Colt swung around and lunged at the photographer that had crept up behind him. The man still grinning, knowing that he had captured the winning shot, Selena Sparrow’s ultimate wardrobe “malfunction.” Colt grabbed the lens of the camera and pushed it back into the face of the photographer. Then he pulled it back, dragging the middle-aged man with it by the neck strap.

“Hey, asshole, let go of my camera,” the man shouted as Colt punched under the camera, hitting the man squarely in the jaw.

He yanked the camera strap over his head and pulled the camera fully away from him. With one hand he popped the card slot door of the camera, pulling out the card. With the other, he slammed the camera on the ground.

“You, hey, don’t,” a cop shouted as the camera shattered on the sidewalk.

Colt took the card and ground it into the pavement. Selena hadn’t even had a chance to react, she was sitting in the car waiting for him to close the door. The cop grabbed his arm and spun him down into the pavement, subduing him. He didn’t resist.

“Hey, officer, it isn’t what it looks like,” Colt said.

“Shut up.”

“He busted my camera, Dude,” the paparazzi complained.

“Officer, can I talk to her for a minute before you take me away,” Colt said calmly.

The cop nodded and Selena quickly hopped out of the SUV. He whispered in her ear, and she blushed, then nodded. She took the keys from his pocket and walked around the other side of the truck and carefully climbed into the driver’s seat. She pulled away slowly as Colt was loaded into the back of a patrol car.

***

“Colt, you’re out of control,” Ellen Stewart said to him, facing him in the private jet. She ripped the glass of single-malt scotch out of his hand. “Like the raging bull on that Lamborghini badge. You don’t think. Now I have to fix it. That photographer wants to sue the crap out of us… and if he actually knew anything…” She shook her head in exasperation.

Ellen was the Dixon family “fixer”. Young, beautiful, both a legal degree and a degree in international business, but it seemed to her that she spent half of her time bailing out Colt… or fending off his advances. But this time might be the time he went too far.

“Selena told me what happened, but I know she didn’t tell me everything. Why don’t you.”

“Nothing to add. Just do your job, Ellen.”

They sat in silence for a while before Colt started back in on the family fixer.

“You know… you could take care of me,” he said. “Who knows… it might just save your job.” He smiled smugly at the young woman. He was barely eighteen, and she was twenty-five. He’d had a crush on her since the moment she’d been hired, but she rebuffed him at every opportunity.

“Why do you insist on acting like a bag of rancid assholes?” she said to him before rising and walking to the front of the plane.

The next day, Colt found out that he would be losing the battle with Ellen. She got a paid vacation and a salary bump. He was going to have to get a job after graduation. A grunt job.

He flung the driver’s door open, hopping into the sumptuous interior. Leather, mahogany and carbon fiber greeted him. He watched as the gauges jumped to life when he fired up the 7.2-liter marine V12. Lamborghini installed the engine in a few of the LM002 sport-utility vehicles, but it had been designed for offshore powerboat racing, and the roar coming from the exhaust belied that. Even with the mild tune that he had applied, it belched out more than six-hundred horsepower. As he blipped the throttle, the tach needle jumped from its peg, wrapping much of the way around the gauge… another raging bull just below the needle’s pivot point.

He pulled out of the parking garage of the opulent hotel in Hollywood, the vehicle becoming a little less raucous out of the confines of the concrete parking deck, and headed to the home of his latest girlfriend, a young actress and singer that was attracted to his “bad-boy” status. Colt Dixon, mysterious young playboy. He had a surprise date for her that he was hoping would push her to her limits.

Because his mother had pounded into him the need to be a gentleman, he held her door and helped her up into the modified “Rambo Lambo”.

“This isn’t a Hummer, is it? My dad has a Hummer, and this looks… different,” Selena said, her brow furrowed.

“It’s a Lambo.”

“I’m not dumb, I know what a Lambo looks like, and this isn’t one. They are low and fast and stuff.”

“I assure you, Selena, this is a Lamborghini. Anyway… we need to go; I have fun stuff planned.”

He kissed her lightly and then closed her door. Rounding the LM002, he hopped in the driver’s side and put on his seat belt. A minute later they were sedately motoring along Hollywood Blvd. on their way to the desert. He wanted to know what his new toy was capable of doing.

***

Once past the confines of LA traffic, Colt cracked the throttles on the big V12. It let out a mighty roar as the heavy off-roader picked up speed like a muscle car. Soon, they were barreling down I-15 in the triple digits, both of them laughing as the Lambo floated over the uneven road. Colt thought it handled a lot like an offshore powerboat, dampening the undulations of the road, but leaving him feeling a bit disconnected.

