Sprinter: A Novel of Suspense - Hardcover

Jones, Bruce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385486901 ISBN 13: 9780385486903

Publisher: Doubleday, 1998

Synopsis

A human time bomb with the keys to a high-tech kingdom, a deadly government conspiracy, and an innocent woman caught in the middle converge in this adrenaline-fueled thriller packed with page-turning suspense.  

With the most powerful microprocessor on the market, the Sprinter 9000 personal computer has hit the streets running and is blowing the  competition away.  Unfortunately, the key players behind Sprinter's success are also being blown away--literally.  Behind it all is the elusive John Handle, also known as the Solobomber, a man whose mind is as twisted as it is brilliant.  Now Handle has seized control of every major Washington database and he'll only negotiate with one person: Jeni Starbuck.

Jeni has nothing to lose by getting involved.  She's already lost everything that ever mattered to her: her husband, her daughter, and her job as an ATF agent.  So when the FBI comes calling, she can't resist the challenge.  The only question  that keeps nagging her is: Why did the Solobomber choose her? The answer  is more complex--and personal--than  Jeni could ever possibly imagine.

Double-crossed by her own government and played like a pawn by the mysterious Solobomber, Jeni Starbuck is in for the run of her life as Sprinter virtually races to its explosive finish.

About this title

About the Author

Bruce Jones is the author of Maximum Velocity, Game Running, Stalker's Moon, and In Deep.  A former screenwriter, he lives in Westlake Village, California, with his wife and children.

From the Inside Flap

bomb with the keys to a high-tech kingdom, a deadly government conspiracy, and an innocent woman caught in the middle converge in this adrenaline-fueled thriller packed with page-turning suspense.  <br><br>With the most powerful microprocessor on the market, the Sprinter 9000 personal computer has hit the streets running and is blowing the  competition away.  Unfortunately, the key players behind Sprinter's success are also being blown away--literally.  Behind it all is the elusive John Handle, also known as the Solobomber, a man whose mind is as twisted as it is brilliant.  Now Handle has seized control of every major Washington database and he'll only negotiate with one person: Jeni Starbuck.<br><br>Jeni has nothing to lose by getting involved.  She's already lost everything that ever mattered to her: her husband, her daughter, and her job as an ATF agent.  So when the FBI comes calling, she can't resist the challenge

Reviews

A derivative woman-in-periler pits a mad computer hacker against a former federal agent whose hobby is marathon running. John Handler, the cool psychokiller identified as ``the tall man,'' is a really bad guy: Not only does he murder an innocent FBI staffer in Washington and asphyxiate a lonely San Diego lady with a kiss, but he also apparently blows up the feckless cat belonging to beautiful, divorced, guilt-ridden ex-ATF agent Jeni Starbuck. Things turn even worse when it begins to look as if the shadowy Handler is not just a psychotic thug but the pyrotechnic assassin known as the Solobomber. Starbuck, who left the ATF after the Waco/Branch Davidian holocaust, lost her daughter Molly in what she believes was a revenge bombing, and, when she isn't marathon-running, works off her guilt at a children's AIDS hospice. She can't figure out why, of all the beautiful women in the world, Handler plies her, and her alone, with intimate statements about herself (spoken with the tedious, aristocratic prolixity of a James Bond villain), with news that her daughter may be alive, and with sadistic challenges requiring her to run to specific San Diego locales within a set number of minutes to prevent him from blowing them up. This fourth thriller from Jones (Maximum Velocity, 1996, etc.) is set in a near future where most people calculate, communicate, and entertain with computers equipped with the Sprinter 9000 chip. It takes Jeni a little too long to figure out, after a Walkman-size Sprinter 9000 computer arrives unsolicited at her doorstep, that the chip holds the secret of Handler's power. But with the help of FBI agent Paul Miller, she unmasks Handler, puts guilt behind her, admits her interest in Millerand even gets her cat back. An unsurprising assembly of genre clichs. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

She knew exactly where she was going.

