Trigger Point E-Book

Douglas Misquita

• Herausgeber: Pencil
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 439

Beschreibung

About the Book: Smuggling himself into Europe despite an Interpol Red Notice? Possible. Avenging a German BKA officer? Easy. Evading special ops teams hunting him for his secrets? Impossible. Things are about to get more… interesting for Luc Fortesque. An escaped terrorist threatens a landmark dialogue between Muslims and Christians. More terrifying is the theft of a bioweapon from a secret vault operated by the Holy See. That the damaging news is not public hints the weapon will be detonated. With cataclysm imminent, the world’s oldest espionage agency – the Vatican’s L’ Entity – must get Fortesque first, hoping he might possess the cure. Treachery and corruption infect the upper echelons of religion and government, and Fortesque must confront his past to be free of it. If he survives the confrontation.

About the Author: Douglas Misquita is an action thriller novelist. He wrote his first story at the age of 13 on a 100-page school exercise book and drafted his debut novel in engineering college. Since 2010, he has released a book every year. His books have won Gold and Silver Literary Titan awards; and accolades from readersfavorite.com, therealbookspy.com and bestthrillers.com for their pace, visuals, interwoven plots and relevance to contemporary world events. He lives in Mumbai, India with his family and guitars. Find out more at: www.douglasmisquita.com www.facebook.com/douglasmisquitabooks www.goodreads.com/douglasmisquita

Leseprobe

TRIGGER POINT

by

Douglas Misquita

A Luc Fortesque adventure thriller

ISBN: 978-93-90463-14-5

©Douglas Misquita 2020

Published in India 2020 by Pencil

A brand of

One Point Six Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

123, Building J2, Shram Seva Premises,

Wadala Truck Terminal, Wadala (E)

Mumbai 400037, Maharashtra, INDIA

E [email protected]

W www.thepencilapp.com

All rights reserved worldwide

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, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Any person who commits an unauthorized act in relation to this publication can be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. The opinions expressed in this book do not seek to reflect the views of the Publisher.

Douglas Misquita is an action thriller novelist. He wrote his first story at the age of 13 on a 100-page school exercise book and drafted his debut novel in engineering college. Since 2010, he has released a book every year. His books have won Gold and Silver Literary Titan awards; and accolades from readersfavorite.com, therealbookspy.com and bestthrillers.com for their pace, visuals, interwoven plots and relevance to contemporary world events.

He lives in Mumbai, India with his family and guitars.

Find out more at:

www.douglasmisquita.com

www.facebook.com/douglasmisquitabooks

www.goodreads.com/douglasmisquita

Other books by Douglas Misquita

Fiction

Trigger Point (Luc Fortesque #3)

Spectre (Kirk Ingram #3)

Lion – Escape from Russia (Escape #1)

The Immortality Trigger (Luc Fortesque #2)

Diablo (Kirk Ingram #2)

The Apocalypse Trigger (Luc Fortesque #1)

Secret of the Scribe

Haunted (Kirk Ingram #1)

Non-Fiction

Impressions of Egypt

Available as a free download

Know Thy Enemy (the prelude to The Apocalypse Trigger)

For Kenneth Mascarenhas.Thank you for all you do for our family.

“So, this [violence] is not unique to one groupor one religion. There is a tendency in us, a sinfultendency that can pervert and distort our faith.”

— Former President of the United States,Barack Obama, speaking at the National PrayerBreakfast, 5 February 2015

Prologue

Iraq, February 2006

Steve Hunley needed to be credible as a mercenary-turned-warmonger.

He and his ‘henchmen’ arrived in two Land Rovers. The gleaming black exteriors of the vehicles were now stained a dusty brown after months in the desert wilderness of Iraq. The windscreen wipers had left twin arcing swathes in the tinted glass. Even as the dust cloud was settling, Hunley and his guys climbed out. Wraparound sunglasses shaded their eyes, preserved their vision under a brilliant sun.

To say it was hot was an understatement. Yet, for the act, Hunley slung his business jacket over his left shoulder. This was, after all, business. The mid-day sun glinted off the big shiny item slung under his left arm.

A Colt Marlin BFR – Big Frame Revolver. Big Fucking Revolver. A canon in a holster. Not a sidearm for a pussy soldier. The BFR sent a clear message: Hunley was a soldier‘s soldier. A battle-hardened, world-weary man who had tangoed with everything armed conflicts could throw at a soldier… and had come out alive and kicking.

This was the kind of guy who cultivated contacts and sources and lacked a moral compass because he knew there was no such thing as good and bad. There was only selfish interest. Anybody who believed differently was a fool.

And as such, Hunley could draw on his experiences for his convincing portrayal of a selfish warmonger.

The mid-day sun also glinted off the gold Rolex adorning his wrist. This, and the finely tailored blue-grey jacket with its matching trousers, and a virgin-white shirt bestowed a veneer of refinement upon the soldier‘s roughness. Of everything he wore, Hunley found the Rolex to be the most uncomfortable. A luxury accessory that ticked time for a ridiculous price. Yet, it was a sign of change: the soldier had upgraded to a shrewd businessman. On most occasions he had others who killed on his orders. He did not get his hands dirty anymore — unless somebody deserved his personal, ruthless attention.

So, what was a businessman doing in the Iraqi wilderness? Weren‘t there better places to conduct business?

Well, selling weapons-grade plutonium core was not the kind of business you conducted over gastronomical delights at an upscale Michelin starred restaurant.

Hunley pressed a monocular to his eye. His team was in the east end of a gulch. At a range of two hundred feet, the buyers came into focus. Hunley panned the monocular, taking in the attendance.

As usual, there were the technicals — four of them. The Toyota pickups with Russian machine guns bolted to the carrier beds were the main fighting vehicles of the insurgents. That Toyota‘s civilian vehicles performed reliably in harsh environs against military vehicles was a great, albeit awkward endorsement for the Japanese manufacturer. Each technical carried a crew of six, their faces swaddled in keffiyehs. They were armed with a motley of Chinese and Russian produced rifles and displayed their gun belts prominently.

