True Fiction Read online

  PRAISE FOR TRUE FICTION

  “Thriller fiction at its absolute finest—and it could happen for real. But not to me, I hope.”

  —Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series

  “This may be the most fun you’ll ever have reading a thriller. It’s a breathtaking rush of suspense, intrigue, and laughter that only Lee Goldberg could pull off. I loved it.”

  —Janet Evanovich, #1 New York Times bestselling author

  “This is my life . . . in a thriller! True Fiction is great fun.”

  —Brad Meltzer, #1 New York Times bestselling author of House of Secrets

  “A conspiracy thriller of the first order, a magical blend of fact and it-could-happen scary fiction. Nail-biting, page-turning, and laced with Goldberg’s wry humor, True Fiction is a true delight, reminiscent of Three Days of the Condor and the best of Hitchcock’s innocent man-in-peril films.”

  —Paul Levine, bestselling author of Bum Rap

  “Great fun that moves as fast as a jet. Goldberg walks a tightrope between suspense and humor and never slips.”

  —Linwood Barclay, New York Times bestselling author of The Twenty-Three

  “I haven’t read anything this much fun since Donald E. Westlake’s comic-caper novels. Immensely entertaining, clever, and timely.”

  —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder as a Fine Art and First Blood

  “The story of an innocent man caught in a deadly conspiracy has been told before, but Lee Goldberg takes it a step further in this rollicking, sometimes humorous, always deadly True Fiction. Highly recommended.”

  —Brendan DuBois, author of Storm Cell

  OTHER TITLES BY LEE GOLDBERG

  King City

  The Walk

  Watch Me Die

  McGrave

  Three Ways to Die

  Fast Track

  The Fox & O’Hare Series (coauthored with Janet Evanovich)

  Pros & Cons (novella)

  The Shell Game (novella)

  The Heist

  The Chase

  The Job

  The Scam

  The Pursuit

  The Diagnosis Murder Series

  The Silent Partner

  The Death Merchant

  The Shooting Script

  The Waking Nightmare

  The Past Tense

  The Dead Letter

  The Double Life

  The Last Word

  The Monk Series

  Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse

  Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii

  Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu

  Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants

  Mr. Monk in Outer Space

  Mr. Monk Goes to Germany

  Mr. Monk Is Miserable

  Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

  Mr. Monk in Trouble

  Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out

  Mr. Monk on the Road

  Mr. Monk on the Couch

  Mr. Monk on Patrol

  Mr. Monk Is a Mess

  Mr. Monk Gets Even

  The Charlie Willie Series

  My Gun Has Bullets

  Dead Space

  The Dead Man Series (coauthored with William Rabkin)

  Face of Evil

  Ring of Knives (with James Daniels)

  Hell in Heaven

  The Dead Woman (with David McAfee)

  The Blood Mesa (with James Reasoner)

  Kill Them All (with Harry Shannon)

  The Beast Within (with James Daniels)

  Fire & Ice (with Jude Hardin)

  Carnival of Death (with Bill Crider)

  Freaks Must Die (with Joel Goldman)

  Slaves to Evil (with Lisa Klink)

  The Midnight Special (with Phoef Sutton)

  The Death Match (with Christa Faust)

  The Black Death (with Aric Davis)

  The Killing Floor (with David Tully)

  Colder Than Hell (with Anthony Neil Smith)

  Evil to Burn (with Lisa Klink)

  Streets of Blood (with Barry Napier)

  Crucible of Fire (with Mel Odom)

  The Dark Need (with Stant Litore)

  The Rising Dead (with Stella Greene)

  Reborn (with Kate Danley, Phoef Sutton, and Lisa Klink)

  The Jury Series

  Judgment

  Adjourned

  Payback

  Guilty

  Nonfiction

  The Best TV Shows You Never Saw

  Unsold Television Pilots 1955–1989

  Television Fast Forward

  Science Fiction Filmmaking in the 1980s (cowritten with William Rabkin, Randy Lofficier, and Jean-Marc Lofficier)

  The Dreamweavers: Interviews with Fantasy Filmmakers of the 1980s (cowritten with William Rabkin, Randy Lofficier, and Jean-Marc Lofficier)

  Successful Television Writing (cowritten with William Rabkin)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Adventures in Television, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503949188 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503949184 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781503954076 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1503954072 (paperback)

  Cover design by Damon Freeman

  First edition

  For Valerie & Maddie, as always.

  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

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Honolulu. July 17. Noon. Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time.

