NEMESIS
The Beginning
by
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Stu Gallagher was sweating, he could feel the sweat tricking down his spine despite the bitter cold of the old warehouse; it was gathering in the small of his back above his belt and in his belly button. He also felt wet on the inside of his thighs as the fear initiated involuntary perspiration and a dangerously racing heart beat.
Thump, thump, thump------.
“Damn, why the hell didn’t I call for support instead of chasing that thing up the stairs?”
Thump, thump, thump------.
Stu closed his eyes and tried to slow his heartbeat with deep, slow breaths. “In, hold, out slow, in, hold, out slow.” He opened them again in near terror and wide-eyed scanned his surroundings, quickly moving his head first to the right and then to the left. “How stupid am I? Damn it! That thing could have snuck up on me when I had my fucking eyes shut.”
Thump, thump, thump------.
After taking several more deep, slow breaths Stu felt calmer and free of the near-panic of a few moments ago. Now almost in control of his fear, he slowly scanned the vast room as best he could in the poor light and satisfied that no one or no thing was approaching, he risked looking at his cell phone and attempted to dial his office. He tried several times before shutting the cover and placing the cell phone back in his coat pocket. “Can you hear me, what bullshit!”
Another tortured scream and Stu involuntarily jerked towards the sound.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump----
“What the hell is he doing to him?”
“Stu, help, help me.” Another scream and then multiple thuds and whimpers like a dog being beaten. Another gurgling scream and then panting.
“Jesus, what is he doing, why doesn’t he just kill him?”
With his heart now up to one hundred and eighty beats a minute and the sweat stinging his eyes, Stu forced himself to concentrate as he tried to listen for any sound of the thing approaching. He squinted his eyes, blinking away the sweat, trying to focus on any moving object in the shadows of the vast room.
“Nothing, but the bastard could be behind anyone of these pillars.”
The storage room was maybe three hundred feet wide and five hundred feet long with huge round pillars every twenty feet or so to support the floor above. Stu stood with his back against one of the pillars; gun out, waiting for the thing to attack him like it had attacked his partner Roger Brown.
He looked back towards the door, now closed and locked, and contemplated making a rush for it and freedom. Maybe he could shoot out the lock.
Another scream, much weaker this time; pathetic and whimpering, tearing at Stu’s heart.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump----
“Jesus, kill him please, don’t make him suffer like this.”
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump----
“Shit I feel bad, please God don’t let me faint.”
Another scream, gurgling as it struggled through a blood filled throat. Then another and another; a little weaker each time until a heavy, soft plop like a limp body falling to the wooden floor and then silence.
It was only twenty minutes since Stu and his partner had entered the old warehouse to search for illegal weapons. They were responding to a tip off that the Phoenix Project had been stockpiling weapons in New York. The warehouse was an old wool store and hadn’t been used in years. The informer had said that there was a cache of hi-tech military style weapons hidden on the third floor. They hadn’t really believed the tip but it was strong enough to be checked out. Stu and Roger had offered to do it at the end of their shift on their way home. It wasn’t going to take more than a half hour or so and then they could drive to Murphy’s pub for a few beers and a discussion of the day’s events, just as they did every day after duty.
They had just entered by the main door and were adjusting to the dim light when the old fashioned wrought iron lift door suddenly opened with a loud clang and a huge man reached out and grabbed Roger by the throat and dragged him back into the wire cage.
It happened so fast Stu didn’t have time to react. He stood for seconds unable to believe what had just happened then galvanizing himself into action, he reached for his gun, fumbling with the lock strap on the holster and then again with the safety catch, “Fuck, get it together Stu, Roger is in bad trouble,” he thought. Gun out and safety off but too late, the lift door was closed and the lift beginning to rise before he could position himself for a shot.
As the floor of the lift reached his eye level a frustrated Stu could see Roger struggling and being held at least a foot off the lift floor by a huge white hand gripping his throat. Still trying to get a clean shot in before the lift disappeared, Stu saw only a horribly disfigured white smiling face with glaring, insane red eyes above and behind Roger’s head and then the lift was gone.
Instinctively, Stu began to run up the stairs two at a time in an attempt to beat the lift to the next floor. However, he hadn’t realized that this building had twenty foot ceilings and by the time he had reached the next landing, already breathing heavily and perspiring, the lift was already past and on its way to the next floor.
Thump, thump, thump----...
“Fucking heart; Jesus, please don’t give out on me now!”
Pausing to take several deep breaths, and vowing to lose fifty pounds and get fit when this was over, he began to run up the next set of stairs albeit a little more slowly that he had run up the first two flights. By the time he got to the second floor he could hear the lift doors opening on the floor above. Leaning with his back to the wall, he took several minutes to regain his breath and prepare for the next ascent.
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About the Book
Nemesis – The Beginning
This is the first in a series of books about William O’Brien (Bill). Bill is biologically enhanced, rich, single, and handsome; loves children, would never hurt a woman, loves his country and is also a professional assassin and reluctant agent of the US government.
Bill’s comfortable world turns upside down when he discovers on a trip to Australia that he has a brother and that his affairs are not as secret as he had thought. Whereas he has always known that he is a biologically superior human being, he discovers that his birth was the result of early research by a Doctor Kurt Bachmann, a Chilean exile from Nazi Germany.
As the story unfolds Bill, and his newfound brother Andrew, are involved by the US government in a long running battle between it and Doctor Bachmann and his evil daughter. Dr. Bachmann has produced a professional killer called the ‘Foe’ who he is using to assassinate members of the US Government’s Iron Glove project. Bill decides to become involved when his brother reveals that it was Doctor Bachmann’s daughter, Marilyn, who murdered Bill’s parents.
Bill and his brother Andrew track and engage the Foe, the Doctor and his daughter from Washington DC and San Diego in the US to an Island off Chile and finally to the jungles of Guatemala where the final battle is waged.
It is in Guatemala that Bill discovers his roots. This is where the first story ends, (and the second one begins).
About the Author
Frank McKenna is a San Diego based software engineer who has designed many commercial application software packages, written countless papers on knowledge management and a text book on records management.
He has lived and worked all over the world for the last 30 years (Africa, Asia, Europe, USA, Canada, South America, Australia and New Zealand). He has also worked with security forces in the USA, Australia and South Africa on classified projects and has first hand experience of how these agencies really work.
Frank’s first book has a solid foundation based on his knowledge of security, defense, computing and his international lifestyle. It is also enriched with his sense of humor and his flowing, easy-to-read writing style.
Link to Author''s website: http://www.nemesisthebeginning.com/