Paul Roberts’ IN HAVANA THEY SHALL DIE!:
by Paul Roberts
Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled
Here’s the set-up:
An outbreak of a mysterious and drug-resistant flu virus in the United States, Russia, China, India, Britain, France and Israel has led to the most aggressive vaccination campaign ever undertaken globally. As the world’s scientific community congratulates itself for successfully combating the virus, the CIA uncovers a shocking and devastating secret—the SB-2 vaccine being administered globally is a cleverly bio-engineered germ warfare virus!The international scientific community and Watchdog agencies have been duped, fatally outsmarted by a shadowy, but extremely powerful and influential organization with a global agenda. Founded in secrecy by a group of escaped Nazi war criminals and inherited by their descendants, who’d been puritanically indoctrinated from birth, the Secret Order of Oblongata has had more than sixty years to plot the swift destruction of world powers, and the resurrection of the Third Reich.
With the entire United States military and 80 percent of the U.S. civilian population already vaccinated, a biological time bomb is now ticking in the bloodstream of a half of the world’s population concentrated in world-power nations. Exceptionally gifted CIA contract operative, Brett Collins is already on an urgent mission in the Caribbean, where a tiny nation, the Republic of Havana—which is located 1500 miles south of Havana, Cuba—has long served as a safe haven for the secret order and its large Neo-Nazi army. Brett must recover a secret antidote and formula before the germ warfare virus-as-vaccine reaches incubation and starts killing more than 400,000 per hour.
Packed with large-scale, nonstop action and heart-stopping cliffhangers, IN HAVANA THEY SHALL DIE! is the long-awaited second installment
in the PERMANENT ENEMY international thriller series by novelist and filmmaker, Paul Roberts.
(This is a sponsored post)
The author hopes you will enjoy this free excerpt:
Chapter 1
THE DEAD BODY on the floor of the adjoining prison cell from Brett Collins belonged to a 45-year-old CIA agent, who had been shot at least one hundred times. Brett had enough time since he had been locked up to count the number of bullet holes in the dead man’s body.
Separated only by a wall of rusty rectangular iron-bars, it was as if Brett shared the same cell room with the decomposing remains. The overpowering stench of putrefaction continuously churned his stomach. Every couple of minutes or so, high-pitched cries came from a half dozen excited, long-nosed black rats that feasted on the naked corpse. The family of rodents ranging in size from two- to four inches in diameter had eaten their way through the man’s abdomen, looting his innards. The most aggressive member of the wayward little creatures had buried itself half way inside the man’s right eye socket. It was struggling to eat through to the brain. Brett Collins looked away and quickly walked to a corner of the cell room, where he hunched over and vomited repeatedly. Clad in a safari jacket and trousers, and a pair of black combat boots, the 33-year-old, blond-haired contract operative for the CIA knew he was in a very bad situation. And time was running out.
He turned his head as he heard a myriad of heavy footsteps approaching in the hallway behind him. Four heavily armed soldiers carrying AK-47 assault rifles were coming at him. Brett eased away from the corner wall. Then, he saw it and froze. A deadly green snake, a Black Mamba, had entered the cell room through a small hole at the base of the aging prison wall. Apparently, it had been attracted by the rodents. The cell room itself was barren; there was no toilet, no washbasin, no bed, no chair, and no light fixture—nothing. Strobes of fluorescent light mounted in the hallway ceiling provided a partial illumination of the eight-by-ten-foot cell room.
On the damp cement floor that was half covered with dried human blood and urine, the Black Mamba slithered toward Brett. It didn’t seem to be interested in the rodents feasting away in the adjoining cell. Brett remained motionless as he considered his two options: death from a hail of bullets or from a poisonous snake. It had come within two feet. Suddenly, Brett leapt into the air, and landed with the sole of his right combat boot squarely on the snake’s head, squashing it with brute force as his other foot pinned the reptile’s tail to the floor.
The soldiers outside the cell room watched momentarily as the dying snake writhed between his feet. If they were impressed, they showed no sign. Brett noted sadly that the four men were now standing in a straight line in the wide hallway—shoulder to shoulder facing him. They stood barely six feet away from the iron bars and chain locks that kept him in.
