“Marty!” she complained, wrapping her arms and legs around him and hanging on, as he managed to ‘walk’ over to his big laptop computer sitting on the counter, reach around her, and begin typing.
General Stansky was in the pilot seat in Dorothy’s temporary absence, with Pat O’Connor playing co-pilot, when they came around the third time in their Cessna 208B turboprop. Leaving Fort Bragg before dawn, they refueled at Homestead Air Force Base in southern Florida and in San Juan before continuing east. Jimmy, Ronald, and the mad Russian were still back in North Carolina directing them by GPS. With Jimmy’s magic bag of electronic tricks, it had taken them less than five weeks to track down Martijn Van Gries, his boat, and all of his many bank accounts. The Dutchman may have thought he was the smartest thing MIT ever produced, but Ronald’s limp wasn’t going away anytime soon, and the three Geeks had a major score to settle with him.
Bob and Linda had their binoculars focused on the sailboat as Stansky powered back the engines as far as he could without stalling. That allowed Ace to open the side hatch while Dorothy lay on the deck with her head and shoulders out the open doorway. Ace kept a firm grip on her thick, leather rodeo belt with one hand and on the doorframe with the other.
“You sure you want to do this?” he asked her over the roar of the engines.
She turned and glared up at him. “After all those weeks in the hospital, the IVs and feeding tubes, try to stop me.”
Martijn was only halfway through the accounts at the banks, but he could already see that Dennis was right. They'd been drained and the balances were now zero. All of his money had disappeared. But how? And by whom? He was stunned and still coming to grips with the fact he had been cleaned out when that gray turboprop passed directly over them again.
This time, the airplane flew lower still, barely clearing the mast. Looking up, he saw a package the size of a cigar box fly out of the Cessna’s side door and slowly arc downward toward the big sailboat. It landed in the cockpit, bounced off the deck, then off the other helm station, and skittered to rest a few feet away from him.
That even stopped Eva. Their faces were only inches apart as he tried to drop her and reach the package, but that was easier said than done. “Marty!” she screamed as she wrapped her legs even more tightly around his waist and hung on. Somehow, he managed to bend down far enough to pick it up. It was heavy, wrapped in brown paper. On top, someone had drawn a “Smiley Face,” and written a short message in thick, black marker.
It said, “Fry in Hell. Burke. Boom!”
Unlike Eva and Martijn, Dorothy’s timing was perfect. With agonizing slowness, the package arced downward toward the big sailboat, landing in the center of its cockpit. Bob saw Martijn pick it up, read the message, and then try to throw it overboard, but the Dutchman was too slow. Bob pressed the call button on his cell phone and a bright flash of light and a shattering explosion ripped the sailboat apart. The small gray airplane banked and came back around for another pass as the Beneteau’s fuel tanks split apart and erupted in a bright orange fireball. Within seconds, the sailboat boat was gone, leaving behind a flaming oil slick, some scattered pieces of white wood and plastic, and a black cloud of smoke.
“Wow!” Linda said, “Talk about your coitus interruptus; that takes the cake.”
###
William F Brown
If you enjoyed the read, I would appreciate your going to
the Burke’s Gamble Kindle Book Page at
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Click on the words “Customer Reviews” after the Gold Stars, and then on the blue “Write a Customer Review” bar, and click on some stars, and write some comments in the box titled “Write Your Review Here.” It is very easy to do and we humble writers appreciate it.
In addition, you can visit my website and learn more about my other novels at
http://www.billbrownthrillernovels.com
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is fiction. My good friends and readers in New Jersey who are familiar with Atlantic City will recognize that I took a few liberties with the geography of their fair city. My Bimini Bay, Tuscany Towers, and Siesta Cove casinos do not exist. The real-life Borgata, Harrah’s, and Golden Nugget casinos are located in that general vicinity, but any similarities are purely coincidental. Most assuredly, however, Chef Vola’s restaurant does exist and is one of the finest Italian restaurants on the east coast. I’ve also taken some artistic license with streets and marinas. It is difficult enough to navigate around Atlantic City with its one-way streets, stop signs, and a general lack of street names, without subjecting fictional characters to the same inconvenience. Lastly, if I disparaged the reputation of any business or ‘family’ that may or may not happen to exist in Atlantic City, Philadelphia, or various New York City neighborhoods, I could hardly have done worse than Boardwalk Empire, The Godfather, or history itself. So, I hope you enjoyed the story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILLIAM F. BROWN
I’m the author of eight mystery and international suspense books now available on Kindle.
