Newsletter Bio Upcoming Release Books in Print Links Email

Corrupts AbsolutelyCORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY

by Alexa Hunt

March 2007
Mass-market paperback
ISBN 9780765350091

May 2005
St. Martin's Press
ISBN 9780765311498

Order from:
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble

An action-packed thriller about the NEXT war on terror...

First came "the Slaughter": the Colombian drug cartel launched a massive attack on American soil, assassinating thousands of federal judges and law enforcement officers in an attempt to stop the crackdown on drugs. Then came public outrage: Congress created a new supersecret agency, the Bureau of Illegal Substance Control. BISC operatives short-circuit due process, acting as judge, jury, and executioner for drug traffickers. When she loses her kid brother to a drug OD, Leah Berglund is recruited by BISC. She becomes one of their finest agents and a skillful assassin. She has a perfect kill record for every guilty verdict. Then she is assigned to a special case...

Elliott Delgado was a hot shot FBI agent until a burst of machine-gun fire retired him on a disability pension. Now all Del wants is to spend time with his son and enjoy his new career as a Pulitzer Prize--winning reporter. Until he receives a phone call from his old mentor at the FBI....

Posing as a research assistant to Del, Leah investigates secret drug charges against him while he uncovers a conspiracy between BISC and the Pentagon. He learns that the war on drugs is about to go nuclear. The Western Hemisphere will be flash-fried if the conspirators are not stopped. As she digs deeper into Del's case, Leah realizes she has been set up to kill an innocent man.

Now she and Del are running targets as BISC agents chase them from Mexico to Maine. America's worst nightmare is set to begin if they can't run fast enough.


Reviews

"The drug scenario is an intriguing premise..." -- Publisher's Weekly

"In building her fictional society, the author (veteran romance writer Shirl Henke, writing under a pseudonym) takes the current war on drugs to a frighteningly plausible extreme: the U.S. Congress has enacted the Martial Law Act and empowered a new agency, the Bureau of Illegal Substance Control (BISC), to seek out drug dealers and to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Problem is, absolute power does that thing that it does, and, as Leah and Del learn the hard way, the BISC may have lost track of its mandate. Exciting if rather depressingly plausible reading." -- David Pitt, Booklist

"Hunt's well-researched novel is intricately woven with intrigue and drama. Tensions run high in action-packed sequences. Fans of spy novels will not want to miss this first-rate book."--Romantic Times Bookclub

"A suspense novel of the highest order and grandest scale. Sharp and scary, the book moves at a heart pounding pace that is utterly addictive. Alexa Hunt knows how to thrill, and she does so--absolutely."--Nelson DeMille, New York Times bestselling author on Corrupts Absolutely

"A thought-provoking look at the War on Drugs. Corrupts Absolutely may turn out to be more prophecy than fiction."--Stephen Coonts, New York Times bestselling author

Corrupts Absolutely is nonstop action and thrills. Alexa Hunt knows how to keep up a pace that never lets up.”--Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Sinner

"A new kind of thriller, absorbing, brilliantly plotted. It’s all here--international intrigue, fascinating characters, and high suspense."--Clive Cussler, New York Times bestselling author on Corrupts Absolutely

"Hang on for a thrill-a-minute ride. Hunt really delivers the goods."--Tami Hoag, New York Times bestselling author of Kill the Messenger on Corrupts Absolutely  

"Corrupts Absolutely is absolutely entertaining. Alexa Hunt is a fresh new talent in the thriller arena."--Sandra Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Darkness

"Alexa Hunt writes the way Frederick Forsyth used to and Daniel Silva does now. Corrupts Absolutely is one of those rare thrillers that doesn't just stay ahead of the curve, it practically redraws it. Like your thrillers served sizzling hot with a touch of terror on the side? This is the one."--Jon Land, bestselling author of The Last Prophecy

"Alexa Hunt is a name to watch. Corrupts Absolutely offers a terrifying premise, compelling characters, and turbo-charged action that never stops."--Eileen Dreyer, author of Head Games

Top of Page


Excerpt

Chapter One

11:49 P.M., EDT, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
WASHINGTON, DC.

