CAPTURED
He's breathing down her neck, so close she can smell him. She's compromised Mike Delaney and he must rescue her at all costs. But first, he must overcome
The Mammoth
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THE IMMORTALITY PLOT
A Mike Delaney thriller
SYNOPSIS
Ex US government assassin and Hong Kong Police martial arts enforcer Mike Delaney is kicked out of the force on a trumped up charge along with his partner Bob Messenger.
Delaney drops out and joins a reclusive esoteric monastic brotherhood while Messenger forms confess-confess.com?- a global crime busting website where ordinary people fight back against injustice, each with their own code name.?
Delaney falls in love, leaves the monastery and marries. One year later his investigative journalist wife is brutally murdered by a transvestite contract serial killer known as 'The Priest'. She is one of many.
Delaney vows to track down 'The Priest'. He discovers his wife was about to expose a global plot known as?The Renaissance Project?involving the richest and most powerful people on the planet who pay huge sums to attain true immortality. The 'Priest' is their tame assassin (but Lucius Gynt is not as tame as they think he is).
On the confess-confess website Delaney's code name is 'The Monk'. His search for 'The Priest' and uncovering the labyrinthine?Renaissance Project?will test his skills to the limit and put his life on the line.
CHAPTER 1
Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, Hong Kong
In exactly ten minutes and fifteen seconds his life could end. And his memory of existence might last a few moments or stretch to infinity. He had no way of knowing. No one does.
He was unaware that in exactly six hundred and fifteen seconds he was going to confront bitter betrayal or sudden death. He had no inkling that these were the options. No idea how the cards would fall.
It was dark and steamy in a slimy alley close to the waterfront. Nearby, the harbour district was ablaze with vibrant life. But in the deserted streets around the fish market, festering in the stench of rotting entrails, only a flickering glow illuminated the darkened wharves and stalls with patches of light and shade.
Mike Delaney gripped his model 10 Smith and Wesson .38 caliber special revolver close to his face. He tightened his knuckles and glanced behind to his left. He could just make out his partner Bob Messenger in the gloom close to a dripping fire escape. He altered the position of his gun hand a fraction and shuffled forward, staying in the shadows opposite the target doorway. Under a gap at the base of the door a yellowish light the color of bile seeped into the alley.
Inside the building, a secretive triad group was doing business with a team of non-Chinese freelance criminals that had come together just for this deal: drugs in return for people. A consignment of pure cocaine traded for human lives - lives that now had no hope, no future except the slavery of the streets and the pimp bars around the world.
Delaney had not set this up. There were four U.S and British citizens high on the wanted lists of both countries inside the target building and they needed sensitive handling. That's why the operational superintendent had requested the presence of Delaney and Messenger - unusual in a task force situation on the streets of Hong Kong.
The operation had been planned meticulously. Behind Messenger a small unit of armed officers awaited a signal. Another team under the command of a senior officer was moving in at the other end of the alleyway, blocking any escape. When the signal was given that team would go in first. Delaney could just see Messenger's shadow shifting against the wooden planks of a storage shed.
A movement caught his attention. It was just a shape melding within the darkness above and to his right. There was a momentary glint of something.
Was it metal?
Delaney was on full alert, but now his instincts triggered an additional surge of adrenalin. He considered warning Messenger via their microphone link but knew it could give away their position. Support units were to maintain radio silence at all costs. So he hesitated. Normally he could feel the unseen presence of his fellow officers. But now, all he could sense were emptiness and isolation. The gloom surrounding him was engulfing. It was almost palpable. Delaney experienced a deep unease, a clammy sense of betrayal. But, he couldn't be certain.
There was only one way to find out.
Delaney began to move silently across to the target doorway. There was a shuttered window next to a cracked and sun-blistered door. Delaney sidled towards it, his heart pounding, watchful and alert.
Yes. There was definite movement.
Delaney stared at the spot. All his experience told him something was wrong. Someone was positioned about ten feet up from the ground on a low roofed building. He was sure of it. But this wasn't part of the operational plan. Nobody had been briefed to take up that position.
Sniper.
Delaney ordered himself to trust his instincts. As he moved out of the shadows he heard a whispered click and a glimmer of reflected light as from a scope. Messenger heard it too and was already moving into the open.
Delaney didn't hesitate. He sprinted into the open alleyway aiming at the shape on the rooftop as Messenger started to crouch and run, swivelling to take aim.
The crack of the rifle shot echoed around the empty alley. There was no one behind the doorway or inside the building.
There was no drug deal.
There was no back up.
There was only Delaney and Messenger as sitting ducks. There was only the bullet speeding towards Mike Delaney. Messenger yelled and Delaney dived as the bullet found its target - but not the one the sniper had aimed at. Bob Messenger screamed once as the high velocity shell punched home and entered his lower back. He fell to the ground with a thud. Delaney cried out with anger and anguish and saw the assassin move, take shape, reflect light, and jump back over the other side of the building.
Delaney was torn between attending to his fallen colleague, a man who had become one of his few true friends, and his desire to exact immediate and terminal revenge. He knew what Messenger would do if the position was reversed when he saw the look in his eyes.
