THE CONTRACTOR

  He could tell my rage had nothing to do with myself at the moment—nor with him, really. This was about my wife. And I definitely gave no fucks. I would choke the words out of his mouth.

  “Istanbul…near…the market…”

  The words squeezed out of his lying pie-hole like a dry camel turd.

  “You piece of shit,” I whispered to him, channeling Clint Eastwood.

  Merlin had just figured out why I had tried to break his arm in order to stop him from shooting Erik. He understood that I needed to know where my wife was. Once those words were uttered by Erik, however, Jim went right back to his personal mission and hit me straight in the face with the back of his right elbow, sending me rolling off Erik’s chest. Jim then grabbed the pistol, took a knee, and was about to plug Erik right in his fucking face when Erik straight-up boot-kicked Jim in the face!

  Erik jumped up and started to run. I dove on his legs with my best high-school-football tackle. Erik stumbled, dragged his feet out of my grip, and ran for his life.

  Jim took a couple seconds to recover and then stood up with his rifle. He literally had a boot print on his face. Two rounds cracked the rocks near me; I dove for cover, but Merlin did not. He stood, impervious to the hot lead flying through the air. He then wiped the dust out of his eyes, readjusted his sunglasses, took aim, and fired.

  I am guessing Erik was more than 100 meters away when the round hit him in the back. He went down hard—hard like a concrete wall falling. Then he went stiff and hit the ground, sending up a cloud of dust. I swear I could hear his dead body hit the dirt, but that was probably just wishful thinking.

  I was frankly a little hurt that I hadn’t been the one to take him out, but Jim looked incredibly satisfied. We should have been able to sit back and have a cigar at that point, but Dave kindly reminded us that we were still at war.

  “Stop dicking around, you fuckers!” he yelled over the comms.

  I took a quick glance at Erik’s stiff body in the distance. A small dust cloud still surrounded him, and I thought I could see a nice smoking hole just under his left shoulder blade.

  Heart shot. Nice.

  Of course, I don’t know if I really could see that far, but I was momentarily lost in a fantasy about the awesomeness of the whole moment. I looked at Jim, still standing. He had a wry smile. More rounds hitting the hardscape snapped us out of our bloodlust, and we both quickly retook our prone fighting positions.

  Not too much had changed on the battlefield in the thirty seconds we had spent wrestling with Erik. One nuke truck was smoldering after being hit by the anti-tank round. Gunfire was still being exchanged, but there was an air of confusion now. Neither SF nor the Israelis had expected us. The drivers hadn’t expected anyone. Erik’s plan had been cancelled.

  “Focus fire on SF!” Rusty commanded.

  The suppressive fire worked, and the driver of the back truck saw his opportunity. He gunned it, raced forward past the burning truck, and cranked a hard left turn, partially going off the road. Throwing gravel and sand into the air, he again put the pedal to the metal and headed back in the direction of town. The flatbed itself raised up onto two wheels and almost tipped before crashing back down hard onto the road. I don’t think the driver even looked. I’m not sure he even cared that he had lost his radioactive load—he just wanted out of the valley of death. Of course, as soon as he made his intentions known, the two white pickups set out in hot pursuit.

  “Take ’em out, ladies,” Dave ordered.

  Gladly!

  Everyone refocused fire on the pickups, and quickly they came to a stop. Whether it was the rounds to the engine, the tires, or the driver, both pickups were stopped in seconds. One slowed down until it ran into a boulder at slow speed. The other simply stopped in the middle of the wadi, and then slowly began to burn.

  “Cease fire,” came the next instruction from Big Dave.

  There was silence on our side of the valley, but rounds were still slamming into the hillside around us. We all just kept our heads down. Jim was still smiling. He was far more evil of a fucker than I had imagined…and that made me happy!

  The pause gave me a second to enjoy the numbness that had come over my calf wound. My pant leg was not increasingly bloody, so I knew no artery had been severed. A flesh wound. Besides, I was shot at such close range that the bullet was hot—I bet most of the wound had been immediately cauterized. I moved my foot from side to side. No increasing pain. No shattered tibia. Hey—if you gotta get shot, that’s about the best outcome you could hope for. But I was not looking forward to the hump back to the vehicle...

