by Joseph Badal
He looked at his watch. It takes about thirty minutes by cab to get to the Olympic Airlines terminal, he thought, then another hour to fly to Samos. All things considered, it’s not much of a weekly commute, especially for someone who daily drove an hour-and-a-half from Palos Verdes to Newport Beach, and back, for fifteen years.
He smiled while he pictured Layla Vangelos in her house on Samos, passing most days with the other black-clad widows of the village. The old women went to church every morning, and then sat and talked about whatever it is that old women talked about. John guessed if the conversation ever got boring, Layla could regale her friends with the story about her brave son and daughter and her fabulous new son-in-law. And, of course, she would relate Petros’s part in the whole adventure.
John’s mind turned to the business he and Nick had started. He had invested $800,000 and pooled it with a like amount of Nick’s proceeds from the salvage of the Sabiya, and they now ran a fleet of four small tour boats. Their office was in Piraeus and their boats left from there for cruises through the Greek Islands, as well as to other tourist sites in Italy and Turkey. The administrative duties had fallen to him, while Nick supervised the boats’ schedules and maintenance. John would rather have been out on one of the boats, but Nick claimed total ignorance about finances and accounting. John didn’t believe him in the slightest. But the business thrived and they planned to buy two more boats. They called the company Vangelos Tours.
He picked up the newspaper and wasn’t surprised to see Zoë’s picture on the front page—again. Her position as head of the Antiquities Department at the University of Athens put her in direct conflict with the building in Athens. Every building project in the Greek capital had created more opportunities for her department than anyone could have imagined. It had turned into an archaeologist’s dream—and a contractor’s nightmare. Ancient graveyards, streets, houses, temples, statuary, pottery, jewelry—all continually unearthed. Zoë was proud to have her name show up in the local newspapers as the person responsible for another construction delay.
It was Friday evening and John was on his way to meet Zoë at the airport. They would fly to their home on Samos, spend time with Layla, Christo and his wife, Demetria, Nick and Ariana, and Pericles and Marika. They would alter this schedule a couple months before the baby was born. They planned to spend Zoë’s seventh month on Samos, and then the two of them would fly to the United States and stay with John’s folks. They wanted Zoë to have the benefits of American health care and they wanted their son, Peter, born in the States.
John placed the newspaper back down on the seat, closed his eyes, and reflected on the last year. Truly remarkable, he thought. Zoë always greets me with a smile that not only lights up her face, but warms my heart almost more than I can bear. It makes me dizzy with happiness to see her. I haven’t once had the Afghanistan nightmare since we married.
Before Petros Vangelos’s death, John hadn’t thought much about destiny. A true son of his culture, he’d always believed hard work led to success—luck was a sucker’s game. But the old Greek fisherman altered everything. John knew no one could have planned for the odyssey Petros set in motion.
He felt sad that Petros and he never had the chance to know one another. But the more he learned about him, the more he realized how remarkable the man had been. Petros had changed his life and telling his story barely did justice to the man’s memory.
John’s eyes snapped open when the taxi lurched to a stop. Zoë stood just outside the door to the terminal building, showing him her radiant smile. For the thousandth time, John thought that his initial translation of Petros Vangelos’s words was right all along—Ee Zoë mou does mean “my life.”
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Prior to a long finance career, including serving as a senior executive and board member of a NYSE-listed company, Joseph Badal served for six years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army in critical, highly classified positions in the U.S. and overseas, including tours of duty in Greece and Vietnam. He earned numerous military decorations.
He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in International Finance (Temple University) and Business Administration (University of New Mexico). He graduated from the Defense Language Institute, West Coast, and from Stanford University Law School’s Director College.
Joe now serves on the boards of several companies.
He has had seven suspense novels published, including “Ultimate Betrayal,” which was released in April 2014. “The Lone Wolf Agenda,” which was released in 2013, was named the top Mystery/Thriller novel in the 2013 New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards competition. He also writes a monthly blog titled Everyday Heroes, and has written short stories published in the “Uncommon Assassins” and “Someone Wicked” anthologies.
