“FireFly, right?” the older man said.

“Who’s asking?”

“Gunnery Sergeant William Grafton, Retired.  I was called Big Red at one point in my life.  Force Recon.”

“Pleased to meet you Big Red.  I’ve actually heard of you.  Must have been one hell of a Marine for you to be mentioned in BUDS,” Taylor said as he put his hand out to shake.  “Was there something you wanted to talk with me about, Sir?”

“You can call me Gunny.  And yes, I want to talk with you about a job. I have a friend that needs a security specialist, and you might be uniquely qualified.”

“You do realize that I have an OTH Discharge, don’t you?”

“Yes, and I know why.  I don’t care.  You were a solid team member and,” as he tipped his head toward the table of sailors there on his behalf, “your team feels the same way.  I’ll be over in the corner.  When you are done with your party, come on over and we can talk.”

Gunny paid the tab for Taylor and sent another round to the table before returning to his small group back in the corner of the bar. 

***

“Wait, seriously, Taylor, Big Red approached you at the bar about a job?” PO1 Todd Bouthillier said.  “My dad knew a guy that went to work for him back in the day.  Dude is loaded now.  No matter what, you need to talk with him.”

Cory took a long pull from his beer.  That had been an hour ago.  He glanced up in the mirror behind the bartender and saw that Grafton was still sitting in his corner.  There were a man and a woman with him at the table.  As his friends filtered out, Cory walked to the back of the bar and dropped into the open seat across from Grafton, between the other man and the woman. 

“You wanted to talk, Gunny?” Taylor said.  His personal defenses were up.  He didn’t like it when people he didn’t know knew him… and knew private details about him. 

“Would you prefer we call you Cory, Taylor, FireFly or something else?” Gunny asked. 

“What I would prefer is to know how and why you have been digging into me… Sir.”  The flash in Taylor’s eyes displayed his anger. 

“Fair enough.  The ‘how’ is that I have access to a lot of people in various echelons of special forces.  I have helped them, and they keep an eye out for people with special talents.”

“So, I have a special talent?  What might that be?” he asked. 

“Hi… Cory…  My name is Melody Grafton.  I went through your records and talked to a few people.  Dirk,” she motioned to the other man sitting with them, “has an employee that needs a bodyguard.  She will need someone that is close, but that won’t become a love interest, if you get my meaning.”

“So… because you found out I’m gay?”

“Honestly, that is part of it.   The rest of it is that the two of you are very likely to hit it off,” Melody replied. 

“What if we don’t ‘hit it off’?” Cory asked. 

“That’s a fair question,” Gunny replied.  “I’m aware of your situation.  No matter what, some friends of mine will be working to correct the ‘Other Than Honorable’.  In addition, you will be paid for a year.  If it doesn’t work out, we’ll give you a generous severance package.”

Cory looked at Big Red.  The older man didn’t shy away from his glare.  Instinctually he trusted the retired Marine.  Everything he’d heard about him pointed to him being a man of his word.  His eyes moved to the woman… Melody Grafton.  She had long dark hair, streaked with gray.  She sat close enough to Big Red to touch him.  As he looked her over, she also didn’t avert her eyes, but instead challenged him.  She looked like she could see into him.  He knew the look… he’d seen it with interrogators.  It was the way they looked at people they were questioning.  She was measuring him every bit as much as he was measuring her.

“I guess I’m in,” Cory replied. 

“I’m Dirk Bryce.  Glad to have you aboard,” Dirk said, rising to shake Cory’s hand.  “Welcome to Cumulus Cloud Systems.”

***

Melody Grafton spent two weeks working with Cory Taylor.  She taught him everything he needed to know in order to get in good with his protectee.  He already had most of the pieces in place. 

“Cory, part of the deal is that she will not know you are protecting her.  If she thought you were, we feel that she would limit your access, making it hard to complete our mission.”

“Roger that, Ma’am.”

“Just Melody, Cory.”

***

Jenny Coolidge walked into her boss’s office and sat down in the only available chair.  She didn’t recognize the man sitting in the other chair, but she did notice that he was quite attractive and had perked up when she entered the room. 

