Allan Leverone's Blog

If you've read any of my occasionally coherent updates on Facebook or my shamefully rare blog posts here, you know that I was recruited into The Twelve around the first of the year. With names like J. Carson Black, Robert Gregory Browne, Diane Capri, Vincent Zandri, Brett Battles and more, I was thrilled to be asked and wasted no time accepting, lest they come to their senses and withdraw the offer.

I still haven't received my own key to The Twelve's penthouse headquarters yet, but I do get to clean up after their wild celebrity parties, and let me tell you, the things I've seen would stand my hair on end. If I had any.

One of the things we're committed to as a group is rewarding our loyal readers while at the same time introducing our work to new mystery/thriller lovers. Back in February, we offered DEADLY DOZEN, featuring a previously released book from each of us in one handy package, for just 99 cents. People seemed to like it. We sold over 100,000 copies of the thing and spend weeks on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.

I realize you know this already, I just like saying it. "New York Times bestseller." Ahhh...

Anyway, we're on to our next project now: FLIGHT 12. My Flight 12 installment kicked the series off last month, and this month it's J. Carson Black's turn. I had the opportunity to read her release, FLIGHT 12: A LAURA CARDINAL THRILLER, prior to publication and I can tell you it's everything you expect out of a Laura Cardinal book and more.

As each member of The Twelve releases his or her installment, we're inviting reader interaction with custom questions at the Flight 12 section of our website. Answering our questions and interacting with the authors and other readers will earn you the opportunity to win cool prizes (a Kindle Paperwhite is one example), and as the project moves on, you'll get the chance to help write the conclusion to this revolutionary series.

In the meantime, you have to read J. Carson Black's FLIGHT 12: A LAURA CARDINAL THRILLER.

Trust me on this.

And if you haven't read my Flight 12 entry yet, this would be a good time to do so. There is no need to read the releases in any particular order, and I'm excited by the early reviews. I packed a lot of action into the story and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

If you do decide to check out J. Carson Black's Laura Cardinal Flight 12 release or my Kristin Cunningham Flight 12 release, we would very much appreciate it if you take a couple of minutes to add an honest review to the appropriate page; it really does help set our work apart from the thousands of other titles available.

And if you've already read the first two Flight 12 entries, don't despair - Diane Capri is up next!

Last winter I was recruited by the wonderful author Diane Capri into a group of mystery/thriller authors dedicated to raising our profile among readers and to pushing each other to become better writers.
We called ourselves "The Twelve," and once we got our act together, we released DEADLY DOZEN as a gift to our fans. It's a collection of twelve mysteries/thrillers, one from each member of The Twelve, and it went on to sell (as of today) nearly 95,000 copies and spend two weeks on the New York Times bestseller list as well as six weeks on USA Today's list.
It's one hell of an accomplishment and something I'll never forget. But in this business, if you're not moving forward you're falling behind, so even while DEADLY DOZEN was becoming a bestseller, we knew we needed to do something else to maintain our hard-won momentum and give MORE to our readers, both long-time and brand-new.


Welcome to out next project: FLIGHT 12, a series of thrillers loosely connected by one event - Skyway Airlines Flight 12 from New York to Rome.
Each member of The Twelve will write original material featuring one of his or her main characters, the entries will be released over time, prizes will be won, and at the end of the project, the final installment will be written based on suggestions from you, the readers.
To my knowledge, a project on this scale has never been tried, and it's exciting as hell - and nerve-wracking - to have the honor of leading off a lineup that includes, in order:
J. Carson BlackDiane CapriCheryl BradshawAaron PattersonVincent ZandriMichele Scott/A.K. AlexanderJ.R. RainJoshua GrahamBrett BattlesCarol Davis LuceRobert Gregory Browne
So if you want to be a part of something truly different, maybe even revolutionary, check out my brand-new release, FLIGHT 12: A KRISTIN CUNNINGHAM THRILLER, and get ready for an ongoing project that will knock your socks off.
Oh, and when you pick up your copy, be sure to check out the embedded links. You might just have a shot at winning cool stuff like a Kindle Paperwhite, or travel bags filled with stuff you'll need on Skyways Flight 12 to Rome.
And then help The Twelve write the ending to this unique project.



FLIGHT 12: A KRISTIN CUNNINGHAM THRILLER at Amazon
FLIGHT 12: A KRISTIN CUNNINGHAM THRILLER at Barnes and Noble
FLIGHT 12: A KRISTIN CUNNINGHAM THRILLER at iBooks
FLIGHT 12: A KRISTIN CUNNINGHAM THRILLER at Kobo

A couple of months ago I was asked if I might be interested in joining a group of like-minded mystery/thriller authors with the goal of promoting ourselves - both individually and as a group - as well as pushing each other to be better writers.

I thought about it for awhile, and -- ah, who am I kidding, I didn't have to think about it at all. I said "Hell, yes" before they could change their minds, and just like that I became one of The Twelve.

The Twelve consists of New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors, award-winning authors, journalist-authors, traditionally-published authors, and…well…me. Our goal is nothing less than world domination (or World Domination, depending on how you look at it).

