Dick Thornby Thriller Series by Donald J. Bingle ➱ Series Tour with Giveaway

 

 

Net Impact

A Dick Thornby Thriller Book 1

by Donald J. Bingle

Genre: Spy Thriller, Action Adventure

Dick Thornby is not Hollywood's idea of a spy. He's a new kind of spy for a new kind of world.

In his rough and tumble job there are no tailored Italian suits, no bimbos eager to please, and no massive underground fortresses built by evil overlords seeking world domination—just an endless series of sinister threats to the safety and security of the billions of mundane citizens of the planet. Sure, Dick's tough and he knows a few tricks to help him get out of a tight spot, even if his boss accuses him of over-reliance on explosives. But he's also got a mortgage, a wife upset by his frequent absences on "business" trips, and an increasingly alienated teen-age son who spends way too much time playing in gaming worlds on the computer.

When a mission to bust up an arms exchange in New Zealand goes spectacularly bad, Dick is thrown into a maze of conflict involving Hong Kong arms dealers, cyber-criminals, Chinese government goons, and even militant Maoris. When a young computer expert back at the Philadelphia headquarters for The Subsidiary, an international espionage agency created in the aftermath of 9/11, discovers that the bad guys are involved in a vast conspiracy. Dick is forced to partner with the espionage neophyte to battle evil on multiple fronts, leading to a final confrontation that incorporates real-world conspiracy theories and cutting-edge technology.

In the end, Dick can save his partner, save his marriage, save his son, or save the world, but he can't do it all.

Says Spy Guys and Gals: "What a terrific ride ... action, great characters, interesting twists, and enough suspense to make you both hold your breath and turn the page"

Says Game Knight Reviews: "This is a spy novel that intersects with the world of MMORPGs and combines a set of topics I haven’t seen before. It is a bit of The DaVinci Code with some James Bond and a modern virtual reality spin."

Available in trade paperback, ebook, and audiobook versions.

Want to continue the action? Look for Wet Work, the next adventure in the Dick Thornby Thriller series by Donald J. Bingle. Flash Drive, the third book in the series, is coming soon. Want more action? Check out the author's other thrillers: Forced Conversion; GREENSWORD; and Frame Shop.

**On Sale for Only .99 cents!!**

Add to Goodreads

Amazon * B&N * Kobo * Audible

Wet Work

A Dick Thornby Thriller Book 2

Dick Thornby is not Hollywood's idea of a spy. He's a new kind of spy for a new kind of world.

Dick's not a supercool guy in a tuxedo or a crazed loner who does nothing but kill and drive fast. He's just a regular guy with some skills for a job that needs doing. He also has a wife, a teenaged kid, a mortgage, and all the mundane problems associated with life. His friends from the New Jersey subdivision where he lives all think he is a wastewater treatment consultant. But instead of dealing with the dirty job of processing sewage in third world countries, he is really on missions, some mundane and dirty, others of vital importance and even dirtier.

After taking personal revenge on the criminal behind both his son’s injuries and the continued disintegration of his marriage, Dick Thornby is teamed with Acacia (“Ace”) Zyreb, a young, female agent from the East European office of the Subsidiary, to deal with the mystery behind coordinated hacking of the braking systems of several car models.

Doing his best to maintain his vows to his wife, Dick struggles to deal with the inexperience and provocative attitude of Ace on her first non-European mission. Their somewhat combative investigation takes a left turn by uncovering a much more sinister threat to the world and to Dick's family. He's willing to risk his job, his partner, and his life to eliminate the threat, but the clock is ticking.

Here's what Spy Guys and Gals had to say about Net Impact, the first book in the Dick Thornby series: "I love spy novels. I devote my hobby time to them. I write about them on my website. When I find a series that I really enjoy, I am delighted and that word most definitely applies to this series. It has action, great characters, interesting twists, and enough suspense to make you both hold your breath and turn the page (digitally in my case). I like Dick Thornby and I like reading about him and I hope to continue to do so."

Explosions! Action! Spycraft! Car Chases! Thrills! Mysteries! Conspiracies! Globe-Trotting! Sexual Innuendo! More Explosions!

Now available, Flash Drive, the third installment in the Dick Thornby Thriller series.

From the author of Net Impact, plus other fine thrillers, including Forced Conversion, GREENSWORD, and Frame Shop.

Add to Goodreads

Amazon * B&N * Kobo * Audible

Flash Drive

A Dick Thornby Thriller Book 3

Dick Thornby is not Hollywood's idea of a spy. He's a new kind of spy for a new kind of world.