  Within a minute or three, the rounds stopped coming from the highly disappointed crew across the wadi. They probably thought we had hightailed it back to wherever we were from. I was sure the SF guys had licked their wounds and ghosted.

  But we stayed still.

  “Yo—what’s the plan?” I whispered into my mic.

  Rusty responded, “Staying put for twenty minutes—then we slither back to black Bessy…bamba-lam…”

  I took the next twenty to take stock of this most excellent day. Rescued? Check. High-speed vehicle with an armory inside? Check. Nefarious characters on a secret and most impromptu mission? Check. A dead Erik? Check. A wild story with the scar to prove it? Damn skippy! Check.

  Next on the agenda?

  Find Melissa!

  The sound of helicopter blades chopping the air began to reverberate across the valley.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - Debrief

  The drive back to Van seemed to go by in a flash. There were a lot of things on Nick’s mind. He relived his time with Miss in Istanbul, the plane crash, the jaunt through the desert, his capture, Merlin’s torture, their rescue, the fight with Erik, the Blackhawk annihilating the evidence in the valley. Now he just wanted to get back to Istanbul and find his wife. He had no idea what had happened with her. Even the DSS agents hadn’t heard any G2. Everyone was silent as they drove back to Van.

  Van is a relatively modern city nestled in a valley between huge mountain ranges that butts up against the eastern shore of beautiful Lake Van, which the locals call Van Denizi. It is a tourist destination for Europeans who enjoy the Kurdish food and culture. Van is also the site of one of the earlies cities and kingdoms in the world, Urartu. It has been occupied for more than seven thousand years. But, compared to the various villages and towns Nick had recently visited, Van seemed very modern indeed.

  A call had come to Dave on their drive, and the DSS agents were instructed to drop Nick and Jim at an office building on Cumhuriet Caddesi to meet with their security company representative; they were then to report to an American Government office on Kazim Karabekir Boulevard. There was going to be some ass-chewing for sure.

  Rusty pulled the SUV into an open parking lot behind the nondescript office building. Nick was tired and hungry and was in no mood for meeting with company representatives and having to explain himself. Yet here he was.

  “You ready for this bullshit, Merlin?”

  “Fuck no, but whatever.”

  They unassed the truck, shook their DSS buddies’ hands, grabbed what gear they had left and did the “duffle bag drag” across the parking lot.

  Rusty gunned Bessy and squealed the tires as he exited the lot directly into traffic. Nick and Jim laughed and entered the office building.

  The chuckling stopped when the two men entered the conference room to see Keith Martinez sitting at the far end of the table. Keith was the COO of the firm and was almost never seen outside of Virginia, except at government functions in DC. This could not be good.

  “Looking good, gentlemen.” The COO smiled.

  Jim and I looked down at our ridiculous appearances. I still had my black tank top on. The sweat from the rigors of our impromptu mission had dried in white circles under my arms and at my waistline. Dried blood darkened the lower half of one leg. I am pretty certain I smelled. I know Jim did.

  Jim held back any comment and just shook his head in
disbelief at the current situation.

  “Please sit down.” The executive motioned to the chairs with a sweep of his hand.

  We pulled our handguns from their concealed locations in the small of our backs and put them on the conference table.

  “Jesus, gents, you won’t be needing those in here. Mind putting them in your lap in case someone walks in?”

  We did as he asked without a word.

  The COO adjusted himself in his chair, slid a notepad in front of him, clicked a ballpoint pen and started the debrief.

  “So, wow, we’ve got ourselves a cluster here. We have a dead team lead, a dead Ambassador, the DSS involved, and the fucking CIA involved. Wasn’t this just supposed to be an Executive Protection detail?”

  “Well, that is certainly what I thought it was going to be, sir.”

  I mean, he wasn’t military, so I didn’t have to call him “sir”, but he did sign my paycheck, so “sir” it was.

