River Rising: Earth Tales

By Mary Morton

Will thirty years of experience bring this sidelined agent out of retirement? Experiencing a loss of physical strength resulting from a chronic health condition, Kate has decided to overcome the physical problems that greet her each day. She has nothing to lose and hopes for a future of growth instead of decline. Each new day is a gift to discover how much she can do, but could she work in the field again with other agents? Could Kate wield a gun; could her reflexes save her life or a partner in a crisis?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Mar 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490732282

Mary Morton

River Rising is Mary Morton’s first novel, and she hopes to find an audience for this story she has worked on since Katrina devastated New Orleans. She lives in Michigan with her husband, Cock-a-Poo, and Russian Blue. She enjoys spending time with her family when their busy schedules mesh. Her husband recently retired after twenty-five years as a Lutheran pastor, but just as special ops never truly retire, pastors never retire.

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Copyright 2014 Mary Morton.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3226-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3227-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3228-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014905844

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Trafford rev. 03/28/2014

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Contents

Chapter 1 Life Everlasting?

Chapter 2 Now What?

Chapter 3 Staying Alive!

Chapter 4 Home

Chapter 5 The Vieux

Chapter 6 Rolling

Chapter 7 Checking In

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10 The Pen Is Mightier Than Word

Chapter 11

Chapter 12 The Table Shook

Chapter 13

Chapter 14 The Next Battle

Chapter 15

Chapter 16 Gardening Therapy

Chapter 17 Who’s Listening Anyway?

Chapter 18

Chapter 19 Rotten To The Core

Chapter 20 And There Goes The Republic…

Chapter 21 Course Of Action

Chapter 22 Possible, Probable Threats

Chapter 23 Oil Rigs; The Heart Beat Of Louisiana

Chapter 24 Abercrombie And Disaster

Chapter 25 Abercrombie And Rigs

Chapter 26

Chapter 27 Al-Qaeda Attacks

Chapter 28 Clueless

Chapter 29 Enemy In The Camp

Chapter 30 In The Air

Chapter 31 Rolling On The River

Chapter 32

Chapter 33 Pirates On The River?

Chapter 34 More Pirates On High Seas

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38 New Orleans

Chapter 39 Bring In The Feds, Abandoned City

Chapter 40 Doha

Chapter 41 Ibrahim

Chapter 42 New Orleans

Chapter 43 Katrina

Chapter 44 Shutdown

Chapter 45 Who Knows, Who Is The Enemy?

Chapter 46 Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Saddam?

Chapter 47

Chapter 48 Big Business Bombs

Chapter 49 Anything Goes With Qadafi

Chapter 50 Anything Goes

Chapter 51 Syria

Chapter 52 Kate And Hypocrites

Chapter 53 Where Are The Troops?

Chapter 54 Let Them Eat Cake

Chapter 55

Chapter 56 Atlantis?

Chapter 57 Pawns?

Chapter 58

Chapter 59 Who Are The Aliens

Chapter 60 Control The Board

Chapter 61 In The Hood

Chapter 62 Who Is That?

Chapter 63 Millie, Kate, And Cat

Chapter 64

Chapter 65 Collaboration

Chapter 66 A Change Of Power

Chapter 67

Chapter 68 Where And When, Venice?

Chapter 69

Chapter 70 Millie And Cat

Chapter 71 Gumbo

Chapter 72 Steve And Kate

Chapter 73 Surprise

Chapter 74 Nightmares

Chapter 75 Sweet Dreams

Chapter 76

Chapter 77 Storms

Chapter 78 Get Ready For The Storm

Chapter 79

Chapter 80 The Sixties

Chapter 81 Mopping Up

Chapter 82 More Traffic

Chapter 83 Friend Or Foe?

Chapter 84 Shopping

Chapter 85 Enemy In The Neighborhood

Chapter 86 To Catch A Thief

Chapter 87 Home Sweet Home

Chapter 88 To Tennessee

Chapter 89 In The Beginning

Chapter 90

Chapter 91 The Ranch

Chapter 92 Sweet Sleep

Chapter 93 What Next In New Orleans?

Chapter 94 Back In New Orleans

Chapter 95 Sala Who?

Chapter 96 Ibrahim

Chapter 97 America

Chapter 98 Hell Fire!

Chapter 99 We Are In The Army Now

Chapter 100 To Tell The Truth

Chapter 101 Why Am I Here

Chapter 102

Chapter 103 The Story

Chapter 104

Chapter 105 Ah Humidity

Chapter 106 Can They Do It?

Chapter 107 Kate’s Family

Chapter 108 Back To New Orleans

Chapter 109

Chapter 110 At The Base

Chapter 111 Retreat

Chapter 112 Kate And Sue

Chapter 113 Royal Street

Chapter 114 Quarter

Chapter 115 Mixed Messages

Chapter 116 Mohan

Chapter 117 Kate’s Bio

Chapter 118 More Of Kate And Steve

Chapter 119 Ibrahim

Chapter 120 Home?

