PRAISE FOR KILLER THRILLER
“Killer Thriller grabs you from page one with brilliant wit, sharply honed suspense, and a huge helping of pure originality.”
—Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author
“A delight from start to finish, a round-the-world, thrill-a-minute, laser-guided missile of a book.”
—Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of Judgment
“Killer Thriller is an action-packed treasure filled with intrigue, engaging characters, and exciting, well-rendered locales. With Goldberg’s hyper-clever plotting, dialogue, and wit on every page, readers are in for a blast with this one!”
—Mark Greaney, New York Times bestselling author of The Gray Man series.
PRAISE FOR TRUE FICTION
“Thriller fiction at its absolute finest—and it could happen for real. But not to me, I hope.”
—Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series
“This may be the most fun you’ll ever have reading a thriller. It’s a breathtaking rush of suspense, intrigue, and laughter that only Lee Goldberg could pull off. I loved it.”
—Janet Evanovich, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“This is my life . . . in a thriller! True Fiction is great fun.”
—Brad Meltzer, #1 New York Times bestselling author of House of Secrets
“Fans of parodic thrillers will enjoy the exhilarating ride . . . [in] this Elmore Leonard mashed with Get Smart romp.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A conspiracy thriller of the first order, a magical blend of fact and it-could-happen scary fiction. Nail-biting, page-turning, and laced with Goldberg’s wry humor, True Fiction is a true delight, reminiscent of Three Days of the Condor and the best of Hitchcock’s innocent-man-in-peril films.”
—Paul Levine, bestselling author of Bum Rap
“Great fun that moves as fast as a jet. Goldberg walks a tightrope between suspense and humor and never slips.”
—Linwood Barclay, New York Times bestselling author of The Twenty-Three
“I haven’t read anything this much fun since Donald E. Westlake’s comic-caper novels. Immensely entertaining, clever, and timely.”
—David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder as a Fine Art and First Blood
“The story of an innocent man caught in a deadly conspiracy has been told before, but Lee Goldberg takes it a step further in this rollicking, sometimes humorous, always deadly True Fiction. Highly recommended.”
—Brendan DuBois, author of Storm Cell
“Ian Ludlow is one of the coolest heroes to emerge in post-9/11 thrillers. A wonderful, classic yet modern, breakneck suspense novel. Lee Goldberg delivers a great story with a literary metafiction wink that makes its thrills resonate.”
—James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor
OTHER TITLES BY LEE GOLDBERG
King City
The Walk
Watch Me Die
McGrave
Three Ways to Die
Fast Track
The Ian Ludlow Thrillers
True Fiction
The Fox & O’Hare Series (coauthored with Janet Evanovich)
Pros & Cons (novella)
The Shell Game (novella)
The Heist
The Chase
The Job
The Scam
The Pursuit
The Diagnosis Murder Series
The Silent Partner
The Death Merchant
The Shooting Script
The Waking Nightmare
The Past Tense
The Dead Letter
The Double Life
The Last Word
The Monk Series
Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse
Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii
Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu
Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants
Mr. Monk in Outer Space
Mr. Monk Is Miserable
Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop
Mr. Monk in Trouble
Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out
Mr. Monk on the Road
Mr. Monk on the Couch
Mr. Monk on Patrol
Mr. Monk Is a Mess
Mr. Monk Gets Even
The Charlie Willis Series
My Gun Has Bullets
Dead Space
The Dead Man Series (coauthored with William Rabkin)
Face of Evil
Ring of Knives (with James Daniels)
Hell in Heaven
The Dead Woman (with David McAfee)
The Blood Mesa (with James Reasoner)
Kill Them All (with Harry Shannon)
The Beast Within (with James Daniels)
Fire & Ice (with Jude Hardin)
Carnival of Death (with Bill Crider)
Freaks Must Die (with Joel Goldman)
Slaves to Evil (with Lisa Klink)
The Midnight Special (with Phoef Sutton)
The Death March (with Christa Faust)
The Black Death (with Aric Davis)
The Killing Floor (with David Tully)
Colder Than Hell (with Anthony Neil Smith)
Evil to Burn (with Lisa Klink)
Streets of Blood (with Barry Napier)
Crucible of Fire (with Mel Odom)
The Dark Need (with Stant Litore)
The Rising Dead (with Stella Greene)
Reborn (with Kate Danley, Phoef Sutton, and Lisa Klink)
The Jury Series
Judgment
Adjourned
Payback
Guilty
Nonfiction
The Best TV Shows You Never Saw
Unsold Television Pilots 1955–1989
Television Fast Forward
Science Fiction Filmmaking in the 1980s (cowritten with William Rabkin, Randy Lofficier, and Jean-Marc Lofficier)
The Dreamweavers: Interviews with Fantasy Filmmakers of the 1980s (cowritten with William Rabkin, Randy Lofficier, and Jean-Marc Lofficier)
Successful Television Writing (cowritten with William Rabkin)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Adventures in Television, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503903562 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1503903567 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781503904286 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 1503904288 (paperback)
Cover design by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative
First edition
For Valerie and Maddie . . . and Oreo, too.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Ian Ludlow’s UCLA creative writing professor insisted that the key to being a successful novelist was writing from personal experience. That’s why the professor was the author of five unpublished novels about sexually frustrated novelists who toiled in obscurity while teaching talentless and ungrateful students how to write.