That wasn‘t all. Parked between the technicals was a Toyota Land Cruiser. White with pitch-black windows. A cluster of three men surrounded the Land Cruiser. Hunley deduced this was the boss‘s carriage and the trio was his close protection detail.

Allegedly, the boss was inside.

Hunley‘s group, numbering eight, were up against twenty-seven buyers. Twenty-eight if Hunley included the boss. A show of intimidation, Hunley thought dismissively. Terrorists compensating for the size of their dicks.

The boss. Real name, Unknown. He had assumed the alias of Nur ad-Din, to imbibe the aura of the historic Turkish atabeg, the bane of the crusaders in Syria. The man who had arranged five-point-eight million US dollars cash to possess the plutonium core that was sitting in the east end of the gulch.

Hunley wondered how many gallons of oil had been smuggled, how many kilograms of heroin had been sold in the streets of Europe and America, how many humans had been trafficked as slaves, how many priceless historical artefacts had been black-marketed into private collections to fund this purchase.

It was money tainted by an evil that harmed innocents. No good would ever come of it.

Then, there was another, more optimistic perspective: the prayers, hopes, and curses of every soul touched by that evil was being heard today.

Because, Hunley did not have a plutonium core.

Listening and watching the entire exchange remotely was the MI6 station chief for Iraq, Matthew Corney, and his team of two analysts. Also patched in, four thousand kilometres north west, in a giant command and control room, was Vauxhall Cross itself. And there were also the lawyers in attendance, the guys who protected the politicians from fallout if the exchange went sideways and claimed indigenous lives.

The lawyers made Hunley nervous. Their presence was mandated to ensure the United Kingdom was not in contravention of any international laws. Yet, their endless bickering on legal positions and the ramifications of action could cost him a mission that depended on split-second decisions. Not to mention the lives of his men.

He suppressed a surge of indignation.

The lawyers were probably ensconced in a regal room, sitting in high-backed Victorian-era armchairs, sipping tea and dipping biscuits in tea, their pinky fingers sticking out daintily, totally removed from the gravity of the situation in the godforsaken gulch.

For all the show of intimidation at the gulch‘s west end, for all his misgivings about the remote support, there was one thing that assured Hunley.

It circled overhead, in the form of a USAF Predator drone, invisible to the buyers, armed with two Hellfire missiles, ready to blast Nur ad-Din to kingdom come… on Hunley‘s signal.

At least that operational command had not been wrested from him. He had fought tooth and nail to have it.

And was glad for it.

In the monocular‘s viewfinder, one of Nur ad-Din‘s close protection detail raised a phone to his ear. After a slight delay, Hunley‘s phone trilled.

Here we go.

Hunley set the monocular on the Land Rover‘s hood and answered his phone.

“You have the plutonium core?”

Hunley snapped his fingers – as was expected of his character – and one of his henchmen produced a silver Samsonite military-grade suitcase, held it in plain sight.

“You have the money?” he asked with a touch of impatience.

The buyer mimicked Hunley: fingers snapped, and two insurgents hefted four trolley bags, one from each technical.

The undercover operative beside Hunley, a guy he trusted from their days in the SAS, was looking through the viewfinder. He gestured and Hunley muted his phone. The guy whispered, “I have a visual on Doctor Abbas Aboudi.”

Abbas Aboudi, Iranian nuclear physicist, reported missing a month ago.

As he spoke, an image captured by the monocular was already being processed by MI6. A confirmation arrived on the team‘s comms. “Confirmed identity as Abbas Aboudi, Iranian nuclear physicist.”

But…

Hunley unmuted the phone, demanded, “Where is Nur ad-Din?”

“He is in the car.”

“I want to see him. The deal was for Nur adDin to be present.”

“And he is.” Hunley detected the smirk in that response. “Now we will proceed.”

The exchange would occur at the midpoint of the gulch. Two of Hunley‘s team would carry the Samsonite over. Two of Nur ad-Din‘s would carry the money over. The Iranian would verify the plutonium core, the money would exchange hands, the Samsonite would exchange hands.

Except that Hunley couldn‘t let it get that far. The moment the Samsonite was scanned the bluff would be called.

“Get Nur ad-Din out!” came the terse order over his earpiece.

“How do I know this is not a setup?” Hunley asked his peer across the gulch.

“It is not.”

“I want Nur ad-Din to show himself. Then, we proceed.”

“Predator has acquired the target,” Hunley was informed casually. This, by an inflexionless voice reaching him from a UAV command centre in Nevada, USA.

“They’re stalling,” Hunley‘s buddy worried aloud.

“We have the money. If you have the core, then we do business now!” Nur ad-Din‘s guy was insistent, nervous.

Hunley pressed the phone’s mic to his shirt. He appeared to be conversing with his buddy. “He‘s not here!” Hunley decided aloud for everybody on the comms network to hear.

“What?” came the voice from Vauxhall.

Hunley’s buddy tensed.

“He’s not here,” Hunley repeated. “Don’t ask me how I know, but he’s a no show.”

“How can you be sure?” Vauxhall insisted.

Hunley’s station chief came out in support of Hunley. “I trust Hunley’s assessment.”

The airwaves devolved into an argument between the station chief and Vauxhall. Hunley was aware the lawyers would be complicating matters at this new intelligence. They had all the time in the world.

Hunley didn’t.

“We’re going ahead,” he blurted.

“What?”

Hunley spoke into the phone. “Okay, we proceed.”

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” Hunley’s friend said as he and the SAS operator with the Samsonite readied to go to the meeting point.

Hunley disconnected the line.

“New mission: we grab Abbas Aboudi and blow the rest!”

