ABOUT THE BOOK
Jaspar’s
War is about the wife of the U.S.
Treasury Secretary. After her husband is murdered, Jaspar Moran must save her
two kidnapped children. She is promised
she will be reunited with them if she remains quiet about a scheme to
manipulate the world’s financial markets.
In order keep her children alive and because her government is
suspicious of her, Jaspar goes on the run in Italy.
Jaspar will
do anything to save her children even if that means dealing with traitors and assassins.
She doesn’t know who to trust as she races around the world to stop a madman,
save her children and get the life she once knew back.
This is a suspenseful
thriller filled with description, games and intrigue. The novel jumps into
action right away and never really slows downs.
This is a great read for anyone who likes a strong action packed
suspense thriller.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cym Lowell
was born in Montana to academics with a youth of traveling the world. To be
polite, he was an undistinguished student, rewarded with assignment to the U.S.
Navy at 18. After two years in Vietnam, college and law school were a
challenge. Being a veteran in the political turbulence of the late 1960s and
early 1970s taught humility. Raising three children in the Midwest and Texas
brought love and responsibility. An international tax practice in the financial
crises of the past 40 years provided insight into motivations of actors on the
global stage. Friends, clients, adversaries, and colleagues, like victory and
defeat, added color and context. The result is a thriller writer with a
treasure trove of experience to frame compelling characters enmeshed in
heart-thumping challenge about endearing people caught-up in events that one
would never dream possible. For more, visit Cym Lowell’s website at http://www.cymlowell.com
BUY
Excerpt from
JASPAR’S WAR
By Cym Lowell
Chapter 1
Greenwich, Connecticut
“POCK!” The distinctive sound of a plastic bat driving a
Wiffle ball into the outfield triggered shrieks from children as they ran and
played. My ten-year-old daughter Chrissy dropped the bat and raced toward first
base, actually a luminous orange Frisbee.
“Run, Chrissy,” I shouted as she rounded first, heading
toward second. Auburn ponytails, woven with my fingers, flew in her wake. Theo,
my twelve-year-old son, played shortstop. Chrissy watched his face.
“Go!” he telegraphed. I clasped my hands, hoping that
she would not slide face first into base. Scratches and cuts were no deterrent
when she was so focused.
It was Easter weekend, a time for relaxation and family
in Greenwich, Connecticut. Neighbors, friends, and local dignitaries filled our
park-like estate. We had room for a ball field where neighborhood kids could
congregate. Private security personnel were out of sight.
It was an annual celebration of faith. Parents and
grandparents sat all around, absorbing the beautiful sunshine and mild weather.
They brought coolers of drinks, soda pop for the kids, beer and wine for the
adults. It was my version of a neighborhood tailgate party. My dream of family and
community had come true.
“Throw the ball,” the other team yelled as the
outfielder cocked his arm.
“Down, Chrissy!” Theo yelled.
Their father had taught her to ignore the ball and watch
the coach.
“Your agility
will always give you an edge,” he said.
Small thin legs churned as the ball was launched. I
cringed watching her dive. Dust flew from the infield side of the base. The
second baseman caught it just as the little fingers touched safety, and the
catcher’s hand smacked her hip.
“Safe!” the father serving as umpire shouted, crossing
outstretched arms in exclamation.
I jumped for joy. Theo stood back, pride on his face.
Chrissy brushed grass and dirt from her bottom, beaming at her brother. She
gave me a thumbs up. No blood. I was relieved. Taunts from the other boys about
coddling his sister only amused her proud big brother.
Neighborhood kids enjoyed the afternoon Wiffle ball game
on the lawn between our pool and tennis courts. I organized the games just as I
had played them as a child. My dad called it “scrub.” As a player made an out,
she would go to right field and the catcher moved up to bat in the prescribed
rotation.
“Jaspar, when will Trevor get home?” my best friend
Crystal Jamison asked about my husband. I took my seat, still reveling in the
joy of observing my children care for each other. She sipped a glass of
Sancerre, basking in the sun and relaxing in a rocking chair brought from the
pool.
“Trevor is so good at teaching passing techniques,” she
said watching her own son. “Joshua will be a senior this year, so he needs to
make a strong showing for college scouts. Trevor is his hero.”
