Samuel Terror alert level fire red

Thriller
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-64268-382-0
Verlag: novum publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 608 Seiten

A devastating attack on a luxury hotel in Bali triggers a red alert in South East Asia. American special agent Robin is sent to Singapore to lead the fight against Islamist terrorists in the region. The hardened and experienced agent relies on stealth and deception to infiltrate the terrorist cells, but will not shy away from merciless liquidations if necessary. In the fascinating exotic ambience of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, a bitter struggle with many dramatic twists and turns ensues, with the agent also experiencing many a nasty surprise. The fact that Robin knows her way around in all situations is not only demonstrated by her acquaintance with the young Frenchman Julien ...

Autoren/Hrsg.

Samuel, Sarah

Leseproben

Chapter 1

The pool bar provoked the jihadists to the utmost. Scantily clad women sipping alcoholic drinks: Nowhere else in the Ritz-Carlton did people violate the Islamic rules of faith so shamelessly. In the eyes of the Islamists, this place of mortal sin alone justified the relentless punitive action against the luxury hotel on Jimbaran Beach.

Ten terrorists rushed up in two mud-colored Land Rovers. With screeching brakes and tires, the off-road vehicles came to a halt in front of the hotel entrance. The men in combat fatigues, their faces covered with black scarves except for narrow slits, jumped out of the vehicles and immediately began firing from their Kalashnikovs. Before the two hotel security officers could react in the slightest, the first hail of bullets mowed them down.

This meant that nobody was now blocking the way into the spacious atrium that towered several floors high and offered a view of the well-tended gardens full of lush tropical flora through huge glass fronts. This lobby gave the impression of being on the outside of a palm house with coconut and fan palms, banana trees, ixora and hibiscus bushes, orchids, angel trumpets, and other splendid displays of Southeast Asian nature, rather than in the entrance hall of a hotel. Three hooded men, unimpressed by this grandiose backdrop, rushed through the lobby and hurled hand grenades into the reception to paralyze the Ritz-Carlton's control center from the start. The professional welcoming smiles froze on the faces of the attractive young Balinese women standing behind the highly polished teak counter in their floral-patterned batik sarongs. They became another item of collateral damage; even feminine charm and gracefulness could not win mercy from the Islamists.

Then the three gunmen came across a group of twelve French tourists who were waiting in the lobby for a transfer to Denpasar airport. The terrorists pointed their guns at the horrified travelers and herded the surprised group into the management office on the ground floor of the eastern wing. There the twelve hotel guests were taken hostage together with the general manager of the Ritz-Carlton and his secretary.

Meanwhile, the other attackers stormed onto the terrace shouting "Allahu akbar!" and surrounded the pool bar. As they had expected, it was very busy at the happy hour in the late afternoon. They found the scene unbearable for them, with prosecco, champagne, and cocktails all over the tables and half-naked women as the pinnacle of scandalous indecency. The Islamist assassins took particular pleasure in exploding bottle after bottle of alcoholic beverages behind the elongated bar with hand grenades and turning them into a sea of flames. For the devout Muslims, this symbolized the hellfire that would scorch the infidels for all eternity as punishment for their sins. This momentary distraction allowed some alert guests, who had just been looking forward to a spectacular sunset in the sea, to flee along the sandy beach. The bar patrons, on the other hand, who had already become lethargic due to their alcoholic excesses, froze in shock at their tables.

Suddenly, revolver shots rang out and one of the assassins - obviously hit - cried out in pain. The assault rifles responded furiously to this attack by two men who had crouched protectively in front of a third one who was seeking cover under a table. However, these three hotel guests had no chance against the barrage of fire from the Kalashnikovs and were cut down in a bloodlust fueled by a frenzied craving for retribution. The terrorists suspected that the protected victim must be a prominent personality and therefore riddled his body with a marked display of sadism. In fact, this person was the Australian consul in Bali who was vacationing at the newly opened Ritz-Carlton to make a demonstrative statement that this tropical island paradise was now safe for Australian tourists. In 2002, the devastating bomb attacks on nightclubs on Bali's Kuta Beach killed over 200 people, most of them Australians.

During this exchange of fire, some other guests managed to get out of the danger zone. The masked men mercilessly massacred the 20 or so remaining bar patrons, hunting down women in bikinis with marked malice. Then the attackers surrounded the swimming pool and whipped bullets into the water until it turned crimson and no swimmer emerged alive.

