Jet

JET X

Incarceration

Russell Blake

Copyright © 2015 by Russell Blake. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact:

[email protected]
.

Published by

Co-authored with Clive Cussler

THE EYE OF HEAVEN

THE SOLOMON CURSE

Thrillers

FATAL EXCHANGE

THE GERONIMO BREACH

ZERO SUM

THE DELPHI CHRONICLE TRILOGY

THE VOYNICH CYPHER

SILVER JUSTICE

UPON A PALE HORSE

DEADLY CALM

RAMSEY’S GOLD

EMERALD BUDDHA

The Assassin Series

KING OF SWORDS

NIGHT OF THE ASSASSIN

RETURN OF THE ASSASSIN

REVENGE OF THE ASSASSIN

BLOOD OF THE ASSASSIN

REQUIEM FOR THE ASSASSIN

RAGE OF THE ASSASSIN

The JET Series

JET

JET II – BETRAYAL

JET III – VENGEANCE

JET IV – RECKONING

JET V – LEGACY

JET VI – JUSTICE

JET VII – SANCTUARY

JET VIII – SURVIVAL

JET IX – ESCAPE

JET X – INCARCERATION

JET – OPS FILES (prequel)

JET – OPS FILES; TERROR ALERT

The BLACK Series

BLACK

BLACK IS BACK

BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK

BLACK TO REALITY

Non Fiction

AN ANGEL WITH FUR

HOW TO SELL A GAZILLION EBOOKS

(while drunk, high or incarcerated)

Featured in
The Wall Street Journal
,
The Times
, and
The Chicago Tribune
, Russell Blake is
The NY Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of over forty novels, including
Fatal Exchange
,
The Geronimo Breach
,
Zero Sum
,
King of Swords
,
Night of the Assassin
,
Revenge of the Assassin
,
Return of the Assassin
,
Blood of the Assassin
,
Requiem for the Assassin
,
Rage of the Assassin
The Delphi Chronicle
trilogy,
The Voynich Cypher
,
Silver Justice
,
JET
,
JET – Ops Files
,
JET – Ops Files: Terror Alert
,
JET II – Betrayal
,
JET III – Vengeance
,
JET IV – Reckoning
,
JET V – Legacy
,
JET VI – Justice
,
JET VII – Sanctuary
,
JET VIII – Survival
,
JET IX – Escape
,
JET X – Incarceration
,
Upon a Pale Horse
,
BLACK
,
BLACK is Back
,
BLACK is The New Black
,
BLACK to Reality
,
Deadly Calm
,
Ramsey’s Gold
, and
Emerald Buddha
.

Non-fiction includes the international bestseller
An Angel With Fur
(animal biography) and
How To Sell A Gazillion eBooks In No Time
(even if drunk, high or incarcerated), a parody of all things writing-related.

Blake is co-author of
The Eye of Heaven
and
The Solomon Curse
, with legendary author Clive Cussler. Blake’s novel
King of Swords
has been translated into German,
The Voynich Cypher
into Bulgarian, and his JET novels into Spanish, German, and Czech.

Blake writes under the moniker R.E. Blake in the NA/YA/Contemporary Romance genres. Novels include
Less Than Nothing
,
More Than Anything
, and
Best Of Everything
.

Having resided in Mexico for a dozen years, Blake enjoys his dogs, fishing, boating, tequila and writing, while battling world domination by clowns. His thoughts, such as they are, can be found at his blog:
RussellBlake.com

To get your free copy,

just join my readers’ group here:

http://bit.ly/rb-kos

Two weeks ago, Odessa, Ukraine

Sea lions barked at the stars from barnacle-encrusted harbor rocks as the surge of the Black Sea battered the far breakwaters that protected the port from the wrath of the open water. A bull, his considerable bulk covered with scars, shifted his weight with a grunt, his body gleaming in the moonlight. The massive creature perused his harem with calm black eyes, unconcerned by the din drifting across the wind, waves gilded by the city’s refracted glow.

American rap music throbbed from the doorways of waterfront bars. In the nearby shadows, drunken sailors exchanged clumsy jokes with the whores and pushers prowling the alleys. A thin haze blanketed the surface of the sea beyond the breakwater, part fog and part pollution that muffled the sonorous tolling of a distant buoy’s bell. An occasional shout or the bray of an inebriated laugh carried like a siren’s warning across the still harbor, echoing off the steel hulls of the cargo vessels moored to the wharves.

The drone of diesel engines rose in pitch as a tender, faded orange paint bubbling along its twenty-meter length, detached itself from one of the wooden commercial piers and pointed its bow toward the southern lighthouse’s beam that strobed into the darkness with the regularity of a metronome. In the near distance, an aging white hull jutted nine stories from the sea, its cabins illuminated with the festivity of a Christmas pageant. The big cruise ship was on its final tour of the fall before redeploying for the winter to the Mediterranean after a needed sojourn for maintenance in a Turkish shipyard.

