Peter Nealen's Blog, page 8

Monthly Livestream with Wargate

At 6PM Pacific/9Pm Eastern, we’ll be going live with The Emperors of Galaxy’s Edge and Wargate Books, Nick Cole and Jason Anspach.

A little over a year ago, Nick hit me up with a proposal for a new project. The end result has been The Lost, with more to come. So, tonight, we’ll be sitting down to talk about what Wargate is, how it came to be, where it’s going, and anything else that comes to mind. (If you’ve watched any of these livestreams before, you know that we can get off topic and get on tangents sometimes.)

It will be live on Facebook, and also here on Youtube:

The post Monthly Livestream with Wargate appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

Setting the Stage – Pallas Group Solutions

Pallas Group Solutions – Cutting-Edge Security in an Uncertain World

In a world of evolving, asymmetric, and increasingly networked threats, you need extraordinary security. Pallas Group Solutions’ special-operations-trained professionals have the experience, the skill, and the technology to keep your facilities and personnel safe and secure in the most unstable places on Earth.

Terrorism and war are no longer the only threats you need to be concerned about. Corporate and state espionage, violent crime, and political unrest all threaten to disrupt your operations, wherever you are.

Unconventional threats require unconventional solutions. That’s why our security professionals, drawn from the most elite units, are ready and equipped to monitor multi-spectrum threats in whatever country you’re doing business in, and act to avoid or neutralize them before they can disrupt your operations.

Don’t be vulnerable in a dangerous world. Contact Pallas Group Solutions today.

The post Setting the Stage – Pallas Group Solutions appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

Swords Against the Night

I didn’t have time to think that through before the keel scraped on what felt like solid ground. If we hadn’t been backing water, slowing precipitously already even before the mist had engulfed us, everyone aboard the ship would have been thrown to the deck by the abrupt halt.

We had just run aground, in the middle of deep water, miles out to sea.

After a moment, as I regained my equilibrium after the shock of that impact, I realized it felt like we were rising, being lifted above the water level. When I lurched to the rail and peered over the side, I saw only wet rock and silt beneath us. An island was rising out of the ocean, stranding the entire ship high and dry. It was still emerging, too, as the ground beneath us shuddered and shook like an earthquake.

The shuddering stopped. The mist seemed to thin, but only to reveal more flat, slimy rock, strewn with some seaweed and what looked like the flopping bodies of fish or eels. Strangely, the mist only appeared to be thinner off to starboard, where it had first appeared. The port side was still engulfed in gray.

The wind had died altogether, and the sails hung slack from the yardarm. Everything had gone quiet. Every man aboard the ship, Tuacha, Marine, or Menninkai, watched, weapons ready, listening and waiting.

A thin, hoarse voice called out from the murk. “Conor! Conor, help me!”

I swallowed, hard, as gooseflesh ran up my arms. I looked at Gunny, and saw that he’d recognized the voice, too.

It was impossible. That voice belonged to a dead man.

Sergeant Able Stanley had been killed that first night, only minutes after we’d come through the mists, his head ripped off after a sea troll had lunged out of the water and dragged him down into the depths. He’d been gone for months. We knew he was dead. We’d seen his corpse when it had bumped against the boat.

Yet, that was unmistakably his voice out there in the fog, somewhere on this strange island that had seemingly risen out of the sea in a matter of minutes.

“We’ve got point.” I quickly loaded my M110, checked that my sword was still on my hip, and went over the side.

***

Ancient Artifacts. New Enemies

When a strange island rises out of the sea right in front of their ship, Conor McCall and his fellow Recon Marines find themselves within sight of their new home… and fighting for their lives,.

The Deep Ones know about Conor’s sword, and they want it. Badly.

Fighting their way out of the ambush, the Marines and their allies find themselves drawn into the quest for the sword’s twin, far off to the east.

Others want to take both ancient swords as well, and the Marines find themselves pursued by an empire propped up by sorcery, and opposed by monsters and revenants that have guarded the way to the second ancient, blessed sword for ages.

All will find their mettle tested.

If they survive.

***

The hits just keep on coming. Swords Against the Night is out now on Kindle and Paperback, somewhat earlier than originally planned. As I type this, I’m 25k words into Book 5 – The Alchemy of Treason. Audio will be somewhat delayed, due to Mark Boyett’s schedule, but expect it later this year.

The post Swords Against the Night appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

Terror and Corruption: Marque and Reprisal is Out!

Surface To Air

“Kev! Up!” Wade had pivoted, bringing his MCX up as the second helo made a pass at the stern. Bullets smacked into steel and fiberglass around them, and both Blackhearts ducked, Curtis throwing himself flat just below the lip of the helipad.

He rolled over onto his back as the bird went by, wrenching the EVOLYS around and sending a burst at the receding aircraft’s tail. He couldn’t tell whether he’d hit it or not.

