The New Bad Thing

By Michael Ebner

Readers of crime thrillers about ordinary-people-in-extraordinary-circumstances will enjoy this acclaimed new series where espionage and mafia worlds collide with Seattle reporter, Teagan Penn. By award-winning author, Michael Ebner; a Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year author.

“Teagan proves to be an appealing hero with depth and determination–readers will enjoy rooting for her. Get it.” (Kirkus Reviews)
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"A riveting story" (Seattle Book Review)

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"Teagan must fight fire with fire" (Portland Book Review)

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"Intense thriller. An ending you will not see coming" (Los Angeles Book Review)

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"Ebner has crafted a fast paced thriller with plenty of twists and turns that make it difficult to recognize fact from fiction." (San Francisco Book Review)

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"The excitement in this book starts right from the first chapter" (Chicago Book Review).

Teagan is successful in her own right but she's not the crusader journalist she aspired to be back in college. She desperately needs a personal distraction and decides to make a difference in the world. When a foreign news story shocks her to the core, she takes matters into her own hands and starts a special project to help others. 

But not everybody is happy about her illegally funded venture: Project Rebound. When Teagan travels to Paris to deal with a project setback, she wakes up in the middle of a terrorist siege. Or is it a planned attack on her life? 

Like other survivors from the hotel siege, she is taken to a local police station. Routine questioning turns into intense interrogation by an American–a European Counterterrorism agent–Robert Lexington. She is the only one in custody who has seen Roman in the last ten years. Teagan is persuaded by Lexington to help locate him–a high priority person of interest–and in return she will avoid the courts and military prison back home. 

What follows is a challenging personal journey for Teagan across Europe and America. She must draw on her experience as a skilled interviewer, improviser and investigator to find the ghost-like Roman for her family's survival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Picture
• Release date: Sep 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9780993061356

Book preview

In The New Bad Thing, Ebner has crafted a fast-paced thriller with plenty of twists and turns that make it difficult to recognize fact from fiction. Tackles weighty issues with aplomb while blending real-life situations with almost non-stop danger and intrigue.

San Francisco Book Review

Ebner gives his characters rich backstories and complex motivations. Teagan proves to be an appealing hero with depth and determination – readers will enjoy rooting for her. An entertaining page-turner that mixes punchy shootouts with resonant soul-searching.

Kirkus Reviews

Intense, thriller novel. An ending you will not see coming, prepare to be kept on your toes.

Los Angeles Book Review

The excitement in this book starts right from the first chapter.

Chicago Book Review

Global terrorism, mafias and one woman running from her personal struggles form this twisting action thriller. For fans of action, thrillers and espionage.

LoveReading

Teagan has no choice but to fight fire with fire. I would recommend this book to fans of global espionage and thrillers.

Portland Book Review

A riveting story. The New Bad Thing is a story readers will enjoy if they are looking for intrigue, mystery, and international scenery.

Seattle Book Review

MICHAEL EBNER

THE NEW BAD THING

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First published in 2023

Pen and Picture Publishing

www.penandpicture.com

Copyright ©Michael Ebner

Michael Ebner has asserted his right under the Copyright Designs and Patent act 1968 to be identified as the author of this work.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo-copying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publishers. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition on the subsequent purchaser.

Cover design by Tom Sanderson

1

Do you think there are more good things in life or bad things?

Cocooned by hundreds of towels and a lifetime’s supply of toilet paper, Teagan was hiding in a housekeeping closet in a Paris hotel–where people were dying by the minute. Her mind had snapped back to the night when she asked her husband that question. It felt like a long time ago. She thought of Todd, far away across the Atlantic, and how she wished to be with him more than anything. But she didn’t call her husband. She phoned another man.

As she waited for him to pick up, she noted that the gunfire had ceased and the screams had quieted. According to social media there were at least six or seven terrorists inside the Chateau Bleu Hotel. Nobody could be certain that the killing had stopped. She wondered if she could smell blood, as if the odor of the carnage underway had crept up into her hiding spot on the ninth floor. But she knew she was imagining such a scent.

