The hermit kingdom, p.1
The Hermit Kingdom, page 1
THE HERMIT KINGDOM
SHANE RILEY ADVENTURES
BOOK 1
NICK THACKER
CONTENTS
1. Shane
2. Shane
3. Shane
4. Seong
5. Seong
6. Shane
7. Dr. Yun
8. Shane
9. Shane
10. Shane
11. Evans
12. Shane
13. Evans
14. Shane
15. Evans
16. Michaela
17. Shane
18. Michaela
19. Evans
20. Shane
21. Jin-Tak
22. Michaela
23. Evans
24. Shane
25. Shane
26. Evans
27. Shane
28. Shane
29. Evans
30. Shane
31. Jin-Tak
32. Shane
33. Shane
34. Shane
35. Shane
36. Evans
37. Evans
38. Jin-Tak
39. Shane
40. Shane
41. Shane
42. Shane
43. Evans
44. Shane
45. Shane
46. Shane
47. Shane
48. Evans
49. Shane
50. Shane
51. Shane
52. Shane
53. Evans
54. Evans
55. Michaela
56. Shane
57. Shane
58. Shane
59. Shane
60. Shane
61. Shane
62. Evans
63. Shane
64. Shane
65. Evans
66. Shane
67. Michaela
68. Shane
69. Shane
70. Shane
71. Seong
72. Shane
73. Shane
74. Shane
75. Shane
76. Michaela
77. Michaela
78. Shane
79. Shane
80. Shane
81. Jin-Tak
82. Shane
83. Shane
84. Evans
85. Shane
86. Shane
Afterword
Books by Nick Thacker
About the Author
1
SHANE
Shane Riley's wife was dead on the bottom of the ocean floor inside her Subaru Outback.
He dove straight down, checking his regulator and gauging his numbers as he descended. It was about a 60-foot drop, and while the shallower waters boasted vibrant, massive displays of color at the edge of the reef, the floor farther out was more barren, save for piles of large rocks and a few corals that preferred the deeper waters.
He was not alone down here. Thousands of fish swimming in schools pecked at his hands and arms as he moved through them, curious and testing to see if he was food.
In a sense, he was. He knew it was true that everything in the ocean wanted to kill him, but here off the eastern coast of Australia, it was actually quite possible. Here, everything wanted to kill him, and much of it was large enough to actually do so.
Though he was armed with a spear, it would do little damage against the beasts that roamed these waters. The great white shark was a constant threat, and there were saltwater crocodiles to worry about as well.
A few large groupers swam near enough for him to attempt to snag one, but the spear was sitting on its mount on his back, next to his dive tank. He was not here to fish.
He was here to find her.
Shane Riley, a former member of the Australian 2nd Commando Regiment, had long since given up the life of killing humans for his government and had chosen to settle down into a new career.
Now, he was a finder.
He found objects, artifacts, and art – whatever the person paying him wanted to find. Typically, the person paying him even knew where to look, so in those instances, Shane was more of a retriever.
He was basically a private investigator — but hunted down objects rather than people.
Never people.
His mission today reminded him why. His wife of two years had been kidnapped, strapped into the seat of her own car, then shot point-blank. Everything — car and all – had been carried out to sea and dumped into the waters off the coast of Australia.
His stomach turned just thinking about it. It had taken him another year to get to the point where he could even process the onslaught of emotions. There was still grief, a severe pain ripping through him whenever he thought her name.
Kate, I'm coming, he thought.
He never found people in his line of work because they always ended in situations like this. Death, destruction of human life, grief.
He had closed that chapter in the book of his own history, and he was far more content dealing with objects of antiquity and things of value.
And yet he knew he needed to find her.
There was more closure he needed, more work to be done. He would find his wife, see her for one last time – knowing full well what she would look like after a year in the ocean – and say goodbye.
And then he would find the people who did this to her, and he would kill them.
They had been looking for him, trying to use her as leverage. It would have worked, if Shane had even been around to notice. He had fallen off the grid, a mission gone awry, one of the last work-for-hire jobs he had taken for the government. He had not been employed by the military at the time, so he had not had time to fix this.
While he was away, they grabbed her, waited with her for three days, then a week.
Shane had eventually returned to civilization and was able to receive messages.
But by then it was too late.
