The Cornmarket Conspiracy Read online

  A horrific explosion kills hundreds of people in the tunnel under the English Channel. At first it appears to be just another Islamic terrorist attack but slowly, as the threads of the plot are pulled, something even more terrible emerges.

  One cold, foggy night, a EuroStar train, loaded with more than four hundred holiday passengers enters the English Channel Tunnel for a routine trek between Paris and London. On board, Andrew Bolling, Special Council to the British Prime Minister, is making his way home from a disappointing weekend in Paris. As the train careens through the underwater tunnel, a horrifying explosion rips the train apart.

  Jeffrey Hunter, Chief of Staff to the British Prime Minister, is charged with spearheading the investigation into the attack. While he fights to protect his country and unravel his friend’s involvement, he discovers that the true motive for the attack is something no one has yet suspected.

  Praise for The Cornmarket Conspiracy

  “…a powerful saga that provides more than a conspiracy story, but a social examination that will keep readers engaged and thinking long past the tale's conclusion." – D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

  “Five Stars: The Cornmarket Conspiracy is a fast-paced tale of greed, corruption, and abuse of power that grabbed me from page one and refused to let go. Author Sharon Hoisager maneuvers an intricate plot using multiple POVs that instantly hooks you in and keeps you engaged with its twists and turns. The narrative switches POVs with each chapter to provide easy access into the headspace of the antagonists. The characters feel flawed and realistic, making them compelling to read. . .To cap off, The Cornmarket Conspiracy was a joy to read. Highly recommended.” – Reader’s Favorite Book Reviews

  “Hoisager delivers a page-turning story laced with a mix of treason, conspiracy, and international intrigue as she weaves her characters through London and Paris, making The Cornmarket Conspiracy a very exciting read that begs for a sequel.” – L.L. Abbott, author, The Blackwater Operative

  “…a gripping and compelling thriller from Sharon Hoisager, where you're kept hooked to the very end to find out what exactly happened." – Alex Telander, Manhattan Book Review

  “In The Cornmarket Conspiracy, no one can be trusted. Hoisager’s sophisticated writing style makes this book a serious drama that will keep readers on edge as they unravel the intricate web of motives behind a heinous terror attack. Striking the perfect balance of intense and contained, The Cornmarket Conspiracy has all the qualities to make a gripping political thriller.” – The Book Review Directory

  The Cornmarket Conspiracy

  Sharon Hoisager

  Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC

  Abbeville, South Carolina U.S.A.

  First Moonshine Cove edition May 2021

  Copyright 2021 by Sharon Hoisager

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This eBook is also available in print (ISBN: 9781952439087) at online retailers and quality book stores. This eBook is licensed only for your personal enjoyment. The license does not allow you to resell it or give it to other people. If you would like to share it with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work and intellectual property of the author and publisher.

  Cover design by Peter O’Connor, BespokeBookCovers.com; Interior Design by Moonshine Cove staff

  For my mother, Patsy Crossley, who sparked my imagination by taking me to the library often and to every historical site within driving distance; and to my dad, Buddy Crossley, who worked hard to make everything possible for all of us.

  Acknowledgments

  To my publisher Gene Robinson, thank you for giving me the opportunity to accomplish a lifelong dream. Thank you also to Peter O’Connor, your talent is world class. To Daryl, thank you for always loving me, and being unconditionally supportive of every dream and crazy idea I have. To Alexa, Laurel, Colton, and son-in-law Hayden, thank you for being so extraordinary, and making my job as mom so easy. Thank you to Susan Halbert and Shelly Wooldridge, my multi-gifted sisters who patiently read my manuscript with an eagle eye and discerning mind, and still acted like this book was the best thing they’d ever read. Your loving support is unwavering. And thank you to Susan Metzger, for your constant encouragement.

  About the Author

  Sharon Hoisager has been a professional writer for more than thirty years. As a writer and marketing consultant, Sharon has been published in Christian Retailing magazine with articles on promoting adult and children’s books. Sharon has also been a prolific ghostwriter for several nationally recognized authors, published in numerous financial, economic and political publications. She has also written and produced promotional packages and marketing materials for a myriad of investment, financial, and health publications. Sharon holds a BBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin. She has three adult children and lives in Arlington, Texas with her husband and golden retriever Tucker. The Cornmarket Conspiracy is her first novel.

  www.SharonHoisager.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  A heavy fog settled over Coquelles as the sleek yellow and white EuroStar screamed past the twelfth century village and continued across the French countryside. Careening at 267 kilometers per hour, the high-speed train cut across the northern coastal plains of France, headed for London’s St. Pancras station. Aboard the train, 397 tired travelers, exhausted from a weekend of Christmas shopping and holiday partying slept, read, and stared out the black windows at the distant lights of quaint little farms bordering the tracks.

  Nearing the French coastline, the tracks joined a converging network of parallel tracks and a thick overhead grid of electrical power lines that appeared to run headlong and disappear into a concrete wall cutting into a French hillside. The concrete wall, with two gaping black holes, seemed ready to swallow trains whole as they passed through the mouth of the channel tunnel. The tracks then began a steady descent, sloping down 112 feet below the sea floor on its journey from Paris’ Gare du Nord station to the heart of Britain’s largest city.