Odessa boasted considerable tourist traffic, in spite of the danger inherent in the Ukrainian civil war; the colorful metropolis was largely isolated from the ongoing violence of the rebel-controlled eastern and northern areas of the country. Besides sporadic outbursts of localized protests and occasional armed conflicts that were quickly quashed by the police, the nation’s ongoing turmoil seemed a million miles away from the regal procession of classical edifices that were among many of the city’s crown jewels. Cruise vessels regularly stopped at the busy port, Odessa an especially popular destination for Russian ships offering cut-rate travel as the season came to a close.

The orange shore boat idled past several moored tankers awaiting admittance to the harbor, and once past the breakwater, surged ahead, leaving a phosphorescent froth in its wake. Inside the tender, the last of the day’s stragglers huddled together on the benches, summoned by the big ship’s warning horn blasts – the signal that it would soon be under way to Varna, Bulgaria, arriving in time for breakfast. Spray shot skyward from the tender’s bow as the chop increased, and the passengers gripped the edge of the bench for support.

The pilot of the craft made an announcement over the loudspeaker, first in Russian, then in English and, finally, in Greek, reassuring the group that they would reach the ship in a few more minutes and to stay seated until they were moored alongside. An Odessa regular, the
Lilliana
was a cruise veteran of the Black Sea, Cyprus flagged, at the end of her service as she neared forty years of age. The next season would be her last, and then she would be scrapped, replaced by a prettier face already being readied in South Korea.

One of the passengers, a man in his late thirties with a sickly complexion and hollow eyes, shifted on the hard seat, his stuffed backpack at his feet. Unlike the rest of the group, who were warmed by the abundant flow of beer and shots of the local firewater, he remained serious, his attention fixed on the scuffed toes of his black boots. The woman next to him leaned instinctively away as the shore boat rocked along its course, repulsed by an odor like sour milk rising from his clothes.

The tender eased closer to the
Lilliana
, five hundred and eighty feet of slow boat crammed with budget tourists, most of them Greek and Italian on this trip. The engine revs slowed as the pilot throttled back, and a crewman standing on the ship’s gangplank shined a handheld spotlight at the approaching vessel. Security had been heightened recently, and the crews of visiting ships had been advised to maintain vigilance – although against what, the Ukrainian port authority had failed to define.

The shore boat hit a particularly steep swell, and the travelers gasped as the hull bounced over the breaking crest and slammed into the trough. The sallow passenger’s hand moved to his backpack to stabilize it, a frown of annoyance flashing across his face, and his fingers wrapped around one of the nylon straps. The woman glanced at his grubby hands, with their filthy, ragged nails, and quickly looked away.

Another wave jostled the tender as it maneuvered nearer the
Lilliana
, and the man coughed hard, the sound wet and unhealthy. He pulled a frayed cloth handkerchief from his jacket pocket and raised it to his mouth. His breath wheezed as he inhaled, and then his shoulders shuddered and he was seized by a coughing fit, the effort nearly doubling him over as the tender pulled alongside the gangplank and two waiting crewmen tossed lines around the boat’s cleats and secured it. The woman snuck another look at the thin passenger and grimaced at the bright red blood that stained the patch of fabric in his hand.

“Are you all right?” she asked in Greek, with genuine concern in her voice.

The man looked at her uncomprehendingly. She tried again, this time pantomiming, pointing to him and shrugging with a compassionate expression.

“Ah,
da
,
da
,” he said, his Russian accent thick, waving away her concern and pocketing the stained handkerchief.

The tender’s big diesel engines quieted to an idle, and the pilot announced that the passengers could prepare to disembark. Everyone stood unsteadily as the smaller vessel rocked beside the cruise ship. The
Lilliana
strained at its anchor rode with each rolling swell. Normally the large vessel would have docked in the harbor, but all the spaces were occupied; mechanical problems had kept several older ships past their scheduled departure times, leaving the
Lilliana
to battle the elements outside of the breakwater’s shelter. The afternoon had fortunately been mild, but now, as the breeze increased with the fall of night, the seas were unpleasantly choppy.

The pilot reached for a handle and released the companionway hatch. Crewmen helped the passengers step from the smaller boat and directed them toward the ramp, where several Ukrainian soldiers waited at the base to perform an unexpected spot check of their documents. The thin man saw the soldiers just as he reached the companionway door, and he froze, his backpack clutched to his chest.

The woman nearly ran into him as he blocked the passageway, and the pilot called out to him, annoyed. “Keep moving. I don’t want to be here all night.”

One of the soldiers looked in the orange tender’s direction, his interest drawn by the commotion as two of the crewmen urged the motionless passenger forward. His stare met the thin man’s, and he took a step forward as he called out a warning to his companion. The sickly passenger closed his eyes as the soldier approached, and with a muttered prayer, extracted a small wireless transmitter and depressed its sole button.