“It’s over Volkov! Drop the gun.”
Alex recognized Matthew Fletcher’s voice echoing down the hole. Relieved her heart beat rapidly against her chest and she lowered her head into her hands. It’s all over. ICCRU had found her and had come to her rescue.
“Matt! I’m down here!” She shouted upwards again.
Loose dirt dropped onto her face as she stared at the open hole above her head. A man’s silhouette blocked the moonlight and Alex felt the rope around her waist tighten.
Heat radiated from her heart and Alex eagerly grabbed hold of the rope above her head. As the moon’s light grew closer and closer Alex suppressed a smile. Her insides leaped with joy as her head ascended over the lip of the hole. Barely on her feet and still in a crawling position, Volkov’s six foot five accomplice, jerked her body upright, and before Alex knew it, Volkov’s arm had her in a vice-like grip with his gun to her head while his accomplice sliced the rope off her body.
“I said, drop your gun Volkov. It’s the end of the road for you. Let her go.” Matt’s stern voice commanded Volkov.
Volkov looked around as he moved back toward his men.
“Never, Matthew Fletcher, never!”
Without warning Matt’s gun fired three shots; its sound piercing the night sky. Alex flinched assuming he was shooting at Volkov only to find his three accomplices fall to their knees instead.
“You’re next, Volkov! Let her go!” Matt repeated.
Volkov’s arm tightened around Alex’s neck as he dragged her away from Matt.
“We could do this together, you know Matt. Like the good old days. What happened in Berlin wasn’t my doing, and you know it.”
“Berlin? What does he mean, Matt?” Alex asked confused.
“Yes Matt. What do I mean? Tell her. Tell her how long we go back and that you’re not the goody two shoes you’re professing to be.”
“This is your last chance, Volkov. Let her go or my next bullet is in your brain.”
“You won’t shoot your best friend, Matt. I’ve known you long enough to know you don’t have the guts. Let us go. No one will ever know and your cherished reputation will remain unscathed. Besides, you shoot me and my gun will fire off a bullet through our precious little gem’s brain before the bullet hits me.”
“That’s ok by me. I have no use for her anymore; only the tooth.”
Alex drew back a sharp breath as her jaw dropped open.
“What the hell are you doing, Matt?”
“Well, well, what do you know? A leopard doesn’t change its spots. So you’re just like me after all, aren’t you Matty-boy?”
“Matt! What the hell is he talking about? Do something!”
“ICCRU’s turned dirty, Alex. Newsflash, Matt’s not here to save you. He’s after the tooth too.”
“What? No. Matt’s here to save me from you. He sent me on this mission.”
“Oh you naïve little thing. He’s crooked, Alex. He couldn’t figure out where the tooth was hidden on his own so he got you to do it for him. He used you, Alex and he used ICCRU as a smokescreen.
“But you kidnapped Sam.”
“I didn’t kidnap your darling boyfriend, Alex. That guy in the video footage was one of my men who betrayed me. I needed you to get into that hole, and that was all I could think about at the time.”
“Sam’s alive and safe?”
“I guess so.”
“Yeah well, not quite actually. I couldn’t have him expose me,” Matt spoke.
Matt’s words crushed her insides.
“So it’s true? Volkov is right. You’re a crook.”
“Crook is a bit of a harsh word, but hey, what do I care? Did you honestly think I would let an opportunity as big as this pass me by? Do you know how long I’ve waited for something like this to happen? Year after year I recover ancient paintings and valuable artifacts only for them to be locked away in a vault or a museum somewhere. It’s worth more money than what I can make in three lifetimes behind my desk.”
“So you’re doing this for money?” Alex asked, angry.
“What else is there? I’ll be sipping Piña coladas on a white sandy beach somewhere far from here for the rest of my life.”
“Where’s Sam?” Alex whispered as tears stung her eyes.
“If it’s money you’re after Fletcher, I’ll double what you think you can get for it,” Volkov interrupted before Matt could answer.
“I already have my buyer, Volkov. Besides this provides me with the perfect opportunity to get rid of you for good.”
