The Journey, A Dirk Cobb Thriller (Book Two): The Dirk Cobb Thrillers, #2

By T.L. Peters

Dirk Cobb embarks on a treacherous journey through the exotic Bolivian highlands in search of the key that will unlock an age old Biblical prophecy. But what he finds instead is a plot that threatens to unravel the world's fragile nuclear balance. Are the two linked, and can Dirk stop the terrifying conspiracy before it turns into a deadly reality?

"This second installment of the exciting new series, The Dirk Cobb Thrillers, tracks our quirky hero as he leaps from one bizarre incident to the next in a breathtaking trek that takes him from the dazzling Andean city of La Paz, to the ancient silver mining town of Oruro, to the highest navigable lake in the world. There is plenty of action, loads of fun and a dash of romance as well in this often unpredictable and always suspenceful saga, with the indomitable Snowflake and her offbeat family always just a heartbeat away." Theodora

"Peters delivers first-rate entertainment. At just 99 cents, a can't miss value." Damsel

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.L. Peters
• Release date: Apr 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476276816

T.L. Peters

"There's no question that Peters is a master wordsmith." Gerry B's Book Reviews About the author: T.L. Peters is an ex-lawyer who enjoys playing the violin and giving his dog long walks in the woods. In between, he writes novels.

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The Journey, A Dirk Cobb Thriller (Book Two)

By T.L. Peters

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012, T.L. Peters

License Notes

This e book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

To read more about the author and his other books, including his popular Jake Stone series, go to http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tlpeters.

First rate entertainment. Peters supplies loads of action and plenty of fun. Damsel

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

June, 2022

Chapter 1

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

The blond with the soft amber highlights slugged me in the belly with a tight bony fist before uppercutting me in the chin with a powerful left hand. The second blow sent me staggering against the wall of my office. I tried to fight back, but she was too quick for me. She clobbered me with a flurry of jabs and then kicked me in the kneecap. I squealed in pain and shouted for someone to help me, but no one came.

Why should they? It was the middle of the night. Everybody, all the lawyers, all the secretaries, even that workaholic fiend Tiffany Sears, had gone home, and the morning custodial staff hadn't shown up yet. Maybe there was a security guard or two roaming the halls, but it was a big building and I was just one little man squirreled away in a cramped two-bit office crammed up next to the supply room.

I knew I shouldn't have done this, stayed late for a little private sparring match, but Katie, the duplicitous blond who was in the process of kicking the snot out of me, had talked me into it. Now that I was knee deep in some horrific treachery of Biblical proportions, she said I needed to know how to defend myself, and she was going to teach me, and the sooner we started the better. Her orders had come straight from Snowflake, she said. And now Katie was dishing out her first lesson. It was a real doozy, too, I mused bitterly, as she once again threw a bone hard knuckle sandwich right into my belly.

This one knocked me flat onto my scrawny little rump. I writhed and squirmed on the hard wood floor trying to get my breath. I hadn't had the wind knocked out of me since I was a kid playing street football, but the memories came back fast, in a torrent really, the desperate feeling that I was about to die, the sucking sensation deep inside me as I gasped for a bit of air, but came up with nothing but dry hard emptiness.

I figured she'd eventually let up on me, but she didn't. She just hovered over me, kicking me in the shins every few seconds in between stomping on my thighs and chest with those black 7 1/2 inch stiletto heels. The only good thing about it was that Katie had dressed specially for the occasion, and she looked sharp all the way up and down her tight wiry body.

I was in an excellent position to judge, lying flat on my back whimpering up at her as she continued to beat the living daylights out of me. Her attire was nothing fancy though—a skimpy black leather bra and a lace up black vinyl thong. She must have changed into her skimpy duds in the ladies' room before paying me this painful late night visit. It was a nice wardrobe choice, I had to admit.

Finally the air started trickling back into my lungs, enough anyway to let me utter a few tortured words as I ogled the tough hard ridges on her six pack abs.

Where'd you buy that get up, in some lingerie store?

Dominatrix lingerie, on sale over the Internet, Katie giggled. It's intimidating, don't you think?

You got that right, I squealed just before she kicked me in the jaw.

I flipped over backwards, my chest crashing against the floor. But maybe it was a good thing, because the hard landing had rattled my insides around enough that now at least I was almost breathing normally again. I tried to squirm to my feet, but she jumped onto my back and began riding me between her legs like she was the cowboy and I was her horse.