It was obvious. The soldiers had assumed a firing squad position. Brett knew they intended to riddle him with bullets. But he wasn’t afraid. He stood tall, and stared straight at the executioners. He did not beg; nor did he cower. Since there was no way out, Brett Collins accepted the inevitable with no regrets. It came with the territory.
The soldiers raised their rifles in unison and aimed. Then the unexpected happened.
Chapter 2
“WAIT! WAIT!” A commanding voice bellowed behind the executioners.
They turned their attention and lowered their rifles. A breathless and bulky superior was dashing up the hallway, “The General is on his way. He wishes to personally interrogate the prisoner,” the officer said in a heavy West Indian accent.
THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC of Havana was one of the few countries in the world still unrecognized by the United Nations. It was a brutal Police State and hiding place for some of the world’s most wanted international racketeers, whose ill-gotten wealth bought protection from a government that had no extradition treaty with any other nation. The republic was a tropical island about the size of the state of New Hampshire, some 1500 miles southeast of its namesake city, Havana, Cuba.
This rogue nation had long been written off by world powers because it had no strategic importance whatsoever. It had no mineral resources to be exploited and no cash crop or manufactured goods for export. Repeatedly, the dictatorship had discouraged multi-national plantation owners operating successfully in neighboring islands from expanding into the republic. Instead, it had chosen to partner with criminal syndicates, which made it an ideal home for the little known international secret order—the Order of Oblongata.
IN WASHINGTON, D.C. on this Sunday afternoon in mid-summer July, a top-secret emergency briefing was taking place in the White House Oval Office. Barely a week after Independence Day celebration, two-term President of the United States of America, Steven Glass was now facing the most disturbing and challenging crisis of his political career.
“Mister President, this is worse than the threat of a nuclear war,” said a debonairly middle-aged man in a grave tone of voice. He was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Henry Newton. Two other men in the room were the Secretary of Defense, William McNally, and National Security Adviser, Edward Cornell. All three were among the President’s most trusted advisers. They had also become very close friends of the commander-in-chief.
“What’s going on, Henry?” asked the President. “You alleged that this great nation may have already been defeated by a new enemy, without even firing a single shot at us. Get to the point, please.”
Newton cleared his throat. “Excuse me, gentlemen…The CIA has just found out that the SB-2 vaccine is a germ warfare virus successfully engineered and disguised as a vaccine against drug-resistant microbes.”
The President rose to his feet, “What the hell are you saying-? I was the first to receive that vaccine. More than eighty percent of the American population has already been vaccinated.”
“My God, the entire U.S. military have also been vaccinated,” said the Secretary of Defense.
The National Security Adviser asked, “You mean the U.S. government paid two billion dollars for about three-hundred million dozes of something that somebody created to kill us off?”
“I’m afraid so,” the DCI replied mournfully.
“The man who invented this vaccine—Dr. Fredrick Beazley—won a Nobel Prize for it. Didn’t he?” asked the President.
“He fooled the world scientific community and outsmarted our Federal Drug Administration watchdogs.”
“There’s an antidote. And we’ve taken this son of a bitch, right-? Who has him-? FBI?” the President wanted to know.
“He’s dead, murdered, Mr. President. And there’s no antidote,” said the CIA Director.
Chapter 3
PRESIDENT GLASS FELT a sudden light-headedness and quickly sat down behind his desk. There was dead silence as the impact of the CIA Director’s disclosure sank in.
“How could this happen?” The President asked in almost a whisper.
Nobody answered. The stillness in the room was foreboding.
“How much time do we have?” he queried Newton.
“And who else knows about this?” McNally asked.
Before Newton had a chance to answer, Edward Cornell said, “We can’t go public with this, Mister President. It’d be absolute chaos. The nation would descend into anarchy. Our financial markets would collapse and set off a domino effect worldwide.”
“Other nations might begin to quarantine Americans,” McNally added. “We’re talking a truly global emergency.”
