Book One excerpt

“No! No! It can’t be you! You are dead!” the British spy cried as he staggered down the steep steps of the ruined Roman Amphitheater leaving a trail of blood for his murderer to follow. The wounded spy staggered into the dramatic ruins of the Roman stage behind which the full moon glowed over a breathtaking view of the Adriatic Sea. The shadowy silhouette of his murderer silently stalked him, precisely descending the ruined steps toward the terrified man. The terrified man staggered to the very edge of the Roman ruins before which there was a dramatic dead drop all the way down to the sea level commercial harbor. “You’re dead! You died in Peshawar! You’re dead! Simla said you died!”

“Hell! Simla says I don’t even exist” the shadowy man chuckled. “You are about to be executed by a figment of a discredited spy’s imagination! Doesn’t that make your death feel so much better?”

The glowing moon cast the wounded man into a cowering silhouette as it suddenly dramatically illuminated his assassin. The assassin smirked as he aimed his revolver for the killing shot. “And of course Simla is always right!” the assassin laughed as he aimed for the heart. Then he delivered the coup de grace. The British spy fell backwards off the cliff into the commercial harbor of the Adriatic city of Trieste, the port city of the Austro Hungarian Empire. The assassin smirked in the moonlight as he bestrode the ancient stone stage of the Roman Amphitheater. Then he slipped his revolver back into his shoulder hoister and laughed. Dramatically he gestured on the ruined site of ancient high drama before the empty seats of an invisible audience.

“And so dies the only man who can stop the assassination of General Charles Gordon!” the shadowy spy laughed. “And with the stage managed assassination of the most glamourous war hero in the world I will embroil the Austro Hungarian Empire and the British Empire in accidental war! Then like a line of dominos the entire Levant will spiral out of control before crashing in a thundering cascade of bloody chaos and contrived anarchy ! My prize, the Suez Canal, will fall right into my black hand!”

Suddenly there was sound! Then a dark fugitive figure hovering among the upper ruins of the amphitheater darted away! “Damnation but someone has been eavesdropping on my soliloquy! A voyeur! Well! Curiosity kills the cat!” Then the assassin pulled out his revolver and ran up the ruined steps in hot pursuit of the fleeing figure!

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