Zones

M.W. Fletcher

Description

My name is Stone, Mason Stone; I am a blue zone bounty hunter. If you are a High Value Individual (or as we say, HVI) you can run and you may even try to hide, but I will acquire you dead or alive... the choice is yours!Do you remember when the world was made up of continents? Well, on the 20th day of the 10th month 2030 (10/20/30) the world went to war when Iran launched a nuclear strike on Israel.On the 31st October 2030, eleven days into the conflict, the world just managed to step back from likely Armageddon. By the 8th December that year, the world map had changed forever; continents no longer existed and the world was divided into four zones: blue, red, yellow and white.When the war ended, extradition treaties that had been in place for many years simply ceased to exist. On the 15th January 2031, the blue zone countries created a judicial body, officially called The Justice Section.We call it Jay-Sec.A new justice for a new world.

Sujets

• Political
• Adventure (Guyana)
• Politics
• Adventure
• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 19 juillet 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785387692
• Langue: English

Extrait

Zones
M. W. Fletcher




Published in 2018 by
AG Books
www.agbooks.co.uk
an imprint of
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
The right of M.W. Fletcher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
Copyright © 2018 M.W. Fletcher
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.




Dedicated to:
The people in my life that I am lucky to have around me.
You know who you are!
For the memories we have shared and to those we have yet to experience.



Quote
Laws are made to instruct the good, and in the hope that there may be no need of them; also to control the bad, whose hardness of heart will not be hindered from crime.
- Plato (427–347 B.C.), Laws, Book IX



Preface
A bounty hunter captures fugitives for a monetary reward (bounty).
Bounty hunting originated in England hundreds of years ago. Back in the thirteenth century, bail was a person, not an amount of money.
An individual was designated custodian of the accused, and if the accused did not return to face their penalty, the custodian would have to accept any penalty the justice system dealt out, including being hanged if that was the sentence handed down.
During colonial times, America relied upon the bail system set up by the government of England.
In 1679, the British Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act, which for the first time guaranteed that an accused person could be released from prison on monetary bail.
This right was later written into the US Constitution. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the setting of excessive bail, and the Judiciary Act of 1789, which established the US judicial court system, defined the terms for bail-able offences.
The bounty hunter was given broad authority starting in 1873 with the US Supreme Court case, Taylor v Taintor. This case gave bounty hunters the authority to act as agents of bail bondsmen, furthermore it allowed bounty hunters on the trail of a bail jumper to pursue them into another state and, if necessary, break and enter their house for that purpose.
Federal bail law remained unchanged until the Bail Reform Act of 1966, which allowed the prisoner to be released with as little bail as possible to secure his or her return for trial.
The 1984 Bail Reform Act allowed the courts to hold accused persons without bail if they were deemed too dangerous for release or a flight risk.
On 15 January 2031 following the war, all this changed, as a new breed of bounty hunter materialised these individuals were known as Blue Zone Bounty Hunters!
Their territory and hunting grounds were the whole of the world.