Past Barstow, he turned off the interstate highway and into the desert. Sand roads, washes and paths were more like the terrain this beast was built to tame, and Colt intended to do just that. He knew a few routes that might be exciting.

“Have you ever driven a stick before?” he asked the girl sitting next to him.

“No… actually… I’ve never driven before,” she replied.

“Seriously?” He couldn’t imagine a sixteen-year-old not wanting the freedom of a driver’s license and their own car. He’d been waiting with his mother two years before on his birthday, a license being the most important thing he could get that day.

“I always have drivers and stuff… I guess I never thought about it.”

“We can fix that later, if you want.”

“Maybe,” she replied, her bottom lips curled nervously between her teeth.

Colt downshifted and slammed the throttle to the floor. He cut the wheel to turn into a sand wash, sand spraying up in the air from the tires digging it. He left a rooster tail of dry sand as he accelerated along the wash in the deep powder. The Lambo wallowed back and forth a bit as he sawed the steering wheel around the bends of the dry river.

The speedo pushed higher, the Lambo floating over the sand. Colt was barely in control, and he knew it. A wrong move, a mistake or an unexpected obstacle could send them flipping out of control. He craved the adrenaline. Selena Sparrow laughed loudly next to him. She loved knowing there was danger, but thought the risk was as well managed as a theme park ride.

Colt cut the wheel again, making for the road. As the Lamborghini approached the road running along the dry wash, it leapt into the air on a rise. The suspension noises abated, leaving only the roar of the revving engine. Everything was suspended in midair as the vehicle floated a few feet off the road, seeming to hover for a moment… until crashing down, the suspension absorbing the weight of the vehicle slamming into the rough road.

He didn’t lift, instead accelerating again, headed deeper into the Mojave Desert along the old road.

Ahead, the road turned slightly. Colt sawed the wheel, deftly flicking into the turn. As they slid sideways, the four-wheel-drive system struggled for traction and Colt battled to retain control. Below them, the rocks and gravel of the road rattled like machine gun fire on the bottom of the SUV.

A rear tire fell off the edge of the road causing Colt to lift slightly from the throttle, then he pegged it down again. A moment and an eternity later, the rear tires grabbed traction and threw the truck back onto the road, threatening to toss it the other way.

Again, he turned into the slide and brought it back under control. Selena had no idea how close to the edge of control they were… that Colt had never driven this vehicle this fast. She didn’t know that he thought they almost rolled when the tire dropped from the edge of the road. She just fully trusted that he had everything in hand.

For much of Colt’s young life, he appeared to have everything in hand, but the reality was that he didn’t. He careened from party to party and school to home, barely in control. From the outside it looked smooth and seamless, like he knew what he was doing, but inside… that wasn’t the case. There were a thousand small adjustments he made as he drove. Some he thought about, others were just reaction. But much of the time, it was luck.

Colt assumed his luck would never run out.

***

He slammed on the brakes and the Lambo slid to a stop in the middle of a dry lakebed. Around them for miles was nothing but parched ground, mountains visible beyond.

“You ready?” he asked. Sand filtered down, their rooster tail catching up to them, coating the exterior with dust.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt your car.”

“There is nothing for miles. I’ll teach you how to drive. It will be fine.”

“I don’t have a Learner’s Permit…”

“Seriously, Selena?” He looked at her for a minute. He could see in her eyes how nervous she was. If he pushed, she would either break down or rise up. He walked around to her side. “Come on. No time like the present. You’re almost seventeen… it’s a rite of passage.”

Her resolve gathered. The set of her jaw changed. The quiver disappeared and she unlatched her seatbelt. She spun around and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. “I’m ready,” she cooed in his ear.

***

That evening, as they left dinner, again he held the door for her as she climbed up into the Lambo. She hiked her leg up to hop into the seat. Colt Dixon noticed two things at the same time. Glancing down, Selena Sparrow, Teen Sensation and “good girl” was not wearing anything under her skirt. Before he could really process that, he heard the sound of the paparazzi’s shutter firing.

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. 

“No ‘I’m fine’ crap.  We’re going to get x-rays,” she said, backing out of the bed and crossing to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get ready. 

“I’m not going to argue with you, not after last night’s performance with our parents.  I’m still dying to know what my mom said to you before we came up for bed.”

“Do you want to brush your teeth… can you even do it?  I can help, or we can just skip it,” Callie called from the bathroom.

