Peter Nealen's Blog, page 10

Interviews about the Ice and Monsters Launch

So, for the launch of Ice and Monsters, the first WarGate Books title outside the Forgotten Ruin series, I went on a few podcasts and interviews lately.

First, we had a launch party on the Galaxy’s Edge stream on Tuesday night:

Then came the Blasters and Blades podcast, with JR Handley, Nick Garber, and Cisca Small (JR’s got jokes, even in the title):

And this afternoon, I was on Keystroke Medium with Josh Hayes and Scott Moon:

I’ll be on the Superversive stream on Sunday, at 6pm CST.

Overall, this launch has been a blast. Got my first orange #1 Best Seller tag. Looking forward to Shadows and Crows coming out a month from tomorrow.

 

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Ice and Monsters

We hadn’t gotten far before that fog bank rolled up out of nowhere.

I’ll admit, I didn’t think it was that weird to start with. Fog is fog. And we were all pretty good at nautical navigation that far into the float. I had my compass board on the gunwale, sure that I was holding course. So, we were fine. Sure, the night was supposed to have been clear. But who really trusts the weather forecasts in the “Situation” paragraph one hundred percent?

The fog got thicker, and I eased off on the throttle. Within a couple dozen yards, I couldn’t even see the boats on either side of us, though I could still hear them. I glanced down at the compass, which was still rock-steady. We were good. We just had to go carefully because of the reduced visibility.

At least, that was what I thought until we were still chugging through the waves, shrouded by fog, well after the time we should have been at the beach landing site.

I started to question my judgement, but it wasn’t like we had a lot of reference points in this soup. The bearing had been spot on since we headed in. I’d chosen to be patient. Maybe we’d slowed down more than I thought.

A sound… almost a moan.

My head came up, and I stared hard into the mists. Other heads came up off the gunwales, too. I hadn’t been the only one to notice something.

“You hear that?” Farrar was my RTO, and as usual, his voice was slightly too loud, even in a whisper. He’d never quite perfected the Recon quiet.

Santos shushed him. “We all heard it, moron. Shut up.” My assistant team leader wasn’t exactly the soul of tact, but Farrar brought out the acid in him fast, quick, and in a hurry. Especially when he couldn’t be quiet.

But the noise had been weird enough that Santos wasn’t going to ignore it just to spite Farrar, either. “What the hell was that? A whale?” His voice was still a low whisper that wouldn’t carry far.

“Never heard of a whale making a noise like that before, let alone on the surface.” I searched the mist around us again. I couldn’t see any of the other boats, but nobody had started yelling for help yet. If this had been a real-world combat mission, that might or might not be advisable, depending on the emergency, but since it was a training op, I figured that if anything went wrong with one of the boats, we’d have to go admin to fix it.

The fog was as thick as ever, and the darkness seemed to be even more impenetrable than it had been before. The radios were all in waterproof cascade bags in the rucks; immediate communications without visual contact would be limited to yelling.

And for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on, after hearing that strange moan out in the dark, I didn’t feel like yelling was going to be a good idea.

“Rodeffer! Stanley! You see anything up there?” I kept my voice to a low hiss projected toward the bow where my point man and slack man were lying on the gunwale, their eyes forward, peering over their rifles.

Rodeffer shook his head, his NVGs sticking out under his bump helmet as he scanned the water around us.

Stanley then said, “Nothing, Staff Sergeant.” He was the low man on the totem pole, not only on the team, but also in the platoon. He’d just lat-moved from Supply to Recon and had finished the BRC—Basic Reconnaissance Course—pipeline just in time to join the workup for this float. He might be a Sergeant with six years under his belt, but he was a boot to us, even to Rodeffer, who had just pinned on his third stripe.

Stanley also still had some Big Marine Corps habits. One of the first things Santos had told him when he’d arrived at the Company was not to get a haircut for the next two weeks. Recon don’t do that screaming high-and-tight shit.

The moan came again, followed by a soft splash somewhere behind us.

Santos swiveled around and craned his neck to look behind us while still lying on the gunwale. “What the hell?”

I let off on the throttle. From the sounds of it, the other boats had as well. Which told me that we’d all heard it.

Letting us drift a little, I turned and looked behind us. Nothing but dark waves disappearing into the fog a few yards away.

Or was there something more out there? Something big and creepy?

I blinked, then stared hard. My NVGs didn’t have a lot of light to work with, and they need some ambient light to amplify. Even our PVS-15s couldn’t see squat in the pitch black. And the fog wasn’t exactly letting a lot of starlight down.

Then something broached the surface. Not by much, but just enough that I knew it was there. And it didn’t look right. It looked almost…human.

I blinked hard and stared at the empty stretch of water I’d just observed.

I couldn’t have seen it right. For a moment, I told myself that I’d just experienced the same thing the old sailors who said they’d seen mermaids had. They’d seen a sea cow and thought they’d seen a half-fish, half-hot chick in a shell bikini.

To be honest, I’d never quite bought that explanation. Ever seen a sea cow? Nobody who’s not high as a kite is going to mistake that for a hot chick. Didn’t make sense the first time I heard the theory, and I wasn’t buying it right then, either.

I was right not to.

Something hit the boat from underneath. Hard. We all froze for a second.

Then they were coming up out of the water all around us.

I caught a good look at the closest one as it grabbed the gunwale right next to me, avoiding the shrouded pumpjet propulsor on the outboard. Its arm was a little too long, its fingers slender and bony, with webbing between them running from knuckle almost clear to the claws at their ends. Its head was blunt and earless, its eyes too big for its head, luminous and practically glowing in my NVGs.

The thing had a mouth wider than the rest of its head, and when it gaped, I saw rows of glassy fangs that looked like they belonged on an anglerfish.

***

Thus begins the saga of Ice and Monsters, Book 1 of The Lost. A WarGate Books series about a Recon Platoon stranded in a world torn from myth and legend–or perhaps, a world dragged back into myth and legend.

I haven’t said much about this series so far, because we were waiting for all the stars to align–namely, to launch this story well. Well, it’s out today.

About a year ago, Nick Cole contacted me with an idea for a project. That got an advance copy of Forgotten Ruin into my hands, which got the wheels turning.

I’d initially thought that Nick and his co-author, Jason Anspach, wanted me to write in that universe. Instead, they wanted my own series, in my own universe, along similar lines.

The end result is The Lost.

Forgotten Ruin is described as “Tolkien meets Shock and Awe.”

The Lost is more “Swift, Silent, Deadly meets Tolkien by way of the myths that inspired him.”

They are few. They are outnumbered. They are in over their heads in a world that is far more savage and strange than anything they have yet encountered.

But they’re Recon Marines. They’ll adapt, overcome, and do whatever it takes to complete the mission.

I hope you’ll check it out. It’s out on Kindle, Paperback, and Audio today. The Kindle version is on sale for $0.99 for a limited time.

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Amazon, Galaxy’s Edge, and Single Points of Failure

So, over the weekend, someone or somebot at Amazon apparently decided that Galaxy’s Edge Press was in violation of their terms of service, and deleted and banned their KDP account. Dozens of books disappeared from Amazon in a heartbeat. An entire weekend’s cash flow was disrupted.

