Paul Anthony's Blog - Posts Tagged "thriller"

Make ready with those catapults,’ commanded Domitian: a tall, angular centurion dressed in Roman splendour. ‘Archers of Syria, make good your eye for the God of Fortuna will grant you sound fortune on this great day of reckoning. Fortuna will guide your arrows of revenge. Hear my words, I say unto you. I have spoken.’
Listening to Domitian’s words, easing a quiver to his side, Hussein prepared his bow. Hussein had no tender fingers to ease the clay; no soft fingers to make a pot and shape the curve of an urn; no nimble fingers to turn the scriptures and leaf the pages: he was a warrior. Smaller than the centurion; his hair was black and flowing. His skin was a deep olive colour: smooth in its texture; perhaps a touch swarthy in its pigment. Hussein was just a simple Syrian peasant: a nobody simpleton from a nobody town. But he was an archer and his eyes were the dark brown eagle eyes of an assassin.
The first heavy chariot of destruction trundled sluggishly by. A dozen numeri: half-savage tribesmen from an auxiliary army, shouldered their weight against a mobile catapult under the watchful eye of Domitian: a legendary soldier who was famed in battle. Domitian stood tall for a centurion measuring five feet eight inches, perhaps nine, and his face bore no stubble from the long hot siege. His blade was sharp. His back was erect, his shoulders broad, a commander in battle. An ugly scar ran down his face from the high cheekbone near his left ear to the side of his throat.
Another heavy catapult rolled by. Two unfortunate mules pulled the ponderous machine as it gradually clambered up a rocky incline. Eight sweating tribesmen laboriously pushed, steadied and guided the wobbly apparatus as it neared the mighty gates of Masada.
Following the first catapult, and fanning out as the mouth of Masada beckoned, ranged an overwhelming array of Syrian archers. Hussein, the simple peasant from the banks of the Euphrates, led them. The loose brown robes of his Syrian archers ran to their knees and were covered by dark cloaks knotted on their chests. Each archer carried a gladius: a two-foot long sword, sheathed at the waist. Leather quivers hung over their shoulders as they marched with their bows held low in readiness.
Behind Hussein’s archers followed the rest of the Roman artillery. There were catapults, large and small. The catapult was no match for the mediocre defenders who had no fight in their belly; no weapon at their arm.
The cornuas sounded.
Increasing their tempo the archers gradually massed in front of the fortress as Hussein mustered his men and carefully withdrew an arrow from his quiver. Grains of sand gathered, rose, and clouded into the atmosphere as row upon row of marching Syrians broke into a gentle jog.
‘Make haste,’ ordered Domitian; his voice booming across the hordes. ‘Exalt the Gods for your strength. Jupiter and Mars watch over you, my warriors of revenge. Feel not fear in your heart. Heed your leader well.’
Another signal trumpeted across the sands as the Legions vacated their campsites and marched towards Masada. Blades of retribution sparkled in the desert sun as the loose brown robes of Syria hung in terrifying waiting.

