Harbinger Read online

  Contents

  Harbinger

  Acclaim for Wolfe

  Copyright

  Books by S.L. Shelton

  Dedication

  Dear Reader,

  One—Wed, Jan 26th

  Two—Thu, Jan 27th

  Three—Fri, Jan 28th

  Four—Sat, Jan 29th

  Five—Sun, Jan 30th

  Six—Mon, Jan 31st

  Seven—Tue, Feb 1st

  Eight—Wed, Feb 2nd

  Epilogue

  Map Western Europe

  Map Western Switzerland

  Diagram, The Keep

  Acknowledgments

  Predator’s Game

  Excerpt from Predator’s Game

  Harbinger

  A Novel by

  S.L. Shelton

  The 5th novel in the Scott Wolfe Series

  Acclaim for

  S.L. Shelton’s

  HEART-POUNDING

  Action Thrillers

  Waking Wolfe

  “Waking Wolfe is a tightly written story with engaging characters and fast-moving events… Throw in loose nukes, colorful Russian mobsters, nefarious Serbs, and some CIA guys and you’ve got yourself a thriller.”

  —Susan Hasler, Former CIA Analyst

  Author of Project: Halfsheep

  “The pages of this novel are filled with non-stop action and atmosphere so rich you feel as if you are there. Shelton is amazing at keeping tension throughout the storyline, and it was incredibly difficult to put this book down… This is an amazing debut novel. There’s no wonder why S.L. Shelton has received high praise and five-star ratings from a slew of high-profile reviewers.”

  —J.C. Wing

  Author of Alabama Skye

  “This was a great read. From the start it engaged my interest with an exciting setup that quickly drew me in… I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes spy or action thrillers. It's a roller coaster filled with great characters and nearly non-stop excitement.”

  —C.C. Bradley

  Author of Interim

  “Shelton hits the bull’s eye dead center for political espionage with Waking Wolfe… Imbued with rich detail and realistic, high-powered adventure, this action-packed, cleverly-devised plot whisks the reader along for a non-stop ride where ‘boy-next-door’ techno geek, Scott Wolfe, evolves into amateur international spy.”

  —Donna Cummins

  Author of Rain of Terror and A Reason to Kill

  “[Waking Wolfe] was one of those books where you jump in hoping for, at the very least, a semi-entertaining read, but instead end up craving more after turning the last page. Shelton's debut took me by surprise and I have to say, it was awesome.”

  —Book Addict 24-7 Reviews

  Bookaddict24-7.com

  Unexpected Gaines

  “Shelton has created in Scott Wolfe a character that may just rise in importance to the level of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan—this story will cover a mere two weeks of time, but the action that occurs is compacted so tightly that the timeframe is soon forgotten.”

  —Grady Harp

  Amazon Top 100, Hall of Fame Reviewer

  “A gripping tale from cover to cover! Superb characters with flaws as well as heroic attributes, with a thunderous storyline that leaves you craving more! Excellent!”

  —Amazon Reviewer

  “If you liked Shelton’s first book then you will really like [Unexpected Gaines]. If you have not read his first book, then shame on you because you are depriving yourself of the chance to read one of the best new authors writing today.”

  —LTC R. Huber

  U.S. Army (Retired)

  Danger Close

  “I was a fan of this series from the very beginning. S.L. Shelton’s first novel kicked off a wildly entertaining ride, and his story just keeps getting better and better with each installment.”

  —J.C. Wing

  Author of Alabama Skye

  “Certainly a book series just waiting for the big screen… True to form, the author has given us a spy thriller with all the action needed to get our attention… S.L. Shelton leaves us ready and eager for the next adventure. Awesome.”

  —W.N. Amazon Reviewer

  Wolfe Trap

  “Wolfe Trap will grab you from the first sentence, and before you know it, you’re on the last page. The book is fast-paced and action-packed.”

  —Melissa Manes

  Author, Editor

  “I’ve spent a good deal of time with Scott Wolfe in the recent months…he’s taken me on some hair-raising adventures. None so wild as this latest one. My advice to you, fellow readers? Buckle your seat belt, hold on tight and enjoy the ride. You have no idea what’s in store for you…but I can absolutely guarantee that you’re going to love it.”

  —J.C. Wing

  Author of Alabama Skye

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by S.L. Shelton

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Front cover, maps, and artwork contained in this book are Copyright © S.L. Shelton

  The cover image is a modified and stylized rendering that includes portions of photos obtained through Creative Commons Deed, License CC0 Public Domain.

  Books by S.L. Shelton:

  Hedged

  The Scott Wolfe Series:

  Waking Wolfe

  Unexpected Gaines

  Danger Close

  Wolfe Trap

  Harbinger

  Predator’s Game

  Splinter Self (Coming 2017)

  Back story: Lt. Marsh

  Follow S.L. Shelton at:

  wolfeauthor.wordpress.com

  www.goodreads.com/WolfeWriter

  facebook.com/SLShelton.Author

  SLShelton.com

  For Donald Cooper ~ Professor, Chemist, DEA, hot rod, husband, father, friend.