Of course, it's complicated when you're an international spy with a wife, a kid, and a mortgage, but everyone thinks you're really a waste water treatment consultant. And, it's bad when your family finds out about your clandestine life, your wife wants to keep tabs on where you are, and your kid tries to emulate your espionage activities. But, it's downright dangerous for your career, your family, your colleagues, and your prospects of living until retirement when the powers-that-be at the Subsidiary discover you haven't been keeping the secrets you should have.

Forced to bring his family in tow on an off-the-books mission to investigate a mysterious flash in the middle of the Australian Outback, Dick Thornby has to contend with foreign agents, a sinister Japanese cult, outlandish conspiracy theories, and futuristic weapons from the past to save his family and himself while still completing his bizarre quest for the truth about what happened out woop woop and why so many people with weapons care.

“FLASH DRIVE builds on the universe that Mr. Bingle began with NET IMPACT and continued with WET WORK. This time, everyman spy Dick Thornby and his family are on a mission to… wait, huh? What secret agent in his right mind brings his family along on a dangerous espionage assignment? Find out inside this grand entertainment that sports an intriguing plot, well-written and thrilling action scenes, and a few laughs, too!”--Raymond Benson, author of Hotel Destiny—a Ghost Noir and The Black Stiletto Serial

“Dick Thornby, Donald J. Bingle’s domestic family man and international spy is back! And that’s a good thing if you want a danger-filled and thrilling adventure (and who doesn’t?) mixed with family-love and laced with Bingle’s signature wit. Do what needs to be done and get Flash Drive. A good time will be had by all!” — Steven Paul Leiva, Award-winning author of Blood is Pretty: The First Fixxer Adventure.

"Donald J. Bingle has, without a doubt, a sleek style of writing. Flash Drive is not run-of-the mill, for sure. The new Dick Thornby spy thriller sets a suspenseful, compelling espionage tale against a backdrop of what we often assume to be an imperturbable Australia."--Khaled Talib, Author of Spiral

Here's what Spy Guys and Gals had to say about Net Impact, the first book in the Dick Thornby series: "I love spy novels. I devote my hobby time to them. I write about them on my website. When I find a series that I really enjoy, I am delighted and that word most definitely applies to this series. It has action, great characters, interesting twists, and enough suspense to make you both hold your breath and turn the page (digitally in my case). I like Dick Thornby and I like reading about him and I hope to continue to do so."

Explosions! Action! Spycraft! Car Chases! Thrills! Mysteries! Conspiracies! Globe-Trotting! Exotic Weapons! More Explosions!

Read the entire Dick Thornby Thriller series, including Net Impact and Wet Work. From Donald J. Bingle, the author of other fine thrillers, including Forced Conversion, GREENSWORD, and Frame Shop.

Add to Goodreads

Amazon * B&N * Kobo

 Net Impact, by Donald J. Bingle

Prologue

The squad moved through the unfamiliar terrain with practiced ease.  Hawk was on point, scanning the all-too-near horizon methodically.  Peregrine and Shrike trailed at an oblique angle to either side at least a grenade-blast’s diameter behind, side points in a classic diamond pattern combat formation.  Completing the geometry, Pigeon trailed the same distance yet again behind them, swiveling his head back at uneven intervals to watch their six.

The landscape sloped sharply, but unevenly, upward toward the cloudless, frozen blue sky.  Huge slabs of rock, graffiti-free this far from respectable civilization, were strewn about their path like a young girl’s jacks across the floor.

Hawk flicked his vision involuntarily heavenward as if a giant, red rubber ball might be descending to crush the squad while the enormous, granite jacks were swept up by a gargantuan eight-year old.  He chuckled softly at his own paranoia.  He’d seen plenty of bizarre things in his time, to be sure, especially in this strange land.  This mission, in particular, presented dangers both from the terrain and from the authorities, should the squad be detected and an assassination team scrambled.  But big, rubber balls wielded by colossal eight-year olds were not among them.

He slowed for a moment to verify the coordinates for the rendezvous against their tortuous progress through the wilderness, checked the time on the bulky, multi-functional chronograph on his left wrist, and then pressed the sub-vocal microphone hanging down from his headset against his neck with his beefy left hand.

He spoke without opening his mouth, in essence silent to everyone not hooked into the squad’s encrypted digital frequency with a properly-tuned, algorithmic descrambler.  The sub-vocal mike took a bit of getting used to, but with some practice it was so effective it sometimes seemed as if the squad members could read each other’s minds.  “We’re close.”  Hawk gestured with his right arm at the arc of boulders blocking their vision up-slope.  “In there, no doubt.”

He stopped in his tracks and made a circular motion with his right hand while sending another sub-vocal command.   “I want a three-sixty scan of the perimeter, around and above, before we go in.”

