METAPHOR
Ben Kendrick has spent thirty-four years keeping secrets for the CIA. Faced with a terminal diagnosis, he makes one final decision: a Swiss clinic, a signed consent form and an ending on his own terms.
Then he wakes in a hotel room in Oldham, England.
He has no idea how he crossed Europe. His name is already dead in the CIA systems he once trusted. And the men arriving at the hotel have no intention of letting him walk away.
An unknown woman offers an escape route and an impossible claim: he is not dying.
Behind his stolen death lies Metaphor, a classified programme capable of moving people across distances no human body should survive. The people controlling it regard Kendrick as an expendable asset. Whatever intervened during his transfer has other ideas.
Hunted through Britain, Ben must uncover why he was chosen and decide whether the woman who helped steal his life can be trusted to help him reclaim it.
He knows how to fight the men pursuing him. What travelled back with him is another matter.
Metaphor is a science fiction espionage thriller about power, identity and the price of remaining human.
By noon, Ben Kendrick had died twice. He’s running out of time. And running out of lives.
The Cast of Characters
Ben Kendrick
A former CIA operative who plans his own death, only to wake in a world that believes he is already dead. Disciplined, suspicious and dryly humorous, Ben intends to discover who stole his ending.
Dr Melanie Chisolm
A brilliant specialist in neural continuity whose research has crossed a dangerous boundary. Caught between scientific ambition and conscience, Melanie holds answers Ben needs, and secrets that make trusting her difficult.
Rook
A ruthless operative whose responsibilities extend beyond conventional security. Patient, resourceful and dangerous at close quarters, Rook knows how to remove inconvenient witnesses and leave questions behind.
Silas Carter
A former CIA Special Activities officer attached to Metaphor’s secretive oversight. Carter treats human lives as strategic resources and regards Ben’s survival as a problem requiring his personal attention.
Sir Adrian Vale
The polished face of British oversight, with impeccable manners and access to closely guarded doors. Vale understands the machinery behind Metaphor, but his willingness to help comes burdened with omissions.
Colonel Elias Harrow
A British Army intelligence officer officially lost in a boating accident. His name haunts Metaphor’s early history, and the traces he leaves suggest that his disappearance is more complicated than anyone admits.
Thomas Avery
An old CIA hand and the nearest thing Ben has to a trusted friend within the Agency. Behind his battered professionalism and sardonic humour lies a loyalty that could prove expensive.
Lady Leanor Marche
A former Cabinet Office intelligence coordinator whose influence reaches deep into the secret world. Elegant and calculating, Marche sees possibilities in Metaphor that leave little room for individual conscience.
Miriam Lorne
Melanie’s former supervisor, a brilliant scientist unwilling to ignore the human consequences of an equation. Her work and her questions cast a long shadow over the programme.
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