Angle of Attack

Book 1: Alex Morgan Thriller

by Leo J. Maloney

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

ANGLE OF ATTACK



Alex Morgan's new mission for Zeta plunges her into a web of danger threatening Europe's glamorous Formula One racing circuit. It quickly escalates into a race against time to track down a missing supply of weapons-grade plutonium headed for North America. From a secret prison in Iran, to the glittering casinos of Monaco, to the jungles of Malaysia, and to the dark side of Montreal, Alex is up against a deadly and far-reaching conspiracy. Each step of the way, she's dogged by a shadowy figure determined to destroy her. Alex has the grit to deal with any external threat, but this is a new kind of peril from a source shockingly close to home—one that will make Alex question everything she once believed . . .

Release date: January 26, 2021

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 275

Sample

Highest Praise for Leo J. Maloney and his thrillers

For Duty and Honor

“Leo Maloney has a real winner with For Duty and Honor—Gritty and intense, it draws you immediately into the action and doesn’t let go.”

—Marc Cameron

Arch Enemy

“Utterly compelling! This novel will grab you from the beginning and simply not let go. And Dan Morgan is one of the best heroes to come along in ages.”

—Jeffery Deaver

Twelve Hours

“Fine writing and real insider knowledge make this a must.”

—Lee Child

Black Skies

“Smart, savvy, and told with the pace and nuance that only a former spook could bring to the page, Black Skies is a tour de force novel of twenty-first-century espionage and a great geopolitical thriller. Maloney is the new master of the modern spy game, and this is first-rate storytelling.”

—Mark Sullivan

“Black Skies is rough, tough, and entertaining. Leo J. Maloney has written a ripping story.”

—Meg Gardiner

Silent Assassin

“Leo Maloney has done it again. Real life often overshadows fiction and Silent Assassin is both: a terrifyingly thrilling story of a man on a clandestine mission to save us all from a madman hell bent on murder, written by a man who knows that world all too well.”

—Michele McPhee

“From the bloody, ripped-from-the-headlines opening sequence, Silent Assassin grabs you and doesn’t let go. Silent Assassin has everything a thriller reader wants—nasty villains, twists and turns, and a hero—Cobra—who just plain kicks ass.”

—Ben Coes

“Dan Morgan, a former black-ops agent, is called out of retirement and back into a secretive world of politics and deceit to stop a madman.”

—The Stoneham Independent

Termination Orders

“Leo J. Maloney is the new voice to be reckoned with. Termination Orders rings with the authenticity that can only come from an insider. This is one outstanding thriller!”

—John Gilstrap

“Taut, tense, and terrifying! You’ll cross your fingers it’s fiction—in this high-powered, action-packed thriller, Leo Maloney proves he clearly knows his stuff.”

—Hank Phillippi Ryan

“A new must-read action thriller that features a double-crossing CIA and Congress, vengeful foreign agents, a corporate drug ring, the Taliban, and narco-terrorists… a you-are-there account of torture, assassination, and double-agents, where ‘nothing is as it seems.’”

—Jon Renaud

“Leo J. Maloney is a real-life Jason Bourne.”

—Josh Zwylen, Wicked Local Stoneham

“A masterly blend of Black Ops intrigue, cleverly interwoven with imaginative sequences of fiction. The reader must guess which accounts are real and which are merely storytelling.”

—Chris Treece, The Chris Treece Show

“A deep-ops story presented in an epic style that takes fact mixed with a bit of fiction to create a spy thriller that takes the reader deep into secret spy missions.”

—Cy Hilterman, Best Sellers World

“For fans of spy thrillers seeking a bit of realism mixed into their novels, Termination Orders will prove to be an excellent and recommended pick.”

—Midwest Book Reviews

Chapter 1

Alex Morgan pulled the long, loose gray tunic over her baggy gray slacks and shapeless gray top. She put the hijab on last, as Lily Randall did the same. They were wearing the more conservative headscarves that covered everything but their faces.

Lily examined Alex, tucking some of her wayward brown hair under the hijab. Strictly speaking, the extra care wasn’t necessary. They were already dressed more traditionally than most Iranian women, who were getting increasingly more daring with their colorful hijabs that covered less and less of their hair.