Peregrine, Shrike, and Pigeon all stopped and began their scans, each starting with their individual sector priorities.  Hawk trusted the group, trusted his men—this wasn’t their first stroll in the wilderness—but he obeyed his own orders, doing a full sweep in all directions.  Starting at twelve o’clock and then shifting in uniform increments through a complete arc in all dimensions, he systematically studied the view with a focused, penetrating gaze.  After he completed the process using his own keen eyesight, he repeated the routine with the magnification turned up full on his precision optical scanner, a device that was a damn sight better than military grade and for which he had paid a pretty penny of his own hard-earned cash to possess.

The place was desolate and almost Spartan in its lack of significant landmarks.  They never would have found the location for the meeting without a GPS device.  The terrain was trackless, featureless, and empty beyond imagining.  There were no buildings in line-of-sight.  Not even a simple yurt could be found tucked into one of the numerous draws and valleys.  No mine entrances could be spied perched on the sides of the steep slopes.  The broad expanse of sky above was vacant, as if from a time primordial.  Not a single plane or jet trail marred the uniform cobalt; no birds wheeled and screed in the thin air at this altitude.  The silence of the area was palpable—they hadn’t seen any wildlife on the ground since Peregrine had flushed a deer hours and hours ago.

When everyone had confirmed what Hawk’s own observations had told him, he motioned for the group to continue forward in combat formation.  Even though he hadn’t signaled for it, a quick glance back told him they had all, like him, instinctively crouched lower as they moved into the circle of boulders for the anticipated rendezvous.

Hawk had to scramble hand-over-hand to make his way through the arc of boulders that ringed the meeting place like jagged teeth.  Despite his attempts to be stealthy, he dislodged a few loose stones, which skittered down as he sought purchase in the crannies between slabs of lightly-veined, gray granite.  He cursed at himself for the clumsy noisiness of his approach.  When he finally reached a vantage point, however, perching like a bit of meat caught between teeth badly in need of flossing, he could see there was no one in the circle of stones to have heard his less-than-professional approach.  He did a full scan of the surprisingly grassy, level area forming an oval in the midst of the protective rocks.  The giant chunks of granite appeared from this vantage almost as if they had been placed with Stonehenge precision to fortify the simple field.  When he found no sign of the squad’s rendezvous counterparts or anyone else, he motioned the team forward and secured a protected covering position with a broad field of fire on the inner slope of the rocks.

One by one, the rest of the squad entered the circle and set up secure positions along the eastern arc of rocks and crevices to await their contacts.  Hawk checked his chronograph and snarled softly.  The other side was late.

Never a good sign.

The waiting was merely tedious; the second-guessing he was doing while he waited was torture.  His mind raced, now unoccupied by the mundane mechanics of a stealth march through unfamiliar territory in a land more foreign than he had ever encountered before.  It was a civilization that played by its own rules and was ruled by a largely faceless coterie of zealous bureaucrats who had immense power and their own hidden agendas.  Things could happen here you could never believe, even though the powers-that-be proffered their citizens a façade of freedom and a semblance of self-determination.

In a place like this, things could go suddenly and terribly wrong.

So the worries raced through Hawk’s mind.  Was the squad being set up?  Were the rebels they were to meet really rebels and not government goons on their own clandestine mission, a mission targeting his team’s destruction?  Had their long, lonely trek to this place been detected?  Worse yet, had the squad members been identified and massive retaliation already been put into action, not just here for him and his squad, but back home where everyone he loved worked and breathed and played, unaware of his role in this world, never assuming he could be this person and do the things he had done?

A chirp from Shrike broke his reverie.  A force was moving into the teeth opposite their positions.  The clatter of stones cascading down the far side of the fortress rocks gave the approaching group away even before they could reach the jagged openings allowing entry to the field spread out below.  The noisy approach didn’t say much for their capacity for stealth, but then again, his own earlier approach had been considerably less than ninja-like.  He started to smile at the thought, then caught himself.  This was no place for self-deprecating distraction—not here, not on a mission.  The noise could be a ruse.  He signaled for the squad to do another quick scan in all directions just in case the noise was a deliberate distraction for a move on them from the rear.

Professional paranoia.  That was his job.  He’d learned from the best.

A quick series of chirps and calls from the squad revealed his paranoia was misplaced, this time.  He didn’t care.  One day it wouldn’t be and he would live to talk about it.  Except, of course, he couldn’t talk about it with anyone outside the organization.  And inside the organization you just didn’t do that kind of thing—it ruined the whole macho bullshit mystique of being a big balls covert op.

Oh well.  There was a lot he couldn’t talk about.  That, too, he knew too well, was part of the job.

