Under My Heel Read online

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Legal

  Social Links

  Series List

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Author's Notes

  Review Remarks

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

  Under My Heel - The Kurtherian Gambit 06

  Street Team

  Arthur DeForest

  Dorene Johnson

  Mike Lucas

  Scott Paul

  Diane Velasquez

  Editor

  Stephen Russell

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright (c) 2016 Michael T. Anderle

  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, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover art by Michael T. Anderle

  Version 1.01

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  The email list will be sporadic with more ‘major’ updates, the Facebook group will be for updates and the ‘behind the curtains’ information on writing the next stories. Basically conversing!

  Since I can’t confirm that something I put up on Facebook will absolutely be updated for you, I need the email list to update all fans for any major release or updates that you might want to read on the website.

  I hope you enjoy the book!

  Michael Anderle - Feb 04, 2016.

  Series Titles Include:

  Death Becomes Her

  The Kurtherian Gambit 01

  Queen Bitch

  The Kurtherian Gambit 02

  Love Lost

  The Kurtherian Gambit 03

  Bite This

  The Kurtherian Gambit 04

  Never Forsaken

  The Kurtherian Gambit 05

  Under My Heel

  The Kurtherian Gambit 06

  Kneel Or Die

  The Kurtherian Gambit 07

  (Mar 2016)

  CHAPTER ONE

  Washington, D.C. – USA

  Mary Brennan was silently suffering. Her husband, Martin, had been killed many, many, months before in the basement parking garage of his office building.

  It had been a gruesome and painful death. Oh, Brandin, Martin’s second in command had tried to hide the truth from her, in the beginning, to save her pain she was sure. However, you don’t stay the spouse of a government intelligence group member without learning a few tricks of your own. She had the autopsy report, she knew her husband had died in pain. More pain than she would allow herself to consider.

  Martin had been her rock. The man she was going to live the rest of her life with. They had plans to retire, to a beach or at least, to some place warm. She loved the Atlantic City coast, but it was still too cold and miserable too much of the year for her preference. Martin had promised her … he had promised her. Now, he was dead and she had no way to track down who had killed him or why.

  She finished putting on her makeup, like she did three times each week. Every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday she would get ready to visit Martin. She would prepare the single rose she had picked out the night before from the corner market and get into her eight-year-old Mercedes Benz. Like Martin, the car was her rock, dutifully getting her from place to place.

  She wiped a tear from her eye as she picked up the rose and left for her drive to the cemetery.

  It took her twenty-two minutes exactly. She had timed every trip. She left at 8:15 AM every time and arrived at 8:37 AM. Occasionally she would be a couple of minutes late, if she got behind someone slow. But, you could usually set your clock by her punctuality.

  She parked in the same spot for every visit. If it had snowed, the parking spot would have been cleared by the helpful caretakers. Those same caretakers had noticed her arrival every week, month after month.

  Reaching over to the passenger’s seat, she picked up this morning’s rose.

  The morning was crisp and cool, all of the sounds muted on this side of the cemetery. Rarely, if ever, did she meet anyone as she walked along the path that snaked between the bushes separating different areas.

  She came around the final turn, looked up the lonely little hill towards Martin’s gravestone, and stopped in her tracks. Martin wasn’t alone. She looked around and noticed a couple of men standing about fifty yards away. They were big guys, they looked professional, and they seemed to be watching over the woman.

  Her eyes drew back to the woman standing with her back to Mary. The lady was dressed in slacks, and a full length black winter’s coat came down to her knees. She seemed to be wiping tears away from her face, her shoulders hitched a little. The lady was crying. If Mary was any judge, she had been crying for a while.

  Mary started walking, a little faster this time. Who was she and why was she crying at her husband’s grave? She approached the woman, slowing down, making sure she would hear Mary’s footsteps so as to not surprise her.

  Mary watched as the woman put a tissue to her eye one more time and turned to face her. Mary’s eyes opened in shock.

  A dead woman was crying for her husband.

  Mary fainted, Bethany Anne deftly caught her, and the rose that had fallen from her hand, before either hit the ground.

