Snow Falls Read online

  SNOW

  “Snow Falls”

  Bobby Nash

  SNOW FALLS

  Stark Raving Group LLC – Publishers

  P.O. Box 1451

  Beverly Hills, CA 90213

  Copyright © 2014 BOBBY NASH

  First Stark Raving Group edition 2014

  Cover Design and Illustration: Dennis Calero

  Title Treatment – Bob Wynne

  ISBN: 978-1-63052-007-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording , or other, without written permission from the publisher.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Electronically printed in the United States of America

  Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution and Bookxy

  Abraham Snow knew he was about to die—

  —and the thought of it pissed him off to no end.

  Everything had been going according to plan.

  Before it all went to hell, everything was moving forward as laid out. The meet was set. All of the details had been checked and rechecked. Every i had been dotted, every t crossed. It had taken him years to get this far inside, but he was finally getting a face to face with Miguel Ortega. The man was a ghost, a legend. Ortega was a phantom that law enforcement operatives all over the world had been chasing for decades. No one had even come close to catching the elusive Miguel Ortega, despite the fact that he was rumored to have his hands in everything from the drug trade to arms dealings to human trafficking to murder for hire. There was a good reason for this, however, and Agent Snow was one of a select few people alive that knew the truth.

  Miguel Ortega was an alias.

  It was a code name frequently used by less than reputable men and women who preferred to remain anonymous while keeping their questionable business dealings close to the vest. This alias provided the Ortega’s of the world with a sense of security. Snow had finally made it past the middlemen and low-level goons inside the organization belonging to the Miguel Ortega he was after.

  That’s how Abraham Snow, in his alias as James Shepperd, found himself standing on the blisteringly hot tarmac of a tiny smuggler’s airfield in the middle of a South American jungle in a suit, sans tie, standing next to a beautiful woman named Daniella Cordoza. She was Ortega’s right hand and was as dangerous as she was alluring in her formfitting custom dress. They both stood out of place against the jungle backdrop. Snow didn’t trust her, but he needed Cordoza to get to her employer.

  One minute, everything was going according to plan.

  The next— well, the next minute was not so good. Time moved as though it was trapped in amber. The man in the white suit was all smiles as they walked to meet one another across the airstrip’s tarmac. Snow was finally getting his face to face. It was the first step in the final chapter of his undercover operation.

  “Agent Snow,” the man said, once he was within earshot.

  It took half a second to realize what he had said. Snow did a double take. Ortega had called him by his real name, Abraham Snow, not the James Shepperd alias he had been working under the past eighteen months. How the hell does he know my name?

  “I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else, Mr. Ortega. My name is…” Snow started, but it was no use. He could tell by the man’s demeanor that there would be no fast-talking his way out of this one.

  His cover was blown.

  Somehow, someway, someone had sold him out. The list of possible rats was small. Only a handful of people knew his true identity, and most of them he had known and trusted for years. His mind raced through the possible scenarios— a leak inside the Pentagon or the CIA, a compromised asset, or a mistake he’d made himself, a slip up that had given him away. Each of these played across his mind in less time than it took to realize how deep in the shit he was at that moment.

  He was all alone.

  There was no backup close by, no one to swoop in and save the day.

  Snow reached for the gun tucked into his belt behind his back.

  Ortega moved faster.

  Still smiling, he pulled the Glock-30 from a shoulder holster and squeezed the trigger.

  Snow felt the first impact, but it wasn’t until the second one that he realized he had been shot. The next thing he knew, he was knocked off his feet, flying backward through the air. Snow dropped to the asphalt, unmoving, blood leaking out of two very large holes in his body. A tingling sensation in his extremities told him that the blood loss was substantial. Despite the humid clime, he felt a chill run through him.

  He was dying.

  Ortega had only fired three shots. The first clipped Agent Snow’s arm, spinning him around. The second missed completely. The third hit its mark, center mass.

  Snow stared up into a brilliant blue sky punctuated with a few fluffy white clouds as blood pooled beneath him. Above him, Ortega and his companion stood and looked down at him. He was smiling, but she wasn’t. That surprised him. Although they had been intimate with one another, neither of them had pretended it was anything more than a physical convenience. For him, she had simply been another asset to get him closer to his target.

  Mission accomplished.

  He had found Ortega.

  Surprisingly, he didn’t finish the job. After a moment, Miguel Ortega shook his head, turned, and walked away, out of Snow’s line of sight, presumably back to his plane. Daniella Cordoza stayed a moment longer, and he thought he saw sadness in her eyes, although he couldn’t be sure of anything as he lay there gasping for air.

  And then she was gone.

  He assumed she had a plane to catch.

