Truly Deadly: The Complete Series: (YA Spy Thriller Books 1-5) Read online

  Truly Deadly

  The Complete Series: Books 1-5

  Rob Aspinall

  Contents

  BOOK 1: TRULY DEADLY

  Prologue

  1. The Cut

  2. Operations

  3. Side Effects

  4. Cleaver

  5. Scar Tissue

  6. Morning Jog

  7. Under Scrutiny

  8. Back To Life

  9. What Happens In Manchester

  10. The Hair Dryer

  11. An Evening In Paris

  12. Cherry Pop

  13. Research

  14. Red Flag Protocol

  15. Q&A

  16. How To Catch A Bullet

  17. Uncertainty Principles

  18. Ooh La La

  19. No Going Back

  20. London, Bitches

  21. Brown-Eyed Girl

  22. Bad Hair Night

  23. Second Opinion

  24. Consulting Room B

  25. Driving Lessons

  26. Hold On Tight

  27. Tipping Point

  28. 'Til You Drop

  29. Identity Theft

  30. Bonny Scotland

  31. The Weatherman

  32. Storm Warning

  33. A New Woman

  34. Hurricane Lorna

  35. How We Roll

  36. The Food In Norway

  37. Welcome To Oslo

  38. Barn Animals

  39. Peaks & Troughs

  40. Donuts & Dust

  41. Hey, I'm Dead! What Next?

  BOOK 2: INFINITE KILL

  Prologue

  1. Aid International

  2. Agnes Holgersson

  3. The House On The Hill

  4. Steak And Eggs

  5. Park & Ride

  6. Night Raid

  7. Spring Clean

  8. No Way Out

  9. Cold Storage

  10. Mobutu's Eyes

  11. Hidden Treasures

  12. Border Crossing

  13. Safe House

  14. Raining Bullets

  15. Chicken Stew

  16. Zum Wohl

  17. Facepalm

  18. Emergency Exit

  19. The Hammer And The Nail

  20. Woof Woof

  21. Tip Of The Spear

  22. Takedown

  23. Duty Free

  24. Ghost Train

  25. Change Of Plan

  26. Buckle Up

  27. Baggage

  28. A Different Girl

  29. The Exchange

  30. Ghosts Of Berlin

  31. Bunkmates

  32. Back In Uniform

  33. Ticker

  34. Zip Cord

  35. Surrounded

  36. A Walk In The Park

  37. U-Turn

  38. The Hard Way

  39. Going Underground

  40. Fine Dining

  41. Fake Plastic Guitars

  42. The Bridge

  BOOK 3: WORLD WILL FALL

  1. Deep Waters

  2. Killing Spree

  3. Overboard

  4. Dry Land

  5. Daddy's Girl

  6. Basic

  7. Survival

  8. Incursion

  9. Demons Out

  10. Tradecraft

  11. Financial Crisis

  12. Party Dress

  13. Little White Lines

  14. Lifestyles Of The Rich And Dangerous

  15. The Heist

  16. Working Girl

  17. Three-Way

  18. Caught Blue-Handed

  19. Escape Hole

  20. Gummy Bears

  21. A Drive In The Country

  22. Out Of Control

  23. Chicken Noodles

  24. Don't Look Down

  25. Shadow Team

  26. Peeing In Public

  27. Spider's Web

  28. Meet Teddy Tucker

  29. Cold Shower

  30. Cheesy Garlic Balls

  31. Command & Control

  32. Burn Baby Burn

  33. Cat & Mouse

  34. Abandon All Hope

  35. Killr1

  36. Critical Mass

  37. The Wrong Flight

  38. Out Of The Blue

  39. Back In Manchester

  40. Naughty Boy

  41. Dear Jpac

  BOOK 4: MADE OF FIRE

  Prologue

  1. Electricity

  2. Tight Spaces

  3. Data Cleanse

  4. Happy Birthday

  5. Fifth Avenue

  6. Spring Fashions

  7. Snatch & Grab

  8. No Ties

  9. Afternoon Tea

  10. The Mexico Job

  11. Easy Peasy

  12. Upside-Down

  13. Dead End

  14. Hide & Seek

  15. Emergency Call

  16. Behind The Door

  17. The Procedure

  18. Ready To Rumble

  19. Red & Green

  20. Lorna Liar

  21. Black Market

  22. Drinking With The Dead

  23. Pirate Video

  24. Hot Tin Roofs

  25. Run Or Die

  26. Pablo & Jenny

  27. The Ladder

  28. Rat Attack

  29. The Kiss Of Steel

  30. In Stitches

  31. I.O.U

  32. Tooled Up

  33. Cocktail Hour

  34. Night Strike

  35. Found Out

  36. Light A Fire

