Blood Red Rings (Dangerous Women & Desperate Men) Read online

  So there I was with a doctor on either side of me in the back of a new SUV, weaving its way through the jammed streets of one of the world’s poorest cities. At traffic stops, dozens of children crowded up the car; climbed on the running boards and lampposts, hands out for money.

  I recall seeing hands and eyes, hands and eyes.

  Our driver closed all of our power windows and my guilt rose again.

  The doctors were experienced at working in foreign countries. They’d noticed my reaction and told me not to think about it. One of the doctors recounted her work with medical staff in Guyana dealing with farm workers infected with rabies.

  “There was nothing they could do. Ultimately they put them in cages.”

  The part of me that was the middle-class suburban father and husband half a world away from home got a bit pensive.

  What if that little dog had been infected?

  Then the author part of me started thinking, I have to use this.

  The other doctor said that I should be fine, the wound is a long way from my brain and they were going to give me a pre-exposure vaccine.

  The Swedish clinic was in a very nice neighborhood. There, I jumped the line, where a third doctor took me into an examination room right away. She gave me a shot in my behind and took nearly $200 U.S. cash and all three doctors give me advice on what to do when I got back to Canada. They also stressed that I keep taking my anti-malaria drugs because we are also travelling through a high risk zone for malaria.

  Legend held that the last time a Canadian Prime Minister toured Africa, one journalist got malaria and was taken off the plane in a stretcher hallucinating about spiders – gigantic spiders – crawling all over her.

  After Ethiopia, we were back on the plane to Nigeria, where one of the press vans was shot at – just a warning shot, mind you – for not slowing down for a Nigerian politician’s motorcade. No one was hurt. Then it was on to Dakar, Senegal, a gorgeous city. The rest of the trip kept me busy reporting and filing stories but in the back of my mind forces were at work.

  I was fearful my possible exposure had left me with a ticking bomb. In private moments, I constantly re-read all the rabies literature the doctors had given me, wondering if I would start exhibiting symptoms. On the long flight home, it gnawed at me.

  Nothing came of it, in terms of my personal health.

  I was fine, although my wife may argue I still foam at the mouth on some issues. But creatively, a seed had been planted. Something had taken root. Over the years, I would come back to the incident and several others I had experienced as a journalist.

  Some research led me to understand how bats got rabies from eating insects, like disease carrying mosquitoes. My imagination took me back to Africa on a Conradian Heart of Darkness expedition to pursue a rare bat – at times it was lactating – in order to collect its saliva, which carried an agent far more lethal than rabies. The saliva, when combined with other agents, could lead to something beyond comprehension.

  That’s what I was thinking.

  In time, pieces of many other moments, I had experienced as a reporter, and things I had read about, started coming together for Jack Gannon, the hero of my newest series.

  Readers first met Gannon, who had a blue-collar upbringing in Buffalo, N.Y., when the first book in the series, VENGEANCE ROAD, was released in 2009. The International Thriller Writers named VENGEANCE ROAD a finalist for a 2010 Thriller Award in the category of Best Paperback Original.

  Gannon was striving to escape his troubled newspaper, The Buffalo Sentinel, to work for the World Press Alliance, a global wire service based in Manhattan. He needed another fictional assignment for the next book.

  I wanted him to go global.

  I reached into my travels as a journalist to the story that had been taking shape since my Ethiopian adventure. I got to thinking about a million other things as well and began pulling together what I needed for the next Gannon book. I had a story for him.

  Picture this: A windswept reach of Wyoming and a young mother, Emma Lane, thrown clear of a devastating car crash that killed her husband. Dazed, she sees a figure pull her infant son from the flames. Or does she? Police believe it's a case of trauma playing cruel tricks on her mind, until the night Emma, in her anguish, hears a voice through the phone, “Your baby is alive.”

  A world away a bomb explodes in a Rio de Janeiro café, killing ten people including two journalists with the World Press Alliance. Jack Gannon's first international assignment is to find out whether his colleagues were innocent victims or targets who got too close to a story.

  In the Caribbean, the cruise of a lifetime ends in horror leaving doctors desperate to identify the mysterious cause of a passenger's agonizing death. They turn to the world's top scientists who determine that someone has resurrected their long-buried secret research; research that is now being used as a deadly weapon. With millions of lives at stake, experts work frantically against time. And as Emma searches for her child and Jack Gannon hunts for the truth, an unstoppable force hurls them all into The Panic Zone.

  This essay appeared in Crimespree Magazine.

  Reprinted with the kind permission of Crimespree Magazine. More information at http://www.crimespreemag.com

  The Story Behind The Panic Zone

  By Rick Mofina

  Newsrooms tend to be arenas of understated tension.