“Jenny, this is Cory.  He’s going to be your new right hand… your Administrative Assistant.”

“Hi, Cory,” Jenny said, leaning over to shake his hand.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Coolidge.”

“First off, you are gonna have to call me Jenny.  No formality.  Cool?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Jeez, Cory.  How old are you?  I’m twenty.  You have at least a couple of years on me.  Calling me ma’am isn’t going to win you any favors.”

“Sorry… habit.”

The three of them talked for a few minutes before Jenny took Cory back to her office and helped him get set up to be her assistant.  After a few hours, the two of them went out for celebratory drinks. 

He and the other guard in the front of the van carried on a light conversation about what they were going to do over the upcoming holiday.  Ed Stevens’s family always went all-out for Thanksgiving and he was excited. 

Sitting in the back were two more guards, JD, and another prisoner.  They were being transferred to federal custody by a Maryland Corrections Department detail. 

In addition to the van there were escort sedans in front and behind.  Altogether, there were eight corrections officers in three vehicles to transport JD and the other inmate to federal authorities.  JD figured out that he was going to stand trial for shooting up a military installation. 

“Leader, this is Bird Dog, I have the target and escorts four hundred yards from the zone,” a man wearing camo gear, holding binoculars said from his perch above the road as the van passed. 

“Roger that, Bird Dog.  This is Leader.  Hunting Pack, get ready to intercept.  Remember, they are just doing their job.  Let’s try to make sure they go home to their families in one piece.  They might be shooting to kill, but we’re better than they are at their game.  Leader out.”

Twenty seconds later the right front tire of the transport van exploded.  Bird Dog had hit it with a .308 round from his sniper rifle.  A moment later the rear tire on the passenger side of the van blew from a second shot. 

“Transport Seventeen to base, I think we’re under attack, just before Mount Collier.  Repeat, we’ve been hit by someone,” the driver shouted excitedly into the microphone hanging from the dash. 

“Ten-four, Seventeen.  Dispatching local units to assist,” the dispatcher replied before inquiring further what type of emergency they were having.

A tear gas cannister tore through the passenger side window of the transport van.  The car following them slammed into their rear end, and the lead car slid off the road, but he couldn’t see why, he assumed they had also been hit with something else. 

Struggling for breath, the two men in the front of the van exited the vehicle.  Falling to their hands and knees, they could barely see and were clutching at their faces, choking.  Through the tears and smoke, Stevens, who’d driven similar transport vans for decades, saw what looked like a SWAT team or military assault squad come up out of the woods alongside of the road.  They were wearing camo battle fatigues and gas masks.  All were carrying rifles.  He heard the shouts but couldn’t understand them as he struggled to catch his breath. 

There was the muffled sound of suppressed gunfire.  Stevens wondered why it sounded different than normal.  He was pretty sure they were carrying M-4 military assault weapons.  He owned one and often took it to the range, and knew the 5.56mm round had a distinctive sound, and these didn’t sound like that or any other similar round he could identify.

As the guard tried to get up to return fire, he was hit in the back of the thigh by something.  Just before passing out, he saw one of the prisoners… he thought it was Ross, the guy that shot the Senator, being led away, still cuffed, with something covering his head. 

***

To JD, it felt like a SpecOps breach.  Had he been ordered to take a hostage out of a vehicle, he would have run the op similarly.  The guards in the back couldn’t do anything except watch as JD was dragged from the van.  Then the guards followed, gasping for breath.  The other prisoner was still locked in the van pleading for them to free him between coughs. 

“I didn’t do it.  What’s going on?” JD yelled, the gas mask his captors had put over his face, muffling the sound.  A few moments before, the van had rocked… later he found out that was when the tires were blown out… and then swerved to the side of the road.  A few scant moments after that, the side of the van was breached by a spike and tear gas was pumped into the space.  Then the rear doors were blown. 

“Shut up, Kracken,” the voice said, dragging him along the rough ground at almost a running pace.  He was having a hard time maintaining his balance with his hands cuffed, but the men at his sides were keeping him upright if he stumbled. 

“Who are you?”

“Shut up, JD,” the other man said, more quietly. 

