Fixing Justice

by Halliday, Suzanne

  FIXING JUSTICE

  Copyright © 2014 by Suzanne Halliday

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Edited by www.editing4indies.com

  Book Cover Design by www.ashbeedesigns.com

  Formatting By Self Publishing Editing Service

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Redeeming Justice Excerpt

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to my family

  My fabulous and hilarious daughter

  My grandchildren who give new meaning to the expression YOLO

  And

  Sara ~ So there!

  Thwack. Clink. Thud. “Aw, suck my balls, Cam!” Draegyn yelled while clutching his crotch with a wicked laugh as his last two horseshoes made contract with a metal stake in the ground about forty feet away in a sand pit that was all of Afghanistan.

  “Fuck you Drae!” Cameron yelled back heartily. “You totally pussied out last week when the Frisbees were flying fast and furious with that weak ass excuse that your neck ached. I think you set me up with all your wah-wah crybaby shit so don’t go thinking this means anything!”

  The two men grinned and flashed each other the finger as they indulged in a little down time at their austere combat base camp deep in the mountains of Afghanistan. All around them sand bags stacked high as a shield against every imaginable type of attack while overhead an American flag hung limp from it’s standard in the stagnant air of a blisteringly hot day.

  Their special forces compound was a rag tag set-up of tents, combat housing units, tin siding, barriers, sand dusted tables, lopsided chairs and car backseats that had been thrown around an area where the men gathered to forget about where they were and what they were doing.

  Dressed in backward baseball caps with sweaty bandanas around their necks and standard issue green military t-shirts that the sleeves had been ripped from, Drae and Cam were fending off the long stretches of isolated boredom that descended upon their team in between missions.

  Dressed in a pair of khaki ACU pants covered in Velcro pouches with the legs tucked inside a pair of hi-tech boots covered in the desert sand that seemed to cling to everyone and everything, Drae had discarded his tactical vest on the ground nearby. Dark sunglasses shielded his eyes from the relentless sun that had done a number on his fair coloring making him look like a piece of burnt white bread.

  In tip-top physical shape after years in the military, muscled arms sporting a deep tan presented a tattoo-wrapped bicep that matched the one Cam had. Together as brothers-in-arms for the last five years, they were men of the Justice Squad. A gruff, no-nonsense special ops team who had been sucking in the arid sands of the God-forsaken place they had been in for far too long.

  Shuffling across the hard-packed sandy ground, they stooped to retrieve their horseshoes, and continued to rib each other relentlessly about all manner of things that brought their manhood into question. It was a lighthearted moment in an otherwise deadly serious existence.

  The low woof-woof of an approaching K-9 grabbed their attention as one of their squad newbies, a soldier they nicknamed ‘The Kid’, approached with a serious looking German shepherd on the end of his tether.

  Everyone liked The Kid, although at twenty-five and after several long tours in various hot spots around the region, he was hardly considered a greenhorn. A communications expert who spoke several native dialects and handled his K-9 with adroit skill, he’d impressed even the most battle hardened of their squad. He wasn’t standard military. Not exactly. Most likely he was CIA or one of the elite, super secretive counter-terrorism operatives deployed throughout the region. One of the norms in this corner of the world was that these men didn’t ask questions of each other and rarely, if ever, used their real names. It was as if the time out of place nature of what they were ordered to do required a completely different mind-set than the one they’d relied on in the real world.

  “Hey Kid, what’s up with McLain? He seems a bit tense this morning,” Drae asked while he studied the dog on high-alert, pacing this way and that, at the end of the tether.

  True to a soldiers’ habit for creating nicknames and catchy terms for nearly everything, this particular shepherd had been named after the Bruce Willis character in Die Hard because he had a small bald spot on top of his head. Their special tactical squad was even called Justice after the Justice League, the Stan Lee created superheroes operating out of a hidden cave with a top-secret mandate to take on all villains who threatened the American way. Seemed oddly fitting in some perverse way.

  Tugging on the tether to bring the dog under heel, The Kid shrugged, directing his reply to both men. “I don’t know, Sirs. He got all antsy earlier at the south checkpoint but none of the other canines reacted so maybe he’s just having a bad day.” When the animal finally settled at his feet, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted and, ever watchful in his capacity as a bomb-sniffing guard dog, all three men studied the brown and black shepherd with keen interest.

  Never taking anything for granted or at face value, each mulled private thoughts as eyes, alert and ever-vigilant, surveyed the scene around them looking for anomalies that might explain the dog’s tension. Improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers had become the enemies preferred fuck you method when striking the coalition forces. Attacks had been happening more and more frequently, and in unexpected places, coming closer and closer to their secured areas.

  Turning his attention away from the dog he had at his side, The Kid held his M-16 rifle protectively across his chest. “Hey, did you hear about Team Matrix? They were doing an overnight near the border when one of those motherfuckers blew a device on the convoy. Killed six, including an imbed from the BBC.”

