Arctic Fire (48 page)

The name came out with such authority and
conviction that Murphy had to do a double-take just to see if it
really was Crawford talking. “I know that you really don’t like us
and that you think the jungle is no place for a woman but I am not
an animal, able to run with leaps and bounds through the jungle
while you three show each other how tough you are. Your chief sent
you to help us, the servants of God, and I don’t think Hoku would
be too happy with the way you’re ‘helping’ us.”

Crawford promptly sat on a fallen tree. “I’m
tired. But I am smarter than all you three because I’m at least
willing to admit I’m tired. Now let’s all sit down and take five
before we push onward and upward.” He reached down, grabbed one of
his canteens and unscrewed the cap. “I think we...”

He stopped in midsentence with his canteen
halfway to his lips, his eyes suddenly filled with fear, frozen in
sheer terror.

Murphy was looking up the slopes at their next
challenge when he heard Crawford stop talking in midsentence and he
turned back to see why. He froze for a moment as his brain was
processing what he was looking at; their native guide was pulling a
knife on his friend. As if in slow motion, he reached in and
started to grab for his pistol but immediately realized that Kekao
had too much of a head start and that he would never get his weapon
out in time to save his friend.

Paul grew up in Oregon on the shores of the
mighty and mysterious Columbia River, and spent endless hours
daydreaming on the beach in front of his house, making up stories
about the ships from exotic ports all over the world that steamed
up the river – what secret cargo might they be carrying; did they
harbor spies who were on dark and exciting missions?

Later in adult life, he moved to another
mysterious and provocative city – Las Vegas, just outside the
famous Nellis Air Force base. After work he would sit on his porch
and watch the fighters take off and land, igniting his imagination
with visions of secret missions and rich speculation about what
could possibly be hidden at Area 51.

After moving back to his native Pacific
Northwest, Paul worked for the Navy and took every opportunity he
could to speak with veterans from WWII to the Gulf War, listening
to them swap stories and relate the experiences of a lifetime.

So it is this combination of a passionate love
of history, a vivid “what if” imagination, and a philosophy of life
that boils down to the belief that –
there are few things if
life that a bigger hammer won’t fix
– that led Paul to become a
writer of exciting, fact-based action-thrillers. His greatest joy
is leaving his readers wondering where the facts end and the
fiction begins.