Finally, what he prayed were his squad’s true counterparts in this rendezvous came into view.  The first to appear in the v-shaped opening between two boulders stood up straight in full view and gave a hearty wave to the seemingly empty field.  Silhouetted by the bright light of the western sky, he presented a target that was a sniper’s wet dream.  “Anybody here yet?” the shadowy figure yelled, then looked around the interior of the circle of stones.  “What an awesome place for a party!”

Rebels.  It had to be real rebels.  It was hard to fake that kind of oblivious stupidity.

Hawk used a small metal mirror from his pocket to flash light in his counterpart’s face to attract his attention.  Once Party Dude noticed the signal, Hawk stood and motioned toward the middle of the field.  Party Dude gave an excited wave and motioned back to the rest of his people to follow him over the rocks and down to the field itself, then leaped and skittered his way to the grass with agile grace.  Hawk signaled for Shrike and Peregrine to move to the field, too.  Pigeon stayed in his roost, crouched in a crevice with a view both inside and outside the granite perimeter.  There was no reason to show their full hand yet.  Hawk could call Pigeon in when he needed the contents of his backpack.  Besides, someone needed to keep an eye out for threats, whether internal or external to their little gathering place.  

Hawk moved down toward the field.  It was an awkward climb down, so he didn’t rush.  Instead, he moved with the deliberate, methodical style of a trained professional.  Not only would it be embarrassing to tumble down the slope in front of their counterparts, but he also wanted to convey to these rebels that he and the members of his team were competent and responsible—not some fly-by-night goons for hire.  The stakes were, after all, enormous, most especially for the rebels.  If this exchange was traced, they didn’t have the kinds of resources Hawk and his team had to protect themselves or just to disappear, if it came to that.

As he made his way down-slope, Hawk took in more details about the rebels and the situation, comparing and contrasting the two groups’ approaches to the mission.  Hawk’s team was coordinated, disciplined, and alert.  Party Dude’s team was disorganized and casual.  Hawk’s team had arrived on time.  Party Dude’s crew was late.  Hawk’s team dressed in simple, loose clothing in a variety of dark, natural shades—the kind of thing that allowed easy movement and provided passable camouflage in most outdoor settings without looking like military or hunting camo gear.  On the other hand, Party Dude’s casual, fashionable clothing featured more logos than the average NASCAR jumpsuit.

The various swooshes and crests and polo ponies on Party Dude’s gear each would have been understated and tasteful in a class-conscious preppy kind of way if worn in isolation.  In combination with all the other understated and tasteful logos, along with a few more garish pieces of affinity-wear touting energy drinks, software, and special-effects laden movies, the ensemble was quite dizzying and, frankly, exhausting to behold.

Party Dude’s five-member (that Hawk could see) team followed their leader down, each exhibiting the same fluid movement and the same tacky fondness for logoed fashion-wear.  It was like they all shopped for overstocked and irregular clothing at the same Stop and Swap flea-market in rural Tennessee.  The group members were all Caucasian in terms of their facial features, but their movements had an Oriental feel to them.  Hawk didn’t really care—whatever they looked like and whoever they were, he knew who they were doing this for and that made all the difference in the world.

The other group took the field and started pitching tents before Hawk’s squad finished descending.  Hawk arched an eyebrow as he strode to the center of the field, proffering his beefy hand to Party Dude for a shake.  Party Dude gave him a fist bump, instead, which Hawk did his best to adjust to.

“Welcome to our shindig, bro,” exclaimed Party Dude.

“Bitchin’ to be here, man,” responded Hawk with faux gusto.  He didn’t know whose benefit all this jovial camaraderie was for, but it was best to play along.  “Staying the night?” he asked, gesturing at the hodge-podge of mismatched tents quickly being assembled.

Party Dude gave a wide grin.  “Absolutely, bro, absolutely.  Nobody comes this far for a meet and greet.  They come to party.  Relax.  We’ll chat.  We’ll eat.  We’ll discuss areas of mutual interest.  We can have sex, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

Hawk stiffened and not in a sexual kind of way.  “Er, no.”  He waved his right hand dismissively and tried his best to give a hearty, casual laugh, although it came off a bit ragged.  “Uh, I gave it up for Lent.”  Lent had ended months ago, but Hawk was pretty sure this guy wouldn’t know that.

Party Dude took the rejection in stride.  “That’s cool.  Lots of grunting and groaning and what does it get you?  Better than that, I’ve got a bootleg of the latest Transformers sequel coming out next month.  We could watch, or maybe I could swap you a copy for something cool.  Got anything?”

