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  ABOUT WICKED DECEIT

  What do you do when your own President wants you dead?

  You call Sam Wick.

  Task Force-77 (TF-77) is a black ops team of NSA and the US Military. This is the team, the U.S. government calls when it needs to get people out of the most dangerous places on earth.

  Sam Wick.Task Force 77's best. Master Extractor. Perfect Assassin. Where the government cannot and will not go, he will.

  His mission: Extract Carlos Cruz-Diez—a New York Times reporter from the clutches of death.

  Location: Venezuela Consulate in Vienna, Austria.

  The Obstacle: Venezuela’s National Intelligence Service has sent sixteen of their best to execute this mission.

  Timeline: Twenty-four hours.

  Time is running out. Bullets are flying. Bodies are piling up. Nothing is as it seems.

  Will Sam Wick succeed?

  Turn the page to read the first chapter NOW!

  WICKED DECEIT - CHAPTER 1

  PRESIDENT CHAMBERS, Caracas Venezuela

  What could you possibly offer the man who controlled not only your destiny but that of your whole country? The man who ruled with an iron fist. The man who had the Russian President on his speed-dial. The man who had once given the finger to the US President at a diplomatic convention.

  What could you possibly offer to the President of your country? But Henrique Arias Cárdenas, the director of the Venezuela Intelligence Service, had more on his mind than a birthday present as he waited in the visitor’s lounge. He glanced at the wall clock above the majestic door behind which the President was about to meet him. It was thirteen past two in the morning and the city outside was fast asleep, but Henrique had other things on his plate than a six-hour sleep. He sat with his back straight at the edge of the couch, his hands sweating even in the temperature-controlled room.

  He racked his brain to construe a reason for the urgency of this meeting but came up with nothing. Not a pleasant situation to be in, especially for the Director of Venezuela’s most powerful Intelligence agency.

  Henrique already had a meeting scheduled with the President at eight in the morning, just before the whole country would start celebrating the birthday of their leader. Festivities had been planned for the next seven days, and over the past few weeks, he and his men had been busy foiling the attempts by radical extremists to create disruptions in the celebrations. His office had been diligent in sending daily briefs to the President’s office. What then had warranted this late-night summons? What was it that could not wait for six more hours?

  One of the officers standing alert near the grand door lifted his right hand to his earpiece and then glanced at Henrique and gestured him to enter.

  As Henrique fell in step with his escort, he coughed twice, attempting to relax the lump in his throat. It didn’t work. He took his hands out of his trouser pockets to reduce the sweating; that didn’t work either. Then the big double doors opened before him and it was too late to do anything. He took a deep breath and hoped for the best.

  The President was waiting for him, standing at the royal desk, his fingers resting on a folded publication. Henrique walked in and stopped at a respectful distance, carefully observing the President’s face to gauge his mood. The man was not just upset; he was seething with anger.

  He glanced at the publication in the President’s hand and recognized the font. It was a copy of the New York Times.

  The President glared at him. Henrique said nothing. The President’s laser-focused stare was unsettling, making him unsure of his next steps.

  “Venezuela is a mess, a bloody mess,” The President read out the front-page headline, looking directly at Henrique. He jerked his hand, and the newspaper slid across the table to Henrique who stopped it with a swift gesture, quickly glancing at the columnist’s name—Carlos Cruz-Díez. “You know why he is so confidently able to shit on our faces?”

  Henrique maintained a prudent silence. It was a rhetorical question; he understood that.

  “We should have killed him. We should have killed him and hanged him for others to see and learn, instead of letting him leave the country.”

  “We can still do it.” Henrique finally had something to offer.

  “How?”

  “He visited our consulate in Vienna a few days ago.”

  “Why did no one tell me that?”

  “It was in the PDB,” Henrique said, referring to the President’s daily brief sent by his office.

  The President considered it for a moment.

  “How soon?”

  “He is going to visit again. We can take care of him if you want.”

  “How?”