  “So, Branson, describe to me what happened in your own words. Oh, and by the way, your wife Melissa is just fine. She is with Team Two in Istanbul. She has quite a story for you.”

  That took a gigantic weight off my shoulders. I wondered what kind of shit she got herself into. I was so looking forward to that story.

  “Thanks for that info, sir.”

  I still hoped that the “sir” stuff was gaining me some leverage.

  I started my narrative. “So, first of all, the Diplomatic Security Services were involved since the beginning. Standard procedure when a foreign ambassador is under protection. And they were awesome, by the way.”

  “Go on,” my questionably patient boss said.

  “Anyhow, all was standard SOP until we took a flight to Van. We were all supposed to drive, but Saadi, the team lead, had secured a government executive jet. I think Ambassador Magyar didn’t want to spend that much time on the road again. We had already done one successful inspection trip over the border. So, to save some time, we flew instead of driving. We were flying to Van when it turned out there were some crazy murder-suicide Jihadists in the cockpit. Seriously, everyone would be dead if Jim and I hadn’t noticed the general direction of flight changing. Something seemed off, and when we went to investigate…”

  Martinez interrupted, “You mean when you broke the cockpit door down?”

  Jim covered his face so Martinez couldn’t see him laughing.

  “Yes, well, we knew there was something very wrong. We knocked first.”

  Jim lost it.

  “Oh, is this fucking funny?” the COO gruffly asked.

  “No, sir,” Jim mumbled under his breath, trying to control himself.

  “Jim, control yourself,” I said knowing this would cause Merlin to lose it again.

  “Sir, we were about to take a nosedive into the desert, and all I had in my mind was to protect the principal. So, yeah, we busted down the door, and thank God we did, because the co-pilot was all in white to impress Allah, and had slit the throat of the pilot, and then, admittedly with balls of steel, stabbed himself in the heart. So we took control of the plane.”

  Now the executive chuckled, “I am not sure you took control of the plane, but okay, continue.”

  “We tried to take control the plane. I think we were doing pretty well until an Iranian fighter jet found us. That’s when we knew we must have travelled into Iranian air space. From that point on, we were simply trying to avoid being shot out of the air. That didn’t quite go as planned, and as we got closer to the deck in an attempt to land, we took a round somewhere at the back of the plane. Things went all to hell, and luckily, we skidded into a valley.”

  “I wouldn’t call it lucky, Branson. We lost a team lead and an ambassador. It’s an international incident. We ultimately got control of the story, but it took a shitload of work!” Martinez glared in our general direction. “Now, anything else you two would like to tell me?”

  I looked at Merlin. “Jim, anything?”

  “Not a damn thing. I think you have it about covered.”

  Unless I was asked, there was no way I was going to tell Martinez about Erik Olsen, about the capture and rescue, or about foiling the mission to get nuclear supplies over the border. An old martial arts instructor once told me, “silence is the beginning of wisdom.” Damn it, that was Erik. Well, it still applied in this situation.

  “So nothing else, Nick? Am I going to be hearing from the CIA again?”

  “I sure hope not,” I said with a straight face.

  I have no idea why everything I said sent Merlin into laughter.

  Martinez stood. “Jim, I am going to have you head down the hall. Mr. James has a few further questions for you. I would like a few minutes alone with Mr. Branson.”

  Jim wiped a laughter tear from his eye, tucked his pistol into the back of his pants, and walked out of the room without a word, closing the door behind him.

  The COO looked at me for a minute. I said nothing.

  “So let’s talk about Erik Olsen.”

  Hmmm, so he does know something.

  “How did you hear about Erik?”

  “So you are acquainted with him?” Martinez smiled the smile of knowing something when others think you don’t.

  “He is my hand-to-hand combat instructor. He lives in the same town as Melissa and I in New Hampshire.”

  I wasn’t about to reveal he was dead. Let’s see how much he really knows.

  “So…you haven’t seen him recently?”

  Let’s see what I can get away with here.

