For someone who has lost their job, it can be devastating. Deborah E. Levin was that person and has written a book about it called, Celebrating Unemployment: How to Avoid Becoming a Crunchy Couch Burrito.

I, like a lot of others, have found ourselves maybe not celebrating unemployment but instead drowning in a sea of tears. We don't know the first thing about being unemployed. How are we going to survive with no income?

Thank goodness for Celebrating Unemployment: How to Avoid Becoming a Crunchy Couch Burrito. Ms. Levin takes us through the process of learning how to make the best of it.

Keeping up a routine is one of them. Wake up at your normal time and don't go back to bed. Make a budget and stick to it until you can find other income.

Those are some of the many great ways to survive unemployment. 

But that's not all. The author has thought of it all. I remember when Covid hit, a lot of people were made to stay home and couldn't work. What about that car loan? Or any kind of loan? Ms. Levin gives you directions on what to do about that and it may surprise you.

There are lots of surprises in this book and I'll bet you that you wouldn't have known about it. 

People don't want to be unemployed. But it happens to the best of us. Grab a copy of Celebrating Unemployment: How to Avoid Becoming a Crunchy Couch Burrito. It's a step-by-step guide to surviving losing your job.

I give this a 5 star rating!

Can GPT-4o produce poetic expressions equivalent to human creativity? That's the premise of Deborah Levin's new book, An Exploratory Study of GPT-4o Poetry 2024. 

At first, I didn't know what to think of this book. So is this written with AI? That's what I presumed. And that's what makes the book so darn interesting. Not the whole book but the author gives us many examples created with artificial intelligence to prove her point that artificial intelligence is real and amazing.

I used to write poetry and I would assume it would be hard for artificial intelligence to create the same ambience as it would have been had it been written by a real human. Boy was I wrong. You have to admit the examples of poetry that the author came up with is astounding and point on.

The book helps me understand what is going on in the AI world so that we can go, "Ah okay that makes sense then." I was glad the author started out with explaining how this all works. It gave me better clarity and gives me great ideas on what I could do with AI myself.

Overall, it's a pretty amazing book. It boggles the mind what you can do with AI. I give it five gold stars!

Russian President and new Czar Ivan Pavlenko suddenly shows his true colors during the war in Ukraine. He wants the old Soviet Union back. The world is on the brink. The influential oligarch Alexei Sokolov wants to prevent Ivan’s megalomaniacal plans and is planning a fundamental new beginning for Russia. To achieve this, the Russian president must die. How will the US President react to the CIA’s proposal to support the oligarch, who has a romantic relationship with the Russian President’s partner, Yulia? 

The poison attack is perfectly prepared, but the Boeing with the oligarch Alexei Sokolow, his lover and over 100 passengers on board is hijacked by a Ukrainian terrorist and is supposed to crash over Berlin after knocking out the crew by shooting. Former elite soldier Marc Anderson is on board with his family and takes over with Alexei. The two flight amateurs try to get control. Will the landing and the assassination succeed or will the Kremlin Czar strike back brutally after realizing the role of Yulia?

The Death of the Kremlin Czar is available at Amazon (U.S. edition) and Amazon (German edition). 

Chapter One

“Watch out! High-voltage line at three hundred meters!“, shouted the co-pilot.
“In sight!“ the commander replied calmly, pulling up just before the obstacle and immediately pushing the helicopter down again. 

The two pilots of the Ukrainian armed forces guided the old Russian Mi-8 helicopter with their night vision devices on a zigzag course away from populated areas and Russian defense walls to the target. The destination was Luhansk. The mission: to free their own soldiers from Russian captivity. They had volunteered for the Ascension mission and trained for the flight intensively in the simulator supplied by the USA, including simulated enemy fire and evasive maneuvers. The simulator‘s current aerial photographs proved to be extremely helpful in the dimly lit night. A lot had changed in Donbass since the region was forcibly annexed by Russian President Ivan Pavlenko. Destroyed cities, abandoned villages, mined escape routes, deportations, rapes, mass graves, poverty, hunger, thirst and despair. 

