Though not on the government payroll, Jason Peters kills for Uncle Sam. NARCOM is a private corporation that does what the CIA doesn’t have the nerve to do, and Peters is its best operative—until the job gets the best of him. He completes his last mission and happily retires to Italy, swearing to his girlfriend that he’s through with his deadly past. He has just settled into a peaceful life when NARCOM comes knocking.
A contractor for the organization has been shot while on assignment in Iceland, and refuses to talk to anyone but Peters. NARCOM convinces the ex-agent to go, swearing it will be a quick, fact-finding mission. But behind this simple assignment lurks a massive environmental conspiracy, and Peters quickly finds there is no one he can trust other than himself.
Though not on the government payroll, Jason Peters kills for Uncle Sam. NARCOM is a private corporation that does what the CIA doesn’t have the nerve to do, and Peters is its best operative—until the job gets the best of him. He completes his last mission and happily retires to Italy, swearing to his girlfriend that he’s through with his deadly past. He has just settled into a peaceful life when NARCOM comes knocking.
A contractor for the organization has been shot while on assignment in Iceland, and refuses to talk to anyone but Peters. NARCOM convinces the ex-agent to go, swearing it will be a quick, fact-finding mission. But behind this simple assignment lurks a massive environmental conspiracy, and Peters quickly finds there is no one he can trust other than himself.
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Overview
Though not on the government payroll, Jason Peters kills for Uncle Sam. NARCOM is a private corporation that does what the CIA doesn’t have the nerve to do, and Peters is its best operative—until the job gets the best of him. He completes his last mission and happily retires to Italy, swearing to his girlfriend that he’s through with his deadly past. He has just settled into a peaceful life when NARCOM comes knocking.
A contractor for the organization has been shot while on assignment in Iceland, and refuses to talk to anyone but Peters. NARCOM convinces the ex-agent to go, swearing it will be a quick, fact-finding mission. But behind this simple assignment lurks a massive environmental conspiracy, and Peters quickly finds there is no one he can trust other than himself.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781480405523 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 05/21/2013 |
| Pages: | 282 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Hot Ice
By Gregg Loomis
Robert Hale Limited
Copyright © 2012 Gregg LoomisAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7198-0838-8
CHAPTER 1
Sub-Saharan Africa
June of the present year
The white man wore a clerical collar and clergy black shirt. His bicycle left a narrow trail of red dust as it swerved between open sewers and around mounds of festering garbage in front of tin-roofed huts. Snarling, skeleton-like dogs trying to scavenge anything humans had not already taken growled but gave way. There weren't many of them left, the dogs. Cats had disappeared years ago. Most white priests had, too, if for different reasons.
A few Anglicans had remained, made near mad by the African sun, feverish with dengue or malaria or clinging to demonstrably false hopes they could improve the lives of those who lived here. Things had, as they say, gone from bad to worse under President for Life Amer Bugunda.
A freedom fighter in the heady days of collapsing empires, his rule had become as oppressive as any colonial power. Land reforms had taken fertile farms from the country's white citizens to be distributed to Bugunda's henchmen who neither knew or cared about agriculture. Unplanted and failed crops had led to famine which had led to unrest which had lead to a totalitarian government, a process too common in this part of the world. Disease, starvation, poverty. The endless cycle continued no matter how long the country's leader blamed the long gone colonial powers. The fact he received, repackaged and sold for personal profit every item of food or medicine donated by the world's sympathetic charities hardly ameliorated his people's misery.
The problems of the country were only tangentially the reason the man was here.
Behind a young woman carrying her child in one arm and using the other to push a cart laden with anemic looking mangos, he stopped at a military checkpoint at the far edge of what would only generously be described as a settlement. Two militamen, AK 47s slung carelessly over their shoulders, made ribald comments as they helped themselves to the fruit. Idly, he watched the two soldiers roughly fondle the terrified young mother as her child slipped from her embrace to dip hands into the fetid roadside ditch and drink. The immediate result would be quenched thirst; the long term was likely to bring typhoid, cholera or disease not yet diagnosed by modern medicine.
