by Bill Brewer
BILL BREWER
THRILLEX Publishing
Copyright 2020 by Bill Brewer
Cover Design by Jennifer Greef
Praise for Bill Brewer
K. Allen
Love this book!
Love this book! The combination of engaging characters and detailed accounts made it hard to put down. Looking forward to the whole series of David Diegert books.
Lee Anne
One heck of a ride!
This book started out fast and didn’t let up. An excellent book of action and suspense. Well written and engaging.
Jarod Farchione
Made me a fan of fiction again!
Brewer’s writing reads like an action movie, while being tactical, well-paced, and realistic in all of the ways I enjoy. I highly recommend this book.
Jimmy Ray
Assassin on the Run
Characters are well developed, the story is exciting to follow, and it’s a fun read. If you like action and adventure, you will love this one. A great story pulls the reader in, and this one had me from the first page.
CHAPTER 1
BEEP, BEEEEP! In spite of the rain, the asshole rolled down his window to shout, “Get outta the way you bloody little twat.” Grimy spray from angry tires doused Mei Ling’s moped. Her high wellies and long raincoat deflected the rude splash from a puddle of London rain. The large hood of her coat kept her cigarette dry, each drag illuminating her determined face as she drove through traffic on this drizzly night. At the direction of her Father, Chin Lei Wei, she was to surveil the Ambassador Hotel.
As a Board member of Crepusculous, Chin Lei participated in the control of seventy-five percent of the world’s economy. In partnership with three other men, he was part of a secret group of billionaires, orchestrating the most significant economic influence on planet earth.
While bracing against the wet chill, Mei Ling thought her father’s need for her to be his eyes and ears in London was a blessing and a curse. She had more freedom than she would have had in China, but her assignments carried real danger. Trained in Kung Fu and Wushu, she was capable, not only of defending herself, but also of killing if an enemy persisted. Killing was not her mission tonight. Her father had assigned her to conduct espionage, observing activities at one of London’s most exclusive hotels.
Distrusting, Klaus Panzer, the most powerful member of the Crepusculous Board, Mr. Wei sent his daughter to report on the occurrences at the Ambassador. With absolute trust, he relied on her ability to observe while remaining unseen and unrecognized as a child of Crepusculous. Unlike the privileged offspring of the rest of the wealthy board members, she worked to preserve the empire, although this assignment felt like subterfuge.
The multi-paneled door of the hotel’s underground garage retracted. Through the opening, a black Mercedes S550 slipped sinuously into the rain. Following the sleek sedan, a black panel van lurched onto the road, speeding off in the opposite direction. Mei Ling started her moped and followed the lithe, luxurious car.
Denise Diegert, David’s mother, sat petrified in the back passenger seat of the van. The plastic zip ties were cutting off the blood flow to her hands, while the duct tape over her mouth forced her to breathe through her nose. Her seat belt held her in place, yet she could turn to see David lying unconscious on the floor of the van. What was her son doing in London? She was shocked to see him when he appeared in the penthouse of the Ambassador. He was supposed to be in Afghanistan. Frazzled at having been kidnapped, forced unto a private jet and flown all the way to London, Denise was told nothing about why this was happening and who was giving the orders. Then David showed up at the hotel, followed moments later by Klaus Panzer, a man she hoped to never see again her entire life. Panzer had raped her years ago, unknowingly leaving her pregnant and never contacting her again. He was David’s father, but she never reached out to him. He forced her to have sex with him for his own personal gratification. He was never going to help her. She raised David in the home of her husband, Tom Diegert, who figured out he was not this child’s father. He let the boy stay, but made his life a living hell, denying him fatherly love, acceptance and support. In the penthouse, she saw Panzer’s men inject drugs into David, who now lay unconscious on a dirty sheet, stinking of motor oil. She tried not to cry, but she loved him so much. To her, he was still that curious, inquisitive little boy who loved to go on nature walks, wilderness camping trips, and long canoe paddles. David was so enthralled with the natural world; he was happy and carefree whenever he was with his mother on an outdoor adventure. Because of Panzer, he now knew the shame she had hidden from him his entire life. He was the bastard son of the world’s richest man. She never wanted him to know for fear of losing him. She always thought if Panzer knew what a special boy his son David was, he would take him from her, just as he took her body for his pleasure that night. Powerful men did whatever they wanted to poor people like her. She loved David and never wanted him raised by the selfish, overbearing brute who raped her, even if he was the world’s richest man. It eviscerated her heart to have to admit to David that Klaus was right when he put it together in the penthouse and forced her to confirm that he was David’s father. The secret erupted from her with just a slight nod. Never did she want to admit this to David. This awful secret was supposed to be tucked away forever within her, all the way to the grave. Staring at her son, his head rolling back and forth as the van sped down a freeway he looked as good as dead. Her tears streaked the duct tape before dripping off her chin. Denise feared for both of them as they were being driven to wherever Klaus Panzer had ordered his men to take them.
The Mercedes crawled with the traffic, making it easy for Mei Ling to keep pace. The dark windows, however, made it impossible for her to see inside the vehicle.