The troops were young men, drawn mainly from the Home Counties and the south of England. To the Irish they spoke with a strange English accent. To some, the army was a friend. To others, it was the enemy. In some quarters it was preferable not to take sides at all and have as little to do with the army as possible. They had been there since August, 1969. The troops were nervous.
‘What's going on? Why have we stopped?’ shouted the army sergeant moving his fingers to release the safety catch on his assault rifle as he raised it across his chest in readiness.
Sitting on the crown of the road in the middle of Shantallow were a group of children. Aged about twelve, they wore short trousers, long-sleeved grey pullovers and scuffed, worn-out shoes. They were children at play, positioned across the road, as pearls on a rope.
The Land Rover was prevented from continuing its journey.
One of the children sang a gentle haunting song, ‘God made the land and God made the sea. To be sure, I hope He shines down on me.’
Removing his cap, Gordon leaned out of the Land Rover and shouted, ‘Clear off! Get off the road, will yer?’
Mumbling something softly to his partner about Catholic kids, Gordon reached into the rear compartment for his weapon. He favoured a habit of never leaving the vehicle without his gun. As he was about to get out of the Land Rover he heard the faint sound of an old Irish melody drifting towards him again.
‘God made the land and God made the sea. To be sure, I hope He shines down on me.’
The young child singing bathed in light from a nearby street lamp and remained seated cross-legged on the road, apparently oblivious to the policeman. The other children slowly moved from the roadway to the footpath.
The Land Rover idled about forty yards from them, its headlights illuminating the scene.
The engine continued to tick over. Gordon gently pressed the accelerator with the gear stick in neutral whilst his hands rested firmly on the steering wheel.
From the window of a high rise building overlooking the street, a middle-aged man in a long black coat put down his binoculars and pressed the transmit button of his walkie-talkie radio. The man spoke quietly, ‘Now!’
It was all over in a matter of seconds.
On the wasteland, approximately fifty yards from the Land Rover, two young volunteers hoisted a home-made mortar tube out of a battered old blue suitcase and aimed it slightly above the roof of the Land Rover.
The taller of the two laid his walkie-talkie radio to one side and rested the mortar tube on his shoulder, whilst the other youth loaded it. He pulled the trigger.
There was a loud explosion and in less than a second a shell pierced the air and collided with the front offside of the Land Rover. The vehicle erupted into a ball of fire as the impact of the lethal home-made device lifted it off the ground and spun it round so that it turned at a right angle to its original axis.
The two young occupants of the Land Rover were heard screaming in the face of death when they were thrown about like peas in a drum.
A cloud of black smoke climbed the sky, billowing upwards in a horrible spiral.
The man in the long black coat stepped away from the window and pocketed his radio. As he walked quietly out of the room that had been seized only hours before for the ‘hit’ a motor bike rode off at high speed.
Simultaneously, a door opened nearby and an anxious mother gathered up her twelve-year-old son and took him indoors.
The voice of the twelve-year-old asked, ‘Did Ah do alright, Ma? Did Ah do what you wanted, Ma? Did ya like ma song, Ma?’
His mother listened for the sound of approaching footsteps and men running. She heard nothing. She held the child closely, saying, ‘Hush, Liam Connelly, will yer now? It's late. Now, go yerself ta bed before yer da' gets home.'

The policeman stood in the centre of the road with his arm held aloft. He wore the green shirt of the national police force, short in its sleeve, with a tie to match. A white lanyard ran from his broad shoulders to a brown handled pistol, which poked from a black leather holster worn on his belt.
Fritz stopped, fingered a gold stud in his left ear lobe, and worried for a moment. He watched the policeman approach, heard the stomp of his black laced jackboots, and saw the trousered fatigue of his dusty uniform. Then he saw the pistol poking from the policeman’s leather holster. The policeman was time-served, etched in his face, swagger in his walk, forty something. Parked behind the policeman was a dark green Landrover belonging to the national police.
Fritz studied the Landrover, with its deeply grooved tyres, and realised the vehicle was just what police would use to negotiate Monchique’s rough terrain, ideal for those mountain tracks and twisting pathways that led to the Colombian plantation. Winding down his window, Fritz leaned out and acknowledged the approaching policeman as an aircraft flew overhead. Looking skyward, Fritz saw the aircraft visibly climb as Monchique’s mountain tops reached towards its underbelly.
An aperture in the aircraft’s belly appeared and a cloud of chemicals scattered earthwards across the raging flames below.
There was a woman on the road, hobbling, frail in the movement of her varicose legs, stooped in the weak carriage of her body. She was elderly, weighed down by many years and the heavy bags that she carried. From head to foot she was dressed in black, a shawl, a woollen cardigan, a long plain cotton dress that skirted to her ankle, all coloured black: widow woman. The widow woman glanced over her shoulder and looked towards the mountains, tried to see the flames that drove her from her home, and wept a tear which ran down the wrinkled cheek of her face. Her fear of the bushfire was set deep in her tired brown eyes. It was as if her brown eyes had been replaced by the raging inferno’s yellow flames. She hurried by, shuffled with the weight of her belongings crammed into bags that she carried. She ignored the aircraft overhead, the policeman, and a man leaning from the window of his car.
The policeman ignored the widow woman; he was at Fritz’s car window. His hand rested casually on his holster as he bent down and spoke to Fritz. The policeman told Fritz that a major evacuation of Monchique was taking place; the road ahead was blocked, and would be blocked for quite some time. He told Fritz that emergency services were rushing resources to a bushfire whilst removing a frightened local population to safety.
A family walked past, frayed at the edges, tired, carrying their suitcases and bags, carrying a holdall, carrying a puppy dog that was limp in its leg. Father’s thumb stuck out as a wagon approached. All the family stopped, thumbs in the air, hoping, pleading with moistened eyes. Stress plagued the father’s face, smudged, and blackened from smoke and fire.
The wagon drove on, a puppy dog whimpered, and a thumb dropped.
The flat-bedded wagon was laden with boxes and bags, two beds and a wooden table with its carved legs pointing skyward. The wagon’s exhaust pipe bellowed black gaseous fumes. The wagon was rusting at its wing, creaking with the weight of its load, chugging towards safety. The driver did not stop, did not wave, and did not pause. He was crying as he drove down the hill with his rescued belongings sagging on his flat-bedded wagon.
Fritz watched, fingering his gold stud in worry. He saw cars turning back, heard sirens, saw anxious faces on bewildered people, and then saw black curling smoke rising from the blue of a dying sky. In mountains, fields, and nearby plantations, Fritz saw the Bushfire destroying. Chaos ruled with curling smoke and heat and flames dominating the area.

