Spree: Strawberry Fields Massacre

Book 1: Spree

by Michael Morley

Genres: Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

A madman is on the rampage in the Los Angeles streets. The City of Angels has become The City of Fear. And everyone from the Oval Office down wants a quick result. The heat is on Jake Mottram, head of the FBI's new Spree Killer Unit, and psychological profiler Angie Holmes to find the madman responsible. Until now, they've been great together. Both at work and in bed. But a killer is about to come between them, in ways that could cost them far more than their careers. Will they survive the spree about to come? Spree Life and death in LA - like you've never seen it before.

Release date: May 6, 2014

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 80

Sample

LA Athletic Club, LA

Psychological profiler Dr. Angie Holmes was sprinting.

Not jogging.

Not running.

Flat-out sprinting.

The kind of bust-your-lungs, sweat-yourself-ugly exertion that only happened when she needed to exorcise the ugliest of demons.

The former Californian track star was twenty-eight, but when she was mad or stressed, the years rolled back and she ran like she was seventeen.

Today she was fired up enough to smash a personal best.

Two things were driving her crazy.

First off, the man in her life, FBI Special Supervisory Agent Jake Mottram, had left a message on her phone saying he loved her. In itself, not a bad thing. Except he only said those words at a time like this. As he strapped on a Kevlar vest and went gun-to-gun with a Spree.

Sprees were the worst.

A special breed of killer who appeared out of the blue and slaughtered indiscriminately. No rhyme or reason. And since Sandy Hook, Santa Monica and the other public shootings, Jake had been the man in charge of catching the worst of the worst.

The Bureau set up the SKU, the Spree Killer Unit, under direct orders from the White House. Since then, it seemed like Jake worked at least a case a month.

Angie broke her stride and put her hands to the back of her head. A bunch of shoulder-length auburn hair had flopped out of its tie band. She fumbled it back in and regained her rhythm. Stretched tense muscles. Stepped up the pace. Felt her heart hammer against her ribs.

All was becoming good.

Adrenaline masked the worry.

She glanced at her wrist as the white line slid toward her Nikes.

Five-twenty.

Damn.

She could go faster. Faster meant more pain in the body and less in the head. It was a good trade.

Angie breathed deeply. Filled her lungs. Lengthened her stride.

Jake should take a desk job.

The thought came up like a hurdle. He was ten years older than her; the right age for his ass to polish an office chair.

He’d be safe.

She’d stop worrying. They could settle down. Not that he’d ever mentioned doing that. Three years together and not one hint of the M word. In fact, not even the E word. But no worries, they were solid. Of that, she was sure.

Thinking about him threw up a picture of the Spree he was hunting. Corrie Chandler. Former soldier. Former security guard. More bull than man. Now out of work and out of his mind.

A bad combination.

One day after he got laid off, his drunk of a wife walked out on him.

Corrie walked after her.

Shot her in the back.

Pumped a hole through the head of a neighbor who stood gawping while gardening the patch of dirt that divided their homes.

Then Corrie got in his old Jeep and disappeared.

After twelve hours of eluding the LAPD, he’d been found by Jake and his team. Hence why Angie was wearing out the track of her local club.

The lap line came into view. She checked her wrist again.

Five-zero-five.

Christ, she was feeling old. She should be able to bust that five-minute mark. And Jake sure as hell should know it was time he quit the fieldwork and drove a desk. That way he could look after her.

Her and the baby she’d just found out she was carrying.

That was the second thing she was worrying about. That and the fact she hadn’t yet found the right moment to tell him.

Griffith Park, LA

It looked like a convention of hard-asses. Top marksmen from the LAPD and FBI gathered outside the gates of one of America’s biggest urban parks. All getting their respective shit together.

Gun checks. Body armor checks. Comms checks.

Check, check, check.

That was what these guys did in the down time. The nervous, laugh-too-loudly time. The last guaranteed moments of your lifetime before stepping into the crosshairs of a crazy with a gun.

Up in the cornflower blue California sky, two helicopters hummed and circled like mating dragonflies. Beneath them, staring out at three thousand acres of forests, lawns and trails, were the operational heads of SWAT and SKU.

Thirty-eight-year-old FBI Special Agent Jake Mottram stood six five and two hundred pounds. Connor Pryce, the thirty-two-year-old, newly appointed LAPD commander, was seven inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter. Little and large, both licensed to end their mutual problem with deadly force.

As a former soldier, Mottram knew only too well the value of studying the terrain as closely as the psychology of the enemy inhabiting it. He and Pryce had halted their squads at the edge of the Ferndell side of Griffith; a Jurassic Park patch of dense greenery with towering trees and jungle-thick foliage.

The FBI man used field glasses to stare through the gnarled oaks and leafy undergrowth at a famous building way off in the distance.

The place Corrie Chandler had holed up.

He let the glasses fall from his pale blue eyes and thump on their strings against his broad chest. “Seems ironic.”

“What does?” Pryce felt edgy and had started to pace.

“Us, observing an observatory.” He pointed into the distance. “Mr. Crazy over there is most probably staring right back at us through a free-standing scope, or even that big Zeiss thing that can watch fleas crap on Mars.”

The cop didn’t answer. He was worrying about the press and how they’d crucify him if this didn’t end quickly and without any more loss of innocent life.

Jake was relaxed but focused. Totally at home in an environment where shots were likely to be fired at him. He looked around and took in the beauty of the park. “I came here some time back with my girlfriend. We did all the tourist shit. Used scopes to find the Hollywood sign. Rode white horses down a wooded . . .