Sector C

SECTOR C …

A rise in stroke-like cases has CDC analyst Mike Shafer on alert. Patients in every demographic in the Great Plains area, from toddlers to healthy adults to the elderly, are succumbing to rapid deterioration – and death.

Veterinarian Donna Bailey, meanwhile, is dealing with an outbreak of her own. It looks like mad cow disease.
But to be affecting so many species?
Impossible.

Whatever it is, it’s spreading. Fast.

 As state and federal agencies race to contain the growing threats, Mike and Donna’s searches for Patient Zero intersect at a big-game compound in a remote corner of North Dakota. There they find their answer buried in a secret thought extinct for 10,000 years. A secret entrepreneur Walt Thurman will kill to protect.

But even if Mike and Donna can escape the compound with the secret of Sector C, it may already be too late.

Because after today, extinct no longer means forever.

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Ripped from today’s research and tomorrow’s headlines, SECTOR C is a near-future medical mystery / ecothriller fans of Michael Crichton and Daniel Kalla are sure to enjoy. 

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“Settle in for a satisfying mystery that plays out through clues dropped into story lines you know must somehow be connected but you’re not sure how. Halfway through, you and the two main characters learn what the answer to the mystery is, then the MCs are off running for their lives, only to maybe be saved by – oh, now that would be telling!”

“Solid mystery in the beginning, fun thrills at the end.”

“With such a wild hypothesis at its core, the action in this book could have been ramped up right out of the realm of believability. A restrained hand makes the crisis not only
plausible,
you’ll be watching the news certain that it’s inevitable.”

“Don’t expect a pulse-pounding adventure beginning to end.
But brain-pounding?
If there was an ‘intelligent thriller’ category, SECTOR C would be in the top 10. It’s one ah-ha moment after another.”

VIKRAM SHANKAR SQUINTED DOWN the long metal barrel. Framed squarely in the sight, not two hundred feet away, the white tiger sat on its haunches, its lower jaw drooping, ribs rippling under a mat of chocolate-striped fur.

A sweet shot.

Vikram’s right finger closed over the trigger. He inhaled slowly, deliberately. Too seasoned a hunter to let the thrill overcome judgment, he took his time, savoring the anticipation.

The nasal
whounk
-ing of a snow goose flying overhead pricked the big cat’s ears, and the heavy-set head swung toward the sound. With pounding heart, Vikram exhaled.

The sight bead wavered. He glanced down, and realized his left arm had begun to tremble.

Hell. Not now.

He willed his arm still, but it jerked — wide — then jerked again. The barrel danced in front of him.

Something — whether the movement or some slight sound Vikram made — drew the cat’s attention. It rolled into a crouch, facing Vikram’s blind. Sunlight bouncing off the snow caught its blue eyes and they glistened like tanzanite as it peered into the camouflage.

The rifle steadied as Vikram’s muscle spasms quieted. Again he sighted down the barrel, waiting for another clean shot. As long as his arm cooperated, he could outwait the cat. And with two hundred thousand dollars on the line if he missed the kill, he could wait a very long time.

After a moment, the
tiger,
apparently satisfied no threat lurked behind the blind, rose, turned and padded across the snow. A slight drag to its hind leg appeared to be its only imperfection.
One that wouldn’t matter once it was mounted.
What mattered now was bringing it down with one swift shot.

A small veer and the cat presented perfectly. Vikram squeezed the trigger.

“Shit!” His left arm jerked the barrel aside just as the bullet lunged from its chamber. He was already setting up a second shot even as the tiger stumbled. A streak of blood bloomed across its shoulder. When the cat recovered two steps later, Vikram knew for certain the first bullet had only grazed it.

He tried to sight again, but again his left arm went out of control, this time slipping entirely off the barrel and flailing wildly.

“No!” His cry followed the retreating cat as it leapt through the snow.

The tiger arrowed toward the far end of the pen where the fence jutted rudely.
It hurled itself up, but the timbers, slanting sharply inward to prevent it from gaining a purchase, were too high to clear. It snarled as its heavy body fell back to the ground.