Joe has written dozens of articles that have been published in various business and trade journals and is a frequent speaker at business, civic, and writers’ events.
“EVIL DEEDS”
DANFORTH SAGA (#1)
“Evil Deeds” is the first book in the Bob Danforth series, which includes “Terror Cell” and “The Nostradamus Secret.” In this three book series, the reader can follow the lives of Bob & Liz Danforth, and of their son, Michael, from 1971 through 2011. “Evil Deeds” begins on a sunny spring day in 1971 in a quiet Athenian suburb. Bob & Liz Danforth’s morning begins just like every other morning: Breakfast together, Bob roughhousing with Michael. Then Bob leaves for his U.S. Army unit and the nightmare begins, two-year-old Michael is kidnapped.
So begins a decades-long journey that takes the Danforth family from Michael’s kidnapping and Bob and Liz’s efforts to rescue him, to Bob’s forced separation from the Army because of his unauthorized entry into Bulgaria, to his recruitment by the CIA, to Michael’s commissioning in the Army, to Michael’s capture by a Serb SPETSNAZ team in Macedonia, and to Michael’s eventual marriage to the daughter of the man who kidnapped him as a child. It is the stops along the journey that weave an intricate series of heart-stopping events built around complex, often diabolical characters. The reader experiences CIA espionage during the Balkans War, attempted assassinations in the United States, and the grisly exploits of a psychopathic killer.
“Evil Deeds” is an adrenaline-boosting story about revenge, love, and the triumph of good over evil.
“TERROR CELL”
DANFORTH SAGA (#2)
“Terror Cell” pits Bob Danforth, a CIA Special Ops Officer, against Greek Spring, a vicious terrorist group that has operated in Athens, Greece for three decades. Danforth’s mission in the summer of 2004 is to identify one or more of the members of the terrorists in order to bring them to justice for the assassination of the CIA’s Station Chief in Athens. What Danforth does not know is that Greek Spring plans a catastrophic attack against the 2004 Summer Olympic Games.
Danforth and his CIA team are hampered by years of Congressionally mandated rules that have weakened U.S. Intelligence gathering capabilities, and by indifference and obstructionism on the part of Greek authorities. His mission becomes even more difficult when he is targeted for assassination after an informant in the Greek government tells the terrorists of Danforth’s presence in Greece.
In “Terror Cell,” Badal weaves a tale of international intrigue, involving players from the CIA, the Greek government, and terrorists in Greece, Libya, and Iran—all within a historical context. Anyone who keeps up with current events about terrorist activities and security issues at the Athens Olympic Games will find the premise of this book gripping, terrifying, and, most of all, plausible.
“Joe Badal takes us into a tangled puzzle of intrigue and terrorism, giving readers a tense well-told tale and a page-turning mystery.”
—Tony Hillerman, New York Times bestselling author
“THE NOSTRADAMUS SECRET”
DANFORTH SAGA (#3)
This latest historical thrille
r in the Bob Danforth series builds on Nostradamus’s “lost” 58 quatrains and segues to present day. These lost quatrains have surfaced in the hands of a wealthy Iranian megalomaniac who believes his rise to world power was prophesied by Nostradamus. But he sees the United States as the principal obstacle to the achievement of his goals. So, the first step he takes is to attempt to destabilize the United States through a vicious series of terrorist attacks and assassinations.
Joseph Badal offers up another action-packed story loaded with intrigue, fascinating characters and geopolitical machinations that put the reader on the front line of present-day international conflict. You will be transported from a 16th century French monastery to the CIA, to crime scenes, to the Situation Room at the White House, to Middle Eastern battlefields.
“The Nostradamus Secret” presents non-stop action in a contemporary context that will make you wonder whether the story is fact or fiction, history or prophesy.
“ “The Nostradamus Secret” is a gripping, fact-paced story filled with truly fanatical, frightening villains bent on the destruction of the USA and the modern world. Badal’s characters and the situations they find themselves in are hair-raising and believable. I couldn’t put the book down. Bring on the sequel!”
