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    CodeX
    CodeX
    CodeX
    Ebook133 pages1 hour

    CodeX

    By Corinna Lucarelli

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Sarah, a simple secretary, becomes the involuntary heroine of a story of political corruption together with her old love, Michael, who suddenly reappears in her life. She will find herself fighting to bring out the incredible truth. An ancient family pendant left by him in custody before disappearing again will soon prove to be an object of great importance and be a crucial point of the story.
    The sequence of events which follow one another at a rapid pace open the doors for Sarah to an unknown world made of intrigues and conspiracies that change her life, bringing her to various risky yet fascinating distant places in the search of Michael, who is soon discovered to be an agent of the secret service.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAustin Macauley Publishers
    Release dateApr 30, 2021
    ISBN9781528990356
    CodeX
    Author

    Corinna Lucarelli

    The author, Corinna Lucarelli, was born in Isola del Liri – in the province of Frosinone – on the 10th of September 1978 and lives in Sabaudia – in the province of Latina – where she enjoys taking a stroll on the seaside with her life companion, her female dog Nana. She finds time to produce literary works of different kinds. After her high school diploma, she graduated in communication with top grades from the University of Lugano Swiss. She grew up in an open and stimulating environment where priority was given to culture. Right away she shows to have a lot of fantasy and creativity. Her creativity pushes her to develop romantic and adventurous stories. A melancholy spreads through each of her storytelling of short stories or historic novels. Her intellectual vivacity has various themes, even surprising the reader with spy stories.

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      Book preview

      CodeX - Corinna Lucarelli

      13

      About the Author

      The author, Corinna Lucarelli, was born in Isola del Liri – in the province of Frosinone – on the 10th of September 1978 and lives in Sabaudia – in the province of Latina – where she enjoys taking a stroll on the seaside with her life companion, her female dog Nana. She finds time to produce literary works of different kinds. After her high school diploma, she graduated in communication with top grades from the University of Lugano Swiss. She grew up in an open and stimulating environment where priority was given to culture. Right away she shows to have a lot of fantasy and creativity. Her creativity pushes her to develop romantic and adventurous stories. A melancholy spreads through each of her storytelling of short stories or historic novels. Her intellectual vivacity has various themes, even surprising the reader with spy stories.

      Dedication

      To all those that we don’t know.

      Copyright Information ©

      Corinna Lucarelli (2021)

      The right of Corinna Lucarelli to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

      Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

      ISBN 9781528990349 (Paperback)

      ISBN 9781528990356 (ePub e-book)

      www.austinmacauley.com

      First Published (2021)

      Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

      25 Canada Square

      Canary Wharf

      London

      E14 5LQ

      Prologue

      Sarah, a simple secretary, becomes the involuntary heroine of a story of political corruption, together with her old love Michael who suddenly reappears in her life. She will find herself fighting to bring out the incredible truth. An ancient family pendant left by him in custody, before disappearing again, will soon prove to be an object of great importance and crucial point of the story, which follows one another at a rapid race. This totally involved the unaware Sarah and opened for her the doors of an unknown world made of scheming and conspiracies that changed her life. Bringing her to various and distant places, risky but fascinating journey, in search of Michael who will soon discover to be an agent of the secret services.

      Chapter 1

      Paris, 10th June, 2004

      The background music, the twinkling of crystal glasses, the murmur of the guests and the sweet typical climate of the French summer evenings made Michael wish to change his life. He didn’t participate to nights like those, as a real person for such a long time. Whenever he had gone, was for a job.

      His watchful eyes wandered from left to right in that enormous room. In his hand he held a cup of champagne, his bow tie was too tight and was sawing his throat and with his mere fingers, he loosened it. He had to deal with a situation that didn’t seem all normal; he knew that he had to report to his superiors on what was going on but he also was aware that there was an infiltrator in his agency, and it would have been too risky to talk with anyone.

      A beautiful woman walked past him in a very provocative way but he preferred looking away so that he could repress the involuntary reactions of his body. He had been trained his entire life and now he absolutely had to stop those natural instincts that distracted him from his work.

