by Glen Robins
I had a lot to think about.
One thing for sure, the pressure and heat from the near catastrophe had cooked up something good in terms of my family. Whatever malice or hurt or disappointment there had been before had, through this experience, been boiled off, replaced by something new and healthy.
The future was looking good all around.
Before You Go
Thank you for reading “Chosen Path.” I hope you enjoyed the adventure and came away with an appreciation for the Korean people, the Korean culture, and the history of Korea while being entertained. The situation on the Korean Peninsula is a tenuous one with global implications. May peace prevail.
Authors like me depend on reviews from readers like you to gain visibility and help new readers find our work. I hope you will take the time to share your thoughts about this story. Follow this link: Review Your Purchases (amazon.com.
As a “thank you,” I would like to offer you a gift. Please visit www.glenrobinsbooks.com to request a free copy of my next release.
My other books include:
Off Kilter
Off Course
Off Guard
Off Chance
Off Limits
Off Track
Coming soon: Born Into Espionage
Continue reading for a sneak peek.
Born Into Espionage – Sneak Peek
Prologue
I’m not proud of too many things in my life. The things I’ve done—that I’ve had to do—are not the kinds of things you talk about in polite company. Not that I keep polite company, mind you, but if I did, I would lie about what I do for a living. Or, better said, what I have to do to survive. I’m just fortunate to get paid for it some of the time.
Since my skills are second to none, having been reared and trained by two of the best in the business, my fees are high and my bank accounts enviable.
My parents taught me well. I learned to follow the “Golden Rule,” but also to defend myself, my fellow countrymen, and the cause of freedom. Mine was an upbringing that by most accounts would appear fraught with conflicting values that are diametrically opposed, such as, “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and “It is better to kill than to be killed.” I have had to do some things that others would consider heinous or horrifying. Those are the kinds of acts that fall more in line with “protect the innocent and defend the weak” than “turn the other cheek.”
Living true to these values can be confusing, especially when you’re orphaned at seventeen and have been hunted ever since by those who gave the orders to eliminate your parents. All my parents ever did wrong was question the motives of their superiors. And refuse one time each to do their bidding.
While being instructed by my parents not to lie, I was trained on the fine art of falsifying documents, such as passports and driver’s licenses. They gave me several identities and explained when and how to create more. I’ve grown up in an elaborate web of half-truths and concealment for the sole purpose of surviving. My life, I was told, would be difficult but rewarding. My life’s mission, they said, would be to remove evil from the world so that the good can flourish. I was to take out the wolves so the sheep could continue to live in peace, blissfully ignorant of the dark and seedy underworld of espionage into which I was born.
To some in high positions, my existence would be problematic. To some with direct oversight of my parents and their professional lives, it is not acceptable. To those who need certain, shall we say, “deeds” to be done, my existence is essential. To the relatively few people who know of me, I am sought after for varied reasons. Some want to kill me while others want to employ me to accomplish things that will make them and their superiors look good. Those same superiors who would not hesitate to sign the kill order to get rid of me.
I am a loose end that needs to be “tied off.”
At the same time, I’m an untraceable, highly effective killing machine.
I’m an asset, but also an enemy.
It’s just a matter of perspective.
If you’re on the right side of the equation, I am a measure of protection. If you’re on the wrong side, I’m an undetectable threat.
One of the things I am proud of is my physique. I’ve worked hard to build lean muscle mass so that I’m far stronger than I look. I can deadlift twice my body weight and carry it slung over my shoulder at a trot for a mile. Yet, I remain nimble and agile. I don’t spend much time in a gym, however. I do calisthenics, yoga, Tai-Chi, and aerobic exercises to build and maintain my fitness level. I sprint up staircases at local parks or high schools with a forty-pound backpack while most people are asleep. I also do a lot of swimming because it stretches out the muscle fibers while strengthening them so I don’t get all bulky.
I need to stay fit and lithe. My life often depends on it.
On top of all that, I have been blessed with cat-like reflexes and a predator’s instincts. Some of that is a product of my upbringing—much of it, truth be known. I have even been trained since I was small to stalk like a panther, silent and stealthy. I could be in the same room with you and you wouldn’t know it until it was too late.
So, yeah, I’m proud of what I can do physically.
I’m not too shabby on the mental acuity scale, either.
Much of my physical makeup is purely hereditary. I inherited my athletic build from my father, God rest his soul, and much of my grit and determination from my mother, may she, too, rest in peace.
