by J. Manuel
John congratulated him, throwing an arm around him. “You still got it Duckhunt!”
Doug came up and threw a big paw on him, nearly dropping him with the heavy blow. “Duckhunt huh? I was the kid who sat up close to the TV and touched the gun right onto the glass and shot my ducks that way! Perfect score every time!”
Jak nodded her approval as she walked back to the firing line and smiled the most beautiful, sexually inviting, and yet standoffish smile he’d ever seen. The smile did not quite meet her eyes, which held a steady, penetrating aim on his.
As the crowd dispersed, John introduced Jacob to a small group that was hanging back: Tanner, a burly tattooed, biker type with a shaved head and long, well-groomed beard; Odin, a thick, intense man who looked every part the Viking. “You’ve already gotten acquainted with Doug here.”
“And…Where’s Tim? Oh yeah, he’s kind of hard to spot.” John pointed over to a slender kid who looked all of twelve years old. Tim looked five and a half feet tall, one hundred and fifty pounds, and that was being generous. His torso was almost absorbed by the flak jacket that he wore. His eyes were covered by his ill-fitting, boonie cover, the frill of which broke in waves around his head. Tim’s pubescent voice cracked as he introduced himself. Jacob heard the mixed twang of a rural New England accent. Tim extended his hand. His delicate fingers protruded from an equally delicate wrist, which was attached to the smallest arm Jacob had seen on a military man. But tattooed in green ink, up on the shoulder, was the unmistakable Eagle, Globe and Anchor.
Tim smiled sheepishly, “Yup. My one and only motto tattoo! I got it during SOI, out in J-Ville!” The most successful establishments surrounding Camp Lejeune were strip-clubs, tattoo parlors, bars, and IHOP. Tim hardly looked the part of a Marine turned private contractor. He was a soft-spoken, intellectual type, who sported the body to support that assessment. Perhaps the most important lesson that Jacob had learned in his time in the Marines, however, was to never underestimate anybody who had earned the EGA.
“I’ve got some bad news,” John interrupted. “You know your Parris Island record?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, Tim here broke it.”
“That’s not possible,” he retorted with incredulity. “I shot a perfect score and hit x-rings the entire course of fire.”
“That you did, but Tim here shot a perfect score on Pre-qualification Day and on Qualification Day. From what I remember you dropped a shot on the five-hundred yard line on Pre-qual day. Not Tim.” John’s emphasis was accompanied by another shit-eating-grin.
Tim squinted behind the drooping rim of his boonie. “Sorry about that. I wish I could do something to change it if it meant a lot to you.” The apology was sincere, and it was delivered with the affable, nervous stutter of Jimmy Stewart.
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Jacob spent the next week engulfed in intensive training at the XPS facility. Jak pushed the training tempo of the teams. John coached Jacob and his team throughout. By week’s end, they were operating as a well-oiled machine gun. For Jacob the training was remedial. And though it had been etched into his mind, it had also been buried under years of soft, nasty, civilian life. And to a Marine, ‘nasty-civilian’ was the n-word! Though his body faltered, and his movements came forced and labored, his mind was sharp and his leadership skills had not faded. While his muscles were older, slower, weaker, and atrophied at times, they slowly remembered. He accepted it and adapted to his new limitations.
Jacob had been expected to fill the leadership void and he surpassed expectations. His leadership was so effective that his team matched most of the other teams’ performance. The teams practiced convoy security in both day and night operations, with and without enemy contact. They also practiced tactical assaults in urban areas. Jacob’s team honed its skills in leaps and bounds mostly due to his ability to make accurate and quick assessments of each scenario.
John, prouder than ever, commended Jacob for his progress. “Your guys looked like dog-shit just a couple of days ago, especially you, but you’ve picked it up over the last couple of days.”
Jacob took the ribbing in stride. It was an honest assessment of his progress. “Thanks John. I’ve been trying to get used to wearing all of this gear again. I’m old man. This is a young guys’ game. No forty-year-old fart should be trying to weekend warrior his way through this.” Jacob knew that John would appreciate the self-deprecation and the indirect jab thrown his way. “By the way, John, you weren’t kidding about the training here. It’s pretty impressive. Plus this gear,” Jacob patted his ballistic vest, helmet, and night vision goggles. “This stuff is no joke. This is better gear than we had back in the Corps.”
“Yeah, pretty sweet, isn’t it. I thought you’d enjoy all the perks of working for the dark side of XPS.”
“My question is what’s with all of the getup anyways? Whatever we’re escorting must be worth a fortune because all of this gear seems like it would set XPS back a pretty penny, especially outfitting a few teams.”
“Well, here at Special Services, we actually need all of this equipment. We deliver and protect very, high-value assets for our employers.”
“So what kind of assets do we protect?” It was an innocent enough question but John’s response was guarded.
“They don’t tell us, and it’s not our job to know. We just get package X from point A to point B. The rest is need-to-know. And guess what?”