Here's a fresh extract from Behead the Serpent....Another murder mystery thriller that will have everyone out of breath...

There's been a shooting... a crime... a burglary.... There's a chase on and that's where we join the book....

‘There he is,’ yelled Barney. ‘Stop him, Harry.’
Without a moment’s thought, Harry Reynolds reached out to try and catch Conor but the Irishman was too slippery.
Taking a stride into the rain, Harry joined the pursuit.
Pulling his gun again, Conor snapped off two wild shots in the direction of his pursuers.
But Conor didn’t wait to see Barney and Max simultaneously crash to the ground to avoid the bullets.
Screaming!
The sound of gunfire panicked the crowd and a loud scream rent the air as Conor carved through the horde of shoppers and sprinted towards the clock tower.
They were up and chasing again with Barney shouting into his radio, Max pushing his way through the screeching crowd, and Harry Reynolds yelling, ‘Stop him! Somebody stop him!’
On reaching the clock tower cafe, Conor spun round and took aim at his chasers.
Diving for cover, Barney collided headlong into a litter bin cemented into the ground and Max threw himself onto the ground.
A siren sounded as a police car neared the market.
‘Blat! Blat!’ Two more shots from Conor were way off target. Snapping the trigger again, he realised the chamber was empty.
Then there was the sure turn of an engine from somewhere close by and Conor was out of the market and crossing the road with his empty weapon waving aimlessly at his pursuers.
You’re going nowhere, thought Max.
Suddenly, a mast appeared in Max’s vision and he lost his bearings.
One, two, three, four strides and a huge jump saw Conor leap over the harbour wall onto a waiting vessel. In midair, Conor’s arms rotated for speed and length and in those precious seconds, he loosened grip of his gun and it clattered to the ground.
Max didn’t see Conor land but he heard the heavy fall landing on the yacht’s deck.
Abruptly, two outboard motors exploded into life and the long vertical wooden mast moved away from the wall and into the mainstream of the dock.
Max took in the mast; the furled sail, the wooden deck and a yacht bearing the name, ‘SERPENT’, on its hull. Next to the vessel’s name, Max took in the image of a strange looking sea creature which adorned the hull. It resembled the shape of a sea serpent from the tales of ancient mariners long ago.
There was the vague outline of another man in the Serpent’s cabin as the vessel’s wake churned its getaway. Moments later, Conor O’Keefe appeared at the yacht’s stern and cheekily waved to the helpless Max.
A police car, lights flashing, siren wailing, radio blaring, arrived at the harbour side.
Slowly, Max turned from the disappearing yacht and a smiling crook and spoke to the patrol car driver, P.C Jim Temple. ‘Too late, Jim! Too late! He was too quick for us and bloody lucky, that’s all.’
‘I came as soon as I got the call,’ countered PC Temple.
‘At least we know who we’re looking for, Jim. But can you get on the radio and chase up the ambulance,’ suggested Max. ‘We’ve got an officer down and Barney wrapped around a block of cement somewhere!’

The chase is well and truly on - this is the third in the Davies King trilogy, what will Davies think when he catches up with his crew?

More importantly, why are the crew on board the Serpent planning to attack the national grid. The cyber war is in full flight as the lights slowly go out across the UK, Holland, Northern Europe, and North America..... You'll need a torch to read this one.

Paul Anthony