FEATURED TITLE
Title: No Killer Instinct
Author: R. E. Rothermich
ISBN: 978-1-62420-129-5
Genre: MysterySuspense/Adventure
Excerpt Heat Level: 1
Book Heat Level: 2
TAGLINE
What happens when an ordinary American businessman with
no taste for violence and no espionage experience suddenly finds himself
recruited for a top level covert mission with a multitude of lives at
stake–including his own?
BLURB
Its1993, Post-Cold War
Eastern Europe. In a forceful attempt to
reinstate Communist rule, a rogue Spetsnaz general has masterminded a coup
d’état to overthrow Russian President Boris Yeltsin, creating a clear and
present danger when he threatens to attack select European capitals with
tactical nuclear warheads stolen from a U.S. military weapons laboratory.
Tipped off by a well-placed spy in the Russian Army, the National Security
Agency learns the detailed plans of the pending disaster only 24 hours before
the imminent attack. Recruited by the NSA, along with a single company of U.S.
Army Rangers, is Mark Bucher, thrust into service while vacationing in Europe
with his wife. Bucher and the Rangers are the only ones at that time and place
who can even attempt to de-rail the attack; and the clock is ticking. Bucher
has the skills and the physical qualifications to do the mission. The question
is: When it comes down to the moment of truth, can Mark Bucher do it? The CO of
the Rangers has his doubts.
EXCERPT
Nearing Sassnitz, East
Germany
February 7, 1988
Hauptmann
Gerhardt Richter, Nationalen Volksarmee of the German Democratic Republic,
stared out of a dirt-smudged window of the northbound train and saw nothing.
Richter was totally immersed in his thoughts. Had the world around him actually
started to change, he wondered, or was he just starting to wake up to the
reality of his situation?
The
train was beginning to slow down, still several kilometers from the rail yard
and docking facilities of the ferry that would transport them across the
eastern edge of the Baltic Sea to Trelleborg, Sweden. If Richter were to have
directly answered his own questions, he could have simply responded
"Yes" to both queries and would have been totally correct. The young,
blond, blue-eyed captain was a victim of his own heritage.
The
Richter family was steeped in German military tradition. His father presently
held a high political office in the GDR, after having resigned his commission
as a general in the NVA due to failing health. Gerhardt's grandfather had
served as a colonel in Adolph Hitler's army.
Richter
recalled the stories his father often told of his own father's activities at
Dachau. Privately, among his family and close friends, he actually laughed and
made jokes about how the "mighty" colonel would march the Jews to
their death and have their bodies stacked like firewood on a cart to be hauled
away to some mass grave. Publicly, Gerhardt's father adamantly denied any
connection with the death camp and disassociated himself from anything
pertaining to the Nazi party for fear of reprisal. There was never any remorse
when he told these stories; they only seemed to become more graphic and more
obscene as the years progressed. He often openly admitted he idolized his
father and felt that he had been born one generation too late. These are the
men I am expected to emulate? These are the men who had an impact on my
military education and actually influenced my instructors? Gerhardt Richter had
had these thoughts before, but lately they seemed to hang on for longer periods
of time and were reoccurring much more frequently. In the past, he would force
himself to shake these thoughts and clear his mind, but today was different.
All
around him things were beginning to change. Young people talked of abstract
things like political reform and religion; they uttered words like
"justice" and "freedom." Something was about to change; it
had to. Richter could feel it in his bones.
Captain
Richter welcomed his new assignment as commander of the guard to supervise the
safety and well-being of East Germany's finest athletes as they prepared to
compete in the European Winter Games. In more realistic terms, it was his
responsibility that none of the athletes, coaches, or trainers—or guards, for
that matter—should attempt an escape to the free world. After all, that would
cause a terrible embarrassment to East Germany.
The
GDR had granted permission for its athletes to be showcased in this year's
competitions primarily to counteract the increasingly negative political
publicity it had been receiving over the last several months, but also because
the games would be held in and around Stockholm, and Sweden was considered a
neutral country.
Richter
was eager to accept any assignment that would remove him from the drudgery of
another gray winter in Berlin. He had heard Stockholm was a beautiful city,
even in the dead of winter.
Captain
Gerhardt Richter got up and stepped over the other five soldiers in the
cramped, smelly compartment of the special government train and into the
passageway lined with athletes, coaches, trainers, and NVA guards. The captain
was beginning to feel claustrophobic. The lack of ventilation made the smell of
cigarette smoke, perspiration, and other unpleasant body odors that much more
unbearable. An open-air cattle car would have been a huge improvement over this
form of travel.
Making
his way to the adjoining car, over the small platform above the couplings, he
stopped as a gush of frigid air enveloped him. The noise of the train was loud,
and the temperature was considerably colder here in a space only protected from
the outside air by the flexible accordion-type material, but there was no one
else occupying this space. The cold air was refreshing, and he could tolerate
the squeaks, the grinding noises, and the clatter of the moving train. Gerhardt
Richter lit a thin, wood-tipped cigar and promptly reverted to his previous
mode of deep thought. The slightest fibers of an idea were beginning to form.
Possible opportunities? Halfway through the slim cigar, one could detect only
by very close observation, a certain glint in the Captain's eye. The rest of
his face remained carved in stone.
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