends.
— Karl Heinzen, Der Mord , 1849

1
Monday, September 26, Gran Paradiso, Italy
Giuseppe Nero’s body was floating free, and he feared his mind was floating free from his body. Sanity was diffuse, uncertain. His hands were encased in thick foam mittens (a precaution, because yesterday Nero had ripped the oxygen mask from his face and had nearly drowned). The mask, the mittens, the electrode patches on his skin: otherwise he was naked in the nothingness of this dense saline solution, hearing the voice.
“Giuseppe Nero, where is Carlotta Calza?”
The voice of the old German general, calm, quiet, compelling. A terrible taste of nausea came to Nero’s throat each time he failed to answer, or answered with lies, but he could not vomit. He kept trying to will his brain back to his body.
Concentrate, or you will hear the voice. “The armed struggle of the urban guerrilla points toward two essential objectives,” Nero intoned.
The general’s voice cut through: “Giuseppe Nero, where are Carlotta Calza and her daughter?”
The words came to Nero from a microphone, through the cord that was taped to the air hose, into the zero-buoyancy isolation tank, known locally as The Confessional. The tube carried Dioxygone as well, the truth drug, addicting, pleasure-giving. But when the subject did not tell the truth, nausea.
“The first objective is the physical liquidation of the chiefs of the armed forces and police.” Concentrate, or you will hear the voice.
“Nero!”
“No . . . no.” Metallic green, the color of sickness, swirled about his eyes, and sickness engorged his throat, and he felt as if someone were moving through the rooms of his body, clicking off switches. Nero’s central nervous system was being torn by conflicting forces, the need for Dioxygone and its pleasure, and the need to fight it. “The accusation of terrorism no longer has the pejorative meaning it used to have.”
His voice was flat, drained. “It has acquired new clothing . . .”
“Giuseppe Nero, who is holding Signorina Calza and Giulietta? Is it The Shrike? Is it the Rotkommando?”
He tried to rotate his body in this black nothingness, biting his lip savagely and drawing blood. Yes, I feel pain; therefore I exist. “In order to function, urban guerrillas must be organized in small groups. The firing group —”
“He’s just spouting communist shit. This is a waste.”
General Hesselmann turned off the microphone after Hamilton Bakerfield’s outburst. “The communist shit, as you elegantly put it, are passages from his Bible. Marighella’s Mini-manual .”
Hesselmann knew he must curb the tendency to speak sneeringly to the American, who must have thought he was an overbearing prig. But Hesselmann couldn’t help it — he was not a warm person, was as stiff in his manner as in his bearing, which bore the stamp of old Prussian pride. He was the son and grandson of generals, ascetic, thin, bespectacled, immaculate except for a short thatch of white hair that obeyed no comb or brush.
Hamilton Bakerfield was Hesselmann’s second in command, a veteran of the CIA who had achieved a reputation as a terrorist expert. He had quit the agency a few years ago, completed his Master’s at the University of Chicago, developing his thesis into the standard text for handling hostage situations. He was a son of the south Chicago slums, a working-class Republican, free enterprise all the way, down with the welfare cheats. At fifty-three, he was large, bony, bald, pink-complected. His face was an angry russet color now.
“It isn’t working,” he said. “It’s hare-brained.” He glowered at Dr. Laurent Pétras as if the psychiatrist were to blame for their frustration.
“We must give it time,” said Pétras, looking coldly back at Bakerfield. “You had him for five days. You did nothing but harden the man’s will to resist.”
Pétras was a spare man of middle years with furry mutton-chop whiskers as bookends for a plain, flat face. The confession gas, Dioxygone, had been developed at his clinic in Brussels. The chemical was humane, he claimed, while Bakerfield’s old-fashioned methods were clearly not: there had been bruises on Giuseppe Nero’s body when the young astrophysics instructor had been placed in the isolation tank. Pétras had achieved some successes with volunteers on Dioxygone, but those volunteers had held no dark secrets.
“He will survive this, Dr. Pétras?” Hesselmann said. “You are sure?”
“Of course. Any mental aberration will d