Storm Force: A high stakes mission against a shadowy foe

By Drew Baton

Matt Bradley, former street gang teen, now a tough operator with an elite mountain rescue team.

His wife Amanda vanishes in plain sight. There are no clues, no obvious motive.

With the team leader stranded in a plane crash, he must lose his emotions and focus.

His mission to find her pits him against criminal thugs working with a shadowy offshore network of killers.

Where is she and why was she targeted?

To save her, he must ‘fly blind’ against the clock in steep, remote wilderness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398443105

Drew Baton

Drew Baton is 56, born and raised in New Zealand and lives in Auckland with his wife/partner of 25 years. He trained as a commercial pilot and instructor but found his true calling as the owner of a tourism business looking after international visitors. He is an avid reader and enjoys writing, travelling, and physical fitness. In his earlier years, a 21-day Outward Bound experience led into hiking, alpine training, search and rescue stints in New Zealand with further hiking offshore. These pursuits served as the inspiration for his first thriller, Storm Force.

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About the Author

Drew Baton is 56, born and raised in New Zealand and lives in Auckland with his wife/partner of 25 years. He trained as a commercial pilot and instructor but found his true calling as the owner of a tourism business looking after international visitors. He is an avid reader and enjoys writing, travelling, and physical fitness. In his earlier years, a 21-day Outward Bound experience led into hiking, alpine training, search and rescue stints in New Zealand with further hiking offshore. These pursuits served as the inspiration for his first thriller, Storm Force.

Dedication

For Jan

My exceptional wife and partner of 25 years

Copyright Information ©

Drew Baton 2023

The right of Drew Baton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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 prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398443082 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398443099 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398443105 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

First and foremost, to my wife, Jan, for her eternal love and support and without whom none of this would be possible.

My gratitude to Jenny who willingly volunteered her valuable time to edit the first draft with constructive critiques and encouraged me to persevere.

To John Cranna of the Creative Hub for setting me on the right path with his invaluable guidance around plot and character development.

To my parents, Peter and Margaret, for their unwavering support over the years, especially in the initial stages of my writing journey.

To my long-standing personal trainer, Lisa Iusitini and her husband Claude, who greatly improved and altered my outlook on life. Kudos and love to you both. And, to the members of my fitness group who accepted me into the fold.

Also, a big mention and love to Tania for her support and friendship throughout my life.

Finally, my sincerest thanks to the team at Austin Macauley London for accepting my work and taking it to market.

Prologue

Amanda Bradley found herself in the crosshairs of violence sometime after midnight. She had been forced to swap shadowy dreams for a fight in a mountain stream with Lea, the leader of the kidnap trio. She was hostile, physically combative and competent. She was awful.

The first punch knocked Amanda into the waist-deep water. She was hauled out twice more and pounded with further blows to the head and gut.

After three days in this remote place—was it three?—Amanda still didn’t know why she was here, who these people were or what they had against her. She was a long way from her life as hotel team leader, marriage to a great mountaineer who wasn’t here to help and fitness class in off-hours. She had been forced here by these bastards, treated like shit and now she was target practice in the middle of the night. She didn’t deserve to be here but she was and she would survive… or not.

In the midst of the blows, Amanda managed to make a decision. She was down but not out, bruised but still able to think. Her husband would say that, if that was your deal, you kept going. It was all about your top two inches, your ability to harness the neutrons.

Those boxing classes weren’t serious but it all counted in some way. She was done with this problem and it was time to respond. She was fighting someone who operated with no rules and who wouldn’t expect her to fight back. Even if you die, she thought, die trying.

Her eyes having adjusted a little, she stood in place and faced her opponent. The stream bed was a mixture of stone and sand which made keeping her footing easy enough.

Amanda blocked the next hit with both arms and ducked the one after, buying herself valuable seconds. She launched into a straight right which sent Lea backward, although her technique wasn’t great. She moved forward with more authority, shoving Lea into a half fall, then clubbing her hard on the side of the head.

‘Bitch,’ spat her opponent.

Amanda thought she detected surprise in the voice but she wasn’t finished. She was on the up, riding the adrenaline and she had to capitalise. Lea cursed as she began to pull herself up, albeit with difficulty.

Amanda’s next move was one of the most destructive in boxing. She stepped forward and wheeled her anger into a vicious up and under the chin. There was a resounding crack as her opponent was almost lifted out of the water before collapsing like a stone. Amanda stepped forward and held her under the water. She felt the woman struggle and fight but she had the upper hand and she kept on until resistance stopped.

