The Quest: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 6 (25 page)

     “What else did you learn?”

     “Not much. Most of the buildings were blacked out. The farm house was lit. Electrically. No candles or lanterns. They apparently found a generator that was working and repaired some of the light fixtures.

     “Still, most of the house was darkened. All of the lighted rooms had their shades drawn. But I was able to peek into a couple of them.

     “I didn’t see much at all. A couple of ranch hands playing cards. Another one boozing it up with a girl. That’s about it.”

     Sara was perplexed. And almost nauseous with worry.

     “Okay, Mr. Ranger. You’ve got way more experience in this than I ever want to have. In your best estimation, what do you think happened to Tom?”

     “I don’t know. If it was daylight, I would have looked for his horse. That would at least tell us whether he made it that far.

     “Of course, if it was daylight,
I
wouldn’t have made it that far.

     “He might have been shot. He could have been taken hostage, but I doubt it. There wouldn’t have been any reason to.

     “I think the only other possibility is that Payton made him stay the night as a guest. He’s not the kind of man who’ll take no for an answer, and Tom wouldn’t have any way of telling us he was staying over.”

     “Do you really think that’s what happened?”

     “I don’t know. But I hope so. It beats the heck out of the other theory.”

     “So what do we do now?”

     “We wait. The sun will be up in a few minutes. If Tom stayed the night as Payton’s guest, he’ll find a reason to leave not long after breakfast, and will be back here by noon.”

     “And if he’s not here by noon, then what?”

     “Then we’ll have to try my backup plan.”

     “Which is?”

     “I’ll tell you. But you won’t like it.”

Thank you for reading

THE QUEST

Please enjoy this preview of the next installment in the series,

Countdown to Armageddon, Book 7:

CASTROVILLE

        From her vantage point in the darkened hayloft, Sara commanded an unobstructed view of much of the lower part of the barn. The light from the torches danced across the faces of those assembled below and left a medieval feel to the scene playing out before her.

     She still didn’t know Randy Maloney’s whereabouts, or even if he’d survived the attack, but she prayed he was there among the others, to provide her whatever aid he could in her getaway.

     As for saving Tom Haskins’ life, it was now or never, for she knew she was running out of time.

     A lesser woman would have felt the gravity of the situation, and would have panicked. Or might have frozen at just the wrong moment. But Tom was lucky in that his life lay in the hands of a very strong and capable woman.

     It mattered not that the weight of the world, or at least the very lives of two good people and maybe a third, lay directly upon Sara’s shoulders. She was up to the task.

     She hadn’t fired a weapon since she’d removed Glen’s ugly face from his “Father of the Year” plaque some months before, but it didn’t matter. Her aim was true. She assumed a shooter’s stance in the shadows of the hayloft, took a deep breath, and squeezed the trigger.

     Her first shot struck Payton in the center of his chest.

     As his limp body crumpled to the ground, her second shot hit a stunned Wimberley on the left side of his head, just behind the temple.

     The others were slow to respond, having just seen their brutal leaders fall lifelessly before them.

     And, as she has hoped, none of them had the resolve to offer any further resistance.

    
Cut off the head of the snake,
Tom had told her,
and you remove the threat.

     As if on cue, Randy Maloney burst free from the back of the crowd and was already working to free the noose from around Tom’s neck. Then his hands, all the time glaring at the crowd as though daring them to make a move.

     None did. The crowd had suddenly turned docile. Almost timid.

     The crisis was over.

     Sara walked to the edge of the hayloft, in full view of the crowd now, and stood ready to shoot anyone who made a move for a weapon. The murmurs racing through the group below made it clear that many were amazed this tiny girl, just barely a woman, had stood up to and conquered two of the most vile men Texas had ever seen.

Countdown to Armageddon, Book 7:

CASTROVILLE

will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in December, 2015.

If you enjoyed

THE QUEST,

you might also enjoy

ALONE Book 1:

Facing Armageddon

     Dave and Sarah Anna Speer had been preparing for Armageddon for years. They thought they’d covered all the bases, and had planned for everything.

     It never occurred to them that the single thing they had no control over was the timing.

     Sarah was on an airplane with her young daughters when solar storms bombarded the earth with electromagnetic pulses. Everything powered by electricity or batteries was instantly shorted out and would never work again.

     Dave was suddenly alone.

     He was also unsure whether his family was dead or alive. He assumed that the airplane stopped working and plunged from the sky. But it was scheduled to land in Kansas City at almost the exact time everything stopped working.

     Had they landed in time? Was it possible they survived?

     This is the story of a man facing Armageddon alone. It chronicles the things he does to survive in a newly vicious world.

     It also includes Dave’s desperate and poignant diary entries to his wife. Just in case she did survive, and somehow makes it back to him to find he didn’t make it himself.

     From the author of last year’s best sellers “Final Dawn” and “Countdown to Armageddon” comes a new tale of one man’s journey through hell… alone.

