Fracture Event
Kathleen O’Neal Gear
W. Michael Gear
Fracture Event
Kindle Edition
© Copyright 2021 Kathleen O’Neal Gear, W. Michael Gear
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Wolfpack Publishing
5130 S. Fort Apache Rd. 215-380
Las Vegas, NV 89148
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wolfpackpublishing.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.
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eBook ISBN 978-1-64734-644-7
Paperback ISBN 978-1-64734-645-4
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Contents
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
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
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Epilogue
If you liked this, you may enjoy: Dissolution
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About The Authors
Fracture Event
To
Gerald and JoAnn Gerber
With fond memories of
Harleys, Beemers,
And
Long rides.
Chapter One
Wind sent little wraiths of snow down the dark Wyoming street. The frozen crystals seemed to slip, twist, and fly across the frozen asphalt. Wind and snow: They seemed a constant in Laramie while it was spring in the rest of the world.
Wrapped in his heavy coat, Simon Gunter hunched low in the driver’s seat of his Toyota rental and watched the cars pass by. He’d followed the professor to the redhead’s apartment building hours ago and had been listening to the party: music, laughter and loud talking. Apparently, the festivities were going to drag on late into the night.
Gunter considered himself to be a simple man. He liked simple things and simple assignments. Those kinds of assignments rarely came his way but this job had been simplicity itself. He’d met with the professor and communicated the offer. The man—as expected—had been dazzled by the money and luxury. He’d acted like a child suddenly given the opportunity to fulfill an impossible dream.
Gunter yawned and watched his breath condense in the frigid air. He looked out at the crusted snow on the small lawn of the apartment buildings. It’s April. When does this mountain country get warm?
Periodically, Gunter ran the engine, using the defroster to keep the windows clear but, as the night wore on, he grew more and more agitated. He’d expected to be here late, but the lengthy celebration of the redhead’s new doctorate degree was cutting into his schedule. Where was his wayward professor? People trickled away singularly or in pairs. With the exception of the older professors, who departed early, the revelers were young, most of them only moderately drunk, though a few had left staggering and supported by friends.
But the professor’s sleek BMW, covered with a white hoar of frost, remained even after the apartment’s lights went out.
So, Herr Professor spends the night with his redheaded student?
An unpleasant complication.
He’d already ascertained that the professor’s wife and two young boys weren’t in town. Poor fool. He’d better enjoy himself tonight.
Not that he blamed his quarry. The redhead was striking—tall and athletic. She’d been wearing a coat when Gunter first saw her but, from what he’d been able to see of her muscular legs, he could fill in the rest.
Gunter sighed and imagined peeling the redhead’s clothing from her body, running his hands over her smooth white skin, teasing the pink nipples…
Headlights flared down the street and Gunter sank lower in his seat, watching as a dark Chevrolet sedan crept toward him; it slowed to a crawl when it passed the apartment building. The man behind the wheel craned his neck to study the cars in the parking lot. He slowed as he fixed on the professor’s frosted BMW. Then the sedan rolled on and pulled to the curb no more than a hundred meters down the street.
Moments later, the driver’s door opened and the parking lot lights illuminated a man in a black coat and black cap. As the door closed, the newcomer vanished into the shadows.
Someone else is interested in the anthropologist.
Things were no longer simple. The Big Man was not going to be happy.
Gunter leaned over and reached for a plastic case on the passenger floorboard. Clicking it open, he removed a stainless steel dart pistol from its recess in the cradling foam. He’d planned to use it on the professor. Ah, well, first things first.
When the intruder’s silhouette appeared again at the edge of the parking lot, Gunter inserted a needle-pointed syringe into the pistol’s breech and clicked the bolt home.
The intruder walked over
to the professor’s BMW, checked the license plate, and then looked up at the apartment building.
Easing open the car door, Gunter stepped out into the night. On silent feet, he ghosted toward his prey.
He would be faced with the task of disposal, but fortunately, the Union Pacific railroad ran through Laramie. He had used trains before. They sent an unmistakable message to the opposition.
Chapter Two
The furnace clicked on with a roar of air, waking Anika French. She groaned, rolled over on her couch, and wondered if something foul had died in her mouth. She’d had way too much wine but what a great party! The entire anthropology department had come to help her celebrate receiving her PhD. As much as she’d like to drift back to sleep, her bladder argued otherwise. She opened one eye to inspect her small apartment.
Yep. She was on the couch, fully clothed, which meant she’d refused to sleep in her own bed. That did not bode well for the man in her bedroom.
God, I’m going to hate today.
As Anika sat up, strands of red hair fell across her face. Planting her feet, she was delighted that the room didn’t spin. She’d been there a time or two in the past and didn’t ever want to go back.
Rising, she studied the forests of empty beer bottles that covered every flat surface—the coffee table, the open spaces in her bookcase, the kitchen counter. Others lurked around the base of her plants; more perched atop her speakers, like abandoned missiles.
She took two steps across the floor and her right foot squished.
“Oh… hell.” She looked down and winced. What moron would leave a half-eaten plate of nachos on the carpet?
Anika hobbled across the floor, leaving cheesy footprints all the way to the bathroom, where she jerked off her sock and tossed it in the hamper. To her relief, except for the empty wine bottle in the shower, the bathroom almost looked normal. The hand towel hung like a rumpled knot, the sink was soap-scummy, and the toilet seat was up, but no significant damage.