“Mister President, we’ve just about seven days left before Americans start dropping dead by the hundreds of thousands daily…until there’s barely anyone left,” the spymaster disclosed. His chilling words sent a stab of pain through the President’s heart, but he exuded a cool outer demeanor. “It’s been almost two years since the inoculation began, and no major catastrophe or side effects have been reported,” he challenged.
Newton shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Mister President, the virus takes twenty-four months to incubate. And that’s enough time for the entire nation to receive the vaccine before the first wave of deaths begins to occur. It was deliberately engineered as such in order to cause maximum fatalities. FDA and the Center for Disease Control reported that about four-hundred thousand Americans per day have been receiving the vaccine.”
“I want it stopped, right away,” the President declared. “Let’s protect the remaining twenty percent or so, who are yet to be vaccinated.”
“The public would ask why?” the National Security Adviser interjected. “And the American press wouldn’t be satisfied with some lame duck explanation. What would we say to them-? There’s a shortage? There’re still a couple million dozes in warehouses across the nation. Speculations would run wild in the press as to the real reason for prematurely ending the vaccination program. Mister President, we’d be forced to come clean. The American press is very distrustful of this government—or any other government for that matter, and for good reasons too.”
“You’re right, Edward,” President Glass conceded. “This is a tough nut to crack. As I remember clearly, this whole thing began with the SB-2 flu outbreak that started in poultry farms in the Midwest, and quickly spread to the human population,” the President turned to the CIA Chief, “Are you telling me, Henry, that that had been part of this master plan to destroy our great nation?”
“It’s unfortunately so, Mister President,” the DCI admitted. “The SB-2 influenza virus was deliberately introduced into the farm animal population, and with its drug-resistant attributes, served as a catalyst that drove the nation to unsuspectingly embrace a new vaccine that, in actual fact, is a germ warfare time bomb.”
The Defense Secretary asked: “But why use a vaccine to spread a germ warfare virus when they have already succeeded in introducing the microbe into the populace through other means?”
“It’s about control and containment,” Henry Newton replied. “Using vaccination as a delivery mechanism ensures that only the target population is destroyed by this particular and far more deadly strain of the SB-2 virus, engineered to kill its host within ten seconds after incubation, and die off inside the host. It does not spread beyond its host, unlike the much weaker but equally drug-resistant strain used to scare and lure the government into launching the biggest inoculation program in history.”
“We’ve been suckered big time,” McNally remarked.
“But other nations—Britain, France, Russia, Israel, India and China—all have varying degrees of the SB-2 outbreak, and aggressive immunization programs,” noted the Secretary of Defense. “Am I correct in concluding that a great number of people in these countries, including their fighting men and women, are now carrying a time-bomb in their bloodstream?”
“We know that to be a fact,” said the CIA Director. “Immunization began in those territories within two months behind the United States.”
“Unbelievable,” said the President. “It seems to me that somebody found an extremely clever way to reshape the world by first wiping out the current world powers. Do any of these governments know what we now know?” he asked Newton.
“We’re certain none of them is currently aware of the situation. It’s one of the reasons I requested this emergency session, Mister President. We have a great dilemma—to share or not to share this intelligence, because of the tremendous potential for leaks. There could be panic on a global scale if word got out.”
“But the consequences of not sharing could be far more catastrophic,” the President argued. “Right now, an act of war is being perpetrated against humanity. Sharing this intelligence with the Heads of States in question is a moral, political, and social obligation that trumps everything else. The importance of guarding this information would not be lost on these leaders and their intelligence services. None of them would want his or her nation to descend into anarchy.”
The spymaster glanced at the two other advisers in the room. He seemed to be conveying the unspoken words: this President is so friggin’ naïve.
“Wipe that look off your face, Henry!” the President reprimanded. “I’m not as naive as you might think. We’re going to share this intelligence. And who the hell is behind all these-? Dr. Beazley couldn’t have been acting alone.”
“First of all, Mister President, I do not consider your position on this issue as being naïve,” he lied. “As commander-in-chief, at the end of the day, it’s your call.”
