Emerald Crystal 5

By Bill Calhoun

Stone Maddox was once the leader of the Shark Squad, a secret unit of Navy SEALs. When he discovers that one of his men was murdered to protect Emerald Crystal 5, he embarks on a quest to reveal its deadly secret. But he soon runs into global politics, corruption and international corporate greed on a massive scale. Forced to leave his beloved Japan, he pulls his former team together to rid Asia and the world of the killer compound. However, those who profit from Emerald Crystal 5 are not going away quietly and Stone may have to sacrifice both love and life to save the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Calhoun
• Release date: Apr 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9789810903343

Book preview

Emerald Crystal 5

by BILL CALHOUN

Emerald Crystal 5

copyright 2014 Bill Calhoun

Published by Bill Calhoun PTE.LTD at Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook 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 your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Editor: Rebekah McGrady

Cover design: E-Source Media

Interior design: Rebekah McGrady

ISBN: 978-981-09-0334-3

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Author's Note

More Books by Bill Calhoun

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the support of many people.

Many thanks to my editor, Rebekah McGrady, who struggled through my numerous revisions, helped make sense of my creative confusion, and sculpted greater depth to the characters.

Thanks to Karren Renz Sena, for smoothing out the edges.

Also thanks to my friend Paul Langford, who did not travel completely down this road with me, but did help to start me out on this journey. Paul, you played a small but integral part in making this become a reality.

And to RB — for national security reasons I cannot divulge his name or position — who advised and directed me beyond the call of duty.

And finally, thanks to my savior, family and especially Kate, who endured this long process with me, always offering support and love.

Prologue

The heavily armed, black-clad figures moved stealthily through the small, sleeping village. The leader watched his point man from behind the black hood that concealed all but his intense brown eyes and a bit of ebony skin. Not one movement escaped his eyes and his brilliant power of observation was much needed for this mission. Six other men were counting on him.

Each member of the seven-man team was a highly trained professional, but this particular mission was much more personal in nature. Their target was a master bomb maker whose last Improvised Explosive Device had taken out a unit patrol in Afghanistan, killing three and wounding several. Each man involved in this mission was in one way or another related to the victims of the bombing. This mission was for their fallen brothers. For him.

The point man raised a fist, signaling for the team to stop. He glanced around the corner of a building and motioned for the leader to move forward. No one else twitched even the slightest muscle. In an instant, the leader was beside his point man.

Hand signals. This is the house?

Affirmative. The leader confirmed.

The team had memorized every street and building in the city. They had covered every alley and corner surrounding their target’s house. There was no room for mistakes. The two men observed the two-story structure for indications of life inside. Dim light from a television glowed on the second floor. It had to be the target. A spy had marked him inside an hour ago, but he had no idea that his information had triggered the final step in the team’s well-planned operation.

The spy was now at home with his wife and children, awaiting his payment for that day’s task. He had followed the target all day and was expecting that he would do the same the next. He didn't know that he wouldn’t be following the target tomorrow, or ever again.

The leader turned his head and signaled to the team. Go.

Using the same quiet efficiency with which they'd approached, the team hurried across the street and picked the lock on the gate. Once inside, they jammed the lock on the door.

Inside, three guards were sleeping near the entrance of the house. The team took them out with silenced weapons before they even knew of the danger. Half of the team swept across the rest of the ground floor, while the team leader rushed up the stairs with the second half. The point man went straight to the roof, quietly killing all he encountered. On the roof, a sleeping guard posted to watch for helicopters took a shot in his chest. The point man stood over the body and put another bullet into the head to make sure he wouldn’t be getting up to cause trouble for them.

As he checked the roof for any other guards, he reflected how, ever since the Bin Laden operation, terrorists have feared aerial raids. Apparently, they were far less concerned with operatives who could infiltrate just as effectively on foot.

