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Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN-10: 1457514362
Pages: 300
Copyright: November 29, 2012
ISBN-13: 9781457514364
Price: $1.99 (eBook)
What if someone poisoned the illegal drug supply? People are dying across the country and Curran and his team have to get to the truth no matter what, even if the truth is they did it.
The second book in the Tom Curran series, in “The Deadly Tropic Snow,” victims dying from cocaine use first show up in Miami, Tampa, Houston, El Paso and Tucson, with the tainted drug spreading north and west. Government agencies on all levels spend billions of dollars fighting the war on drugs. What would happen if those resources could be diverted to something more productive? This novel explores the public’s reaction to poisoned drugs, including the possibility that the deaths might – in the long run – lead to a decline in drug use, drug crime and violence. In effect, the deaths of a few drug users might benefit many more lives.
On assignment with an agent who isn’t who he claims to be, the team leaves the country to investigate the poisoned drugs. Tom finally identifies a mysterious man who’s been following him, only to have him disappear after an intense conversation. A fateful encounter in a cemetery in the middle of a chase brings Tom needed emotional release, bolstering his resolve to see the mission through to its end as it becomes intertwined with his longing for his own past. The body count rises in this non-stop adventure, and then becomes personal as the team must become relentless to uncover the truth.
Excerpt
Sirens pierce the air as red lights bounce off the outer walls of the busy downtown Miami hospital. Paramedics rush a patient on an ambulance litter through the automatic doors of the emergency department, trying to simultaneously keep an eye on their traveling patient and watch where they are going. On the litter, a young, dark-haired unconscious woman in a shimmering gold “club dress,” fights for breath under a clear plastic oxygen mask. Foamy mucous runs from the corners of her mouth and gathers around the edges of the mask where it meets her skin. One of her five-inch black stiletto heels managed to pierce through the sheet and mattress on the litter, and her once oh-so-chic and sexy club dress slipped up on her hips revealing her complete lack of regard for most mother’s advice, “make sure you wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.” Unfortunately, wearing none at all was also a bad choice.
Suddenly, the medics stop short; a traffic jam of patients on rolling litters stretches-out before them like train cars down a track. Hospital personnel seem to be treating each patient right where they are.
“What’s going on!” shouts a short Latino medic. “”We got an overdose here!”
“They’re all overdoses,” replies a nurse glibly as she squats in blue surgical scrubs next to a nearby patient. She stands and starts walking toward the medic, removing purple surgical gloves as she walks. “Been coming in all night; about twenty-five so far,” she adds.
“This one’s priority; coded twice already,” blurts the medic, his body language saying he’s ready to cut the line. “
“No she’s not,” the nurse says as she uses her thumb to lift the unconscious woman’s eyelid. “None of the ones that came in so far survived.”
“None of them?”
“Not one; most were dead before they got here.”
“Were they all out clubbing like this one?”
“No. From all over town, and the jail.”
“What about other hospitals?”
“It’s like this all the way to Palm Beach.”
“What’s doing it?”
“Looks like cocaine.”
“Must be some powerful stuff.”
What the nurse in the hospital in downtown Miami didn’t know, was that very scene was playing-out in hospitals and clinics in cities across the country. It started in Miami, then Tampa, Houston, El Paso, and Tucson, spreading north and west as if the extended southern tips of Florida and Texas were dry sponges and some galactic giant dipped the country in drugs, sucking them in. People used to say there was so much cocaine in the United States that it’s “drowning in it.” What was once a metaphor now seems to be about to come true.
“There she goes,” pronounces the medic.
“Wheel her over there,” directs the nurse, pointing toward the waiting area already crammed with other people, both alive and dead, the odor a dirty bodies and bad breath hanging in the air. “The morgue is backed-up and the body’s in the way.”