“Thanks for patronizing me, Henry. Now, please tell me what I’m dying to know.”
“Mister President, Dr. Beazley belonged to an extremely secretive international order known as the Order of Oblongata. The CIA first learned about this organization ten years ago. But it’s rumored to have been in existence since the summer of 1945,” the spymaster disclosed. “It was founded by a group of Nazi war criminals who escaped capture and indoctrinated their descendants while living out the rest of their lives in hiding, in the notorious West Indian nation, the People’s Republic of Havana.”
“So this is revenge?” asked the President. “The second World War ended three generations ago, for crying out loud.”
“It ended sixty-three years ago precisely,” said the DCI. “And yet, we still have an active Neo-Nazi movement in several European countries and the United States. However, unlike these various White Supremacy groups, the Order of Oblongata is a highly covert, tremendously influential, and extremely sophisticated international secret order.
“As reported by a penetration agent, who was recently killed in action, this organization now has its tentacles in major industries across the globe,” Newton disclosed. “Dr. Beazley’s company, FB Pharmaceuticals, which holds the patent to more than three thousand drugs, is a thirty-billion-dollar global corporation that has more than fifty thousand employees in sixty-one countries. That’s a great deal of power and influence that could be wielded for good or, as in this case, for evil. The SB-2 vaccine was exclusively manufactured by US-based FB Pharmaceuticals and some of its wholly-owned foreign subsidiaries.”
“And if I’m not mistaken,” the Secretary of Defense cut in, “this same corporation, FB Pharmaceuticals, is the parent company of about a dozen corporations in the US Defense contracting industry.”
“You’re absolutely right, Secretary of Defense. FB Pharmaceuticals is highly diversified. Some of the companies they control in the US are manufacturing our military satellites, cruise missiles, attack submarines, and even the pre-packaged ready-to-eat meals and purified water that help sustain our fighting men and women in the field.”
“This is incredible,” said the President.
“It’s inconceivable,” The National Security Adviser whispered.
“A copy of a manifesto written and secretly published fifty-three years ago, and circulated among members of the Oblongata order, was stolen last week by the deceased CIA agent, shortly before his demise,” Henry Newton disclosed. “Gentlemen, the manifesto is titled: How to Defeat a Great Nation without Firing a Single Shot. The stolen copy was an English language translation from an original German language edition rumored to have been authored by Claus Von Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal who’d watched helplessly as his wife, mother, and three daughters were blown to bits during an Allied bombing raid on Berlin.
“After escaping with his twelve-year-old son, who’d also witnessed the horrific incident, they assumed new identities and settled in the People’s Republic of Havana, where Eichmann founded, and became the first leader of the Order of Oblongata.”
“Too bad he evaded capture,” lamented the President.
“He not only evaded capture, it was rumored that he dedicated the rest of his life to plotting an eventual defeat of the Allies. It didn’t matter to him if the Nazi Party ever rose to power again. He was simply obsessed with vengeance until his death.”
“So let me guess: his son, who’d be a seventy-five-year-old man by now, is finally executing his late father’s plan,” Secretary of Defense, William McNally surmised.
The spymaster said, “Pretty much so, but with a major twist. Other top members of the underground movement, particularly the younger White Supremacists, fear the rise of China and India, two non-Aryan world powers that might subjugate the Aryan race. Images of Chinese labor camps in Western Europe filled with tall White men and women with blond hair and blue eyes—as slaves—abound in their promotional literature.
“So, in addition to wiping out the most powerful enemies who defeated Nazi Germany, namely, the United States, Russia, Britain and France, there was a consensus to target China and India. The destruction of Israel, a Jewish State with nuclear weapons, was already a foregone conclusion. With those nations defeated, the outlawed Nazi Party could rise again and lead Germany to fill the power vacuum, thereby emerging as the new and only super power.”
“Not while I’m still President of the United States of America. Secretary of Defense asked you earlier, how many people know about this—beside the enemy?”
“Mister President, to the best of my knowledge, ten individuals, including you gentlemen,” the DCI replied.