  The assassin wore only a Speedo and his lean body was slathered with sunscreen that made him smell like a baked coconut. His name was Doric Thane and he sat on a poolside chaise lounge that faced Waikiki. To his right, and in the distance, was Honolulu International Airport. Behind him, the hotel tower stood against the backdrop of Diamond Head volcano and pale kids with floaties around their chubby arms frolicked loudly in the overchlorinated pool. There was a closed MacBook on his lap and a cold lava flow cocktail on the table beside him. He scratched absently at the puckered gunshot scar on his stomach and sighed with contentment.

  Thane opened his MacBook and a detailed simulation of an airplane cockpit control panel filled his screen. The photo-realistic animated graphic looked identical to the actual control panel in the cockpit of TransAmerican Flight 976, which at that very moment was preparing to depart from Honolulu filled with sunburned tourists in loud aloha shirts and board shorts heading back to Cleveland.

  Captain Avery Jenkins went through his preflight checklist. He had a touch of gray at his temples that conveyed stability, experience, and wisdom. Those were qualities that every passenger wanted to see in a pilot and for some stupid reason, the patches of gray bestowed it all upon him. So he’d begun coloring his hair years before the gray came naturally. Jenkins had a new first officer on this flight, Billy Shoop, who was busy plugging coordinates into the flight management system. Shoop was youthful enough to regularly get carded at bars and looked like he had second-degree burns on his face. The captain saw traces of his younger self in Shoop and it made him a bit wistful.

  “First layover in Hawaii?” Jenkins asked.

  Shoop nodded. “How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. Let me share a little captainly advice. Next time you’re here, don’t fall asleep on the beach.”

  “I didn’t. I’m very fair skinned. I get burned if someone
aims a flashlight at me.”

  “Then we’d better get you back to Ohio before you burst into flames,” Jenkins said. “You’re taking us up. Let’s get push clearance.”

  “Yes, sir.” Shoop radioed the tower. “Honolulu Ground, TransAmerican 976 requests push clearance off Gate 4.”

  The air traffic controller responded right away, his voice as flat and emotionless as an automated recording. “TransAmerican 976, you’re cleared to push. Advise when ready to taxi.”

  Five miles due south, from a chaise lounge at the Diamond Head Tradewinds Resort, the assassin studied the live readings on the airplane control console on his MacBook screen. TransAmerican Flight 976 was leaving the gate.

  Doric Thane smiled. The fun was about to begin.

  TransAmerican Flight 976 taxied to the runway and First Officer Shoop dutifully waited for the go-ahead from the tower.

  “You are cleared for immediate liftoff on Runway 8R,” the controller said by rote. “On departure, fly heading 140.”

  The runway was on a reef that pointed at the resorts along Waikiki, so the controllers always ordered departing planes, no matter where they were bound, to immediately head south to avoid buzzing the beach and destroying the tropical tranquility for the tourists.

  “Roger. TransAmerican 976 cleared for takeoff on Runway 8R, heading 140,” Shoop confirmed, then looked to the captain for the official confirmation.

  “You have the aircraft,” Jenkins said.

  “I have the aircraft.” Shoop sat up straight in his seat, confident and eager, and pushed the thrust levers forward and activated the auto-throttle.

  The plane raced down the runway, picking up speed. Shoop pulled back the sidestick and the plane began climbing into the sky at two thousand feet per minute toward Diamond Head in the distance, where Doric Thane sat on his chaise lounge, his fingers poised over the keyboard of the MacBook on his lap.

  The assassin tapped a few keys, initiating the autopilot on his cockpit console, stopping the climb and changing the flight’s heading to 090. He was in control of the flight. The cockpit crew was as powerless as the passengers now. They might as well order a drink, eat some peanuts, and enjoy the ride.

  Captain Jenkins instantly noticed that the plane was flying parallel to Honolulu on their left rather than veering to their right toward the open sea. But that wasn’t all that was wrong. The altimeter showed them leveling off at twelve hundred feet when they should have been climbing.

  “What are you doing?” Jenkins asked Shoop. “The heading is 140.”

  “I know that,” Shoop said, struggling with his sidestick. “But the stick isn’t responding.”

  The reason why was obvious. The captain saw that the green autopilot light was lit up on the instrument panel, indicating that the system had been activated. He sighed with irritation at the kid’s carelessness. “That’s because you accidentally engaged the autopilot.”

  Chagrined, Shoop pressed the autopilot button on his sidestick to disengage the system. But the light stayed on.

  He shot the captain a frightened look. “It won’t turn off.”

  “TransAmerican 976, turn immediately to 140,” the controller yelled into his ear, some life in his voice now. “You have leveled off. I repeat, turn to 140.”

