Mortal Threat Read online

  Mortal Threat

  By A.J. Tata

  Mortal Threat

  All Rights Reserved © 2015 by A.J. Tata

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Published by A.J. Tata

  For Brooke, my talented and beautiful daughter

  Praise for Mortal Threat

  “AJ Tata’s Mortal Threat reads at a blistering pace while weaving a cure for Ebola, a 30,000 year old religious document, a president who thinks he’s of divine origin, and a burgeoning ISIS threat into a tightly knit plot. Amanda Garrett is a new breakout heroine as she races across the Serengeti to save the cure from the evil men who seek it. Great stuff.”

  —Jeremy Robinson ,

  International Bestselling Author of ISLAND 731 and SECONDWORLD

  “…captivating, riveting. Once you start MORTAL THREAT, you won’t want to put it down.”

  — Grant Blackwood ,

  NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of The Briggs Tanner series

  “When I’m not writing, I like to read, and I read books in my genre. I’m very choosy in my reading and there’s a lot to choose from. That’s why I like Tony Tata. There is a ‘been there, done that’ feel to his storytelling, his characters are vivid and engaging, and his plotting is tight and well-paced. So I highly recommend Mortal Threat and Foreign and Domestic. ”

  --Dick Couch ,

  NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of Act of Revenge

  Praise for A.J. Tata

  “An explosive, seat-of-your-pants thriller!”

  —W.E.B. Griffin and W.E. Butterworth IV ,

  #1 New York Times best-selling authors

  “Topical, frightening, possible and riveting!”

  —James Rollins ,

  NewYork Times best-selling author

  “Powerful and timely. Great stuff!”

  —John Lescroart ,

  NewYork Times best-selling author

  “Anthony J. Tata is the new Tom Clancy. . . . Electrifying!”

  —Brad Thor ,

  #1 New York Times best-selling author of Black List

  “Every military thriller writer wants to be compared to Tom Clancy, but to be called better? That’s what Anthony J. Tata is hearing . . . very realistic.”

  —Paul Bedard,

  U.S. News and World Report

  “Riveting entertainment at its best!”

  —The Military Writers Society of America

  “Vince Flynn and Brad Thor better watch out because there is a new player in the genre. A must read!”

  — Author Magazine

  Advance Praise for Foreign and Domestic :

  “FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC delivers!

  “Anthony Tata’s new thriller Foreign and Domestic is absolutely fantastic! It captures the pulse-pounding intensity of Lone Survivor and wraps it in a brilliant, cutting-edge plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page. This is the kind of thriller writing that will remind you why you fell in love with reading, and reasserts why Tata truly is the new Tom Clancy. Turn off your phone, lock your doors, and jump into the phenomenal new book that everyone is going to be talking about.”

  —Brad Thor , #1 New York Times best-selling author of Black List

  “Tony Tata writes with a gripping and a gritty authority rooted in his matchless real-life experience, combining a taut narrative with an inside look at the frontiers of trans­national terrorism. The result is so compelling that the pages seem to turn themselves.”

  —Richard North Patterson , #1 New York Times best-selling author of In the Name of Honor

  “General Tata’s story mixes high-threat combat with an intriguing and surprising mystery. Disgraced Delta soldier Jake Mahegan finds himself tied to a crime that proves to be much larger and more dangerous than anyone suspects, involving national security, and hitting far too close to home. Vivid and complex characters make this a fascinating read.”

  —Larry Bond , New York Times best-selling author of Exit Plan

  “Grabs you and doesn’t let go . . . written by a man who’s ‘been there,’ this vibrant thriller will take you to places as frightening as the darkest secrets behind tomorrow’s headlines. The enemies in these pages are, indeed, ‘foreign and domestic,’ and it’s hard to say which are more frightening. Bound to be a breakout book for a gifted storyteller who served his country as splendidly as he writes!”

  —Ralph Peters , New York Times best-selling author of Hell or Richmond and Lines of Fire

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  The Book of Catalyst

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  The Olduvai Gorge

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Timeless Footprints

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Sample Chapter from Foreign and Domestic

  About the Author

  Connect with A.J. Tata Online

  Prologue

  Iraq, Nineveh Province, January 2013

  As Iraqi Army tanks prowled the barren streets like hungry jackals, American media mogul Jonathan Beckwith watched his hired document thief through the lens of one of his many satellites orbiting the earth.

  Tonight, Beckwith’s task for Mohammed Aktar was to secure documents that could hold the most sacred truth ever hidden from mankind. Beckwith believed his target, thirty-thousand-year-old sheets of animal skin called vellum, contained undeniable proof of God.