      Every once in a while, his mind wished so much a normal life, but now his was so risky and not at all normal. It was for him a breath of oxygen that he would have never waived.

      That night, he was there because his instinct had brought him there. His attention was suddenly drawn by two men that were moving away into another room. Although they were careful, they didn’t notice Michael who was staring at them, from the other side of the enormous reception room.

      Paris was a city that he knew very well, too many times he had gone there for work. Often, with regret, he had thought of how beautiful it could have been to spend some time there in good company in that magic city. That reception had been organised by several representatives of the Word Union, for third world hunger, as always, for humanitarian purposes.

      Yet, already in Boston, during a convention where he was a security officer for the US President, he had noticed a somewhat ambiguous attitude of one of the two men present now in Paris and in that precise moment were sneaking away… In fact, on his own initiative, he had even followed him to this event. Such person was much known in the United States of America as a personal secretary of the Vice President. According to him, based on his instinct, he was involved in something vague.

      He watched him confabulate with the other man, a little man of small stature, who could be seen from where Michael was, an oriental, then he saw him disappear behind a door, together with this one and coming out only after an hour. They were laughing, they looked pleased to have perhaps reached an agreement. Once the two separated, the known American person looked up and found himself looking straight at Michael. They stared at each other and everything was clear.

      Michael grabbed immediately the device that he had attached under the label of the jacket to communicate with the central office and report what he had seen. But once he had reported the scene he assisted, he immediately understood from the directives given to him that something very compromising characterised the case. In fact, instead of being instructed to follow Wade Smith, the personal secretary of Peter Wolf, Vice-President of the United States of America, to understand what was going on, he was ordered to go immediately to the Paris branch office.

      Everything seemed strange to him but he followed the orders as he was used to doing for years now. In the meantime, in the room, ‘Sir, I’m Smith the agreement has been reached, there’s only a problem… A man, I think he’s an agent of the secret services, has seen me talking with our contact. I don’t know whether to alarm you but I think it’s wise not to leave traces of our agreement,’ The secretary of the Vice President, Mr. Smith, communicated what had just happened to his superior by means of a device placed in his left ear, which he operated with a simple touch of his fingers.

      ‘Don’t worry Smith, I know everything, I’ve already had him summoned,’ answered the voice from the other side of the telephone. From that moment, Michael was in danger.

      Chicago, 28th September, 2006

      ‘Don’t continue to answer like that, you know that you get me upset!’ an angry young man shouted from the other end of Sarah’s cellular phone.

      ‘No and still no! I answer when and how I want, and at least in this, you cannot stop me.’

      She looked at the floor of her room. Instinctively, she wanted to throw out the window her cellular phone, so that she didn’t have to listen to all those reproaches that over a year prevented her from working peacefully.

      Exactly him, her boyfriend, the sweet Manuel, the one who initially thought would accept her continuous disappearances without excuses, he revealed to be after all very intolerant and without patience.

      Yet, she had been obliged for some time to be absent and to lose all traces of herself, indeed, it was a reality she had chosen with all the good intentions to succeed at best in what she had discovered she loved more, the risk.

      ‘Manuel, stop, please. This time is really crucial, my best friend needs me…’ now her fervent imagination was abandoning her, too many times she had to invent excuses so that she could go away from Chicago, she even had to say that her grandmother, died 12 years before, lived in Alabama and that often it was mandatory for her to visit!

      Oh my god! How many lies. But how could she explain to him that it was for different reasons and of fundamental importance…

      ‘So, let’s do this, you go where you want to and at your return don’t be surprised if I’m not here waiting for you!’ after this, Manuel hanged up and shut off definitely his phone.

      ‘Manuel wait…her last words, it had to be so hard to have a normal life outside her abnormal job …’

      Enough, now I have to think of something else, I cannot leave for a mission with such thoughts in my head, I have to relax, but above all, concentrate. She went to the bathroom to refresh her face; she put on a touch of makeup and took the phone.

      ‘Hello, Mrs. Morresi, I’m about to

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