Diamond Rain: Adventure Science Fiction Mossad Thriller (The Spy Stories and Tales of Intrigue Series Book 2)

Diamond Rain

Spy Stories and Tales of Intrigue Series Part
Two – Adventure Science Fiction Techno Thriller

By

Mike Gallagher

All rights reserved, without limiting the
rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or
by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise)
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the
publisher of this book.

This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products
referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission.
The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or
sponsored by the trademark owners.

Copyright © 2014 Michael James Gallagher

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-0-9917776-1-7

Cover by Lorena Laurenti

Dedication

For my amazing daughters, Iga and Ania. Thank you for
opening up your hearts to me all those years ago.

Acknowledgements

Chris Roper, Literary Contributing Editor,
used his years of successful short story writing for popular magazines to
soften and enhance
Diamond Rain's
prose while respecting the author's
pace and style. Thank you Chris Roper. I look forward to collaborating with you
again soon.
Chris
Roper's recently published novel,
 
The
Gyrfalcon File,
 
drew on his
extensive travel and occupational experience to bring a strong authenticity to
his work.

Chapter One

Armageddon Valley

Thomas stood on a ridge and peered through the
viewfinder of his camera as he hustled for space with journalists and
dignitaries.  He was transfixed by the mass of humanity in front of him, a mass
so big and eerie that just looking at all these people resulted in an
involuntary shudder.  Something stirred deep within Thomas.  He suddenly heard
his mentor’s voice in his head:  “You’ve got it all, man. So you have to give
some back too.  Don’t ever forget it.”  It was ironic that his life would come
to this.  All he ever wanted was to be a wildlife photographer, and all he
wanted for company was solitude.  Something told him that life was about to
change, life as he knew it, that he would have to play a role in stopping these
humanoids and if he just stood by and watched then they would take civilization
back to the stone ages.

Hastily organized international peace
negotiations kept the overlook busy with visitors curious to see the invading
throng as it waited in Armageddon valley.  Sue Ann Lee, Thomas’ professional
partner and Al Jazeera reporter, readied herself for a live broadcast.  Thomas
occupied himself by working through his mental checklist as he tested his
camera equipment and laptop connections to be sure they would relay without a
hitch.

A short distance away from Thomas and Sue
Ann, Kefira was standing looking around critically at the mass before her.  She
was focusing her telekinetic powers on all the visitors, particularly the reporters
and dignitaries in the crowd.  Her Mossad special training kicked in.  As this
group approached the lookout, the atypical, sudden, collective intake of breath
seemed deeper than usual.  Kefira mustered her psionic ability to scan the
group.  She halted as she encountered Thomas; she was puzzled, something about
him stood out and she found herself going back over that part of the crowd to
work out what was causing her powers to stumble.  She refocused her energies on
Thomas and tried again. 
Odd,
she thought,
I can’t read him. 
With
her interest piqued she sauntered closer until she stopped just a few feet
away from him.  At first she thought Thomas was a Chinese agent cloaked within
a nanosuit, but her own unique diamond-molecule suit would have triggered a
warning.  She was puzzled.  It could be one of two things, she thought, either
he’s gifted or he’s undergone special training and has exceptional mental
strength.  Only once in the past two years had Kefira encountered someone she
couldn’t read.

Thomas noticed Kefira’s scent before he
turned to face her.  Although she was smiling engagingly, he noticed that the
smile stopped at her eyes.  Interesting.  His journalistic antennae went to
full alert; it was a warning to him that she may be military or at the very
least a threat.  But what sort of threat he couldn’t determine; the one clear
signal was that she certainly had a unique perfume.  It was disarming.  He
smiled back and they both spoke at once.  They both paused and laughed. Thomas
decided to let her speak first.  He acknowledged her with an open right hand and
a tilt of his head while his left hand remained on his camera.

“Impressive dust storm, isn’t it?” said
Kefira.

