The Geronimo Breach
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Authors: Russell Blake
The Geronimo Breach
Russell Blake
Copyright 2011 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
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.
CONTENTS
Excerpts from Russell Blake’s novels
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
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Excerpts from Russell Blake’s novels
By Russell Blake
King of Swords
is an epic assassination thriller set in modern Mexico against a backdrop of cartel violence. Captain Romero Cruz discovers an assassination plot to kill the Mexican and U.S. presidents at the G-20 conference in Cabo San Lucas by "El Rey" - a super assassin responsible for some of the world's most shocking killings.
By Russell Blake
Fatal Exchange
is the story of Tess Gideon, an iconoclastic female Manhattan bike messenger with an appetite for the wild side embroiled in a rogue nation’s Byzantine scheme to destabilize the U.S. financial system. As the body count climes, Tess is targeted for extermination by a rogue nation's torture squad while being stalked by a brutal serial killer.
Go to the
Fatal Exchange
excerpt
The Geronimo Breach
Bullets peppered the dirt around Al and his partner. They instinctively returned fire, the barrels of their automatic rifles pulsing from burst after burst of armor-piercing slugs. Thick smoke belched from a crippled station wagon lying on its side by the mouth of the rural alley where they’d taken cover. The glow of burning fuel intermingled with the unmistakable stench of seared flesh, creating a nauseating haze. A slug ricocheted off the peeling wall, gouging a chunk of brick from the dilapidated surface.
A flickering of illumination from ancient streetlights succumbed to the gloom of late evening, casting otherworldly shadows over the rustic thoroughfare – now transformed into a killing zone.
White noise and static shrieked from their radios – not that they could distinguish anything in the cacophony of the firefight. The concussion of gunfire had devastated their hearing, and the ringing from tinnitus obliterated all sounds besides the percussive chatter of their guns.
Squinting down their sights at the blurs of motion on the rooftops of the bombed-out buildings across the street, they paused, turning to give each other a knowing glance before returning their attention to their assailants and squeezing off their last rounds. They weren’t going to make it. This was a deathtrap; they’d been boxed in with no hope of escape. Help was at least fifteen minutes out, assuming their base had received the solitary frantic distress call before the radio had been taken out. It didn’t look good.
The incoming fire escalated to a hail of screaming death. Rifle ammo depleted, they un-holstered their army-issue Beretta pistols and fired intermittently in the direction of their attackers, to no obvious effect. They exchanged panicked looks – this wasn’t supposed to happen; just a routine patrol in a secure area with no reason to expect hostiles, much less heavily-armed ones intent on slaughtering them. It was supposed to be a cakewalk.
Dave’s gun jerked as he reflexively squeezed the trigger, again and again, even after his magazine was spent. Al glanced at him with alarm and then elbowed him back into the fight. Dazed, Dave stared at the useless weapon in his hand, before dropping the Beretta and frantically fumbling for the scarred knife handle protruding from his belt. He almost had the serrated edge free from its sheath when his head exploded in a blast of bloody emulsion.
Al spat out the essence of his mutilated partner and expended his last rounds in a defiant salvo, squinting at the shadows in an effort to make each shot count. Cursing silently when his ammo ran dry, he tossed the handgun aside and bared his trusty blade for the final reckoning.
Shouts in an unfamiliar tongue drifted from beyond the dense smoke at the alley’s mouth. A bright flash momentarily blinded him as a flare bounced down the length of the cobblestone passage before coming to rest a few yards from his now trembling body.
Four figures emerged from the gloom, cautiously approaching the soldier’s hiding place through the fog of burning oil, their rifles trained on his blood-spattered profile. Pointing at the ludicrously inadequate combat knife clutched in Al’s shaking hand, the tallest of the bearded, turbaned warriors barked a guttural cackle. He handed his firearm to the figure beside him and from beneath his filthy robe withdrew a gleaming, viciously curved blade as long as his arm. He sliced at the air with it, savoring Al’s horrified gaze as it whistled its grim tune. The turbaned warrior grinned maliciously and moved forward.