Alex wished those women well, but there was no doubt that they attracted attention. The last thing she and Lily wanted to do was attract attention. Things were tense enough on the streets of Tehran as it was.

“How about me?” Lily asked.

“Perfect,” Alex said. She wasn’t surprised to see not a hair showing from under Lily’s headscarf.

Her friend and fellow agent had dyed her usual blond locks brown, just in case anyone saw under the scarf. Even that wouldn’t be catastrophic, but it would attract more attention than they wanted—which was zero attention.

Alex checked the mirror. She wasn’t wearing a trace of makeup and though she usually wore very little, she felt surprisingly barefaced and vulnerable without it.

Lily, on the other hand, was wearing subtle makeup to flatten her cheekbones and create dark patches under her eyes. Even with that effort to appear less attractive, Lily was still beautiful.

“Any doubts?” Lily asked in her light London accent. Several years older than Alex herself, Lily was British and had served for years in MI6 before joining Zeta Division.

“None,” Alex said. “Though I’ll admit it’s not what I expected. I always figured our first undercover mission together would involve an underground European nightclub.”

“They’re overrated,” Lily said with smile. “The shoes you have to wear are ridiculous, the wigs are uncomfortable, and nobody ever tells you that those places reek.”

“To be fair, these shoes aren’t too bad,” Alex said. They were wearing track shoes that were reasonably comfortable. She also appreciated that the loose clothing meant they’d be able to move and fight, if they had to. That clearly wasn’t the intention of whoever designed this clothing for women, but it was a nice perk.

“First rule of undercover work,” Lily said, “it’s never what you expect.”

That was true, Alex thought. Her first undercover mission had been nothing like she had expected.

“I’m sorry, Alex, that was thoughtless,” Lily said.

“Not at all,” Alex said. “The mission was a success.”

That was true. Zeta had prevented something awful and Alex had helped.

Yet there had been losses.

Losses were part of the job, Alex knew. You never get used to them, her father had explained. The day you do is the day you know you’ve been doing this too long.

“I want to watch it again,” Alex said. Lily checked her watch and opened the laptop. She pressed a button and the video started. It was a press conference at the University of Tehran, where a woman in a green headscarf approached the podium wearing a Western-style business suit.

Maryam Nasiri was an Iranian-American professor who had emigrated from Iran as a small child and was now an American citizen. She was also one of the only two women to win the Fields Medal in mathematics for her work on an algorithm that was so far over Alex’s head that her year of A.P. calculus hadn’t helped her understand even the Wikipedia entry on Nasiri’s work.

The mathematician had made the mistake of accepting an invitation from the University of Tehran for a reception in her honor. After that reception, her family had never heard from her again.

The university released a written public statement signed by Nasiri about her decision to stay on at the university and her excitement about finally being “home.”

After a great deal of international pressure, a single public appearance at a press conference was set up and had gone viral. In the video, Nasiri appeared sedated. Standing stiffly at the podium, she spoke in a flat tone. “Thank you all for coming. I want to make it very clear how excited I am to continue my work in the country of my birth. The University of Tehran is my new home and they have given me all the resources I need to continue my work. Thank you.”

Then she was ushered away. There had been no questions from the press at this “press conference.”

“Let’s go,” Lily said. “We don’t want to be late on our first day of work.”

Somehow, while they were watching the video, Lily had executed a physical transformation. The more senior agent usually carried herself with the confidence of an extraordinarily beautiful woman who was also one of the most deadly agents at Zeta. She seemed to occupy a unique space between a catwalk model and an MMA fighter—and carried herself accordingly.

Now Lily’s face had sunk into a dull frown. Her shoulders hunched over; her whole body loosened.

Alex did her best to imitate the stance, and the two agents walked out the apartment door. As they left, a woman a wearing a heavy, black hijab barked something at them. She was sitting behind a counter at what looked like the front desk in a small hotel.

This was a residence hotel of sorts, but the woman wasn’t a front desk clerk. She was more like a housemother, a chaperone for the working women who lived there.

Lily replied in Persian. The rough older woman waved them on, averting her eyes.

“How did you do that?” Alex asked when they were outside.

“I added a little Kurdish accent,” the agent replied.