It did get resolved, and all the books are back up this morning, though a lot of the details of just what happened are still hazy. There are some ideologues at Amazon who like to pull these little fast ones from time to time. Entire authors have been deleted. There’s no evidence that this is what happened this time, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

As Nick Cole has said, it still makes one wonder about being Amazon exclusive.

Now, this is concerning to me for a couple of reasons. One, my upcoming releases through GE Press’s Wargate imprint were also affected. But that’s almost a secondary concern.

Amazon has been a hell of a tool for the independent author. Kindle Direct Publishing has enabled thousands who might not otherwise have gotten published–not necessarily due to the quality of their work, either–to get their stuff out there. That’s one of the reasons the company has become a behemoth, the 800-lb gorilla in the room that no author or publisher can afford to ignore.

The problem with the 800-lb gorilla is that when he steps on you, who’s going to stop him?

Everyone in publishing, yours truly included, is inextricably intertwined with Amazon. Their services are how we’re making our money. But as we’ve seen over the last three days, that’s a single point of failure. A single point of failure that can cost you a lot when it fails.

We had a saying in Recon. “Two is one, one is none.” That’s been hard to do with Amazon being the only game in town. There are authors who’ve done well “going wide.” I haven’t been one of them. But now it might be time to start looking seriously in that direction.

I don’t have anything solid yet. Working out the logistics without nuking the business I already have is going to take some careful planning. But one thing I saw fairly clearly a couple years ago, when the reaction to the “Unspecified Virus of Unknown Origin” started breaking supply chains, was that decentralization is key to survival.

Amazon has been useful, but it might be time to start looking for other baskets.

One of the first steps, of course, is the email list. If you’re not already subscribed, please sign on now. It’s going to be the best way to stay connected (especially since Facebook has become increasingly unreliable).

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Triarii Patches Are Here

A couple weeks ago, I announced the pre-order for the Triarii unit patches. Well, they’re out of preorder, since the first run just got here yesterday. The pre-orders are going out today.

The Triarii were named after the third rank of the Republican Roman legions before the Marian Reforms. While Marius effectively turned the legions into a heavy-infantry-centric professional force, there was a greater variation in the ranks of the citizen-soldier army that preceded it. The basic unit was the maniple, which was deployed in three lines: hastati, principes, and triarii. The hastati were younger, poorer, lighter-armed and armored front line troops. Principes were better-equipped spearmen who formed the second rank.

The triarii were the veterans, oldest and wealthiest, with the best and heaviest armor and weapons. They were the final effort, the last ditch when the ranks ahead of them had broken. It was that historical example that led Colonel Santiago to name his paramilitary NGO “The Triarii.”

Dedicated to stepping in where the government was either breaking down or deliberately ignoring its responsibilities for political purposes, the Triarii were to be the last ditch defense of the Republic as it had been founded.

The helmet in the center of the logo, with its triple plume, is a standard design of helmet used by the triarii of the manipular legions. The crossed rifles are their weapons, and the shield beneath is drawn from the Great Seal of the United States, Americanizing the entire emblem.

Now you can wear that emblem yourself, with a 3-inch, embroidered, velcro-backed patch.

Get one today.

(Pistols not included.)

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Triarii Patches Update

So, given the expressed interest, I started working on getting some Triarii patches made. I went a bit of a different route this time, but the end results are on the way, and they’re awesome.

Unlike the Praetorian Security patches, these are embroidered, and only in green. Most of that was a cost measure, since I still have an awful lot of Praetorian patches in stock. If we sell enough, maybe we can do a run in tan.

I still don’t have them in hand, but they should be here the week after Christmas. The preorder, however, is up, so if you order them now, I’ll get them out as soon as they get here.

I’ve seen at least one homemade Triarii badge, so now’s the time to make it official.

Preorder your patch here.

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Blood Debt Is Live

No Going Back

He looked up at the towers, just in time to see one of the ballistic windows on the eastern corner tower slide open.

He didn’t think. He just reacted. The only reason for one of those windows to open would be that they’d been spotted, and were about to take fire.

Snapping his rifle to his shoulder, he leaned around Bianco’s shoulder, put the faint, red chevron in the ACOG, still illuminated despite the fact that the optic was so old that the tritium had to be half depleted already, on that dark rectangle in the top of the tower, flipping the weapon to “semi” and squeezing the trigger as soon as the chevron settled.

The M4 thundered in the otherwise quiet night, spitting flame in the dark as Bianco flinched away from the muzzle blast. Wade leaned into the rifle, dumping four more rounds into the opening even as Kirk opened fire on the other tower, if only to cover Wade’s back.

They were committed, now.

***

Mercenaries strike a hidden base…

…But it’s a trap.

Now they have only one hope – Brannigan’s Blackhearts

When Mitchell Price’s black bag team hit a mysterious former Soviet military base in Kyrgyzstan, they thought they knew what they were in for. They’re professionals, and they’ve been on this hunt for a long time.

But things can go bad in a heartbeat.

Now with the team dead or captured, one man knows where they are, and he’s going to have to convince Brannigan’s Blackhearts to help. He’s not just going to hire them, though. He’s coming with them.

Dan Tackett is coming out of retirement.

And he and the Blackhearts are about to venture into the heart of darkness in Central Asia.

Blood Debt is now available on Kindle and in Paperback!

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Blood Debt Chapter 3

I need to get up. Joe Flanagan looked up at the sunlight streaming through the window with some bemusement. With rare exceptions, he was usually up a good hour before the sun, this time of year.

But as he turned to see Rachel—now Rachel Flanagan—lying next to him, breathing softly, he took a deep breath and settled back on the pillow. It’s not every day that a man has his honeymoon, and while there were chores that still had to happen that day, he was going to relax a little.

After a while, though, he started to get restless, and carefully slipped out from under the covers, swinging his feet down to the floor before quietly getting dressed and padding into the kitchen, starting the water boiling for coffee. He turned as movement caught his eye, to see Rachel, wrapped in her bathrobe, her hair disheveled but lovely, smiling at him from the doorway.

“You’re not quite as sneaky as you think, hon.”

While Flanagan was ordinarily something of a stoic, his wife drew a grin. She’d had that effect on him ever since Kevin Curtis had introduced them, unwittingly setting events in motion that had led to this point.

She joined him at the stove, and he folded her into his arms, marveling that he, of all people, was now a married man, with a wife who’d been happy to join him on his little backwoods homestead. Sure, the Blackhearts paychecks were still necessary, but the place was almost self-sufficient already. He was still working on getting the garden producing sufficiently, but Rachel was just as excited about that as he was, probably more.

The pot started to hiss, and he disengaged himself to get the coffee started. Rachel, meanwhile, though not without letting her hand linger on his back for a moment, set about getting breakfast ready.

They were about halfway through when an engine rumbled outside, and tires crunched on the gravel driveway. Flanagan looked up, his face clouded. They weren’t expecting visitors.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” Rachel sounded more hopeful than convinced, though, and Flanagan slipped his 1911 into his belt at the small of his back as he stood up and moved to the front door.

He relaxed slightly when he saw that it was Brannigan’s truck, but only slightly. It was entirely possible that the Colonel was coming by to have some coffee and shoot the breeze for a little bit. They didn’t live that far apart, and he and Rachel had been up to see Brannigan at least once since the wedding. But something in his gut suspected that wasn’t it.