“I’ll say.  Where’d an Israeli guide get
such a great American accent?”

For an instant, Thomas thought a cloud had
passed over the sun, but when he looked up at the sky he saw no clouds. 
Strange,
he thought.  His professional instinct had him reaching for his light meter to
validate his observation.  
Nothing.
 
That was odd
, he thought. 
Kefira’s nanofog now engulfed both of them.  She probed deeper.  Thomas felt
peculiar, and he found himself rubbing one of his temples as though he was
about to get a headache.  His neck gave him the same signal. 
The last thing
I need right now is a migraine.  At least there’s no halo of light.

High above the masses of Chinese nanosuited
invaders, an invisible drone darted over Armageddon Valley.  General Chou’s
drones provided eyes and ears as well as nanofog seed.  Millions of miniscule
foglets tumbled in a controlled, directed manner towards the aura of the heat
signature raised by Kefira’s suit.

The general’s second-in-command, Colonel
Lau, studied the information provided by a high definition nose camera in the
drone.  His brilliance at coordinating such an attack was widely acknowledged
in the military hierarchy and his actions were closely coordinated with several
Chinese asynchronous military satellites.  ‘stealth’ technology kept his
machinations invisible to even high powered Israeli radar.  The focus of his
interest was apparently a rogue Chinese agent wearing a nanosuit and doubtless
providing intelligence to the enemy.  Lau was mistaken.  The signature was that
of Kefira herself.  Lau had already made up his mind: 
The scoundrel had to
be stopped and contained immediately
. 
We’ll have that traitor back and
be gone before they know what hit them,
he thought.

Kefira’s Israeli masters were confident
that her top secret nanosuit would be invisible to advanced monitoring
technology.  They would find out a little too late that it wasn’t, at least not
at this time.  Soon, though, the situation would change with the next owner of
the nanosuit.

General Chou stood behind Colonel Lau at
his cubicle.  Chinese cunning pleased the general.  During a thaw in Sino-American
relations in 2008, joint manoeuvres made technology exchanges common.  Chou
laughed aloud. Startled, Lau turned to see his commander muttering under his
breath. 
Such weakness.  Giving us this technology in the name of fair
play.  Fools!
  Lau had grown accustomed to Chou’s outbursts and, as had
become his habit, he parroted the last word he heard.  “Fools, Sir.  Fools.” 
From their perch in central China, Lau coordinated the first nano intrusion
into Israeli airspace.

At the overlook, and totally unaware of the
nano storm approaching from above, Kefira sidled up to Thomas.  She interrupted
his train of thought. Thomas inhaled deeply, savoring the unique, feminine
scent.
Shame if it’s her perfume sparking my headache.

Kefira spun a layer of nanofog around
Thomas.
 Can’t understand this,
she thought.  She still couldn’t read
him, even when he was completely inside her suit’s nanofog.

“Your perfume’s subtle,” said Thomas.

Thomas’ headache disappeared and, relieved
of the pressure, he did a double take of the green-eyed, amber-skinned woman
dressed in olive green silk beside him.  She looked at him but did not speak
immediately.

“That’s a neat trick, whatever it is,”
Thomas continued slowly, sensing that all was not as it seemed.

“More than meets the eye.”   Kefira gave an
enigmatic smile.

“Mysterious too.”

“Do you have some kind of special
training?” Kefira asked.  She was more than curious now.

“Years of practice.  I’m a photographer.”

“No, I mean psychological preparation?”

“Well, you could say
that.  My adopted grandfather helped toughen me up mentally when I had trouble
with some bullies in school, but that was long ago.”

This guy’s one tough nut to crack.
 
He’s not giving an inch, but he seems unaware of his ability.
 
She stopped, suddenly annoyed at allowing herself to be sidetracked.  Trying to
figure Thomas’ ability to resist her probing was diverting her resources when
she needed to be getting as much information from this crowd as possible.  A
routine procedure was turning into a frustrating activity.

