Blind Influence Exclusive Excerpt
Blind Influence
Successful, sexy attorney Nicole Charbonneau feels content
with her life and career as a star at a powerful law firm in Washington, DC.
She is blind, however, to the circumstances that will put her at the center of
a web of deceit, murder, power plays and conspiracies. Across the ocean,
British MI-6 Agent Sean Adkins is tracking a cold-blooded assassin known as the
Serpent, who’s been hired to kill President Andrews. The Serpent cares only for
the millions he’ll get, not why the powerful group of men wants Andrews killed.
The Serpent, a master of disguise, completes his job, but
will it be his last? Sean will stop at nothing to get revenge, which includes
setting a trap. Nicole, through her work and her connection with Robert
Jenkins, a powerful young senator who happens to head the Intelligence
Committee, pieces together who hired the assassin. Will the senator reveal to
the public all he knows, or will revealing the identities of the powerful
businessmen, politicians and government officials be too much for a country
already in a fragile state?
Blind Influence, set in 1979 when the United
States was on the brink of its second oil crisis, takes readers on a wild ride
of political intrigue and personal discovery.
Paris, France
The alley was dark and littered with trash from the
overflowing waste cans and with drunken, unconscious patrons of the saloon
located at its end. The amber light, which seeped from the cracks in the door
and boarded-up windows of the dilapidated building, provided enough light for
passersby to avoid stepping on any undesirable objects. Noise from the saloon
was muffled, but still audible, as it drifted down the alley to one of the many
streets of Paris.
A man, whose face was still handsome though hiding the youth
that had been beaten from him by the life he had chosen, prepared to tiptoe his
way through the maze to the saloon door. His short dark hair blended with the
misty night. The collar of his raincoat flipped up, its belt tightly securing
the taut raincoat around his sinuous body to protect the clothes beneath it. He
stood at the corner of the street and alley, surveying them both. Had he been
followed? Who was waiting for him in that dark alley or in that raucous saloon?
Did he have his gun loaded? He withdrew the firearm, a Beretta, checking it and
his surroundings. It was now ready in case he needed it. He glanced up and down
the main thoroughfare before sliding around the corner into the misty darkness
of the alley, toward the amber light that betrayed the presence of some of the
lowest life of Paris.
As he tiptoed to the door, he heard a screech. He didn’t
bother to look. He had heard those types of screeches before. It was a rat,
something he despised intensely and saw far too often. It was beyond this
well-educated, well-dressed man why Jacques preferred to squander his life in
such vile places. In this man’s estimation, Jacques was paid rather handsomely
for his information.
Another screech caught the man’s attention and pulled him
from his thoughts. He paused as he waited to hear additional steps on the wet
pavement. There were none, only the snorts and swat of a man awakened by the
vile, dirty creature trying to steal a breadcrumb from the drunk’s shirt. The
man again started for the door of the saloon.
He reached the door and breathed a quick sigh of relief.
Just before placing his hand on the doorknob to enter the raunchy
establishment, he took in a very deep breath. He winced from the stench, which
made him wish he hadn’t done that. He opened the door slowly, trying not to
attract any attention with swift movements. He entered the room cautiously but
calmly. He stood momentarily in a darkened corner at the entry of the room,
surveying it and all the chaos. No one was the least bit interested in him. The
room was lit with sconces and lamps, all draped with red and orange
chiffon-like material. The man wasn’t sure what kind of effect the owner was
going for, but he was quite sure he had walked into a badly reproduced opera.
The amber light danced with the smoke created by just about any type of smoking
device he could think of, all being used by various patrons of the bar. In one
corner of the room was a very badly abused grand piano, which was annoyingly
out of tune. Most of the patrons were around this piano, while a sloppily
dressed overweight woman sang as if she were an opera diva, complete with fan
and headdress, screeching a very bad rendition of the Casta Diva aria, which
sprang from her heavily red lipstick laden mouth. Like fingernails scratching
down a chalkboard, the woman’s attempt at singing grated on the man’s nerves.
As the shrill sound of a high note accosted the man’s ears, he turned his head
to see a darker area, far from the offending racket of the opera impersonators
who, he surmised, were pretending to be performing at Covent Garden.
As the man reached the darkened corner booth, he untied his
coat and slid onto the stained and tattered velvet bench, his back to the wall,
facing the door to the saloon. His form seemed to disappear in the darkness,
his hands seen only as he called the bartender over to the booth. He thought of
ordering gin when the bartender arrived but somehow felt whiskey was more
appropriate. He found that thought strangely odd, but it didn’t matter anyway.
He had no intention of drinking it.
Shortly after the bartender returned with his shot, a short
Frenchman, complete with at least a three-day growth on his face and the body
odor to match, slid into the bench across from the smartly dressed man. The
Frenchman’s smile wrinkled the skin around his eyes and revealed missing teeth.
“Monsieur Adkins,” the Frenchman greeted the man, eyeing the
shot of whiskey.
“Jacques.” Adkins adjusted the collar of his coat as he
watched Jacques begin to salivate. Jacques’s eyes never strayed from the
whiskey. “Consider it an advance,” Sean Adkins added in his proper English
accent, a stark conflict to Jacques’s very common and broken English.
“Some advance!” Jacques retorted, grabbing the shot. “You no
like whiskey anyway.” He threw his head back as he downed the shot.
Sean smiled. “What do you have for me?”
“I have some information on your blue-eyed friend,
monsieur.” Jacques paused as the bartender arrived to take a drink order from
Jacques “Bring two more whiskeys,” Jacques instructed the bartender. “Bring the
bottle,” Sean corrected.
The bartender left to retrieve the bottle. “You are very
good to me. That is why I work so hard for you, no?” Jacques said.
“You have been very helpful in the past. I’ve yet to hear
what you have for me today.”
AUTHOR BIO
When Linda Riesenberg Fisler isn’t working on her next book
she is painting in her studio or riding her Trek bicycle along the many bike
trails of Ohio. The former Fortune 500 consumer products manager explores art
through her worldwide Internet radio show, “Art Chats with Linda Fisler”. Linda
has been creative since childhood, writing stories and scripts of movies and TV
shows to entertain friends. She discovered oil painting in the 1990s and began
trying to express words visually.
Writing Blind Influence helped Linda
realize she had been blind to letting others run her life, so she began to
transition to the more artistic life she has today. In addition to The
Blind series of books, Linda has created a fantasy book based on her
exploration of spirituality. She hopes readers will learn how to open their own
eyes instead of blindly following the expectations of those around them.
Teaser:
Then it started. The siren was the first thing to warn him
something was
wrong. The golden light turned dark. The bittersweet taste of adrenaline
began in his mouth, and he swallowed, trying to quell it. A red flashing
light accosted his eyes, and he could see himself running to his home—
their home. He ran into the house, unable to catch his breath. He tried to
wake himself from the nightmare. He didn’t want to live this again.
Who would you cast to play the Characters in Blind
Influence?
If you are like me, when I read a book I end up casting
an actor or actress in the part. So let’s do this too.
Who would you cast to play Nicole Charbonneau?
Who would you cast to play Sean Adkins?
Who would you cast to play Robert Jenkins?
Who would you cast to play the assassin—the Serpent?
Who would you cast to play Tony Shafer?
Who would you cast to play Carol Gartner?
Who would you cast to play Ahnah?
Who would you cast to play Jerome Bailey?
Who would you cast to play Kevin Thompson?
Who would you cast to play Norman Sipes?