  At exactly 10:03 p.m., the EuroStar, now traveling at the tunnel’s speed limit of 160 km/hour, entered the tunnel to begin its 31 mile trek to the British aisle. Travelers on board were lulled by the gentle rocking of the train as it sped along the tracks, through the dark tunnel. The weary travelers, most well accustomed to the underwater leg of their journey, knew that in just 35 minutes they would emerge on English soil, and would soon be pulling into London’s busy St. Pancras station.

  In car 703, Andrew Bolling folded his half-read copy of the Sunday London Times in his lap and propped his head against the window for a few minutes of sleep. Even after arriving in London, he still faced another twenty- minute car ride out to his flat in Notting Hill, where he would only get a few short hours of sleep before he would be expected back at his office in Downing Street.

  Maybe the weekend in Paris with his university buddies hadn’t been such a good idea after all, he thought. He had initially been happy to have the opportunity to see his old friends, but this trip had turned out to be nothing like he’d thought it would be. Two of the three that he’d expected to see hadn’t even bothered to show up, which was OK with him. But that had left just him and Raz, his old college roommate, whom he had not seen in quite a while. The Raz that Andrew remembered had always been happy, carefree, perpetually up for a good time. But now Raz had seemed serious and distant, which was totally out of character for him. He w
as distracted, even irritable. The whole trip had been a disappointment and a waste, he thought to himself.

  Andrew glanced down at this watch: 10:06. By his calculations, they’d be pulling into London at 11:30, and with a little luck, he would be home by midnight. He could squeeze in six hours or so of sleep before he’d have to be back in the car, headed to #10 Downing, where he needed to be ready for his weekly 8 a.m. with the Prime Minister. He hated these weekly appointments. The P.M. was always in a bad mood after hearing the Sunday morning talk shows and Monday morning political polls, replete with disgruntled talking heads whose favorite past time is critiquing the government and criticizing administration policies. After four years in the P.M.’s office, Andrew was growing weary of the political merry-go-round.

  With a final glance at this watch, Andrew noticed the time: 10:14. He closed his eyes, and laid his head against the window.

  At precisely 10:15 p.m., the farmers of Coquelles heard an ominous rumbling from under the earth, like a deep earthquake. The china cups rattled in the cupboards, and the wind chimes in the garden could be heard tinkling. Dogs barked in the distance. As sleepy farmers rose to look out their windows, they were astounded as the rumbling sound turned into a thunderous explosion, and then a flash of light from the northwest that briefly lit up the night sky.

  Minutes later, sirens interrupted the cool calm of the winter night, and only then did the French farmers understand that the world was now forever changed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jeffrey Hunter fumbled for his glasses, knocking them off the nightstand and onto the carpet under his bed. He grabbed his vibrating cellphone off the night table, squinting at the name lit up on the little screen — Annelise Craig, his long-time assistant.

  Why in the heck would Annie be calling him at 12:10 a.m.? Bad news no doubt. As Chief of Staff to Britain’s Prime Minister Trevor Wellington, he knew that any call after 10 p.m. would entail some sort of emergency that demanded his immediate attention. Damn, there went his 6 a.m. run yet again.

  “Yeah . . . Hello . . . Hello?” Jeffrey was trying to sound alert, as the P.M.’s Chief of Staff was always expected to be.

  “Jeffrey . . . Hey, it’s Annie. Listen, something terrible has happened. You’re going to need to get dressed and get in to the office.” Before she finished her sentence, Jeffrey was sitting bolt upright in his bed. As she began detailing what she knew, Jeffrey instinctively started fumbling around among the items on his nightstand for the television remote. His worst nightmare, the one he had known was coming for quite some time, had just begun.

  There in the pitch dark of his bedroom, Jeffrey listened in horror as Annie outlined in detail what she’d just seen in a late-breaking news report online. She’d been up late cruising the Internet, and suddenly splashed across the screen was the story that had seized her attention: there had been an explosion and a horrific fire in the English Channel Tunnel, and it was believed that a train full of travelers had been trapped in the tunnel at the time. Hundreds of lives had likely been lost. The television across the room glowed in silence with live pictures from outside the tunnel. Other than a few emergency vehicles around the entrance, there was not a lot to see. After listening to Annie’s description for a few seconds, Jeffrey bolted from the bed, threw on the faded navy sweatpants and hooded jacket that were lying on his bedroom chair, and was out the door in minutes.

  Jeffrey burst into the Prime Minister’s office just twenty- five minutes later — Alexander Trawick, Britain’s National Security Advisor; Fletcher LaForge, the Deputy National Security Advisor; and Rex Smythe, Britain’s Home Secretary, were already gathered around the Prime Minister’s desk. The Prime Minister was nowhere in sight. Dressed in a disjointed array of sweat pants, jogging shorts, and faded t-shirts, it was obvious each had been yanked from their beds with the shocking news as well.

