The Afghan Mission Is the Sequel to The Minot Mission by Author Stephen Knight

Online, October 21, 2013 (Newswire.com) - The same main characters (as in The Minot Mission), Gerry Williams and Peter Shelby have been apprehended and dispatched to Afghanistan to assist the Mujahedeen freedom fighters and Afghans to defeat the occupying Soviet Red Army.

Following their arrest by INTERPOL in Australia, after being trained in black operations by the CIA, their payback mission takes them to Pakistan, the very remotest parts of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union and China. It includes leading disruptive violent rebel raids into Uzbekistan, being imprisoned for several months in an Afghan prison and attempting a perilous escape through the highest mountains in the world.

Lyon, France - October 1985

The late afternoon sun was illuminating the impressive looking headquarters of INTERPOL, the International Criminal Police Organization, beside the river Rhone in Lyon, France. On the records floor of the multi-storey glass-fronted building, a newly recruited intern was sitting in a brightly lit cubicle updating database information on persons of interest from around the world. Although officially not a fully-fledged member of the staff, new intern, Jean Paul Broussard was already being asked to undertake numerous routine staff duties, making him feel like a glorified data entry clerk, as he entered endless amounts of information from highlighted sections of copies of official letters and documents. His boss had told him to try and understand the significance of the information being entered and it would make the work more interesting, which he'd been trying to do, but was still finding most of the information very mundane, like changes to upcoming court appearance dates, mailing addresses and phone numbers.

That afternoon he was studying an official letter in reference to a person by the name of Peter Shelby. He keyed in the name and a long list of people with the same name appeared on his display and not knowing which one to select he re-read the letter to see if there was any other information that could help identify the person in question and found a date of birth. After entering this only one Peter Shelby was displayed and the information indicated his whereabouts were currently unknown. The letter was from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship. Two of the sentences in the letter had been highlighted for entry into Shelby's online file. The first indicated there was no record of a Canadian passport ever being issued to a Peter Shelby with this date of birth. Jean Paul duly entered this information into the online file. The second highlighted sentence indicated that no record of Australian parentage had been found for a Peter Shelby with this date of birth. Jean Paul entered this information and saved the updates. From the data he had just entered Jean Paul had deduced that this particular Peter Shelby must be living in Australia and had recently applied for Australian citizenship. He hoped his boss, the internship co-ordinator, would be pleased with what he'd found because according to the online file Shelby's whereabouts had been unknown since March nineteen eighty two, nearly three and half years ago. Jean Paul made his way down the corridor to his boss's office and saw that he had already left for the day and although he knew where he would probably be, in the small bar at Lyon's Des Congres Hotel quite close-by, news of what he had uncovered would have to wait until tomorrow. He went back to his cubicle and picked the next document off the top of his work pile. He was trying to control his need to tell his boss about what he'd discovered knowing he had no one else to tell. To those busily working around him it would mean nothing, they were probably continually determining the whereabouts of missing persons. This was his first one and he just had to let his boss know about it. He put all the relevant papers in a folder, shut his computer down, locked up the documents and letters in his work pile and grabbed his coat. This didn't go unnoticed by his co-workers but no one showed any outwardly signs that they had seen what he was doing. He quickly made his way to the elevators hardly able to control his excitement.

The afternoon sun was still shining brightly as he left the building. As he got closer to the hotel he began to have second thoughts about what he was doing and his pace slowed considerably as he mulled over whether he should wait until tomorrow and if anyone mentioned he had left early say he hadn't been feeling well. However, he was still very excited about what he'd found and decided to continue on to at least see if his boss was actually there. If he wasn't then the news of what he had discovered would definitely have to wait until tomorrow morning.

He went into the hotel bar finding it to be very dark, so much so that he was having difficulty making out people's faces. He was looking all around but couldn't see his boss. His boss however had seen him as he had come in through the door and stood up and called out to him. Jean Paul made his way over to where he was standing and saw a pretty dark haired woman sitting across from him in the booth they were occupying.