  Somewhere in France

  David picked up the ‘throw away’ phone. Until he knew where Michael was, he was going to be just as anal about security as Anton had been.

  Not that it had, apparently, helped him in the end. Perhaps, David thought, Anton shouldn’t have hosted lavish parties that put a big target on his back. For such a devious ass, Anton was blind at times to his own inadequacies. Anton frequently harassed him about his castle, only to die himself in one of his own homes.

  David hadn’t received the full story, but he had been made aware that Anton was very, very dead.

  Apparently this little female, of Michael’s, was still being a resolute pain in the ass.

  David called one of his contacts in America. The voice on the other end of the line was abrupt, pushy, “Hello? Who is this?”

  “It is David.”

  The voice on the other end became less abrupt, “Oh, good to hear from you. I take it you know about Anton?”

  “Yes. That is the reason for the call. We need to up the pressure on this annoying brat Bethany Anne. I want you to move forward with the plans to push for a no-support vote against Gerry. Can you swing that?”

  “Possibly. He has made it harder since the test with the troublemakers has been succe
ssful so far. However, I will start planting rumors. We should be able to at least cause the council to dead-lock. Once we are in a dead-lock, Gerry’s powers are minimized and, I can move forward to get him tossed out. I’ll have a figurehead take control. No reason for my head to go on the chopping block if Michael comes back around.”

  “If Michael comes back around, I imagine the safe place will be any where he is not. Don’t forget Valentine’s Day.”

  “I won’t forget, that’s the reason I agreed to work with you in the first place. Don’t forget you needed me to take care of this for you, when it all finally works out.”

  “Of course not, I remember my friends.”

  “Good.” They said their good-byes.

  David looked down at the pieces of the phone he had just crushed in his hand, “Of course, I would have to count you as a friend, first.”

  He dropped the crushed remains, into the trash basket next to his chair, and wiped his hands together to get the dust off.

  He picked up the next phone and looked up the number he needed.

  —

  Mary woke up slowly, held in a woman’s arms. Her memory a little foggy, she opened her eyes to look up … to look up into a face of an angel, someone who shouldn’t be holding her right now. Who shouldn’t be here, period.

  “Bethany Anne?” Mary reached up to touch Bethany Anne’s face, a compassionate smile looking down at Mary. Even with tear streaks running down her face, she still looked beautiful.

  “Yes, it’s me. I’ve come to pay Martin the respect he was due. I didn’t want to speak to him until I had taken care of those responsible for his death.”

  Mary looked around her, there were four new people on the other side of the grave. Another two men who were accompanied by two other women. The two men that she had seen before were still scanning the area, definitely protection. The other men and the two women were looking at her.

  “Can you stand?” Bethany Anne asked her.

  She nodded. She felt a little woozy, but with Bethany Anne’s help she got her feet back under her again. Bethany Anne kept an arm around her shoulders, enabling her to lean against Bethany Anne’s body.

  Mary’s mind caught up to what Bethany Anne had said, “You took care of who? Who was responsible for Martin’s death?”

  Bethany Anne’s smile turned to sadness. “It was a group that was looking for me. I had helped another government agency in the Everglades. The operation had gone bad, but I was able to help and turn things around. That lead to another operation in Miami and that caused the other group to start investigating me. They tracked me to Martin and he was killed as a result.”

  “I, I thought you were dead? I know Martin said that you were alive, that no one else would have sent him that shoe. But, the doctors had you dead and you’ve been gone .. well, almost two years?”

  “Pretty much. I was moved into an unknown … group. This group had the medical abilities, in Europe, to heal me. However, it changed me too.” Bethany Anne released the woman, watching her in case she needed support again. She started pacing in front of the gravesite. “It took six months to make me better. Since those first six months, I’ve gotten involved in different operations. However, my main task for the last nine months has been tracking down Martin’s killers, and their boss, and so on up the chain.” She stopped to look Mary in the eyes, “Mary, my team and I have killed every person related, or even tangentially connected, to what happened to Martin. We have hunted down and killed the person who killed Martin here in D.C. We tracked his boss in Costa Rica and then her boss in Argentina. I’m tracking another person over in Europe and I know who is going to take care of him, too. Myself and my team will not stop until every person in that group is under my heel, ground into the dust of the earth and washed into the oceans, never to be heard from again. That is my promise.”