We have a lot of cool stuff planned for the future, but our very first project as a group is something any reader of genre fiction should be able to get behind: DEADLY DOZEN, a twelve volume ebook set of mysteries and thrillers, one book from each author, for the ridiculously low price of $9.99, or less than a buck per book.

BUT WAIT, as the infomercials say, THERE'S MORE! The special introductory price for this twelve-book set (some people call them "box sets," but as the whole thing is electronic I can't really get behind that description in any meaningful way) is just 99 cents for a very limited time.

Now, I don't have to tell you that's less than eight-and-a-half cents per book. And these aren't just any books, these are gripping tales from some of the most talented genre writers around and…well…me. 

Check out this lineup:


DON'T KNOW JACK - Diane Capri
CRY WOLF - J. Carson Black
NIGHT WIDOW - Carol Davis Luce
GUARANTEED JUSTICE - M.A. Comley
STRANGER IN TOWN - Cheryl Bradshaw
BREAKING STEELE - Aaron Patterson
MOONLIGHT SONATA - Vincent Zandri
TERMINUS - Joshua Graham
ONE DAY IN BUDAPEST - J.F. Penn
DEAD CELEB - Michele Scott
FINAL VECTOR - Allan Leverone
THE GIFTS - Linda S. Prather

The individual books in this collection have racked up nearly seven hundred five-star reader reviews at Amazon, and if purchased separately, would cost more than $46, even for the electronic versions. So let's face it, you're going to kick yourself in the ass if you miss out on getting this amazing collection for less than you'd pay for a small coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.

So here are the links for what will be an indispensable collection for any genre reader:

DEADLY DOZEN at Amazon

DEADLY DOZEN at Barnes and Noble

DEADLY DOZEN at iTunes

DEADLY DOZEN at Kobo

By the way, if you'd like to hop on the express train that is The Twelve, you'll definitely want to sign up for our email newsletter. That way you'll be the first to find out about new releases, promotions, giveaways, etc.

Feel free to check us out at TheTwelveXII.com, on Facebook and on Twitter…

Thanks a lot for your interest, and I hope you enjoy DEADLY DOZEN!

The cover art for my new novel, MR. MIDNIGHT, coming in November from DarkFuse:

In a scene from my latest thriller, PARALLAX VIEW, my main characters, Tracie Tanner and Shane Rowley, spend a night holed up in a fleabag hotel in New Haven, Connecticut, while they try to figure out why the hell a group of assassins are trying to kill them.

In a case of life imitating art, my wife and I spent this past weekend in a fleabag hotel just outside New Haven while we attended my daughter's graduation weekend at Quinnipiac University.

Admittedly, no one was trying to kill us. As far as I know.

And we didn't do it intentionally; we had no desire to spend two nights in the New Haven Arms, which is the name of the fictional hotel where Tracie and Shane spend one memorable night. In fact, we booked a room at a nationally franchised place, which would lead you to believe (at least it did us) that the place would probably at least measure up to some minimal standard.

You would be wrong. This place was almost comically bad.

We had asked for a cot to be put in the room in case we needed it for our son. No cot. It turned out we didn't need it, but unless the hotel staff possesses an impressive mind-reading ability, I'm assuming they would have no way of knowing that.

There were virtually no electrical outlets. After a hunt of which Sherlock Holmes would be proud, we found an outlet hidden behind the TV stand, into which one of those expanded outlet things had been plugged. Unfortunately, it already had a bunch of stuff stuck into it. We found another outlet cleverly hidden behind one of the beds. And that was it, with the exception of the outlet in the bathroom.

The towel racks were tilted. Literally. I'll bet one of them was nearly an inch off-level, which may not sound like much, to a marginally-OCD jackass like myself it might as well have been ninety degrees off. Honestly, these towel racks looked as though they had been installed by a drunken eight year old. In a hurry.

Three lamps just randomly stopped working on the first night of our stay, rendering the lighting of the room's interior something only Vincent Price would have found pleasing. By the second night, one of the lamps was magically working again.

But the best thing of all was the hairdryer. You know how hotels provide hairdryers for their guests who don't have the foresight to bring one? Well, ours was a little plastic thing mounted in a stand on the wall next to the door. The electrical outlet was located next to the sink, meaning the dryer's electrical cord was draped directly over the sink, hanging maybe a foot above it.

For real!

Now, I'm not complaining, although I admit it probably sounds like I am. We waited until the last minute to make reservations on what was going to be a very busy travel weekend, with Quinnipiac's and Yale's graduations being held on the same day, so it would make sense the best lodging would be filled up.

And we were pretty busy, so it's not like we spent the weekend lounging in the hotel room.

But just in case this is some kind of karmic revenge for my scene in PARALLAX VIEW, the next time Tracie Tanner needs to stay in a hotel, I'm making it a five-star luxury suite.

You know, just in case.

One year ago today I became a bestselling author.

That seems like a pretty cut-and-dried statement, but as with everything else in life, it seems there are degrees of bestsellerdom. The top of the heap, maybe, would be occupying a spot on the New York Times bestseller lists.