After a few minutes of running, JD gasping for breath in the heavy mask, the  group slowed and emerged onto a two-track road.  There were a bunch of various, mostly older four-wheel-drive SUVs parked along the road.  The men went to the backs of different vehicles and started changing clothes into hunting gear.  As they got changed over, some of the men were collecting the combat rifles while others unloaded hunting rifles from a locker in the back of a lifted Suburban.  One of the captors freed JD’s hands from the cuffs and pulled off the gas mask.

“Put these on,” Colonel Gilson said as he tossed a new set of hunting camos and a blaze orange vest to JD.

“Sir?”

“You’re riding with me in that old Jeep over there… the one with no doors.  We’ll talk after we get going.  Move it, Soldier.”

JD swapped the orange prison jumpsuit for the camo coveralls, jacket and orange vest the Colonel had tossed to him.  He pulled the orange and camo cap low over his eyes and climbed into the old, lifted Wrangler.  He was pulling on the seatbelt as Colonel Gilson deftly jumped and twisted into the driver’s seat.  It only took a second for him to pull down his seat belt and latch it in one, smooth motion.  The old rig fired as soon as the key turned.  Gilson dropped the shifter into first gear and maneuvered around the few other vehicles that were in the way, heading deeper into the woods on the two-track.  It was almost dark, so as the forest enveloped them, he switched on all his auxiliary lights, turning everything around them into day. 

“Probably wondering exactly what the hell is going on, I’d guess,” he said over the noise of the Jeep scrambling along the bumpy road. 

“Yes, Sir.  I must say that I am.  What’s the deal?” JD asked.

“I got an answer as to why you’d been mustered out.  You were being set up for the murder of the Senator.  Apparently, the operation has been in play for a while.  I have a source that picked up the intel on it.  I can’t go into who or how… but it was a VERY elaborate set-up.  Wait until we get back to our ops base and I’ll show you what we picked up.”

The two men spoke a little more as they made their way back to their base of operations, a cabin that belonged to another member of the Colonel’s vast network of friends and contacts. 

***

Christi pulled back on to the main road just as the black van went out of sight around the bend.  She hammered the gas pedal on the old Taurus, the front tires spinning, looking for traction on the gravel.  By the time she approached the bend the van had disappeared, it was gone.  There was the main road and several dirt roads going off into the woods on either side.  She elected to take the main road and see if she could catch the van.  Otherwise, she would double back and start looking on side roads. 

A couple of miles up the road, she hadn’t seen the van yet.  She thought to herself that they had to have jumped off the main road onto one of the dirt roads she’d passed.  She had been going fast enough that she should have picked up a visual of them, unless they’d done otherwise. 

She doubled back and turned right on the first dirt road she’d passed.  It looked like this was the most parallel to the main road and the dirt looked like it had been disturbed since the last rain.  If the Russians were doing anything along the main road, this might have been where they went.  If they were just running, it wouldn’t matter. 

It was getting darker, and she knew that the chances of her finding anything dropped with every minute that passed.  At this point, she might even stumble into their operational zone… and if they were true to form, they would kill her for being there, just to make sure there were no witnesses.  She cut her lights and pulled to the side of the road.  Even though time was of the essence, she needed to think. 

Christi grabbed her Sig, stepped from the vehicle and tucked it into the back of her waistband.  She walked the short distance to the meandering creek and sat on a small rock outcropping.  She was angry, scared and frustrated.  She knew that the Chugunov brothers would be hunting for Jason, and she had lost them.  They were in her sights… now they were gone, and she didn’t have a clue as to where they went. 

A few minutes later she heard the sound of an engine over the sound of the babbling creek.  She dashed up to the road and looked both ways.  Deeper into the woods she could see a slight glow along the road.  There was no way she could get in the car and move it before the vehicle got to her location, but she could get off the road. 

She turned and ran back toward the creek.  She stepped into the cold water and was across in two strides.  She ducked behind some shrubs along the bank opposite the road.  She saw an old Jeep Wrangler with two men in it rumble by.  They were dressed in hunting camos and wearing orange hunting vests… just a couple of hunters returning from a day of hunting, she thought to herself. 

