St. John & The Dead Hand IS HERE
At last! St. John & The Dead Hand pulls St. John Kraft out of his cushy existence as owner of Nine — his luxurious auberge on the Lake Tahoe shore — and off to the featureless desert where danger waits in plain sight.
When his old employers at the Agency call in a favor, St. John Kraft is happy to help. It promises even more excitement than watching guests drop thousands of dollars at the poker tables in his boutique hotel’s game room. But it turns out the favor is no game. America’s energy infrastructure is in peril, along with the lives of the people trying to protect it. And now St. John is all in for the highest stakes imaginable.
Fans of Jack Reacher will discover new worlds with St. John Kraft, a man of both skills and means.
Right out of the gate, you’re in the deep end:
“YOU COULD HARDLY CALL THE SHACK A SHELTER. From the wind, maybe, if there had been any, and from the sun, if we ever saw that again. But not from bullets, especially if the bullets came from high-power rifles. The walls were wood, only slightly thicker than fence slats and deep brown, streaked with black, like the flesh of mummified human remains, further compromised by years of assault from the elements, the fierce sun of Nevada summers and the wicked winds of Nevada winters.
I told Craig, ‘Too small for a fort and too big for a coffin,’ in a voice low enough not to carry across the nighttime plain.
He huffed a dark chuckle. Though neither of us would say it, if these were going to be our last hours, we would be spending them in fine company.
Craig scanned as far into the landscape as the moonlight allowed. ‘Like I said, no other cover.’
‘Maybe big enough for a diversion,’ I added.
The far-off rumble of one of the ATVs pulled our attention that way as a set of headlights popped up from the ground about a mile out. They must have dipped into a wash and revved to climb the near side. The engine settled back to the steady hum that had been tracking us for hours as the headlights bobbled our way in a relentless predator crawl.
I scanned the plain for its companions, and noted the wink and jiggle of lights several hundred meters to the west, and then a third set farther back, between the others.
‘I don’t think they’re flanking,’ I said. ‘Just trying to pick up the trail.’
Craig added, ‘Or keep us contained.’
‘Let’s see what we’ve got to work with,’ I said, and entered the shack.
Just enough light slipped through the door and the one empty window frame beside it to see the place was a simple box. The floor was constructed of the same flimsy lumber as the rest of the thing, and sagged between the joists as I crossed it. The interior surface was the back side of the exterior wood cladding with all the framing exposed, except for a surprisingly intact canvas tarp hung on the far wall.
As I approached, I could see the tarp covered another doorway. I pulled it aside to find an even more crudely constructed shed attached to that side, moonlight spilling through the wide gaps in the slats. There was no floor here, and it took me a moment to discern the deeper darkness was a hole, a stash pit maybe or a latrine. Mercifully, there was no odor. That was the only mercy to be found here.”
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