“Nothing to do with the Mediterranean Sea – the Med – and the USA, then?”
“Could be. I take it that you read my confidential file … as usual?”
“Could be. I take it that Johnny and Yves weren’t involved in this one?”
“No, no. In business, you need to cover all the bases. I want that phosphate, whether it goes out via Algeria or Morocco. The Americans are very keen on the Moroccan route. That’s MEDUSA.”
Mike’s phone rang. The caller’s name was withheld. She hit the green button.
“Hi, Sis, how are you?”
“Randy?” There was joy in her voice.
“Yeah, I’m just back and got your message. So, what’s the good news?”
She had to think for a second. “That you’re alive. It’s a long story. Where have you been?”
“I’ve been trekking in the jungle down south. Just got back to Los Angeles.”
“Work or pleasure?”
“Work, unfortunately; it was a waste of time.”
He had probably been undercover chasing the Colombian drug cartels on which she had worked for her first few years as a CIA analyst. She began to see a pattern here. “Who sent you?”
He couldn’t speak freely over the phone, so he just said, “Your old boss. The one before you went to London.”
“You mean Leonard’s friend at head office?”
“Yes, I’ll tell you another time. But, funnily enough, Leonard did phone to tell me that you would be away for a few weeks.”
“When did he phone?”
She could already guess the answer.
Sitting in the Gulfstream, Mike was drinking copious amounts of champagne; this was both to celebrate her success and also to relieve the tension building up in her from having to deal with Leonard. She frowned as she looked up the aisle at Charles laughing and joking with Maria and Angelica. What was it that attracted men like Charles and Leonard to her? Or was she attracted to them? She was soon to get her answer.
Her phone lit up. It was an invitation to have a Zoom call next week with a new client. When she saw that it was from Sir Donald Reeve, she smiled and, against her better judgement, pressed to accept.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to begin by declaring my debt to the late Gerald Pollinger who, with his father, was agent to Graham Greene among others. He represented me in the late 1990s and his support and advice were invaluable, particularly as I began to write the Mike Kingdom series; he never lived to see The Tip of the Iceberg completed.
Further thanks go to my wife, Natasha, and my sister, Angela, who have shouldered the burden of reading my first drafts.
All three of the Mike Kingdom thrillers have been edited by Lindsay Corten and she still has not changed her name and moved abroad. I hear her voice in my ear even as I write this. She has been the most wonderful critical friend.
Jem Butcher has produced the stunning covers for the series picking up on all of the subtleties as only a gifted designer can.
My thanks go to Adrian Hobart and Rebecca Collins at Hobeck Books whose advice, support and friendship are what every writer needs. It only took me twenty-nine years to find them.
Finally, a big thank you to the reviewers and bloggers who have all been so generous and who have, unwittingly, given me the strength to follow Mike Kingdom wherever she takes me.
David Jarvis
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Jarvis went to art college, and then ran his design and planning practice for forty years, working all over the world. He ended up planning countries. His canvases just got bigger and bigger.
HOBECK BOOKS – THE HOME OF GREAT STORIES
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this novel by David Jarvis. To keep up to date on David’s fiction writing please do follow him on Twitter/X, BlueSky or Instagram.
Hobeck Books offers a number of short stories and novellas, free for subscribers in the compilation Crime Bites.
Echo Rock by Robert Daws
Old Dogs, Old Tricks by AB Morgan
The Silence of the Rabbit by Wendy Turbin
Never Mind the Baubles: An Anthology of Twisted Winter Tales by the Hobeck Team (including many of the Hobeck authors and Hobeck’s two publishers)
The Clarice Cliff Vase by Linda Huber