He reached the ocean floor, then turned to the north and prepared to swim the underwater mile lined by the huge piles of rocks and boulders that formed the edge of a shallow shelf. The vehicle could be anywhere below him, and of course, it could have fallen off to his right, to the slightly deeper waters at the foot of the shelf.
That would be the outward boundary of where the GPS signal was lost. The Subaru's tracking system had worked up until the car was fully submerged for a minute, and he knew a sinking vehicle would not find a straight path to the ocean floor.
Still, it would not deviate much, maybe 100 feet in each direction. That put Ground Zero right beneath him. He swam upright for a moment, floating, suspended above the boulders, and looked out in every direction. He saw plenty of lumps that were the size and shape of a car, but none that matched the profile perfectly. It wasn't quite a needle in a haystack search, but it wasn't far off. This would take him days, potentially weeks.
But he had the time.
He didn't need the money, not right now. He worked when he needed to, when he wanted to. There were always rich and wealthy collectors who wanted to add another piece to their collection, and oligarchs who wanted to track down something of value they could use as leverage against another. Even zealous museum curators who did not care for following proper procedure and simply wanted something to appear on the black market so they could snatch it up and claim it for themselves.
He helped these people, and they paid him very well for it.
But he had no current plans for work and would not until he found his wife. If he needed to dive here every day for the next year, he would. Whenever the weather permitted, the trickling columns of light strong enough to make their way down to the ocean floor, he would be out here looking. He would do it at night if need be, using his powerful underwater lantern.
He had purchased a cheap bungalow on the coast, just outside of Brisbane. There, he had set up shop as he prepared for this phase of the search. It was nice enough, falling apart in some ways from the battering of the sea breeze and maritime weather. It was enough for him. He had nothing more, so what did it matter to him that his house wasn't fancy?
Seeing nothing he wanted to investigate further, he began his slow crawl along the curving line of boulders of the short cliff, generally heading north-northeast. He knew the GPS unit would be accurate up until it had gone offline, and though he had been surprised it had been able to triangulate its position even underwater for a minute, he was not surprised his wife's murderers had not disabled it. She was already dead – they had sent him the pictures confirming it. What could he do?
There had been no other message, no warning beforehand. The threat was neutralized. They had no more use for him — or his wife. They had obviously wanted him for something, for a job, and they would do anything to get it.
They had done everything they could to get in touch with him, and he had missed the opportunity. They were done with him now, too, and therefore had no need to send any message other than the pictures.
His fists tightened, and his jaw clenched as memories washed over him. He had stared at the pictures in disbelief, actual shock coming over him. He was numb, unable to comprehend how drastically he had failed her.
If only I had gotten out of the jungle a day early, he thought. An hour, even.
He had done what he always did — found a burner phone and checked his virtual remote mailbox. It was a habit that allowed him to feel connected to civilization after a long trek through uncharted and uninhabited territory. Every mission had ended the same way, with him ch ecking his voicemail box to see what was going on in the world of his clientele.
But the messages he had heard that time had been different — threatening and impending. He had listened to half of the first message before quickly dialing the return number. It rang and rang, but no one ever answered.
He had checked the rest of the messages while in the back of a taxi, finally getting to an airport large enough to bring him home. He had purchased the first flight out, as well as a Wi-Fi package, and upgraded his cheap flip phone to an unlocked smartphone that would allow him to browse the web and make plans while flying.
But all of it had only led to more failure. He had been too late, and he had paid dearly. Kate had paid the ultimate price.
He would never forgive himself for it, nor did he want to.
But he would find her, he would see his wife one last time.
And then he would avenge her.
2
SHANE
Shane was about 50 meters into his dive when he sensed movement above his head. He stopped, jerking his head around and peering toward the surface. A long shape appeared far above him, leading with a dark shadow. It was a boat, and he heard the high-pitched whine of its motor as it passed directly above him.
He turned again, checking his dive watch and realizing his bearings. The boat was headed straight toward his own boat, a small single-engine outboard he had anchored on the rocks. He swam upward a bit more, trying to trail the V-shaped and dark shadow ahead of it. The boat was small, larger than his, but certainly not a yacht or sailboat. He saw the wake begin to ripple as the boat slowed, and he saw the shadow of his own hull grow larger as he continued his ascent. He needed to check how deep he was to avoid the bends.
He unlatched the spear from his back and held it in his right hand. He pulled himself upward with his left, kicking to increase his speed.
