Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Dubai Betrayal, a Political Thriller by Jeremy Burns (10 May 2016, Fiction Studio Books, 400 pages). This is the Second book to feature Wayne Wilkins..
Don't miss our guest blog by author Jeremy Burns, where he talks to us about The Power of Perspective.PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the Prologue and the first four chapters with Amazon Look Inside.
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Synopsis | Trailer | Teaser | The Series | Author Guest Post | About the Author | Tour Stops
Synopsis
During a desperate attempt to rally support for a controversial Middle Eastern peace summit, U.S. Ambassador Christine Needham is kidnapped on an unauthorized visit to Dubai. Forced to walk a thin line between diplomacy and effectiveness, President James Talquin assembles a new covert team, helmed by black ops veteran Wayne Wilkins, to rescue the ambassador before she is executed by terrorists. But the ambassador is in possession of a dangerous secret, one that, if not recovered in time, could lead to the most devastating terror attack in history.Now Wayne and his team are on a collision course with unseen forces that seem to be manipulating world powers toward a devastating conclusion. With a nuclear apocalypse just hours away, the operatives must confront a new kind of jihad, one that breaks all the rules of warfare and terrorism.
But all of the players may not be what they seem, and with no one left to trust, the newly founded team must lean on each other to navigate the glittering heights and hidden depths of one of the world's most fascinating cities and infiltrate a centuries-old shadow war raging within Islam itself. As the twists and betrayals mount, it soon becomes clear that unless Wayne and his men can recover the ambassador and the secret she holds in time, the terrorists' enigmatic paymaster may get exactly what he wants: an all-consuming world war from which America and her allies would never recover.
Teaser: Excerpt
Prologue
Final Preparations“If Iran becomes a nuclear weapon state, it is the end of non-proliferation as we know it. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, you are likely to see Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other countries follow suit. We will bequeath to the next generation a nuclear arms race in the world’s most unstable region.”
– Liam Fox
“I can tell you one thing: Iran is closer to developing nuclear weapons today than it was a week ago, or a month ago or a year ago. It’s just moving on with its efforts.”
– Benjamin Netanyahu
Rasht, Iran
Sunday
Dr. Omid Khosh had roughly six minutes before he would be reduced to a quivering mass of irradiated flesh and vomit, on a one-way trip to death’s door. He had to make every second count.
As a nuclear scientist working on an extremely secretive project, he had seen firsthand the effects of radiation poisoning on a human being. His team had studied dozens of prisoners who had been subjected to varying doses of radiation, watched as their hair had fallen out, their fingernails sloughed off, their haunted eyes sink deeper into their toxic skulls. Depending on the strength and duration of the exposure, the process took anywhere from a few minutes to several months, but the result was always the same: painful, dehumanizing death.
Khosh had been hit with an extremely high dose, though not as high as those of his colleagues, whose irradiated bodies now littered the floor of the lab. By his calculations, he had ten minutes post-exposure before he lost control of his faculties and would be forced to watch the painful march of his own death as a heap on the concrete floor. Four of those minutes were now gone, and his body’s most basic motor functions were already starting to fail. Such a strong dosage meant his death would be relatively swift compared to the prolonged agony he had observed in many of the prisoners. The downside was that he only had minutes to pass on the vital secret he carried. A secret that would soon shake the world in every sense of the word.
Once he had realized what had happened in the lab, he knew there was nothing he could do to save himself. He was a dead man walking. Accepting his death though unwilling to just lie down while the same fate was delivered to millions more, he attempted to call someone, anyone, on the outside, but the receiver offered not even a dial tone. Of course they would have cut the phone lines before revealing their betrayal. Hoping against hope, he tried to access his email via a nearby terminal, but the router was dead, disconnected from the rest of the world. He was completely cut off in his irradiated tomb, sole caretaker of a world-changing secret and no one else to share it with.
In a last-ditch effort, he went to the safe in his office and retrieved what he needed: a backup plan to the backup plan. A hastily scrawled note went into the envelope, along with the evidence the world had to see, evidence he prayed hadn’t been contaminated by the radiation burst that would soon claim his own life. He forced his fingers to write the letters and numbers of the recipient’s address, gripping the pen with both hands and using deliberate, painful strokes to finish his task. He added a false return address, since anything coming from this facility would immediately set off alarms with the security detail that surrounded his addressee.
Three minutes.
The lab flashed red with the emergency lighting, coating the lab in the ominous hue of blood. The containment-breach siren blared throughout the facility, letting everyone who worked within know that their worst nightmares had come true. The source of the contamination had been shut off, but for those present when the breach occurred, the damage was done. Hopefully, the remaining radiation would be low enough to not only avoid damaging the evidence he had sealed in the envelope, but also to allow the package to reach the well-guarded hands of its intended recipient.
He cursed his greed, his lust for importance in this world.He had long justified taking this job by how much better he would be able to provide for his family, compared to the out-of-work university professor who had voiced the wrong sort of political sentiment in earshot of the wrong sort of people. He used the same justification when he lied to his wife and son about what sort of work he was now doing that allowed them to indulge in some of the finer things of life. But the lies he told himself were harder to swallow. He wasn’t doing this out of honor or nationalistic duty. He was doing it for himself. He was doing it to matter again—to his family, to his field. He was doing it for his own beleaguered self-image. It was the first time in years he had felt that his life was worth something.
Only now, he had discovered it was all a lie.
