“Have you been good?” Jet asked, holding her at arm’s length.
“Yes.”
“Of course she has,” Matt chimed in. “Sweet as spun sugar.”
“You didn’t give Matt any trouble while I was gone?”
“It wasn’t that long,” Matt said.
“Felt like forever,” Jet replied. “Thank God that’s over.”
“We were going to go to a little neighborhood spot for dinner in a couple of hours. You want to get cleaned up or anything? Or rest?” Matt asked. Jet had bathed at a clinic the Mossad used for its operatives after she’d been examined and X-rayed, and had donned the fresh clothes her escort provided, the fit of the elastic waist pants and stylistically baggy shirt loose but workable.
“Maybe before we go out.”
The condo intercom buzzed, and Jet whirled around, having never heard the annoying screech before. Matt walked to it and depressed a black button. “Yes?”
The director’s voice emanated from the speaker. “I need to have a word with the new arrival.”
Jet eyed Matt, her expression conveying her annoyance. Matt pressed the button again. “Can it wait?”
“Ask her to come downstairs. I’m in a car out front. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
The speaker went dead, the director not one to wait. Jet swallowed her exasperation and placed a hand on Matt’s chest. “I already got debriefed. This must be important.”
Matt nodded wordlessly and Jet smiled at her daughter. “I’ll be right back, honey. And then you can show me Matt’s tablet.”
“Mine too!” Hannah declared.
Jet rode the elevator down to the lobby level and walked out of the building into the late afternoon sunshine. A black SUV was waiting by the curb with all of the subtlety of a tiger tank. Jet strode over and the rear door opened as if by magic, revealing the director in the back, the vehicle smelling like an ashtray.
“Hop in,” he said, and Jet did as instructed. The driver looked in the rearview mirror at the director, who nodded at him. “Take a walk. Get me another pack of cigarettes or something.”
The driver exited the SUV, leaving them alone.
“I wanted to congratulate you personally,” the director said. “That was nice work.”
“Didn’t go as planned, though.”
The director nodded. “Things seldom do these days. But you pulled off a minor miracle, and for that you have my gratitude.” He hesitated. “The National Party won the election, which was the second worst possible outcome for us – Nabiyev being the first. But we’ll figure out a way to make things work. It looks like they’re going to follow through with their plans to nationalize everything that already isn’t, and open up a new round of bidding for the oil rights, but that’s not your problem.”
Jet returned his nod. “The station chief did a remarkable job. Above and beyond the call. Shame to waste a valuable resource like that in a backwater.”
The director studied her. “Did he really? Well, I’ll have to see what might be more suitable for him, then. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.” He coughed, the sound wet and phlegmy. “Nice save on Nabiyev.”
“I knew there was no way he’d have an expensive bottle of cologne and leave it behind. It was just a matter of time.”
“Quick thinking,” he agreed, studying her with interest. “I hear you’re pretty beaten up.”
She shrugged. “I’ll live.” She knew he would already have read her debriefing report, which would have a summary of her injuries, so wasn’t surprised that he mentioned it. “But I’ll never do anything like that again. It was completely upside down from the word go. From now on, you want me for something, I’m involved in the planning – and if I don’t like the situation, I reserve the right to bow out.”
“We can discuss all this some other time,” he deflected. “For now, heal, and love up that gorgeous little daughter of yours as much as you can.”
“I mean it. You stuck me into a bad situation, and you had to know the odds of me walking out of it were slim.”
“I know you mean it. I did what I had to do on short notice. You did what you had to. It’s over. We move on.”
“Some with broken ribs.”
“I won’t call on you for anything that isn’t absolutely top priority. I promise. In the meantime, enjoy your new life. It could be years before we have anything else requiring your skills.”
“Just remember. I plan it or I walk.”
His eyes hardened, but his voice stayed flat. “I heard you the first time.” He coughed again. “Anyway, congratulations on a job well done.”
“Thanks.” She reached for the door handle. He stopped her. She met his gaze without flinching.
“We’ll be keeping an eye on you,” he said, his voice soft. “To ensure you’re not bothered by anyone.”
She nodded. “And you owe me a nice little house somewhere quiet. With a yard for my daughter.”
“Of course I do. I’ll see what we can come up with over the next few weeks. Meanwhile, heal.”
She stepped from the car and pushed the door closed with her hip. The driver saw her from near the corner market and made his way back to the SUV. Jet turned her face up into the sun and let it warm her skin. She closed her eyes, the tension from the meeting fading, and a light breeze from the water stirred her hair as she breathed in the Mediterranean air.
The director’s message, and the real purpose of the meeting, had been clear – Mossad would have them under surveillance, so she wasn’t to try anything stupid, like disappearing again. In return, she’d get her house, and they’d leave her alone…for a time.
And if all went well, she, Matt, and Hannah would live happily ever after – or at least as long as ever lasted in Jet’s world. It didn’t seem like much after risking her neck twice in a week, but for now, reunited with her daughter and the love of her life in an oasis by the sea, a brief slice of ever would more than definitely do.