The representatives of the sellers and the buyers closed the gap. Abbas Aboudi was preparing his scanner. Through the monocular, Hunley could see one of the money bearers checking in with Aboudi.

“They’re checking,” he informed his ‘reps’.

Aboudi was holding his own, the brains probably telling the brawn that the Samsonite was shielded and that was affecting the scanner’s reading. But the moment of truth — when the Samsonite needed to be opened — was drawing nearer. Hunley assumed the men with the money bags had a crash course in how a radiation scanner worked. If it didn’t register plutonium, it wouldn’t beep frantically enough, and the game would be up.

The representatives were twenty feet apart when one of Hunley’s guys shouted, “Contact right!”

A SAS operator never loses situational awareness. Hunley’s guys had been continuously scanning the area and one of them had spied a trickle of stones from the right wall of the gulch…

A preamble to the revelation that the SAS undercover operators had walked into a trap.

No sooner was the alarm raised than a rocket SHOOMED out on a smoking contrail and slammed into Hunley’s Land Rover. The blast kicked the SUV into the air on a ball of fire, and Hunley felt his ribcage collapse. He was thrown against the left wall of the gulch with enough impact to knock him out.

At the meeting point, the insurgents opened fire on Hunley’s men, killing them before retreating.

The SAS operators with the second Land Rover were retaliating but they had a disadvantage of numbers. And the gulch was filled with disorienting smoke and flame. The ambushers opened fire from the vantage positions as the SAS team took cover behind the doors of the surviving Land Rover.

Nur ad-Din’s machine gunners in their technical unleashed a devastating barrage of lead across the gulch, ripping into earth, SUV and humans alike.

Hunley regained consciousness only to have a bullet cut a crevasse in his face. Miraculously it did not kill him, but the left side of his jaw remained connected to his face by strings of sinew and skin. He crawled behind a rock. He wanted to call in the drone strike, but his mouth was non-functional.

Thankfully, Vauxhall and the station chief concurred. By another miracle, the lawyers — shocked at the sudden brutality with which an entire team of Britishers had been killed — did not disapprove the strike.

In a split second, Nur ad-Din’s men were dispatched to eternal damnation courtesy a Hellfire missile.

Fearing a second strike, the insurgents who had encircled the Britishers scurried away, discarding their rocket launcher, covering their retreat with pot shots.

The remote teams were glued to the images fed to their screens by the Predator. The smoke was clearing to reveal a man-made alteration to the gulch’s west end, strewn with charred bodies and vehicles. The hammer blow had eradicated twenty-four insurgents. They had a view of Dr Abbas Aboudi stirring, picking himself up, and running toward the east end. Was he hoping to escape the clutches of his abductors? He didn’t make his freedom. One of the insurgents who had accompanied him with the money bags came to, spotted the fleeing Iranian, and cut him down with a short burst from his rifle. Then the insurgent abandoned the bags and fled westward.

There it was then. The bags were phonies. Nobody would abandon five point six million US in the open.

And on the east, Hunley’s Land Rover still burned furiously. The other Land Rover looked like Swiss cheese. One of the lawyers overturned his chair in his haste for the toilet, clamping a hand over his mouth at the images of splotchy red, black and brown masses that had just seconds ago been living human beings. Faces at Vauxhall were ashen. Silence reigned supreme. Embarrassment and anger at the colossal mission failure burned as furiously as Hunley’s Land Rover.

And somewhere, from his secret hideout, Nur ad-Din was ranting into a video camera, gloating over another failed attempt by the West to capture him, and encouraging impressionable and hot-blooded Muslim youth to join the jihad against the infidels.

1

Paris, France, 29 June 2014

Lutetian stone, which bestows a unique visual appeal upon Paris, was mined from quarries south of the historic limits of the city. As Paris grew, its arrondissements sprawled over the maze of abandoned mines and the interconnecting tunnels. In 1777, a 300-ft cave-in prompted King Louis XVI to commission the office of the Inspection Générale des Carrières. Its mandate: map and inspect the mines to strengthen the foundations, as it were, of Paris.

Simultaneously, 18 th century Paris faced a public health issue: its cemeteries were overflowing and the largest, Saints Innocents, rose above street level, casting an unhygienic shadow over Les Halles, the adjacent marketplace. Several edicts by the king to restrict the use of the cemetery were thwarted by the church which profited from burial fees. After the basement of an abutting house collapsed, a law prohibiting burials within the city was enforced.

The problem of what to do with millions of bodies interred in the city’s cemeteries coincided with the inspection of the mines. The police prefect decided to exhume and transfer the remains to a designated section of the mines, called Tombe Issoire. The plan was secretly executed and took two years to empty the city’s cemeteries of six million bones.

In 1810, the director of Inspection Générale des Carrières transformed the haphazard dumping of bones into a macabre work of art — a mausoleum made popular as the Paris Catacombs. Today, the catacombs is a museum and a venue for public events, including parties and concerts.

Also, most of it is off-limits and unmapped.

The Respect for the Dead party is held every other month in the Paris Catacombs. The DJ console is a hair-raising bas relief of dancing, dismembered skeletons. Music is beamed wirelessly to the guests’ headphones. Pulsing strobe lights illuminate a surreal, flickering scene beneath a vaulted ceiling: hundreds of revellers gyrating before the lifeless gaze of thousands of human skulls, a long-dead audience from a generation that could not imagine electronic music, let alone wireless technology.

Aruna Roy had recently made partner with a consultancy firm in Mumbai, India. She and a colleague were in Europe to celebrate. And what better way to celebrate than to attend one of Paris’s semi-secret theme parties. Tonight’s theme was Venice in Paris. Everybody was in period attire — gowns, corsets, feathered masks, pointy-beak Black Death masks, wigs.

Her friend nudged her. Aruna looked to find they were being checked out by a pair of guys. No, she told herself with an inward smile of satisfaction… to be period-accurate, Doges of Venice. Reading the unspoken invitation, the Doges sauntered over.