  Thus, his “consulting payment” to Aktar, a part-time guard at the ancient library of Ashurbanipal in Northwest Iraq, had been one million dollars. Beckwith used a toggle switch to pan and zoom the video feed so that he could watch his money in action. He could see the worry etched onto the man’
s wizened face as Aktar stood in the dark alley by the loading dock behind the library.

  Beckwith had chosen Aktar because he was on a closely held list of document thieves, and it helped that he was also an anthropologist, linguist, and world civilizations teacher at a prestigious high school in Mosul, Iraq. One of Beckwith’s Internet miners had hacked Aktar’s home email and gained access to the man’s hundreds of communications into the dark nether regions of document thievery. Beckwith’s interest had been piqued when he’d found an exchange from Aktar to a friend in Egypt, “The victors write history, while the vanquished are forever condemned to the scrap bin.”

  True, Beckwith thought, like so many strips of silicon littering a film producer’s floor, the powerful decided which ancient texts and documents to preserve and which to discard.

  Beckwith watched as Aktar stood nervously in the dark alley. The man was thin and lanky, and his jacket flapped like a loose sail fluttering against its mast in a gale-force wind. Aktar’s target was in Sennacherib’s Palace in the ancient, Old Testament walled city of Nineveh. Directly across the Tigris River from Mosul, this fortress was to Biblical Mesopotamia what Luxor and Karnak had been to ancient Egypt. In 1847, Sir Austen Henry Layard had unearthed this palace to discover over twenty-two thousand cuneiform tablets, most of them etched in Sumerian, the oldest documented language in the world. Layard had secreted them back to Great Britain like so many treasures stolen from this land to advance political careers or enrich already fattened purses.

  Beckwith planned to best Layard with this mission.

  A watchful moon cast a silvery glow onto the khaki-colored dirt street in front of Aktar. The man pressed himself against the ten-meter-high mud and brick wall, built thousands of years earlier. The stone pillars of the vaunted historical fortress stood erect, perfectly cylindrical in their countenance, like sentries on guard.

  At nearly two o’clock in the morning, Beckwith watched from his massive yacht, the Intrepid , cruising peacefully in the Red Sea as Aktar retrieved bolt cutters from beneath his coat and cast one more skittish glance in each direction. Beckwith had instructed Aktar not to use his key so that the theft would appear to be a burglary. With a quick move, Aktar placed the pincers on the master lock securing the hasp to the loading dock at the rear of the museum. With the lock removed, he was soon inside the cluttered storage room adjacent to the loading dock.

  Beckwith switched displays to the cameras inside the library, which his Internet miner had manipulated to upload live streaming video so that Beckwith could follow his thief. Aktar passed through multiple hallways, and Beckwith was glad to see the man leave the gold crowns and chalices untouched.

  Beckwith had studied the Book of J and the Book of E , the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the Hebrew Tanach, and many other religious texts. What he had learned was that all of the scriptures had been eventually recorded from memory after being passed along by the oral traditions of tribal chiefs or religious scholars. The hierarchy of those who determined the canonization of Biblical texts fascinated him. To him, it seemed that all of the religions essentially agreed on the basic pretexts of a God creating the universe and man. It was this particular issue, the creation of man, which had captured Beckwith’s attention.

  In November 2012, one of his Internet miners had pinged on a secure email from an Al Rhazziq Media server farm in Morocco that had mentioned the location of the Book of Catalyst, a fabled alternative to the Book of Genesis that had been dismissed as fairy tale. However, Beckwith wanted it, and had vetted document thieves until landing upon Aktar, who was now making his way down the marble staircase that led to the cavernous storage area.

  The building Beckwith was watching shuddered. Beckwith scanned another screen, where he was monitoring the combat actions between Iraqi troops and insurgents in nearby Mosul, and the library appeared safe.

  Looking back at the internal cameras, Beckwith watched Aktar shine a powerful flashlight on a steel cage. Retrieving the bolt cutters, Aktar snapped the thick-gauge steel around the key lock, reached through the newly fashioned gap, and turned the deadbolt to open the door.

  Aktar moved quickly. His flashlight found the third row of wooden containers sitting atop a graying pallet, and he removed the top wooden box and used the bolt cutters a third time.

  Zooming in now, Beckwith watched as Aktar carefully removed the brittle protective cover from what was essentially a humidor. But instead of housing cigars, this container stored the secrets of civilization, Beckwith believed. He was reassured when he watched Aktar rub his thumb and forefinger across the material and nod his head, confirming that the parchment was vellum and not papyrus. Vellum had been used throughout Africa prior to the birth of Christ, whereas papyrus, much more fragile, had been common in Egypt and Greece after Christ’s birth. Beckwith watched his motivated thief gingerly sort the documents. About two-thirds of the way into the box, Aktar stopped. Beckwith gripped the camera, his palms sweating on the camera controls. Aktar must have found the targeted pages.

