Chapter 3 of Room 59: The Powers That Be

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Our preview of Room 59: The Powers That Be finishes up today with chapter three. The prologue, chapter one and chapter two are featured below in previous posts.

Chapter Three

Showered and dressed, with her still damp hair brushed away from her face, Kate had just swallowed the last bite of her toasted bagel when what she liked to call her “analyst alarm” went off—that feeling in the back of her head that something wasn’t right.
Why would the agency call a full meeting just to discuss a possible compromised turncoat? she wondered. Something bigger’s in the wind. Opening her notebook computer, Kate assessed the file Judy had sent and scanned the contents quickly. The summary title told her everything she needed to know.
“Evaluate Potential of Cuban Exiles Raising PMC Forces for Force Insertion into Homeland.”
Kate skimmed the report, whistling at what she read. Now, this definitely calls for our intervention, she con-cluded. She checked the clock in the corner of her monitor. Ten minutes until the meeting. Calculating the time differ-ence, she placed an overseas call that was answered on the
second ring.
“Good morning, Kate.”
She smiled at hearing the polite tone, with just a hint of a German accent coloring the man’s words. “Keeping Eastern Europe quiet for us, Jonas?” she said.
“Other than your country and Russia still squawking about planting antimissile systems along the bear’s border, everyone’s either concerned with their own problems or keeping an eye on the Southeast. I gather this isn’t a social call, however.”
Kate had liked Colonel Jonas Schrader, their Eastern European section head, from the moment she had met him. A fit, no-nonsense, career law-enforcement man, he had made his mark with GSG-9, the antiterrorist arm of the German Bundespolizei, or Federal Border Guard. He had retired several years earlier, but his stellar career had brought him to the attention of Room 59’s spymasters. He was an invaluable resource in keeping an eye on all things east of the Rhine, particularly when Russia had started flexing its new energy-backed might.
Unlike Jake, who could often be blunt to the point of rude-ness, Jonas retained that European sense of pragmatic calm every time she’d seen him, although she had no doubt he could take care of himself when the time came for deeds instead of words. And, as always, he had gotten right to the point.
“I know this might not be your normal field of expertise, but have you heard anything about exiles making a move on Paradise—whispers of European or other PMCs involved, anything like that?”
She didn’t get the reaction she had hoped for—there was an indrawn hiss of breath, then Jonas’s calm voice returned. “I haven’t thought of Paradise in a long time. Officially, I’ve never even been there. I would have thought Denny would be your go-to man for this.”
“I figured your background would give you more exper-tise, given your former company’s interest in antiterror op-erations.” Kate checked her watch. Eight minutes left.
“Since the Bay of Pigs failure, there have been militant or-ganizations, such as Alpha 66 and Assault Brigade 2506, that have advocated a violent overthrow of the government. But there hasn’t been anything large scale other than the attacks by the now disbanded Omega 7 group in the late 1970s. Over the past three decades there have been small-scale events, the occasional bomb threat or kidnapping, but nothing indicating a bigger operation lately. There are always rumblings of vary-ing degrees, but as far as I know, there hasn’t been any real movement on a grand scale, just guerrilla operations, small hit-and-run and sabotage missions. I take it things have changed?”
“Apparently, since I’m heading to the conference room to discuss that very possibility. I’ll probably be convening a meeting of the department heads afterward, so don’t go anywhere. In fact—” she tapped a few keys on her computer “—I’m making the file available to all department heads now. Take a look while I’m getting approval, and if you’d care to draw up some plans, I’d appreciate whatever input you can provide.”
“Kate—” Jonas paused, as if he was thinking about what to say, which she found odd. The ex-commando was never at a loss for words. “As I’ve said, I was never officially there. But if something is happening, I’d like to be involved.”
“No offense, Jonas, but I thought you were retired. And besides, isn’t Paradise a bit far from your normal field of operations?”
He chuckled, a warm sound through the phone. “Kate, what the world doesn’t know about some countries’ special-forces missions could fill a hundred books, and still not tell everything. Besides, do you remember how we got that par-ticular asset in Cuba? He was on a training junket in Spain when our man made contact. As the agent in charge, I was closer than you might think. Just keep it in mind, if you would.”
“Of course, Jonas. I’ll be in touch afterward. Goodbye.”
Kate broke the connection and paced, pondering the con-versation. Jonas had probably already been to Cuba, as GSG-9 had operated around the world, and he’d also been involved in some kind of elite search-and-recovery team inside the organization. Although she knew he kept himself very fit, and could probably still handle himself in most sit-uations, he wasn’t an operative in his prime, either. Still…he would be an excellent lead for the operation, particularly if an extraction was needed. Marcus could be the operating pointman, with Jonas gathering intel in the Cuban popula-tion in Miami. He could serve as backup if needed.
Kate sat in her desk chair again, mulling over the sketchy plan. It was a risk—typically, Room 59 missions were car-ried out as clandestinely as possible, using local resources as available. Sending not one, but two officers with direct agency ties into an area could prove extremely hazardous if the mission failed. Kate imagined the look on Judy’s face when she gave her the news, as well as the one on the British woman’s face if it all went wrong. I’ll just play this by ear and see what comes of it, she decided.
Slipping on the viewscreen glasses again, Kate scrolled through her options until the conference room was high-lighted. Activating the connection with a blink, the pro-jected computer desktop faded away, replaced by a comfortably appointed meeting room, with nine leather chairs arrayed around a hardwood conference table. Judy was already there, nodding curtly as Kate established her presence through the virtual private network that let her meet with the heads of the International Intelligence Agency, the overseers of Room 59.
Even though she had been the director for more than a year, Kate always felt a thrill whenever she came before the IIA board. Every time a mission was approved, she knew this was why fate or circumstance or maybe even her own dogged persistence had placed her here—to cut through the red tape of partisan opinions and complacency and do what needed to be done.
After the 9/11 disaster, governments around the world had tightened their intelligence and security protocols in many different ways. Some, like America’s white elephant, the Department of Homeland Security, were in vain, public attempts to show that the wounded superpower was actually doing something in response to the blood that had been shed with the fall of the Twin Towers. It didn’t take long, however, for the organization to become just as compart-mentalized, overgrown and slow to act as the rest of the in-telligence community. The bickering and partisanship began all over again, only with a brand-new participant scrabbling for its slice of the budget pie and squabbling over duties and powers, instead of doing the job it had been created for— protecting the nation from all threats, foreign and domestic.
Kate had often thought that if the President had really wanted to utilize his post 9/11 goodwill effectively, he’d have summoned all the heads of Washington’s alphabet soup—CIA, FBI, NSA, DOD, DIA, Joint Chiefs and all the rest—together in a room, locked the door and placed armed guards in front of it. He’d tell them they were staying there until they came up with a comprehensive plan to im-prove intelligence gathering and sharing among all of their agencies, both at home and abroad. Of course, that would have required independent thought and a will to actually get something done on Capitol Hill, Kate thought. Instead poli-ticians did the next-best thing in their minds—spent billions of dollars on a very public but useless solution that couldn’t even help its own citizens in a time of national emergency, like a hurricane striking the Gulf Coast.
Fortunately, a group of like-minded individuals from around the world saw the need for an organization that could accomplish what the Homeland Security was supposed to do, only on a global scale. They also recognized that, despite the tremendous cost, they had been given the perfect oppor-tunity to create such an agency. Room 59 was the result of that consensus. It was a completely decentralized agency with the power and ability to go wherever it was needed and do whatever was necessary to defuse, derail or otherwise prevent a potential or growing threat from becoming a full-blown crisis situation. Operating with the secret mandate of the United Nations, and the unofficial approval of every major espionage agency around the world, Room 59 han-dled the blackest of black operations, and viewed its op-erations with an eye toward protecting the world and its population, not simply one country, region or continent.
Naturally, this required a special kind of intelligence of-ficer to execute the wide-ranging and hazardous missions assigned to Room 59 operatives. Having the absolute au-thority to go anywhere, any time, and take any measures necessary to accomplish a mission could corrupt the noblest of motives. Kate was determined to ensure that didn’t hap-pen. The one adage that stuck in her mind was a well-known.
“Who watches the watchers?”
From her first day, she had assumed that mantle, and while she would take whatever measures necessary to pro-tect both her operatives and the agency, she also knew that there had to be safeguards in place to ensure that the board or a department head didn’t take on a personal vendetta or crusade.
