Poseidon's Ransom

Prologue

It felt as though his face was on fire. The pain was unbelievable. The surgeon, reputedly the best in the Far East, had explained the procedures and outlined the issues during the post-op period. But Greg Stoneham had not expected anything as painful as this. The morphine helped a lot. But he was concerned he may become dependent and chose to bear the pain as much as possible, taking short periods of relief with the effective opiate.

The clinic in Manilla was expensive, in fact probably the most expensive in the world. The one-and-a-half million dollar procedure he’d selected was full facial reconstruction. Drastic, costly, but necessary. The alternative was to spend the rest of his life living in the shadows. Not an option. Greg Stoneham, rogue CIA agent, now contract terrorist, had to disappear.

A team of three surgeons had taken slivers of bone from his pelvis and laminated his cheekbones. The same procedure altered his jawline and chin. The insertion of small pellets of gel, changed the look of his eyebrows, and his broken nose had been straightened and rebuilt. The scar across his head was removed and the old leg injury, sustained in a helicopter crash in Panama, had been corrected. The leg, now in ankle-to-thigh plaster, would not have a limp.

His head and shoulders were encased in a state-of-the-art cocoon, giving total protection against infection during the critical forty-eight-hour post-op period. Full recuperation would last seven to eight weeks, during which time a complete hair transplant would be done.

As the pain level in his face increased, Stoneham pressed the button to release the welcome hit of morphine. The nurse at his bedside stood up and checked the various drips running into his arms. As she sat down she thought she saw her patient smile.

He pressed the button again. The pain in his face subsided to a dull ache, as his thoughts flashed to the future. Greg Stoneham is gone. There is no Stoneham. In a few weeks’ time Mr Rick Washington will take his place.