He glanced back at Rachel. “It’s John.” He saw the same combination of relief and concern cross her face. Rachel knew what he did for a living. She had accepted it from the beginning, but like all women, she worried about him when he was gone, and the anticipation wasn’t exactly fun, either.

Brannigan parked and got out, wearing his big sheepskin against the early spring chill. There was still snow under the trees not far up the mountain from Flanagan’s cabin, and he was sure that Brannigan still had some on the ground at his place. The Colonel lived even higher up.

He opened the door before Brannigan could knock. “Morning, John. Come on in. Coffee’s still hot.”

From the look on Brannigan’s face, he knew immediately that this wasn’t just a social call. A part of him felt a twinge of anger. Couldn’t the next job wait two damned weeks? He and Rachel were still getting settled in together.

“Thanks, Joe. Rachel.” Brannigan stepped inside, shedding his coat and hanging it on the rack next to the door as Flanagan shut the door and moved to the table, slipping the pistol out of his belt and putting it back in the drawer where he’d kept it, still within easy reach from the table. Brannigan noticed, an amused glint in his eye, as he sat down.

Brannigan leaned on the table. “I’m not going to beat around the bush, because this might be time sensitive.” He looked up. “Rachel, I think you should stay and listen. This affects you, too. You’re part of the family now.” She nodded, her face tight and a little pale, and made no move to stand up.

He looked at Flanagan, who was still on his feet, leaning against the counter, his arms folded. “Hector got a call from a fella by the name of Dan Tackett. Said he needed to talk to me. It seems that Mitchell Price’s special team of operators has gotten into some trouble in Kyrgyzstan.”

“Doesn’t Price effectively have bottomless pockets? What’s he need us for?” Even as he asked the question, Flanagan started to suspect he knew.

“Seems that Vernon guy we worked with in Chad—who is one of the operators who needs rescue—believes that Price’s operation in that region is compromised. Thinks they were sold out. Which is why he called Tackett, who’s been retired from the PMC business since the little mission in the Anambas that Vernon told us about.” Brannigan watched Flanagan closely. “Which is where the clincher comes in. He told Tackett to tell me that ‘our friends from Chad’ were involved.”

Flanagan felt himself tense as his expression went hard. “Are they really?”

Brannigan nodded. “It sure sounds like it. Abandoned Soviet base in the Tian Shan mountains, a non-governmental force that can buy off not only the local government, but even Price’s outfit. Kind of narrows things down, doesn’t it?”

The Colonel looked over at Rachel, but she didn’t ask the obvious question. When he looked over at Flanagan, the bearded man only shrugged. There were some things he’d figured she needed to know, and it wasn’t like they were necessarily operating under government secrecy rules anymore.

“So, we’re going?” Flanagan asked.

“We’re going. Got an extra shooter, too. Tackett’s coming along.” When Flanagan raised an eyebrow, Brannigan shrugged. “He said it was a condition of giving us the coordinates, he still seems to be in good shape, and if he’s the ‘Dan’ Vernon talked about in Chad, he might well be an asset. I wasn’t going to turn down another gun.”

Flanagan glanced at Rachel. “I thought Vernon said that Dan retired from the PMC business to be with his kids.”

“That’s what he said, too. Apparently, Vernon being in trouble is enough to bring him out of retirement.”

Rachel didn’t wait for the question. She just nodded. “I know. Just…make sure you come back.”

With what might have been a faint sigh of resignation, Flanagan nodded. “Split the calls again?”

Brannigan stood. “Split the calls. And let’s tighten up the timeline, if we can. If our Humanity Front buddies are coming out of their holes again, we might not have time to dawdle.”

***

Carlo Santelli answered the phone immediately. He was home alone for a change, having just gotten back from delivering his latest restoration, a 1957 Chevrolet 3100, to its owner. That one had been a lot of work, but he’d been proud of the result. Stopping by to see Sam Childress on the way back had been a bonus. Their paralyzed teammate was doing better that week.

“Yessir.” While he knew that Brannigan had only grudgingly gotten a phone at all, let alone a cell phone, Santelli was glad of it. Living in Boston, it meant that he heard from his old CO far more often than he had before the Khadarkh mission. Brannigan had showed up on his doorstep out of the blue just before that one, the first time he’d seen or heard from the man in a couple of years.

How things have changed since then. Back then, Santelli had been pining away for a mission, more than happy to get a sense of purpose again, working for the best officer he’d ever known, even as his relationship felt like it was falling apart. Now he was a family man, relatively financially secure thanks to the ops they’d run, and increasingly torn between home and the mission.

“We’ve got a job, Carlo. Looks like it might entail some pretty creative logistics this time. The client can’t pay up front.” Santelli had gone from the senior NCO of the Blackhearts to primarily their logistics and support guy the last couple of missions. He was still getting used to it, and after the Colombia job, he wasn’t entirely sure how comfortable he was with it. Again, he was a man torn between two sets of responsibilities.

The wheels were already turning, though, as he heard that. They had some reserves they could draw on for this sort of scenario, but it could get tight. “We got an AO, sir?”

“Kyrgyzstan.” Brannigan paused for a moment. “And Carlo? It looks like the opposition might be our ‘old friends.’”

That brought Santelli’s eyes all the way open. He didn’t need Brannigan to explain what “old friends” meant. There was one organization that Brannigan’s Blackhearts had come up against repeatedly. The Humanity Front. The biggest, most popular philanthropic NGO in the world was also a ruthless terrorist organization with their own twisted view of a “perfect world.”

“I’m in, sir. Sam’s being well taken care of, so I can leave tonight.” He was already thinking, and not just about the logistics of the mission.

He’d agreed to stay back last time, in no small part due to his worries about his family, and what it would mean to Melissa and Carlo Jr. if he never came back. If the Humanity Front was involved, though…

He had a grudge against those bastards. In no small part because of the state Sam Childress was currently in.

“How’s Sam?” Brannigan knew that Santelli was checking on Childress on almost a daily basis.

“He’s good. Pretty sure he’s smitten with one of his caregivers. She’s pretty cute.” There was something bittersweet in saying that. Childress was paralyzed from the waist down, and had sustained severe brain damage from his torture at the hands of Humanity Front operatives several years before. He’d never be the man he’d been before, and Santelli remembered that man from years ago, when Sergeant Major Santelli had had Corporal Childress standing tall in front of his desk more than once.

“Will he be okay for a couple days?”

“Sir, he’s in good hands. He’ll be fine.” Santelli wasn’t going to say right then that he wasn’t inclined to make this only a couple of days. He’d kicked himself too hard after finding out what the boys had gone through in Colombia, and if the Humanity Front was involved, he wasn’t staying back for this one.

“Great. See you soon.”

“Yes, sir.” Santelli pocketed the phone and headed upstairs to pack.

***

The door cracked open at a knock, and an eye peered out through the opening. With a sigh of relief, Glenn Radner pulled the door open and ushered Hank Brannigan inside. They clasped in a brief bear hug. “Damn, it’s good to see you, brother.”

“I got here as fast as I could.” Hank Brannigan looked an awful lot like a younger, slightly smaller version of his father. He’d let his hair grow a bit, and he now sported a short, dark brown beard. He was a long way from the Marine Corps grooming standards that his old friend still maintained, but he’d put some serious mileage, physically and otherwise, behind him since leaving the Marine Corps.