Ivan Pavlenko was called “Czar Ivan II“ by the co-pilot, a former history teacher. But not only by him. The Ukrainian people hated this man who had brought so much suffering to their families with his megalomania and wanted to steal their country. Even those people whose thinking was shaped by Russian culture had turned their backs on this madman in Moscow. 

The co-pilot turned to Iris, the commander of the special forces, and signaled “30 minutes.“ 

Iris had been given his nickname because – like the German anti-aircraft missile of the same name – he was known for always hitting the bull‘s eye. Everything Iris tackled led to success. On a street in Kiev, the child-pushing, medium-sized, friendly man at his wife‘s side would not have been noticed. No one could have guessed that the man flirting with his young daughter was a rare mixture of analyst, combat soldier and leader with a stellar military career ahead of him. 

Iris looked at his men. The two teams sat opposite each other and remained completely relaxed despite the loud engine noise in the old transport helicopter with its fake Russian registration. 

Perhaps it was a kind of meditative calm before the dangerous mission. Or perhaps it was the awareness that they could be hit by a Russian missile at any time during this night-time low-level flight into the Luhansk Oblast without being able to do anything about it. There weren‘t even any parachutes on board, because every kilogram counted for the return flight, during which the aged and rattling Mi-8 would be fully occupied. 

The commander of the special forces fixed his gaze on the German opposite, who returned the look and nodded. Iris had received authorization for this rescue mission with a foreign team member from the highest authority. He had only agreed to it because the German Marc Anderson was considered a legend in the West despite being only thirty-five years old. Together with the US Navy SEALs, he had evacuated an American aircrew from the depths of Afghanistan and later served as a private security officer. 

The US president‘s family was rescued from the hands of Iranian terrorists on a luxury yacht by the security agent and his team. He and his team were personally honored by the US President. The Iranian terrorists took revenge and brutally murdered Marc‘s wife in front of their house in Hamburg. 

He had not been heard from since. Now, years later, he had resurfaced and was fighting for the life of his long-time friend and companion Thomas Heinrich in Ukraine. Six months ago, “Tom“ had applied to the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine in Kiev. 

Iris remembered. Tom had appeared in his German army combat gear. A giant, not grim, but with the face of a loving father who had no children. The interview and the practical tests amazed the entire check-out team. They were not faced with one of the many applicants who had an identity crisis at home and thought they could save the invaded Ukraine without any specific prior knowledge. No, he was a former sergeant major of the German Special Forces Command with war experience – accurate, fast, stress- resistant, team-oriented, and immediately ready for action. Not a dreamer, not someone who was looking for a hero‘s death. The 2,000-dollar weekly salary was not as important to him as it was to many other applicants to the 1,000-strong International Legion. His strong will to professionally defend the attacked Ukraine on the front line and thus contribute his small part to world peace was his convincing motivation. After just two months on the front line in southern Ukraine, he became a platoon leader and deputy commander in an international company in which Danes, Poles, Croats, Dutch, Israelis, Latvians, British and Canadians fought. 

His luck was short-lived in the hail of bullets. During the battle at Bachmut, he was so badly wounded by a shot in the thigh that he could no longer stand on his feet. His comrades, who were being chased by the Russians, reported that he had refused to be taken out with the other wounded. But in the open firefight had saved the team, with his return fire. They returned with reinforcements, came under fire again, fought their way back to where Tom had been lying on the road, but he had disappeared. 

Where was Tom? Abducted or buried in a mass grave? Weeks later, Russian state television presented Thomas Heinrich as a Western mercenary and announced the court verdict from Luhansk:
“Sentenced to death for attempting to overthrow the constitutional order.“
Seven other prisoners of the International Legion suffered the same fate.
Iris had studied the recording again and again. Tom‘s right leg was covered with a dirty bandage. He was supporting himself with a stick and his face showed injuries, possibly the result of torture. But his loving expression was unaffected. Tom smiled into the camera as if to encourage his comrades not to give up. The tortured faces of the other soldiers showed signs of emptiness, despair and also fear. 

