Chasing the Captain Read online

  Chasing The Captain

  Terry Shepherd

  Ramirez & Clark

  Praise for Chasing the Captian

  With CHASING THE CAPTAIN, Terry Shepherd’s indomitable heroine, Jessica Ramirez, teams up with strong women you're sure to love in this fast-paced international adventure!

  Tori Eldridge, Anthony Award-nominated author of THE NINJA BETRAYED

  A thrill ride from start to finish!

  Dänna Wilberg, Best-selling author and filmmaker

  Superstar protagonist Detective Jessica Ramirez is resilient and tenacious when it comes to seeking justice. Adding a Latin spice female heroine to the equation leaves the reader hungry and wanting to dive in for more.

  Traci Ruiz, Deputy Chief of Police, Michigan State University. (THE REAL LIFE DETECTIVE ON WHOM JESSICA RAMIREZ IS BASED.)

  Indomitable female cops hot on the trail of justice (and maybe a little revenge), bad guys I loved to hate, an international conspiracy, a little romance, and one blazing action sequence after another kept the pages turning and me happily reading until the end. Can’t wait to see what Jessica and the gang get up to in the next installment."

  Kerry Schafer, author of THE SHADOW VALLEY MANOR MYSTERY SERIES.

  Buckle up! CHASING THE CAPTAIN is a break-neck ride crammed with tension, action, and kick-ass characters. The pages will flash by and when you finish, you’ll want more. An excellent thriller.

  DP Lyle, award-winning author of the JAKE LONGLY AND CAIN/HARPER THRILLER SERIES.

  Terry Shepherd's latest installment of the Jessica Ramirez series is packed with girl power action, nonstop suspense, and compelling characters that hit close to home. In CHASING THE CAPTAIN, we join Detective Ramirez and her colorful counterparts on a mission that runs as deep as her love for the job. As a lover of the unexpected, I was full-on floored with every turn of the page.

  Shepherd is one of those rare authors who can bookend a masterful action scene with poetic prose, descriptive settings, and human emotion, leading readers to fall effortlessly into the diverse worlds he creates.

  Kate Anslinger, author of THE MCKENNA MYSTERIES

  Terry Shepherd knows how to weave steamy romance into a popcorn thriller that grabs you from the opening scene. Jess and Michael finally come to terms with his drugged-up marriage proposal at the end of CHASING VEGA. And Alexandra Clark gets her own delectable love interest. Two couples trying to sort out their compartmentalized emotions as bullets fly and the bad guys seem to be everywhere. Just my kind of love story!

  MacKenzie Masters, author of PLEASE HER and PANDEMIC LOVE

  With the same wit and cynicism only hard-working officers can have, Shepherd has brought back his best investigators, and you feel like these are people you know! And will cheer ‘em on all the way..

  Authors on the Air Book Review Crew

  Terry Shepherd’s second thriller sends Jess and Ali to London and Moscow, chasing “the one who got away.” Shepherd’s layered plot flies like a ballistic missile. His inclusive cast is augmented by a resourceful mixed-race London DI and an MI6 director who guides one of the world’s most sophisticated spy operations from a wheelchair. With CHASING THE CAPTAIN, Shep has conjured another winner, where heroes come in all shapes and sizes the twists and turns keep you turning the pages until the last secret is revealed.

  Lyle Cunningham, Telemachus Reviews

  For Colleen, who believed in it.

  And for Traci, who lived it.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  1. Automotive Proving Grounds—Rochester Hills, Michigan