And there it was—the code phrase he had been told to expect:  “a bootleg of the latest Transformers sequel.”  Even though it sometimes felt completely ridiculous to do all this clandestine spycraft crap, especially when you were standing in a field in the middle of nowhere with nobody else watching, it paid to have ingrained good habits over the long run.

Hawk smiled.  “Nothing that good, I’m afraid.  Just the never-released pilot for Buffy:  The Vampire Slayer.”

Party Dude frowned.

Hawk knew why.  He hadn’t offered the appropriate item in trade.  He never gave the response to a code-phrase right away.  Someone who knew the right phrase to offer, but not the expected response, would always eagerly accept whatever they were given.  Someone expecting something else would hesitate.  Or come back around for another try.

Or shoot you.  It wasn’t a game without risks.

Party Dude considered for a moment, then wrinkled his nose.  “I could get that on eBay.  Besides, Alyson Hannigan makes a much better Willow.  What else you got?”

Hawk smiled.  “I’ve got a listing of hidden features in the new Grand Theft Auto sequel coming out next week.  Interested?”

Party Dude gave him another fist bump.  “Interested?  There isn’t a guy in the world that doesn’t like cars, tits, and explosions.”  His head tilted to one side.  “Except maybe the Pope. . .”

Hawk laughed out loud.  “Don’t know about the tits and explosions—but he’s got a Popemobile.  Anyone else you know got one?”

Now it was Party Dude’s turn to laugh.  “They oughta let you boost one of those in the game.  Now that would be rad.”

“Sounds like we have a swap, then,” said Hawk, eager to get the business end of the transaction done, not that what they were really swapping had anything to do with robots, cars, or whores.

“Sure, bro, after the party.”

Hawk was disappointed not to finish up the business quickly, but he understood Party Dude’s concerns.  Maybe he didn’t trust someone on his team.  Maybe he thought his group had been detected traveling to this remote place.  Maybe he was worried about what a recon satellite would show over a short time lapse photo spread.  He had said it all on their first exchange:  “Nobody comes this far for a meet and greet.”  He and his squad had to hang and chat about topics relevant to Party Dude’s cover so his presence here could be explained credibly to whoever might inquire.  So, it was pop culture for males 18 to 30 years old for a few hours.

He could do that.  But Hawk did wonder if this meant his subscription to Entertainment Weekly could be written off as a legitimate business expense ... as if his simple, pedestrian tax returns reflected anything at all to do with this facet of his life.

Hawk chatted with Party Dude a bit more, then wandered over to tell Shrike and Peregrine to settle in for the night.  Meanwhile, Party Dude’s team started a campfire.  Hawk had no idea where they got the fuel—trees were sparse this high up—but he understood the choice for their rendezvous spot better now that he knew this shindig was part of the cover.  It had to be a spot where the fire and the gathering wouldn’t attract others.  Although a simple campfire can be seen from miles away, the circle of protective rocks prevented that here.  Of course, the light of a campfire could always be seen from above, from a higher elevation or aerial reconnaissance.  But this site was already well-elevated and an aerial view via high-altitude spy plane or even passing satellite surveillance tasked to take a look would show nothing more than what appeared to be an overnight campout/party.

Party Dude was cleverer than he looked.

But apparently not clever enough.

Without warning, there was a flash and the camp erupted in chaos as an invisible shockwave of pressurized air radiated out from where one of the rebel’s tents had once stood.  Hawk’s combat sense screamed at him that there had been an explosion, but there was no smoke, no fire, and no charred debris.  Instead of the sharp boom of an explosion, there had been a deep rumble.  Hawk scanned the area, flicking his eyes from point to point in rapid succession, desperate to acquire more data.  The data, when it came, made no sense at all.  He watched as some sort of strange orange death-ray bolted down from an unseen location far above, vaporizing everything it touched in an instant.  In the immediate aftermath of the momentary pulse, people and objects in the surrounding area were knocked asunder.

Rebels were shouting, fleeing, searching for cover, and firing small arms randomly into the sky.  Untrained civilians often react badly to danger, but panic comes in a heartbeat when people are simply being vaporized by an invisible enemy with an impossible weapon.

There was no reason to be subtle anymore.  “Abort!  Abort!  Abort!” screamed Hawk, as he dashed toward Party Dude’s tent, calling for Pigeon to do the same, in the hope of making the exchange before it was too late.  The tent disappeared in a bright flash of orange light, however, as Hawk approached.  He skidded to a stop, just barely avoiding being touched by the bizarre orange glow.  He looked helplessly at the weapon in his hands.  He would use it, if he had a target, but this situation, this bizarre death from above made fighting useless.  He raised the gun as he scanned the field looking for an enemy, looking for some way to retaliate or simply defend, but he did not fire.