Both of my parents were extremely bright people. They tested well, graduated with advanced degrees from prominent universities, and began promising careers before they were recruited. He was a former Navy Seal turned computer programmer and information technology architect. From him I learned how to gain access to information stored in almost any computer anywhere. She once qualified for the British Olympic gymnastics team, but injury prevented her from competing in the Games. Instead, she applied the same drive to her schooling and studied material science engineering and physics. Under her tutelage, I became proficient at math, science, and the art of manipulating the environment around me to my advantage. Because of her, I can build and dismantle explosive devices.
All that training happened a long time ago.
Things have changed. My life is not like anyone’s that I have ever known or read about.
I am unique and so is my story.
I’m a twenty-three-year-old orphan.
And a lethal free-lance assassin.
A few days before my most recent assignment started, I drove my car off an embankment into a rain-swollen creek in the middle of the night during one of the most powerful storms the San Francisco Bay Area had experienced in recent history. The timing of my short stay in the East Bay was not coincidental. It was calculated based on the arrival of that monster system coming down out of the Gulf of Alaska and blasting the region with heavy wind and rain.
Of course, I drove off the road on purpose. I needed to lose a tail. I needed to be dead and I knew my story would make headlines because it would be so unusual. Faking my own death was my best chance of vanishing into the night. Beyond that, I needed the guy in the backseat to be dead even more.
The day after the accident, I was on my way to Tora Bora, Afghanistan, with stops in Washington, D.C., and London along the way.
I found and kept a copy of the news article covering my mysterious disappearance in my electronic journal. I also saved the video clip from the evening news.
January 7, San Francisco Bay Area News
Fremont, California – The Search and Rescue Team from the Fremont Fire Department was dispatched early this morning to the scene of an overnight accident in Niles Canyon for a potential rescue after a vehicle apparently plunged off the roadway during last night’s heavy downpour. A missing section of guardrail was the only indication of the crash.
“There were no eyewitnesses, only a motorist who passed by sometime after the accident and reported seeing headlights pointing into the trees overhanging Ala
meda Creek,” said Officer Reed Phillips of the California Highway Patrol during a press conference held this morning at the Fremont Station. “The CHP was dispatched to the scene at 4:09 a.m. The responding officer reported that he could see no driver and no passengers when he shined his flashlight through the windows of the vehicle from the bank of the creek. It’s about a fifteen-foot drop from the roadway to the creek below and visibility was extremely poor due to the heavy rain and the dense foliage along that stretch of the road,” explained Officer Phillips.
Due to the torrential rain that has been falling steadily for the past three days, the creek has swollen and is said to be six to eight feet above its normal level. “It is highly unlikely anyone survived that crash. The creek is running extremely fast with all this rain and the water is very cold. The windshield and driver’s side window were both completely broken out upon impact. It appears that the driver and any passengers were swept downstream in the strong current.”
According to the CHP, the ongoing effort is now focused on recovery. Despite the fact that the Fremont Search and Rescue team responded to the call for assistance and arrived approximately thirteen minutes later, they were unable to locate any survivors. After scouring the immediate vicinity of the crash for any signs of human life, the crew began searching downstream in hopes of finding whoever was in that car before it was too late.
Hopes of a successful rescue were dashed shortly after sunrise when the crew found the body of a middle aged man submerged and pinned against a metal grate under an overpass roughly two miles downstream. The victim has been identified as John “Jack” Maguire, a senior advisor and member of the President’s security council on terrorism. He was scheduled to meet with the founder and CEO of ZuessNet Technologies to discuss forthcoming innovations designed by the company to aid in the war on terror.
The vehicle was a late model Tesla registered to a high-ranking employee of ZuessNet who was sent by the company to take Mr. Maguire from Oakland International Airport to his hotel in Santa Clara. The driver’s identity has not yet been released, pending notification of the family. Maguire had arrived on a flight from Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. at roughly 9:49 p.m.
-Sarah Ducas, Ryan Kwon, and Leslie Scow contributed to this story.
Born Into Espionage – Chapter One
I shouldn’t exist. You might say my birth was an accident.
Many people wish I didn’t exist. I can count some seventy-eight people who are now dead because of me. I bet they and those close to them wished I hadn’t been born. But, then again, they were bad people who needed to die. In most of those cases, if I hadn’t killed them, some other hired gun would have. I didn’t write the contract, after all. I just delivered the desired result.
Four of those cases, including the guy in the backseat of the car I plunged into Alameda Creek, were personal. Call it revenge. Or vigilante justice. Or “paying the piper.” Whatever the label, those four had it coming for what they did.
There will be more.
My mother and father were never supposed to meet. They were never supposed to communicate, collaborate, or consummate. But they did. That’s why I’m here. Born into a relationship that was never supposed to be, my existence is not officially recognized anywhere.
The only paperwork that proves I am alive was fabricated by my parents. None of their colleagues nor their handlers in the CIA and MI6 learned of me until I was fifteen. Even then, it was accidental.
