Red Ultimatum

 

Red Ultimatum
Edwin D. Fuller, Gary Grossman
(The Red Hotel, #4)
Publication date: February 25th 2025
Genres: Adult, Thriller

A former U.S. President’s plane is brought down in the Atlantic. Revolutionary forces attack Cairo. The U.S. Secretary of State is kidnapped in Panama. A North Korean ballistic missile submarine tracks toward America’s West Coast. A sleeper cell spy awakens in the halls of Congress. A woman assassin takes aim on the Washington Mall. Behind it all is Russian President Nicolai Gorshkov who has mastered the ability to walk between the raindrops and not get wet. Until… China determines that Gorshkov’s policies are endangering its global initiatives… until Beijing issues Gorshkov a defiant ultimatum… until Dan Reilly, hotel executive/CIA freelancer, and friend of the Secretary of State, reads the moves on the international political chessboard and picks up the pieces. The non-stop action plays out on Air, Land, and Sea. Yet, with so many geo-political threads being tugged simultaneously, will the Russian leader succeed getting another step closer to rebuilding the old Soviet Empire in his image? (https://redhotelseries.com/)

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EXCERPT:

ATHENS, GREECE

“I saw you die!”

“You saw me fall off the building.”

“Yes, and you died! I saw it happen. The explosion from below. The fireball that swept up. Your last look. I’ve relived that moment every day since. Oh my God, Marnie, I was there. I saw it all.”

“And I’m here with you, Dan.” “You’re not. You can’t be.”

“I am and we can be together again.”

She reached out to him. Dan Reilly stepped back and stared. She was wearing the same dress, green blouse, and leather jacket she had worn that day in Stockholm; the day Marnie Babbitt returned to his hotel room seemingly regretful; wishing things were different; wanting to make them so.

“You loved me, Dan,” the brunette said softly. “You can love me again. Tonight. Here in Athens.”

Dan Reilly stopped retreating. Yes, he thought. Here. Athens.

He looked at the surroundings. Nighttime traffic was flowing along Adrianou Street. Horns honked. Couples walked arm-in-arm. Tourists window-shopped. Everything was normal until the woman he had desperately loved, the woman who had betrayed him stepped out of the shadows in front of him and into the light of a street lamp.

Dan Reilly had just concluded a successful business meeting at Kuzina, one of Athens’ most celebrated restaurants that boasted a magnificent view of The Temple of Hephaestus, the Agora, and the Acropolis. He had come to discuss the final terms for his company’s acquisition of a luxury hotel property currently owned by a Greek billionaire. It would take lawyers months to solidify the terms, but atop the restaurant’s Tarazza, with the golden glow of the Acropolis backlighting them, Reilly and the seller toasted to their relationship with a final glass of Ouzo.

It had been a good night for the International President of Kensington Royal Hotel Corporation. As he had walked along the cobblestones on Adrianou, Marnie Babbitt was not on his mind, but suddenly she was there alive and vibrant as ever. Her beauty took his breath away. Her voice was as soft and lilting as the last whispers in his ear.

Or the last lies, he thought.

“No lies, Dan,” she said as if reading his mind. “This time it will be different.”

At first, Reilly had felt immobile. Then he was drawn to her.

She reached out to him and stroked his cheek. Her touch was as present as ever. The light gave her an almost ethereal glow. She looked longingly into his eyes and proved she was alive with a lingering, deep kiss. Then she said, “Is that the kiss of a dead woman?”

Her tongue, her scent, and her breath were just as he remembered.

Just as he missed. So was the quickening of his heartbeat.

He withdrew and looked into her brown eyes. They were so bright and inviting.

“You missed me. I know you did.” She smiled and took a step back into the shadows. “Come with, Dan.”

The sounds of the city faded away. Gone were the car horns and sirens, people talking, dogs barking, car doors slamming, and footsteps on the sidewalk. Everything around him blurred. There was just Marnie and him. He felt his desire for her grow. Then he thought of Yibing Cheng, the woman now in his life.

“But—”

“It’s all right my darling. I know that there’s someone else. But I’m back. You want me.”

More thoughts from his head. How did she know? “You want us to be together again.”

“Marnie, I saw…

“You saw what we wanted you to see.”

She leaned forward and kissed him again. She felt him. He responded. “Now I’m here. To be with you.”

He withdrew.

“Don’t you want that, Dan? Don’t you want me?” “Marnie…”

“Yes.”

“Marnie,” he said again. “Yes, my love.”

“But you’re—”

She suddenly laughed. Her brown eyes went black.

Maybe it was the Ouzo, but all he initially felt was a prick in his stomach. Then he looked down. There was the hand that he had loved caressing. But now it held the black handle of a Russian Kizlyar Spetsnaz Special Forces knife.

He brought his eyes up to hers. She smiled cruelly, waited a moment, and then twisted the 6.5-inch blade and sliced upwards.

Reilly tried to speak. He couldn’t. He felt his legs crumble, but Marnie Babbitt’s grip on the knife kept him on his feet. She twisted again.

“Why?” Reilly silently gurgled.

“Because this is the way it should have ended.”

Marnie’s words confused him. He grabbed her hand with his. Blood soaked them both.

