Peter Nealen's Blog, page 7

Blackhearts and Alt-History on the Stream

It’s release day for Concrete Jungle, and we’ve got a special guest on the American Praetorians stream tonight. Alex Aaronson is James Rosone’s co-author on the Monroe Doctrine series, and just came out with the first of his alt-history series “Soviet Endgame” this month. We’ll be talking Blackhearts, Alex’s take on an alternate late Cold War, and whatever else comes up on the stream tonight.

As always, we’ll be live on YouTube and Facebook, with the recording going up on Rumble tomorrow. (If the Rumble account gets to 100 subscribers, we can stream there, too, making this operation more independent of the Big Tech mafia.)

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Favors and Vendettas – Concrete Jungle is Out

No Favor Comes Without Cost…

…But Sometimes the Payback is Worth It

When a power play threatens the life of a queen of the global underworld, she has quite a few options. There’s only one she really trusts, however.

She calls on Brannigan’s Blackhearts.

It won’t be the first time the mercenaries have operated in a city. This is going to be one of the hairiest such clandestine ops yet, though.

Because it’s not just Erika Dalca’s mafia rivals who are gunning for her.

There are bigger players involved, and things will get deadly very quickly.

Will any of them make it out of the concrete jungle?

You’ll love this fast-paced action thriller, because the twists and turns come as fast as the bullets!

Get it today.

***

So, the seed of this story has been kicking around since about 2016-2017. Originally it was going to feature The Broker from the American Praetorians series. Then I wrapped that series up, but the idea was still there. It seemed like a good fit for Brannigan’s Blackhearts.

I should also note that while Amazon still has not pulled Marque and Reprisal from Ingram, Concrete Jungle is out in paperback on Amazon, just like it’s supposed to be.

While you’re at it, if you haven’t yet, why not pick up a patch to go with the book? “If You Know, You Know.”

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Concrete Jungle Chapter 1

Tomas Fiero was nervous.

Short, built like a fireplug, and with cauliflower ears and a nose that had been mashed flat more than once, Fiero didn’t seem like the kind of guy who should get nervous. Especially not when he had an HK VP9, three knives, and a garrote under his suit jacket. He was the kind of man who made other people nervous.

Something about this setup bothered him, though, in a way that he hadn’t experienced since he’d been a simple street enforcer, almost twenty years before.

The meeting place was the first part he didn’t like.

He turned in his seat to address the stunning blond woman in the back seat. “Signora, this is a bad place. After everything that has happened between us and Garin over the last two weeks, we should be meeting in a public place, with lots of eyes around.”

Erika Dalca, CEO of Ciela International and also the queen bee of one of the biggest and most secretive underworld networks on the face of the planet, was a woman of somewhere between thirty and fifty years of age. Her skin was flawless, her slightly angular face as perfectly symmetrical and lovely as it was possible for a woman to get without surgery. She was stunning, she knew it, and she used it as a weapon more often than not.

Right at the moment, she looked completely unconcerned, and as she turned her glittering green eyes on him, he knew that she was turning that weapon on him, if only to get him to shelve his suspicions and trust her.

“That is why we have an overwatch element up, Tomas.” She smiled faintly, and even that expression was enough to make a younger man forget where he was. Fiero, however, had worked for Dalca for years, and he’d learned to detach himself enough that her charms only had the vaguest effect on him. The part of him that had grown up with fairy tales wondered sometimes if she wasn’t some sort of siren or other mythical creature. “Gaston is watching our backs.”

Fiero just sighed. He wouldn’t even have agreed to the meeting, but Dalca wasn’t a woman you said no to, especially not when you owed her as much as he did. She’d been determined, after the events of the last few weeks, to handle this as peacefully as possible.

She was like that. While she could be extremely ruthless, all the same, she had a practical streak that made her determined not to waste resources and lives in violence if she could avoid it. In Fiero’s mind, that made her more willing to talk when they should be fighting.