  You will be missed but never forgotten.

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for making the Scott Wolfe Series such a huge success, putting it into the Espionage, Political, and Techno Thriller Top 100 Bestsellers for its main outlet, the Amazon Kindle. I watch with gratitude, overjoyed by the growing attention.

  When I started this series back in May of 2012, I had intended to write it as a multiple-point-of-view third-person novel. I quickly realized that I wanted a much more personal point of view when it came to Scott Wolfe. After rewriting the first few chapters to address that desire, I realized I was much more satisfied as an author and was encouraged to continue in that direction by my early readers.

  While it can sometimes be jarring to jump from Scott’s brain into third-person narration, I’ve taken steps to reduce those moments to “bonus” perspectives: gifts to you, the reader, to help give you a deeper awareness of what’s going on outside of Scott’s line of sight.

  I hope as you read the series, you enjoy the unfolding saga as much as I have enjoyed writing it. There is little more that an author can hope for than what you have already provided—being emotionally entangled in the lives of our characters.

  Thank you once again for taking the time to discover Scott Wolfe, and I hope that if you enjoy it, you will mention it to others and post a review of your time with him. Scott and I both thank you.

  Very best regards,

  S.L. Shelton

  Author

  NOTE: Descriptions of facilities in this novel have been fictionalized for reasons of security and to reduce the number of future encounters the author might have with federal officers.

  one


  Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

  3:45 a.m.—Antwerp, Belgium, eight days after arriving in Belgium

  A brief buzz across the room pulled me out of sleep…it was my phone on the dresser. There was no hope of not waking Kathrin, but I slid out of bed and hurried to silence it anyway. I left the room, my toes cautiously leading the way in the dark. Behind me, I heard the covers rustle and a soft, complaining moan.

  Maybe she’ll go back to sleep.

  After quietly closing the bedroom door, I stepped into the living room to answer my call. Though I had memorized most obstacles in the apartment over the past eight days, as soon as I turned away from the bedroom door into the living room, my shin found a table I had forgotten. I’d been forgetting all sorts of things lately—passwords, proxy paths, account numbers—and it had me worried.

  “Yeah?” I whispered into the phone, my voice carrying a hint of the pain in my leg.

  “Hey. You need to move if you’re going to catch the deposits today,” came Storc’s worried voice, filled with excitement.

  “It’s not even four a.m. here,” I said with mild annoyance.

  “But you said you wanted to catch the couriers who are making the deposits in the upstream accounts we uncovered,” Storc replied, sounding a bit bruised. “And I don’t know where you are…so I don’t know how much lead time I need to give you.”

  “You’re right. Where’s the schedule taking us?” I asked

  “Calais,” he said, and then after a second’s pause, “France.”

  “I know where Calais is,” I replied, wiping the sleep from my eyes. “What happened to Bruges?”

  “I don’t think the Bruges deposits are a scheduled bank drop,” he said. “I think those are special use accounts.”

  Special use. That’s why I was interested in them. Nevertheless, without a reliable schedule, I could sit outside those banks for days and not see a single transaction…even if the organization we were targeting made a deposit or withdrawal. Hunting these bastards is getting harder, not easier.

  The immensity of my task felt like a physical weight on my shoulders. There were dozens, possibly hundreds, of accounts channeling tens of millions of dollars into illegal activities—bribes, weapons, mercenaries. Whoever had attacked Mark Gaines, the CIA training facility, and my boss John Temple—and whoever had been hunting me—was well-funded. Worse, they were very good at hiding the money and the source of the funds. If we were going to uncover the corruption rocking the US right now, our best bet was to find out how everyone was getting paid.

  A shiver of paranoia raced up my spine. The discomfort moved me across the room, where I peeked through the blinds to the street two floors below. There was no movement on the narrow avenue—not in the bath of light from the streetlights or in the shadows. Maybe it was just drafty.

  “They’ve had eighteen drops in Bruges in the last three months,” I said. “That seems pretty regular to me. Find the pattern… There has to be one.”

  “It would be a stab in the dark with those banks,” Storc replied defensively. “Look…if you want to go to Bruges again, that’s up to you. But that was two wasted days of surveillance last time. I’m just doing what you asked and mapping the deposit patterns.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip to prevent more bitterness from spewing out at Storc. He was right; I had been relying on him to take up the slack for my slowly disintegrating brain. I wasn’t just becoming forgetful—it felt like my mental capacity was shrinking by the day. He was doing what I had asked him to do without complaint.

  What the hell’s your problem, Scott? He’s doing the best he can.

  I took a deep breath and once again tried to formulate the pattern of the criminal account deposits in my head. A sudden stab of pain behind my right eye forced me to stop, reminding me why I needed Storc so desperately—and why I needed to trust his judgment.

  I shook my head in frustration as I plopped down heavily on the sofa. “No…I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  “Then get a move on,” he said with some satisfaction.

  I pulled my phone from my ear and looked at the time. “I have more than five hours before the bank opens,” I said, leaning back, suddenly aware that I was in danger of closing my eyes again.

