Authors: David Hosp
Game of Death (48 page)
I study her hair for a moment. It’s funny: because it’s always a tangled, multicolored mess, I stopped noticing her hair a long time ago. But looking now, I notice that it’s
muted – a rich auburn with understated highlights. It’s also neatly brushed, which may be a first. ‘I like it, too,’ I say.
‘Thanks. Trying something a little different,’ she says. She seems almost uncomfortable with it.
‘Are you done?’ I ask her.
She nods. ‘They let me in this morning to get the last of my things. I’m not going back.’
NextLife has been shut down for two weeks as the cops and the Feds and the IRS agents crawl through the system trying to figure out where the mess ends. I’m not convinced that it does
end.
‘What happens to the company now?’ Yvette asks.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘The website has been shut down, which probably means that it’s dead as a portal. The Internet generation isn’t known for its patience,
and the publicity over all this is a killer. No one is ever again going to trust NextLife with their personal information.’
‘Charlatans,’ Ma mutters. ‘I always told you there was no good at that place. No way to make an honest living there.’
‘You were right, Ma,’ I concede. She looks good. Stronger again, and I wonder whether she might just beat off this cancer for a while.
‘So the company’s dead?’ Yvette asks.
‘Well, it’s safe to say that the IPO won’t be going forward. Still, there’s a good deal of value in the technology. My guess is that the investment bankers will be able
to put together a private sale to some private equity group, and they’ll be able to make a ton of money licensing the technology to other companies.’
‘You still have your stock?’
I nod. ‘It’s not gonna be worth the twenty million it once was, but I may still get a few hundred thousand. Maybe more. It’ll take a year for all that to shake out,
though.’
‘Not bad,’ Yvette says.
‘Blood money,’ Ma mutters.
‘As opposed to what Dad used to bring home?’ I chide.
‘Your father, rest his soul, made an honest living,’ Ma says sharply. ‘He may have been on the wrong side of the legal ledger at times, but that didn’t make it
dishonest.’
‘Easy, old girl,’ Cormack says from the grill. ‘Morality’s a slippery fish, if you try to hold it too tightly.’
She waves her hand at him. ‘Bah! Fool.’
‘I am that,’ he agrees. He brings the first installment of charred meat over and puts it in the middle of the table. ‘Don’t wait for the chef.’
We tuck into the food, and a few moments later Cormack joins us with some more. He sits down and starts eating. After gorging for a few minutes, he sits back with a satisfied look on his face
and takes a swig of beer. ‘So, what will you do now?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know,’ I answer honestly. ‘I’d like to get back to school at some point, but I don’t have the cash for it at the moment.’
He regards me and Yvette pensively. ‘You could be useful to people like me,’ he says, an air of philosophy in his voice. ‘Both of you.’
‘That’s nice,’ I say, ‘but I’ve never really wanted to head in that direction. No offense, of course.’
‘I’m not suggesting anything illegal,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘But the two of you together did a remarkable job running this thing to ground. Investigating it using a
whole range of skills that few have.’
‘What’s your point?’ Yvette asks.
‘No real point,’ he says. ‘It’s just that there’s room in this town for competent private investigators. And you can do that on the right side of the law – at
least most of the time.’
It’s an interesting idea. ‘We’d need licenses, wouldn’t we?’
He nods. ‘You’d need to know someone with reasonably decent connections to get that. I wonder if you’re acquainted with anyone like that.’ He winks.
Yvette looks at me. ‘What do you think?’
I lean over and kiss her. ‘I think I don’t want to think about the future at the moment,’ I say. ‘Right now, all I want to do is enjoy the afternoon.’
Acknowledgments
It has often been said that writing is a solitary endeavor, and there is some truth in that. The process of editing and publishing, however, is very much a group effort. I have
been fortunate to have a great team to work with, and much of the credit for any merit in the final product goes to them. At Macmillan, the leader of this team, whose insights and suggestions were
invaluable, is Trisha Jackson. Other crucial members include Ellie Wood, Ali Blackburn, Natasha Harding, Stuart Wilson, James Long and Tom Skipp. Thanks so much to you all, and to the wonderful
people at Macmillan who have been such a huge support. To Aaron Priest, Lisa Erbach Vance, and those at the Aaron Priest Agency, as well as Arabella Stein in London: Thank you for always believing
in me and for all your love and support.
Finally, thanks to my family: My wife Joanie for all she does, Reid and Samantha, Mom and Dad, Ted, and so many wonderful people in my extended group of family and friends, without whose support
I would never be able to write.
by David Hosp
When a sacred relic goes missing, its importance is only the beginning . . .
When a CIA informant from Kandahar is gunned down in a suburban area of Virginia outside DC, special Agent Jack Saunders is tasked with uncovering a plot that could alter the
fate of Afghanistan and unsettle a tepid peace in the Middle East. But when a raid on a radical safe house goes horribly wrong, Jack finds himself without support within his own government.
Determined to find answers on his own, Jack enlists the aid of Cianna Phelan, a disgraced former war hero trying to put her life back together. When Cianna’s brother, Charlie, returns to
South Boston from active duty in Afghanistan and immediately goes missing, Cianna and Jack find themselves in a race against time not only to save his life, but to prevent an international
conspiracy at the highest levels of the US intelligence community. As lives are lost in the warrens of Boston’s clannish underworld, Jack and Cianna discover they are on the trail of one of
the most sacred artefacts in all of Islam. And when the bullets start to fly, they realize they can never know whom to trust, and nothing is what it seems.
David Hosp is a trial lawyer who has spent a portion of his time working pro bono on behalf of wrongly convicted individuals. He finds time to write his novels on his daily
commute by boat across Boston Harbour. He lives with his wife and family outside the city.
Acclaim for David Hosp
‘This [
Next of Kin
] is one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time, reminiscent of John Grisham, but, I think, better and with a stronger, more
sympathetic cast of characters . . . A truly absorbing page-turner’
Richard & Judy Book Club review
‘The detail and subplots make Hosp such a gripping writer . . . he is growing and developing with each new book’
Daily Express
‘This is a knockout; Grisham with passion, even a touch of the great Michael Connelly thrown in . . . It crackles from the first page to the last and never lets up for a
second’
Daily Mail
‘Hosp is a born storyteller, a master of quirky character and detail who enthrals through the simple, but elusive, expedient of never seeming to write a dull
sentence’
Daily Telegraph
Also by David Hosp
The Guardian
Next of Kin
Among Thieves
Innocence
The Betrayed
Dark Harbour
First published 2014 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2014 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-4472-5173-6
Copyright © David Hosp 2014
Cover Images © Shutterstock
The right of David Hosp to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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