JET - Forsaken Read online

  JET XI

  Forsaken

  Russell Blake

  Copyright © 2016 by Russell Blake. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact:

  [email protected].

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  Contents

  Books by Russell Blake

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Excerpt from The Day After Never – Blood Honor

  Books by Russell Blake

  Co-authored with Clive Cussler

  THE EYE OF HEAVEN

  THE SOLOMON CURSE

  Thrillers

  FATAL EXCHANGE

  FATAL DECEPTION

  THE GERONIMO BREACH

  ZERO SUM

  THE DELPHI CHRONICLE TRILOGY

  THE VOYNICH CYPHER

  SILVER JUSTICE

  UPON A PALE HORSE

  DEADLY CALM

  RAMSEY’S GOLD

  EMERALD BUDDHA

  THE GODDESS LEGACY

  The Assassin Series

  KING OF SWORDS

  NIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN

  RETURN OF THE ASSASSIN

  REVENGE OF THE ASSASSIN

  BLOOD OF THE ASSASSIN

  REQUIEM FOR THE ASSASSIN

  RAGE OF THE ASSASSIN

  The Day After Never Series

  THE DAY AFTER NEVER – BLOOD HONOR

  THE DAY AFTER NEVER – PURGATORY ROAD

  THE DAY AFTER NEVER – COVENANT

  THE DAY AFTER NEVER – RETRIBUTION

  The JET Series

  JET

  JET II – BETRAYAL

  JET III – VENGEANCE

  JET IV – RECKONING

  JET V – LEGACY

  JET VI – JUSTICE

  JET VII – SANCTUARY

  JET VIII – SURVIVAL

  JET IX – ESCAPE

  JET X – INCARCERATION

  JET XI – FORSAKEN

  JET – OPS FILES (prequel)

  JET – OPS FILES; TERROR ALERT

  The BLACK Series

  BLACK

  BLACK IS BACK

  BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK

  BLACK TO REALITY

  BLACK IN THE BOX

  Non Fiction

  AN ANGEL WITH FUR

  HOW TO SELL A GAZILLION EBOOKS

  (while drunk, high or incarcerated)

  About the Author

  Featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Times, and The Chicago Tribune, Russell Blake is The NY Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels, including Fatal Exchange, Fatal Deception, The Geronimo Breach, Zero Sum, King of Swords, Night of the Assassin, Revenge of the Assassin, Return of the Assassin, Blood of the Assassin, Requiem for the Assassin, Rage of the Assassin The Delphi Chronicle trilogy, The Voynich Cypher, Silver Justice, JET, JET – Ops Files, JET – Ops Files: Terror Alert, JET II – Betrayal, JET III – Vengeance, JET IV – Reckoning, JET V – Legacy, JET VI – Justice, JET VII – Sanctuary, JET VIII – Survival, JET IX – Escape, JET X – Incarceration, JET XI – Forsaken, Upon a Pale Horse, BLACK, BLACK is Back, BLACK is the New Black, BLACK to Reality, BLACK in the Box, Deadly Calm, Ramsey’s Gold, Emerald Buddha, The Day After Never – Blood Honor, The Day After Never – Purgatory Road, The Day After Never – Covenant, The Day After Never – Retribution, and The Goddess Legacy.

  Non-fiction includes the international bestseller An Angel With Fur (animal biography) and How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time (even if drunk, high or incarcerated), a parody of all things writing-related.

  Blake is co-author of The Eye of Heaven and The Solomon Curse, with legendary author Clive Cussler. Blake’s novel King of Swords has been translated into German, The Voynich Cypher into Bulgarian, and his JET novels into Spanish, German, and Czech.

  Blake writes under the moniker R.E. Blake in the NA/YA/Contemporary Romance genres. Novels include Less Than Nothing, More Than Anything, and Best Of Everything.

  Having resided in Mexico for a dozen years, Blake enjoys his dogs, fishing, boating, tequila and writing, while battling world domination by clowns. His thoughts, such as they are, can be found at his blog:

  RussellBlake.com

  To get your free copy,

  just join my readers’ group here:

  http://bit.ly/rb-kos

  Chapter 1

  Baku, Azerbaijan

  Martial music blared over a large crowd gathered at the Dede Gorgud Park plaza in the Baku city center. A pair of combat helicopters orbited in the cobalt sky above the paved expanse, where a grandstand had been erected near a wide pond, its black framework festooned with colorful streamers that shimmered like the tails of exotically plumed birds in the early fall breeze. Massive speakers framed the stage, where a band played with determination as the throng milled in front, killing time as it waited for the main event to begin, the mood festive as bottles made the rounds and laughter drifted from barrel-chested men with meaty faces.

  Children ran through the freshly trimmed grass of a nearby field. The air was perfumed with rich wood smoke from food carts, where vendors grilled skewered delicacies. An old man tugged at a kite riding an updraft to the delight of three urchins, their faces upturned in amazement at the seeming miracle of the paper diamond’s levitation. His gnarled but skilled fingers made it dance and spin as he played out a few yards of string to send it diving before it caught a gust and soared again.

