Black Flagged Redux
Read Black Flagged Redux Online
Authors: Steven Konkoly
Black Flagged Redux
A novel by Steven Konkoly
Book Two in the Black Flagged Series
Copyright Information
Copyright 2011 by Steven Konkoly. All rights reserved. Except 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 written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact
[email protected]
.
Features Index
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
EPILOGUE
Bonus excerpt from Black Flagged series
Excerpt from The Jakarta Pandemic
Prologue
Arrival
Chapter 1
Introduction
Excerpt from The Voynich Cypher
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
Black Flagged Redux Equipment Primer
Dedication
For Kosia, Matthew and Sophia. My favorite people in the whole world.
Acknowledgments
As promised in
Black Flagged
, the acknowledgments continue to grow. Because of this, I have provided a link to the acknowledgments. They are hidden at the back of the book.
About the author
Steven Konkoly graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served for eight years in various roles within the Navy and Marine Corps. He currently lives with his family in southern Maine, where he works for a major pharmaceutical company.
He published his first novel,
The Jakarta Pandemic
, in 2010, followed by
Black Flagged
in 2011. An excerpt from his apocalyptic thriller,
The Jakarta Pandemic
, can be accessed from the link below, along with a with a bonus excerpt from the
Black Flagged
series.
Excerpt from The Jakarta Pandemic
Bonus excerpt from the
Black Flagged
series
Please visit Steven's blog for updates and information regarding all of his works.
About Black Flagged Redux
Black Flagged Redux
takes place roughly two years after the events of
Black Flagged.
If you haven't read the first novel, it's not necessary that you go back and read it before starting
Black Flagged Redux. Redux
was designed to stand on its own, however, it will be a much richer read with the first book under your belt.
Unlike the relatively limited geographic scope of the first novel,
Black Flagged Redux
spans four continents and several time zones. In order to make this a little easier on the reader, each scene is stamped with a location and local time. Keep in mind that the scenes occur in chronological order. Here is a short list of the time zone differences between the locations featured in the
Black Flagged Redux
and the U.S. East Coast: All locations in Argentina +2 hours, Kazakhstan +11 hours, Kiev + 7 hours, Moscow/Monchegorsk +9 hours, Stockholm +6 hours.
Three maps have been included in the table of contents to help the reader navigate the geography, along with an equipment primer. If you're interested in some of the weapons and vehicles referenced in the novel, the primer will give you a quick visualization.
Finally, don't forget about the character list, which can be accessed from the link below and is accessible through the table of contents. You can also print one from my blog
www.stevenkonkoly.com
. I'm not saying you'll need it, but
Black Flagged Redux
adds to the memorable character list from
Black Flagged
.
Most of all, enjoy the book!
"Redux"- Latin, derived from reducere. Returning from war or exile.
IN THE BLACK
August 2006
2:30 AM
"Dock Sud" (South Dock)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Daniel Petrovich shifted his elbows slightly and stared through a small handheld spotting scope at the building one hundred and sixty meters away. Situated strategically among several dozen stacks of partially rusted, multi-colored maritime shipping containers, the modest, unattractive two-story structure didn't garner much attention on any given day. This particular Wednesday proved to be an exception, though to the casual observer, it looked like any other late night in the sleepy, working class barrio, on the southern outskirts of Dock Sud.
The areas immediately beyond the container yard's high walls were quiet, except for the cars that passed in the distance on Avenida Juan Diaz de Solis. Since he had arrived two hours earlier, only three cars had turned off Juan Diaz and penetrated the sizable slum squeezed between the container yard and a vast sea of fuel storage tanks that extended all the way to the Rio Plata waterfront.
He reconfirmed the presence of two sentries stationed outside of the building: one on the roof of the two-story building and one pacing a small wooden deck located on the second floor. The sentry on the deck guarded a door at the top of an adjoining, external metal staircase. Lights blazed behind the curtains inside the windows on the second floor, leading him to assume that the ground floor was deserted and possibly not connected to the upper level. The outer staircase further supported this theory.
The rest of Petrovich's team waited in the shadows of three separate container stacks surrounding the structure. The building and all adjacent stretches of flat gravel were bathed in the orangish-yellow glow cast by several strategically placed sodium vapor lights, which prevented the rest of the team from approaching any closer. Only the two sentries stood in the team's way at this point and removing them was his job.
Lying prone for two hours on the hard metal container was starting to take its toll on his concentration, and he found himself shifting every couple of minutes. He employed active breathing techniques to take his mind off the fact that his hip and elbows were beyond the point of finding comfort on their new metal home. He gently placed the spotting scope next to his elbow and pulled the dark gray thermal shielding blanket over his head, nestling in behind his rifle. The rooftop sentry scanned the dark areas of the container yard with a portable hand scope that may have thermal detection capability. The blanket was designed to conceal Petrovich’s thermal signature and worked well against low-power handheld scopes, but would do him little good against the kind of sophisticated thermal imaging equipment found mounted on aircraft or vehicles.