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  Amazon Roulette: A Marina Alexander Adventure

  © 2015 Colleen Gleason

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever, electronically, in print, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Colleen Gleason, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-931419-68-0

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Copyright Page

  About This Book

  Dedication

  PRELUDE

  PRELUDE II

  Epigraph

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  More Marina Alexander Returns in a Thrilling New Mystery of International Intrigue, Lost Treasures, and High-Stakes Adventure

  "Gleason mixes historical mysteries with current events and exciting technology—creating a fast-paced story that takes you on an action-packed ride!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jana DeLeon

  * * *

  Marina Alexander Returns in a Thrilling New Mystery of International Intrigue, Lost Treasures, and High-Stakes Adventure

  “Gleason mixes historical mysteries with current events and exciting technology—creating a fast-paced story that takes you on an action-packed ride!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jana DeLeon

  The Lake Superior Basin, 2000 B.C.E.: Two hundred tons of raw copper are mined and removed by white-skinned strangers who leave behind a mystery of their own.

  Tunguska Siberia, 1908: The earth rumbles and roars, destroying everything in a thirty mile radius…except for an infant, miraculously left untouched.

  St. Louis, Missouri, Present Day: A far-reaching blackout brings the economy in the Midwest to a halt…and the only explanation is a swarm of rare beetles from the Amazon.

  Napo, Ecuador: The body of a Korean businessman, still dressed in his suit and loafers, is found in the Amazon jungle…with no indication of how he got there.

  Marina Alexander, search and rescue expert, is fortunate enough to be on hand when a young couple gets lost in an old cave in Northern Michigan. She also discovers what brought them deep into the ancient copper mine: possible proof of European visitors to North America far earlier than believed.

  Though it could be the biggest find of her career, Marina fears there is a connection to her grandfather—the patriarch of a Siberian tribe and eco-terrorist group—and that he will draw her back into the fold.

  Meanwhile, it’s clear the eco-terrorists are planning a new attack on U.S. soil, for they leave a trail of dead bodies and injuries in their wake…leading up to something far-reaching and deadly.

  From the ancient copper mines of Northern Michigan, to the suburbs of Chicago, the thick, humid rainforest of Ecuador, and a hidden temple deep in the Amazon jungle, Amazon Roulette will have readers on the edge of their collective seats as Marina races against time to stop her family from its destructive plan.

  To Gary March

  For years of asking about those copper bugs.

  Thank you for keeping me going!

  * * *

  PRELUDE

  The Lake Superior Basin

  100 Million Years Ago

  The ground shook, and molten liquid struggled from beneath to erupt. At last, it burst free, spilling over the land—a searing, fiery red river that covered the earth.

  Forceful magma eruptions such as these lasted twenty-five million years, pushing the strata of the earth into a massive divergence, leaving a sweeping, deep rift. Millions of years later, this massive basin would be known as Lake Superior.

  The most widespread individual lava flow on earth, what is called the Greenstone Lava Flow, covered what became the Keweenaw Peninsula and stretched into Wisconsin, submerging rocky ground under its molten path. When the doming, rifting, and eruptions caused by the earth’s molten core eased, it left sediment that would later form the greatest concentration of natural native copper on earth in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

  This profusion of copper-bearing rock settled in a swatch of area a mere three to six kilometers wide, and extended from the northernmost point of the Keweenaw to approximately 150 kilometers south.

  Millions of years later, a long series of glacial advances and retreats scraped the land, gouging out the rest of the Great Lakes. Tall black spruce trees were buried under glacial sediment. Eons later, fine sand dropped by the flow of water overmulched the trees and smothered them. Some of the glacial movement caused erosion on the surface, exposing copper to the elements. Some chunks of copper were carried southward.

  Once formed and flooded into the greatest freshwater surface in the world, Lake Superior became a catalyst that influenced weather, culture, and environment for the entire basin.

  Great and violent thunderstorms erupting from the lake spawned hurricane-like gales, waterspouts, and tornados. Odd, eerie cloud formations with streaks of orange and blue colored the sky after these storms. During twilight, the colorful phenomenon known as the Northern Lights flared. Strange mirages formed due to shifts in air and temperature, leaving the impression of inverted landscape elements floating in midair, or shifting weirdly about.

  It was no wonder early people considered that great lake a divinity in her own right.