  2. Andrews Air Force Base—Maryland

  3. National Transportation Safety Board—490 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, DC

  4. The River Bend Maximum Security Prison—Nashville, Tennessee

  5. TEN YEARS EARLIER - Paloma, Illinois

  6. PRESENT DAY - The River Bend Maximum Security Prison—Nashville, Tennessee

  7. He’s Dead

  8. The Man in the Limo

  9. London - Detective Inspector Liyanna Evans

  10. FBI Headquarters—Washington, DC

  11. HM Belmarsh—London, UK

  12. Paloma, Illinois

  13. Headquarters—British Secret Intelligence Services / MI6—London

  14. Rotherhithe—London

  15. Headquarters—British Secret Intelligence Services / MI6—London

  16. Paloma, Illinois

  17. Metropolitan Police Headquarters—London

  18. Computer Science Lab—Paloma University

  19. The Met—London

  20. Research Lab—British Secret Intelligence Services / MI6—London

  21. Police Headquarters—Paloma, Illinois

  22. Washington, DC

  23. Gatwick Airport—London

  24. Paloma, Illinois

  25. The New Scotland Yard Evidence Archive—London

  26. Nashville, Tennessee

  27. FBI Headquarters—Washington, DC

  28. Met Headquarters—London

  29. Nashville

  30. The G8 Summit—Brussels

  31. Met Headquarters—London

  32. Nashville

  33. The Strand—London

  34. Nashville

  35. The Strand—London

  36. Greenhill’s Apple Store—Nashville

  37. St. Pancras Station—London

  38. Nashville

  39. St. Pancras Station—London

  40. Nashville International Airport

  41. On Board Chunnel Train 2200

  42. The Coiled Snake

  43. The Russians’ Mistake

  44. Heathrow Airport – London – United Kingdom

  45. Love at First Sight

  46. The Maitland Corporation UK Headquarters—London

  47. So, I have to save you again?

  48. Shot

  49. Lee on the Roof

  50. The London Eye

  51. On the Roof

  52. Yeah, It Hurt

  53. Ali and Lee

  54. At The Hotel

  55. Andy in Trouble

  56. Headquarters—British Secret Intelligence Services / MI6—London

  57. Gerhardt’s Plan

  58. Ali Gets an Assignment

  59. Aeroflot Flight 2251 - Somewhere over Russia

  60. Cornwall—UK

  61. Moscow

  62. The American Embassy Infirmary—Moscow

  63. I Need Distance

  64. Cornwall

  65. The American Center—Moscow

  66. Tallinn International Airport—Estonia

  67. Research Lab—British Secret Intelligence Services / MI6—London

  68. Moscow

  69. Airborne—North of Moscow

  70. For the first time in my life, I’m terrified of losing someone.

  71. Govyadiny Moscava—Moscow

  72. North of Moscow

  73. Govyadiny Moscava—Moscow

  74. I almost shot your ass.

  75. Sheremetyevo—A.S. Pushkin international airport, Moscow

  76. The American Embassy—Moscow

  77. Guilin—China: Two Weeks Later

  78. Rio De Janeiro—Brazil: The Next Day

  79. Over the Baltic Sea—28,000 feet AGL

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  What would happen if the technology we trust turned against us? And what if that betrayal was directed by someone bent on destroying all that we hold dear?

  Jessica Ramirez stumbles into just such a scenario when her usual dogged pursuit of the truth takes her to London and Moscow in search of the one man who she couldn’t catch in Chasing Vega.

  Vladimir Prokofiev is the type of villain who
bad people hire to implement their darkest vision. He’s the kind of guy you want to see defeated in the most gruesome way possible.

  When you open a Jessica Ramirez Thriller, you know that’s where we’re headed.

  But like life itself, the real fun happens on the journey.

  So, turn the page and let The Chase begin!

  Prologue

  He could feel the reaper slicing through the last filaments of his consciousness. Letting go was warm, inviting, overpowering. He gulped three large breaths to press a last burst of oxygen toward his brain. The burner cell phone was in his fist. The text was ready to send. Could he remember the number?

  The alley smelled of rotting produce, pot, and excrement. His impending demise there was a foregone conclusion. The gunshots puncturing his torso were draining the last drops of the ruby-red river of life from his body. Eluding his pursuers was one last miracle an uncaring universe provided. There were others in the thin passageway between a pair of crumbling buildings, a surreal stage where the last moments of his adventures would play out. The homeless congregation who sought shelter there was used to death. No one even looked up when he collapsed against the brick wall.

  The oxygen did its work. A whisper from somewhere deep among his dying synapses repeated the ten digits, over and over. He couldn’t feel his fingers. He could barely see the keyboard. He channeled the last of his survival instincts toward pressing the green “send” key. His vision compressed into a single pinpoint of light. The only sense that remained was his ability to hear faint vibrations from a world that was slipping away. A soft conformational beep echoed into the encroaching shadows. Then came the darkness and surrender.

  1

  Automotive Proving Grounds—Rochester Hills, Michigan

  Gary Sherman buckled his seatbelt and pressed the black, circular button that turned on the all-electric Hollister high-performance concept car. The earpiece inside of his helmet crackled to life. “If this baby passes the test, stock car racing will never be the same.”

  Gary chuckled. Self-driving vehicles were still controversial. The unions didn’t like them because they eliminated jobs for dues-paying operators. The company lawyers didn’t like them because they occasionally killed people.

  But they were inevitable. GM had just announced an all-electric fleet by 2035. Tesla already had smart cars on the road. For Gary Sherman, chief design engineer for his company’s forthcoming line of high-tech automobiles, the Hollister was the ultimate. The aerodynamic, all-electric competition cars that would wow the spectators at Daytona topping out at an average lap speed of 180 miles an hour, ran at full throttle for 500 miles and did it all without a human in control.

  The marketing guys were already talking about how big spenders could buy their way into the cockpit. “The ultimate theme park attraction,” they called it.

  None of that mattered to Gary. All he cared about was the engineering. He knew the thing would work. He was the guy who had designed it.