I've never done that. In all likelihood, never will.

At the bottom of the heap, maybe, would be occupying a spot on the list of bestselling titles of a tiny publisher nobody has ever heard of.

I've never done that, either, and have no intention of ever doing so.

So in the universe of "bestselling" authors, I'm somewhere in between the two extremes. But I still get goosebumps when I think about the fact that a year ago today, my thriller, THE LONELY MILE, blasted into Amazon's Top 100 overall paid bestseller list, eventually peaking at #21.

I wrote the 21st bestselling book at Amazon out of the millions of books available at the world's most prolific bookselling site.

I don't say this because I'm boasting. I'm not. It's actually just the opposite - I still have a hard time believing the events of last February actually happened, despite the fact I can remember them like they took place just last week. I'll never forget them.

The book had been released the previous summer by StoneHouse Ink, and despite our best efforts, sales had languished at around thirty a month, give or take. Other authors, I'm sure, can relate. There are a lot of books out there, all seeking readers. Most of those books will never find any.

In mid-January I asked Aaron Patterson at StoneHouse about the possibility of taking advantage of Amazon's new Kindle Select Program and making the book free for a couple of days. I thought we might give away a couple of hundred copies and take advantage of the resulting exposure, maybe selling a few extra copies when we started charging again for the book. What did we have to lose?

THE LONELY MILE went free on February 2 and within hours had zoomed to Number One on the free list, where it stayed for nearly three full days. By the time we ended the free promotion, we had given away 46,000 copies and gotten invaluable exposure.

On February 5, one year ago today, THE LONELY MILE returned to its regular price of $2.99 and began selling at an incredible rate. By the end of the day we had broken into the Top 100 paid list at Amazon. Over the course of the next three days we sold eight thousand copies, a rate that would probably disappoint Lee Child but which completely flabbergasted me.

On the afternoon of February 7, which was a Thursday and the third day of incredible sales, I made the comment to my wife that maybe this was really happening, that maybe we had crossed some invisible threshold and my name was finally going to become recognizable, a key aspect when it comes to selling books.

The entire last three days I had been holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for sales to dry up. They never did. Then I made that comment to my wife, and right on cue, sales began slipping.

It took a few more days to drop out of the Top 100, and for the entire month of February we ended up with over 12,000 sales, my best sales month ever by far and one I'll never forget.

A year later, THE LONELY MILE still sells the most consistently well of all my titles, and that's cool. It's a book I'm extremely proud of and a damned good story, if I do say so myself.

I'll never forget the week that made me a bestselling author, and while I'm working hard to get back there, if it never happens I'll always remember the week (and maybe even the month) I outsold Lee Child, Michael Connelly, and so many other unbelievable authors.

Judas Coyne is an aging heavy-metal rock god who seems to be the very cliche of the over-the-hill rock star, from the requisite dead band members, to his interest in the bizarre and the freakish, to his succession of doomed relationships with female groupies whose ages are getting farther and farther removed from his own.

Jude lives on a farm in upstate New York. His "career" now consists of writing and recording songs for his own benefit - hiding them away like he hides himself away, letting his personal assistant handle the minutiae of real life.

When his assistant mentions he's run across the opportunity online to purchase a dead man's ghost - by way of the corpse's suit - for a thousand dollars, Jude jumps at the chance. What else would he do? What else would his fans have expected him to do?

The suit arrives at Jude's door a few days later, and almost immediately, strange occurrences begin happening. Frightening visions. Trance-like states of hypnosis, with blackouts and worse. Then things move quickly from bad to worse, and before you know it, Jude and his girl - a flavor-of-the-month goth chick nicknamed "Georgia" - are running for their lives, trying to outdistance an angry spirit.

I'm not going to run down the plot any further, partly because so many other reviewers already have, and partly because by now you've already decided whether HEART-SHAPED BOX is your cup of tea or not. In some ways it's a very traditional ghost story and in others, not so much.

HEART-SHAPED BOX was originally published in 2007, and I never bothered reading it because, quite simply, I didn't give author Joe Hill a chance. The fact that he was Stephen King's son was supposed to be some kind of big secret, but it was about the worst-kept secret since, well, some other really badly kept secret.

I figured here was the classic example of a guy making money and gaining fame off his father's name, and the fact that he was writing under a different name made it somehow worse. More cynical and calculated, or something.

Boy, was that a mistake, and not just because it shows what a shallow asshole I can be at times.

Joe Hill can really write. He takes a story that's been told around a million campfires and lifts it above the commonplace and into something special, developing a gauzy, southern-gothic atmospheric tension when the story moves from New York State to Georgia, on to Florida, and finally ending in Coyne's boyhood home, a dilapidated farm in Louisiana.

While I resisted reading Joe Hill's work because of his family name, it seems almost comically ironic to note that HEART-SHAPED BOX contains much of the stuff that made me such a die-hard fan of Stephen King's early work, most notably 'SALEM'S LOT and THE SHINING:

- The ability to create characters we may not like but can't help rooting for, maybe because we see ourselves in these people who so often act out of self-interest and personal greed, but who - we hope - have the chance to redeem themselves in the end, perhaps because we hold out the same hope for ourselves.