  37. The Beast

  38. The Last Perimeter

  39. Brace Yourself

  40. Surrounded

  41. Time To Die

  42. Ka-Boom

  43. Spewage

  44. Out Of Time

  45. Now Boarding

  46. The Turnaround

  47. Exit Wounds

  48. Yellow & Black

  49. Epilogue Part I

  50. Epilogue Part II

  BOOK 5: SLAVE NATION

  1. Sun Trap

  2. Lock And Load

  3. Beards & Tatts

  4. Blood & Beer

  5. Piece Of Cake

  6. Ladies That Laundry

  7. Daylight Robbery

  8. Meet N Greet

  9. Revelations

  10. Train Of Thought

  11. Crap Fashion

  12. Small Talk

  13. Adrenaline

  14. Fake Id

  15. Reunion

  16. Roll With It

  17. Animal Welfare

  18. Wheels Up

  19. Juvenile

  20. Dr Dahl

  21. End Of The Line

  22. Turn For The Worse

  23. Frenzy

  24. A Trip To The Movies

  25. While The World Burns

  26. Pool Party

  27. The Thing

  28. Second Chance

  29. The Hidden Fortress

  30. Outgunned

  31. Eye Contact

  32. Phase Two

  33. Weather Warning

  34. Emergency Meeting

  35. Things To Do In Denver

  36. Ling’s Mission Journal: Part I

  37. Another World

  38. The Mainframe

  39. Ling’s Mission Journal: Part II

  40. Spanner In The Works

  41. Ling’s Mission Journal: Part III

  42. The Truth & Anything But

  43. Machine Death Posse

  44. No Way To Win

  45. Ling’s Mission Journal: Part IV
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  46. Death Of An Assassin

  47. Deathstalker

  48. The Deal

  49. Ling’s Mission Journal: Part V

  50. Type A

  51. Crumbs Of Comfort

  52. Full Circle

  Also By Rob Aspinall - Breaker

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  BOOK 1: TRULY DEADLY

  Prologue

  Sixteen and my life was basically over. And, no, I’m not being dramatic.

  I kept the accelerator planted to the floor, doing over a hundred, with the grille of a Range Rover twisted in a tangle of metal to the rear bumper of the ambulance, driven by a grim-faced bitch doing her best to run us both off the road.

  Two police cars tried their best to box us in and slow us down. A sniper leaned out of a black helicopter, keeping pace on the other side of the motorway, taking potshots at my head.

  Meanwhile, the old man strapped down in the back of the ambulance was laying down super-gabba beats through a heart monitor, while one of the guys from the grab team, kill squad, whoever they were, lolled forward in the passenger seat, long strands of gloopy blood dripping slowly from his mashed-in face.

  I didn’t know who was after me or why they thought I was worth all this effort, other than I’d seen something I really shouldn’t.

  It can’t have been because of anything I actually knew. Because I knew less than squat.

  All I did know for sure was that if I slowed down and stopped, I was dead.

  If the sniper got his aim together, I was dead.

  And if the traffic got any thicker as we sped up the bridge running dangerously high over the deep and dirty Manchester ship canal … yup, I was pretty much worm food.

  Sprinkle in a complete lack of driving lessons and my long, illustrious history of blacking out at all the wrong moments and you’ve got the perfect recipe for underpant brownies.

  Of course, a few weeks ago, it was all so different.

  Still shit. But a different kind.

  Different shade. Different stink.

  Rainbows and unicorns compared to this.

  Then almost overnight, everything changed.

  I changed.

  Things got really weird and totally out of hand.

  And now you’ve stepped right into the middle of my nightmare. And, like me, you’re probably wondering what in God’s gonads is going on.