He didn’t trust Artyom Garin to abide by the terms that had been worked out just for the meeting, never mind anything they came up with during said meeting.

Turning back to the front, Fiero nodded to the driver, semi-consciously touching the VP9 at his waist. There was nothing for it.

Putting the Land Rover into gear, young Kristof started them rolling down the flagstone road between the residential houses on the right and the open fields to the left. Fiero’s eyes flicked momentarily to the partially wooded rise on the south of the field. Gaston was supposed to be up there, in a ghillie suit, along with Murray and Yakob, watching the last house in the small neighborhood, where they were supposed to meet with Garin and his chief lieutenant.

He couldn’t see any threats. Everything was quiet, and there was even an older Czech lady walking her dog on the street. There were no Russian thugs hanging out near the white brick and white picket fences around the brightly colored houses. No guns. No suspicious vehicles.

Something was still off, but there was nothing he could do about it except keep his eyes open, his hand close to his gun, and his ears pricked. Dalca was too determined for anything else.

Kristof pulled the vehicle around the corner and in front of the gate. He didn’t park right at the gate itself, but pulled a couple of car lengths past it, then parked on the far side of the road, halfway into the field.

Dalca might have been dressed to the nines, but she didn’t complain in the slightest about the fact that her door was opening up on a recently harvested field. She just slid to the other side of the vehicle—though Fiero would much have preferred if she had gotten out on that side, putting the bulk of the subtly armored Range Rover between her and any of Garin’s people, at least for a moment—but he’d learned to roll with the punches. She wasn’t going to hide when the reality of the situation demanded that she show no fear in front of the Russians.

Fiero was well practiced at staying one step ahead of Dalca. He was already out of the vehicle and halfway across the street when she got out, glancing over his shoulder at the men getting out of their trail vehicle with some irritation. They were slow, and Dalca had nearly caught up with him by the time he reached the gate, while the younger enforcers were still only halfway across the street.

He opened the gate. The door remained closed, the windows dark. He stopped just inside and put out a hand to stop Dalca in her tracks. “Something’s wrong.”

She halted, stepping behind the brick column that supported the gate. She was relentless and determined, but she wasn’t stupid, and while she might have overruled him on attending the meeting at all, she wasn’t going to ignore his instincts when it came to actual security on site. Fiero had worked for Dalca’s father, after all, even before she had stepped into the old man’s vacant shoes and started to steer the network in her own, more subtle direction. He’d earned that trust.

There was a bush growing just inside the gate, and he slid partway behind it as he watched the windows and the front door. It wouldn’t provide him any actual cover, but it might keep any enemy inside guessing as to exactly where he was, which might buy him the crucial second or two to get Dalca to safety.

The door creaked open then, and a thickset man with practically no neck and a balding head, wearing a suit that was ever so slightly too small, stepped out. “You are late.”

Fiero felt a flash of anger. They weren’t late. He knew exactly the game this Russian thug was playing, and he didn’t like it. It didn’t bode well for any hope that they could resolve this problem between Dalca’s network and Garin’s Mafiya cell peacefully.

Still, at least it wasn’t gunfire. Not yet anyway. And Dalca wasn’t going to let strongarm mind games get in her way. She stepped out from behind the brick column and strode toward the house, sparing the Russian guard a withering, icy glare.

“Don’t try to tell me what time it is, Vasili.” The tone of her voice was as cold as her expression as she brushed past the man. There might have been a flicker of surprise on his face that she’d known his name, and Fiero suppressed a gloating smirk as he followed Dalca inside.

That smirk died completely as they came into the living room, or what had been the living room.

There was plastic on the floor, all of the furniture had been moved to the walls, and none of the men in dark track suits standing around the room were Garin. In fact, none of them were even any of his senior lieutenants. These were all mid- to low-level brodyagas. And they were all armed.

Fiero just pushed a button on his smart watch, glad that he’d thought ahead and hoping that he survived the next few seconds.