- The ability to insert humor into the narrative in the unlikeliest places and at the unlikeliest times, without taking away from the suspense, and even, as impossible as it seems, enhancing it.

- The ability to draw the reader into the world he's created, so by the end of the book you're not just watching Judas Coyne and Mary Beth try to fight their way out of the mess they're in, you're right there with them, experiencing the horror that is the relentlessly vengeful Craddock McDermott and his smoke-blue pickup truck.

If you're smarter or more perceptive than I am, maybe you'll see where the book is going before it gets there, and if so, good for you. But I didn't see it coming, so when Hill wraps up the mystery of why Judas Coyne had been chosen - and he was chosen - for haunting, it's a satisfying resolution.

Of course, there's still the pesky question of how - and even whether -the aging rock star and his troubled, three-decades-younger girlfriend will survive, but if you haven't read the book yet, you're going to have to do so to get the answer to that one.

I owe you an apology, Joe Hill. I'm sure you don't care one way or the other, but I didn't give you a chance, and it was my loss missing out on one outstanding horror novel for six years.

Great book. If you love horror - not blood and guts and gore, but real psychological horror - and you haven't read HEART-SHAPED BOX yet, go get it. You won't be sorry.

My brand-new thriller, PARALLAX VIEW, is now available. I'm very excited about this book and will be posting several preview chapters over the course of the day. Here's Chapter Ten:



10


May 30, 1987

2:35 p.m.

Ramstein Air Base, West Germany

The back of the envelope was sweat-stained to a murky off-brown from being plastered to Tracie’s skin in the stifling heat of the East German dance club. The front, where was scrawled, “President Ronald Reagan,” by Mikhail Gorbachev, if her handler was to be believed—and Tracie believed him—remained undisturbed.

After fighting her way out of the dance club, Tracie had snuck out of East Berlin uneventfully—it was never a problem if you had the right contacts—and driven as fast as she dared back to Ramstein Air Base in West Germany in a waiting CIA-supplied automobile. By the time she arrived at Ramstein it was approaching six a.m., and she crashed, exhausted, in an empty apartment maintained just off the base by the CIA. After just a few short hours of sleep, she was awakened by telephone and advised her flight to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland would be departing at eleven p.m.

Tracie showered and dressed, reveling in the luxury of a little time to herself and the added bonus of an unlimited hot water supply. In many of the locations she had worked as a CIA field operative there had been no water at all, much less hot water.

During her shower, Tracie placed Gorbachev’s envelope atop the ceramic toilet tank, less than four feet from where she stood soaping and rinsing. Her assignment had been to retrieve the letter, spirit it out of East Germany, and then accompany it to Washington, never allowing it out of her sight until its delivery to the President, and that was what she intended to do.

She had slept with the letter hugged to her chest, cradling it like a tiny baby. She slept fitfully, but then she always slept fitfully, awakened by the slightest hint of a sound, a disruption in the room’s air currents, a barely perceptible noise outside her window. Her supersensitive perception, even while asleep, had kept her alive in some of the most dangerous locations in the world.

Tracie had performed missions in Asian and Middle Eastern countries where being female meant you had no rights, possessed no intrinsic value other than what the men around you were willing to bestow upon you. You could disappear without warning at any time and for any reason, and no one would ever question why.

The United States government would be no help, either, as her missions were almost always off the books and so highly sensitive that if she was captured, rather than fighting or negotiating for her release, the government would deny her very presence in the country, all the way up the official channels.

This was the life of a CIA Directorate of Operations agent. It was Tracie Tanner’s life, and a career she had never once regretted undertaking. It was a solitary, often lonely life, but as the daughter of a four-star U.S. Army general and a career State Department diplomat, Tracie had been groomed for it. After graduating Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, with a degree in linguistics, Tracie had been recruited into the ranks of the CIA. She had trained for three grueling years, initially at The Farm and then in the field, under a crusty old badass veteran of a quarter-century of covert operations whose real name she still did not know. Then she began working solo missions under her mentor and direct supervisor at CIA, Winston Andrews. Despite her inability to share even the broadest of details about her career with her parents, she knew they were proud of her decision to devote her life to the cause of freedom and service to her country.

But right now, all Tracie cared about was the steaming-hot water blasting out of the shower in the small apartment. She washed the sweat and grime of the mission off every inch of her body, then rinsed off and started again, scrubbing until she felt completely refreshed, regenerated and ready to begin the second half—the easy half—of the job. She would accompany Gorbachev’s letter to the White House, bypassing all official and diplomatic channels before hand-delivering it to its recipient, President Ronald Reagan.

The mission would end with an official debrief at Langley. Tracie hoped she might then be fortunate enough to wrangle a few days off to visit her folks in suburban Washington, but knew that was probably a pipe dream. Too many things were happening in too many hot spots around the world for the agency to allow one of their most valuable resources to hang out like a normal twenty-seven-year-old single woman.

In any event, the rest of the trip should be a cake walk. Tracie calculated the length of the flight and the time difference between West Germany and Washington, D.C. Eight hours in the air, more or less, and a six-hour time difference meant they would touch down at Andrews around 2:00 a.m. local time.