“Got it,” Jacob was used to not being told about details beyond his paygrade, but he’d always had the knack for finding them out.
“If we need to take special precautions with a package, for example, if it needs to be carried in a box with lead shielding, or in a cryogenic box, or if it needs to be shipped in a box with air holes, we come prepared. Other than that, the client ensures that the asset is ready for transport before we pick it up. From that point forward, from the time we step off and hit the line of departure until we rendezvous with the client, it’s our ass if something happens to it.”
“Jesus John, lead shielding, cryogenics, air holes, what the hell are we talking about here?”
“Jacob, we get paid good money. I mean really good money for what we do and it isn’t because we’re delivering Girl Scout Cookies. One time, we delivered an endangered Javan Rhino from Indonesia to Texas. We weren’t supposed to know, but come on, how do you really hide a rhino?”
“A rhino? Are you serious? I’m guessing this wasn’t on the up and up? It’s not like you showed up to customs with a rhino.”
“Nope. We snuck him in through Mexico!” John started cracking up as Jacob stood dumbfounded. “One of my team members almost became rhino paste. Do you know those things are insanely mean? We almost had to shoot it to make sure that it didn’t kill our guy, but that of course would have cost us our fucking paychecks, if not our jobs. Rumor has it the contract was worth five million dollars just so some old, fat-fuck could wake up, have a nice breakfast, take a sloppy shit, get driven up within a few feet of the rhino, and shoot it from his Land Rover as if he was some great white hunter on safari. Well the rhino’s head is probably mounted in that asshole’s living room somewhere in Texas right now.”
Jacob shook his head with incredulity and a bit of pause. He had imagined something a little more toned down, but then again he had asked John for more action. John noticed his hesitation.
“Don’t get cold feet, Jacob. Most of the time, all of this hardware is more of a show of force than anything, but sometimes we need to use it. There have been occasions when people have taken shots at our guys.” John was deadly serious. “You won’t be near any of that action. You’ll be working safe jobs stateside, nothing overseas. Those are the ugly ones.” Jacob recognized the cold stare that filled John’s eyes. It was the stare that he had seen looking back at him in the mirror during his deployments in Iraq. It was the hollow stare of a soul that had absorbed and dealt death. His stare had faded over the years, but John’s had never gone away.
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Friday evening came, and the week’s training was complete. After the final debrief, Jacob headed to his room and packed for the trip home. He was sore but he was happier than he had been in a long time. He had survived! The bruises, cuts, and scrapes throughout his body told the story of the week. Reflecting in the mirror, they looked more serious. He didn’t know how Sarah would receive them. He remembered a time when she liked them. She would protest, of course, worrying that her husband was getting hurt, but deep down she liked them. It reinforced her idea that she was a warrior’s wife. He liked when she played nurse. But that was years ago. Now he was a father, and a warrior’s life seemed incompatible.
Jacob grabbed his suitcase and slung his sea bag over his shoulder as he left his room. He bumped into Doug in the hallway. Tim was not too far behind him as well. “Looks like it’s us three,” Doug bellowed. “The others took off right for town. They’re gonna be hitting the bars pretty hard. Us married guys are heading home to see the boss!”
Jacob looked at Tim trying to hide his disbelief, “You married, Tim?”
“Not legally, but spiritually.” Tim blushed with genuine embarrassment.
“Tim here is dating a girl he met back when he was at infantry school. Can you believe that and he hasn’t married her yet?”
“I’m working up to it.”
“Do you want to know the best part?” Doug could hardly wait to give the answer. “She was a stripper and she gave it all up for him!”
Jacob’s jaw dropped. “No! Timmy. Tim. Say it ain’t so. And here I thought that you were a nice boy.”
“Don’t sleep on young Tim here. He is a straight killer with the ladies. He recites them poetry and uses all of this emotional shit to get into their panties.” Doug slapped Tim across the back with his giant telephone pole of an arm, sending Tim careening into the corridor wall.
“You two philistines are so vulgar,” Tim retorted.
The ride home was full of laughter and vulgarities. Though they were polar opposites physically, Doug and Tim shared a good-natured personality that made them easy to get along with. Neither one of them took himself too seriously unlike Tanner and Odin, who never let their guard down. Those two were the serious type. They had been former Delta Force, or at least claimed to be, but who could ever really be sure. They were boastful, loud, annoying, and unintelligent. Their conversations never strayed from military talk: tactical operations, shooting, the latest gadgets, gear, and outlandish war stories.
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As Jacob got closer to home, he asked Doug to make a quick detour to pick up a hot pizza for the boys. Luke and Nathan were waiting for him. They were tired but excited to see him and their pizza, of course. He arrived home to a scene reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting. The boys were sitting at the table with their empty plates in front of them. Sarah was smiling with two glasses of red wine in hand.
“I thought we’d celebrate your week of training. The boys missed you.” She leaned in slowly and kissed him softly and fully. “We all missed you. I missed you!” The boys started whooping and hollering. “Eww, cooties! Mom gave Dad cooties!” they screeched.