That, she thought, is what Judy doesn’t understand about my position. Judy was the operational liaison. She moder-ated between the spymasters and the operatives in the field, but felt more of a kinship with the department heads and other personnel—hence her thinly veiled view of Kate as a detached, bureaucratic middle manager. Kate, on the other hand, had to balance mission information, parameters and necessities with the desired goals and oversee operations with a minimum of overt agency involvement while giving the operative the best chance of coming back alive.
But, as Room 59 had been designed to operate indepen-dently of all known governing bodies, that also meant that there was no one to call for help when a mission went bad. If an operative was caught or killed while on a mission, Kate was supposed to walk away. That had taken some getting used to. She had a mind-set like many military special-forces units—never leave a person behind. However, she also knew that sacrifices were sometimes required to protect the whole, and had reconciled that part of the job as a nec-essary evil paired with the opportunity to accomplish so much more.
Like we’re about to do right now, she thought as the leaders of the IIA convened in the virtual conference room. Unlike Kate and Judy, the ranking members were not vis-ible. Instead, computer-generated avatars in the form of nine black silhouettes represented each member of the board. A small national flag floated above each dark form, representing the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Israel, India, Russia, Japan and China. Neither Kate nor Judy knew who made up the IIA board, and Kate, at least, preferred it that way—if she was ever captured and interrogated, no matter how remote the possibility, she couldn’t reveal their identities.
The IIA board approved every mission undertaken by Room 59. Potential operations could be brought up by Kate or other division heads, or by individual members of the board, but in the end, the board voted on each mission, its members presenting various pro and con arguments until a three-quarters vote, either yes or no, was achieved. Even then, the Room 59 heads themselves had the power to veto a mission, but that was rarely exercised, and Kate had never used it during her tenure.
The flags glowed when the person they represented spoke, and the shadow below the Stars and Stripes began the meeting. “All members of the International Intelligence Agency board are present. This meeting is now in session.”
Every board member’s voice was unaccented, gender neutral and electronically modulated to prevent recogni-tion. As she looked around the table, Kate wondered about these anonymous people who put their personal or political loyalties aside to look at doing what was best for the world in general, and what they brought to the table in terms of knowledge or ability. All the members present had shown a remarkable ability to look at the big picture, and not just at a single region or nation. They were the global policemen of the new century, and they did their job very well. And Kate was determined to do her job equally as well—or better.
The Russian flag flashed. “This discussion is in reference to the potential situation in the Third World country, Cuba. Recent intelligence has suggested that there is a growing movement by exiled hard-liners hiring foreign private military contractors to launch an incursion to overthrow the current Communist dictatorship and install a more democratic gov-ernment.”
Although Judy had referred to Cuba in code across un-secured lines, in the conference room there was no way the conversation could be spied on, as some of the best hackers and electronic security personnel in the world had pro-grammed pieces—with none of them ever knowing the en-tire project they were creating—of the electronic suite and the secure countermeasures that enabled all of them to meet in perfect seclusion.
The silhouette under the Union Jack responded. “Al-though on the surface this could be viewed as the fastest way to introduce change, since the human rights abuses that occur in this country have been numerous over the decades, recently reports indicate that with the current leadership in declining physical health, and the infrastruc-ture in growing disrepair, the population is taking steps to establish a more representative government model. A military incursion now could provoke a response by Cuba’s armed forces, which are on high alert. The resulting power struggle could create a civil war that could further destabi-lize the nation.”
The U.S. flag picked up the narrative. “Recent explora-tion of Cuba’s coastal waters for oil reserves has drawn at-tention from nations around the world, particularly those in the Western Hemisphere. Some refining is already happen-ing, and if more resources are found there, the nation’s standing will increase dramatically. Certain interests in world government have expressed their desire to slowly re-lax embargoes and open trade relations with Cuba again.”
Kate pursed her lips but refrained from commenting. The more things change, the more they stay the same, she thought. Everything—security, freedom, basic human rights—still followed the money.
“The IIA has determined that it is in Cuba’s best inter-ests to assist the peaceful transition to a democratic govern-ment, and therefore to investigate and prevent any possible threats to that ongoing process.”
The U.S. flag continued. “In our ongoing investigation, we had established contact with a military asset inside the country. Our most recent report indicates that contact with this asset was recently lost. Is that correct?”
Kate cleared her throat. “At this time, there has been no verified contact with our asset in-country for the past three days. We are trying to ascertain whether he has been discov-ered by the government, or has been captured or eliminated by other factions within the country.”
India’s flag glowed. “If the threat is coming from an external source, isn’t the asset less important than verifying that a party is indeed planning to launch an incursion?”
Judy intervened. “The asset has been a valuable source of information regarding current events, including the gov-ernment reaction to what is happening. If he has been com-promised, while there is nothing to connect him with us, a valuable source of information will have been lost. And if he reveals surveillance activities under interrogation, the military could be activated again, creating potential blow-back onto the civilian population.”
The golden stars on China’s flag twinkled as its represen-tative addressed the group. “Also, is there the possibility that this asset was a triple agent, and has simply returned to the fold?”
“A hazard of our business,” the voice under the Russian flag said, drawing murmurs of assent from the rest.
The Union Jack shone. “Kate, your thoughts?”
Kate leaned forward and made sure to look at each country’s silhouette as she replied. “The proposed mission would consist of two parts—locating the elements behind the possible buildup of a paramilitary force and preventing them from launching such a mission, and also the insertion of an op-erative into Cuba to ascertain whether the asset has been com-promised, determine whether an extraction or termination is necessary and learn whether a faction on the island is involved in his unknown status, as well. If there is an internal aspect, and it isn’t stopped, it could foment more resistance at a later date, further hampering the progress toward democracy.”
The board members all seemed to concur with her rea-soning. The Israeli flag glowed. “What external assets do we have that can be utilized?”
Whenever possible, Room 59 tried to use third parties to accomplish a mission goal—whether the person or group being used knew what their true goal was or not. Some of their best missions had been accomplished with no one knowing that Room 59 had been involved in the first place. Sometimes, however, the most effective way of handling a task was with their own people.
Kate placed her hands on the desk and rolled the dice. “Given the sensitive nature of the insertion, we suggest using one of our own operatives, since it would be not only time-consuming to bring in an outside element, but the chance of them being an informer or double agent would be high. As for the mainland operation, I think we should assign a lead operative to this, as well, someone who hasn’t been on that scene and can go undercover and extract the necessary in-formation. I already have some of our department heads working on likely candidates who could provide support for such an operation, as well as possible access venues to make initial contact.” She saw Judy’s eyebrows rise at this, but the British woman said nothing. I’m sure I’ll hear about that later, Kate thought.
“Are there any other questions?” The U.S. representative asked, but no one spoke. “I propose that we move to vote on the mission.”
Usually, the missions were prepared in a way that almost ensured acceptance, although there were times when the dis-cussion ranged from polite to heated over whether Room 59 should get involved. Kate knew that the American represen-tative had brought up business interest in Cuba as a tacit way of acknowledging that other factors were at play here. She was interested in seeing how the Chinese and Russian mem-bers would reply, since Cuba had been establishing relations with both countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the post–Cold War chill of the 1990s. Ultimately, the board was supposed to take a world-view of the missions that they put forward or accepted, but Kate also knew that personal or national politics could undermine even the best intentions.
For the vote, all the representatives would signal their po-sition by activating one of two lights above their flag— green indicated approval, red indicated disapproval. Abstention wasn’t allowed—a representative could be for or against an action without explaining why, but there was no sitting on the sidelines.
This time, the outcome wasn’t in doubt. All of the board members flashed green.
Apparently no one wants another potential civil war break-ing out—at least, not in such a high-profile area, Kate mused.
“The board votes unanimous approval of this mission.” The lights disappeared and the U.S. flag glowed one last time. “Kate, Judy, good luck.”
____________