Klaus Panzer sat comfortably in the soft leather seat. He adjusted his sleeves and smoothed his thick gray hair. From his breast pocket, he extracted a satellite phone. With this single device, he possessed the capacity to instigate a series of thermobaric bombs planted in a dozen US locations. These bombs combined heat and force to produce a super-hot, explosive impact, which ignited oxygen in the air, creating death through flaming asphyxiation. The chemistry of the bombs was extremely stable allowing them to lie in place for long periods of time, remaining undetected, yet capable of being activated by a remote signal. Each charge was strategically placed to disrupt a critical piece of infrastructure, disabling transportation, communication, banking, energy distribution, food, and water supply and ultimately governmental authority. Panzer, through his private espionage wing of Crepusculous, set up the unprecedented attack on America. The country would be severely hampered for months. It was 9/11 times twelve, all within twelve hours. From the back seat of the Mercedes, Panzer input the code which would set off the first set of explosions and initiate the entire cascade.
Mei Ling saw the blinker illuminating the right side of the black sedan. The car was moving onto the expressway ramp. She leaned her moped to the right, gunning it along the shoulder, passing all the cars including Panzer’s.
Even though Panzer’s original plan had someone else inputting the code, he had the sequence of numbers and letters memorized. Now that David Diegert had confounded the original plan, it was going to have to be Panzer who ignited the hellacious destruction he had planned for America. “464748DAZ,” Panzer typed on the phone’s keyboard. He waited for confirmation that the signal was received by his private satellite orbiting five
hundred miles above the earth. The green word; ACTIVATED did not appear.
Mei Ling arrived at the base of the expressway ramp to see two police vans swerve into position. The first cut in front of Panzer’s car, while the second moved in behind, trapping the Mercedes. From the vans, black-clad operators with helmets and submachine guns swarmed Panzer’s vehicle.
Panzer re-entered the activation code, with no response. His driver asked, “How should I proceed?” In a moment of silence, Panzer was uncharacteristically flustered, yet he had the clarity of mind to realize that Diegert must have re-programmed the satellite phone so it would not accept the activation code. His plans were foiled, and now a London SWAT team surrounded his vehicle. Panzer initiated the phone’s failsafe mechanism, sending a self-destructive charge through the circuitry, destroying all the data. A thick plume of acrid smoke rose from the disabled device. Panzer opened the car’s roof, allowing the smoke to escape and the rain to enter. The SWAT team braced as the belch of smoke exited the car’s roof. As he closed the roof and brushed the rain from his suit, Panzer instructed his chauffeur, “See what they want.” As the chauffeur stepped out of the car, electrodes pierced his legs and torso. The jolting charge of a taser sent the man crashing back against the car, striking his head as he crumpled to the rain-soaked pavement. Through the window next to him, Panzer peered directly into the barrel point of an H&K MP5. The jacked-up operator’s face was obscured by his black goggles, but his intent was clear. In spite of the threat, Panzer opened the door, stepping out into the rain. He rose to his six-foot, four-inch height. Droplets beaded up and rolled off the expensive fabric of his custom-tailored suit. The armed operators kept their guns trained upon him, but they did not subdue him. Klaus Panzer’s regal bearing commanded respect even under extremely tense conditions.
A pair of detectives exited their car and approached Panzer’s, looking at each other with restrained concern. The first wore a beige raincoat and a beat-up fedora. The taller of the two wore a green coat with a belt sashed tightly around his waist. His umbrella was black. They stepped past the armed operators and were immediately addressed by Panzer. “Unless you insist, I do not believe handcuffs are necessary.”
“Shut up and put’em out,” said the detective in the beige coat. Snapping the cuffs on Panzer’s wrists, he allowed the distinguished man’s arms to remain in front of him.
*****
Mei Ling watched as Panzer was led to the detective’s car and placed in the back seat. Two officers loaded the unconscious chauffeur into the back of the limousine before climbing in, one behind the wheel. The first van pulled forward, then the Mercedes, followed by the detective’s car with Panzer. The second van took up the rear position as the four-vehicle armada streaked up the entrance ramp, merged into the high-speed traffic, disappearing from the young lady’s spying eyes. Fortunately, Mei Ling captured the event, which occupied less than three minutes, on her cell phone.
*****
Denise noticed the sign for London Polytechnic University as the van drove through the South entrance, crossed campus on Academic Drive and pulled up to a garage door on the backside of a large building.. The van sat quietly as Denise read the sign identifying the building as Culhane Hall. The garage door opened allowing the van into the building. Once inside, the doors closed.
London Polytechnic University or LPU, as most people referred to it, is a major technical university serving London since 1945. The University, built as part of the reconstruction following World War II, offered degrees in engineering, computer science, communications, medicine, and nursing as well as psychology, business, and finance. The basic sciences were represented by Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Biotechnology specializing in nanotechnology. The University was founded by the Panzer family. The fact that the school was being built with “German” money was kept quiet in the late 40s when the planning and initial construction occurred.