Radner stepped away, turning toward the kitchen table, where his wife, younger than either of them by about a year, sat wringing her hands. Sheila wasn’t a particularly handsome woman to start with, but the fear on her face aged her by about ten years.

He took a deep breath. “Look, brother, I don’t know how to say this. What I asked you here for…” He hung his head. “I don’t have anything to go to the cops with. Not yet. And I’m afraid that by the time I do, she’s gonna be dead.”

Hank just nodded. “Where are they?”

A part of him shared Radner’s surprise. A couple years before, he’d been a Marine officer, and a good one. He’d bent the rules a time or two, but going outside the chain, outside the framework of how things are done would have still been something he would have hesitated over. Not that they were necessarily contemplating breaking the law here, but he understood why Radner had called him.

He saw things a little differently after being a Blackheart for a couple of missions.

“As far as we know, she’s at his apartment. She hasn’t been home in three nights.” Radner sounded like a beaten man already.

Hank frowned. “And the cops won’t do anything?”

Radner spread his hands helplessly. “She’s seventeen. He hasn’t seriously injured her, and she’s wrapped around his little finger. She won’t talk to them any more than she’ll talk to us. They’ve got nothing.”

“And you’re sure he’s abusing her?” Hank had known Alice Radner since she’d been ten years old. He had to force himself to step back and think calmly about this. Think tactically and strategically.

Think like his father would.

John Brannigan would be thinking about all the repercussions and contingencies. If they hit the boyfriend’s place and he wasn’t abusing Alice, and it was all just Radner’s fears, there could be some serious consequences. On the other hand, if the cops had already dusted their hands of the situation, and Alice really was in danger, inaction could see her dead before sunrise.

“We’ve seen the bruises, Hank. She tries to hide them, but we’ve seen them. The fact that she hasn’t been home in days…”

“Isn’t a good sign,” Hank finished for him. “How far’s the apartment?”

“About three miles from here.” Radner looked a little shell shocked at how fast Hank was taking charge.

“Let’s go.” Hank stepped toward the door, not bothering to check the P365 in his waistband. That could get him in trouble, given where they were, but he’d learned to subscribe to the age-old adage, “Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.”

As well as, “Better tried by twelve than carried by six.”

He wasn’t sure, as Radner quickly threw on a jacket and followed him, if his father would really approve. This was somewhat impulsive, but if Alice was in danger, he didn’t want to wait on the cops, especially if the cops had already found no reason to get involved, and might dismiss a call as a scared father who didn’t actually have any evidence.

The neighborhood got steadily worse as they moved away from the Radner house. The houses got more run down, and soon it was just row on row of government housing, along with the associated decay. The dark hid some of it, but a lot of it simply couldn’t be hidden.

The loud music coming from the apartment as they approached couldn’t drown out the yelling and screaming, or the crash as something was thrown against the wall.

“Call the cops. Now.” Hank was already moving to the door. He hoped it wasn’t locked, but figured it probably was.

This could get nasty in a hurry, especially since he was carrying a concealed firearm, but they had to get Alice out of there.

The door wasn’t locked, somewhat to his surprise, and as another shouted curse was punctuated by a crash that shook the whole building, he kicked the door in.

The main room was dimly lit, mainly because the floor lamp was on the floor, having been flung there along with what looked like about half the furniture and a whole lot of other detritus. Alice was huddled in the fetal position, bloodied and bruised. The boyfriend, long-haired, skinny-fat, wearing a stained wifebeater and too-large cargo shorts, stood over her, his fists clenched. He looked up in surprise as Hank filled the doorway, and from the look in his eyes, Hank could see that he wasn’t quite all there. Definitely chemically enhanced. Awesome. This could totally go sideways in the next two seconds. Still, he didn’t draw his weapon, not yet.

“Alice, it’s Hank Brannigan. I need you to come with me.” He used his command voice, which he owed to his father and his platoon sergeants.

“She’s not going anywhere!” Discount Kid Rock took a step forward, and then Hank drew.

He’d always been good with a pistol. His dad had made sure of that. His time with the Blackhearts had forced him to hone every combat skill he’d ever learned, not only because of the realities of violence far from support with a very small team, but also just so that he didn’t get completely outclassed by the older, more experienced mercs. He snatched his shirt out of the way and a split second later, the boyfriend was staring down the barrel of a SIG P365 9mm.

“Back up.” If he’d been at work, he probably would have shot the younger man without hesitation, but this was a different situation. “Nobody needs to die tonight.”

The boyfriend seemed to suddenly get much more sober. His eyes cleared a little as they got wide and scared. He hadn’t even seen that draw coming.

“Alice, come to me.” Hank stayed where he was, the pistol trained, unmoving, on the bridge of the boyfriend’s nose.

With a sniffle and a faint moan of pain, she got up, moving haltingly toward him. He steered her past him and out the door, to her father’s waiting arms. Hank backed out the door, keeping the boyfriend covered until he was out of sight.

“Are the cops coming?” He honestly wasn’t sure, given what he’d seen of the neighborhood so far.

“Maybe.” Radner was holding his daughter close as she sobbed. “It could be half an hour. Could be an hour.”

Hank thought about it for a second. He could hear the boyfriend raging inside the apartment, and knew that he was going to be in the middle of a gunfight in the next few seconds. “Let’s go, then. Before this gets worse.”

They beat a hasty retreat for the street and Radner’s car. Hank kept the pistol in hand but under his jacket as they moved under the handful of still-functioning streetlights and got in the car. He could hear the boyfriend yelling, and a gunshot echoed through the neighborhood, louder than even the thumping music that hadn’t paused for a moment during the confrontation.

The fact that the music still didn’t pause, and no one seemed to react to the gunshot, spoke volumes about this neighborhood.

With Alice in the back seat, Radner slipped behind the wheel while Hank got in the passenger seat, rolling down the window so that he could engage if the boyfriend came out after them.

He was coming. Hank got a glimpse of the white wife beater in the glow of the flickering light above the apartment building’s entrance, but Radner was already pulling away. The young thug took a couple of shots at them, but they were already moving, and Hank decided, despite himself, that returning fire would be counterproductive at that point.

He’d turned back forward as they rounded the corner and Radner sped up on the way toward the highway, and his phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket to see that he’d missed a call, and there was a voicemail message.

It was from his dad. He didn’t need to listen to it right away. In fact, he didn’t dare, because as sketchy as tonight had been, he didn’t need Radner asking questions if he overheard what the message was, presuming it was a job.

“Are you going to be all right?” he asked as he tucked the phone away.

“I think so. He hasn’t dared come to the house yet.” Radner glanced over his shoulder. “I hope he doesn’t know for sure where it is. I’ve got a 12-gauge, anyway.”

“Good. I’m going to need to go. Something’s come up.”

Fortunately, Radner didn’t ask questions, too focused on his gratitude and taking care of his daughter.

***

“Shooter ready! Stand by!” John Wade took another breath, then bellowed, “THREAT!”

The dozen shooters on the line snapped their carbines up and opened fire on the row of steel targets at twenty yards. It wasn’t what Wade would have considered a challenging range, but this was a beginner’s course, and for most of the students, their first time shooting under low light conditions. The ragged volley of gunfire echoed across the valley, punctuated by the ring of bullets disintegrating against reactive steel.

