Category: Action/Thriller Publisher: Ezeebooks UK
ISBN-10: 095684264X
Type: Fiction
Pages: 322
Copyright: 1 Oct 2015
ISBN-13: 9780956842640
Price: $5.76 (eBook)
Thriller novel exploring Islamist terrorism in North Africa with Malta as a target
This story reflects the upsurge of Islamist terrorism in North Africa - the Maghreb or Barbary Coast - attacking the ‘soft underbelly of Europe’ (Winston Churchill’s phrase).
Steve Baldwin has sailed to Crete in his search for a quiet life. The Royal Marines had been his family, but now he is alone again – until he meets a waitress with a murky background. To avoid entanglement, Baldwin sets sail for Malta where he is dragged kicking into the pursuit of a psychopathic female assassin – Maruška Pavkovic – with whom he shares some painful, bloody history. Islamist terrorism is spreading across the Sicilian Channel from the Maghreb into the soft underbelly of Europe – and Malta, with its Crusader history, is a key target.
Two cunning an ruthless women and a terrorist mastermind at work make this a compulsive, gritty and fast-moving read.
Excerpt
Prologue
The blade slipped in easily as she knew it would. A serrated ceramic edge with a keen point backed by several kilos of pressure at the perfect spot broke through the initial resistance of thin cloth and skin. It sliced effortlessly through muscle and fat – too much for a man of his apparent fitness. It met the muscle of the heart on the left hand side towards the rear and penetrated cleanly.
She felt the warm blood – more in her imagination than reality as she was wearing gloves. Her imagination was vivid but there was no doubting that this furiously struggling body was oozing its life force over her.
Later, she would replay the sequence in her mind as she derived more physical pleasure. She would find no technical error in the execution, no tactical mis-step.
The approach from the rear was standard. He was wearing a protective vest – it would be the best of vests for sure, made from the latest aramid fibre with metal foam inserts. It would be stab proof, bullet proof - .50 calibre excepted, or .44 magnum at close range when the percussive shock would be enough to kill. It was proof even against grenades and shrapnel. There was a collar to protect the critical areas around the neck, and other refinements. Still, it had to be wearable by a man with arms, legs and a head.
The hand over the mouth was standard. The MPG machine pistol was on a sling over his shoulder, and when she clamped her hand over his mouth, the MPG swung free as a he instinctively raised both hands to free his airway. His penis continued its stream, more hurried, missing the urinal, and spraying the wall. He had wriggled, tried the reverse head butt and foot stomp, the forward bend and flip. She'd met them before, expected them and countered them.
With her left hand she had located the tip of her blade in his left armpit, where the vest could not protect him, and pushed against its 'T' handle. The length of a bayonet – 8” give or take – but narrower, it was enough to do the job. Though it measured up in most respects, this was no bayonet. It would never be mated with a rifle or other long weapon, never feel the supersonic crack of a projectile passing over it.
She moved the handle gently back and forth as she pushed, lest the precision of her aim be imperfect, almost feeling the individual muscle fibres part. Delicate, tactile, even surgical but undoubtedly fatal and certainly sexual.
Penetration.
He struggled furiously, tried to push her back against the wall, but she let his weight have its way and twisted her body at the last moment, and he swung against the wall. The grunt he made was a mixture of sounds, more a gurgling expulsion of an emulsion of blood and air as the hilt of the killing weapon was pushed deeper. Struggle was of no avail, the damage had been done. Three or four seconds, no more – and as he sighed his last sigh and his body relaxed and crumpled, she felt a warm glow suffuse her, started in her loins. Such personal killings usually had this effect on her.
She withdrew the knife, having to twist his left arm to free her hand and the weapon. Another death, another notch on her bedpost. This one was business, not pleasure in the purest sense but on these occasions there was an overlap. There was pleasure to be derived from a job well done, brief though it was.
That this way of killing could be said to be her unique 'MO' was not possible. Those who matched patterns and studied MOs in the nether world of assassination and terrorism knew that at least two people used this method, because one was left handed and one right handed. Or so the computers told them, and that suggested two individuals at most. Or maybe just one very clever operator. There were no training courses teaching this method.
It was unique.
One agency, operating out of Fort Bragg, did take note, and eventually added the technique to its own training courses.
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