Chapter 1:

     Dave couldn’t get the tune out of his head. He’d heard it all morning long, off and on, playing quietly in the back of his skull. And it was driving him crazy.

     Oh, it wasn’t unpleasant. It was a happy little ditty. At least it sounded that way. It sounded more like sunshine and smiles, rather than rainclouds and foreboding.

     Finally, he’d had enough.

     “Okay, let’s play a game,” he announced while looking in the rearview mirror at Lindsey and Beth.

     “I’ll hum you a tune, and the first one to guess the tune gets a candy bar when we get to the airport.”

     Sarah looked at him from the passenger seat. With
that
look.

     “Excuse me, mister? You’re going to get the girls all hyped up on sugar just before I take them on a four hour plane ride?”

     “Not both of them, honey. Just the one who guesses the name of the song.”

     “Uh… no. If that song is still bugging you, just hum it. If any one of us guesses it, you can buy each of us a cinnabon.”

     The girls laughed. Beth gave Lindsey a high five. Lindsey said, “All right! Go, Mom!”

     Dave coughed. At first he had no words.

     Then he found some, and stated the obvious.

     “Why is it okay to get all three of you hyped up on sugar but not okay to do it to just one of you?”

     “Because you know I have a thing for cinnabons. And I’m the mom. So that makes me the boss.”

     Lindsey broke out in uncontrollable laughter from the back seat, and Beth said, “Ooooohhh, Dad, you just got
owned.
”

     “I don’t know if it’s worth it. I mean, those things aren’t cheap, you know.”

     “Oh, we know, don’t we girls?”

     Two heads nodded up and down behind her.

     “But, Dave, they are soooo worth the price. And I’ll give you a bite. And think how sweet I’ll taste when you kiss me goodbye.”

     Beth made a gagging sound.

     “Besides, if you want us to help you with that song, you have to pay the piper. It’s only fair. And if you don’t, it’ll continue to drive you crazy for days. Maybe even the whole week we’re gone. And we’d feel so bad for you if that happened.”

     “Yeah, you’re just oozing with sympathy for my plight.”

     Sarah smiled and blew him a kiss. She was even more gorgeous now than the day they’d met thirteen years before. It suddenly dawned on him that he was an incredibly lucky man, to have such a beautiful wife and family. And that the price of three cinnabons wasn’t that great, in the grand scheme of things.

     In other words, he played right into Sarah’s hands. She knew he would, as soon as she let the kiss fly.

     “Okay, here goes.”

     Dave started humming the tune that had played in his mind a thousand times since the previous evening.

     It took the three of them no more than ten notes. They’d have been “Name That Tune” champions in another era.

     All three of them blurted out, almost simultaneously, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

     Then Dave felt incredibly stupid.

     “Of course. How could I have not known that? The old Mr. Rogers theme song. Sheesh! Now I really feel dumb.”

     Sarah said, “Did you know that Fred Rogers was a Green Beret in Vietnam, and wore his red sweater to hide all of his tattoos?”

     Dave scoffed.

     “Where did you hear that?”

     “On the internet. Why?”

     “That story’s been going around for years. It was debunked a long time ago. Mr. Rogers was a fine man, but he was never a Green Beret.”

     “Oh, yeah? Where did you hear that?”

     “On the internet.”

     It was too much for Lindsey.

     “Gee whiz, would you two stop believing what you read on the internet? Nearly all of it is garbage.”

     She turned to her little sister.

     “Do we have to teach these old people
everything?
”

     Beth said nothing but nodded her head decisively. She was in firm agreement.

     Dave was a man of his word, and after the family checked in at the ticket kiosk and Sarah and the girls got their boarding passes, they made a beeline to Cinnabon.

     “Daddy, are you going to walk us to the gate?”

     “No, honey, I can’t go through security without a boarding pass, so I’ll walk you as far as I can and then you can give me a great big hug and a kiss.”

     “I wish you could come with us.”

     “I know, sugar. I wish I could too. But with two of the guys being sick at work, they just can’t let me take vacation right now. Uncle Tommy will understand, and we can go fishing another time. And you’ll be so busy helping Aunt Susan get everything ready for the wedding, you won’t even have time to miss me.”

     “Bet I will!”

     Sarah looked at him longingly. They were going to be apart for their twelfth anniversary. It would be the first one they’d missed.

     It was as if he could read her mind.

     “We’ll do something special when you get back, I promise. We’ll get a sitter and go spend the weekend at the lake. Just the two of us.”

     “I’d like that.”

     He walked the three special ladies in his life to the TSA checkpoint and got his hugs and kisses.

     He held Sarah close and told her he loved her.

     Little Beth rolled her eyes and said, “No mush, you two.”

     Dave paid her no mind. He looked Sarah in the eyes and said, “It’ll seem like forever before I see you again.”

     Neither of them had a clue how true those words would be.

ALONE, Book 1:

Facing Armageddon

is available now on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers.