B.O.R.N. for the Quest!
Hey everyone! This is just a quick Sunday update to let you know Rick and I are working with a great artist for our cover and the book is undergoing final editing and formatting this week. We are still on track for a late February release and we are so excited! Here's a sneak peak - an excerpt from Chapter 1 - Leap of Faith. Enjoy!
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Across town Mr. Smith looked at his vibrating iPhone. Intruder! Station 2. He cleared the message and casually dropped his phone into his pocket. “Is that them?”
“It is, and they’re a little ahead of schedule, which is promising. Here’s their next set of instructions from the Director.” The tall blonde in a red dress handed Mr. Smith an envelope with the names “Grant” and “Trillion” written in the smooth script of a practiced hand. She leaned in and gave him a hug.
“Where are you off to now, kiddo?”
“South Africa. Jo-burg is hosting the Global Development Conference this year and I’m attending as Tina J-Peterson’s plus-one.”
“Be careful, Ike. Johannesburg is no joke.” Mr. Smith held her at arm’s length, the concerned look of a doting father in his eyes. She wasn’t blood, but that didn’t matter to Mr. Smith.
“I’m a big girl, Pop.” She hugged him again, then turned and slid into her Tesla for the long trip to Washington D.C.’s Dulles Airport.
Mr. Smith watched his god-daughter drive away as his phone alerted him a second time. “Intruder! Station 2.” He leveled some gravel with his foot and then strolled to his old Ford pick-up and headed north.
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Trillion tried the roll-up door, but it wouldn’t budge. “This thing is frozen solid. I might be able to get it working but that’ll take some effort.”
While looking for anything that might be clogging the door’s tracks, Trillion found an old wire broom in the corner and started pushing the smaller rubble away from the door’s base. As he cleared a path, he noticed something out of the ordinary – an old paperback book was lying face down with a single loose page protruding from the top and an old painted tin horse standing guard majestically over the novel. In this dilapidated building, the old book stood out not because most of the pages were missing, but because there wasn’t even a hint of dust on the cover. Trillion flipped through the few remaining sheets in the book – no smudges, no tears, not even a pencil mark or dog-eared page. If he had to guess, he’d wager the book was a plant. The cover appeared artificially aged while the pages appeared new, and the spine wasn’t even creased. Someone tried to make the book look old, but missed the details. The horse struck him too. It was meticulously hand painted with a jet-black mane, bright blue eyes, and white-trimmed hooves. He noted that the musculature of the tiny tin sculpture, with one hoof raised and head rearing back, was intricate and delicate at the same time. The base had been inscribed by hand, and painted silver – 109:8. No idea what that means, he thought. Looking once more at the cover, he saw that the book was a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird with a single page askew that could as easily have been a bookmark as it could have been a random loose page.
Grant glanced over at his partner and saw Trillion drop an object into his pocket. “What’d you find there, Sarge? Anything good?”
“Oh, nothing but an old copy of To Kill a Mockingbird with most of the pages missing.” He looked at the book in his hand, thumbed the horse in his pocket, and walked over to Grant handing him what was left of the book. “There isn’t much left – a lot like this building.”
Grant recognized the askew page from the text as the scene where Atticus first addressed Scout by name. The book was required reading in his English Literature Appreciation class in college. But Grant would have recognized it anyway. He was one of Harper Lee’s biggest fans and he could recite practically her entire novel from heart. He remembered the gut-wrenching decision to attend class when he wanted to attend her funeral. That someone would desecrate Mockingbird like that Grant thought was criminal.
The pair went back to shuffling the rubble in the bay and inspecting the trash they found. Trillion meticulously eyed each piece he picked up while Grant shuffled with his Nikes through debris on the ground. It was during the first few minutes of inspecting that Grant had an epiphany. He picked up a faded advertisement for an oil change – just 79 cents – with a black and white picture of a 1953 Hudson Hornet. Thanks to his father, Grant had always been a car guy. And thanks to the flier and the Hornet, the old white building suddenly became more than just an old garage. The idea started to take shape in Grant’s mind that this old building could actually be a piece of automotive history. He looked at the Hornet and then around the garage at the decades of clutter and wondered, what secrets are you keeping?
“I wonder what RNB wants us to do?” Grant said absent mindedly as he wiped the dust off the old advertisement and stuffed it in his pocket before fiddling with the only locked door in the building. Hmm. Maybe I can climb over the wall.
Trillion stopped in his tracks and looked at Grant who seemed lost in thought or recollection – he couldn’t tell which. The kid seemed out of place in the old, dirty building, with his long sandy hair and naturally athletic build more akin to a surfer than an impromptu handyman. What do I know about surfing or shade tree mechanics? Maybe they look alike. At six feet two and about one-eighty-five, Grant was taller and thinner than Trillion, which made the elder see him as less experienced and frankly less capable based on his decades spent turning boys into soldiers. From his position in the garage, Trillion could see the black and white photo of an old car on the flyer in Grant’s pocket. He recognized the old Hudson immediately from the pictures one of his soldiers used to carry around.
“Maybe I can help with that.”
Grant and Trillion turned to find an older gentleman standing in the doorway. He was dressed in perfectly pressed khaki pants and hiking boots with immaculate crew cut silver hair. His blue work shirt was neat and spotless, just like the rest of him. Trillion thought he looked like he had stepped straight out of an old Gomer Pyle episode.
“Mr. Smith?” Trillion assumed RNB had alerted Mr. Smith they would arrive this morning.
“That depends.” The man wasn’t rude, but he wasn’t forthcoming with information either.
Grant looked at Trillion, no expression on his face. “Depends on what?”
“Depends on whether you are Mr. Grant David Connor the Third,” he nodded towards Grant, “and Master Sergeant Morgan Richard Grant, US Army retired,” he nodded towards Trillion.
“And if we’re not?” Grant asked with a bit of attitude.
“Then you’re trespassing. I have your car blocked and the Sheriff will be here shortly.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Smith.” Trillion stepped forward and held out his hand. “My friends call me Rich or Trillion. Retired Master Sergeant Rich Grant.”
He shook Trillion’s right hand and passed the note from RNB with his left. “Before you open that, I have something you need to see.”
Mr. Smith walked over to the locked door Grant had been fiddling with. Instead of pulling out a key, he held up a pass card and swiped it across an innocuous-looking white square. From inside the wall they heard an audible “click” and the door popped open. Mr. Smith tucked the pass key into his shirt. “This way.”
As Mr. Smith opened the door, lights flickered on, which seemed equally as odd in the abandoned building as Mr. Smith and his pass card popping up out of the blue. He led them through a small compressor room about the size of a closet and down into a large submerged sump collection tank. The tank itself sat slightly below ground level and was approximately ten feet long and six feet in diameter. Sitting at each end of the tank on makeshift tables were two devices that Trillion had seen before.
Trillion stopped and put his hand on Grant’s chest, backing the two of them out of the tank and into the stairway. “What is this?” The anger on his face and in his voice directed squarely at Mr. Smith.
“This, Master Sergeant Grant, is your mission.” Mr. Smith stood in the exact center of the room and turned to face both men. He gestured to each device. “I believe you have seen these IEDs before.”