  Four thousand years ago, men who lived near this body of water attributed not only the wealth of fish and other sources of food, but also the soft bronze metal found in the ground, to the goodness of this great and divine lake. Mishi Bizi, the water panther, was thought to conduct the powers of the water and the underground, giving these gifts in exchange for worship and sacrifice.

  Perhaps it was Mishi Bizi himself—or perhaps it was the scrape of a glacier—that long before had left the glint of metal exposed, catching the attention of an early miner. Once the usefulness of the metal was understood, it did not take him long to find other caches of copper.

  Early man became adept at identifying places to mine the native metal by examining the terrain as well as rock and ground formations. He observed the hoarfrosts, and noted the areas where foliage did not turn white, and found copper there. He watched for long, continuous depressions in the soil, knowing the ground would be weaker above a soft vein. Spindly or stunted trees, odd-colored vegetation, and strange patterns of fungus also indicated the presence of the useful metal.

  Men and women dug for centuries, hammering the soft metal and bre
aking off hunks of it to use for tools. Sometimes, they found tiny pebbles of the metal and made beads. Other places yielded sheets of the metal, and still others exposed large, boulder-like hunks.

  There has never been another place on earth that yielded such a massive amount of copper.

  * * *

  Then…more than three thousand years ago, a strange ship appeared across the great expanse of Lake Superior. Men of another place and language landed on the shores.

  The local man traded his copper for the strangers’ goods. There was an abundance of the metal, and the foreigners found the rust-colored material intriguing. The natives taught them about copper’s healing properties, showed them how it could be twisted around a wrist or strung in beads on a leather line and worn to promote healing and protection.

  The foreigners stayed, then left…then returned and took more copper with them.

  For decades, they visited, filling their ships with the ore and disappearing into the vast expanse of the gray-blue shimmer of Lake Superior. The native man didn’t know who they were or from where they came. But still they traded.

  And when the foreigners visited and one of their numbers happened to die, instead of burying them in a mound as the Lake Superior natives did, they sought a hidden copse of trees, or a cavern in which to repose the body. They created odd formations with white stones—always white stones, all the same size—and piled them in a pointed hill above the body. This, they explained, marked the direction in which the body’s soul would move in order to shift into the afterlife.

  When the foreigners came for the last time, they had many dead on the ship upon their arrival. The few remaining found a deep cave and placed their leaders and friends far into its depths. They piled the stones in an antechamber to the place where they were buried, taking days and weeks to make the hills just so. They measured the sky, plotted the ground, and determined the perfect position, using information from their homeland.

  And when they were done, when they knew they would leave the beautiful lake with its bronze metal for the last time, they closed the entrance to the cave. Blocked off the sacred place so the souls of their companions would rise into the sky, or sink into the ground, and become one, immortal, with the earth.

  Then, their monumental task complete, they left the country of copper.

  PRELUDE II

  June 30, 1908

  Tunguska, Siberia

  The sky had been glowing for days. Night reigned for mere moments, then gave way to a red glow filling the heavens. The weather had been unseasonably warm—even hot—for weeks. Cyclones of greater intensity than usual churned over the ground in Tunguska. Drought caused the grasses that fed the goats and reindeer cared for by the Skaladeska tribe to turn brown and dry, and even the brief but sparse thunderstorms could not save the plants.

  A dull booming in the distance rose in intensity through the hours of the day.

  The air began to shift. The environment changed.

  All creatures living in this region felt the imminence of something, and they ran for shelter. Reindeer, hares, birds…all sought their dens, holes, the brush of their nests. Men of the local tribes, knowing that their death was coming, bathed, then changed into clean clothing to await their end.

  A streak of red swept the sky, near the horizon.

  The earth gave a great tremor, then stilled. It had threatened upheaval with smaller vibrations in the days before, but this one caused the trees to shake.

  The wind picked up, stirring the leaves and clattering the branches in an eerie dance.

  A second streak of orange-glowing fire blazed across the sky, flattened to a black saucer, and disappeared.

  The wind gusted violently. The earth trembled.

  A whistling sound rent the air, followed by the cutting, rock-strong wind. It pushed a man so heavily he fell into the trunk of a tree, then tripped into the glowing embers of his fire.

  A hideous noise—indescribable, fierce and bone-shattering—filled the air. Everything moved, shook, trembled, clattered, crashed. Suddenly blazing trees fell with dull thuds, their burning branches crashing into each other, setting the moss and grass to burning.

