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Beyond Gold

by Elaine Forder, Editor: Michael D'Angeli

296 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0070; ISBN 1-4120-2242-8; US$25.00, C$28.33, EUR20.50, £14.50

The Olympic dream in Athens suddenly becomes a nightmare when American diver Michael Weiss is mysteriously kidnapped. Only a daring escape can save his life and chances of winning gold.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Beyond Gold is a contemporary novel set in Athens during the 2004 Olympics. American diver Michael Weiss, and his equally athletic young mother, Jordana, find themselves embroiled in romance and intrigue when their stay in Athens becomes much more than a once-in-a-lifetime competition. Framed for a crime he did not commit, Michael is then kidnapped just before his gold medal performance. Now forced to rely on their resourcefulness, his mother and teammates struggle to decipher the mystery that has entangled the mother/son duo since their arrival in Athens—not only Michael's chances at a first place win, but even his life may depend on it. In the end the true prize is not the gold, but what lies beyond.

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About the Author

Elaine Forder was born and educated in Toronto, Canada but as a young adult was enticed by the history and culture of Europe. She spent many of her earlier years traveling, and finally headed to southern Italy where she married and her two children were born. She has spent her latter years as an elementary school teacher in her native Canada with her husband, two children and a household of pets.

Ms. Forder's writing career was initiated when she began writing stories to entice her students to read, a pastime which led to the creation of the Chow Chums series, a succession of children's novels based on the often humorous, often tragic exploits of a young boy and his increasing family of chow chows. Ms. Forder's journey as an author soon expanded to include adult fiction, an area that set her on a path of new challenges.

To her writing Ms. Forder brings her many years of travel and of working in the field of literature and athletics, two passions which she combines in her latest book, Beyond Gold, a fictionalized account set in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. In the future, she plans to continue writing children's novels, her first love, and to cultivate her more recent passion of adult mystery novels, a very rapidly developing second love.

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Excerpt

Instantly Jordana and Michael darted up to the next deck, the kidnappers not far behind.

Once on the second deck they ran frantically down the passageway, all the while scanning the deck below to find an area where they could safely jump overboard. None presented itself as a string of lifeboats were secured about 3 feet below them, and were protruding too far out—they would not be able to clear them. Forced to continue further down the hall, they heard voices at the far end, yelling abruptly. Two men quickly turned the corner.

Michael's eye caught a metal ladder attached to the wall and dashed toward it. With lightning steps he pulled himself up, instantly followed by Jordana. Disheartened, they realized that this was the sun deck, and narrower than the two below it, offering no hope of diving off the side. Angry voices below warned them that their adversaries were approaching the ladder. Three men had just turned the corner from the bow.

A quick glance around told Jordana that the only open area was toward the stern. Michael had come to the same conclusion and had already turned his sights in that direction. As they approached the back, they hoped above hope that the rear of the boat would present some area directly above the water that would allow them to dive off. Not twenty feet from the end, however, they found themselves almost face to face with a man rounding the corner. Now frantic Jordana picked up a life preserver and heaved it at their new adversary, striking him in the face. Madly Jordana and Michael turned on their heals and headed away from him, searching desperately for a way out.

"Look up," Jordana yelled to Michael who was two paces ahead of her.

Following her train of thought, he lunged himself at a diagonal pole leading to the tallest mast of the yacht. Swiftly he scurried up the small metal pegs protruding from the side, feeling his mother's presence right behind him. Higher and higher they climbed. When they finally paused to catch their breath, they noticed that the kidnappers below, tiny and passive, had given up their pursuit and were gazing up at them from the base of the pole.

"Quick, Mom," yelled Michael hysterically, "that guy has a gun."

At that very moment Jordana spotted the fellow taking aiming at them. Her legs and arms scurried frantically upward, following closely behind Michael, as they tried to put as much distance between them and their stalkers as they could.

Then suddenly they both spied him at the same time—a man swinging from the end of a rope in Tarzan fashion from way above the sun deck towards the band of aggressors, his target obviously the man with the gun.

"Dan," both Michael and Jordana screeched at the same time.

In awe they watched as his swooping arc carried him on a collision course, and as he gained momentum, his victims stared up in horror. The armed captor was the first to be sent hurling against the side of the yacht, the impact sending his companions reeling as well. Quickly the two men crawled toward the fallen pistol and once achieving their goal began firing wildly at their assailant.

