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  ONCE IN A BLUE MOON

  A thrilling espionage adventure starring Jonathan Smythe

  By John Krissilas

  ONCE IN A BLUE MOON

  Once in a Blue Moon is a spy novel in the vein of Ian Fleming's James Bond series, delivering edge-of-your-seat suspense and intrigue of the highest order. After escaping a doomed ocean-liner off the coast of France, Agent Smythe of the Echo Echelon must follow his only lead: Petrov, a Russian general turned arms-dealer, and his deal with the devil. With high-speed chases on both land and water, the silent infiltration of a heavily guarded embassy, and insidious, deadly enemies, Once in a Blue Moon is a spy-thriller that will engage readers of all kinds.

  PROLOGUE: Moonlight on Aquarius

  “Who do you work for?!”

  The man trembled in the shadowy figure’s grip as he struggled to form words from his mouth. Sweat trickled down his face and hit the floor, as if signaling his impending doom.

  “Last chance. Tell me who you work for, and I’ll try not to pull the trigger.” The cold metal of a handgun silencer dug deeper into his forehead, prying for the answers that the figure in front of him demanded.

  “I, uh… I don’t know anything,” the ship’s captain managed to spit out at the last possible moment, struggling to breathe and looking frantically for a way out.

  “You mean you know nothing of the twenty tons of high-caliber C4 loaded onto this ship last night?” the dark figure said as he tightened his grip on the terrified captain’s collar and lifted his head to look him directly in the eyes. “What is all that shit doing downstairs? They’re not for you to play with.” He smirked as he threw the trembling man against the main control console, knocking him to the floor. His gun was still trained directly on the shivering captain’s forehead.

  “Please… I tell you everything,” the man begged, slowly rising to his feet, his back to the bow of the ship. The view behind him showcased a vast ocean, lit only by the moon and the lights coming from the harbour to the left. The captain stood now, slowly gathering confidence, facing the shadow of a man in the main control room on the bridge of the ocean-liner Aquarius. He spoke slowly, suspiciously, “It… the cargo… it was a, how you call it, a pay-off.”

  The man’s grip on the gun loosened, his sight trailing from the captain in front of him to the ground, his arm falling to his side. He took a deep breath.

  “A payoff…? For what?! From who?!” he shouted in frustration. His left hand clenched into a fist, the gun in his right hand still trained on the floor. His fatal mistake. The captain’s left hand ran along the bottom of the console behind him, pressing a small red button. An alarm sounded almost immediately, echoing loudly through the corridors of the ship. Lights on the control console flashed repeatedly.

  His eyes lit up. A chill ran down his spine and his blood ran cold. For a moment his life, recently devoted to serving Queen and Country, flashed before his cold grey eyes. He looked back over his shoulder towards the door, moonlight splashing over his face. His heart raced. A drop of sweat ran down his forehead, dripping onto his solid black wet suit. Jonathan Smythe, secret agent for the Echo Echelon, a signature counter-terrorist organization under the British government, turned his startled gaze back to his prey.

  “That was bloody stupid of you!” he yelled as the captain came at him head-on, striking him in the chest before he could react and swatting at his gun. Swiftly, as if the result of years of training and experience, he grabbed a hold of one of the man’s arms, twisted it back, forcing the man to turn his back to him, and then pistol-whipped the back of his head in one quick motion. The man fell to the floor, unconscious.

  Smythe stared straight ahead at the harbour in the distance, then pushed the accelerator handle on the control panel to its limit. After feeling the sudden change in velocity, he rang a shot into the console, sending sparks flying and temporarily lighting the room. Smythe then dashed for the door, took one last look at the sparkling harbour, and flew into the main corridor.

  He crept along the dimly lit hallway, the alarm still ringing in his ears. His right hand firmly gripped his Beretta while his left hand supported it by the wrist. Walking over to the corner of the hall, he kept his back to the wall, and then peered around the corner. The door to the outside upper-deck of the ship was within reach.

  Suddenly, as he leapt from the corner to make his escape, a rope flung around his head, tightened around his neck, and stopped him in his tracks. The guard behind him pulled the rope towards him sharply, dragging Smythe back. He struck his right wrist, causing him to drop his weapon and groan in pain. Just as the rope drove into his neck, stealing his last ounce of breath, Smythe shifted his balance forward, grabbed the man’s arms, and bent forward as he flipped him over his back and onto the floor in front of him. Smythe quickly kicked the guard unconscious with his boot and instinctively reached down for his gun.

  Before he could grab it, gunfire lit up the dark corridor in front of him, bullets ricocheting off the walls. ‘Damn,’ he cursed silently, edging away from the gun. Foreign guards yelled orders at each other and spotted him in their sights as they rounded the corner. Immediately Smythe turned back to the door at the opposite end of the hallway, but froze when he saw three more guards bursting in. Just before the three guards opened-fire on him, he slipped into the hallway he came in through and ran back towards the bridge of the ship.

  The alarm grew even louder as he raced into the control room, eyeing the still body of the captain on the floor in front of him. As he looked ahead of him the docks came into view—the ocean-liner was heading straight for land at full-speed.

