Six Seconds

Six Seconds
Rick Mofina

‘Echoing Ludlum and Forsythe…a big international thriller that grabs your gut – and your heart – and doesn’t let go’Jeffery DeaverAn anguished mother desperate to find her child.A detective in need of redemption.Three strangers thrown together in a plan to change the world – in only SIX SECONDS.By award-winning author Rick Mofina.

PRAISE FOR

SIX SECONDS

“Rick Mofina’s breakout thriller.

It moves like a tornado.”

—JAMES PATTERSON

“Six Seconds is a great read. echoing Ludlum and Forsythe, author Mofina has penned a big, solid international thriller that grabs your gut – and your heart – in the opening scenes and never lets go.” —JEFFERY DEAVER

“Classic virtues but tomorrow’s subjects –

everything we need from a great thriller.”

—LEE CHILD

“Mofina is one hell of a story-teller!

A great crime writer!”

—HÅKAN NESSER

“A perfect thriller, in every way. Very powerful and

very, very clever: this novel hits the ground running

and stays with you long past the finish line.”

—NICK STONE

Rick Mofina is a former reporter and the award- winning author of several acclaimed thrillers. He’s interviewed murderers on death row, patrolled with the LAPD and the RCMP and his true crime articles have appeared in the New York Times,Marie Claire, Reader’s Digest and Penthouse. He’s reported from the US, Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, Qatar and Kuwait’s border with Iraq. He is based in Ottawa, Canada. For more information visit www.mirabooks.co.uk/rickmofina and for a chance to win free autographed books subscribe to Rick’s free newsletter at www.rickmofina.com.

SIX SECONDS

RICK MOFINA

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

This book is for

Jeff Aghassi, Ann LaFarge, Mildred Marmur,

and

John Rosenberg and Jeannine Rosenberg.

Because no one gets through life without

the help of others.

It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day,the gates of dark Death stand wide; but toclimb back again, to retrace one’s steps to theupper air – there’s the rub, the task.

Aeneid

—Virgil

Prologue

The woman in the video is wearing a white shoulder-length hijab, embroidered with delicate beadwork. Herimmaculate silk scarf frames her face, accentuating hernatural beauty. She gives a tiny nod to the camera.

A soft cue is heard, then she begins.

“I am Samara. I am not a jihadist. I am a widow-mother baptized with the blood of my husband and mychild when your governments murdered them.”

Her strong, intelligent voice underscores her resolvein accented English, suggesting a mix of the MiddleEast and East London. Her eyes burn into the cameraas it pulls back slowly. She speaks directly to theaudience who will soon meet her on every television setin the world.

She lets a moment pass in silence. Her hands areclasped before her on a plain wooden table. Her ringsglint from her thumb and wedding finger. The cameraeases back, revealing a framed family photograph of aman, a boy and the woman herself. They are smiling. Joyswims in the woman’s eyes. For it is a portrait of herfrom another time. Another life. It stands next to her asheadstone to her happiness and witness to her destiny.

To exchange pain.

For the intelligence analysts who will study hermessage, there is no prepared statement. No grenadelauncher on display before her. No AK-47 flanking her.

No chanting from the glorious text.

There are no black-and-gold flags on the wallsbehind her. No flags of any group. No carpet or fabric.The background is simple with angled mirrors.

Nothing betrays the woman’s location, where she isrecording her video or who is helping her. She couldbe in a safe house in the West Bank. Or in Athens.Maybe in Manila, Paris or London. Perhaps Madrid,or Casablanca.

Or in a suburb of the United States.

“Your soldiers invaded my home, tortured my husbandand child. They forced them to watch as one byone they defiled me. Then they killed my husband andmy son before my eyes. They fled when your bombersdelivered death to my city. I carried my dead childthrough the ruins and to the bank of the river of Edenwhere I buried him, my husband and my life. But I havebeen resurrected to seek justice for these crimes.

“And it is for these crimes that I deliver my widow-mother’swrath. For these crimes you will taste death.

“Dying for me does not mean death. Dying for me isa promise kept. For I will have avenged the destructionof my world by bringing death to yours. Death is myreward as I join my husband and my child in paradise.For them, I am the eternal martyr. For them, I am vengeance.”

Book One:

“Where is My Son?”

1

Blue Rose Creek, California