Zero Point, by Nafeez Ahmed
Genre: action-adventure, science-fiction, political-thriller
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press
Date of Publication: August 14, 2014
Find Zero Point Online:
Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22245323-zero-point?from_search=true) |Amazon US (http://amzn.com/B00MPZCGOQ) | Amazon UK(http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00MPZCGOQ)| Barnes & Noble(http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/zero-point-nafeez-mosaddeq-ahmed/1120143213?ean=9781620075395) | Kobo (http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/zero-point-6)
Description:
Near future Great Britain is on the brink of collapse. Mass riots. Economic meltdown. Blackouts. And a new oil war in Iraq to keep the world economy afloat.
Iraq War veteran and war crimes whistleblower David Ariel is sick of violence, and trying to make ends meet working for Specialist Protection. But after Prime Minister Carson is brutally assassinated by extremists on Ariel’s watch, he is covertly targeted by a compromised police investigation.
When forensics discover that Carson’s assassination inexplicably defied the very laws of physics, bodies drop like flies as key witnesses are murdered in impossible circumstances.
Fleeing for his life while London is locked-down under martial law, Ariel gets a phone call from Iraq he will never forget. His estranged girlfriend, journalist Julia Stephenson, warns that the Carson killing is just the beginning of a wider plot to bring the West to its knees. Then she disappears.
Ariel’s blood-soaked race against time to track the terror cells behind Carson’s death tumbles into the cross-fire of a hidden battle between mysterious rogue intelligence agencies. The goal: tomonopolise black budget technologies which could unlock the universe’s darkest, arcane secrets.
As the world he thought he knew unravels, Ariel faces off against bent coppers, double-crossing agents, psychic killers and super soldiers to complete a black ops mission like no other: stop Quantum Apocalypse.
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About Nafeez Ahmed:
Nafeez Ahmed is a bestselling author, investigative journalist, and international security academic. He writes for The Guardian via his Earth Insight blog, reporting on the geopolitics of interconnected environmental, energy and economic crises. The author of five critically-acclaimed non-fiction works addressing humanity’s biggest global challenges, Nafeez’s forthcoming book is a science fiction thriller, ZERO POINT, due out 18th August 2014.
Nafeez has also written for the Independent on Sunday, The Independent, The Scotsman, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Huffington Post, New Statesman, Prospect Magazine, Le Monde Diplomatique, among many others. He has been a talking head for BBC News 24, BBC World News with George Alagiah, BBC Radio Five Live, BBC Radio Four, BBC World Today, BBC Asian Network, Channel 4, Sky News, C-SPAN Book TV, CNN, FOX News, Bloomberg, PBSForeign Exchange, Al-Jazeera English, Press TV, Islam Channel and hundreds of other radio and TV shows in the USA, UK, andEurope.
Nafeez is also cited and reviewed in the Sunday Times, Times Higher Educational Supplement, New York Times, The Independent, Independent on Sunday, The Observer, Guardian, Big Issue Magazine, Vanity Fair, among others
Find Nafeez Ahmed:
Website (http://www.nafeezahmed.com/) | Facebook(https://www.facebook.com/DrNafeezAhmed) | Twitter (https://twitter.com/NafeezAhmed) |Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/117513.Nafeez_Mosaddeq_Ahmed?from_search=true)
The van rammed into us with a jolt. I fired off two shots, aiming squarely at the driver’s side, but I couldn’t see him as the windows were blacked out. The bullets didn’t penetrate, just left little pockmarks in the windshield.
“****!” I shouted. Bulletproof. “How come their van’s better than the one we had?”
Then they rammed us again and I hit my head on the ceiling before landing on top of Riz. Machine gun fire sprayed the back of the car.
“Stay down!” I yelled in Riz’s stricken face.
I peeked out the side again. A guy in the van was leaning out of the passenger window yielding an Uzi. Suddenly they disappeared out of sight as our car did a 90 degree turn round another corner. When the van appeared again, I was ready, lying on my back, almost halfway out the side, with my gun clenched in both hands. The van turned toward us. I fired twice in quick succession, taking out both of the van’s fronttyres, before rolling back inside as gunfire struck our car.
And then we were away.
For about a minute we thought we’d lost them. Then we collided. Another nondescript, large white van had smashed into us from the front left. Andy lost control and the car lifted into the air, lurching onto its righthand side and scraping a dozen metres across the tarmac before squealing to a halt, and finally collapsing upside down.
“Riz? Andy?” I said. Riz groaned beside me as the blood rushed to my head.
“I’m fine,” replied a muffled Andy. He was struggling with the airbag that had inflated in his face.
I started scrambling my way out through the hole that had been the rear window.
“We need to get the **** out of here, now!” I said.
Then someone grabbed my arms and started pulling me up. I reacted instinctively, yanking my arms apart, then pushing myself fully and swiftly out the wrecked vehicle with my legs, before rolling into a combat crouch. The slim figure in front of me was a woman, in some kind of black body armour and a combat helmet.
I rushed her. She sprang out the way, landing firmly with legs apart. A few stunned passersby were standing around and watching in horror, first looking incredulously at the carnage of road damage, then in fascination at the duel unfolding before them. I’d seen her dodge coming, and angled toward her. She deftly repulsed my attack with a swift jab of her knee. It took me off balance, so I let the momentum lift me and used it to swipe my arm down toward her neck. She dodged backward smoothly, swinging her knee jab into a full-on head kick. I brought up my left arm, blocking the blow and pushing her leg back with it. She spun away, and I followed with a kick of my own to knock her off her feet. She nimbly pounced over my leg sweep, then while still in mid-jump kicked out in the air at my face, forcing me to duck and roll.
As I rolled to my feet, she landed on hers. All that happened in about three seconds. Now we faced each other, tense and ready, both breathing heavily.
She was good. Really good. I hadn’t fought someone as good as that in years.
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