You Can Go ‘Round the World for .99!
“What???” you ask.
The Paranormal Privateers are zombies hired by the Federal government as privateers. The book opens with them fighting Somali pirates–by letting themselves get captured.
“Is that all?”
Nope! They go through the Suez canal and then on to Sevastopol, where they break up a human trafficking ring.
How do you feel about saving 80% on the book? Paranormal Privateers will be on sale from February 8th to 10th. Click here to grab your copy. But don’t wait. It goes up to $2.99 on February 10th. Then on the 15th it goes back to the normal price of $5.99.
Somalia Excerpt
Inhaling the salted breeze, he grinned back at Muhammed. He cheered and laughed in his seat behind the M2 machine gun in the bow of the boat they used to patrol the coasts and fishing waters of Somalia. The sun gleamed off his white teeth.
“Look, Dirac!” he said. “They’re stopping!”
True enough. The bow wave ceased as he watched. A pod of dolphins ended their sporting on the wave and submerged. The gleaming white yacht loomed above them. What were they doing in the fishing waters of Somalia? He couldn’t imagine the wealth on board. Enough for their whole village to eat well for a year!
Their supreme leader, Omar Ogala, organized Somali fishermen and former coast guard sailors to patrol their fishing waters. He ordered them to capture any fishing or cargo vessels they spotted. He told them the Americans and Europeans no longer cared about Somalia with the other crises around the world and they could defend their coasts from foreign competition—and dumpers. Many foreign nations, knowing Somalia’s military weakness, sent cargo ships full of pollutants and dumped them into their waters.
Dirac never expected to see a luxury ship here. It was as big as a cruise liner, but apparently a private yacht. He’d seen one once before when an Arab sheik visited Mogadishu. This one was three times the size! The owner would pay big to get it back. Maybe even a billion dollars? He couldn’t imagine that much money, and he was good with numbers. Let’s see: fourteen million people lived in Somalia. Divide a billion dollars among them would give each about seventy dollars. Unbelievable. A family of five could live comfortably for a year on that!
You Can Go ‘Round the World – Part 2
He came along as a navigator, fighter, and boarder, guiding their boat along the shore of Somalia and into the Arabian Gulf for several days, before leading them back. Besides Muhammed and him, there was Zahi, another fighter and boarder, and Ali, their captain.
“Dirac,” Ali said, “you and Zahi board this ship and take the helm. You will follow us back to Hobyo. Muhammed and I will stay on the boat and keep the machine gun on them.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Ali took the megaphone they carried for ship-to-ship communication. “Let us board! Let us board! Or we will gun your ship!”
Dirac didn’t understand English, of course, but he knew what Ali was saying. Ali was the only one who knew any English.
“Don’t shoot! Give us time! We have to get our ladder!” Surprisingly, the person spoke in Arabic. Good Arabic too, but with a strange Saudi and European accent. More surprisingly, it was a woman, a blonde, from what he could see of the figure leaning over the railing far above us. He kept a close watch on her. Strictly for security purposes, of course.
They kept their boat about fifty meters away from the ship and watched the crew scurry about the many decks. Dirac counted five including the main deck, and there were at least three more decks below the main one.
You Can Go ‘Round the World Part 3
Finally a rope ladder unrolled from the main deck, perhaps ten meters above them. They came close to the ship. A pod of dolphins flashed under their boat. Then they leapt out of the water and into it.
Only, they weren’t the dolphins he had seen earlier. Four people in green wet suits landed with heavy thumps in Dirac’s boat. They had no breathing equipment, not even snorkels. They took off their goggles, and their eyes shone bright red in the sun.
“Zombies!” Ali cried. “Shoot them!”
Automatically, Dirac sprayed the nearest with his AK-47. He heard the others fire too. Muhammed shot the largest one with the big .50-caliber machine gun. That could cut a man in two.
Dozens of red craters appeared in the black wet suit of the one Dirac shot. But she—a white, brown-haired woman—didn’t go down. Her brows furrowed in anger, and shouting in English, she ripped the gun from his hand and threw it into the ocean. He was like a baby with a rattle taken by his parent. The other zombies did the same, except the big one. He grabbed the barrel of the machine gun in both hands and wrenched it from Muhammed. Dirac could hear the zombie’s flesh sizzle on the hot barrel. Then the big zombie bent the barrel into a right angle. Rubbing his hands together afterward, the burned skin fell on the deck of their boat. Pink skin showed on his palms.
He was enormous, bigger than two Somalis put together. His red eyes looked out of his calm, square face. The bullets from the machine gun had sliced the wet suit open across his chest, and more pink skin showed in the gap. As he watched, brown hair grew.
You Can Go ‘Round the World Excerpt – From London
From Chapter 4 London, the first draft of Paranormal Privateers, we find the paranormal privateers, George, Diane, Lulu, and Sharon, going incognito as undeclared zombies, quite against British law at the time. They’re using bloodhounds and zombie corgis to track down terrorists threatening London. Oh, and they have a truckload of zombie bulls.
Scotland Yard met us the next morning when we docked in the port of London. We divided up into three groups to cover the area. Diane and I took everything between Grosvenor Place and Belgrave Place. Lulu and Sharon took the area from Belgrave to Basil. The Scotland Yard dog handlers Jerry Naismith and Benjamin Buxley took the wedge from Basil to Knightsbridge.
We jogged along, Diane and I. She had picked up the special two-wheel wheelchair, iBot, from Kamen industries office in London and loved tooling along at six miles per hour. Since we were in England maybe I should use the metric equivalent: ten kilometers per hour. I had no trouble keeping up with her, even as a deaf-mute. If people talked to me, I just handed them my deaf-mute card. The dogs, our two corgis, and two bloodhounds, also in service dog vests, loved it.
Then came a yell over our headsets. It was the Scotland yard crew, Jerry and Ben, both yelling.
“We’ve found them! The terrorists! They’re on the second floor of Harrods, in the tableware section!” said Jerry.
“We can’t get any closer! They’ve got tasers!” said Ben.
You Can Go ‘Round the World
After more adventures, the zombie privateers (lead by My Undead Mother-in-law Diane Newby) go to Washington DC.
Why Washington DC? Because aliens landed there.
I had fun researching Washington DC’s geography, the layout and distances around the National Mall, and shaped explosive charges!
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You Can Go ‘Round the World – An Author Reading
Here’s another excerpt, read by Yours Truly, Andy Zach. Get Your Free Excerpt is from the beginning of the book, chapter 1.
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