Aristocrats and Assassins

By Steven M. Moore

Castilblanco is with his wife on vacation. Chen's assigned to a money laundering case in Beijing for her language skills. Castilblanco turns out to be in the wrong place at the right time as he's forced to join a task force. Chen is in the right place at the wrong time when she becomes involved with the terrorist case. And those royals! They're not so helpless after all.

But what is the terrorist's plan? The detectives figure that ransom isn't worth all that effort, so something else must be motivating him. He's also an old nemesis of Castilblanco, but that's not enough motivation either. What is the true motivation?

Woven through the plot are twists and turns that involve American and European authorities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven M. Moore
• Release date: Dec 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781772420579

Steven M. Moore

If you’re reading this, thank you. Not many people find me...or recognize me as an author of many genre fiction novels. Maybe it’s because my name is too common—I thought once about using a pen name...and probably should have. Maybe it’s because I don’t get many reviews. (It's not hard to write one once you've read one of my books: just say what you like and dislike in a few lines, and why.) I know you have many good books and good authors to choose from, so I’m honored and humbled that you are considering or have read some of mine.You’re here on Smashwords because you love to read. Me too. Okay, maybe you’re here to give someone the gift of an entertaining book—that’s fine too. I love to tell stories, so either way, you’ll be purchasing some exciting fiction, each book unique and full of action and interesting characters, scenes, and themes. Some are national, others international, and some are mixed; some are in the mystery/suspense/thriller category, others sci-fi, and some are mixed-genre. There are new ones and there are evergreen ones, books that are as fresh and current as the day I wrote them. (You should always peruse an author's entire oeuvre. I find many interesting books to read that way.)I started telling stories at an early age, making my own comic books before I started school and writing my first novel the summer I turned thirteen—little of those early efforts remain (did I hear a collective sigh of relief?). I collected what-ifs and plots, character descriptions, possible settings, and snippets of dialogue for years while living in Colombia and different parts of the U.S. (I was born in California and eventually settled on the East Coast after that sojourn in South America). I also saw a bit of the world and experienced other cultures at scientific events and conferences and with travel in general, always mindful of what should be important to every fiction writer—the human condition. Fiction can’t come alive—not even sci-fi—without people (they might be ET people in the case of sci-fi, of course).I started publishing what I'd written in 2006—short stories, novellas, and novels—we’d become empty-nesters and I was still in my old day-job at the time. Now I’m a full-time writer. My wife and I moved from Boston to the NYC area a while back, so both cities can be found in some novels, along with many others in the U.S. and abroad.You can find more information about me at my website: https://stevenmmoore.com. I’m also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorStevenMMoore; and Twitter @StevenMMoore4.I give away my short fiction; so does my collaborator A. B. Carolan who writes sci-fi mysteries for young adults. See my blog categories "Steve's Shorts," "ABC Shorts," and the list of free PDF downloads on my web page "Free Stuff & Contests" at my website (that list includes my free course "Writing Fiction" that will be of interest mainly to writers).I don't give away my novels. All my ebooks are reasonably priced and can be found here at Smashwords, including those I've published with Black Opal Books (The Last Humans) and Penmore Press (Rembrandt's Angel and Son of Thunder). I don't control either prices or sales on those books, so you can thank those traditional publishers for also providing quality entertainment for a reasonable price. That's why you won't find many sales of my books either. They're now reserved for my email newsletter subscribers. (If you want to subscribe, query me using [e-mail].)My mantra has always been the following: If I can entertain at least one reader with each story, that story is a success. But maybe I can do better than that? After all, you found me!Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

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Also by Steven M. Moore

The Midas Bomb

Angels Need Not Apply

Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java (anthology)

Teeter-Totter Between Lust and Murder

The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan

Full Medical

Evil Agenda

No Amber Waves of Grain

Soldiers of God

The Secret Lab (young adult novel)

Survivors of the Chaos

Sing a Samba Galactica

Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand!

Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape (anthology

Reviewers’ Acclaim for other Chen and Castilblanco books:

The Midas Bomb

[This book] is a very well-written, action-packed thriller. The author quickly introduces some very interesting characters. It took a few chapters for me to sort them all out. The plot is intriguing and thought provoking with many twists and turns along the way. I found myself wondering if something like this scenario could really happen? I do have one little criticism. The author chose to change scenes in the middle of pages without notification. Sometimes it took a few paragraphs before I realized the scene had changed, particularly early in the story. However, once I figured out the author’s style, I really got into the story and thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.