  Militarized police in riot gear stood on the sidewalk just beyond the carts, their bullpup machine guns and pump shotguns as menacing as their black helmets, Kevlar vests, and combat boots. The rally for the Nationalist Party’s candidate was a controversial affair, and while the attendees were peaceful, the display of strength was to warn off any potential disruption by protestors who differed with the party’s platform. An earlier rally in Ganja the prior month had been marred by violence as the incumbent party’s adherents clashed with nationalists, resulting in dozens injured and still more arrested.

  Paddleboats meandered along the still surface of an emerald pond just beyond the shadows of the nearby Soviet-era apartment blocks that stretched toward the water like inky fingers. Clumps of inebriated spectators watched the watercraft while they waited for
the main event to begin, the faint stench from the nearby zoo masked by the aroma of cooking treats.

  Most had been there for hours, there being little else to do on a lazy Sunday. Some had been bused in by the organizers, others arrived by train; the party primarily appealed to the nation’s large disenfranchised working class for whom personal cars were a luxury. The party’s main support was in the country’s slums, and it presented itself as the voice of the laborers who had been left behind as the nation’s petroleum wealth disappeared into the pockets of connected administration cronies while the government stood by and did nothing.

  A man in his early thirties, his dusting of beard flecked with premature gray, pushed a broom along one of the paths that led to an abandoned train station that had once served as the loading area for a children’s railway that ringed the park in decades past. His blue coveralls were dusty and the knees stained, and he walked with a slight limp in scuffed boots worn from years of toil. A close inspection would have revealed eyes far above the intelligence level of the average laborer behind his cheap sunglasses, but nobody bothered, the security pass hanging around his neck sufficient to blunt any suspicion.

  He paused and leaned on his broom as he killed time, taking in the security detail without seeming to, confirming their location at the perimeter, as well as the undercover cops stationed strategically around the plaza. While not lax, the security was mediocre at best, and the janitor had to stifle an urge to smile. Nobody had checked his rolling trash bin or the broom – not that they would have found anything unless they’d X-rayed them. Secreted in the broom handle was the barrel of an untraceable sniper rifle, and the false bottom of the bin concealed an Armalite stock, breech, and trigger mechanism, along with a commonly available commercial scope and a single round of .308 ammunition, preloaded. The entire assembly had been fashioned from a hodgepodge of Russian weapons, none of them traceable.

  Yael was a seasoned professional with dozens of executions under his belt, and he’d already managed the trickiest part of the mission: getting within easy range of where the target would stand to deliver his speech. In less than an hour, the orator would shed his mortal coil while on stage, the victim of a lone assassin who would be shot before he could be arrested. Yael’s handler had already set up a patsy – a drug-addled ex-soldier in the latter stages of terminal liver disease who would bolt from cover at the appropriate moment, pistol in hand, drawing the fire of the soldiers and cops in exchange for a handsome sum paid to his mother in an offshore account.

  Like so many executions, appearances would be of a disgruntled militant rather than a highly trained operative of a foreign intelligence service, and the entire incident would be wrapped up neatly so there were no loose ends. Now, Yael simply had to find his way to the nearby sound booth, where he could conceal himself in the two-story platform and wait for the main event.

  He returned to work, pushing the wide broom with the characteristic lack of enthusiasm of the other workers policing the area, and inched closer to the sound booth as he cleaned leaves and dust from the walkway. He was nearly to the booth when he felt a thrill of apprehension, and he slowed, searching to identify what had triggered his silent alarm.

  There.

  Two men in windbreakers, eyeing him, one of them with a radio in hand.

  Yael remained outwardly relaxed and apparently uninterested in the scrutiny, but his heart rate increased by twenty beats per minute. He controlled his breathing, ignoring the undercover policemen, and offered a silent prayer that they would move on to more promising targets.

  It wasn’t to be.

  The one with the radio raised it to his lips as the other began walking toward Yael, one hand in his pocket, the bulge of a weapon obvious to Yael’s trained eye. Yael debated attempting to bluff his way through any questioning, but something about how they’d zeroed in on him gave him pause, and he swallowed hard.

  Aborting the mission was a difficult option, but if it was a choice between that or being caught, there was nothing he could do but call it off. He continued sweeping as his mind churned, and then he whispered a few words that his concealed microphone would carry to his handler.

  “Something’s wrong. I’m pulling out.”

  He didn’t wait for a response and instead picked up his pace slightly and altered his trajectory away from the sound booth, heading for a line of portable toilets that would offer cover. The cop was still at least fifty yards away, and the man hadn’t broken into a run, which gave Yael pause – maybe he was overreacting, his nerves too close to the surface?

  “You. With the broom,” a voice called out, and Yael instantly knew he’d called it correctly. Somehow he’d been blown. How could be figured out later. For now, he needed to get clear of the plaza.