“Threat!” The drill was repeated, the noise thundering out over the hills. Fortunately, what had once been Don Hart’s farm, left to the Blackhearts’ training company when he’d been killed in Chad, was a long way from any of the neighbors, so they didn’t really have to worry about noise complaints.

John Wade being himself, such complaints would not have gone especially well for the complainers.

“Threat!” The students opened fire a third time, and Wade was grudgingly gratified to see that nobody missed. The steel plates weren’t large, making for at least some challenge, even with long guns at twenty yards.

“Safe, let ‘em hang!” George Jenkins was standing off to the left end of the firing line, keeping a close eye on the students. Wade watched him carefully for a moment, then nodded with some satisfaction.

Jenkins had been something of the black sheep of Brannigan’s Blackhearts, at least ever since Aziz had been killed on the Tourmaline Delta GOPLAT, relinquishing the “That Guy” title. A former SEAL—which already put him somewhat on the retired Ranger’s bad side—Jenkins had been the perennial screwup, getting in all sorts of trouble when off the job, and being slightly less reliable than any of the senior Blackhearts would have liked on the job. But he seemed to be really making an effort to walk the straight and narrow lately, especially since Wade had grudgingly given him a second chance when he’d restarted the training company they’d put together with Hart, several years before.

Would it last? Wade didn’t know. His angry, cynical outlook told him that it probably wouldn’t. But he was an honest enough man to appreciate it for what it was while it lasted.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He waved at Jenkins to take over, and walked back behind the square bay, pulling the phone out. Signal on Hart’s farm was sketchy at best. He was surprised that a call or message had gotten through at all.

It was a text from Flanagan. Wade felt a grin start to spread across his face. It had been a while since Colombia. It was getting time for a job again, and now they had one.

He glanced over his shoulder again, then tucked the phone in his pocket. He’d tell Jenkins after they finished up for the day. They were committed for this class, but they might have to cancel next week’s.

There was no way Wade was going to trade the chance to get paid to kill people for a civilian carbine class. And for all his faults, Jenkins wouldn’t, either.

Blood Debt comes out on Kindle and in Paperback on December 14.

The post Blood Debt Chapter 3 appeared first on American Praetorians.

Blood Debt Chapter 2

Dan Tackett heard the phone vibrating on the workbench, even over the faint strains of Charley Crockett coming from the small speaker on the shelf above, but he ignored it. One thing at a time. He wasn’t going to leave the job half-finished just to answer the phone.

He finished tightening down the housing and stepped back from the bike appreciatively. Hondas weren’t his favorite to work on, but he was good at it, and he had to admit that this Shadow Phantom was a nice-looking bike.

Looking around the shop, he nodded. It never quite ceased to amaze him, even after five years, how much he’d managed to build. He knew he couldn’t have done it without Mitchell Price’s payoff after the Anambas mission had gone horribly awry, but all the same, there’d been a time when he’d wondered if he’d ever be good for anything but packing a gun in dangerous and far distant places.

It had been that wonder, as he’d been working a dead-end job and trying to maintain the lifestyle he’d had before his first wife had died, that had led him to that ill-fated contract. After the hell he’d gone through on those islands, cut off, hunted, sure they’d been left out to dry, he’d promised that he’d find another way.

And he had. This shop was all his, and he was doing a hell of a booming business. He glanced at the three other bikes lined up against the far wall for repair, knowing that there were about twelve more after that on the waiting list. He was good at this, and while it meant long hours, he returned the repairs fast, and he was rapidly building a name for himself in the local community and beyond.

He heard the car in the driveway outside. Cassie was back with the kids. He swiped a rag off the bench and started getting the oil and grime off his hands as he looked down at the phone, activating the lock screen with a knuckle.

He frowned. He didn’t recognize the number. It didn’t look like a US number at all. But whoever was calling, they’d left a voicemail.

Probably another scammer. But he was curious. Satisfied that he had most of the grease off his hands, he lifted the phone, unlocked it, and listened to the message.

He felt himself go very still, as a voice out of the past, scratchy and distorted but unmistakable, nevertheless, begged him for help. Cassie, with Tom in tow, eager to see what his dad had been working on, found him like that, the phone in his hand, his eyes far away.

“Dan?” Cassie Tackett knew that look. She’d worn it herself, more than once. She and Dan had gotten together about a year after the mission to the Anambas, a mission where they’d both nearly been killed. They’d been married less than six months after they’d started dating, and fortunately, Tom, at least, had taken to his stepmother eagerly. Amy had been a bit of a harder sell, but Dan and Cassie had developed a bond that was a rarity, and Amy was a good kid. She’d come around. “What’s wrong?”

Dan forced his eyes over to her, then just wordlessly handed her the phone. She looked down at the number next to the voicemail, frowning. “Who is it?”

“It’s Vernon.” Dan was frankly surprised at how even and steady his voice was, after what he’d just heard.

Cassie looked up and searched her husband’s face. “He’s not coming over to visit, is he?” Vernon and Max had both been by a few times over the years, though they had rarely talked about what they were doing for work. They both knew that both men had agreed to keep working for Price after the PMC magnate had pulled them off the island just ahead of the PLAN’s commandos. Neither had asked, and neither man had volunteered. But they knew that it wasn’t tame, whatever they were doing. It couldn’t be.

“He needs help.” Dan met his wife’s eyes, almost afraid of what he’d see there, but he saw only Cassie. Only the compassion and the certainty that had been the only thing to get her through that nightmare on the Anambas, when most of the other female “operators” had folded, panicked, or been killed out of hand.

Cassie nodded, and listened to the message. “Do you know anything about this Brannigan guy? Or Chavez?”

Dan shook his head. “Never heard of either of ‘em. But I’ve been out of the game for a while, and if Vernon says to get in touch with them…”

Cassie nodded. “Tom, go inside with your sister for a minute. I need to talk to your father.”

As soon as Tom had shut the door behind him, though the eight-year-old boy had been watching his dad with some amount of trepidation on his face, she took both of Dan’s hands in hers. “I know that look. I know what you’re worried about. I know we both promised that we were done with all that. But it’s Vernon. For all we know, it’s Max, too. We both owe them our lives. As much as all of us owe you our lives.” She squeezed his hands. “This is different.”

Dan nodded. It was going to suck, leaving the kids behind, after promising he’d never leave again, but his wife was right. There was an obligation there.

He couldn’t help but wonder if Vernon had known that he’d place that on his shoulders when he’d called him. But he knew the big man too well, after those days and nights in the jungle. That wasn’t Vernon’s way. He wasn’t manipulative that way. If it had been Jenny, now…

It had been a long time since he’d thought of that cold-hearted, vicious woman. She’d disappeared into the jungle, never to be seen again, all her Machiavellian schemes and tough chick attitude swallowed up by the harsh realities of combat.

He squeezed Cassie’s hands in return. “I’ll go look up this Chavez guy, see what I can find. We might be on a short timeline.” He looked down at her. “You’re not going this time. I’ve got to, but I need you to stay here with Amy and Tom. They could stay with Roger and Darlene, but…”

She nodded, though she started to tear up a little. “That might be a little too much like last time. I understand.” She dashed a tear away from her eye. “I’m not up to another tramp through the jungle, anyway.” She hugged him suddenly, squeezing tightly. “Just be careful, okay?”