Chapter 121 Right After Katrina

Chapter 122 Father

Chapter 123 Kate, Sue Chat

Chapter 124 Ibrahim

Chapter 125

Chapter 126

Chapter 127

Chapter 128 Ibrahim On A Mission

Chapter 129 Ahmed And Abu

Chapter 130 Mardi Gras Attack

Chapter 131 Too Soon

Chapter 132 The Scene After The Attack

Chapter 133

Chapter 134 Seriously Carbon Black

Chapter 135 Why?

Chapter 136 Where Did They Go?

Chapter 137 Enter The Roberts Family

Chapter 138 Sleepless

Chapter 139 Breakfasts

Chapter 140 Whispering Oaks

Chapter 141 Four-Year-Old

Chapter 142 A Break

Chapter 143 Harry And Jeanne

Chapter 144

Book 2

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

In a city old, there is a rich history, and the pain is deeper than the river that snakes around it and the evil seeps, but hidden in the city’s charms, it seeks to destroy.

CHAPTER 1

Life Everlasting?

KATE KNEW SHE WOULD use all of her green stamps one day… She hoped they find her body. She thought of her family and her body and the funeral. She did not want a funeral; maybe she does not want anyone to find her body. She will be gone, absent from the body.

Oh grave, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?

Scriptures from the many funerals Kate reluctantly attended over many years for friends, colleagues, and family paraded through her memory.

She was not dead yet. She was in a crumbling crypt in the St Louis cemetery, a necropolis, the city of the dead they call it. Kate thought she was in the right place, but she did not want to wind up there forever! Her head felt horrible, but there was no blood, only a bump that was tender to the touch. Cautiously, she stretched her hands out to the sides of her body and peered about her but saw nothing but dusky stagnant shadows.

Rolling over slowly, she rose onto her hands and knees and began crawling forward like a zombie armadillo, but the hard stone was not easy to move upon; her knees hurt like crazy.

Something brushed past her skittering away, with a loud squeak. It was as scared as Kate. She resumed her slow crawl across the stone but stopped leaning back on her heels listening, searching for light, squinting, and looking in all directions, trying to give her knees a break.

As her eyes adjusted, she saw the opening and the low stone bench she had not seen when she had slipped into this niche trying to hide. Smooth move, she thought, stumbling over a bench.

She wanted to pee and speculated how cool it would be to be a man who could just whip it out, cut loose, baptizing everything and marking his territory.

Kate knew she made a poor choice in this case of espionage.

Why would she take off on her own to follow that man?

She must stop thinking she was twenty-five, strong, able to walk, and participate in this chess game called life. No, Kate was merely in the back of the audience, on the edge of her seat, watching, holding her breath, pulling for the dark horse to triumph.

She should have returned to the tour bus and gone back to the Quarter, where she would be safe with Steve and the other ops. She should not be chasing terrorists with no backup. Steve would be pissed about this unscheduled escapade if things do not pan out.

She resumed her exploration, hoping to find her walker. Yes, Kate was in the middle of a graveyard alone, in pursuit of an unknown suspect. The weather was humid and getting hot, too hot for a fifty-year-old woman with an autoimmune condition. She cannot walk, much less run in this debilitating stifling heat. There were not enough adjectives to describe Louisiana’s heat, and it was only March.

Where was her gun? Instinctively, she reached for her back where she found an empty holster that should hold a Baby Glock. To keep her on the same playing field as the bad guys, the weapon of choice was an equalizer.

Kate kept moving in the direction of the voices. She found a wall and stood up leaning on the wall. She regained her balance, hoping to find the opening, but she found the walker. She pulled it closer and began the search for the Glock. She retraced her steps slowly, feeling the stone floor with her foot. Ah, pay off, she reached down, hoping to pick up nothing more than the weapon.

The voices grew louder as the crypt entry was flooded with light. Everyone looked shocked to see each other. Obviously, no one expected anyone to be in there.

Kate looked at the man holding the light and saw the sudden recognition on his face from the diner this morning.

Kate had followed the man out of the dinner, while Steve and the others were paying the bill. She had heard they were catching the bus to meet in the old graveyards. One of the other men saw Kate and recognized her immediately from the dinner and growled pulling out a concealed gun.

Kate was in the City of Death, an old cemetery in Metairie just outside of New Orleans. The irony was not lost on Kate as she stood among the crumbling ghostly white crypts that entomb generations.

Kate was facing two men, one of whom was pointing an impressive gun at her.

She was in a precarious disadvantage and stood a great risk of being very dead.

The other man saw Kate fiddling with her weapon but hesitated just long enough for her to fire at him, hitting him in the thigh. She did not want to hit the knee just to drop him.