  “Telemetry recording?” he called out to Nash Burton, his number two who sat in the crow’s nest, a control tower at the center of the infield on the winding asphalt ribbon where every concept car had to pass muster.

  “Recording and ready,” Nash responded. “Light her up.”

  “Okay, Holly,” Gary said to the brain that controlled the vehicle. “Run the race program. Seventy percent power.”

  A female voice with the hint of a Canadian accent answered, “Initiating race program. Seventy percent power.”

  Gary smiled. Somewhere up north, his ex-partner, Eve, would never know that he had duplicated her vocal timbre and programmed it into the artificial intelligence engine that translated millions of bytes of data into the rudimentary English language a customer could understand.

  At the edge of the track, a light pole blinked the countdown routine Gary first memorized as a kid, hanging with his father at Detroit Dragway. When the green LED at the bottom flashed, the Hollister took off.

  Zero to one hundred miles per hour in four-point-three seconds.

  Gary felt the g-forces press his body against the bucket seat as Holly flexed her muscles. Electric motors didn’t need transmissions. All they needed was some juice and something to focus their power in a productive direction.

  The Hollister had both.

  Holly whispered the speed and gravity multiples as she took the first turn. Sensors tracked the way the tires grabbed the pavement, calculating the exact micro pressure where the rubber might lose its grip, keeping the power one-hundredth of a mile per hour below the failure point.

  “The crowd at Daytona won’t like how quiet Holly can be,” Nash observed over the comms link. “People connect power with decibels.”

  The Hollister navigated the S-curves on the far side of the track, pressing shock absorbers and struts to the limit as the vehicle rocketed into the 27-degree-banked turn that flattened into the home stretch.

  “Lap one,” Holly whispered. “One hundred ninety-seven average miles per hour. Systems nominal.”

  The car was a blur as it passed by the twin five-hundred-gallon infield fuel tanks, between four thick concrete pylons and underneath the fly-over that creased the test track. Gary weaved his fingers behind his neck and imagined the diesel gas guzzlers that used the elevated stretch of road to test the capacity of the company’s fleet of long-haul semi-trucks.

  “We’re getting this all on video, aren’t we, Nash?” he said into the wireless microphone that was hidden in the sun visor. “This is history.”

  He could hear Nash trying to suppress a laugh. “What did Henry Ford say? ‘If I gave my customers what they asked for, I would have invented a better horse?’”

  “Hear that, Holly?” Gary said. “Nash called you a horse.”

  “Current motor capacity: 2,400 horsepower. Power at seventy percent,” Holly responded. “Systems nominal.”

  “Take us there,” Gary commanded. “One hundred percent power.”

  The Hollister instantly responded. Her passenger felt another g-force event as the machine accelerated to maximum capacity.

  Holly’s reflexes were exponentially faster than the most agile human being. Gary’s body swayed from side to side as the vehicle entered the S’s for a second time and swung into the final banked curve.

  “Predicted average lap speed: Two hundred three miles per hour,” Holly purred. “Systems nominal.”

  “One more lap and we’ll shut her down, Nash,” Gary said, making a note on the aviation clipboard that was strapped to his knee.

  There was technology for that job, but Gary still liked to do some things “Old School.”

  He addressed the brain that was the only thing that kept his titanium missile on wheels under control. “Holly, transmit lap data to the mainframe, please.”

  Gary knew the word “please” wasn’t necessary. But he still felt affection for Eve and liked to think she would have appreciated the courtesy.

  “Average lap speed, one-hundred ninety-seven point five three miles per hour. Systems nominal. Transmitting,” Holly answered as the finish line, the gas tanks, and the pylons loomed. “Florida, here we come.”

  Holly spoke again. “System anomaly. Manual control recommended.”

  Gary took the wheel and applied the brakes. Holly responded. “Controls unresponsive. System anomaly. Attempting correction.”

  Nash’s words were the last that Gary Sherman would hear. “Cut the master switch, Gary. You’re drifting left.”

  Two seconds later, the Hollister cleaved the fuel tanks and disintegrated into a fiery inferno as it slammed into the concrete abutment at two hundred ten miles per hour.

  2

  Andrews Air Force Base—Maryland

  Darell Sisson and eighteen of his fellow state governors stood at the hangar entrance that was home to the four Boeing 757 jetliners painted with the distinctive blue and white colors that denoted “Air Force Two.”

  Despite a presidential plea for restraint, Sisson organize
d the trip to Brussels so he and his counterparts could meet with representatives of the Group of Three, a trio of oligopolists who virtually controlled the economic destinies of Russia, China, and India, and by proxy, over half of the world’s economy.

  Governor Sisson knew that in the twenty-first century, politicians were increasingly beholden to big business. The G8 Summit that was about to take place in the Belgian capital would be front-page news. But the three powerful men who pulled the puppet strings in the background guided the future destiny of the world.