Vienna Sky
by Josh SinasonRelease Date: 9/1/15
Eternal Press
Summary from Goodreads:
A Spy-Fy, YA, Thriller. When Archie, a poor kid from New Jersey stumbles on a ring of spies working on a secret experiment, he ends up with a dead spy in his brain and the image of a girl he's never met haunting his dreams. When he goes halfway around the world to finish the spy's final mission he finds out just how much he can handle and just how far he's willing to go in the fight for love, honor and justice.
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Excerpt:
Again, I
ignored my gut telling me to go see her right away. I sat there and watched
from a distance. It was standard
procedure when confronting an asset that’s been left unattended anyway. Still, I was looking forward to getting this
paranoid streak out of my head with the rest of Agent Stephen Locke when this
was all over.
The First National Bank of Vienna was
an old brick art deco building covered in sleek new tinted glass windows. The bricks were worn and bleached from too
many winters, but the glass was brand new and freshly cleaned twice a week top
to bottom. There was a front gate with a
wrought iron angel sculpture with massive wings and a guard that was a solid
230lbs and knew how to handle himself.
The place wasn’t kidding about security.
Even the window washers had background checks on top of background
checks. It was a hard building to get
into, but not impossible. I picked up
patterns: where maintenance trucks were parked, when the guards switched
spots. I saw gaps in their system. They
weren’t huge but they were enough for someone quick and small to get through.
Aside from the MI6 guy at the table behind me with
the Sig 229 under his arm tailing someone on a completely different case, there
was not a single spy to be found. I
surveyed the building on three sides over the hour and didn’t see anything
suspicious. I guess it was time to meet
my asset. Although, in all the surveying
and spy hunting, I never really thought of just how I was going to get into the
building.
The easiest way would be a zip-line
from the building next door but I couldn’t think of any way to get one on such
short notice, so I needed another way in.
I didn’t have Locke’s CIA resources, so I had to use what I had on me,
what even Locke didn’t have: the face of a child. Although, I really wanted to try that zip-line
thing, Locke remembers the training course at Langley; it seemed fun to me.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said in German, as I did my best to act shy with my
hands in my pockets and my head down low.
“Mr. Raines, my father, was just dying for a pastry. I’m to bring it to him post haste.”
“He didn’t clear it with me. You’ll have to wait here while I call him.”
“Well, um.” I was backing away slowly. I’d have to go back late at night. Maybe I
can tail him and drug him or memorize the shift schedule and make sure to get
them right at the switch and sneak in.
It’d take a few days, but maybe I could get that zip-line and maybe some
surveillance equipment. I just needed a burn phone and—
There she was walking out with her bagged
lunch to enjoy her lunch hour. The
sunlight hit her hair just right for me to see an auburn gleam from her
highlights. It was like she was actually
wearing a halo. Her bright green eyes
lit up like one of those bronze statutes.
“Actually, never mind. Dad shouldn’t
be eating the sugar anyway.” I handed
him the bag and quickly dashed across the street, holding my empty cup of
coffee the entire time and the spring in my step so I wouldn’t look like I was
running after her.
Locke had long since got used to
tailing people. The weirdness and uneasy
feeling he had the first few times was a distant memory to him. To me, following a girl who I never laid eyes
on before that day but had dreams about every night for the last week, was
awkward. I mean, being turned down for
the high school dance in front of the entire class awkward. Just like then, you
power through and focus on what you want. After a few minutes, all the
awkwardness melts away and you’re in genuine spy mode. It was weird, but in that moment, tailing a
girl I knew but never met because of someone whose mind was downloaded into
mine, I felt like a real spy.
I followed a good half a block
behind, sometimes farther, sometimes closer.
The trick to a good tail is to not follow the book on what makes a good
tail. Even someone untrained can tell
when someone behind is walking just a little too deliberately. So, being awkward gave me an advantage. I had a lot of training at Park Slope High.
I tailed her a few blocks until we
got to the Athena statue outside the parliament building where she sat and
unpacked her lunch. I kept my distance,
still holding my empty coffee cup, pretending to take a sip every now and
then.
The coast was clear; we were
relatively alone. All I had to do was
approach her and tell her she was in trouble, we could go the embassy and get a
flight back to New York. I felt a little
guilty about pulling her out of Vienna but—
“No way,” I said as I dropped my
coffee cup. “Not now.” It was on the clear other side of the
parliament gardens, but I could see it.
The way he stood there, the way he held his jacket tight so no one could
see his gun. It was clear. This guy was
here to start something. I started
thinking about ways to get over there and disarm him without taking my eyes off
Rebecca. I was about to move around the
other side, drawing him back toward the maintenance entrance. Right then, I wondered if the gun in my
backpack was loaded.
Guest Post:
Why I Love A Good Spy Story, and kids do too.
My
book, Vienna
Sky is out now from Eternal Press and combines character tropes from one of
my favorites, Stan “The Man” Lee and the James Bond style spy pulp
stories.
I’ve been a fan of
spy stories since I watch The Living Daylights (the one where Bond teams up
with what is for all intents and purposes the Taliban but I didn’t really know
what at the time.) and License to Kill (the one where the producers really want
you to think Bond is as cool as Riggs and Murtaugh) on TV as a kid. but until I watched Roger Moore’s version I
never really got it, even though Moore’s aren’t great either. Some of the fun of Bond is that so many of
them come just on the verge of being great movies but something pulls them
back. But Moore’s best, The Spy Who
Loved Me, is a near perfect blend of the actual emotion and the sense of
adventure the franchise inherited from the pulps they’ve been running from
since the Timothy Dalton days. Even the
modern Bond films, are trying desperately to be “not your father’s Bond” that
they forget the core of the franchise is in Young Adult and Pulp literature
from Jack London, to Edgar Rice Burroughs and Sax Rohmer.