She shot the other in the shoulder; hence, one man was up, and one man was down. Fortunately, he dropped his weapon when he saw Kate pointing her gun, preparing to fire upon him again.

It had been a while since Kate had to discharge her weapon against flesh and blood, but she liked staying alive.

Kate prayed for one more chance to make it home.

The two men were moaning and cursing Kate in Arabic, but she caught a few impolite words she learned from Rosetta Stone.

Kate was standing by her old rolling walker, while one of the bleeding men on the floor was trying to reach his weapon. Kate gripped her gun, pointing it at him, and growled, Don’t do it! She was not happy.

CHAPTER 2

Now What?

AS SHE FROWNED AT the wounded, cursing men struggling to reach her, Kate searched for her phone and found it still attached to the basket of the walker. Again, she asked herself, Why are you here? She got an uneasy feeling that the situation could escalate. Would she get out of there alive or who else was out there and why did she follow those men alone?

She was too old for these games, and the fact she was unable to walk made her question the wisdom in pursuing killers alone using a walker. Her family accused Kate of having a death wish. Kate did not want to die, but she could not let these men get away.

Kate heard more voices and scooted back toward the wall and prepared for another assault as she grabbed the men’s guns from the ground.

Kate realized she was operating on pure instinct gained from thirty years of working in special operations, and of course, the adrenalin helped too. However, she was supposed to be retired!

CHAPTER 3

Staying alive!

KATE WAITED, HOLDING HER breath, gripping the gun tightly, and praying there were no more gunmen.

She waited listening to the voices of two men whispering. They sounded young to her, kids perhaps. She allowed herself to breathe and braced herself against the cold stone bench she had tripped over inside the crypt.

The next scenario did not surprise Kate when she heard a gasp and a stifled yell, Oh my god, what the… Kate heard a voice beyond the tomb enclosure.

No, no, get back, shhh! another nervous voice whispered.

Wait, don’t go! Kate hoped this would not end badly and spoke calmly because she needed to get out of there in one piece, so Kate attempted to enlist help.

Two young men, maybe late teens, cautiously stepped within the walls of the dingy stone crypt through the wrought-iron gate that creaked loudly protesting, as it swung open to reveal the aftermath of the skirmish that had played itself out in the lazy, sticky, and steamy city.

Kate watched the two hesitating before completely stepping forward.

Mmmm, uh, hello, she tried testing her voice. Um could you please come here a minute? Kate tried to project friendliness in spite of the gun and two bloody men at her feet.

Looking around, Kate saw the two men, unconscious and bleeding. It looked very disturbing, so she quickly said, I think they really didn’t like the tour. It’s OK really. I am the only one here with these men. I should call for an ambulance, my husband, and the police. They did not laugh about the tour joke.

Slowly, two strangely dressed teens stepped in to the crypt, and they looked like they belonged in there because they wore rags like zombies. It was sort of like Halloween in March or perchance, were the graves giving up their dead?

What happened, lady? Are you OK? One of the zombie spawn asked Kate, but she felt like asking him what happened to him, ragged clothes, bloody makeup, and dark-ringed eyes. Kate wondered if she should play dumb and act confused, but she was beyond tired and desperately needed to get out of this hot, humid crypt. Ah, the joy of Metairie, Louisiana, in March!

Kate answered the polite young man with a smile, Sure, I am just great.

These two kids saw Kate as an old woman holding on to a Roly Doly walker and pointing a gun at the bloody men on the floor.

These two unlikely rescuers were in full zombie regalia: eyebrows, nose, and lips pierced; dark smudged eyes; and white-faced traced with lots of fear.

Here’s a bench out in fresh air and away from all that awful blood. I hate the smell of blood! the shorter zombie blurted out.

They both looked scared to death, which Kate found highly amusing, seeing that they looked like corpses. When one of the wounded men groaned in pain, the pair of zombies almost deserted her, but Kate pleaded for them to be brave.

Thank you. I truly appreciate your help! Things are turning out better than they were thirty minutes ago, Kate thought.

They were all being so polite and proper that Kate had to laugh, which seemed to perplex her rescuers and they seemed reassured she would not shoot them after she holstered her gun in its Mernickle sleeve attached to her back waistband. Kate also scooped up the spare guns, slipped the safeties on, and placed them in her purse.

The young man helped Kate to the bench, and she retrieved her cell phone. First she texted Steve: I am OK. Am in cemetery near Marie Laveau’s grave. I love you! Next, she called the police and an ambulance for the two men on the floor of the crypt. She also told them there was a crazy woman running through the cemetery naked. That always gets the quickest response, she told to the two kids. The cops all want to see naked women. Every squad car in the area will converge on the scene with lights flashing and sirens blaring.

Oh well, she might be arrested for