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    33 Packs a Day
    33 Packs a Day
    33 Packs a Day
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    33 Packs a Day

    By John Covil and Hilary Covil

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    About this ebook

    The soda you drink, the books you read: for years, the American government has tried to control the consumption habits of its people. “33 Packs A Day” looks at how the government gets its fist around a favorite U.S. past-time. The thriller follows a government surveillance program that attempts to control the smoking habits of people in New York City. In response to this program, Seran Barzani, a doctor, stages an act of political protest. Unbeknownst to Barzani, the protest catches the eye of an ambitious homeland security agent who begins to track her. Meanwhile, Barzani is searching for her mother, a victim of Chemical Ali’s Al-Anfal campaign. As Seran searches for her mother, she learns she is being hunted and must face her darkest fears.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Covil
    Release dateMar 12, 2015
    ISBN9780996184915
    33 Packs a Day
    Author

    John Covil

    John is a full-time engineer with a degree in Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University. He has been writing on his blog and elsewhere online for years, and has recently started writing fiction. His wife Hilary is an experienced writer of several genres, including journalism, poetry, fiction and non-fiction, and was co-author of 33 Packs a Day.John's writing interests include technology, civil liberties and privacy, criminal justice and criminal justice reform, Christian faith and more. John and Hilary live in Raleigh, North Carolina, with their beagle Marco.

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      Book preview

      33 Packs a Day - John Covil

      33 Packs a Day

      By John Covil and Hilary Covil

      Copyright © 2013 by John Covil

      33 Packs a Day

      By John Covil and Hilary Covil

      Prologue

      Thoughts fly past without ceasing. Not one is connected to the next. It is the dark cacophony of a mind erupting onto itself.

      The woman on the table has no awareness of time or identity, to say nothing of the imperiled state of her body.

      A man in a dark suit looms over her. A microphone sits by her face. People in white coats cower in the corner. His yelling drowns out the beeps and clicks and whirs of the medical equipment.

      Who are you working for?

      Her mind struggles to understand him in the midst of her injuries. She doesn't feel the man's spittle hit her face, but his words eventually register. She opens her eyes to see someone she does not know.

      An officious looking ID badge dangles from his chest pocket, full of stars and colored squares, but the letters are blurry and indecipherable. It is the only noteworthy thing she finds about the man apart from his insistent questioning. She attempts to move her lips to explain she's just a doctor, but the man interrupts.

      Where are the bombs?

      Caught short, she stops before speaking. Bombs? Who does this person think I am? How did I get here? Where is here?

      She wants to respond with her own series of questions, but the man pulls a pistol from behind his back and pushes the barrel onto her abdomen. Abstract thought is drowned out by the screaming pain, the hospital sheets turning red.

      Chapter One

      Pepino's Trattoria Midtown

      New York City, NY

      Tuesday, October 15, 2013

      Is there no country where you can just be left alone?

      A debate on police surveillance had caught Seran Barzani off-guard, especially when the date had started normally. The man she was meeting didn't seem weird, and she actually enjoyed some of the typical back-and-forth.

      What kind of music do you like?

      Seran blushed at asking such a clichéd question. She wasn't usually the blind date type, but she thought she should at least try to get her personal life in order now that her professional life was going in the right direction. It also didn't help that her father kept telling stories of each new grandchild born into his coworkers' families.

      The crowded, narrow restaurant was dark, with brick-lined walls and candle-lit tables. Seran hoped choosing a restaurant with the Romantic tag on Urban Spoon wasn't putting too much pressure on her date.

      Alexander Persson sat across the table, his toe tapping loudly underneath. He stammered for the seventeenth time that evening. Well, I like jazz, classical, some rock…

      His shy nervousness was both disarming and charming for Seran. At least they were both experiencing the same kind of awkward journey.

      Alex continued. I'm sorry, it sounds like I'm being pretentious. How about you? Do you listen to country?

      Country?

      Your profile says you're from Nashville.

      Well, in my community, country wasn't very popular. We heard it around us, and some of it was okay, but mostly I listen to pop music.

      Your community? You mean, like, your neighborhood? he asked.

      Seran sighed and looked down. Well, it's an immigrant community.

      Oh, cool, where are you from originally?

      Seran continued staring at the floor. It's a small village in Kurdistan.

      Alex chuckled. So do you call your community Little Arabia or something?

      Seran looked at Alex. We're Kurdish.

      Alex turned white. I'm, I'm sorry.

      Seran frowned and looked back at the same spot on the floor. No, it's okay. I guess you didn't know.

      No one spoke or looked at each other for a minute, and a waiter refilled the water glasses.

      So how did you end up in New York City? he asked.

      I originally came to attend NYU. My father pushed me very hard growing up, because as his only child there in Tennessee, he wanted me to make more of myself somewhere else. Not that he resented our home, he just thought I'd need a fresh start. Seran stopped before she revealed anything more. She was getting more personal than she had planned tonight. Anyway, after NYU, it was grad school down at Hopkins, and then back to the city for medical school at Columbia. I've been here ever since.

      Alex seemed like he wanted to ask something but had stopped himself. Seran expected to be asked about her unmentioned mother, but his nerves appeared even more heightened once she mentioned her Ivy League medical school education.

      Oh, he finally said, so you're a doctor.

      Yeah, in Oncology. I was just awarded a fellowship in the Oncology department at Mt. Carmel. Seran smiled with passionate energy and only a little arrogant pride. Ask about him.

      But what about you? she said. What do you do?

      I write software for the NYPD, Alex said.

      Seran suppressed a chuckle as she tried to imagine the man sitting across from her chasing down street

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