In The Mouth Of The Lion: Michael Memphis - CIA - SPY, #1

By Frank Gates

A country at war with itself. A traitor to protect it.

The Cold War rages. Western powers are fighting multiple threats on multiple fronts. Discovered by the CIA hiding in America, an on the run, highly-trained South African solider is given a simple mission: Return home, extract a top secret, desperate scientist with ultra-sensitive intelligence.
Get him back to the US - safely.

The scientist holds a terrifying, cataclysmic secret. Something that not only jeopardizes the Apartheid government's hostile fragile relations with their Western allies, but may finally help bring the regime to the ground, once and for all.
Willing to stop at nothing to prevent this intelligence falling into their allies hands, the South African Apartheid government lets loose a dangerous adversary. With every resource and means at his disposal, when he does find the two men, they'll wish he had killed them first.

But the new CIA recruit has other plans - high risk, high reward, "In The Mouth Of The Lion" is a nonstop, page-turning high-speed thriller that will have you right in the middle of the action…!

 

Looking for familiar ground? You're on it, if you enjoy reading David Baldacci, Dan Brown's Robert Langdon, Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Nelson DeMille's John Corey, Mark Dawson's John Milton, Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp, Mark Greaney's Gray Man, Gregg Hurwitz's Orphan X, John Le Carre, Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne, John Sandford's Lucas Davenport, Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon, Wayne Stinnett's Jesse McDermitt, Brad Taylor's Pike Logan, Brad Thor's Scot Harvath and Tim Tigner's Kyle Achilles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Gates
• Release date: Jun 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201284756

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

911

Fifty-seven seconds, that’s how long the call was, start to finish. Fifty-seven seconds later, three dead people. Fifty-seven seconds later the world was changed.

The two little geared wheels of the tape recorder slowly spun round, spooling static and distortion through its speaker. A caller shouting frantically, describing each event unfolding in front of him to the 911 operator. The call had originated from a payphone somewhere in San Francisco. Knox listened to the 911 call again while looking at the police photographs from the scene on his desk. Flicked through them as he listened.

There was a newspaper open on the desk, too, the San Francisco Chronicle, with a big, thick headline across it. Knox looked at the photograph on the front page underneath the headline: A black van up on the sidewalk. A violent-looking dent in its side near the back by one of the doors, pushed in from an impact. The van’s rear wheel was deflated so that the rim took all its weight on that side, sunk into the sidewalk. Parked up a few meters behind it, slightly off-center of the oncoming traffic, a bright red tow-truck.

The tow truck was heavy-looking, big and solid. Had a heavy-duty bull-bar fitted to the front. The left side had been pushed and bent deeply inward. The driver side door of the tow truck was open.

The 911 transcript placed the time of the call at 13:17 - busy time of day. People crowded the sidewalks. The roads bustled with traffic. And a crackling voice on the tape cassette was telling the 911 operator, a woman, about his Chinese takeaway - almost an hour had passed and there was no sign of it yet.

The 911 operator said: "Are you kidding me - a takeaway…? You’re tying up a valuable San Francisco resource, sir, please hang up - now…!"

"Not until your guys get your asses out here and do something about this shit - it’s not the first time! Those chinks promise you fifteen minutes but they’re always goddamn late…!"

The 911 operator was exasperated: Get off the line, sir - you’re in real trouble when someone else could be in real danger…!

In one photograph, the phone booth from where the call was made. Opposite both the tow truck and the destroyed van. Knox could hear other background noise, people walking by the phone booth, traffic passing in both directions. The recording continued - a car honked! in the background. Holding two of the photos in his hands, he paused while still listening. Knox can tell: Distracted, the caller has his ear away from the phone, leaning out of the phone-booth, looking at something happening on the street - maybe his takeaway had finally arrived.

Knox studied the photographs carefully, listening to the audio. The growing sound of vehicles in the distance.

The 911 operator, still on the line, says: Sir, do you have an emergency? Hello…? Sir…?

The caller says something, but it’s indiscernible.

Sir - please hang up if this is not an emergency, the operator says again.

The caller responds, muffled, but audible: Hold on…

Sir…?

Hold on…!

