by Jack Mars
There was a lot to think about here. It was a puzzle, and Luke didn’t know if he could untangle it by himself.
It would be nice to talk to Becca about Murphy’s death. It would be nice to talk to her about what it was like to be the only survivor of an operation that was FUBAR from the beginning, and which he might have been able to stop before it even started.
It would be nice to talk to her about the Russians in the Arctic. Apparently, the soldiers that had fought Luke and company didn’t know that the bomb under the ice was set to explode, and that if it did, it would set off a chain reaction of catastrophes that would affect the whole world.
They didn’t know that their orders came not from the Russian military itself, but from an espionage agent who had gone rogue and was trying to topple his own government. Those men fought and died in a miserably harsh climate, and had no idea what they were even fighting for.
It would be nice for Luke to hold his son on his lap here, and talk to Becca in a relaxed manner about these things, and about the waves of meaningless that seemed to wash over him every few minutes since he had gotten out of bed this morning.
But that wasn’t possible right now because there was a gulf between him and Becca, a gap so cold and vast that it reminded him of the bleak white distances at the top of the world. He could almost see her there, a tiny figure hundreds of miles away.
God, he wanted to fix that, but he didn’t know how. He wanted to fix this world, too, and he didn’t know how to do that either.
He took a sip of his tepid coffee and picked up the heavy book. It was an anthology of English poetry, from the Middle Ages up until the early twentieth century. He looked down at the page and scanned some lines that he had already read and reread several times in the past hour.
There was nothing new under the sun, and a man named Matthew Arnold seemed to have understood Luke’s life perfectly, 150 years before Luke was ever born. Maybe one day Luke would work up the courage to read these lines out loud to his wife:
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help from pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
September 15
6:15 p.m. Lebanon Daylight Time (11:15 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Spaghetteria Italiana
Beirut, Lebanon
“War is coming.”
A man who was not named Kevin Murphy sat at a corner table in a legendary Beirut restaurant, sipping strong espresso. He was tall, with very white skin and short hair. His face was clean shaven. No one in Beirut seemed to look anything like him.
When, in all these years, had war not been coming?
He barely glanced at the person who had spoken—a dark-skinned and heavily bearded young man sitting across from him. Instead, he stared out the open air window, at the stunning seafront promenade, mostly empty as the light faded this early evening, its palm trees pockmarked with bullet holes.
He knew that Beirut had once been considered the jewel of the Mediterranean, a city so beautiful that it brought the jet set—movie stars, musicians, writers, politicians, royalty—from around the globe. He shook his head. Not anymore. It might as well have never happened.
One glance around this famous restaurant was enough to tell you that—there was hardly anyone in the place. Business was bad. Apparently, masked death squads rolling through the streets in pickup trucks, and car bombs going off every few days were enough to keep even the most intrepid foodies at home.
Even so, he had to admit that he liked it here.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
The young man’s voice dropped to just above a whisper. He leaned in close. “There is going to be a provocation. The Hezbollah scouts have been watching the border patrols for months. They are intercepting radio communications.”
The younger man hesitated. He sat up, glanced around the nearly empty restaurant, and lit a cigarette. “Do you even grasp what I’m saying?”
“I guess not. I’m slow. Maybe you should explain it a little more clearly.”
The bearded man shook his head. “There is work for someone like you.”
The man not named Murphy didn’t speak for some time. He looked out at the sea again. Blue sky, blue water. So nice.
Somewhere, not far away, people were looking at this same sky, and this same water, and they were not having this conversation. They were not talking about war. They were not imagining supersonic jets pounding their cities into dust.
Greece. Italy. Spain. In those places, people were enjoying the beach, and the sun, and good food, and maybe friends and lovers.
But that didn’t interest him right now. Maybe it never really had.
He was feeling philosophical these days. Somehow, through some miracle, he had wriggled out from under the stone pillar at that mosque. He didn’t like to think of those moments. He had run toward the back wall of the mosque, away from the onrushing truck bomb. Dimly, he noticed he still had an Uzi in his hand.
He fired it at the wall as he ran toward it.
Pure instinct.
There was no rational reason why that would work. Except that the mosque was old and the whole place was falling apart. The pillars had come down, the floor had caved in, the roof was going to collapse. Why wouldn’t the walls be compromised, as well?
He didn’t think any of this. He just ran toward the wall, as fast as he could, firing an automatic weapon at it. It didn’t fall. It didn’t budge. But when he hit it, it was weakened so much that he blasted right through it.
And kept running.
When the truck hit, the force of the blast knocked him off his feet and threw him. But it threw him forward, away from the explosion. His body had been on fire, yes, but he had simply hit the ground and rolled around until the fire was out.
The fire in the mosque? It had burned for days.
He had come out of the whole mess alive, and nearly unscathed.