Their senses intoxicated, their inhibitions lulled by a mix of freely flowing alcohol and drugs, the strangers were ready to explore their baser instincts as the night wore on.

The slick music assumed an urging beat, Aruna and her Doge were grinding against each other. She lost sight of her friend and didn’t care. She was only aware of a spreading warmth within her body. She felt the Doge’s breath on her cheek, felt him nudge her earphone off her left ear.

He whispered, “I know a place. It is private.”

Aruna pressed herself against him. “Show me.”

He led her away, out of range of the music. She held his hand, followed him through dark passages, illuminated by his probing torchlight. Empty eye sockets followed their passage, heightening the eroticism of their intentions.

They stooped to pass through a tunnel which spilt into another gallery of bones. Rings of skulls adorned stout columns, splayed skeletal hands grasped eternally at the walls. Down steps, a turn here and there, and finally through an arch, to arrive in a brick-walled chamber.

Aruna looked around.

Three niches on either side of a central aisle. Each held a massive sarcophagus. Skeletons clung to the walls of the niches, scrambling from the sarcophagi.

The Doge wasted no time. He kissed Aruna’s long neck. She turned, melted into his arms, their lips found each other hungrily. Thus entwined, they staggered until Aruna sat upon the rim of the sarcophagus. The Doge set his torch upright on the sarcophagus, its light reflected off the roof, spilt upon their unsuccessful attempts to undress each other. Eventually, they had to separate to strip out of their unfamiliar Venetian clothing. That done, they threw themselves at each other, a thrashing of limbs, an arching of backs, mouths and tongues flicking in and out, fingers probing and rubbing, fists stroking. Moans and groans filled the chamber. Aruna clambered upon the sarcophagus lid but its height put her out of reach of the Doge, even on tiptoes. Panting, they looked around. The Doge grabbed the torch, played it around. In the far wall was a shallow recess. The broad ledge at its base was at a height suitable for their need.

“Come on,” he breathed huskily.

Her back slammed against the wall of the recess, her legs clasped his waist, they found their rhythm. His cheek rested against hers, her fingernails raked his back. She was uncaring of the stone grazing her skin. Her back arched as she neared…

There was an audible click!

She would have ignored it if the stone behind her back hadn’t moved.

The wall of the recess vanished. With the Doge thrusting at her, Aruna had no balance. She yelped as she toppled backwards into a pitch-black void. A most primal instinct of self- preservation took over, she held on to him… inadvertently pulling him with her. It took him a moment to surface from the waves of pleasure… and be caught in the undertow of her struggle. Before he knew what was happening, he was pitching forth…

Aruna tumbled into the void, followed a bare second later by the Doge. Their naked bodies slid uncontrollably down a short, sloping shaft…

To be ejected at the other end, into space.

Screaming, arms and legs flailing, they crashed ten feet to the ground.

Aruna groaned. She blinked. Her back hurt. Her shoulder hurt. Everything hurt. She rolled slowly onto her side.

Her eyes widened in horror.

She had fallen out of the chute, landed on a stone platform, tumbled off…

The Doge’s body was lying at the base of the platform. He was staring at her, his mouth open and slack, drooling blood; his neck an unnatural angle. He had struck his head against… the bone- encrusted base of the platform. The impact had knocked a few bones free.

She cringed, wriggling away on her butt, gasping, looking around.

She had fallen into… a detached part of her brain made impressions: a circular chamber, a domed roof, arched niches, each containing a life-size solemn statue, surrounding the raised platform in the centre.

Movement in her periphery.

Aruna spun… to behold a figure, dressed in white robes with a hood casting a shadow over its face, reaching for her. And behind, another figure. The figure’s gesture might have intended concern but Aruna was too shocked to be thinking clearly. The hand took on a claw-like appearance to her.

Aruna’s right hand closed around something solid. And before she knew it, she was swinging. With a thwack! a femur smacked against the side of the figure’s head. It was a solid blow, born out of pure, unadulterated fright. And it knocked the figure aside. The figure bellowed in pain. A man’s voice. The other robed figure was moving.

So was Aruna. She was on her feet, then slipping as dislodged bones scattered underfoot. That misstep was providence.

The sound of a gunshot was deafening in the chamber and shook centuries-old grime and mud from the roof in a rain. The bullet found the altar instead of her head. Chips of stone and bone fragments exploded out of the corner of the platform, striking her in her face. She held her balance by clutching to the top of the platform.

Later, she would recall, the surface of the platform bore the likeness of a man clasping a longsword. Another sarcophagus. And she would say the statues in the niches resembled knights, and that she might have fallen into a chapel. But right then, all she knew was she had to make it to the door which she had spotted. Escape.

Aruna ran, calling on an athletic prowess she had possessed in school but had forfeited to long work hours in the corporate world. But like an ever-loyal friend, ready to snatch her out of harm’s way, that prowess returned, coordinating muscles in her feet, legs, thighs, chest and heart. She sprinted, she ducked, she weaved… and burst out the door… crashed into the opposite wall, rebounded, gained traction and took off. Her feet pattered on the earth. Dull electric lights provided dim yellow illumination.

She had no idea where in the catacombs she was. She was lost. Shouts behind her, resounding in the confines of the passage.

Aruna screamed, “Help! Help!” and was rewarded by a renewed chorus from her pursuers. She was drawing them to her. She shut up, and bolted, taking turns randomly with only one objective in mind: get away from the danger.

2

Xinjiang autonomous region of China,

30 June 2014

The surface of the reservoir was placid, an expansive black mirror, reflecting the inverted bowl of a moonless night sky.

A solitary boat glided on the water, barely leaving a wake. The boat’s transom held an outboard motor, but it remained retracted and unused. After several failed attempts to jury-rig a muffler that would suppress the antique motor’s cough and sputter, the boatmen had decided in favour of tradition: muscle-numbing rowing.