Room 59: The Powers That Be will be in bookstores January 8th, 2008.

Chapter 2 of Room 59: The Powers That Be

Our preview of Room 59: The Powers That Be continues with chapter two. The prologue and chapter one are featured below in previous posts.


Chapter Two
Shit, this is not how it was supposed to go down, Marcus thought, eyeing the meth-cranked biker brandishing a meter-long rusty iron pipe.
“I’m tellin’ you, guys, we got a fuckin’ rat in the house, and we’re all looking at him right now!”
Robbie “Horse” Jenkins shook with the conviction of his drug-fueled suspicions. The biker was a long-term user— in his case, several years, and his face and body showed the ravages of his addiction. His words sprayed out from rotting teeth and his lips, along with the rest of his face, were scabbed and cracked, a by-product of the constant thirst and poor hygiene methamphetamine induced in addicts. His limbs trembled from the damage to his nervous system, but his grip on the pipe was as solid as a rock. The pungent odor wafting from the biker’s filthy jeans, T-shirt and grimy leather vest made Marcus think of summertime on his godfather’s ranch in Texas, where dead cows would bloat and burst from the heat. Given the choice, he’d rather have smelled one of those stinking carcasses than Horse at the moment.
Marcus adjusted the do-rag atop his curly black hair and grinned. “Hey, Horse, take it easy now. Maybe Terry’s a rat and maybe he isn’t, but before we pass judgment, let’s hear his side of the story, huh?”
The good news was that Horse wasn’t inciting the rest of his gang to beat or kill Marcus. The bad news was that he was directing the others’ drug-heightened psychosis at their chemist. The skinny, long-haired guy holding both his hands out in front of him had used his two semesters of college chemistry to produce batches of the most potent meth around, which the Death Angels had been distributing to unsuspect-ing college kids and hard-core addicts throughout a four-state area.
With the government cracking down on the base ingre-dients for cooking the drug, a pipeline for pseudoephedrine from Asia had been flooding the Pacific Northwest during the past year. Assigned by Room 59 to track the flow back to its source, Marcus was wearing the same pair of jeans and leather jacket he had on when he’d first infiltrated the Angels two months earlier, insinuating himself up the chain of com-mand. He tried hard not to think about what he’d had to do to get there—serve as muscle as the Angels got their ship-ments and payments, stand by and watch helplessly as the bikers spread their chemical death, inwardly seething with anger as he saw kids with their whole lives ahead of them trading it all for an insidious, deadly addiction. He’d worked through it by concentrating on the end, not the means used to get there, and finally he’d won enough trust for the Angels to take him to the source.
They were in a converted warehouse in the deserted plains of Montana, their drug lab, manufacturing base and the next link in the chain across the Pacific. But his poten-tial link to the supplier was about to get his head bashed in because their strung-out leader was riding a paranoia high.
“For Christ’s sake, listen to Smooth, man. I haven’t ratted on anybody.” While Horse and the rest of the Angels reeked like month-old dirty laundry marinated in sweat and beer, Marcus smelled the fear oozing out of Terry’s pores ten feet away.
Horse whipped his head around, wild eyes fixing on Marcus. “Yeah? Why you standin’ up for him, man? Maybe you’re in on it, too. You and him got a sweet deal goin’? Sell us all out and take over yourself!” He moved toward Marcus, the pipe held in front of him like an orange baseball bat.
Although Marcus knew at least four ways to disarm Horse, six ways to disable him and more ways than he could count to kill him, that was the last thing he wanted. “Hell no, man, I roll with ya, you know that. Just sayin’ you want to think a bit before you cap our cook. He’s a wizard with the rock, that’s all. Be a long time ’fore we find anyone that good at baking again, y’know?” And if you splatter his brains against the wall, my connection goes with him, Marcus thought.
“Yeah…yeah, maybe you’re right….” Horse said.
The thing about meth addicts was that their addiction was so powerful, if they could be distracted from their train of thought for a few seconds, they often forgot what they were doing in the first place as the gnawing need made its demands known. Marcus waited. Horse started lowering his pipe.
“Why don’t you go take a ride on that M-train and chill?” Marcus relaxed his shoulders and hands, blowing out his breath and shaking his head in mock disapproval at the biker’s antics.
Unfortunately, Terry—who was still smart enough to not use his own product—put two and two together at that exact moment. “Holy shit, Horse, that’s why he was asking about our supplier last night and angling for a meeting! Smooth doesn’t want to take over—he’s the goddamn rat!”
For a moment, everyone froze, including Marcus, who maintained his composure even as his mind shifted into overdrive. I can’t believe a dropout college punk just blew my cover—and after I saved his ass, too.
Before he could say a word, everyone turned to stare at him. And as fast as Horse’s rage had dissipated, he whirled and charged, his drawn face twisted in a mask of hate, the pipe raised overhead to crush the other man’s skull.
Instead of ducking or dodging out of the way, Marcus stepped forward to meet the biker’s wild lunge, pistoning his cowboy-booted foot up and out in a front kick straight at Horse’s chest. The heel slammed into the junkie’s sunken ribs with a sickening crack, and Marcus felt two of them break under his foot. The sudden impact made Horse fold over Marcus’s leg, and the pipe came down slowly enough for Marcus to catch it and twist it out of the collapsing biker’s hands.
As he pushed off Horse’s suddenly limp body, Marcus planted his right foot and brought the pipe down in a diagonal arc, blocking the punch coming from another Angel on his right and breaking the man’s arm. He screamed and fell to his knees and Marcus kept turning, tracking his next target. He saw Terry bolt into the depths of the ware-house, but he still had four crank addicts between him and the chemist.
With a wheezing Horse on the ground and another biker moaning and clutching his broken arm, Marcus had only a few seconds until the rest got it together and rushed him. He snapped the pipe out again in a wide arc, keeping them back, but saw them psyching up to charge, so he moved first. Stepping near the guy to his left, he feinted at the biker’s head. When the man flinched and leaned back, Marcus swept the pipe down into the Angel’s knee. The punk dropped with a howl, clutching the shattered joint, his riding days over for a long time.
