On Friday we announced that Dave Harrold’s Motorcycle High: The Adventures of Rock Pounder is our Thriller of the Week and the sponsor of thousands of great bargains in the thriller, mystery, and suspense categories: over 200 free titles, over 600 quality 99-centers, and thousands more that you can read for free through the Kindle Lending Library if you have Amazon Prime!
Now we’re back to offer our weekly free Thriller excerpt:
Motorcycle High: The Adventures of Rock Pounder
by Dave Harrold
And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:
Prologue
I need to give up drugs. I’ve started dreaming a lot or maybe
it’s a nightmare, I don’t know, because these are real stories,
and I’m dreaming all of them again, in living color, or blood,
as the case may be.
I’m in Central America, a few years back. A couple of shady
guys have hired me to crew chief a plane with Orbie, a pilot I’d
worked with in the past. We’re flying 50 feet above the trees in
the Nicaraguan jungle. My job is to push the boxes carrying
guns, ammo, and medical supplies out the back of the plane
when we reach a clearing. I was pushing a big box out the door
when I slipped on a spilled diet coke some idiot had left on
the deck. I started sliding behind the box toward the door. I
was grabbing for anything to keep me from falling out, but out
I went. I had a harness on, and the harness held, but I didn’t
know for how long.
I was dragged along at 150 mph, holding onto the deck of
the plane for dear life. The wind was so strong I couldn’t even
yell or breathe. Orbie saw me and immediately put the plane
on autopilot. He made his way to the back of the plane, trying
not to slide out himself. He didn’t even have on a harness. But
Orbie flew helicopters in Vietnam, flying into battle zones to
rescue the wounded. He can deal with tough situations, and it
helps that he’s just to the left of crazy. He grabbed the tether
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Dave Harrold
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and pulled with all his strength and finally managed to get me
up onto the deck, where I was able to pull myself to safety. We
sat there for one second, before he rushed back and took the
plane off autopilot. This began a lifelong relationship of drugs,
women, booze, and, I might add, excitement.
We had about 50 minutes of flying time back to our base.
I’m not allowed to tell where it is. Orbie and I just sat there
and never spoke the entire 50 minutes. Boy, I’ll tell you what—
falling out of the airplane or any near-death experience for
that matter—makes you think. Next time a couple of shady
guys offer me a lot of money for a job in Nicaragua, I might
think twice.
The plane touched down and Orbie rolled it to our parking
space, which was really tight. The planes on each side of us
had moved over just to try and bother us. Orbie just pulled the
plane in anyway. Whenever we get back from a job, he always
says, “Well, let’s go to the house.” He says that even if we’re
sleeping in tents next to the runway. On this trip we weren’t.
We were on the motorcycles and headed off to town for maybe
a massage and some herbal refreshment and a few beers. As
usual, we were broke, but we had paid our bill at the local cantina,
so we had credit. As we came to the outskirts of town, four
guys were sitting in a jeep—like they were just waiting for us.
They were all wearing army uniforms. Orbie and I looked at
each other, and we knew these guys were not in the army. They
were bandits. They saw us coming.