—Paul Johnson, for Readers’ Favorite

Angels Need Not Apply

I enjoyed this thriller featuring Detectives Chen and Castilblanco, who are put on a murder investigation that ends up tied into a larger scale terrorism investigation. It had a lot going on but brought the various storylines into a satisfying conclusion. Interesting characters abound in this tale, and that makes it even more fun to read. This was a sequel of sorts to The Midas Bomb, but stands very easily on its own. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys intrigue and action in thrillers.

—S. D. Beallis, reader review

Tweeter-Totter between Lust and Murder

Chen and Castilblanco together again—this time in a police crime thriller—loved it! This is solid work—two lead characters who are as opposite as can be but who form a perfect crime fighting combo. What I especially like about this book is that everything was laid out in front of the reader—there were any number of suspects—and I let myself be led down a trail only to be shocked at who actually did it! Great writing—wonderful character development—I think the best yet from this author!

—Annie Laurie, reader review

Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java

If you're familiar with Detectives Chen and Castilblanco from this author's other books…, then this collection of short stories provides some insight into their relationship as friends and partners. It's a nice way to get to know the characters better. If you haven't read [the other] books, this collection still stands on its own….

Either way, this book is great for anyone who enjoys a good thriller/detective story but doesn't have a lot of time to spend solving the case. The individual stories (some featuring both detectives, and some occurring before they partnered up) are still very gripping and exciting without confining you to one case for an extended period.

—Serenity Carson, reader review

The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan

Let me begin this review by saying that I really enjoy dystopian fiction. 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and the like are all favorites of mine. Without giving too much away, this book contains several elements of near-future dystopian fiction with a plotline that involves a conspiracy that is obviously science fiction, but is still just plausible enough to make you think.

Chen and Castilblanco, the protagonists of previous stories set in the same fictional universe, play relatively minor roles here. Instead, the focus is on middle-aged Homeland Security agent Ashley Scott who rather inadvertently stumbles into a government facility playing host to some highly suspicious activity. Several chapters give you a look into the shadowy characters of Raven and Hawk, who are somehow related to the mysterious operation Scott uncovers and eventually becomes a victim of.

This book is a page-turner that keeps you guessing until the end. Late in the story, a bombshell is dropped that will make you gasp if you've read the Chen and Castilblanco books. Even if you haven't, there's plenty of suspense and thrills to go around. Ashley Scott, despite her age, is a strong leading lady who you'll almost certainly develop an admiration for by the end of the book.

—Serenity Carson, reader review

Chapter One

New York City

Roles. We all play them. Some of us decide who we want to be and play that role. Others decide for us and we just slip into those roles.

I was a homeless person. Means I fit the stereotype. I reeked of bad booze and body odor. The worn and stained raincoat had a brandy bottle corked with a paper towel in one pocket and a screw-top bourbon bottle with a few fingers left in the other. They had wrapped my feet in rags and stuffed them into boots two sizes too big, along with the ragged bottoms of the pant legs.

Playing a role. Trying to become a victim.

With all the layers of clothing, no one could guess I had a Glock in a shoulder holster and a combat knife in my right boot. I’m ready for the SOB. Where is he?

***

The Big rotten Apple is full of people dedicated to role-playing. We have actors and musicians who make the big-time; we have wannabe actors and musicians waiting on us at our eateries; we have bloviating politicians, rabbis, and priests, some in the role of helping, others in the service of greed or perversion; we have our peons on the streets, buses, and subways rushing to their twelve-hour jobs—or multiple jobs; we have Wall Street bankers hatching the next scheme to bilk these same peons and many others out of their money—all role-playing, and all making the city a warm and fuzzy place for bad guys but not good ones.

You have to have people willing to play victims’ roles because there are many other people who need victims. The homeless and elderly are obvious choices because no one cares about them. But I care.

Murdering someone is a special kind of role. Keeps me and my partner, Dao-Ming Chen, busy. We solve as many homicides as we can, but there’s always another one. Just turn on the news.

Name’s Castilblanco. At that moment, I didn’t look like Detective Rolando Castilblanco. Someone was killing homeless people. Hence the role.

I could act the part better than Chen could. She often looks like she just retired from the fashion runways. You’d expect her to have a line of cheap clothes in some cheap department store chain or a line of specialty furniture at a local furniture barn. But she couldn’t do commercials. Can’t smile worth shit—just an Asian Mona Lisa’s hint of amusement where you can’t tell if she’s laughing at herself, you, or all the rest of humanity. Fits her, I guess, because she’s a true conservative, fiscally cautious and wary of bold, new ideas, especially when they’re surrounded by too much hype.