From the iron-barred blind, Vikram watched the cat —
his
cat — and cursed.

THE WIRY KEEPER MONITORING the hunt flipped
open
his phone.
“Got a wounded tiger in Sector B.”

“Need help?”
came
a prompt reply.

“Nah.”
The keeper, Lim Chiou, watched the cat pacing the fence line. “I’ll tranq it and see what Mr. Shankar wants to do.” Hunters missed shots. Not frequently, but it happened. Lim didn’t think Mr. Shankar was the type of man who would want to shoot a tranquilized animal, but he
had
paid for the kill. Others had taken that cheap shot and then talked up the hunt at dinner, never admitting the circumstances of the actual kill. Many of the hunters here ran multi-billion-dollar companies and failure in any form — including just the
appearance
of failure —
was
not an option.

Lim grabbed the rifle leaning against the watchtower wall, scooped up three loaded darts and headed out. The
iron gate
swung closed behind him. He didn’t bother to bolt it. Not only was the tiger at the opposite end of the pen, but Lim counted heavily on the experience he’d gained in the Army Marksmanship Unit during active duty
a half
-dozen years ago. It had been a long time since he’d missed a shot of any kind.

He pushed his palm out toward the blind where Vikram still sat, cursing his arm, the cat and anything else that came to mind. “Stay there until he’s down. It may take a few minutes once he’s hit.” Gripping the rifle comfortably, Lim walked out a few hundred feet, stopping within easy range of the pacing cat, where he loaded a dart into the gun.

The tiger edged away from Lim, following the fence. Putting the rifle to his shoulder, the keeper took aim,
then
fired, looking for the dart to embed itself in the cat’s muscular flank.

Instead, the dart nosed into the snow several yards short of its target.

“What the —” Lim stared at the dart, grimacing at the naked cartridge. A quick scan of the white ground turned up its bright red tailpiece about 40 feet away. Darts didn’t often fail, but even tailpieces from the best manufacturers were known to occasionally break apart from the hypodermics they were supposed to be guiding.

This, Lim decided, was setting up to be a perfect storm.

Agitated, the cat bounded across the pen, leaping at the fence, looking for a weakness, a break. It hit the unlatched gate and the timbers bounced on their hinges.

For a tantalizing moment, a sliver of an opening appeared.

Lim grabbed another dart to load.

In the blind, safe behind stout bars that kept hunter and prey apart, Vikram swore in frustration. Knowing the cat was beyond the range of his rifle, he raised the stock to his shoulder anyway, drew in a steadying breath and sighted.

The big cat swatted at the gate, causing it to bounce again. This time the cat hooked a paw through the narrow space that appeared between the gate and the fence. Then it froze, holding the gate partially open, unsure what to do next.

In the center of the pen, a rifle cracked. A single bullet ricocheted against the gate’s iron frame and fell harmlessly away. Startled, the tiger flinched, snatching back its outstretched leg. A claw caught in the frame, dragging the gate open along the arc of its retreating paw.

Without hesitation, it shouldered past the gate and sprang beyond it. A heavy dart flew after the fleeing cat, catching on the edge of the gate that swung closed behind it.

By the time Lim hit the gate at a run with his third dart loaded, the white tiger had disappeared into the Dakota hills.

 “FIND ANYTHING?”

In the trophy-filled den that passed as one of Triple E Enterprise’s executive offices, Lim studied the man who was facing him asking the question. For a board chairman and CEO whose company had just lost a two hundred thousand dollar tiger, Walt Thurman didn’t seem half as pissed as Lim expected. He shook his head. “The dogs followed it most of the day, but I don’t think that tiger wants to be caught.”

“You said Shankar had wounded it?”

“Yeah, but not badly enough to slow it down.”

“He missed his shot, he said, because he ‘got the shakes’. Something he had the last time he hunted here. What do you know about that?”