Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (39 page)

Lisa Hughey has been writing romance since the fourth grade, which was also about the time she began her love affair with spies. Harriet and Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys later gave way to James Bond and Lara Croft and Jason Bourne. Exploring the complex nature of a profession that requires subterfuge and lies fascinates her. She loves combining her two passions into fiction. As evidenced by her Black Cipher Files series.

Archangel Rafe was her first foray into the paranormal but after spending time in the Angelic Realm, it won't be her last. At their heart, the Seven novels are about the dynamics of family relationships. But the really hot Archangels don't hurt.

And recently she's been immersed in the Stone Family novellas, four stories about a blended family of brothers and sister who have a lot more in common than they realize. But of course she couldn't just write about family and romance. There are complex plots, bad guys, and suspense too.

Lisa loves to hear from readers and has various places you can connect with her, although, shh, Twitter is her favorite.

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EXCERPT FROM BETRAYALS

ANOTHER BLACK CIPHER FILE

Disinformation n. Deliberate spreading of false information with intent to mislead.

August 31

Afghanistan

Something snuffled in the corner.

I curled my arm protectively around the meager bowl of whatever they’d brought me. No stinking rodent was going to touch my daily ration.

The dank smell of urine-soaked sand, feces, and human sweat filled the fetid air. A thin layer of grit and despair coated everything, including my tongue. I vowed never to set foot on a beach again.

Probably wouldn’t anyway. As I was likely to die in this godforsaken rathole of a prison. I scooped the cooked until mush food into my mouth greedily, careful not to spill a single grain.

Hard to believe a month ago Jordan and I had been dining on spice-rubbed porterhouse and chipotle garlic mashed potatoes in D.C.

That life was long gone. The contrast between then and now was laughable.

Then I’d dabbed daintily at my mouth with a soft linen napkin. Now I lapped the bowl with my sand-coated tongue and carefully sucked on each dirt-crusted finger.

If malnutrition didn’t kill me, the germs probably would.

I could hear the woman, our chef, server, and general attendant, coming. But I wasn’t finished.

Fuuuuuccckkkkk.
I screamed the expletive silently. I’d learned brutally fast that cursing in this prison, especially from a woman, was taboo.

One by one, the locks clicked open. I huddled over the tiny tin bowl, licking with short, frantic strokes, trying to eat it all before she took my food away.

My arm chains clanked as they swung together, ringing in the silence. I ignored the extreme stabs of pain in my left arm.

The woman scurried in furtively and eased the door closed.

This was a change in routine. Subtly, I shifted to a higher state of alertness. The bruises, aches, and burns from the last ‘change in routine’ still hadn’t healed. I was pretty sure the radius bone in my left forearm arm was broken.

Fortunately not the ulna and fortunately not my shooting arm. I hadn’t had a beating or torture session in a few days. They’d left me alone.

“Miss,” she whispered in Pashto.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how much they knew about my background and I wasn’t about to give anything away.

“Miss.” This time she whispered in Dari.

I remained silent.

“Miss.” Next it was Modern Standard Arabic. Something must have flickered in my eyes because she continued in Modern Standard. “Come. I will let you go.”

My brain whirred. It had to be a trap. Let me go and then follow me. Thinking I’d lead them to whatever they thought I had.

Common torture tactic. Slowly break down all barriers to civilized behavior until the prisoner was more animal than human. Then dangle the carrot of freedom and watch the animal lunge for it.

If I was in their shoes, that’s what I would do.

I sat quietly, waiting for her next move.

She started stripping off her burkha.

That wasn’t right. A woman showing her face, her arms, her legs was not tolerated. Especially not in front of the prisoners. Walking around without the covering meant certain death.

Maybe that was the test.

See if I’d react with compassion. Would I think of someone else before myself? I analyzed each possible reaction and action for this situation.

One. Take the burkha and take my chances. But what about the woman?

Two. Help her put the burkha back on. And stay.

Three. Stay still and do nothing.

Inaction was always my least favorite response. And I’d been trapped in this prison for two weeks.

As she lifted the veiled hood from her face, she was crying. They’d coerced her into doing this.

She knew as well as I she’d be dead if she set foot out of this cell without the covering.

“Put the burkha back on,” I whispered in Pashto.

“They are going to kill you.” The rough wool tangled in her hair, muffling her voice.

And what do you think they’re going to do to you?

I wanted to be free, but not at the expense of this woman. I wrapped my arms over my chest, stifling a gasp as the wrist cuff banged my injured forearm. “Go back to your duties.”

“My slavery.” She spit. Kneeling beside me, she jiggled the key to open the shackles. “You must go.”