You know what time it is? croaked a male voice somewhere in North America.

She whispered, Roman.

Teagan?...How’s Paris? he asked, seeming more alert.

Relief washed through her at the sound of a familiar voice, and she began to babble in an attempt to stay calm. Send someone..they’re killing everyone.. Even with the international delay, she was speaking so fast it made crazy people sound sane. I slept in today..missed the buffet breakfast..that’s the time now..see this picture?

Counterterrorism will be on it, he replied. Happens a lot over there.

You could fast track this..send someone..ANYONE!

How do you know this is not me?

Any air between them was violently sucked out of the conversation.

She stammered, What are you talking about?

If somebody wronged me, I’d do what you’re describing.

I’m at the Chateau Bleu Hotel!

I know.

PLEASE!

Some hits look like random acts of terrorism. Comb through the bodies, usually only one real target. Bystanders are just for the sell.

She didn’t recognise him. This Roman sounded insane.

Teagan, you shouldn’t have talked.

She started to shake. I don’t know what you’re–

She heard more shots from below and took a deep breath.

He said, They’re coming for you.

2

THE PAST

I’m still in your corner. Might not seem like it lately because I’m so preoccupied with my own crap, but I got your back, said Teagan to Neetu, her colleague and good friend.

It was just after nine a.m. at Verdict magazine in downtown Seattle. Their tired and cluttered Belltown office gave up trying to be overly hip some years back. Corporate vanity and the staff’s creative sanity were no longer priorities. It was more about the bottom line now to keep the publication alive and preserve people’s jobs.

Surrounding co-workers paid little interest to the pair’s stakeout. Teagan and Neetu sipped their coffees while staring across the floor at the younger Kate’s desk and empty chair. Kate was late. She might have missed her ferry. She might have been breaking up a marriage somewhere in the suburbs.

Stay the hell a-w-a-y froooom my stooorrries, said Neetu, talking to the unoccupied desk, drowning her words with a wide yawn. Neetu’s two-year-old boy–Teagan’s godson–had just made the transition from a crib to a bed. Three days since the railings came down and he’d face planted the floor again in the night. Neetu looked exhausted.

Teagan said, I’ll deal with Dowery.

What are you going to do? Neetu asked all innocent-like with her blended accent. Neetu’s mother was Malaysian. Her father from Montana.

It’ll be fine. You’ll get your story back.

I don’t know for sure that he’s sleeping with Kate, said Neetu, almost back-pedaling now from the explosive look in Teagan’s eyes and because her scar seemed more pronounced.

I got this. Teagan had long blond hair, striking green eyes and a facial scar below her left eye, across the cheek. She was beautiful and fractured.

Teagan walked down the hall, smiling to passing colleagues and returning their polite morning nods. She entered the editor’s office, closing the door behind her.

Our meeting is this afternoon? he queried; checking if he’d missed an e-mail.

I’m here for something else, she said.

Sit. His eyes were glued to an incoming message on his phone.

Dowery was a good editor but ever since his refusal to turn fifty, he’d been having more affairs than usual. His thinning hair was getting grayer by the hour yet he was still pulling the heartstrings.

She asked, Why is Neetu no longer working the Tracey Lewis story?

Katie’s got that.

Kate was now Katie? Teagan rolled her eyes.

He continued, And why is this your concern?

Neetu has done all the leg work.

Katie is a better fit. Younger perspective.

Dowery was intelligent, wise and effortlessly charming. He was also arrogant and a total prick.

You don’t really think that, she said.

Is there something else Teagan?

Stay with me, she said with a dangerous smile–revealing her phone, dialling on speaker.

What’s this? asked Dowery, casually annoyed. My wife? Teagan had tried that before.

Much better. Like the Christmases of Katies.

Welcome to Urban Royale Escort Agency, please hold, purred the seductive female voice on the other end.

Get out, said Dowery, the kind of man who boasted that he never had to pay for it.

Wait. My treat, she said. Neetu keeps her story and you get what you want. Because that’s all this is.

Hello? Hello? Don’t be shy, said the voice on speaker. Is this your first time with Urban Royale?