  Jenkins grasped his sidestick and hit the disconnect button, too. But the autopilot didn’t disengage and his sidestick wouldn’t respond, either. It didn’t make any sense. He felt his heart drop into his stomach like a sandbag.

  Thane saw the plane in the distance, heading his way like an obedient dog returning to its master. He typed in a new heading: 010 degrees.

  The captain and the first officer were both pulling hard on their sidesticks, desperate to get a response, when the aircraft inexplicably turned east toward the high-rise hotels of Waikiki and began a fast, steady descent. The action meant more to Jenkins than an unexpected and terrifying navigational change. It was the cold touch of an unseen hand.

  “Tell the tower we have an emergency,” Jenkins ordered Shoop and continued to hit the autopilot button while he wrestled with the sidestick. “I have the aircraft.”

  The captain wasn’t saying he had regained control. He was stating that he was now the only one attempting to fly the plane. This acknowledgment prevented two people from trying to fly the plane at the same time.

  But that was exactly what was happening.

  “Mayday, Mayday. TransAmerican 976 is declaring an emergency,” Shoop said, his voice cracking. “We are not in control of the aircraft.”

  “But someone is,” Jenkins said.

  Shoop looked at him, baffled. “What do you mean?”

  “We leveled off before the turn. That’s a decision, not a computer glitch.”

  The captain was right about that.

  The plane was heading straight for Waikiki. Thane could see it from where he was sitting. So could the tourists on chaise lounges around him. The tourists were getting to their feet, staring at the sky. Even the kids in the pools were beginning to realize something was very wrong. All eyes were fixed on the plane. Nobody noticed what was on the assassin’s MacBook screen. He tapped the up arrow on his keyboard, increasing the plane’s airspeed to 350 knots.

  Now the people on Waikiki Beach could see and hear the plane coming in fast and low, only a hundred feet off the ground. Thousands of people on the sand scrambled in sheer terror, with no idea where to go. Thane saw the mass panic from afar. It reminded him of when he was a kid and liked to drop lit matches into anthills.

  In the airplane’s cockpit, Shoop was frozen by the sight of the rapidly approaching Honolulu skyline in front of him. But for Captain Jenkins, time slowed down and his mind cleared, even as the frantic air traffic controller was screaming “Pull up! Pull up!” in his ear and the altitude alarm wailed. He was focused on the problem. The autopilot had control of the plane. Someone had control of the autopilot. How could he stop it? The answer was so simple.

  Kill the technology.

  Jenkins hit a slew of buttons, shutting down all of the plane’s computer systems. The system reverted to manual control and then he was flying an old-fashioned stick-and-rudder airplane. He felt the sidestick come alive in his hand like a startled, pissed-off animal.

  “I have the plane!” he yelled.

  Jenkins pulled back the stick, lifting the plane into a steep climb. But he didn’t see any blue sky in front him. All he saw was the twentieth floor of the Hyatt Regency. It was too late.

  The fuselage plowed right through the center of the hotel in an enormous fireball and the aircraft’s wings were sheared off by the adjoining buildings. A chain reaction of explosions erupted as the flaming wreckage and toppled buildings spread the destruction inland. A massive, roiling cloud of fire, glass, and rubble sprawled out in all directions, covering the beach and sending people rushing into the water in a futile effort to escape the devastation.

  The ground beneath Doric Thane shook as if the long-dead Diamond Head volcano were about to blow. Panic broke out among the people around him, which he thought was stupid, since they were obviously a safe distance from the crash and the death cloud. Instead, they should have been celebrating their good luck.

  The assassin closed his MacBook, tucked it under one arm, and got to his feet, observed by no one amid all the senseless screaming and crying. He picked up his cocktail and was pleased to discover that it hadn’t lost its chill. He walked casually away, his back to the terrified tourists and the carnage, and sipped his lava flow. It was cold and sweet.

  This was how to kill people.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Seattle, Washington. July 17. 3:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

  The impeccably tailored Tom Ford tuxedo fit Clint Straker’s muscular, six-foot frame like a second skin and showed no sign of the two knives and the garrote sewn into the lining. He was one of the two hundred guests at a garden party on the back lawn of international shipping magnate Martin Hung’s massive lakefront estate. They were all there to honor Hung on his fifty-fifth birthday. Straker was there to make sure Hung didn’t celebrate his fifty-sixth.

  “Hung may be the leader of the world’s largest sex slavery ring but you have to admire his beautiful home and its feng shui,” said Kenny Wu, Straker’s local contact and the man who’d secured him an invitation to the party. Wu’s tuxedo was one size too big for his bony body and made him look like a ridiculously overdressed scarecrow. “See how the house is tucked into the hillside and faces the water? That creates an unobstructed path for the chi.”