  “Well if you’d tell me where you are, then I wouldn’t have to pad the timing on my warnings so much,” he replied with a note of hurt.

  Not only was I keeping myself safe by keeping my location a secret, but I was keeping him safe as well. I breathed out in resignation. “Fine. Calais it is. Send me the schedule and the addresses.”

  “So no clues where you’re staying?”

  “Just send me the bank info,” I snapped.

  I couldn’t seem to get it through Storc’s head that this was life and death stuff we were dealing with—most likely because he’d spent his whole life in front of his computer, either in his sweats at home or locked in his glass room at TravTech. It was bad enough that I’d had to completely isolate myself from our mutual friend—and now my employee—Bonbon because of her prying. I wouldn’t be able to do that with Storc. I needed him too much for tech support.

  And therein was my problem—I had brought him in on the operation without giving him all the details. To him, this was nothing more than a more exciting computer game.

  “Okay,” he replied after a minute. “It’s sent.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered unconvincingly. “I’ll send you a text when I get to Calais.”

  “You da man,” Storc said, monotone—I had hurt his feelings. “I’ll call you as soon as the money hits the account.”

  “Cool. Later, man.”

  “Later.”

  I’d have to try to patch things up after I was thinking more clearly.

  And when exactly will that be? I wondered.

  After scrolling through my secure e-mail to find the details Storc had sent, I went back to the bedroom, careful not to make any noise as I entered.

  After collecting my clothes, I went to the closet and retrieved the metal briefcase from the floor—the case with my Glock, ammunition, and cash. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kathrin sit up in bed. I turned to see a worried crinkle in her brow.

  “Morning,” I whispered after a wave of tension rippled across my chest.

  I pulled the holster from the case and strapped it across my shoulder before tucking the pistol into it.

  “Guten Morgen.”

  The tension in her voice mirrored the anxiety I felt from openly strapping on my weapon in her presence. But for some reason, I didn’t feel like the weapon itself was shocking to her…just worrisome.

  Don’t look at me like you haven’t seen a gun before, I thought, tucking a wad of euros into my pocket. One day soon, I’m going to ask what you really do. And until you share that with me—

  “Will you be home this evening?” she asked as I closed the case and stashed it back in the closet.

  “I think so.”

  She laid back, stretching one arm above her head in a dramatic and seductive pose. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  I smiled as warmth worked its way up from my chest to my head and down to my groin.

  “Yes. Yes, I will,” I replied with a wink before grabbing my new long black wool coat. “I’ll be home in time for dinner.”

  “Just dinner?” she asked, taunting me as she rolled to the side, giving me the briefest glimpse of the smooth curve of her buttocks before pulling the blanket back up to her chin.

  I walked over and leaned forward, kissing her full lips. “…and dessert,” I replied before turning to leave.

  “Be careful,” she said quietly as I reached the door.

  “I will,” I replied, once again brushing off the uneasy feeling she wasn’t being honest with me.

  She actually hadn’t disclosed anything, so she wasn’t technically lying. But every time in the past week, when the topic of her work or her uncle, who supposedly owned the apartment, came up, the subject of c
onversation had been changed. Very suspicious.

  I left the apartment and walked down half a block to the Audi RS6 I had rented at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris a few days earlier. I had arrived in Antwerp via CIA executive shuttle from Andrews a little less than a week before that, on the day the CIA Training facility at Camp Peary had been attacked by—who attacked us? I really need to figure this out.

  In my ongoing hunt to find the human depositors for the Cayman Island feeder accounts, I’d needed reliable transportation. I went several hours out of my way to rent the car in Paris so there would be no paper trail to tie me to Antwerp if it were discovered.

  I attempted to wake my slumbering inner voice as I drove the two hours toward Calais. It had been silent since the morning of the attack on the CIA training facility in Virginia, almost eight days ago. On several occasions over the past week, I had tried to access my “brain toys”, those mental gifts I had relied upon for as long as I can remember.

  Bracing myself for another try, I attempted to visually map the deposit schedule in Calais. Instantly, spikes of pain stabbed at the back of my eyes —and I got no visual data results at all. Even after abandoning the attempt, the pain continued to grow until I had to pull over to the side of the road.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I asked of my formerly ever-present schizophrenia, Wolf, hoping to draw a response.

  I waited in vain for a reply and for the pain to subside—I got no answer. Once the stabbing throb had dulled, I put the car in gear and resumed my journey. “When you decide to talk to me, I hope it’s with some good news,” I muttered. “I’m about sick of this shit.”

  Again…no response.

  “Whatever,” I added as I sped through the early morning dark.

  When I arrived in Calais, I spent an hour cruising around, looking for suitable perches from which to watch the bank entrances. If I was lucky—which so far I hadn’t been—I’d be able to ID the money carriers who were making the deposits on one side of the blind accounts. If I could do that, then I might be able to use their identities to trace back to the origin of the funds, and hopefully, back to the bad guys—or at least that was the plan.