Near the call-box, people reacting. The sound of raised, multiple voices. Then greater urgency - feet and people, running and screaming crescendoing, the sound of growing panic. The operator doesn’t hang up, aware there’s a fundamental change in the air.

Then: The sound of tires squealing and a massive impact - crunching metal-on-metal suddenly punctuates the background static on the audio. Hollow and deep. Knox looked at the photos - the tow truck driver yanking the wheel of his tow truck heavily sideways into the tail-end of the van. Standard PIT maneuver. PIT, stands for Pursuit Intervention Technique, otherwise known as a TVI - Tactical Vehicle Intervention. The chase car rams one side of the fleeing vehicle and the driver in front loses control.

Dangerous in such close quarter. Just a tap to the side of the van from the heavy tow truck would have done the job. But the tow truck driver was confident, wanted maximum impact to shock and surprise the driver. According to witnesses, the van spun out of control, turning around a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees before finally mounting the pavement and coming to a halt and smashing into a street sign.

Holy shit - holy shit…! the caller shouts into the phone.

Sir…? the operator says, aware this is no longer a guy frustrated by a delivery service.

"Holy shit! A tow truck just took out a van! Rammed him - you hear me…?"

There’s been an accident…?

No accident, I saw the whole thing - guy rammed the van on purpose…!

Who…?

The tow truck-

There’s more rushed exchange between the two, a sort of blow-by-blow narrative by the caller - the tow truck driver’s left his vehicle and is advancing on the van. Confused by the particular nomenclature of the caller, the operator says: "Say again, sir, the driver is advancing on the crashed van…?" The caller, oblivious, continues with what he sees - someone climbing out of the destroyed van. The audio pops! loudly, followed by a cry from the caller.

He has a gun!

The 911 operator is calm.

Sir, I need you to tell me - who has a gun…?

"The guy from the van - whoa! Whoa! Whoa!"

"Sir…?"

The guy took him out…! He’s down, he’s not moving!

"Repeat that - say again, caller, say again - sir…!"

He was gonna shoot the tow operator but I think he’s killed him. Broke his neck…! the caller says.

Knox perused the photos in his office, listening to the audio. The first body was laying in the road. It was much closer to the tow truck than the van. The tow truck driver had moved fast, for a big guy. And he was - Knox put him at six-foot-four. Maybe on or just over 220 pounds. Solid weight, by the look of it.

Victim had long, straight blond hair fashioned like a mullet.

Other notable fashion items: Jeans and a dirty, white tank-top. Very distinctive and, as it turned out, very stereotypical. He lay on his side, eyes open - dead. There was a little, bright yellow evidence marker next to his body with the number ONE stenciled in black on it.

Cause Of Death: Cervical fracture - broken neck.

Knox examined another photograph while the 911 operator and the caller vied with one another on the tape.

There two more guys in the van…! the caller informs the operator. The doors are open, I can see them!

The operator, aware there is now an unaccounted for weapon on the scene, says: Who has the gun - sir? Can you see, who has the gun?

The tow truck driver! comes the reply. The caller exclaims something else but the 911 operator can’t make it out. He’s making no sense, not helped by the fact that the line is garbled and distorted. Guy won’t stop shouting.

The operator says, while still attempting to extract information: Say again caller?

So the caller repeats himself and her blood runs cold.

"Sir, did you say they have a girl in the van…?"

Yeah! She’s a kid! There’s goddamn tape wrapped around her hands, over her mouth…!

Then, chaos - multiple gunshots. The tape recorder speaker rattled loudly in its cabinet.

Sir! Stay down, get as low to the ground as you can…! the 911 operator says.

One of the bullets hits the call box. It exploded, shards of broken glass in the air, the caller shouting down the phone. The caller, cringing in the corner of the phone booth. Difficult to hear what he’s shouting over the general mayhem and screams of nearby scared, shocked pedestrians running for their lives. The 911 operator persists:

Sir, hello, are you alright? Are you injured…? Sir, can you hear me…?

Interjected by another round of fire, this time - single gunshot. Rapidly followed by another. The speaker distorts.

Knox recognized it for what it was, what’s called a double tap - one in the head, one in the chest.

The operator tries to reassure her caller: "We have units en route, sir, police are on the way."