In the few seconds it took for Hawk to assess the situation, it deteriorated even further.  The orange light fell upon the field again and again.  Each time a tent or a rebel or a gigantic, granite boulder simply disappeared.  No debris, no crater, no wounded left behind.  Chaotic cries of confusion rang out from the rebels, but there were fewer voices with each passing moment and it wasn’t because the panic was subsiding.

“Take flight,” Hawk yelled to his squad over the tumult of the remaining rebels’ shouts and the soft bass whoomph that accompanied each appearance of the orange energy beam wreaking destruction on the remote meeting place.  The secretiveness of the sub-vocal microphone was not needed for the urgent and obvious orders Hawk needed to convey, both to his men and to their rebel counterparts.  “Scatter now!”  He slung his weapon and obeyed his own order.

Someone was going to pay for this screw-up, Hawk vowed.  He glanced back at the obliterated camp as he gained height in his effort to escape the strange fortress of stones.  A lot of people were already paying for this screw-up.  He hoped he wouldn’t be one of them.

Hawk doubled his speed.  Survival was his only goal.  He didn’t care what it looked like.

Wet Work, by Donald J. Bingle

 

Prologue

Truth told, Jerry Caufield hated his wife’s car. It wasn’t that he wasn’t eco-friendly and all that, but he was a big guy—six foot two and beefy—so squeezing behind the steering wheel of the hybrid sub-compact practically allowed him to steer with his stomach muscles. Okay, his beer belly. The disconcertingly claustrophobic two-door hatchback could barely contain him as he scrunched down and tilted his head so he could see out the windshield.

His discomfort and anxiety over the tiny vehicle was even worse when, like today and almost every day, he was surrounded by huge dump trucks. A constant, smoke-belching stream of growling behemoths hauled gravel from the pits across the bridge, down by the Des Plaines River as it meandered through Joliet. The shallow, placid river paralleled the darker, deeper Sanitary & Ship Canal connecting Lake Michigan (via the Chicago River) to the Mississippi basin.

Driving his wife’s power-starved mini-car next to semis on the open road was bad enough, but the steep hill descending to the main bridge crossing the canal made him feel even more cramped and threatened than usual. Newbie truckers exiting the bridge and stopping at the light on top of the hill tended to drift back precipitously before they got their rigs in gear, then spit gravel at his windshield as they jolted and shuddered forward. And he never could be sure that one of the heavily-laden beasts coming up on his tail on the steep downslope entering the bridge on this side of the canal had good enough brakes to actually halt their load before crushing him and his car like the splattered mosquitos littering his windshield. Accordingly, he always stopped well back from the vehicle in front of him on the downslope and maintained a continuous stare into the side-view mirror for approaching danger.

Today was the day his paranoia finally paid off. A fully-loaded truck came barreling down the hill fast, much too fast. He flicked his eyes forward to make sure the lane for oncoming traffic was clear, manhandled the wheel hard to the left, and punched the accelerator to the floor to escape being rear-ended to death.

The subcompact whined like the overstressed golf cart it was, slowly inching to the left until the gas motor kicked in to assist the batteries and the vehicle trembled into stuttering acceleration. Jerry stared at the mirror, watching as gravel flew off the pile in the back of the truck and skittered across the roof of the cab as the unshaven trucker braked hard, his eyes wide, a fat cigar falling out of his surprised, open mouth, as his body lurched forward from the attempted hard stop.

It was going to be close, too close.

Jerry wasn’t a religious guy, so no prayers whispered forth from his mouth as he watched his ignominious death approaching, his reaper laying black rubber on the pavement and churning out white smoke as worn tires tried to overcome the momentum of tons of loose, shifting rock. Instead, a stream of invective flowed from Jerry’s snarling lips as he imagined the huge tires of the behemoth rolling atop his wife’s little bug of a car and stomping it down, greasy, bloody, and flat. He was going to die a stupid, needless, painful death simply because his wife needed his car today because it was her turn to carpool their kids to elementary school.

He hoped she would feel guilty about it at his funeral.

Closed casket, of course.

But, then ... then the crappy automatic transmission in the peapod of a car he was driving kicked up a notch and it began moving faster. He leaned forward instinctively, whether fleeing the upcoming death from behind or attempting to push the car downhill faster, he didn’t know. As Jerry swerved left into the open lane, the truck driver swerved right toward the curb and the empty sidewalk, each of their actions giving a minute boost to the rapidly-shrinking distance between the vehicles.

Maybe, just maybe ...

