The Barista’s Guide to Espionage

by Dave Sinclair

  If it was another time Eva might have even been humbled that she could have such an effect on a man. The affection she had nurtured had made Harry so love-struck that he’d created an elaborate play where she was the unknowing star performer.

  On the other side – the harsh reality, let’s-look-at-the-facts side – the story was less rose petals and champagne. The man who purported to love her had incarcerated her under false pretences, threatened her, stage-managed her and forced her to divulge intimate details all for his personal gratification.

  Then there was the minor issue of trying to take over the world by threats and manipulation. Oh, and killing innocents along the way.

  When it came down to it, Harry was deluded, be it in his plans for world domination or a future for them both. It was a sad end for a man that had once been her everything.

  Harry stood before her with a hangdog expression. Eva sighed. She would have a lifetime to debate it all in her head, but at that moment she had other priorities.

  “I really don’t have time for this. I’m glad you got out…actually, how did you get out? Last I saw you were taking an impromptu swim in the data centre.”

  Harry winced. It wasn’t anything physical, it was purely recollection-related. “I managed to find an exit, the last one, I think. I scampered for the surface. What can I say, you don’t do things by halves, Eva.”

  That meant Bishop was trapped. If he was alive. No more time could be spent yammering on. Eva had wasted too much time on Harry’s deception. She had to move.

  She stepped forward but stopped when he raised the gun.

  “You’re pulling a gun on me?”

  “It’s only fair. You did it to me.”

  “Touché.”

  It was the first time Harry had ever shown any aggression towards her. His timing wasn’t great.

  “What exactly do you think is going to happen now, Harry? I drop the gun, fall into your arms and we scoot off to plan your next adventure setting up a utopian socialist commune on the moon where there’s nothing but free love, mutual respect and space goats for all?”

  Harry ignored her impudence. “You still love me, that much is apparent. The way you spoke about us, how we were, there’s no way you still don’t share those feelings.”

  “Wow. Just, wow. You still think I’ll come back to you? Jesus, Harry. It’s over. I loved you completely. But what you’ve done, what you’ve become, it’s too much. There’s no way I can come back from that. Not now, not ever.”

  Harry’s face became a mask. She knew that mask. It was the one he wore when he gave interviews or spoke to high-level politicians. It was his, ‘Hey, let me convince you’ face. Eva had seen it countless times. It was how she’d abandoned her principles so readily.

  Whenever Harry spoke, he made the most rational arguments on Earth. Everything made sense when it came from his lips. Of course I’ll abandon my friends and follow you around the world. Of course I’ll let you buy me expensive gifts and truss me up like an exceptionally high-priced hooker. Of course I’ll abandon my feminist sensibilities and become subservient to a man simply because he has a way with words.

  He’d browbeaten diplomats, outsmarted kings. She’d seen an unarmed Harry talk an assassin out of murder in an alleyway and rally a city to fight in the streets. Despite how adamant Eva was, she couldn’t afford to let Harry’s silver tongue into her ear. She stepped forward. He stepped forward, expectant.

  Eva was over Harry’s manipulation. She was over him holding sway over her thoughts and actions. There was no way she could let him in again, not even a crack.

  Harry opened his mouth and Eva punched it.

  She didn’t have the time.

  She had to rescue Bishop.

  But also to pee.

  The boat’s hull rumbled as it bounced over a wave. The tropical waters were becoming choppier. A storm was on its way. Eva leaned into the wind and held the throttle firm.

  As the second island loomed large on the horizon, she hoped she wasn’t too late. Harry had said he’d been last out of the data centre and the last time she’d seen Bishop he was being shot at by a couple of guards. He’d probably said something derogatory about their mothers.

  She’d carefully skulked about the island after subduing Harry. There were still guards unaccounted for and worst of all, Van Buren was on the loose somewhere. Without Harry to reel him in Eva didn’t want to entertain thoughts of what he’d do to her if he found her. Thankfully she’d made it to the boat without mishap.

  She’d found the powerboat tied up on the pier she’d almost escaped from the first time. As she loaded it with supplies she’d urgently scavenged, she’d seen a beautiful sight. At the bottom of the hull sat a bright pink frilly umbrella. Greta hadn’t been lost at all. It was like she’d been reunited with a long-lost friend. A friend who could crack skulls when needed. The best kind.

  With only a rough idea where the sea side of the data centre was, it didn’t take Eva long to find it. The debris in the water helped. Parts of servers and other unidentifiable wreckage flowed in a steady stream from one point on the coastline. The tide was going out and with it, Harry’s twisted dream.