Levering himself to his feet, he hauled the EVOLYS up and searched for the helo. It was nose down, making tracks fast, banking off to the west, far astern of the yacht.

I still might be able to hit it. He shifted to the aft rail, bracing the machinegun and tracking in on the fleeing helicopter. He squeezed off a burst, but his range was off. Red tracers arced just beneath the bird, which jinked hard to avoid the fire and dove even closer to the water, turning away from the Dream Empire and banking violently from side to side to avoid the gunfire.

He fired one more burst, but between the helicopter’s motion, the widening range, and the yacht’s own rolling ride, he missed off to one side. Finally, with a blistering curse, he came off the gun.

Wade clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll get another chance.” He nodded toward the north, where the remaining speedboats had now come about and were heading away from the yacht as fast as they could. “They got a nasty surprise, but if they really want this boat, I think they’ll be back.”

***

It is release day! Brannigan’s Blackhearts #11 – Marque and Reprisal is out!

Ships are disappearing on the high seas…

…And no one knows why

A new threat darkens the waves

When ships with valuable—and often secret—cargoes begin to vanish far from the usual choke points and trouble spots, authorities are at a loss. Yet something must be done.

Brannigan’s Blackhearts have a new job.

Maritime security hasn’t usually been their bailiwick, but when Hector Chavez comes to Brannigan with the task, they take it.

They’re not ready for what they’ll meet out there.

A new, sophisticated pirate menace has emerged.

Will they defeat it? Or go down with the ship?

Marque and Reprisal  is out now on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited! (Paperback is available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon to come once some technical issues get fixed that are currently outside the author/publisher’s control.)

The post Terror and Corruption: Marque and Reprisal is Out! appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

Marque and Reprisal Chapter 3

Joe Flanagan scanned the water carefully, considering the angles. There was a good spot just upstream, where a sizeable boulder lay just beneath the surface, visible only as a slightly more noticeable stirring of the water. He saw another spot closer to the bank, though, where a fallen tree and a partially collapsed overhang had formed a sheltered pool.

He stayed where he was, motionless, quiet, set back from the bank so that he wouldn’t cast a shadow on the water, and watched for a while. After a few minutes, he circled around toward the pool formed by the fallen tree. Crouching down by a pine, he watched the water carefully for a few more minutes, before finally casting into the end of the pool.

It took a couple of casts, but finally the line tautened and the tip of the rod bent. He flicked upward, setting the hook, and then started to work the fish in toward the bank.

Even as he reeled in his catch, he heard the crunch of gravel under tires, the sound of a motor stopping, and then a door being shut. Despite the battering his hearing had taken over years of gunfire and helicopters, he could still pick out the footsteps through the woods behind him. He had his back to a tree, and wasn’t easy to see, but he still shifted his position so that he could spot whoever was approaching, even as he continued working to land the fish.

The big German Brown came out of the water, lashing its tail, and he caught it under the gills before removing the hook and putting it on the stringer. Then he turned to where Brannigan stood leaning against another tree.

“Colonel.”

“You’re a hard man to find, Joe.” Brannigan shoved off the tree trunk and came down to join him. “Nobody at the cabin, no note, and your phone’s turned off.”

Flanagan shrugged as he prepped his line again and went back to studying the water. “Rachel’s friends came to take her into town for the day. Something about shopping for the baby. So, I had the day to fish.” He cast again. “I take it we’ve got a job?”

“Possibly.” Brannigan found a fallen tree, well back from the water so as to avoid disturbing Flanagan’s fishing, and sat down. The Colonel was considerate that way. “It’s not necessarily our usual thing. Maritime security. Pay’s good, though. Better than usual.” He repeated the number he’d gotten from Chavez, which raised Flanagan’s eyebrow, even as the black-bearded man finished reeling in and looked for the right spot for his next cast. “From what we know at the moment, it’s probably just going to be a boring security guard job for the month or two it’ll take to cross the ocean, but it pays well.”

Flanagan looked over at him. “John, you know as well as I do that nobody pays that much just for glorified rent-a-cops. There’s got to be more going on.”

“I’m sure there is.” Brannigan filled him in on the brief he’d gotten from Chavez. “The problem is, I’m not exactly sure what the catch is, and right at the moment, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get any more info before we’re committed.”

“That could be a problem.” Flanagan cast again, but he wasn’t just talking aimlessly while he fished. Flanagan wasn’t the kind of man who ever talked aimlessly. He was thinking it through, just like Brannigan had been for the last day or so. “Good payday or no, it might suck to find ourselves out on the ocean with only a few popguns for months, while somebody’s making entire ships disappear.”

“If Fontaine really is worried about high-end pirates, I doubt that we’ll be underequipped.” When Flanagan turned to him with another raised eyebrow, Brannigan just shrugged. “There are a lot of variables, and if enough of the boys sign on, we’ll do what we can to nail as many of them down as possible before we set sail. Fontaine’s probably not going to be an easy nut to crack, information-wise. Nobody gets as rich as he is by being forthcoming when he doesn’t absolutely have to be.”