Silence in the night.

Fight over. Two minutes of violence abruptly ended.

The next few minutes were a surreal muddle. Her brain was trying to catch up. Stunned and bruised, Amanda stood up and was still in the water. A few minutes back she had been asleep and now she was here. Her breathing sounded loud and erratic. She thought it odd that there was no movement from the hut. Wouldn’t they all want a shot at her?

Evidently not.

She stood alone in the stream in the darkness.

Was this a dream or had she killed someone? She looked at the water and the realisation began to hit her as only reality could do. You beat the bitch in a street fight, she thought. You killed her, you of all people. You were in your bunk and now you’re standing over her body. That’s not possible. Well… yes it is. It’s happened.

She reached under the water as if to double-check. She blinked. How the hell did you pull that off?

The shock left her feeling sorry. She’d never been in this position. In the heat of the moment, she had single-handedly taken the life of a gang member. She hadn’t planned to kill. She wanted out of here but not like this. She supposed that she could, should, have pulled Lea to safety but the brute reality was that being a Good Samaritan wouldn’t have worked. These weren’t good people.

What now?

From the time of her arrival, she’d asked herself what she’d do if she managed to spring free. That time was now… It was a half-chance through an unexpected avenue but that was the deal. She only had her clothes and shoes, she was God knows what distance from home and she remained without a plan but she could not stay here.

Even if friends and family understood that she’d vanished, they wouldn’t know where she was. They wouldn’t know how to track her down or who to ask unless Matt pulled something off. How did he do that? Well, she would have to hope. He was a top gun and she would need to hang onto that.

As she stared into the upstream darkness, she realised the current was against her. If she followed that she would end up at the coast, the edge of the ocean. That was of no use. She wanted to get home which she figured was in the other direction which presumably meant a hike upstream and a trek up and across the hills. That would be a hard slog but she saw no other choice. Maybe she’d come across people and supplies.

She was free to quit this place. Her improved vision was convincing her to have a go.

Amanda sneezed three times, an unwelcome reminder of the nose cold she’d had for twenty-four hours. She shook her head and began to shiver. Was there anything else to worry about?

She looked to the night sky and saw stars. At least it wasn’t raining. Was it midnight? 2:00 am?

She shrugged at her predicament and the manner in which she’d arrived at this moment.

‘Mattie, what would you do?’ she whispered, but she knew the answer. Get moving and take your chances. He wasn’t there but he was in her head which was close enough.

She needed to go.

Amanda Bradley had survived hell camp but she could not have known what she’d just triggered, nor would she have been able to guess the cause of her plight. As she moved into the black night towards parts unknown the same questions arose, the ones bothering her since she’d woken in the car boot and for which she still lacked an answer.

Why was she here?

Why was this happening to her?

Chapter 1

Endurance Hill, Southern Alps, days earlier.

‘DAMN YOU!’ Shit.

The pace was just short of a jog. Matt Bradley’s violent curse bounced off the ground and disappeared into the air. His outburst was one of the ways in which he combatted pain. He spat into the tussock and glared up the thirty-five degrees slope, which had his brain and lungs on fire. Well, that was the whole point of being up here on a Sunday morning, away from his wife. Could you operate even when you felt about to die?

The slope stared coldly back at him. His altimeter read five hundred metres gone of a fifteen hundred metre brute which placed them a third of the way up, steadily closing in on halfway to the top. Better than zero. You tried to keep a glass-half-full attitude.

‘Keep pushing, Matt.’ Joe Miller, his mate and the founder of elite Southern Alps Rescue, was several steps behind. He never compromised with training because he couldn’t. They could have done hard laps of the local park but that wouldn’t cut it. His business had a top reputation, something not attained by accident.

Today’s scenario was deliberate and necessary. For every sunny day in these parts, twenty more put you in the hot seat. This was the hellfire and brimstone of a maximum cardiovascular stress session. Blow your brains and heart out, see what’s left and expose any shortcomings in fitness.

Matt had a mild headache which frankly he could do without—he had awoken with the damn thing—but he had to get to the top, that was the deal and there was no way out of it. There was a reason for such training even if it beat him up. He knew it and the team knew it. He didn’t always have to like it. He had no medication—he didn’t normally get head invasions—so there wasn’t much he could do except go.

