State Sponsored Terror
STATE SPONSORED TERROR by David Carter
State Sponsored Terror
My new book "State Sponsored Terror" is OUT NOW!
It should be made into a movie. Excellent book. !!!
May 15, 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
This is my first time reading a book from David Carter and I have to say that I’m very impressed. This an excellent book , well written, likable characters and not so very likables ones , I spent 2 days without moving just to finish the book. What an imagination. - Amazon.com Review
May 24, 2018
By following particular individuals in the story, the reader learns the extent of the evil faction of the government and the justifiable rising opposition. David Carter writes a powerful, frightening story of just how possible this scenario really is! I will be reading more of his work.
A novel that could be taken from tomorrow's headlines.
June 22, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition
A well written novel that follows the lives of members of a family and their friends and colleagues.
A mash-up of George Orwell’s 1984, Nazi Germany and today's governments.
David Carter has woven a dystopian warning to all of us today, to watch out for tomorrow.
In a small Hampshire town teenager Adam Goodchild witnesses his mother’s brutal murder, shot dead by security police in the back garden of their cute cottage, an event that will one day return to haunt the British government.
Adam goes on the run only to discover he isn’t alone, for there’s a whole underclass of malcontents out there with similar stories to tell.
“State Sponsored Terror” charts the course of Britain in the near future. There’s a new government in power, led by a maverick charismatic leader who can do no wrong, winning election landslides, brought to power on the back of populist policies, savvy social media, and fake news.
This is a political thriller and a disturbing page-turning novel that will keep you interested to the very end.
It's available for pre-order now. 410 Pages. ISBN: 978-1976531637
Here are some early buy links:
To Buy on Amazon.Com Click Here
I've had a couple of folks asking if there is an excerpt they can check out - so your request is granted. Here is the complete first chapter. Hope you like it.
One
The chrome kettle clicked and shuddered and blew steam across the kitchen. Adam tore his eyes from the TV screen and glanced at the large digital clock. 5.18. His mother would arrive back on the 5.20 and the trains always ran on time. She’d be home in less than ten minutes.
He grabbed two mugs from the kitchen cabinet and tossed a spoonful of instant coffee into each without taking his eyes from the screen. Rolling news. Rolling, rolling, rolling…. the square headed guy with the immaculate haircut, and the bob-cut pasty faced blonde, newsing it up for England.
5.27. He could set his watch by his mother’s movements, unlike his own, and he still didn’t understand how she managed to do that, the ability to appear at the precise moment that she said she would. He sat at the kitchen table and sipped the coffee, cheap supermarket lookalike tripe. He grimaced and cursed. Footsteps on the path. Heels. She was almost home.
He heard the key in the lock and watched the door open.
‘Adam!’ she said, a note of urgency in her voice the languid youth could not miss. She was in the kitchen, standing before him, breathing unusually heavily.
‘Hi, Ma, I’ve made you some coffee.’
‘Never mind that, son! You must get in the hole. They are coming!’
The youth scoffed.
‘This isn’t the Middle Ages, mother. Who are coming? And I’m not getting in any hole either! Drink your coffee before it gets cold.’
‘Bugger the coffee!’ she shrieked, ‘I mean it!’ and she took one of the mugs and threw half the content down the plughole, before setting the mug upright in the sink.
‘Get in that hole before I give you the back of my hand!’
Adam’s mouth fell open.
His mother had never once struck him, not in anger, not in his memory, and nor had his father, so far as he knew, though he could barely remember his dad at all. Parental discipline in the Goodchild household had only ever consisted of stern voices, and an occasional stoppage of his money allowance, and in truth, that had always been more than sufficient.
‘Don’t you think you are overreacting a tad?’
It was as if his mother wasn’t listening.
She was wrestling with the oak panelling set to the right of the large brick hearth. Carnachan had made it, built it with his own hands.
‘You never know when you might need a hiding place,’ he used to say, as if it had been born from deep within his long forgotten Irish genes. ‘You just never know,’ in that quiet way of his.
Sometimes that voice alone could reduce Mary to tears, when he spoke in that way, as she looked at him and marvelled at his presence, his immaculate body and calm face, and right there, when she had finally opened that priest hole, as Carnachan always referred to it, she thought of him from all those years ago, from before when Adam was born. He had built it with such great care, like wood craftsmen always do, carpenters, that’s what he was, a professional carpenter, and though it would take ages for him to complete anything, when it was done, it was always immaculately constructed, and beautifully finished.
A work of art, they called it, the pair of them, as they laughed and smiled together, and shared a bottle of stout, a secret hideaway that only the two of them would ever know. His meticulousness was the first thing that had attracted her to him, once she had overcome the initial feeling that he was simply being over fussy. He wasn’t fussy at all; he was meticulous in everything he did. She grew to like it, that meticulousness.
‘Get inside, boy!’ she ordered. ‘Please son. For your mother’s sake!’
Adam looked down into his mother’s eyes. He saw fright and terror, mirrored images he had never seen before. It alarmed him. His heart rate exploded, and for a second he had to fight his limbs, for oddly, they did not wish to obey.
‘Oh, Mum, do I have to?’
She ignored his protests and ushered him inside, and already he was entombed. Adam could hear her outside replacing the panels, ensuring that everything was just so. In the darkness, he pressed his ear to the wood and listened. Silence. He was alone, but for the three large vaguely interested spiders that sat quietly in their webs above his head, awaiting their prey. The boy was sadly, too big for that.
A large drop of cold sweat fell from his armpit and dribbled down the secret white skin of his left side. He hadn’t noticed before it was a cool evening, and began shivering. His teeth chattered, in the darkness, surrounded in silence.
