by Gavin Reese
“I had hoped for much higher follow-through.”
“The context may help, Your Eminence. Five assignments revolve around the same subject, the new Ripper in London. Two revealed no evidence, and we later learned originated from false allegations.”
Dylan smiled as he considered the information. “As soon as they put that London monster down, they’ll be perfect.”
“And," Harold beamed, “most of those fifteen subjects were delivered to God within forty-eight hours of the assignment.”
Dylan turned back to the television, which had returned to its pontifications from Saint Peter’s Square. Growing throngs of the faithful poured into the square as they did for every major event in the Catholic world. “It appears our secret weapon, this clandestine cabal, is in place and ready to remove those who place themselves squarely against God’s intended plan by opposing our upcoming vote.”
Harold refused to show his discomfort with the unexpected turn. If the cardinal’s willing to send assassins after church officials for merely voting against him, what will he do if he believes I’ve betrayed him? He leaned back and spoke toward the television and the news anchor now shown there. “We need only give them a target and a reason. If need be, they’ll find all the evidence they need. I’ll make certain of it.”
Dylan again pulled in sequence from both his drink and his Cuban. “And, only after the vote’s assured, we can hire enough of those better gravediggers to remove ours from the field. Some secrets just can’t be trusted to lesser men, Harold.”
Continue reading for a sample of The Copycat, the third novel in The Michael Thomas series. You can also purchase using the link below:
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Michael Thomas Series
The Absolver
The Trafficker
The Bombmaker
The Copycat
The Copycat: Prologue
May 14, 07:32am.
San Miguel Chapel. Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Father Michael Andrew Thomas knelt next to his bed in the private living quarters of the chapel where he’d worshiped as a child and now served as a part-time parish priest. Dense foam kneepads dulled the sacrificial ache that emanated up from the cold stone floor as he recited his daily morning prayer. Having returned from his assignment in Paris less than two days ago, he hoped to stay in the parish long enough to recover and heal from his injuries.
brrtbrrtbrrt brrtbrrtbrrt
Although he normally ignored his personal cell phone during the time he devoted to prayer, the early morning hour compelled him to retrieve it. Unknown caller. Michael silenced the ringer, returned it to the top of the nightstand, and knelt back on the floor. He closed his eyes, deeply inhaled, and—
brrtbrrtbrrt brrtbrrtbrrt
The skittering phone demanded his attention, so Michael rose and answered the call. “Hello?”
“What the hell did you get me into, Mikey?”
He recognized Brandon’s voice, but he hadn’t heard simmering rage in the man for years. “What do you mean?”
“Those fingerprints, dipshit. The ones you sent over and had me run through the national databases.” Brandon paused and sighed. “What the hell are you doing?”
Michael stood and considered how to protect his friend from the unintended consequences of having involved him in the first place. “I’m sorry, man, but you have to give me context more than that.”
His former shift partner and current Patrol Sergeant for the Silver City Police Department scoffed. “Alright. I’ll play your stupid little game for a minute, but I will run out of patience real soon.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “I ran them through the national print databases, and they didn’t match anything. Turns out, they actually got two matches, but they weren’t in the databases us lowly street cops can access.”
Michael’s chest and throat tightened, so he fought back the stress reaction and continued to play dumb for the moment. “So, what did you get back?”
“I have no idea. They didn’t tell me, so all I know is how I found out,” Brandon shot back. “I’m working nights right now, so I just got off-shift about ten minutes ago. You know who was waiting for me when I walked back into the station house at 0-500 this morning? Some fuckin’ clown in a suit from the State Department, and you know why, Mikey? Because he wanted to know where I got the prints and why I was looking into their owner.”
“State Department? Did he give you a name?”
“Yeah, ‘Special Agent Black,’ but that was a blatant lie. He said, ‘State Department,’ but what he meant was ‘O-G-A’, which is just spook-speak for—”
“C-I-A.” Michael finished the sentence and held his breath. A pregnant pause passed between them.
“Yeah, Mikey. The first thing I’m struggling with is how you know that. I ran into a bunch of those guys over in the Sandbox and the ‘Stan. I know exactly who and what ‘Special Agent Black’ was, but you were a small-town cop from New Mexico. Now I think you’re a parish priest. I mean, that’s the only thing you’ve told me about what you’re doing, but what the hell do I know?” Brandon let silence chew on Michael, but he didn’t take the tacit invite to explain himself. “So, after I finish my story, I need to know how you know what you know, Mikey.”
Michael ignored the challenge for the moment. “What did you say about the prints?”
“Exactly what I wrote in the report. I pulled ‘em off a stolen high-end mountain bike because I wanted to nab the thief for a solid felony. He didn’t buy it, but no one can prove any different. I answered your questions, so, it’s your turn to answer mine.” Brandon’s anger and fear infiltrated his voice and slapped Michael through the phone. “What is a Catholic priest doing with fingerprints from a goddamned spy?”
Michael shook his head again. I never should have put Brandon in this position. John’s contacts in the Agency will call him about this if they haven’t already. He took a deep breath in through his nose and exhaled. “What do you want to hear, B?”
