Coughing up blood, Robichaud saw that Hassan was about to throw his grenade into the rear of the plane. With a one-handed left grip, he fired two more rounds into the back of Hassan’s skull. In slow motion, Robichaud saw the grenade slip from the dead terrorist’s hand and fall in between two seats before rolling toward a crying mother and her young son.
Fuck!
Knowing he was fatally wounded, Robichaud willed himself to get up but couldn’t muster the force. The excruciating pain in his chest prevented him to yell a warning. Only a gurgle and a fresh spray of blood came out of his mouth. Using his good arm, he tried to alert the passengers of the impending disaster, but chaos and panic had overtaken them. Everybody was running toward the exit, oblivious to the grenade lying only a few meters away. With his eyes fixed on the grenade, Robichaud used all of his remaining strength to crawl toward it. But in doing so, he felt the passengers running over him, stomping him with their feet.
Robichaud died from his wounds less than one second before the M67 exploded.
A LONG GRAY LINE pits the International Market Stabilization Institute – a privately funded organization operating outside official channels to protect North America’s financial interests – against two foes at the same time. One could decimate the American stock market and throw the entire world economy into a tailspin. The other is a piece of unfinished business from their last operation that could be even more destructive. Their ability to act in the face of confounding choices will have an effect on the future for years to come.
Featuring Mike and Lisa Walton – the husband-and-wife team of operatives who led the charge in THE THIN BLACK LINE – A LONG GRAY LINE is a thriller so packed with action and tension that it contains enough excitement for stories four times its size.
Here’s an excerpt:
CHAPTER 1
Miami, Florida
Mike Walton’s knees buckled under him, and the three Coronas and the two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc he had ingested weren’t the reason why.
“Say that again?” he said into the receiver.
“We have a lead on your father,” Charles Mapother repeated from his office in New York.
Mapother was the director of the International Market Stabilization Institute, a privately funded organization operating outside official channels but sometimes in concert with the needs of the United States government.
“Where is he?”
“Somewhere inside Syria. That’s all we know for now.”
“I’ll jump on the next—,” started Mike before Mapother interrupted him.
“No you won’t. What you’ll do is stay right where you are and enjoy some time off with your wife. I’ll call you as soon as we have something more substantial.”
Mike sighed. Mapother’s right. There wasn’t much he could do until they had more intelligence. Ray Powell, his father, the former Canadian ambassador to Algeria, had been kidnapped by the Sheik three years ago. Mike closed his fist as he remembered the grief the Sheik had forced his mother to endure for more than two years. By sending her pictures of her tortured husband, the Sheik had gotten into her head and had made her life miserable. Since the kidnapping, the Sheik’s network had gained wide notoriety within the terror community. Known to be merciless, the Sheik had been able to climb the terror ladder to the point that he was now—one of the top three most wanted men on the planet.
The good news was that Mike was now convinced his father was still alive. They had proof. Being totally honest, spending another couple of days in Miami could really do him some good. The last operation hadn’t been an easy one and they had lost a colleague.
And a damn good one at that.
There was no doubt in Mike’s mind that Jasmine Carson’s death would come back to haunt him at night, just like his two-year-old daughter Melissa did.
That’s not fair. She isn’t haunting me. She’s visiting my dreams.
Melissa, his mother and his wife’s parents had been killed in a terrorist attack orchestrated by the Sheik at the Ottawa train station last year. The unborn child his wife Lisa had been carrying in her belly for eight months had also been stolen from them. An IMSI team led by Mike had conducted a raid on the Sheik’s mobile headquarters —a large Azimut yacht— two weeks ago in Benalmádena, Spain. Thinking they had cornered the terrorist mastermind, they had launched a pre-emptive strike against the yacht. Even though they had failed at killing or capturing the Sheik, Mike’s team had delivered a devastating blow to his terror network by killing his right-hand man, Omar Al-Nashwan, as well as Mohammad Alavi, the man responsible for the assassination of the Canadian environment minister. Searching the yacht for additional intel, the IMSI team had successfully retrieved a ton of information pertinent to the Sheik’s upcoming terror attacks. Charles Mapother had quickly shared the newly acquired intelligence with the Director of National Intelligence, Richard Phillips, President Muller’s close friend and one of the only federal officials to know exactly what the IMSI actually was. Mike knew Mapother had kept some of the good stuff for himself, though, and wouldn’t be surprised if he’d hear from his boss soon regarding a follow-up operation.
“Mike?”
His wife’s voice brought him back to the here and now. Lisa was looking at him, her curiosity apparent.
“It was Mapother,” Mike replied. “He has a lead on Dad’s whereabouts. He believes he’s in Syria.”
“When are we leaving?” Sanchez asked. His friend was standing next to Lisa. He drank the last of his wine. “I’m ready.”
“We aren’t going anywhere,” Mike said. “At least not yet. Mapother doesn’t have much information for us to work with at this point.”
“When then?” Lisa asked.