  Snow’s vision grayed around the edges as he struggled to catch his breath. Then, surprisingly, followed the sensation of flight, as if gravity no longer held sway over him. Trees and clouds flashed past his vision at dizzying speeds until gravity reasserted itself, and he crashed back to Earth.

  And just like that it was all over.

  All that remained was darkness—

  —and pain.

  SNOW

  FALLS

  Contents

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Stark Raving Press

  1.

  The view was gorgeous as it flashed past his peripheral vision.

  Nineteen weeks had passed since Abraham Snow had been left for dead on a smuggler’s airstrip in South America. The week of surgery and follow up procedures had been bad enough, but eighteen weeks of physical therapy and recovery time had almost driven him mad with boredom. He had spent every waking moment of those nineteen weeks reliving that moment, wondering if there had been some clue he’d missed, some tell-tale sign that should have warned him that things were about to go pear-shaped.

  Now that he was finally free of the treatment center and all of his former obligations, Abraham Snow was unattached, unemployed, and happier than he had been in years. Waiting for him at the check out desk was a small box and a note. He smiled as he read the short note scribbled there in familiar handwriting. Sitting outside the treatment facility was a candy-apple red 1961 Chevrolet Corvet
te convertible, and it was waiting for him.

  Thought this might lift your spirits. Have fun, the note had said, and boy did it ever. Snow had loved this model car since he was old enough to dream about driving. His grandfather had once called this car the greatest achievement in man’s history. Although he could probably cite a few other examples, he couldn’t deny how great this car was to drive. The ’vette handled like a dream.

  He couldn’t get on the road fast enough. All he wanted to do was put the shooting, the treatment center, and his old life behind him. All he had handy was in a duffle bag tossed in the back seat. He really hadn’t given much thought to where he would go after his release from the treatment center, but now he had a destination. He decided to take the scenic route to get there.

  After reorienting himself to the Greater Atlanta area, Snow marveled at how much his city had changed, but he also noted, with a small hint of pride, how much of it had remained the same. He was enjoying his drive, but fatigue had started to set in. It was a sensation he was unaccustomed to feeling but one that his doctors had told him he would have to get used to, at least for the foreseeable future. No matter what the surgeon told him, he would never accept this limitation.

  He pulled onto the interstate, headed north, and put the city in his rearview mirror. The Greater Metro Atlanta area was easily divided into two sections: Inside The Perimeter and Outside The Perimeter. The Perimeter was what the locals called Interstate 285, a giant loop around the city. Snow had grown up in the city but spent a lot of time at his grandfather’s farm outside the city. It was a small oasis from the hustle and bustle of city life but was still only for a short car ride away.

  Snow hadn’t seen his grandfather in years. Such was the nature of undercover work. When you go under as deep as he had, you had to divorce yourself completely from your old life. It wasn’t easy, but Snow had learned how to compartmentalize the disparate parts of his life. He just hoped he could return to the life he’d had before.

  The farm looked pretty much the way he remembered. He turned into the long tree-lined drive from the road to the farmhouse. To most people, a farmhouse was a small, modest dwelling, but the Snow family rarely did anything modest. Or small. Calling the farmhouse a mansion would probably downplay the definition. All brick and rock, Grandpa Snow’s house had always looked like a castle to him when he was younger. Now that he was older, it looked less like something out of a fantasy novel, but was no less impressive.

  He parked next to the porch on the side of the house, the one that was used more often than the front door. The side entrance had always felt less formal, which suited Snow just fine. To his thinking, only visitors rang the front porch bell. After all these years that he had been away, he supposed he was a visitor now. As he reached up a hand to knock on the door, it opened to reveal a broad shouldered man in jeans, shirtsleeves, and a cowboy hat. He also wore a very broad grin.

  “There he is!” the big man shouted and scooped up Snow in a big bear hug.

  Snow winced under the embrace, tried to stifle a grunt.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, boy,” Archer Snow said, suddenly remembering where his grandson had spent the past five months. He released his grip.

  “It’s okay, grandpa,” Snow groaned. “I’ll live. I think.”

  “It’s just so damned good to see you, son,” Archer said, motioning Snow toward the deck off the back of the house. “So glad to have you home.”

  “It’s good to see you too,” Snow said. He pointed toward the white hair poking out from beneath his grandfather’s hat. “When did this happen? Last time I saw you this was a lot darker?”

  Archer removed the hat to reveal a head full of snowy white hair. Like his grandson, Archer’s hair had that unruly quality that no comb could defeat and never stayed in place. “You’ve been away a long time, kid. The snowy top comes with the territory.” He smiled. “Besides, I can see you’re sporting a few salty gray streaks as well.”

  Snow unconsciously ran his hand through his dark mop of unruly hair. “Thanks again for the loaner,” he said, motioning to the car and hoping to change the subject. “That’s one helluva car you’ve got there. Thanks for letting me test drive her.”