—Catherine Coulter, New York Times bestselling author of “Double Take”
“THE LONE WOLF AGENDA”
DANFORTH SAGA (#4)
With “The Lone Wolf Agenda,” Joseph Badal returns to the world of international espionage and military action thrillers and crafts a story that is as close to the real world of spies and soldiers as a reader can find. This fourth book in the Danforth Saga brings Bob Danforth out of retirement to hunt down lone wolf terrorists hell bent on destroying America’s oil infrastructure. Badal weaves just enough technology into his story to wow even the most a-technical reader.
“The Lone Wolf Agenda” pairs Danforth with his son Michael, a senior DELTA Force officer, as they combat an OPEC-supported terrorist group allied with a Mexican drug cartel. This story is an epic adventure that will chill readers as they discover that nothing, no matter how diabolical, is impossible.
“A real page-turner in every good sense of the term. “The Lone Wolf Agenda” came alive for me. It is utterly believable, and as tense as any spy thriller I’ve read in a long time.”
—Michael Palmer, New York Times bestselling author of “Political Suicide”
“ULTIMATE BETRAYAL”
STAND-ALONE THRILLER
Inspired by actual events, “Ultimate Betrayal” is a thriller that takes the reader on an action-packed, adrenaline-boosting ride, from the streets of South Philadelphia, through the Afghanistan War, to Mafia drug smuggling, to the halls of power at the CIA and the White House.
David Hood comes from the streets of South Philadelphia, is a decorated Afghanistan War hero, builds a highly successful business, marries the woman of his dreams, and has two children he adores. But there are two ghosts in David’s past. One is the guilt he carries over the death of his brother. The other is a specter that will do anything to murder him.
David has long lost the belief that good will triumph over evil. The deaths of his wife and children only reinforce that cynicism. And leave him with nothing but a bone-chilling, all-consuming need for revenge.
“ “Ultimate Betrayal” provides the ultimate in riveting reading entertainment that’s as well thought out as it is thought provoking. Both a stand-out thriller and modern day morality tale. Mined from the familial territory of Harlan Coben, with the seasoned action plotting of James Rollins or Steve Berry, this is fiction of the highest order. Poignant and unrelentingly powerful.”
—Jon Land, bestselling and award-winning author of “The Tenth Circle”
“SHELL GAME”
STAND-ALONE THRILLER
“Shell Game” is a financial thriller using the economic environment created by the capital markets meltdown that began in 2007 as the backdrop for a timely, dramatic, and hair-raising tale. Joseph Badal weaves an intricate and realistic story about how a family and its business are put into jeopardy through heavy-handed, arbitrary rules set down by federal banking regulators, and by the actions of a sociopath in league with a corrupt bank regulator.
Like all of Badal’s novels, “Shell Game” takes the reader on a roller coaster ride of action and intrigue carried on the shoulders of believable, often diabolical characters. Although a work of fiction, “Shell Game,” through its protagonist Edward Winter, provides an understandable explanation of one of the main reasons the U.S. economy continues to languish. It is a commentary on what federal regulators are doing to the United States banking community today and, as a result, the damage they are inflicting on perfectly sound businesses and private investors across the country and on the overall U.S. economy.
“Shell Game” is inspired by actual events that have taken place as a result of poor governmental leadership and oversight, greed, corruption, stupidity, and badly conceived regulatory actions. You may be inclined to find it hard to believe what happens in this novel to both banks and bank borrowers. I encourage you to keep an open mind. “Shell Game” is a work of fiction that supports the old adage: You don’t need to make this stuff up.
“Fiction Master, Joseph Badal has another winner in “Shell Game.” Take a roller coaster ride through the maze of modern banking regulations with one of modern fiction’s most terrifying sociopaths in the driver’s seat. Along with its compelling, fast-paced story of a family’s struggle against corruption, “Shell Game” raises important questions about America’s financial system based on well-researched facts.”
—Anne Hillerman & Jean Schaumberg, WORDHARVEST