“He’ll let us know,” Mike replied, accepting the fact he might not have the chance to go after his father for a while.
“So that’s it?” Sanchez said. “That doesn’t sound like you, brother.”
“We have nothing to go on. Syria is such a mess that it won’t do us any good to head out there looking for him if we don’t have any clues of where he is.”
His phone chirped in his hand before his friend could add anything. It was Mapother. Again.
“Come back to New York, Mike,” the IMSI director said.
“What changed in the last thirty seconds?”
“As you know, our analysts have been combing over the data you retrieved from the laptop seized aboard the Sheik’s yacht.”
“And?”
“We’ve pinpointed the location to one of the Sheik’s associates.”
“Where?”
“He’s in Syria.”
Mike hung up and said to his wife, “Pack your bags, honey. We might head to Syria after all.”
CHAPTER 2
Split, Croatia
The Sheik had changed his appearance. His hair was now white and he had cut his beard in order to fit with the younger crowd frequenting Split’s seafront promenade’s restaurant scene. Contact lenses gave him brown eyes and cotton wads inserted into his lower cheeks made his jaw appear more square.
The pressure his enemies had put him under did nothing to brighten his mood. Whoever had stormed his mobile headquarters in Spain and killed Mohammad Alavi and Omar Al-Nashwan hadn’t stopped there. His network attrition rate was getting out of control and most of his funds were gone. And in order to continue his operations, he needed money. Lots of it.
Luckily for him, the Russian government had proven itself to be a great ally. The Sheik congratulated himself for never going against Russia’s interests in the past and for keeping an open dialogue with the Kremlin. Since his recent setbacks, the Russian president had been quite accommodating when it came to financing the Sheik’s operations.
But he needed a win. Soon.
One that would put him back in the game. With ISIS latest successes, it was getting hard
er and harder to recruit competent men willing to join him. Mouin Bashi was a man he trusted. Bashi was a true believer and someone who hated the United States as much as he did, but more importantly, Bashi had the resources to implement the Sheik’s plan. A plan that, if successful, would stop dead in its track the economic growth the Europeans were now enjoying. Still, being twenty minutes late to a meeting wasn’t something the Sheik appreciated. Three months ago, he would have walked off and asked Al-Nashwan to deal with the miscreant brave enough to make him wait.
Was Bashi’s lateness a way to make him understand he had lost his status? That he wasn’t the big player he used to be? He clutched his fists, his short-temper threatening the calm demeanor he was showing to the outside world.
The Sheik was finishing his third cup of coffee when he spotted Bashi across the street. Bashi had supposedly sworn allegiance to ISIS but the Sheik knew this was a smoke screen. Bashi was his man inside ISIS, even if Bashi wasn’t aware of it. He had been the one to volunteer ISIS fighters to the Sheik.
“I’m so sorry for my tardiness, Sheik,” Bashi said in hush tones as he stood across the table. “I had to make sure I wasn’t followed.”
“Thank you, dear friend,” he replied, keeping his anger in check. “Please have a seat.”
Bashi pulled the chair and sat. He caught the attention of the waiter and ordered a double espresso.
“How’s Croatia treating you, Sheik?”
Never before had he set foot in Croatia but he had to admit that Split was a marvelous city. The café they were at was facing the Riva, Split’s seafront promenade that ran the length of the old town. The view across the harbor to the islands beyond were magnificent. The Sheik understood perfectly why the Roman Emperor Diocletian had chosen this spot to build his lavish retirement palace in AD295.
“How could one complain with such views?” the Sheik said.
“Very true, Sheik. That is very true.”
“You have news for me, I presume?”
The fact that whoever had ransacked his yacht and left with everything that was inside didn’t mean the Sheik was out of options. With the current Syrian refugee crisis, there was a wealth of opportunities just waiting to be seized.
“Zebar Selam has the plan,” Bashi replied. “He will dispatch his men and four days from now, you shall see the results. I’m wondering how Zagreb will respond once the Israeli embassy goes up in flames.”
The Sheik’s plan wasn’t a complicated one. With Hungary closing its borders to the Syrian refugees, tens of thousands were redirected through Croatia. Zagreb opened a transit camp in hopes of inserting some order into the chaos while providing food, water and medical attention to the refugees. Seeing this, elements within the Serbian government decided it would be a good idea to encourage all the refugees to continue to Croatia. It was felt this would remove the need to provide any type of assistance themselves. This decision accentuated the already tense relationship between Serbia and Croatia, and the acidic tone of exchanges between the two countries was something the Sheik wanted to exploit.
The Sheik smiled. Visions of chaos and mayhem had this effect on him. “Zagreb’s weak, my friend,” he explained. “They’ll only respond with some kind of economic measures. It’s the Israelis’ reactions I’m looking forward to.”
This was the plan after all. He would leak just enough information to ensure the investigating authorities would place the blame on the Syrian refugees. The Israelis would then go to its two closest allies —the Americans and the Canadians— and ask them to use their influence within the United Nations to close the borders within the European Union. The Sheik was confident that Berlin and Vienna would support the motion.