“Hmm. How much time do we have?” Flanagan reeled in his line one more time, but this time he kept bringing it in, catching the line and securing the hook to the small loop just above the reel before tightening it down to keep the lure from swinging free.

“About two weeks.” Brannigan levered himself to his feet. Flanagan was in. He hadn’t needed to say much more than that. “We actually got a good amount of forewarning this time.”

Flanagan nodded as he and the Colonel started back toward the vehicles, picking up his stringer as he went. “Well, I think we’ve been on the bench long enough since Kyrgyzstan that most everybody will be up for this one, even if it does turn out to be a snore-fest.” He paused as they threaded their way through the trees. Flanagan hadn’t taken a trail down to the river. That was a good way to find a spot that had already been overfished. “Split the calls again?” Originally, that had been between Brannigan and Santelli, but Flanagan had taken over that side of the operation when he’d taken Roger Hancock’s place as the team’s Number Two.

“Sure.”

Flanagan thought for a moment. “Do we call in that Tackett dude? He seemed interested.”

Brannigan mused on it. “No, he seemed pretty set on just going after the Humanity Front. This doesn’t feel like them, somehow. They wouldn’t keep this so quiet. When they come out of the woodwork, they’re trying to sow chaos, to cover for whatever sick game they’ve got in the works this time, to ‘improve the state of the world.’” He shook his head. “If we have a good reason to think it’s the Front, we’ll call him in. Until then, it’s just us.”

“Fair.” Ahead, they could see the faint outlines of their respective trucks. Flanagan didn’t live all that far from Brannigan’s place, which made contact simpler. “I’ll get the usual.”

“One other thing.” Brannigan paused before turning to his own vehicle. “We’re down a medic again, after Herc went down. Have you got any ideas?”

Flanagan stowed his fishing gear in his truck. “Actually, I do. One of our old platoon corpsmen.”

“Which one?” Brannigan frowned. Flanagan glanced over at him, knowing that the Old Man probably knew exactly who he was about to name.

“Puller.”

Brannigan frowned. “Haven’t heard that name in a long time. He was a bit of a hothead, wasn’t he?”

“He could be.” Flanagan chuckled. “I still don’t know how you manage to remember every single dude who served under you by name, John.”

“It fills up memory that might otherwise be wasted with movies and random bullshit.” Brannigan pulled his door open. “Okay, give him a shot. I’ll leave it up to your judgement whether or not he’s good.”

“Meet at your place?” Flanagan climbed up on his own running board.

“I’ll let you know. It might be better to go straight to Charleston and put our ears to the ground.” Brannigan slid behind the wheel of his truck. “With the limited amount of information we have, I want as much time to snoop around as we can get.”

***

Carlo Santelli looked up at the bang and the curse that followed immediately after it. He shook his head. Prado could be a bit high-strung. He was a good mechanic, though.

Santelli returned his attention to the search for parts. Parts for the 1960 Chevelle currently in the garage were getting harder to find, and more expensive as a consequence. He’d found what he was looking for, but he was still hoping to find a better deal.

His little auto restoration business was booming, and that was why he’d brought Don Prado on. The man was a great mechanic and had a passion for old cars, and he and Carlo had known each other for the better part of forty years, anyway. The partnership had been natural.

The phone buzzed. Santelli sighed. They had a full job list for the next six months. There simply wasn’t room for any more projects. Still, he should at least answer it.

It wasn’t a customer looking to get old car fixed up. It was Brannigan.

“What have we got, sir?” If Santelli’s Boston Italian accent had softened a little during his many years in the Marine Corps, moving back to the old neighborhood had only made it thicker.

“On the surface, it’s a maritime security op. Might be more to it. It’ll probably be a couple of months.” As always, Brannigan was pretty terse over the phone. What the Blackhearts did often skated the edge of illegal, where it didn’t throw itself right over that line at a dead sprint. “Can Melissa and the business spare you that long?”

“I’ve got a partner now, and it might slow things down a little, but he’s a good dude. He can handle it. As for Melissa…” He sighed. “I’ll talk to her.”

Brannigan paused. “Anything wrong?”

“No, sir. Nothing’s wrong. We’ve had a long talk about it. Several long talks, as a matter of fact.” He sighed again. “It’s not as hard on her anymore. She understands that I can’t just let you guys go while I stay back. She gets it. I never thought she would, but she does.”

“You’ve got a remarkable wife, Carlo.”

“I know it, sir. When and where?”

“Charleston, as soon as you can get there. There’s a lot of snooping around that needs to get done before we go to sea. A lot of unknowns on this job. Drills can happen once we’re underway.”

Santelli did some reading between the lines. “Understood. Need me to handle any of the calls?”

“Not right now. Flanagan and I have it covered.”

