Showing results by author "Rick Chesler" in All Categories

Six friends on a tourist trip to the Korean DMZ have their lives changed forever when they decide to step into a no-man’s-land. They soon discover that a border is not the only line they’ve crossed. A revealed secret between them causes bad blood to spill over, preventing the friends from cooperating. With the specter of capture by a totalitarian regime awaiting them should they stray too far off course, and with a pack of primordial predators roaming the woods, the travelers must find a way to set aside their differences if they are to avoid becoming political prisoners...or prey.

A biotechnology conference in Prague is the target of a terrorist attack, and in its aftermath a renowned geneticist lay dying. His last act is to inject a man he has never before met with an experimental substance - artificial DNA that has been encoded with the details of a plot to unleash mass terror on the United States. Enter OUTCAST (Operational Undertaking to Counteract Active Stateside Threats) - six ex-operatives from six of America's most powerful organizations.

An encrypted laptop left behind by a crypto-currency CEO killed in a hang-gliding accident. His estate is auctioned off, inlcuding rare pre-columbian artifacts that point Carter Hunt and Omega Team toward the legendary lost city of El Dorado. After winning an artifact at auction that he believes holds a clue to the whereabouts of El Dorado, former Naval Historian Carter Hunt soon learns that his Omega Team isn’t the only organization searching for physical manifestations of the golden legend.

For centuries, would-be explorers have examined a document written in 1753 rumored to hold the key to locating the so-called Lost City of Z, a fortified settlement containing many treasures and built entirely of gold. Thought to be buried somewhere within the Mato Grosso region of the Amazon rain forest, the lure of the vanished riches has long proven deadly to treasure seekers. Dr. Hunter Winslow, fired from a lucrative professorship for stealing rare documents in order to gain a competitive edge, thinks the key to Manuscript 512 lies not in its words, but in its paper itself.

When a ruthless and ambitious government official puts a plan in motion to topple the sitting president, the Outcast team members find themselves fighting not a foreign threat, but one from inside the US government itself.

In the jungle cities of the Amazon, thousands of tribal descendants suddenly drop dead at the exact same moment for no apparent reason. Strange truths start to emerge that lead respected ecologist, Antonio Medina, into the deepest reaches of the rain forest, to a tribe that has seen virtually zero contact with the outside world. On the other side of the planet, in the Indian Ocean, anthropologist Stel Foster is on a similar quest.

"The Most Dangerous Reality" is a short story inspired by Richard Connell's classic tale "The Most Dangerous Game." It originally appeared in anthology The Game. A newly minted M.D. confronted with massive student loan debts decides to put himself to the ultimate challenge: volunteer to be hunted for sport by a wealthy outdoorsman on a remote tropical island. If he is still alive after three days, his financial problems will be solved. What the doctor doesn't know is that the "sportsman" contracting him for the hunt is an actor as part of a reality TV show.

Matt Knox managed to reach middle age without ever breaking a law. So far as he is aware, he has never transcended the law, ever, no matter how trivial. He will not step outside the lines of a crosswalk. He refuses to take the "creative" tax write-offs suggested to him by professional advisers. He will not opt to get away with anything simply because he can. Until now.

When pirates hijack a container ship off the coast of Somalia, a plan to cripple the US presence in the Persian Gulf and precipitate a war is unleashed. Two North Korean nuclear warheads being smuggled to Iran are the centerpiece of an ISIS plot to distract the world's attention. If they succeed, thousands of people will die and the world will be at war. Enter OUTCAST (Operational Undertaking To Counteract Active Stateside Threats) - six ex-operatives from six of America's most powerful organizations.

A new street drug on American shores is already claiming victims up and down the West Coast. A potent new form of methamphetamine called Red Ice is being produced and used not by an ordinary criminal gang, but a unit of North Korean Special Forces soldiers with a plan to reignite the Korean War on American soil. Enter OUTCAST (Operational Undertaking to Counteract Active Stateside Threats) - six ex-operatives from six of America's most powerful organizations.

During a terrifying break-in at a marine laboratory, a European-North African terror group makes off with a large quantity of deadly nerve agent. Demands are made and large-scale attacks are launched in the United States from coast to coast. Enter OUTCAST (Operational Undertaking to Counteract Active Stateside Threats) - six ex-operatives from six of America's most powerful organizations.

When a highly sophisticated terror cell steals a contingent of deadly Reaper drones from a US military base, no one has to wonder for long what they'll be used for. As America's own top military technology is turned against its homeland, it looks as though, for the first time in history, the president will have no choice but to give in to terrorist demands.

When former US Navy specialists Carter Hunt and Jayden Takada join forces with acclaimed archaeologist Dr. Madison Chambers, they expect a routine transfer of artifacts from a desert excavation site to a city museum. Instead, they plunge into the shadows of a vast black market antiquities operation. But there's more at stake than just preserving history: a radical Taliban faction seeks fragments of the fabled True Cross of Jesus, believing that uniting them will bestow unparalleled might.