While the world press was reporting and Russian state television was announcing further proof of the West‘s war against Russia, the top military leadership was meeting in Kiev. Iris attended as commander of the special forces and remembered every word in the bunker. 

The tension in the room was palpable, because the president himself, as commander-in-chief, expected a quick and appropriate military decision.
“Why are our men being held in Luhansk and not somewhere near Moscow or even in Siberia?“ the beefy, bald-headed Chief of the General Staff had asked the intelligence chief. With his nickel glasses and cold gray eyes, he looked strikingly like the current head of the CIA on the other side of the Atlantic. Iris had wondered whether these features were a prerequisite for the job. 

“We are very sure – for two reasons,“ the intelligence officer replied.
“Firstly, the court rulings were deliberately made in the pro- Russian separatist region of Luhansk. In doing so, Moscow is once again demonstrating the legal independence of the region. Secondly, the separatists are using our fighters as a shield against our attacks to recapture Luhansk. They accept the proximity to the front line, as they have barricaded themselves well on the ground and are protected by S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. So, they feel quite safe and don‘t seriously expect a liberation operation.“ 

“And why should our operation be successful in this Russian hell?“ asked the Chief of Staff, looking at Iris, the man in charge of the operation.
“We have taken extensive precautionary measures on the ground and in the air and are planning to land helicopters in the prison yard.“ 

“Helicopters landing directly at the target location? Like when Bin Laden was captured? Do you really think, Iris, that that would work here too?“
“We are aware, Sir, that our situation is more difficult. The US operation was about capturing one person in a residential building in a neutral country that was also informed. In our case, however, the aim is to free eight of our international fighters from enemy captivity, who are being held in a well- guarded prison wing. And unlike the operation in Pakistan, we have a much riskier route of approach.“ 

“Indeed, you‘re right, Iris. It‘s very risky, perhaps even distracting. In the end, we‘ll not only have dead prisoners, but also dead liberators.“
“To minimize the risk of detection, we will arrive in a low- altitude night flight operation. We have three ground teams that will disable or turn off the air defense systems for at least twenty-four hours while we cross the border. Twelve of our spies are working in Luhansk, loyal Ukrainians with Russian passports. One of them, a woman doctor, has access to the prison and reports that all the prisoners are wounded but transportable. During the assault on the building, a night- vision-capable-drone from a friendly country will hover over the target and provide the team and our operations center here with up-to-date images. But the best is yet to come.“ He pointed to the head of the secret service, who, aware of his important statement, took off his glasses and looked around the room. 

“Nika is also in prison!“
Surprised, incredulous silence.
“Nika Petrov, our commander of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade from Wuhledar?“ the Chief of Staff asked, as if he had misheard.
“But Nika was declared dead!“, he said.
“That‘s what we all thought,“ Iris replied. “But that‘s not the case.“
Everyone in the room was aware of the great tank battle. The clever Nika had blocked the suspected deployment route with destroyed tanks, forcing the approaching Russian soldiers into the mined side fields. There they were met and destroyed by his anti-tank teams. The destroyed tanks hindered the others.
When everything came to a standstill and the soldiers fled from the tanks, the defenders struck. With no alternatives, the Russians sent new waves of tanks for days, which were shot down again by Nika‘s troops. 5,000 dead Russian soldiers, 130 lost war machines, including over forty tanks and troop carriers.
The famous 155th Marine Brigade of the Russian Pacific Fleet was almost completely wiped out. 

After that, Nika‘s trail was lost in days of long urban fighting. He could no longer be found. 

The Chief of the General Staff was visibly moved, “My goodness, … our hero is alive! How long have we known that?“
“Exactly one hour ago, straight from prison,“ replied the secret service agent. 

“How is he?“
“He‘s been shot through the shoulder near the spine and is in a solitary cell. Two by two meters without light, a bucket as a toilet, special Russian VIP treatment.“ 

The Chief of the General Staff pinched his mouth tightly shut and said, “I realize that. Czar Ivan will never forgive him for that. The loss of the elite unit was almost as painful for him as the destruction of his Crimean bridge.” 