Suddenly, the hybrid farted forward, as if it had just seen what was about to happen via its rearview camera. Jerry kept his foot on the floor—he didn’t want to take any chances. But, then, he looked up and saw the garbage truck turning into the lane from Canal Street, which paralleled the dark, murky waters of the commercial canal. In the old days, mules had trundled that path, pulling barges from the shore. Now ... well, now garbage trucks trundled along it, picking up dumpsters from the back entrances of the local shops that showed their prettier faces uphill, along the main drag.

Jerry had managed to snatch his life from the jaws of defeat and instead thrust it into the jaws of a Browning-Ferris Industries municipal garbage truck. Instead of straightening out, he kept the wheel hard to the left, hoping to jump the opposite curb and decelerate on the sidewalk.  With any luck he could stop before he reached the corner and t-boned the big, green machine with “BFI” blazoned on its side. His foot jerked up and to the left, then stomped down on the brake as hard as he had stomped on the accelerator only moments, but yet an eternity, before.

But, nothing happened.

Nothing fucking happened.

His foot went to the floor, but the brakes did not engage. He searched frantically for the center-mounted emergency brake with his right hand as he gripped the wheel tight with his left, his eyes wide and forward now, scrutinizing this new terror.

Despite taking his foot off the gas, the tiny car still accelerated down the hill. His fingers grazed the handle of the emergency brake for a millisecond before the jolt from jumping the opposite curb flung them up and off, grasping at air. He jinked the wheel to the right, straightening out the car to avoid hitting the side of the building flanking the sidewalk, while his right foot stabbed repeatedly at the brake pedal. He gritted his teeth, bracing for the BFI, the Big Fucking Impact, to come. But somehow, somehow, his lizard brain took over and he jinked the steering wheel hard left again just at the right moment, at the very edge of the corner and the car veered left. Miraculously, the shitty car cleared the back of the garbage hauler by mere inches, avoiding the BFI.

There was a wondrous moment of sweet, sweet bliss before his still accelerating midget auto-coffin cleared the narrow breadth of Canal Street and rocketed up and off the embankment. Before he knew it, the toy car was sailing way out there into the air, defying gravity in glorious flight before arcing down and plunging into the stabbing cold, foul black waters of the Sanitary & Ship Canal, the windshield shattering upon impact, the water enveloping him in a torrent as he sank deeper and deeper.

Fuck.

The only things he feared more than enclosed spaces were drowning and hypothermia.

Oh boy, a threesome, just not the kind he’d always craved.

 The tiny car settled rear down from the weight of the batteries as Jerry, still trapped by the cold shock of the water, the heavy pressure of the deep, and a seat-belt auto-tightened by the impact with the embankment, struggled for freedom. As the last wisps of faded gray-green light abandoned him, he watched in mounting terror, his hands grasping frantically, as the air in the car rushed past him from behind, bubbling out through the broken windshield, seeking a sunny, warm freedom he would never know.

In mere seconds, his day had disintegrated into chaos. As his consciousness faded to match the cold black of the muddy bottom of the canal, one last thought flittered through his fading neurons.

He really, really hated his wife’s car.

 Flash Drive, by Donald J. Bingle

 

Prologue

May 28, 1993

 Thwack! Yet another grasshopper slammed into the glass, splattering yellow-green ichor. The windscreen wiper shoved the smashed insect’s shell and one still twitching hind leg into a curving wall of accumulated goo and viscera at the edge of the wiper’s reach. Archie stared ahead, peering through the messy windscreen into the black void of the Outback at night. He reckoned the multitude of twinkling stars were outnumbered by the flashes from his headlights glinting off insects fluttering in his path. Still, he held his semi to a constant hundred kilometers per hour on the lonely road seven hours east and north of Perth.

 

  Archie didn’t really care if he could see well. The road was reasonably straight and he knew better than to swerve if a ‘roo wandered into the big rig’s path. But he did need to stay awake. If his ride wandered off the road into open ground, there was no telling what might happen. He could hit a rock, slide into a dry wash, or get caught up by bushy vegetation or soft soil, with no one around to help get his tractor-trailer back on the straight and narrow.

  He turned up the classic rock on the cab’s tinny radio and cracked his side window enough for a stream of air, but not so wide as to suck in a torrent of hoppers. For the thousandth time, he wished he’d left the coast earlier so he’d be driving this small stretch from Menzies to Leonora in the arvo, when it was still light out. Sure, it would be warmer and the scenery was pretty damn boring when it could be seen, but at least he would be able to see something besides the flashes of insects in the black through a filter of insect guts. He squinted his eyes and peered into the empty.