His legs gave out and he crumpled to the floor. The alarm continued to blare, but it seemed to be growing quieter. His vision began to dull around the edges. His time was almost up.Khosh crawled across the lead-lined concrete floor of the lab, dodging shards of bullet-shattered glass and the freshly dead corpses of his friends and colleagues. Reaching the wall, he forced himself up on one arm, and then used the other to open the mail slot.
Sealed shut. Of course.
His betrayer had considered every contingency. The entire facility was a tomb. An irradiated time-bomb that would soon plunge the world into nuclear flame.
All the pieces were coming together now, but it was too late for him. The subtle machinations, the secret plots, the nuclear facility hidden away from the world.
He had put in place another contingency, of course. Once he’d begun to realize what was really going on here, the millions of lives set to be purged from the earth in blinding light, Khosh had made arrangements. Everything he knew, everything he suspected, with all the proof he could muster, entrusted with his solicitor. He had intended to use it as insurance in the event that his employer should attempt to stab him and his fellow scientists in the back, but when the betrayal came, it was too quick and too ferocious for him to use it to save his life.
But perhaps it wouldn’t be too late to stop the apocalypse that now loomed on the horizon. He wasn’t coming home anymore, and when he didn’t contact his solicitor in the next twelve hours, the back-up plan would be put into action.Whether that worked or not would be up to Allah.
One minute.
He slumped against the wall, fighting for every breath now, only now fully realizing that the darkness overtaking him would be permanent. He couldn’t see how anyone could truly greet death with complete peace of mind and spirit. But then, unlike him, most people didn’t die knowing that their life’s work would be used to upend the world, knowing that the very people who betrayed them would use that work to kill untold millions. There were many people who wanted his work to fail.There were many more who wanted his work for themselves.
The not knowing was the hardest part. The powers aligned against his evidence reaching its intended target were potent. The chance of its getting through, and of its recipient being able to use it to avert the coming crisis, was a long shot indeed. But he had to have faith. Right now, that was all he had.
Suddenly, a spark of horror-tinged realization jolted through his ebbing consciousness. The letter. The address. He had another contingency, but in his attempt to send the evidence himself moments ago, he may well have ruined everything. He had to destroy the card, the envelope, every shred that connected the intended recipient to his attempt to expose the conspiracy that was about to claim his life. If his betrayer discovered who he had tried to spill his secrets to . . .
The siren, the flash of red and black, the cold concrete of the wall and floor all slipped away into nothingness for Omid Khosh. With a failed attempt at a heavenward glance, he commended his spirit—and the world he left behind—unto the care of Allah, and died, leaving behind a deadly secret, a shocking betrayal, and knowledge of a terrible conspiracy.
A conspiracy that would consign untold millions to an equally painful death at the hands of the nuclear genie. A conspiracy that would shake the world to its very core.
The Dubai Betrayal
Available NOW!
The Series: Wayne Wilkins
FROM THE ASHES is the debut thriller from Jeremy Burns, the first in a series of conspiracy thrillers that blend historical fact, real-world locales, and mysteries, secrets, and legends from our past. Explore the following pages to learn more about this riveting new thriller!Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.
From the Ashes [1]
A DEADLY CONSPIRACYGraduate students Jonathan and Michael Rickner, sons of eminent archaeologist Sir William Rickner, are no strangers to historical mysteries and archaeological adventures. But when Michael is discovered dead in his Washington, D.C. apartment, Jon refuses to believe the official ruling of suicide. Digging deeper into his brother’s work, he discovers evidence that Michael was murdered to keep his dissertation research buried.
A DEVASTATING NATIONAL SECRET
Joined by Michael’s fiancée Mara Ellison, Jon travels to New York where he uncovers the threads of a deadly Depression-era conspiracy – one entangling the Hoover Administration, the Rockefellers, and the rise of Nazi Germany – and the elite cadre of assassins that still guard its unspeakable secret.
THE LABYRINTHINE PATH TO THE TRUTH
Finding themselves in the crosshairs of the same men who killed Michael, Jon and Mara must navigate a complex web of historical cover-ups and modern-day subterfuge, outwitting and outrunning their all-powerful pursuers as they race through the monuments and museums of Manhattan in a labyrinthine treasure hunt to discover the last secret of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., before their enemies can bury the truth – and them – forever.
[Published 1 June 2015, 396 pages]
The Bangladesh Initiation [1.5]
**Free on iTunes**
Following the dissolution of the Division, the covert operation for which he worked, agent and assassin Wayne Wilkins is recruited by the CIA to do what he does best: track and kill.
His first mission with the agency finds him on the track of a dangerous bomb maker deep in the jungles of Bangladesh. But Wayne seems to be at a disadvantage on several levels, leading to suspicions of another angle the CIA isn't telling him about.
Will Wayne be able to prevent a deadly terror attack on one of the Bangladesh's holiest sites? Or is he being set up to fail by the very people he works for?
[Published 7 June 2016, 24 pages]
About the Author
Jeremy Burns lived and worked in Dubai for two years, conducting first-hand research in many of the locations featured in The Dubai Betrayal and immersing himself in a variety of Middle Eastern cultures. His first book, From the Ashes, introduced Wayne Wilkins and is a two-time #1 category bestseller on Amazon, with more than 95,000 total ebook copies downloaded to date.
A seasoned traveler who has explored more than twenty countries across four continents, he lives in Florida with his wife and two dogs, where he is working on his next book.
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