  A violent thunderbolt rolled and clapped, deafening the creatures that remained. The world was wrapped in thick, angry smoke, blanketing the air, smothering the land.

  Suddenly bright lightning flashed over the hill, like another sun had suddenly risen, as more thunderclaps boomed in the air. The ground shook. Nothing could stand upright. More red and orange flashes blazed through the sky…

  And then, at last, the sounds began to fade. The glow in the sky settled into a pink dust.

  Miraculously, the wail of an infant filled the silence.

  A babe lay in the midst of the destruction.

  The morning of July 1, 1908, dawned.

  * * *

  It took nineteen years before a scientific expedition at last found its way to the devastation that had been wrought that day and night of June 30, 1908.

  The expedition, led by Leonid Kulik, discovered 850 square miles of flattened trees. It found some charred remains of tree trunks, but other trees were still growing tall and strong and green. Few eyewitnesses remained to tell the tale, and many of their stories conflicted.

  Over the decades that followed, various theories for the cause of the event were presented. Many scientists believed a meteorite had struck the earth…but no metal remains were found in the area.

  Others presented the theory that the meteorite had exploded before striking the earth, four or five miles in the air…but again, there was not enough metallic evidence to prove this theory.

  Still others suggested that a spaceship had exploded, or the volatile volcanoes of this Siberian region—some of the most destructive in the history of the earth—had caused the great devastation. Or that an earthquake had shifted the world in Tunguska. Or that aliens had landed, and then left…

  Whatever the cause, life in this region was forever changed.

  And the infant birthed during—or protected by—this event now thrived among the secretive tribe of the Skaladeskas.

  His name was Lev.

  Still the earth is bruised and broken

  by the ones who still want more.

  — Marty Haugen

  * * *

  PROLOGUE

  October 1—Present Day

  New York City

  The executive conference room stretched long and silent, the midafternoon sun shining through silver-tinted windows. Through the smoky view one could see much of Midtown Manhattan, the architecture appearing no more than a hodgepodge of black, gray, cream, and brown building blocks. Yellow cabs mingled with trucks and other toy-sized vehicles twenty stories below.

  In approximately three hours, the doors would open and the room would be filled with an elite group of some of the most powerful men and women in the world. Dressed in five-thousand-dollar suits and armed with top-of-the-line electronic tablets and smartphones, the members of the private group known as The Alliance would settle around the table for a convivial meal.

  For by the time they entered the room, their off-the-record, ultra-private meeting with several powerful politicians would be over, the negotiations completed, and all that remained would be the opportunity to socialize over excellent food and libation. The Alliance members would congratulate each other on another year of being “overlooked” by the EPA, the legal system, and other regulatory agencies throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

  Present would be the CEO of a major chemical company, currently being investigated by the US’s EPA for dumping in the Ohio River.

  And also the CEO of a well-known international electric corporation that had been violating clean-air and -water standards for years, both in the US and Europe, where its name was equally well known.

  Also attending was the CEO of an energy company recently in the news for a massive spill of benzene into a medium-sized river in Nebraska. So far, no legal action seemed to
have gained traction…thanks to the strength of The Alliance.

  A mining company was also represented at the meeting. It was one of the more notorious ones in the world, known for continued, wide-ranging environmental destruction during their metal extraction processes. An electronics company in South Korea, a leather tanning corporation from Taiwan…and other manufacturing companies were represented.

  And integral to the entire group: one of the most powerful lobbyist groups in the world.

  But for now, the French doors swung open to the empty conference dining room, and three staff members from Le Beau-Joux Events hurried in. They pushed carts laden with silver, fine china, and chargers of gleaming red. Crystal goblets for water, different ones for white wine, and a third, broader style for a red vintage clinked delicately against each other as their cart rumbled alongside the mahogany conference table.

  Fourteen place settings. First, the ruby chargers, fifteen inches in diameter. On top of them went sleek, square black plates, hand-painted specially for this event with a design of tiny red berries that rose like Braille dots on the edges. Then a translucent gold plate, hardly larger than a teacup saucer, was arranged in the center of each black square.

  Next, the staffers arranged gold-plated silver utensils around each plate setting: eight pieces per guest. Three crystal goblets. A teacup and saucer. Then the staffers set to folding the napkins.

  It took them ten minutes to fold fourteen black-and-white patterned napkins into an intricate lotus-flower shape. Each origami specimen was carefully settled onto the center of the gilt saucer, looking like an Escher version of a water flower on a golden lily pad.