I remembered Trevor dropping back to pass on the sacred
turf of Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, then stepping forward to deliver his
trademark bullet to a receiver streaking across the goal line to seal a
national championship. The memory was so strong. I longed for him to be back at
my side. Before departing, he told me of his fear that his fabled career on
Wall Street had been a fraud. Our conversation had to be completed.
“POCK!” brought my attention back to the kids on the grass.
They all raced to field the ball. Chrissy was on her way around third as the
batter ran to first, the wobbly ball flying just over the head of Theo. He ran
after it, looking over his shoulder at Chrissy racing toward the plate.
Reaching the ball, he turned and launched a strike to the catcher, doing his
best to nail her.
“Run Chrissy,” I yelled rising again. She jumped on home
base in triumph as the floating ball was caught too late.
“Batter up,” Theo yelled as I returned to my seat.
“Trevor’s on his way home from London,” I answered my
friend’s question.
Crystal and I first met when we came to New York after
college. Her husband Raymond played football with Trevor at Notre Dame. They
were quite a team. A fleet, sure-handed receiver, Raymond caught the passes
that Trevor threw. Trevor’s career ended in a national championship game.
Raymond came to New
York drafted by the Jets. Trevor took an entry position
on Wall Street. I dated Raymond early in college before I met Trevor or he
began dating Crystal. She and I were kids just off campus coming to the big
city. Neither of us had any real preparation for the strange new world. We
found jobs in finance, me at the Federal Reserve on Wall Street and Crystal in
a research office of a secretive private equity firm owned by an Indian tribe.
Similarity of situation and background facilitated fast friendship. Her drawl
from rural Georgia complimented my odd mixture of Australian Outback and
Northern Indiana twang. As our husbands succeeded, we searched for a place
where we could live in relative obscurity. Greenwich was perfect. Our children
grew up together, like the extended family of my dreams.
“He’s gone so much now,” Crystal responded. “You seemed
excited when he went down there. Almost as if he were answering a call to
duty.”
“He’s been seeking European agreement for the
president’s stimulus plan.”
Trevor took to Wall Street. He began as a runner for
energy traders and became fascinated with learning to anticipate market
movements. His skill expanded in a master’s program at Columbia, propelling him
to a position where he implemented a strategy to take advantage of an
inconsistency in risk pricing. Successful exploitation brought us success.
Trevor’s firm, Westbury Madison & Co., became the pre-eminent
Wall Street investment bank, profiting whether the economy flourished or
crashed due to what Trevor believed was his own strategy. When the financial world
crashed, President Hamilton Henrichs asked him to lead the effort to resurrect
the economy of America and the world as secretary of the Treasury, a position
once held by Alexander Hamilton. The financial press criticized the
appointment. “Wolf Hired to Rebuild Hen House?” asked
headlines in the financial and popular press.
“I am proud of him,” I answered, anxiously twisting the
everpresent bangles at my left wrist. They were gifts I’ve treasured from my
Indian friends. “He works hard and travels constantly trying to plug holes in
the economic dam of the world.”
Inside, far different feelings had germinated. Something
was wrong. What happened to you, Trevor? He was distant, ignoring me in ways that I had never
experienced. He seemed to avoid me. Is he
having an affair? I wondered, fearing that a slowly
ebbing sex life could be a marker of something more than job stress. Have I
become less desirable or is there
something troubling in his new life in
Washington that he cannot find
words to tell me?
“You seem distant, honey” I finally said as he was
leaving days earlier. “Have I done something?”
“I know,” he answered, with an unusual tone of
resignation in his voice. “It’s not you, sweetheart. Please don’t think that.
I’m sorry. I’ve discovered treachery that you may be able to understand better
than me. I need your help,” he blurted out, taking me in his arms with a grip
that felt desperate.
“Is it something at Treasury?” I asked, relieved that
his distance was due to business. But his distance troubled me. It was so
unlike anything I had experienced in our life together.
“Yes, it’s there and also in the White House. It’s
unbelievable,” he answered in a voice that trembled as his hands shook. “I’ve
been used by people I trusted. It began at the firm.”
“At Westbury?”
“Yes. I’ve tried to piece the story together. We can
discuss what to do when I return.”
My relief soon gave way to fear. Trevor was afraid; I
had never seen that in him. Was my intrepid hero cracking?