The Piedmont Apartments were near her neighborhood. She'd looked into them right after the breakup, considered a small efficiency one-bedroom; but they didn't accept pets and she would not part with Pierre Cardin, even though Brian had offered to take him. A sweet gesture considering Brian hated the cat.

Jeni jogged evenly down the courthouse lawn, finding her rhythm, turned left on Prescott, and hit the sidewalk paralleling the Pacific Coast Highway. She ran, with light evening traffic, in smooth, even strides, conserving energy for the sprint, ignoring the odd looks from passersby at this strange jogger in a beige sweater and flats. She checked the luminous dial of her watch. She'd lost nearly a minute sparring with Miller. But she knew shortcuts, backyards, and alleyways from her time with the agency, things that would trim seconds, maybe minutes, off her time, places Handle couldn't know of. She should be able to reach the Piedmont apartment complex in under ten minutes easily, even without the sprint. If she hadn't known that, she wouldn't have attempted this. At least she didn't think she would have.

After the first block she remembered to flick on the radio at her belt, adjust her headphones.

"Heartbreak Hotel" was just ending. Courtesy--she assumed--of a call-in request from Handle. Not her favorite Presley vehicle, but up there near the top, an old, reliable standby.

"--and that was the King, going out under special request for Jeni. Hey, it's coming up on the eight o'clock hour here on KXOK 880 AM your station for San Diego's oldies!  Hal Fairmont spinning the platters for you this foggy eve, where you'll hear more about the weather and the news--including the big explosion near Sea Port Village--from our own Web Stickler at the top of the hour!  Right now, Pete at Center High would like to send this out to Julie . . . and if you can give me the name of the artist on this tune I've got two tickets to Sea World here in my hot little jock hands!  Here we go then with "Silhouettes" . . . third caller wins!"

"So what do you think, Jeni?" Handle's voice interrupted, startling with clarity, loud and uncomfortably personal in her ears. It threw off her rhythm for a second. The station sounds disappeared.

She was just rounding Third and Broadway, dodging around pedestrians, a group of teens hooting at the lady in the bouncy sweater, inching her way uptown to more secluded, less trafficked streets.

"Jeni?  It's John. Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you," she puffed evenly.

"These new Sprinter 9000 Walkmans are a marvel, aren't they?  First the telephone, then the cellular phone, fiber-optic computers, and now two-way radios. Isn't progress wonderful!"

"Yes, gives one such a feeling of privacy."

Handle laughed in her ears. "My point exactly!  Oh, I think we're going to get along famously, Jeni!  You're breaking up a bit. Adjust your gain knob. Do you have it exactly on 880 AM?"

Jeni turned another corner, found a blessedly empty alleyway, glanced down at the radio hooked to her belt. "Little hard to be sure, Mr. Handle, under the circumstances."

A sympathetic chuckle. "I appreciate that. And please call me John. You call him Paul, you can call me John. Would he be very jealous, do you think?"

"Agent Miller?" It was becoming difficult, running and talking, it was interfering with her timing. Was Handle aware of that?  Of course he was. "Why on earth would he be?"

"Not Miller. Brian!  Is he the jealous type, your ex?"

"We're divorced."

"But you still love him, do you not?  After all, twelve years and a child. One expects some residual feeling."

Her throat tightened. She had to will herself to relax: she couldn't run with her throat seized up. She rounded a trash can, cleared the opposite end of the alley, and jogged up Grape Street. It was a moderately steep hill--would take its toll on her calf muscles but cut minutes off her time. If she didn't wear out.

She didn't think she would. She felt okay. Fine, actually. The cool evening air was clearing her head, giving her a second wind.

"How are you holding up?  Your breathing sounds slightly irregular."

"Well, that's because I'm talking and running at the same time."

"Forgive me. Would you rather I rang off?"

No!  Keep him talking!  Miller is locked on, taping this!

"Not really. I like company."

"You didn't like the black girl's company much. How much did it cost you?"