After this orgy of bloodshed, the terrorists combed the ground floor of the huge hotel for further Western victims who could presumably be found in the various restaurants, the lounge, the wellness area, and the fitness center. Particularly productive in this foray turned out to be the refrigerated storage room for food supplies into which panicked guests, cooks, and waitresses had fled. Unleashed Rambos now transformed it into a chaotic jumble, a chamber of horrors full of corpses, fruit and vegetable shreds, burst cans, leaking bottles, and smeared shards of glass. On the floor, fruit juices, milk, sauces, jam, blood, and body excretions melted into a disgusting, viscous slurry. Around two dozen people lost their lives in this storage room alone. Even the most hardened police officers who later investigated the attack were horrified by the gruesome state of these corpses.

In the fitness center, the masked men took pleasure in staging a mass execution. The eight men and women they found there first had to strip off their few clothes and then stand against a wall with their arms raised. They were then bound by their feet and systematically riddled with bullets, starting from their knees and ending at their heads. The victims' hysterical, but of course completely useless pleas for mercy further amused the executioners. When the police later found the massacred amateur athletes, rivulets of sweat, panic piss and diarrhea as well as coagulated blood on their skin formed a macabre styling as if for a Halloween party.

In the meantime, a hotel employee had finally managed, with his cell phone, to contact the emergency call center in Jimbaran which forwarded the alarm to a task force in Denpasar. The cry for help reached the officer on duty there, Police Major Siloso, also known as Peng Peng by friends and colleagues since he always carried a large-caliber revolver and two rapid-fire pistols on his belt. Like most Balinese, he was of diminutive build and therefore wanted to establish his authority through the arsenal of weapons on his uniform belt.

Major Siloso was put in a tight spot by the emergency call - the officer in Jimbaran spoke of terrified and breathless panic in the voice of the hotel employee - because he only had a few men from his special unit at his disposal. As there had been no further spectacular terrorist attacks on Bali for years after the attacks at Kuta Beach, the Indonesian police's special squads were gradually withdrawn from the island. They suppressed the demonstrations on other islands in the archipelago, which were constantly breaking out due to the growing corruption in the oil-rich country. Major Peng Peng was therefore forced to increase his small remaining force, which had received specialist and professional training in Australia, to full strength with regular police officers with no experience in counter-terrorism. Siloso and his ragtag task force made their way to the Ritz-Carlton hotspot without much confidence.

On the way, the major called the hotel management office. One of the hostage-takers picked up the phone without answering. The police officer shouted into his cell phone:

"This is Major Siloso from the Denpasar task force. We are on our way to you. What's the situation at the hotel?"

"Excellent for Muslims and hellish for infidels," the terrorist replied cynically. "In fact, we've pretty much cleaned up the cesspit of sin here."

"Who are you and what do you want?" growled Major Siloso brusquely, immediately recognizing the situation of a terrorist attack.

"I am Jihadi 5 and we are 30 holy warriors here. We want to perform a task pleasing to Allah: to liberate our country from the whorish and drunken infidels! If you attack us here, you will degrade yourself to a miserable accomplice of this Satanic brood. Think carefully about what you are doing, because we have taken a large number of hostages. One wrong move on your part and all these people will be executed!"

With that, the hostage-taker slammed down the receiver. He then sent one of his comrades-in-arms to gather all the jihadists into a compact defensive position in the management office.

When the terrorists heard the police sirens, the masked men took up battle-ready positions. Major Peng Peng wanted to give his squad precise instructions at the hotel entrance, but a few inexperienced men stormed into the lobby and indiscriminately fired most of their ammunition, even though there was not a soul to be seen. The police major now feared that the arsenal of violence on his side might be inferior to that of the assassins, especially if Jihadi 5 had told the truth and there were 30 certainly well-armed opponents entrenched in the hotel. But of course the terrorist could also have been bluffing. In any case, tactical prudence dictated that contact be made with the enemy again. This time Jihadi 1 answered.

"Where are you hiding, you cowardly sons of bitches?" provoked Major Peng Peng.

"We're waiting for you in the director's office," Jihadi 1 blurted out impulsively, but immediately regretted what he had said.

"Good, then we know where we can smoke you out," said Major Siloso threateningly.

"You won't do that because we're holding twelve foreigners as prisoners here. They are our bargaining chips against you."

The police...