But he was done this time. No person could have lived through that. And yet, here he was. He had some weird bubble around him—call it a cone of invincibility—the same cone that seemed to surround people like Luke Stone and Ed Newsam. But it couldn’t last forever. Sooner or later, Stone would get him killed.
Right now, Stone must think Murphy was dead. They all must.
Murphy smiled at that idea. The Special Response Team would never call him again. They couldn’t call him. His phone was incinerated, and he was gone. A fire like that? No one would even find his remains.
They’d probably hold a funeral for him and bury him in Arlington National Cemetery. He was a war hero, after all. That was a nice thought. Maybe he would put on a disguise and go.
Nah. Come to think of it, that would never happen. They didn’t plant you in Arlington if you had a dishonorable discharge. Hmmm. Maybe Don Morris would finally pull some strings and get that honorable discharge reinstated.
The man who was not Murphy smiled and shook his head.
No funeral. No trip to Leavenworth to fulfill some weird fantasy that Don Morris had. No worries about what Wallace Speck might or might not say when the bright light was shining in his eyes. No more suicidal missions with Luke Stone and Ed Newsam.
None of that stuff.
Instead, this:
More than two million dollars in cash in an anonymous account, a raft of marketable skills during a seller’s market for such skills, and total freedom to go wherever he felt like going, and do whatever he wanted.
He looked at the young bearded man again.
“What sort of work are we talking about, and how much does it pay?”
The young
man’s eyes were earnest. That’s what Americans never seemed to get about these Islamic guys. They meant it. This wasn’t a joke to them. This wasn’t something they did while waiting for something else to come along. They weren’t hoping to be on a TV show someday, where the host would ask them to describe everything that happened, and how they felt about it.
This was the show. They were going to die doing this, all of them, just like the guy who was driving the truck bomb.
“That depends,” the guy said. “We know that Americans sometimes have strong ideas about things. We believe these ideas are incorrect. The West is all falsehood. Of course, we know that there are certain actions you will not take—harm women and children, for example. We respect this. But as to the other things, the politics, the philosophy, the belief, each man must decide for himself.”
He gave not Murphy a long, serious look.
“Do you care which side you’re on?” he said.
Not Murphy thought about it for a long moment, and a realization came to him. He had a sickness, and that’s all it was. He didn’t have to be here. He didn’t need whatever money this kid and his cause could pay him. The kid’s religion was a joke. God, if there was such a thing, didn’t care if men wore beards. God didn’t care if people danced or listened to music. God didn’t care if women were wrapped like burritos from head to toe.
God just didn’t care.
A jumble of images, like newsreel footage, passed through not Murphy’s mind. He had seen, and done, an awful lot. If he was honest with himself, he had done most of it for the adrenaline rush.
There was magic in that, and he smiled.
“No, I don’t care. Not really.”
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PRIMARY GLORY
(The Forging of Luke Stone—Book #4)
“One of the best thrillers I have read this year.”
--Books and Movie Reviews (re Any Means Necessary)
In PRIMARY GLORY (The Forging of Luke Stone—Book #4), a ground-breaking action thriller by #1 bestseller Jack Mars, the President is taken hostage aboard Air Force One. A shocking ride ensues as elite Delta Force veteran Luke Stone, 29 and the FBI’s Special Response Team may be the only ones who can bring him back.
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--Midwest Book Review (re Any Means Necessary)
Also available is Jack Mars’ #1 bestselling LUKE STONE THRILLER series (7 books), which begins with Any Means Necessary (Book #1), a free download with over 800 five star reviews!
PRIMARY GLORY
(The Forging of Luke Stone—Book #4)
Jack Mars
Jack Mars is the USA Today bestselling author of the LUKE STONE thriller series, which includes seven books. He is also the author of the new FORGING OF LUKE STONE prequel series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the AGENT ZERO spy thriller series, comprising seven books (and counting).
ANY MEANS NECESSARY (book #1), which has over 800 five star reviews, is available as a free download on Amazon!
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BOOKS BY JACK MARS
LUKE STONE THRILLER SERIES
ANY MEANS NECESSARY (Book #1)
OATH OF OFFICE (Book #2)
SITUATION ROOM (Book #3)
OPPOSE ANY FOE (Book #4)
PRESIDENT ELECT (Book #5)
OUR SACRED HONOR (Book #6)
HOUSE DIVIDED (Book #7)
FORGING OF LUKE STONE PREQUEL SERIES
PRIMARY TARGET (Book #1)
PRIMARY COMMAND (Book #2)
PRIMARY THREAT (Book #3)
PRIMARY GLORY (Book #4)
AN AGENT ZERO SPY THRILLER SERIES
AGENT ZERO (Book #1)
TARGET ZERO (Book #2)
HUNTING ZERO (Book #3)
TRAPPING ZERO (Book #4)
FILE ZERO (Book #5)
RECALL ZERO (Book #6)
ASSASSIN ZERO (Book #7)
DECOY ZERO (Book #8)