That made sense—the Kurds were not exactly a favored minority in Iran. Plus, many were from a territory close to Iraq, which also didn’t endear them to the locals. Alex had seen anti-Kurdish feelings firsthand on a recent Zeta mission in Turkey.

“I’ll have to remember to do that,” Alex said. “Once I learn Persian.”

Alex wouldn’t need to speak the local language for this mission—the rescue of one Maryam Nasiri from the mathematics department at the University of Tehran, where she and Lily were now part of the crew of cleaning women.

The university was, at best, a low-security environment. A small detail of soldiers guarded the mathematician, but after two months, reports were that they were lax in their approach to the job.

As a mission, this would be the equivalent of a “smash and grab.” With any luck, Alex and Lily would have their charge out of the country before nightfall.

The streets of Tehran were bustling, and the air was warm—78 degrees, normal for spring. If it weren’t for the covered women, Alex would have thought she was walking the tree-lined streets of any large European city. It was jam-packed with standstill, honking traffic—more than she would have thought even for a city of ten million people.

The cars were mostly European, Peugeot Citroëns and other smallish models with a few more expensive German vehicles. Alex didn’t see a single American car on the road; no surprise really, given how the regime felt about America.

There were a fair number of motorcycles, but nothing impressive. Alex noticed smallish Hondas and Italian Benellis. She also glimpsed a few of the locally produced new Saipa electric motorbikes.

It took Alex a moment to figure out what else was missing on the streets of Tehran besides American cars. There wasn’t a single sidewalk vendor. She knew that the Iranian authorities didn’t approve of them and assumed the city was having one of its periodic crackdowns.

After only a few blocks, Alex was sweating under her heavy hijab.

“You okay?” Lily asked.

“I guess,” Alex said. “This thing itches, and it’s hot.”

“Just like the wigs at the underground nightclubs,” Lily said. “They’re itchy as hell.”

That made Alex smile and they lumbered on, eyes downcast.

And to be fair, the hijab Alex wore as part of her cleaning crew uniform was heavier than many of the ones she saw on the street, where at least half the young women were wearing nearly Western-style clothes and colorful headscarves that showed a fair amount of their hair.

They were all being watched by the green uniformed “Morality Police.” This branch of law enforcement was charged with making sure that the population conformed to public morality at all times. Theoretically, men could attract the attention of the Morality Police if their beards were too long or they wore short-sleeved shirts, but as a practical matter, the police reserved their scrutiny for women whose clothing or headscarves were insufficiently “modest.”

Women were taking more chances than usual today. It was Wednesday—or White Wednesday—the day that rebellious Iranian women wore white to protest the compulsory wearing of the hijab.

Alex applauded their efforts, but given the number of Morality Police on the streets, she didn’t think the day would end well for the women who bent the rules too far. Already, the agents had witnessed more than one heated argument between women and these special police.

The Iranian government’s official statements always referred to the mission of the Morality Police as “guidance.” Of course, if that were true, Alex wondered why these guidance officers were armed.

The agents approached the university’s main entrance, on the south side of the campus. The entryway was formed by four twisted concrete arches that were almost like modern art. The academic buildings were surprisingly modern and would not have been out of place in any major European—or even American—city.

Just to the right of the gate Alex could see a crowd forming around a woman wearing a white headscarf and shouting at two of the green-uniformed Morality Police officers. The men were flanked by two female colleagues wearing full black robes. The robed women were shouting back at the woman in white.

Alex could see the problem. The white-clad woman was wearing what would have passed for moderate makeup in the West but was very out of place in Tehran. Also, she wore her white headscarf toward the back of her head, showing fully half of her hair.

Alex supported the women’s effort, but she didn’t want the commotion to interfere with their mission. She heard a loud yell and watched the woman reach up to grab her white hijab. She glared at the two black-clad women, who were now screaming at her, and then she pulled off her scarf in an act of clear defiance.

There was a moment of shocked silence in the growing crowd. Then one of the men in the green uniforms hurled himself at the young woman—who Alex could now see was the age of a college student.

The girl hit the sidewalk hard, with a nearly two-hundred-pound man slamming down on top of her. Tensing, Alex prepared for action.

She felt Lily’s hand on her shoulder. “We can’t,” the older agent said.

That wasn’t true. They could. Yes, the men were armed, but there were only two of them. And the female officers in black didn’t seem to have the stomach for anything other than screaming.

