Even as she spoke, she found her eyes drifting to the periphery of the group, catching sight of a lone figure just standing there, near the edge of the tower—looking out over the wooded Alsatian mountainside at the foot of the cliff, toward the border with Germany, barely six hundred meters away.
The man had arrived perhaps an hour before the tour group, a worn, haggard figure. Jet lag? Perhaps, but there was. . .something about him, something she couldn’t place her finger on. Something different from the tens of thousands of tourists she saw pass through the castle every year.
He turned then to meet her gaze, as if he had felt her eyes on him—and she looked away hastily. Why had she done that? It was a question she found impossible to answer, something in those forbidding gunmetal-blue eyes chilling her to the bone.
“French soldiers?” Lecanuet heard one of the college students ask. “But we’re in France.”
“Not at the time,” she replied, grateful for the distraction. “You see, back then the political situation in Europe was. . .”
When she looked back, a few moments later, the man was no longer standing there. Her eyes flickering around the confines of the tower, back toward the staircase—in an effort to locate the tall, lonely figure, but to no avail. He was gone. Simply. . .vanished.
As though he had never been there at all.
The End
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Read more from the Shadow Warriors series!
NIGHTSHADE
Pandora’s Grave
Day of Reckoning
TALISMAN
LODESTONE
Embrace the Fire
QUICKSAND
ARKHANGEL
Also by Stephen England
Lion of God: A Shadow Warriors Prequel Trilogy
Episode I
Episode II
Episode III
And the stand-alone alternate history:
Sword of Neamha
Coming Soon. . .
A New Novel from Stephen England
He's survived. . .but at what cost?
Haunted by demons of regret in the wake of the Paris attacks and pursued by the French security services, bent on avenging their fallen officer, Harry Nichols moves further east, into the heart of Europe, seeking to lose himself in the chaos of the Syrian diaspora. To disappear.
There's no going back. No second chances. Any prayer of redemption, dying along with Daniel Mahrez on the dirty floor of that basement in the Ardennes.
And as the Western democracies of central Europe struggle to contend with unrest precipitated by mass migration, and old evils rear their heads once more. . .a spy on the run could prove useful to the right people.
Or even the wrong ones.
Look for Soon Dies the Day, the fifth full-length volume of Stephen England's bestselling Shadow Warriors series, coming soon.
Author's Note
The ending of each new book feels like the close of yet another marathon, and that's particularly true of Presence of Mine Enemies, a story which originated from the germ of an idea which occurred to me as Embrace the Fire was in its final edits.
It's taken me longer to reach the end of this particular stage of the journey than I had imagined when first setting out, but I've rarely been more pleased with the result, despite the unexpected (even to me) twists and turns it took along the way.
The dangers of undercover work as presented in this novel are based in reality, and though the specific circumstances of Nichols' situation caused me to go well beyond the pale of what would ever be tolerated in legitimate police or intelligence work—at least in the West—the perils of emotional entanglement with those one is intended to investigate, or subvert, are real. And that's even with the safety of a traditional law enforcement/intel network backing up an undercover officer.
I'm indebted to my colleague Steven Hildreth, Jr. for recommending Jay Dobyns' No Angel and William Queen's Under and Alone, a pair of memoirs written by federal agents involved in penetrating American outlaw motorcycle gangs as undercover officers. Those books were invaluable in helping me understand the kind of emotions that Nichols would experience as he, unexpectedly, found himself on the inside of a terror cell.
It's been eight years since the first debut of the Shadow Warriors series, and its subject, international terrorism, is sadly as relevant today as it was then—even with the collapse of the Caliphate in Syria. As for Nichols. . .his story remains far from over, and I look forward to sharing much more of it with you all.
Thanks go out, as ever, to my fantastic artist, Louis Vaney, for the work he did on the cover for this book—his ability to take a rough vision and create compelling art from it remains unmatched.
To the members of the Presence of Mine Enemies beta reader team: Bodo Pfündl, Paula Tyler, Joanne Elmore, and Joe Walsh. Your feedback on the unproofed manuscript was invaluable in turning this into a polished endproduct, and I am deeply grateful for the time you took.
To my colleagues in this at-times lonely business, who I am honored to call friends, Robert Bidinotto, Ian Graham, Nate Granzow, Matt Fulton, and the aforementioned Steven Hildreth, Jr., gentlemen whose advice and encouragement has always been appreciated. I encourage any fan of this series to check out their work—fine authors, all.
To my friends in the military and intelligence communities, who must remain uncredited, with thanks for all the guidance you've provided throughout the years. I take full responsibility for any mistakes which remain, along with whatever liberties I've taken with reality in the name of artistic license.
Special thanks goes out to the staff of London's Army & Navy Club—the "Rag"—for their willingness to answer countless questions about their club and the room in which Marsh and Ashworth met.
And most of all, as ever, my thanks to all of my readers, whose passion for Nichols' story over these years has been such an encouragement in those moments when writer's block had set in.
May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America.
Presence of Mine Enemies Page 63