So Ian ignored his professor’s edict and wrote escapist adventure stories that had nothing to do with his own mundane life. That’s how he flunked the class but eventually became a writer for TV shows like Hollywood & the Vine (half-man, half-plant, all cop!) and the author of the internationally bestselling series of action thrillers about Clint Straker, freelance spy for hire.
“And that’s how I ended up here,” Ian said, standing in front of a hundred people at Seattle’s Union Bay Books on a warm Saturday night. He was in his early thirties, dressed writer-casual in a loose-fitting polo shirt, jeans, and a pair of Nikes. Beside him was a table piled high with hardcover copies of his new novel, Death in the Sky. He gestured to the book cover, which featured a silhouette of Clint Straker (the publisher was too cheap to hire a male model) toting a rocket launcher against the backdrop of a 747 crashing into the Space Needle in a massive fireball. “As you can see, I’m still writing outrageous stories about things that I know nothing about.”
The irony was that this time he actually did write from personal experience. There were only two, possibly three, people still alive who knew that and he’d hoped that one of them, Margo French, would show up for his book signing. But she was a no-show. He couldn’t really blame her for that. He’d pretty much ruined her life. She’d been his author escort, a fancy name for someone who drives out-of-town authors around to signings, in Seattle a year ago. That was when he discovered that a hypothetical terrorist plot he’d cooked up for the CIA, to prepare them for worst-case scenarios, had come true: Terrorists had hacked a plane and steered it by remote control into Waikiki, killing hundreds of people. But it wasn’t terrorists. It was the CIA, or at least people who tricked him into believing they were with the Agency, who were responsible for the massacre. Those people came gunning for him to bury the truth. Margo got unwillingly swept up in his plight, a run for their lives that ended with the conspiracy being foiled, thanks to their unheralded efforts. He hadn’t seen Margo since.
“Whatever happened to your creative writing professor?” asked a thin man with so much facial hair that it looked like an enormous vole was trying to swallow his head.
“I don’t know, but he did come in and pitch me an episode of Hollywood & the Vine once,” Ian said. “The story was about an incredibly talented but unappreciated creative writing professor stalked by a homicidal student. I gave him an assignment out of pity but he quit without finishing the script. He said he couldn’t write a cop who was half-man, half-plant because he’d never been a shrub.”
“So how did you write for the Vine?” a young woman asked. She was braless and spilling out of her tank top, so it took all of Ian’s willpower to respond to her face and not to her boobs.
“By always keeping my mortgage and credit card bills next to my keyboard,” he told her boobs. He’d never had much willpower.
“How do you write Clint Straker?” someone else called out.
“I imagine the man I wish I was, living the life of adventure I wish I had.”
That answer was only half-true. He wanted to be as self-confident, resourceful, and attractive to women as Straker was but he didn’t want to face the danger, violence, or the fate-of-the-world responsibility that his hero regularly took in stride. Once was enough for Ian. But at least he survived the experience and got a New York Times bestselling novel out of it.
He fielded a few more questions, signed a hundred new books along with fifty of his old titles, and an hour later he stepped outside, where Gwen, his new author escort, was sucking on an e-cigarette like it was a baby bottle. She was a graduate student in the University of Washington English Department who ferried novelists around town so she could pitch them her book, a civil war allegory set on a planet of unicorns, zebras, and horses.
