Page 1 of Once a Hero

Prologue

The sounds of his own bones cracking threw FBI Special Agent Jake Kessler into another blinding mental vortex so dark and deep that he couldn’t hear his own screams, muffled under the oily, bloody rag they had stuffed into his mouth and tied around the back of his head.

A boot on his chest, pressing down at his rib cage and the internal organs inside.

Can’t breathe!

Strong hands had held his head in an odd position, and if they had pulled him any farther back as he lay prone on the floor, still tied to that chair, Jake was sure his neck would snap—

But then it wouldn’t matter anymore, would it, if he had died?

God, let me die…

“I told you it wasn’t me!” Molyneux screamed into his ear again as she drew the blade of her dagger into his thigh, twisting and shredding his muscles.

The pain was so unbearable that Jake was going to pass out.

Help me, God!

Still, nothing happened.

It was ridiculous to consider how much pain he could tolerate, but here was his test.

Slowly, Molyneux withdrew her dagger.

Whoa. I’m still alive.

God must have something for me to do, yes?

How much could Jake do in his condition, in this place? He opened his one non-swollen eye to look around him in the dimly lit hole in the ground.

Ah, he had been on the other side of this equation once, interrogating suspects, albeit in a more civilized manner becoming of the twenty-first century. He would have extended more mercy to Molyneux’s goons. Goons who were now pistol-whipping him again.

Thwack! Thwack!

Funny how it sounded at close range.

God, let me die…

How many times had Molyneux confessed to him, her prisoner? Yeah, she had repeated ad infinitum that she had not been guilty of the Vienna bombings.

Or Tel Aviv.

Or Rome.

Or Barcelona, for that matter.

Oh, and Paris.

The list had gone on and on.

Denials, all.

Tasting his own blood from his busted lips, Jake couldn’t process everything the French-born woman had been saying, let alone believe that she was to be absolved of all those terrorist acts that had her thumbprints all over them.

Those had all been signature Molyneux moves.

Operating under the radar through highly secure virtual private networks that even the NSA had envied, Molyneux moved in the darkness of evil.

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