“I can do it.  I’ll just figure out how to be left-handed.”  Colt rolled and spun to a sitting position.  His right arm hugging his bruised ribs, he stood and went to his dresser, pulling out some fresh clothes.

Callie came back to his side to help him get dressed, then jogged down the hall to her room to grab some fresh clothes for herself.  When she returned, Colt was leaned against the counter in the bathroom brushing his teeth.  She hurried him up and helped him down the stairs. 

Twenty minutes later they were in an urgent care center, Colt undressing in order to have his ribs x-rayed.  The doctor was unsure if he had a bad bruise or cracked ribs, but dismissed Colt saying it was no big deal.  Callie never left his side.  Luckily, even with the holiday weekend, the small medical center wasn’t crowded. 

“Mr. Dixon,” the doctor said, walking back into the room, “you indeed have three broken ribs on your right side.  With ribs, there aren’t a lot of treatment options.  Ice, rest, pain killers.”  He turned to Callie, “Mrs. Dixon, you need to keep him resting.  He can gradually return to exercise after a few weeks.  If William continues to have more intense pain after a week to ten days, you need to bring him back in, ok?”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Callie said, her smile evident to Colt despite the mask on the bottom half of her face. 

“Those ATV injuries suck, William.  I suggest not hopping back on for at least six to eight weeks.  Take care, got it?” 

“Yes, Sir, thank you,” Colt replied as the doctor swooped back out of the room, replaced by a nurse to lead them to the payment desk.  Callie slipped Colt’s credit card out and paid, Colt scribbling his signature as he winced a little. 

She drove him back to the house and helped him back to the family room.  Settling him on the couch, she went to get an ice pack as Amy came down the stairs to see where they’d been. 

“Someone was too macho yesterday to mention that he had broken ribs.  We went to the doctor this morning to get x-rays.  When he was in the shower last night, there wasn’t even a bruise, but this morning, this,” Callie explained to Amy as she unbuttoned Colt’s shirt and showed off the mass of black and blue from his injury. 

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” Colt said defensively. 

“Thank you, Callie,” Amy said, hugging her.

Callie went back to the kitchen to put something together for breakfast for her and Colt, while Amy sat on the couch next to her son as he held the cold pack on his side. 

“She’s good for you, Colt.” 

“I know, Mom.”

“When are you going to ask her?”

“I had been kind of planning to do that when we got back here.  Life got in the way.  I thought about doing it when we were back in Virginia, but I wanted her mom here for her when I asked.  I don’t want Nancy to feel like we’re stealing her daughter away from her,” Colt replied. 

Amy leaned over and kissed her son on the cheek, “You’re a good boy, Colt… man.  You aren’t my little boy anymore, as I was reminded by Callie last night.”  Amy smiled.  That reminder had been unexpected. 

When her son and his girlfriend came down the stairs after she helped him shower, as well as cleaned and bandaged his wounds, all three of the parents were shocked.  Each of them had assumed they were intimate, but there was no question after they left to shower together. 

Callie had stood up to withering questioning from Nancy, and when her mother had tried to lay the blame on Colt, Callie defended him admirably, earning Amy’s respect, and changing her mother’s opinion. 

“No, Mom, Colt didn’t trick me or seduce me or anything else.  We waited until we were ready.  It was a mutual decision.  You can choose to accept it or not but know that it won’t change how Colt and I live our lives,” Callie had told her mother.  “We may be your children, but we are no longer children in any other regard.”

“We are both adults.  We love each other, and we are not acting like reckless kids.  If you want to tell us we can’t be open under your roof, that’s fine.  That is your right.  It won’t change how we feel, though,” Colt had added.

Amy had been quick to accept them.  She understood the differences between Callie and Colt, versus her and Jonathan.  She and her husband had been virgins when they started dating.

“What did you tell her last night?” Colt asked. 

“That I accepted her because I knew she loved you, Colt.  She is strong, and I think she may be the woman that you need… one that is willing to stand up for you, and to you.”

A moment later Callie appeared.  She wanted to know if Colt wanted to eat where he was… she could get him a TV tray… or if he wanted to come to the table.  Amy and Callie helped him up and to the table so he could have breakfast.  After getting her son to the kitchen table, Amy retreated to her bedroom to let Jack know that his son’s ribs had been broken, but that Callie was taking care of him. 

“Punch some holes for the locals, then, Bobby.  Do whatever you need to do to help out the civilians.  But be quick, we still have to get to the pinned down UN forces.”

Gunny backed the APC right up to the doors of the building with the UN Peacekeepers on the roof. 

“Hold ‘em down, Bobby.  Ronny and I are gonna see what we have up there.”