***

It was a good thing, John Brannigan reflected, that he was a regular at the Rocking K diner as it was, and had met numerous old buddies, Marines and otherwise, there over the last few years since he’d built the cabin up the mountain. Otherwise, people might start to ask questions about his regular meetings there, usually followed by his absence for several weeks.

Hector Chavez was sitting at the usual back table, which Ginger and Mama Taft had practically made his private reserve. Hector was looking a little healthier than the first time he’d come out here. He’d lost weight, and he was dressing more like a local these days, as opposed to an outsider in a suit. Hector had been a hell of a Marine Officer, and would have made a decent general, if his heart hadn’t prompted an early retirement.

Just as well for everyone involved that he hadn’t pinned on that star. His own maritime security concern was relatively lucrative, but more importantly, he’d turned into one hell of a facilitator for the much more covert mercenary band who called themselves Brannigan’s Blackhearts.

The man sitting next to him was younger than either of them, probably in his late thirties, early forties. Brown haired, clean shaven, he was fit, without a paunch under his t-shirt. His hands, folded on the tabletop, were a working man’s hands, scarred and calloused.

But his eyes were different. He was watching everything in the room, checking movement, and his assessment as Brannigan approached betrayed an alertness that Brannigan had usually only seen in seasoned gunfighters. This guy was a meat-eater.

He shook Hector’s hand as he slid into the seat, Ginger already right behind him with his usual cup of coffee. “How’s the family, Hector? This one of your new proteges?”

“Family’s fine.” Chavez waited until Ginger had left with a smile, after patting him on the shoulder. “And Mr. Tackett here isn’t one of mine. He’s the client.”

Brannigan just looked over at the younger man, his eyebrow raised. “Really.”

Tackett was studying him, too. Brannigan knew what he saw. An older man but still hard-muscled, six foot four with broad shoulders that strained the shoulders of any shirt that fit him otherwise. He’d gotten a haircut recently, so his gray hair was cropped neatly short, his thick handlebar mustache a matching silver.

Tackett leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. “A friend of mine is in trouble. He gave me your name, said that you could help me go get him out. His name is Vernon White.”

Brannigan’s eyes narrowed. Something about that name rang a bell.

“He’s been working for Mitchell Price for the last several years.” Tackett chuckled wryly and ran a hand over his face, so he didn’t notice the recognition in Brannigan’s eyes. “Hell, I worked for Price for a while, too, before we knew he was actually running that show.”  He took a deep breath. “I don’t know a lot of details. He was clearly under fire when he called me on a sat phone and left a voicemail message. He said they were in trouble, they were in Kyrgyzstan, and to get in touch with you.” He looked up at Brannigan, a pensive look in his eyes. “He said to tell you that it was ‘our old friends from Chad.’”

Brannigan felt a shock go through him at that. He glanced at Chavez, who just nodded. Tackett had already told him, but from the look on Tackett’s face, he hadn’t told him exactly what that meant.

If the Humanity Front had come out of whatever hole they’d crawled into after Argentina, then it was damned near a certainty that the Blackhearts would take this job. Especially if it meant helping the guys who’d helped them take down the Front’s biological weapons experiments in Chad.

“Do you know where in Kyrgyzstan?”

Tackett nodded. “He sent me a grid. It’s supposed to be an old, abandoned Soviet base.”

“Sounds like someplace those assholes would set up,” Chavez noted as he took a sip of his own coffee.

“What assholes?” Tackett looked from man to man, frowning. He took a deep breath. “Look, it’s obvious that you guys know more about what’s going on than I do. I’ve been out of the game for a while. I swore I’d stay home after we got back from… well, from the last job I did. We went through hell out there, and I was going to stay home with my kids. But Vernon and I… Like I said. We went through hell. I owe him my life.”

Brannigan leaned back in his seat, cradling his coffee cup in his hands. “What do you know about the Humanity Front?”

Tackett’s eyes narrowed. “They’re a big shot NGO, I know that much. Everybody wants to cozy up to them, establish their philanthropist cred.” His eyes widened slightly. “Wait. You mean…”

“Yeah, their philanthropy’s a front. We met up with your boy Vernon, along with Mitchell Price and a few others, in Chad a while back, looking into the disappearance of some doctors from the WHO. Turned out they’d gotten in the way of a Humanity Front biological weapons test.” He sipped the coffee. “That was when we found out that they were also the ones behind the attacks in the Southwest a few years back.”

Tackett’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “Holy shit. Never heard about any of that.”

“That tends to happen when the terrorist group has bottomless pockets and most of the elites of the world are eating out of its hand,” Chavez observed dryly.

“So, I’ve got a question.” Brannigan pinned Tackett with a stare. “If this Vernon White is working for Mitchell Price—which he was the last time we saw him—why call you? I would imagine that Price has some pretty considerable resources of his own. Why would he call you and ask you to find us?”

Tackett spread his hands. “Hell if I know. And believe me, I’ve been trying to figure it out, myself. Sure, Vernon and I trust each other. Hard not to, after what we went through. The only possible explanation I can think of is that Vernon thinks that Price’s organization is compromised. Hell, I don’t even know what kind of resources you’ve got.”

“More than you’d think, but fewer than you’re probably expecting or hoping for.” Brannigan ran a hand over his mustache, thinking. This was a thorny problem. If the Humanity Front really was stirring again, he wanted a piece. But he seriously doubted that Tackett had the resources to even begin to pay for this kind of op. “We tend to operate on the down-low, doing deniable jobs in shadowy, unpleasant places.”

“Sounds about right.” Tackett winced a little. “I can’t pay you. I’m sure Price can, but I’m hardly in a position to access any of his accounts.”

“Don’t worry.” Chavez grinned. “We’ve had some dealings with Price before. And I’ve got some really good lawyers. We’ll take it out of his hide.”

“So, you’ll do it?” Tackett still looked tense, even though Brannigan had already essentially said yes.

Brannigan nodded. “Provided enough of the team are on board. We’ll need you to provide whatever intel he gave you. The message itself would be good. We might be able to figure some things out from it. I’ve got a couple nerds on the team who can tease all sorts of things out from recordings, and even the sat phone number.”

Tackett nodded, though now he was looking at the table. When he looked up, his jaw was set and his eyes were hard. “You’ve got it. There’s just one condition. I’m coming with you.”

Brannigan didn’t react, except to raise an eyebrow. It wasn’t usual to bring a client along, but Tackett wasn’t their usual client. He also remembered Vernon talking about someone named Dan, whom he’d credited with saving his life. He suspected this was the very man. He clearly wasn’t soft, clearly had a history as a gunfighter, and they’d taken new Blackhearts on based on almost as slim a recommendation. Hell, he’d hired Herc Javakhishvili purely on Ben Drake’s say-so.

“Fair enough.” He waved Ginger over to take his order. He was hungry. “It’s going to take a couple days to get the team together. Keep in touch, and I’ll give you the time and place where we’ll do our planning and knock the rust off with some drills.”

Tackett looked relieved as he nodded. Brannigan glanced at Chavez, who nodded slightly as Ginger came up, smiling, her pad already in her hand. He’d get started on the logistics as soon as possible.