His friend scoffed again. “At least give me something, even if it’s a lie so I can pretend that we don’t have targets on our backs right now.” Brandon’s normal sarcasm returned. “I already miss my life from last week, you know? Back when all my phone calls, and emails, and Internet search history were getting scraped and saved by the N-S-A, but nobody was really looking through them? You remember that, right, the good times that I didn’t know ended a couple days ago? After that fun little meeting this morning, every federal intelligence agency is busy assigning about a dozen digital proctologists to work me over, so that’s the kind of news you can use.” He paused and exuded anxiety. “Did you know there are sixteen federal intelligence agencies, at least that they acknowledge publicly? Sixteen, Mikey, and I’m now known to every one of ‘em, even the ones that aren’t supposed to look at Americans. That’s why I had to get this burner phone. If I dump my cell phone, they’ll know something’s up, so I have to leave it in the truck to make sure nobody’s listening in. Probably doesn’t matter, anyway, because they would have already found your phone number in my call records, and they can prove I lied to them now...goddammit...”
“They might get this cell number shut down, but they can’t record it. The cell number you’ve had for me for since I got back from Columbia is an Internet number, and the phone never connects to cell towers. It only ever works through Wi-Fi, so no one can record the calls or find the phone.”
“How, what, how?? Who the hell are you, Mikey?!”
“I’m still one of the good guys, Brandon, and I hope you still believe that. If you don’t change your behavior and they don’t dig up anything else, you’ll be okay. The proctologists will get bored in a couple weeks and move on to something new and shiny.” Michael couldn’t read Brandon’s silence across the phone. “If it’s any consolation, they’ve been reading your shit all along. It’s just a real file now and someone at N-S-A’s hitting ‘forward-all’ to Langley.”
“
Alright. We can’t undo any of this. Can you tell me a little bit about what the hell’s on my shoes? What am I stepping in here?”
Michael sighed. He hoped Brandon could one day understand what his life had become. “It’s best you don’t know. I’m sorry this happened to you, I just didn’t imagine it would go this far.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t sound surprised. Don’t call me for any more favors, and don’t forget about this one. If C-I-A operatives are leaving fingerprints on your whiskey glasses, I can’t tell if that’s real trouble for me or a massive Get Out of Jail Free card.” Silence ground on them both for a moment. “I guess that depends on who you’re working for these days and what you’re really up to, eh?”
Michael’s work cell rang, and he picked it up from the top of his desk. Speak of the devil and he appears. “Listen, I gotta go. The guy with those fingerprints might be calling.”
“If you need help, Mikey, call me, or just show up on my doorstep but, at the same time, please don’t need my help for a while.”
“Be safe out there, B, and I’m sorry.” He ended the call on his personal phone before accepting the one from his boss. “John, what can I do for you?”
The aging spy master scoffed before anger filled his gruff baritone voice. “You can start by explaining yourself, shithead, and then we’ll see what happens from there.”
The Copycat: Chapter one
May 14, 07:34am.
Rural Training Compound. Esmeralda County, Nevada.
With his cellphone to his ear, John stood looking out his bedroom window. He watched the current class of trainees run disciplinary wind sprints up a steep and rugged hill just west of the clandestine facility in the dusty Nevada desert. John showed his concern for those who reported to him by trying to ensure they suffered as much or more in his training program than most of them ever would in the real world. I can push ‘em to succeed or ease ‘em into failure.
“John?”
His focus snapped back to the phone call, and he strode away from the window. “How’s the aches and pains, Andrew? You gonna live?”
“I’ve been worse, and I’ll get better.”
He let silence grind on his subordinate as he watched the struggling recruits. “I don’t like the way Paris turned out. Nobody we care about got disabled or dead, but you’re damned lucky no good guys got killed. Far as I can tell, the press and the French government don’t know about you, so all the blame’s goin’ to the terrorist and all the credit’s landing on some local cop that was lookin’ into the same guy.” John paused and let suspicion replace the disappointment in his voice. “How do you figure you two managed not to run into each other, two white faces investigatin’ the same suspect in an enclave of Middle Eastern Muslims?”
Andrew audibly exhaled before answering, but his voice stayed measured and consistent. “I don’t know, John. We must have crossed paths at some point.”
“Uh-huh.” More silence that might inspire a confession or excuse. Every operative in every covert organization has secrets and resources he doesn’t disclose to anyone, and this guy’s apparently no different. He knows better than to admit to anything. John nodded to himself and adopted a factual tone. “I know you just landed back at the parish and you’re a little banged up, but duty calls. When can you get yourself back on a plane?”
“A few hours. I have some things to tend to here, but I can hustle. Where to?”
John scowled. “You must be the only one not watching the news. Jack’s back, at least that’s what Scotland Yard and the British press think. You’re gonna wrap up this London thing, once and for all.”