“There has to be an antidote somewhere,” William McNally said.
“Our most reliable contract operative, Brett Collins is already in Havana Republic in pursuit of a possible lead.”
“And what might that be?” asked the National Security Adviser.
“The deceased penetration agent, Oliver Briggs spent more than six months in deep cover inside the secret order’s Command and Control center. He worked as one of six personal bodyguards to the leader, David Cristobal. His last signal, which arrived by highly encrypted e-mail, not only revealed the germ-warfare-virus-as-vaccine operation, but also named a woman inside the organization as knowing the solution to this crisis. Brett Collins was immediately dispatched to contact this woman.”
“How long ago was this?” asked the President.
“Brett has been on the mission barely twenty-four hours, Mister President.”
Cornell asked, “How much faith do you have in this guy-? The fate of the entire world seems to be hanging in the balance.”
“I have enough faith. I’ve also said some prayers even though I hardly consider myself the religious type,” the DCI responded.
“God help us,” said McNally.
“Your agent, Oliver Briggs, rest his soul, how did you find out he’s dead? And how did he die?” The President wanted to know.
“Brett Collins’ first and only signal since arriving on the Island, a coded satellite phone signal, which the Agency received a few hours ago, reported that Oliver had been caught copying information from the organization’s top-secret membership database.
“I wanted Oliver to copy and transmit an electronic master file containing the identities and contact information of all members of this global organization. Brett reported that Oliver was already dead before Brett arrived on the island.”
“You said the man who invented this vaccine—Dr. Beazley—is dead, murdered. And yet, there’s been no report of his death in the media; at least, none that I’m aware of. The death of a Nobel Prize laureate would be receiving extensive coverage on a global scale by now,” said Edward Cornell.
“Gentlemen, regrettably, it’s because he died in our care,” said the DCI.
There was stunned silence from the three men being briefed. President Glass leaned forward in his chair. “The CIA abducted and killed him? Explain that to me, Henry.”
“Mister President, we took him as soon as we received word about the vaccine being a germ warfare virus. Unfortunately, the enemy’s surveillance team watching him around the clock shot up our getaway car, killing him. It was a back-up surveillance team that we hadn’t been aware of that killed him. We’d successfully neutralized the main surveillance team during the snatch.”
“When and where?” The President asked.
Newton glanced at his wristwatch, “About ten hours ago…in Berlin, Germany.”
“Midnight in Berlin,” said Cornell.
“Yeah, he was leaving a top-secret rendezvous attended by a highly controversial German government official, who openly campaigned for the ban on the Nazi Party to be lifted.”
“This gets more and more complicated by the minute,” said the President.
“Mister President, his body will never be found. I imagine there’ll soon be speculations as to what really happened to him. That’s all there’ll ever be.”
“What’s the connection between Dr. Beazley and the current leader of the organization?” McNally asked.
“They’re half-brothers. Their father, Claus Von Eichmann had remarried a few years after escaping from Germany, and had another son, who would become a billionaire scientist and Nobel Laureate. Using different last names was part of an elaborate scheme that hid their true connection and identities.”
“Gentlemen, I recommend a bathroom break. I seriously need one,” said the President. He rose to his feet, unaware that things were about to get even worse.
Chapter 4
PRISONER BRETT COLLINS was escorted into the outsized interrogations room by the same AK-47 toting soldiers who had come to execute him less than one hour earlier. A pair of handcuffs tightly restrained his hands behind his back.
A hard man of about 75 years in age with piercing, deep-blue angry eyes sat at the head of a long conference table positioned at the center of the large windowless hall. He was in full, four-star, olive green army fatigue bearing the insignia of the People’s Republic of Havana. Although he was seated, Brett could see that he was a rather tall individual with thick locks of blond hair, closely cropped. He wore a Glock 9mm pistol in a waist holster on his right side. His bodyguards were half dozen, tall, blond men in camouflaged fatigues and green berets, armed with MP-5 submachine guns, and side arms.
“Welcome to the People’s Republic of Havana,” the man rose to his feet as if extending courtesy. “I’m General David Cristobal.” His English had a barely detectable German accent.
