Project Inferno

By William King

First in the explosive series featuring an insidious—and seemingly unstoppable—terrorist who has set his sights on destruction from the inside out.
 
Imagine a crazy future world where an ordinary and innocent household object has become weaponized by a nefarious foe that has unleashed them in a sinister plot to attack America. No one would question the importation of apparently innocent educational playthings. However, these toys can be directed to ignite unexpectedly inside households and cause death and destruction on a wide scale. Many homes and apartments have been destroyed and numerous casualties have occurred. Will the FBI be able to determine the nature and causes of these attacks and unravel the plot behind them? How many innocent people will die before they do?
 
Don’t miss the next book in the Infiltration series: Project Sabotage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781954779501

William King

William King is the creator of the bestselling Gotrek and Felix series for Black Library and the author of the bestselling Space Wolf books, which between them have sold over 750,000 copies in English and been translated into 8 languages. He has been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award and has twice won the Origins Awards For Game Design.

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Project Inferno

Infiltration Book 1

by William King

Publication Information

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Project Inferno. Copyright © 2019 by William W. King. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, no known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher or the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design by Isaac Peterson

First Edition

White Whale Tales, LLC

www.whitewhaletales.com

BISAC Categories:

FIC006000 FICTION / Thrillers / Espionage

FIC036000 FICTION / Thrillers / Technological

FIC031090 FICTION / Thrillers / Terrorism

Summary:

An ordinary household object has become weaponized by a nefarious foe that has unleashed them in a sinister plot to attack America. Will the FBI be able to determine the nature and causes of these attacks and unravel the plot behind them? How many innocent people will die before they do?

Copyright © 2020 William King

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9798680386125

A picture containing object, clock, drawing Description automatically generated

Contents

Acknowledgments

Part I

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part II

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Part III

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

Chapter Forty-six

Chapter Forty-seven

Chapter Forty-eight

Part IV

Chapter Forty-nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-one

Chapter Fifty-two

Chapter Fifty-three

Epilogue

About the Author

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Linda Tucker, Founder and Editor of Cup and Quill, for allowing me to work with her company in the creation of this book. This book is my first attempt at writing a novel and the services of her company were invaluable. Special thanks to Editor Dr. Jessica Hammerman for her tireless attention to several edits of the manuscript. Her suggestions for modifications to the plot flow and details were extremely helpful and the final book certainly reflects the great improvements she provided. Designer and Publisher Isaac Peterson provided valuable input to the cover design and the expertise for the final publishing steps. I could not have accomplished this novel without their help and I greatly appreciate their efforts to help me create an entertaining novel.

I would also like to express my appreciation to several good friends who were kind enough to provide feedback on early drafts of the book: Dr. Barbara Finn, Dr. Jerry Vogt, Dr. Douglas Mackay, Scott Gordon, Bonny and Ramsey Johnson, and Linda Nelson. Special thanks are owed to another old friend, Michael Newman, who as an early reviewer caught a major mistake I had made in the narrative. Mike is one of just a few people in the world who would have noticed my error because he had lived in Micronesia many years ago. Without his help my book might have hit the market with a major factual flaw, and I am forever grateful that he saved me from my ignorance.

On that note, I should add that I am solely responsible for the technical research involved in creating this story. Of course, this is a work of fiction, and the author always reserves the right to stretch the possibilities, but any technical errors in the narrative are solely my responsibility. Hopefully, I didn’t make any egregious errors in my effort to write an entertaining story. I am a widower having lost my wife of 25 years, Joann, about four years ago. She was a much better writer than I will ever be, and I really wish she was still around to help me with this book. Hopefully, she would be proud of me.

Part I

Chapter One

In his home in Los Altos, California, John Davidson was tossing and turning around three a.m. when his mind became dimly aware that an alarm was going off in the distance. He was puzzled, since it just didn’t make any sense to him that it was already time to get up for work. He just wanted to catch a few more seconds of sleep. It was still dark outside, so either he had set the alarm incorrectly or something was wrong. Then it dawned on him that it was not the alarm clock that was buzzing. No, it was a fire alarm somewhere in the house, and it was blasting away. That realization jerked him out of his drowsiness and sent a shock of adrenaline surging through his body. He could feel his heart racing. Joann! You need to wake up! he said to his wife. Wake up, I said! There’s a fire in the house! You need to call 9-1-1 and tell them to get the fire department here right away. I think the kids are in danger. I’ll go down there and see what’s going on.

John ran down the hallway to the kids’ bedroom, where he found his two children fast asleep. He could not believe they were oblivious to the loud fire alarm. Looking across the room, he could see a small blaze burning in the closet. Wake up. He shook his older one aggressively and then scooped up his youngest. You need to get ready to go outside. Grab your robe or a jacket or blanket or something because you may be outside for a while. I’m not sure how long that’s going to be, but it’s cool out there. He grabbed some warm clothes from the top drawer and rapidly escorted them down the hallway and out the front door to the yard. Stay here. Don’t wander off.