My most recent books are Books #1 and 2 in the Bob Burke Action Thriller Series. Burke’s War, Book #1 in the series was a smash hit when it was released in 2015. Think The American Sniper meets the Godfather. When Bob Burke sees a murder taking place, he isn’t the kind of guy to leave it alone despite corrupt cops, Mafia hit men, and even his own wife. It has an Amazon rating of 4.5 Stars on 175 Kindle reviews.
Burke’s Gamble, #2 in the series, is set in Atlantic City. When one of Bob Burke’s men is thrown out the fifth floor window of a high-rise casino run by the New York mob, Bob’s going to hit them where it hurts the most, and payback’s going to be a hoot! It was released in March, 2016.
The Undertaker, the Pete and Sandy Suspense Thriller #1, is a snarky, contemporary, domestic thriller with a mix of romance, humor, and stark terror, with 4.3 Stars on 218 reviews. Amongst My Enemies, is a spy versus spy historic action thriller, and a fast-paced Cold War tale of international suspense that deals with espionage, revenge, and missing art and treasure in the post-war years. It has an Amazon rating of 4.3 on 221 Kindle reviews.
Thursday at Noon, Middle East political thriller, was originally published in hardback as a Joan Kahn Book by St. Martin’s Press and by Harlequin’s Gold Eagle in US paperback and in various foreign editions. It was reviewed favorably in the New Yorker and many other major publications in the US. The Kindle e-book edition was published in June 2012 and has an Amazon rating of 4.4 on 118 Kindle reviews. Winner Lose All is a historic spy versus spy Cold War action adventure thriller. It is set in the closing months of WWII, as one war winds down and all eyes turn to the next cold one. Allies can’t be trusted. Old enemies become tomorrow’s friends, and everyone wants their piece of the revolutionary new German weapons technology. It has an Amazon rating of 4.5 on 127 Kindle reviews.
Aim True, My Brothers is an FBI political action adventure thriller in which Middle East terrorism explodes on US shores. It has an average 4.8 rating on 62 Amazon reviews. Finally, I recently released Cold War Trilogy, a 3-book set of my post-WW II, Cold War novels, containing Winner Lose All, Amongst My Enemies, and Thursday at Noon. Enjoy!
A native of Chicago, I received a BA from The University of Illinois in History and Russian Area studies, and a Masters in City Planning. Later, I served as a company commander in the US Army and was active in local and regional politics. As a vice president of the real estate subsidiary of a Fortune 500 corporation, I traveled widely in the US and now travel extensively abroad, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, locations which have featured prominently in my writing. When not writing, I play bad golf, have become a dogged runner, and paint passable landscapes in oil and acrylic. Now retired, my wife and I live in Florida.
In addition to the novels, I’ve written four award-winning screenplays. They’ve placed First in the suspense category of Final Draft, were a Finalist in Fade In, First in Screenwriter’s Utopia — S
creenwriter’s Showcase Awards, Second in the American Screenwriter’s Association, Second at Breckenridge, and others. One was optioned for film.
You can follow my work on my website http://www.billbrownthrillernovels.com, which has Preview Chapters of each of my novels, interviews, book reviews, and other links.
Burke’s Gamble can be found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AR7CP80
Burke’s War can be found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TXZYQWG
Cold War Trilogy can be found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B018TGN7M4
The Undertaker can be found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004NIFSVG
Amongst My Enemies can be found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006LAOIWY
Thursday at Noon can be found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008AMSH00
Winner Lose All can be found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CEOKUR8
Aim True, My Brothers can be found at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GBFJ1IA
DEDICATION
To the best set of proof readers a writer can have: my wife, Elisabeth Hallett in far-away Montana, to my friend Loren Vinson in San Diego, and to two of my neighbors in sunny Florida: Susan Day and Ron Klock. I also want to thank Hitch, Barb, Indira and the staff of Booknook Biz in Phoenix for their help with processing and conversion of the manuscript into Kindle-Speak. And I want to thank Todd Hebertson at My Personal Art in Salt Lake City for the outstanding cover art he has provided for my recent books.