In the last two days, these arbitrary posts had proliferated like mushrooms during the rainy season. The man was well aware of the reason and thankful he had been warned such road-blocks were likely.
As he waited, he removed a tattered straw hat and wiped his brow with his forearm. His streaked blond hair, long for a priest, spoke of time spent in the sun as did his tanned skin. He had hoped to reach his destination before the worst of the day's soggy heat, which had already become a living monster, sucking the life from all it touched.
Dismounting his bike as the woman was finally passed through, he submitted to a rough body search as well as an inspection of the small knapsack tied to the handlebars. They would find nothing of interest unless they looked closely at his feet. He was wearing not the cheap shoes common to clergy in the area but steel toed, ankle high, waterproof boots, the sort issued to elite military units.
The boots might have raised suspicion among more alert or better trained military as would the man himself. Most priests here had spent the better part of their lives ministering to the needs of just one or two tribal villages. This one was young and muscular, the physique of a man both well fed and free of the intestinal parasites endemic to the region. That meant he was a recent arrival, which, in turn, was unusual. Not even the most dedicated to God were eager to practise their ministry here these days.
Fortunately for the man in the clerical collar, these troops were neither well trained nor alert.
He simply smiled at the insults in broken English. He kept the expression in place when one of the men in uniform snatched the hat from his head and tossed it into the stinking sewer.
'Colonial pig!' the soldier growled, using the epithet that included all white people here.
More eager to return to the shade of a towering mahogany tree than further torment or insult, the two militia waved him past. He toyed with the idea of retrieving the hat, considered the water in which it floated, and remounted.
Half a mile later, the road, no more than a trail, really, had narrowed to the point he could simultaneously have touched the dense bamboo groves on either side. He was well out of sight of the soldiers. He stopped, glancing around. It took him only a second to see it beside the path: a small flat rock on top of a larger one.
He dismounted again and lifted the bicycle off the dirt road and into what appeared to be a tangle of bamboo connected by impenetrable vines of strangler fig and the occasional hardwood that had spread its limbs to the sun before light-stealing bamboo had begun to sprout. Something slithered through the dead leaves at his feet and he froze, aware that few snakes here were harmless. He felt a warm trickle of sweat burn its way down his cheek as he stood motionless for what seemed an eternity but what his trained mind knew was less than two minutes. As he waited, his eyes searched the ground but saw nothing but vegetation.
He tentatively extended a foot and planted it.
Carefully, he took another step. By now he could see a narrow path perpendicular to the road he had been traveling. He stooped to cover the bicycle with dead leaves. The rest of the trip would be on foot. If there were patrols, he only hoped he saw them first.
A few more paces brought him to a dead baobob tree across the track. He examined the ground carefully before kneeling and reaching inside a hole in the trunk. From the tree trunk, he produced two objects: one was a large package wrapped in waterproof canvas. The second was an oblong steel box about three feet in length.
He opened the larger one first. Inside was a camouflage shirt, pants, body armor vest and a smaller package which contained a compass, steel mirror, grease paint in brown, green and black and a preprogrammed, hand-held global positioning indicator of the type used by hikers. Propping the mirror against the log, he quickly applied the paint to his face until it resembled the melange of colors around him. Standing, he stripped to his underwear, pulling on the clothing from the package. In the pants pockets he found a pair of cloth gloves which he put aside for the moment while he opened the metal box.
Inside was a disassembled Heckler & Koch PSG1 rifle with scope.
He would have preferred the larger, more accurate Walther WA 2000, but the WA was intolerant of the rough treatment the H&K had likely received on its way here. Plus, ammo for the Walther was not always available. Still, the H&K 7.62mm with its 815mps muzzle velocity would do quite well. The twenty five inch barrel and 8.1 kg weight were bulky but the blowback mechanism was more reliable than the WA's recoil if he needed a second shot.