* * *
“Hey Mom, come pitch,” Theo yelled as one player jumped
into the pool. The scrub game was more fun with full teams in the field and at
bat. The kids liked me to pitch because I threw softly. “Like a girl,” Theo
would say, happy that he could always whack my pitch. His friends tried to
throw curves or fastballs with the plastic sphere with holes on one side. I
learned from my dad how to pitch so the ball hung right in Theo’s sweet spot.
Of course, I did the same for all the kids; unfortunately I usually struck out
as batter. My father was a missionary. After my mother died when I was just
three he raised me. For many years we lived in the Australian Outback. When it
was time for college, we moved to South Bend,
Indiana. I was the first member of my family to go to
Notre Dame on a scholarship. Dad was proud. He lived long enough to express his
pride. His greatest joy, he often said with breaking voice, was that I had
grown as a woman of faith: “Your mother’s heart would burst with thankfulness.”
“Gotta go,” I responded to Crystal, touching her
shoulder and grabbing my mitt. Theo was the next batter. I picked up the ball
as I marked my territory around the luminous strip of plastic that served as
the pitcher’s mound. Theo looked like pictures of my dad at the same age.
My son stepped to the plate, pointing the bat at me.
“Gotcha, Mom!” he declared for the entire neighborhood to hear. I had to play
the role. Glove on my knee, I leaned forward with the ball behind my back as if
I were looking for a signal. I glanced at runners on base, then the batter.
“Strike the turkey out!” Crystal yelled.
“Yeah, yeah!” our friends echoed.
“Strike one!” the umpire shouted as Theo’s bat slapped
the back of his shoulder, so intense was the swing.
“Mom?” his lips mimed, looking at me.
“Strike two!”
The words roused cheers from parents ringing the field.
Beer and wine had flowed long enough to produce a boisterous mood. Adults
always lost in these games, so the prospect of me striking out the best of the
kids triggered excitement.
I gripped the Wiffle ball, knowing where to place my
fingers for an underhand throw. It could be a screwball, twisting into the
right-handed batter, as I had done on the first strike then reversed for the
second. Or, I could push the ball with my knuckles, and it would drop as he was
getting ready to swing. Theo’s focus was like his father’s. He looked straight
into my eyes, curious. I was jolted back to the moment. In throwing strikes, I
had allowed my anxiety to overcome Theo’s needs.
“POCK!” The sound rewarded me as the ball sailed over
the head of the left fielder. Theo winked as he ran to first. It would be a
home run. I had thrown his pitch. Maternal pride filled my soul.
“Yeah, Theo!” Chrissy yelled in a squeaky voice. He also
leapt on home plate in triumphant exclamation, ending the game. My boy led them
all to the pool with Chrissy at his side.
* * *
After the game, Crystal and I organized the food brought
by our friends and neighbors. Fathers and older boys unloaded tables from a
rental company trailer in our driveway, arranging them in a horseshoe around
the pool so we could eat and talk.
“Have you seen
the kids?” I asked her when Theo and Chrissy seemed to have been absent for a
long time.
“Oh, come on, calm down,” Crystal responded. “What could
happen here?”
We joined our neighbors at a tent erected on the ball
field. One of our traditions was to have entertainment as the late afternoon
set, so the children would not be so impatient for darkness and the fireworks.
I had arranged with the local Mohegan tribe to have a troupe perform
traditional dance routines of celebration. Crystal and I worked for many years
with the tribe. Our project was developing job opportunities, which had evolved
into a business of creating replicas of art, apparel, and pottery from their
rich cultural heritage. Our work was gratifying and successful. Members of the
troupe mingled in the crowd entertaining the kids. On stage, each child was
outfitted with handmade costumes complete with colorful feathers and leather trim.
Tribal artists applied face and body paints to duplicate markings from the
proud history of the Mohegan people. We were all lost in the magic. It became
difficult to separate child from tribal dancer.
“This is amazing?” Raymond declared, enjoying the
collage of color and laughter. His career with the Jets ended suddenly when a
vicious cross block broke his ribs and punctured his heart muscle. He became a
youth counselor in the Greenwich school system, close to home and family.
I searched the faces of dancers and children trying to
find Theo and Chrissy, ignoring the conversation surrounding me. I had not seen
either since the game ended. Always in the midst of the children, they should
be playing and laughing. I tried not to panic, but was failing. When the
exhibition was at an end, darkness began to envelop the scene. “Crystal,
they’re not here!”
“Raymond, get the officers,” she directed, taking my
arm.
