Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Quotes
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
© 2016 William T. Hogan, Author
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1537088839
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
DISCLAIMER
Throughout the book, a few company names and trademarks appear. The products are sometimes used in a way not intended by the manufacturer. The events did not happen in real life. That's because this is a novel. The author knows this is obvious to fiction readers, but some people that passed the bar exam get their pants in a knicker when you describe their products being used in criminal activities. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. And the use of real company and product names is without permission and for literary effect. To be perfectly clear: this is a work of fiction.
Cover Illustration Copyright © 2016 by William T. Hogan
Cover design by Bill Hogan.
Book design and production by Bill Hogan, www.hoganwrites.com
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MY MOM
“She was a wonderful mother. Who will always be remembered for her selflessness and kindness to her children. I know because I was lucky enough to be one of them.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is safe to assume that some writers are able to write books all by themselves, but to write my first book I needed plenty of help. I would like to acknowledge and thank the people that contributed. Many thanks go out to a fellow writer, Mark for his invaluable editing assistance. Who helped tighten the storyline and ridiculed my bad ideas. His assistance made me a better writer.
Special thanks to my beta readers and critique group. To a prolific reader and friend Janet for her knowledge and wonderful perspective on women. With comments like, “No women would say that.” Donnie for his logic, military experience, and who gave me a nudge when I needed it the most.
Last but not least, the Tampa Writers critique group who derided my bad ideas, encouraged my good ones, demanded better fight scenes, and complained about inaccuracies.
But the real reason this book was written is my mother, a promise to her in the final moments of her life. To you, mom, looking down from heaven. I raise my head and say, “I did it!”
“Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”
-- Nelson Algren, Three Rules of Life
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'”
-- Ronald Reagan
“A lot of hacking is playing with other people, you know, getting them to do strange things.”
-- Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer, Inc.
“Certainly, it doesn't occur to them that the communication revolution is something for them to worry about today. And for almost every blessing these technologies bring they pose a danger to our individual liberty and our privacy."
-- John Wicklen in Electronic Nightmare
“The less you know, the better you sleep.”
-- Russian Proverb
“Terrorism has once again shown it is prepared deliberately to stop at nothing in creating human victims. An end must be put to this. As never before, it is vital to unite forces of the entire world community against terror.”
-- Vladimir V. Putin, Russia's Prime Minister
“Fighting terrorism is like being a goalkeeper. You can make a hundred brilliant saves, but the only shot that people remember is the one that gets past you.”
-- Paul Wilkinson, British scholar
CHAPTER 1
A Whopping
Not that anyone would recollect an ass whopping in fondness, but things were going to get a lot worse for Mike before they got better.
Damn. Mike O’Connor cuffed his ears with his gloves to protect them. His elbows shielded his blood-soaked face. Trapped against the steel cage, punches, and well-placed kicks traveled across his unprotected body. Mule might as well dropkick me. His head rang, drowning his thoughts.
The referee pushed him toward his corner. The bell rang? Some championship fight, ‘Lights Out’ versus ‘The Nerd.’ I’m not giving them their money’s worth. This nerd is getting his ass kicked.
He flopped onto a tiny wooden stool in his corner of the cage and closed his swollen eyelashes to rest his emerald green eyes. His lungs starved for oxygen. He sucked air through his nose and cringed at the scamper of Gus’s footsteps.
Gus was not a gentle soul. Rugged hands thrust back Mike’s head. Thick, stiff fingers yanked out his mouthpiece. Gus shoved a bucket between Mike’s legs. “Y’ain’t doin’ sa good, Mike.”
Water splashed into Mike’s mouth. He swished the water to thin the pooling blood before spitting into the bucket. A tinny, plinking sound followed the splash. Curious, his tongue raked across jagged, sharp, center incisors. Damn it! Salt lingered in his mouth. He turned his head to signal for more water.
He caught sight of a UFC logo on a ring girl’s red hot pants. The fabric failed to accommodate her butt cheeks. That’s one sweet, sweet money maker. What the hell round is it? Mike forced himself to quit admiring her ass. Four. Exhaling, his chest sank. His body sagged forward. He lowered his head and swallowed hard. Round four of a five-round fight. I’m done for.
Gus’s fingers sank into Mike’s face. He shoved a cotton swab up Mike’s nose soaked in hydrochloride and used two fingers to squeeze his nostrils shut. With his other hand, he pressed another swab soaked in adrenalin to a cut under Mike’s eye. His old, gruff voice pounded against Mike’s ears. “Third time, Mike, I ain’t asking agin! Quit or not?”