“Roger that, sir. I’ll see you in Charleston.” He hung up the phone and headed into the garage to let Prado know what was going on. The other man didn’t know a lot of details about Santelli’s other career, but he knew enough that he wouldn’t be that surprised.

Another bang was followed by another curse. It was probably going to get a little louder in there in the next few minutes.

***

“Cease fire! Cease fucking fire!”

John Wade stormed across the range and shouldered between two of the students, snatching the pistol out of the young man’s hands, careful to keep the muzzle pointed up and downrange. “What the fuck was that?”

“What?” The kid looked shocked and angry. “I was just talking to her.”

“You had your fucking muzzle pointed at her leg and your finger on the fucking trigger!” The sheer force of Wade’s rage made the young man, his curly hair not quite long enough to get Wade to call him a hippy, but far longer than he liked, take a step back. “Get off the range!”

“Hey, I paid for this!” The kid apparently didn’t have a great sense of self preservation.

For a long moment, Wade just stared at him, unblinking, his icy blue eyes finally making the kid second-guess his indignation at getting yelled at.

“Yes, you paid. And I’ll make sure you get fully reimbursed.” That almost physically hurt to say. Damn, I hate working with civvies. “You aren’t staying on this range one more minute, though. You’re a threat to yourself and everyone around you. Get moving.”

At first, it looked like the kid was going to argue. Everyone else on the line was looking at him, and anger stirred in his eyes, but as Wade took another step closer, the kid realized that a fight was not going to go his way. John Wade, formerly of the 75th Ranger Regiment, stood half a head taller and easily seventy-five pounds heavier. He hadn’t gone slack at all since his retirement several years before, and he really hadn’t mellowed much, either.

“Hey, I’m a paying customer!”

“Not anymore, you’re not. Get off my range.” He took another step, and the kid finally decided that discretion was the better part of valor. With a bitter curse, the young man spat on the ground and turned to leave, his departure becoming somewhat speedier when Wade took another fast step toward him, murder in his eyes.

As the kid retreated rapidly toward the parking lot, Wade unloaded the pistol, grimacing as he considered that he was going to have to give the weapon back. Not with bullets in it, I’m not. He shucked the rounds out of the magazine. “Everybody take ten, jam mags, get some water, take a bathroom break.” He started after the kid, gritting his teeth at the knowledge of how this was probably going to go.

His phone buzzed in his pocket before he’d gotten halfway to the parking lot. Glad for a moment’s reprieve from having to give the moron’s Glock back, he stopped and looked at it.

“Joe. Tell me we’ve got a job.”

Flanagan sounded slightly nonplused. “How’s the range going, John?”

“Well, the business is actually running slightly more smoothly without Jenkins around to screw it up.” The former SEAL had gone down like a hero, and that had regained him some points in all of their eyes, but Wade was not a sentimental man. “The quality of the customers, however, is wildly variable.”

He wondered if Flanagan could hear him grinding his teeth over the phone.

“It can be that way sometimes.” Flanagan knew Wade well enough to know what his temperament was like. “We do have a job. On the surface, it’s a straight-up maritime security op.”

“Gross.” Wade looked up at the parking lot and grimaced. “Not looking forward to sitting on a ship for a couple of months. What’s the pay?”

Flanagan told him. “That ain’t nothin’.” He sighed. “It can’t be much more frustrating than this. When and where?” That was the matter of moments. “I’ll be there. Now I’ve got to go give this idiot his Glock back and give him another lecture on the importance of gun safety before I finish kicking him off my range.” Technically, it had been Don Hart’s range, but he’d left it to the Blackhearts when he’d been killed in Chad.

“Just don’t kill him. I’ll see you in Charleston.”

 

Marque and Reprisal is out on Kindle and Paperback July 18.

The post Marque and Reprisal Chapter 3 appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

Marque and Reprisal Chapter 2

“Dad? Looks like Uncle Hector’s here.”

John Brannigan looked up from the table. Hank, leaner and shorter than his father by several inches, was peering out the door at the driveway, noticeably staying out of the light, off to one side, where a newcomer shouldn’t be able to see him. The boy had been an officer, but he’d learned. He should have, given the fact that his old man had been something of an infantry legend. Still. He’d learned even more since he’d left the Marine Corps and become a member of the secretive mercenary team that called itself Brannigan’s Blackhearts.

Brannigan shut the ledger in front of him with a faint frown and got up to step around the table and move to the other window. Sure enough, that was Hector Chavez’s car pulling up the driveway. “That’s weird. Usually he calls ahead.”

“Maybe the cell signal’s not working up here again.”

“Wouldn’t that be a shame,” Brannigan growled. The only reason he had the infernal device in the first place was because of the Blackhearts. Otherwise, he would have been perfectly happy to go completely off grid up here.

Thrusting his .45 into the back of his waistband, just in case, he opened the door and stepped out as the dark blue sedan came to a halt and the driver—it was Chavez, he could see clearly enough through the windshield to be sure of that—shut off the engine. Then the only sound was the wind whispering through the tops of the pines all around.