  “It is better if you remain unaware of the modalities.”

  The President weighed this momentarily - plausible deniability -before a slow smile caressed his lips. Henrique smiled too. This was his birthday gift to the President.

  WICKED DECEIT - CHAPTER 2

  NSA SAFE HOUSE, Luxembourg

  Team Vesuvius was already in the briefing room when Sam Wick arrived. Jessica, Stan, and Mac looked up as Wick entered. He saw their tense postures relaxing at the sight of a familiar face. He scanned the room; it was a boardroom with a long wide conference table at its center, surrounded by twelve mid-back mesh desk chairs. All the chairs faced the wall opposite to the door which meant to be a projector screen. He instinctively walked towards the chair that had clear visibility of both the projector screen and the exit. Sitting down, he observed the three other people in the room.

  Team Vesuvius was one of the NSA support teams. Every support team typically had three to four members—made available to field operatives like Wick depending on their mission. Wick knew of the Vesuvius team and backgrounds of each of its members.

  Jessica led the Vesuvius. She was the logistics liaison and an expert in close combat. Stan was a former marine and an Olympic-level shooter. Mac was the go-to person for anything remotely associated with technology. Together these three represented one of NSA’s ace support teams.

  Though nothing in his expression showed it, Wick was glad he would be going into this mission with Team Vesuvius.

  Team Vesuvius knew of Wick. His reputation in the field preceded him wherever he went. At 5’11”, he had a weather-beaten face that had a rugged attraction, not least because of his unreadable blue eyes, bright with intelligence. With his slicked-back black hair, athletic build, he looked like a man on a mission. He’d been born in Kansas, but he spoke with a neutral accent, due to this extended stay in Asia and Africa.

  He was the man whom NSA assigned its most insane and impossible missions and, so far, he had emerged from each in one piece. He spoke less, absorbed more and did his job with brutal efficiency. He had gone from ninety successful extractions to over four hundred in just over half a decade. Just twenty-seven years old, he was not flamboyant in the way many other operatives his age were. He was not dazzling, preferring simple, time-tested tactics over ones that dropped jaws, but he kept pulling off incredible feats. No matter the opposition, no matter the conditions
, no matter the situation. His strategies and tactics were already turning into NSA case studies on whether brilliance could be boring. Team Vesuvius—Jessica, in particular—knew all this.

  The door opened, and Andrew McAvoy entered.

  WICKED DECEIT - CHAPTER 3

  NSA SAFE HOUSE, Luxembourg

  “GOOD MORNING EVERYONE.” McAvoy greeted them, walking straight to the laptop sitting at the end of the table. There were muted responses all around.

  McAvoy keyed in his password, and the wall lighted up with an image of a middle-aged man looking at them through a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses.

  “Carlos Cruz-Díez,” he said pointing to the image on the screen. “Born and bred in South America, Carlos is a prominent journalist who has covered major stories like the rise of Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 bombings for various news organizations. For decades, he was close to the Venezuelan leadership. He also served as an adviser to the government but fell out of favor and went into self-imposed exile in the U.S. last year. From there, he has been writing monthly columns in The New York Times and occasionally for the Washington Post criticizing the policies of the Venezuelan President. Tomorrow morning he is scheduled to visit the Venezuelan Consulate in Vienna to get documents certifying that he has renounced his Venezuelan citizenship, His appointment is with Ana Sofia, Minister-Counsellor at the consulate who helped him during his last visit too.” He paused. “According to our source this time Venezuela is planning to do something major in the consulate involving Carlos. He has been extremely vocal against the regime of his country, and that is why he is important

  to us in our support to the human rights groups in Venezuela. All this means his country’s President isn’t happy with him. Also, the U.S. is trying to bring the Venezuelan President to the negotiation table for months now. Till now he’s been a tough nut to crack. POTUS is not very happy with the way they are summarily turning down our requests for talks. We believe intercepting this planned act of theirs can give us an opening that can bring them to the table for talks. Your mission is to find everything about this plan and if there is a danger to Mr. Carlos’ life, then get him out of there, preferably alive. Any questions?”

