One False Move
David Callinan
Author Bio
I have been a journalist, editor and PR consultant handling blue chip clients but I began as a musician. I toured with Elton John, Rod Stewart and Billy Connolly and I co-wrote a Celtic rock-opera for the Edinburgh Festival that featured Pierce Brosnan.
Description
Ex US assassin, ex Hong Kong Police, ex esoteric monk, Irish-American Mike Delaney, is forced to offer his life in place of his kidnapped wheelchair bound friend Bob Messenger and his daughter. Delaney has just four hours to locate and rescue them from the hands of a crazed escapee, a figure from his past, hell bent on turning the wheelchair into an electric chair and wreaking revenge on Mike Delaney
Book excerpt
The Monk faced the rising sun, his feet planted firmly on the rocky outcrop high above the monastery.
Thoughts, memories and visions swirled through his mind unimpeded by conscious awareness. Mike Delaney meditated upon the golden orb of the Californian dawn spreading like shimmering treacle over the desert plain interspersed with swathes of dense chaparral.
He experienced joy, elation, an intense loneliness, regret and helpless pain as he allowed his mind to free fall through his life and memories.
Delaney would never be able to commit to a life of spiritual discipline with the esoteric Brothers of Light despite the times he had retreated here over the years. He would always be and remain a part-time novice. It was ironic that his code name on the crime busting website confess-confess was The Monk.
Delaney watched his shadow stretching across the bare rocks, undulating over crags and crevices. His breathing had become shallow as he began his Tai Chi routine and intense breath control techniques that had honed his fighting skills to a level unknown outside the inner sanctum of the Order.
He began to descend into a deep hypnogogic state when his cell phone rang.
Delaney reacted as though electrocuted. He cursed himself for not switching off his phone before he had walked up to his favorite meditation spot. He slipped his hand beneath his full-length, dark blue habit and withdrew his cell. He paused for a moment to allow his mind to rise into the present before answering.
“Delaney.”
“Mike, thank God I found you,” the woman’s voice sounded panic stricken.
“Laura,” said Delaney. “What a surprise. How are things? How’s Bob?”
She didn’t reply at first and Delaney could hear her voice catching between barely controlled sobs.
“Laura, what’s happened?”
“Mike, it’s Bob. He’s been kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?”
“Taken. We’ve been over from London visiting the Chicago office. Pandora was with us. Yesterday a truck pulled up as we were leaving the hotel and men wearing balaclava masks grabbed Bob and the wheelchair and pushed him up a ramp into the van and were gone. The whole thing took about three minutes. I couldn’t stop them and nobody would help. I’ve been trying to reach you…”
“Professionals,” said Delaney. “I’m at the monastery in California. Have they contacted you?”
“They sent a package to the confess-confess office this morning. Mike, it gets worse.”
“What do you mean?”
There was a desperate pause on the line.
‘Laura?”
“They took Pandora from our hotel room. They’re holding them both.”
“Pandora?”
“She’s only fifteen. What’s going to happen to them?”
“Have they made a ransom demand?” asked Delaney as he marched hard and fast back down along the track that led to the monastery,
“That’s just it,” said Laura as she struggled to control her emotions. “Whoever they are, they don’t want money.”
“I see,” said Delaney. “Did they say what they did want?”
“Yes, they did.”
Delaney waited.
“Mike,” Laura told him. “They want you.”