The Cicada Prophecy ; Unlucky Day ; The Candidate Read online

  J. R. McLeay Thriller Collection

  Three full-length standalone thrillers

  J. R. McLeay

  This collection of stories is a work of fiction. All depictions of characters and events are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is unintended and coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by J. R. McLeay

  Book cover by PhotoMaras

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Volume 1

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part II

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Part III

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Epilogue

  Volume 2

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part II

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Part III

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Epilogue

  Volume 3

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part II

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Part III

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Volume One

  Unlucky Day

  Part I

  A Dangerous Game

  1

  Times Square, New York City

  July 4, 11:45 a.m.

  Whose life will I extinguish today?

  So many choices, so many worthy subjects. It's the Fourth of July in the epicenter of New York. The anthill is swarming with activity. Such easy pickings.

  People are oblivious about their vulnerability as they travel about their everyday business. So lost in their little world with their self-important tasks, they can't imagine at this very moment someone could be drawing a bead on them. Mere seconds away from sudden death with the simple pull of a trigger.

  There's a busy mix of tourists and native New Yorkers milling about Times Square today. It's easy to tell them apart. The natives are so impatient to get from point A to B, everybody trying to get ahead in the most competitive city on Earth. The tourists stroll about in lazy clumps, soaking up the flash and glitter of the theater district. The locals periodically try to wedge their way through the horde or walk onto the street to bypass the gawkers.

  It's quite amusing, in an anthropological kind of way, observing the different castes in action.

  Every colony harbors insects worthy of extermination. Scanning the faces of these creatures, likely candidates abound. Like the well-to-do tourists, carrying their overstuffed Tiffany and Cartier shopping bags. What a waste of resources. One of those fancy diamond rings could feed a hungry child for a year.

  Or the fat-cat investment banker, dressed in his bespoke suit and five hundred dollar shoes. How many mortgage-backed securities has he dumped on the market today? Building an ever-taller house of cards, p
oised to topple the economy and over-indebted homeowners at any moment.

  Then there’s the muscular guy wearing a wifebeater shirt. How many skinny kids did he torment on the playground growing up?

  So many people who deserve to die.

  Power is not only bestowed by genetics or social class. It can be wielded by anyone with sufficient motivation and will. But I'm in no hurry to take my quarry today. I've still got a few minutes before the appointed hour. It’s six minutes before noon.

  My rifle scope focuses on a crowd milling about the entrance to the Hard Rock Cafe between 43rd and 44th Street. A young pregnant woman barely out of her teens is pausing to light a cigarette. She’s not wearing a wedding ring. Yet another unplanned pregnancy by a promiscuous tramp. Will she too abandon her baby, only to have the child bounce from one abusive foster home to another?

  So many thoughtless people in this world. My finger presses more firmly against the trigger.

  I follow the tramp as she elbows her way through the throng northward along 7th Avenue toward Broadway. She's giving no apparent thought to the dependent child within her. Bouncing between one distracted pedestrian and another, she pinballs through the crowd, toxic smoke blowing from her lips.

  Doesn't she know the prenatal months are the most critical in a developing child's life? My anger builds as I trace her harried journey.

  There are no longer any other persons of interest in my field of vision. I'm incensed. If I kill her now, at least the paramedics will arrive soon and have a chance at saving the baby. Child Services will put the baby up for adoption, and the circumstances of its delivery may find a sympathetic and caring family.

  This tart isn't fit to be a mother. There’s more than one way to separate an abusive parent from her offspring.

  This is the child's lucky day.

  The traffic light turns red at 45th Street, and the woman stops at the edge of the curb, directly facing me. I see her clearly in her red halter, a bullseye in the sea of vanilla pedestrians surrounding her.

  She's waiting impatiently for the light to turn. This will be her last vision before the white light takes her somewhere else.

  I glance at my phone propped on the window ledge beside my rifle. The time is just past noon. I squeeze the trigger and feel the recoil of the weapon against my shoulder.

  Exactly two seconds later, pandemonium erupts at the corner of 45th and Broadway.

  2

  45th & Broadway

  July 4, 12:30 p.m.