The 11:00 p.m. departure time was not exactly a typical flight schedule, but then Tracie had long ago adjusted to the unusual hours the job entailed. After being advised of the critical nature of the mission, the Air Force would have needed time to prep an airplane and get a flight crew together.

Tracie stepped directly under the shower nozzle, rinsing shampoo from her luxurious mane of red hair, enjoying the warmth of the water, always keeping one eye on the innocent-looking envelope propped against the wall on top of the toilet tank just outside the shower.

Finally, reluctantly, she twisted the faucets, sighing as the blast of water slowed to a trickle and then disappeared entirely. She stepped from the shower, dried off and dressed, and then quickly blow-dried her hair. With the extravagance of the hot shower out of the way, she wandered the apartment, the time passing slowly as she waited to leave Europe behind.



***



May 30, 1987

10:10 p.m.

Ramstein Air Base, West Germany

Tracie woke with a start and checked her watch. She had drifted off to sleep, stretched out on a small couch while watching a soccer match on the apartment’s black and white television, and now worried she may have missed her flight.

Ten-ten. Shit. She’d have to hurry, but would probably make it. If she timed it right, she might even manage coffee. Dinner she could take or leave, but the thought of departing Ramstein for a long flight to the States without an invigorating jolt of caffeine was unacceptable.

She threw her clothing into a small canvas bag—traveling light was second nature to Tracie Tanner after seven years of CIA service—and slid Mikhail Gorbachev’s letter carefully into the interior breast pocket of her light jacket. Then she rushed out of the apartment, jumped into her car, and drove onto the base.

She dumped the CIA car outside a small commissary adjacent to the airfield, hid the keys under the front seat, and hustled inside. She passed a pair of young airmen who made no attempt to hide their admiration of her running figure. She ignored them. They didn’t have coffee. Besides, she had long since gotten used to men staring at her. Also ogling her, leering at her and propositioning her.

Tracie checked her watch. Twenty-five minutes until her flight’s scheduled departure. She choked down her coffee. It was scalding hot and almost undrinkably strong, just the way she liked it. Then she grabbed her bag, checked for her precious cargo—the letter was still there—and then double-timed to the airfield. Someone would retrieve the car later.

Tracie had been instructed to check in at Hangar Three, and now she slowed her pace about a hundred feet from the door, walking onto the tarmac at precisely 10:55 p.m. Outside the hangar, a gigantic green U.S. Air Force B-52 towered above her, the eight-engine high-wing jet appearing almost impossibly large. It had to be close to two hundred feet from wingtip to wingtip, and the fuselage soared high above like some kind of fabricated metal dinosaur. The notion of the huge hunk of metal ever getting airborne, much less staying that way and flying all the way to the United States seemed outlandish, some kind of magic trick or optical illusion.

Tracie had logged endless hours aboard dozens of different aircraft, from medevac helicopters to Boeing 747’s, during her tenure as a CIA covert ops specialist, but had never been aboard a B-52. The sheer enormity of the aircraft was staggering. From where she stood, it looked like every other aircraft she had ever flown aboard could fit inside this behemoth. The wings thrusting outward from the top of the aircraft’s fuselage seemed to go on forever, swept back and hanging down slightly, as if the weight of the eight jet engines hanging in clusters of two was simply more than they could bear. The fuselage itself stretched off into the distance; to Tracie’s eye it appeared nearly as long as the wing span was wide.

She froze in place, marveling at the engineering miracle perched atop its tiny-looking wheels. She could feel her jaw hanging open and closed it, embarrassed. She felt like a country bumpkin on her first visit to the big city.

Standing directly in front of—and far below—the nose of the huge aircraft was an officer, probably late-thirties, handsome in a grizzled, seen-it-all way. He had obviously been awaiting her arrival, and he smiled at her reaction to the B-52. “May I see your ID, ma’am?” he asked.

Tracie handed it over, shaking her head in mute admiration of the aircraft.

The officer said, “We get that a lot from people who have never been up close to a BUFF before. It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?”

“That’s an understatement,” Tracie answered.

The officer handed Tracie’s ID back and said, “I’m Major Stan Wilczynski, and I’ll be Pilot in Command for today’s flight. I’ll introduce you to the rest of the crew shortly.”

She returned the Major’s smile. “I’ll bite,” she said. “What’s ‘BUFF’?” Other than you, she wanted to add, wondering how long it had been since she had enjoyed any male companionship outside of official duty status and realizing she couldn’t remember. She kept her remark to herself, though, noting the Major’s wedding ring.

He chuckled. “BUFF’s our nickname for the B-52. Stands for ‘Big Ugly Fat Fuckers.’ And they are all of that, but these babies have served with distinction for a quarter-century, with plenty more years to come. Some say the new B-1 will make the BUFF obsolete, but I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Tracie nodded, noting the reverence in the pilot’s voice as he talked about the plane. “How long have you flown the B-52, Major?”

