Fall On Your Knees

By Mary C. Findley

Karin Arthur meets her Christmas Eve blind date and stumbles on a battle to save covert agents and stop a cybercriminal. 

 

Reference librarian Karin Arthur decides Murali Nanda is handsome, intelligent, and passionate about Christian causes she also loves. But she's only known him through his online research projects. Turmoil descends when Karin and Murali plunge into a plot to torture and murder espionage operatives and disseminate a computer infection that could bring vital intelligence agencies to their knees.

A courtship beyond whirlwind and a desperate race to stop a cyberkiller leaves Karin reeling and feeling she has no choice but to accept the protection of this virtual stranger -- whom she knew only in the safe, virtual world of her research work. Can Murali protect her and solve the mystery? Can she help him do what no one else has accomplished -- root out the spreading threat that could lead to cyber destruction?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Findley Family Video
• Release date: Dec 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519969163

Mary C. Findley

Mary grew up in rural NY and Michael is from AZ. We met at college, taught school in AZ, MO and PA, homeschooled, and created curriculum and videos for church and commercial productions. We have three supposedly grown children and traveled the 48 states and Canada together in a tractor trailer.Findley Family Video Publications has the key verse “Speaking the Truth in Love” from Ephesians 4:15. We have four main goals:To Present a Biblical WorldviewTo Exalt the Lord Jesus ChristTo Edify BelieversTo Teach and to DelightMichael J. Findley has been on the road most of his life and his writings reflect that motion. From the rise of the ancient Hittite Empire to a generational saga of a Space Empire, the one constant is his desire to communicate the truth of God's Word through fiction and nonfiction. Homeschoolers, church leaders, and ordinary believers who want to go deeper into the Word and reach higher to put God in the exalted place where He belongs will find many answers here.They say write what you know. Mary C. Findley has poured her real life into her writing -- From the cover designs inspired by her lifelong art studies to the love of pets and country life that worm their way into her historicals. The never-say-die heroes in her twenty-some fiction works are inspired by her husband, a crazy smart man with whom she co-writes science and history-based nonfiction. These works were jump-started by a deep awareness of the dangers in our future if we don't understand ideological enemies rooted in the past. She's a strong believer in helping others and also has books about publishing advice and the need to have strong standards in reading and writing.She has traveled internationally and around the lower 48 and Canada multiple times. Anecdotes from her small town life, college experiences, European, Canadian, and south-of-the border travels, as well as adventures as shotgun rider in a tractor trailer fill her contemporary works. She has also donned the cloak of alt-Victorian adventuress as Sophronia Belle Lyon, steampunk writer with her own League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (and ladies) from the great 1800s novelists. In all her works you will find faith, family, friendship and fulfilling stories. Do come have a look!

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Fall On Your Knees

by

Mary C. Findley

A Christmas Romantic Suspense Novella

©2015 Findley Family Video Publications

Fall On Your Knees

© 2015 Findley Family Video Publications

No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. Exception is made for short excerpts used in reviews.

Findley Family Video Publications

Speaking the truth in love.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons living or dead is coincidental

Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: The King James Version, public domain.

Table of Contents

One

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Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Other Books and Products from Findley Family Video Publications

One

"Package for Ex Libris." Murali Nanda had typed those words so often over the last eight years. But today, they excited him more than they ever had, because today, he hoped, he was typing them for the last time. He liked to imagine that he could sit in this library, even though it was on Cyprus thousands of miles from the reference librarian he was messaging, and feel closer to Karin Arthur. He couldn’t wait to close that distance and actually meet her for the first time in person. But will she agree?

Sir, the library will be closing in fifteen minutes, an attendant whispered to him in Greek as she approached the privacy screen surrounding Murali’s computer.

He bit back an oath when he realized it was an early closing day. Libraries all over the world depended on volunteer staff, and tended to keep irregular hours. How long had it been since he last knew what day it was?

"Efharisto. Thank you. I’ll just be another moment," Murali replied in the same language, rubbing his hand over his dark beard, and then giving his probably red-rimmed brown eyes a rub as well. When did I sleep last? Oh, well. No matter. Just one last official message to Karin Arthur, including the one confirming his official retirement.

Growing up, Murali had never dreamed of being a secret agent – a spy. Instead, he had concentrated on surviving from the time when he was nine and his university professor father was murdered for his work in secret house churches.

