First Kid Down

Troy Barclay/Amber Neilson #7

by Daniel A. Adams

While vacationing at the Grand Canyon, and completely surrounded by Secret Service agents, Trace Sawyer, the President of the United States's son, goes around a corner and disappears into thin air. With every minute counting, the Secret Service pulls out all stops and blankets the South Rim of the Canyon with men but seven hours later, they don't have a single clue as to what happened to him. Desperate, the First Lady has the President call Troy Barclay to assist in the search but as an Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent, he and his partner, Amber Neilson, are as welcome as a bad case of flu. By themselves they go to the location where Trace went missing and five minutes later, Troy figures it out.

When he tells the President and First Lady how their son was kidnapped, they are amazed and the President orders the two ATF agents to go after the kidnappers and rescue their son. Just as Troy and Amber are about to hike into the Grand Canyon, three Secret Service agents intercept them and beg to go on the hunt. Amber and Troy agree but with the stipulation that it is Troy and Amber's case and they will give the orders.

After a quick ride down into the Canyon in a sight-seeing helicopter, the five lawmen start looking for the kidnappers' trail. It takes them a while but they finally find the kidnappers' trail and set off after them. Unluckily, the kidnappers spot them on their trail and have two men set up an ambush while the others move on. But Troy breaks up the ambush and captures the kidnappers and sends them back to the South Rim with one of the Secret Service agents. The three have been gone for an hour when a gigantic explosion sounds from the direction they were headed. A drone-fired Hellfire missile killed the agent and his two prisoners.

Troy and Amber realize they must capture the kidnappers before they can escape into the vast Navajo Reservation where the odds are good they will never be caught. Later, they catch up with, and confront the kidnappers but find they have been tricked into following the wrong group of kidnappers. After killing two black ops guys Troy and Amber realize the kidnapping is the tip of a government conspiracy iceberg. Turns out the CIA is involved and want the kidnappers dead and are willing to accept collateral damage that includes Trace Sawyer.

From the Grand Canyon they venture to Las Vegas where they are involved in a huge shootout that sends them to South Carolina to talk to a witness, and on to Alexandria, Virginia where they discover the GRU (Russian military intelligence) is also hunting the kidnappers. With a lot of lives on the line, and rogue CIA agents gunning for them, Amber and Troy must outwit and outgun the GRU, the CIA and the kidnappers to save the President's son and bring to justice an escaped mass murderer responsible for the deaths of 8,000 Bosnians.

340 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 28, 2014

About the author

After graduating from Arizona State University with degrees in Zoology and Accounting, Mr. Adams joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation where, as a Special Agent, he investigated general crimes such as bank robberies, kidnappings and extortions as well as specializing in complex financial crimes as a forensic accountant. Mr. Adams went on to work for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as an investigator where he worked bank fraud and embezzlement cases. He has been a licensed commercial and residential contractor and built and developed many housing units. As a lark, he signed on with a small Hollywood literary agency where he worked as a literary agent for many years. While working as an agent, he wrote several scripts and the third one was made into a movie called SECOND CHANCES. Since then he has written, directed and produced a number of award-winning shorts and several feature films. Mr. Adams decided to turn several of his scripts into novels and has six of them on Amazon, including the best-seller, FIRST LADY DOWN.

Reviews

[Kenn Goslin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smart kid...bad villains!!!

This story is very exciting! The pseudo bad guys are very smart but not as ingenious as I expected. For anyone ready to enjoy a good spy story, this is it!!!

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's too bad that the author did not have the services of a good — or even a barely competent — editor in August of 2014. The story is replete with examples of missing or misplaced punctuation as well as butchered grammar.

[Jyoti Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting but predictable

[Bernie · Rating 5 out of 5]

First Kid Down review

First Kid Down is the seventh book in the Troy Barclay and Amber Neilson series written by author Daniel Adams.