  “Gentlemen, where are we at?” Rushing into the room, Jeffrey could tell from the stunned looks on their faces that the ramifications from the catastrophe would be staggering.

  “It’s bad, Hunter. Almost four hundred passengers were on board, plus the crew. It looks like there are going to be very few survivors, if any. That’s about all we know right now,” Trawick said.

  “Where is Wellington?” Jeffrey said, although he already knew the answer.

  “He’s at COBRA,” Trawick shot back, giving the acronym for the Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, the designated government office where the Prime Minister and other top military, police, and intelligence agencies could monitor emergency situations in Britain. The last time the room had been utilized were the few times in recent months when several incidents of vehicle-related terrorism had swept London. Tonight, the emergency headquarters had once again been completely brought up to full speed operation with secure video and audio links to the police and military onsite, all accomplished within ninety minutes of the tragedy.

  “OK, Trawick, why don’t you get over there and stick close to the P.M. We need to make sure this office is kept in the loop on all the incoming information and every decision being made. LaForge, Smythe, and I will stay here and start mapping out the administration’s response going forward.” As the P.M.’s Chief of Staff, Jeffrey started making the assignments as he knew Wellington would want them.

  The men spent the next hour beginning the mammoth tasks of coordinating the rescue and recovery and mapping out a plan for the government’s response. The emergency personnel over at COBRA would handle the immediate logistics, but Jeffrey knew that the administration would be responsible for mapping out a plan moving forward. Jeffrey pushed his slim government-issued laptop aside and pulled a fresh yellow legal pad from the bottom drawer. This was no time for official reports or formal government documents. Hunter needed space to think.

  Down the left margin of the crisp top page, Hunter and the men started their own short list of likely suspects, including every terrorist organization known to be operating in Western Europe. Given the size and scope of the disaster, they immediately decided to operate on the assumption it was a terrorist attack until someone uncovered evidence that it wasn’t.

  Launching a response to a catastrophe of this magnitude would require an extraordinary rescue, recovery, and law enforcement response as well as having enormous implications for National Security. And of course, everything would have to be coordinated with other leaders in the European Union, the United States, and the UK’s other allies. While the country had certainly planned and prepared for an array of potential terrorist hits on their own soil, this was a worst-case scenario. Very few of their drills or strategic exercises had prepared them for a terrorist hit on this scale.

  Jeffrey Hunter and the rest of the P.M.’s crisis team had plenty of experience dealing with emergency scenarios: random bombings, assassination attempts, and the occasional rogue terrorist attack. It was a reality of the modern world, and the UK had dealt with their fair share of terrorist threats and attacks in the last two decades. But there had never before been anything on this level — never anything close to this extent of death and devastation. This was a global-level terroristic attack, and would require an unprecedented level of response from the Prime Minister. Hell, the Queen and Parliament would be involved … along with the United States and half the countries in the civilized world.

  Staring down at his crisply lettered list, Jeffrey assessed the potential terrorist organizations. ISIS, of course, was at the top of the list of obvious suspects, followed by al Qaeda, the IRA, Boko Haram, and every radical Islamic extremist fringe group in the Middle East. London — or Londonistan — as Time Magazine had aptly dubbed it in a recent cover story about the global terror threat, was a known hotbed of radical Islamic activity, and a major train bombing should not surprise anyone.

  The fact that the explosion had all but destroyed access to one of the major engineering feats of the last century was a devastating blow. It would take an enormous amount of time, money, and manpower to fully repair and secure the Cha
nnel Tunnel. Nicknamed the Chunnel by a generation of Western Europeans who now used it as casually as any other regional train, it had been providing fast and easy commutes between Paris, London and Amsterdam for more than a quarter century.

  Jeffrey had traveled through the Chunnel hundreds of times, especially since his old buddy Wellington had been elected Prime Minister, and he had been appointed to lead the P.M.’s staff after his election. Like most other Britons, he took the tunnel for granted, never thinking much about its vulnerability. Thinking back to an article he read about the Channel Tunnel years ago, he remembered that the passageway is actually comprised of three tunnels, two tracks dedicated to carrying trains in each direction, from London to Paris and Brussels nonstop, and a third utility tunnel that ran between them used for maintenance and repairs. Realizing the massive number of people and commercial goods that utilized the tunnel every single day, Jeffrey knew that this single act of terrorism would set Great Britain back many months — potentially years — disturbing its flow of imports and exports, as well as disrupting commerce and damaging Britain’s critical tourist economy. The shock on Britain’s economy would be severe, especially given the already heavy economic blow from the controversial Brexit vote. The full economic impact — not to mention the lives that were lost — would be a devastating blow.

  By 4 a.m., Wellington was back at #10 Downing, leaving the COBRA offices for the time being to the military leaders. When he walked in the door at the warren of offices that make up the P.M.’s central London office, Jeffrey almost didn’t recognize his eternally affable old friend. His normally handsome and well-trimmed face was now lined with deep creases running across his forehead and white puffs billowed under his eyes. With Wellington’s disheveled hair and unshaven jawline, Jeffrey realized that he had not seen him like this since their late nights of drinking back at University — and that was a lifetime ago.