Chavez opened the door and levered himself out, holding up his hands. “I know, I know. I didn’t call ahead.” He looked around at the shadows under the trees. “I think you’ll agree that it was probably better to leave this off the airwaves.”

Brannigan raised an eyebrow at that, but he just waved the smaller man toward the house and turned to go back inside. It was a nice day, but if Chavez was that worried about surveillance, then they probably should head inside, just in case.

Chavez was about a head shorter than Brannigan, but at the former Marine Colonel’s six-foot-five, that wasn’t that difficult. He had slimmed down since his retirement, just shy of getting stars, which had come shortly after Brannigan’s own somewhat unwilling departure from the Marine Corps, but that had also been necessitated by Chavez’s heart problems.

Hank greeted his father’s old friend, then stepped back toward the rear of the cabin, unsure as to whether he should stay or not. “Stay put, Hank. This concerns you, too.” Chavez was slow to sit down, stretching as he looked around the small log house that Brannigan had built for his wife, now in her grave for several years. It was neat, but it was a military neatness, the result of long habit on the part of both father and son, without the homey touch that a woman would have brought. He glanced at Hank, but if he’d thought of something to say about that, he kept it to himself.

Brannigan had been working outside most of the morning, and he and Chavez went way back, so he didn’t stand on ceremony. He went to the cupboard, pulled down a bottle of bourbon, poured two glasses, and shoved one across the table to Chavez as he sat down. It was early, but this was apparently a business visit, so he figured it was appropriate. And while Chavez was a pro, and wasn’t one to wear his feelings on his sleeve, something about his manner told Brannigan that this was going to be a doozy.

“What have you got, Hector?” He leaned back in his chair as Chavez took a sip of the whiskey.

Chavez took a deep breath before he answered. “My company just recently got solicited for a job.” Chavez had been running an aboveboard maritime security concern since his retirement, which often served as a useful front for his side gig of setting up jobs for Brannigan’s Blackhearts. He had contacts throughout the military and security worlds, and he heard a lot, not to mention having logistical connections that often came in handy for transportation and support. “On the surface, it looks like any other maritime security gig.”

Hank stifled a groan. Chavez chuckled slightly. Maritime security, for all its romantic air of fighting pirates, often boiled down to months of unutterable boredom aboard a ship, in cramped quarters with bad food, with bare-bones weapons and equipment. For those who knew the security contracting world, it was decent money but generally undesirable work.

It also wasn’t up the Blackhearts’ usual alley. They were problem solvers, not security guards. They went into dark, dangerous places, killed who needed killing, and got out.

“On the surface, I said.” Chavez finally pulled up a chair. “The more I looked into it, the more I saw that there’s more going on than it appears.

“There’s been a string of pirate attacks over the last several months that have been outside the usual pattern. Ordinarily, pirates tend to congregate near choke points, like the Horn of Africa, the Straits of Malacca, places like that. High-traffic sea lanes where they can dart out, take a freighter or a tanker, hold it for ransom, or, like the West African pirates, just kill the crew and sell the cargo.

“These attacks, though, haven’t gone down near any of the usual hot spots. They’ve all been way out in the open ocean.” He took another sip of the bourbon. “In fact, the whole thing might have been put down to a series of unlikely accidents if not for one ship that managed to get a message out before they were cut off. After that, looking at the pattern of high-value, often secret, cargoes that have gone missing over the last six months, it’s become apparent that there is a highly sophisticated pirate group operating in the Atlantic. To make matters worse, it looks like whoever they are, they’re following the Nigerian pirate model of making the crews disappear and taking the cargo. They might be sinking the ships, or they might be transporting them somewhere else after disabling their transponders. We simply don’t know.

“Insurance companies are starting to quietly panic. So far, the problem isn’t advanced enough that it’s gotten much notice, but it’s only a matter of time.” He chuckled slightly. “There is another reason it hasn’t necessarily been in the news lately, though. Apparently, a Navy counter-piracy task force went out looking for the pirates last month and came up empty. The Pentagon does not want that getting out.”

“So,” Brannigan mused, “the client wants some actual pirate hunters?”

“Not in so many words, but it can be read between the lines. The owner of the Dream Empire wants as elite a maritime security team as he can get for a passage from Charleston, South Carolina to Cyprus.” Chavez took another sip, watching Brannigan closely.

For his part, Brannigan didn’t react except to sample his own drink. “You say that name as if it means something, but I’m not familiar with the ship.”

“It’s a super yacht, sister ship to the Octopus. Four hundred feet, with two helipads and even its own submersible. It’s one of only two such yachts in the world. And Joshua Fontaine is the owner.”

Brannigan did raise an eyebrow at that. Even as far up in the hills as he lived, and as generally disinterested in the world of celebrities and the rich and famous as he might be, he’d still heard of the billionaire playboy and philanthropist. He trusted such people about as far as he could throw his truck.