“It’s Stan to my friends, Miss Tanner. And I’ve been involved with these Big Ugly Fuckers almost since my first day in the Air Force. Sometimes it feels like I’ve spent my whole life inside one of these beasts. Can’t imagine a better way to serve my country, to be honest.”

Tracie grinned. The man’s enthusiasm was infectious, and went a long way toward breaking down her caution, a trait she came by naturally and one that had served her well over the course of her seven-year CIA career. But there was no need for it now; it was clear she was among friends.

“Anyway,” Wilczynki continued, “I’ve bored you long enough. I just can’t help bragging when the subject is my baby.” He gestured affectionately toward the aircraft’s nose. “Whaddaya say we climb aboard and get ready to leave this continent behind?” The Major turned and indicated a metal ladder hanging from an open hatch in the bottom of the aircraft.

“I’m not bored at all,” Tracie answered, starting up the ladder. “I love hearing a professional discuss his passion.”

Major Wilczynski paused. “You know, I’ve never really thought about it in those terms before, but you’re right, I do have a passion for these old birds.” He started up the ladder behind Tracie and they disappeared into the B-52.

My brand-new thriller, PARALLAX VIEW, is now available. I'm very excited about this book and will be posting several preview chapters over the course of the day. Here's Chapter Nine:


9


May 30, 1987

12:15 a.m.

Ramstein Air Force Base, West Germany

“Hello?”

“Is this Mitchell?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Kopalev.”

“Yes, it’s Mitchell.”

“You are alone, yes? You can speak freely?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because we have an assignment for you. An item has been taken out of Russia through the GDR and is being flown to the United States from your air base.”

“So? Stuff flies out of here to the States all the time.”

“Not ‘stuff’ like this. It is critical this item not reach its intended destination. You will ensure that it does not.”

“What is the item?”

“An envelope addressed to your President Reagan. We believe the envelope contains a handwritten letter from Mikhail Gorbachev betraying his country.”

“I’m supposed to intercept a letter? In one small envelope? I don’t know anything about mail delivery. It’s not possible.”

“It is possible, Major. And it will be done. We have been paying you good money for many years and you have provided little return on our investment. Now it is time for you to earn those tens of thousands of American dollars we have deposited into your bank account.”

“But…how?”

“This item is far too valuable to be left unguarded. It will be placed on the first available military flight leaving Ramstein and will be carried personally by a member of your CIA. We believe that representative will be a young woman, red-haired and beautiful.”

“A beautiful, red-haired CIA spook?”

“That is correct. We have two witnesses who saw such a young woman execute one of our men in cold blood. We are certain she is in possession of the item. The airplane she boards for the United States is the airplane the envelope will be on. You will ensure that plane never arrives at its destination.”

“Crash a U.S Air Force jet? Are you out of your mind? Why can’t I just steal the letter and deliver it to you through a contact?”

“You propose stealing a Top-Secret document from a CIA professional? It would never happen. You would be dead before you got within three feet of her.”

“But if I can?”

“You do not understand. This item could conceivably change the entire balance of world power. It is imperative it be destroyed. We cannot risk you being caught trying to steal it. You will crash the airplane and thus destroy the letter. Those are your orders. They will be followed. Period.”

I already told you, it’s impossible. It can’t be done!”

“You will find a way, Major.”

“You’re a fucking crackpot. Forget it. I’m out. Find someone else to do your dirty work.”

“Major, you will never guess the report I received today.”

“Report? What are you talking about?”

“One of our operatives followed Roberta as she drove little Sarah to dance class this afternoon. He tells me, Major, that your young daughter is getting quite beautiful. Growing like a weed, as you Americans like to say.”

“He what? Roberta and Sarah? Listen here, you psychotic bastard, you leave my family out of this, do you understand?”

“The roads, Major, they are so dangerous in your country. Automobile accidents are a daily occurrence, often fiery crashes where the victims, sometimes mothers with their young children in the back seat, they crash their cars and burn to death in the fiery aftermath. They may survive the initial accident but then literally cook to death inside the burning vehicle. So sad, Major. So painful for the victims. So avoidable.”

Silence.

“Are you still with me, Major? Are you paying attention?”

“I’m here, you sick son of a bitch.”

“Good. You will ensure the airplane carrying the item of which we spoke never reaches your country. If you do not accomplish this assignment, well, let us just say I hope you have many photographs of your beautiful little family to keep their memory alive. Do not think about alerting the authorities, either. We will get to your wife and child if you do. Please believe that. Do you believe that, Major?”

Silence.

“Do you believe that, Major?”

“Yes. I believe that.”

“Then get going. You have a lot of work to do and very little time. The item is either already on the base or will be soon. It won’t be long before the plane carrying it will be lifting off, likely with the CIA operative as the sole passenger.”

“God damn you.”

“Oh, and Major? One more thing.”

“What?”

“Good luck. And goodbye.”

My brand-new thriller, PARALLAX VIEW, is now available. I'm very excited about this book and will be posting several preview chapters over the course of the day. Here's Chapter Eight:


8


May 30, 1987

Time Unknown

Location unknown

Aleksander regained consciousness slowly. He was sitting on a hard chair, probably in a basement or storage room of some sort. It was cold and dark and damp and smelled of rotting vegetables and something vaguely sinister. Copper? Aleksander wasn’t sure.

