The sequel to the smash hit The Long Watch is out and available online!

---

All they want is some well-deserved “me time”, but no. The universe has other plans…

It’s not every day that you get to save the world. Especially after you had to die several times along the way, but now that it is saved, that doesn’t mean everything is fine.

It’s just the opposite as planet Earth is in worse trouble than before, but what’s even more scary for the three friends charged with saving everyone and everything is all the world knows that there are active alien intelligences attacking them, and they are not the least bit happy about it. 

Especially the Americans.

After all they’ve gone through, Duncan, Doris, and Basil now have to take on the entire US government – and they go all the way to the White House to do it?

How much do these three have to take?

Spoiler Alert: A lot.

This is Book II in The Watch Series following Book I – The Long Watch

“…a fun read filled with rich characters, including a hyper-intelligent dog, and enough sci-fi to whet your appetite and provide a clever explanation for the legends and mysteries of the past.” – Bestselling Author Andrew Butters

---

Excerpt:

PROLOGUE
The White House Situation Room
December 22nd, 2022, 7am EST

The old man at the head of the table was furious. “What do you mean, you’ve ‘lost it’?”

“Sir, we had a good track on the object. However, it no longer appears on our screens. I’m sorry, sir, but the distances….”

He slapped the board table with the flat of his hand so hard it caused everyone to jump in their seats and for him to wince in pain. “Excuses. That’s all I’ve been hearing for three whole goddamned days. Excuses. ‘You don’t know what it is.’ ‘You don’t know where it came from.’ ‘You don’t know how it’s doing what it’s doing.’ And now this? ‘You don’t know where it is?’ What a bunch of Malarkey. When are you going to give me goddamned answers?”

The United States Situation Room was in the White House sub-basement in Washington D.C. Manned 24/7/365 by all branches of the military; it was where all the world’s intelligence captured by the vast US military and espionage industrial complex ended up, all to feed the decision-making capability of one person, that building’s current occupant, the President of the United States and the guy with the sore hand.

Despite all that people power and technology, they were now coming up empty. This man had been around the racetrack numerous times before in his multi-decade tenure as a US Senator, Vice President and now President. He thought he had seen it all, and nothing could surprise him.

He had never been more wrong in his life.

The Vice President was on his immediate left, and his chief of Staff to his right. Also sitting at various stations around the table were the entirety of the National Security Council, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, plus, at the very end of the table, off to the left, and trying to hide was one very nervous looking, and very out of place civilian; a 30-something woman, who was incongruously dressed in Lulu Lemon leggings, red Converse sneakers, a grey MIT T-shirt and a too big LL Bean red check shirt.
The President’s frustration was both palpable and understandable. Three days previously, he’d learned that an asteroid named AP7 had its orbit altered, putting it on a trajectory that would have impacted Earth, destroying all life on the planet.

Surveying telescopes recorded multiple albedo shifts in the object, which, as explained to the President, meant that the asteroid was interfered with by some unknown force & entity. Just before Christmas in 2022, Earth was under attack by parties unknown.

And now, just as mysteriously, it had been saved. The orbit, again by some mysterious force they could detect but could not clearly see, corrected the course – more than corrected as that asteroid was now on a trajectory to leave the solar system.

The President remembered how he felt in those terrible days in between, faced with the extinction of humanity. He was coordinating with other countries in a top-secret global evacuation plan that would put a pathetically small number of their species at the bottom of the deepest salt mines worldwide in the hopes they would survive the impact.

The leading astrophysicist in the world, the girl in the MIT shirt, as it happens, estimated it was a false hope. AP7 was a planet killer.

Now, they had been tracking the object that they presumed had interfered with the Asteroid, either for good or for ill, as it approached the earth, and they had lost it.

“Sir, if I may,” said the Chief of the Space Force. “We had a good lock on the object. Considering its size, distances and speeds, it’s completely understandable that we would lose contact as it approached Earth, and it’s clear Earth is its destination. I recommend we maintain our high alert status on all bases. If we re-establish contact, our forces will be ready to act.”

“‘If’ we re-establish contact?” said the President. “You meant to say ‘when’, didn’t you.”

“Yessir. When,” said the general, colouring slightly.

“So ordered,” said the President, sounding slightly less defeated. “Jake, where are we concerning containment?” It was a major concern that the past few days’ events would cause worldwide panic despite the emergency being apparently averted.

“Sir, thus far, we have managed to suppress the scientific data and keep it out of the public sphere,” said Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, or NSA. “We assess a better than 75% chance of maintaining containment.”

There was a snort from the end of the table.

“You have something to add, Doctor?”

The girl, Doctor Dawn McMaster, now blushing furiously, was tired and blamed her exhaustion for her lack of self-control. “Sorry, sir. Uh, never mind.”

The Vice President sitting at her boss’s left, sat up and said sharply, “Doctor, you don’t ‘never mind’ the President of the United States. You hear me?”

Dawn blanched, and felt herself break out in a sweat. She gulped, suddenly wide awake. “Yes, um, Madam Vice President. Sorry. Okay, sorry for my, well reaction, but this story? Sir, with all due respect, there will be no containment. The astrophysics community has the data. It’s out in the ether,” she said waving her arm vaguely in the air. “They are pouring over it, as it is the single biggest discovery in the history of our planet. There is simply no way this will be swept under the rug. Nor, if you don’t mind me saying so,” she said, looking at the NSA, “should it be. This is not just an American story.”

The room went quiet, digesting what she had just said. No one could disagree. This concerned everyone on the planet. But to handle the situation correctly, the President needed more information. Leaning over the table with his fists supporting him, he loomed over the assembled group.

“To avert a worldwide panic, we need more information. I am prepared to be fully transparent with the American people. However, I can’t come to them with this,” he said, waving his hand at the main screen that was playing a video on a loop that showed a blurry image of a peanut-shaped object, clearly in outer space, with a tiny shadow flicking back and forth over its surface, which incongruously, was shaped like a dragon.

“Everyone in this room has full Presidential authority to discover what the hell is happening here. And I do mean, rapidly.”

He turned and left the room.