Prey of the Leopard

by Darryl James

Overview

In Sverdlovsk, USSR, in 1979, Dr. Olga Romanov is thrown into a sanitarium by the KGB to hush up her knowledge of a military research facility explosion that kills 75 people from Anthrax poisoning her children and husband. Olga is heavily drugged and is periodically raped by a deranged guard. She is recruited by a KGB Colonel who orders her taken off medication. With her body and mind clear of depressants, she kills the rapist and joins the Colonel's secret organization called Wildfire.
20 years later, CIA Section Chief Bill Jenson is tracking a mysterious assassin code named: "Leopard." A 'bad actor,' who's left a trail of death across Europe and the Middle East. A young, wealthy bachelor-oil-executive, Charles Johnson, flies to a business meeting in Kuwait and, at a nightclub, meets an attractive Austrian school teacher, Marlena Reinhart. That night, the couple is kidnapped by a Middle East terrorist group. The terrorist held harles for ransom. Marlena is beaten, raped, and planned to be killed. Worried about the terrorists' financing, the Leopard inspects the terrorists' safe house and is appalled that Marlena is being held as a sex slave by their Leader, Sayid. The Leopard takes the girl to a private hospital in Paris to recover.
Charles's dad, Tom Johnson, a Vice President with their Company, and a Security Officer, Tran Le Trang, rush to Kuwait to recover Charles. Tran, a former Viet Cong guerilla and police detective, helps Tom rescue his son. Tom recovers Arabic notes at the terrorist's house with references to the Leopard and Anthrax. The CIA's investigation leads to an oil field site in the western Iraqi desert with satellite evidence of SCUD missiles and Anthrax. A secret Special-Ops raid into Iraq using hi-tech Comanche helicopters destroys the missiles but fails to recover the Anthrax. The Leopard and Terrorist Leader smuggle the Anthrax into Israel to a modified crop-duster to spray Tel-Aviv
The Leopard's boss, the elderly former KGB Colonel, becomes upset with his prize operative, Dr. Olga Romanov, for rescuing the school teacher. He engages assassins to kill the Austrian girl and rid them of this distraction. The Colonel's hit-men raid the private hospital treating Marlena, but she and a nurse escape to the Parisian countryside.
Meanwhile, Tran accompanies the CIA into France, searching for Marlena as she links to the Leopard. The Colonel's hit-man finds the country house where the nurse and Marlena had fled and kills the nurse, but Tran hides Marlena in the forest, eluding the assassin.
In Israel, Charles, Bill Jensen, and the Israeli authorities arrive at the crop duster's hanger minutes after it departed on its deadly mission. The plane sprays a long thin cloud across Tel-Avis. The terrorist leader, Sayid, is pleased in the plane's cabin believing his mission was successful. He relaxes, picturing the trap he has laid for the Leopard. Sayid, suddenly, light-headed, from a needle prick with ricin toxin, learns that the Leopard had switched the Anthrax toxin with a harmless mixture. No Israelis were killed." Sayid, paralyzed, dies in the crop-duster.
Olga visits the Colonel at his villa in Spain. The Colonel points a revolver at her and pulls the trigger; the gun doesn't fire. The Colonel's manservant hurls him in his wheelchair off the balcony to the rocks below.
Charles and Marlena are treated to a lavish engagement party at his grandfather's ranch in New Mexico. From the woods, the Leopard's scope on her sniper rifle places cross-hairs on Marlena's chest. She whispers, "Goodbye, Marlena, have a wonderful life." To her spotter's amazement, she doesn't shoot. She and her puzzled accomplice quietly slip away toward the Mexican border.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160939490
Publisher:	Darryl James
Publication date:	06/12/2021
Series:	Leopard
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	945 KB

About the Author

The author has a B.S. and M.S. in geology from Rutgers University. A retired oil and gas executive, he has written four books. His first book, Phoenix 13, published by Pen and Sword, Ltd, ISBN 978 1 52675 942 9, was released January 2021 and sold in hardback and eBook formats in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. It is a chronological collection of short stories about him and his unit’s exploits flying a scout helicopter in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. He has published several short stories about flying in the VHPA Army Aviator and Americal Division Digest magazines.

Prey of the Leopard is part of a ‘Thriller’ series about the riveting female character, Dr. Olga Romanov, the Leopard. In the second book, The Leopard’s Wrath, the Leopard, now the head of Wildfire, transformed the organization into an intelligence-gathering entity tasked by the Americans to advise, analyze, and mitigate the terrorism sprouting up throughout the Western World. Has her moral compass shifted?
The author has an unpublished historical fiction about Texas in the Civil War titled The Legacy. It has parallel stories connecting the only women executed in Texas, Karla Tucker in 1998 and Chipita Rodriquez in 1858, and their tie to the Jarred Savage family ancestry and the Civil War naval battles off the Texas coast. This historical novel reaches back 140 years from two heinous murders and executions connecting to a mysterious naval button passed down, generation after generation, in the Jarred Savage family.
A fourth unpublished book, Surviving the Pandemic With ‘Quarantinis,’ is a quirky cocktail recipe book featuring roaring twenties cocktails. He says, “Sequestering in our 2020 bunker, my wife and I endured the isolation by having fun enjoying home-crafted cocktails. We held frequent 6:00 pm backyard ‘Happy Hours’ connecting with friends with often hilarious text messages, exchanging a picture of some cocktail creation.” Their efforts inspired the book.