First Lines

Yet another in the first line series. This one comes from Alex Berenson's The Ghost War. I read Berenson's The Faithful Spy and didn't find it too bad. Kinda fun to read in fact. I'm hoping for the same from this novel. So far, as it hits on North Korea, one of my faves, it's headed in the right direction.

This is not just the first line, but the first few passages. I found the most poignant stuff several paragraphs in. It was worth getting there though:


TED BECK WALKED WEST DOWN THE ROTTING PIER, squinting through his wraparound sunglasses into the late-afternoon haze. He moved without haste. He’d arrived early, and the boat he’d come to meet was nowhere in sight. 

At the end of the dock, trash from three countries—China and the two Koreas—bobbed in the dank water, the eastern edge of the Yellow Sea. The air was heavy with smoke from the ships that docked at Incheon every day to load up on cars and televisions for the United States. The sun had baked the fumes into a brown smog that burned Beck’s throat and made him want a cigarette. 

He fished a packet of Camel Lights from his pocket and lit up. He’d tried to quit over the years. But if he was going to sign up for missions like this one, what was the point? He smoked slowly and when he was done flicked the butt away. It spun into the harbor, joining the empty beer cans and condom wrappers. 

Then he heard the low rumble of a boat engine. 

Incheon was an industrial port fifty miles west of Seoul and a few miles south of the Demilitarized Zone, the strip that separated North and South Korea. During the Korean War, General Douglas Mac-Arthur had landed here, cutting behind North Korean lines to stop the Communist advance. 

A statue of him stood atop a hill not far from this pier. Binoculars in hand, the general looked out to the Yellow Sea, which separated China and the Korean Peninsula. This afternoon, Beck would head into those waters, on a mission smaller than MacArthur’s assault but just as dangerous. 

The rumble of the distant boat grew louder. Beck pulled his wallet out of his pocket, a battered piece of cowhide that had seen him through thirty-two countries and three counterinsurgencies. He wasn’t carrying any identification or a passport, just money. About $3,000 in all. And three pictures: his wife and their two sons. He took out the pictures and kissed them. 

Then he flicked his lighter to them and watched them burn, holding them as long as he could, until the flames singed his fingers and he had to let them go. Their remnants sank into the water and drifted away.

Berenson, Alex - The Ghost War

Yeah, so don't you want to know why he burned up the pictures of his family and flicked them away? I do.

P.S. Yes, this means I gave up on A New World, Chaos. I just couldn't make myself care that much about Zombies.