John Steel Collection - Books 4-6

Excerpt from John Steel Collection - Books 4-6

A cold March wind brushed Lucy Foster’s cheeks as she plummeted from the top of the Azure Window. Once a rocky arch that stretched out from the Maltese Island of Gozo. Now just rock face with the broken pieces of the massive arch buried under the waves.

It was said to be one of the wonders of the world, but after a tremendous storm wreaked havoc on both islands – it was no more. The craggy archway lost to the deep.

The midnight sky was black and cold, but not as cold as the ocean below. Lucy would not feel it. The velocity of her fall masked the smell of the sea air. Around her, the sounds of the wind were dulled by the crashing of the waves.

However, Lucy did not feel or hear anything.

There was no light from the moon for the waves to reflect, which would have made the fall from the cliff seem endless – as if it was a nightmare.

Lucy’s body slammed against the ocean as if the water were made from concrete. Her neck snapped back, and her ribs shattered. Her right arm was dislocated and pulled towards her back.

She had felt nothing.

The waves tossed her fragile body up like a piece of driftwood. The wind howled, and the waves roared. Towering waves crashed against each other. Pounded relentlessly against Lucy’s limp body again and again. Giant, claw-like waves reached up and grabbed her, pulling her down to the depths. The ocean surrendered her battered body to the surface once more as if tired with its prey. The waves crashed as the wind howled.

Finally, Lucy’s body vanished beneath the surface, dragged down into the blackened depths as she was swallowed into the abyss.

At the same time, over four-thousand miles away from Gozo’s coast, John Steel sat in his office at the NYPD’s 11th precinct. The room had been an old storage room that he had commandeered. The walls were a mix of half red-painted plaster and a lower half made from dark wooden panels. The hardened concrete of the floor was now hidden under a polished wood. There were brass lamps and Cambridge style bookshelves. The whole place looked as though it should belong in a stately home.

John Steel sat behind a long oak desk. The top was covered with green leather. On the desk was a computer monitor to his right, and a landline pushed far to the left. The computer keyboard and mouse were in front of the monitor, leaving the centre of the desk free. To his right hung a large, lifeless flatscreen monitor, which showed nothing apart from the room’s reflection. His eyes glanced over the report he had just written and was about to file.

Steel sighed profoundly and tossed down the file in frustration. He had been assigned to the NYPD to monitor and – if necessary – hinder the operations of an organisation called SANTINI.

SANTINI was an underground organisation that dealt in murder, assassinations, arms smuggling, anything that would serve its purpose. However, unlike organisations such as the Italian Mafia, Yakuza, White Russian Mafia, SANTINI remained in the shadows. Carrying out assignments that would be profitable and draw no attention to their existence.

But Steel knew of them. His entire family had been murdered by them, and he had been gravely injured while trying to save his family. Steel looked over at his reflection in the powered down the desktop monitor. He gazed into his dark soulless green eyes, which were just another scare had had to remind him of that day. His once pale blue eyes had somehow turned to this dark unnerving dark emerald colour after his life-saving operation. For years he had thought that the old Japanese gardener had saved him, healing his wounds at his home. But Steel had found out later that the very people Steel worked, for now, had saved him.

Like his father before him, John Steel was British Secret Service – or MI8. He had been recruited after his time with the SAS. However, after the murder of his family, MI8 thought it best that Steel went into hiding until the organisation responsible had been identified, or at best eliminated. So, Steel joined the US Navy SEALs. Whitehall suspected putting an ocean between Steel, and the organisation would take them out of their gaze for a while. Also, the training would do him good for what needed him to do.

But now, he was stuck behind a desk doing paperwork of a murder investigation. Steel felt nauseous, claustrophobic. This was not him. He was a soldier – an agent of the British Secret Service, not a cop. Sure, he had thwarted the plans of SANTINI on several occasions, but for some reason, they had gone dark. Were they laying low because of him? Possible. But then SANTINI did not just have him after them, there was this Trojan Group. Trojan was also a criminal organisation, but they – Steel’s eyes – were more of a threat. They sought power, control, and would do anything to get it. However, these had also disappeared from his radar. Steel found it curious, but at the same time disturbing. One he could understand – but both, surely that couldn’t be good?

But despite this upset, Steel had done his job and was ready to come home as far as he was concerned. Ready to do the job he was hired for – and being a cop was it. John Steel grabbed a pair of sunglasses that sat on a wireless docking station and slipped them on. He saw a blink of red light in the corner of an LCD HUB in the right-hand lens, then the words Retina scan complete. Identification confirmed. Steel heaved himself out of the comfort of the padded leather office chair, grabbing the file and then headed over to the door. The report was done, all the eyes were dotted, and Ts were crossed. Despite his reluctance to be there, he knew he still had to do the job correctly. He opened the door, suddenly the silence of the office was shattered by the chaos of the homicide division’s bullpen. Phones were ringing, and voices grew louder. As Steel looked out across the sea of busy people, the small screen in the right lens ran a diagnostic and quickly analysed them. John Steel smiled to himself at the gadget that had saved him, and others live so many times, but he also knew he could not be reliant on it. It was just an aid. Steel knew he had to rely more on his skills and own intuition.

Steel was looking at the people of the night shift, his shift had left hours ago. He had just stayed over to make sure there were no discrepancies in the report. The last thing he wanted was the guy’s lawyer picking something out and get the scumbag off with. Steel walked over to a Captain Alan Brant’s office and knocked. Steel wasn’t surprised he was still there.