Title:
Rath’s Deception
Author: Piers Platt
Publisher: Piers Platt
Pages: 350
Genre: Sci Fi/Thriller
Author: Piers Platt
Publisher: Piers Platt
Pages: 350
Genre: Sci Fi/Thriller
On
the cut-throat streets of Tarkis, orphaned teens like Rath end
up jailed … or dead. So when the shadowy Janus Group
offers Rath a chance to earn riches beyond his wildest
dreams, he seizes it. But the Janus Group is as ruthless as
the elite assassins it controls. Rath will have to survive
their grueling, off-world training, and fulfill all fifty kills
in his contract before a single cent comes his
way. And ending so many lives comes with a price Rath can’t
anticipate. It’ll certainly cost him what’s left of his
innocence. It may well cost him his life.
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Book Excerpt:
A
light flickered on the edge of Rath’s peripheral vision: his
internal heads-up display had an incoming message.
Rath
felt a bead of sweat form at his brow. He smiled at another group of
guests and offered them his tray of canapés, simultaneously
advancing through screens in his heads-up display to find a photo of
Sorgens in order to identify him.
Okay,
got it.
“We’re
all done, thanks,” one of the guests told him.
“Of
course,” Rath said. “Sorry.”
Guess
I lingered a little longer than a normal server would have. He
stepped away from the group, spinning slowly in place as if planning
which group he would approach next. There’s
Sorgens – far side of the room.
Rath
stopped at three other groups of party-goers, working his way around
the outside of the room in a looping curve, careful to avoid heading
directly for the Deputy Ambassador. As he left the third group, he
rearranged the napkins on his tray, as if straightening them, and
surreptitiously jabbed one of the canapés with a tiny hypodermic
needle, before slipping the needle back into his sleeve. Then he
turned and headed for the Deputy Ambassador, but a security guard cut
in front of him. Rath changed direction smoothly and headed for a
different group, but he kept Sorgens in his line of sight. The
security guard was leaning in close to Sorgens, covering his mouth to
whisper in his ear. Rath dialed up his audio implants.
“…
credible threat. Intelligence is rated ‘High Reliability,’ so
we’re taking it very seriously,” Rath heard the man say. The
Deputy Ambassador blanched, his face turning nearly as white as his
tuxedo shirt. “I’d like to get you out of here right now, sir.”
Sorgens
turned to the other guests, and made his apologies. “I’m sorry –
I’m afraid duty calls, there’s an urgent message that needs my
attention.” He headed toward the room’s exit, closely followed by
the guard.
Want
a snack before you go? Rath
thought, chagrined. He broke away from the group he was serving and
walked briskly toward the kitchen, which was in the same direction
Sorgens was headed.
Let’s
hope the kitchen has another exit close to wherever Sorgens is
headed.
Rath
ducked inside – to his relief, he saw an exit at the far side of
the crowded room. He dumped his tray into the first trash can he saw
and elbowed through the servers and cooks, heading for the door.
“Hey,
watch it, asshole!” a busboy protested, spilling several plates
onto a steel countertop.
Rath
ignored him and continued toward the back of the room, pushing
through the swinging door. Sorgens was just disappearing through a
side door halfway down the corridor, while the guard positioned
himself outside the door. That
looks like a restroom. Rath walked
toward the guard, who was watching his approach closely, hands behind
his back.
Probably
got a pistol in a belt holster back there, Rath
decided. So
much for the frontal assault.
Instead
he took a sharp right turn down a side corridor, disappearing from
the guard’s view. Mechanical plates implanted within his face
shifted, obeying Rath’s commands, while his hair greyed, and his
skin tone lightened. In the space of three seconds, he looked exactly
like his original target. He turned on his heel, and stepped back out
into the main corridor, looking both ways before appearing to notice
the guard.
“You,”
Rath pointed at the man, “have you seen my deputy around here?”
“Sir?”
the guard asked, confused. “Oh, yes, Mr. Ambassador: Deputy
Ambassador Sorgens is right in here.”
“Ah,
excellent,” Rath said, walking up. He was at least two inches
shorter and thirty pounds lighter than the real ambassador, but
people were slow to notice body type differences – if the face and
hair matched, such discrepancies were usually dismissed. Rath’s
voice matched the Ambassador’s as well. As ever, hearing another
man’s computer-generated voice from his own lips made Rath’s skin
crawl. “Let me just have a word, and then you can get him out of
here,” Rath told the guard.
“Of
course, sir,” the guard said, holding the door open for him.
Rath
let the door close behind him, then strode over toward Sorgens, who
was standing at a urinal along the wall. Sorgens looked up and saw
Rath.
“You
heard about the threat?” Sorgens asked.
“I
did,” Rath replied. “Glad to see you’re on your way out of
here.” He called up the targeting module in his heads-up display,
and slipped a pen out of his pocket. The implement was known as a
ballistic pen, built out of reinforced titanium for use as a
close-quarters weapon, and modified by Rath to include a nerve toxin
coating, for a faster kill. As Sorgens zipped himself up, Rath’s
eye implant overlaid an anatomical model on his image, matching it to
fit his size and body orientation relative to Rath, highlighting his
bone structure and major organs. Sorgens turned away from the wall,
and Rath stepped forward, putting his full body momentum behind the
thrust. The pen punched between two ribs, directly into the
highlighted outline of Sorgens’ heart, while Rath covered Sorgens’
mouth with his other hand, stifling his shocked gasp of pain. Rath
left the pen embedded to minimize the bleeding, and, still covering
Sorgens’ mouth, he grabbed him under the arm and dragged him
silently across the room into one of the toilet stalls. He propped
the dying man on top of the toilet, pulled the door shut behind him,
and walked over to the sink, where the ambassador’s reflection
stared back at him.
Need
to wash this blood off my hands. But my guess is that guard is
supposed to escort Sorgens out of the building, so it’ll be an
easier exit if I pose as him.
“Everything
okay, sir?” The security guard was pushing open the door.
Rath
reacted instinctively, and bent over the sink, splashing his face
with water as he shifted his hair and face to match Sorgens’. He
stood up and reached blindly for the paper towels, and dabbed at his
face as he completed the transformation. When he opened his eyes, the
guard was eying him in the mirror.
“Ready
to go, sir?” the man asked.
“Yes
– let’s get going,” Rath told him. The guard glanced at the
closed stall door and Rath tensed himself in readiness, but the man
simply turned and walked back out into the hall, checking in both
directions before motioning for Rath to follow.
That was close, Rath
thought, falling into step as they headed off down the hallway. He’s
going to be pissed when he finds out he personally escorted the
killer out of the building.
About the
Author
Piers
Platt is the New York Times bestselling author of "Combat and
Other Shenanigans," a memoir of his year-long deployment to Iraq
as a tank and scout platoon leader. Piers grew up in Boston, but
spent most of his childhood in various boarding schools, including
getting trained as a classical singer at a choir school for boys. He
joined the Army in 2002, and spent four years on active duty.
When he's not writing or spending time with his lovely wife and daughter, Piers works as a strategy consultant in New York city.
When he's not writing or spending time with his lovely wife and daughter, Piers works as a strategy consultant in New York city.
His
latest book is the sci fi/thriller, Rath’s
Deception.
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Information
Thanks for having me!
Thank you for allowing me to share. The book sounds fantastic and the cover is amazing!