  Hearing that bit of news, Cam and Drae looked at each other behind the dark lenses of their sunglasses. Fuck. Talking about body counts was usually immediately followed up with a swift change of subject that Draegyn was quick to provide.

  “Have you been over to HQ yet, Kid? The Major has been holed up there for way too long with a bunch of heavy-vested pussies. Oh, my bad - I mean politicians who were making his life hell, last we heard.” The disdain Drae felt for those so-called public servants was dripping from every word with special emphasis on the pussy.

  Alex, the third wheel and most senior member in their long association, was a brilliant tactician with the body and brawn of a battle-hardened warrior. He was
spending way too much time these days holding the sweaty hands of the never-ending stream of nervous politicians and state department yahoos who flew in under cover of darkness. After a dog and pony show visit, they would high-tail it back to the safety found on U.S. soil so they could whip up their constituents and department heads with dramatic tales about the sights and sounds of life in a forward operating base in the middle of what had become a never-ending war. All that PR shit wasn’t exactly what Alex thought he’d be taking on when he was promoted last year.

  “I saw Badirya headed that way earlier with Asef in tow. He asked where you were, Lieutenant,” The Kid said in Cam’s direction.

  Asef and his mother, the lovely Badirya, were fixtures in their compound. Asef was maybe nine or ten years old and accompanied his mother nearly everyday when she came to work as a translator and secretary in the HQ. The youngster was bright-eyed and extremely personable. He loved all things American with a special penchant for anything and everything connected to Batman.

  Drae cast Cam one of those knowing looks that bordered on a leer before chiming in with, “You’ve been spending quite a bit of time with the lovely widow and her son, Cam. You find a way underneath that hijab yet, dude?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Drae,” Cameron snapped. “You’re way more likely to go for a pair of brown doe eyes beneath a veil than either of us would,” he added while gesturing with the tilt of his head to where The Kid stood. “Asef is a good kid, and it doesn’t hurt to show the boy that not all Americans are bloodthirsty dickheads worthy of jihad.”

  “Hey, leave me out of that argument, Sirs,” The Kid added with tongue-in-cheek humor. “My fiancée would seriously kick my ass if she thought for one minute that any of the female locals were fraternizing with the enemy.” Mention of the fiancée gave Cameron and Draegyn pause. They’d seen pictures of the couple during happier times and had listened to many heartsick stories from the lonely warrior during his time assigned to their squad.

  Drae’s ruthless reputation for fucking any woman with a pulse along with Cam’s bitter mistrust of the fairer sex and Alex’s cold-hearted rejection of anything remotely romantic made them quite a trio. Truth be told, each of them envied The Kid in his own way. The battlefield hadn’t robbed him of the ability to feel or diminished the desire to forge a future beyond the shit storm they lived in now.

  Suddenly, McLain jumped up from his at ease position and lifted his snout in the air. All three men, ever vigilant to even the slightest signal of danger, stopped in mid-thought and actively scanned their immediate surroundings. Something was up, they could sense it. By reflex and from sheer habit, Cam and Drae immediately hoisted their ever-present M-16 rifles and began moving toward the other side of the well-protected compound.

  Shit got real when the K-9 took off running at a fast clip around a mortar pit with The Kid right behind him. A commotion was building just beyond their view. They could hear angry shouts and commands to stand down being barked out in Arabic.

  All hell broke loose in the next ten seconds as gunfire erupted followed by a small explosion and then a massive BOOM that knocked Cam and Drae off their feet. Smoke, dust, shrapnel, and debris clogged the air.

  Drae was propelled backward, landing with a heavy thud thirty feet or so from where he’d been as the blast rocked the camp. Debris pinned him to the ground where he lay stunned from the violence of the explosion. As his senses cleared, he could hear Cameron shouting, “Draegyn! Drae! Are you alright? Where are you?”

  Fuck, he couldn’t move for long moments, barely able to spit the putrid sand and dust from the blast out of his mouth. All around him there was darkness, partially from the tin and wood piled on top of him and partly from being inside a debris cloud.

  Anger and fear spiked an adrenalin rush in Drae as Cameron lifted the tremendous piece of tin attached to a wooden post pinning him to the ground and wildly tossed it aside. Sucking in a ragged lungful of oxygen, Drae slowly lifted to his knees and nodded as Cam helped him get to his feet.

  A heartbeat later, their years of training took over, and after checking to see that their weapons were ready to go, they started forward again in a fast sprint toward the center of the explosion.

  Upon reaching the area of the HQ, the men stopped and assessed the scene before them. Bodies and body parts were everywhere as shouts of “medic” and “Code Red” filled the air. Half the HQ building was gone, and a fire had broken out in another structure nearby.

  “Holy fuck, Cam!” Drae shouted. “Goddamn, motherfuckers,” he growled. “We’ve got to get to Alex.”