  Mary heard the biggest guy there say, under his breath, “Ad Aeternitatem.”

  Bethany Anne looked over the grave to the man and nodded her head once, sharply.

  Bethany Anne looked back at her, “I’m sorry Martin got entangled in this mess. I had no idea anyone was going to track me back to my old life.”

  Mary looked down at her feet. “So, Martin was killed in the line of duty then?” A tear had just started to form in Mary’s right eye.

  “Yes. He was killed because I was involved in operations sanctioned by the U.S. Government.”

  Mary continued to let the tears drip off of her face. “Why didn’t the government admit as much? They claimed it was a random act.”

  Bethany Anne held out a fresh tissue where Mary could see it. The woman accepted the offered tissue and wiped at her eyes.

  “You know that Martin’s group was almost black, right?” Mary nodded, “Well, next is black and then beyond black is my group.” Bethany Anne stepped over to Mary and used a finger to gently tilt her head up, to look her in the eyes. “Mary, Martin might not have died if he had offered to give the person information about me. He died to protect me. He was so sure I was alive that he gave his life to protect me without any evidence, but a shoe, to depend on.”

  Mary used the tissue to clean her eyes. That, was her husband. That was the man she loved and that was the man he was when he died. He was a protector. He protected those he loved even when she had thought he was grasping at ghosts.

  The ghost, it seemed, was real. She smiled at Bethany Anne, “Then he didn’t die in vain, did he?”

  “Boss?”

  Mary watched Bethany Anne turn to the large man again and raise an eyebrow.

  “I’d like to speak if I could?”

  Bethany Anne stepped beside Mary, nodded, and wrapped an arm around her waist. The huge man came around and stood in front of Mary. “Ma’am. My name is John Grimes. I would have died in that Everglade’s operation if Bethany Anne hadn’t come onto the scene. In fact,” he turned around a little and waved at the people on the other side of the grave, “every man here would have died on that operation.” He turned back and faced Mary, “I owe my life, my future and my hope to Bethany Anne. By extension, I owe my life, my future and my hope to one of the men that made Bethany Anne the person she is today and that is your husband. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for his devotion to duty, devotion to life and devotion to those he loved. I am honored to admit that I was there helping take down the killer. On behalf of me and my men, we will finish the job. Every person who belongs to this group of slime, will be ground into dust.”

  As John was finishing his statement, Ecaterina stood behind him. John shook Mary’s hand and Ecaterina then took his place.

  “This woman, “ she nodded at Bethany Anne, “Is responsible for too much good in my life for me to share right now. However, I was also there when Martin’s killer was taken down. I was not there for his boss, but I am one of the two who pulled the trigger to kill her boss. This is the least amount I can offer in appreciation for all your husband did to make her the woman who she is today. Ad Aeternitatem.”

  By now, Mary was openly weeping, tears that failed her while she tried to understand Martin’s murder, finally fell. Martin’s life had not been useless. Rather, he had invested a part of his life in the woman standing with her, holding her, right now.

  Next came Darrell, Scott and Eric. Finally, the woman Gabrielle came and spoke with her.

  Every person standing had tears coming down their faces as Gabrielle finished her story. Mary went and hugged Gabrielle, then Ecaterina, Scott, Darrell, Eric and John. Finally, she turned to Bethany Anne. Pointing between herself and Bethany Anne “I know we haven’t spoken much. But, as often as Martin spoke of you, I feel like you are a lost daughter. One that has come home and given me the insight to understand ‘the why’ and the gift of knowing those that were the cause, have felt justice done.” She moved over and hugged the younger, taller, woman. “I would wish I could see you more often, just to chat.” She pulled back and looked up at Bethany Anne who was trying to smile through her tears.
“You come visit me any time. I might not be close to where you live, but you are always welcome at my house, do you understand?”