He chose the latter.
Delaney rammed the revolver into his waistband as he raced around the other side of the building towards the lights of Yen Chou Street. He couldn't risk using a firearm in full public view. The chase took little more than five minutes. His target was running out of a narrow alleyway just ahead of him as Delaney vaulted a row of barrels and wooden planks. The assassin was fast but Delaney was faster.
As he ran, Delaney picked up a heavy cudgel-shaped piece of wood and hurled it at the moving target. It caught him between the shoulder blades and caused him to momentarily stumble and slow. He had wisely dropped the rifle.
With Delaney approaching at speed, the assailant decided to stand and fight.
It was a fatal mistake.
Delaney smoothly sidestepped a jabbed punch, crouched and struck with the heel of his palm deep into the solar plexus, a fraction later he stepped in with a shattering two-knuckle strike to the carotid artery. The assassin dropped instantly. Delaney stamped his heel into the man's throat splintering his windpipe. It took him five seconds to die.
Delaney rolled the body onto its back. He had seen the man's face before - in a coded, high security file at operational headquarters. Delaney walked a few yards to pick up the rifle. He held the Remington 280 official police issue weapon in his hands then swung it over his shoulder. This was no triad hit man. This was a trained police marksman.
As Delaney retraced his steps to tend to his colleague and friend he called base command for a clean-up squad. There was a crackle on the line and a series of rapid clicks. Delaney had played it by the book but inside he knew. It was a set-up and he wasn't supposed to have emerged alive. The response team sirens were already screaming towards the scene.
And that's when an iron web of deceit and lies tightened around Mike Dela
ney.
NEXT READ AN EXCERPT FROM HORROR CHILLER 'KNIFE EDGE'
CHAPTER ONE
Chapter c: Knife Edge
KNIFE EDGE
A sensual psycho thriller
SYNOPSIS
Beauty and the twin beasts
Ella Fallon was ugly and hated it. Ed Leeming was disfigured and ashamed. But they loved each other. It was the real thing.
They were tormented by Scott Stockton, a rich, egotistical Adonis figure who delighted in humiliating them. But for the disfigurement, Ed could have been Stockton's younger twin. But no one notices. Yet.
When Ed challenges him, Stockton hurts him - puts him into a catatonic coma.
Ella snaps. Why wouldn't she? Goes on the road, wins a million dollars in Las Vegas and meets body remodeller extraordinaire, Thomas Startz.
He transforms her into a cross between Katy Perry and Jennifer Lopez - she is sensational.
Despairing of Ed's recovery she has Startz transform him into someone beautiful while still in a coma. Then Ed wakes up. A dead ringer for Scott Stockton, the man he hates.
Now, there's only one game in town. Ella and Ed plan to take over Stockton's life, career and fortune with Ed masquerading as the egotistical spoiled brat.
Will they get away with it?
CHAPTER ONE
She just had to look.
She had no choice. The compulsion to examine and criticise her appearance had long been a form of addiction, a ceremonial ritual she went through every morning. So were the familiar feelings of loathing and depression that welled up inside her as she stared back at the image in the mirror. Starting as a cold lump in her stomach they gradually insinuated themselves into her mind until they were displayed almost as graphically and painfully as the face in the reflection.
Ella Fallon was no beauty that was for sure. If brains, intellect and intelligence could be captured in a face then she could have been a glamorous centrefold, a rarer beauty even. There was no doubt about that. As it was, she was convinced she was ugly. She hated the word yet she forced herself to confront it every morning. She needed to generate the necessary emotional charge before making the big wish. The fact was, most people would have simply called her plain and that was because her oversized, bulbous nose, distorted top lip and mousy, straggly hair gave her the appearance of a rejected rag doll.
In truth, the eyes of a surgeon would recognise that it was not a particularly ugly face; in fact the bone structure was fine and delicate with good cheekbones and a strong chin.
Still, as far as Ella was concerned, she was ugly and that was that. Her mind was razor sharp, however. She was a straight A student and more. She also had a streak of basic grit and determination, which had seen her win a scholarship to Winfield, one of California's most exclusive colleges. But ugly just wasn't good enough in the post millennium world, with its frantic desire for immortality at all costs and its pathological fear of ageing.
Not that Winfield was much different. The beautiful elite could not tolerate a cuckoo in its comfortable, all expenses paid, nest.
Which is why Ella still carried out the ritual. One day, she knew, the little prayer would come true. Something would happen. She would wake up transformed. She would fall in love.
With a self deprecating snort, Ella turned from the intense contemplation of her features, gazed around her tidy and understated room, picked up a white candle and inserted it into a silver holder. This she placed reverently on a small lace handkerchief that lay on her bedside table, in front of the mirror. Then she took a small packet of salt which she kept just for this purpose and sprinkled a handful around the base of the candle. She knelt, lit the candle, and felt a charge of electricity run through her as the big wish began to build.
Ella stared at her reflection, which wavered in the flickering light of the candle. In her eyes an aura had appeared around her, an angelic halo of beauty through which the vision of an enchanting and haunting face stared back. Deep within her, she focused upon the wish, with intensity born of long practice. She summoned the very essence of her being to the forefront of her mind, her thoughts burning like living embryos in the purified candle flame.