The second body lay in front of the van, maybe two meters from the open doors. Proving very popular amongst its occupants, this suspect had had a mullet, too. Jeans and a red-white checkered shirt, short-sleeved. In fact, the sleeves were cut off at the shoulders. But this time there was blood coming from a wound in his head. The blood pooled over his eye in a thin line, onto the road. It was dark, almost black where it had dried and his eyes had closed.

There was another wound in the vicinity of his heart. The checkered shirt stained with his blood, you could barely see the white check. Both shots precise and deadly, no wastage.

Then, inside the call box, frantic and scrambling around for cover: There’s another gun…!

CHAPTER 2

Take Down

Knox scoured the closeups. Shattered glass on the ground around the call box with its interior of bright, cheaply printed flyers advertising strip joints and call girls plastered everywhere, jostling for position with other flyers all offering the same services. There must be something about the flyers cheap colors and lousy printing that resonated with male telephone booth users, Knox thought. People were making calls and suddenly decided to call a hooker or visit a strip joint instead.

He rewound the tape, listened to the exchange again. Several bursts, rapid, but single-fire gunfire. Then the very short exchange of the deadly double tap.

The sound of the caller yelling, obviously distressed.

The 911 operator, calm, but her breathing: Heavy.

The photographs. Closeups of the van’s doors, either flung wide by the occupants or sprung open from the massive impact of the van hitting and then vaulting the sidewalk. But Knox was considering the bullet holes. The guy exiting the van had fired five times on the advancing tow truck driver. One of those shots was wayward and hit the call box.

So it didn’t count.

The tow truck driver had sighted, ducked behind the open van door, fired right through it.

Head.

Heart.

So that had just left the guy alive in the van holding the little girl. And he was holding the gun to her head when the tow truck driver brought him into his line of sight.

Technically it was a stand-off.

For about a second.

The recording wound on. Police sirens, growing in volume as units descend upon the unfolding crime scene. Overhead and growing louder, San Francisco police helicopter unit - joined by a TV news helicopter. All diverted from the San Francisco Pride parade. Police were quick to respond. They’d been prepped beforehand, they were expecting trouble and were fearful it was a crazy - or group of crazies - taking out a whole lot of gays. There were a lot of targets, two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand people attending. Would’ve been easy pickings.

There was another shot.

The caller yells: He’s hit…! The guy in the van shot the tow truck driver…!

Another photograph, gun in the street, discarded near the van. The yellow police evidence marker next to it said: 23. The tow truck driver’s weapon. He’d taken a shot, but the weapon had seized - ballistics said it was a gun-failure. Feed problem caused by worn recoil springs.

Yeah, there was a lesson there Knox thought, sick paedo-perves hellbent on a final rampage don’t tend to keep their weapons properly primed and cared for. The act would be superfluous.

More shots blast out of the tape recorder’s little speaker. It becomes impossible for Knox to hear the frantic 911 caller. Drowned out by the sirens and noise from the helicopters and police arriving on the scene, the recording from the 911 caller is a static, distorted mess. He stopped the tape just as Bates came into his office and handed him a video cassette tape from the San Francisco TV news team - shot from the helicopter and broadcast live in the final, dwindling stages of the shootout.

Knox handed the tape back to him across the desk. Bates walked over to a TV stand with a TV and video players on it, inserted the tape into a video machine. The tape didn’t fit correctly. Bates tried again, but it still wouldn’t work.

It’s a Betamax, Knox pointed out.

Jesus! Fucking die already…! Bates told the video tape.

Knox pointed at another video machine, VHS this time and ultimately the clear and decisive winner between the two manufacturers. Bates slipped the tape in and - the lesser quality, but more affordable video machine with a longer recording time - swallowed it.

Bates powered up the TV - screen flickered on briefly. Then off again. He slapped the side of the TV with his palm, hard. TV blinked back on.

Turn it up, Knox instructed. Bates turned the knob.

A TV news guy flashes up on the screen. Sat at his desk, looking into the camera. He says: An as yet unidentified man has saved the life of a teenage girl now believed to have been abducted from off the streets of San Francisco less than an hour ago. We’re showing you footage recorded earlier by our San Francisco Eye In The Sky team from what was really just moments ago…

The feed switches to footage shot from their news helicopter circling above the chaotic scene below. It’s a wide frame, so you can really appreciate the mayhem of the strewn vehicles and bodies. Maximum exposure. Maximum publicity. Momentarily the police helicopter hovers into view, too, keeping an eye on things from above. Police sniper perched at the open door, rifle pointing at the scene below.