Below, the team leader reached the door to the target’s room. Without missing a beat, he kicked it open and went in hot. The target was sitting with his back against a wall, facing the door. His eyes went wide with fear as his hands tried to grab at the AK-47 beside him. He never had the chance. The three-shot burst from the leader’s weapon made a neat pattern around his heart.

No!

The leader swiveled upon hearing the scream and fired a second burst in one motion. He acted purely on instinct. For a split second, he remembered hearing from the spy that the target always slept alone, so why was somebody else in the room with him?

The first bullet caught the woman in the stomach, while two others ripped her chest apart. She was thrown back against the wall to where the bed lay in the corner. Dead eyes stared back at the stunned team leader as his spent shell casings clinked onto the floor.

Dear God, he whispered. Despite his training, he could not help the moan that escaped his dry lips. One more violent death of an innocent that he would have to report as 'collateral damage' — in his mind's eye her face blurred into all the faces of all the people he'd had to kill who had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He suddenly felt very tired.

There was a rustle behind him. His teammates came barging in, and from there, everything happened in a blur. There was a flash as the one man took a photo of the body. Another shuffled in and grabbed the target’s laptop and flash drives and stuffed them into his backpack. The second-in-command deliberately brushed against the leader as he walked past. The leader had been standing immobile for far too long, and it was time for them to move. This part of the mission was over.

The team leader nodded, signaling that he was all right, but against every instinct he possessed, he still glanced back at the body of the woman leaning against the wall with her open, lifeless eyes.

They descended to the ground floor and searched the dead guards for any items that might provide useful intelligence. The point man checked the street. All clear, he signaled. In less than ten minutes, the operation had been finished, and the team disappeared into the night.

Four hours later, they were in their scuba gear, diving to the rendezvous point for a submarine to collect them. Once safely aboard the sub, the team leader dropped his guard. Something behind his eyes had changed. Gone was the intensity and ferocity, replaced with something emptier. More dead. In his mind, he could only see a dark room illuminated by a television. He could only see the eyes of an innocent woman who lay dead against a wall on an old bed.

He sat beside the rest of his team as they had their fill of the first real meal they’d had in three days. Stories and conversation flew past his hearing, but he wasn’t listening. Something had changed. He had changed. He had lost his edge. Though he gripped the cup of coffee with both hands, his elbows on the table, Stone Maddox could see a slight tremor in his fingers. He was nursing deep wounds that no one else could see.

It seemed as if he couldn’t handle a single operation anymore without being deeply affected. For the leader of SEAL’s Team Seven, that was a grave matter indeed.

Chapter 1

Buck Crawford leaned against the sturdy wooden fence surrounding the enclosure and surveyed the herd of cattle grazing in the pasture. The sun was slowly settling on the horizon, casting an almost fiery glow over his vast property. Mentally, he calculated the dollars this one enclosure contained. It was more than what he had made in the first year after he took over the business for his father.

The cattleman could trace his ancestors back to the soldiers in the army that kicked General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna out of Texas. As the very first of his clan who set foot in Dallas, Edward Allan Crawford had been the one to establish their name and reputation in this town. Unfortunately, he was also the one who had activated the famous Crawford Curse that now ran in their family by being killed in a minor skirmish instead of a grand battle. Having descended from a line of great warriors, dying in such a small, insignificant manner was considered shameful in his family, and thus, the rest of his clan had suffered thereafter from a seemingly endless string of unfortunate events and shitty luck.

Buck Crawford’s grandfather had established a ranch near Dallas and managed to make a respectable living raising cattle. Unfortunately, the Crawford Curse struck as the oil boom hit Texas, leaving the Crawford land barren of the money-making oil. As Dallas expanded, it pushed against the borders of the State, and when beef prices took a dramatic nosedive, Buck’s father was forced to sell sections of his land to the builders and developers in order to survive. Growing up, Buck had always resented that his friends had money to spend from their family oil businesses while he was herding cattle, barely able to scrape enough together just to get by.