The other three all moved at once, the far pair trying to rush Marcus’s flank while the nearest one grabbed at his leather jacket. Sliding his right hand to the middle of the pipe, he jerked it up, the capped end thudding into his attacker’s solar plexus. The biker’s breath whooshed out and he started to fall, but Marcus kept him upright and shoved him back into the other two, both of whom aborted their attacks to dodge their injured buddy. The stunned Angel plopped to the ground on his back, trying to draw breath into his reddening face.
Marcus faced the last two, who had regrouped and now ex-changed uneasy glances, having just seen him take down four of their buddies in less than fifteen seconds. Marcus tucked the end of the pipe under his arm, held his other hand out at low guard and stared at them. “If you don’t want to end up like them, get the hell out of here right now,” he growled.
The pair glanced at their prone comrades and took off, their boots clattering in the cavernous warehouse as they ran for their bikes. Marcus straightened up and turned toward the back of the building, scanning for Terry. The roar of an engine starting warned him of danger even before the pickup truck’s headlights came on. The speeding vehicle surged right at Marcus, making him dive out of the way, skidding to a stop on the oil-stained floor. He heard a scream as the truck barreled by, followed by a thump, and then a shriek of shearing metal as the warehouse doors were torn away by the truck roaring out of the place.
Marcus got up and took a step toward the bikes outside, but stopped as he heard the explosive whoosh of fuel ig-niting behind him. Glancing back, he saw a bright blue flare of natural gas. Damn it, he set off the fuel supply. He looked at the receding pickup truck, then back at the bikers and ran back to them. Even though they were drug-dealing junkie scum, no one deserved to die like that, he thought.
One look at Horse told Marcus he was the one who’d been killed by the truck. The impact had sent him skidding across the floor, his chest and face a bleeding broken mass. The broken-armed biker had gotten to his feet and was try-ing to help out his stunned buddy, leaving the guy with the blown knee for Marcus. He grabbed the guy’s leather collar and dragged him across the concrete floor, barking, “Get the hell out of here!”
The other two Death Angels staggered out behind him just as the volatile chemicals in the warehouse began cook-ing off, exploding in bursts of shattered glass and metal. “You two keep going, this whole place is gonna blow!” Marcus said. “And take gimpy with you.” He patted his man’s vest pockets, coming up with the keys to his bike, then shoved him at the other two. “Go!”
Running around to the front of the warehouse, Marcus found the motorcycle that fit the key, switched it on, kicked the starter over and gunned the powerful engine. The straight pipes blatted as he shot away from the burning warehouse and past the trio of bikers, now about forty yards away. He had just shouted “Get down!” when the entire building went up in a huge fireball, spraying sheets of metal and timber framing everywhere.
The shock wave rolled out around Marcus and the mo-torcycle, forcing him to fight to retain control. Once he had stabilized his ride, he glanced back to see the trio of bikers sprawled on the ground, but all still moving, and none of them on fire. He shifted into second until he hit the dirt road leading away from the warehouse, then opened the bike up, trying to eat up the distance between him and his prey. With less than ten miles to go before the highway, there was a good chance the chemist would reach the main road and be long gone before Marcus got there.
Cresting a small rise, the Room 59 operative caught sight of the pickup as it bounced along the rutted hardpan a half mile away. He twisted the throttle hard. The bike’s back tire sprayed gravel as it thundered down the hill. The truck had no chance of outrunning the powerful bike, and Marcus soon drew within a few yards of the pickup, hunching as Terry slewed the vehicle back and forth, kicking up rocks and dirt and forcing Marcus to keep his distance.
He blinked through the cloud of dust thrown up in the truck’s wake, his eyes tearing. Okay, I’ve found him—now what? he wondered. The answer came in the next fifty yards. The dirt road curved sharply, and Terry was forced to slam on the brakes or lose control as he headed into the turn.
Seeing his chance, Marcus aimed the bike left of the truck and pushed the road bike up to the truck’s rear fender. He hopped up on the seat, balanced there for a moment, then leaped into the open bed of the pickup.
Though he tried to keep his legs under him and his body loose, Marcus landed hand, falling to his hands and knees and banging his ribs on the wheel well. He shook off the stars and crawled to the back window, rising up and enjoying the sight of Terry’s wide, terrified eyes as he saw the scowling biker coming for him in the rearview mirror. The kid slammed on the brakes, pitching Marcus forward to crack his head on the window. Then he jammed the gas pedal to the floor, sending him skittering back across the bed to slam into the tailgate.
“This son of a bitch is pissing me off,” Marcus muttered. Using the side of the truck bed, he pulled himself toward the driver’s side of the cab. He wedged himself into the corner and yanked off one of his boots, then popped up again and swung the heel at the side window, which exploded across Terry in a spray of safety-glass pellets. The kid shouted and jerked the wheel to the right, the pickup fishtailing as he wrestled for control.
Marcus tossed his boot into the cab and reached in, grab-bing Terry by the throat. “Stop right now, or I’ll tear your goddamn head off!”
The terrified kid hit the brakes, but Marcus was braced for it this time, and rode with the truck as it skidded to a stop. “Turn it off, slowly,” he ordered.
Terry did so, unable to protest due to the steady pressure on his windpipe. Marcus released the scared chemist, then popped him in the jaw, sending him flopping over on the bench seat, out cold.
“Damn, kid, didn’t think I hit ya that hard.” Marcus swung down from the bed, opened the door and pushed him over to the passenger side. He retrieved his boot and slipped it on, then started the truck and headed for the interstate. “Lost the lab, and the bikers got away. At least I got the guy I came for—and he’s even still alive. Asia pipeline, here we come.”
He ruffled the unconscious kid’s lank hair, then Marcus’s expression turned cold for a moment, thinking of that Indian Chief motorcycle he’d had to ditch to get him. Even though he stank like body odor and felt like chopped roadkill, he had enjoyed the riding, the wind in his hair, the feeling of freedom on the open plain. Maybe when all this was over, he’d get himself a bike. But before that, he wanted a long, hot shower, although he doubted the stink would ever wash away—and the wounds to his soul were another matter en-tirely.
Marcus shook his head as he turned onto the Montana highway. “The things I do for my job.”