  Finding a foothold on the rocky cliff nearby, Eva tied up the boat. The hole they had blown was underwater as there were no physical signs above the waterline. Just as well one of the items she’d pinched was scuba gear. She strapped it on, checked the air, placed on the face mask and dove into the rough sea.

  The debris swirled in the churning waters. The waterproof torch allowed some visibility, but it was limited. Eva kicked downward and headed towards a dark fissure in the rock.

  The bomb had been more devastating than she’d first thought. Grey rock gave way to lighter concrete where Harry’s Chinese construction workers had closed up the cave. Most of their work had been blown away in the explosion. The gaping hole that had let in the destructive tsunami of water was the only means of egress.

  Eva had no idea when she’d last slept, it was possibly days. She kicked with every scrap of energy she had left. Which wasn’t much. She swam on and entered the cave.

  Dodging a couple of floating server racks, Eva saw a faint glow of light above the surface of the black water. But the power had been cut, so surely…?

  She clicked the torch off so as not to betray her position and swam towards the surface. As slowly as she could manage, she emerged in the gloomy cavern. Still as a tomb would have been an appropriate cliché. The cave was almost completely pitch black, the occasional shadow only emphasised the desolation that had been inflicted on the facility.

  It was the ‘almost’ of the pitch black that concerned Eva. In a far corner of the giant cavern the occasional orange flicker could be seen. A fire.

  As quietly as possible, Eva swam to the nearest walkway and removed the scuba gear. She extracted Decker’s gun from a waterproof bag. Stealthily she made her way towards the fire, fearful of what she’d find.

  Both hands tight around the grip of the gun, she came to the corner near the fire. There was no chatter, in fact, there were no human sounds at all, just the gentle crackle of flames.

  Eva blew out a silent breath and rounded the corner, gun pointed and ready.

  “Good morning.” The words echoed noisily about the yawning cavern.

  Sitting in a dishevelled tuxedo, Bishop reclined casually in front of the fire. His wry grin conveyed he’d been expecting her all along.

  “I like the bikini. Very warrior cavewoman.” He looked about what had once been a data centre. “Rather apt when you think about it.”

  Eva relaxed. “So you’re not dead then? Should have known I wouldn’t be that lucky.”

  Bishop shrugged and nodded towards the fire. “Glad you gave me your lighter.”

  “You stole it.”

  “Semantics. So the next question is, where’s Horatio Lancing?”

  “In a room.”

  “I was hoping for something slightly more specific.”

  “He
’s in a room handcuffed to a table where a couple of other blokes dressed in fake US Navy uniforms are also handcuffed.”

  “I see. Is it possible to have a level of information that’s somewhere between the two?”

  Eva filled Bishop in. The escape from the data centre. The flooding tunnel. The dash through the jungle. The almost-escape on the boat. The bogus naval vessel along with Cole and Decker’s fake interrogation. Harry Lancing’s sad fixation with her.

  Bishop’s face relayed his astonishment at the extent Harry would go to to find out her true feelings for him. He wisely chose not to request further detail.

  “So what do you reckon, Bishop? Time to get out of here?”

  “A marvellous suggestion. I’ll need to bid farewell to my new friends though.”

  “New friends?”

  Bishop jerked his head towards a nearby room. Inside were three bloodied and ragged-looking figures. Each was strapped to a server rack, gagged, but alive, including one very bruised and livid-looking Van Buren.

  “I caught your mate here trying to sneak up on me. All the stealth of an elephant in tap dancing shoes. I tied him up and spent the last couple of hours flicking rubber bands at his balls.”

  Van Buren screamed through the muzzle, his eyes crazy with rage.

  Eva tilted her head at Van Buren and addressed Bishop. “Did you learn that trick at MI6?”

  “Boarding school.”

  “Figures.” She sighed. “Want to get out of here?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  They left to the panicked shrieks of Van Buren.

  If Van Buren had made his way into the data centre, it was good news for them. It meant there was another way in, therefore out. All they had to do was find it.

  As they strode along the concrete walkway Eva was overcome with an enormous sense of relief. Was that it, was it all done now?

  She yawned. “All I want to do is get off this island, find a quiet spot to curl up and sleep for a week. Maybe take another week to catch up on my reading.”

  Bishop nodded. “Perhaps you could take a holiday? Uh, I’d suggest a non-tropical destination.”