  “Sorry, Captain,” Smythe uttered to the unconscious body in front of him, “but every trip must come to an end. The captain does go down with the ship, doesn’t he?” Smythe gave the body one final salute as he leapt through the glass, shattering it, and tumbled onto the deck below. The head officer’s eyes filled with horror as he ran into the control room. He threw down his assault rifle and dashed to the fried main controls, struggling frantically to stop the ship. As his men rolled in behind him he turned and barked at them to get down to the lower decks and kill the fallen spy. He gazed back at the scene in front of him: the harbour docks, five-hundred feet away, and closing in fast.

  A handful of guards bumbled onto the lowest deck, spread out and searched with the sights of their guns for the hidden secret agent. One of the guards near the entrance of the cargo bay at the center of the ship screamed to the others as he fired his rifle into the darkness.

  Suddenly, a crane swung out from the dark, knocking him twenty feet backwards onto the front deck. Smythe dashed out of the cargo bay, dragging a mini jet-ski at his side. The guards fired frantically but could only watch in shock as he leapt from the speeding ocean-liner, climbed onto the roaring jet-ski in mid-air, and hit the water at full-speed, splashing waves in every direction. Smythe sped away and weaved through the docks as three guards quickly grabbed their own jet-skis and jumped off the ship in pursuit.

  The ocean-liner Aquarius roared as it careened into the wooden docks, demolishing them. The remaining men screamed as they hurled themselves off the ship in panic. Smythe glanced over his shoulder and his heart-stopped: the hull of the ship blew into the harbour at full-speed and exploded almost instantly, lighting up the sky with orange flames and debris. Clouds of smoke erupted into the sky as the wreckage continued to burst into flames, engulfing one of the jet-skiing guards before he could clear the wreckage. Smythe released his breath as he sped along the edge of the harbour, confident he had escaped.

  Suddenly, he spied one of the jet-skiing guards out of the corner of his eye just soon enough to swerve out of the way of a bullet from his pistol. Smythe accelerated as the guard’s
second shot rang off the back of his jet-ski. He turned sharply to the left, just avoiding a wooden pillar, as he skimmed along the water under the docks, with the guard following closely on his left. They both weaved through the pillars as the guard struggled for a clear shot. Finally he rode in line with Smythe’s jet-ski, slowly aiming at him, relishing the moment of the kill. The guard saw Smythe smiling back at him through his sight just as his jet-ski smashed into the pillar in front of him.

  “He had it coming to him,” Smythe uttered as he veered left into the canal that ran through the city. The wind blew through his jet-black hair as he sped through the city, gazing at the night sky.

  “Blast!” he yelled as the third guard slammed his jet-ski into Smythe’s from behind. Smythe leaned his jet-ski to the left as the guard sped up beside him, glaring at Smythe with his deep, sinister eyes. The pursuer kept pace with Smythe, swatting at him with his left hand, maintaining control of his jet-ski with his right. Smythe struck the guard with fierce blow to the stomach. The guard reacted with a quick reflex and grabbed Smythe by the shoulder, pulling both jet-skis against each other. Both jet-skis skimmed side-by-side along the still water of the narrow canal, rushing under a bridge at incredible speed.

  Smythe’s heart raced as he glanced forward, eyeing the approaching dam at the end of the canal. People watching from the streets screamed in terror as they watched both men race towards their inevitable doom. The streetlights of the small urban city illuminated the final stretch of the canal, showcasing their speedy path to destruction.

  The guard grunted as he attempted to pull Smythe off, but stopped to correct his steering after momentarily losing control. Then he screamed in shock as Smythe abandoned his own jet-ski and jumped to the other, landing behind the guard and swiftly holding him in a firm neck-hold. The sound of the roaring dam echoed up ahead, as they raced towards it at break-neck speed.

  “Arrgh..!” the guard groaned as he struggled to steer and fight back simultaneously. Smythe jerked the guard’s neck back and spoke directly into his ear.

  “Hope this isn’t a bad time for me to ask,” he said sarcastically, “Who do you work for?!” The guard leaned forward but Smythe pulled him back firmly, pausing only to glare at the dam that closed in about ninety feet away. “The explosives, they were a pay-off for what?” Smythe screamed into the man’s ear in frustration, “Who set this up?” The guard’s eyes raced, struggling to find a way out, and fast. Smythe increased his hold on the man’s neck, showing no mercy. Mist blew into their faces, drenching them in ice-cold water. Smythe heard the roar of the dam closing in on them, like a lion closing in on its prey.

  “Give me a name!” Smythe screamed in panic.

  “It was…” the guard struggled to whisper the name with his last ounce of breath, “Petrov.”

  At that moment Smythe released the guard and dove backwards into the water, surfacing only to hear the guard’s scream and watch as his jet-ski exploded into the face of the dam. Breathing hard, he swam to the edge of the canal and climbed over the fence and onto the usually dark street now lit up by the explosion.

  He stood up, and took a deep breath as he stared back down the street along the canal and back into the ocean. The sky was filled with stars and illuminated the magnificent night. The crash of the ocean waves could still be heard from where he was standing.

  “Petrov,” he repeated to himself, then stared up at the serene night sky.

  A blue moon.