Pain blossomed across Mike's cheek when Gus pressed down the chilled Enswell to mitigate swelling. The penetrating cold did not wake him, but the words did, one in particular. Quit? No fracking way! Mike’s muscles tensed. His heart raced. “Get out! The round’s starting.” He pointed to the gate.
Gus scrambled away, taking the bucket with him, turning back only once.
Mike caught the deep frown ben
eath Gus’s old, gray eyes, eyes shining wetly in the overhead lights. Shit. I’ll say sorry later.
He turned his attention to the center of the cage. Now, what? Mike knew he had no choice. He did not have the tiniest drop of quit in him. He would continue the fight or die trying. The “quit” had been beaten out of him in inner city foster homes and Syria. He remembered his Syria captures cutting him with razor blades, yelling at him to quit and betray his country.
His legs trembled when he stood for the round’s start. His hands traveled across his custom-designed black combat compression shirt. A bulldog emblazoned across it, now coated red challenged all who approached. He could feel the raised scars. It gave him strength. Mike wiped the blood away, its warmth pressing against his hand before oozing between his fingers. I made it worse. He wiped the blood on his shorts and shook his head.
He listened for the start of the round. Why is the arena so quiet? He raised his head to study the crowd’s silence and found nothing on people’s faces but anticipation and sadness. They don’t think I can win.
His eyes watered. The moisture amplified the blinding brightness of the camera lights. The crowd blurred. He turned away. They can kiss my lily white ass.
Mike took another shaky step toward the cage’s center. He slipped. What did I step in? His gaze fixated on a smeared red footprint. That’s my blood. He felt the corner tug at him to quit. Maybe Gus is right? Hell, maybe the crowd is right? He resisted the urge to turn.
A blurry referee shouted a question at him.
Mike nodded, to what, he did not care. A distant bell clanged. Too dazed to contemplate the significance, he kept his hands glued to his sides.
Another blurry object flashed before him, obscuring his vision. Knuckles crashed against his ribs, expelling the air from his lungs. A rib cracked. Mike fell backward, tripped and rolled over on his feet. His legs wiggled like wet noodles. He willed his body straight. A hot flame lanced through every nerve ending in his chest.
The pain woke him up. He slammed his back foot on the canvas and assumed a fighting stance. The familiarity helped him regain his balance. He used the back of his gloves to wipe away the moisture from his eyes.
His eyes tracked until he found his adversary. He’s battered but not beaten. I blackened one eye, tattooed a large spot on his rib cage, and he’s favoring his right leg. Look at him, standing there, waiting for me to compose myself. That damn wicked smile. Thinks I’m beaten. I hate that smile and gleam in his eyes.
Mike felt something stir inside him, like walking into a place where light shunned him, walking until he became part of that darkness, part of what he feared. His hatred consumed him. He is dead meat!
Heat licked Mike’s skin. His jaw clamped shut. His arms twitched, and he clenched his fists. He lowered his arms to his side and taunted his opponent. “You can’t hurt me! You can’t hurt me!” He mimicked Tarzan and beat his chest. “Come on! Come on!”
Pain thundered through his body with every beat. Winded, he paused.
The man faced Mike and smirked.
Come on, give me something, anything.
Without warning, his opponent shot forward, a smile on his face like the Devil himself sinking his teeth into someone’s soul.
The man’s growl rattled Mike’s nerves. Move damn it, move. Mike’s body did not respond. He froze in place: a spectator, not a participant.
His opponent leaped into the air to deliver a classic flying Superman punch.
Mike jerked his head to the side, desperate to elude pulverization. A soft breeze crossed his cheek.
Mike’s fist raced toward his opponent and crashed into a meaty chin. The impact contorted the bones in his hand to the point of shattering. Pain rippled up his arm in hot flashes and brought awareness. Mike let out a yelp. Holy shit, I’m alive.
Mike’s strength fled. He fell to his knees and struggled to remain upright. Mike tilted back his head and inhaled and exhaled to obtain calm, but failed. Mike’s fists clenched, his fingers sunk into his palms. He bared his teeth. He glanced at his knocked-out opponent.
Head bloodied, eyes sealed, no longer possessing that taunting gleam and mocking smile, the man listless in the center of the caged octagon.
Mike didn’t see a helpless man. He saw a bully. A man who derived pleasure from humiliating his opponents, a man who tried to embarrass him. He harvested and bundled the anger of his own humiliating past. He fed off the intensity of his parent’s death. The guilt of that day rushed back. You mock my shame.
Mike’s adrenaline spiked. His nostrils flared, he smelled blood.
The referee did not stop the fight.
End this now! No longer in control, Mike’s anger ruled.