He could hear voices muttering somewhere nearby. Two people, it seemed. He was afraid to open his eyes to check. His hands and arms ached. He tried moving them but they were secured tight to the chair, arms pulled behind his back, wrists shackled together.

Tried his feet next. Same result. Each ankle had been affixed to a chair leg with something heavy and solid, probably a length of chain.

Aleksander felt queasy and weak. He knew he had been drugged into unconsciousness inside the tiny East German automobile and wondered how long he had been out. Was he even still in the German Democratic Republic? Was he back in Russia? Somewhere else? He concentrated on the voices, trying to pick up enough of the conversation to determine what language they were speaking and how many people were inside the room with him.

No luck. The voices were too quiet.

He risked opening his eyes, just a sliver, and moved his head very slowly to look around. In the dirty yellow light of a single bulb he could see a pair of shadowy figures huddled together in a corner of the room. The image blurred and doubled, then cleared. The lingering effects of whatever drugs he had been given, Aleksander guessed.

The men were sitting around a rickety table drinking something hot out of mugs—Aleksander could see the steam rising into the air even from here—and his stomach clenched and rumbled.

He wondered how long it had been since he had eaten. He wondered whether he would ever eat again. The terror of his predicament struck him like a wrecking ball and Aleksander puked all over the floor, the vomit burning his gullet on the way out. Cheap German vodka. Aleksander sobbed, then quickly stopped himself. His eyes widened in mounting panic as the men pushed their chairs back and began walking across the room.

The men stopped directly in front of him. One was tall and thin, skeletal. The other was completely bald. Aleksander looked up in fear, feeling like he might be sick again. He hoped when the vomit erupted from him it wouldn’t splatter all over his captors.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Comrade,” the bald man said in Russian, which meant nothing, since his East German contact had spoken Russian, too. “Time is of the essence, so let us skip the preliminaries and get right down to business, shall we?”

Aleksander’s terror was nearly overwhelming. His stomach rolled and yawed. He was afraid to speak for fear of vomiting again.

But as terrifying as this situation was, he knew he possessed the ultimate trump card—provided he had been kidnapped by Russians. If these two weren’t citizens of the USSR, he didn’t know what he was going to do.

“Where is it?” the bald man said. So far skeleton-man had not spoken.

Aleksander had no choice but to answer now. He hoped he wouldn’t puke on the men, but they were standing perilously close. He swallowed hard. “Where is what?” he croaked. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until just now.

“Do not play games with us. Doing so will only cause you pain,” the bald man said, and skeleton-man drew back his foot and kicked Aleksander in the shin, hard, with his steel-toed boot. The pain exploded, racing up and down Aleksander’s leg like an electrical current.

He screamed in agony and fell forward, desperate to cover up, to protect his injured shin, but could barely move with his wrists shackled to the chair behind his back. He hadn’t heard anything crack but couldn’t believe the bone hadn’t shattered.

“Where is it?” the bald man repeated, his voice slashing like a knife.

“I don’t know,” Aleksander gasped. “I passed it along just as I was instructed to do. Where he went with it after he left the club I have no idea.”

“You know him,” the man said. It was not a question. “You have done business with him in the past.”

“No, never. I swear. I’ve never seen him before.”

“You were laughing and joking like old friends, Comrade Petrovka. Do not insult our intelligence.”

“I was just doing what I was told to do by my contact, to blend in, that’s all. I’ve haven’t been to East Germany since I was a teen, I swear. You can check my travel records if you don’t believe me.”

“Oh, we will, don’t worry about that. Next question: What was the item you delivered?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you, traitor.”

“Traitor?” Aleksander looked up at his tormentors, sweat dripping into his eyes. His shin throbbed with every beat of his heart. He knew now was the time to play his trump card. It might be his only chance. “No,” he said, “I am not a traitor. I was doing exactly as ordered by General Secretary Gorbachev. I am here on official state business.”

“Official state business?” the man said, his voice mocking and cruel. He turned to his partner. “Did you hear that, Vasily? He is here on official state business, representing Secretary Gorbachev himself.”

The man turned his attention back to Aleksander. “Well, I have news for you, Comrade Aleksander Petrovka of Ivanteyevka. Mikhail Gorbachev is just as much a traitor to his homeland as you are. We care nothing for Mikhail Gorbachev’s orders. If Gorbachev’s reckless stupidity is not checked, he will be the downfall of the Soviet Empire, and Vasily and I are just two of many who refuse to see that happen.

“Betraying your country under the orders of a fellow traitor is no excuse, Comrade Petrovka. So I ask you again, for the last time: what was the item you delivered to your contact?”

Terror flooded through Aleksander’s body. The terror overwhelmed the pain so his throbbing shin did not even exist. The terror overwhelmed his queasy stomach so he no longer felt he was about to puke. The terror was everything.