For Klaus Panzer and Crepusculous, the university was the perfect place to hide in plain sight. Panzer’s father designed the structures so there were unseen parts of campus from which clandestine operations could be conducted. Deep underground, in a labyrinth of secured facilities, Panzer maintained a vast network of labs, training facilities, and barracks where specialized personnel were housed and prepared for missions to support the Board of Crepusculous. It was a private paramilitary, functioning right below a bucolic campus dedicated to the open mind, the freedom of thought and the betterment of humanity. Panzer loved the contradiction and was proud of the seen and unseen capabilities of LPU.
Denise was taken from the van and released into comfortable, but secure, quarters. Her binds were removed, and she was allowed to shower and get into clean clothes before being served a fresh meal. David was slid out of the van onto a gurney, taken to medical, placed in a hospital bed and restrained. He remained unconscious while Dr. Clarissa Zeidler monitored his medical care.
*****
Panzer eyed the two detectives as the car made its way onto the expressway. He opened with, “Introductions please?”
The detective in the beige coat turned. “Shut up and don’t say anything more.”
The man in the green coat, who was driving, said, “I’m Agent Theodore Jackson with MI5. People call me Ted.”
Reluctantly, the other spoke, “I’m Detective Robert Morrow of the London Criminal Investigation Division. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given as evidence.”
“May I place my one phone call?” asked Panzer.
“But of course,” oozed Detective Morrow’s sarcastic reply.
Panzer placed a text to the head of his legal team instructing him to track his GPS and meet him at the resulting police station. Choosing to exercise his right to remain silent, Panzer said nothing more. Looking through the rain-streaked windows, he found himself fuming at the clever actions of David Diegert.
****
Diegert lay in a medical bed, twitching like a dog dreaming of chasing tennis balls, only Diegert’s dream was much more threatening. He felt himself naked, lying on his back, strapped to a block of ice floating in a tumultuous sea, buffeted by torrents of cold wind from a dark, foreboding sky. The ice chunk rocked as massive waves splashed frigid water over him. Snow fell in windswept sheets, the cold sting of each flake torturing Diegert’s bare skin. Twisting and turning tightened his restraints, preventing him from curling into a heat-preserving ball. He shivered with violent spasms as his body desperately attempted to generate warmth. Shaking uncontrollably, and hit by yet another wet wave, he looked up to see the clouds converging into a funnel. Was he in a snowbound tornado? The funnel cloud descended, coming right at him. Helplessness radiated from his gut as the cold power of the sky hit him with full force. From the dark center of the funnel, a face emerged. A cold gray face of a man with sharp cheekbones, icy hair, and judgmental blue eyes. The voice of Klaus Panzer chilled Diegert with an icy blast. The words were icicle daggers penetrating his heart. “Now I will show you a father’s love.”
The threatening phrase intensified Diegert’s shivering as the cold reality of the icy grip of Klaus Panzer clamped on to his soul. The gray face rose above him, yet the cold blue eyes remained locked on his. Thunder boomed, and lightning crackled across the sky as cold wind preceded Panzer’s next words. “You are my one true son. You will now see what that means to me.” The words entered Diegert’s ears like ice picks, with meaning as obscure as the sun in the dark gray sky. As the funnel pulled back up into the clouds, Diegert awoke when one last clap of snow thunder rolled across the expanse of his chilling nightmare.
Opening his eyes, Diegert was relieved to find he wasn’t strapped to an iceberg but lay in a bed. Scanning the room, he could see he was in some kind of a medical facility. The room was light aqua green with installations on the wall for gas ports and lights that would flash in case of emergency. Th
e bed had sturdy rails on both sides. Diegert was covered in a white sheet and one thin blue blanket. He lay there without attendants, other patients or the noises one would expect in a busy hospital. When he attempted to lift his hand, the restraints became apparent. Both wrists and ankles were encircled in soft lamb’s wool with a solid brass buckle holding together the two ends of strong leather binds. There was a glowing red button next to his right hand which he pressed. He received no feedback and pressed it a few more times. His patience was practically worn out, when a person finally appeared through the curtain draping the entrance to his room. Lifting his head, Diegert saw a young woman whose unsmiling face brought no cheer to the room. She looked at him, not with concern, but responsibility. Her glasses were round, rimmed in flat black, her brown hair pulled back into an efficient ponytail. Over aqua blue scrubs she wore a thin white cardigan which she drew closed while wrapping her arms around her midsection, minimizing her breasts. From what Diegert could see, she needn’t bother with such modesty.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
“Where am I?”
“I’m responsible for your medical care. I can’t provide you with information.” She turned and pulled back the curtain as she exited.
“Hey wait…come back here.”
With her body already on the other side of the curtain, she moved the fabric from in front of her face. “Yes.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“My monitor indicates that your fluid level is within normal limits. Your IV is providing all the water your body needs.”
Diegert followed her eyes to the tube inserted into his arm. “Well fuck that, my throat’s dry.”
The rudeness of Diegert’s reply deepened the frown on her face. “I’ll turn up the volume of your IV fluid from my computer.” She snapped the fabric of the curtain closed, disappearing from view.
