Personal Strike (The Gargoyle Trilogy Book 2)

Book summary

In "Personal Strike," James Robert "Bob" Morgan, aka Gargoyle, and Catherine "Cat" Roberts, aka Calico, return to the shadows in Warsaw, facing human traffickers and a formidable new adversary, Hantu. As they strive to reconcile with their pasts, a sinister kidnapping and a personal vendetta thrust them into a deadly collision course. The shadows of their pasts loom large as they battle for victory in a world where survival is paramount.

Excerpt from Personal Strike (The Gargoyle Trilogy Book 2)

Julie Morgan (formerly Julie Catacutan-Mariano) strolled thought the brightly colored stalls of the Tiendesitas Villages. She moved through the shopping center’s twelve villages, each pavilion built in the Maranao-style architecture, which originated in the southern Philippines. She passed by the Fashion, Pets, and Garden villages and walked into Handicrafts village.

She wandered around the aisles looking for some unique items to bring back to the States. She spent the past two months back in Manila to watch after her elderly father while her mother was in the Manila Doctors Hospital’s Cardiovascular Center after a triple-bypass operation. Since her mother returned home yesterday, Julie was free to pick up some gifts for her friends back in Virginia before her flight home the next day.

Julie hadn’t been back to Manila since her fateful trip to the United States several years ago. She just finished her business degree at Manila Central University and accepted an invitation from her cousin, Lourdes, to visit her and her family in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Lourdes’ husband, Ron, was a U.S. Navy Hull Technician stationed on the destroyer U.S.S. Winston S. Churchill. On a beautiful June evening, Lourdes and Ron hosted a party for Ron’s division where she met the man who changed her life.

Ulysses Cerezo looked into the Handicrafts village, looked at an image on his phone, and looked again.

That’s her.

Cerezo picked up his phone and spoke quickly.

“Siya yun. Gumalaw.” (It’s her. Move.)

Cerezo walked quickly into the shopping village, twisting a ring on his left hand. He moved behind the woman and pretended to trip over her shopping basket. He grabbed her left arm with his left hand as he fell forward.

“Ay, pasensya na,” (Oh, excuse me), Cerezo said in Tagalog.

“Ayos lang. Kasalanan ko kung bakit hindi malinis ang aisle,” (It’s okay. My fault for not keeping the aisle clear), the woman replied.

Cerezo moved away from the woman, rounded the corner, and waited.

Julie didn’t see the man before he tripped over her. She felt something sharp prick her left arm as the man grabbed her to regain his balance. After exchanging apologies, she continued shopping. A few moments later, she began to feel ill. Before she knew what was happening, her vision blurred and collapsed on the floor.

Cerezo heard the woman fall to the floor. He rounded the aisle and shouted out to the crowd of shoppers.

“Tulong! May tumawag ng ambulansya!” (Help! Someone call an ambulance!)

A crowd built around Cerezo and the woman. A few minutes later, two paramedics arrived and placed the woman on a stretcher. He followed the stretcher out the shopping village and onto the street. The paramedics loaded the stretcher into the back of the ambulance while Cerezo climbed into the passenger seat up front. He again pulled out his phone and placed a quick phone call.

“Tuan, kita ada. Tiada masalah.” (Sir, we have her. No problems.) Cerezo said in Malay.

“Baik, teruskan seperti yang dirancang dan maklumkan kepada saya apabila berada di kedudukan,” (Good, proceed as planned and inform me when in position.)

“Baik tuan.” (Yes, sir.)

Cerezo ended the call. As the senior Hantu operative in the Philippines, the planning and execution of the woman’s capture fell to him. His experience as a former member of the Philippine National Police’s Special Action Force, a ‘snatch and grab’ such as this was simple. He performed several for former President Duterte over the years. Now he used his experience and expertise in service to Hantu and its Ghost King, the Raja Hantu. Hantu certainly paid better than the Philippine government, but they were both harsh masters. The price extracted from those who failed either was death.

The six months since the end of the Rasmussen Affair, and the four months since the Warsaw mission, were a blur of activity for both Morgan and Cat. At the Agency, Morgan continued to dig into the organization known as Hantu. He, along with his cyber guy Lloyd and his new boss, Ms. Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Wyda, analyzed the computer files and hard-copy documents seized from RDS Shipping. The team ‘followed the money’ and traced the customer-cargo-cash-supplier chain for all the illicit weapons and human cargoes carried by the shipping firm, RDS Shipping.

The analysis showed all the financial transactions involved with the shipments were conducted by a series of shell companies and cut-outs scattered across the planet. Any leads they may have had when they started evaporated quickly as the team dug further into the financial morass that was international money laundering. Whoever ran Hantu must have discovered their digging and covered their tracks very well, and Morgan and the team were no closer to discovering exactly who they were dealing with.