To the four saboteurs, stealth, instead of speed, was paramount to the success of the mission.

With insufficient coal reserves to meet its mushrooming power needs, hydroelectric power represents China’s largest renewable energy source and quickest path to energy independence. The country has the largest number of dams and the largest dam in the world — the Three Gorges Dam, holds enough water mass to slow the earth’s rotation by a few thousandths of a second! Yet for all this, China has little to show in terms of energy efficiency. Its hydroelectric stations operate at a fraction of their capacity, the environment has been negatively impacted, and reservoirs have flooded villages and towns, displacing hundreds of people, depriving them of their livelihood.

The Hŭpò hú — Amber Lake — reservoir in the mountainous northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang, was the result of an arch dam on the perennial river, another milestone in China’s ambitious hydroelectric program propaganda.

The saboteurs bitterly recalled a morning, two years ago, when their peaceful village routine was interrupted by the arrival of helicopters: a military escort and a smaller executive craft.

The helicopters descended without regard to the livestock, and several herders spent the rest of the morning persuading frightened sheep and goats to return to their pens.

The executive helicopter landed, and a sharply dressed individual stepped out, buttoning a jacket. He had a male and female attendant for acolytes. The trio ducked beneath the spinning rotors as if the good engineers at AgustaWestland had intended to decapitate every passenger. The Boss Man took a few steps to acclimatise himself making clear that walking on the unpaved ground was an alien experience for him. The military transport was landing a little distance away — it needed more space to park. A contingent of armed soldiers was disgorged from its belly and they assembled before their commander, a major.

The major regarded the village as a wolf regards a chicken coop. The Wolf snapped his fingers and the sight of assault rifle-wielding soldiers fanning out was incongruous against the tranquil backdrop of the lush valley.

The Boss Man and his acolytes confronted the villagers and his male acolyte demanded to speak to the elders. When they made themselves known, the female acolyte stepped in. Her voice was mellifluous and reminded the villagers of the river song. But the message conveyed by her deceptively disarming tone was more akin to the clarion call of a barbaric horde amassing on the mountains, ominously harking devastation about to befall the helpless village.

She painted a canvas of cities and factories, hundreds of kilometres eastward and southward, flourishing on electricity, of state coffers growing fat on the revenue. By the end of the week, she crooned, work would begin on an arch dam at the mouth of the valley. The villagers would be compensated. Also, they could work at the construction site and earn a wage. Within two years, the Amber dam would be commissioned, and the villagers could boast their contribution toward China’s greatness.

The self-sufficient villagers had never needed money before, so recompense did not lure them. However, illiterate as they were, the villagers were quite certain they would be losing more than they gained.

An elder protested; the Wolf, who had sidled up to the Boss Man, vehemently struck the bold fellow to the ground and bared his fangs daring anybody to challenge progress.

The saboteur in the prow, clutching a worn AK47 to his chest, still relived the pain of witnessing his grandfather collapse under the Wolf’s blow.

In the background, the Wolf’s soldiers tensed, bringing their guns to bear, fingers on triggers. The acolytes cowered; the Boss Man watched without batting an eyelid. He had not deigned to speak and put out a hand into which his female acolyte placed an A4-sized typed-up contract — a far cry from a real legal contract. Even if the villagers could read, the simple message couldn’t be clearer: Get out before the weekend.

Non-negotiable.

Or, stay and drown. Either way, the Boss Man did not care so long as he left the valley with three consents. Yes, three. He had two more villages to clear that morning before he could return to the comfort of his luxury apartment in Beijing.

And so, it came to pass that the fate of the village was sealed.

True to the river song message, a squadron of Russian Mil Mi-26 heavy-lift helicopters appeared over the ridgeline that Saturday and barges laden with heavy, earth-moving machinery and construction material sailed up the river and docked at the mouth of the valley.

Some families uprooted themselves and made for the nearest towns; others accepted employment on the dam. Out of hope and stubborn pride, the remainder attempted to ignore the furious activity around them.

In vain.

Armies of workers arrived, accompanied by more material and machinery. The landscape was irrevocably altered. Rock blasting became a daily life-startling substitute for the crowing of the village cock. Particulates clogged the air, respiratory afflictions abounded; livestock was stressed and began under-producing or dying. The Wolf arrived one day and left with several sheep and goats to feed his pack.

The ache in his back, the blisters on his hands from the exertions of rowing — all of this was blotted out in the mind of the second saboteur. His determination was fuelled by revenge for the theft of his farm.

One day, the river was temporarily diverted, birthing a swamp which spawned bloodsucking insects and hitherto unseen diseases. Deprivation found those who initially resisted grovelling at the Wolf’s doorstep, indebted to him for permitting them the use of the construction camp’s convenience store and doctors.

Graciously provided by the government.

A grace that could not save the life of the third saboteur’s only child. No father should have to watch his children suffer; no father should bear the burden of surviving his children.

The conquest of the village was complete. So also, the humiliation. The population was whittled down to a few hardy families.

The dam was completed ahead of schedule. Nobody questioned if norms and surveys had been flouted. When the hydroelectric plant was commissioned with great fanfare nobody paid attention to the villagers who cried as they gazed upon the lake that had drowned their village.

With vindictive intent at the fore, but citing security concerns about a possible terrorist target, the Wolf cordoned off the dam, requested Beijing for human and electronic countermeasures. No trespassing signs and a fence blossomed about the perimeter of the lake, effectively severing the last ties the villagers had to the land.

When the fourth saboteur contacted Uighur dissidents further north, he found he was not alone in his frustration. He and his co-conspirators discovered they were amenable to an idea posited by the dissidents: strike at the very object that has cost you so much.

Acquiring Semtex and weapons was easy; there were always fighters returning from the jihad in the Levant. A rickety truck deposited them and their boat at the northern tip of the lake. From there, they stole over to the fence, which was once an intimidating obstacle to them.

