Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection...

by D. W. Ulsterman

  “She is asking your permission to touch your face, Mac. That is how she does her readings.”

  Mac looked back at the old woman and shrugged.

  “Yeah, that’s fine, though I doubt you’ll get much from this mug other than the fact I’ve had my nose broken about ten too many times.”

  Grandma Ping ignored Mac’s attempt at humor, instead leaning forward and taking his face into her delicate, aged fingers as she closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. Her hands moved slowly along his jaw line, paused for a moment at his temples, and then the fingers of her right hand traced the wrinkles of Mac’s brow while Ping’s left hand brushed down gently over his nose.

  Mac found the sensation oddly comforting. His muscles relaxed as he closed his eyes while the old woman’s hands continued to move slowly over the contours of his face. This went on for nearly two more minutes before Ping withdrew from Mac and then sat staring at him with that same almost-smile she wore when he had first arrived inside her home.

  Ping began to speak in her native tongue, occasionally pointing to Mac for emphasis. Mac looked up at Li who was carefully listening to her grandmother to be certain she understood each word correctly.

  “She says you are the protector and a good man, though often troubled by regret. You are afraid of the bad in this world that you cannot stop. You want nothing more than to be left alone, but feel an obligation to help others because it’s what you do best. You yearn to be normal, but know that such a life will never be yours.”

  As Li continued to interpret her grandmother’s reading, Mac’s eyes fell to the old woman and found her staring back at him with a particularly urgent intensity. Her dark eyes appeared to reflect the emotions she spoke of back to Mac, primarily those of sadness, regret, and uncertainty.

  “You will come to know even greater challenge as many more place themselves in your care. When it is coldest, your determination will burn hottest. The sky above grows dark with death, but you will not be defeated. Where others fall, the Walker will yet remain.”

  Mac stiffened at the mention of his last name – a name he had not shared with Li or her family, and certainly should not have been known to the old woman.

  Ping smiled at Mac and then lifted her right hand to caress his cheek once more while her voice whispered the last of her reading.

  “She is honored to have the protector in our home, especially with such a terrible threat so close at hand.”

  Both Mac and Li frowned at the same time as they wondered what threat Ping spoke of. Mac watched the old woman look past him toward the apartment entrance and saw the reflections of three men within Ping’s eyes staring back at him.

  A familiar voice hissed out an ominous warning.

  “You all get on the floor, face down. Anyone try anything, and I swear to god I’ll blow every one of your damn heads off. That especially goes for you, white boy.”

  Tyrell Watts, the young man Mac had recently designated Hood-Rat, had returned, his common sense over-run by having been so disgraced by someone who dared stand up to his aggressive bullying threats. He was joined by two other men of similar age, all dressed in the city streets-approved fashion of large sweatshirts and laughably sagging jeans.

  “That’s the guy who kicked your ass?”

  The largest of the three young black men, standing six foot five and weighing nearly three hundred pounds, was looking at Mac incredulously, unable to comprehend the idea of Mac overpowering Tyrell.

  “He didn’t kick my ass! Got lucky is all. Now I’m here to make it right.”

  Hood-rat’s right hand gripped a handgun which he raised and pointed at Mac, who in turn noted it was shaking slightly in the younger man’s hand.

  “I said on your knees.”

  Mac Walker shook his head slowly as his voice crept back to the three men without a hint of concern that he was so clearly outnumbered.

  “No.”

  Hood-rat leered at his two seemingly like-minded companions.

  “See, guy is crazy, thinks he’s in some kind of Rambo movie or somethin’.”

  “Shut your mouth, hood-rat. I’m talking to this big fella.”

  The eyes of the largest of the three widened as he looked at Mac and then back to Tyrell.

  “Tyrell, he just call you hood-rat? What the---?”

  Mac took a slow step forward with both his hands raised chest high.

  “You boys don’t need to be doing this. I don’t want to hurt you, ok?”

  Mac kept his eyes on the largest of the three men who he determined was the leader, while at the same time pointing to Tyrell.

  “Your friend there deserved every bit of what he got. He came into these fine people’s place of business and started cursing them out, making threats, basically acting the fool. I could have killed him then if I wanted to, but instead put him in a cab and sent him on his way. Now why in the hell did you let yourself be talked into coming back here to…hell, I don’t even know why. To rob this family? To try and take me out? Really? Is all that worth doing because he had his pride hurt? If he was a real man, wouldn’t he have come back here alone? Why drag you two into this?”

  The larger of the three glanced at his two companions and then grunted back at Mac.

  “We got our boy’s back. Can’t have people disrespecting and getting away with it.”

  Mac took another step toward the men, keeping his hands up by his sides as he did so.