Chapter 1
When he came to, he was sitting in a bloody uncomfortable position in what he believed to be a wooden chair.
He was bound and hooded. God knows how long he had been like this because his body was already stiff from inactivity.
His breathing was now becoming laboured due to the hood over his face and the rancid smell from it was making him feel nauseous.
What had happened to him? He had been drinking in a shithole of a bar, one he had frequently patronised over the last year in Mogadishu. He had gone for a piss and come back to finish his beer.
He’d found a stranger now sitting at the bar next to his seat. The stranger had raised his beer bottle and given him a nod. He had reciprocated as he sat back down on the stool, picked up his beer, and taking a large swallow, replaced the bottle back on the bar. It had been the last recollection he’d had.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening along with the sound of someone moving towards him and then everything went silent again. A moment later he heard what he thought was the rustling of paper, then a voice spoke in Arabic.
“Abdul-Nasir-Ismail-Al Somali, you have been found guilty in your absence of murdering seven people from the British delegation in Cyprus four weeks ago, when you bombed the Elysium hotel in Paphos. I have a warrant here and will be taking you back to face justice for your crimes.”
Abdul was stunned by what he had heard: yes, it was true that he had bombed the hotel, but he was back in the Red Zone now, a place of safety and non-extradition. A cold shiver ran down his spine.
He remembered the man at the bar: his hair had been unkempt and long enough to cover both his ears; the colouring was a brown salt-and-pepper mixture often seen on older men, but this man was around thirty, and he had not appeared out of place.
He certainly had some slight European features but there had been a strong Mediterranean look about him; his face had been covered with a few weeks growth of stubble.
Abdul countered with: “There ain’t any way you will get me out of Somalia for I have plenty of friends here!”
The voice replied again, in Arabic: “The contract states ‘dead or alive’. I don’t know which you would like but I’ll collect your bounty all the same - your choice.”
Abdul immediately knew the type of man speaking to him and although it was hot where he was, the cold shiver that he had experienced a few moments ago returned with a greater degree of intensity.
He raised up his hooded head, facing the direction of where the voice had come from and said: “You’re a fucking bounty hunter! Listen - whatever they are paying you I will double it!”
* * *
Hello. My name is Stone - Mason Stone, aged thirty-four. I am five feet eleven inches tall and I have been a freelance bounty hunter for the past ten years, up until January of this year when I became a Blue Zone bounty hunter.
Firstly, there are four things you need to know: you can run and you can hide, but I will find you, then you are mine - dead or alive!
Like any effective predator, I know my prey. The profession requires resourcefulness, intelligence and the cunning to outthink and outsmart any target.
I had been in Mogadishu for the past week searching for my quarry and established two days ago the bar he frequented and that it was a favourite haunt of his.
The buildings around here were built from stone, covered with plaster made from crushed seashells and coral rock with a final whitewash finish.
Most of the buildings were blemished with bullet holes of every size and shape imaginable; many houses were deserted, riddled with holes from small and larger sized ammunition, coupled with smears of black smoke stains to what was left of any glass and surrounding brickwork. It all added to the chaotic effect.
Following the Second World War back in the last century, the mainly Islamic indigenous tribes had been warring in this region ever since.
This was the last place any white man should be, but my Mediterranean complexion along with a couple of weeks of facial growth helped with being able to blend in.
Nonetheless, in my line of work, there are no such things as any ‘no go’ areas. I had visited this bar on several occasions with no signs of my target, but today I was in luck.
The temperature outside was 32 degrees Centigrade and in this hovel they called a bar it was not much cooler. I sipped on a cold beer as the pathetic ceiling fan in the centre of the room twirled around, attempting to distribute the warm air around the room.
As it spun it gave out a constant clanging that was still audible above the drone of the talking going on.
I had discreetly observed the occupants while I sat at the bar. Normally I would be looking for the person or persons who would pose the most threat, but in here, I had no difficulty identifying the threat level.
Every one of them was a murderer, thief and cut-throat; most of them were chewing a Khat leaf that releases an amphetamine-like stimulant - a commonly consumed drug among combatants in this area of the world.
I was probably the only one in the room not openly displaying a weapon, but during my time over the past few days I had only been engaged in conversation on a couple of occasions; this was obviously a tactic by some of the locals to check me out. Knowing the language had certainly kept me off their radar.
After that, no one seemed to pay much attention to me. This was a place where strangers seemed to come and go and one more face in the crowd that was obviously not white was not seen as a risk.
There were two exits: the main door in and a back door that led to an outside toilet, a small open-roofed wooden shack with two piss holes and a real lavatory for the other end of the business. Pieces of paper from old newspapers stuck on a large metal spike on the wall were available to take care of that end. However, having looked at it, I would need to be at the end of my tether to use it!
Additionally I could use one of several open windows if a quick exit was required; there were several blind spots consisting of supporting beams for the roof.
As soon as my mark left, the bar to go to the toilet I discreetly slipped a few drops of a powerful and quick-reacting sedative into the man’s beer bottle.
Upon his return my mark took a drink and several seconds later slumped forward, his head landing on the bar table. I just sat there an