“At last, I finally meet the Devil,” Brett Collins said with a wry sense of humor.
The general reacted with a mischievous grin, “I’m deeply flattered by your sense of humor in this life or death situation. Quite admirable,” he waved to a chair at the opposite end of the long table. “Please be seated.”
“I’d be more comfortable if the handcuffs were taken off,” said Brett.
The general considered the request. Then he said, “You’re greatly outnumbered, and you’re in the center of a major military base. There’re about four thousand soldiers on this base, five helicopter platoons with thirty helicopters armed with rockets, missiles and heavy machine guns. And you’re already aware that this base is surrounded by water, patrolled by two dozen fast gunboats at any given time of day or night. Did you count the number of ‘triple A’ surface-to-air missile batteries on this base on your way in? We have more than one hundred on mobile launchers alone. I’m sure your spy satellites have seen and photographed them. Our early warning radar system can spot your attack jets and cruise missiles from nine hundred miles away.
“And, by the way, one of your aircraft carriers has been detected waiting outside our territorial waters for the past twenty-four hours. A hostile submarine has been lurking in our waters as well. Our navy was able to identify it as a Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine that carries cruise missiles. But all that will not save you or stop what has been set in motion.” He turned to the soldiers, “Take off the handcuffs.”
Brett Collins sat down after the cuffs were taken off. He sat very close to the table, “You’re an old man who should’ve retired by now, General Cristobal.”
David Cristobal sat down and said, “I really can’t afford to, Mr. Collins, I have a mission to accomplish—a mission that has taken a lifetime of preparation.”
“You know my name,” Brett faked surprise.
“Why would that surprise you, Mr. Collins?” asked Cristobal. “Your CIA contact here, Oliver Briggs, sang like a canary as he tried to bargain for his life. I’m hoping you’d be just as cooperative.”
“And end up like him?”
“What other choice do you have? At least, you’d die without torture. Mister Briggs seduced my daughter, Victoria, and turned her against me and my organization. She became a double agent. Now she’s on the run. She stole something from my vault and passed it on to you shortly before you were arrested. I want it back.”
“What might that be, if I may ask?”
“You want to play games; I know you’re already aware it’s something that, if placed in the wrong hands, could destroy an achievement that has taken three generations of planning and hard work to accomplish.”
“You mean if placed in the right hands, it’d undo the impending mass murder of half the world’s population.”
“There must be a new world order, Mister Collins. And unfortunately, the loss of human lives on this magnitude is the only way to guarantee absolute success! And payback to the so-called ‘World Powers’ for the atrocities they committed against Nazi Germany, the war crimes they were never punished for, the intellectual properties and brilliant minds they stole from the Third Reich—the rocket scientists, the atomic bomb experts and designs, the microbiologists and germ warfare breakthroughs.
“There would be no ‘World Power’ today, without Nazi scientists, without Aryan minds stolen and prostituted around the world,” he charged. “Well, it took more than half a century, but the day of reckoning has finally arrived!”
An all-consuming fury caused his whole body to tremble as he delivered the diatribe. Tiny droplets of saliva flew from the corner of his mouth too frequently.
“I will spare your life if you give them back,” he said unconvincingly.
By now, Brett’s right hand had casually dropped underneath the table. He shook his head, “I can’t do that.”
Cristobal yelled, “WHERE are you hiding them?!” Anger burned in his eyes. “The soldiers found nothing when they searched you.” In a lightning-fast draw, he pulled the Glock 9 from his waist holster, leveled and fired a deafening shot across the room in Brett’s direction.
It was a fatal shot.
Chapter 5
THE SOLDIER STANDING guard directly behind Brett took the bullet in the heart, which exited through his back pushing out ripped pieces of his organ and uniform. The dying soldier slumped backward hitting the wall as his AK-47 clattered to the tiled floor. He collapsed on top of the rifle leaving a bright-red streak of wet bloodstain on the wall. Everyone inside the enormous room tensed up, including Brett Collins.