Before that, very few people knew about me.
One aunt on my mom’s side and two of my dad’s second cousins have been in on the secret from the beginning. They’re eight and ten years older than he was, so they’re more like an aunt and uncle to me. That’s what happens when your father’s parents have children later in life. These second cousins’ children know me, but don’t know how I’m connected to them. My parents wanted to keep it that way. That’s the extent of my family relations, as far as I know. By the time I was ten, my parents ended my visits with all family members “for their safety and yours,” they said.
During those early years, this small group of relatives provided a safe place for me to stay while my mom and dad fulfilled various assignments. My parents would drop me off in the middle of the night with one of my aunts, then disappear. Sometimes I stayed for a few days. Sometimes it was weeks.
More often than not, it would be me living alone with one of my parents for long periods of time. We spent the time learning and training. Games involving the capitols of every country in the world and the fifty states in the US helped me learn my geography. Speaking the language of a different country each day and eating the food from that country kept things interesting and fluid. More often than not, we would end up in those countries, eating the food and speaking the language for long stretches. That’s how I became conversant in seven languages.
Being a former Navy Seal, my dad made sure I had all the skills he had. We would do fun things like have contests to see who could stay underwater the longest or who could climb a tree the fastest. As I grew, he kept track of my personal records in everything—how fast I could run a hundred meters and how long I could last at full speed. Same with swimming. He recorded my longest and highest jumps and got more excited than I did every time one of those personal bests was eclipsed.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized he never actually measured any of my runs or swims. He could calculate distances by sight or feel or magic or something. I guess that’s where I picked up the same ability. It comes in handy.
Without realizing it, I was taught parkour, the art of maneuvering through obstacles in any environment quickly and efficiently and without equipment. It involves running, jumping, climbing, tumbling, and danger. The level of danger grew as I did. That’s why I liked it so much. That and the fact that my parents were so good at it that wanting to reach their level kept me constantly motivated.
Our games of hide and seek, especially with my dad, would sometimes last for hours. He showed me how to pick the best places, then praised my ability to conceal myself using whatever I could find around me. Eventually, I mastered the art of camouflage using grass, mud, and leaves. By the age of eight, I could stay quiet even while my dad walked within a few meters of my hiding spot. When he finally found me, I would be on the verge of tears sometimes, worried that I had been abandoned. He would comfort me by saying, “Someday you’re going to thank me for this.”
After it became too difficult to leave me with the relatives, I was home alone more and more. Because well-meaning adults who saw me buying food or other supplies would ask why I wasn’t in school, the day came when my parents started to refuse certain assignments.
At the time, those refusals made sense. My mom in particular had strong, logical reasons for turning down work. They weren’t desperate for money and they had become suspicious of the motives behind some of the tasks they were asked to perform.
But that’s when the trouble began.
I was fourteen and in the same room when my mother told her handler at MI6 she would not be available to go on an extended assignment in the Persian Gulf. Her face was full of determination as she spoke, explaining to the person on the other end of the conversation that she had just completed a long assignment and needed rest. That look of steely determination I had seen so many times left her face toward the end of the call, replaced by fear, something I was unaccustomed to seeing.
Because we never stayed in one place for very long, except my aunt’s remote cabin in the Harbottle area, we never had much. We were always prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. At the end of that phone call, we left the cabin for the last time, faster than we had ever left any place. We were gone in two minutes. No explanation. No second-guessing. No hesitation.
As we hurried out to the carport, my mother stopped, placed her phone on a large rock that we often used as a place to sit and rest after our morning runs, and proceeded to smash it to bits with another hand-sized rock. She looked at my bewilder
ed face. “They’ll have traced it. We have to go.”
Dark, ominous clouds filled the sky overhead, obscuring the sun, similar to what I felt inside. Each of us carried a duffle bag stuffed with clothes over our shoulders. We strapped our meager collection of belongings to the rack on the back of our Honda CFR motorcycle, donned our helmets and dark-colored rain gear, and climbed on.
A light drizzle began to fall. My mother drove to the paved road at the end of the driveway, explaining that it was important not to leave tracks that could be followed. I had expected her to go into the thick forest straight back from the house where we always went riding. Instead, we turned uphill on the windy, narrow road and she goosed the throttle. We almost never went that way. There was nothing in that direction. But as I thought about it, that made the most sense in the moment.
We both leaned forward and from side to side as we took one turn after another at breakneck speeds. After only a few minutes, she turned off the paved road onto a single-track trail. She reduced the speed but given the terrain and my unfamiliarity with this route, it still felt wild and reckless. The further we went, the more I could sense the tension in her body easing. She eventually slowed to a stop and we both climbed off.