Excerpt From ‘Blood Sport’: The Newest Cameron Curtis Breed Thriller

BLOOD SPORT

By Cameron Curtis

Terrorism 101—Don’t make war on Breed.

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Wambesa, a small country in Africa, is rich in cobalt. That mineral is essential for the production of batteries that power electric vehicles. Coup d’etats are driving the French from the continent. France’s COBRA—Cobalt Resources Africa—is concerned about the security of its cobalt mine. The company hires Breed to evaluate the stability of the country.

Breed arrives in Wambesa and finds the country anything but stable. The COBRA mine is ruthlessly exploiting the population, the government is corrupt, and locals eagerly anticipate the return of Marien Tombaye, an exiled revolutionary.

Tombaye returns with an elite cadre of guerrillas. The revolutionaries wipe out the French military garrison and massacre the European population. Breed teams up with a former SEAL, a beautiful African doctor, the village priest, and a former mercenary. Together, they shepherd a ragged band of refugees in a desperate effort to escape Tombaye and his cadre.

Blood Sport—Book Nine in the stunning Breed action thriller series.

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Excerpt from Chapter 8—The French Village

The center of the summit was a well-kept park. Townspeople have piled valuables from the houses into the middle. They’ve dragged men and women from the houses, and are doing unspeakable things to them. I focus on the mission and try to block out the horror.

Where are Tombaye’s cadre? Where are the Umbali?

Powell runs to a two-story. The front door is open and he takes position on the right, waits for me to reach the porch.

My AK-74 is on a sling and I throw it behind me. Draw the Mark 23. I prefer the pistol for close quarters. I nod to Powell, and he goes in, digs the right corner. I follow right behind, dig the left. Empty.

We move fast, clear the ground floor. Living room, dining room, kitchen, library. The place has been looted, but there are no bodies.

Take a breath, go to the stairs. Looks like we’re going to have to fight uphill. Fighting uphill sucks. We don’t want to do it, but if Wolfe’s wife is up there, we have to do it. Powell nods to me. I’m carrying the handgun, I’m number one in the stack.

I hate stairs. More than I hate corridors. Both are fatal funnels. One man can wipe out a squad caught in the middle of a corridor. Stairways add a vertical element that is more difficult to deal with.

Right here, at the bottom of the stairs, people die. How? It’s a grenade sink. This is where grenades land, and the cadre have a lot of grenades. You’re staging your stack, somebody upstairs lobs a frag. Clunk and boom—you’re all eating a shrapnel sandwich.

Get off the landings, don’t get stuck in the middle.

Brace my back against the wall to my right, hunker down, cover the angle with the Mark 23. Two-handed stance, isosceles. It’s a switchback. Fifteen feet to the first landing, switch, then up to the second floor. Look up and back—there’s a wall above and behind me. A banister to my left leads to the first landing, then another banister continues up the next flight.

The banisters are fine. I can see between the balusters—the posts. The walls are bad news. People forget bullets go through wood. In Afghanistan, thick mud and rock walls provided cover. American and European buildings use wood. You can’t see through wooden walls, but you sure as shit can get shot through them.

I climb the steps with deliberation, clearing as I go. Mouth dry, heart pounding. It is so easy to trip when you’re clearing a staircase. When I reach the middle of the staircase, I get antsy. The middle of any of these is a bad place to be. At the bottom, you can duck to one side. In the middle, you got no place to go.

Powell short-stocks his M4, glues himself to my ass. Any closer, we’d be married. Fucking stairs. Move faster, get off the X. The Mark 23 is a handgun, not a two-hand gun. I hold it in my right hand, brace myself against the banister with my left, lean forward, clear higher.

Move, move, move. I’m on the landing. Another great place to eat a frag. In this case, I can kick it past Powell and down the first flight of stairs. Now I can see straight to the second floor. Open doorway, dark room beyond. Move, move, move. Don’t get stuck in the middle. Top of the stairs is the second-floor landing. It’s a landing, but it’s like a room—blind spots left and right. I can hear Powell breathing behind me, keying off my moves. I step onto the second floor. Dig left, get out of the way. Powell digs right.

Breathe. We clear the room in front of us. The windows open onto the park below. The burning houses, the murder and rape. Flames lick the sky. I turn away from the scene, and we clear the rest of the second floor.

Wolfe’s wife is nowhere to be found.

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Cameron Curtis

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Cameron Curtis has spent thirty years on trade floors as a trader and risk manager. He was on the trade floor when Saddam’s tanks rolled into Kuwait, when the air wars opened over Baghdad and Belgrade, and when the financial crisis swallowed the world. He is the author of the Breed action thriller series, available on Amazon.

Link to “Blood Sport” available on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6RC5V4V