Buck had taken over the ranch after his father died. It had been tough transitioning to running a ranch, especially since he was married at the time, and father to three growing boys. The two older boys, Jesse and David, were content to be cattlemen working long hours on the ranch for little reward. However, the youngest, Nick, had wanted to go off to college. On top of that, he did not want just any college; he'd chosen Notre Dame. Buck had not been inclined to send his son off to one of those northern universities, and a Catholic one to boot, but the boy had his mind dead set on it. Buck had figured it was time to break the curse and sold off a few acres to pay the exorbitant cost of Nick’s education. It turned out to be the best investment he ever made.

Set in the middle of corn-producing country, Notre Dame had an agriculture program unrivaled by any other university in the U.S. The northern folks knew advanced techniques and procedures to raise corn and livestock for a much cheaper overhead cost. Nick Crawford returned home with new practices for raising cattle, as well as a handful of contacts to whom they could actually market their beef for profitable prices. The new methods involved bringing the cattle in off the range, as allowing them to roam around built muscle instead of fat. Moreover, animals kept sedentary in enclosed areas gained more weight more quickly. One of the main concerns with this method was that the cattle would quickly eat up all the grass in the smaller pastures, but this problem was solved by supplementing their diets with corn.

The American Congress loved handing out farm subsidies for votes. It was a numbers game. Senators and representatives from agricultural areas, when banded together, made a powerful voting bloc, and they could use corn to subsidize their campaign coffers. There were so many products made from corn, that there was rarely ever a surplus, allowing the government to keep funding high and prices low. Cheap corn made cattle fat. Fat cattle made money for the Crawford family.

Buck sighed. It was unnatural for the cattle to feed on corn in a cramped pen because their bodies had been made to roam and eat grass. Moreover, he felt it was unnatural for a cattleman to lean against a fence to watch his cattle graze instead of sitting on a horse out on an open range.

The rumble of an engine behind him announced the arrival of the feed truck with the familiar GFH logo. Buck turned to watch it pull into the barn. His youngest son had closed a deal with an international company that supplied them with a new feed mix which had increased the average weight of the herds. Nick Crawford told his father that their new mixture contained a supplement that made it easier for the cattle to digest the feed. The boy had showed him a spreadsheet with estimated figures and profits. Based on his calculations, the Crawford family would make so much money that they would need to find tax shelters to protect it. His projections had come true.

Emerald Crystal 5. It sounded so advanced, so wholesomely pure. Crawford cattle were feeding the world with prime, healthy meat, bred and processed at such a low cost.

Buck shook his head. It still bothered the traditional cattleman in him. It seemed counterintuitive to believe that these cattle were of superior quality compared to those raised by his ancestors, but how could he argue with the data his son had provided from the partner company? That, and knowing that the Crawford curse was finally ended, should have made him sleep better at night.

* * * *

Under the beautiful North Carolina sky, George Gilmore walked from his pickup truck to the chicken barn. The closer he got to the barn, the stronger the smell became. Inside were thousands of chickens, cooped up in total darkness. George raised broiler chickens bred to reach a target weight of five pounds in an average of 45 days. The abnormal growth rate caused fatal heart attacks, as well as fatal injuries in the bone structure of the chickens. However, even the dead birds were a prime source of profit, as they were sold for fertilizer production.

There were times when George struggled with his conscience when it came to the breeding and raising techniques the parent company forced him to use. His hands were tied, however, because the cost to build and keep one barn running was several hundred thousand dollars and he had six barns. For each barn, he had a loan arranged by Tygrow Farms, the large processor that bought every chicken he raised. Tygrow not only facilitated the financing, but also supplied the chicks and the feed mixture at prices way below anything on the open market. George made a nice living from his business, what with his low capital and high profit returns, but he was also in so much debt to Tygrow that he could not afford to quit.

Not to worry, his company advisor told him. His profits were on the rise, thanks to a new supplement in the feed called Emerald Crystal 5. The new miracle mixture would add one-half to one pound to each bird and reduce the cost of the feed in the process.

