Verwandte Artikel zu Beyond Eden

9780312942151: Beyond Eden
Softcover
ISBN 10: 031294215X ISBN 13: 9780312942151
Verlag: St Martin's Press, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

A young book editor stumbles up from the site of a bombing in the London subway. He accepts a woman’s offer of help and a hot cup of tea. He’s never heard from again...A group of boys in upstate New York goes sledding. One doesn’t come home...A military convoy approaches a lone figure on a dusty road north of Baghdad. The woman is Army Chaplain Jaime Richards—and it seems she’s been gone a lifetime.
 
After two years in paradise, Jaime has chosen to return to the “terris” world as a dual citizen, an Agent of Eden. But soon she will discover that life among mere mortals has become a living hell—and that a series of kidnappings are fatefully and tragically connected. For the victims are all descendants of Eden, and they have the one thing people outside of paradise want: A way to live forever.
 
 
 

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

SHARON LINNÉA is the author of the biographies Raoul Wallenberg,The Man Who Stopped Death and Princess Ka’iulani: Hope of a Nation, Heart of a People, which won the prestigious Carter G. Woodson Award, as well as the nonfiction book Lost Civilizations. Sharon has been a staff writer for five national magazines and a ghostwriter for dozens of celebrities. She lives with her family outside of New York City. www.sharonlinnea.com
 
 
B. K. SHERER holds a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a doctorate from Oklahoma State University. A Presbyterian minister, she currently serves on active duty as a chaplain in the United States Army. Her work has taken her to Argentina, Somalia, Korea, Costa Rica, Germany, Kuwait and Iraq.
 
The authors first collaborated on a play for their sixth grade talent show in Springfield, Missouri, and have been best friends ever since.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

NOW THAT PARADISE IS FOUND
A young book editor stumbles up from the site of a bombing in the London subway. He accepts a woman’s offer of help and a hot cup of tea. He’s never heard from again...A group of boys in upstate New York goes sledding. One doesn’t come home...A military convoy approaches a lone figure on a dusty road north of Baghdad. The woman is Army Chaplain Jaime Richards—and it seems she’s been gone a lifetime.
 
THE RACE TO LIVE FOREVER HAS JUST BEGUN…
After two years in paradise, Jaime has chosen to return to the “terris” world as a dual citizen, an Agent of Eden. But soon she will discover that life among mere mortals has become a living hell—and that a series of kidnappings are fatefully and tragically connected. For the victims are all descendants of Eden, and they have the one thing people outside of paradise want: A way to live forever.
 
 
PRAISE FOR CHASING EDEN
 
“A roller-coaster adventure...reads like a cross between Jarhead and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
—Julia Spencer-Fleming, Agatha Award-winning author of All Mortal Flesh
 
“Unique, provocative, and engrossing...hours of gripping reading.”
—Cherry Adair, New York Times bestselling author of Edge of Darkness

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Excerpt
 

February 23, 2006, 4:26 a.m.
Southwestern desert, Iraq

Jaime Richards awoke under a fiercely blazing canopy of stars. The air around her was chilly and still. She was under a coarse woven blanket, with another blanket beneath to shield her from the dusty ground.

She had dreamed of a land of shimmering colors, deeply intense in their hues. It was a land she’d come to know well. She was back now in what they called the Terris world. Even as she awoke, it felt uncomfortably unfamiliar. But she was back for an urgent purpose, and she had to get her bearings. She tried to sit up.

The landscape swam, and vomit lurched in her stomach.

“Don’t worry. I know you’re in a hurry, but it will take less than half an hour for the drug to wear off. You’re safe, and your guide is coming before dawn.” The voice was male, the accent Farsi. “Relax. Let yourself drift. You can’t hurry the process, but if you don’t fight it, you can make it more pleasing.”

Jaime willed herself to relax, to close her eyes. And in her mind, she went back to Eden. She was sitting on a mountainside terrace, outside the Operative training school. She loved sipping her tea, overlooking the verdant valley growing lush with bougainvillea, roses, morning glory. She loved the colors glistening off the rooftops, the jewels shining in the sun. She loved that she was in a very intense training program and yet she’d been taught to relax, to breathe, to appreciate every opportunity presented.

She stretched her legs; even though it was February, she wore a colorful summer robe, with bare legs and sandaled feet. She could have been barefoot if she wished.

“You feel at home here.”