Alex had no doubt that she and Lily could handle the four of them before they knew what hit them and get the woman to safety, provided she wasn’t badly hurt.

But that wasn’t the mission.

It took every ounce of self-restraint Alex had to allow Lily to lead her away and through the university entrance.

The guards at the gate barely noticed them, too busy running outside to the commotion, which was getting louder. The two agents crossed the large campus square, which was humming with college students, about a quarter of whom were women.

At the far end of the campus stood a building that Alex recognized as housing the mathematics, statistics, and computer science departments. That was where Nasiri now “worked.”

Outside the entrance was a woman Alex recognized from the mission briefing. She wore the same gray cleaning crew uniform as Alex and Lily.

Lily approached her, speaking quickly in Persian. The woman responded in kind. She then turned her attention to Alex and said in surprisingly good English, “Hello, Alex. My name is Shirin.”

“There’s a bit of a commotion outside,” Lily said.

Shirin shrugged. “It’s Wednesday,” she said. “There is something unusual going on in here, though. They have doubled the guard around Nasiri. These men are fresh and not yet complacent.”

That wasn’t good, Alex thought. On paper, at least, it was an easy mission with four lazy guards. This change would make it harder.

“Do you think the regime suspects a rescue attempt?” Lily asked.

“No, but there are rumors that she will soon be moved,” Shirin said.

That was new. Whatever Nasiri was working on had some sort of technological or military application. If she was moved to a secure facility, Zeta might never get another chance to get her out.

“The extra risk is within our mission parameters,” Lily said. “What do you think, Alex?”

“We’re prepared for this,” Alex said. “Plus, we’d like to meet the woman that everyone is going to so much trouble over.”

Shirin smiled approvingly. “We’ll start working on the first floor,” she said. “We’ll reach the fourth floor by lunch, and then you can meet her.”

Before they could turn to head inside, Alex heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter’s rotors—and not a civilian chopper. It sounded military.

Alex was wrong about one thing, she realized, as two large black helicopters flew over the southern entrance. They came in fast and much lower than was normal for an urban center.

In no time the choppers made very quick and very rough landings on the campus square.

Alex and Lily stared at Shirin. “I have no idea,” the woman said.

Alex heard gunfire. It sounded as if it came from the guard shack, or outside the entrance. Someone was shooting at the helicopters.

The doors of the choppers opened and men wearing all black filed out. They carried rifles and returned the small arms fire with fully automatic bursts.

“I don’t know what this is,” Shirin said. “I was told to get you inside and provide assistance, but I can’t help you with this.”

“You won’t have to,” Lily said. “I suspect we might not be the only ones who want to get their hands on Nasiri. You’ve done plenty and we thank you.”

Shirin pointed to the all-out firefight that was now going on across the square. In the near-constant gunfire, students were screaming and racing away from the scene. “What will you do?” Shirin asked.

“This development goes way beyond our mission parameters,” Lily said, turning to Alex. “We’re supposed to abort.”

Alex studied the doors to the building. They were so close! A woman, an American citizen who needed their help, was only a few flights of stairs away.

“They don’t look so tough. Did you see that landing?” she said. “Strictly amateur hour. I say we expand our mission parameters.”

“Agreed,” Lily replied. Then she turned to Shirin and said, “Thank you again. Get somewhere safe—as far away from us as possible.”

Alex and Lily turned to the building, opened the doors, and raced inside.

Chapter 2

There were two guards in the lobby holding handguns and two soldiers with their rifles in hand. By their uniforms Alex could see that the soldiers were part of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. They were a parallel service to the regular Iranian military, with their own ground forces, navy, and air force.

But unlike the regular Iranian military forces, which protected the country and people, the revolutionary forces only protected the religious regime.

They had been founded during the 1979 revolution and their allegiance was ideological. They were also better trained and had more power in Iran than the regular military forces.

That confirmed for Alex how important Nasiri was to the ayatollahs. They didn’t just see her as important to the country: They saw her as important to the survival of the clerics in charge and their mission to spread their system.

The women stopped when the two soldiers’ rifles were pointed at their chests. One of the men shouted at them in Persian.

Lily immediately replied, gesturing behind them. Alex couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was clear. The other agent wanted the men to think they were terrified by the helicopters and gunfire.