Should have ended?

Reilly tried to pull out the knife, but she was stronger. Life began to leave him.

With a sickly sweet laugh, she repeated, “This is the way it should have ended. You, not me.”

Should…have…ended. The words were familiar. He’d heard them before. Many times before.

“No!” Reilly shouted in full-throated defiance. “This is not how it should end! And…you…are… dead!”

“What?”

“You’re dead,” he shouted. “You’re dead!” “No, Dan. No! It’s all right.”

He was shaking violently. “Dan!”

Dan Reilly bolted upright. He automatically grabbed his stomach. It was wet, but from sweat, not blood. And the woman whose concerned voice was cutting through his dream belonged to Yibing Cheng.

“Dan, Dan, it’s okay. You’re here with me. Yibing.”

Reilly slowly collected his thoughts. Yibing turned on a night light and faced the man she’d been seeing for just a few months. They were in Athens, but he was not on the street bleeding. But he had had nights like this—in Paris, Washington, and where Reilly and Yibing had first met, Beijing.

“Your dream again?” she asked. He gathered his thoughts.

“Yes, except this time it was here. Outside our restaurant last night.

The street—”

“I’m so sorry,” Yibing said pulling him close to her naked body.

What did she do?”

“At least she didn’t throw me into a woodchipper this time,” Reilly replied lightly. “No plastic bag over my head. No fall from a cliff.” He rubbed his gut. “But she was pretty good with a knife, even for a dream.”

Reilly knew what was going on. Shrinks might call it PTSD. He saw it more as a combination of guilt over the fact that he failed to recognize Marnie Babbitt was a Russian plant and guilt that he couldn’t save her the moment he realized she wanted out. It was all manifesting itself in very vivid revenge dreams. But it was not paranoia.

There was more that wasn’t in his dream world. Dan Reilly had seen drones out his window after he and Yibing had returned from Beijing. He’d spotted people following them. And they were not his people. Not Yibing’s either.

For now, he viewed the tails and eavesdropping as intimidation. Russian or possibly Chinese. But it could get worse. It likely would get worse and not because he was an international hotel executive. It was his moonlighting. Dan Reilly had deep ties with officers at the CIA and even deeper ties with the United States Secretary of State.

Author Bio:

ED FULLER is CEO of Laguna Strategic Advisors, a global consortium providing business consulting services worldwide. He has served on business and charitable boards during his 40-year career with Marriott International where he was chief marketing officer followed by 22 years as president and managing director of Marriott International. Under his management, the international division grew from 16 to 550 hotels in 73 countries with 80,000 associates and sales of $8 billion. Upon retirement, Fuller has served on five university boards and taught as adjunct professor for MBA and undergraduate students. He blogged for Forbes and other tourism and lodging industry media. His book, You Can’t Lead with Your Feet on the Desk, has been printed in English, Japanese and Chinese. Fuller served as captain in the U.S. Army, stationed in Germany and Vietnam and received the Bronze Star and the Army Commendation medals. He and Gary Grossman are co-authors of the Red Hotel series, including the 2018 thriller Red Hotel and the 2021 release, Red Deception, soon to be followed by Red Chaos.

Gary Grossman is author of the bestselling political thrillers EXECUTIVE ACTIONS,EXECUTIVE TREASON, EXECUTIVE COMMAND, and EXECUTIVE FORCE; a geological thriller that spans 4 billions years, OLD EARTH; and with co-author Ed Fuller, RED HOTEL, RED CHAOS, and RED DECEPTION. Grossman has also written two acclaimed non-fiction books covering pop culture and television history: SUPERMAN: SERIAL TO CEREAL and SATURDAY MORNING TV.

He is an Emmy Award-winning network television producer, a print and television journalist, a novelist and a film and TV historian. His career has included stints producing for NBC News, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS and 40 cable networks.

Grossman has produced more than 10,000 series episodes and specials through his TV production company Weller/Grossman Productions, and earned numerous awards including the prestigious Governor's Emmy Award for a USA Network production and an Emmy for Best Informational series with the production of "Wolfgang Puck" for Food Network. Their documentary "Beyond the Da Vinci Code" (History Channel) earned two national Emmy nominations. In all, Grossman has received 14 Emmy nominations.

Grossman earned a Bachelors Degree in Communications from Emerson College in Boston and a Master's Degree in Urban Affairs from Boston University.

He began his broadcasting career as a rock disc jockey at WHUC, in Hudson, New York. He worked at Boston television station, WBZ; joined The Boston Globe as a special contributor, and then became the television critic and media columnist at The Boston Herald American. His freelance articles have appeared in The New York Times and numerous magazines. He taught journalism and media at Emerson College, Boston University, USC and now Loyola Marymount University's Graduate School of Film and Television.

Grossman helped formulate, program and launch television cable networks including HGTV, National Geographic Channel, and The Africa Channel.

Grossman has served on the Emerson College Board of Trustees where he chaired the Academic Affairs Committee. He is also a member of the Boston University Metropolitan College Advisory Board. For four years he was chair of the Government Affairs Committee for the Caucus for Television Producers, Directors & Writers, a Hollywood-based media activist group. He is member of The International Thriller Writers Association.

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