Jaime looked up to find the master of the school, a fit man with olive skin and white hair, standing beside her with his own cup of tea. “May I?”

“Of course.”

He sat on the other carved chair and looked at the world of paradise spread before them. “This feels like home to you?” he said.

“Yes. More than anywhere I’ve ever been.”

“Ah. I’m glad. It means the decision was right to bring you in.”

They sat companionably, sipping their tea.

“I’ve come to ask if you’re ready to go back.”

Jaime sat straight, knocking the table in her surprise. “Back? But I’ve only been in training for two years!”

No one was ever given an assignment as an Operative of Eden back in the Terris world until they’d completed the five-year initial training course.

“Special circumstances require special actions,” Clement said. “The identities of some of our people in the Terris world have been compromised. We must send in an Operative whose identity we know has not been compromised—someone new. It is early for you. You would be taking a chance. We would be taking a chance. But I wouldn’t be asking if we didn’t think you were up to it, that the odds are in favor of your success.”

He carried a small pouch of pretzels and offered her one. “What do you think? Are you ready to return? If so, things will move quickly.”

Was she ready?

Now here she was, two days later, on the ground of the desert of western Iran, if things had gone as planned.

Jaime heard an odd noise, like the tinkling of small tinny bells, and opened her eyes again, giving them time to adjust to the dark. This time, she felt much better. She realized someone was sitting beside her.

“Here. Would you like a drink?” He held out a canteen. “Don’t worry. The water is pure. It arrived here with you.”

She sat up slowly and took the canteen gratefully.

The man beside her was strapping and tall, with the dark leathery skin of a nomad, who spent his days outside. He wore loose pants, a shirt, and a vest and a hat, although colors were hard to discern at that hour. He also had a thick, curly beard. She looked beyond him to the large herd of animals just below them on the landscape.

“There are over twelve million goats in Iran,” he said conversationally in Farsi. “Almost every home has one or two. They’re easier to keep than sheep—goats can find food almost anywhere.”

“How many have you got?” she asked, also in Farsi. If her reentry story was that she had spent time with Iranian goat herders, she would have been expected to speak with them. So over the past year, she had learned.

“One hundred and forty-six,” he replied. “It’s a communal flock, belonging to our extended family, many of whom are now sleeping in those tents over the hill. The goats are nearly all female; their breed is Tali. We use them for milk. They drop one kid per year. We let the kids grow up; then we sell the males to the market.”

“All of the males?”

“No. We keep a couple to father the next year’s kids. And we also castrate a few. Those are the ones you’re hearing. They become the ‘guide goats.’ They get to wear tassels and bells so they’re easy to spot, and they keep the herd together.” He smiled. “God save me from tassels and bells.”

“Someone is coming for me?” she asked, also conversationally. Neither of them would ask the other for any kind of identification. When she left, it would be as if she’d never been there.

“By the time the comet has disappeared.”

“The comet?”

He used his whole hand to point in an arc from the top of the sky down toward east southeast, to the horizon. “Follow a line from the sliver of the moon, down past Venus . . . there . . . do you see? Just above the horizon?”

She sat still, letting her eyes adjust to the celestial lights in the far sky. And there, hanging just where he’d shown her, was a small fireball blazing sideways.

“A welcome back,” he said.

She let her hands run across the homespun blanket beneath her and breathed again of the silent night air. She was back; she was here in the Terris world, with its sand and stars, pollution and wars.

She’d been sent back on an urgent mission. But was this home anymore?

“How long does the comet blaze?” she asked.

“Only half an hour a night,” he answered. “You will go soon. Are you feeling all right?”

She nodded. Then she said, “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m up anyway.”

They sat silent, side by side, two friends who knew nothing about each other.

And Jaime’s new adventure began.
 
February 23, 2006, 10:00 a.m.
40 kilometers southeast of Ad D¯iwn¯iyah, along
MSR Tampa, Iraq

Command Sergeant Major Zack DeCamp was not having a good day. He commanded a five-vehicle convoy that served as the personal security detachment for the 5th COSCOM commanding general who was based in Balad, Iraq. If the CG, the Commanding General, had to get somewhere by ground, it was DeCamp’s responsibility. Many American soldiers in Iraq prayed they didn’t have to ride in a convoy very often. Between IEDs (improvised explosive devices), civilian traffic, and the cramped,...

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Verlag
St Martin's Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
031294215X
ISBN 13 
9780312942151
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
387
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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Verantwortliche Person
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