I would have thrown her off, but her grip was way too strong. Her legs were like metal clamps on a vise that was slowly tightening against my ribs. I whacked her in the calf a few times with my fist, but she just laughed. Then I tried rolling over, hoping I could dislodge those steel hard thighs, but I couldn't budge her. She had me dead to rights.

Give up? she growled in mock derision.

Where have you been? I panted. I gave up five minutes ago.

I must not have heard you.

What do you want me to do, kiss your feet?

Not a bad idea, she observed, laughing with an unmistakeably stern edge.

She suddenly and mercifully let go of me and then sauntered around the office as I tried to get my strength back. Just when I was about to give standing up another try, I saw her rippling bare legs looming a few inches from my face. The next thing I knew my head was being shoved down onto the floor. My jaw hit first, but then she screwed my face around so that my right cheek was grinding into the rough wood. For her next humiliation of me she tossed off one of her shoes and slammed her naked toes against my mouth.

Kiss them, she ordered.

Why are you doing this to me? I sputtered. I thought we were on the same team.

To learn how to fight well, she intoned harshly, you first have to learn what it feels like to lose, to lose badly. Snowflake taught me that. You're about to get a mouthful of losing, Dirk, so maybe next time you'll fight a little harder, and a little dirtier too. There's no such thing as fighting too dirty, even when you're fighting a woman, especially when you're fighting a woman. That's what Snowflake says.

I started screaming for help again, but all it got me was a karate chop in the small of my back. I yelped in agony as I tried to move my legs.

I'm paralyzed, I whimpered.

She laughed.

You're just a little numb. You'll get over it. Now kiss my toes.

She was right. The feeling in my legs returned almost immediately. Heartened that I might still survive this thrashing in one piece, I dutifully puckered up as I slid my cheek over the hard floor toward her purple toenails. While she was changing into her lingerie she must have tossed some perfume onto her sleekly sculpted ankles, because they smelled like fresh peaches.

I began to curl my lips around her little toe. She apparently liked the sensation, because now she was panting too. But the panting didn't last long, not after I bared my teeth and clamped them around the soft middle joint. She let out a piercing, cringing scream that shook me to my core, but I didn't let it distract me from digging my teeth harder and deeper into the tender muscle and bone.

I was like a wild man and didn't let go when she started stomping on my neck with her other foot, stiletto heels and all. I held on like a viper clinging to its struggling prey, even when she began whipping me around the room so fast and hard that my whole body was a foot off the floor. I just clenched my teeth all the harder. I was amazed I didn't chew her toe right off. But she was apparently as tough as nails all the way up and down her amazingly lithe body, and she somehow held together in one piece.

Finally she couldn't take the pain anymore and shouted at me to lay off. I tried to tell her to say Uncle, but it was hard to talk with her little toe in my mouth. After a while she must have figured out what I wanted, and I heard her squeal in a high tight voice.

I submit, you jerk.

I eased off my grip, and she ripped her foot away. Then she sank down onto the floor next to me cuddling her bleeding toe in her hands and whimpering like a baby. I slowly sat up, spat her blood out of my mouth and began feeling my rib cage and arms and shoulders and jaw and any other place that hurt, which was pretty much my entire body. But nothing seemed terribly out of place, just sore. I doubted if I had a single broken bone, but there sure were enough aches and bumps and bruises to almost make up for it.

This was at least the sixth or maybe seventh time—it was tough by then keeping count—that I'd been beaten up by a woman in the past three months, and every time I'd managed to emerge from the debacle without suffering permanent physical injury. Psychologically and emotionally, that was another thing. But beggars can't be choosers. I figured if I could just keep myself alive somehow, eventually this crazy nightmare would end and I'd have the chance to fix my battered psyche as well.

I can't believe you actually bit my toe, she squealed, the tears bubbling out of her eyes. I never heard of such a thing.

You said to fight dirty.

She shook her head and then scraped her forearm over her watery eyes.

Snowflake told me you were a natural. I guess she knows her stuff.

Natural for what?

A natural scrapper, which is what she calls her husband Jake. She says he's as weak as a strand of cooked spaghetti, but yet he can handle himself against almost anyone, anyone except her and Fierce that is. But still, it's impressive. After all, he's just a guy.

We guys have to stick together, I wheezed, wiping the warm sweat off my forehead.

Don't get any cute ideas just because you got the best of me this once, she warned. Women rule in your world, at least for now.

Don't remind me, I squawked bitterly.