Not anymore.

It was amazing, how a little indoctrination and an impassioned speech about glorious victory and invincibility could strengthen a person’s gumption. The four converts found it a matter of perseverance to tear a gap in the fence in a secluded corner of the lake, manhandle their boat through the tear, and set it on the lake. In their minds that task marked the start of the enemy’s defeat. They waited an entire day in concealment, guns at the ready, wondering if the trespass had been noticed.

It had not.

Thus emboldened, on a moonless night, the saboteurs rowed into deeper water and set their minds on their suicidal mission. An hour and a half of rowing in turns — a pair at rowing, another as a lookout and the fourth bailing water from the leaky boat — saw nothing threaten them. Eventually, their objective materialised.

The sweeping concave of the arch dam, shrouded in darkness, save for a few floodlights.

The men pulled in their oars. This was their first experience of the dam from the reservoir’s surface. It was imposing, towering thirty feet with a causeway at the top, and dropping six hundred feet on the other side to strangulate the mighty Amber River to a shallow muddy stream.

Momentarily, the saboteurs were silent, appraising their foe, amazed at its solidity. The six packs of Semtex seemed insufficient to breach the monster of concrete that was holding back trillions of tonnes of water.

But they had come so far…

The boat bobbed suddenly as if the river was urging them on, indicating its allegiance to their goal. Set me free, the water seemed to plead. With a shared look, their resolve returned. Pursing their lips, with mounting excitement, they embarked on the final phase of their quest.

They were so preoccupied with reaching the upstream wall they failed to notice their boat had passed over an array of submerged motion sensors, part of the Wolf's electronic countermeasures.

In a squat bunker at one end of the dam's causeway, an alarm rang. A computer retrieved the sensors' positional information and relayed it to cameras on the causeway. The cameras swivelled on their mounts and their lens converged on the thermal signatures on the reservoir.

In the bunker, four blobs of false colour — red, from their exertions — contrasted starkly with the cooler hues of the lake. The soldier manning the consoles made an immediate inference: the dam was in danger. He roused the Wolf who made a hasty appearance in the control room and reached the same conclusion as his subordinate.

The Wolf sneered; his chest swelled with premature pride at foiling a terrorist plot. He whistled-up a team. His men were eager to finally swing into action. Arming themselves sufficiently to start a small war, they dashed out the bunker to meet the brazen ducks in the water. One group ran out on the causeway; the other, led by the Wolf, raced down a flight of stairs to the water's edge, where a Zodiac was moored by a concrete jetty. The Wolf and his men piled in; one soldier pushed the starter button. The outboard misfired, drawing a glare from the Wolf. Mouthing an entreaty to the motor, the soldier tried again, and the motor obliged, coming to life.

The Zodiac slalomed into the reservoir.

3

The sound of the Zodiac's outboard ripped the shroud of silence over the reservoir.

As one, the saboteurs turned toward the froth churned up in the lake. On cue, every floodlight on the causeway came blindingly on, turning night into day. They gasped, clamped their hands over their eyes.

Caught!

The boat drifted on its momentum.

A bullhorn blared, commanding them to surrender or risk being fired upon. The Wolf’s tone betrayed his wish that the ducks would disobey. Oh, how he wanted to use his gun!

His wish was granted.

Realising their predicament and seeing that their target was about forty feet away — so close — the saboteurs made a desperate bid to finish their mission.

The saboteur closest to the transom dipped the outboard into the water and tugged on the starter cord. The old but trusty motor sputtered to life a final time. The boat lurched forward. Another saboteur swept up an AK47 and emptied the clip at the Zodiac. His wild aim was enough to make the Zodiac's pilot dither and gain the saboteurs a tiny lead. By the time the AK47 ran dry and the Wolf had berated his spineless men, the saboteurs had closed to twenty feet from the dam.

That was when the soldiers on the causeway, hidden by the glare of the lights, opened fire. A volley of gunfire from the Zodiac joined the defence. Under two superior converging arcs of fire, the saboteurs did not stand a chance. The humans were shredded. The boat was peppered with hundreds of holes and began sinking. But not fast enough. Miraculously the outboard survived the brunt of the storm of lead and propelled the boat on a collision to the upstream wall.

Where it smashed into pieces.

There was no Hollywood-imagined explosion; it simply shattered and began leaking fuel. The Zodiac arrived to survey the scene. The Wolf regarded the two bodies grimly.

But the thermal cameras had detected four threats!

The Wolf was livid. He screamed in anger and panicked fear, gesturing to the disturbed waters of the reservoir, now stained with the fuel slick. His men scrambled to obey, rocking the Zodiac, pointing their QBZ-95-1 assault rifles at the reservoir and letting rip at the liquid, punishment for sheltering the enemy.

The pair of saboteurs who had leapt overboard under cover of the sacrificial distraction of their brave brothers swam powerfully toward the dam. The floodlights gave them enough underwater illumination to see the looming wall. But would they reach it? Their lungs were on fire and their progress was hindered by the weight of Semtex strapped to their backs. They passed into shadow where the slick from their boat obstructed the light.

Suddenly the water streaked with contrails of bubbles as a fusillade of bullets rained into their underwater retreat. The water would dampen the sting of the projectiles but would not render them harmless.

The trailing saboteur had time to take evasive action. Exhausted as he was, he jack-knifed deeper. His companion was unlucky. Bullets struck him, puffs of blood erupted from his torso and leg. The two saboteurs shared a last look. The stricken man's eyes were wide at the realisation of his death. A flurry of bubbles escaped his mouth in a final goodbye. Weighed down by the Semtex, his body began to sink. The survivor's eyes, too, were wide, from oxygen deprivation and fear. If he didn't surface soon, he'd join his friend. The body of the drowned saboteur slipped past, disappearing into the inky blackness. As the survivor contemplated surfacing another volley of lead broke the reservoir surface.