My
other favorite spy literature comes from Graham Green. The published version of the The Third Man is a masterclass in
storytelling and the way he weaves the shadowy corners and bombshells with snub
nose pistols in their garter belts and other elements that come right out of
those pulp stories with a genuine world view and a deep emotional core that
would influence not only the film adaptations of Green’s work, but Le’Carre,
Ludlum, and every other espionage author until now. Greene’s world of spies shows you that
everything, every move you make, every left or right turn, has consequences and
the things you think are true are only true on the surface, that’s the basis
for so much great spy fiction and Greene’s work formed a lot of the basis for my
novel out now, Vienna Sky.
Along with being a
spy story, Vienna Sky also has elements gleamed from Stan Lee’s comics. Lee, like Greene leaves no choice left
without consequence. We see that as
Archie continues to explore his gift for personal gain and for those around
him. His choices to act and not act will
ultimately come back to him until he’s forced into a situation that exposes who
he really is inside and like Lee’s original Spider-man story, the choice to
deny the call to be a hero has consequences.
Take a look at this
excerpt, once Archie has headed the call to be a hero nothing comes easy and he
finds himself a world away from anything he knew with the ghost of a dead spy
in his head and he doesn’t always like what it has to say:
Again, I ignored my
gut telling me to go see her right away. I sat there and watched from a
distance. It was standard procedure when
confronting an asset that’s been left unattended anyway. Still, I was looking forward to getting this
paranoid streak out of my head with the rest of Agent Stephen Locke when this
was all over.
The
First National Bank of Vienna was an old brick art deco building covered in
sleek new tinted glass windows. The
bricks were worn and bleached from too many winters, but the glass was brand
new and freshly cleaned twice a week top to bottom. There was a front gate with a wrought iron
angel sculpture with massive wings and a guard that was a solid 230lbs and knew
how to handle himself. The place wasn’t
kidding about security. Even the window
washers had background checks on top of background checks. It was a hard building to get into, but not
impossible. I picked up patterns: where maintenance
trucks were parked, when the guards switched spots. I saw gaps in their system. They weren’t huge
but they were enough for someone quick and small to get through.
Aside from the MI6
guy at the table behind me with the Sig 229 under his arm tailing someone on a
completely different case, there was not a single spy to be found. I surveyed the building on three sides over
the hour and didn’t see anything suspicious.
I guess it was time to meet my asset.
Although, in all the surveying and spy hunting, I never really thought
of just how I was going to get into the building.
The
easiest way would be a zip-line from the building next door but I couldn’t
think of any way to get one on such short notice, so I needed another way
in. I didn’t have Locke’s CIA resources,
so I had to use what I had on me, what even Locke didn’t have: the face of a
child. Although, I really wanted to try
that zip-line thing, Locke remembers the training course at Langley; it seemed
fun to me.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said in German, as I did
my best to act shy with my hands in my pockets and my head down low. “Mr. Raines, my father, was just dying for a
pastry. I’m to bring it to him post
haste.”
“He
didn’t clear it with me. You’ll have to
wait here while I call him.”
“Well,
um.” I was backing away slowly. I’d have to go back late at night. Maybe I
can tail him and drug him or memorize the shift schedule and make sure to get
them right at the switch and sneak in.
It’d take a few days, but maybe I could get that zip-line and maybe some
surveillance equipment. I just needed a burn phone and—
There
she was walking out with her bagged lunch to enjoy her lunch hour. The sunlight hit her hair just right for me
to see an auburn gleam from her highlights.
It was like she was actually wearing a halo. Her bright green eyes lit up like one of
those bronze statutes.
“Actually,
never mind. Dad shouldn’t be eating the sugar anyway.” I handed him the bag and quickly dashed
across the street, holding my empty cup of coffee the entire time and the
spring in my step so I wouldn’t look like I was running after her.
Locke
had long since got used to tailing people.
The weirdness and uneasy feeling he had the first few times was a
distant memory to him. To me, following
a girl who I never laid eyes on before that day but had dreams about every
night for the last week, was awkward. I
mean, being turned down for the high school dance in front of the entire class
awkward. Just like then, you power through and focus on what you want. After a
few minutes, all the awkwardness melts away and you’re in genuine spy
mode. It was weird, but in that moment,
tailing a girl I knew but never met because of someone whose mind was
downloaded into mine, I felt like a real spy.
I
followed a good half a block behind, sometimes farther, sometimes closer. The trick to a good tail is to not follow the
book on what makes a good tail. Even
someone untrained can tell when someone behind is walking just a little too
deliberately. So, being awkward gave me
an advantage. I had a lot of training at
Park Slope High.
I
tailed her a few blocks until we got to the Athena statue outside the
parliament building where she sat and unpacked her lunch. I kept my distance, still holding my empty
coffee cup, pretending to take a sip every now and then.
The
coast was clear; we were relatively alone.
All I had to do was approach her and tell her she was in trouble, we
could go the embassy and get a flight back to New York. I felt a little guilty about pulling her out
of Vienna but—
“No
way,” I said as I dropped my coffee cup.
“Not now.” It was on the clear
other side of the parliament gardens, but I could see it. The way he stood there, the way he held his
jacket tight so no one could see his gun. It was clear. This guy was here to start something. I started thinking about ways to get over
there and disarm him without taking my eyes off Rebecca. I was about to move around the other side,
drawing him back toward the maintenance entrance. Right then, I wondered if the gun in my
backpack was loaded.
I do both serious articles and some artsy fartsy stuff, 2010 and 2011 Creativity Media Award winner. Check out my recent work at Goodreads!
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