Jacob picked Sarah up by the waist and returned a deep kiss, the kind they’d shared in Okinawa, in that lifetime, when he was a Marine.
CHAPTER 15
All of his years of dedication and hard work, since his days as an entry-level systems engineer, to his current position as Head of Products Research and Development at BioSyn, were now in jeopardy. William LaPierre had incorporated a small startup in Southern California when he was just thirty years old. He had made some modest successes, which had caught the attention of many suitors through the years, but he’d always remained loyal to his company and to his workers. He’d grown it from a two-person operation, starting out of a friend’s rented storage room in Fullerton to a twenty-five-person boutique biotech firm that he would eventually relocate to Los Angeles. After the first five years of uneven operation, he had gladly stepped out of the role of Chief Executive Officer, and Darcy, his wife, took her rightful position, much to the relief of its twenty-five employees. Twenty years later, LaPierre Pharma had moved its corporate offices and its 100 employees to San Francisco. It was recognized as a leading innovator of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and multiple other neurotransmitting pharmaceuticals. Depression had been the rising tide that floated all boats in biotech over the last two decades, and LaPierre Pharma had just managed to bob in the trough of the incoming waves. Most of their product lines had been purely research driven. He and his team had a reputation for thinking about the science first, and the bottom-line a distant third behind work-life balance, much to the chagrin of the company’s Wall Street suitors. Somehow this had translated into modest success despite his best efforts, Darcy and others would say.
Darcy had been his harshest critic, his staunchest supporter, and his first business partner. She was a great researcher but an even better businesswoman. She had saved him and the company every step of the way. She had invested all of the money she’d earned and penny-pinched throughout the years, a grand total of $50,000, into the nascent operation twenty years ago. She had also found NIH grants, bank and private lender loans, and donations to keep the company afloat. She believed in him and his brilliance more than he did.
Darcy had steered LaPierre Pharma through financial hardships, but she did not let this change its relaxed, quirky, and innovative culture. William had been relieved most of all. He was grateful to give up the mantle of leadership, which he’d worn like an albatross around his neck. No sooner had the transfer of power been made official than William ran to the comfort of the research lab. His fellow lab partners had ribbed him about how he’d have to ask his wife for a raise from now on. The joke was on them, he’d thought; he’d always depended on her for money, though they probably all knew that. He’d loved her with all of his heart, but that was all over now. Pancreatic cancer had taken her away from him two years ago. He was lost without her. The company was lost without her, and he made a poor substitute at the helm. Despair and sorrow had led him astray and into the waiting clutches of Paul Eckert, an angel investor, with whom he had made a Faustian deal.
He had come to despise and fear Eckert, the young, brash, and dark CEO of BioSyn. Eckert was only forty-five years old, incredibly young for a man of his position. His contemporaries were in their sixties. Despite his age, he had the business acumen of a gilded-age tycoon. He was ruthless, cunning, calculating, and above all smart, frightfully so. Eckert was tall, handsome, and charming. He had the kind of good looks and charm that could seduce anyone he met, man or woman, gay or straight. That’s how he had wooed William two years ago.
Eckert had called out of the blue to give William his condolences for Darcy’s passing. He knew that William had hit hard times and that his company’s survival was questionable given that its CEO had passed and that William was emotionally compromised. Eckert had sweet-talked him into lending the company $20 million dollars for operational costs, which would help ensure that his workforce would be gainfully employed for the next year. William could not bear the weight of Darcy’s death, but he could not think of adding to it by visiting it onto his employees and their families. He had seen his employees’ children grow, visiting recitals, taking in little league and soccer games. He’d even established a daycare on the company campus. Their benefits packages were extremely generous, including full medical, dental, and life insurance, along with higher than industry standard pay. This had all contributed to the company’s precarious position. Darcy was instrumental to all of it; without her, he could not support the business. He’d confided all of this to Eckert in a moment between friends. Eckert extended the loan at 1% interest for the term, graciously generous, but William was now paying it all back in spades.
Their relationship had started like a whirlwind romance. Eckert had flown him to New York where BioSyn was headquartered. He’d walked him
around the swanky floors—three to be exact—of prime midtown real estate. Its expensive view overlooked Bryant Park and the New York public library. Eckert exhibited his offices like a proud kid with his exploding, volcano model at the school science fair, but with less reservation. He gave the vibe that he truly loved the glamour of it, the office, the building, the position as CEO, the fact that he could offer it all to William. He also took to calling William, Bill, not caring if William actually cared for it or not—He didn’t. That is when he made the dream offer and asked if Bill would entertain a generous buyout. Bill did.
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“Do you realize what this is?”
Eckert looked over Bill’s shoulder at the magnified form on the monitor and shrugged. His patience with Bill had worn thin.
“It is the perfect delivery system. It is what we’ve been searching for all of this time, a way to precisely deliver the treatment without causing side effects as before and with nearly one-hundred percent effectiveness.”