The ‘07 civic sun cruised slowly through the deserted parking deck, staying carefully within the chem-glow drive lines. Silently it rounded the corner and rolled down the ramp to the lowest level, then stopped in front of a new Corvette Electro-T, which was parked facing the wall.

The Sun’s tinted windows concealed its occupants until the passenger side opened. A brief flash from the dome light revealed two figures, a man behind the wheel and a tall, slender woman, who slipped out and quickly closed the door. Without a word to her companion, she walked around the Corvette, checking the interior, then the license plates.

Satisfied, she signaled him to drive on. Over the barely perceptible hum of the electric engine, her footsteps echoed on the concrete as the small rental car moved toward the opposite end of the deck and parked. In a brisk, athletic stride, she approached the elevator a dozen yards distant and melded into the shadows to the left of the doors. She checked her watch and prepared to wait.

Minutes passed. She did not move. Her vigil was rewarded by the low growl of elevator cables. She shifted position ever so slightly onto the balls of her feet. The doors whooshed open, revealing a thickset man carrying an attach‚ case. He glanced left and right, then stepped hurriedly from the elevator.

She raised her weapon and took aim. He caught the motion from the corner of his eye and whirled, reaching inside his jacket. The only sound breaking the silence was a soft pop from her small automatic. A tiny hole no bigger than the tip of her little finger appeared in the middle of the man’s forehead. His temples and eyeballs bulged grotesquely. Then, every bone in his body seemed to dissolve as he crumpled.

Glancing around the dimly lit deck, the woman walked over to her victim and knelt beside his body. When she rolled the corpse onto its back, a thin trickle of blood oozed from its ear, pooling on the concrete. Eyes stared blankly into space. Ignoring the slack face of death, she pulled the attach‚ case from beneath the body. The Sun approached noiselessly as she stood up. She tossed the case inside and slid into the passenger seat.

“You moved too soon. He caught you in peripheral,” her companion said as he drove up the ramp.

“I know,” she replied in a tight voice.

Glancing at her profile he grunted. “You okay?”

She sucked in a deep breath. “No.” The car circled up the ramp three more levels. As he slowed to make the final turn, she swung her door open and was violently sick on the concrete floor. Raising her head immediately, she slammed the door and said, “Go!”

He anticipated the command, relieved to see a faint bit of color returning to her face. “The first one is always bad,” he said.

Fishing a texture wipe from her pocket, she scrubbed at her mouth, then replied, “Yes.”

“It’ll get easier after a few more.”

She forced aside the image of that perfectly centered red dot just above those dead eyes. “God, I hope not.”

THREE YEARS LATER
2:12 A.M., EDT, TUESDAY, JUNE 16
ALEXANDRIA, VA.

He was running flat out, his chest on fire as if someone were tightening a piano wire around it. Sharp, stinging pain lanced through his lungs as he gulped enough air to yell, “Stop! FBI!” Without breaking stride, he closed the distance between himself and the two men he was chasing down the narrow street.

In the darkness, patches of light flashed between the buildings, black-and-white distortions, like images from an old twentieth-century cinema reel. The suspects’ flight stopped abruptly when the car waiting for them at the curb peeled away before they reached it. As they turned, he tried to stop and level his weapon but was not quick enough.

They caught him limned in a sliver of dirty yellow light. The first slug spun him around, cutting a shallow furrow across his ribs as it slammed him against a rough brick wall. He gritted his teeth and raised his SIG-Sauer, squeezing off a shot, but the report was drowned out by the thunder of the second man’s MAC-10. He felt the solid thunk of metal ripping into his flesh. Chest. Thigh. Knee. The hits registered in his brain as he slid slowly down the wall. Someone screamed his name.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Everything faded to black but his knee still hurt like a bitch. If only the damn sirens would stop ringing. Ringing. He bolted upright into a sitting position. Drenched in sweat, he frantically ran his hands over his chest, down his left leg to staunch the bleeding. But there was no blood, only hot, sweaty flesh and the knotted lumps of healed scar tissue.

His knee still throbbed evilly as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and fumbled for the phone jangling on the nightstand. Running his fingers through his hair, he squinted at the clock. Two twenty-seven a.m. Taking a deep breath, he growled into the receiver, “Delgado. This better be good.”