The Russian standing in front, a wiry, beak-nosed man with tattoos crawling up his neck, lifted his Skorpion machine pistol with a leering grin just before the first .50 caliber bullet smashed through the window and took the heavyset thug behind him in the head.

Blood and brains splashed across the wall as the thunderclap of the weapon’s report and the crash of shattering glass echoed through the room. The Russians all ducked, as did Dalca, though Fiero had been through enough violence that he hardly blinked as he snatched his VP9 out of his waistband and shot the tattooed thug with the Skorpion through the chest.

Gaston continued to mag dump his GM6 Lynx through the windows and the walls as Fiero grabbed Dalca and dragged her back toward the door.

The thickset gangster who had let them in was in the way, though. He’d ducked at the first report of the Lynx, but now he was coming back up with a Laugo Alien pistol in his fist. He was a split second too slow, though, as Henri appeared behind him, put the muzzle of his own Glock to the Russian’s temple, and blew his brains out.

Then Fiero was hauling Dalca out the door, running over the still-twitching body of the Russian and heading for the Range Rover. The meeting hadn’t been a meeting at all, but a trap.

Garin’s people might not have seen Gaston’s overwatch with a .50 caliber rifle coming, but they still hadn’t expected that the ambush would go entirely smoothly. Even as Fiero got Dalca halfway to the Range Rover, an Alfa Romeo Stelvio SUV came roaring down the road, pivoting with a screech of tires to block the entire street as men with submachineguns piled out and opened fire.

Henri went down immediately, several bloody holes torn in his suit coat, and hit the bricks with a limp finality. Robert was hit as well, though he threw himself back into the yard, clutching a bloody side while he shot back with his own Glock.

Fiero, for his part, picked up the pace even as he shoved Dalca to the side, putting himself between her and the gunfire. That was his job, after all. He fired the VP9, almost without aiming, just dumping the mag at the SUV. Window glass shattered, and he saw briefly that he’d punched a couple new, shiny holes in the body work. He didn’t hit any of the gunmen, but the incoming fire slackened, especially as the thunder of a carbine opened up from Dalca’s Range Rover. Kristof had entered the fray.

Panting, Fiero yanked the rear door open and unceremoniously shoved his boss inside. For her part, she made it look more graceful than it was, reaching into the go bag in the back seat for a weapon of her own, snatching the USP compact that she tended to prefer out of the integral holster and pivoting around, her businesslike yet fashionable dress hiked up to allow her to move more easily.

If Fiero had had less common sense and less history with her, he might have gawked at the sheer amount of leg she was showing, but he had much more pressing matters on his mind. He yanked open his own door as Dalca fired back at the Russian gunmen, pulling his 10-inch HK 416 out of the passenger seat as he yelled at Kristof. “Get in!”

He pivoted, put the red dot on the first head he saw peering over the hood behind a TMP-9, and put two bullets in it as fast as he could rock the trigger. Then Kristof was yelling at him, and he swung into the passenger seat, twisting around to face the back, pulling the door almost shut, pinning the rifle’s forearm between it and the door column. “Erika! Get inside!”

Dalca was already pulling her door shut as Kristof started the Range Rover moving. After a moment, Fiero had to do the same, as Kristof stomped on the accelerator and got the up-armored vehicle moving faster than Fiero could control the door.

He didn’t turn around just yet but jammed the rifle between his seat and the center console before reaching into the back seat and running a hand over Dalca’s body. There was nothing erotic about it, even if he’d had any such thoughts about her. He was checking for bleeds. “Were you hit at all?”

“No.” She’d already been running a hand over herself, showing the same cool assurance under fire that she always had in the boardroom or during more discreet business dealings. “Henri was hit.”

“So was Robert. Henri is dead.” He had no doubt about that. Turning back forward, satisfied that his employer wasn’t going to bleed out in the back seat, he heard the thunderous reports of Gaston’s GM6 again, as the overwatch opened fire on the Russian gangsters now that Dalca’s vehicle was out of the kill zone. “We will have to make them pay for this.”