“So, Fontaine is worried about his toy?” Hank was leaning against the wall near the back door, his arms folded. Shorter than his father by an inch and lighter by about fifty pounds, he took more after his mother, and Chavez could see it.

“So it would seem. Once again, that’s the surface level. Turns out that a cargo that went missing last month belonged to one of Fontaine’s shell companies. From what I’ve been able to ascertain, it’s the first time any of his interests have been targeted. He’s worried.” Chavez turned back to Brannigan, who was thinking things through, his eyes narrowed. “I know that security guard on a ship isn’t exactly your bailiwick, but between the irregularities about this job and the size of the offered paycheck, I thought I’d bring it to you.”

“How big a paycheck?” Brannigan asked.

Chavez named a figure. Hank’s eyebrows shot up. Brannigan just nodded coolly. “It’s a chunk of change. Almost enough to offset the fact that a maritime security gig is going to be a tough sell to these guys. Most of them could probably retire on what we’ve made over the last few years. Except for maybe Curtis.” He leaned his elbows on the table and swirled the whiskey in his glass. “The ‘irregularities,’ as you put it, might be the selling point. We’d have to know more about exactly what Fontaine has in mind, though. Is he just trying to keep his investment safe, or is he really looking for a paramilitary force to cross swords with the pirates?”

“That’s a little hard to say.” Chavez poured the last of the bourbon down his throat. “The job description was necessarily vague. He probably can’t come out and say that he’s looking for private pirate hunters, not legally. Since it is Fontaine, though, and he’s got more money than Midas, I’m sure that it’ll come out sooner or later, probably once you’re twelve nautical miles out to sea.”

Brannigan snorted softly. “Sounds about right.” He ran a hand over his mustache. “I’ll put it to the boys. No guarantees at this point, but if there really is somebody out there disappearing ships, it might be something we should look into. Even if the client just wants nice, quiet security guards.”

Chavez chuckled. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Brannigan poured them each a second drink. “Won’t be the last.”

 

Marque and Reprisal is out on Kindle and Paperback on July 18.

The post Marque and Reprisal Chapter 2 appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

Marque and Reprisal Chapter 1

The attack was swift and completely unexpected.

Carl Hild hardly noticed the roll of the deck beneath his feet as he headed below, toward his cabin. He was still miserable. I never should have taken this gig.

The money wasn’t bad. The job itself, though…

Hild had been to just about every port in the world over the last twenty years. He’d sailed with all kinds of crews, from the good, to the bad, to the incompetent and depraved. None of them quite matched this nightmare.

Not that the crew itself was bad. Even the captain, drunk though he was, knew his business and generally treated his subordinates fairly. Even the route wasn’t bad.

No, it was the client.

The Tonka Canyon wasn’t the biggest oceangoing cargo ship out there, and her cargoes often only just about broke even. This time, though, the container at the forefront of the hold was supposed to pay for the whole voyage by itself, and that was leaving aside the other stuff they’d taken on to fill the rest of the hold.

It just didn’t feel worth it. The container had come with its own security detail and supervisor. And that was where the pain started.

The supervisor, who had introduced herself as simply Ms. Schrute, had never been to sea before, and it showed. Her intermittent seasickness, though, hadn’t humbled her, or even kept her out of the way. Instead, it had apparently strengthened her determination to be underfoot every minute of every day, obnoxiously reminding them of the importance of the cargo, questioning every single decision made by the captain or the officer of the watch, and generally making every second of the voyage a study in misery. She knew nothing about how to sail a cargo ship, and yet she had to be a part of every single action and decision.

They couldn’t get to Lisbon fast enough.

He got to his cabin, still morosely brooding over how many days they still had at sea, when something made him stop dead.

Hild might be miserable, but that hadn’t changed the fact that he was a professional. He’d been on too many ships, too many times across the ocean, not to quickly become attuned to every noise aboard the vessel. Sometimes realizing that something didn’t sound right might mean the difference between getting to port intact and becoming another statistic of ships lost at sea. Ocean voyages might not be as dangerous as they had been back in the early days, but the sea was still a dangerous bitch, and mechanical failures could happen to anyone.

This sound was different. It resonated through the hull, like someone had just taken a jackhammer to the bulkhead.

Tired as he was from his shift, it took Hild a moment to identify the sound. When he realized what he’d just heard, his blood ran cold.

Gunfire.

He froze in the hatchway leading into the cabin he shared with Ignacio Ybarra. Another burst of gunfire rang through the hull.

He was a merchant sailor. He’d been in his share of bar fights, but that was hardly the same thing as gunfights. He didn’t know what to do. Even the piracy drills they’d run just after leaving port didn’t seem to fit the situation at the moment; whoever was shooting was already on board.