  Hands shot up. McAvoy pointed at Stan to go ahead.

  “When was his last visit?”

  “He visited the consulate seven days ago along with his fiancée Karina Anez when he was asked to come back again in a week..”

  “Did anything suspicious happen during the last visit?” Stan asked.

  “According to our source, he walked into the consulate quite confidently because he believes nothing untoward can happen to him on Austrian soil. He reportedly told his friends he had been treated "very warmly” on his first visit and reassured them he would not face any problems. During his last visit, however, he gave Ms. Karina, his fiancée, two cell phones and told her to call someone close to the Austrian President if he did not come out within a reasonable timeframe. So, it seems he does harbor some doubts.”

  “Since how long has he been in a relationship with this woman?” Mac asked next.

  “Just over a year.”

  “Who are the usual suspects here?”

  “The Venezuelan intelligence agency, specifically its director, Henrique Arias Cárdenas. His team had been surveilling Carlos and Karina for the last three months.”

  “So why are we acting now?”

  “This time their President seems to have lost his patience. He is pretty riled up by the negative publicity he is attracting due to Carlos’ articles on his government’s repression of dissent, often through violent crackdowns on street protests, the jailing of opponents, and the prosecution of civilians in military courts. Carlos’ columns have consistently raised concerns about poor prison conditions, impunity for human rights violations, and harassment by government officials of human rights activists and independent media outlets. Even Russia has asked them to take some corrective measures. This seems to have blown his fuse. He had a meeting with Henrique a few days ago and has been given assurance by Henrique that this issue will be taken care of.”

  McAvoy tapped the keypad. A new image appeared on the screen of a rugged face with a knife scar running from the right side of the temple to the jaw. There was no name on the photo. “This is the best-known operative of the Venezuela Intelligence Service and we suspect this man will be leading this mission.” McAvoy clicked again, and a new grainy image showed the same man walking past a large signboard of the Vienna International Airport. He wore a large brown hoodie and military boots. “This is a photo of him taken at eight this morning at the Vienna international airport.” He clicked again. The next image showed the man getting into a Toyota. “We have run the DMV number. This is the photo of the driver who picked him up from the airport.” McAvoy paused and let the team soak in the details of the second man on the screen. His face was clean with no visible scar marks. There was a mole just under his right eye and his hair showed his age. “His name is Felipe Massa, a known operative of the Venezuela Intelligence Service in Austria who works under the cover of a travel agency.”

  “How reliable is this Venezuelan source of yours?” Jessica asked.

  “He is someone deeply rooted in Venezuelan political circles. He has been a critical asset for us in the past too.”

  “How do you want this to go down?” Wick asked.

  “Venezuela has been a blow-hot, blow-cold ally for quite some time now, so this has to be dealt with discretion. No big bang please.” McAvoy clicked and the image on the screen changed. “This is the front of Venezuelan Consulate in Vienna. The building is at the Prinz Eugen-Straße. The official hours are from 0930 to 1300 and 1400 to 1700 from Monday to Friday. The number of personnel of Venezuelan descent are somewhere around fifteen including the Ambassador. The rest of the staff consists of locals. Names, addresses, and photos of everyone on the staff are in the manila folders in front of you. You’ll also find the blueprint of the building in there. In Vienna, Jakob is our asset who will be your driver and the single point of contact for ammo and cash. He will get your things transported into the consulate. In case anything goes wrong, he is the man who will get you out.” McAvoy paused to see if anyone had any questions.

  “A private jet will take off from the Spangdahlem Air Base at 1200 hours. That gives you fifty-three minutes from now,” he continued. “Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “People, ideally we would like you to get in and out as quickly as possible. We’d like to be able to play this off as a minor skirmish rather than a full-blown operation,” he added, looking at Wick.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2019 by Chase Austin

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