The soldier in charge gave them only a second’s glance and waved for them to go deeper inside the building.

Alex and Lily complied, pushing through double doors and entering the main hallway.

“He told us to get inside and find somewhere to hide,” Lily said.

“I’m okay with the first half of that,” Alex replied.

Alex saw that there was an advantage to being triply invisible here. First, they were women on an extremely male-dominated campus. Second, they were cleaning ladies. And third, they were Kurds.

They walked down the hallway and saw a number of men and a few women peek their heads out from doorways to glance at them. Alex guessed they were following a shelter-in-place protocol.

Again, another plus. Now the staff and the students had good reason to stay out of their way.

An older man, who Alex guessed was a professor, took half a step out of a doorway and shouted at them.

Lily replied meekly in Persian.

The professor sized them up, barked something short, and disappeared back into his room, slamming the door behind him.

“He suggests we hide…but do it somewhere else,” Lily said.

“They really couldn’t be less interested in us. Is there a level beneath undercover?” Alex asked.

“I think we just found it,” Lily replied, a smile in her voice, if not on her face.

At the end of the hallway they came upon another man. He appeared to be a professor or an administrator, who was posted at the bottom of the stairwell. Alex assumed he was the floor’s fire warden or the equivalent. He was also talking into his cell phone, frustrated.

Was the attack force in the black helicopters jamming the cell service? That suggested a level of sophistication and resources that was a notch above the physical assault—which looked like the tactical equivalent of a smash and grab.

This meant relatively high-powered and high-tech hardware and suggested a relatively high-level intelligence infrastructure.

That left them with a fairly short list of suspects.

Alex shelved that line of thinking. If everything went well, the two agents and Nasiri would get away while the guards and the soldiers duked it out with the black ops force.

They would have plenty of time to speculate about the black helicopter team from the safety of Zeta headquarters.

The man barely paid them any notice as they opened the door and headed up the stairs. Not surprisingly, the stairwell was both quiet and empty. In an emergency, people would stay where they were.

It was a smart move for civilians. Of course, Alex hadn’t been a civilian for years, and the two women raced up the stairs. Alex cursed the loose robes, which slowed her down, and pushed herself harder.

When they reached the top and fourth floor, the women stopped and took a breath. Lily slowly opened the door. Alex saw two rifles pointed at them. The men holding the rifles began shouting at them in Persian.

Reacting to something one of the soldiers outside said, Lily opened the door the rest of the way, and the two agents slowly stepped outside. There were two soldiers holding rifles on them. There were also two university security guards.

Lily spoke meekly to the soldier in charge while the two guards were busy—one with his mobile phone, the other on a walkie-talkie.

Alex didn’t need to speak Persian to know that neither was having much luck.

That was something. Blocking cell service was one thing. It was tricky, but you could do it by taking out or jamming a few cell towers. But a generalized jamming of radio signals was a level even higher than that.

There was noise downstairs. No gunfire, but shouting.

The lead soldier, who seemed to be in charge only of yelling at Lily, came to a decision. He barked something at the guards and then led the other soldiers down the stairs. As they walked, they didn’t give the two women a second glance.

The black helicopter force hadn’t entered the building yet, but they must have been getting pretty close if the soldiers guarding the floor were heading downstairs.

Alex and Lily had hoped to incapacitate a few university guards and then sneak their charge out of the building, but that was looking less and less likely. They would need weapons.

It had been too risky to bring guns with them on this mission. If they were stopped at a metal detector or frisked by security somewhere, it would be impossible for two lower-class cleaning women to explain why they were carrying pistols in a country where gun ownership for even connected civilians was practically nil.

Fortunately, the two guards in front of them were armed…at least technically. For now, their handguns were holstered while they struggled with their communications devices.

Alex could see the weapons were German-made SIG Sauer semiautomatics. The Sauer was a .45 caliber pistol, used by Swiss police and in a number of other European countries. It wasn’t a bad gun, but Alex thought the weapons were wasted on these two men who seemed near panic as they shouted into a nonworking phone and walkie-talkie.

Politely, Lily interrupted and asked them something. Both guards seemed genuinely surprised that she had spoken. Alex didn’t have to speak Persian to see that Lily was asking if t. . .