  “I do have a little shack in France I haven’t tried out.”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Nice try, but I think I’ll be doing this one solo.”

  It was then Eva realised something. All those years of dating bad boys, she suddenly realised – it wasn’t them she was attracted to, it was the danger. The Battle of Trafalgar, Iceland, Prague, everything on the island. Regardless of the fear, she had thrived on the peril of it all. Perhaps she didn’t need bad boys anymore.

  “When you come back from this holiday of yours, you’ll need a job. You could always join MI6. There’s at least a couple of well-respected gents who would put in a good word for you.”

  Eva’s natural reaction was to scoff at the idea, but if she wanted to embrace her love of danger it wouldn’t hurt to entertain the idea. If she worked for MI6 she wouldn’t need a man for danger. She could create her own.

  The decision came faster than she’d thought. “I’m in.”

  THE END

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  The Amnesiac’s Guide to Espionage

  Eva Destruction is Back!

  Eva is an MI6 agent who wakes to find armed men in her apartment hell-bent on revenge.

  * * *

  The only problem is, she has no idea what they’re talking about. Someone has stolen the last sixth months’ worth of her memories and the fate of the world rides on getting them back.

  * * *

  On the eve of the G8 summit, Eva is thrown headlong into globe-trotting assassinations and gun battles on the trail of the mysterious plan known only as Halcyon. Together with a besotted CIA agent and a misogynistic MI6 operative, Eva races across the world to retrace her steps in the hopes of finding answers.

  * * *

  With the clock ticking, Eva must track down those behind her memory loss, as well as battle a foe she can’t remember.

  * * *

  The globetrotting takes her from London, to exotic Macau casinos, to Hong Kong hydrofoils, to French castles, to English mansions, to a car chase between an ice-cream van containing a nuclear weapon and black SUVs through the streets of London.

  * * *

  With betrayal at every turn, Eva discovers she can’t trust anyone, including her own organisation. Eva must face down nuclear annihilation alone and she hasn’t even had her coffee yet.

  * * *

  Pick up your copy today!

  About Dave Sinclair

  Dave Sinclair is a novelist, a screenwriter and a really excellent parallel parker.

  * * *

  He lives in Melbourne, Australia with his two crazy daughters. He’s also an award-winning filmmaker, a title that sounds far more impressive than it really is. He won a best comedy screenplay and cinematography award for a short film he wrote and directed, though at the time he didn’t really know what cinematography was. A completed screenplay is currently doing the rounds.

  * * *

  Dave’s overflowing bookshelves include many works by Douglas Adams, P.G. Wodehouse, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Janet Evanovich, Ian Fleming, Zadie Smith and John le Carré.

  * * *

  The Eva Destruction books are stories Dave wanted to read, full of action, laughs and fascinating characters. Eva has many more adventures up her tattooed sleeves.

  To find out more, you can stalk Dave at his semi-reputable website: https://davesinclair.com.au

  Acknowledgments

  I used to have a romantic view of how a book was written. The author sat alone at a grand desk, smoked a pipe, crafted the words on a typewriter and, when finished, yelled to their assistant:

  “Take this to the printers immediately! Another masterpiece! Now get me my cognac and slippers, minion!'

  Now I realise that this never happens – unless you're James Patterson – because no author ever writes a book alone. The Barista’s Guide to Espionage: An Eva Destruction Novel is no exception. This novel exists because a great many people believed in the story and in me.

  To my daughters – Quinn and Essie – thank you for giving me time with the strange people in my head. Added to that lot is my amazing sister, Alli, who is a fantastic writer in her own right and great at keeping me on the path.

  The other writers I’ve met and now call friends have also been a huge support. The brilliant Boa Collective (Kerrie, Peta, Cher & Clare) were my cheer squad through numerous false starts. The crazy G-Mob (Luke, Steve, Justin, Nathan, Craig, Amanda 1 & Amanda 2) thank you for your support, guidance and laughs.

  To the original publisher of this book, Fahrenheit Press, who took a chance on a crazy story with spies, explosions and a mouthy Australian broad, thank you.

  And finally, to you the reader, thank you for picking up this book up and reading. Every new author appreciates every single reader (and review if you're so inclined). There will be more books coming and hopefully some cognac as well.

  First edition first published 2016 by Fahrenheit Press

  This edition published 2017.

  * * *

  Copyright © Dave Sinclair 2016

  The right of Dave Sinclair to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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