The Freedom Broker Read online

  Praise for The Freedom Broker

  “A fast-moving thriller featuring kidnapped oil tycoon Christos Paris and his kidnap-negotiator daughter, Thea. She’s tough, she’s smart, she’s diabetic. The best scene—and who cares if it’s plausible—involves bungee jumping over the Zambezi River. It’s worth the price of the book. A spectacular start for what promises to be a great Thea Paris series.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

  “Howe provides nonstop action, believable characters, and a well-researched look at the world of international kidnapping.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This debut novel generates nonstop suspense, commanding attention from the start and never letting go. Intended as the start of a series, this is a must for thriller fans.”

  —Booklist (Starred Review)

  “Razor sharp and full of you-are-there authenticity—a superb thriller.”

  —LEE CHILD, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “The Freedom Broker combines terrific thriller writing and fascinating research about hostage rescues. This is fact and fiction at its best.”

  —JAMES PATTERSON, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Move over Jason Bourne, action has a new name as international kidnapping expert Thea Paris pulls out all the stops to rescue her own father in this clever and gritty debut.”

  —LISA GARDNER, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Unparalleled storytelling . . . Her characters are memorable and realistic. She has a great talent for description of landscapes, action, and an unerring detail for stealth from the beginning to the climactic end. I wish I could write as well.”

  —CLIVE CUSSLER, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “A high-stakes geopolitical thriller that is truly a page turner. The Freedom Broker explores and illuminates the exotic world of elite Delta Force–type professionals who make a dangerous and deadly living rescuing kidnap victims all over the world. And we are along for the ride of our lives. Incredibly well researched and expertly written, this is a behind-the-scenes story of how some hostage victims come home safely and why some do not.”

  —NELSON DEMILLE, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “What a cracking debut! International kidnap rescue specialist Thea Paris is a beguiling hero caught in the case of her life, and K.J. Howe writes about her with knowledge and precision. The Freedom Broker explodes with high-level excitement!”

  —SCOTT TUROW, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “With an alpha female heroine and a plot that’s smart, detailed, and highly engaging, The Freedom Broker introduces a new name to the thriller genre: K.J. Howe. It’s a fantastic debut . . . a pulse-pounding treat for anyone who loves action and adventure.”

  —STEVE BERRY, New York Times bestselling author

  “K.J. Howe tells a spellbinding tale, her descriptions so vivid you can smell every heart-pounding second of her action, and she writes with a deeply human voice.”

  —PETER JAMES, bestselling author of You Are Dead

  “The Freedom Broker delivers big-time with a compelling heroine, crackerjack action, and a plot that grabs and holds to the last page.”

  —JOHN LESCROART, New York Times bestselling author

  “A masterful thriller that you won’t soon forget after turning the last exciting page—and one that will leave you wondering how fast you can get your hands on Thea Paris’s next extraordinary adventure.”

  —W.E.B. GRIFFIN & WILLIAM E. BUTTERWORTH IV, #1 New York Times bestselling authors

  “I absolutely loved this read and its super-smart and able protagonist, Thea Paris! K.J. Howe’s clever and action-packed storytelling is an exciting and groundbreaking addition to the genre.”

  —SARA BLAEDEL, #1 internationally bestselling author of the Louise Rick series

  “Unrelentingly entertaining and impossible to put down, The Freedom Broker boasts the ferociously savvy, serious as hell Thea Paris, who brilliantly plots and fearlessly fights to rescue her kidnapped father from the clutches of expert, deadly opponents.”

  —KARIN SLAUGHTER, internationally bestselling author of The Kept Woman

  “Smart, fast, and vivid, The Freedom Broker pitches brother against sister in a global power play that turns to war. Unique settings and expertly told, K.J. Howe knows her stuff.”

  —TAYLOR STEVENS, New York Times bestselling author

  “K.J. Howe hits the ground at a dead run with her new heroine—smart, tough, and extremely driven kidnap-retrieval expert Thea Paris. It’s clear Howe has done her research—on locations, the intricacies of kidnap negotiations, and the nitty-gritty realities of taking the fight to the bad guys. Expertly plotted, The Freedom Broker at once satisfies and leaves us impatient for the next one.”