Chapter 1 of Room 59: The Powers That Be

Our preview of Room 59: The Powers That Be continues with Chapter One. If you haven't read the prologue in the post before this one, read that first and then come back for Chapter 1.

Chapter One
Kate Cochran somersaulted through the air, maintaining enough control to tuck into her fall and roll with it instead of slamming to the mat on her back. Rising, she immediately assumed a defensive posture, feet shoulder width apart, legs slightly bent, arms close to her sides, fists clenched at her waist with knuckles up, ready to either punch or block.
A burst of laughter came from behind her. Kate turned, keeping her fists ready, to confront the man who had just sent her sailing across the room.
“My, my, don’t you look tough.” The man was a full head taller than her, and all lean, wiry muscle. His ink-black hair was cropped just short of high and tight, making it im-possible to grab in a fight—as she had already discovered. He regarded her with amused, dark brown eyes that missed no detail of their surroundings.
“Kate, I’m not training you to fight in a dojo. What I’m teaching you—well, trying anyway—is how to survive on the street. Pure down-and-dirty fighting, where no one is go-ing to wait for you to assume the position. By the time you’re ready, your attacker will have already incapacitated or killed you.”
“That’s what I have you for, remember?” She slowly stepped toward him, keeping her center of gravity balanced, waiting for him to pounce again.
“Well, let’s assume for this exercise that I’m already fighting two—no, make that three other guys, and you’re on your own.” His white teeth flashed in a razor-thin grin, and Kate knew who would win in a three-on-one fight with the man standing in front of her—Jacob Marrs, her bodyguard and instructor. “Now, relax that horse stance of yours, and for god’s sake, stand like you’re walking down the street, not some extra in a kung fu movie.”
Kate straightened up and dropped her arms to her sides, unclenching her fists. She walked toward Jake, maintaining eye contact the whole way, ignoring the spectacular view her floor-to-ceiling town house windows afforded of the Man-hattan skyline to the west. Sweat dripped in to her gold-green eyes.
She walked to within a foot of him, but nothing hap-pened. Turning on her heel, Kate strode back across the room, ready for a chokehold from behind, or a grab at her platinum-blond hair or any one of a dozen other possible attacks. Still nothing. Peeking at him out of the corner of her vision, Jake still stood there in loose pants and his sleeveless gi, hands on his hips, as if he were carved from stone.
With a sigh, Kate whirled around to ask whether they were sparring or posing, only to find her trainer already in motion. Arms blurring like striking cobras, he took one large step forward and grabbed her arm. Instinctively, she stepped back, using his momentum to yank him off balance. Grabbing the collar of his gi with her right hand, she pulled him farther down while her right foot swept his outstretched left foot out from under him. Jacob lurched forward, and Kate directed his fall to the ground, raising a fist to follow up with a blow to his temple—
But Jake wasn’t lying still like a good foot-sweep victim. He lifted his legs and scissored them toward her head in-stead. He caught her between his muscular thighs and snapped her forward, flipping her to the ground. Before she could scramble away, he was atop her, pinning her shoul-ders to the mat and leaning back so that his weight almost crushed her abdomen, but not quite.
“Two lessons here. One, the most important thing I’m trying to instill in you is to always expect an attack, because the moment you don’t, the moment you relax your guard, that’s when your opponent will strike.” Jake leaned for-ward, his face inches from hers. “Second, why in the hell aren’t you trying harder to escape right now?”
Kate arched her back as high as she could, hoping to throw him off enough to free an arm, but his weight was too much. He simply relaxed and settled down, forcing her back down to the mat. He readjusted his leg for a better pin, and Kate managed to wrench her left arm free and immediately brought her elbow down toward his groin. Jacob blocked it with a low forearm just before it would have made painful contact.
“Better. Let’s try that again, and I’ll show you another couple ways out of it—”
“Whoa, am I interrupting something, ’cause I could def-initely come back later.”
The voice from the doorway of the exercise room made both Kate’s and Jacob’s heads turn. Recovering first, Kate reached between Jake’s legs with her free hand and grabbed his crotch while scooting down underneath his legs. Emit-ting a startled yelp, Jacob reared up on his knees, enabling her to emerge from under him and whirl around, finding him ready for her with a small yet genuine smile on his face.
Framed in the doorway was Kate’s live-in housekeeper, Arminda Todd, holding a stack of folded towels and grin-ning from ear to ear. A couple of inches taller than her em-ployer, she was slender and willowy where Kate was more muscular and toned. She shifted from one foot to another, fiddling with her waist-length hair, currently bound in a thick braid that curled down over her shoulder.
“That’s okay, Mindy, we were just sparring. We’re done for now,” Kate said.
Jake stood and offered his hand. Kate accepted it warily, expecting him to try another takedown maneuver. However, once on her feet, he simply released her.
“I’m gonna hit the shower,” Jake said. He walked by Mindy, snagging a towel as he passed. Kate noticed the college student’s gaze follow as he left the room, and put on her most disapproving stare as the young woman turned back.
“What?”
Kate shook her head. “Don’t be thinking what I know you’re thinking.”
Mindy’s eyes widened in shock. “I just—like watching him leave, that’s all.”
“As long as that’s all you’re doing, then we’re fine.” Kate wasn’t the jealous type and Jacob wasn’t even close to the kind of man she’d be interested in. However, pretty little Mindy, all of twenty years old and usually wise beyond her years in most matters, seemed to have a soft spot for the laconic bodyguard. Owing to the unusual relationship be-tween the three of them, Kate wanted to make sure that Mindy didn’t do anything she might regret later.
She wasn’t concerned about Jake. He understood the rules, and wasn’t about to bend any of them for anyone, officer, civilian or otherwise. As he liked to say, “This ain’t that bodyguard movie with Costner, but real life, and there’s a world of difference between the two.”
The best way to remind Mindy of that was to get her mind back on the job. “I assume you didn’t just stop in here to deliver towels?” Kate asked.
“Oh, right. You had two messages. One from Mr. Tilghman—” Mindy scrunched up her pretty face as she said Kate’s soon-to-be-ex-husband’s name “—regarding some papers you were supposed to sign and scheduling that con-ference call to discuss more terms.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “Great, he probably wants to dis-cuss dividing the weekends at the Hamptons cottage. Some-one ought to remind him that he was the one cheating on me, not the other way around.” Noticing Mindy’s sympa-thetic gaze, she shrugged. “Never mind, thinking out loud again. Okay, I’ll get back to him—sometime soon. Please tell me you have something more pressing than that.”
“The other message is from Judy.”
Kate’s internal antenna went up. Judy Burges was the liaison between Kate and her superiors—the men and women who headed up Room 59—and the various division heads and agents around the world.
“What did she say?”
“I asked if she wanted to wait while I got you, but she muttered something about you being indisposed and just said to pass along this message. She was very specific, as always.” Mindy smoothed out a crumpled piece of paper and handed to it to Kate. On it were two lines of neat script:
Contact soonest you receive this.
Trouble in Paradise.
Although it sounded cute, Kate knew instantly what Judy was referring to. “Paradise” was their current code name for Cuba, and trouble meant something had happened to their asset there. Without a word, she grabbed a towel from Mindy and wiped her face and neck, then draped it around her shoulders as she headed to her home office.
When Kate had been appointed as the director of Room 59, the town house she lived in had been swept and cleared by the agency, and modifications had been made to every room, particularly this one. As she pulled her chair up to the glass-topped desk, Kate slipped on a pair of MicroEmissive Displays eyescreen glasses, enabling her to access and surf the Web not only wirelessly, but without a keyboard. With precise eye movements, she selected where she wanted to go and blinked to activate programs. She quickly logged in and sent a page to Judy.
Judy Burges was the consummate diplomat. Recruited from England’s diplomatic service, she was the only person, besides the shadowy heads of the agency, to have been with Room 59 since its inception. As always, she looked perfect, from her sleek, highlighted brown hair done up in a simple chignon to her immaculate navy pantsuit. Kate smoothed her rumpled gi and thanked her lucky stars that she could only be seen from the neck up.
“Good to see you, Kate.” There was a barely perceptible pause. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
Kate berated herself for assuming that Judy wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. “Not at all. I was just working out when I got your message.”
“Naturally.” Her clipped tone made clear what Judy thought of Kate’s excuse. “You have my message. Our asset in Paradise has not made any of his drops in the last seventy-two hours. Given the rumors of increasing instability there, there is concern that he has been compromised. The heads would like a sitrep and proposed plan of action in an hour. I’ve downloaded all of the pertinent information for you. Shall I expect you in the conference room at eight-thirty?”
“I’ll see you then.” Kate broke the connection and leaned back for a moment, taking a deep breath while frowning at the wall. She knew as well as Judy that they had to work together, but that didn’t mean they had to like each other. Kate was proud of the work she did, but she couldn’t help getting the feeling that the polished Ms. Burges sometimes considered her nothing more than glorified middle man-agement just because she had come to her position through her intelligence-analysis work at the CIA. Kate was ex-tremely aware of the difference in her current position. If I screw up in this business, it’s not just that an operative dies. Hundreds, maybe thousands more could die with him, she thought.
Kate brought up her instant-message screen, finding Mindy online as usual.
“Hey, what’s up?” Mindy typed in response to Kate’s greeting.
“Just coffee and a plain bagel this morning—duty calls.”
“Right away.”
“And let Jake know I’ll be in conference until at least nine.”
“You got it.”
Rising, Kate walked into the adjoining master bath. Shucking the gi, blue belt, white cotton pants and her under-garments, Kate stepped into the shower, already analyzing and discarding plans and possibilities. Assuming he has really been compromised, and given the island’s current state, will they go for an insertion to get real-eyes intel, or just write him off and move on? If the former, who’s avail-able with the necessary background? She reviewed dossiers in her mind, until a likely candidate popped up. Marcus would be the perfect choice, if he’s finished with that mis-sion in cattle country.