  Both men took off in the direction of the building where they hoped their friend would be found unhurt. Along the way they encountered McLain, who was untethered and clearly in distress, wandering in circles around a clump of brown camo on the ground. Cam’s stomach dropped away as he realized that The Kid had taken the worst of the blast while the dog had somehow survived. Fear arced up his spine, propelling him forward in search of Alex.

  Drae got there first, shouting, “Alex, Alex! Talk to me, man! Where the fuck are you?” All around them soldiers were frantically tossing debris aside in search of the injured and dead.

  They found Alex, badly hurt, with blood pouring out of every inch of his body, and a leg wound that looked like ground meat. He was alive, barely. The instinct to survive, no matter what the situation, had been branded on their souls in such a way that a pulse meant victory in an otherwise horrendous scenario.

  Luckily for Alex, it took only seconds for an entire team to descend on the area and take control of the situation. In the end, sixteen military personnel had been injured or killed along with seven civilians. Magically, the visiting politicos had escaped unscathed, having left for the airfield earlier that morning.

  After seeing to Alex’s care and satisfied that he was alive and on the way to the hospital at Ramstein, Drae and Cameron were left to deal with the aftermath of what turned out to be a suicide bomber. In the days and years to come, each battlefield brother would have wounds and emotional scars to contend with. Not only was Alex critically injured and The Kid going home to his fiancée in a body bag, the bomber turned out to be the doe-eyed widow Badirya who sacrificed her only child Asef in some deranged act meant to re-unite her with her dead Afghan husband.

  On that fateful day, The Justice Bothers were born from the smoke, death, and despair of an Afghan battlefield. Things would never be the same for any of them and each would carry demons, ghosts, and nightmares from that time into the future. In the two years that followed, one by one, they would leave the desert hell-hole behind and seek a future together, far away from war, in the hot, dusty winds of southern Arizona.

  What a fucking mess. Standing in the aftermath of a celebration that had been more than memorable, Draegyn St. John surveyed the carnage left behind. Everywhere he looked was evidence of the Valentine’s Day nuptials that had taken place littered throughout the massive Spanish-styled courtyard at Villa Valleja-Marquez.

  Taking a hearty slug from the champagne glass clutched in his hand, Drae contemplated the past few days while shaking his head in amazement. After jumping on a plane in Washington, D.C., he’d landed in the midst of an off the hook celebration. The compound where he lived, along with his two business partners and one-time military brothers, technically belonged to the oldest and most senior of their group, Alexander Marquez. They called it the Villa, a sprawling complex spread out among hundreds of acres of breathtaking Arizona scenery, dominated by an enormous Spanish influenced hacienda.

  The glorious southwestern weather he loved was a welcome respite from the bitter cold and the never-ending snowfall he’d dealt with in D.C. Not one to usually gripe about anything remotely connected to being out-of-doors, he’d come to despise the winter weather back East. Having to clear off his car every morning, from either a coating of ice or inches of snow, had seriously pissed him off.

  After leaving the nation’s frigid capitol, he’d found himself immediately immerse
d in a thousand last-minute details for a wedding that had surprised them all. He still couldn’t fathom how the dark and brooding mass of contradictions that was Cameron Justice had ended up married. Married! Jesus H. Christ. Just the word brought shudders of distaste racing through his mind. Ugh, no thanks.

  Marriage and its false promise of commitment were a social convention that he’d vowed never to allow in his life. His parents had taught him the hard way what a charade all that was when he’d been shocked out of his perfect family bubble as a hormonal fourteen-year-old. Having fallen hook, line, and sinker for the faultless picture of social, marital, and domestic bliss that defined the St. John family, he’d been duly horrified after happening upon his, Do as you’re told! Father, diddling the giggly twit who worked for the family as a quasi kid minder for him and his younger sister.

  Dear old Dad had been dismissive of Drae’s shock and cruelly arrogant when the time came to explain his actions to his only son. Hearing that his parents’ marriage had been an arranged affair between two old-school, upper-class families had destroyed the image of who he’d thought they were. It had all been a lie.

  His mother hadn’t made it any better. Not only did she not care about her husband’s wandering penis, she sarcastically informed him that ‘this was how things were done’ in their world. A cold, intolerant bitch on the best of days, Draegyn had tried more ways than his teenage brain could count to be the son she wanted, only to never feel any warmth or genuine approval from the woman. Now he knew why.

  She’d married for social status and prestige and did what was expected of her in the deal, popping out the perfect set of perfect children for their perfect family. Even now, all these years later, the thought made him sick. She made it sound like she’d consented to be bred in order to live an affluent lifestyle. Who fucking did that? He never trusted any woman’s motives from that moment on.

  Wandering to a bench swing beneath strands of tiny white lights strung around the decorated courtyard, Drae flung his half-inebriated ass onto the seat and forced his thoughts back to the present. All around him was evidence of the romantic, country chic wedding that had joined Cam to the blond-haired lovely who had changed everything with her quiet smile. He liked his new sister-in-law very much. She was unique and absolutely perfect for his old friend; one of the few females Drae hadn’t immediately mistrusted.