The 6th Plague

by Darren Hale

  And with that, she turned and left.

  Epilogue

  Nathan Eades turned the dumpy clay figurine over in his hands, a wry smile on his face.

  ‘Looks like my daughter’s art project,’ Agent Pasternak observed.

  ‘I’m told it’s priceless,’ said Eades, as he replaced it on the shelf from which he’d taken it. There was nothing remarkable about the figurine, which was, in itself, an unspectacular lump of red clay, fashioned into the shape of a woman and her baby. Nevertheless, he’d recognised it immediately, having lowered it into the packing nuggets in a far-off jungle and a not so far away time.

  ‘Yeh – well – it looks like shit,’ Pasternak observed. ‘As do you,’ he said, nodding to the wound that had been furrowed in the side of Nathan’s shoulder. ‘You should get that looked at.’

  Nathan dabbed a hand to the injury that had, until now, gone virtually unnoticed, numbed to insignificance by his body’s own cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins.

  He smiled. A few people had taken shots at him, though none but this had found their mark, and those who’d tried, had died. or been arrested…

  But other than this one small injury, the team that had assaulted Manuel Rodriguez’s Hacienda, had survived unscathed. The resistance had been much lighter than anticipated…

  Nathan assented with a nod. ‘When we’re done here,’ he promised.

  Pasternak gave him a comradely pat on the shoulder, then stepped away. A week ago, the man would have been happy to see his brains splattered all over the jungle, though once the truth had come out, Cobra Team had been quick to include him in their ranks.

  Nathan removed the brown leather Stetson from his jacket and placed it on the shelf next to the dumpy statue.

  With a single shot, he’d avenged his friends.

  Then taken revenge for the life he’d lost. And the family he’d left behind…

  In one impulsive moment, the hat had transformed him, and no one in Manuel’s organisation had known the truth of it. With one simple gesture, the prey had become the hunter, and “Granite” had been born. And only a very few people at the very top of the DEA’s chain of command, had known the truth of the matter. For the sake of his family, no one could know.

  And now it was over.

  Manuel was dead…

  Though not by his hands.

  Not that it mattered…

  The man’s killer had been far more fearsome, and much less merciful than he might have been, having savaged him with countless wounds, while drowning him in his own secretions. Having gloated over the remains of the queen, and the treasures she had hoarded, Manuel had contracted the infection that had subsequently claimed his life, and the lives of those in his employ. Bloated and festering, he’d died alone on bloodstained sheets. After an agony that had measured in days…

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  Also by this Author:

  The Eaters: A Doctor Mills Thriller (Book Two)

  Fractured: The Saga of the City States (Book One)

  Legacy: The Saga of the City States (Book Two)

  Exiles: The Saga of the City States (Book Three)

  Artefact: A Science Fiction Thriller