If he surfaced, he would die, and the mission would truly fail.

But if I reach the wall… we will have died for something.

But he did not have enough explosive to finish the job.

Thus, clinging to fumes of life within, the survivor channelled all his will into his final act. He dived after his dead companion; fingers outstretched for the backpack of Semtex.

The Wolf’s men pointed excitedly when a body broke the surface, inside the slick. For good measure, he and his men pumped entire magazines into it before the Zodiac came alongside the corpse. Using a body hook, the soldiers rolled the body, face up and beheld the expression of agony on the saboteur's countenance. Death by drowning is horrible. The Wolf was unhappy it hadn't been his bullets that had killed the man. His gaze raked the water searching for the fourth saboteur and he pointed to where another lumpy form bobbed to the surface, face down. Yes! But as the Zodiac powered over, the Wolf wondered, why am I not feeling victorious?

Then it struck him: the body had an empty backpack strapped about its shoulders. And as they neared the fourth body… it too, shouldered an empty backpack.

He felt the weight of foreboding settle eerily upon his shoulders. Quietly, acknowledging his gut, he issued a panicked command: Away from the dam. Now!

A flash of light from the depths momentarily lit up the slick a dirty yellow. The surface of the reservoir trembled. There was an almighty BLOOP-WHOOSH as a monstrous air pocket erupted in a geyser of water. The Zodiac rocked violently in the backwash, everybody grabbed for handholds.

And then… nothing.

Silence. Drenched soldiers. After an uncertain minute, a chortle escaped the Wolf's lips. He burst into a relieved cackle and one-by-one his sycophants mimicked him. The men on the causeway also joined in. Laughter rang out in the night by the wall of the dam.

Was that all? Really? Did anybody think the dam could be compromised by a few pathetic pounds of explosives?

The Wolf never had patience for the engineering of the dam but now he believed Chinese engineering was the best in the world.

Of course, the design would be bomb-proof! Nothing short of a —

The reservoir heaved! Like, literally, moved!

There was a burst of sparks and all the lights were doused, blanketing the entire area in an unnerving pitch black. The Zodiac lurched… violently enough to toss everybody out. Frightened for their lives, the floundering men swam noisily for the capsized boat, climbing onto its exposed keel. And then, with a numbing, earthly moan that emanated from the depths, the reservoir shuddered.

Screams pierced the night. The upturned Zodiac was snatched away from the dam. And not only that, incredibly it seemed that the dam was rising, rising, rising and the men in the water were dropping, dropping…

SMASH! With a bone-jarring jolt, the Zodiac and the men were deposited… in muck. Momentarily, everybody was stunned into silence. The Wolf recovered first, his hands and knees sinking into the ooze. He was surrounded by rivulets and puddles. A stranded fish flopped before him, its mouth opening and closing. Craning his neck, he beheld the immense dam, soaring toward the heavens, a darker form against the night.

Fully exposed.

And the earth was quaking. And an ungodly roar reached his ears and filled him with unimaginable terror. He turned.

An undulating line of white reared into the air, cresting atop a mountain of water.

The Wolf was rooted to the spot. He was dimly aware of the stranded Zodiac, of men running away, darting amid the ruins of the village he had drowned. He stoically closed his eyes and accepted his death.

The violence of the reservoir was beyond words. The Wolf's bones were pulverised. The water collected every human body on the lakebed and churned them about in a hellish maelstrom. Nobody noticed because like the Wolf, they were all dead. The wave pulped their corpses against the upstream dam wall. A torrent of water surged over the causeway sweeping away everything in its path — floodlights, soldiers, the bunker…

Human and man-made debris overflowed the causeway and rained hundreds of feet to the valley below, pounding the earth and the shallow river like mortar shells.

And that was before the final act of vengeance by the Amber River.

To the accompaniment of thunderous, resounding CRACKS, a series of fissures materialised in the dam. High-pressure jets of water scythed out of the tears, propelling chunks of concrete like missiles. The face of the dam undulated.

And then, all hell broke loose.

The dam collapsed. A towering wall of water surged free like the most fantastic battering ram ever, carrying entire sections of the dam and its innards. The downstream river swelled, empowered and endowed with months of backfill. The frothing, roiling liquid monster reclaimed its glory and punished the drained valley. Trees were swept away, the riverbank vanished, the rockface was sheared clean, the hydroelectric plant was destroyed; its parts tumbled in the mayhem. The resulting erosion added more destructive power to the water. Boulders and trees and generators and walls of buildings and high-tension, heavy-duty cables whipped at, and tore up the valley. The effect was worse at bends in the river, where the sides of the valley were chomped away.

At one such turn, a cliff was so weakened that it collapsed, bringing down with it a blocky building that reposed upon its precipice. The disaster was so sudden that none of the building's occupants escaped in the helicopter parked on its roof. The big Mil 17 joined the flotilla of waste and was coerced into the bidding of the turbulent river.

It was hundreds of kilometres before the fury of the river was spent. Thousands of kilometres to the east and south, entire towns and factories, ground to a standstill.

The river rose to its natural level, as it had been before man had tried to trap her for his benefit.

4

Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, 30 June

2014

Long ago, an underground river coursed through the karst. It nibbled at the limestone, chewing patiently, untiringly, until it had eaten tunnels through the rock, carved great caverns and dug deep chasms. When she felt like it, Planet Earth directed the river to new pastures, leaving a vast, dried up labyrinth a testament to its toils.

A steaming mass of humanity was packed into the subterranean maze. The air trapped beneath the rock ceiling was oppressively humid from perspiration. It reeked of exhaled carbon dioxide, and a concoction of noisome vapours of cigarettes, drugs, pheromones, flatulence and alcohol-laced breath.