Gunny Grafton and Ronny Torres exited the back of the APC and headed up to the roof of the building.  As they went up the stairs, they started finding evidence of the fight that had taken place in the stairwell.  The first casualties they ran across were the hostile fighters that had been attacking the UN group.  Then they started running across UN casualties. 

“This isn’t good, Ronny.  Any of these guys alive?” Gunny stated.

“Not that I’ve found yet, Gunny.  This was brutal,” the medic said as he knelt next to another fallen UN soldier.  “If they had anyone that was injured, they likely dragged them up the stairs.” 

In the background he could hear the machine gun firing from the APC outside.  There were short bursts followed by the tinkling sound of the casings bouncing off the side of the armored vehicle.  Obviously, Bobby was getting some hostile activity.  He was holding off the attacking force, pinning them down with sporadic fire from the turret.  Hopefully, some of the civilians that were pinned down in the square would be able to get away from the area.

As they got to the top of the stairwell, Gunny radioed back to the American Colonel that had called him in to rescue these soldiers.  “Colonel Bryce, pass along that we’re here and don’t want to get shot coming through the door, Sir,” he said.  A moment later a woman carrying an HK MP5N opened the door and ushered Gunny and Ronny inside. 

“You in charge?” Gunny asked.  She didn’t understand, so he repeated the question in German.  Then she took him to Gefreiter Richter.  As he looked at the injured German soldier, recognition flooded into him, “Rolf?  Is that you?” Gunny said, kneeling beside the man on the ground.  “Ronny, get over here,” he yelled. 

“These guys are all in rough shape, Gunny, what’s up?”

“This is Rolf Richter.  He’s a friend, a Scout.  I haven’t seen him in over six years.  He used to date Nicole and he’s a friend of Jack’s.”

Ronny started checking the man over to see what injuries he had.  He immediately saw that he would be losing his left leg, if Ronny could even keep him alive.  And he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do that. 

Gunny looked around on the roof.  There were dozens of civilians, mostly women and children.  A few were injured, but the real damage had been done to the soldiers.  There were only a handful that were even able to stand. 

“One,” Bobby said over the earpiece radio, “it’s getting hot down here.  How much longer are you going to be?”

“It’s bad up here, too.  We’ve got maybe a hundred civilians to try to evac, as well as eight UN soldiers that are still alive.  When we get them down there, can we get these people away from the heat down there?”

“I guess we have to, Boss,” he replied.

Gunny turned around and looked out at the civilians gathered on the roof.  Then he looked over the side of the roof at the square below.  The protestors were gone, and it was nothing but the counter-protestors, the ones they were pretty sure were Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or some similar force.  Bobby was doing a good job pinning them down, but it was going to take more than that to get the civilians out. 

Soon after lunch, while he and Melody were on deck, they got a shout-out from Duke. 

“Hey, guys, couple of things.  First, I had a blip on radar for a while this morning, but it seems to have disappeared.  Second, our boys seem to be outside.  Murphy the Younger has set himself up on the flying bridge, while Murphy the Elder is trolling off the back of the boat.  We’re set to come up on their port stern in a few minutes, which will give you a nice clear shot.  We’re currently about eight hundred meters out. 

Gunny and Melody took up positions on the starboard side, near the stern of the boat.  When it was time to make the shot, Duke would turn to port, so they would have a clear shot. 

“Five hundred meters, all still clear,” Duke called down to the rear deck. 

Gunny and Melody both lifted their rifles into position to get a look at the targets through the scopes. 

“Miss Tree is coming about to port.  I still have good sight lines, but now we are coming straight in.  I’ll be turning to port in a moment.  They don’t seem to be taking notice of us… Paul’s attention is glued to starboard.  Sean seems to be looking that way as well.

Gunny and Melody were having a harder time keeping an eye on the targets through their scopes because the boat was in their way.  But standing forward on the boat wasn’t an option… they would be very visible, and they wouldn’t have as sure footing. 

“About three hundred meters out, coming about.  The Murphys still have their attention to the other side of their boat.”

As Duke brought their boat around, Melody and Gunny both picked up their targets.  Melody had Paul and Gunny had Sean.  Sean was looking over the side and kept disappearing.  When he had the shot, Gunny was supposed to let Melody know, she would give a three-count and both would shoot at the same time. 

“Almost, Mel… almost… almost… Ok, ready,” Gunny said quietly as he centered his shot.

“Three, two…”

The was a cracking sound across the water.  Gunny and Melody both watched as their targets wilted in their scopes.