Brooke Breckenridge is looking for a fresh start when she
leaves Seattle. Her destination is a house on Three Cranes
Lake, located in a valley near the Cascade Mountains
bordering Canada. What Brooke thought would be a restful
place for her to relax soon turns into an explosive and
dangerous situation. The neighbors on each side seem to be
very nice people, but she's there only two days when
vandals break in, tossing the place looking for something,
though nothing is missing.
Enter HSI Special Agent Jack Stickland, a friend of Will
Coreman, owner of the house and a retired communications
expert for ICE, who has a room full of computer and
electronics equipment. Will sent Jack a message that he'd
uncovered something strange and wanted him to come to the
lake house, but now Will is missing. Being this close to
the Canadian border, it could involve anything from drug
smuggling to human trafficking to terrorism. When Jack
brings in Agent Ed Red Wind to assist with the electronics,
he ascertains there could even be Chinese involvement.
Brooke is less than forthcoming in disclosing her past,
which makes Jack suspicious. Her actions are subject to
misinterpretation with just too many odd, unexplained
coincidences. Brooke seems to be the common denominator in
a series of seemingly unrelated events, with each
explanation bringing about even more questions from Jack.
Is Brooke a suspect or a victim? She's quickly become a big
complication in Jack's investigation, in more ways than one.
The small town in BLUE ICE by I.C. Enger is anything
but tranquil. Though Brooke is a novice at investigating,
she shows a lot of deductive skills. The interesting
premise of exactly what's going on at the lake house is an
intriguing new take on bio-terrorism and scary in how
easily it could happen in today's world.
What the agents discover at Three Cranes Lake will change
how you view terrorism forever.
A much anticipated new start for Brooke Breckenridge
erupts into an explosion of murder and international
intrigue when she travels from Seattle to an isolated lake
on the Canadian border to find seclusion and healing.
Strange and dangerous things begin to happen, soon events
at the lake house attract the attention of Homeland
Security Special Agent Jack Strickland and she finds
herself entangled in suspicion, crime and dangerous
attraction.
As more agents are brought in and the web unravels, the
true plot is revealed and life in the small town of
Makkapitew will never be the same.
Excerpt
She walked down the gravel path to the dock and out on
the lake. She
looped the strap around her neck and looked through the
binoculars to the
other side of the lake where the floatplane had gone.
Twisting the focus
knob, the trees and bushes suddenly sprang into view.
Scanning along the
shoreline she saw a few cabins, and to the right of them a
little building
with a windsock flying from a pole. For the floatplane? She
took down the
binoculars and looked at them. Never had she had a pair
with the power
of these. Putting them back up to her eyes, she peered at
the cabins again.
The low thrum of an engine came from the north. Taking the
glasses
away from her eyes, she looked up at the sky she spotted a
tiny speck
coming toward the lake. Using the glasses, she searched the
sky for the
plane, found it and focused in on it. Through them, the
plane looked large.
She could clearly see the two props high on the wings and
the pontoons
under the fuselage. She watched it wobble back and forth,
lining up with
the lake, getting lower and lower.
Soon it was skimming over the water, barely touching
it, and then spray
shot up behind it as the pontoons made full contact with
the water. The
noise from the engines grew louder and louder until the
plane passed right
in front of her and turned toward the opposite shore. She
watched through
the glasses as it taxied across the water, maneuvered up
next to a long
wooden dock pointing out from shore at an angle and stopped
the engines.
Someone, a young woman, came out of the building and tied
it to the dock.
She couldn't see the side of the airplane facing the shore,
but soon two
men in orange hats and vests walked from the plane up to
the building.
"See anything interesting?" said a man's voice at her side.
"Aahhk!" Brooke jerked back, lost her balance, grabbed
for a rail that
wasn't there and felt herself going over the dock's edge.
The glasses swung
wildly around her neck. A strong hand grabbed her arm and
steadied her,
preventing her from falling into the lake.
Brooke regained her balance, pulled her arm free and
turned to see a tall
man with dark hair and wrap around dark glasses wearing a
black baseball
style hat. His blue shirt hung loose over his slacks and
his black soft–soled
shoes explained why she hadn't heard his approach. By his
side stood a
large dog. She recognized what he was at once. Cop.
"You idiot! I almost fell in the lake!" She pulled her
arm free. "Don't you
know any better than to sneak up on people? I almost fell
in the water!" She
wanted to push past him and go back up to the house, trying
to hide the
fact that she was shaking, but with the lake at her heels
and the man and
dog in front of her, she was trapped.
Standing with his legs apart, one leg slightly behind
the other, arms
loose at his sides, he watched her. The dog looked a little
like a German
shepherd, but had a blacker face and sleeker body than the
shepherds she
had seen. The silence became demanding. He finally
said, "Do you live
here?"
Brooke looked up at him, no small feat since she stood
five feet nine
inches in her stocking feet. She didn't want him know how
nervous he
made her. "Does that usually work for you?" she asked, her
voice cracking.
"What?" he said.
She took a deep breath, "The silent stare. Does it
usually work for you?"
He looked down at the dog that looked back up at him. "It
has been
known to," he said.
"Do you have some ID?" she asked.
After a moment of adjusting to the fact that he had
temporarily lost the
initiative in this conversation, the man took a badge
holder from his back
pocket and opened it. He flashed a gold badge and started
to return it to his
pocket.
"I'm sorry, I just didn't see that clearly. May I?"
Brooke held out her
hand, it still trembled a little. He hesitated, took a step
closer and placed
the leather holder in her hand. She opened it and saw a
gold badge with
‘Homeland Security Investigations, Special Agent' imprinted
on it with an
eagle in flight on the top. The other side held a card with
his name,
‘HSI/ICE, Jack Strickland, Special Agent.' She gave the
credentials back to
him.
"Thank you Agent Strickland. What in the heck is
I.C.E?"
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