  Not much drama until something breaks over a police scanner.

  Then emotion hijacks a dispatcher's voice as it crackles in code about shots fired, or a burning building, or a jetliner in trouble.

  Reflecting on my years as a reporter in newsrooms across Canada, the only thing that topped the adrenaline rush of breaking local news was when an editor dispatched me out of town for a major story.

  "There's been a school shooting near Denver, we want you on the next plane. Don't pack, take a laptop and go. Buy what you need down there." Or, "we need you to chase something for us in The Bahamas and all we have is this unlisted number." Or, "we need you to go to Africa."

  In the case of Littleton, when my plane lifted off, the fear was ten people were dead. A few hours later upon landing, I glimpsed a TV screen in the airport. The toll had climbed and President Clinton was offering condolences.

  My stomach lurched.

  It was gut-churning moments like that in Littleton and in places like The Bahamas to Africa and Kuwait; that I drew upon for Jack Gannon, the protagonist in my new novel, The Panic Zone. In this second story in the series, Gannon, joins the World Press Alliance (WPA), a global wire service based in New York and gets his first international assignment.

  Ten people have been killed in a café bombing in Rio de Janeiro, including two journalists from the WPA’s Rio bureau. Gannon is dispatched to help find the truth behind the attack, wherever it leads. Were his colleagues random victims of a narco war, or on the trail of a bigger story?

  My real-life Littleton assignment was one of the hardest I’d ever faced, covering a monumental tragedy while everyone grappled with the how’s and why’s. In The Panic Zone, Gannon faces greater challenges than I ever did. Not only must he contend with the cultural shock of a country he’s never visited, but he has to deal with the anguish and arrogance of WPA reporters who tell him he is not equipped for the job.

  Aided by a local translator, Gannon does what he does best, he digs for the truth. And it does not take him long to learn, as I often found with a major story, that the truth can take you places.

  In Gannon’s case, it pulls him from Rio to London where a source points him to Morocco. In Rabat, the capital, Gannon races through the medina, the ancient market, with its and labyrinthine alleyways, in a desperate hunt for a key piece of his story.

  I had my share of heart-racing times like that, flying in to an alien situation, scrambling to deliver a story while a clock is ticking down on you. As anyone with first-hand reporting experience knows, it’s part of the job.

  Imagine, you fly into Kuwait City at night. An
armed guard seizes your passport and detains you. The next morning you find that the trusted source who had insisted you come has misled you.

  It happened to me.

  My only option was to find another story. Fortunately, I did. It cost me a few arguments and a day of intense pressure, but little more. For Gannon it’s a different story. What he discovers in Africa is devastating and he pays an enormous price for it. As Gannon intensifies his search, he also reflects on – almost longs for – the time of understated tension, when not much was happening in his newsroom.

  That is, until the WPA learned of the café bombing in Rio de Janeiro and his editor tells him: “There’s a TAM flight that leaves JFK in five hours. It’s direct to Rio de Janeiro, arrives eight thirty a.m. tomorrow.”

  “You’re sending me to Brazil?”

  “We need you to help our team there.”

  That’s when Gannon’s heart started beating a little faster.

  This essay appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine.

  Reprinted with the kind permission of Mystery Scene Magazine. More information at www.mysteryscenemag.com

  Copyright © 2010 by Rick Mofina

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the creation of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  About the Author

  Rick Mofina is a former journalist and an award-winning author of several acclaimed thrillers. His reporting has put him face-to-face with murderers on death row in Montana and Texas. He has covered a horrific serial-killing case in California and an armored car-heist in Las Vegas, flown over Los Angeles with the LAPD Air Support Division and gone on patrol with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police near the Arctic. He has reported from the Caribbean, Africa and Kuwait’s border with Iraq.

  Rick’s true-crime articles have appeared in the New York Times, Marie Claire, Reader’s Digest and Penthouse while his thrillers have been published in 19 countries and praised by James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Michael Connelly, Sandra Brown, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen, Heather Graham, Peter Robinson, Allison Brennan, David Morrell, Linwood Barclay and Kay Hooper.

  Rick is a two-time winner of The Arthur Ellis Award and the International Thriller Writers, Private Eye Writers of America and The Crime Writers of Canada have listed his crime fiction as being among the very best in the genre.