The boat stopped next to his, and for a moment everything above and below was still. Shane didn't want to give away his own position in the water in case whoever these people happened to be were hostile and happened to glance down into the water.
He waited there for a minute, trying to listen for any sounds that might clue him in as to who these people were and what they were doing on his boat. Theft wasn't common, but it wasn't unheard of, either. Sometimes young idiots who liked to fancy themselves pirates looked for single-operation dive boats like his and waited for a while, ensuring the diver was well into whatever excursion they had planned down below. Then they would sneak onto the boat and take whatever things of value there were. Pawn shops up and down the coast were littered with dive gear, fishing equipment, and any number of ocean-related treasures that had been snatched from unsuspecting victims.
Shane would not be one of those victims. He kicked again, increasing his speed to rapidly ascend so that he would pop out of the water and halfway over the edge of his own boat. He aimed for the far edge, away from the new boat, putting his own craft between him and the intruders. In case they were armed, this would allow him to reassess, diving straight back down and letting them have their way with his gear.
He didn't take too kindly to thieves, but he also didn't want to be shot for something as petty as a couple of twerps hoping for a prize. He launched himself out of the water as planned, leaving his mask over his face but letting his eyes quickly adjust to his new surroundings.
He saw two figures, still blurry as his eyes shifted, but also noticed they weren't imposing or threatening. In fact, they were sitting down, calmly parked next to his anchored boat.
He frowned, then pulled the regulator out of his mouth and the mask up and onto his head. He wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand, letting the spear be seen in clear detail as he hoisted it up and over the edge of his small fishing boat.
"And you are?"
There were two men, both seated, one at the pilot console and the other in the passenger chair next to it. It was a speedboat, the type often rented to tourists for day trips out on the water.
The man farthest away from him – the one driving the boat – spoke first.
"Shane Riley?"
"Who's asking?"
"Sorry to interrupt your day, sir, but we are here with a job offer. An opportunity."
"I'm not interested in opportunity. I don't need a job, either. Sorry to disappoint, but I've got work to do," he said as he pulled the mask down over his eyes and reached to shove the gag back in his mouth.
The second man spoke. "Mr. Riley, this is an extremely important request."
"Depends on whose definition you go by, I suppose." He let his thick Australian drawl ring clear over the water. In other parts of the world, he downplayed it, sometimes even hid it altogether, taking up an accent of a local dialect.
That life was mostly behind him now. He didn't have to fake anything, didn't have to operate as if everyone was trying to kill him at all times, didn't need to blend in. Now, he was who he was, and that was that. He wasn't interested in these guys or their "important" mission.
"If you don't mind, we've been charged with asking you to come with us."
"I do mind."
He waited then, feeling out the situation. If these men were going to be hostile, now was the time for a show of power – perhaps a not-so-subtle wave of a pistol that had been previously hiding on one of the men's laps or even standing up and pulling out a weapon from a concealed holster. Kneeling, neither option transpired. Instead, the second man looked at the driver and then back at Shane.
"Look, we're not here to threaten you or hurt you. We've been told that would be a bad idea. But this is a matter of importance to our boss, which means it could very well be a matter of importance to our nation."
Shane squinted through the bright strands of afternoon sunlight. A matter of national importance. "What nation?"
He knew these guys were hired guns, and trying to judge their background and nation of origin would be challenging at best. And it wouldn't tell him anything – they could be working for any number of governments who needed to hire someone with a matter of plausible deniability.
"Mr. Riley, if you could just –"
"Gotta say, I expected a little more persuasive tactics. I'm in the middle of something here, and it really can't wait."
"Looking for your wife can't wait?" the boat's pilot asked.
Shane narrowed his eyes further, pulled himself up the side of his boat, feeling it rock against him as he did. He chewed his lip for a moment. That information was not something most people were privy to. It wasn't exactly classified that he had lost his wife a year ago, but it did imply that these men were telling the truth. They were working for a government entity of some sort.
More than that, though, it intrigued him. Who was the person behind these men? Who was pulling the strings? And why had they opted to collect leverage on Shane? Most people wanting to hire him simply told him how much they would pay and what they needed found. There was little reason to coerce him.
"Mr. Riley," the second man said, "we are prepared to pay you $10,000 — US currency — just for coming with us, on our boat. It's not a trap. Our boss is just willing to pay you well for your time.”