After he and his mother fled to her home country of America, Murali had grown up seeing the ignorance and blindness of people who claimed to live in a Christian country but knew nothing about the real faith his father had been martyred for. Murali wanted to study and share God’s Word and the writings of those who had protected and taught about it through persecutions and trials. He hoped to make the best manuscripts and most edifying works available to teachers and leaders, especially in restricted locations. He had focused all his efforts to make that dream a reality.

The agency had tapped him his senior year undergraduate, just after his mother passed away from cancer, and it had, at the time, been an answer to his prayers about his devastated finances and a burning desire to travel to study primary source manuscripts firsthand. Travel he had, and study he did, but not for the original goals and plans he had so carefully laid out.

All his own work had been swept aside in the crush of operational needs, and especially the last ten years had seen him plow his goals and dreams deeper under an avalanche of agency assignments. His career had been distinguished and satisfying, aside from the whisper that he had no time to do what was most important to him. At thirty-five, he had more than enough commendations and successes that he could, of course, never tell anyone about. Now, all he wanted to do was stop, and he wanted his stopping place to begin with a new life and a woman he had never met. But will she want to meet me?

"Good to hear from you, Madhumeha," Karin’s reply came back. Started to worry. It’s been awhile.

In his mind’s eye Murali pictured blond and blue-eyed Karin turning to the laptop that would have beeped from its spot on the rack to the right of her reference desk at the Community College Library. She would have glanced at the message header, Madhumeha, and would have drawn a quick breath.

Murali knew this from the dispassionate but thorough e-mail briefings by the sometimes insufferable Gerald Owens, a special agent assigned to stand guard over the laptop and its user since it had been installed in the reference librarian’s office nearly eight years earlier. Karin apparently had at first thought her college had finally answered her pleas to upgrade the whole antiquated computer system of the library.

Sorry. It’s been a crazy lot of traveling with this assignment, he typed back. Bad, bad internet connections everywhere. He could console himself with the knowledge that this was partly true. This had also been an op that had required more radio silence than most. That was one thing that had strengthened Murali’s resolve to retire. Being cut off from everyone he worked with was bad enough. Being cut off from Karin … it is no longer an option for me. This is the end.

The agency had agreed that this was his last assignment, and he intended to hold them to it now that the op was complete. All he had to do was send his report and it would be time to stop running around trying to save the world. Time to finally try to meet Karin Arthur face-to-face, as an ordinary civilian.

I hope the research helped speed up your return to civilized parts, Karin typed.

As usual, I couldn’t have escaped the desolate wilderness without you. Murali knew Karin had a talent nearly supernatural for research and made sure information about any conceivable subject was at her fingertips. And her insights – the way she enhanced projects with ideas he hadn’t thought of – different ways of looking at things. This was what had brought her to the attention of the agency. The laptop from the agency gave Karin access to some resources no other reference librarian could boast, for which she was deeply appreciative.

Glad I could help.

Murali knew Karin must have wondered why she had to keep the laptop locked in a safe on the floor beside her desk whenever she left the office, no exceptions. He was sure the intricate and frequently-changing passwords frustrated her. But her suspicions that it had a deeper purpose seemed never to have been awakened.

The rest of the computers in the library had remained antiquated for a long time. Some of the money to upgrade them had come from Murali’s personal funds, unbeknownst to Karin. He had come to understand this woman’s needs and desires for her library, and had done his best to meet them. He had felt her gratitude and, he hoped, had sensed more than that in the increasing warmth in their online conversations. Time will tell how much warmth.

Preparing to send the package now. Murali input the coded sequence that would encapsulate his intel and his official resignation and transfer it to Karin’s computer.

Good. Gerald’s as antsy as if the message was for him, Karin replied.

Gerald’s (and Murali’s) cover story was that the laptop was an anonymous gift from a private donor who had been made aware of Karen’s unusual gift for research. Karin had been told that this laptop was linked to a graduate student study resource center on the campus of a faraway thinktank.

Package enroute, Murali typed as his encryption finished and the data began to attach to his message.

So happy for you, that you can finally submit your thesis, Karin replied. But I will certainly miss helping you with your research. You had some fascinating topics that kept me on my toes.

Murali had posed as one among many special graduate students, since he was not the only operative who accessed Karin’s computer, all professing international employment or internships, as diplomatic attaches, multinational corporation executives, and the like. His hopes grew when he seemed to be the only one, according to Gerald,