  —MARC CAMERON, New York Times bestselling author of the Jericho Quinn series

  “An impressive debut that delivers a dazzling thrill ride, leaving the reader breathless and smarter. Rich with exotic locales and insights into the high-stakes world of international kidnapping, The Freedom Broker soars with high adventure as Thea Paris does it all in this outstanding series starter.”

  —LISSA PRICE, internationally bestselling author of the Starters series

  “K.J. Howe is a master at weaving together action and suspense. Her debut is an engaging, fast-moving, spellbinding international intrigue that will leave you breathless. In Thea Paris, Howe has created a smart, complex, kick-ass character that you’ll want to follow and root for.”

  —SIMON GERVAIS, former RCMP counterterrorism agent and bestselling author of The Thin Black Line

  “The Freedom Broker has great bones: engaging characters, nimble pacing, and crackling action.”

  —KATHY REICHS, New York Times bestselling author

  “The pulse-pounding excitement never ends in this remarkable debut novel . . . Howe takes the reader on the thrill ride of a lifetime . . . Memorable characters, muscular prose, and a world atlas of fascinating insider details make this a can’t-put-down read. I loved it!”

  —GAYLE LYNDS, New York Times bestselling author of The Assassins

  “A high-octane debut thriller. Kidnap negotiator Thea Paris is a heroine with brains, martial skills, and true characters, whose own dark and deep family history drive her on as she travels the world bringing kidnapped victims home to their loved ones. Here’s hoping Paris returns soon for another outing!”

  —MARK GREANEY, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “Breathless action, great characters, and convincing details make Howe’s The Freedom Broker a surefire rocket to the top of the lists.”

  —LINWOOD BARCLAY, #1 internationally bestselling author

  “The Freedom Broker opens hot and stays that way. Author K.J. Howe and her protagonist, hostage-negotiator Thea Paris, are off to a high-octane start in this international thriller and series debut. Thea’s oil-tycoon father is kidnapped—echoing the abduction of her brother two decades earlier—and it’s up to Thea to solve the family’s brutal business. A wickedly fast read.”

  —NEELY TUCKER, author of the Sully Carter series

  New York • London

  © 2017 by Kimberley Howe

  Cover design by Ervin Serrano

  First published in the United States by Quercus in 2017

  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 permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

  Please purchase only author
ized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to [email protected].

  e-ISBN: 978-1-68144-303-4

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Howe, K. J. (Novelist), author.

  Title: The freedom broker : a Thea Paris novel / by K.J. Howe.

  Description: New York : Quercus, 2017. | Series: A Thea Paris novel ; 1

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016027674 (print) | LCCN 2016029866 (ebook) | ISBN 9781681443102 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781681443034 (ebook) | ISBN 9781681443027 (library ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Kidnapping—Fiction. | Hostage negotiations—Fiction. | Rescue work—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR9199.4.H687 F74 2017 (print) | LCC PR9199.4.H687 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016027674

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  To RJH,

  Thanks for being my freedom broker.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Acknowledgments

  Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

  —Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance, Act IV

  Chapter One

  500 feet above Kwale, Nigeria

  November 1

  2:30 a.m.

  Thea Paris knew the drill.

  If the mission failed, no one would retrieve her body. She’d be left to rot in the jungle, unidentified and forgotten. And that wouldn’t do. She couldn’t miss her father’s sixtieth birthday party.

  Her gloved right hand glided over her flak jacket and M4 with practiced ease. Night-vision goggles, flares, grenades, extra magazines—all easy to access. The weapon had been tested, cleaned, and oiled, and it was ready to withstand the humidity of the jungle. Pre-mission checks done.

  The hypnotic purr of the resurrected Hughes 500P helicopter set the tone for the operation. Black, in every sense of the word. Sound, movement, light, all kept to a minimum. They were flying nap-of-the-earth: low, utilizing the terrain to stay below the radar.