As she got ready to walk back to the car, she thought she could hear another engine approaching.  She decided to remain hunkered down behind the bush until everything cleared. 

An older Suburban on giant tires stopped right by her car.  The man in the driver’s seat dropped out and pulled a handgun from a holster concealed at the small of his back.  He went to the car and looked through the windows, shining a flashlight into the car.  There was nothing suspicious, so he returned toward the big SUV.  Another man dropped from the passenger side and Christi could hear him tell the first man that he needed to take a leak. 

As Christi sat in her blind, the second man approached within thirty feet of her.  He called back to his companion, “That was messed up, man.  That has to be the weirdest op I’ve ever run.”

“No injuries and we got Kracken… didn’t kill any of the guards, either.  I just wonder what Big Bird is gonna do from here, though,” came the reply from the driver. 

“No doubt, Hammer.  Kracken is in a heap of trouble and can’t show his face anywhere.”

“Come on, Dude.  We gotta RTB.  How long does it take you to piss?”

The man called Hammer zipped up his fly and jogged back toward the Suburban.  As the driver fired the big vehicle up, he swung back into the passenger seat.  The truck started to roll away before the door was even closed. 

Christi emerged from her spot. 

“Kracken is Jason’s ‘in-op’ name,” she said to herself, “and they have him.”  She knew these men had taken him… and she assumed they were friendly but couldn’t be certain. 

She emerged from her cover, quickly splashed across the creek and headed back to the car.  She jumped in and fired it up.  Soon she was speeding along the two-track with her headlights off, trying to get the tail of the big truck in her sights.  She slammed into every bump in the road, barely able to see in front of her. 

She was concentrating so hard on the road in front of her that she didn’t notice the lights in the distance behind her until she was almost to the main road.  That was when she slammed on the brakes and slid to a stop right behind the stopped Suburban, its lights off and its three occupants all standing facing her… armed.  Then she saw the lights in the mirror from the following vehicle, a late model Dodge four by four. 

“Step from the vehicle, hands out and up,” the Suburban driver said to her.

Christi took a moment and centered herself.  She swallowed and opened the door.  She put her hands in the air between the top of the door and the roof, then stepped out of the Taurus.  She felt a sting in the back of her thigh before everything started fading to black. 

One of the men quickly moved forward to check her pulse and make sure she was only knocked out by the dart.  Another man went to the car to make sure there were no other occupants.  He saw the keys hanging in the ignition.  He popped the trunk.  Inside her found a hunting rifle with a scope.  He knew it was strictly civilian kit, but she also didn’t have any hunting gear.  “I think she needs to come with us.  Hunting rifle and ammo… loaded… but no other gear to be hunting, and the Sig on the seat.  She looks dressed to hide in the dark, too.”  The driver of the Suburban agreed.  Then man with Christi gently lifted her and carried her to the Suburban.  He set her on the back seat and secured her hands.  One of the men from the following vehicle hopped into the Taurus and fired it up.  He would be following the other two rigs. 

He closed up his footlocker and rolled it over.  Grabbing his knife off the counter, he popped off the metal strapping around the bottom.  He tore off a piece of duct tape and stuck the card in the middle of it, then reassembled it.  He quickly undressed and slipped into his bunk.  His five o’clock call was only three hours away. 

***

The Afghani soldier that was driving the squad stopped the HMMWV outside the squat building southeast of downtown Kandahar.  They had a report of an insurgent cell trying to assemble improvised explosive devices, and he was bringing out a Special Forces team, along with a squad of Afghani Security Forces soldiers.  He was training the ASF soldiers. 

The Ranger team led the raid, breaching through the side of the building.  His squad was at the opposite end of the building to mop up on anything at their end. 

“Green, do a secondary breach and bring your squad in from the west end.  We’re in position to catch,” was the call over the radio. 

“Roger that, Sergeant,” Green replied to the change in tactics.  He turned to his ASF contact.  He translated and ordered his men through the breach, Green on their tail. 

A moment later he rounded a corner.  He heard the popping of an AK-47, the sound distinct from the M-4s the US and ASF soldiers were using.  He scrambled backwards as several rounds hit his plates, crab walking as fast as he could. 

