Sweet Dreams

Sweet Dreams
Book Jacket

Rating:

Tags:
Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Suspense, Thrillers, Mystery & Thrillers, Espionage

EDITORIAL REVIEW:

What would you do? Your family is threatened and your only hope of saving them is to kill! Mark Appleton faces his worst nightmare as he hunts a killer, but little does he know that he is the one being hunted. Kirk Weston is a detective with the Detroit police department. His life, although not going as planned finds himself investigating a mysterious group known only as the WJA. Just when he is about to make a breakthrough on the case something terrible goes wrong…he finds exactly who he is looking for!

ACCLAIM FOR AARON PATTERSON'S

SWEET DREAMS

"New authors come and go every day. Very few

come on the scene with the ability to weave a tale that will make you sad to reach the end, longing for more. At a time when the world needs a real hero, Patterson delivers big with the WJA's Mark Appleton--an unlikely hero for the 21st century."

--

The Joe Show

"Aaron Patterson spins a good tale and does it well."

--

W.P.

"SWEET DREAMS
is packed with action, suspense, romance, betrayal, death, and mystery."

-- Drew Maples, author of "28 Yards

from Safety"

AARON PATTERSON

SWEET

DREAMS

B o o k O n e I n T h e W J A S e r i e s

Copyright (c)2008 by Aaron Patterson

All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Borderline

Publishing

2008

Borderline Publishing

305 N. Steelhead Way

Boise, ID 83704

www.borderlinepublishing.com

First Hardcover Edition: November 2008

First Paperback Edition: November 2008

Second Paperback Edition: April 2009

The charters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Patterson, Aaron, 1979-Sweet Dreams: a novel/ by Aaron Patterson. -2nd ed. p.cm.

ISBN 978-1-4276-3587-7 (Paperback)

TXu 1-586-116 September 6, 2008

1-92758771

Cover design by Andrew Garcia

Printed in the United States of America

For my wife Karissa,

the love of my life and my best friend.

SWEET DREAMS

-The Revenge of Justice-

Chapter One

TEHRAN, IRAN, IN JULY WASN'T HOT;
IT WAS HELL.

The heat would melt
the soles of your shoes to the pavement if you stood in one place too long. The night air would bring some relief with its cool musty smell of sand and sweat. However, it seemed this evening the cooling desert would not give up any of its pride and send a much-needed breeze into the city. No this night was muggy sticky and just plain miserable. Tonight was like any other night for Hokamend. As he thought about how his best friend died in a bus bombing just six years earlier, he went about his reading as he did every night; a book called "The Fall of America." He and his friend had spent countless hours together going over and over plans and drawings of the metro system, trying to find the perfect place to set off the explosive.

Muttering a prayer to Allah, as he looked up to the sky and noticed that it was starless and a storm was thinking of moving in to tease them with rain and in the end leave without so much as a drop. He smiled and a spark of victory lit in his eyes. He envied his friend in some ways; he was in a place beyond this world, a place of which he could only dream. He snapped his head up as he realized what still had to be done. Someone had to finish the work; someone had to finish

"them!"

His hate for America and disdain for the people who infested the land made him want to spit just for thinking about them and their smug faces and their fancy cars. He would bring them to their knees. He would wake the sleeping giant and then take its head off.

Hokamend jolted out of his daydream as he heard his bodyguard walking past the door to his room. He relaxed a little. His guards were the best money could buy. They walked in four shifts and in different patterns, every hour to keep any lurking enemies confused. Hokamend was a careful man and never took chances with his own life. True he called even demanded his followers to give up theirs in service to Allah, but he was different, he was worth more. He was a wanted terrorist in America, and a half-million dollar bounty on your head could make even your friend consider the offer. However, he knew if anyone were even suspected of turning against him, there would be hell to pay. Fingers, toes even a tongue every now and then had a way of driving the truth home that under no circumstances do you ever cross Hokamend.

He slipped to his feet and walked to his window balcony to

DREAMS

3

light up a cigar. His stocky frame wasn't what you would expect from such a high-profile criminal. His jet-black hair fell in a tangled mess like black spaghetti over his shoulders, almost hiding a small scar above his right eye. "A battle wound," he would say. He was proud of all his scars, and he had many to be proud of, to him they showed his devotion to Allah!

A small flicker jumped into the sky as he flicked the lighter and drew in on his hand rolled Cuban. Looking out over his land his eyes scanned the perimeter and instinctively looked for snipers or anything that might be out of place. He wasn't surprised to find nothing amiss, after all this was the perfect place to build his palace. It stood atop a hill with four guard towers armed with snipers at each corner and the ground below had two fences that made a wide circle around the entire grounds. The fence was topped with razor wire and fifteen mangy trained guard dogs roaming in-between the two fences. Get past one fence and then get real lucky and slip past the dogs then the snipers would finish the job.

Everything within a mile around the white stucco and brick palace had been cleared and bluegrass was kept short making it look more like a park then a secure compound. The lush green lawn was void of trees, shrubs or anything else an enemy could hide behind and get close enough for a shot. Standing like a stubby statue he looked around at the city lights gleaming in the night air like little bat eyes staring at him wondering if he was a friend or foe. Taking a deep draw, he let out a cloud of thick smoke and wondered when they would figure it out. Or would they ever.

"No," he thought, "they don't have the stomach for it.
They were weak!"

A tiny mosquito landed on his arm and began to suck blood like a small vampire, he swatted at the pest and missed as the bug dodged just in time to save its worthless life. "Stupid bugs." They were out in force tonight, and there was no cool breeze to fend them off.

"Bzzz..." He swung his hand at the mosquito and cursed. This time he made contact with the bloodsucker making a blood smear on his arm.