The Moon Man's Tale
By Stephen Hunt
()
About this ebook
The Agatha Witchley Mysteries
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Part 3 of The Agatha Witchley Mysteries: THE MOON MAN'S TALE
Retired spy Agatha Witchley and her fellow agents from the Office are drawing very close to solving the mystery of the faked autoerotic asphyxiation of billionaire Simon Werks.
But, the nearer the group get to the secret reasons behind the murder, the more bizarre, shocking and deadly is the conspiracy they stumble across.
Soon, Agatha and her companions may regret coming so close to the truth . . . as the final truth could demand a lot more than assistance from the ghosts of Churchill, Elvis and Groucho Marx to survive.
Because when the world needs saving, you don't send for Bourne, Bond or Kuryakin - you better call upon a psychopathic pensioner who doesn't just see dead people. She makes them, too!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
THE SERIES SO FAR...
SEASON ONE
Episode #1 - In the Company of Ghosts.
Episode #2 - The Plato Club.
Episode #3 - The Moon Man's Tale
THE SEASON ONE OMNIBUS (#1 & #2 & #3)
Secrets of the Moon - in print and ebook.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
REVIEWS
Praise for Stephen Hunt's novels:
‘Compulsive reading for all ages.’
- GUARDIAN
‘Studded with invention.’
-THE INDEPENDENT
‘Hunt has packed the story full of intriguing gimmicks... affecting and original.’
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
‘An inventive, ambitious work, full of wonders and marvels.’
- THE TIMES
‘Hunt's imagination is probably visible from space. He scatters concepts that other writers would mine for a trilogy like chocolate-bar wrappers.’
- TOM HOLT
‘Hunt knows what his audience like and gives it to them with a sardonic wit and carefully developed tension.’
- TIME OUT
'A swaggering, eye-filling, brain-swizzling extravaganza!'
— KIRKUS REVIEWS
'Readers will be entertained and captivated.'
- BOOKLIST
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FORMAT
Novella - part 3 of a continuing, linked series.
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AGE ADVISORY
Age 15+ - mild violence and swearing.
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READ THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE THESE AUTHORS...
Iain Banks
John le Carré
Lee Child
Bernard Cornwell
Patricia Cornwell
Clive Cussler
Ian Fleming
William Gibson
Robert Harris
Dean Koontz
Stephen King
Stieg Larsson
Scott Mariani
James Patterson
Ian Rankin
C. J. Sansom
Alexander McCall Smith
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
GENRES
Crime
Thrillers
Mystery
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Stephen Hunt
Stephen Hunt is the author of several fantasy titles set in the Victorian-style world of the Kingdom of Jackals and is also the founder of www.SFcrowsnest.com, one of the oldest and most popular fan-run science fiction and fantasy websites, with nearly three quarters of a million readers each month. Born in Canada, the author presently lives in London, as well as spending part of the year with his family in Spain
Read more from Stephen Hunt
Sliding Void (Book 1 of the Sliding Void Science Fiction Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Transference Station (Book 2 of the Sliding Void Science Fiction Series) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Void All the Way Down Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Red Sun Bleeding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anomalous Thrust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Voyage of the Void-Lost Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStrange Incursions: A Guide for the UFO and UAP-curious Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSecrets of the Moon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Company of Ghosts (Book 1 of In the Company of Ghosts) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rise of the Iron Moon Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Secrets of the Fire Sea Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Six Against The Stars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom the Deep of the Dark Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mission to Mightadore (Jackelian #7) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Plato Club (Book 2 of 'In the Company of Ghosts') Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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The Moon Man's Tale - Stephen Hunt
The Moon Man's Tale
#3 in the Agatha Witchley Mysteries
Stephen Hunt
image-placeholderGreen Nebula
THE MOON MAN’S TALE
Book 3 in the Agatha Witchley Mysteries series.
First published in 2014 by Green Nebula Press
Copyright © 2014 by Stephen A. Hunt
Typeset and designed by Green Nebula Press. Distributed by Smashwords.
The right of Stephen Hunt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.
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If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the Parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.
- Little Dorrit. 1856. Charles Dickens.
Praise for Stephen
‘Mr. Hunt takes off at racing speed.’
- THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
‘Hunt’s imagination is probably visible from space. He scatters concepts that other writers would mine for a trilogy like chocolate-bar wrappers.’
- TOM HOLT
‘All manner of bizarre and fantastical extravagance.’
- DAILY MAIL
‘Compulsive reading for all ages.’
- GUARDIAN
‘An inventive, ambitious work, full of wonders and marvels.’
- THE TIMES
‘Hunt knows what his audience like and gives it to them with a sardonic wit and carefully developed tension.’
- TIME OUT
‘Studded with invention.’
-THE INDEPENDENT
‘To say this book is action packed is almost an understatement… a wonderful escapist yarn!’
- INTERZONE
‘Hunt has packed the story full of intriguing gimmicks… affecting and original.’
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
‘A rip-roaring Indiana Jones-style adventure.’
—RT BOOK REVIEWS
‘A curious part-future blend.’
- KIRKUS REVIEWS
‘A ripping yarn … the story pounds along… constant inventiveness keeps the reader hooked… the finale is a cracking succession of cliffhangers and surprise comebacks. Great fun.’
- SFX MAGAZINE
‘Put on your seatbelts for a frenetic cat and mouse encounter... an exciting tale.’
