Diamond Rain: Adventure Science Fiction Mossad Thriller (The Spy Stories and Tales of Intrigue Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

in his head that grew louder by the day.  I never want to be a man, he thought.

 
    Gangs
and the DEA Destroy Calm
     
     
     
    Thomas’ mother stayed true to her word.  She
packed two suitcases, one for Thomas and his younger sister, Patsy, and one for
herself.  She coerced her father, a widower who’d escaped ‘the troubles’ by
moving south to Killorglin, into leaving.  Still in a state of shock, they
boarded a ferry in Dublin that made for the port of Liverpool.  There, her father
used his fishing connections to get them passage on a freighter to Boston.
    At first, Thomas was
furious, but the emptiness of the Atlantic appealed to him.  Its swells bashing
into the bow of their rust-bucket freed him of the suffering he felt.  On one
occasion he awoke in his bunk in the bow of the ship in the early morning. 
They were many miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.  An unusual sound
startled Thomas from his deep slumber.  Something whacked against the bow,
echoing under Thomas’ bunk.  He slid the curtain isolating his sleeping area
from his grandfather’s bunk in their double room and he slipped into his boots,
laced them up tight and made his way to the deck.  He took his parka from a
hook on the back of the door.
    The late September air
jolted him alert and he realized that something was frightening him, but he
didn’t know what.  He walked slowly along the deck.  He had the run of the ship
by this stage of the voyage and no one took particular notice of the insular
boy who loved wandering the various structures.
    Thomas glanced over the
bow at a point near the forward winches.  He pulled himself into a position
that allowed his short frame to view the ocean churning beside the ship through
the railings.  Then the sound repeated itself, frightening him again.  He
froze.  I should get Ma and Sis and Grandpa.  Doubt gripped him.Then
the echo repeated itself twice, more loudly.  Thomas’ heart beat in his
throat.  He was holding the railing and listening intently when the night watchman
appeared beside him.
    “That noise be only the
fall of the year, knocking winter’s hello,” said the ‘Newfie’ night watchman.
    Thomas’ heart settled
down.  The watchman and he had become fast friends on the voyage; the
Newfoundlander’s easy warmth broke into Thomas' shell by providing Thomas with
a fund of seaman’s information. He had given the young boy a cherished sailor’s
knife.  ‘ Newf’ silently continued his rounds, sounding the ballast along
the port side, spray from the frigid waters wetting his heavy black rain gear.
    Thomas returned to his
cabin and as quietly as possible opened the door.
    “Where’d you get to?’
asked the voice of his grandfather behind his privacy curtain.
    “Just on deck.  The
little icebergs scared me.”
    “Aye. I thought it
might be that.  You alright now?”
    “Ya.  ‘Newf’ told me
about ’em.”
    “Get some shuteye now,”
Gramps said.
    “How much longer,
Gramps?”
    “Sleep now, Son.”
    Thomas tried to sleep
but the adrenaline stirred in his blood by the sudden awakening and the ensuing
fright didn’t let him.  He got up again when his grandfather started snoring. 
He made his way to the bow, sat in the protected space between the anchors and
just out of the splash from the Atlantic.  Soon the sunrise bolstered his
spirit.  A whale spouted its unique breathing song and Thomas made his way
‘aft’ to the kitchen.
    The hook-nosed cook, a
grump who talked daily of the ‘hair of the dog’ he needed in the mornings, slid
Thomas’ breakfast over the counter in the galley.  Two eggs with buttered white
toast crumbled into them.  Thomas went to his spot in the corner and silently
gobbled away.
     
    ****
     
    Before he knew it, the voyage was over and the
family was disembarking at Boston.  His mother and Gramps told the customs
agent who boarded the freighter to process their arrival that they were
returning to Ireland in three