  “Yes—surprisingly, he showed up with Melissa just a short time after I got to Istanbul. He was going to see some ancient wrestling match near the city and thought it would be cool to bring her along, both to give me a surprise visit and as a companion.”

  Martinez scribbled something on his notepad. “I see.”

  Again, I said nothing. I too know the trick of making other people fill the silence gap.

  “And that was it? Did they see the competition?”

  I know a trap when I hear it. “I have no idea. I assume so. I left Melissa in trusted hands and went on my mission.”

  Again, Martinez wrote. “Well, it looks like they got separated, and Melissa ended up in a situation. The way she tells it, Erik might not be the trusted friend you think he is.”

  Well, no shit. This guy has no idea.

  “I find that hard to believe. I have known him for a while. But there will be an ass-kicking if he was anything but a gentleman with Melissa.”

  I think I have taken him off the scent.

  “So, Nick, I am sure you are aware that the DSS agents are going through the same debrief exercise we are doing here. Is there anything more they are going to add to this tale?”

  Damn, forgot about that. They might talk about the nuclear materials fiasco.

  “Well, there was one other thing, boss. As you probably already know, the DSS boys rescued Jim and me from dying in the desert. Seems at that point in time they were on an unrelated mission. I am not sure what that was, but somewhere between our rescue and coming to Van, there was what I guess you would call a firefight. All I know is Jim and I had to lay down suppressive fire to save our asses. But we all got out with minor scrapes and bruises.”

  Martinez dramatically looked down under the table at my leg. “That looks like a bit more than a scratch.”

  “Yup, took a round. Came outta nowhere. Right through the calf, but that ain’t no biggie. I have been through worse in Iraq.”

  The executive slid the notepad away from him and put the pen on top. “Listen, that’s one of the things I want to discuss with you, Branson. You are a high-speed, low-drag individual, if I have used the phrase correctly.”

  I had to smile at that one.

  “I think you are more suited for the High-Risk Security field. Executive Protection takes a little more finesse. You need to be more comfortable in dress shoes than tactical boots. A single firearm needs to feel enough for you. I don’t believe you feel that
way or want to be that way. You are built for action.”

  He was not wrong.

  “I apologize if I have caused a serious situation for you. In the moment I was just concerned with the safety of my principal and defending myself when the need arose.”

  That sounded polite.

  The exec nodded his head. “That is why I will give you whatever recommendations you need. Regardless of the outcome of this mission, you stayed true to your orders. But do us all a favor: please go do something with big guns and lots of action.”

  Martinez stood, as did I, and we shook hands.

  “I appreciate this, boss.”

  “Not a problem, Branson.”

  I think I just got fired.

  I had no idea where Jim had gone. I looked up and down the hall and saw no one. Then a loud voice came up the stairwell.

  “Yo, Nick. We got a ride.”

  It was Jim. He was a step ahead of me. So I bounded down the stairs like an antelope. I was very interested in what Merlin had to say to his interrogator.

  He was waiting in the lobby. We were a shabby sight.

  “So what did you tell them?”

  “Nick, you know me better than that. I didn’t tell them shit.” Jim may have been a touch pissed that I had asked.

  “Nice.”

  Jim gave me a nice slap on the back. “Guess what, buddy? We got a ride back to Istanbul.”

  Just as he finished the sentence, a very familiar black SUV careened into to parking lot and audibly skidded to a stop. The dramatic roll down of the tinted passenger-side window let me know the DSS giants were back. With a broad smile on his face, Dave leaned out the window. “C’mon, gents—we are going home. Well, at least back to comfy Constantinople.”

  I wasn’t terribly looking forward to another very long drive with these guys. I mean, I love them, but I was afraid of what trouble we would get ourselves into. But we both loaded ourselves into the back seat anyway.

  “Wait,” I said, turning my head from side to side, observing the cleanliness of the interior. “Did you guys have Bessy washed?”

  “Yessir,” Rusty answered, whipping the wheel to the left and circling back out of the parking lot. “We got ourselves a good-old government car wash.”