Her turned to intelligence chief, “Which nations are the other men from?“
“Besides the German, a US citizen, a Canadian, two Czechs, a Pole, a Belarusian and a Georgian. We have already received inquiries from all the countries concerned about how we want to deal with the problem. 

“I can understand their concerns. They are mainly worried about not being suspected of having their own soldiers in our war,“ the chief of the general staff commented, flipping through the profiles of the captured legionnaires. 

“What I am reading here is clear. All but the Polish man have a military background, these two even have a background as elite soldiers. The German is from the Special Forces Command and the American from the US Navy SEALs. But that only interests me marginally. These guys are fighting with a Ukrainian insignia, and for that reason alone we cannot abandon them.“ 

He dialed the number of Ukrainian President Bohdan Sapronoff and informed him of the situation.
“What do you recommend?“ asked the president, a former actor who surprisingly won the election but had no idea that he would soon become wartime President of Ukraine. 

“A rescue operation, Mr. President.“
“How do you propose to do that and what are the chances?“ The Chief of the General Staff explained the plan,
“Iris will be the commander. The chances are over 50 percent. There is only this one window of opportunity.“
A moment of silence on the phone.
“Okay,“ said Bohdan Sapronoff. “Green light for the operation. Get the men out! All the necessary weapons and resources are authorized. The affected relatives will be informed after the rescue, not before. Nothing must leak to the public. Good luck to all of you!“
“Thank you, Mr. President!“ 

The operational precision work began immediately. A second helicopter would fly in parallel as a backup.
Marc Anderson received an intelligence briefing on the prison wing in the barracks and the security, studied the photos of the prisoners and discussed the plan for the rescue of the eight soldiers with Iris. 

His operational skills quickly became evident quickly. Iris then appointed him as his deputy for the operation. 

After being outfitted and hair cut short, Marc looked like one of them. Little Iris looked up at his 6‘5“ tall new friend. “Wow! How should I address you? Teuton? Blitzkrieg? … No, your name is Gladiator, Marc the Gladiator! Welcome to your new arena!“ 

“Stop the nonsense, Iris! I don‘t want this! I am Marc and nothing else, understood?“ 

Iris had drunk the vodka in one go and laughed when he saw Marc just sipping from the glass. 

****

“Twenty minutes!“ signaled the co-pilot. The helicopter turned hard at the edge of a forest and descended into a clearing.
Marc closed his eyes. He always felt the same tension before a mission. Although, as always, everything was well thought out. Everything had been carefully planned. The ground intelligence was good. As a precaution, the female doctor was not informed about the pending rescue of the prisoners. The entire operation was based on strict secrecy, surprise, and speed. The helicopters had to be back in the air in a maximum of five minutes, after which the barracked soldiers were expected to attack. 

A lot could go wrong here and despite all the combat experience of these Ukrainian elite soldiers, the Soviet command-oriented training in the system was unmistakable. Too little independent action, too much focus on the superior, too little dynamic behavior adapted to the situation. 

Thank God Iris knew what Marc was talking about and had assembled a team of English-speaking men with experience in Western countries. They had rehearsed the storming of the building for three nights under all possible scenarios. 

“Ten minutes!“ the first pilot now signaled. 

Marc thought of Jelke in Hamburg. After their marriage, he had promised her that he would finally stop playing “war games“, as she called them. 

Now he was sitting here in an old Russian helicopter over enemy territory, in a camouflage uniform with no insignia, acting as a hybrid combat soldier. Worse than his days in the German Special Forces Command. 

He wondered whether the drug of one for all, all for one had taken hold of him again.
No, that wasn‘t it. That time had definitely ended with the murder of his first wife, Karina Marie. His military service was history, he was done with it. Neither a tricky security assignment from the business world nor requests from SEAL friends could change this attitude. The last mission was to get Tom out today, who was always more to him than a friend or comrade in military operations. He was his brother. 