“Mr. Green,” Rafi, the ASF translator said, looking at him with worry in his eyes.  “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah… I’m good.  Took it in the plates,” he replied. 

“No, Mr. Green.  You’re hit,” Rafi said.  He turned to a couple of the ASF soldiers.  Green heard him shouting in Pashto. 

The men he yelled to grabbed Green, dragging him further back.  He tried to protest, but everything started to fade.  He was getting confused.  Rafi took the radio from his belt and he heard him talking but couldn’t make out the words.  The world went black. 

***

Sharif Hussain was right behind Green as he rounded a corner into the main room of the commercial building.  As he cleared the corner, he saw the muzzle flashes.  Looking up, he was positive that the uniform of the soldier shooting was American.  Then he saw the soldier toss the gun at a downed insurgent. 

As they scrambled back, Sharif could see that Green was struggling.  When he was able to look at him, he saw that he’d been hit, blood oozing from his shoulder next to a plate.  The American was operating on adrenaline.

“Ahmed, Begum, take Green to the HMMWV.  We need to get him out,” he shouted to two of his men. 

“But the medic…”

“Do what I said.” 

The two ASF soldiers grabbed Green by his battle-rattle and pulled him out of the line of fire.  Two more men grabbed his legs and hauled him toward the back of their vehicle.  Rafi followed them out, the building exploding in their wake, blowing the armored transport onto its side, and throwing the ASF soldiers across the courtyard.

Sharif ignored everything as he ordered the downed soldier to an Afghan hospital only a few blocks away.  His men picked him up and ran out of the other side of the courtyard and down the street.  They carried him six blocks to the ER entrance, carrying him inside to meet the stretcher coming to get him.  One of the men cut the plate carrier and other protective gear off him as he was rushed to surgery.  From the time he was hit until he was in surgery was less than ten minutes.  His heart had stopped eight minutes in. 

***

“He’s dead, sir,” Commander Sharif Hussain told the American officer.  “I saw him cut down by an insurgent just before the building exploded.  Two of my men were injured, one severely.  Our HMMWV was damaged, and I had to get them to medical help.  Mr. Green had the radio, so we had no way to communicate with anyone.”

“What happened to Green’s body?” Colonel Wilson asked. 

“I couldn’t get him.  I pulled one of my men clear of the building, but before I could go back, I was blown away from the building by the explosion.  There was nothing left.  Lieutenant Abdi was seriously injured by the explosion.  We had to get him medical attention at the nearby hospital.”

“Thank you, Commander.  That will be all.”

Hussain stood and saluted the American.  He turned and exited the office.  After leaving the base, he took his car toward town and to the small hospital to which Green had been moved.  He could concoct a cover story if needed, but before he let the Americans know that Gregory Green was alive, he wanted to know why one of his own soldiers picked up an insurgent’s rifle and shot him, then blew up the building. 

“Mr. Green,” Rafi said, “I saw an American soldier shoot you.  He was aiming for the top of your ballistic vest.  If I hadn’t bumped you when you stopped, you would have died right there.  Then, they exploded the building, just to make sure.  You were set up, my friend.”

“How did you get me out?”

“That was luck.  The Americans think you are dead.  What shall I do?  We can come up with a story to resurrect you, if needed.”

“Thank you, Rafi.  I think for now, I need to remain dead.  I need to find out exactly who ordered me dead.  I have some of the answers, but not all.  Can you get into my quarters?  I have a computer with some research on it.”

“I shall see what I can do,” he said as he took the American’s keys. 

And then, if we are lucky enough to get a couple of books sold, the next challenge is getting reviews. According to everything I am finding out there on the interwebs, 1-5% is about right for the ratio of books sold to reviews. If I sell a hundred books, I’ll get three reviews, plus or minus two.

Many of the promotional sites require five reviews in order to earn the right to PAY to give away books… which we do in hopes of getting reviews. Some require more. One particularly powerful site requires fifty reviews. My most reviewed book has twelve I think. After a year and a half. A few only have one… and a couple newer books don’t have any, as of this writing.

That is the long way of saying… please give me reviews. If you read my books, please give me a review… Amazon and/or Goodreads. I’ll be forever thankful.