  A moving slash of intense yellow-white light assaulted his eyes, forcing them fast shut. At the same instant, the radio music dissolved into a mass of crackling static. Archie instinctively hit the air brakes, while simultaneously downshifting as fast as his bulky transmission allowed, even though he had seen—could still see in the scene momentarily imprinted on the back of his retinas—there was nothing in the road ahead. Nor was there anything unusual in the flat salt expanses and mounds of near-constantly dry Lake Ballard to the left—an area which should have been enveloped in blackness this time of night. He opened his eyes, catching a moon-sized streak of yellow-orange light in the sky ahead to his right. At the same time, a long, deep, thunderous, pulsing roar assaulted his ears and rattled the fenders of his slowing rig, like a rolling earthquake triggered by a mining explosion a hundred times stronger than he’d ever experienced.

  Meteor strike?

  No, the bright streak was still airborne, moving across the distant landscape too slowly for a shooting star by his reckoning, about the speed of a plane. Unlike what he knew about meteors, it also maintained a constant altitude as it progressed, rather than arcing down from the sky and slamming into the ground.

  By the time Archie had come to a complete halt in the middle of the god-forsaken roadway and flipped on his hazards, the light had disappeared behind distant hills. But then a sudden horizon-to-horizon burst of blue-white light lasting several seconds emanated from behind the hills where the light had gone down. He sucked in a breath and waited. Moments later an overwhelming, low rumble thundered across the barren terrain, like a freight train and an earthquake and a gargantuan explosion all rolled into one. Where the blue-white light had flashed, a red, spherical—or, at least, hemispherical—dome pulsed above the horizon.

  He flicked off the staticky hiss of the radio, but let the truck idle as he got out to take a clearer—less bug-smeared—look at the strange phenomenon. Now the engine’s throaty chug was the only thing breaking the silence. Diesel was dear, but he let it run. He worried whatever this was might mess with the electrical system of his engine and he might not be able to start her up again.

  Nuke?

  He couldn’t see a mushroom cloud, but the glowing red ball was much dimmer than the flash, or even the streak of light which preceded it, so he couldn’t be sure. Besides, that didn’t make a lick of sense. There was nothing out here in the never never worth nuking. Route 49 wandered northwesterly past Leonora; the red orb throbbed to his north but seemed too far east to be near the road. Lake Darlot? No, farther east. Maybe down Bandya way. Nothing between the two fly-specks ‘cept maybe a few mines and even fewer sprawling sheep stations.

  Maybe that was the point. Nothing there. A perfect place to test nuclear weapons—maybe even nuclear missile systems. But that meant a military presence: facilities, equipment, personnel. And that meant large scale, convoy type movement: Bushmasters, G-Wagons, personnel carriers, and trucks of all sorts. And he hadn’t seen or heard of anything like that, not on the roads he traveled and not on the roads—or godforsaken excuses for roads—that the drivers he hung with at the diners and diesel pumps of local truck stops traveled. That meant black helicopters and all that crazy conspiracy shit which went with ‘em. He hadn’t gone troppo. He didn’t subscribe to such nonsense on a regular basis, but God knows, there was nothin’ regular ‘bout what was goin’ on in the lonely nowhere tonight.

  A jet crash? Maybe. Not a likely route, though, even for Qantas.

  There wasn’t really anything to do ... anything he could check or investigate ... not with the source of the lights beyond the horizon, but he couldn’t just drive on. Instead he waited, his rig’s hazard lights flashing behind him as he stood on the side of the road, watching something unknown pulse in the distance. An apocalyptic hazard light?

  Two hours later, the red orb suddenly winked off and he was alone in the dark with nothing but a strange story, a million stars, and a billion or three ‘hoppers, flies, and midges.

  He’d barely have enough diesel to make Leonora.

  What the hell was that?

Donald J. Bingle is an oft-published author in the thriller, science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, steampunk, romance, comedy, and memoir genres, with seven books (including Flash Drive, Wet Work, Net Impact, Forced Conversion, Frame Shop, The Love-Haight Case Files (with Jean Rabe), and GREENSWORD) and more than 60 shorter stories, primarily in DAW themed anthologies and tie-in anthologies. Many of Don's stories are electronically available, individually or in his Writer on Demand TM collections by genre, including "Tales of Gamers and Gaming," "Tales of Humorous Horror," "Tales Out of Time", "Grim, Fair e-Tales," "Tales of an Altered Past Powered by Romance, Horror, and Steam, "Not-So-Heroic Fantasy," and "Shadow Realities." He is a member of the International Thriller Writers, Horror Writers of America, International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, and Origins Game Fair Library. He was also the world's top-ranked player of classic roleplaying games for about fifteen years.

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

$25 Amazon 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Join us for the #SeriesTour with Guest Post & #Giveaway

#dickthornby #thriller #action #adventure #onsale #donaldjbingle