The San Francisco Eye In The Sky cameraman zooms in, narrowing the frame a little so it’s tight on the suspect - and the girl. She’s out the van, clinging to the tow truck driver who has his hands held out from his side, high and easily visible in case the cagey cops open fire on them by mistake. Maybe hit the girl.

The helicopter circles around overhead. Eager police, weapons trained on the man, grab the frightened girl and escort her quickly away (one of the officers running with her trips over one of the bodies. He stumbles but manages to keep himself upright and keep on running alongside her).

Another police unit runs in, tackles and pin the big guy down to the ground. He offers no resistance and they roll him over, slap cuffs on his wrists behind his back. His head’s turned, pushed into the tarmac. Watches the girl shoved quickly into a police car.

The cop who tripped jumps in alongside her. His hand appears out the window and slaps the rooftop as if to say: "Go…! Go…! Go…!" and the police car quickly pulls away and disappears off-screen.

The news presenter’s voice plays over the footage: "The unidentified man is in hospital and receiving treatment for gunshot wounds. Not much else is known other than that his condition is thought to be serious - critical is how doctors described it. What is clear is that all three of the kidnappers are dead. The San Francisco police department has confirmed two of the suspect kidnappers are known to police. Both have long criminal records for both sexual and physical assault and numerous other violent offenses. They are considered the only suspects for the spate of young girls gone missing in the last fortnight. Seven young teenagers aged between eleven to fourteen grabbed off the city-streets as they made their way home from school - two bodies were discovered in close vicinity to one another late yesterday and police are still surveying the area…"

Play it back, Knox told Bates. Bates hit a button on the video machine. Stop. Hold it there, Bates hit the pause button and steps away so he can have a look, too. Knox was thoughtful. You never got to see the suspects face clearly in any of the footage. It’s blurred.

Knox looked at the newspaper on his desk. The headline said: SAN FRANCISCO’S MOST DANGEROUS - DEAD! A grainy color photo is spread across the width of the newspaper. The same grainy image as the one paused on the TV screen:

So - that’s our guy, Knox says.

That’s our guy - Michael Memphis.

Michael Memphis, Knox repeated, nodding his head and staring at the image on the TV screen.

Bates excused himself. Alone once more, Knox watched the footage again.

And again.

Then went over the photos one more time, leaned back and took a sip of his drink. Stared out over Washington. Good men played God. They took sides - all the time. Knox's experience was, most times, they chose the wrong side. Money or greed or ethics or ideology. Or stupidity. Or who ever knows. But playing God was a job. Knox was sure about that. Had been for a long time. He’d seen too much bad stuff over the years, stuff where, if there was a God of some sort, he - or she - certainly wasn’t available. Any efforts by him - or her - had amounted to very little.

Most times, nothing.

So playing God, that was something people do. People like Michael Memphis were, by extension, the hand of God. A part of the whole. Memphis had exercised judgment, and if that wasn't playing God, then what was? Exercised judgment, killed two of the kidnapping pedophiles. Turned their own weapons against them. Shot twice by the remaining sick pervert, he’d got back to his feet, advanced on the van and neutralized the last asshole, for good. Why? Because that prick and his friends were sick people. And also so that the physical threat the men posed to the young girl would be over.

Always.

Permanently.

He looked at the file on his desk. Stapled in the top left corner, a photo of Michael Memphis stared back at him. File said he was 36 years old. South African. The photo was taken outside with the African bush rising behind him.

There was no date, but he looked to be about 25 or 26 years old then. Tall, big guy - blue eyes and short, cropped black hair, military-style. Dressed in combat fatigues. He was leaning against a Ratel - an offensive six-wheel armored vehicle combining lethal firepower with mobility.

The South Africans were a resourceful bunch.

Always had been. Take the Ratel, the first wheeled infantry fighting vehicle of its kind in the world. A big success, they built it by throwing it on a modified chassis from

Reviews for In The Mouth Of The Lion

[MVP · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting history of South Africa incorporated into the novel.