As John was going back into the house, he ran past his wife near the front door. The fire department is on the way. They told me they would be here in about five minutes, she said.

John returned to the kids’ bedroom, and looking in from the hallway, he could see that the fire was already generating a lot of smoke and the flames were starting to crawl up the closet door and into the ceiling. It was getting serious quickly, spreading rapidly. John was becoming more frantic; he thought about getting a fire extinguisher, but panicked when he remembered that he didn’t have one. Buying one had been on his to-do list for a long time, and he felt guilty that his laziness meant that they didn’t have one now that they actually needed one. So, that was a useless idea. He thought about going back down the hallway to the guest bathroom to fill a bucket with water to stamp out the flames, but he realized he didn’t have a bucket there either. John stood in the doorway, helplessly watching the fire grow and hoping that the fire department would arrive soon.

The fire department showed up within ten minutes. John told them where the fire was located to save time. Three firemen entered the house wearing facemasks and protective coats, carrying fire extinguishers on their backs resembling scuba gear with small hoses attached and filled with water. They were able to douse the fire inside the closet, but the firemen reported that a small part of the fire on the floor seemed to be unusually persistent and resistant to their efforts. He heard the one in charge say to his colleague, Hey, Murphy, go back out to the truck and get one of those foam extinguishers. I think there’s one near the back seat. When Murphy came back into the house he used the foam extinguisher and it appeared to work better than the water extinguisher. Nevertheless, the center of the flames seemed more difficult to put out, but nobody commented on it at the time.

Another group of firemen had worked on the fire from the exterior of the house. They ran hoses to the back of the house and sprayed the walls and roof to prevent it from spreading. Their efforts were successful, but clearly that corner of the house was soaked and there were a few small holes in the roof where the fire had apparently broken through.

By the time the fire had been extinguished, it had caused significant damage, and there were strong lingering odors of burnt metal, plastic, wood, and paint. There was a pile of burnt objects on the closet floor, the interior walls were gutted, the door was destroyed, and the fire had worked its way up the walls into the attic. In the attic and roof it had caused structural damage as well. It had also created a large hole in the exterior wall because the closet was located adjacent to the outside.

John was thinking that it was very fortunate that they were able to put it out before it could burn the whole house down. Once it was out, the firemen started to pack up their gear to leave. John asked them, Why would a fire suddenly start in the closet like that?

The fire was extinguished, and the emergency over, and John noticed that the firemen seemed sort of disinterested, if not plain bored. He assumed that in their minds, the event was over, and they were intent on going home. They had seen enough fires in their careers and weren’t particularly interested in solving mystery causes. The lead fireman agreed that it was pretty unusual for a fire to spontaneously start on the floor of a closet. But since they were able to put it out with minimal damage (their opinion, not John’s), and no one was injured, it wasn’t worth dwelling on. Just be happy we were able to catch it early and that no one was hurt.

After they had departed, John had the kids pack up some clothes and he took the family to a local hotel. The house had a big hole in the rear walls allowing cold air to flood in. He had no way to plug up the damage, and he was bone tired at any rate. He also wanted to get them out of there in case another fire started. He just wasn’t comfortable staying in the same house.

The next morning, John’s insurance agent came to the house to process a claim. The agent began reviewing the burned areas to make his assessment. Don’t worry, John, this will be covered by your homeowners’ policy. We will also cover the costs for your temporary housing, since I understand you had to go to a hotel last night. If you need to stay there for several more nights, that’s fine. We will cover the cost of your living expenses until the repairs are done. Right now, I’m thinking that we can provide up to a week or two while we’re fixing the house. I’ll also help you make arrangements to have some of our approved construction outfits perform the work. They’re pretty fast and do quality work. If you wish, we can do it in stages. That is, do some temporary repairs and then do the finishing repairs later at your convenience.

The insurance agent continued. Overall, the incident seems pretty straightforward. Just looking at the damage, it’s difficult to determine the cause, but I don’t think it’s worth bringing in an investigator. It was a relatively small fire, a minor incident, and frankly we will probably never be able to figure out the cause. So let’s just let it go, and I’ll make sure you get your claims covered. We’ll just consider this a done deal and hopefully we have one more happy customer. He smiled reassuringly at John. But John thought that the bottom line for the insurance guy was avoiding the extra paperwork that an investigation would entail.

John felt like the whole incident was being treated too casually by the firemen and the insurance agent. And, even though he had asked about it, as far as he knew, they hadn’t even filed a police report. He simply could not wrap his mind around how a fire could possibly start in the children’s closet. The only electrical wiring in the closet led up the wall to a light fixture. And it just seemed from the scorch marks and burnt-out center of the closet floor that it originated there. John recalled that when he had first walked into the room he had seen the small fire on the floor. It was just baffling, and he had no idea what would possibly cause a fire to spontaneously start on the floor in the children’s closet in the middle of the night. He felt that it might be important to figure it out so there wouldn’t be a repeat episode. Perhaps there was some underlying problem with the house or the wiring. He wanted to resolve this mystery for the sake of his family’s safety. It was critical for him to remove the risk to the family.