“We will.” If she was suffering any shock over what had happened, Fiero couldn’t tell. She was as cold and collected as ever. “I know just the man to call about it, too.”

 

Concrete Jungle comes out on Kindle and Paperback November 22.

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The Patch

Brannigan’s Blackhearts doesn’t have an official patch. They don’t have an official anything. But after the Burma mission, some of them worked up a logo, anyway.

***

The Blackhearts group was easy to pick out.  They were, by and large, more fit than anyone else in the room, and at that moment, also considerably louder.

Aziz, Jenkins, and Wade were arguing over a war story, specifically who had been where at what time.  Childress immediately identified the place as the village in northern Burma where Doc Villareal had been killed, and they had gone into a system of tunnels after the North Korean advisors to the Kokang Communists/drug runners.  It sounded like they were avoiding actually getting specific about the place, but this was bad enough.

Santelli stalked toward the table, murder in his eyes.  Jenkins looked up as he and Childress approached.  The former SEAL looked a little glazed; he’d clearly had a few already.

“Hey, Childress, check it out!” he said, pulling his sleeve back.  He’d gotten a new tattoo, still under a wrap of clear cellophane.  It was a black heart, with a fighting knife through it and crossed rifles behind it.  “We’ve got a logo, dude!”

Santelli was suddenly, despite his height, looming over Jenkins.  “And what the fuck made you think that that was a good idea?” he hissed.  “Hey, why don’t we do merchandising, maybe get a movie deal?  That sound good, too?  Then we can have all sorts of government agencies looking at what we’ve been doing lately!  Sounds fucking great!”  He looked around the inside of the bar.  “You been having fun, regaling complete strangers in public with stories that can’t possibly have any repercussions for any of us?”

“We haven’t said anything specific, Carlo,” Wade said quietly.  The former Ranger NCO was a big man, clean-shaven and brown haired, with pale blue eyes and an intensity that was coming out in the form of a growing anger at being dressed down this way.  “We’re not stupid.”

***

Now you can join the team. The patch doesn’t say “Brannigan’s Blackhearts.” But if you know, you know.

The twelfth adventure is out soon, too. Concrete Jungle comes out on Nov 22 on Kindle and Paperback.

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The Guns of Concrete Jungle

While Concrete Jungle is, in a way, much more of a covert operation than many of the Blackhearts’ past missions, there’s still a pretty wide variety of guns in use. Concrete Jungle goes down in the Czech Republic (or Czechia), and so there are a few more options available than in some other places.

Erika Dalca, as the CEO of Ciela International, can afford some pretty high-end security. Her detail in the beginning are all armed with HK VP-9s in 9mm.

Those are the weapons on their persons, of course. In the vehicles, they all have short-barreled HK 416s, the piston-driven Heckler & Koch version of the M4.

Since Dalca and her security have thought ahead, they have overwatch, one member of whom is armed with a GM6 Lynx .50 caliber, bullpup anti-materiel rifle.

When the Blackhearts first get on the ground, the first weapons they get their hands on are FN FNX-9s.

A few more of Dalca’s security are also equipped with B&T MP-9s for more discreet work.

Of course, as it becomes more evident that they’re not just up against well-armed Russian mobsters, they need a bit more firepower. That’s where the CZ 805 Bren A2s come in, Czech-designed and produced 5.56 rifles.

The Russian mobsters are pretty well equipped, themselves, mostly using Czech vz.58s, though with a few AKs as well.

There are also a few Skorpion machine pistols floating around.

At least one of the Russian gangsters carries a 9mm Mini-Uzi. (Not to be confused with the Micro-Uzi.)

As well as at least one Laugo Alien in 9mm.

It’s not all steel and polymer. Artyom Garin, the Russian mob boss who really kicks things off, favors an over-under shotgun.