Prologue of Room 59: The Powers That Be

Our newest book series, Room 59, launches in January with "The Powers That Be" by Cliff Ryder. We'll be previewing the series here on the blog for the next few weeks. Today we reveal the prologue of Book 1.

Room 59: The Powers That Be
~PROLOGUE~

Francisco Garcia Romero’s world had been reduced to two sensations: light and pain.

The light came from the bare, wire-caged, hundred-watt bulb in his windowless, four-by-eight-foot punishment cell. Always burning, it turned the already sweltering space into a cramped oven, and had long ago stripped Francisco of any notion of the time of day. It limited his sleep to fitful minutes here and there, throwing his arm over his eyes until it cramped and he moved, which exposed his face to the harsh glare again. Its brilliance burned into his retinas. The light exposed every mark on his naked body, every bruise, every cut, every mosquito bite, every sore in stark relief, revealing the pitiful shell of the man and father he used to be.

Emaciated and filthy, he huddled on the dirty concrete floor of his cell in Quivicán maximum-security prison, with no mattress, blanket or even a concrete bed to sleep on. It had been a good day so far, because the hole in the floor where he relieved himself—when he could muster both the energy to do so and the fortitude to handle the pain it caused—hadn’t overflowed yet. Also, he had managed to keep down the cup of watery, unidentifiable soup and handful of rice that had been doled out a few hours earlier. But the rattle of his cell door as it was unlocked meant that time was at an end.
“¡Número treinta y cinco, salga!” One of the fatigue-clad guards barked the order. Since his detention had begun here, the guards had only referred to him by a number—thirty-five.

Francisco crawled to the door and out into the hallway, where the two men grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him to his feet, ignoring his whimper of pain as his shoulder was wrenched back. They placed him against the wall and searched him—a seemingly useless gesture, since he was already naked, that was meant to humiliate and further degrade him. Francisco waited with his legs apart, wondering which pair would accompany him this time. There was only a casual inspection of his buttocks today, so it must have been Guards Three and Four, as he called them. The other pair of guards, One and Two, took an unpleasant interest in certain parts of his anatomy, and used every opportunity to torment him with the ends of their batons or other items.

Satisfied he wasn’t carrying any contraband, the two guards pushed him down the hall toward the interrogation area. As he did every time this happened, Francisco whis-pered his usual litany:
“Padre nuestro, que estás en los cielos,
Santificado sea tu Nombre.
Venga tu reino, Hágase tu voluntad,
En la tierra como en el cielo….”
He always tried to finish the Lord’s Prayer before being silenced by one of the guards or entering the interrogation room. If he could do that, he believed it gave him the inner strength to resist whatever they had planned for him. And just like every other time he had been taken to these small rooms, a part of him wondered if this time he would break under the endless torture, and tell them everything he knew.

As he shuffled down the hallway, he tried to ignore the flashes of pain from his battered body. Everything hurt, from the deep throbbing of his improperly-healed shoulder, injured in his very first interrogation and beating, to the burning pain in his rectum from the near constant diarrhea combined with torn sphincter muscles and the resulting infection from when he had been sodomized a few weeks earlier. The assault hadn’t come from the guards, but from an enforcer for the “prisoners’ council”—trustees given limited authority by the warden—when they learned he was planning a hunger strike to protest the inhumane conditions. Those, along with numerous other injuries, were a constant reminder of every minute he spent here, and also what had been stripped from him since his very first night in captivity—not just his limited freedom on the outside, but his dignity, health and free will.