  “You like it? It’s yours.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Snow said, grimacing. Unlike some members of his family, Snow rarely accepted gifts from his grandfather and even on those odd occasions when he did, he did so reluctantly. Snow did not want their relationship to be built only on what the old man could give him. That was probably why they got along so well.

  “Still a stubborn cuss, I see,” Archer said. “I wonder where you get that from?”

  Snow chuckled. “Gee, I wonder.”

  “Must run in the family. I blame your father.”

  So do I, Snow thought, but instead shook his head. “Guilty as charged,” he said.

  “We’ll call it a loaner then. You feel free to drive it as long as you need to, okay?”

  “Fine, grandpa,” Snow said, surrendering. “Fine. You win.”

  “I usually do,” he joked. “So, how are you feeling?”

  “I’m really getting tired of being asked that question.”

  Archer waved it off. “We don’t have to talk about it,” he said. “I should have known better than to bring it up this soon. I’m sorry, kid.”

  “No. It’s okay, Grandpa. Really. I’d rather get it from you than from strangers,” Snow said and offered a pained smile. “It hurts. Bad, but I’ll live.”

  Archer nodded but said nothing. He knew that sometimes the best way to get information was not to ask for it but to say nothing and let the other person fill the silence. It was a trick he had learned as an interrogator years earlier when he had been in the same kind of business that his grandson had followed him into. He was thankful none of the other grandchildren took that path. Worrying about one was more than enough for him. He hated using interrogation techniques on his grandson, but he also knew the danger of keeping his thoughts bottled up inside. The kid had to let it out sooner or later.

  Snow ran a hand gently over the wound. “Do you know what the difference is between life and death?” he asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Half an inch,” Snow said, holding two fingers the same distance apart. “That’s it. That’s how close I came to checking out. If that bullet had been just half an inch over, that would have been it, you know? Just half an inch.”

  “I do,” Archer said. “I’ve seen more than my fair share of death, kiddo. You were lucky, I’ll grant you that. Or maybe you got a guardian angel sitting on your shoulder. Either way, I’m just glad to have you back home.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Any idea how long you’ll be sticking around?”

  “I’m back for good, I think,” Snow said.

  “They benched you?”

  “No,” he answered, then fell silent before continuing. “But I am thinking about benching myself.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I think I’m done, grandpa,” Snow said. “I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on things while I was recuperating. I suddenly… I realized that I really haven’t lived my life, you know? I’ve been pretending to be somebody else for the better part of my adult life. I forgot what its like to be Abe Snow. I think I might enjoy being me for awhile, if that makes any sense?”

  “I can see the appeal,” Archer said and waited. He knew what was coming next.

  “So, how did you know when it was time to hang it up?”

  “Pretty much the same way you did,” Archer said. “I realized that I had spent so much time in countries that were not mine, pretending to be someone who wasn’t me, while dealing with people who did bad things. It wears on your soul, son, chipping away at the part of you that makes you, you. I pulled the pin while there was still enough of me left inside that I could recognize.”

  “I think I’m there now,” Snow said. “I just wish it hadn’t taken getting shot in the chest to make me
realize what I was missing.”

  “God talks to each of us in unique ways,” Archer said.

  “I wish he had spoken a little softer.”

  Archer smiled. “Well, it takes a lot to get through that hard head of yours, kid. You always were a little too stubborn for your own good.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Snow joked. “I’ve not been stubborn a day in my life. Now, my grandpa on the other hand…”

  “Please, kid. Don’t even start. I know all your childhood stories, remember?”

  Snow’s smile faded as he stared off into the distance. “I think it might be time to get out of the game while I’m still ahead.”

  Archer squeezed his grandson’s shoulder. “Abraham, this is one of those life moments that no one can choose but you. Just know that, whatever you decide, I’ll support you.” He shrugged. “Besides, you could always come to work for me.”

  Snow’s brow creased. “Yeah. No. I don’t think so.”

  “There will always be a place for you,” Archer said. “Not just because you’re my grandson, either. A man with your record of service brings a lot to the table. Don’t discount the possibility out of hand. Promise me you’ll at least consider it.”

  “I will, and that’s nice of you to say, but there’s one very important factor you seem to be forgetting in all this.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The president of your company hates me.”

  “Hate is such a strong word, kid.”

  “But an accurate one,” Snow joked. “He doesn’t want me there, and frankly, I don’t blame him. We’re all probably better off if I keep my distance.”

  “I think you’re oversimplifying things, son,” Archer said. “If you just talked to him, I’m sure you two could come to some kind of understanding. Who knows, maybe now that you’re both older and more mature, you can sit down and hash out your differences like rational adults.”

  “Oh, I think we understand one another just fine,” Snow said. “Trust me, nothing’s changed.”