Most important, the Heckler & Koch was used by armies all over the world: it was untraceable to any particular country.
He assembled the weapon and checked the five round magazine before he carefully put the scope in a pocket to be mounted later. Slipping through heavy growth presented too much of a risk of it being knocked askew, or, worse, scratching the lens.
Reaching into the larger parcel, he withdrew a large, fine mesh net. Most of it was already filled with paper and plastic flora, copies of that common to the area. He would complete his sniper's blanket when he reached his destination.
One item was missing. He found it under the camouflage blanket: a knife. The hilt was a replica of a cavalry saber with protective steel around the grip. The blade was ten inches long, no more than half an inch wide with finely honed cutting edges on both sides. It was a weapon he had designed himself, its thin double edge perfect for stabbing or slashing without the risk of getting entangled in bone or entrails. He pulled it halfway out of its scabbard, satisfied himself the edge was razor sharp and returned it to its case which he stuck in his belt.
Finally, he stuffed the vest into the hollow log. Too heavy and too hot. Besides, if he was in a situation where body armor would help, he would be dead soon anyway.
Although the bamboo gave some protection from the sun, it also cut off any breath of breeze. Moving deliberately, stopping every few feet to listen, he might as well have been hiking through a sauna. Thirst had replaced heat as the enemy of the moment. The back of his throat felt as though he been gargling dust and his tongue stuck to his teeth. He had a military canteen almost full, filled with presumably non-toxic water that morning; but he had a long day ahead. To run out after he was in position was to condemn himself to suffering far worse than he was experiencing at the moment. Reaching in a pocket, he pulled out a handful of salt tablets, dry swallowed two and continued on.
An hour later, he stopped, checked the GPS and sat in the darkest shadows he could find at a spot where the growth gave way to the waving grass of a savannah. Blue mountains in the distance were but a shadow on the horizon. To his left, golden weaver birds flitted among the branches of a giant, mushroom-shaped wild fig tree as they picked at the fruit or enticed dun-colored females to their sausage-shaped nests. The shade of its leaves would be tempting but the fruit was pollinated not by bees and bats but by very territorial black wasps. Multiple stings were not on his agenda.
Perhaps fifty yards further was a line of termite mounds, some higher than his head. Using these as cover, he moved from one to the next, pausing under a jackalberry growing from one of the towers of dried soil. The tree's ample girth, perhaps sixteen or more feet, gave welcome shade where he paused long enough to make certain he was still alone and to check the GPS again. He glanced up at the white flowers above his head before putting the instrument away and moving on, careful to make as small a ripple in the sea of grass as possible.
When he reached a few ragged rows of sun-browned maize, he stopped. Beyond was a field of waist-high weeds shared with stubby sprigs of millet, the source of the bitter beer that was the main beverage of the area. He listened to a symphony of insect buzzes, bird calls and sounds he could not identify before he heard it: human voices. They were both male and female, young and old and didn't seem to move: the sounds of a village. At the same time, the faint breeze shifted, bringing him a whiff of charcoal and sweat with the faint undertone of untreated sewage – the smell of human habitation.
A few more steps and he heard women's voices approaching. He flattened himself among the spindly stalks of millet just as two statuesque women balanced water jars on their heads as their graceful steps crossed what would have been his extended path. Each wore bright prints and were bedecked in beads and necklaces of small bones. Their heads were shaved except for a single queue.
He waited, listening as their voices faded. Then, he stood and unrolled the loose mesh that was his sniper's blanket. Picking grass here, weeds there, the few empty spaces in its mesh were soon filled. Cradling the rifle in one arm, he pulled the material over him. Instantly, the heat blurred his vision. Ignoring his discomfort, he began to crawl.