  “These people didn’t disrespect Tyrell. If you have a complaint with me, fine, but leave this family out of it. How did you get in here, anyway?”

  Tyrell rolled his eyes at Mac, growing impatient with the conversation.

  “Back door was open. You think we’re too dumb to know how to open a door?”

  Li was shaking her head while turning it so she could look up at Mac.

  “I locked that door myself.”

  Li’s comment further agitated Tyrell, causing him to point his weapon down at her.

  “See? She don’t like our kind! Now she’s calling us liars. See why I was so upset?”

  Mac ignored Tyrell, keeping his eyes on the man in the middle.

  “My name is Mac, what’s yours?”

  The black man’s eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what Mac was really trying to ask him.

  “I’m just asking your name so we can talk like men. I have a proposition that I hope will keep any of you from getting hurt.”

  “You can call me Rip. What kind of deal you getting at?”

  Mac gave a hard stare at Tyrell, his eyes warning the hood-rat to keep his trigger finger from unwisely transforming a tense discussion into a violent altercation, and then Mac’s focus returned to Rip.

  “Nice to meet you, Rip. It’s real simple, actually. I’ll give you a thousand dollars for your trouble. A thousand dollars for you to turn around and get the hell out of here and never bother these people again.”

  Rip’s mouth turned downward as he considered the possibility of Mac lying.

  “A thousand dollars? Why would you do that?”

  Tyrell shook his head angrily and took two quick steps toward Mac with his gun pointed at the Project Icon operative’s head.

  “I ain’t listening to this bullshit! Get on your knees!”

  Mac almost felt sorry for Tyrell’s repeated error of getting too close to him. It was the same mistake he had made in the restaurant that left him choked out in the span of a few seconds. Mac also made certain that if Tyrell was able to actually fire a shot, the bullet would miss high and right of where Li’s family lay on the apartment floor.

  With a subtle flick of his left hand that he knew would give him the half second distraction he needed, Mac Walker’s right hand struck like a coiled cobra catching a nerve just under Tyrell’s right wrist that caused the younger man’s fingers to open and the gun to fall from his grasp.

  Mac then turned and caught the gun with his left hand while simultaneously removing his own SIG P226 with his right hand leaving
him pointing both weapons at the three intruders while standing far enough behind Tyrell to provide Mac cover should the other two men try and fire upon him.

  Rip’s mouth fell open as he grappled with the seeming impossibility of watching a human being move so fast. The third man was also staring at Mac in amazement, momentarily lowering his own weapon.

  ‘That was some Bruce Lee shit! Who is this guy?”

  Mac pointed the two guns he held toward the floor, hoping to prove he didn’t want to hurt anyone so long as the three men simply turned around and left.

  “I’m just someone who’s trying to avoid a confrontation. This family, these people, they don’t deserve this kind of trouble. America has enough assholes out there trying to kill every one of us. Why do we seem so damned intent on killing ourselves too?”

  Tyrell turned to Rip while he pointed at Mac.

  “Shoot this fool dead, man!”

  Mac knew then that Rip didn’t want to actually kill anyone. He might have been some wanna-be thug, but he wasn’t a killer.

  “Hey, you a soldier?”

  Mac nodded.

  “I was, yeah. How about you?”

  Rip shook his head.

  “No, not me, but my gramps was – Vietnam. He’s got the cancer now. Says it’s from all that Agent Orange they dumped on him over there.”

  Mac knew the story all too well. Agent Orange was an herbicidal program initiated by President Kennedy to clear some of the more heavily forested areas in and around the North and South Korean border. The theory was it would make it more difficult for the communists to hide out near the DMZ. While it killed thousands of acres of jungle foliage, it also likely contributed to both short and long term health problems for the Vietnamese and American soldiers who came in contact with the powerful chemical agent. Mac had long considered the U.S. government’s refusal to accept any responsibility for the damage Agent Orange might have caused its own soldiers to be among that war’s greatest crimes.

  “I’m sorry about your grandfather’s illness. That was a tough war, ultimately made worse because the soldiers weren’t simply allowed to win it.”

  Rip sensed Mac’s sympathy to be genuine. He shook his head, his eyes full of shame.

  “We outta here. This was a stupid-ass idea. Sorry for scaring you all.”

  Despite the dark hue of his skin, Tyrell’s face managed to turn red.

  “What? No way, man! At least get his money!”

  Rip turned to Tyrell, giving the smaller man a look that let him know he wasn’t in the mood to listen to complaint.

  “We shouldn’t even be here. The man is right, these people don’t deserve this. Now shut your mouth and let’s go.”