She moaned to herself as she lowered the seat, dropped her pants, and surrendered to her complaining bladder. For moments, she lingered, feeling the dull ache behind her eyes.
When she rose, she studied herself in the mirror: green eyes- bloodshot, freckles barely visible on her straight nose. She had a good face, the kind men looked at twice. At least until she opened her mouth. Men rarely stuck around once her intelligence became apparent. The exception, of course, was the man in her bed.
Crossing the hall, she made two steps into her bedroom and stopped.
Dr. Mark Schott, chairman of her committee, lay on his stomach, head smashed into her pillow, naked down to where a twist of her sheets covered his lower half. One bare knee protruded.
Anika took a quick inventory of the wadded clothing on the floor: shirt, undershirt, tie, pants.
Memory returned and, along with it, his pleading blue eyes, the coaxing smile and clinging hands. “Come on, Anika. We’re celebrating! You’re celebrating.”
“Yes, I am,” she’d replied. “Remind me. Where are Denise and the kids tonight?”
“Denver. But—”
“Not a chance.”
He’d paused. “It’s not like you’re still my student. Not after yesterday, Doctor French!”
“What part of no don’t you get?”
“What if I told you I had something important to tell you?”
“What? That you’re getting a divorce? You’ve used that one already.”
“No, something really important.”
She knew that look. The last time she’d seen it was when he’d been named department head.
“Anika, something amazing happened earlier today.”
“More amazing than me finally getting my PhD?”
“Your degree is just icing on the cake.” A gleam entered his eyes. “Come on. I’ll tell you after we make love.”
“Looks like you’ll carry it with you to your grave.”
“It’s your future. Our future.” He tried to pull her down to the bed with him, but she shook off his hand.
“Get out of my apartment, Mark.”
“Well, sure, but let me tell you about the project first. You’re a critical part of it. I need you.”
She pointed to the door. “Leave.”
He lounged back across the bed as though he owned it. “Not until I know you’re in.”
She walked to the closet and started stuffing clean clothes in her overnight bag.
“What are you doing?”
“If you’re not leaving, I am.”
“Listen! I know you need money. I’ll pay you fifty thousand dollars if you sign a contract saying you’ll work with me on this project.”
Her breath caught. She straightened. He’d never have offered money unless her expertise was absolutely essential to him.
“This must be a computer modeling project.”
“It is,” he said with a smile. “This is right up your alley. You’re perfect for the job as my assistant. Especially now that you have your doctorate. You finally have credibility.”
Anika stared at him. He’d been stealing her work for years, publishing bits and pieces under his own name. When she’d first complained that she should at least be listed as a co-author, he’d convinced her that, without his guidance as chair of the dissertation committee, she’d have never come up with those ideas. So, in essence, they were his. At the time, she was twenty-three and scared to complain to anyone. She was just a student, a tiny cog in his research machine. And he’d assured her that working with him would have huge benefits down the road. Benefits that had never materialized. In fact, if he hadn’t chaired her committee, she was sure she would have had her PhD two years ago. Now at the age of twenty-seven, she’d finally wised up.
“No, thanks.” In disgust, she headed for the door.
Chapter Three
The anthropology building was quiet this afternoon. Anika sipped coffee while she stared at the charts taped to her office walls. The data clusters—the bases of the computer model, her model—stood out on the white paper. Each was clarified by a statistical formula.
It didn’t look like much to the uninitiated but it was revolutionary. With the right data, she could detail the step-by-step decline and collapse of any culture that had ever existed. Once she published it, archaeologists would be able to understand exactly why earth’s greatest civilizations had toppled.
She smiled at that, remembering the phone call yesterday after her dissertation defense. She’d called her father to tell him she’d passed.
“So, you’re Dr. Anika French now?”
“I am. My dissertation will be printed and bound. You’ll get a copy.”
“That’s okay, angel. I couldn’t understand it any more than I could read Chinese. So, when’s graduation?”
They called him “Red” French, a name he’d carried since his days as a Marine recruit. For much of Anika’s life, he’d been the missing father, a lifer in the Corps. Now, he was Sheriff Red French of Converse County, Wyoming.
“You get me the date, sweetheart. I’ll be there to see you get your diploma.”
“That’s for high school, Dad. For this…” she’d hesitated, “They call it being hooded. I’m being hooded.”
“Oh, okay. You know, your mother would be so proud of you.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Mother’s interest and passion had been the ranch, a rawhide operation consisting of three sections of land on the Platte River in central Wyoming.
“How are things?” she’d asked.
“Got a big case. Someone stole twenty bales of barbed wire from the Highway Department road crew last week. Got to go, honey. Love you.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
She clicked END and, on impulse, reached for the photo on the corner of her desk. In this one, Red French stood in uniform, big, burly, a pistol on his hip. He was staring into the camera, a crooked smile bending his lips. Lines etched his florid face, the tiny scar on his cheek
oddly white in the photo. She’d taken it the day he was sworn in as sheriff.
Dad had never liked Mark Schott: The man’s a weasel. You watch him.
Anika sipped coffee and listened to the sound of students passing in the hallway before she turned to the stack of papers on her desk. In two weeks, she would leave the University of Wyoming, a newly minted PhD in anthropology. And then what?
Her gaze shifted to the model. Yes, it was brilliant but, since the economy had turned, finding a job in anthro had never been more difficult. A lot of anthropologists—every bit as brilliant as she—were out there pounding the pavement, sending curricula vitae to any university with an opening and there just weren’t many out there.