'Make me beautiful,' she muttered. 'Make me beautiful...make me beautiful...' Ella intoned the mantra till it reverberated through her soul. She was shaking with emotion at the end, when she could chant no longer.
Slowly she gathered her thoughts together, carefully blew out the candle and noticed with the usual sinking feeling that she looked exactly the same as before. She sighed. She realised no amount of chanting or salt sprinkling or candle flickering was going to alter her physiognomy. She just hoped and prayed for some kind of miracle or for someone who would think she was beautiful as she was.
Sadly she moved to the window and looked out over Winfield's manicured lawns, etched like a watercolor in the morning sun. People were moving lazily in the mellow light. In the distance she could hear the football team practising some bone crunching tackles. She could just make out coach Jackson's voice screaming, 'Come on, I want war!'
Soon it would be graduation and the long days of academia would be over. Ella knew she was destined to do well. She had a natural aptitude for computer science, in particular the technology of neural networks, but she was just as certain she would never grace the school's hallowed hall of fame. No, that was reserved for the sons and daughters of senators and used car moguls and film celebrities who contributed conspicuously to the fortunes of the school. Most prominent of these, of course, was Marshall Stockton. He now, virtually, owned the school. As for Marshall's son, Scott, he would certainly figure prominently in the list of glorious Winfield names. And he would go on to become a successful something or other. After all, he stood to inherit Stockton Industries, one the biggest conglomerates in the US.
If the beautiful elite had a leader, then Scott Stockton was its handsome champion and hero and he played the role to the hilt. With an ego the size of the Chrysler Building and an allowance to match, Scott had it made. The fact that he was an obnoxious son-of-a-bitch who enjoyed humiliating people at every opportunity only burned inside Ella like a flame of vengeful desire.
Ella leaned forward and smiled at the sudden appearance of Ed Leeming. She watched him as he shambled across the grass like a tired horse, a stack of books under one arm, head bent and shoulders hunched in a gesture of self-defence. Another scholarship kid, she thought. In fact, he was the only scholarship student at Winfield other than Ella. This set them apart from the rest. Remarkably, Leeming was another ugly duckling, complete with squint; beetroot mark on his cheek and slightly buck teeth. The beautiful elite, of course, had another target in Ed Leeming.
He was painfully shy, almost withdrawn, although, by some arcane twist of bewitching speed, in a certain light he bore a marked resemblance to the handsome Scott Stockton. But only in a certain light and that didn't shine too often. Maybe it was just Ella's imagination. She liked Ed. And she was pretty sure he liked her. Maybe it was just the common ground they occupied that caused her to feel this way.
To Ella, he was simply not ugly. Sure, she recognised the facial disfigurement. She knew all about that after all. No, it was strange. She could see through the surface features, deep into a tortured, introverted but incredibly interesting soul.
She stepped back from the window but kept her gaze fixed on the green expanse of lawn with the fringe of acacia trees and the school gates in the distance and then beyond at the grey and brown hills beginning to smoulder in the dry heat.
She ran her hands over her body, slowly over her breasts and buttocks finally pausing at her groin. She pressed her fingertips harder between her legs experiencing the familiar arousal, which had only once ever been allowed to burst into an all-consuming flame. It had not been the experience she had expected after her consummate reading of the teen magazines she used to scour secretly for tips on lovemaking, or locating erogenous zones, or simply getting a boy to like you. No, it
had been a hasty rumble with a local farmer's son in a stable at home in Virginia.
The memories of her deflowering consisted of a clear picture of a leering, sweating and bug-eyed face staring at her triumphantly through gritted, uneven and tobacco stained teeth; a stab of pain and a momentary spasm of what she later realised must have been pleasure. She could remember wiping droplets of manure-tainted sweat from her face as they cascaded from the farm boy's forehead. To her eternal shame, he later branded her as an easy lay. It seemed that opening her legs was the only way she was going to get a boy, any kind of boy.
At least, that was the story she was told by every nerd in the neighbourhood. When it became clear that she was attracting only the rejects and that she was not going to play ball, or any other kind of game, with them their interest waned and finally dried up altogether.
Ella was jarred from her reverie by the sounds of the football team grunting in unison outside. The explosions of distant breath sounded almost orgasmic to her ears. She shook herself, took a deep breath and began to collect her books and papers for the first class of the day.
Ed Leeming turned and looked out across the lawns. In the distance he could make out the shifting mass of players moving, their shapes distorted in the haze until they resembled figures in a mirage. Ed could hear coach Jackson's voice from here, echoing across the green sward until it was swallowed up by the soft chatter of students rushing into the elegant colonial-style building and the crunch of feet on expensive gravel.
Ed was not a great athlete although he had always wanted to be. He had idolised sporting stars like most young boys but a combination of his slight disfigurement and a gammy foot had caused him to be ostracised from serious sport. He smiled to himself as a brief wash of despair overcame him. He could have been a contender, huh! That was his trouble.