Because he was yet to reach his zone, questions roamed his brain. Whose idea was this? Why had he come? Why couldn’t he get going? He briefly fantasised about giving up and turning around—there was always a first time—but he couldn’t. Tough luck. Suck it up.

They were around sixty minutes into the fortnightly regime they’d nicknamed drop dead, a timed aerobic mission using peaks as the weapon. Twelve months before, Joe had undertaken a punishing two-week military boot camp in the Southern Alps, during winter. He’d wanted to see how he measured up. He was based on a remote plateau west of Mt Cook, surrounded by awe-inspiring beauty.

The sun rose and set against snow-covered and ageless peaks. It was captivating but the sights took second place to a training hell. It was a baptism of endurance even for him. He’d almost quit in the first week but, like a professional soldier, he adapted. He finished the stint in better condition and, once home, he proceeded to rethink the team’s training more in terms of mental toughness.

They trained this hard for a reason. This was a life/death arena and things could change in a second. Your mental state was key, probably more so than your physical ability. Their work environment was the roughest and toughest of all domains and demanding of readiness. During a rescue maybe it wasn’t your day mentally, maybe your body wasn’t interested or maybe you yourself were injured. You had to front up and be okay, nothing a problem because you were it. You were the rescuer. You were God.

They didn’t like Endurance Hill. All the peaks were hard but there was something about Endurance which was especially difficult. It was just outside Mt Cook National Park, part of the rugged mountain range forming the western border of the McKenzie Basin. It called you out early if you didn’t cut it. Matt called it the local thug and it beat the human competition. If the mountain were a guy, they wouldn’t be having a beer together. Ironically, all of that qualified it to be part of their training arsenal.

Their colleague Dave Matterson was the fittest; however, he was sleeping in this morning for having done Joe a recent favour. Not that he needed to be here.

Today their agreed goal was to make the summit and back with time in the bank which meant six hours or less. To do that they had bivouacked overnight at the foot of the peak, started at first light and gone hard. In accordance with their no assumption policy, they were well equipped. Even they could not assume success.

Matt fitness was second to none but he still suffered pain the most and this intensity came with consequences—head games, serious effort and struggle. The pain was a constant. It was there no matter how fit you were but if you were out of shape, it was much harder to cope. Even he could still feel like telling a day to fuck off but, for all that, he had learned that the effort and hard breathing did not kill you.

The key was to master what he called the nasty zone—his term for the place beyond the warm-up where the pain began. He had never liked the warm-up but difficult training demanded that the body be eased in with a necessary but tedious ten to fifteen minutes, transitioning the body into hard activity. There was always a lag period while the body caught up to the new normal.

Once the pain started it was a question of how far you went and what happened when it got vicious. Above and beyond that was his own zone, where the pain was secondary and he could pull off anything. Perseverance was required. The issue with Endurance Hill was that, in direct contradiction to usual requirements, there was no warm-up. You were straight into it. Sometimes it was good to up the stakes and throw yourself at it. The deal was to make you better and stronger and these peaks developed you with reserve for the real heat of rescues and guiding.

In the wake of his two-month apprenticeship, Matt was surprised at the number of visitors who saw fit to do whatever they wanted. They’d come a long way to see the rugged band of peaks defining the South Island, they wanted a piece of it regardless and some of them would not be told.

Matt finally found his edge. He reckoned he was an hour late to the beat. He always knew when he was there because he felt liberated and the pain was somewhere rather than in his face. There was nothing like it. He gunned the pace slightly as he moved up the trackless slope, seeking to maintain his momentum. If you lost that, you’d have to start again and that was too bad.

‘You’re onto it,’ said Joe. ‘Another hour?’

‘Yep. I want to get this done.’

The initially pleasant morning sky had fast become a wall of steel, the wind rising, but they’d have been up here whatever the conditions and regardless of the origins of the weather. The elements were a natural-born Mafia demanding respect and the two twenty-five-year-olds understood that but to perform in the worst you had to practice accordingly. They strove upwards through the unforgiving wilderness.

Senator Art Manson frowned at the insistent ringing of his desk phone. For a fifty-year-old his hair was greying fast and his skin was more rugged than he would have liked. He blamed these blemishes on his previous business life.

His plush Sydney office had a killer view of the harbour but he was preoccupied at this moment. He had asked his PA to only put through urgent calls, but in truth, he expected no interruptions.