Volkov pulled his grip tighter around Alex’s neck as he moved backward. His foot stumbled on the body of one of his men and he lost his balance; letting go of Alex as he fell back. His gun fired a shot in the air above his head and Alex ducked, escaping behind the tree. Her hand reached for her gun in the nape of her back only to remember that Volkov had removed both her and Ezra’s guns before sending her down the hole.
Matt fired a shot at Volkov, killing him instantly and then turned to pursue Alex.
“Give me the tooth, Alex. There’s no way you can escape me. How do you think I found you in the first place?”
Stunned Alex ran and hid behind the next tree, using the dark shadows to her advantage. She pondered on his words. He did find her, yes. How? Her mind raced but it finally came to her. He must have planted a tracking device. Shielded by the tree she patted down her body and legs and stopped at her belt. She yanked it from her pants and found the tiny tracker hidden in the buckle. Bastard, she thought. She tied it around the tree trunk and darted to the next one.
“There’s no way in hell I’m letting you get away, Alex. I have too much riding on this deal.”
From behind the tree Alex stared out into the dark night. She couldn’t see Matt anymore and he had gone silent. She pushed her back and head against the tree and shut her eyes as she took a deep breath. Still he said nothing. She popped her head around the tree on either side but he was nowhere to be found. Deciding to make a run for it she tightened her leg muscles and set her sights on another tree ten yards away. She bolted and almost instantly a bullet sliced through the air over her head. She kept running, jumping over several rocks in her way. Another bullet whisked past her ear causing her to divert in the opposite direction. Behind her she heard Matt’s feet thump down hard as he chased her across the open grassland. There were no more trees to hide behind so she zigzagged across the field in an attempt to throw him off his aim.
But it did her no good and he came at her fast and furious. Her foot stepped into a pothole and she heard the chilling sound of her ankle breaking as she fell hard to the ground. Pain radiated up her leg as she scrambled to her feet in an effort to keep running, but it was impossible. She was unable to stand on her foot. Desperate she looked around for him and used her arms and one leg to crawl across the field. Panic flooded her veins as she clambered in a futile attempt to get away from him. And before she could crawl another inch, Matt’s large hand pushed down hard on her back and her cheek slammed into the dirt.
“Where’s the tooth, Alex? I know you have it.”
Alex squirmed with pain as he pushed her face harder onto the ground.
“I don’t have it. It’s in the cave.”
“Give it to me or I’ll kill you right now, Alex!”
“You’re going to kill me anyway.”
Matt let go of her head and flipped her onto her back. With his gun pointed at her face he threatened her again.
“I’ll blow a hole in each of your legs and then your body until you tell me where that tooth is, Alex. Starting with this leg first.”
Terrified, Alex watched Matt take aim at her unimpaired leg. The cracking sound of a bullet filled the air and Alex let out a frantic scream before Matt fell face first on top of her. His large body knocked her wind out and pinned her head between his shoulder and the ground. Unable to see she pushed to get him off. Frantic thoughts engulfed her when she realized Volkov might have survived the earlier shoo
ting and she wrestled to free herself.
As if in a dream, Sam’s face appeared as he pulled Matt’s body off hers. A wave of surprised but equal relief washed over her as Sam buried her head in his shoulder.
“How did you find me?” She sobbed.
“Shh, it’s all over now, my love. You know I’m never far behind.”
* * *
An hour later Alex lay on a gurney as they loaded her into the ambulance.
“Congratulations, Miss Hunt.” Jean-Pierre DuPont leaned in moments before the medics lifted her into the ambulance. “What you’ve accomplished here today is of immense proportions. We always suspected Ivan Volkov was too good to be true, but exposing Matt Fletcher as a traitor while retrieving the missing piece of history? Well, that’s nothing short of exceptional.”
“Monsieur DuPont, back there Volkov mentioned he and Matt had a history together, something about Berlin. What was he talking about?”
“As it turns out, they started off together in the CIA. Matt and Volkov were best friends. But on a mission in Berlin something went wrong and Matt’s wife was killed in an explosion which Matt believed Volkov was behind. He left the CIA and started working for ICCRU. Needless to say their friendship ceased and since then, Matt’s been hell-bent on a vendetta to expose Volkov.”
“Seems he had his own agenda with the tooth though,” Sam commented. “He gave me quite a whack on the head back at the farm.”