But maybe everyone was right, and he should move on and put the incident in his rearview mirror. After all, it was time to go to work at his job as a software engineering manager at a high-tech company in Silicon Valley. He had a demanding job with a lot of projects on his plate and he needed to focus on those. So he let the fire move to the back of his mind.

Chapter Two

Matthew Kilpatrick had been in the Los Altos Police Department for just under ten years, having joined shortly after graduating from San Jose State University. As a thirty-year-old single white male, he felt lucky to be living in the heart of Silicon Valley, but it had its downside as well. He had grown up in San Jose, and his parents were still living in their original home, but over time, it was feeling more and more like he was living in a separate world. Over the years, the Silicon Valley had been steadily taken over by the tech industry, and the disparity between the haves and have-nots was widening.

Overall, he was quite happy with his job as a police officer. He enjoyed his coworkers and the City of Los Altos was a nice place to work, live, and play. Not that he had much time to play, but it was just a nice atmosphere in general. Still, there were a few things he wasn’t happy about. One was the extremely high cost of living in this area, and the second was the particular assignments he was working on lately.

Matt’s immediate solution was shared by others in a similar situation. That is, he had purchased a used thirty-foot-long motor home, which he parked along a major boulevard in Palo Alto near Stanford University. Recently, he’d counted 58 other motor homes and trailers parked along that short stretch of El Camino Real. No one among them was homeless—they were working people who couldn’t afford to buy or rent homes in the area. This situation had been festering for years. While most people were sympathetic to their plight, many others did not like having motor homes parked on the streets throughout their communities. They were considered by some to be unsightly, unsanitary, and magnets for crime. All of these dwellers tried to be good citizens, and they were usually employed nearby, but could not afford to live like normal people. Some cities were designating dedicated parking areas and providing sanitary clean-out facilities for them, but the solution was far from finalized or ideal.

Matt had tried to convince the chief to allow him to park in the lot owned by the Police Department, but he would not allow it. The chief didn’t want to start a pattern of having his lot filled up with decrepit motor homes and trailers. Matt also could not just park on a nearby side street because the city strictly enforced parking regulations. He and others were able to park on El Camino Real because it’s a state highway, not a city street, and has different regulations. He would keep working on the chief and perhaps he could eventually gain approval to park close to his job.

The other thing that was bothering Matt was his assignments. When he joined the police force, he had visualized handling more exciting crimes. Lately he’d taken on auto break-ins and theft, break-ins at construction sites, porch pirate incidents, and a couple of smash and grab crimes, etc. Of course, these were legitimate crimes, but not particularly compelling. He was hoping for more exciting assignments. Los Altos was a relatively low-crime area of Silicon Valley, so if he really wanted more excitement he would have to transfer to somewhere like Oakland or San Francisco. However, those cities were probably too exciting and possibly too dangerous for a policeman like Matt. Perhaps he could find some compromise city with higher excitement, but not a lot more danger. Oh well, that could wait.

Matt’s chief had asked him to pay a visit to a local resident to investigate a recent household fire.

Matt pulled up in front of John Davidson’s house. It was a modest one-story house located in a typical south Los Altos neighborhood of nice but unremarkable ranch-style houses. At least, its appearance was unremarkable to someone from another less pricy part of the country such as the Midwest. But it was not unremarkable in terms of price. It was always shocking to Matt to be reminded of how high the prices were in this neighborhood. This house would probably sell for $2.5 million. That was exactly the problem preventing Matt from buying one himself. But housing prices had been rising for many years, and there never seemed to be a shortage of buyers. Sure, there were occasional downturns in the real estate market, but overall the trend was always upward. There was probably no end in sight, so it didn’t pay to dwell on it. Personally, Matt found the situation very frustrating and a bit depressing.

As he approached the front door, he noticed that the owner had installed a video doorbell security system and had posted a warning placard saying that the house contained a security system. Most owners in the neighborhood seemed to have similar setups. While most people gravitated to these technology solutions for protection, Matt was of the opinion that a good old-fashioned beware of dog sign was probably as effective. He had been told that when thieves see those signs they will just move on to another house that they assume will be less of a hassle.

Matt knocked and the owner, John Davidson, answered. John wasn’t expecting to see a policeman at the door, so he greeted him a bit warily. Good afternoon, officer. How can I help you?

Matt flashed his best official smile. Good afternoon. I’m Lieutenant Matthew Kilpatrick of the Los Altos Police Department. Please call me Matt. We don’t need to be formal.

"Nice to meet you, Matt. What can I do