Black Flagged Apex Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the author

  About Black Flagged Apex

  BLACK VEIL

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  BLACK WATER

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  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

  BLACK AND WHITE

  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

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Excerpt from Black Flagged Vektor

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Excerpt from The Jakarta Pandemic

  Prologue

  Arrival

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Acknowledgments

  Cast of Characters

  Black Flagged Apex

  Black Flagged [3]

  Steven Konkoly

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (2012)

  *

  Book Three in the Black Flagged Series: A tense alliance between General Sanderson and the CIA narrowly averts an apocalyptic attack by Islamic fundamentalists in Europe, but ultimately fails to recover the virus canisters. With the biological weapons still missing, the specter of an attack against the United States looms dangerously closer. Desperate to stop Al Qaeda, Daniel Petrovich’s “black ops” team is sent to investigate the last lead provided by Anatoly Reznikov, the twisted scientist responsible for designing the virus. What they uncover will shake U.S. authorities to the core. Every canister of the Zulu Virus has been shipped to the United States… Back in Washington D.C., this startling revelation is intensified by a grim discovery. Suspected Al Qaeda cells under FBI surveillance have been simultaneously massacred, targets of a shadowy domestic terror organization with ties to a rising political movement. When Special Agent in Charge Ryan Sharpe discovers that Al Qaeda lost possession of every virus canisters in the coordinated attack, he deploys Task Force Scorpion to hunt down a new breed of terrorist and recover the virus. As Sharpe’s task force unravels the curious fabric of True America’s plot, they start to assemble the chilling details of an impending domestic bioweapons attack—on an unimaginable scale. With time expiring, and his task force running out of options, Sharpe embraces the illicit help of a sworn enemy, whose questionable tactics may be their only chance of stopping an insidious plan to destabilize the United States. Black Flagged Apex propels the gritty, often unapologetic Black Flagged Series into new territory, where hidden agendas, startling betrayals and brutal action define the daily landscape navigated by the puppet masters and frontline operators in the war on terror.

  BLACK FLAGGED APEX

  A novel by Steven Konkoly

  Book Three in the Black Flagged Series

  Copyright Information

  Copyright 2012 by Steven Konkoly. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact [email protected]

  Features Index

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the author

  About Black Flagged Apex

  BLACK VEIL

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  BLACK WATER

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  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

  BLACK AND WHITE

  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

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Excerpt from Black Flagged Vektor

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Excerpt from The Jakarta Pandemic

  Prologue

  Arrival

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Acknowledgments

  Cast of Characters

  Dedication

  For Kosia, Matthew and Sophia. Still my favorite people in the whole world.

  Acknowledgments

  Since the acknowledgments continue to grow, I have hidden them at the back of the book. You can find them here: Acknowledgments. They are also accessible through the Table of Contents.

  About the author

  Steven Konkoly graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served for eight years in various roles within the Navy and Marine Corps. He currently lives with his family on the coast of southern Maine.

  He published his first novel, The Jakarta Pandemic, in 2010, followed by Black Flagged in 2011 and Black Flagged Redux in 2012. An excerpt from his apocalyptic thriller, The Jakarta Pandemic, can be accessed from the link below, along with a with a bonus excerpt from the next book in Black Flagged series, Black Flag
ged VEKTOR

  Excerpt from The Jakarta Pandemic

  Bonus excerpt from Black Flagged VEKTOR

  Please visit Steven’s blog for updates and information regarding all of his works.

  www.stevenkonkoly.com

  About Black Flagged Apex

  Black Flagged Apex takes place on the heels of Black Flagged Redux. Admittedly, I took a little heat for ending Redux with the virus canisters unrecovered and Petrovich’s team still pursuing leads related to Al Qaeda’s possible intention to unleash the virus in the United States. For me, this was a logical cut off point for the novel, since most of the conflict had been resolved in the novel, and I couldn’t go any further without locking myself into another 500 pages. I’m not ready to present a one-thousand-page novel to readers, and I assume that many of you feel the same. As you read Apex, I think you’ll better understand why I separated the two stories. They are uniquely different in many ways. For those that found the Redux ending to be abrupt, I thank you for persevering to read the series.

  Like Black Flagged Redux, keep in mind that the scenes occur in chronological order and are labeled in local time. Here is a short list of the time zone differences between the locations featured in the Black Flagged Apex and the U.S. East Coast: Argentina +2 hours, Moscow +9 hours, Germany +6 hours, Novosibirsk +11 hours, Sweden +6 hours.

  Finally, don’t forget about the character list, which can be accessed from the link below and is accessible through the table of contents. You can also print one from my blog www.stevenkonkoly.com. I’m not saying you’ll need it, but Black Flagged Apex adds to the memorable character list from Black Flagged Redux.