Preview and Sample Chapters of
Aim True, My Brothers
Middle East Jihadist terror explodes on American shores in this political action thriller from the front page of today’s newspaper.
CHAPTER ONE
Washington DC, Friday, September 20, 5:45 p.m.
It was the end of a nice Indian summer day in Washington, DC — not too hot, not too humid, with the first yellow and red hints of autumn in the air, the kind of day you want to put in the back of a drawer and bring back out in January. For a cop, saying anything nice about the Nation’s Capital was a whole lot, Eddie Barnett thought as he stepped inside the Hog Heaven Sports Bar. In deference to the new politically correct era in the city, the sign over the door featured a large Redskins logo with a hog’s head and snout in a headdress instead of the former Indian brave.
Eddie’s partner, Charlie Wisniewski, was already inside, hunched over the bar and staring up at a large, flat-screen TV hanging above the shelves of booze. They still had some time to kill before they went out, so Barnett sat on the tall stool next to him. It was getting dark earlier now, and it would not be long before they would take to the streets for a third straight night attempting to track down Billy-Ray Perkins. Still trying to stay on the wagon, Barnett ordered a Diet Coke. Charlie, who no longer gave a damn about wagons, diets, or much of anything these days, was having his usual Police Special: a shot of bourbon with a Bud chaser. Barnett watched as Charlie lowered the shot glass into the glass of beer, bent down, and took a long pull. Barnett shook his head. What could he say? Charlie was Charlie.
Hog Heaven now had pretensions of being a trendy sports bar. “Used to be just a goddamned bar!” Charlie would snort anytime someone called it more than that. Sports or not, though, what it had always been was a cop bar. Located north of Pennsylvania Avenue and east of the Capitol, it was convenient to most of the District’s numerous law enforcement agencies. These days, that included the District Metro Police, the Police Departments in a dozen suburban cities and counties, the State Police from both Virginia and Maryland, and the full alphabet soup of Federal law enforcement from the FBI, Treasury, TSA, ATF, Army CID, Metrorail, ICE, US Marshals, Border Patrol, NCIS, DEA, Capitol Police, the Secret Service, National Park Police, and even Smokey the Bear, for all Barnett knew.
The bar got its name in the mid-1980s during the glory years of Washington Redskins football. As every loyal Skins fan knows, The Hogs were the legendary offensive line of Joe Jacoby, Russ Grimm, Jeff Bostic, and Mark May. They were the ‘big uglies’ behind whom John Riggins and Joe Theismann ran and threw their way to championships and into the NFL Hall of Fame. Back then, a cop bar really was a cop bar, populated by an entirely different breed of ‘big uglies’ in blue uniforms or cheap suits with bulges under their arms or around their waists. The place reeked of week-old cigar smoke, the music ran to twangy country, and the clientele was entirely white, male, and heterosexual. Other than the occasional ‘working girl’ looking for a warm trick on a cold night, back then it would have been as odd to see a woman step into the place as it would have been to see a guy in a Dallas Cowboys hat or an armed robber step through the front door. Either would have been suicidal.
To Charlie, those were the good old days, as he kept telling everyone who would listen. Their beloved Redskins won NFL championships, the dark wood, leather, and smoky interior of the bar gave the place a masculine ‘lived in’ look, and a cop could actually draw his service revolver and shoot a bad guy without being run to ground by a ravenous pack of lawyers. Unfortunately, those days were long gone. Like toys in kids’ meals, fur coats, Big Gulp soft drinks, and the three-martini lunch, even the Hog Heaven had succumbed to the progressively new and improved city. The crowd inside was still mostly cop, but half the customers now were women. Soft jazz from a surround-sound system had replaced the loud country music from the jukebox, and the banks of HD flat screen TVs were as likely to be showing a soap opera now as sports. And smoke? With the Nicotine Nazis around, no one dared light up a cigar, cigarette, or anything else inside. Flavored vodka, cosmos, and low-cal light beer had replaced the bourbon, Guinness stout, and Budweiser. The ultimate insult to Charlie, however, was seeing pastel, out-of-focus Monet prints where autographed Redskin jerseys, rows of player photos, and old game posters once hung.