The angel of death had arrived, and it was time for Al to die.
He shielded his head with his arms, all thoughts of attacking with the knife now gone.
The bearded executioner smirked.
Sobbing, the last thing Al registered as the scimitar descended to sever his head was a bloodcurdling scream from his executioner; a victory yell as old as the god-forsaken hills of the foul dustbowl that had claimed his mortality.
Al bolted awake, the image of the flashing blade still vivid, even as the specter dissolved into a muddy, waking awareness.
What the hell?
His chest heaved from the adrenaline rush triggered by the brutal nightmare, his heart trip-hammering in his chest as he shook off the bitter remnants of the dream state. He sluggishly scanned his surroundings; dimly visible silhouettes of furniture offered a quiet reassurance he wasn’t anywhere near a gunfight in some non-specific shithole, or being decapitated by a malevolent mullah straight out of central casting. Damn, that had been realistic. He cleared his throat, wiping the sweat from his face with a damp hand.
A battered air conditioner wheezed from its position on the wall, barely denting the heat and humidity in the squalid room. The bed sheets beneath him exuded an odor of sour perspiration and years of marginal laundering. A car’s un-muffled exhaust roared down the street outside the window; the moth-eaten curtains providing slim insulation from the racket.
Still, it was better than being beheaded in a mud-hole.
Al tried to sit up but was sapped of energy. Pausing to muster his strength, he registered a tickling on the skin of his right leg, as though ghostly fingers were brushing at the hair just below his knee. He groped for the small bedside lamp on the table by his head and after several seconds found the power switch on the cord hanging down the side. A weak yellow light flickered on and he gingerly pulled the threadbare sheet off his naked lower body.
He froze.
Two claws gnashed at the air over the greenish black carapace of a highly agitated scorpion. The arched tail lashed at Al, its venomous stinger fully exposed. He went rigid, his skin instantly covered in a film of clammy sweat. The poisonous insect became more agitated by this physiological change and, enraged, it scurried up Al’s thigh and plunged its deadly barb into the soft, exposed flesh of his groin.
Al thrashed to full wakefulness, clutching his calf in agony, expunging the scorpion dream as he dealt with this all-too-real distress. The pain was blinding as the large muscle of his lower leg cramped into a rigid ball, taking his breath away as he pawed at it, trying to persuade it to release. His back shuddered with spasms from the effort of bending nearly double – he wasn’t exactly in prime shape for gymnastics, and the effort of stretching to loosen the knot had pinched his sciatica, compounding the excruciating discomfort from his traumatized lower leg.
Harsh experience had taught him to maintain a grip on his toes no matter what and exert steady pressure on the Achilles tendon, pulling and coaxing the contracted muscle until it relaxed. If he surrendered to his back’s protestations the cramp would worsen and the ordeal would go on seemingly forever – either way there would be pain, garnished with even more pain.
He groaned with anguish. What kind of fresh hell was this anyway? Why him?
A blurry flash of the prior evening’s debauchery intruded into his labored calisthenics. He vaguely recalled lurching up the stairs to his dingy apartment swigging the last of a cheap bottle of coconut rum after many hours of drunken gambling at the neighborhood watering hole, and the loud argument with the bartender about soccer, transvestites and how the Chinese were Satan’s henchmen, but the rest was a blank, with the exception of copious quantities of alcohol. The memory of the rotgut triggered his gag reflex, filling his mouth with bitter saliva as he choked down vomit.
The spasm in his leg eventually loosened and he cautiously slid his legs off the bed and stood up. So far, so good. He kicked an empty bottle out of his path and leaned against the wall, stretching his hamstring while he massaged his back with his free hand. Hopeful the worst was over, Al limped to the coffee table in the studio apartment’s sitting area and collapsed onto the sofa, dimly aware of something wet adhering to the side of his head. He reached up and peeled off the offending item; a slab of congealed lard and dough.
Pepperoni.
Nice.