She took the cigarette out of her mouth and exhaled some mist. “Shall I take you back to your hotel?”
“No, thank you. It’s so nice out that I think I’ll walk,” Ian said. “See you tomorrow at the mystery bookstore.”
“Would you like to meet early for coffee?” she asked. “I can show you my first chapter. Clint Straker shares more in common with unicorns than you might think.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “Maybe another time.”
Gwen forced a smile, got into her Prius, and drove off. He didn’t really want to schlep a mile back to his hotel but it was better than being a captive audience for Gwen’s story about unicorns at war with the horses that were enslaving zebras.
“Why are you so fucking polite?” a familiar female voice asked. “Tell her where to stick her unicorn. That’s what Clint Straker would do.”
Ian smiled as Margo stepped out of the shadows. She hadn’t changed a bit. She was in her late twenties, thin and wiry, with short-cropped, crow-black hair that looked like she’d trimmed it herself with a box cutter. She wore a faded T-shirt, torn jeans, and Doc Martens.
“I’m not Clint Straker,” he said.
“You could have fooled me,” Margo said.
Ian gave her a hug and she squeezed him tight. “I’m glad you came.”
“What else did I have to do? My dog-sitting business has dried up, all because of one negative Yelp review.”
“You left the dogs alone with a pile of food, a bucket of water, and a corpse impaled with a fireplace poker.” That was his fault, too.
“One time!” Margo said. “How often is that likely to happen?”
Ian laughed and gestured to the bookstore. “Why didn’t you come for the reading and the Q and A?”
“Living it was enough. I’m still suffering from PTSD.”
“Really?” Ian said.
“No, I’m fine. What we went through forced me to get my shit together. I’m focusing entirely on my music now,” she said. “I’m writing songs. I play three nights a week at a steak house here in town and I do a lot of weddings, bar mitzvahs, that kind of thing.”
“That’s how Rihanna started,” Ian said.
“I have a hard time picturing Rihanna singing ‘Hava Nagila.’”
“I have a hard time picturing you singing ‘Hava Nagila.’”
T
wo men in crisp business suits and wearing earpieces with wires that ran down under their starched collars approached them from either side. They had faces so rigid that they either were suffering from terminal constipation or were federal agents.
“Mr. Ludlow,” the first man said. “Ms. French.”
“Can you please come with us?” the second man said.
Ian and Margo shared a look. This couldn’t be good. The two men herded them to a limousine parked on the corner. The first man opened the back door and motioned for them to go inside. Margo glanced at Ian for reassurance.
“He said ‘please,’” Ian said. “That’s a good sign.”
“And it’s a limo, not a hearse.”
“So there’s no reason to worry.” Ian took a deep breath and got in. Margo followed.
One of the agents closed the door behind them. They found themselves sitting across from the lone occupant, who had Ian’s new book on his lap. The man was in his early fifties, clean-cut and almost wholesome enough to be mistaken for a preacher or grade school teacher, if not for his military bearing and flinty eyes. He nodded at Ian, as if they’d met before, which they certainly hadn’t, and then smiled at Margo.
“I’m sure Mr. Ludlow knows who I am, since he writes so much about espionage and government conspiracies,” the man said to Margo. “But you may not. I’m Michael Healy, director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
He offered her his hand. She shook it. “Does this car have machine gun turrets and ejector seats?”
“No, I’m afraid not,” he said.
“That’s no fun,” she said.
Healy turned his gaze on Ian. “I read your book. Scary stuff.”
“Most of it’s true,” Ian said. “But you already know that.”
“The president appreciates that you chose to tell your story as fiction. So do I. You did the right thing for your country.”
“I wasn’t being patriotic,” Ian said. “I don’t think the country would be too thrilled if they knew that what happened in Hawaii was my idea.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Healy said. “Your fiction has an uncanny way of becoming fact. We could use people with imagination at the CIA.”
Ian laughed. “Are you offering me a job?”
“How would you like to become Clint Straker?” Healy asked. “You’d still be a writer, traveling all over the world researching your international thrillers, but you’d also be working for us. It’s the perfect cover.”