Supreme Power, page 1
Supreme Power
Karl Adams Espionage Thriller #8
by
Trevor Scott
Calabria Publishing
United States of America
Also by Trevor Scott
Jake Adams: Private Strike Force
Counter Caliphate (#1)
Gates of Dawn (#2)
Counter Terror (#3)
Covert Network (#4)
Shadow Warrior (#5)
Sedition (#6)
Choke Points (#7)
Deadly Cabal (#8)
Cold Enemies (#9)
Terminal Force (#10)
Max & Robin Kane Mystery Series
Truth or Justice (#1)
Stolen Honor (#2)
Relative Impact (#3)
Without Virtue (#4)
Sweet Home Betrayal (#5)
Powder Keg (#6)
No Retreat (#7)
Deadly Crossing (#8)
Abusive Power (#9)
Dystopian Novel
Liberty Lost
Karl Adams Espionage Thriller Series
The Man From Murmansk (#1)
Siberian Protocol (#2)
The Spy Within (#3)
Double Impact (#4)
Ratchet Up (#5)
Into the Darkness (#6)
Endless Resolve #7
Jake Adams International Espionage Thriller Series
Fatal Network (#1)
Extreme Faction (#2)
The Dolomite Solution (#3)
Vital Force (#4)
Rise of the Order (#5)
The Cold Edge (#6)
Without Options (#7)
The Stone of Archimedes (#8)
Lethal Force (#9)
Rising Tiger (#10)
The Tony Caruso Mystery Series
Boom Town (#1)
Burst of Sound (#2)
Running Game (#3)
The Chad Hunter Espionage Thriller Series
Hypershot (#1)
Global Shot (#2)
Cyber Shot (#3)
The Keenan Fitzpatrick Mystery Series
Isolated (#1)
Burning Down the House (#2)
Witness to Murder (#3)
Other Mysteries and Thrillers
Fantastic Encounter
Edge of Delirium
Strong Conviction
Fractured State (A Novella)
The Nature of Man
Discernment
Way of the Sword
Drifting Back
The Dawn of Midnight
The Hobgoblin of the Redwoods
Duluthians: A Collection of Short Stories
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and not intended to represent real people or places. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author.
SUPREME POWER
Copyright © 2024 by Trevor Scott
Calabria Publishing
United States of America
Contents
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Trevor Scott Bio
“A damned good writer.”—David Hagberg, New York Times bestselling author.
“I enjoyed it very much. . .akin to Ludlum and Higgins. . .your background and writing skill should make this one a slam dunk. . .”—Dale Brown, New York Times bestselling author
“Non-stop action and intrigue from the first page! Get this book and enjoy the thrill ride!”—Scott McEwen, #1 New York Times Bestselling Co-Author of American Sniper on Cyber Shot
“A riveting thriller all the way through.”—Midwest Book Review on The Cold Edge
“Watch out Jason Bourne, you had met your match with Jake Adams!”—Suspense Magazine
“Not as technical and certainly shorter than Tom Clancy’s books but can be read in lieu of them.”—Library Journal
“Trevor Scott never fails to please.”—Midwest Book Review
“Vital Force is the riveting novel of rapidly paced, non-stop, action adventure. The stuff of which block-buster movies are made, Vital Force is very highly recommended reading for those who enjoy a well-crafted spy-thriller story.”—Midwest Book Review
“Author Trevor Scott takes us on a thrill ride full of spycraft, geo-political espionage, advanced weaponry, treason, and a man’s fine appreciation for the female body, even when its owner is a stone killer.”—Jules Brenner, Mystery Scene Magazine
“Previous titles have fit the Tom Clancy techno mold, but this topical tale of DNA research and a possible cure for heart disease falls more in the James Bond tradition of fancy cars and fast women.”—Publishers Weekly on The Dolomite Solution
“Scott has the high-tech jargon down pat...he takes readers around the world for a thrill-packed adventure. Technothriller fans looking for an alternative to Clancy will find Scott a somewhat smaller-scale but perhaps even more authentic alternative.”—Booklist on Extreme Faction
“The formidable protagonist zooms through densely detailed, entertaining...international adventures.”—Publishers Weekly on Extreme Faction
“While the story is almost too close to reality…kudos to Scott for a job well done and expectations of more to come.”—AudioFile
“Trevor Scott’s action-packed post-Cold War spy thriller is certainly that—a thriller. Extreme Faction takes the reader around the world, into different cultures, lifestyles and ideals with flawless ease. I’d recommend this adventure highly.”—Duluth News-Tribune
“Extreme Faction is fast-paced, realistic, and more than a bit frightening.”—Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon
“Fatal Network is a masterfully written, splendidly executed, superb thriller.”—Midwest Book Review
“A real gut-buster of a thriller.”—Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon on Fatal Network
“Unique twists and turns...a deadly cat and mouse game.”—Duluth News-Tribune on Fatal Network
1
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Professor Hans Becker stepped off the blue and white tram outside the Central Station in downtown Amsterdam and stopped for a moment to observe how the early evening light reflected off the wet buildings across the water and especially on the stone Park Plaza Victoria hotel, a place he could not afford on his meager salary at the University of Amsterdam.