She was nearing the crest of the hill, thighs burning. She was more tired than she'd thought. It had been a tough day despite the late arousal. "A lot. I hope you didn't have any bets down on me, John."

"I'm not a betting man. Thank you for calling me John. Will it set back your AIDS hospice terribly, your losing the race?"

"It won't help." She wavered an instant at Sloane and Fifth, then took the tougher of the two options up the steep Sloane hill, glancing at her watch. She was making good time.

"Perhaps I can make it up to you. I mean, I was indirectly responsible for your falling, I suppose."

"And how would you do that, John?"

Silence for a moment.

"John?  Are you there?"

"You're a very smart cop, aren't you, Jeni?  You don't push. But you keep me on the line. I did well in choosing you."

"Choosing me for what, John?"

"All in good time."

She breasted Sloane and pulled cold, grateful air into her lungs, calves relaxing, shin muscles taking over for a while on the downhill side. It was a little easier to breathe.

"How are the legs holding up?"

"I'm in good shape, John."

"Beautiful shape. A beautiful woman. It worked against you in the agency, of course. Especially a sexist outfit like the ATF. Bunch of moonshine hunting good old boys from the Southeast, am I right?"

Jeni didn't answer.

"Why do you suppose it's that way, Jeni?  An organization that big?"

"It's that way because the generation of ATF officials who hired the current senior managers were men. Men hired for their knowledge of southern mores, their expertise in handling country bootleggers. Once these guys reached positions of authority, they kept right on hiring people like themselves, perpetuating the bad habits." She swallowed hard. He had her talking too much again. Conserve, conserve!

"So why on earth did a bright, pretty young woman like you stay with them?  With your inquisitive mind you could have done anything."

"Not anything. I was trained as a Treasury agent. And anyway, I loved the ATF. It's basically a good agency."

"Really. And how do you justify something like the unmitigated disaster at Waco?"

"We--they--learned a lot from Waco."

"As I understand it, it was mostly a lack of training, even among the field commanders. They lost the element of surprise. Would you agree?"

"The biggest mistake was that the top two commanders took part in the assault. Their perspective was diluted. If they hadn't been so close in, they might have called it off when things went wrong, averted disaster. One of them rode a helicopter, the other actually took place in the raiding party entering the compound. That was a mistake. A costly one. But the agency's learned from it. It's a good organization." She took a deep breath. "I really can't keep conversing and running like this, John."

"And Brian Starbuck--your ex--does he concur with all this?"

"Brian wasn't at Waco."

"That's not what I asked you, Jeni. Is Brian also sympathetic to the ATF?  Or is it his contention that some of the disgruntled good old boys--the overly zealous patriot types that don't tolerate snitches--might be somehow responsible for the, ah . . . accident?  The one that killed your child . . ."

Jeni received the stab of pain above her heart without breaking stride. Her breathing was labored now. She was still making good time but she was wearing down rapidly. There would be little left for a sprint if that became necessary. She decided to try to switch tactics with him. "You're a very informed individual, John. Were you with the Bureau at one time, perhaps?"

"Uh-oh. Now you are pushing. However, I will tell you that we have many friends in common, though whether they would consider me a friend at this point--well, you know the old saying about strange bedfellows!  You sound labored, Jeni. Maybe we should curtail this delightful conversation for the time being."

No!  Don't lose him!

"Whatever you say. Of course, I was hoping you might be of some help once I reached the Piedmont Apartments." She barely got it out, the last words shaky.

"Did I say Piedmont Apartments?"

Here it came.

"Is there a change in plan, John?" A familiar stitch was beginning at her left side. Probably from being forced to gulp air while talking to him. If the pain grew worse, she'd have to slow.

"Let me see now . . . If you've cut across town to save time--as I assume you have, that's what I'd do, using the alleys and hills on Grape and Sloane--then you should be coming up on Trinity Street about now. Am I close?"

How in hell did he do it?  "Pretty close."

"Good. Turn left on Trinity, please. And cut through that backyard...

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385486901
• ISBN 13: 9780385486903
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336