Elliott Delgado exited the 495 Beltway and turned west onto Braddock, glancing into his rearview vid screen at the nearly deserted highway behind him. If I was still with the Bureau, I’d have a tail scanner tracking any car making three successive turns with me. He consoled himself with the thought that he had been allowed to keep the Buick Electra-TE. The combination turbine-electrical engine had a specially designed third mode---a turboelectric flash drive allowing the Buick to go a 190 kilometers per hour, small enough compensation for the titanium pins in his knee.

He rubbed the old injury as he pulled into the left-turn lane. Affluent suburban developments sprawled between dense stands of sugar pines. A few lights winked from distant windows, but at 3:15 a.m. the densely populated area adjacent to Accotink Park slumbered. The residents rested in the assurance that they were a safe thirty klics away from the urban war zone of central D.C.

Rival gangs of Elevator operators fought over the city. These El-Ops sold the street drug of choice, Elevator, a highly unstable combination of cocaine and the old nonspecific impotence drug sildenafil citraze, commonly known as Viagra, which sent the coke-laden blood surging up the carotid arteries to the brain with the speed of an elevator.

Del turned onto Danbury Forest and followed the winding road. What would he learn at this bizarre rendezvous? Cal Putnam had told him to take the back way into King’s Park. His ex-boss knew he and Diana had lived in this old northern-Virginia development before their divorce.

Putnam had been the mentor who’d trained him, handpicked him for the most challenging assignments, and gone to the wall for him every time he’d been called on the carpet by punctilious politicians inside the Bureau. Diana had accused him of caring more for “that crotchety, foulmouthed old Okie” than he did for his own wife. She was probably right. God knew he’d spent more time with Cal than with her. By the time he was finished with hospitals, Putnam had been promoted to deputy director and Delgado had climbed into a bottle.

Whiskey under the bridge as Cal would say, he thought with a laugh, recalling this stretch of road and the jogger’s path across the bridge to the marina.

A good choice for cover. It would be nearly impossible for anyone to follow them here. A tail would stand out like a Vegas stripper in the National Cathedral. He pulled off the road and made a U-turn, then parked the Buick in the sheltering shadows of a big dogwood. After remaining in the car for several moments, watching for anyone who might follow him, he slipped out and climbed over the metal guardrail. The descent down the steep hillside was made more difficult by dense foliage and darkness, but he found the wide dirt pathway.

Tidewater in July was hot and fecund, infested with insects. Cicadas sang and mosquitoes hummed counterpoint between bites on his neck and arms. He’d remembered his .50-caliber Smith & Wesson but forgot to take a Buggone pill. A full moon silvered the treetops high overhead as he stopped to get his bearings. The gravel path was rutted, filled with joggers and cyclists during daylight hours, but now deserted. It twisted deep inside the park. Mentally he marked off the distance to the bridge.

Too damn far. The slight limp grew more pronounced with every kilometer. He remembered when he had run this course with ease every morning. But that was over seven years ago.

Getting out of shape, old man.

The sound of bubbling water grew louder as he neared the bridge over Accotink Creek. Then he saw a figure materialize out of the darkness on the other side of the rusty iron structure. He paused warily in the darkness until a familiar voice spoke.

“No need to play hide-’n’-seek. I been here for over half an hour. If I wasn’t followed, you weren’t.”

Cal Putnam’s nasal Oklahoma twang was unmistakable. Thinning gray hair and the leathery seams in his round face betrayed every one of his sixty-three years. He had shrewd blue eyes, a stubborn, pointed chin, and one hell of an attitude. Del had always liked working for a man who cut through the bureaucratic bullshit.

Delgado stood half a head taller than Putnam, whose slouched shoulders and paunch were the badge of a Washington bureaucrat chained to a desk. The old man was career FBI, working his way up to SAC in Oklahoma City before his thirtieth birthday. Now he was their number two man in Washington, deputy director.

“What the hell’s going on, Cal? I don’t hear squat from you for five years, then this middle-of-the-night intrigue.”

Putnam kicked a rock, then looked up at Delgado. “Don’t piss in my hip pocket, Del. I...

Top of Page

| Home | Bio | In Print | Upcoming | Links | E-mail |

Website property of Shirl and Jim Henke.
All Rights Reserved. ©2008
Last updated on December 21, 2010.

NovelTalk LLC
Hosted by NovelTalk