So, the utopian psychopaths are at it again, huh?

I wonder what nightmares they’re cooking up this time.

 

Blood Debt comes out on Kindle and in Paperback on December 14.

The post Blood Debt Chapter 2 appeared first on American Praetorians.

Blood Debt Chapter 1

Vernon White was just glad that they were in the truck and heading up into the mountains. It promised to be a rough ride, as the old, Soviet Ural truck had clearly seen better days, but at least he and the rest of the team were in the covered bed and out of sight. Max, Travis, and especially Sam, lean and crooked as he looked, blended in with the Russians in Kyrgyzstan far better than a tall, muscled, bald-headed black man. Bishkek had been bad enough. Kochkor had been far worse. Even the rest of the team had caught stares there. The Kyrgyz themselves weren’t Russian, and all the MMPR Special Projects team were either too pale or too dark.

He looked around the inside of the truck bed. Max hadn’t changed much since their first mission together, in that ill-advised trip into the Anambas in the South China Sea. He never tanned, instead turning bright red for a few days before returning to a “lighter shade of pale.” He’d always been hefty, and that hadn’t changed, no matter some of the austere environments that Mitchell Price’s special tasks had taken them to.

Sam hadn’t changed much, either, except to get skinnier and more sullen. He’d never been a particularly personable individual, and if he hadn’t been as good on the ground as he was, the rest of the team might have kicked him to the curb a long time ago.

That, and the fact that he knew things that Mitchell Price didn’t necessarily want getting into the public sphere. Better to keep him close and well paid.

Travis, the new guy, wasn’t one that Vernon had quite figured out. He was quiet, almost as pale as Max, with a reddish-blond beard that almost covered the mag pouches on his plate carrier. He stuck out like a sore thumb, and Vernon still didn’t know exactly what had qualified him for the Special Projects team.

It was a continuing sore spot with Price. While the man had pulled the survivors out of the Anambas, calling in all sorts of favors and spending a shitload of money in the process, they’d had a problem with how little information he pushed down to his contractors back then, too. He always had a master plan, but they were always left trying to guess what it was while they carried it out.

One of these days, the debt we owe him isn’t going to be enough.

Sure, they’d done some good work with Price, following up on the highly sensitive information they’d retrieved from Yuan’s body on the island. The former PLAN frigate captain turned pirate had been using that information to blackmail Beijing to keep the PLA off his back. From some of what they’d found in that blackmail file, there was a good reason.

Vernon didn’t know if more of that information had led them to Kyrgyzstan or not. He suspected so, since what little information Price had handed down had echoed what had led them to Chad and the Humanity Front’s biological weapons experiments there, a couple years before. He didn’t know for sure if it was the Humanity Front up in these mountains, but some of their intel fit the profile.

His eyes strayed toward the front of the truck, where Price was in the passenger seat next to their guide, a local named Boren. Boren bothered him, had ever since he’d joined them planeside in Bishkek  before heading down to Kochkor, where they’d linked up with the rest of their support element—all local, of course. The man seemed a little too sly, a little too eager to please, while being unable to disguise the fact that he knew something his clients didn’t. Vernon didn’t trust him.

“I know.” Max had followed his gaze. The big man wasn’t just cursed with pasty pale skin and a spare tire that never seemed to go away, no matter his diet or exercise, but he had a surprisingly high-pitched voice for his size. “I don’t like it either.”

“Like what?” Travis looked over at them, his eyes a little wide. Sam just looked disgusted and turned his eyes out the back of the truck as they trundled up into the hills. There wasn’t much to look at. Just the rolling hills already starting to show a dusting of snow as they climbed higher, out of the valley dominated by the massive lake of Issyk Kul. The landscape was open and desolate as the truck rocked and creaked its way higher into the Tian Shan mountains. But Sam apparently thought it was more interesting than trying to explain things to the FNG.

Max leaned back against the sidewalls. “We’re way out in the cold here. We’re way too close to Russia and China to get the whole MMPR—and affiliate—operation out here.” He jerked a thumb toward the cab. “That means we’ve got to rely on local contractors, just to keep our footprint small. But local contractors aren’t always all that reliable, and if you can pay them, somebody else can, too.”

“Who’d be paying them out here?” Travis’s words were a little disturbed as they went over a bump or a rock, and everyone in the back was bounced painfully off the slat seats.

“Russians. Chinese.” Vernon ticked his fingers off. “Whoever’s got the resources to reopen an old Soviet base that nobody seems to have much data on, without the Kyrgyz government looking too deeply into it.” He shrugged. “Take your pick.”

“You think it’s a trap?” Travis’s eyes seemed to get even wider, if that was possible.

Max shrugged. “It’s certainly possible. We’ve seen it before.” He grinned and patted the Gilboa M43 hanging between his knees. “Welcome to Special Projects, kid.”

Sam muttered something and spat over the tailgate, just in time to almost take the steel lip in the chin as they hit another bump in the poorly-paved road.

***

They didn’t make it much farther than that.

Vernon recognized the growling roar as it passed overhead and shook the truck, even as they lurched to a stop. He’d been around or in too many helicopters not to recognize it.

He also recognized that it wasn’t a Kyrgyz Mi-8 or Mi-24. It was too quiet. And when he ducked his head to look under the canopy, he saw a lean, sleek shape, sporting not only a fast-moving main rotor but also a pair of pusher propellers on the ends of double wings. He’d never seen a bird like that before.

That kind of narrowed down who was up there. There weren’t too many organizations that would have that kind of next-gen tech in the Tian Shan Mountains.

He and Sam were already lifting their rifles as the shooters, dressed in unfamiliar green, gray, and brown camouflage and carrying squared off, blocky rifles, started to pile out of the helo. He opened fire, dumping 7.62×39 rounds toward the helo, as Max went between him and Sam, diving over the tailgate without bothering to try to drop it.

Vernon heard Max hit the ground, even as the strange shooters scattered and returned fire, bullets zipping through the canvas near his head, one of them hitting the hoop overhead with a loud bang, scattering splinters over him. Sam followed Max out as the big man scrambled off to one side and opened fire from the prone near the two rear wheels. The truck wasn’t going to provide any cover whatsoever, and if the door gunner behind the minigun just ahead of those twin wings opened up, they were going to be mincemeat.

Fortunately, the shooters appeared to have been caught by surprise when the Special Projects contractors had opened fire. They returned fire wildly as they dashed for the brush on the sides of the road, giving Vernon the chance to get out while Sam and Max maintained covering fire.

So far, this fight had rapidly degenerated into a wild spray-and-pray, but as long as that minigun stayed silent, Vernon was going to count his blessings.

He hit the ground hard but maintained his balance, then threw himself off to the left and flat on the ground as more bullets smacked into the truck where he’d just been. He could hear more fire from the front of the truck, but didn’t dare look behind him, as he sighted in on a man in full cammies, plate carrier, high-cut helmet, and balaclava, all in that matching, green, gray, and brown pattern, sprinting toward a rock just uphill. Vernon’s shot caught him mid-stride, and he stumbled, the follow up taking him through the throat. The man tumbled onto his face, both gloved hands going to his neck.

