NO SAFE PLACE Read online

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  CHAPTER 92

  CHAPTER 93

  CHAPTER 94

  CHAPTER 95

  CHAPTER 96

  CHAPTER 97

  CHAPTER 98

  CHAPTER 99

  CHAPTER 100

  CHAPTER 101

  CHAPTER 102

  CHAPTER 103

  CHAPTER 104

  CHAPTER 105

  CHAPTER 106

  CHAPTER 107

  CHAPTER 108

  CHAPTER 109

  CHAPTER 110

  CHAPTER 111

  CHAPTER 112

  CHAPTER 113

  CHAPTER 114

  CHAPTER 115

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER 116

  CHAPTER 117

  CHAPTER 118

  CHAPTER 119

  CHAPTER 120

  CHAPTER 121

  CHAPTER 122

  CHAPTER 123

  CHAPTER 124

  CHAPTER 125

  CHAPTER 126

  CHAPTER 127

  CHAPTER 128

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  MYSTERY NOVELS BY STEVEN M. ROTH

  SAMPLE CHAPTER: THE COUNTERFEIT TWIN

  CHAPTER 1

  SAMPLE CHAPTER: NO PLACE TO HIDE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  What people are saying about

  NO SAFE PLACE:

  Steven Roth has written a terrifyingly real bioweapon suspense novel. He has the chops to keep a reader turning pages and anxious about what comes next. No Safe Place alerts us to what the government has done and may still be doing to an unsuspecting and unconcerned public. Highly recommended.

  —Charlie Stella

  Author of TOMMY RED and eight other crime novels

  What people are saying about

  MANDARIN YELLOW

  A splendidly told and sophisticated tale by a first-time novelist. The multi-layered murder mystery not only remains engaging throughout, but also offers the reader a superb primer on Chinese culture and history, particularly post-World War II history.

  —News4U

  If you’re a mystery fan, you shouldn’t miss this novel that features a Parker Duofold (the eponymous Mandarin Yellow). This is prime mystery: well plotted and compellingly written. Roth weaves a taut storyline, paces it perfectly, and wraps it in twists and turns that make no sense until you get to the end (when everything clicks perfectly into place). Along the way, he slips in all the clues you need to solve the mystery right along with hero Socrates Cheng.

  —RB

  What people are saying about

  THE MOURNING WOMAN:

  There are never enough five star mysteries out there for a dedicated reader like myself. Steven Roth has now written another in his Socrates Cheng private investigator series called, “The Mourning Woman.” His first was, “Mandarin Yellow,” which I thought outstanding. Both have fascinating, complicated plots involving a mix of Chinese and Greek cultures. Roth’s extensive credentials in the study of these groups has provided him with a unique perspective that fits perfectly with the genre of intrigue, historical vendetta, and motives unlikely to be uncovered easily by a typical American detective.

  —History Major

  The Mourning Woman, the second in the series of Socrates Cheng mystery novels, is an intelligent and engrossing murder mystery that is stylish, well-crafted, and every bit as satisfying as Steven M. Roth’s debut Cheng mystery, Mandarin Yellow. Roth is a great storyteller. I look forward to the third installment of the series.

  —QP

  NO SAFE PLACE

  Copyright 2016 by Steven M. Roth.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever, or stored in a database or retrieval system, electronic or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and/or reviews.

  NO SAFE PLACE is a work of fiction. References to real people (contemporary or historical) or to actual commercial products (contemporary or historical) or to events or locales (historical or otherwise) might have their origin in real people, products or events, as the case might be, but are intended only to provide a sense of context, authenticity and background, and are used fictitiously or are the products of the author’s imagination to support the story, and are not to be construed as real or historically accurate or to represent any person, living or dead.

  Published by Blackstone Press

  Cover design and formatting by Streetlight Graphics, LLC

  ISBN 978-0-692-77478-6 [Paperback).

  ISBN 978-0-692-77415-1 [ePub]

  Visit the author’s website: http://www.StevenMRoth.com

  For Dominica

  “A good runner leaves no footprints.”

  Lao Tzu

  PROLOGUE

  The president of the United States has a secret.

  It is a secret so dark, so loathsome, that should it ever be publicly disclosed, it not only will bring down his administration, it will send the president of the United States to a maximum security federal prison for the rest of his life.

  PART ONE

  C
HAPTER 1

  The president uncapped his fountain pen and stared at the executive order sitting on his desk awaiting his signature.

  He thought about secret experiments carried out in the past by the federal government against an unsuspecting American population, all rationalized as having been conducted for the greater good of the country.

  There had been the Tuskegee syphilis experiments run by the U. S. Public Health Service between 1932 and 1972, the Cold War cadmium experiments in which the Army had sprayed a toxic chemical mixture over inner-city neighborhoods in St Louis, and the recently publically disclosed 1955 experiment in which the CIA had discharged the whooping cough bacteria over Tampa Bay, Florida, causing an epidemic in which twelve people died.

  Satisfied that his motives today were justified by history and by frequent and credible terrorists’ threats continuously made against the United States, and firmly believing he was following the best path to discharge his oath of office as president and as commander in chief to defend the country, the president signed his name to the secret executive order.

  With that simple act, the president authorized the Department of Defense to release a deadly pathogen into the general population of an American city to be designated by the secretary of defense.

  CHAPTER 2

  March 02

  Trace Austin unfastened his seatbelt and settled back into his aisle seat aboard American Airlines Flight 1992 on its way from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He glanced across the two adjacent seats at Isabella, his wife, and their teenage son, Pete.