After about fifteen minutes, he stopped and peered through the gaps in the foliage of his cover. Twenty or so mud and thatch huts formed a semi-circle around a dirt square. In the middle of the open space, workmen were completing a platform. The men wore loincloths along with necklaces, anklets and arm bands of bone and fur. A few had headdresses of ostrich feathers, had painted faces and carried long spears. Few Africans dressed in native costume in their day-to-day lives. Today was a special occasion where the normal cheap, imported blue jeans, mail order dresses and flip flops had been temporarily put aside.
This was President for Life Bugunda's tribal village. He preferred its humble backdrop which emphasized his native Shana heritage to the palatial presidential palace in the capital when he made a speech he knew would be filmed or perhaps televised to the rest of the world.
The president was, by his own account, a humble man, was he not? A humble man who had removed the chain from his people's throat and set them free from the foot of the oppressor.
Perhaps.
He was undeniably fond of metaphors.
And today's would be a momentous speech indeed, if not the way the president intended.
For an instant, the sniper almost pitied whoever was in charge of the man's security detail. A building can be secured as tight as needed. But facing acres of open space with head-high grass? The President for Life fancied his people loved him in spite, perhaps because, of the postcolonial misery his hatred of the white man had brought upon them.
The sniper rolled onto his back, affixed the scope and returned to his stomach before he checked the scope's stability in its mount.
Ordinarily, the ravings of African dictators were ignored by Western civilization, the brutality of an Amin or Mugabe the source of amusing headlines somewhere in the inside pages of newspapers. Genocide? No threat to national security. Famine and plague? Quarantined by oceans.
The Western powers shed crocodile tears for starving children, AIDS infected populations and stone age economies. But what could they do? In their view, these African countries had chosen to shed the benefits of European occupation and were now suffering the predictable consequences. With the innocence of a virgin, the West was horrified at any suggestion of interfering. After all, look what had happened when the United States had attempted to bring order to Somalia: a dead marine dragged naked by the heels through the streets after his helicopter was shot down. This sort of thanks provided an embarrassingly quick exit from meddling in African politics.
Besides, there was no oil here.
Let the poor benighted heathens suffer in the mess they had made.
Except where national security was involved.
Months ago, Bugunda had startled the world, or at least the world's intelligence communities. ECHELON had picked up a series of telephone transmissions between Bugunda and eastern Pakistan. Thinly coded, they had been quickly deciphered. Bugunda would shortly be hosting Al Mohammed Moustaph, al-Qaida's number three man.
Although Bugunda was no threat outside his own borders, Moustaph was one of the world's most wanted men. Suspected of engineering train and subway bombings in Europe, an attempt to blow an international flight out of the air and a mass shooting at a beach resort in Australia, the various rewards offered exceeded the gross national product of most third-world countries.
That was when the sniper became involved.
CHAPTER 2Ischia Ponte, Isla de Ischia, Bay of Naples
Five Days Earlier
Brush in hand, Jason Peters stood in his villa's loggia before the easel, not quite content with the seascape he thought he'd finished. The jagged rocks of the coast were right; he could almost feel the spray. There was something not quite right with the color of the sea, though. Of course, that color changed hourly as the sun moved. A dark, almost black morning ocean became cerulean by noon, electric by sunset.
Perhaps the fishing boat needed to be painted out.
Perhaps acrylic was not the proper medium.
He bobbed his head as the mathematics of a Mozart concerto danced through the villa. Then he put down his brush and simply admired the same view he had enjoyed for the last three years. Half a mile away, the medieval Cathedral of the Assenta crowned a hill that dropped into the sea. He could also see the fifteenth-century causeway that joined the tiny hamlet to the larger island, a rugged bit of rock that jutted out of the water like some legendary sea monster about to devour a ship and its crew.
His view was not entirely for aesthetic purposes. With the high, rocky coast, the only approach to his villa was by that path and the single road that came up the hill to his front gate. There had been a time when he had first come here that security was more important than scenery.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Hot Ice by Gregg Loomis. Copyright © 2012 Gregg Loomis. Excerpted by permission of Robert Hale Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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