“No child has left the grounds,” the head of security
detail assured me, deploying his team to search. As the fireworks display
began, the Greenwich police, as well as the Connecticut State Police began
checking cars, trucks, and the equipment of the Mohegan troupe. No one was
allowed to leave. Backup security teams arrived as the dark sky was illuminated
by a kaleidoscope of color.
I barely heard the increasingly anxious discussions of
friends and security people. Chrissy did not like chaos and always curled up in
my lap at such times. “Where are you, sweetheart?” I asked pacing back and
forth.
Neighbors were herded onto the driveway as officers
checked each person. Police cars with emergency lights blocked the entrance to
our property. Flashlights illuminated fence lines as the search broadened.
“Who delivered the tables?” the senior security officer
asked, trying to confirm all who had come and gone.
“I, I, I don’t know,” I stammered, my mind not able to
focus on even a simple question.
“Where are
they officer? They can’t be hiding
this long. They wouldn’t run off. Who would take them?” I asked.
“Ma’am, we’re trying to . . .”
“Mrs. Moran?” a man in a suit asked politely,
interrupting the security officer’s response. In the midst of the chaos, a dark
sedan had been allowed to enter the driveway.
I was drifting into shock.
“Mrs. Moran, I need to speak to you,” the man repeated
gently taking my arm.
“Who are you?” the security officer asked.
“I am Peter McGuire with the FBI,” he said, holding out
identification.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, looking at dozens of flashlights
sweeping grounds and trees. Neighbors stood by the garages. The Indian troupe
clustered by their vehicles.
“My children have disappeared,” I blurted out.
Crystal had called my priest, Father Michael O’Rourke.
He was the priest in the rural Australia diocese of my childhood and my dad’s
best friend. When I got to Notre Dame, Father Michael was there as a youth
pastor. “I am your guardian angel,” he often declared. The image was an essential
element of my faith. He had been present throughout my life. He came at the
first hint of trouble or joy. Father Michael explained the situation as the
security leader departed to check how the search was going.
Something passed over the FBI agent’s face. “Mrs. Moran,
is there someplace we could speak in private?”
“Let’s go in the house,” Crystal suggested as she and
Raymond led us inside.
We stepped in the front door. The FBI officer motioned
for Crystal and Raymond to sit on either side of me on a sofa.
“May I get you anything, Mrs. Moran,” he asked.
“No, what is it?”
He knelt and took my hand. “Mrs. Moran, we regret to
inform you that Secretary Moran’s plane en route from London has apparently
crashed into the ocean near Iceland. Search planes are on their way. It will
take several hours. The conditions are horrendous in the remote area where the
plane disappeared.”
I barely heard the words. The rest of the evening was a
blur. Friends took turns staying with me throughout the night. Father Michael
was at my side when I awoke to the distinctive cathedral chime of my phone.
“Theo or Chrissy at last!” I said grabbing for a ray of
hope.
“They must have gone to a friend’s house.”
The chime continued. My mind cleared enough to sit up,
hold
Father’s hand, and look at the phone.
“It’s Trevor!” I blurted. His name was on the caller ID.
My mind jumped to the conclusion that he was safe after all. “Thank God!”
“Honey, where are you?” I asked. He’ll take care of this.
Long moments elapsed in silence as I pressed the phone
to one ear then the other. “Trevor? Honey?”
“A text message will arrive momentarily,” a mechanical
voice enunciated slowly. It sounded as if the words were spoken from underwater.
The connection terminated, leaving only a cold dial tone.
I looked at the phone.
“Jaspar, what is it?” Father asked, standing next to
Crystal and Raymond. I looked up at each of them. Their eyes narrowed with questions.
Anxiety blew through me like a chill Arctic wind.
“I . . . I don’t know. The caller ID said ‘Trevor
Moran.’ Then there was this scary voice.” I startled when the chime for a text message
sounded. My eyes riveted on the words:
Your children are gone because you asked about something
not your business.
Your husband started to answer and is being digested by
sharks.
If what he believed becomes public, your children will
also become ocean shit.
Your silence is their only path to life.
Excerpted from
the book JASPAR’S WAR by Cym Lowell. Copyright © 2014 by Cym Lowell.
Reprinted with permission of Rosemary Beach Press. All rights
reserved
I did not receive any compensation for this
review. I did, however, receive a free copy for my review from Meryl L. Moss
Media Relations, Inc.