It was on that sad note that Charlie turned on his stool and scanned the early evening crowd. “If they turn this place into a gay bar, Eddie, promise you’ll shoot me.”
“What makes you sure it isn’t already?” Barnett answered and blew him a kiss.
Charlie looked him over from head to foot. From his expression, Barnett could see Charlie was beginning to wonder about him — early-thirties, stylishly unshaven, a diamond stud earring, blue jeans, and a faded Sting ‘Broken Music Tour ’05’ T-shirt. Charlie shook his head. “Nah, Louise would kill you first.” That was when Charlie’s eyes locked on the fresh Band-Aid on Eddie’s forehead. “Speaking of divine retribution…”
“Sometimes love hurts.”
“And sometimes love throws things.”
They turned back to the mindless Sports Center replays on the TV as a red ‘Special News Bulletin’ banner rolled across the screen and the picture changed from baseball replays to scrubby sand dunes. The headline read “North Coast of Israel” as four attack helicopters with blue and white Israeli markings rose into the air with a loud THUMP, THUMP and a cloud of swirling dust. Heavily armed soldiers with helmets, flak jackets, and submachine guns sat with their legs hanging out the open doors. With the bright morning sun glinting off the door gunner’s visors, the helicopters raced to the coast and turned north, twisting and turning as the surf broke across the white-sand beach below.
“Jumpin’ outta helicopters — ain’t that what you used to be dumb enough to do?” Charlie asked.
“Air assaults? Yeah, in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“Freakin’ ragheads, what do you think they did this time?” Charlie grunted.
“Pretty much anything they want, and they’re damned good at it.”
“Yeah, but over there, at least you got to shoot back.”
The scene on the TV screen split, with the Israeli footage in the background and a local DC news desk popping up in the lower right corner. Two attractive American TV reporters: Jeff Wang and Louise Taylor, sat side by side in front of the cameras, with plastic smiles as they tried to keep up with the director’s audio feeds, teleprompters, camera changes, and the constantly changing video on the screen behind them.
“In late-breaking news from
the Middle East,” Jeff began in his ‘earnest’ voice, “the search continues for the surviving Hamas terrorists who attacked an Israeli commuter bus on the coastal highway north of Haifa this morning.” As he spoke, the aerial footage behind him focused on a plume of black smoke rising over the dunes in the distance, where more helicopters circled like vultures.
Just as quickly, the camera switched to Louise Taylor, who added, “So far, the body count is fifteen dead — thirteen commuters on the bus, plus two terrorists who were gunned down by Israeli security forces. Unfortunately, that help came too late to prevent the slaughter.” Behind her, the Israeli news helicopter continued to circle the scrubby dunes. On the coastal highway below, Israeli Military Police roadblocks held back long lines of civilian vehicles in both directions. Inside the containment area, armored cars, trucks, and ambulances lined the road shoulders. Military helicopters crisscrossed the dunes, sweeping low and adding noise, flying sand, and debris to the chaos below. In the center, the smoldering black hulk of the commuter bus lay on its side in a drainage ditch with a neat row of black-rubber body bags running down the center of the road next to it.
“It is believed the terrorists came ashore following a heated off-shore gun-battle last night in the Mediterranean between the Israeli Navy and a group of small speedboats carrying the Hamas gunmen from their bases in southern Lebanon,” Jeff went on. “At least three of the speedboats were sunk, but Israeli sources believe the terrorists who attacked the bus were survivors from the earlier battle who found their way ashore. That’s the reason for today’s massive search of the nearby coastal hills south of Haifa.”
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