Another hammering report, sounding like it came from one deck up, decided him. He ducked into the cabin, swung the hatch shut, and dogged it. Then he scrambled into his bunk and crammed himself into the corner, watching the hatchway and hoping that the pirates took out Schrute and her goons and left the rest of the ship alone.

***

The short, wiry man’s dark eyes had looked on carnage and torture, had seen atrocities that would have made a serial killer blanch. The dead bodies lying on the deck, leaking blood out onto the steel, didn’t even merit a passing glance.

He walked calmly down the ladderwell into the hold, passing two of the men in storm gray fatigues, maritime plate carriers, and helmets, their faces covered, black Vector R4 rifles in their gloved hands, as he approached the lone cargo container tied down to the deck, separated from the rest of the ship’s cargo by a space of about ten feet. Six more of the men in gray stood there, weapons in hand, covering the two still-living maritime security men and the woman, all of them down on their knees. One of the security contractors was bleeding, dripping red fluid onto the deck in front of him, his head bent. The other was bruised and drooling a little. He was probably concussed.

The man whom even his gray-clad subordinates only knew as El Salvaje stepped in front of the woman and stood there for a moment, silently, until she finally looked up. He pointed to the container. “Open it.”

Her eyes were wide, but she was apparently still in some denial about the realities of the situation. “I don’t know who you are, but you’ve picked the absolute wrong ship to try to hijack. Do you have any idea who owns that container? You’re going to be hunted down, no matter where you try to hide.”

If El Salvaje had been a little more inclined to humor, he might have smiled. She hadn’t even tried the “if you go away now, no one will follow you” gambit. She’d just blustered.

He let his rifle hang on its sling, drew his Star M-43, and shot the bleeding contractor through the head.

The report rang through the hold, and the woman flinched violently as the man’s blood and brains spattered on the container behind them and he fell on his face. El Salvaje shifted the weapon toward the woman’s face. “Open it. Or we will kill you and open it anyway.”

The woman was shaking, now. She nodded, the movement spasmodic, and two of the gray-clad pirates hauled her to her feet. With trembling fingers, she began to put in the code on the container’s cipher lock. She was shaking so badly that it took three tries, especially since El Salvaje still had his pistol pointed, unmoving, at her head.

Finally, the cipher lock opened, and she stepped back. El Salvaje shot her in the head, a fine mist of blood spattering the container side as she crumpled to the deck. The other pirates had stepped back as soon as the lock had disengaged, knowing what was coming.

The last contractor started at the pistol’s report. “Hey, what the—” He was cut off by another gunshot, and fell on his face, motionless.

El Salvaje stayed where he was and motioned with the pistol toward the container doors. The pirate who had pushed the woman toward the doors hesitated, just for a moment, but when El Salvaje turned those cold, black eyes on him, he quickly stepped forward to pull the doors open.

The short, dark murderer joined the pirate and peered into the container, holstering his pistol and drawing a flashlight to shine it around the inside of the container. He scanned the contents for a moment before nodding in satisfaction. “Close it up.” He turned on his heel. “Get the rest of the crew up on the deck.”

***

Hild tried not to move or make a sound as someone rattled the hatch, then banged on it loudly. He did his utmost to stay absolutely still, a hole in the very atmosphere of the ship.

Whoever was out there hammered on the hatch again. He forced himself to hold his breath. It was ridiculous to think that anyone could hear his breathing through the steel hatch, but he tried it, anyway.

A muffled voice sounded outside. Then he heard a pop, then a hiss. A moment later, that hiss got louder, and then a point of brilliant light burst through the hatch, just below the first of the dogs.

He scrambled back, or he tried to. He was already up against the bulkhead. All he could do was watch as the torch burned through the hatch, until finally it was wrenched aside and tossed on the deck with a clang.

Two men in gray, their faces covered beneath their helmets, pointed rifles at him. “Get out. Now.”

For a fraction of a second, Hild considered trying to fight. That lasted about as long as it took for the thought to form. After hearing the gunfire echoing through the ship, he had no doubt that they’d shoot him to doll rags in a heartbeat. Putting his hands up, he wormed his way out of his hidey hole and went with them, trying not to burn himself on the still-smoking bits of metal where the hatch had been attached as one of them let his weapon hang and reached out to grab him roughly and haul him through.

Neither of the men in gray said a word as they shoved him roughly up onto the fantail, where he blinked in the sun as a rough, gloved hand shoved him from behind and made him stumble. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, at which point he saw that the rest of the crew, minus the security contractors and Ms. Schrute, were lined up at the rail, their hands on their heads, facing out to sea. Half a dozen men in gray fatigues, combat gear, and helmets, with wicked-looking military rifles in their hands, stood behind and to one side of the crew.

His captors shoved him hard again, and he staggered toward the rail. “Put your hands on your head.” He stumbled again as he tried to comply, and he was grabbed roughly by the back of the neck and propelled the rest of the way by main force, shoved between Rafe Munoz and Kit Harris. “Don’t move.”