  As operational commander, she’d led her six-man team through endless rehearsals, using a model of the targeted area. Now it was time for execution. Brown listened to Hendrix in his earbuds, his way of psyching up. Johansson stared into space, probably thinking about his pregnant wife, who wasn’t happy he’d accepted this mission. Team A, following them in the other retrofitted chopper, consisted of twin brothers Neil and Stewart—native-born Scots—and a wizened former French Foreign Legionnaire named Jean-Luc, who could outshoot them all. She’d handpicked each one from the pool of operatives at Quantum International Security.

  Except Rifat Asker, her boss’s son.

  Who was staring at her. Given their fathers were best friends, she and Rif had known each other since they were kids. Thea respected his combat skills, but the two of them often locked horns on tactics. She traced the S-shaped scar on her right cheek, a permanent reminder of Rif’s clash with her brother, Nikos.

  She tapped her smartphone screen to call up her glucose reading: 105. Monitor batteries fully charged. Perfect. Nothing could screw up a mission more than low blood sugar. She slipped her phone into the pocket of her tactical vest beside her glucagon kit. Rif was still watching her as she adjusted her vest, and she wondered if he knew. She’d done her best to keep her condition a secret, but he didn’t miss much. It probably wouldn’t change anything, but she didn’t want anyone on the team thinking she wasn’t up to the job.

  The pilot’s voice crackled in her earpiece. “Three minutes to touchdown.”

  “Roger that. We’re green here.”

  The stormy sky hid the second helicopter from view. Thea wiped her damp palms on her fatigues. Rain rattled on the chopper’s fuselage, and the turbulence unsettled her stomach. Flying had never been her strong suit. The poor visibility would allow them to fly in under the radar, but the cloying humidity and heat could degrade the chopper’s performance. They’d reduced its fuel load to stay as light as possible, but that left only a minimal buffer if they ran into any problems.

  Rif shifted to face Brown and Johansson. “Okay, boys, let’s grab this Oil Eagle.”

  The hostage, John Sampson, a petroleum engineer from Texas, earned high six figures consulting at overseas drilling sites to help increase their output. Sampson had two kids, and his wife taught third grade. He coached Little League baseball every Thursday night, but he’d missed the last ten games because he’d been kidnapped and held captive by an outfit called Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND. Seemed every terrorist group had some catchy ac
ronym, as if they’d all hired PR firms to maximize their brand.

  This Nigerian militant group wouldn’t budge from its three-million-dollar demand; unfortunately, Sampson’s kidnapping insurance topped out at one mil. That left a single option: rescue. But the overall success rate for hostage extractions was only twenty percent, which was why Sampson’s outfit had sought out Quantum: when a life was on the line, you went to the best.

  “Sixty seconds until touchdown,” the pilot warned.

  Thea slipped on her night-vision goggles and clutched one of the handhold straps anchored to the cabin walls.

  “You sure there’s no leak?” Black camo paint emphasized the tension in the lines around Rif’s eyes.

  “Roger that.” She concentrated on the positives—always better than bleak thoughts when descending into potential hellfire. They should have the element of surprise, and she’d selected a crackerjack team. Every member would put his life on the line for the others, and their combined combat experience read like the Ivy League of special ops.

  The pilot threaded the riverbed using the narrow thermal image provided by the FLIR camera mounted near the copter’s skids. Flying into thick jungle on a moonless night was far from optimal, but their intel was time sensitive. They had to get Sampson out tonight.

  “Thirty seconds.” The pilot’s warning was like a shot of amphetamine. They hovered above a small clearing in the triple-canopy jungle two miles from the rebel camp.

  A film of perspiration coated Thea’s back. Her body tingled. She felt alive, awake, adrenalized.

  “Ten seconds.”

  The pilot raised the bird’s nose, then settled onto the ground. Thea nodded to the others, and they exited the chopper posthaste, hit the ground, and rolled away from the clearing, feeling the rain on their skin and the heat emanating from the rotor wash as their transport rose up and away.

  A moldy stench flooded Thea’s mouth and nose, the residual effect of endless rainy seasons. The team huddled in thick, dripping bush while the other Hughes dropped off Jean-Luc and the two Scots. She scanned the area. The roar of the choppers faded into the distance, their faint but peculiar silhouettes briefly showcasing their modifications for stealth.