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185 pages

English

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Nick Paice is a newsman who has seen and had better times. Covering conflicts and disasters around the world brought its success, but at a heavy personal price. Being one of the best in the business was achieved by a ruthless and often callous pursuit of the story that left ruined reputations and broken lives, not to mention a wrecked marriage and estranged children, in its alcoholic wake.Disillusionment has set in. The world of news is changing, and, for Paice, not for the better. Can he change with it and does he want to? With his enthusiasm on the wane, the stories have stopped coming. But the job is his life, and his life is the job. He needs a big break to get them both back on track. When it comes it is in the form of a mysterious figure with a bloodstained past and a tale that could put Paice back on top. The passion for news that made him the best is rekindled and the old fervour returns.Paice is bad at making friends and good at making enemies. A multi-millionaire fraudster, former Irish terrorists, and a genocidal killer from an African conflict count themselves among the latter. Only when the body count rises and the bullets fly does Paice realise that he may be pursuing a headline to die for.This is a story of financial fraud, old enemies out to settle scores, a covert military operation that went wrong, and powerful people determined to stop Paice revealing the truth at any cost. But will Paice find himself back on the front page - or in the morgue?

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Publié par	eBook Versions
Date de parution	13 juin 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781843964476
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Published in the United
Kingdom by Fulmar Publishing

Copyright © 2013, 2017 Ian Church

Ian Church has asserted his
Right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified
as the copyright holder of this work.

ISBN 978-1-84396-088-1

eBook production
eBook Versions
27 Old Gloucester Street
London WC1N 3AX
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The characters, places and events
described in this novel are entirely
fictional and figments of the author s
imagination. The people, places and
organisations described do not exist.
The presence of names that are shared by
living persons or actual organisations is
the result of unintended coincidence.

All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in
or introduced into a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means
electronic, photomechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Any person who does any unauthorised act
in relation to this publication may be liable
to criminal and/or civil prosecution.
Harvest of Blood
The sequel to The Remains of the Living
now available in paperback and as a Kindle ebook

What keeps you alive can get you killed when money, politics and power collide in a ruthless international criminal conspiracy.

Nick Paice is in trouble again as he finds himself embroiled in another dangerous exploit. Once more his life is on the line.

A simple mission to bring home a missing girl sucks him ever deeper into a quagmire of violence and subterfuge where heruns head on into political corruption, crooked financial deals and a doctor who’s peddling death in a desperate bid to survive.

Paice knows that staying alive to write the big story depends on keeping one step ahead on a dangerous path that’s strewn with illicit diamonds, deception and death.
Dedication

This book is dedicated to four
remarkable women in my life - Christine,
Nicola, Ellie and Isabel - and to Joe.
Their combined encouragement and
inspiration were essential in enabling me
to write it.

I express my sincerest thanks
also to Steve and to Zoe - without whose
support, expertise and generosity this
novel would be a pointless file cluttering
up my hard drive. I wrote it - but without
all the aforementioned, you would not
be reading it now.
THE
REMAINS OF
THE
LIVING