Iris had told him that Tom was one of the most capable soldiers in the International Legion, popular for his restraint and empathy. Marc had expected nothing less. If everything went well, he would have him in the helicopter in half an hour and he himself would be back in Hamburg with Jelke and his daughter Pia in three days. 

At that moment, the helicopter was pulled to one side. “Missile attack!“ shouted the commander. 

****

Since his departure, Marc hadn‘t made contact. Although it had been agreed that he would be offline during his mission, Jelke had a hard time dealing with it. She knew it was about Tom, who was in captivity and sentenced to death. It was a shock for her too, as she had a long-standing friendship with Tom. 

Tom and the men from his Maritime Security Services had rescued Marc from certain death in a tunnel in Syria. His wife Karina Marie, also her best friend, had been murdered and their child Pia had been kidnapped. Marc had been on a desperate search for his daughter.
What a time it had been. 

Afterwards, Marc had shown clear signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. His appointment of blame, the dramatic rescue of Pia, the gradually growing love between Jelke and Marc, their wedding and Marc‘s cautious return to his company – all that was behind them. 

Jelke wondered whether the current mission had reopened old wounds in him.
“What happened to Tom in Ukraine could happen to you now, Marc,“ she thought, trying to suppress the thought. 

In vain.
She was afraid.
To distract herself, she played Solitaire on her computer. But her restlessness remained and even grew stronger. Her fear fantasies increased, she dreamed of terrible scenarios in which she saw him badly wounded in a Russian prison. 

Jelke paced back and forth in the living room. She switched on the ntv news – app on her smartphone and opened the “The latest“ section. She did that constantly.
There was nothing to indicate her husband‘s involvement. She needed to talk to someone and thought of calling Marc‘s sister, Edith. 

She dialed her number but then aborted the call. Marc had asked her not to talk to anyone about his mission.
She felt like she was in a cage. Knowing nothing but condemned to silence. 

A slight anger rose up inside her. That would never happen to her again! This man had to be protected from himself. He magically attracted disasters and then set off on a rescue mission. This combination was obviously a part of his gene. 

At the same moment, she felt sorry for her thoughts. It was Marc‘s job in the company to prevent security crises and resolve them with his former elite soldiers when they occurred. And the tragedy with his wife had not been foreseeable. Who could have known that Karina Marie, as a hotel manager on the ship of US President George F. Summerhill, would suddenly fall into the hands of brutal kidnappers? Who could have guessed that the Iranian ringleader of the Revolutionary Guards had survived and would seek revenge on Marc‘s family? 

This series of disasters had to stop! On the other hand, she couldn‘t chain Marc down. Her husband lived for crisis management. 

The mental movie started again, “Sentenced to death … in captivity … Russians … Massacre …“
She couldn‘t stand it any longer and dialed his number. Her heart faced wildly when she heard the ringtone. 

“Pick up, please, pick up!“ Answering machine.
She hung up in despair. 

****

“Yes, we are unharmed, machine okay. But fuck! We‘ve been discovered! Shall we abort the mission?”
“You can continue flying. Our ground team has just reported that this last S-300 on your way has been disabled.“ 

A few minutes later, they were back in the air. Marc tried to spot the second escort helicopter in the diffuse moonlight, but it remained invisible. They were now flying in a wild zigzag course while the teams clung tightly to their seats. The lights of the city of Luhansk passed by. 

Iris gave the signal to get ready.
Marc breathed in deeply for four seconds using the SEALs‘ breathing technique. He let the air flow into his stomach with his mouth closed, held his breath there for another four seconds and then exhaled slowly through his mouth while counting to four again.
Just as he was holding his breath to hold it for another four seconds, a sound like a chainsaw shook the helicopter. Marc could see through the window that they had obviously crashed into the barracks. The helicopter tipped over on its side, the engines howling as if in a last death cry, while the disoriented men hung in their harnesses. 

In the rear of the helicopter, where four men were sitting a jet of flame shot up. 

****

“For heaven‘s sake, what‘s happening?“ shouted the Chief of Staff. The people in the operations center had jumped to their feet.
“The rotor blades touched the barracks wall,“ the intelligence chief responded, stunned. 