He picked up after six rings and answered tersely. ‘Yes.’

‘Mr Manson I have Rod Jones on the line.’

This had better be good, he thought. ‘Put him through.’ There was a click. ‘Manson.’

There was a distinct pause as if the caller was either intimidated by his tone, not sure how to proceed, or about to hang up.

‘Hel…?’

‘Sir it’s Jones here.’

The well-built Manson leaned back in his expensive chair and squinted at the far wall. He was looking at the enlarged photograph of a well-known and ruthless Russian businessman, a steel billionaire called Sergei Berkilov.

Rod Jones was Manson’s capable and well paid right-hand, but even he and his team were missing in action here. They were not in the same class as the stone-faced Berkilov, a fact which bothered Manson slightly. They couldn’t nail the girl whose father had caused Manson much grief.

She’d gotten away and remained at large. She shouldn’t have.

‘What do you have for me?’ asked Manson.

‘We lost her.’

Art Manson stared coldly ahead. ‘You lost her again?’

Jones discomfort was obvious and Manson let that ride for a few seconds. ‘How?’

‘We’re not sure, sir.’

‘That is the second time.’ No reply.

Manson was in no hurry to make the man feel better. He was paying a substantial amount and he expected a return on investment.

‘Please increase surveillance and report back within forty-eight hours with progress. Either you have her by then or some of you will be minus a job! Is that clear?’

‘Crystal.’

‘Thank you.’

Manson hung up and wondered how this woman stayed outside their grasp.

Chapter 2

Accessing the summit of Endurance Hill was largely why the peak was on Joe Miller’s training roster. Your life was at stake anywhere in the backcountry and it was up to those who ventured there, including Joe’s team, to be prepared. Matt was bemused by the arrogance and lack of research on the part of foreign climbers who came here. They thought they were fine. They hadn’t bothered to think about the mechanics of the Southern Alps, a high mountain range within sight of two oceans. The mountains were a law unto themselves and the odds could turn on a dime.

Invariably Mother Nature would win.

The last segment of Endurance was a bitch; a mental test on top of an overall mental test. The already steep slope simply became a thirty-five metre stint of rock and cliff through which there was a vague trail. There was no rope or chain. You made your own safety. They called it Death Row and, for those who could be bothered looking, it was in the map contours. By the time you got there, you didn’t want a bar of it and that was the point.

Their teeth gritted, they scrambled through that dangerous phase to find themselves fifteen hundred metres above sea level in a building gale. Another couple of hours here and they would be blown off. They were specks in a huge and raw mountainous landscape under a darkening sky. At two hours fifty from ground zero, they were slightly ahead of target. The descent would be slightly faster and a form of recovery.

Matt had been born with a wind phobia. His choice of the mountaineering profession had raised eyebrows but there was a method to the madness. He had long ago decided that he wouldn’t be ruled by the fear. On the worst days he’d gone into the rugged Hooker Valley—the wind tunnel from hell—and learned to face the damned thing down. He found out that he probably wouldn’t cure it but he settled for management.

Facing west they saw the reason for the violence. The weather was gunning and it was classic viewing. An angry mass of cloud was rising up and over the imposing and ageless terrain, billions of molecules overtaking the sky like an army of bullies. Snow was coming. Well, at least they didn’t have to be up here tomorrow. They saw the wild and dangerous gash of Endurance Gorge, a spectacular three hundred metre ravine.

The river was a silver streak, which snaked down between steep walls which in turn climbed almost vertically to the ridgeline. To the east was the foreground basin with its lakes, tussock and farmland. Down there the wind had free reign, the gusts brewing the lake waters into whitecaps. Matt sipped the last drops of his water vessel before quickly setting up the first of two spares. If nothing else up here, you drank.

Minutes later it was time to head back. Matt eyed the wall below with distaste, but after that, they’d rock n roll. It was only late morning but he was after that hot shower and a proper feed.

‘Let’s hit it,’ he said.

Tomorrow was the start of another week. They were developing a seven day package for a promotion with helicopter pilots and a couple of adventure agents. If that went well, the deal would proceed. They couldn’t have known that those plans would have to wait in line. They were hard dudes making their living in a primal environment and rolling with the blows but they were about to experience a feat of endurance out of nowhere. The Navy Seals, arguably the toughest of all combat units, have their own extreme example.

They call it Hell Week.

Chapter 3

Matt’s mobile disturbed him from a slumber deep