<<<<>>>>
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· You’ve just read the eleventh book in the main JET series. The other books in the series are JET ~ Ops Files (prequel), JET Ops Files ~ Terror Alert; JET; JET II ~ Betrayal; JET III ~ Vengeance; JET IV ~ Reckoning; JET V ~ Legacy; JET VI ~ Justice; JET VII ~ Sanctuary; JET VIII ~ Survival; JET IX ~ Escape; JET X ~ Incarceration, and JET XI ~ Forsaken. I hope you enjoy them all.
Turn the page to read an excerpt from
The Day After Never – Blood Honor
Excerpt from The Day After Never – Blood Honor
Author’s Note
The Day After Never series portrays a future where civilization has broken down after a confluence of remarkable events – a deadly global pandemic and the resultant collapse of the monetary system. While it would be reassuring to say neither could happen, reality is that pandemics occur with some regularity every five to six generations, and the global monetary system is interconnected to a degree where the demise of one lynchpin player could cause a systemic collapse – one where faith is lost in paper money and the world suddenly finds itself without a mechanism to trade. Fiat currencies historically fail with some regularity, and it’s interesting to note that reserve currencies typically last thirty to forty years before a new standard supplants them. This was true when the dollar replaced the British pound in 1944, it was true when the gold-backed dollar collapsed following Nixon’s closure of the gold window in 1971–1973 (replaced by the petrodollar), and it nearly happened again in 2008 – but for global money printing by all the world�
�s central banks at historically unseen levels.
The world envisioned in this scenario isn’t pretty, and The Day After Never series mines the dark side of human nature that surfaces when order collapses. My experience, having lived through a massive hurricane that shut down power, water, roads, hospitals, and the rule of law for two weeks in Mexico, is that when systems catastrophically fail, those entrusted with providing emergency services stay home to protect their own, while predators, sensing opportunity and weakness, become emboldened and come out in force. The frightening part is that it only takes a small number of lawless miscreants to dominate the majority in those circumstances. What that says about us as a species isn’t pretty. But it’s been the case throughout history, and it’s only recently that a notion took hold that the world is a benign place and our better natures will prevail.
This being a work of fiction, I’ve taken some liberties with accuracy, particularly with a small town in New Mexico and with pretty much everything about Pecos, Texas, which I’m sure is a lovely place to visit and live – only not so much in this apocalyptic future. Likewise, I’ve imagined a reality that may seem farfetched, but only to those who haven’t lived through a Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans or an Odile in Baja, Mexico. Anyone who has might find this reality far more plausible than they’d like, which for me, at least, makes it an interesting read.
Thanks for giving The Day After Never series a shot, and I hope you enjoy this first installment, Blood Honor.
Russell Blake
2016
Chapter 1
Lucas squinted through a pair of binoculars at a horizon distorted by the heat of a broiling West Texas sun and scanned the barren landscape. Greenish-brown scrub blemished the hillsides like tumors. A big bay stallion shifted beneath him with a shake of its head, and he leaned slowly forward and patted its neck for reassurance.
“Easy, Tango. I know it’s been a long one,” he murmured.
The horse stilled and Lucas returned to his task, his mouth a thin line in a face dusted with two days’ growth. The straight brim of a brown beaver felt cowboy hat shaded steel gray eyes and skin bronzed from a life outdoors.
A hot wind blew from the mountains to his left, carrying with it the scent of rain. A band of plum-colored clouds pulsed with flashes of lightning where the peaks met the sky – still a ways off, he calculated, at least four or five hours, which increased the chances that the storm might spend itself before reaching him.
Not that he’d mind a night in the rain. He had his tent and his bedroll, and his saddlebags were loaded with sufficient gear to stand him for weeks. He couldn’t predict how long it might take to track the herd of feral horses he was pursuing, and on expeditions like this, he traveled well-prepared for anything nature or man could throw at him.
Lucas’s attention fixed on a distant spire of brown dust. He lowered the spyglasses and glanced at the heavens. It would be dark in a few more hours. He eyed the old mechanical pilot’s watch on his wrist, not because he had much use for time anymore, but to help with reckoning. The dust was maybe five miles off, and he didn’t want to blow out his horse on the trek – Lucas would need the animal’s speed to lasso his targets, and that was the priority.
He nodded to himself. At a moderate pace, he could make it to the dust by twilight.
Lucas adjusted the M4A1 assault rifle strapped across his back and felt automatically for the stock of his Remington 700 Police DM .308-caliber rifle in its scabbard by his right knee.
Not that he would need them.
Assuming the dust was the herd.
There wasn’t much to forage in the arid gulches, all the homes having long ago been abandoned and stripped of anything of value, but that didn’t stop looting parties from Mexico from making their way north. The situation south of what had once been the border was as bad or worse than it was here, and based on what he’d seen firsthand, life was cheap to the border scavengers. They lived hardscrabble from anything they could steal, and would kill a man just as soon as look at him – gringo or Mexican, didn’t much matter.