The glob of mucus lay in the middle of the sand and dirt floor. “No.”

“They killed my
xawand
.” She stood in the middle of the room, proud and fierce, dressed exactly like me in a grey cotton shift. “They killed my
mashums
.”

Her husband. Her babies. Her family.

I understood that kind of loss.

I understood the rage and the grief. I understood the unquenchable lust for revenge. I’d used the emotions on more than one occasion to recruit agents for the CIA.

Because the same had been used on me.

Excerpt from Stone Cold Heart

The first novella in a series featuring the Stone Family siblings, Jess, Connor, Riley and Jack….

Family Stone #1 Jess

In the early evening dusk, Jess Stone lay on her stomach in the twenty foot high rubble of a demolished church, underneath a black and gray city-scape tarp intended to camouflage her position. A sharp-edged chunk of debris dug into her lower rib cage, the scope of the Remington M24 cool and familiar against her face.

Her standard uniform of jeans, running shoes, and plain black t-shirt rendered her just another anonymous and transient relief worker...which she was actually. A black baseball cap hid her distinctive multi-hued blonde hair. The paper mask kept out the contaminated dust from the destroyed buildings but did little to stem the overwhelming stench of decaying bodies.

Tanks rumbled through the destroyed coastal town, their public address system blasting warnings for citizens to stay in their homes, curfew was in effect. The threat was a joke. Ninety percent of the people in the town didn't have homes left. Those who did were terrified to go back inside. In the fetid, humidity choked air, the tent cities erected in the parks and on the beach were seething masses of the injured and shock struck.

The substandard construction in the small country had never been enough to withstand the angry might of Mother Nature. Buildings had toppled like a stack of Tinkertoys, and left crumbling cement walls with twisted rebar poking out of the jagged ruins like a skeletal hand.

Trapped in the concrete pieces that littered the ground, the heat from the tropical day seared through her thin sturdy clothing. The stank of the raw sewage that ran in rivulets through the streets overpowered the salt-laden breeze off the ocean. People, covered with the grit of pulverized buildings and humans, shuffled along with blank vacant stares. Two weeks after the quake, still in shock, their lives decimated first by nature and then kicked and beaten by the ineffectiveness of a flawed relief system. Hundreds of humanitarian agencies had descended on the population duplicating efforts and yet completely missing the need in other areas. The government was ostensibly trying to coordinate the effort, however the mass chaos was undeniable.

Through the Leupold Ultra M3 fixed power sight, she tracked the movements of Henri LeRoy, leader of this tiny island nation, violator of human rights and dignity, and all around poor excuse for a human being.

Sickness roiled in her stomach. The power bar she’d eaten for breakfast threatened to add to the rubble pile as she tried to figure out how in the hell she'd ended up here. Back behind a sniper rifle with the power over life and death trembling in the muscles of her right trigger finger.

Dammit. When she'd decided to take control of her life and quit the FBI, she hadn't wanted to do this any more.

She'd wanted to be a simple relief worker. She'd wanted to connect with her family, brothers and mother.

But that bitch, fate, had slapped her upside the head and now here she was, where she'd sworn she never wanted to be again. Looking through the scope of a high-powered rifle, with a crystal clear head shot and a murky sense of right and wrong.

With little fanfare, she could blast LeRoy's brain matter all over the silk-covered walls and the antique Louis the XIV scrolled chairs in the receiving room of his ridiculously elegant weekend mansion which, since built properly, had sustained minimal damage. Her muscles twitched with the knowledge and acceptance that with one slow slide of her finger, the despotic, amoral leader would be history.

Jess didn't want to kill him, didn't want to be directly responsible for another death. She didn't want this choice. She’d given up this kind of life. She'd left the FBI after a series of high stress cases to get away from the doubt and guilt that had crippled her. To make her own decisions about right and wrong rather than carry out the commands of her bosses.

But if Henri LeRoy lived, chances were astronomical that many other citizens would die.

And yeah, she'd probably been manipulated into this. Actually no probably about it. Assassination had not been listed as one of her duties when she'd joined Global Humanitarian Relief. Damn her brother anyway.

But now all she could do was lay here in the desecrated remains of the former church and hope that her special skill set wouldn't be needed.

Fortunately, she was secondary backup.

And unless several things went horribly wrong, she would break down her weapon, get back to the relief aid encampment, back to actually helping people, and be out of here without ever firing her rifle.

Then she could hand out seed packets to her heart's content and figure out what she was going to do next. If she'd stay with GHR and her brothers, or go. First, she had to get through the next two hours.

But if something did go wrong...she prayed that if she was called upon, she could make the right decision. Make the shot. Cold zero.

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