  Mac holstered his own weapon while putting Tyrell’s gun on a table behind him,

  “Wait, hold on a second. I have fourteen hundred dollars on me. I want you to take it, do something nice for your grandpa. What’s his name?”

  Rip turned around and looked down at the floor, mumbling the name as if the shame he felt made him unworthy to speak it.

  “Josiah Meeks.”

  Mac removed his money roll and was double-checking that the amount was correct.

  “Do you know the branch he served in?”

  Rip cleared his throat as his eyes remained fixed upon the floor.

  “It was the Army. He was a staff sergeant.”

  Mac waited for Rip’s eyes to rise so he could look into them directly. When they finally did, he placed the money into Rip’s right hand.

  “I’d like you to do me a favor. You tell Staff Sergeant Meeks thank you for his service, and get him something nice with this money, ok?”

  Rip’s eyes were wet with approaching tears he struggled to hold back. He shook his head while again clearing his throat.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna do that. First thing…”

  Mac Walker watched the three would-be intruders turn around and leave. Of all the potentially deadly encounters during a life of bullets and blood, it was perhaps his most gratifying conclusion yet as it proved itself to be a crisis averted. The fact it cost him some of his assignment money was a price he was more than willing to pay to spare lives that still had hope for greater potential.

  “Is it safe to get up?”

  Mac turned to look at Li and nodded.

  “Yeah, it’s safe. They won’t be back.”

  Within minutes Mac sat with Li and her family making quick work of plates of some of the most delicious food he had ever been served. There was laughter, love, and friendship, a taste of life Mac had for too long become unfamiliar with.

  Finally Mac sat back in his chair and waved away offers of more food.

  “No, I’m done for. Every bit of it was amazing – thank you.”

  Li looked at Mac warmly, her eyes holding his for a moment before she looked to her grandmother.

  “You were right, Grandmother, Mac is the protector.”

  Li was interrupted by the sound of Mac’s shadow cell. Mac quickly apologized and then indicated he needed to take the call. He stood up from the table and walked to the apartment’s double window that overlooked the Chicago Chinatown street below.

  “I’m here, go ahead.”

  Tilley’s tone indicated he was stressed.

  “It wasn’t him, Mac. We think the guy in Michigan was a decoy but he’s not talking. As of now, we have no idea where Gilani is. You need to watch your back and get the hell out of Chicago ASAP.”

  Mac felt a chill go up his spine as he instinctively replayed something indicated to him earlier that he knew he should have given more attention to.

  “Will do, Ray. Talk to you soon.”

  Mac placed his cell phone back into his jacket and looked across the room at Li’s grandmother who was at that time, staring back at him as if fully expecting the question to come.

  “Li, please ask your grandmother if those three men were the terrible threat she said was so close at hand.”

  Mac waited as Li posed the question, even as he already knew the answer. He watched the old woman’s mouth curl downward into a pronounced frown as she shook her head no. Mac recalled Li’s earlier confusion as to how the men had entered the building through an open back door – a door Li was certain she had earlier locked herself.

  Gilani.

  11.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them, Walker.”

  Inside his own head, Mac Walker was raging at himself for having been caught so unaware so easily.

  I’ve put these people in terrible danger.

  “Put your weapon on the floor and kick it over to me, please.”

  Mac did as he was told but not before quickly applying the weapon’s modified safety, all the while keeping his eyes fixated on Hamid Gilani. The Muslim terrorist was dressed in a tattered blue baseball cap, dark denim jacket, and khaki slacks. In his right hand he held a Glock 26, a weapon that if fully loaded Mac knew had a ten round capacity plus possibly another in the chamber.

  Gilani leaned down slowly to pick up Mac’s SIG which he then stuffed into the back of his jeans.

  “This is the second time I’ve taken your gun from you.”

  Mac stood silently with his hands raised even as he calculated as many options as possible to ensure Li’s family remained alive while Gilani was given the death he so richly deserved.

  “Are these your friends, Walker?”

  Mac’s jaw clenched as he answered between gritted teeth.

  “Yes, they are, and you’re going to leave them the hell alone. This is between you and me, Hamid – not them.”

  Gilani offered a sly, wicked smile as his eyes gleamed with the belief he held a clear advantage over the former Navy SEAL.

  “On the contrary, if you care about them, then all the more reason I allow you to see them killed. I want you to know this family died because of you. I want that to be your last thought. None of this is over until I say it’s over, and I have no intention of doing that until America finally begins paying for its man
y sins, starting with the blood of its children turning the streets red.”

  He still intends to attack a school.

  “You talk too much.”

  Hamid’s eyes narrowed as he pointed back at Mac with his gun.

  “What?”

  “I said you talk too much. It’s the same thing with you kill-for-Allah types, always making threats, speeches…all that bullshit.”