The helicopter was standing in a clearing in the forest with its rotor running. “Sorry, guys for that hasty landing! They discovered us and launched an S-300 missile at us! That was damn close!“ shouted the commander to the rear. 

The teams breathed a sigh of relief and sank back into their seats.
Iris contacted the officer in the command center.
“Are you all right?“ he asked with concern. 

Through Iris‘s helmet camera, they saw the men scrambled out through the overhead door.
“Get out of here, the thing is about to blow!“ they heard him shout. 

“One, two, three …“
The intelligence chief counted to ten.
“They‘re all outside, including the crew!“ he commented. The explosion of the helicopter threw the men to the ground and illuminated the monitors.
“That‘s it then!“ whispered an operator at the monitors to his colleague.
The Chief of the General Staff considered for a moment whether he should order a retreat, especially as the second helicopter had just reached the ground, which was brightly lit by the fire, unscathed.
As if the intelligence chief had guessed the general‘s thoughts, he shook his head in the negative. It was agreed that Iris and Marc would retain full responsibility, regardless of the situation. But one thing was certain, the crash had not only woken up the barracks, but half the city.
Iris pulled himself up and got an overview. The target building was brightly lit. He saw armed men and heard orders.
Iris looked down the main barracks street, the lights were coming on there too.
Shouts, first shots!
“We can‘t do this alone, Iris!“ Marc called out to him. “Plan B!“
Iris nodded and called into the microphone,
“Terminator – Terminator – Terminator!“
“Terminator confirmed!“ came the reply immediately. 

The two teams approached the two-story building while the helicopter pilots provided fire cover. Iris signaled to Marc that his group should take the right entrance, while he himself took the left. The first attacking enemy soldiers ran straight into their fire. The eight men of the commando were leaning against the wall of the house.
Show of hands. 

First team in!
“One – Two – Three – Four – Secure!”
Situation overview.
Fire on approaching soldiers, explosives, screams.
Slowly both teams moved towards the cells on the upper floor, covering each other.
“Come up here!“ a woman‘s voice called out. Iris immediately recognized the doctor, his informant, by her shoulder-length blonde hair. She threw him a key, and cried, when she was hit by a shot at the same moment and collapsed.
Iris was about to rush to her when he heard the voice of the threat operator in his headset,
“Over a hundred soldiers approaching, ten armored personnel carriers as well!“
Iris‘s Alpha team was first at the doors. The doctor‘s key made blasting unnecessary.
In a few minutes, all the doors were open. The freed prisoners rushed towards their rescuers. Marc and Tom looked at each other for a moment. Marc tossed him the submachine gun of a killed soldier and immediately pushed him to the ground as new attackers took aim at them.
Iris and Marc signaled to each other that all the cells were empty, but one of the eight prisoners was missing.
They were way behind schedule. An armada was approaching from outside. They had to get to their intact helicopter immediately, whose rotors they could hear. But they were trapped. Leaving now would be suicide. The first grenades hit.
Marc saw that Iris was bleeding heavily on his right arm. Iris waved him off, not important. Tom crawled over to him. No time to take off his jacket, but the wound looked worse than Iris had indicated. Tom tore a piece from his upper thigh bandage and tied Iris‘s arm. Iris nodded gratefully.
The two teams squatted with the freed men in the building in front of the doors. 

“Hopefully,“ thought Marc. “Hopefully the replacement helicopter stays intact, otherwise that‘s it.“
The sound of chains and engines of the approaching tanks could now be heard clearly. Just a few salvos and the building would be in ruins. 

They exchanged glances. The situation was clear to everyone, including the seven liberated men who had just felt the breath of freedom and were lying between their rescuers with captured weapons. 

Marc suddenly had a sense of déjà vu. 

Iraq, failed hostage rescue, Tom at his side, masses of soldiers running towards them, two against hundreds, a hopeless situation, waiting for a miracle …
Marc pulled himself out of his thoughts. He looks around. There was no going forward, no going back. Both teams were trapped, waiting for the attackers, who were now breaking through the doors. 