I’m bankrolling the transaction, said Teagan standing up. Buying for my boss.

He’s a lucky guy, giggled the voice.

Dowery quickly got on his feet but her five foot ten height still had two inches on him.

I’m with him on speaker...

Dowery dived for the phone but Teagan was too fast and kept control.

Hi boss, said the voice. Do you have a preference?

Brunette. Early twenties, relayed Teagan, great tits.

You won’t be disappointed. We got a lot of girls like that.

Dowery saw himself as a suave silverback but in his failed attempts to commandeer the phone from Teagan, he looked more like a cantankerous lemur–kind of bouncing up and down.

Can I send you a photo of a colleague, shouted Teagan, holding her phone high while circling the room, for visual reference and inspiration?

Dowery finally ripped the phone off her, terminated the call then handed over the device without breathing a word.

Not Neetu. She worked for this, said Teagan. Take Harry, Pete or Andy’s leads off them and give their stories to Kate. Those hacks won’t mind at all, if she offers a happy ending.

Teagan knew Dowery couldn’t afford to lose her. She was the entertainment magazine’s best reporter. It was not the investigative journalism she aspired to when she graduated from college. Back then she thought her reporting was going to make a difference. That was before a couple of years of meaningless New York internships at publications that had later folded. She took a ten-year detour exploring Asia and lived in Japan, where she married a man she met in Tokyo while teaching English. However, his affair with a co-worker led to their divorce and Teagan moved back home to Seattle. Then she landed the job at Verdict magazine and married Todd fifteen months later.

Verdict magazine had been a beneficiary of some successful Seattleites who had passed away. Mostly record producers and band managers. Verdict had championed their artists long before the city’s sound once dominated the world. Such generous inheritances had helped keep the magazine afloat while supporting its evolved direction and diversification. It was no longer just a music magazine. It was now firmly positioned in the market as the true independent choice between Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. It featured exclusive interviews with trail blazing celebrities, including actors, singers, artists, designers, politicians and entrepreneurs.

Teagan had helmed some of their most popular interviews. Her specialty was having an innate ability to extricate the truth from a story when left alone with a subject and making celebrities come off sounding like human beings. It was her full package. She had the ethics of a journalist but never went in with a checklist of questions. She was a good listener with a genuine desire to know more about the people she interviewed.

And she put celebrities at ease.

Teagan always saw something in the eyes of her interviewees at those first meetings. They were drawn to her beauty from afar but then, up close, her facial scar tarnished any preconceptions of perfection. It seemed to allow them to trust her from the get go and the results had cemented her sound reputation in the industry.

Publicists of celebrities demanded Teagan more than any of Verdict magazine’s other reporters. Because celebrities trusted her, Dowery gave her almost total autonomy on stories. He couldn’t raise her salary any higher so he was grateful that she stayed on. Her work wasn’t malicious. Neither was Verdict anymore. That was part of the magazine’s developed mantra. It focused on rare, in-depth interviews and fly-on-the-wall stories, letting readers decide their judgements. It aimed to show multiple sides to every story. That’s what interested Teagan. Letting the subjects open up to her and see where it might take them.

When Teagan walked out of Dowery’s office, there was tension in the air. Her colleagues were grouped around desks and speaking in hushed tones. Some crowded before the giant television on the wall watching a news story.

Neetu was in tears. She was staring into space, her shaking hands clutching the desk phone inches from her skull.

What? Dowery? said Teagan confused. I was just in there.

There’s been terrorist attacks, said Neetu putting down the phone, in New York, Washington. London. Paris.

K.I.L.?

Neetu nodded.

Oh God, Neetu. Is someone you know hurt?

She nodded again, breaking down.

Teagan tried to comfort her. She herself had lost a childhood friend to terrorism two years ago. Although she had fallen out of touch with her friend Samantha when Teagan lived overseas, their fathers still frequented the same bar in the old neighborhood. Samantha had been holidaying in Europe with her family when K.I.L. blew up their train travelling between Girona and Barcelona. Before that devastating attack in Spain, nobody in America had heard of K.I.L.