George watched the large feed truck dump its load into the silo that flowed into each of the barns. The driver and the truck had the GHF logo, which had become so familiar to him. He had never heard of Global Health and Fitness Inc. before the new feed truck began its deliveries, but he knew that Tygrow Farms was a subsidiary of GHF, along with dozens of other companies. George Gilmore's farm existed only to bring more profit to the bigger fish. And with his debt load, he would be doing it for the rest of his life.

If it was any consolation, Tygrow Farms did give him the research studies which showed how his chickens were better for consumers than any others grown anywhere in the world.

* * * *

Tokyo was bustling. Yasuo stood at the entrance of his store and took in the sights and sounds of the metropolis. Salary men wearing coats in dark and earth tones rushed past his store, some taking the time to buy the pre-packaged food his shop was famous for. Teenagers wearing various school uniforms dragged their feet across the streets, as if they were going to the execution hall instead of school. Mothers carried their kids as they finished their morning shopping. Cars, buses, and cabs zoomed past his store, adding to the bustle of the city that Yasuo loved. He loved mornings, people, and the idea that he was able to serve the other citizens of his city through his store. He was the owner and operator of Hohoemi, a store located in the heart of Tokyo that provided traditional, yet easy-to-prepare Japanese foods for busy people. True to its name, the store aimed to bring smiles to the faces of the people it served. Business had been booming — especially after he'd signed a contract with Nagomi Foods Japan. The products Nagomi offered were inexpensive and pre-packaged, but they looked and tasted homemade. The secret, Yasuo was told, was an ingredient called Emerald Crystal 5 that naturally preserved the food without any unhealthy additives. He sighed with pleasure as the city's morning routines flowed around him. His customers loved his products and business was good.

* * * *

Sonny Wu Jiang was a movie star. He loved the sound of that, Sonny Wu Jiang, movie star. Who would have thought that a poor kid from the gutters of Hong Kong would become a famous and rich film star?

He had grown up in the streets, but he escaped the fate of similar urchins by faking his forms and applying to the American Navy. A sailor had once told him that the United States military offered citizenship to those who served for the USA. He was the ideal candidate. He spoke four languages, including Mandarin Chinese, and was highly intelligent. Born Wu Jiang in his native city of Singapore, he'd added the Sonny to better fit in. Six years and a sizeable bank account later, he'd resigned from the navy. It was enough to live for only a few months in the U.S., so he knew that he had two choices — either look for another job, or move back to Asia. He chose Asia and moved to Singapore, where he got a few small gigs in the film industry.

He had started as a martial arts stuntman for a Jackie Chan film in which the legendary actor killed Sonny's characters five times. When another director wanted to make a low-budget martial arts film and could not pay the standard salary for a popular mainstream actor, Sonny was given the role.

The script was terrible and the director worse, but the movie, by nature of its sheer foolishness, attracted a cult following. One scene went viral on YouTube, and afterwards, Sonny became an internationally recognized star. He realized that his career had taken a major upswing when he received a part in a better quality film and was mobbed for his autograph at the movie’s premiere.

Eventually, he established his own company and named it Sonny Wu Jiang Enterprises. Within five years, his multi-million dollar company had over fifty employees, including bodyguards and personal assistants. In the meantime, Sonny had starred in seven films, one of which was highly praised by movie critics.

He had also invested in real estate, which led him to building a sports fitness center where he employed instructors who believed in the old Stoneosophies of health and fitness as he did. His brand was known for its natural approach, and his fitness club expanded into a chain.

Sonny’s latest film was now ready for international release. Peng Huang, his agent, was already comparing him to Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and even Bruce Lee. Today, however, his wealth was about to double for another reason entirely. His agent laid out the contracts from GHF for their new line of health and fitness products, tailor-made for the Asian market, called Pure Natural Way. The international conglomerate wanted a fresh face for their spokesperson who would be easily recognized by their target market. They were prepared to pay generously to sign such a