“Fire!“ Iris shouted.
The first attackers collapsed, were overrun by others, and stormed up to the liberators.
Aim, shoot, take cover, change position.
The next waves of enemies stormed into the building. The unequal battle was hopeless.
Marc suddenly felt horrified that he might not survive this, his last fight. A cold wave crept over the back of his neck and into his head. Was this really going to be it?
Iris and Marc looked at each other briefly. Shooting everything empty, close combat, that was all they could do.
Marc held his body protectively over the wounded Tom. 

“Marc, I believe in miracles, like in Iraq,“ he shouted into the noise.
He would be proven right.
A roar in the air. The thunderous noise of the two MiG- 29 fighter jets flying over the barracks, followed by the explosions of the bombs, changed everything. “Terminator“ had worked at the very last moment. 

The terminal attack controller at the operations center in Kiev directed the Ukrainian pilots using live images from the drone. The approaching unit stopped during the very first attack and vehicles were hurled through the air. Soldiers fled in panic. 

The teams watched through the broken doors and windows as the fighter planes swept past.
Marc, a pilot himself, thought how difficult it must be for the pilots to find this small barracks in the city and to fight precisely with the outdated MiGs. He knew that the resourceful Ukrainians were doing their job with purchased portable navigation devices and had mounted Western missiles under their MiGs. 

The attackers sought cover. A second and third air raid on the barracks followed. Then it became quiet.
Area clear!“, reported the MiG 29-formation leader.
The Chief of the General Staff watched with relief as the two teams rushed out to the intact helicopter. A soldier from the Alpha team was supporting Iris, whose face was now pale. Marc had Tom slung over his shoulder, who could barely walk. The helicopter pilots threw up their arms. 

“In with you!“
A few hundred meters further on, tanks broke through the damaged wall and searched for targets. 

Marc was about to be the last to jump into the helicopter when he saw a person with long blond hair lying on the ground in the entrance to the prison building, her arm raised powerlessly. But she was waving. 

The doctor!
He assessed the situation with a view of the tanks, ran back, grabbed the doctor under the fire of his comrades and reached the helicopter, which was already hovering in the air. Six men‘s arms pulled them both in as the tanks fired their first volleys.
The helicopter descended behind the wall and disappeared into the darkness of the night. 

The pilots flew the shortest possible route back in the hope that rising Russian fighters and missiles would be detected by their own Iris -T SLM and Patriot anti-aircraft weapons. The wounded Commander Iris looked at the faces of those who had been freed. He looked and counted again. Then he looked at Marc, who had also registered every single person on board. 

Both knew at this moment that a significant part of the operation had failed.
Iris spoke in his phone, “Command Center from Leader!“ “Leader, go ahead! “, answered the Chief of the General. Iris reported to Kiev, “Operation completed, a total of four people slightly injured, also our agent, the doctor is with us.” “Excellent, Iris! Welldone!“ 

“Thanks Sir. The bad news – one prisoner is missing.“ “Who‘s missing?“ asked the Chief of Staff.
“Nika, he wasn‘t in the building.“ 

The intelligence officer looked at the visibly depressed general. 

“Why so upset? At least we got everyone else back alive. It‘s a historic embarrassment for the Russians!“
“Certainly,“ said the general. “But my gut also tells me that the Nika Petrov chapter has only just begun.”

About The Author

He is known as a respected expert in the media on security-related topics. He volunteers as an emergency counselor and is a member of the Crisis Intervention Team (KIT Bonn) of the German Foreign Office. He is a private pilot, married, with two sons and three grandchildren.

In 2002, Trauboth wrote the now out of print standard work “Crisis Management for Company Threats”.

In 2016 the follow-up work was published with Jörg H. Trauboth as editor in collaboration with five authors: “Crisis Management in Companies and Public Institutions”.