  They sat near the back of the Airbus A319 twin-jet on their way to visit Isabella’s mother, called Nanna by everyone in the family, for a two-week stay while they used her condominium as a home base for short side-trips.

  Isabella turned toward Trace and smiled. “So, how’s the birthday boy doing?” She reached over and squeezed his hand.

  Trace blushed. “The birthday boy’s feeling middle aged.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I forgot,” Pete said, turning away from the window and looking at Trace. “Happy birthday, Dad.” Pete grinned. “You are middle aged, you know. Only one more year to the big five-O”

  Trace reached across Isabella to Pete. He gave him a soft, faux punch on his shoulder.

  “Did you hear from Max?” Isabella said. “I noticed he didn’t call you at home this morning to wish you happy birthday.”

  Trace nodded. “He called me yesterday at the office. Gave me a hard time about my birthday until I reminded him we’re the same age. He asked for you and Pete.”

  “Speaking of Uncle Max,” Pete said, as he again turned away from the window and looked at his father, “I’m old enough now to know the truth. Is he really allergic to alcohol like you always said or was that just a cover story because he has a drinking problem and had to give up booze?” He looked from Trace to his mother, then back again at Trace.

  “We didn’t make it up,” Trace said. “Uncle Max really is allergic to alcohol, deathly allergic, in fact. Even a small amount can send him into shock or kill him. He never touches the stuff, never has as long as I’ve known him.”

  “Not even when you were young and SEALs together?” Pete said.

  “Not even then.”

  “Poor Uncle Max. What a curse.

  “Enough about Uncle Max for now. Let’s talk about our plans for Florida. Is my boy ready to go fishing in the Keys and land a huge marlin?”

  Pete laughed. “You bet your. . . . Oops! Sorry. I mean, you bet I am.”

  Trace took Isabella’s hand. He raised his eyebrows and slightly shrugged. Isabella put her head down on Trace’s shoulder.

  Pete watched them, rolled his eyes, and turned back to the window.

  CHAPTER 3

  It had taken the secretary of defense almost eight months to convince the president that the secret executive order represented the prudent and responsible anti-terrorist measure for him to take on behalf of the country.

  To achieve this understanding, the secretary argued that although the federal government was reasonably prepared to prevent bioweapon attacks against American cities, the government was not prepared to deal with the aftermath of a successful bioweapon attack — the fear, confusion and chaos that would follow; the collective and individual anger that would ensue; the widespread physical illnesses, deaths, and mass psychological depression that would occur; and, the general lawlessness that inevitably would result.

  The reason the United States was so unprepared, the secretary had argued, was because the government continued to base its post-attack planning on inherently flawed models drawn from several government-sponsored, simulated terrorist attacks, such as the one called Dark Winter, held in various cities over the previous twenty years.

  These staged simulations, the secretary contended, were inherently flawed because everyone involved, from the highest government official to the participating man and woman on the street, had merely been role playing so that there were no genuine adverse consequences suffered by anyone. In other words, no reality. That meant there was no way for the government planners to tell in advance how actual victims and actual first responders at ground zero might react after a genuine bioweapon assault, and no way to tell how survivors might make out in the weeks following an actual terrorists’ attack.

  The president resisted at first, but eventually accepted the secretary’s arguments. He agreed to move forward with the experiment.

  The secretary of defense designated Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as the target city. He named the secret project, OPERATION TESTING GROUND.

  The secretary’s first act — even before he assembled his small, elite team who would implement OPERATION TESTING GROUND — was to prepare a digital file of the proposed experiment and hide the file among his personal records stored on the Pentagon’s encrypted trusted-network server. The digital file would be his insurance policy in case the president ever turned against him.

  CHAPTER 4

  Fort Lauderdale, Florida February 22

  The young man seemed like all the other young men hurrying along the sidewalk as they made their way from their jobs at the end of the work day. He dressed like them; he wore a wig that imitated their trendy hair styles; and he scurried like them, carrying a small backpack draped over one shoulder.

  But he wasn’t at all like them.

  Dusk. The sky above Las Olas Boulevard eased from royal blue toward black as night cycled in and puffy white MGM-type clouds yielded to high, thin wispy night vapors. The air was redolent with the scent of salt water and decaying seaweed. Palm branches swayed high above the sidewalks like the undulating wings of an albatross as the ocean breeze swooped in from the east and soared over the city on its way to the Everglades.

  The young man moved with ease along the sidewalk, walking east toward the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean.

  He was in Fort Lauderdale to perform an assignment for the federal government. Yet his name would not be found on any federal payroll record or on a Form 1099 at federal tax time. The young man worked off the books as a freelancer, as an independent contractor who occasionally executed critical assignments for his government. Today, the young man was in Fort Lauderdale to perform a brief job and then depart the city without leaving behind any identifiable footprints indicating he’d ever been there.

  When he arrived at the overpass above the Intracoastal, the young man leaned back against the iron railing and looked around. Satisfied he had not been noticed, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a softpack of Lucky Strike cigarettes. He bumped the bottom of the pack against the back of his hand, mouthed the tip of the cigarette that had partially jumped the pack, then fully extracted the smoke without ever touching it with his fingers. He fired up the cigarette and inhaled slowly and deeply, fully enjoying the warmth and comfort it offered him. After a few minutes, the young man field-stripped the cigarette, shred the paper wrapping, and flicked the rubble into the wes
terly breeze.