He smiled and walked with purpose toward the Basilica of Saint Nicholas. Becker was a man of slight build and always wore his trademark tweed jacket over a black T-shirt, with baggy slacks, and hiking boots that always happened to be untied. His mind was too jumbled with complex information to remember to tie boots. His area of expertise was in the Department of Physics at the university. So, while most simply saw the evening light and reflections as a pretty benefit of the moment, Becker couldn’t help but see the physics involved with geometric optics and light refraction on water.
He adjusted his satchel over his left shoulder and then decided he should put the strap over his head to his right shoulder for more protection. After all, he was heading into one of the least favorable areas of Amsterdam—the Red Light District. The pizza pub selected by his colleagues wasn’t his favorite eating establishment in the city, but he thought his people should select their favorite, since they had worked so hard over the past year to bring their project to completion. What his people didn’t know was that they had discovered more than they knew. He would reveal that fact tonight, and their collective discovery could go down in history much like that of Watson and Crick scribbling the Double Helix of DNA on the cocktail napkin in the London pub. Yet, this discovery was more complex, perhaps, since it included so many colleagues across the globe. Their pub would have to be mostly virtual. This is what he told himself for his own edification. Reality rarely bonded with his own perception.
Becker passed in front of the basilica and stopped for a second to glance behind him. Although he had a photographic memory, his skill was mostly concentrated on technical data, and not on people or other things around him. However, he was certain that someone behind him, also stopped now and on his cell phone, had been on the tram with him.
He turned and continued to walk until he reached the beginning of Warmoesstraat, an appendage of the Red Light District, but not the seediest of the lot.
Unconsciously, he tightened his left arm on his satchel—the magnum opus of his life to this point. The papers inside were a printout of the paper he was scheduled to publish in the most prestigious scientific journal in Europe. Almost. The details would be inserted before the final paper went to the publisher. He had to be careful. So careful, in fact, that even a brilliant scientist wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of these papers.
He saw the red neon light ahead that simply read Pizza. Their gathering would include his associate professor, along with a half a dozen graduate students.
Becker hesitated briefly before entering the Pizza pub. The man who had been behind him was now gone. He shook his head to dispel his own paranoia. Then he walked into the pizza pub, past a number of tables and the bar to the left, to a back room where they would hold their private affair.
As he walked into the room, the graduate students raised their mugs of beers and cheered him, as if he were a football star. He smiled and glanced about the room. The one person he didn’t see was the one who had set up this event—his young colleague Amber Voss.
“Is Amber here yet?” Becker asked in English to nobody in particular.
Most of them laughed.
One said, “You know Amber. She’ll be late for her own funeral.”
Becker tried to smile but then he simply nodded affirmation.
•
Associate Professor Amber Voss puttered around her small apartment with nervous tension. Then she checked her cell phone and realized she was late again. Why did this always happen? Time was a construct of a weak mind. Plus, she didn’t wear a watch.
Just before departing her apartment a dozen blocks from the pizza pub, she stopped to look at herself in the full-length mirror. She brushed her hand along the edge of her silky black hair, which she always pulled back into a bun on the back of her head. This evening she had placed a colorful red beret into her hair—a traditional ornament of her Greenlandic heritage on her mother’s side. Then she slapped both of her cheeks, which seemed much more pronounced tonight than normal. She was ugly and fat, she concluded. At least by western standards. Why couldn’t she have taken after her father’s side of the family from Utrecht? They were all tall and slim and gorgeous. By her perception, she was a fat, frumpy college professor.
Shaking her head, she hurried out of her apartment and found her bike locked at a rack alongside a canal. She got on and started pedaling toward the heart of Amsterdam, alongside a canal that would bring her within a block of the pizza pub.
•
A lone man in a black VW Passat put his car in gear, released his foot from the brake and gently pressed the gas pedal. He remembered his training and knew he needed to stay back a block or so from the bicyclist ahead.
