Former Colonel Lou Christopher is an ex-Army Ranger retired
from the military and contentedly working as a New York investment broker.
After being assigned a number of lucrative accounts and becoming accustomed to
living the good life, he discovers there is a pay back. His former military
skills are requested under a threat of losing everything he has.
Handed a group of misfits to assemble into a
military strike team, he is coerced into leading the team on a mission of
domestic terrorism. At the center of a bridge outside of Manhattan, his strike
team is caught in the act and unexpectedly becomes engaged in a deadly
firefight. It's then that he learns the mission was a political maneuver from
the highest levels of the U.S. Government-and ultimately realizes he has been
betrayed by his superiors. Learning his team was considered nothing more than
collateral damage and intended to be killed and left as scapegoats, he uses his
unique military expertise and engages in a fight for his life.
As the strike team is decimated, he and a female
teammate elude the opposition forces to survive and escape, turning the tables
on his superiors. Using his distinctive set of military skills, he now becomes
the hunter and vows to extract his revenge and bring them all down.
BIO:
Transplanted to Maine mid-westerner Larry Crane brings an
Illinois sensibility to his writing. Larry graduated from West Point and served
in the Army before starting
a business career on Wall Street. His writing
includes articles for outdoor magazines, plays, short fiction, and his most
recent thriller novel, A Bridge to Treachery. In his spare time, Crane is a
hobbyist videographer for his local Public Access Television
Station and is a volunteer at his local historical society. Larry and wife Jan
live in splendid isolation on the coast of Maine.
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Excerpts - A Bridge to Treachery
From Chapter 23 A Bridge to Treachery - Larry Crane
Lou got to his knees and scrambled under the trailer toward Frawley’s body. He reached across
him, for his carbine. Immediately, the police threw another fusillade of fire. Lou was caught in
the middle of the searchlight beam. He scrambled back to safety behind the tire as bullets
screeched around him, careening off the concrete in a shower of sparks, miraculously failing to
ignite the gasoline. By the weight of it, he judged the magazine of the carbine to be almost full.
Back toward the center of the bridge, the police cars were creeping forward. Lou crouched
behind the front tire of Mack West, gathering his strength for a sprint. He got to his feet and
plunged out into the darkness adjacent to the bridge railing. He pumped his legs with all of his
strength. He saw the dark form of his drenched jacket in the roadway ahead.
The headlights of the approaching squad cars created angular shafts of light through the wheels,
undercarriage, and stanchions of Mack East and the three-quarter ton full of napalm drums. He
dove for his jacket, grasping the machine beneath it in both hands. He whirled the handle once;
nothing. Then again, harder. Again. On the third twist, the center of the bridge seemed to heave
up in a ball of yellow and crimson flame. A thunderous roar enveloped the bridge and sent
shocks through the girders and the concrete surface, throwing Lou to his back.
Globs of thickened aviation gasoline arched through the night--clearing the overhead
cables—and then plunged to the inky river below. The massive ball of flame slowly rose off the
surface of the roadway and engulfed the cables and lights above.
Lou got to his feet and turned back toward the western end of the bridge, racing back toward
Mack West. For nearly a full minute, the center of the bridge was aglow with intense seething
light; yet no one fired at him. He went right to the truck, hugging the side of the roadway and the
railing. The air in his lungs seemed to swell in his chest until he couldn’t catch his breath. And
still no one fired.
Back in the shelter of Mack West, Lou sank to his knees behind the front tire. The entire bridge
and the mountains on either side of the Hudson were lit by flaming napalm that now stuck to the
overhead cables and slowly dripped in globs of orange flame to the roadway. He’d stopped them.
He became aware of the pulsing, rug-beating throb of helicopter blades. He looked out to the
north of the bridge and saw a military HU-1B hovering at the level of the roadway, its landing
lights gleaming. Red lights flashed on the tail boom. He was receiving no fire. The cops must
have been holding off to keep from accidently hitting the chopper or firing into their comrades
closing in from the east side.
Slowly the craft moved forward, dipping its nose and gaining altitude. It ascended above the
bridge, swinging back to the eastern side. Thirty seconds later, Lou heard throbbing directly
overhead. The chopper hovered out in front of him, by the traffic circle, and descended to the
ground. There was no firing. It was the perfect time to go.
He reached the end of the railing. Instinctively, he veered to the right, across the narrow strip of
grass. He dove headlong into the underbrush, still holding the carbine. He crawled on all fours
over roots and rocks and under bushes and low hanging branches that grabbed at his weapon and
held him back. He reached the cut.
It was steeper than he thought. He started down the embankment on his rump, warding off
boulders and stumps on his way down with his feet, but soon he began tumbling and sliding in a
cascade of rocks and water. The pool at the bottom was not deep and it was no colder than the
rain.
At first, it was absolutely black in the cut. Gradually his eyes adjusted, but there was no moon
and no reflective surfaces to magnify what little light existed. He was shielded from the open
ground a hundred and forty feet above him at the level of the bridge. He heard no sound except
the splashing of water at his feet and his own deep breathing. The rain still came down steadily,
unrelenting. For that he was thankful. It would mask all of his movements.
There wasn’t much time. He didn’t know if they’d seen him dart off under the cover and
confusion of the helicopter landing. The only thing to do was to strike out west, shielded from
view until he was far from this place.
“Hello...” he heard from the other side of the stream. It was a half
whisper. “Is it you?”
“Come over here,” he said softly. “Over here. I’m holding out my hand.”
He heard her stumble into the water and stifle a screech. Then his hand was holding hers; pulling
her across. She rushed to him, clutched at his shirt, and wrapped her arms around him.
“You don’t look dead,” she said.
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