Across the Atlantic, Cat and her colleagues at the British Secret Intelligence Service ran into the same brick wall when it came to Hantu. Cat’s friend Bertie, head of Station S, Singapore, sweet-talked a copy of all the RDS documents seized by officials of the Internal Security Department after the Rasmussens’ death, so Cat began her analysis as to the origin of the assault rifles intended for the Real IRA. Like her boyfriend across the pond, Cat and her team ran into road blocks when tracing the financials. Whoever, or whatever Hantu was, they were experts in navigating the world of illicit financing.

During this period, Morgan received some sad news regarding his family back in Cleveland, Ohio. Ms. Rose Morgan, his father’s youngest sister and his favorite aunt, passed away at age 85. Since Morgan and his three siblings were the only living members of the family remaining, each inherited a substantial portion of their Aunt Rose’s estate. When the will was read, Aunt Rose had only one instruction for her heirs.

“Have fun!”

After all was said and done, Morgan’s share came to over five million dollars. Not enough to quit his job, but enough for some major lifestyle upgrades.

The first thing Morgan did was report his sudden windfall to both the Agency’s and the Navy’s security offices. Any unreported major financial changes, either good or bad, would be a red flag for those rooting out any potential cases of espionage. That was the last thing Morgan wanted, so he did the right thing and filled out all the appropriate forms to keep those folks well informed and at arm’s length.

Next, he moved out of his townhouse in Burke, Virginia and into a single-family home located further west from the D.C. metropolitan area in The Plains, Virginia. It meant a longer commute, but he was further away from the crush of people infesting the bedroom communities that ring the Washington D.C. beltway. The three-bedroom house had one additional benefit, a three-bay garage. This allowed Morgan to indulge in another upgrade, his ride.

He initially thought he would sell his beloved 2013 Corvette Grand Sport, but he could not bear to do so, and since his new home allowed for the storage of more than one vehicle, Morgan decided to keep it. He shopped around, looking at cars like the BMW M8, the McLaren Arturo (like the one he drove, and destroyed, recently in Copenhagen), and the Bentley Continental GT Speed (like the one he drove, and destroyed, in Warsaw). However, Morgan found the idea of the depreciation inherent in new vehicles abhorrent, so he looked into the used car market. After browsing the used car websites over the course of a few weeks, the proverbial unicorn fell in his lap.

An elderly woman in Fort Lauderdale offered for sale a midnight blue 2016 Aston Martin DB9 GT as part of an overall estate sale. This was one of the last of the iconic DB9 line, with an ivory interior and less than five hundred miles on the odometer. It wasn’t the Quantum or Skyfall silver colors he preferred, but it was similar to the color scheme of the McLaren Arturo he drove in Denmark, so it would do nicely. After contacting the seller, a wonderful woman whose husband passed away shortly after taking delivery, Morgan sent a deposit and made the necessary arrangements for pick-up. Since the Hantu investigation was at a standstill at the moment, Morgan thought he could make a much needed, and long delayed, vacation out of the trip.

And I know just who to bring along, and what to do with her when we get there.

After getting the time off from her job at MI-6, Cat flew into Dulles International Airport from London and met Morgan there for their first-class flight to Fort Lauderdale. After a wonderful flight that took them over the launch pads of the Kennedy Space Center, they checked into a suite at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort, enjoyed a great dinner at Steak 954 (the best steakhouse in the city), and took advantage of the suite’s huge jet tub for an evening bath before finally giving into Cat’s jet lag, both of them falling asleep on the suite’s king sized bed, despite all desire to the contrary.

The next morning, Morgan and Cat met the car’s owner, one Ms. Harriet Russel, at her beachfront home located off the main north-south Florida state road, the A1A. After quick introductions, and Ms. Russel pronouncing Morgan and Cat a ‘very handsome couple,’ she led the pair to the garage. With a smile, she pulled a remote garage opener from her pocket and pressed a button. As the door raised, Cat wrapped her right arm tightly around Morgan’s left. They both stared open-mouthed when the DB9 was fully revealed.

“Oh my…” Morgan whispered.

“I don’t know about you, James, but I have some John Barry and David Arnold music rolling through my head.”

“Same.”

Harriet handed Morgan the car’s crystal key and walked to the passenger door. Morgan unlocked the car, opened the driver’s side door, and climbed inside. Once Harriet sat in the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt, Morgan slipped the key into its slot in the center console, pressed the red-glowing button, and started the engine. The DB9’s six-liter, 540 horsepower V-12 came to life with a sound that could only be described as creamy smooth with an exhaust note that has been described by the automotive press as legendary. Morgan put the car in gear and pulled out of the garage. He stopped midway down the driveway next to Cat and lowered his window.

“Be right back,” Morgan said with a smirk as he put on his Matsuda sunglasses.

Morgan and Harriet took off down the street for a quick test drive. The DB9’s superior handling was quite evident even on the level roads of Fort Lauderdale. The car took corners even better that Morgan’s Corvette. In addition, the Aston Martin’s interior was incredible with the leather seats that looked, smelled, and felt like the inside of a fine, leather glove. Morgan smirked to himself as they drove past the multi-million-dollar home and condominiums of Fort Lauderdale.