He paid no heed to the pain in his hand and lashed out at his opponent with enough force to splinter a bone in his hand. The pain titillated. He drew back his fist for another punch.
The referee tackled him.
Mike impacted the canvas with a thud. His anger dissipated. What the hell just happened? He started to nod off and jerked awake. Is it over? Thank God, now I can rest.
The crowd’s silence confounded him. It was a unique sound of its own, but it didn’t last. The audience roared approval; the noise, deafening. Mike smothered his ears with his gloved hands to shut out the crowd.
Footsteps. Through squinted eyes, a doctor approached. Hands dug into his shoulder and forced him to his back. The chill of a metal stethoscope pressed against his right lung.
A rough voice met his ears. “Take a deep breath.”
Mike tried to comply. It hurt. Hell captured in every breath.
Fingers pried his eyelids wide. A bright light tore into his pupils.
“Turn that off! It hurts!”
“Keep your eyes open. What day is it?”
“Saturday.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three. Now will you stop asking questions and let me rest?”
Hands dug into his armpits when they hoisted him into standing position.
I guess I don’t have a concussion. Mike’s legs refused to support his weight.
“Let’s get this guy onto a stretcher.”
His ribs rippled a shockwave of pain. Mike gritted his teeth to keep from screaming when they lifted him onto the stretcher.
He sensed the stretcher slide forward, then jerk to a stop. The coarse leather of the championship belt scraped against his waist. They avoided my chest, thank God.
He grasped the belt and kept it from falling. Why’d they stop? The camera lights swung toward him, and he understood. They wanted to record how he reacted to the replay on the massive screens surrounding the Octagon. Good television. He opened his eyes and tried to smile. Let’s give them their show.
Mike turned his head toward a large monitor. Is that me? A man with the bloody bulldog shirt looked around stunned. Mike looked harder and saw a tiny resemblance under the swelling and blood. The round started. Move, you idiot.
Mike’s bloodied doppelganger on the screen didn’t defend himself. The opponent attacked and sent him scrambling back. That happened? He recovered, but Mike did not see himself in the man that stood after the vicious assault. That man was crazy. He beat his chest and roared. Mike covered his face and spun his head away.
He turned back, the screen in slow motion as Mike’s opponent’s eyes rolled up in his head and closed, his legs buckled, and his face bounced off the canvas. The impact elicited no reaction, out cold.
Mike watched, his body frozen, while his fist rose in slow motion and assaulted the helpless man. The camera zoomed in and froze on Mike’s face. His brows were pulled together above wide-open, smoldering eyes, his lips melded together. Who is that stranger?
Those eyes, those eyes made Mike tremble. It was surreal, the emotional mixture of insane anger, pain, and glee. Why? I left the fury behind. Damn. Mike hoped the projection on the fifty-foot screen lied. I’m better than this.
Relief washed over him when the referee’s lin
ebacker blitz stopped him from doing further harm. The screen flickered to the image of him on the stretcher. Mike saw himself, saw his pain, saw his tears. Guilt pinned him to the stretcher.
The guilt dragged back the memory of his parent’s death. A little boy laid on a stretcher being treated by medics. His parents are motionless on the grated steel of the bridge. Soaking rain washed away the blood. No medics tended them, the medics were for the living.
I have failed you again.
His right hand reached up and grasped the belt. He forced it off his waist. When the metal of the belt clanged against the floor, the emotional release of the moment took over and tugged his lips into a smile. Mom, Dad, I’m never doing this again.
The Coliseum spun like a tornado, sucking away the camera lights and the sound of the crowd and the smell of his own blood.
In the second row surrounded by empty seats, a man sat who valued his space. He bought the three seats above, behind, and the two on either side of him. Sokol wearing an immaculate gray suit analyzed the fight and paid rapt attention to Mike. He didn’t budge a muscle during the last round. Nothing lost to memory, every moment captured.
He pulled a phone from his jacket’s inner pocket and speed-dialed. “Petrovi, please lend me your attention. We have our man.”
“You sure?”
“Take your time. Consider what I just said before answering. Don’t say more without thought.”
“My apologies, Sokol.”
“I’ve identified two weaknesses. First, money. The fool quit the UFC. I know men like him; his pride will not let him keep the money.”
“And?”
“Second, he is quick to anger. I’ll keep him on edge. Attack his confidence. He will agree to our terms just to prove me wrong.”
“What did you think of the fight?”
Sokol gripped his phone tighter and studied the crowd. “It was not a horrible match. Did you notice that he has a tell? His left arm sinks chest level before he throws his right. Might take me a minute and a half, give or take five seconds to kill him.”
I Will Not Yield Page 1