Still on his speeding trajectory, Dan was carried over the railing and high above the water, bullets flying all the while. "You must jump," he yelled upwardly to Jordana and Michael. Amid the exploding gunfire, Dan let out a painful grunt and unexpectedly released his grip, dropping into the water below.

"Mom, Dan's been shot...they got him..." yelled Michael hysterically, his eyes not moving from the spot where Dan had entered the water.

"Maybe not. I think that he jumped on purpose—that was his plan to get away," Jordana reasoned unconvincingly, her voice an octave higher than normal. "C'mon," she urged, forcing her glance away from the water and the men that were watching for him to resurface. "We have to get out of here!"

The hand clutching Michael's arm was trembling and unsteady but she forced him further up the pole to where the pegs ended, and onto a metal platform just large enough to support them and a waist-high fibreglass dome. Now directly above the centre of the craft, Jordana searched for some way of extending themselves outward past the decks and over the water. Michael, still dazed, was focused on the water, scouring the waves for signs of a bobbing head.

Below, the men were obviously concocting a plan, huddled in the midst of flailing hands and hurling voices.

"Michael, you have to focus on us right now," Jordana said in a callous tone that she did not feel. "It's not going to help Dan if we die in the process."

As Jordana edged her way further out onto the limb, she felt the bar wobbling under the weight of her body. With each step she felt it buckle more and realized sadly that there was no way this flimsy piece of metal could support the two of them. She was only two-thirds of the way along as it was, and the blade was already struggling to hold only her.

"It's no use, Michael," she called, her tone discouraged and fearful. "The blade's not strong enough and besides, it doesn't reach out far enough."

Somehow Michael felt a betrayal so penetrating that his heart sank. The water had always been his friend, calling him, tempting him. For the first time, the ocean stared back at him, distant and elusive.

As if reading his thoughts, Jordana forced a smile. "Why are things never easy?" she deliberated as if caught with insufficient change for the parking metre.

"Try impossible," Michael retorted cynically. "I'm afraid this is one we were not meant to win. What do we do now—climb back down and surrender?"

"Michael, shame on you! I don't think I've ever seen you give up so easily!"

"Mom, face it. There's no place left to go. We're mere specks up here at the end of mast at least a fifty feet above the water and miles from shore, with a band of crazy Greeks after us slinging guns. And you say don't give up. Face it, Mom. It was a good ride, but in the end they got us. There's no place left to go."

"Except on that other propeller... that long one," piped up Jordana excitedly, as she watched the other horizontal rotating blade. Look at it—it rotates around the flagpole at the very rear of the boat, swinging above the deck then out over the water."

By this time Michael was being drawn into her enthusiasm. "Must be the main radar unit. The blade is double the size of the one we're on..."

"And twice as thick!" interjected Jordana, her fervour gaining momentum. "We just have to figure out how to get on it. It only comes within about three yards of us."

"We pull ourselves across the cable and drop onto the propeller when it comes around," squealed Michael, his thirst for adventure clearly returning.

"I'm not so sure," Jordana paused worriedly. "This wire is thin and sharp. If we put all our weight on it, it will cut right through our hands."

Michael hurriedly flicked off his shoes, and clutching the wire with one hand, yanked off his socks with the other.

"Try these," he smirked. "A bit smelly, but they should help."

"And what about you?"

"My shorts," he said suddenly, inspired by the first thing he saw. "I can put one hand in each leg and slide them along the rope with me."

Before Jordana could even comment, Michael had stripped down to his bathing suit and had inserted his hands inside the legs to demonstrate.

"You see. It'll work so let's go."

"Hold on a minute," Jordana chastised. "You can't just go rushing across a cable and jump onto a revolving propeller. First of all, you have to work out the timing so you won't be stuck out there waiting for the propeller to arrive, or worse still, just miss it. Secondly, you have to figure out how to get on the propeller from the wire, and how to stay on it, since there's nothing to hold onto when you drop."

"You're right," Michael responded pensively. "This may not be a smart move after all. How do we even know that the blade will hold us? And if we do fall off, we're not even over water. That's gonna hurt."

"Don't worry about it. You won't be around to feel it," Jordana observed sardonically, catching a quick glimpse of the sharp apparatus about twenty feet beneath them and the cluttered deck much, much further below.

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Catalogue Information

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