------ ------

Do you think there are more good things in life or bad things? asked Teagan.

It was late, on the wrong side of midnight, but no response until morning would be relationship suicide. It didn’t matter that her husband was almost asleep. She was on edge and he knew this.

There’s a lot of bad things, said Todd, trying to liven up, pushing his messed up long brown hair out of his blue eyes, especially if you only focus on the news. That wasn’t a dig.

I don’t report news. We don’t…not the important issues.

He sat up in bed and slapped his face to get with it. The attacks today in New York. London too. Paris. Always Paris. They’re robbing any kind of quality of life…

In recent years, the terrorist organization K.I.L. proclaimed their name was ‘Kings in Life’. Originally–when they were a small player operating under the radar–the fundamentalists went by ‘Kings of Islamic Life’ yet they had since grown to become the strongest and wealthiest terrorist organization in the world. They’d attracted a magnitude of backers and supporters from across the globe. Including a high volume of supporters with no connection to any particular religion or faith–just people that were outright disgruntled with society, humanity or their personal situation. K.I.L. embraced this. Its supporters, its foot soldiers, would attack innocent people often on their own or in a small team–shootings, stabbings, acid attacks, bombings, vehicle rammings–and then K.I.L. would take the credit to create greater fear for its worldwide brand of terror. It had gained such broad international success from these random followers that it strategically tweaked its title. ‘Kings in Life’ was much more accessible to the global mainstream’s mad men fearless of any personal consequences. But the media and the rest of the world were in unison and they always referred to the organization K.I.L. as ‘Killers of Innocent Lives’. There were multiple sides to every story.

I’m telling you stuff you already know, continued Todd, now fully awake in bed and warming to the conversation. Folks go out less because they attack restaurants, movie theaters, night clubs, concerts. Some parents won’t even send their kids to school because K.I.L. recruit students too. It’s terrible, I know, and it seems like there’s more bad for us lately, but ultimately, all the good outweighs that stuff for me. For sure. There’s still more good in life.

Even us? This? said Teagan. Now she was talking about their chances for fertility. It’s just so relentless. She stared at the ceiling as if her raw fury could burn a hole right through. Proof that greater darkness was waiting all along.

We just have to hang in there and believe. We’ve got that doctor referral. Things are looking up.

K.I.L. have changed the game.

Are we talking about having a baby or terrorism?

Everything. What a moment to bring life into–

You still want to?

Absolutely, she said with certainty, while her face struggled to mask the previous disappointments.

In the outside world Teagan kept the sadness to herself but it had been manifesting internally for so long now that the fake face she put on was struggling.

Everywhere she went, everyone seemed to remind her of what she didn’t have.

Her colleagues and friends had kids. Her neighbors in the building were all having babies. Along with what seemed like every other celebrity. She was the one without. She was the thirty-seven year old woman who wasn’t pregnant. To keep falling short every month, was like a slow motion death sentence.

I’m telling you Teagan it will happen, said Todd in bed.

I’ll always remember this moment, said Teagan rolling on her side to face away.

------ ------

The next day, the magazine’s staff slowly became increasingly numb to the bombardment of news stories of K.I.L., and gradually Verdict’s workforce returned to normal. Neetu received confirmation from her editor via e-mail that she was back as lead journalist on the Tracey Lewis story. Dowery was apparently working from home that day. (Coincidentally Kate had called in sick). Meanwhile Teagan went to the gym after lunch for a spin class then took an early mark to visit her father. Ever since her mom was no longer around, she usually popped over to see him at least once a week.

It was late afternoon, just on dark, as she sat with him on the large, front porch of the Foursquare home she grew up in. They watched cars come and go and people passing by beneath the streetlight. It was the first day of spring and they were both rugged up in jackets and scarves in a foolish attempt to convince themselves they were enjoying the change of season. It was part of a longstanding tradition with her father–he’d start opening windows the second the calendar announced winter punched out.

After one of the longer silences between them, Teagan asked, Do you think things come in threes?

What are we talking about? said her father, knocking