The Killing Chip: Thriller

By Henry Rohmer

The Killing Chip: Thriller

Henry Rohmer

 

 

The size of this book is equivalent to 140 paperback pages.

 

People are implanted with explosive microchips and then misused as living bombs. A new dimension of terrorism? Who is trying to terrify New York and is waging an inhumane high-tech war to do so? The investigators do not have much time to stop the madness...

 

HENRY ROHMER is the pseudonym of ALFRED BEKKER, who became known to a large audience mainly through his fantasy novels and books for young people. In addition, he wrote historical novels as Conny Walden and is co-author of well-known suspense series such as Ren Dhark, Jerry Cotton, Cotton Reloaded, John Sinclair, Kommissar X and others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BEKKERpublishing
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215514146

Book preview

The Killing Chip: Thriller

Henry Rohmer

––––––––

The size of this book is equivalent to 140 paperback pages.

People are implanted with explosive microchips and then misused as living bombs. A new dimension of terrorism? Who is trying to terrify New York and is waging an inhumane high-tech war to do so? The investigators do not have much time to stop the madness...

HENRY ROHMER is the pseudonym of ALFRED BEKKER, who became known to a large audience mainly through his fantasy novels and books for young people. In addition, he wrote historical novels as Conny Walden and is co-author of well-known suspense series such as Ren Dhark, Jerry Cotton, Cotton Reloaded, John Sinclair, Kommissar X and others.

1

New York 2001

We wore night vision goggles and bulletproof vests.

In the middle of the Ramble, the sprawling wooded area in Central Park, there were several sedans with their engines running on a narrow dirt path normally used only by joggers. About half a dozen people stood around. Men in dark suits and MPis at the ready nervously let their eyes wander.

A gaunt man with gray hair and a colossus with a strong overweight were facing each other. Each had one of his armed bodyguards nearby. Among the bodyguards of the gaunt man was my friend and colleague Special Agent Milo Tucker....

We had placed him undercover with Jacko Swanson, a cocaine trafficker. Since some of Swanson's people had recently been killed in the gangster wars that were always flaring up, Milo had had a chance to get into a pretty important position pretty quickly. Through the microphones Milo wore on his body, we heard every word that was spoken.

We were on the verge of the decisive moment.

The man we actually wanted to get to was the fat one.

Tony Pompetta, one of the most aggressive gangsters coming out of Little Italy at the time. He had taken control of a part of the cocaine trade in a very short time. We had reason to believe that he had not even stopped at murdering relatives in the process. A Mafiosi who obviously didn't care much about the rules of the old-timers. Pompetta was 32 - unless an early death from obesity threw a spanner in the works, he had a brilliant career in the underworld ahead of him.

But we didn't even think about letting him come up any further.

Pompetta had enough on his plate now.

And that night we wanted to close the bag.

Somewhere among the bushes sat one of our colleagues with a video camera. Directional microphones were also pointed at the scenery. So we were not only dependent on the microphones, which Milo wore well camouflaged on his body.

You never knew... The worst thing that could happen to us was to end up in front of the District Attorney without any evidence that could be used in court.

This blow against organized crime had to sit.

Otherwise, we were in for some trouble in the years to come.

Because without a doubt, the fat man had big plans.

First the money! said one of Pompetta's people.

We all heard him through our earphones. I held the SIG Sauer P226 service pistol in both hands, like two dozen other G-men ready to burst out of the bushes at any moment and crown the action: Pompetta's arrest after being caught in flagrante delicto in the deal of a lifetime.

Each of us waited for Deputy Special Agent in Charge Clive Caravaggio to relay the deployment order to all of us.

Until then, it was a matter of holding out motionless.

Jacko Swanson waved to one of his men. A beefy guy in a dark suit came over with a suitcase, opened it so Tony Pompetta could see the contents.

Now the goods! demanded Jacko Swanson.

A cigar butt was stuck in the corner of Tony Pompetta's mouth.

He took it out with two fingers, contorted his face.

The thing had apparently gone out on him. Instead of saying anything, he made a curt gesture. One of his men opened a trunk. Pompetta pointed there. He spat out something, waved Swanson over, and walked with him to the car.

The bodyguards on both sides got a little nervous when Pompetta put his meaty paw on Jacko's shoulder.

They reached the car.

There were too many people standing around. You couldn't see what was in the trunk. But unless our V-people network had made a complete mistake, the trunk was full of carefully packaged cocaine of the highest purity.

Milo backed away a little.

He knew that it was about to start. His gaze briefly roamed over the surrounding bushes.

Of course, he wanted to stay out of the line of fire as much as possible when it started.

We wore Kevlar vests, but Milo did not.

Pompetta took out a plastic packet from the trunk. The contents were white.

Here, Jacko! You never had such good stuff...!

This was as far as Pompetta got.

A huge detonation literally tore Jacko Swanson apart and also caught Pompetta, who was standing only a few inches away from him. Both were enveloped by a fireball. The bodyguards standing nearby were tossed through the air like puppets. Screams rang through the night.

Damn, what's going on?, I heard my colleague Fred LaRocca over my headset, which connected me acoustically with the others.

Clearly, someone had been faster than us and had taken out Pompetta in his own way.

Unfortunately, no one would be able to ask him any questions now.

But perhaps that was also the point of this action.

The blast wave and heat had been felt all the way to us.

Whoever might be behind it had wanted to play it safe.

Seconds later, the meeting place in the middle of the Ramble resembled a battlefield. Horribly mutilated, half charred corpses and body parts lay everywhere.

The survivors scrambled to their feet. One of the guys let his Uzi rattle out of nervousness. Some branches came down from the trees.

Deploy! ordered Clive Caravaggio over headset to everyone.

Even if this action had absolutely not gone as we had planned - we had to finish it now in such a way that at least the lower batches of the gang did not slip through our fingers. I looked around for Milo.

He did wear microphones on his body, so we could hear what was being said around him. But an earphone would have been too risky.

We rushed out from our cover with the gun at the ready.

FBI! Drop your weapons! rang out over a megaphone.

Obviously one of the guys didn't believe it, he shot at it with his Uzi. I threw myself to the ground.

Sandra Mancino, a young agent fresh from Quantico, caught the sheaf full. Her body jerked. Most of the projectiles hit her in the torso.

There, the Kevlar vest protected them well. Nevertheless, such hits could cause bruises, sometimes even broken ribs, because the impact energy of the projectiles was merely distributed over a larger area by the impermeability of the vest, so that their penetrating power was taken away. The impact remained.

She cried out.

A bullet caught her in the head.

The Uzi man gave us no other choice.

Only fractions of a second later, his body twitched as well.

Several of us fired at him. He slumped to the ground, lying motionless.

Maybe he just hadn't been able to believe that it was really the FBI that had circled them.

Given the explosion, he had probably expected more of a competing gang.

For agent Sandra Mancino it had been the first and last mission of this kind.

We scrambled to our feet, stormed on. Fortunately, the other surviving gangsters were more reasonable. In the face of superior numbers, they threw away their weapons. Now I saw Milo, too. He had entrenched himself behind one of