The Mafiya‘s mysterious partners tend to be equipped with a bit more sophistication, once again mostly with HK. The rifles are HK 416s.

While their pistols are HK USPs.

There may be a few ones and twos of different guns that show up in the book that haven’t been mentioned here. Keep your eye out.

Concrete Jungle comes out on Kindle and Paperback November 22.

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October Stream with Steve Diamond

Steve Diamond is an old friend, met through our mutual friend Larry Correia. He’s a great storyteller, an aficionado of horror, and co-hosts the Writer Dojo podcast with Larry.

This month, he joins us to talk about spooky stories. Because it’s October, so it just makes sense. Furthermore, The Alchemy of Treason came out this month, and it’s got some really spooky stuff in it (to the point that one reader told me he had to put the book down so he could finish his lunch).

I got my start as a storyteller around campfires in the woods, giving Boy Scouts nightmares. It’s a tradition I like to continue from time to time, whether it’s in the Jed Horn series, The Lost, or some other upcoming series.

So, come join us, on either FB or YouTube. (I have a Rumble account now, and the recording will be uploaded on Wednesday. I can’t stream there yet, because Rumble requires 100 subscribers before it’ll allow livestreaming.)

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The Alchemy of Treason Livestream

I’ll be live on the Galaxy’s Edge channels tonight at 1800 PST/2100EST to talk about Wargate Books, The Lost in general, and The Alchemy of Treason somewhat more specifically (without undue spoilers). We’ll also have Jeremiah Humphries, the cover artist for Swords Against the Night, The Alchemy of Treason, and the upcoming The Rock of Battle on tonight as well.

Come on by and join the peanut gallery.

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The Alchemy of Treason

The World of The Lost gets a little darker, in The Alchemy of Treason.

***

I got as low as I could and continued my inch-by-inch skull drag, moving into a slightly lower fold in the ground, shielded from the sentry by several stands of nearly two-foot-tall grass. I still had to move very slowly—even more slowly than I already had been for the last two hours. I was a good twenty yards away from him, but that was plenty close enough to get spotted or heard if I wasn’t careful, even in the deepening dark.

I might have heard something off to my right. Maybe a grunt, suddenly cut off. Santos was supposed to be over there. Maybe he’d moved faster than I had.

The last of the faint remaining glow in the west had faded and the stars were glittering in the black sky overhead when I finally rose to a low crouch. Firelight glinted faintly off the dark, satin steel of the Bowie in my fist as I quickly scanned my surroundings before padding as silently as I could toward the sentry, his back now to me.

The fire still flickered, though most of the Avurs were now proned out and snoring. A couple were still up, sitting by the fire, one of them staring into the flames. That one almost gave me pause. There was something about him that bothered me. I couldn’t put my finger on it immediately, but something told me he was more dangerous. He wasn’t staring into the fire because he was a boot who didn’t know any better. Any man who had any experience in the wild wouldn’t look directly at an artificial light source at night. It would ruin his night adaptation.

 

Rolling my feet carefully, almost wishing I had moccasins on instead of combat boots, I crept toward the sentry, planting each foot slowly and smoothly before putting my weight on it. It was achingly slow movement, while every nerve screamed at me to get up and rush the guy, take him out before he turned and saw me, or one of his buddies noticed something.

It felt like it took forever to get barely ten feet from him. I hadn’t made a sound, careful to breathe through my mouth so that I didn’t give myself away with a nose whistle, but his head started to turn as I got closer.

Close enough. I lunged.

I hit him hard, with all one hundred seventy-odd pounds I had left on me after close to a month of ever-shorter rations and long days on foot or in the saddle. With him sitting on the ground the way he was, there was only so low I could get, but I put a knee in his back and knocked him hard onto his face, catching myself with one hand before I went over his head. Putting my weight on that knee, I shoved his face down into the dirt and the grass as I brought the Bowie plunging down onto the back of his neck.