Sue Ann’s voice interrupted them both.

“Thomas, we’re about to go live.”

Thomas nodded.  Sue Ann held up a hand,
fingers extended.

“Live in five, four, three, two, one.”

Thomas went into action.  The seasoned
professional in him took over.  Sue Ann panned the dramatic sight before them
with her right hand.  She turned to show her audience a panorama of an enormous
dust cloud, hundreds of feet high and kilometers wide that would have been
familiar to anyone in Oklahoma in the 1930s.  Her narrative related the story
of the thousands upon thousands of nanosuited Chinese invaders who were
stirring up this dust in Armageddon Valley and all along Israel’s frontier. 
Just how they got there and why they had chosen to stop where they did remained
a mystery.  They hung there like deadweight making everyone’s blood curdle; everybody
knew – or at least suspected beyond reasonable doubt - that they were just
waiting for orders to strike.  Just before Sue Ann finished speaking, a flash
of light arrested her broadcast.

Kefira’s subconscious noticed an unusual
darkness in the sky and a gray line of nanofog heading her way.  An oppressive
sense of doom overcame her.  Not knowing why, but trusting her gut instinct,
she twisted the knob on her wrist device and it sucked her nanosuit into its
receptacle.  Just before she removed her special watch and thrust it into
Thomas’ hand, Kefira penetrated Thomas’ psychic shield with a barrage of
instructions.  The force of the assault caught Thomas completely off guard.  
He stumbled over and dropped his camera before rolling over to protect himself
from a massive onslaught of noise and light.  His hand tightened around Kefira’s
apparatus as a childhood memory of a nightmarish kidnapping repeated itself,
leaving him stunned and speechless. 
Won’t the world ever leave me be?  Not
this again.

On the visual plane everything had
changed.   No longer was anything certain or dependable from Thomas’
perspective.  A vortex of deafening sounds and flashing lights was
incapacitating everyone on the ridge.  Thomas pulled his head into his
shoulders and covered his ears with his arms while he tightly closed his eyes. 
Before he passed out, a woman’s voice communicated a long series of
instructions directly into his head and then all went black.  One command - ‘to
hold the watch tight in his hand’ was repeated continuously.

Hazy ninja fighters surrounded the
dignitaries and reporters on the Mount Carmel lookout.  Percussion grenades
sensation created by the nano concussed all nearby. One of the landing figments
scanned for suit residue and stopped at an unconscious Kefira.  The fog
swallowed her and dissipated as quickly as it had appeared, leaving witnesses
stunned and groggy but otherwise unhurt.

Thomas was confused but his instinct told
him to follow the set of instructions by rote.  In the split second before he
rolled over, he had wrapped the watch around his wrist and attached its secure
clasp as the instructions to flee and get to safety reverberated in his mind. 
I
should stay, fight.   I can’t always run like mother always ran.

Thomas looked around and saw Sue Ann
sprawled on the desert floor.  He walked over and gently flipped her around,
and her eyes began opening slowly.  She was conscious but shaken.

“Are you ok, Sue Ann?”  His tone was one of
concern.

“What the hell happened?” she replied,
brushing herself down.

“Everyone is asking the same question.”

Thomas helped her to her feet and she
staggered slightly as she regained her balance.

“How about you?” she said, noting his distant
expression.

“Oh, I’m fine,” he replied as he snapped
back to the present.

Thomas cursed when he noticed his broken
camera.  As he looked out at the valley the mind implant engaged and he
understood his role for the first time.  He knew he had to find Kefira and stop
the Chinese or nothing would ever be the same. 
All my life I have been
running away,
he thought as he turned back towards the stairwell.  His hand
touched the gadget Kefira had given him just before she disappeared.  Her
sensuous voice echoed in his mind, a voice that fired up his soul and strummed
his heart strings.  He had to find Kefira, he couldn’t run away anym
ore.