Terror expert J. H. Trauboth presented his debut novel in 2015 with the Germany thriller “Three Brothers”. (Available in English). In 2019 “Operation Jerusalem” followed and in 2020 “Omega”. The trilogy is about the former elite soldier Marc Anderson and his team. With these three self-contained thrillers, Trauboth is rated by many readers as the “German Tom Clancy.” The trilogy is available as a printed edition, eBook and audio book.

His first detective novel, “Jakobs Weg” (German), followed in 2021. The highly explosive topic of “sexual abuse of children” is processed sensitively in a scenario on the Way of Saint James and at the end offers contact options for those seeking help.

In 2022, the novella “Bonjour Saint-Ex” was published (German) in which the passionate pilot Jörg H. Trauboth turns the last flight of the legend Antoine de Saint Exupéry into an exciting literary event.

Readers wanted a sequel to the Marc Anderson series. In 2023, ZarenTod – Das Ende der Präsidenten was published, a highly topical political thriller. The Russian president and new tsar, Ivan Pavlenko, suddenly shows his true face during the war in Ukraine. He wants the old Soviet Union back. The world is on the brink. The influential oligarch, Alexei Sokolov, wants to prevent Ivan’s megalomaniac plans and is planning a fundamental new beginning for Russia. To achieve this, the Russian president must be removed. But the plan goes awry. Ex-elite soldier Marc Anderson intervenes. Will Czar Ivan die? What will become of Europe? The book 8/ 2024 in English „The Death of the Kremlin Czar” is the fourth political thriller in the Marc Anderson series.

Website & Social Media:

Website ➜  https://trauboth-autor.de/english/

Twitter ➜ https://twitter.com/JorgTrauboth

 

 

Title: HOW SOON IS NOW?
Author: Paul Carnahan
Publisher: Tobasmuss Ink
Pages: 462
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy/Time Travel

A troubled ex-journalist launches a perilous mission into his own past after being recruited by a mysterious group of time travelers.

Luke Seymour uncovers the secrets of the eccentric Nostalgia Club as he battles to solve the riddle of their missing leader, honing his newly discovered – and dangerously addictive – talent for time travel and plunging ever deeper into his own time stream … where the terrible mistake that scarred his life is waiting.

Set in Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 1980s, 1990s and near-present, ‘How Soon Is Now?’ is a gripping new novel loaded with unforgettable characters, intricate storytelling, dark humour and a unique twist on the mechanics of time travel – all moving towards a powerful and emotional climax.

Available at:

Amazon U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/How-Soon-Now-powerful-travel-ebook/dp/B0D1RG2GL5 

Amazon U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Soon-Now-powerful-travel-ebook/dp/B0D1RG2GL5 

BOOK COVER:

Quirky book cover. I liked it.

FAVORITE QUOTE FROM FIRST CHAPTER:

"Now that I was in the middle of it, it might at least make a funny story to help break the ice with Alison and Malcolm. ‘How’s it done, then? You just make a wish and go flying off into the middle of next week?’"

And...

"Your past is waiting to be explored, Mr Seymour. All of it."

FIRST CHAPTER REVIEW:
 

Luke Seymour finds a note in his jacket pocket that tells him to "meet us" at Thrawn Laddie, Edinburgh, 7.30pm Wednesday. He forgets the note until a few days later and decides to check out the address since he had no idea who wrote it and why it was written to him. He shows up and orders a beer. Then another. Finally he tells the bartender his name and asks if anyone had been asking for him. The bartender says no but then tells him it might be a group instead of an individual and points to a door. The Nostalgia Club he tells him. Luke finds his way to the room and is let inside. After many introductions, they asked him if he felt he was on the right path. He knew that had to be a no. They tell him they are time travelers. But they aren't conventional time travelers as you find out as you read further into this first chapter.

What a really neat concept. I figured time traveling would involve going into the future but no it involves time traveling to the past if I understood right. The author, Paul Carnahan, was certainly thinking outside the box. 

KEEP READING?

Until I read the first chapter, I didn't realize that this didn't involve time traveling to the future but instead time traveling to the past to clear up some past haunts if you may. You can imagine all the things you could do with this. Now I can't wait to get my hands on the rest of the story. I would definitely keep reading!