Recluse:The Ramona Question
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About this ebook
Recluse: The Ramona Question is the second book after Recluse: The Induction. Sixteen months on, Detective Rodriquez receives disturbing news, news that will set him on a pulsating journey deep into Colombia. This time, his enemies are smarter, deadly and waiting for him. Rodriquez will have to stay ahead of his relentless adversaries if he is to stay alive, he also must choose between saving the life of his one true love or save the lives of millions of peoples. The countdown starts now.
Philip John Walibba
Thanks for checking me out!Thanks so much for the many downloads already for my books.Kindly, Kindly remember to leave a review, good or bad. It means a lot and allows me to figure out where I stand with you my dearest reader. I am currently working on Equilibrium, the third installment of the Recluse franchise Recluse: the Retribution and Elizabeth Lake.Do swing by my world and lets check it out together!Cheers,Philip John Walibba
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Recluse:The Ramona Question - Philip John Walibba
Recluse: The Ramona Question
Published by Philip John Walibba
Copyright 2015 Philip John Walibba
Smashwords Edition
Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.
Prologue
Detective Rodrigo Rodriguez sat in silence on a squeaky wooden chair inside a tiny room. His arms and legs firmly tied with ropes, his mouth strapped with duct tape. Painfully, he tried to turn sideways but his neck muscles hurt, felt rigid. The pain was accentuated by the morning sun rays stinging into his eyes causing even more pain inside his head. His entire body ached. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to make sense of his surroundings.
His eyes, it seems, were the only functioning part of his body. Turning to look through the visibly dirty glass window a few feet away, he noticed tree leaves and branches swaying gently on the outside. The smell of dental floss filled the room's stale morning air. Rodriquez didn’t know where he was. Turning left, then right, he noticed a few inverted chalk white scribbles on the damp deep maroon colored wall, possibly the handiwork of a minor. A tiny ash wooden table stood opposite him and on it sat a glass jar. The sun's rays accosting his eyes preventing him from scrutinizing the glass' contents. Angling his head to look above, he vaguely made out what appeared like a rusty iron roof staring blankly back at him.
‘What's this place?’ He muttered to himself. The temperature inside the room made his body sweaty and itchy. He felt helpless. Something awful had happened to him.
A door squeak startled him. He tensed. Still, he was unable to see who or what it was that had caused the sound. Next, he heard footsteps approach. A stingy male odor almost immediately followed too. A severed head of a man was suddenly dangled in front of him.
Rodriquez, stunned by the horrific look of the dead man's open eyes staring back at him gasped in terror. The head's blood soaked hair, at least some of it, hung loose, the rest was pressed in one knot by a muscular tattooed hand. The man whose hand held the head had piercing dark almond-shaped eyes. The man, Rodriquez quickly noticed also wore grey military fatigue folded at the elbows, a green cap with a red flag and star embedded in it. He also had a silver and black pistol tucked into his black waist line.
'What were you thinking trying to double cross us?' He asked staring at Rodriquez his marijuana breath arresting Rodriquez' nostrils. He seemed not to blink just like the dripping head he was dangling.
'What are you talking about?' Rodriquez asked, 'and please take that head away from Me.' turning to face in the opposite direction.
The head, dripping with fresh blood, looked familiar, very familiar.
'Who do you work for?' the man asked anger flashing across his creased face.
Rodriquez fell silent facing the ground. He could see the man wore leather black military boots.
'I will repeat this once' the man affirmed, 'who sent you? I know you were sent here to kill our leader, Soviet marshal Semyon Timoshenko.' the man spoke staring down menacingly at Rodriquez. His accent was surprisingly good, his Spanish flawless. He reached out his other hand and tore off the duct tape from Rodriquez' mouth.
'Who are you?' Rodriquez asked laboring to speak through the pain.
'That, my friend is the wrong question,' the man replied coming even closer to Rodriquez, stooped, his golden chain, and its crucifix at the tip coming to rest on Rodriquez's shoulder. Rodriquez could smell the man's rancid male odor. He whispered into Rodriquez' ear. 'But I will tell you anyway.'
Standing up right again, his eyes fixed onto Rodriquez,
'The right question should be,’ he said, ‘who are you, Detective Rodrigo Rodriquez?'
Chapter One
Sixteen months earlier
‘Hey, I made you breakfast Juan Manuel.’ Ramona’s soft voice greeted Rodriquez in his bed. His closed eyes burned from the morning Rio de Janeiro sun’s rays that shot through the drawn window curtains of his apartment bedroom window.
‘You need to get yourself a wife.’ she joked. He could hear the clinking sound of utensils being sifted. The wafting sweet smell of bacon mixed with a piercing aroma of coffee came and filled the room.
‘You’ve slept enough already, get up and eat something.’ She said as she pulled his beddings away from him.
‘Okay, I’m up.’ he said pulling himself up. He felt mildly embarrassed because she had called him Juan Manuel; it was the alias he’d given her when they sat next to each other on the flight to México. He also felt uncomfortable she was in his bedroom.
‘Thank you Juliana Lopes Menezes.’ Rodriquez shot back with a chuckle. He reached out and clutched the cup of coffee.
‘Who told you all three of my names?’ Her honey-blond hair hang long spreading along her white cotton t-shirt.
‘I thought you were a brunette?’ he asked ignoring her question. The bacon tasted savory and salty.
‘I’m many things you don’t know.’ She said coming to sit next to him on the bed. He took in her distinct sharp spicy fragrant.
‘It’s J’adore by Christian Dior, if you ask.' She said.
‘I guess that’s your daughter in that picture.’ she said as she stretched out her long arms and took the frame from the coffee table.
‘Yes. Mariana.’
‘She is very pretty. She has your eyes.’
‘Had.’ He corrected.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s alright.' He answered in reply. 'She can finally rest easy now.’
‘Who told you my names?’ She quizzed changing the conversation.
‘Some ugly bird whispered to me, the same bird you shot dead.’
‘I have shot a lot of ugly birds dead in my life time.’ She quizzed again. 'Please be specific.'
He turned the other way.
‘Is something the matter?’ She asked looking concerned.
‘Yeah,' He answered. 'I’m still to yet figure out why I saw the same crime scene in the favela twice.’
‘What exactly are you talking about?' she asked
Rodriquez went on to describe the bizarre ‘double’ death of Isabella, and how her death had spiraled into all the events leading up to that moment. When he was done, Ramona turned towards him, took his face into both her delicate soft palms saying,
‘That is what they turn you into Rodriquez. It’s what they’ve turned us all into, killing machines.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will after I tell you this.’ She said. ‘Recluse is a deep cover army of paid mercenaries which operates covertly. We eliminate targets deemed a risk to our funders, no questions asked. The double