Chapter 2

At five o'clock the next afternoon, Katie and I boarded an all night flight for La Paz, Bolivia with a stopover in Miami. I was going because my boss, Lester Firth, had told me I had to. Katie was going because I was going, and she wanted to keep an eye on me. It was the way my life seemed to be headed for the foreseeable future, or at least until I could figure out some way to shake these nutty Amazons. But no great ideas on how to perform that clever feat had popped into my brain lately, and my existence seemed to be progressing swiftly on a steep downward spiral.

I had at least one thing going for me though. My career seemed reasonably secure. I had displaced Tiffany Sears as the main go-to junior lawyer on the Buxton account, and now Lester wanted me to check out Buxton's latest project, the uranium mining and related nuclear facilities in Bolivia. He said I needed to have a full grasp of the immensity of the project. I was just glad to get out of town. I was hoping the change in scenery would clear my head. It was all so confusing.

First I got beat up by some big babe in Cambridge. Then I was assigned to baby sit a spoiled trust baby, Thorpe Buxton, who it turned out had a thing for nasty women, a weakness that may have gotten him killed. And the next thing I knew I was eyeball to eyeball with some big broad named Snowflake, who fed me a crazy tale about how I was the focal point of some grand Biblical prophesy about two olive trees, two candlesticks and two white haired old men sketched out on an ancient parchment scroll that Katie and I had dug up five feet underneath the bronzed statue of John Harvard in the Old Yard at Harvard College.

How all this mayhem hung together, if it even did, I had no idea. But it must have been real, or at least some of it was. Otherwise, what was this sleek beauty doing accompanying me around the globe as my glorified bodyguard and martial arts instructor and who knew what else? At least Katie had ditched her kinky leather outfit in favor of a pretty teal rayon dress with a scoop neckline, cap sleeves with ruffled cuffs, and a hem falling at the knee. Her stylish tangerine flats caught my eye as well.

She glanced my way as I was checking her out and threw a sturdy elbow into my side. The blow was hard enough to make me wince, but not enough to cause me to scream out in pain, a clear improvement over her treatment of me the prior evening.

I should have worn more comfortable shoes, she lamented, especially after you almost bit my toe off last night. The toe box on these is way too narrow, and the back curves up and in, so that it pinches my heel.

Life is tough, I noted dryly. What excuse did you tell the store where you work to justify all the time off you're suddenly taking?

I didn't have to tell them anything, she replied curtly. I quit my job. It was just a cover anyway until I wormed my way into your life. You're my full time job now. If you don't like it, talk to Snowflake.

I'd rather talk to her daughter, I shot back. Less chance of a near death experience with her.

Don't get too cocky, she snarled. When you come right down to it, Fierce is just as lethal as her mom. Keep your eye on the mission, and you'll be fine.

And just exactly what is the mission? I asked.

If you haven't figured it out by now, you're not nearly as bright as I thought.

All I know is that wherever I go, somebody either gets killed or I get beat up.

Then you have something exciting to look forward to in Bolivia, she replied, smiling ominously.

I lowered my eyes as the flight attendant began explaining the plane's emergency equipment. I was wearing a gray woolen suit, a white shirt, a pink and blue box plaid tie and black wing tips. Pretty stodgy stuff, I thought, for a guy who was on the cutting edge of some earth shattering Biblical prophecy.

As I turned again toward Katie, my hand inadvertently bumped against her thigh. It was as hard as rock.

What do you really make of all this talk of olive trees and two witnesses and candlesticks? It's all just gobbledygook to me.

Then you ought to get a Bible and do some careful reading. The relevant passage is only a couple of pages. You might learn something.

Snowflake already read it to me, in two different translations. It just sounded like some old fairy tale.

She frowned and shook her pretty head.

This will go a lot better for both of us, Dirk, if you would just cooperate. How did you make it in the legal business anyway, as mule headed and difficult as you are?

We lawyers are prickly by nature, and our legal training only makes it worse. You're no angel either judging by how you connived your way into my affections.

It had to be done, she snapped. There was no other way.

Lucky me.

You just better wise up, or your career will meet an abrupt end.

Are you threatening me again?

Just stating facts.

As the flight took off, I leaned back and closed my eyes. As antsy as I was about what awaited me in Bolivia, I was dead tired and fell asleep right away. I even slept through the stopover in Miami and only woke up just as the pilot was announcing our long descent into the La Paz International Airport, which he informed us