The nauseating odours did not bother Luc Fortesque. He had smelled worse — fear and death. He shouldered his way through the mire of bodies. Most of the people blocking him were drug-addled or inebriated to varying degrees. A tall, white-skinned man who, for all appearances, was simply moving forward, did not warrant their attention. A few glared at him, before retreating from the hard glint in his eyes. That… and the vivid scar on the right side of his face. His disfigurement was a warning. Fewer attempted to confront him only to be dissuaded by their companions — regulars, who recognised Fortesque from an epic fight, a week ago.

As he thrust forth unwaveringly, the incoherent babble of raucous conversations gave way to a deafening chorus of chants and jeers.

The arena.

The atmosphere was volatile, cleaved by supporters for each fighter. Bookies called for bets; crumpled, soiled money was passed around, as was more booze and drugs. Fists pumped, insults and encouragement were hurled into the air in equal measure. The audience was engaged, oohing and aahing and cursing and clamouring for their champions. Yet, the air was distinctly fresher.

Fortesque raised his eyes.

Circular, ribbed walls rose upward. The fight-pit was at the bottom of a cenote. The vocal frenzy swirled about the inside of the cenote and erupted like a geyser toward an indigo-hued, sky with a new moon framed in the rim of the cenote. Fortesque prowled the fringes of the audience, found a point of entry and pushed toward the arena. He had to duck from the bouncing elbows, punching fists and stomping feet. He emerged ringside and beheld the fight.

A pair of boxing-shorts-clad men lunged, parried, kicked, punched, scratched and bit each other. Their blows landed with meaty slaps, yowls of pain and shrieks of anger. Their mud-streaked bodies glistened with sweat and blood; their faces bore bruises. As Fortesque watched, the shorter of the two fighters launched himself into the air with a bestial scream, pivoted and lashed out a stiff leg, catching his opponent in the face, corkscrewing the other man’s torso. Blood sprayed out of the stricken man’s mouth as he went down. Shorty landed, still screaming, the veins on his neck sticking out, limbs taut, ready to deliver another attack. His opponent stayed down, unmoving, eyes rolled up into his head.

In this illegal fight, where anything went, the crowd was the referee. The count-out was a rhythmic cadence. “Uno! … Dos! … Tres! … Cuatro! … CINCO!” The audience erupted, people screaming into each other’s faces, some bruised egos triggering scuffles.

Fortesque ignored all this. His gaze locked onto the Mexican fight master across the arena, who was eagerly collecting his winnings. The cigar clenched between the Mexican’s teeth bobbed as he counted his money. He had oily, pockmarked skin; his fingers were adorned with rings; the buttons on his Hawaiian shirt were open revealing the glint of a gold crucifix against a hairy chest. The fight master looked up from his tally… and found Fortesque.

He froze.

Fortesque and he were an aberration of stillness against the backdrop of an agitated crowd. The cigar tumbled from the Mexican’s fat lips, his eyes went wide. He swallowed, shoved the wad of damp, rumpled money into his shirt and backpedalled, dissolving into the crowd.

Fortesque crossed the arena, brushed against the victorious fighter who was beckoning adulations from the crowd. The jostled fighter spun angrily on Fortesque, believing he could defeat God at this point in his career and was about to advance when another Mexican confronted Fortesque.

One of the fight master's cronies.

The crony should have acted instead of trying to intimidate Fortesque with a death stare.

Fortesque ploughed into the man, kneeing him in the groin and the Mexican fell, clutching his jewels. Fortesque entered the crowd, stalking the fight master, his senses alert. An arm encircled his neck, a body pressed against his back. Fortesque felt something hard in the small of his back. His attacker had a knife — it was the hilt that Fortesque could feel. Too bad the attacker decided to brawl instead of stab. The assailant’s forearm was sweaty. Lots of lubrication. Fortesque pivoted, coming face-to-face with his assailant and head-butted the man. The guy cried out, cupped his shattered nose. Fortesque pushed him aside but not before relieving him of the knife. He admired the stiletto, palmed it and progressed after the fight master.

He emerged from the vicinity of the arena and spied his quarry making off. The Mexican glanced over his shoulder and gawked to see Fortesque in pursuit, more determined than ever. With a yelp, the Mexican darted away. Fortesque gave chase not wanting to lose the man in the labyrinth. The crowd thinned; the sounds of the arena grew faint… replaced by sounds of a carnal nature. Fortesque stumbled into a cave, found himself in a sea of copulating bodies. At the far side of the cave, vanishing into another tunnel — the fight master. Fortesque weaved among the writhing flesh. The Mexican was fast for his misshapen bulk. Or maybe it was his familiarity with the tunnels. Fortesque realised this part of the labyrinth was deserted and cooler. The terrain rose steeply, and Fortesque emerged into a field.

He was outside.

A sound to his right and he beheld three Mexicans closing in on him.

Moonlight glinted on the blades of their machetes. The fight master was behind them, grinning stupidly. The trio fanned out. Fortesque assessed them from left to right. They had the bravado of bullies, accustomed to picking on helpless prey. He read their body language, determining who would strike first. His counterattack would be swift and decisive, or he would not be leaving this field alive tonight.

Or, he could simply… attack.

He flipped the pilfered stiletto blade underhand. It flashed in the night and caught the leftmost Mexican in the throat. Mortally wounded, the Mexican dropped his machete. He crumpled to his knees in the grass, with a wet gurgle. His companions and the fight master were stunned. Distracted. And Fortesque used it to his advantage. He barrelled forward, reaching out and grabbing the nearest Mexican. The guy had placed himself ahead of his companions and Fortesque interpreted this to mean he would be leading the attack. Now that he was fatally preoccupied, that overconfident placement had the man in the danger zone. He found himself in Fortesque’s grip. Fortesque clamped his left hand on the guy’s machete-wielding hand, clamped his right hand on the guy’s right shoulder and tripped him. In the process, the Mexican’s trapped arm was bent backwards and then Fortesque jabbed at his elbow. The crack of