Chaotic Butterfly: A Supply Chain Management International Suspense Thriller by James Amoah

Author:James Amoah [Amoah, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pascal Editions
Published: 2021-09-15T22:00:00+00:00

3

Robert Clark sat on the bench at Sauvabelin Park, watching the men emerge from the woods.

Russian Security Forces, thought Clark. It was obvious from their massive build, their bland expressionless expressions, the curling communications cords winding from their collars to the earpiece in their ears. Obvious from their hard close-cropped features. From the bulges ill-concealed by their well-cut if undistinguished suits.

Pavel had gone, and that was the signal. To do what? Not to spare him. He would not have seen them at all then. To kill Clark? To smash his face, shatter his bones?

Probably not the latter. He and Pavel had known each other too long for that. They had shared information, even counsel, even friendship of a sort.

But each were the tools of those who set higher policies. They were allowed a certain degree of independent action, but only so much. Pavel would not spare him if ordered otherwise. There were lines one could not cross.

Clark had crossed such a line. He had wondered if Pavel could, or would, shield him from the worst possible consequences.

Apparently not.

Clark was too much the professional not to consider his options as the men approached. They were very few. He did not believe in any of that spy movie nonsense. He never carried a pistol, and successfully deploying Hollywood-style kung fu against four such obviously formidable Russian assets was too absurd to consider. Did he really want to spend his last moments hoping to execute a triple-axle back flip to some Russian’s groin? If he was about to die, he did not want to die laughing.

He thought of the monk and the cherry again, and sought to find some final thing to cherish.

But how to cherish just one thing when there was so much! The beauty of the trees and the branches, and the dying sunlight glowing rose-red through the branches. The rustle of the leaves in the soft wind. The distant songs of birds. He felt an obscure gratitude for so many things—his strong hands, the penetration of his mind, the glory presented to his senses. The faces of a few women. Mary’s, as a young child, the first time he had seen her. His father. His mother. The pages of the Bible, with their strange English lettering, so cramped and small and regimented, not flamboyant and artful like Chinese ideograms, their flourishes lilting like the wings of cranes.

There flickered through his mind the starved faces of the dead in the camps. The clouds drifting behind Mount Fuji, the hot dogs in a ball park in New York. He thought of Coca-Cola. A Big Mac. The capitals of Europe. Audrey Hepburn. Brahms. The red flag.

He smiled at his own sentimentality.

Mary was alive. Safe. Nothing else really mattered.

The four Russians now stood in front of Robert Clark in a semi-circle. He looked at them one by one, without anger, without malice. To his surprise, an unbidden prayer issued from his heart, a prayer for Mao Song. Guard my dearest friend, O Lord. And

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