The screen on his dash suddenly popped up an incoming call, so he touched the green answer button.
“Ja,” he said, somewhat annoyed.
“Where is the woman?” asked his associate in Dutch.
“On her way. By bike.”
“The professor is here. Should we move ahead?”
This wasn’t the plan, he thought. But plans could change. “Does he have it with him?”
“He does.”
“Everything?”
“As we know it, yes.”
That was the problem, of course. The professor was not only paranoid, but his level of trust was lacking for even his most trusted colleagues.
“Move ahead,” the driver said. “I will handle the young woman.”
“Yes, sir.”
He tapped off the call and continued following the young professor along the canal.
•
Professor Becker sipped on his beer and observed his young graduate students. They all seemed so eager to please. Eager to bring this new technology to the world. All of them knew this could boost their careers. But more importantly to most of them, they all had the potential to become very rich.
A waiter came into the private room pushing a small cart with more pizzas on top. Once he reached the center of the room he turned and came over to Professor Becker.
“Are you Professor Becker?” the waiter asked him.
“Yes. Why?”
The waiter shifted his head toward the front room and said, “A woman is on the phone asking for you.”
Becker pulled his phone from inside his jacket and didn’t see any missed calls or texts. Somewhat confused, he got up and went with the man toward the front of the pizza pub.
Just as he picked up the phone at the end of the bar, he noticed the man who had followed him from the tram. He was sitting with another man. They were both doing their best to ignore Becker.
“Hello,” Becker said into the phone.
Nobody answered.
He looked for the bartender, but he wasn’t there. Neither was the waiter who had brought the pizza.
Becker shook his head and started back toward their event room. But a man blocked his way. Then he turned and the two men at the table were behind him.
One of the men flashed a badge and said he must come with them.
Confused and concerned, he considered calling out to his friends. But he didn’t. Other patrons in the pizza pub stared at him as if he were a common criminal.
Then, without further explanation, two men had him by the arms and hauled him out the front door.
When they reached the cross street leading toward a main highway, the men shoved him into the back of a small panel van.
Just as they were pulling away, a large explosion reverberated off the van and a huge ball of flames rushed out the front of the pizza pub, followed by a cloud of black smoke.
Then the van pulled away from the curb so fast, the professor’s body was flung across the metal floor. His head smashed against the side of the van and his world turned to darkness.
•
Amber Voss was only three blocks from the pizza pub when the explosion startled her so much she lost control of her bike and ran into the curb, sending her hurtling over the handlebars and onto the wet sidewalk.
All around her people screamed and she could see people ahead outside the pizza pub, some walking and others crawling away from the wreckage that had been the restaurant. Flames still billowed from the front windows.
Deep inside her she needed to get up. But she was frozen in time for a moment, as if paralyzed by what she saw in front of her.
Finally, gathering as much strength as she could, Amber lifted herself up from the sidewalk and brushed herself off. A young man and woman rushed by her away from the fire in front of her.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
A few brave souls walked cautiously toward the restaurant, so Amber did the same. Suddenly, she realized that she should have been in there. And what of her friends and colleagues?
Now, she picked up the pace toward the pizza pub.
Without warning a hand grasped her shoulder to stop her from moving any closer.
In Dutch, the man said, “No, you must not go there.”
“But my friends were in there,” she pled.
“Come with me,” he said. “You are in shock.”
She studied his eyes, and they gave him away. She tried to back away from the man, but his grasp got tighter on her shoulder.
Then, without thinking, Amber shoved her knee into the man’s groin, dropping him to his knees and nearly bringing her down with him. She tugged free of him and ran toward her bike.
Hopping onto her bike, she pedaled aways as fast as she could, only turning her head once to see if the man was following her.
But he wasn’t.
Amber maneuvered her bike through the streets of Amsterdam as if she were late for church. Sirens echoed through the night, reverberating louder as they flew by her on their way to the explosion.
Finally, she got to the canal that would lead to her apartment. Out of breath, she slowed her pace.
Just as she was about to come to a halt in front of her building, she noticed two men lingering by the entrance to her apartment.
Putting her head down, she simply cruised by the front of her place. When the men noticed her, they ran down the steps onto the sidewalk after her.
She stood up and pedaled as fast as she could. Now, she turned down random streets on a path not even known to her, until she was certain she wasn’t being followed.
What was going on? What had happened to her friends and her colleague, Professor Becker?
In the darkness of a tree-lined street along another canal, she stopped and pulled out her phone. She had one text from a graduate student asking where she was. Nothing else.