The blade cleaved through skin, muscle, tendon, and nerve, and he stiffened, then went limp. His head was still attached, but I’d just severed his spine. He wasn’t getting up ever again, nor was he going to make any further noise.

Unfortunately, I was one of the lucky ones.

I heard a strangled cry off to my left, where either Rodeffer or Farrar were closing on their own targets. A moment later, the noise increased, as a hand-to-hand fight really started to get going.

A shout rose from near the fire. I spun around, just as the man who’d been staring into the fire threw something into the flames.

The fire flared up suddenly, the flames turning a sickly green. There were a couple of chemicals that could do that, but generally speaking, borax or copper sulfate don’t result in a small, disproportionately long-limbed fire goblin leaping out of the flames.

***

Friends. Foes. Where is the Line?

Conor and his allies return from the quest for the Sword of Categym to find the Galel kingdom under siege. The forces of the Empire of Ar-Annator gather on the frontier, and the Marines must fight their way through enemy lines to reach friendly territory.

To make matters worse, an attempt is made on King Uven’s life, grievously wounding him. As traitorous elements among his retainers make a grab for the throne, a deeper, darker, sorcerous plot makes itself felt.

The Empire has planned this for a long time. The foul things they’re in league with have been planning longer still.
Can Recon Marines and their allies adapt quickly enough to head off a coup before darkness envelops Cor Legear?

Get it today.

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The September Stream is Tonight

No special guest this month, and not really much of a set agenda, which is why I’m calling it the September Peanut Gallery. We might talk war, worldbuilding, writing, or just go off on tangents brought on by audience questions. Bring what ya got.

 

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Setting the Stage – The T’ai Kung

King Wu inquired of the T’ai Kung: “I want to attain our aim [of overthrowing the Shang], but I have three doubts. I am afraid that our strength will be inadequate to attack the strong, to estrange his close supporters within the court, and disperse his people. What shall I do?”

The T’ai Kung replied: “Accord with the situation, be very cautious in making plans, and employ your material resources. Now in order to attack the strong, you must nurture them to make them even stronger, and increase them to make them even more extensive. What is too strong will certainly break; what is too extensive must have deficiencies. Attack the strong through his strength. Cause the estrangement of his favored officials by using his favorites, and disperse his people by means of the people.

“Now in the Tao of planning, thoroughness and secrecy are treasured. You should become involved with him in numerous affairs and ply him with temptations of profit. Conflict will then surely arise.

“If you want to cause his close supporters to become estranged from him, you must do it by using what they love–making gifts to those he favors, giving them what they want. Tempt them with what they find profitable, thereby making them disaffected, and cause them to be unable to attain their ambitions. Those who cover profits will be extremely happy at the prospects, and their remaining doubts will be ended.

“Now without doubt the Tao for attacking is to first obfuscate the king’s clarity and then attack his strength, destroying his greatness and eliminating the misfortune of the people. Debauch him with beautiful women, entice him with profit. Nurture him with flavors, and provide him with the company of female musicians. Then after you have caused his subordinates to become estranged from him, you must cause the people to grow distant from him while never letting him know your plans. Appear to support him and draw him into your trap. Do not let him become aware of what is happening, for only then can your plan be successful.

“When bestowing your beneficence on the people, you cannot begrudge the expense. The people are like cows and horses. Frequently make gifts of food and clothing and follow up by loving them.

“The mind is the means to open up knowledge; knowledge the means to open up the source of wealth; and wealth the means to open up the people. Gaining the allegiance of the people is the way to attract Worthy men. When one is enlightened by Sagely advisors, he can become king of all the world.”

***

I first read that passage in The T’ai Kung‘s Six Secret Teachings, the first in The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, in the late ’90s, about the time that it was coming out that Bill Clinton had quietly sold nuclear secrets to the Communist Chinese. Many of the pieces fit then.

They fit even more now.

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