The term “War on Drugs” was first used by President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971. In 2010, over 1.8 million people in the US were arrested for drug use or possession, averaging one person every 20 seconds. In that same year, the Federal government spent over 15 billion dollars on the “drug war,” an average of $500 every second. What if police could spend their time doing something else? How many resources are spent just arresting the drug users every year? There are fifty law enforcement agencies in the United States currently involved in the war on drugs, and the problem gets worse every day. Ask any law enforcement officer and he or she will tell you they’re in a quagmire they’re just trying to control, the idea of winning such a war faded into the background a long time ago.
To make matters worse, politicians pay lip-service to the issue, either out of ignorance, greed, or ambition for political gain. Our current administration espouses the belief that drug use is a disease that can be prevented or treated. What bullshit; are a bunch of suit-and-tie yuppies snorting coke at a cocktail party because they think it’s glamorous or exciting in need of treatment? Are marijuana-worshipping rappers and rock-and-rollers considered diseased? No, they do drugs because they want to do drugs. Do they care about the thousands of men, women, children, and animals that end-up being held in the arms of the angels each year in order to provide their “party favors?” It’s quite obvious the answer. Our government is so deluded in its thinking and apparently ignorant to the law of supply and demand that they give billions of dollars to foreign countries to fight a drug problem caused by the United States. Are we that arrogant? Are we so clueless we actually believe the problem lies elsewhere?
All across the country, in fact around the world, dedicated, committed Americans are fighting the war against drugs. Politicians us the term “drug war” as a sound bite, a topic to try and garner votes or steer voters from other issues for political advantage, but to law enforcement agencies it’s the real deal. People die. Drugs affect the lives of people around the world, some at a great gain, and others at a terrible loss. Some growers or smugglers learn their trade from parents or grandparents, and choose it as a more profitable way to feed their families. Drug cartels have literally bought people and enslaved them into working the drug business, treating them as property. Once unable to work the fields or drug laboratories, they’re killed and discarded like trash.
American ambition, apathy, and uncontrollable greed drive the drug problem. They smoke, snort and shoot substances into their bodies like whale sharks swimming through the oceans with their enormous mouths held wide-open like giant scoops, consuming as much food as possible with each giant gulp. The insatiable American appetite for drugs has second and third-order effects that people are either unwilling to realize, unable to comprehend, or just don’t care about. Murder, kidnapping, human trafficking, slavery, robbery, crimes against children, and the list goes on and on. Drugs are smuggled inside children and even inside animals. Sometimes the packages of drugs people or animals swallow break open inside their bodies, killing them. Some people forced to carry drugs, called “mules,” are killed at the end of their journey; most are paid a fraction of the amount they were promised. After all, who are they going to complain to, and who will report they are missing? Smugglers target illegal aliens in the United States for extortion, giving Phoenix Arizona a kidnapping rate second in the world behind Mexico City. They trade for things like vehicles with clean registrations, legitimate driver’s licenses, social security cards, weapons, cash, or whatever they want and the security of the United States is at risk. It’s been reported there are over 18,000 drug cartel members in Texas.
Smugglers use any method necessary to bring drugs into the country. As the trade gets increasingly lucrative and law enforcement increasingly skilled at catching smugglers, cartels spend literally boat-loads of money to move their products. In Colombia, authorities recently found operational submarines, built with Russian and Chinese engineer support, and capable of hauling tons of cocaine. The profit margins are enormous; 8 tons of cocaine can bring in over $160 million dollars in the United States. A recent National Geographic investigation reported that the United States Coast Guard routinely catches semi-submersible vessels making their way to the United States. They also reported that there were hundreds of such vessels in various stages of construction in Colombia, and that on average, the Coast Guard only catches about 10% of them. Smugglers also dig tunnels under the Mexican border, attach drug containers to the bottoms of ships, tow steel pods full of drugs behind boats, and use any method they find that works by sea, land, and air. They even use cranes to lift vehicles full of drugs over the border fence, fly ultra-light aircraft across the border, build mobile ramps to go over the border fence, and have even built a medieval trebuchet to catapult bundles of drugs into the country. All this death and mayhem exists because Americans have to have their drugs.
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