“That’s my first and only warning to you,” General Cristobal cautioned the American operative as he re-holstered the Glock. “I have no soul. I died at the age of twelve, in Berlin in Nineteen Forty-Five. I kill at will. I ordered the assassination of my half-brother, Dr. Fredrick Beazley to protect the Oblongata Plan. More than forty thousand soldiers in this republic are under my control, and right now, I’m using ten thousand of them to hunt down and kill my own daughter.
“As I speak, there are roadblocks—army checkpoints—on every main road, in every town, in every county of every state in this country, all looking for her. The airports, seaports, rail stations and terminals are all being covered. That’s how determined I am in apprehending and destroying my own flesh and blood. Do you now get the picture of who you’re dealing with? And, in case the CIA hasn’t found out; the Order of Oblongata fully controls this republic. All its military and law enforcement resources are completely at our disposal.”
“How much did you pay?”
“It isn’t just about buying your way alone,” he retorted. “It’s also about filling power vacuums. My son, August Cristobal was born in this republic forty-seven years ago. Today, he’s the President. And it didn’t happen by accident.”
“You hijacked the government.”
“It wasn’t as hard as you might think, particularly since the so-called ‘World Powers’ had—and still have—their hands full in countless and unending arm struggles elsewhere around the world, where they have something to gain. They paid little or no attention to this republic, and that worked tremendously to our advantage. Now, tell me where you’re hiding the antidote and its formula.”
“You believe in Devine intervention? And the triumph of good over evil?” Brett asked.
“I believe only in the triumph and dominion of the strong over the weak. Tell me what I want to know!” Cristobal yelled impatiently.
Brett’s demeanor was cool and unhurried. “You called off my execution so that you could interrogate me. I think that’s Devine intervention. And the biggest mistake you ever made in your entire life.”
“What?” Cristobal looked stunned for a moment, but quickly recovered. He angled his head and stared fixedly at Brett, who met his gaze squarely with cold steel-blue eyes. Something about Brett’s demeanor made Cristobal suddenly uncomfortable.
“What d’you mean by that?” he asked cautiously. His bodyguards and the three remaining soldiers became intensely watchful.
“I snooped around a little before I was caught,” Brett began with a wicked grin on his face. “I was in here alone for a few minutes, and did a couple of things—just in case. I can’t believe my luck.”
“What did you do?”
“This room will blow up before any of you can pull the trigger. Drop your weapons.”
“You’re bluffing,” David Cristobal said in an uncertain voice. “Take your right hand out slowly from underneath the table.”
“I prefer not to. I’m holding a remote detonator that I taped under this table earlier. It will trigger the two pounds of Semtex that I taped under your chair. From experience, I knew the chief interrogator tends to sit at the head of the table.”
“I am sitting on plastic explosives—?” He suddenly pulled the Glock as he spoke. Brett slid from his chair hitting the floor sideways as Cristobal fired. From the floor, he pressed a button on the remote detonator in his hand before anyone could open fire. A powerful blast rocked the building; Brett Collins felt himself flying through the air and hitting the ceiling so hard that he blacked out before his body landed in a pile of rubble and body parts.
He lay motionless.
IN HAVANA THEY SHALL DIE! (Permanent Enemy Series Book 2)
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Meet Imogen Rose
D. D. Scott's bestselling romantic comedies are all about sexy, sassy, smart, career-driven women and the men who complete them. They're a bit chick lit with a gone-country twist...and now a humorous mystery, comedic caper twist too… She's been both a featured author and her books have been top picks - including one of the Top 10 Books for Mother's Day 2010 - for such superfab Ereader-centric Blogs as Kindle Nation Daily… Also a Writer's Go-to-Gal for Muse Therapy and now the Amazon #1 Bestselling Author of MUSE THERAPY: UNLEASHING YOUR INNER SYBIL, D. D. debuted her Muse Therapy Online Classes in 2009 and her Live Workshops in 2010. Thanks to the fabulous endorsement of Stephen Windwalker's Kindle Nation Daily, there's a ton more fun and fascinating MUSE THERAPY adventures in development.
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