That was one of the reasons Lucas avoided the deserted highways that spanned the area. Other than the pavement being hard on Tango’s hooves, there were the depressing hulks of rusting vehicles dotting the road, left where they’d run dry. Even now, five years after the day everyone had said would never come, the highway was a threat, and there were still scum who lay in wait to ambush travelers – often desperate families trundling carts loaded with their possessions, heading toward somewhere they’d heard might hold better prospects for a life. Fuel had long ago degraded and was unusable, even diesel, leaving survivors to cobble together whatever they could for transportation – bicycles, animals, it didn’t matter as long as it enabled them to keep moving.
“Fool’s errand,” he spat, and stopped at the dry sound of his voice. Talking to his horse was one thing; holding conversations with himself was a warning sign – one of many he was alert to. The fear that he might be cracking up was constant since things had come unraveled.
Lucas made a clicking sound from the corner of his mouth and Tango plodded onward, the horse’s footing unsure on the loose shale. The soft sough of the wind was the only sound besides Tango’s clomping and an occasional snort. Lucas’s senses told him he was alone, but he remained alert. His clothes blended with the backdrop, and he hoped his worn jeans, tan shirt, and plate carrier in desert camouflage made him a difficult target. Unlike in the movies, it was harder than hell to tag a moving figure from any distance, especially with a brisk wind.
He grunted as they moved over a particularly difficult section, and he urged Tango forward, Lucas’s lower back protesting the jolting ride. What he wouldn’t have given for an ATV, or even a dirt bike, much less a four-wheel drive vehicle like his old truck. He’d loved that big Chevy; the truck, like his M4, had been a perk of his service as one of the youngest Texas Rangers in the history of the force, operating with the E Division out of El Paso. But the vehicle, like the organization, hadn’t lasted, and it had been a sad day when he’d left it for dead in the high desert.
The sun was a red ember sinking into the line of clouds when the reports of rifles reached him from the distance. The distinctive chatter of automatic weapons rattled in bursts across the landscape, barely louder than muffled firecrackers, but unmistakable. Tango drew up short, and Lucas’s eyes narrowed as he soothed the horse.
“Looks like the dust wasn’t the herd,” he whispered.
The shooting stopped after several minutes. He guessed that he was still at least a mile away. Lucas scanned the horizon again with the binoculars but saw nothing. Whatever had occurred had taken place out of sight, over a far crest.
His instinct was to investigate – if there was a band of gunmen in the area, he needed to know sooner than later and would cut short his search for wild horses until they cleared out. He intended to use the animals for barter – the ranch was running low on stock items he could trade at a nearby outpost – but he had to be alive to do so, and he wouldn’t be able to cover his tracks adequately while droving unruly mustangs.
“Come on, Tango. Time to earn your feedbag.” Lucas guided the horse to his left, opting for a circuitous path to avoid detection.
Purple and salmon streaked the sky as he dismounted near the crest and tied Tango to a scraggly mesquite tree. He withdrew the Remington 700 rifle and patted the four spare thirty-round magazines of 5.56mm full-metal-jacketed rounds for the M4 in his ATS Aegis V2 plate carrier vest, reassured by the weight of his pride and joy, a Kimber 1911 Tactical Custom II .45 semiautomatic pistol on his hip. Lucas checked the safety and the flash suppressor on the M4, and then his gaze rose to the ebony forms of buzzards wheeling overhead.
Lucas removed his hat as he crept toward the rise and froze behind a cover of dense brush. Bodies lay strewn around the base of a dry gulch. Lucas could tell at a glance that the group near the center had been ambushed from above – it was obvious from their position that the d
efenders had died staving off the attack.
He regarded the area through his binoculars for several minutes, taking his time to study the bodies: four men wearing army-surplus camouflage shirts and pants, two with plate carriers over their shirts, clutching the distinctive shapes of their AR-15s or M16s. Two of their horses had been gunned down and were already bloating nearby, with a crude travois fashioned from a pair of crossed poles collapsed behind one of them. Nearby, thick crimson globules trailed up the arroyo, probably from horses that had been wounded, but not so badly they couldn’t put distance between themselves and the battleground.
Five assailants ringed the area, their blood streaked against the hard rocks where they’d fallen as they’d closed in. In his mind’s eye Lucas could visualize the battle, which he knew from the shooting had been short and fierce. Judging by the tracks, the smaller group had been traveling northwest along the gulch toward a small lake, where they’d probably planned to spend the night. The attackers had chosen an advantageous spot and, with the sun to their backs, opened fire. But they’d been overconfident and moved in too quickly, suffering heavy casualties in their haste.
Lucas squinted at the steep rock face of the opposite wall of the ravine, dotted with cave openings, wary of any possibility of ambush. Movement from near one of the fallen men in camo drew his attention, and he watched as a vulture withdrew its bloody beak from where it had been feasting. The big bird cocked its head in his direction and sized him up, and then flapped its ebony wings and returned to its meal, having decided Lucas posed no immediate threat from the crest.
It was unlikely that any of the attackers remained, or the buzzards would have been more cautious. Besides, there was no reason for anyone to stick around – assuming there had been any survivors. He didn’t see any horses, so theirs had likely run off as well. More for Lucas to capture, he reasoned pragmatically. Better domesticated animals than wild ones. Easier to sell.
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