The roar of a second bird intensified behind him, as Price bellowed, “Peel left!” Despite all the time the PMC magnate had spent in offices and meeting halls over the years, the man had proved to be surprisingly skilled in the field, but right then, Vernon had to take his eyes off the enemy for a second to figure out which way left was supposed to be.

He couldn’t see Price, which meant he had to be on the other side of the truck. But he could see the second helicopter, or hybrid, or whatever it was, as matte black as the first, circling overhead. It looked like the bad guys had tried to block both sides of the road before their target had turned out to be a little pricklier than they’d imagined.

Sam was moving already, and Vernon was quickly glad that he’d pushed up just slightly, because it meant Sam could get between him and the truck, without moving in front of his barrel. He took another shot at a running camouflaged shooter, missing by a hair as the man dove onto his face behind a fold in the ground.

There wasn’t much cover aside from microterrain, but the sheer volume of fire flying in both directions was brutal, and both sides’ accuracy was suffering from it.

Sam sprinted a few yards and threw himself flat, as Travis started to try to make his own dash. He didn’t get far. He’d just passed Vernon when a bullet took him in the side with a thwack that Vernon could hear even over the gunfire. His choking scream died quickly as he dropped.

Max sprinted past then, followed quickly by Price. At almost the same time, as the second helo growled overhead, the door gunner opened fire on the truck, a stream of tracers tearing through the vehicle lengthwise with an angry, buzzing roar, sparks and pulverized metal flying as the old Ural was practically cut in half.

At least we’ve only got shooters on one side, now. Vernon gasped in the thin air as he ran for the creek bed off the side of the road, where Sam and Max were already set up. Another round snapped past his head, alarmingly close, just before he dove through the low bushes along the bank and into the mostly-dry gravel bed.

They were now out of sight of the enemy, but all it would take would be one gun run from one of those helos, and they were dead.

The gunfire had momentarily died down, as neither the Special Projects contractors or the enemy shooters had targets. Right at the moment, Vernon couldn’t see either helo, but he could hear them clearly enough.

“Where’s Boren?” Max didn’t look over his shoulder as he asked the question, having positioned himself where he had a narrow window through the brush where he could see the road just behind the smoking ruin of the smashed Ural.

“He tried to grab my weapon as soon as the birds showed up.” Price’s voice was bland and slightly wry, despite how hard he was breathing. “He didn’t survive the attempt.” He was digging in the go bag at his side, finally coming up with the satellite phone they’d brought, hitting the speed dial for their QRF. Vernon didn’t think that there was a hope in hell that the Quick Reaction Force was going to get there in time, but what else were they going to do?

Sam took a shot at a moving figure trying to run up to the high ground above them, and the shooter disappeared. “They’re trying to flank us.”

“They won’t need to with those birds in the air.” Vernon had eyes on one, watching as it banked around to the south, turning back toward them. It was surprisingly quiet, and with those pusher props, it was fast. He watched it, wondering if he could get a round through that windshield. He wasn’t nearly as confident in the 7.62×39 to get a kill shot on a moving helo’s pilot as he might have been with a heavier round.

He also wondered just why they hadn’t simply burned them down with those miniguns as soon as the fight had started. He had his suspicions, and didn’t like them much.

Price threw the phone in the dirt with a curse. “Those sons of bitches. The signal’s getting through, but they’re not picking up. Must have been bought off.”

Before anyone could make the observation that naturally followed, that weird, fast moving helo roared by, the gunner tearing through the brush with a long burst of minigun fire, just off the creek bed. All four men ducked as they were showered with debris.

“Mitchell Price!” The voice on the loudspeaker had a faint French accent. “You are cut off and alone! Surrender, and you will not be harmed!”

“Fuck off.” Sam, true to form, wasn’t inclined to go quietly into that good night.

Price wasn’t going to react that quickly, though. Vernon glanced at him, and saw that their boss was frowning, looking down at the dirt in front of him as he thought it over.

Looking up at the helo as it circled back around—or maybe it was the second bird—he couldn’t help but think that surrender was not their best option. He didn’t believe that they “wouldn’t be harmed.” Not with this bunch, if they were who he suspected.

“I’m sorry, gents.” Price looked up and around at them. “I might have gotten us in deeper than we were ready for, this time. It was just supposed to be recon.”

Sam’s look of disgust was eloquent enough.

“I’m who they want. I’ll do what I can to protect you.” He started to stand up.

Vernon’s mind was racing. They’d been sold out—he was pretty sure of that. And the timeframe meant that he couldn’t be sure it was just Boren who’d been behind it.

It had become obvious over the last few years that while Price might hold onto as much control of his PMC empire as possible, there were elements within it that were less than trustworthy. It was possible that Boren and his little company had been paid off in advance just to call ahead and warn about anyone showing too much interest in the abandoned Soviet base. But the fact that they knew it was Price…

He grabbed the phone, as Price put his rifle down and stood up. Fortunately, he had the number memorized. The one man he’d really, truly trust with all their lives, even though he’d sworn he’d never go back to the private military contracting world again, not after the Anambas.

Sam was spitting curses as he flipped his sling over his head and put his rifle down. The bird was circling around again, descending toward the road, and more of the shooters in their unfamiliar camouflage were starting to move up. The phone rang in Vernon’s ear, every passing second feeling like an eternity. Come on, come on.

It went to voicemail. “Dan, it’s Vernon. Look, we’re in deep shit. I need you to get in contact with a retired Marine Colonel named John Brannigan. Tell him that we’ve been taken hostage, and that the target is in an abandoned Soviet base in Kyrgyzstan.” He rattled off the coordinates quickly, as the helo landed on the road and the shooters closed in. “I’m about to get rolled up, so I can’t tell you more, but tell him that it’s our old friends from Chad. Hector Chavez, with John Paul Jones Consulting, will know how to contact him.”

Then they were too close, and he had to drop the phone. It was over.

For now.

Blood Debt comes out on Kindle and Paperback Dec. 14th.

The post Blood Debt Chapter 1 appeared first on American Praetorians.

November Update

While Blood Debt is just around the corner, there are some other things going on.

Last night, I released the second American Praetorians Box Set – The Americas Duology. Some who have come to my work through Brannigan’s Blackhearts or Maelstrom Rising might or might not have read the American Praetorians series. Now the entire series (in ebook, at least) can be had for about half the price of the individual books.

Part of why I released this now is because of Lex Talionis. Many factors have changed or accelerated since I wrote that book in 2017, but some of it remains as timely as ever. It was, in many ways, intended to be a cautionary tale. A parable of what we were heading for if we kept letting outrage rule.

In many ways, I think I might not have gone quite deep enough with it. Some of the digging I’ve done since has exposed the faction I described as “Sulla” as more extensive and real than I’d imagined four years ago. Perhaps some elements will work themselves in to later series.

In other news, after receiving some good feedback on the questionnaire I put up a couple weeks ago, I have decided to finally pull the trigger on Triarii patches. I’d been hesitant, given how many Praetorian patches I still have. I’d gotten enough requests that I decided to look into it. Unlike the Praetorian patches, these will be embroidered, and hopefully up for sale just before Christmas. I do not currently have a solid ETA, though, given current shipping issues in the real world. The finalized patch image is the featured image on this post.

 

Still got a few days’ work left on Blood Debt, but it’s on schedule. Next in the chute will be Power Vacuum and The Unity Wars Book 4.

Back to the word mines.

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