Especially Germany. With tensions developing between migrants and some German political activists, Berlin would be looking for any excuse to close its border without losing face.
“What if the Israelis don’t respond the way we expect?” Bashi asked.
“Then we activate the second group, Mouin,” the Sheik replied. “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll send another and another until they do exactly what we want them to.”
1979 Iran: Hours before the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty, eight American-trained SAVAK intelligence officers defect to the United States carrying with them a secret that could one day propel Iran to the rank of superpower.
2018 United States: When another series of peace talks over Iran’s nuclear program fails and a rogue Iranian general flees to Greece to meet with a high-ranking CIA officer, the Iranian Supreme Leader — who’s determined to redraw the map of the Middle East — orders the execution of an operation decades in the making. Within hours, key elements inside the American and Canadian governments are wiped out. With the stock market in turmoil and evidence showing that the attacks came from within, Mike Walton and his team — all covert counterterrorism assets working for the International Market Stabilization Institute — have seventy-two hours to find the traitors before the White House orders a massive retaliatory strike that would annihilate any chance of peace in the Middle East.
From the tourist-filled streets of Athens to the high-rises of New York City, Mike Walton will need to cross the line he swore he’d never go over in order to protect the ones he loves. Never have the stakes been higher or the odds against him been so great. With his sanity on the line,and the lives of thousands resting on his shoulders, Mike will do what he must . . . one bullet at a time.
Here is an excerpt:
Ottawa, Canada
Newly promoted Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Khalid al-Fadhi came carefully down the stairs, hoping the creaking of the hardwood floor wouldn’t wake his wife. He had kissed his eighteen-month-old twin boys goodbye but didn’t feel the need to do the same to her.
His hand had barely touched the front door’s knob when his wife’s voice made him cringe. Almost.
“No kiss?” she asked, already halfway down the stairs.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” he lied.
She hugged him, and he had no choice but to embrace her back. He scratched the back of her neck and placed his lips next to her ear.
“I’m sorry, Julia. I should have spent the weekend with you and the kids,” he whispered.
His wife of ten years gently pushed him back. “That’s nonsense, baby. You deserve a break too. I’m glad you had fun fishing with your buddies.”
“I don’t deserve someone like you.” He pulled his wife back toward him.
They had met twelve years ago at the RCMP training academy in Regina, Saskatchewan, when they were both newly hired police officers. It was love at first sight. At least, this is what he had repeated over and over to Julia for the last decade. The truth was that Julia’s dad was a high-ranking member of the organization. This had meant much more to him than her blond hair and thick thighs.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he said before closing the door behind him.
He unlocked the door of his five-year-old Audi A4 sedan and waved one last time as he accelerated away.
At six in the morning, the traffic was light, and the drive to his office took less than ten minutes. He showed his credentials to the rent-a-cop manning the front gate of Canada’s federal police service headquarters. He was waved in immediately. He could have shown a Costco card and they would have waved him through. It was a farce. With everything that had happened in the world in the last five years, it was beyond him why the RCMP didn’t assign real police officers to man the entry points to its headquarters.
He parked his car in his designated spot and forced himself to relax. It was going to be a busy morning.
He had a sitting prime minister to take out.
CHAPTER 2
Athens, Greece
Mike Walton looked through his spotting scope.
“Confirmed,” he said to Zima Bernbaum who was standing next to him in their sixth-flo
or suite at the Grande-Bretagne Hotel. “Jupiter is walking westbound on Vasilissis Sofias toward the Danish embassy.”
“Just like he did yesterday,” Zima replied. “Maybe this time the intel is good.”
“Maybe. But we’ve been in Athens for more than forty-eight hours. I don’t want to push it.”
Mike and Zima were members of the International Market Stabilization Institute, a privately funded covert organization whose sole purpose was to protect the North American financial markets from any direct or indirect terror attacks. That sometimes meant chasing terrorists after the fact. Following the latest attacks in Paris, Charles Mapother—the IMSI director— had tasked Mike and Zima to pursue those responsible. It hadn’t been easy. With so many agencies after the same targets, the risk of being caught in crossfire was high. In the last two months alone, Mike and Zima had stumbled three times upon a Mossad kill team going after the same targets. This has prompted Mapother to ask his friend Meir Yatom—the head of the Special Operations Division of the Mossad—to send a liaison officer to his team. Yatom had chosen Eitan David. Mapother didn’t usually work with outsiders, but Yatom’s team—and Eitan in particular—had conducted operations with his crew in the past with extraordinary results. Mike was confident they’d get the job done again. Eitan was not only a world-class operator; he was also Zima’s boyfriend. Mike wasn’t sure how he felt about Eitan and Zima working together in the field. He had voiced his concerns to Mapother, who had wasted no time in pointing out to Mike his own success in the field working with his wife Lisa. Mike had to acquiesce.
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