Ever since he had been rousted from his bed in the dead of night so long ago and herded through a bewildering series of prisons, interrogations, torture and starvation, Francisco had clung to the slim hope that he might be released, or at least be allowed to stand trial for his supposed crimes. But as the days had stretched into weeks, and then months, and he had endured the near daily beatings, the deprivation of basic human needs and other mental and physical tortures, Francisco realized that he wasn’t going to be saved. Unlike others, such as the poet Armando Valladares, who had gained international recognition for the abuse he had endured, Francisco was just one of hundreds of low-level political prisoners trapped in the grinding wheels of the government’s relentless repression of basic human rights— what he had been fighting for every day.
Now, with his incarceration stretching into its sixth or seventh month—he wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been—Francisco had lost hope of ever seeing the outside world again. He hadn’t seen his wife and son in at least three months, and wasn’t even sure they knew where he was anymore, since he had been moved several times before ending up at Quivicán. All he could do now hold one rational thought in his mind. No matter what happened, he would never betray his fellows still struggling to free Cuba from the Communist dictatorship. It was the one goal he still clung to—even though he couldn’t be sure, given his semi-lucid state from hour to hour, that he hadn’t already done so.

The interrogators had certainly tried hard to break him. They had taken him from his stifling cell to an air-conditioned room and left him there for hours before questioning him, when he could barely answer through chattering teeth. The beatings and malnutrition were bad, but it was during the third month that they had come closest to breaking him.

Just when he was coming to terms with the cruel conditions, the guards had come to his cell and told him he was being released. They had allowed him to wash up and shave, given him a decent meal, then escorted him to the main doors of the prison. And there, with freedom just a few yards away, the commander of the prison had walked up and told him that it was a mistake, that he was going back to his cell. It had taken three guards to wrestle him back into his cell that day. He had been beaten for resisting them, and that night he had been beaten again by fellow prisoners, who suspected he had made some kind of deal with the government to betray them.

Since that day, Francisco had resisted his captors as much as possible, but he had steadily weakened. He was on the edge of telling them whatever he could to get out of his punishment cell, receive some medical treatment, even just get a bare concrete bed to sleep on. His only solace was that if they ever broke him, he wouldn’t be able to tell them much. His mostly bare-shelved bodega had been a drop point for messages among cells of the resistance, but he had never known who any of the contacts really were besides the man who had recruited him long ago. Francisco wasn’t a government informer, but obviously someone in one of those cells he had serviced was.

Guard Three opened the interrogation-room door and entered, followed by Francisco, who stumbled in, assisted by a shove from Guard Four. The room looked like every other room he had been questioned in. A rattling air conditioner blew cold air across his fevered skin, and there were the standard two chairs and a small table in the center of the room. What was different, however, was the man sitting in the chair on the other side of the table.

He was a high-ranking member of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, at least a major, according to his epaulets. He was taller than the usual Cuban soldier. Even seated he loomed over the table. His features were unusual, too. He didn’t have the usual dark caramel coloring of the majority of the people. His skin tone was a few shades lighter, almost café au lait. Francisco thought he was mulatto, perhaps part African, but that his nose wasn’t broad, but narrow and long, almost patrician. And his eyes—which had locked onto the prisoner with the usual single-minded zeal—were a common light blue, not the expected dark brown.

The two guards came to attention and saluted. The man sitting in the chair tossed off a crisp but casual salute to them.

“Abandónenos.”

The order to leave made the guards look at each other in confusion. “Mayor?” one asked, confirming Francisco’s suspicion about the man’s rank.

The major waved his hand at the door. “Leave us,” he ordered again.

“But, sir, all interrogations are to be supervised in the event of an attack by the prisoner,” a guard said.

The major leaned back in his chair. “As you can see, this man is no threat to me. I wish to question him in private. Now.” The genial expression hardened in the blink of an eye. “Or must I report this insubordination to your superiors?”

“No, sir!” The two men saluted again, and left, closing the door behind them.

Francisco shivered in the cold, unable to take his eyes off this man who held his life in a black-gloved hand.

“Please, sit. You must be weak after everything you have endured.” The major pushed his chair back and stood, mak-ing Francisco cower, tensing in expectation of the first blow.

“No, no. Come, sit, please.” The tall man took an overcoat from the back of his chair and slowly walked toward Francisco, holding it out like a matador approaching a nervous bull. He eased it around the wasted man’s shoulders, then led him to the second chair and gently pressed him down.

“Thank—thank you.” Francisco pulled the lapels of the coat around him and huddled into the cloth.

The major did not return to the other side of the table, but walked around to stand behind Francisco. “No, it is I who should be thanking you, Francisco Garcia Romero. You have survived agony that would have broken a hundred lesser men, yet you have not bought yourself any comfort by providing even a scrap of information about the counter-revolutionaries that plague our great nation. However, all men have their limits, my friend, and I am afraid that my superiors have reached theirs.”

The odd choice of words made Francisco start to turn to look up at the major, but as he did, he saw a shadow rise above him, and the last thing he felt was an impact at the base of his neck, then merciful blackness.

The hammer blow to Francisco’s neck fractured his second and third vertebrae, causing a piece of bone to punch inward, severing the spinal cord. The shock to his nervous system killed him before the pain impulse reached its final destination.
The major relaxed his interlaced hands and examined the prisoner, satisfied that he had broken his neck and killed him as painlessly and quickly as possible. Turning his back to the door, he quickly made the sign of the cross over the body and bent low to the man’s ear.

“The people thank you for your dedicated service. You will be remembered when our nation is truly free.”

He walked to the door and knocked on it, looking over his shoulder at the body slumped on the table. “Vaya con Dios, amigo.”

An excerpt from Rogue Angel: Serpent's Kiss

Annja Creed stood in a twelve-foot-deep sacrificial pit beneath a gathering storm. The storm, according to the weather reports, was hours away but promised to be severe. From the look of the skeletons on the floor of the pit and embedded in the walls, hundreds of years had passed since the last sacrifice.

The passage of time hadn't made the discovery any less chilling. Even with her experience as an archeologist—and the recent exposures to sudden death that she thought were incited by the mystic sword she'd inherited—she still had to make the conscious mental shift from personal empathy to scientific detachment.

"Are those human bones?"

Annja glanced up and saw Jason Kim standing near the edge of the pit above her. Jason was a UCLA graduate student who'd won a place on Professor Rai's dig along the southern coast of India.

Jason was barely over five and a half feet tall and slender as a reed. His long black hair blew in the strong wind summoned by the storm gathering somewhere over the Indian Ocean. Thick glasses covered his eyes, which were bloodshot from staying up too late playing PSP games in his tent. He came from a traditional Chinese family that hated the way he'd so easily acquired American ways. He wore a concert T-shirt and jean shorts. A tuft of whiskers barely smudged his pointed chin.

"They're human bones," Annja answered.

"You think they're sacrifice victims?" Jason's immediate interest sounded bloodthirsty, but Annja knew it was only curiosity.

"I do." Annja knelt and scooped one of the skulls from the loose soil at the bottom of the pit. She indicated the uneven cut through the spine at the base of the skull.

"Followers of Shakti favored decapitation."

"Cool. Can I see that?" Jason held his hands out.

Annja only thought for a moment that the skull had once housed a human being. The truth was, in her work, the body left behind was as much a temporary shelter as the homes she unearthed and studied.

Jason's field of study was forensic anthropology. His work primarily included what was left of a body. If anyone at the dig could identify the tool marks on the skeleton, it was Jason.

Annja tossed the skull up to him.

