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.