“It’s a waste of time without the resources. One investigator can’t cover everything we need to absolve this guy—”
“That’s why you’re not going alone, shithead. I’m callin’ in the cavalry this time. Because of your previous cop work and your talent for snatchin’ victory from the jaws of defeat, you’re gonna run the team that puts this thing to rest.”
Andrew took an audible breath, and John sensed surprise and suspicion seeping through the phone. He stared out the window and evaluated his current recruits, the aspiring Andrews, two of which crawled up the rocky hill. Too little gas, too little quit. We’ll see about that. Another stopped only long enough to project his breakfast into a small patch of scrub bush. John smirked. Somebody’s gotta make ‘em question their decisions.
“Thank you for trusting me with this, John.”
The hesitant comment drew him back into the conversation. “I’ll trust you with my life, until you give me a reason not to.” John eyed the leading recruit as she began another uphill lap and chugged past her suffering classmates. “You got about three hours to get your shit together and show up at your home airstrip.” He let a pause grow back into palpable tension. “It’s time to re-up your dues with the Merry Union of Snake Hunters and Gravediggers.”
John disconnected the call and checked his watch. My plane takes off in thirty minutes, and that only gives me about five hours to get everything set-up before Andrew’s plane lands. No rest for the weary...or the wicked.
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Afterword
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I must first thank Mrs. Reese for her creative inspiration, perseverance, and support during the last year that I wrote the first three installments of this series. Mo Anam Cara. You have always been and will always be my everything. L&T, you remain my biggest fans and your encouragement and criticism have made the difference I needed. BL, your technical advice continues to save my bacon, and your kind words mean more than you know. Grandad, your research added significant depth to this project. Thank you for your time and effort, and I hope you enjoy our family’s part in this story. My beta readers devoted substantial time and effort to this project, and have again applied the edge, polish, and shine required to help my uncut draft evolve into a glistening manuscript. Thank you!
To my readers: I humbly appreciate the time and treasure you’ve traded for a few hours’ enjoyment. I strive to ensure you always come out ahead in our transaction, and I hope that you always feel I’ve succeeded in that. Thank you for your support and reviews, and for telling your friends about this new, emerging author.
Research for this novel, much like its predecessor, The Trafficker, shocked, disappointed, and surprised me. The culture clash between violent, literal Islam and the West hasn’t been news since 624 AD, but the extent of the current no-go zones and enforced sharia across Europe, for me, was. I fear that global apologists seriously delay the reformation so desperately needed within the Islamic religion, and, by their efforts to deny the creation of sharia-controlled neighborhoods and enclaves across Europe, they invite vigilantism, civil war, and even a modern Crusade. Political correctness and alternate realities seriously harm the hundreds of millions of moderate Muslims who live every day in peace and harmony with their non-Muslim neighbors.
Sweden recently convicted a retiree of a hate crime for an online post and fined her in excess of her monthly income. England, as of this writing, is investigating a mother for a hate crime after she misidentified the assumed gender of another woman’s transgender child on a news broadcast. On 15-Jan-2019, the Sweden's Security Service (Säpo) declared a terror attack remains “likely to occur” on their soil. On 24-Mar-2019, Säpo released a report that identified radical Islamic terrorism as the nation’s greatest security threat.
The descriptions of the no-go enclaves in this book are based on or taken directly from news reports, first-hand accounts, and verifiable sources. My references, among others, included articles published by the British Broadcasting Corporation, jihadwatch.org, the Associated Press, Newsweek, New York Times, the Washington Post, Breitbart News, and Gatestone Institute, as well as French publications L’Obs and Valeurs Actuelles, along with a report entitled “No-Go Zones in the French Republic: Myth or Reality,” and a 2,200-page report entitled Ba
nlieue de la République (Suburbs of the Republic), which found Seine-Saint-Denis and other French suburbs are becoming “separate Islamic societies” where sharia law supplants French law and inhabitants are openly immersed in violent, literal Islam.
On 24-April-2018, thirty imams from around France sent an open letter to the French daily, Le Monde, a strongly worded condemnation of antisemitism and Islamist terrorism that stressed remaining silent “would make us complicit and therefore culpable.” The signatories described themselves as “indignant” — both as French citizens and as faithful Muslims — “at the confiscation of our religion by criminals.” God bless those brave men, their families, and the work ahead of them. Their success is also our success.
The Seine-Saint-Denis neighborhood and the apartment building in which Abrini lived at 8 Rue de Corbillon are those used by some of the terrorists who conspired to commit the November 2015 attacks in Paris. Paris police and French military assaulted that building on 18-Nov-2015, three days after the Paris attacks.
Finally, the Notre Dame Cathedral. I’m grateful to have seen it several times in my life, saddened by the heartbreaking tragedy, and terrified of how the French government may handle its reconstruction. As of 1905, France confiscated all Catholic churches in their nation and has allowed many of them to fall into substantial disrepair. The 15-April fire that destroyed the cathedral’s roof and weakened much of the structure remains under investigation at the time of this publication. According to research from Gatestone Institute and its contributors, more than 800 French churches are damaged, attacked, and desecrated each year, and the suspects are often followers of literal, fundamental Islam.