Mary sat at the kitchen table and glanced nonchalantly at the Bournemouth Echo. Terrorists Arrested In London, the headline blared, not that she noticed the words, for her mind was absent from that little cottage. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and shifted in her seat. Loud footsteps on the path brought her back to the present. Two sets at least, possibly more. Urgent steps, military, manly, unsettling footsteps.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
The old brass doorknocker her long dead mother had bought for her in Lymington market demanded attention. Heavy quality, British made, long before the cheap foreign rubbish had flooded into the shops. It did the job it was built to do, did it well, and Carnachan had approved of it, because he knew that it would last.
Rat-a-tat-tat! Louder this time, and then a man’s voice, ‘Open Up! Police!’
Inside the hole, Adam heard the voices.
‘Coming,’ Mary said gently, as she slowly made her way, as unflustered as she could manage, toward the ancient planked door. She undid the lock and pulled it open. Two men. Civilian clothes. Miserable, fit looking white men. Middle-aged, and between them, one gun, one large, black, and frightening firearm.
‘We have a warrant to search this house!’ barked the leading man, as he pushed past her into the kitchen.
‘But why?’ she said, following them into her home. ‘What on earth for?’
‘You know damn well what for!’ he snarled. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes, I am. Look, who are you? Identify yourselves.’
‘Inspector Jarvis Smeggan,’ the leading one grunted.
An unusual name, she thought, though somehow is seemed to fit, for he gave off the appearance of misery personified.
‘This is Sergeant Trevor Hewitt.’
She glanced at the hastily flashed ID cards, though in truth she was none the wiser.
‘Where’s the offspring?’ demanded Smeggan, managing to say even that in a spiteful manner.
‘Still at school, football practice, something like that.’
Smeggan sniffed, and glanced around the room.
Adam was shivering less than ten feet away, his ears pricked like a forest pony surrounded by foxes.
‘Take hold of her!’ ordered Smeggan.
The sergeant grabbed her from behind, his arms curling under her armpits, locking together behind her head, forcing her arms into the air.
‘That hurts!’
‘Shut up!’
Smeggan closed on her and stared into her eyes. She could smell his breath, stale tobacco, spiced sausages he’d recently eaten; she guessed he’d not long burped, and she turned her head away. From behind, the sergeant shook her, and forced her to face his boss.
‘It’s very simple,’ Smeggan said, ‘you either help us and go free, and we’ll spare the sprog the indignities that are bound to come his way, or you don’t…. and pay the consequences.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You’re hurting me. Let me go!’
Adam listened in silence, feeling inadequate. Hateful.
The inspector drew back his arm and slapped her heavily across her left cheek.
‘Ow!’
Adam winced.
Mary felt the sensation of blood running in her mouth. Tasted it too. Tears could not be far away, for both the Goodchilds.
‘It’s very simple,’ he repeated, ‘all you have to do, is tell us where the Tinbergen Papers are.’
‘The what!’ she said, incredulously.
He grabbed her chin with his finger and thumb and squeezed hard.
‘You heard me! I am rapidly losing my temper!’
‘Inspector, I have no idea what you are talking about. Let me go before I make a complaint.’
He drew back his hand and slapped her again, as Hewitt held her tighter still. Blood seeped from the corner of her lip and began dribbling down her chin. Smeggan came closer and smiled, exhibiting crooked teeth.
Mary brought up her right knee with all the power and force she could muster. All those long evenings of keep fit and yoga and judo classes had finally paid dividend. Those jerking knee movements they specialised in so. She caught the intended target bang on. Smeggan’s mouth fell open, as he gasped for breath. He turned to one side, and doubled up.
‘Bitch!’ he squawked from the corner of his mouth.
‘You all right, boss?’ mumbled Hewitt, momentarily relaxing his grip.
Mary sensed it and twisted violently one way, and then the other, and with all her strength she burst from Hewitt’s full Nelson hold. She ran to the back door, unlocked it, and was through it, before they could stop her.
The garden to Lilac Cottage was long and narrow, and was packed with plants of every conceivable size and shape. Mary was not so much a gardener, as a plantswoman, and she loved them equally, dearly; as if they were members of her own family. Plants can hear, you know, she would tell her neighbours and friends, if those same friends ever said anything remotely detrimental about any one of them.
The garden stretched all the way down to an old wooden stile that gave access to a small meadow, where in the early morning and late evening, a family of deer could be seen grazing. A narrow paved path ran down the centre of the garden as if some giant had scrawled a pencil line in the earth. Beyond the meadow lay the open forest.
By the time the policemen reached the back door, Smeggan, breathing heavily, saw that Mary was half way down the garden.
‘Well?’ said Smeggan, struggling to stand upright.
‘Sir?’ whispered the sergeant.
‘Are you going to let her escape?’
‘No, sir. Certainly not, sir.’
‘You know what to do, Hewitt.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, detachedly.
He raised the HK417 and trained it on the escaping woman.
She was at the stile, her right foot on the cross beam.
‘Take out the terrorist!’ ordered Smeggan.
‘Are you sure, sir?’
‘Are you questioning my orders, man? I won’t tell you again.’
Mary Goodchild was over the stile and had leapt onto the freshly nipped meadow. She hadn’t changed her shoes, and they weren’t truly suitable for sprinting over damp grass.
She never heard the short spit of automatic fire.
Adam did.
Mary fell down dead on the grass, her blood staining the meadow, a scarlet mess to be cleaned later by the creatures of the night.
Smeggan smiled horribly, and turned away.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s search the house. Should be fun.’
*********
The book runs to 410 pages and is OUT NOW as an ebook on Amazon, It will also be released as a paperback too.
Here's some book reviews posted on Amazon.com
May 15, 2018
As ever, thanks for stopping by and reading my stuff. I do appreciate it. Have a great day!
STATE SPONSORED TERROR by David Carter