Ian Church

FULMAR PUBLISHING
Contents

Cover
Copyright Credits
Harvest of Blood Preview
Dedication

Title Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Prologue

The short staccato bursts of automatic fire told him they were in trouble. They d been caught in the open and there was no cover, nowhere to run.
A command shouted from behind the green wall of the jungle that bordered the clearing was not in English, but it needed no translation. Move and you re dead. Why didn t Harry get the message? Instead, he returned fire and that was fatal – for him. Three, maybe four, of them opened up on him. He took hits to the body and the head. He d moved. He was dead. He wasn t moving now.
The Cessna was standing, waiting for them, no more than an agonisingly close 200 metres away. Its engine was ticking over, the propeller turning slowly, seductively beckoning them, taunting them to go for it, to get to it, get to safety.
Bullets thudded into the earth around his feet throwing up small fountains of earth. Could he cover those 200 metres faster than a hail of fire? He knew the answer and threw himself flat to the ground. Fight or flight didn t come into it. The basic instinct of survival had taken control and it told him that, more than anything, he wanted to live.
Over the racket of the gunfire he heard the buzzing whine of the Lycoming engine increasing revs as the pilot demanded maximum power. The aircraft moved painfully slowly as it positioned for takeoff. He watched as it gathered speed and slowly lifted off, pursued by an intense barrage of shots. Then it was gone. It must have taken plenty of hits, but nothing terminal. Now he knew for sure that it was all over. They were on their own.
The firing ceased, the aircraft was out of sight, and now the silence was shattering. He buried his face in the earth, awaiting the inevitable. More shouted commands, boots rushing towards him, then steel toecaps crashing into his body before he was yanked to his feet with more body blows. He struggled to look around him. No sign of Eduardo, so, as far as he could see he was the last man standing. From the corner of his eye he saw the stock of the AK47 an instant before it crashed into his temple. He yelled out in pain. Then darkness.
It was that cry that woke him, breathless and in a panic. He started forward, then slumped back in his chair. Christ, he didn t know which was worse, to be awake and endure the memories or to sleep and suffer the nightmares.
There was a third way. He looked at the gun that was still in his hand. This couldn t go on. It had to end. He put the barrel into his mouth. It was stainless steel with a bit of chrome and a dash of nickel. Not that he could detect the ingredients. To him the taste was mildly disagreeably metallic. He wasn t complaining. The front sight bit into the roof of his mouth. He wasn t complaining about that either. No point. In a few seconds, none of that would matter.
But he had to get his aim right. He should be good at this. He d fired at plenty of people and hit most of them. But it was different this time. This wasn t a case of just stopping someone. It had to be a quick finish with no mistakes. That meant putting the bullet clean through the middle of his brain, through the cortex where the memories were stored, not sending it off at some inept angle that would remove a bit of his brain and a bit of his face and reduce him to a disfigured, living vegetable. And still leave him with the memories. And the guilt.
He wanted to blast them all away, to obliterate them, give them no chance of tagging along with him on that short, sharp journey to oblivion.
The .38 calibre was certainly capable of doing what he wanted, but he had to be sure. He pressed the trigger guard down hard against his chin and, disregarding the pain, pushed the muzzle further up and in. His finger tightened on the trigger.
He d been here before. Several times. Pull the trigger. Finish it. It was certainly what they wanted. Keep your mouth shut, they d said, because if it gets out and there s a shitstorm, it s your head it will come down on. So they want him to keep quiet? Well, there s nothing more silent than a pile of rotting remains in a coffin. But why put it all on him? Among all those victims, they seemed to forget that he was a victim, too.
He was bloody sure that they weren t going through this agony. It had all been their idea and they d set it up, but now they didn t give it a second thought, except when he reminded them. And they didn t like that.
Well fuck them. They didn t have the depression bordering on a nervous breakdown. They didn t suffer the nightmares. When they closed their eyes, they didn t see the slaughter, the mothers clutching their babies in a lifeless, contorted embrace. They didn t have to remember the twisted bodies of the dead. They d like nothing more than for him to blow his brains out. Then the whole stinking episode could be forgotten – buried with him. Very convenient.
He removed the gun from his mouth, laid it in his lap, and fingered the silver locket that hung from around his neck. The whole operation had been a disaster, but that wasn t down to him. He d followed the brief, done what he was ordered. He d been there and seen it, unlike them, which was why he had to live with it and they didn t. And he was the one who d paid the price – was still paying it. But they d covered the whole thing up and had come out of it with hands and conscience clean and pure.
He lit a cigarette and poured himself half a tumbler of Scotch. He rubbed his thumb gently across the silver surface of the pendant. Using his thumbnail, he prised it open. From one half, a pretty, dark-haired girl grinned mischievously at him. The other half was empty. What had been there was gone. All he had left was that picture of Susie, and that represented just another memory, but this was one that he wanted to hang on to. He looked at the vacant space where his wife s picture had been. But when she went, her photo had followed suit.
How long had he been gone – months, not even a year? And where was she when he got back? With someone else, that s where. Well, to hell with her. The truth was that it was Susie who d pulled him through. In the darkness he could see her face, and every time he woke he could feel her tightly gripping his finger.
He came to terms with the constant, shattering disappointment when he realised that it had been only a dream. But it was a dream that had provided life support. Without it, without Susie, he would never have made it. He d had to hang on for her.
Even now he awoke feeling her hand holding his. Again, it was a dream, because she was gone. His wife – ex-wife – despised and resented him for that. He hadn t been around in those days of shock and loss when she d needed him so badly