  Praise for Rick Mofina’s books

  In Desperation

  "A blisteringly paced story that cuts to the bone. It left me ripping through pages deep into the night." -- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author

  "Hell hath no fury like a mother wronged. In Desperation is "A superbly written thriller that plumbs the depths of every parent's nightmare. Timely, tense, and terrifying, this book is sure to be a big hit!" -- Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  The Panic Zone

  "The Panic Zone is a headlong rush toward Armageddon. It's brisk pace and tight focus remind me of early Michael Crichton." -- Dean Koontz #1 New York Times bestselling author

  Vengeance Road

  "Vengeance Road is a thriller with no speed limit! It's a great read!" -- Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  "A gripping no-holds barred mystery ... lightning paced ... with enough twists to keep you turning pages well into the wee hours." -- Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author

  Six Seconds

  "Six Seconds should be Rick Mofina's breakout thriller. It moves like a tornado." -- James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  "Six Seconds is a great read. Echoing Ludlum and Forsythe, author Mofina has penned a big, solid international thriller that grabs your gut -- and your heart -- in the opening scenes and never lets go." -- Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author

  "Everything we need from a great thriller." -- Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author

  "A perfect thriller in every way. Very powerful and very very clever." -- Nick Stone, international acclaimed bestselling author

  "Filled with chills and thrills ... don't miss it." -- Heather Graham, New York Times bestselling author

  "An essential read for thriller fans." -- Library Journal, Starred Review

  "Suspense-packed rush." -- Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review

  A Perfect Grave

  "A lightning-paced thriller with lean, tense writing . . . Mofina really knows how to make the story fly!" -- Tess Gerritsen, New York Times Bestselling author of The Mephisto Club

  "Swiftly paced . . . a story of slow-simmering revenge." -- Adam Woog, The Seattle Times

  "Mofina writes family tragedy as powerfully as Ross McDonald with a modern twist." -- Jennifer Jordan, Crimespree Magazine, Milwaukee

  "Mofina has woven an intriguing tale about how the past always catches up to you, sooner or later . . . does a wonderful job of creating suspense." -- Sandra Ruttan, Spinetingler Magazine

  Every Fear

  "Pushes crackling suspense to the breaking point and beyond... a must read!" -- Kay Hooper, New York Times Bestselling Author

  "Mofina shows his strength at creating gripping plots enhanced by realistic characters and social awareness in Every Fear." -- Oline H. Cogdill, Mystery columnist South Florida Sun-Sentinel

  The Dying Hour

  "Don't start this book late at night because you'll find yourself staying up to finish it." -- The Mystery Reader

  "The Dying Hour starts scary and ends scary. You'll be craving Mofina's next novel." -- Sandra Brown, New York Times Bestselling author

  Be Mine

  "Rick Mofina is writing a fine series of thrillers: Swiftly paced, entertaining, with authentic details of police procedure." -- Dean Koontz, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of The Face and Fear Nothing

  "Mofina continues his string of gripping, tense thrillers that explore the intricacies of crime reporting, the culture of a big-city newsroom and the fallout of what happens when those who report on the news become the news." -- Orlando Sentinel

  No Way Back

  "No Way Back is my kind of novel — a tough, taut thriller — Mofina knows the world he writes about." -- Michael Connelly, New York Times Bestselling author of Lost Light, Blood Work, City of Bones

  "A tightly wound spring of suspense and terror." -- David Morrell, author of The Protector

  Blood of Others

  "Tense, realistic, and scary in all the right places." -- James Patterson, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

  "This is urban grit with a vengeance." -- The Globe and Mail

  "Drawing on his experience as a journalist and crime writer, Rick Mofina (Cold Fear) brings a gritty realism to the printed page in Blood of Others... Mofina's flawed but sympathetic characters draw readers into the action." -- Publisher's Weekly

  "Mofina is a very talented writer capable of creating not only exceptional characters but a plot that is so riveting that pages fly by. The pacing is especially impressive. The story starts out quickly, slows down for character development then accelerates to a rapid, yet satisfying climax. Rick Mofina is a news reporter and his writing skills are immediately apparent. His first book has been nominated for the Arthur Ellis award in Canada. So he is well regarded there. He deserves a large following in this country, as well. Highly recommended." -- Deadly Pleasures, REVIEW OF THE WEEK, by Larry Gandle

  Cold Fear

  "A powerful gut wrenching thriller." -- The Midwest Book Review

  "Bursts with suspense. The action is so intense, the writing so realistic, it's as if we are there during the search. This is a book to cause icy shivers." -- Toby Bromberg, Romantic Times Magazine

  "Mofina's chilling tale is one of the best mysteries you'll read." -- The Ottawa Citizen

  "An entertaining, suspense-filled ride." -- Quill & Quire

  If Angels Fall

  "If you buy it for the flight, you'll be rea
ding it on the escalator." -- National Post

  "Guaranteed to keep readers flipping the pages." -- The Toronto Sun

  For more information please visit

  http://www.rickmofina.com/

  Or join Rick Mofina on FaceBook.

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