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Sonic Ping by Orlando Stephenson
Blurb: When Daryl Morgan, self-made millionaire with a weakness for damsels in distress, receives a plea for help from Madeline, his best friend's widow, he has no idea that helping her will take him to Casablanca, Marrakesh, Uganda and Tripoli, uncovering a trail that leads to internet fraud, white slavery and murder.
With his martial arts, electronic genius friend, Rodger Truscott, Daryl discovers that someone is using Sonic Ping, the new super hot Google competitor, to steal billions of dollars from unsuspecting customers via click fraud... killing or sending into white slavery anyone who gets close. When their investigation turns the heat up too much, Madeline is abducted and sold into slavery.
Rescuing Madeline only deepens the mystery. The trail seems to lead back to Mikahyl Dashkov, the founder of Sonic Ping, but the key to his involvement is another victim of white slavery. Daryl and Rodger set off to Tripoli to rescue her and along the way they enlist a host of unusual characters to assist them: the sultry Selma, part owner of the local gentleman's club, Achmed Bakam al Saadin , the Wazir of Marrakesh, his son Prince Hakeem, the stunning and dangerous Arabian female mercenary Poison and the gargantuan bodyguard Tiny.
Villains are everywhere: the whiz kid founder of the search engine company, corrupt cops, Russian mobsters and Middle Eastern oil tzars. The odds are against them and everything is at stake, including their lives.
Exclusive Excerpt
I buckled the straps around her ankles, her wrists and her waist. I left the one around her right wrist loose enough that she could pull her hand through it hoping that he wouldn’t notice. He stuck the gun in my neck and pushed hard enough that it had to have left a bruise.
“Tighter, asshole,” he hissed.
I tightened the strap and sat back on my heels. She wasn’t getting out of that shipping container until someone helped her out.
“Now you,” he said, motioning to the case next to hers.
I pulled the cover back, lay down in the cushy foam and fastened the ankle straps. My mind was finally catching up to the seriousness of what was happening and my body was rebelling. If I didn’t find some way in the next few minutes of reversing our situation we were going to be on our way to the Middle East, or worse.
“Waist,” he said calmly and I buckled the strap across my middle.
“Now your left wrist.”
I glanced at the gun and sighed. This was not the way I thought my life was going to end, but who ever knows how that is going to happen? I pulled the left wrist strap tight and connected it. He leaned over and before I could react he slammed the gun against my forehead. By the time my vision cleared he had secured my right wrist. Both Selma and I were helpless. He put the barrel of the gun in the middle of my brow.
“Say goodnight, Daryl,” he said.
I watched his trigger finger as he started to squeeze.
Chapter Fourteen
The neat little round red-tinged hole that opened up in the middle of his forehead looked out of place. It was as if someone had used a single hole paper punch dipped in red paint on his brow. His eyes went lifeless, the gun clattered to the floor and my would-be killer slipped out of sight. I twisted my head around as far as I could and found Rodger’s face smiling down on me.
“Cut that kind of close, didn’t you, buddy?” I said.
“So, you knew I was here?” he said as he loosened the straps at my wrists.
“No, it’s just the fear talking,” I said. “I thought I was taking the long sleep. How did you get here anyway?”
“About an hour ago I had a premonition,” he said.
“Lucky me,” I said.
“Yes… anyway I came here and was in the parking lot when you went around the back. I saw our friend here follow you to the alley and wait. Then, when he walked you back into the elevator at gunpoint I went around front, got downstairs into the basement…”
“Wait,” I interrupted, “you got downstairs? I thought that…”
“You needed to be a special member to get down here?” he finished.
“Yeah.”
“I did Jerry a big favor when his daughter fell in with a bad crowd a few years ago,” he explained.
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I picked the lock on the steel door that leads in here and came in just in time to keep him from making permanent corpses of you both.”
“Permanent corpses? Is there another kind?” I asked.
“You know what I mean, Daryl.”
“Yes,” I said sitting up to reach my ankles.
“Are you guys going to gab all night or is someone going to let me loose?” Selma crabbed from her crate.
“Who’s that?” Rodger asked.
“Just a tart I picked up on the way into the club,” I said. “Maybe we should just leave her here.”
“Daryl,” Selma sputtered, “when I get out of here I’m going to…”
“I thought you liked that kind of treatment,” I said.
“Timing is everything, Daryl,” she said. “Right now I’m feeling lucky to be alive and doing something kinky with you isn’t even on my radar.”
I walked over to her crate, undid her restraints, then lifted her out and held her tightly. She melted into me again. I liked the way we fit together. She broke our embrace, turned to Rodger and stuck out her hand.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Selma, Jerry’s partner in the club. I just met Bucky on my way in tonight.”
Rodger shook her hand, “Hi, Selma, I’m Bucky’s friend, Rodger. How come Jerry didn’t have a key to the door?”
“He says that he just rented the space out about two months ago and they changed the locks,” she said.
“Slowed me down enough that I about didn’t get here before…” he gestured at the body.
“Who was that guy?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but he knew who you were and whoever was at the other end of his phone call sure knew my name,” I said.
She walked over and looked down at the body like he was some new species of bug and she were an entomologist. I was surprised because most women would have been completely freaked out by what just happened not to mention the dead body.
“He tried to kill us,” she said, nudging him with her toe. “Why?”
Rodger reached down, pulled the guy’s cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the last number dialed.
“He called Victor,” he grunted.
“Rodger,” I said in exasperation, “this whole thing is starting to get ridiculous. We’ve got indications that people from Sonic Ping might have killed Brad and my wife and yet the police are ignoring it. Now it looks like Victor from Sonic Ping just ordered Selma and I to join the unliving and what do you think our chances of convincing the police are?”
“They won’t want to hear it,” he said.
“To top it off we have this dead guy who wouldn’t be that hard to explain if we could trust the police, but somehow I think we’d end up in front of a jury for murder one if we called them,” I said.
“I agree,” he said.
“So what’s our next move?” I asked.
“Put him in one of these crates and ship him,” Rodger said.
“What?” both Selma and I said at the same time.
“Look,” he said. “If we leave the body here we are losing control of the situation. If the police find him they might tie us here via Jerry, if the Sonic Ping guys find him they might stage things in their favor… anyway, the possibilities of a bad outcome for us are… well, I’m saying that we should use their shipping connections to ship him out of here.”
“Where?” I asked.
“How about Victor’s house?” he said.
I thought about that for a few seconds. It made sense. The dead guy could be traced back to working for Sonic Ping and Victor couldn’t be sure what we might have gotten from him before he died. He wouldn’t dare call the police when the crate came and it would use up some of his resources to get rid of the body. I stepped to the desk, reconnected the computer and booted it.
“You have your work cut out for you, Rodger,” I said, “because this had password
protection on it and who knows what else.”
Rodger smiled at me and sat down in front of the computer.
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