Jason caught the skull in both hands. It didn't bother him that it was so fresh from the grave. His smile went from ear to ear. He rotated the skull in his fingers. "This is the bomb, Annja."

"Glad you like it."

"Think they'll let me keep one?" he asked.

Part of Annja couldn't believe he'd asked the question. The other part of her couldn't believe she hadn't expected it.

"Definitely not," she answered.

"Too bad. Put a small, battery-operated red light inside and this thing would be totally rad. I could even have a friend of mine majoring in dentistry whip up some caps for the incisors. I'd be the first guy to have a genuine vampire skull."

"Except for the genuine part.And you'd have to explain why the skull doesn't turn to dust in sunlight,"Annja said.

"Not all vampires turn to dust. You should know that," he replied.

"Vampires aren't a big part of archaeology." Annja turned her attention back to the other bones. She didn't think she was going to learn a lot from the pit, but there were always surprises.

"I didn't mean from archaeology," Jason persisted.

"I mean from your show."

Annja sighed. No matter where she went, except for highly academic circles, she invariably ended up being known more for her work on Chasing History's Monsters than anything else. The syndicated television show had gone international almost overnight, and was continuing to do well in the ratings.

Scenes from stories she'd done for the show had ended up on magazine covers, on YouTube and other television shows. Her producer, Doug Morrell, never missed an opportunity to promote the show.

"You ever watch the show?" Annja looked up at Jason and couldn't believe she was having the conversation with him.

"Sure. The frat guys go nuts for it. So do the sororities. I mean, DVR means never having to miss a television show again."

Terrific, Annja thought.

"Kind of divided loyalties, though," Jason said. "The sororities watch you." He shrugged. "Well, most of them do. The frat guys like to watch the show for Kristie."

Okay, I really didn't need to hear that, Annja thought.

Kristie Chatham, the other hostess of Chasing History's Monsters, wasn't a rival. At least, Annja didn't see Kristie as such. Kristie wasn't an archaeologist and didn't care about history. Or even about getting the facts straight.

When Kristie put her stories together, they were strictly for shock value. As a result, Kristie's stories tended to center on werewolves, vampires, serial killers and escaped lab experiments.

"You can't go into a frat house without finding her new poster," Jason went on.

"That's good to know," Annja said, then realized that maybe she'd responded a little more coldly than she'd intended.

"Hey." Jason held his hands up in defense and almost dropped his newly acquired skull. He bobbled it and managed to hang on to it. "I didn't mean anything by that."

"No problem," Annja said.

"I don't know why you don't do a poster," Jason said. "You're beautiful."

Maybe if the comment hadn't come from a geeky male in his early twenties who was five years her junior and had a skull under his arm, if she hadn't been covered in dirt from the sacrificial pit and perspiring heavily from the gathering storm's humidity, Annja might have taken solace in that compliment.

Dressed in khaki cargo shorts, hiking boots and a gray pullover, she stood five feet ten inches tall and had a full figure instead of the anorexic look favored by so many modeling agencies. She wore her chestnut-brown hair pulled back under a New York Yankees baseball cap. Her startling amber-green eyes never failed to capture attention.

"I don't do a poster because I don't want to end up on the walls of frat houses," Annja said.

"Or ceilings," Jason said. "A lot of guys put Kristie's posters on the ceiling."

Lightning flashed in the leaden sky and highlighted the dark clouds. Shortly afterward, peals of thunder slammed into the beach.

Jason looked up. "Man, this is gonna suck. I hate getting wet."

"That's part of the job," Annja told him. "The other part is being too hot, too tired, too claustrophobic and a thousand other discomforts I could name."

"I know. But that's only if I stay with fieldwork. I'd rather get a job at a museum. Or in a crime lab working forensics."

Annja was disappointed to hear that. Jason Kim was a good student. He was going to be a good forensic anthropologist. She couldn't understand why anyone would choose to stay indoors in a job that could take them anywhere in the world.

Lightning flashed again. The wind shifted and swept into the pit where Annja stood. The humidity increased and felt like an impossible burden.

"I'm gonna go clean this up," Jason said. "Maybe after we batten down the hatches, you can tell me more about who Shakti was."

Annja nodded and turned her attention back to the burial site. The storm was coming and there was no time to waste.

WITH CAREFUL DELIBERATION, Annja checked the scale representation of the burial pit she'd drawn. So far everything was going easily, but she suspected it was the calm before the storm.

The drawing looked good. She'd also backed up the sketch with several captured digital images using her camera. In the old days, archaeologists only had a pad and paper to record data and findings. She liked working that way. It felt as if it kept her in touch with the roots of her chosen field.

She stared at the body she'd exhumed. From the flared hips, she felt certain that the bones had been a woman. She resolved to have Jason make the final call on that, though.

Lightning flickered and thunder pealed almost immediately after. The storm was drawing closer.

"Annja."

Glancing up, Annja spotted the elfin figure of Professor Lochata Rai, the dig's supervisor. Lochata was only five feet tall and weighed about ninety pounds. She was in her early sixties, but still spry and driven. She wore khakis and looked ready for a trek across the Gobi Desert.

"It is time for you to rise up out of there. The rain is coming," the professor said.

Annja looked past the woman at the scudding clouds that filled the sky. Irritation flared through her at the time she was losing.

"We must cover this excavation pit," Lochata said.

"Perhaps it will not rain too hard and we won't lose anything."

"I know. This really stinks because we just got down far enough to take a good look at what's here,"Annja said.

Lochata squatted at the edge of the pit. She held her pith helmet in her tiny hands over her knees. "You're too impatient.You have your whole life ahead of you, and history isn't going anywhere. This site will be here tomorrow."

"I keep telling myself that. But I also keep telling myself that once I finish this I can move on to something else." Annja stowed her gear in her backpack.

Lochata shook her head. "You expect to find something exciting and different?"

"I hope to." Annja pulled her backpack over her shoulder and climbed the narrow wooden ladder out of the pit. "I always hope to."

"I do not." Lochata offered her hand as Annja neared the top. "Finding something you did not expect means you didn't do your research properly. It also means extra work and possibly having to call someone else in to verify what you have found."

Annja understood that, but she also liked the idea of the new, the undiscovered and the unexpected. Lately, her life had been filled with that. She thought she was growing addicted to it.

Once on the ground outside the pit, Annja stood with her arms out from her sides as if she were going to take flight. The wind blew almost hard enough to move her. Perspiration had soaked her clothing.

"Drink." Lochata held out a water bottle and smiled.

"Hydrate or die."

Annja smiled back and accepted the water. The rule was a basic one for anyone who challenged the elements. She opened the bottle and drank deeply.

---

Rogue Angel: Serpent's Kiss will be available in stores January 8, 2008

Newsarama spotlights Mack Bolan and Rogue Angel

Click here to read IDW's Tom Waltz talking with Newsarama.com about the IDW/Gold Eagle relationship and the upcoming comics of Bolan and Creed.

IDW's Executioner Comic Cover

Here's a look at the cover for the first issue of IDW's Bolan comic book series by Rebecca A. Wrigley. Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan, The Executioner: The Devil's Tools launches April 2008.