  Yael pretended not to hear the warning shout, and then he was ducking behind the shelter of the toilets, all pretense of stealth abandoned as he made for the crowd lingering around the vendor carts on the opposite side. Nobody would shoot into a group of innocent bystanders – at least, that was his hope.

  He was a fast runner, but he resisted the urge to bolt, keeping his pace to a fast walk, wary of drawing any further attention. But he knew he couldn’t outrun the radio, and his options were diminishing with each passing second.

  He reached the crowd and hunched down, continuing to walk quickly as he unzipped his overalls. Once in the press, he shrugged out of the sleeves and pulled the remainder of the outfit off, leaving him in nondescript jeans and a dun-colored sweater. He balled the overalls into a wad, dropped them into a trash bin, and slowed his pace so he blended in with the rest of the gathering.

  Yael spotted the cop out of the corner of his eye as he neared the motorcycle he’d parked among several hundred others, and slouched lower. All he needed was a few more seconds…

  “You! By the motorcycles. Stop! Police!”

  Yael obeyed the order and waited as the cop came at a trot, his weapon now drawn. Any doubt that Yael was blown evaporated at the sight of the pistol. Nobody in their right mind would pull a gun and risk panicking the crowd unless they were sure there was a legitimate threat.

  “What is it?” Yael demanded, his hands by his sides, keys to the motorcycle in his right, the fob in his palm.

  “Put your hands up. Now,” the cop warned as he approached.

  Yael slowly obeyed, his expression puzzled. The cop spotted the keys and pointed at them with his gun. “Drop that,” he ordered.

  “What? These? It’s just my keys,” Yael said, estimating the distance to the officer at less than ten yards.

  “I said drop them,” the cop repeated as he drew closer.

  “Why? What’s going on here? And who are you?” Yael asked, stalling.

  “I told you. Police. Now drop the keys. Final warning.”

  Yael shrugged and angled his hand, and then depressed one of the buttons. A blast of compressed gas coughed from it, and the cop grunted as the projectile Yael had fired struck him in the upper chest, easily penetrating his shirt. Yael threw himself to the side as the cop struggled to raise his weapon, and then the man crumpled as the weaponized toxin hit his system and paralysis set in.

  Yael was back on his feet and lunging for the motorcycle even as the cop’s gun hit the ground with a clatter, and barely heard the shriek of whistles over the sound of the big engine roaring to life. He slammed the gear shifter with his foot and twisted the throttle, leaning forward over the handlebars to present as small a target as possible, expecting gunfire at any moment as he leapt the curb and zigzagged toward one of the barricades that had been erected to block traffic. He picked up speed as he rushed toward it, aware of the soldiers nearby twisting toward him with their rifles in hand.

  When the shots began, he was already zipping past the barricades in a blur, secure in the knowledge that hitting a fast-moving target, even with an assault rifle, was nearly impossible, especially if you wanted to avoid collateral casualties. His leg clipped one steel rod of a barricade as he blew
past, sending a shriek of pain through him as he accelerated, his teeth clenched in determination.

  A police car raced toward him, its roof lights flashing and siren klaxoning, and he swerved left and made for Koroglu Park, where the trees could provide cover. He jumped the curb as more shots rang out from behind him, and then he was streaking through the trees. Bullets snapped by him and ricochets whined off the pavement as he maneuvered. A startled family dove for cover at the sight of a madman tearing along the path amidst the barking of gunfire from the plaza, and he poured on the gas before exiting the other side of the park onto a busy street. He narrowly missed being crushed by a truck as he swerved onto the boulevard to a chorus of horns, and then he was speeding through gaps in traffic, urging the motorcycle to greater speed as he revved through the gears, the engine screaming into the redline.

  A shadow passed over him, and he chanced a quick look skyward. A helicopter hovered above, shadowing him. Yael could almost feel the crosshairs of a police sniper on his back and understood that it was only a matter of moments before a high-velocity round tore through him, ending his flight. He wended back and forth, slowing and speeding up as his mind raced, piloting the motorcycle erratically. He needed to lose the aircraft or at least find a way to ditch the bike out of sight of the helo and buy himself enough time to evade it on foot.

  A siren howled behind him and a police cruiser shot from a side street, forcing him forward at a suicidal pace. He darted through a tight opening between a bus and a car and cut hard right, drawing the bus’s ire and a shriek of brakes. Yael gunned the engine and pointed the handlebars at the sidewalk, bumping onto the strip of cement and scattering pedestrians as he tore along the walkway. He rocketed past the entrance to a shopping area and twisted the front wheel back onto the street, sideswiping a vendor pushing a food cart in the process before darting between two trucks, leaving the squad car well behind.

  Another glance overhead told him he wouldn’t lose the helicopter so easily. If he didn’t, it would radio his location, and it would be only a matter of minutes until his escape was blocked as the police organized. A horn warned him away from a van that had turned from an alley, and he cranked the handlebars hard left and entered the narrow passage between tall rows of buildings.