  So … how does a girl get herself in a pickle like this?

  Well, before I catch a bullet, crash off the road or collapse at the wheel, let’s rewind a little.

  It all started with a change of heart.

  1

  The Cut

  First, I should really introduce myself.

  My name is Lorna Walker and I had two choices.

  a) Stick to the meds and die within the year.

  b) Have the surgery and risk dying during the op.

  If neither of those got me, the Death Squeeze 2000 (aka Auntie Claire) would surely hug the life out of me in the meantime.

  I’d gone for Option B, of course. And there I lay on the operating table, trembling so much that the whole team had to hold me still while the anaesthetist stuck me with a needle. I stared at the circular bone saw, the bright theatre lights dancing off the blade.

  Please don’t slip and chop my nipples off.

  The head surgeon, a lanky grey-haired man with an accent posher than the queen’s asked his hairy-armed assistant how long the organ had been on ice.

  “Four hours,” Arm Hair said. “DOA came in carrying a bullet and a donor card.”

  The anaesthetist smiled down at me through pretty Indian eyes. “Lucky you,” she said, prepping me for the big sleep.

  They usually didn’t give you the anaesthetic on the operating table, but they’d had to fly in the new heart against the clock, so there was no time to deliver it in another room – where I couldn’t see all those scary surgical tools.

  My consultant, Dr Jennings, had already laid out the realities of the surgery, subtle as a double-D boob job.

  “You’ll have a scar. Quite a prominent one extending from the centre of your collarbone to the sternum … the bony bit between your breasts.”

  “That’s assuming you survive the surgery,” Dr J had said, “and your body doesn’t reject the donor’s organ. You’ll be on immunosuppressants for the rest of your natural life.”

  Was there such a thing as an unnatural life? When this one was over, did they turn you into a robot sex dancer? This was the kind of pointless, random shit that ravaged my mind in the days and weeks I spent hanging around hospital wards with my life on hold.

  In fact, I’d started writing it all down in a journal called Thoughts N Shit. Kind of a posthumous thing in case I didn’t make it. A sign I’d been here. That my sixteen years on Earth had counted for something. It would need a good safety edit of course; especially the bit about starting my own penis museum.

  As the surgeons compared notes on golf swings, the anaesthetist gave me the gas. I felt the weak, jerky rhythm of my heart. Did it know what was in store? Was it saying one last goodbye? Suddenly I felt really sad for my heart. I didn’t want it to die.

  Weird when you think about it. Imagine waiting two years for THE phone call, wondering if you’d ever get to use that transplant bag, packed and ready to rock in the bottom of the wardrobe. Then, when you finally get what you want, all you feel is sad. Someone had to die for me to live. And three people in the UK died every year waiting for an organ. Why couldn’t I just be happy and grateful? Before I could spin through it any more, the drugs kicked in and I felt light-headed, my vision beginning to split and blur.

  Then I felt nothing at all.

  2

  Operations

  I lay belly down on a dune, overlooking a desert highway. Early morning, the sun rising, already oven-hot. What the hell was I doing here? Scanning the long, straight road through the crosshairs of a rifle, I guessed it wasn’t sightseeing.

  Oh no, I thought. The operation had been a con all along. They’d turned me into a drone soldier instead. A drone soldier with big, dry man hands.

  I certainly wasn’t the one in control of the decisions, but I’ll use the royal “I” and “my”, because every action felt like my own.

  I ran the rifle sighting over to my far left, where a procession of liquid cars turned solid, breaking the heat haze. A black Merc limo rode in the centre, a pair of Range Rovers either side. The limo had a couple of small, red, green and white flags stuck on the front, flapping in the wind. The convoy moved fast and tight. Leaving a finger on the rifle trigger, I took out a push-button phone. Some ancient piece of crap. There was a number punched in ready to dial. I held a finger over the call button and tracked the movement of the cars again through the crosshairs.

  The train of cars passed below my position. I pulled my head away from the rifle and hit call. Before you could say boomshakalaka, the road beneath the lead Range Rover erupted in an almighty crack and blast, shaking some of the sand loose on the dune, flipping the vehicle up and back onto the one behind.