Trafford Publishing: Rainbow, No End

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Rainbow, No End

by Lloyd Knight

272 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0346; ISBN 1-4120-5448-6; US$20.14, C$23.16, EUR16.54, £11.58

Leo is an Australian Secret Service agent, plagued by internal trickery and a diabolic terrorist plot. He also experiences flashbacks to his wartime exploits in Korea and a lost love.

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About the Book About the Author Excerpts Reader's Comments Catalogue Information

About the Book

This fictional story about an Australian Secret Service agent is set in the present. However, it contains exciting flashbacks to his earlier wartime exploits in Korea and Japan and a lost love. He battles, almost single-handedly against internal skulduggery whilst trying to foil a terrorist plot to attack a foreign embassy. His adventures take him from capital cities, into the Australian bush and eventually to Turkey.

About the Author

Lloyd Duncan Knight was born in Sydney, Australia in 1932. He left high school at a pre-matriculation level and joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1951. His flying career spanned an unbroken period to his retirement in 2003. It comprised three approximately equal phases, as an air force pilot, commercial pilot and examiner of airmen. Apart from a home study course in Instrument Flying, published in 1980, this is his first literary endeavour. He now lives in Melbourne with his wife, Bonnie.

Excerpts

He had just pulled out of his attack dive when BANG, the canopy imploded in a thousand pieces. He remembered being momentarily stunned, and hearing, above the roar of the airstream, a small, distant voice yelling, 'Blue Four, are you OK?'
He recalled how he had shaken his head to clear his foggy vision.
'What's happening?' his mind yelled.
Blood trickled down his forehead and into his eyes. Death looked him in the eye and he suffered a moment of sheer panic. His goggles had gone. The turbulent air behind the windscreen tossed his head around and blasted his eyeballs. The Meteor jet rolled and yawed to the right, even though he had automatically applied left aileron. He strained to keep his eyes open. Squinting to keep the wind and cockpit dust out of them, he looked over his shoulder at the right wing and saw the gaping hole in the centre of the engine nacelle. He knew he must have taken a 37mm direct hit.
He recalled that he had applied full left rudder and reduced the power on the remaining engine. It had been no use. The aircraft rapidly entered a spiral dive. He was only about two thousand feet and had insufficient control authority to recover.
Blue Three followed him down calling out, 'Your right wing's shot to pieces Leo. Bang out! Bang out!'
He pulled his feet back off the pedals to prevent his legs being chopped off by the jagged front edge of the canopy. Reaching up with both hands, he grabbed the ring behind the back of his head and pulled the blind down over his face. This action triggered the firing mechanism of the seat. It also protected his face and neck from the three hundred miles per hour windblast as his seat exited the cockpit. He felt the boot in his behind as the cordite cartridges in the Martin-Baker ejection seat propelled him up and out of his disabled machine. The strain on his back felt as though his spine was snapping. He let go the handle as the drogue steadied the seat into its forward and downward trajectory. Without waiting for the automatic separation to occur, he released his seat harness, pitched headlong out of the seat and pulled the ripcord of his parachute.
He couldn't have been much more than a couple of hundred feet above the rocky terrain. The 'chute deployed in a couple of seconds and he found himself swinging violently beneath that heavenly canopy. Messrs Martin and Baker had saved the life of another British airman! Though it was probably a case of, out of the frying pan and into the fire. That was the worst-case scenario for going down behind enemy lines; right near the target you had just helped blow to pieces and set on fire. What was the line of the ballad they sometimes sang in the squadron club describing this situation? Something about,
There were husbands and wives;
Itty-bitty children sharpened their knives.
It was sa-ad when the pi-i-lot went down.
He remembered having a momentary vision of being chopped up by the angry citizens below and hoping that if captured, it would be by the Chinese and not the North Koreans.

Leo was at a loss for words, but thought this might be a good time to give her the gift. He took the unwrapped present from his pocket, undid the clasp and gently placed the chain around her neck.
As he leaned forward to reconnect it, she gave a little squeal of delight. Now her face was upturned and her eyes closed. He moved his hands from behind her neck and cupped her beautiful cheeks with them. Then he slowly bent down and gently kissed her on the lips. It became a long, lingering, delicate connection. She had placed her hands around his waist and now drew herself into close contact with him. He felt her body tremble and he experienced a tingling sensation right down his spine. Their lips parted.
Leo moved back slightly and took her hands in his. She opened her eyes, smiled, squeezed his hands, then turned and ran up the path to the house. Leo thought he may have died and gone to heaven. He stood there alone for a few minutes, the heady aroma of the wisteria adding to his feelings of sheer bliss. Then he strolled back to the hotel in a pleasant daze.

Leo first heard the faint, familiar sound while he was still asleep. It interrupted his dreaming. Opening his eyes and seeing the trees and bushes in the first-light gloom; he gradually became aware of his surroundings. Then he recognised the distant sound as it increased in volume. It was the wocker, wocker of a Huey, Bell UH-1. This was the type of helicopter he had flown in Vietnam.
Was he now dreaming of that war? No! He was wide-awake! The sound was coming from the south, farther up the valley toward his hut.
Climbing out of his sleeping bag, he jerked around as he heard a muffled explosion. The resonance of the helicopter blades deepened as the Huey obviously entered a tight turn. As he hurriedly shoved his sleeping bag into the backpack, he heard the rotor-speed decrease and the engine shut down. It had landed. What on earth was happening up there?
Leo grabbed his binoculars and listening device, quickly strapped on his Beretta holster and hid the rest of his gear. He took off up the steep side of the valley toward his hut. He figured it would take thirty to forty minutes to cover the four clicks.

'My God!' exclaimed the Director, 'She's heading back to the embassy. Once she gets inside we'll have one dickens of a job taking her. Force her over next to the park.' Harry started to overtake. There was virtually no traffic as they joined the Circle.
Harry asked, 'What about the companion?'
The Director snapped, 'We'll have to take her as well now. Do it!'
Harry pulled up alongside the little red car and with an expert manoeuvre, forced Janine against the kerb. Janine instantly knew she had blown it. She should have taken notice of Helen; and her own reason, and not ventured out. She swung the wheel hard over to the left and jumped the kerb, careering across the grass into the park.
Sumi screamed out, 'What's happening?'
Janine answered, 'I'm sorry Sumi, please forgive me, I have placed us in a dangerous situation. These evil people are after Leo and they are trying to capture me.'
Harry was instantly on her tail and his much more powerful vehicle was easily forcing her deeper into the deserted park. Sumi was now completely terrorised as Harry forced them into a line of large bushes. As her car came to a sudden stop, Janine pushed the button, locking the doors and yelled out, 'Get on the floor!' She commenced blasting on the horn, making the Morse code for SOS; three short, three long and three short.

Reader's Comments

"I've finished your book!! Wow, it's a highly emotionally charged piece of work with all the ingredients for a sensational movie. There's war, killing, torture, sex, romance, drugs trafficking and a happy-ever-after ending. Great stuff."
- Jenny Cheng, Australia
"Your book was a great read. Thanks"
- John Laming, Australia
"I really enjoyed your story. It brought back some old memories."
- Bill Soltis, USA

Catalogue Information