These men were Russians, but it did not matter. They were Russians, but the word of Mikhail Gorbachev meant nothing to them. They were accusing him of treason, but they were traitors. The irony struck him like another kick to the shin. Aleksander realized he was breathing heavily, forcing air in and out through his mouth like a panting dog. He was hyperventilating but could not stop himself.

This was bad. This was worse than bad. This was a nightmare come to life.

“WHAT WAS THE ITEM YOU DELIVERED TO YOUR CONTACT?” the bald man screamed in Aleksander’s face. Spittle sprayed out of the man’s mouth as if from a fire hose. A fat gob of saliva splattered the side of Aleksander’s nose and dripped slowly into his mouth.

Aleksander sobbed, “I don’t know! Secretary Gorbachev gave me a sealed envelope. Inside was some kind of document, I don’t know what. He forbade me to look at it.”

His tormentor stepped back and looked at his comrade. He seemed genuinely shocked. “You risked your life to deliver a document and . . . you don’t even know what it was?”

Aleksander hung his head and shook it miserably. He would never see Tatiana or his children again. He would never see the sun rise over the eastern edge of the Moscow skyline. He was going to die here in this dirty, dark torture chamber at the hands of two people he had never seen, two people who believed him a traitor to his country. And there was nothing he could do about it.

A wrenching sob shook his body and pain flared in his shin. “The envelope was sealed. I could not have opened it even if I wanted to.”

His two captors laughed as though he had said something funny. Then his interrogator switched gears. “Your contact, he was a German, was he not?”

“Yes, that is what Secretary Gorbachev told me, and I don’t know why he would lie about it.”

The two men grunted and his interrogator spit on the floor. “Yes, why would he lie?” the bald man said. “He is destroying his ancestral homeland, the land Russians have spilled blood to protect for generations, but surely he would not lie.

“Now, getting back to the document the traitor Gorbachev asked you to pass along to this German, what was it?”

“I already told you, I don’t know.”

The man waved his hand like he was brushing a fly away from his face. “Don’t take me for a fool, please, Comrade. There is no one alive who would not look inside the envelope the first chance he got. What was it?”

Aleksander raised his head and looked at the man beseechingly, but said nothing. What could he say? It was clear another denial would be ignored.

And then, out of nowhere, inspiration. His contact! “If you were watching me, you must have been watching my contact, too,” he said, speaking quickly, enthusiastically. “If you can find him, you can take the envelope away from him and see for yourselves what it contains.”

“Thank you for your very helpful advice,” his tormentor replied with exaggerated politeness. “Your German collaborator claims to know nothing as well, and he passed the envelope off before we were able to intercept him.” The man shook his head in disgust and spit again on the floor. “We are getting nowhere and time is passing quickly.”

He smiled at Aleksander, his lips a thin bloodless slash. “I would like to say I am sorry for what is to come next, but, alas, I cannot. I have little patience for traitors, but would have gladly ended you quickly had you only given me the information I require. Now, I am afraid you are in for a rather unpleasant little while. I can’t be more specific because, you see, I don’t know how long it will take you to die. One can never predict these things, but the time will probably seem much longer to you than it actually is.”

The other man walked away and began dragging equipment across the concrete floor, placing it next to Aleksander’s chair. He didn’t seem sorry, either. He whistled a tuneless ditty as he expertly clamped a set of booster cables to a series of automobile batteries stacked atop a wooden pallet on wheels. A cable ran from the batteries to a small box fitted with dials, switches and a couple of grimy meters. To Aleksander the box resembled the transformer from the small electric train set he and Tatiana had given his son, Aleksander Junior, for his fourth birthday last year. It had taken months to save up enough money to buy the toy, but the look on his son’s face when he opened his gift had been worth every bit of sacrifice.

Tears spilled down Aleksander’s cheek at the memory and mixed with the spittle drying on his face. The quiet man continued working and whistling. Two cables extended from one side of the transformer-like box, snaking across the floor, terminating at Aleksander’s shackled feet. At the end of each of the cables was a shiny copper connector, spring-loaded and fitted with sharp teeth. A feeling of dread wormed its way through Aleksander’s gut and he no longer suspected he was going to throw up again, he knew it.

The quiet man unbuckled Aleksander’s belt and pulled it completely free of his trousers. He unsnapped the pants and unzipped the fly and motioned impatiently for Aleksander to lift his ass off the seat. Numbly, Aleksander did as he was instructed, and the man yanked his trousers and underwear down to his ankles.

Aleksander puked, barfing up the acidy-tasting remnants of the East German vodka, not caring this time that it splattered all over the quiet man. He began babbling, begging for his life.

The quiet man continued, unaffected. He attached the copper ends of the two cables to Aleksander’s bare scrotum, tugging lightly on each one to ensure it was fastened securely. Then he walked behind Aleksander’s chair, returning seconds later with a bucket of foul-looking water. He splashed some on Aleksander and on the cables.

He looked at Aleksander, his eyes hard and remorseless. “Goodbye, Comrade,” he said. They were the first and last words Aleksander ever heard him say. Then he walked to the small table on wheels upon which the transformer-like box was placed, and he flipped a switch. Then he turned a dial. Then Aleksander’s situation changed for the worse.

It took a long time for him to die.