- SF REVU
Contents
1. Just Like Milford Haven
2. Paradise Lost
3. Meet Monsieur Lunar
4. You Don’t Get Airmiles in Hell
5. Our Grandfathers Didn’t Have Flags
6. Genghis Wasn’t Here
7. Annus Mirabilis
Chapter 1
Just Like Milford Haven
Helen Thorson shook the satellite phone while a look of disappointment played across her near-perfect features. She passed the mobile to Spads who listened to the static with a connoisseur’s ear. It was the tail end of Helen’s conversation with Mrs Witchley and Gary Doyle, only one in four words audible as the product of a human throat, the rest raw squeals and broken digital artefacts. In short, it was garbage; then that intermittent communication faded too, to be replaced by an all-enveloping blanket of white noise which rattled out of the earpiece.
‘I thought you’d hacked the routers down here to piggyback the signal,’ accused Helen.
Spads checked the phone’s connection. ‘My hack’s still in place.’
‘Then I want a rebate from BT,’ said Helen, ‘if that’s what they mean by guaranteed global coverage.’
‘No, the satellite line is fine,’ said Spads, handing her brick-sized phone back. ‘That drumming noise is a jamming signal. You can press these two buttons together if you want to put it on speakerphone.’
Helen ignored his advice about the speakerphone function. ‘Jamming . . . at our end?’
‘No. Their end,’ said Spads, ‘because we’re the ones hearing the reverb on the pulse lock.’
‘They’re on a Caribbean island,’ said Helen. ‘Our dead victim’s island, in fact. So who the hell’s doing the jamming? Puffer fish?’
‘The tech to block satellite signals is military,’ said Spads. ‘So my guess is the same people who attacked the Office and tried to gas us.’
‘Mercenaries-R-Us,’ sighed Helen. ‘Fabulous.’ She sounded annoyed, but Spads thought he detected an undercurrent of relief below her irritation . . . that it wasn’t the two of them facing a rematch with Pegasus EnForce’s ex-military killers for hire. Helen had been jumpy ever since they had infiltrated the Roberts Foundation, searching for clues concerning the victim’s relationship with the exclusive American church. I can’t fault her for that. Their mysterious enemies had attempted to assassinate Helen at the same time as they had attacked Spads and the others in the Office’s underground haven. All things considered, Spads was grateful that Bouche, Mrs Witchley’s tame French killer, was waiting inside the church grounds, doing his best impression of a chauffeur beside their luxury and ever so slightly stolen car. If Spads and Helen found themselves in serious trouble here, then the ex-legionnaire might take some of his notorious ‘Direct Action’.
Our enemies want us dead. And they’re right to fear me. Like Batman and Green Arrow, I will have my vengeance for those I have lost and for those they tried to take. He raised his eyes to stare at Helen’s. ‘Will they be okay?’
‘I suspect they’ll have reason to rue the day they encountered Agatha Witchley.’
‘I meant Mrs Witchley and Inspector Doyle.’
‘I know you did.’
Maybe the inspector and Mrs Witchley should have taken Bouche with them? But of course, on the face of it, breaking into the church was the more challenging of the two missions. Spads had a feeling that Mrs Witchley would be fine. There was something strange about the old woman. Something nameless and arcane and inexplicable. The words of Spads’ mother words floated back to him, unbidden; a quote from Corinthians. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
Sometimes I think she’s protecting Bouche rather than the other way around.
Helen turned her attention back to the square table in the centre of the room and Spads joined her. It contained a model of an industrial facility set in a snow-covered diorama. There were other tables in the chamber and they held smaller models of what Spads took to be data centres – server farms in a number of different locations around the world. Secure centres for thousands of servers with their own sealed environmental systems. These Spads approved of. You could never have too much processing power in the cloud. But what sat on the table in the centre was a mystery, and it had excited Helen’s attention enough to call Mrs Witchley and Inspector Doyle.
This was no server farm, of that much Spads was certain. He ran his finger across the diorama. In the valley flats between two flowing snow-covered ridges sat a sprawling complex of blocky concrete buildings, painted a white-and-grey camouflage pattern on the model, buildings interspersed with steel rigs and covered by hundreds of snaking metal pipes. The camera on Helen’s phone was an afterthought, but she used it to snap a quick succession of pictures of the model. The nerd within Spads wondered what scale the model had been built to. Smaller than N-Gauge. As usual, he suspected he was asking the wrong question. That was so often the trouble with Asperger’s and ADHD. The right question rarely presented itself in time, if at all. And I need to find the right question with Helen.
Spads read a blue label at the head of the table. ‘Vinson Massif? Do you think that’s the architect’s name?’ In truth, it sounded like the name of an exclusive French restaurant. Just the kind of place Helen would like to be taken on a date.
‘Not an architect. That’s a place,’ said Helen. ‘A territory deep inside Antarctica.’
Spads recalled what she’d told Mrs Witchley over the phone while they still had a signal. ‘But what does the model have to do with the murder? You said it explained everything?’
‘Antarctica is covered by more international treaties than Doyle has dirty raincoats in his cloakroom,’ explained Helen. ‘Treaties which specify the territory is to be left untouched, pristine and unspoiled. Antarctica contains incredible quantities of raw materials – rare earth minerals, oil, coal, you name it.’ She tapped the model. ‘Does this set-up look like a research station to you? Counting penguins and taking ice core samples?’
No, it doesn’t. It looked a lot like Spads remembered Milford Haven oil refinery. A depressingly regular sight on the way to the campsite outside Fishguard in the back of his mother’s rattling G-Wiz, praying that the ancient product of Indian automotive manufacturing wouldn’t lose power before they arrived. Spads knew that Helen wouldn’t ever go on holiday in a leaking caravan, nor travel there in an ancient electric vehicle that spent its charge after fifty miles.
‘Then if they are mining up there, it wouldn’t be legal.’
‘You’ve got that right. Antarctica is the world’s premier potential military flashpoint. Russia, Canada, Norway, Finland, China, they all want a taste of this place. Lucrative, though, that it would be.’
‘How would Simon Werks have been involved?’
‘He could have been connected in