  Character List

  As always, enjoy the book and don’t hesitate to contact me with your thoughts and feedback at [email protected]

  “Apex”- Latin, meaning high point or culmination

  BLACK VEIL

  Late April 2008

  Chapter 1

  6:42 AM

  South 20th Street

  Newark, New Jersey

  Special Agent Ethan Reeves rubbed his eyes and took a sip of bitter coffee from a worn blue travel mug. Sunlight crept through the open doorway connecting the front room of the apartment to the kitchen, spreading along the worn gray carpeting. Through the opening, he heard Special Agent Dave Howard rummage noisily through cabinets and drawers. Muttered obscenities floated into the quiet room, causing a barely discernible grin to form on his face.

  “The sugar’s gone,” Reeves said.

  “What happened to the rest of the packets?”

  “You forgot to put them in the fridge last night. The mice showed up again. Crapped all over the kitchen table too,” Reeves said.

  “Sorry about that. I’ll head out a little later. This place is fucking disgusting. Did I mention that before?” Howard groaned.

  “That’s the first time today. I’ll call the incoming team and let them know what they need to bring,” he said blandly.

  Reeves shook his wireless mouse and brought one of the computer monitors back to life. He leaned back and slouched in the stiff, inexpensive office chair that the Newark field office had finally approved. Before these arrived, they had suffered through the day on folding chairs, frequently standing up to stretch out ever-tightening backs and hamstrings.

  By mid-afternoon, he usually spent more time standing than sitting. At the end of a week’s rotation, Reeves felt twice his age. His body would slowly recover over the weekend, eventually returning to normal before he reported to the Newark field office on Monday. There, he would enjoy a few days of slightly less mundane work, constantly dreading the arrival of Friday morning, when he would report for another week of duty holed up in their surveillance post. One week on. One week off. Pure agony.

  So far, the realities of stakeout duty had met few of his preconceived notions. Instructors at the FBI Academy tried to manage every new agent’s expectations about the job, but they had failed miserably to prepare him for the inevitable stakeout assignment. Reeves stubbornly held onto his pre-academy fantasies; daydreams that put him in a desperate position to singlehandedly apprehend one of the nation’s most wanted terrorists and stop the next 9/11. He needed to cling to this delusion, because after five months of reviewing digital feeds and adjusting surveillance equipment, cynicism had started to blanket his romantic notions about life as a special agent in the FBI.

  His partner, an even-keeled, fifteen-year veteran of the bureau, did his best to maintain an enthusiastic façade, but Reeves could sense that Special Agent Howard’s FBI spark had been extinguished long ago. Howard quickly steered their conversations away from work, focusing on family, friends, hobbies, vacations…anything but FBI work. Luckily for Reeves, Dave was an entertaining and comical storyteller because as a single, newly minted agent, their lives had little in common beyond their FBI credentials.

  He activated two more monitors and searched the first screen for the “digital highlights” function. Despite the FBI’s frugal interior decorating job, the surveillance package deployed in the apartment was state-of-the-art. Little expense had been spared to provide a nearly automated system, which made their jobs infinitely easier than any of their predecessors’. Long gone were the days spent coordinating bathroom breaks and snapping pictures through a 35mm camera equipped with a telephoto lens. Ironically, they rarely looked out of the apartment windows at their surveillance target. They could watch everything from the monitors.

  The new system employed four digital cameras providing continuous, automated coverage of the target house. The powerful night vision equipped cameras worked simultaneously from different windows to capture each and every detail. The system even provided limited thermal detection capability, which could roughly pinpoint the location of any human or large dog within the house. Laser microphones continuously scanned exposed windows for vibrations and automatically recorded the conversations within.

  All of this information was automatically uploaded to a location unknown to either agent, where it was closely analyzed on a timeline determined by investigative prioritization algorithms. Based on their extensive experience at this location, the data review for the first-floor occupants of 32A, South 20th Street, started later in the morning. They had never been contacted by the Data Analysis Group (DAG) prior to lunch before today.

  Even with all of this automation, their duties included a cursory review of the video and audio surveillance recordings. Since neither of them spoke Arabic, their only responsibility regarding the audio involved reviewing “irregularities.” These included arguments, languages other than Arabic, or female voices. Even that job was simplified by the software, which screened the different feeds and highlighted these portions for them based on embedded protocols. The video review required a little more effort.

  They typically reviewed the night’s digital highlights before breakfast, quickly catching up to near “real time” on the daily feeds. The system flawlessly drew their attention to anomalies detected by the sensors: late night visitors, lights at unusual hours and telephone calls after the team recorded “all quiet” in the house. The suspects in the target apartment kept a pretty tight schedule, which made the job simple. Reeves or Howard would check the highlights, if there were any, and together they would conduct a fast-speed scan through the video, further searching for any obvious irregularities.

  They weren’t required to remain awake once they logged “all quiet,” since their stakeout was classified as an intelligence gathering activity. The four men living together in 32A had raised enough red flags to warrant further investigation, but hadn’t been classified as an immediate or developing threat.

  When the digital highlights screen appeared, Reeves first thought the system had experienced a glitch. Five months of reviewing night feeds had never yielded anything more interesting than an aborted breakin attempt through one of the building’s side windows. Annoyed, he sat up in the chair. The system had highlighted multiple audio, video, and thermal irregularities
. In fact, the Windows-based system provided a two-page list of anomalies for him to review.