  Joe Bannon flashed his NYPD detective badge to the on-duty cop as he ducked under the yellow tape surrounding the crime scene. Accompanied by his partner Hannah Trimble, he sidestepped a large puddle of blood trickling over the curb onto the street. After twenty-two years as a detective, there wasn't much he hadn't witnessed. Still, seeing the close-up effects of violent crime always struck a personal chord, and he swallowed hard to keep his lunch down.

  “Where's the body?” he asked the attending cop.

  “They took it to Lenox Hill Hospital on the East Side. Young pregnant girl. EMS thought the baby might still be saved.”

  Joe studied the chalk body outline on the sidewalk.

  “Head shot?”

  “Blew out half her brains. You're lucky you missed it.”

  “Did you see the wound before they took her away?”

  “Yeah. She was shot directly between the eyes. The back of her skull was blown almost clean off. Must have been a hollow-point bullet, judging by the extent of the damage.”

  “Has forensics swept for the slug?”

  “Apparently the bullet hit a man standing behind her in the shoulder. No exit wound. You should be able to collect it at the hospital.”

  Joe peered at the gawking bystanders.

  “Any witnesses?”

  The cop pointed behind him toward the lobby of the Marriott Marquis Hotel.

  “Those folks said they were pretty close to the action. Watch where you step though. More than one person lost it when they saw the mess on the sidewalk.”

  Joe and Hannah walked up to a group of ashen-faced civilians sitting on the hotel lobby steps. A young woman wept while consoled by her husband. Her blond hair and white dress were splattered with blood.

  “Excuse me,” Joe said. “I’m Detective Joe Bannon with the NYPD. Did anyone here see the shooting?”

  The bloodstained woman looked up.

  “I was standing just behind and to the side of the victim. It was horrible. Who would do this? She was just a young girl. And pregnant!”

  The woman buried her head in her partner's arms and sobbed.

  “She fell backward after being shot,” her husband continued. “I think a man behind her was also struck. They took away two bodies on stretchers.”

  “How many shots did you hear?” Joe asked. “Were you able to tell from which direction they came?”

  “I only heard one shot,” the man said.

  He pointed up 7th Avenue.

  “It wasn’t very loud. It came from uptown, quite a few blocks away. I was on the phone at the time, so I wasn't paying much attention.”

  Joe looked at Hannah.

  “How long did you stay on the phone after the victim was shot?” he asked the woman’s husband.

  “Only a few seconds. I hung up and called 9-1-1 immediately.”

  “Can you check to see what time the call ended? This might help pinpoint the time of the shooting.”

  The man retrieved his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen a few times.

  “Looks like it was right around noon,” he said, turning the phone for Joe to see.

  Joe pulled out his notepad and scribbled the start time and duration of the call shown on the screen.

  “Did you record the call?”

  He knew it was a long shot, but an audio recording could provide clues to the type of gun and firing distance.

  The man looked at Joe blankly.

  “Um, no. I don't think mobile calls are recorded, are they? I just use the regular features...”

  “That's okay, thanks for your help. Can I get your name and contact information if we have any further questions?”

  The witnesses gave Joe their particulars, and he jotted them in his notepad.

  “What do you make of all this, Han?" Joe asked his partner as he turned and walked back toward the chalk outline.

  “Based on the distance of the gunshot and the degree of street congestion at the time, I'd say it was from a high-powered rifle at an elevated position. Do you think it's another terrorist attack?”

  Joe took a moment to appraise the crime scene. A stream of passersby stopped to crane their necks over the crowd of onlookers at the edge of the police line before moving on.

  “It's too clean for someone trying to attract attention to a cause. Terrorists try to create maximum carnage with their attacks. Why not plant a bomb or spray more shots if you're trying to make a political statement? This has the feel of a lone wolf. The shot between the eyes from a long distance—that takes special skill. Plus, I think there's a reason why he chose a young pregnant woman. We'll see if the coroner can make any more sense of this.”

  “Maybe the victim's next of kin can reveal a motive.”

  Joe peered up 7th Avenue toward Central Park.