Dear Laurence,
This query letter is in response to the Urbis Opportunity.
“The Dubai Connection” is a 93,500 word completed novel that I am submitting for your consideration. It is the third of three submissions I am making for these Urbis Opportunities, the other two have been submitted for Susanna. I will not bore you by duplicating my autobiography etc here.
Love, hate, sex, action, murder and a modicum of angst all set in modern day Dubai.
Synopsis:
David had been brought up as a Christian and, though his faith had lapsed by his early twenties, that early morality remained with him until his wife and unborn child died due to an “administrative” mistake in the UK. After years of fruitlessly fighting for some form of justice, alternating with constantly battling the lethargy brought on by depression, he finally snapped.
Six “hits” later, and “thou shall not kill” no longer part of his moral code, David decided it was time for self preservation and he ran from the UK.
Rianne had an almost idyllic childhood, in Surry, England, until both parents died in a car accident and her brother in a coach crash a month later. Adopted by her uncle, carefully nurtured by him to increase and harden her emotional walls, she eventually becomes one of his assassins ‘fighting on the side of the good guys’.
Rianne on a contract, David escaping the UK, they both sit next to each other on a flight to Dubai. At first, they indulge in idle chit chat and enjoy the false sense of normality. Yet, with both their guards down, they find mutual attraction and drawn almost inevitably into sleeping together in her apartment when they land in Dubai.
The next morning, Riannes world intrudes as two armed thugs arrive at the hotel and David is drawn into helping her kill them. The temporary solace disturbed, the dream broken, they quickly part ways.
Those paid to defend the man Rianne has come to kill, however, then see David as a potential means to find and kill her.
Forced back together, they see a chance with each other to try to divorce themselves from their past, attempt to start again and become normal people. That, however, involves a decision – can they stop being killers by taking on “one more hit”?
As more people become involved, as the one hit develops into many, their veneers of cold hearted killers crack and they realize what they have become and the price they have paid. That ‘escape’ appears to become denied by almost insurmountable barriers.
People from their past, people they once cared about, become involved; including Riannes uncle - who wishes to use their new sense of hope to achieve his own ends.
“Dubai Connection” is an action adventure story, but also asks questions about morality on both a personal and a political level. Can cold hearted killers, when they believe what they do is morally justified, also be nice people?
Sample Chapter:
Prologue: 2003 Surry
David found that taking out his first target was far harder than he had thought it would be. He called the man a target, yet he knew that what he was doing would not be labeled an assassination.
Luck and planning both played a part and his setting up the shot had become a relatively easy task.
He had parked his car in a small country road lay-by, locked the doors, climbed the metal field gate and headed across the pasture field. The English mid-winter early nightfall and a cloud masking the moon allowed him to feel safe walking straight across the open space rather than follow the perimeter, no one would see him this evening.
That, and the fact he now carried a soft cloth carryall, were all that made this time different from the many practice runs he had made in the last month. He quickly passed through the small copse of trees that edged the far end of the field, then broke cover once again and crouched down at the start of more grassy pasture land. The house was less than fifty meters away and slightly downhill from where he had stopped. He opened the carryall and removed the small support tripod, embedding its legs in the soft earth.
He had rehearsed everything so often that he could have carried out this part of the task with his eyes shut. Next, he removed the sections of the rifle and assembled them, leaving fitting the telescopic sights until last. Finally he lay on his stomach, rested the rifle on the tripod, dialed in the range and began adjusting the sights. The country home, with its ivy clad walls, slate roof and leaded windows soon blurred as he focused on the dining room window.
He could see the Cromwellian wooden dining table and the incongruous regency chair where the man would soon be sitting to eat his evening meal. David moved his head slightly and took his eye away from the scope. He could use unaided vision to watch until the target entered the room.
His senses seemed heightened, and he noticed that the grass was damp and he could smell the leaf mould from his trek through the woods. A movement in the room sharpened his concentration. Sure enough, the man stuck to his routine like clockwork and had just entered right on time. David returned his eye to the scope.
It was only then, with the target in his sights, that David discovered that the hard part was actually squeezing the trigger.
Right up until that moment, he had been driven by a submerged anger; it was there under the surface all the time, but externally expressed with a cool calm focused attitude.
Then, suddenly, it was gone, the anger evaporated and self preservation taking its place.
The thought of taking this man’s life did not deter him, what this man had done to him, to his family made David absolutely certain that this doctor MUST die.
It was the permanence of the decision, the fact that pulling that trigger would be totally irreversible. Once the bullet was on its way, David would have become a criminal, a murderer in the eyes of the law.
That went against everything he had ever been taught.
His hands shook, beads of sweat formed on his forehead, the metal trigger seemed slippery in his perspiring fingers.
He let go of the rifle, placed one arm on the ground to one side and rested his head on the soft jacket sleeve. He began purposely slowing his rate of breathing, slowly in, slowly out, calm, relax. That’s right. Now, do what you came here for.
Once again he gripped the rifle and sighted through the scope. The doctor was slowly sipping soup.
Count to three, breath in, then slowly breath out and squeeze, gently squeeze. There, the decision had been made, the task completed. And in that moment, all the fear departed.
He had decided against using a silencer in case it reduced the velocity too much over the distance, it had to break through glass before striking the target. He felt safe in doing this, it was hunting country and the sound of shotguns was often heard.
However, the crack of the rifle shot was surprisingly loud now he was not wearing ear muffs, and he heard it echo off some distant hills.
The trip back across the fields to the car was totally uneventful, and he was soon driving away just as he had done each time before – but this time with task complete.
He did not allow himself to register the sight of the blood gushing from the man’s head, flowing both into the soup and across the white tablecloth.
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