Me, I have a wife who tries to dress me. I start OK when I go on duty, but during the day the cheap suit acquires wrinkles; the tie accumulates coffee spots and sauce dribbles; and the shoes, my most important equipment, become dirty and dusty. In bad weather, I don that same raincoat, sans bottles. I never worry about umbrella or hat—plenty of stores with awnings around the city. And subway stations. I don’t know which one I am, but Chen and I are yin and yang. I’m progressive and like bold, new ideas if they’re promising, but I don’t waste sympathy on criminals and terrorists most of the time. Chen and I agree on that, or we wouldn’t do what we do.

Growing up in a poor family is no excuse for being a violent asshole—my own family struggled to make ends meet. As a practicing (should I say learning?) Buddhist, I believe all religions provide some moral underpinning in our lives. Another way to say that is our moral underpinning should be universal and rise above what most religions provide.

***

Don’t know why those heavy thoughts filled my mind. Maybe I was so distressed I needed a philosophical distraction. Stakeouts have to be made tolerable in some way.

Looked around the alley. Dark, no videocams, not many homeless. Many in the alley were already sleeping.

Peeked at my watch. 2 a.m. and change. Scrunched under my cardboard. Remembered Mama tucking me in as a little boy. Mama wouldn’t like where Rollie is tonight! But, if I looked at the small patch of sky seen between buildings, I could see clouds drifting through a weak starfield. Heaven has no meaning, but, if it did, it couldn’t smile on Manhattan very much. Maybe in Central Park—if you dared walk through the park at night.

Three nights of this, moving around to different places, left me sore and tired. How do the homeless do this? Hadn’t even had bad weather. Nevertheless, there was a bite in the breeze that blew in from the Seaport and through the skyscraper canyons formed by Manhattan towers. Nature created the Grand Canyon; humans created Manhattan. They’re both magnificent from above and both overwhelming from below.

Roles are layered. High above me, IT people might be eliminating programming bugs from software traders would use the next day to make more money in seconds than most people can in a lifetime. Below me, utility personnel might be patching old worn-out cables hoping they wouldn’t send the city into a blackout—or, electrocute dogs on sidewalks above when they turn icy.

Street people are the most varied. Homeless—drugged, drunk, or simply down on their luck—would try to make it through another night only to awake to street vendors opening their carts and vans at dawn’s early light. The city never sleeps because the layers take turn sleeping.

I’d missed the SOB two nights ago. Only blocks from me, he had filleted a man and taken his collection of old paperbacks. Literary SOB? I hadn’t asked why the victim had books. How did he read? During the day in Central Park?

It was a small area. We had other detectives playing similar roles. Still others canvassed the area at random hours. Eleven dead. We wanted this jerk. Not because the Commish wanted him, though. Don’t give a rat’s ass about the Commish. The man’s a politician, maybe more so than the Mayor. I wanted this perp because he was a predator.

He had threatened prostitutes too, but did not kill them. That’s how we obtained a good drawing of him. One girl had once been a graphics artist, one of those persons who made their living drawing caricatures of anorexic women for lingerie ads in the papers. She couldn’t even find a waitperson’s job. She drew an excellent rendering of our perp, though, and other girls confirmed it. Luck.

I guessed he must be a true gentleman, leaving the girls alone, because they often carried good money before their pimps took it away. He always stole something from his homeless victims, though. We profiled that as inconsequential souvenirs. He enjoyed violent killing. That’s what drove him.

Obsessed, Chen had said.

Obscene and perverted, I had said.

He has issues, the psychs had said.

***

With so many cops out at night playing our roles, I didn’t expect to be the lucky one. I wanted to be, but statistics are like Jorge Washington: they don’t lie, except when politicos abuse them. The perp’s attacks were random, although confined to a small area. It was more likely he would find another real victim before he attacked a cop.

The trouble with statistics, though, is all events have a non-vanishing probability. Flip a coin. There’s a small probability you will throw heads ten times in a row. It’s there. Lottery players keep buying because of this—sometimes their whole lives.

I play with numbers—number puzzles, brainteasers, and the like. Drives my wife Pam nuts sometimes. We’d be out to dinner, often in a new place that didn’t have a rep yet—more frequent after we married because our schedules didn’t overlap long enough for a decent meal at home, and who likes to cook? She’d disappear to powder her nose—always thinking of her appearance in public because she’s a TV reporter. I’d be working on a puzzle when she came back.

You know where I’m going with this. The perp picked me. Don’t know why. Maybe I played my role of helpless, homeless drunk too well? Or, just the toss of the coin?

I’d dozed off. Simple sore and tired had morphed into physical exhaustion. But I sensed the slight tug at the cardboard.