  The thief stared at the documents. Beckwith felt his hands shaking. If these papers were indeed what he believed, then his understanding of them might be the first since the author had penned the originals, or perhaps since a fearful tyrant thousands of years ago had locked them away in the trash pile of history.

  Beckwith watched Aktar use the flashlight to study the six pages of the text and drawings, and he zoomed the camera even closer so that he could see the script. It looked like a mix of hieroglyphics, Sumerian, and something that closely resembled Swahili. He saw a sun and a starburst followed by legible script in aging ink, perhaps henna, that the author had used to pen the words.

  Beckwith pictured the Book of Catalyst in his hands. He had so many questions. Could this be one of the many religious books that had not been included in the King James Bible? Why was it hidden deep in the bowels of this museum? How was it that Layard had taken over twenty thousand tablets back to Britain and yet left these boxes? Was he unaware of its significance? Concerned about political ramifications of a holy text that gave credence to the import of sub-Saharan Africa in man’s origin?

  Beckwith clasped his hands as he watched the thief carefully place the vellum parchments in a wax envelope the size of a manila folder. He secured the envelope in a cardboard protected casing like a FedEx envelope, closed the box, took the lock, replaced the other container on top of it, and retraced his steps out of the museum.

  Beckwith switched satellites to follow Aktar through the streets of Nineveh. The thief ran east, crossing the river and scampering through the narrow, dusty roads toward the Ark Church. He finished the two-mile trek back to his home, much of the distance due to his circuitous route to avoid ISIS ambushes.

  Again, Beckwith switched to another set of monitors in his yacht command center. He watched Aktar quickly lock himself inside his study after ignoring his wife, who seemed to be pleading with him as she gestured for him to stop. Beckwith’s excitement disappeared when Aktar placed the documents on his scan/fax/copier machine. Aktar then looked into the hidden camera, took a step away and aimed an AK-47 at the fiber optic lens. Suddenly Beckwith’s eyes were gone inside Aktar’s office.

  But Beckwith had been ready for this. He knew not to trust a thief. Aktar would not be making a fool of him today.

  He turned to Styve Rachman, the redheaded, earring wearing, twenty-something kid who he paid three hundred thousand dollars annually to mine for emails that could benefit him. One day it might be a patent application that he could steal; the next it might be a message about a rare document.

  Aktar’s digitized packet of information he thought he had securely faxed, now relayed off Beckwith’s satellite to his mini-server farm aboard the Intrepid .

  Rachman said, “Got it.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “He’s sending it to the language guy in Egypt. Raul Akunsada. He punked you.”

  “I get that. What’s the email say?”

  “Well, he att
ached the scan and a cover page, so in a way, you’ve got the documents.”

  “I need the originals.”

  “Some strange stuff here. I’m just going to read the cover page with the hand written translations: Baba Yetu Mungu. Our Father God. Kitabu Wakati Moto. Book of Fire Time . In the beginning there was a Catalyst, which produced life. This Catalyst was God who created the earth and the stars and water and fire and life.

  “There is a beginning, a middle, and an end.… The black footprints are timeless. In 1436 he will walk the path toward peace.

  “There’s a drawing of a heart and then going to the sky. Then…the mortal threat will be no more. ”

  “That’s got to be the Book of Catalyst,” Beckwith gasped.

  “Could be. If it’s real,” Rachman said.

  “Real? Shit, son, this is where Layard found the tablets. I need you to destroy Aktar’s and Akunsada’s computers with a virus, and I’m activating my go-team to retrieve the originals.”

  “Roger that, boss.”

  Beckwith watched Rachman’s fingers skitter across the keyboard as he sent a text to his two-man private military contractor team that was waiting in a Humvee not far away. He leaned back and looked at the ceiling of the command center, where an image on the corner television caught his eye.

  He had totally forgotten a new president was being inaugurated today. Jamal Barkum stood before the masses of the Washington, D.C. Mall. Beckwith punched up the volume using the remote.

  “And I say to all of you that today we march on toward a better destiny. Our footprints are timeless. Thank you and God Bless America.”

  And suddenly Beckwith thought he understood.

  1

  Mwanza, Tanzania: January 2015

  Amanda Garrett used her heel to kick open the plywood emergency room door. Her two rubber-gloved hands were holding one end of a medical stretcher while her protégé, Kiram Omiga, held the other.

  “She doesn’t have much time,” Amanda said. The small African girl on the litter was huddled in the fetal position, Ebola-infectious drool seeping from her mouth. The girl was wearing a pink T-shirt and green shorts. Amanda noticed the dilated pupils and white salt stains on her face from a sweat that had stopped hours ago.