He wanted to look to either side, to see if the others were okay, and if they might have some consolation, some reassurance that they were going to get through this. They’d be hostages, he was sure, but the crews usually made it through, right?

The sight of a speedboat coming from the Ro-Ro cargo ship just off the stern, loaded with men in coveralls, didn’t lift his spirits. That looked like a skeleton crew for a freighter, not more pirates. Why were they coming here?

He tried to look over his shoulder, but he was suddenly prodded by the hard jab of a rifle muzzle. “Eyes front!”

Hild strained his ears for anything that might tell him what was going to happen next. He suddenly found himself thinking about home. Even his ex-wife didn’t seem like such a bitch, right then. And to think, he’d been bitching and moaning about Schrute and her goons less than half an hour ago.

The first shot startled him. He snapped his head around, just in time to see the captain go over the fantail and fall limply toward the ocean.

Then the row of pirates behind them opened fire. He heard a thunderous chorus of hammering reports for just a split second before a fiery pain stabbed through his torso, and then he was falling.

He was dead before he hit the water.

***

“You think this is worth adding to the fleet?” The short, stumpy man spoke with a slight Afrikaner accent. He hadn’t bothered to cover his face; there was no need, with the crew having been disposed of.

El Salvaje didn’t know for sure why most of these men saw fit to do that, since the crews were all expendable, regardless. No one was going to be left to report on any of them, no matter the target.

“Do you have the men or equipment to offload that container?” El Salvaje studied the Afrikaner with hooded, dead eyes. The blond man looked away quickly.

Any other man might have turned away from the other pirate in disgust, but El Salvaje had not survived jobs with cartels, the Venezuelan-backed FARC, or any number of other such groups around the world by relying on his own formidable reputation for his safety. He watched the Afrikaner until the pirate turned away to find some other task that needed doing.

El Salvaje stood where he could keep his back to a bulkhead, and still see what needed to be watched, and thought. Taking this cargo would be a warning shot. He didn’t necessarily agree, but he wasn’t there to strategize for the fleet. That was Cain’s job. It was his fleet. El Salvaje’s job was to kill whoever Cain wanted killed, and collect his share of the loot, at least until it was time to disappear and move on again.

Of course, the warning implicit in making this particular package disappear was probably superfluous, given what had gone down over the last month. But again, that wasn’t his problem.

Behind the freighter, as the pirate crew brought it around toward the north, the sharks began to gather, ready to feast on the corpses still floating in the ship’s wake.

 

Marque and Reprisal comes out on Kindle and Paperback July 18.

The post Marque and Reprisal Chapter 1 appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

The Guns of Marque and Reprisal

Returning to the Brannigan’s Blackhearts series once more, it’s time for the traditional guns post. There’s slightly less variety this time around, but it’s a more contained sort of story, too.

Once the Blackhearts get aboard the ship they’ve been hired to protect from an advanced group of pirates, they get issued weapons by the client. That means all the same primaries, namely SIG MCX Virtus carbines in 5.56×45.

The sidearms are all issued, as well. The client’s security coordinator goes for the basics, with Glock 19s.

Initially, that’s all they get, to Kevin Curtis’s fury. However, once things start to get kinetic, it turns out that the client was slightly more prepared for the well-equipped, well-trained pirates than it appeared. With money to burn, too. Curtis and Bianco both end up wielding FN EVOLYS ultralight machineguns, also in 5.56.

The pirates are a little more black market. Their primary weapons are South African Vektor R4s in 5.56.

For machineguns, they have a few Vektor Mini-SS 5.56 belt-feds, presumably from the same shipment the R4s came from.

Pistols are a little bit more eclectic among the pirates. We don’t necessarily get to see many of them, but the pirate chief, Cain, carries a SIG P226.

His right hand, the underworld mercenary known only as “El Salvaje,” carries a Star M-43 in 9mm.

 

Brannigan’s Blackhearts #11 – Marque and Reprisal comes out on Kindle and Paperback on July 18.

The post The Guns of Marque and Reprisal appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

June Livestream Tonight

It’s that time of the month: time for the American Praetorians livestream (or whatever we’re calling this). At 6PM PST/9PM EST, I’ll be going live once again with Mike Kupari, Coop LoPresto, and special guest James Rosone. We’ll be talking about warfare and how it’s changed, how some of the “new” changes are actually quite timeless, and how thriller writers and prognosticators past and present have gotten things right, and other things quite wrong.

Tune in on Facebook, or on YouTube, here:

Also, if you want to support us, check out Mike’s Amazon page, and James Rosone’s.

The post June Livestream Tonight appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

May Livestream Tonight

For those interested, I’ll be doing the May/Option Zulu livestream tonight. I won’t be alone this time, either, as I’ll have fellow author Mike Kupari and our friend Coop LoPresto joining me.

Tune in at 2100 EST.

The post May Livestream Tonight appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.