I looked into the face. What the drawing hadn’t captured was the vacancy behind the eyes. The soft, multi-colored blinking from neon signs in the street exacerbated the sensation of becoming lost in the Dark Energy behind those eyes, but I was sure they would look the same in daytime. This man was playing no role—or maybe the role of a soulless demon.

The scar, from right eyebrow, down the cheek, to right corner of the mouth, matched the drawing perfectly. His stubble was not yet a beard—he had shaved some days ago. I smelled cheap cologne. He wore his hair slicked back.

He was big. I guessed a shade taller than I am, with wide shoulders and immense hands. Left hand had lifted the cardboard. Right carried a baseball bat, so large only a ballplayer on steroids could use it. MO number twelve. I imagined Quantico profilers going nuts with this one.

I made a rookie’s mistake and tried to pull my gun. One swing of the bat and home run—my Glock went spinning off into the night. My hand felt numb. Foul ball. Strike one.

He raised the bat with both hands over his head and brought it down. Strike Two.

Clean strike, though. Bat smashed into the pile of rags used as a pillow. I’d rolled aside.

Funny how adrenalin can speed up your reactions. Role change: I’m now a cop. Or, maybe reliving my combat duty as a SEAL. In any case, I was no longer playing a vic. I was in defensive mode. That meant I was going to either kill the bastard or be killed.

He came toward me. Mouth twisted. Eyes still vacant. But his role had now changed too. He was cautious. I wasn’t playing the role of victim I was supposed to be playing.

His dwarfed my rookie’s mistake. He tossed the bat and rushed me. He was fast. I was faster. I sidestepped and pulled at a grasping arm, increasing his speed. His head slammed into the wall that had sheltered me a bit from the wind.

A normal person would have sunk to the ground, a bit stunned at least. He shook his head, pivoted, and came at me again.

That surprised me. Statistics, again. I was fighting a big oaf who was fast, lethal, and had a concrete skull. Not a bad description of me, but this person was farther away from the norm.

I stepped back and flattened his nose with the heel of my hand. That’s a good tactic, especially if you can put a fist into his windpipe with the next punch.

Again, the slight shaking of the head and the advance. I tripped on something and sat down hard on my butt.

Those huge hands went for my throat. His weight pushed me flat. I thrashed a bit and went limp. He loosened his grip, maybe thinking I was dead, or unconscious. My right leg was free, though, so I pulled it up, grabbed the knife, and sliced through a carotid artery.

He bled out before I found my cell to call Chen for backup.

Time for a different role, that of husband. I was going home to Pam and a hot shower. I also needed a vacation from the city—that life-long friend that had almost killed me so many times as I defended her honor. Sometimes the city can turn on you like a crazed doper on a PCP overdose.

Yeah, a vacation sounded good. Couldn’t remember when we last had one. If anything, a few days off here and there. I’d been promising Stuart a trip. Time to take it.

Chapter Two

New York City

Dao-Ming Chen entered her apartment a bit after ten p.m.; left purse, guns, and shield on the entrance table by the phone; and headed for her bedroom. She stripped down to panties and bra and sat on the bed, staring at the wall.

The frustrations of her fourteen-hour workday weighed upon her, killing any relief she felt from being off-duty. Too many cases, not enough time to solve them, she thought. Of course, she knew the stats. Homicide detectives were lucky if they cleared fifteen or twenty per cent of their cases. Families and friends of victims often failed to have any closure. And when we catch the perp, the DA often makes a plea deal for a confession. Often tempted to blow a perp away to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape and victims’ anguish, she would force herself to bring the criminal to justice, a bow to her strict upbringing and her parents’ respect for authority.

She rubbed her eyes and stretched, arching her back and twisting her neck, lean flesh on her model’s body rippling like a dancer performing Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Lascivious men might take pornographic delight in watching her, but this was Chen only trying to relax. Neon lights filtering in through old-fashioned blinds bathed her in an eldritch glow that chased across her body like animated graffiti. Like the original Da Vinci painting, this Asian Mona Lisa was mysterious and alluring, even in her weary state.

Her first case that day had been a combination rape and murder. They had the swine on a videocam record. Because he shot at her when he fled and she shot back, wounding him in the knee to hobble him, the man was claiming police brutality and his lawyers were saying she hadn’t read him his Miranda rights. Those were the cases that make a cop shake his or her head in frustration, but she knew their handling was immutable if you want a justice system that at least pretends to protect innocents.

Her conservative nature had applauded California’s three-strikes-and-you’re-out law until she saw the unintended consequences. Castilblanco