“How did you find me, Sam? How did you know where I was?”
“It seems our friend Fletcher planted a tracking device on you. He had it all planned out; made it look like he was one of the good guys. I guess he didn’t bargain on Volkov derailing his plans.”
Alex smiled as Sam planted a kiss on her head.
“Oh, Monsieur DuPont, I think you’re forgetting something.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the rubberized PVC bone and shook it.
“What’s this?” DuPont stared at the fake bone looking puzzled.
“Open it.”
DuPont fiddled with it and finally twisted it open. The teeth rolled out onto his palm.
“TWO! You got us two molars? We were hoping for one, but two! That’s phenomenal.”
And when DuPont finally left their side and excitedly secured the teeth in UNESCO’s mobile unit, Sam leaned over and whispered in Alex’s ear.
“Think the time has come for you to say yes.”
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Behind the book - Author notes
Based on the true discovery
On Friday September 13, 2013 two recreational cavers, Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker accidentally discovered a bed of mysterious fossil bones thirty meters underground in an unchartered cave just outside Johannesburg, South Africa.
Professor Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer led the excavation of over 1550 fossil bones belonging to a unique hominin species later dubbed Homo naledi.
Six female archaeologists arrived at the Rising Star cave some two months later. Braving the arduous and treacherous unexplored cave system, they set about unearthing the bones millimeter by millimeter, even using toothpicks and porcupine quills as part of their equipment.
On September 10, 2015, the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa formally unveiled, for the first time ever, a unique new human relative to our family tree. The significance of Homo naledi’s discovery turned science on its head when it provided DNA evidence of its close relation to humans as we are today, claiming its existence as young as between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago.
To see photos of the actual excavation, and the author’s research
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About the Author
Urcelia Teixeira is a mystery and thriller author of clean, fast-paced archaeological action-adventure novels. Her Alex Hunt Adventure Thriller series has been compared to the writings of Cussler, Dempsey and Douglas & Child.
She read her first book when she was four and wrote her first poem when she was seven. And though she lived precariously through books and her far too few travels, life happened. She married the man of her dreams and birthed three boys (and two dogs, a cat, three chickens, and some goldfish!). So, life became all about settling down and providing a means to an end. She climbed the corporate ladder, exercised her entrepreneurial flair and made her mark in real-estate.
Traveling and exploring the world made space for child-friendly annual family holidays by the sea. The ones where she was forced to build a sand castle and barely got past the first five pages of a book. And on the odd chance she managed to read fast enough to page eight, she was confronted with a moral dilemma as the umpteenth F-word forced its way off just about every page!
But in a strange twist of fate upon her return from yet another male-dominated camping trip, when fifty knocked hard and fast on her door, and she could no longer stomach the profanities in her reading material, she drew a line in the sand and bravely set off to create her own adventure!
It was in the dark, quiet whispers of the night, well past midnight in the year 2017, that Alex Hunt was born.
Her philosophy
From her pen flow action-packed adventures for the armchair traveler who enjoys a thrilling escape. Devoid of the usual profanity and obscenities, she incorporates real-life historical relics and mysteries from exciting places all over the world. She aims to kidnap her reader from the mundane and plunge them into feel-good riddle-solving quests filled with danger, sabotage, and mystery!
For more visit www.urcelia.com or email her on [email protected]
Receive a FREE copy of my the prequel and see where it all started! Click on image or enter http://download.urcelia.com in your browser
Also by Urcelia Teixeira
The PAPUA INCIDENT - An Alex Hunt Adventure Thriller # 0
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Contents
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
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Behind the book - Author notes
About the Author
Also by Urcelia Teixeira
Copyright © 2019 by Urcelia Teixeira
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The Alpha Strain is a work of fiction. Characters, events and dialogue found within are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual event
s or persons, either living or deceased, is purely coincidental. The political views are not to be assumed as the author’s. The facts are based on research and testimonies from South Africans during volatile political unrest in the country and reflect their freedom of speech. Dialogue between characters are purely fictional and not to be construed as the author’s.
Copyrighted material
Paperback © ISBN: 978-0-6399665-7-1
Independently Published by Urcelia Teixeira
www.urcelia.com
[email protected]
The Alpha Strain Page 15
