Traffyck (59 page)

McGraw wiped sweat from his brow, streaking his camouflage paint. Thirty-six years old, he still fit the image of the steely-eyed, ramrod-straight, invincible soldier the army liked to portray on its recruiting posters. His forehead and cheeks were high, his nose prominent with just a hint of an aquiline bump, and his face was tanned and leathery but creased only at the corners of his eyes, which made his green-eyed gaze seem ever so more piercing. He felt anxious but not fearful, though he knew the next few minutes would be the turning point of his life. Fail here and he would die or, perhaps worse, return to that cold ten-by-ten-foot cage at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he had been imprisoned for nearly a year. Succeed and he would be well on the road to regaining his most prized position, his honor. But there was far more at stake in these moments.

“We’ve got a chance here to change the nature of war,” his commander, General Mack Shell, had admonished him. “To change the way men have fought for millennia; to put an end to our young men fighting and dying in war after war.”

Although his troops had come to kill, they had no concept of sin. McGraw’s soldiers sat still, shoulder to shoulder in the dark confines of an M113 armored personnel carrier, gazing vacantly dead ahead. The hot, dank air felt like a steam cooker, but there was no grumbling, not a sound, except for their steady, almost synchronized breathing. McGraw unlocked the rear hatch of the M113, and they quickly, silently deployed, gathering ghostlike around him, their faces swallowed in the darkness, all but the eerie glow of their eyes. He flashed four fingers on one hand and then four fingers on both hands, four and eight.
Forty-eight
was the signaled command. They obeyed immediately, readying their specially designed weapons just as he had trained them over the past several months.
Forty-eight
also stood for the unique genetic code that identified the special nature of these extraordinary troops that he was sending into battle for the first time.

An ancient stone culvert led from his position to the target, a kilometer away. One of his troops kicked at a plastic bag floating in the jetsam of the canal. Several rats scurried past, and the entire platoon gazed after them. Perhaps they just needed to be a little distracted, to feel a little calm before the storm. But McGraw still wondered if they were ready.
Forty-eight
, he signaled again, reclaiming their attention as they heard the faint snap of his fingers.

McGraw swept his palm across the head of his platoon leader as a gesture of confidence and reassurance. Then he held up one finger for a moment. With that signal, their very breath seemed to stop. He then simply pointed and his troops were gone in an instant. McGraw followed for about a hundred meters to watch their progress but, like a bomb dropped, he knew he couldn’t recall them and couldn’t join them, so he returned.

He illuminated his wristwatch and watched the second hand throb like his heartbeat. There was nothing left for him to do but sit and wait. He wasn’t the praying type. He didn’t believe in supernatural intervention, just training and more training, the right intelligence, and the right weapons. Victory in war, he knew, did not come to gods; it came to flesh-and-blood soldiers.

“The history of men at war is writ large with stories of heroes,” General Shell had said before sending him off, “stories of young men who fight and often die for noble, sometimes ignoble causes. Their actions sometimes elevate them to superhuman or biblical status. They become the legend of an overmatched David defeating a Goliath; a blind and bound Samson defeating the haughty Philistines. But remember, glory is fleeting and the ends of war for survivors are most often filled with nightmares, with trinkets of ribbons and medals, and uniforms that will soon no longer fit.” The general then paused fitfully. “Put an end to it, Link,” he said, pressing on McGraw the firmest of handshakes.

That farewell speech reminded McGraw of his own heroes:

Sidney Coulter, Eagle Scout, valedictorian, age nineteen, died in battle, Amsar, Afghanistan.

Jaime Garza, Mexican immigrant, father of two, age twenty-four, died by RPG, Ramal.

Richard Neilson, car salesman, poker player extraordinaire, age twenty, died by IED, Baghdad.

There were plenty, too many more. Perhaps with this success, he thought, there would soon be no more.

McGraw had made one adjustment on the eve of battle that he knew his general would have frowned upon. He had given each of his troops a shot of brandy. Not enough to get drunk, but enough to slightly dull the frontal cortex that controls executive functioning, that area of the brain that breeds doubt. A little alcohol, he believed, allowed one to think more simply, to dull the noises on the periphery. He took his own swig of the red from his canteen. He, too, needed to dull his doubts.

The village he was attacking was a terrorist camp, and the men there were not novices and certainly not innocent. They were well-trained soldiers who had killed many times before. They not only professed that they were unafraid to die, but that they were eager to die for their cause.

The guard on the observation tower at the edge of the village was vigilant, but he could never have imagined an enemy so furtive. Four razor-sharp blades sliced through the back of his neck like a guillotine, severing his spinal cord just below the second vertebrae. He heard his own body loudly thump to the floor and had only a split second to be astonished at the sight of his executioner before consciousness and then life left him. The guard’s death was one of the more humane that night. Others would die slower, more painful mutilations from a hundred blades. Mustafa, the commander of this camp, a man who had killed dozens of men with his own hand and hundreds more by sending out “martyrs” with bombs strapped to their chests, was the last to die. A dozen of his guards would die before his quarters were breached. He patiently awaited his enemy clutching a Makarov 9mm. When the American soldier leapt into his room, Mustafa put five shots into his torso. None missed. He heard them, the wet thud of bullets impacting flesh, one after the other. His attacker was not wearing body armor, yet he kept coming. The bullets had penetrated both lungs, and blood was pouring into and out of his chest. But even in the throes of death, McGraw’s soldier had more strength than the average man. “They have the strength of ten men,” McGraw had been told more than once, and he was often surprised to discover what feats their endurance and strength could accomplish.

What kind of enemy is this?
Mustafa thought in the moments before the blades sliced through him. His larynx was cut first so he couldn’t scream out the last words he thought,
Allah! The children of Jews!

McGraw heard only a little wailing, the brief rattle of gunfire, and then came the quiet. He eyed his watch again. The last few seconds of his timetable were clicking away. His heart filled, heavy like it was about to explode, and he bowed his head as if ready for the axe to fall. And then, after 480 seconds—eight minutes exactly—they all returned. Just as in practice, their timing was impeccable.

Like all American soldiers, they were trained to return with their dead and wounded. No man, no one left behind. There was but one casualty. They laid the body at McGraw’s feet and eyed him. Their gaze was difficult to interpret. Did they want praise or consolation? It was not the time for either. McGraw simply pointed and his troops clambered aboard their truck as they had been trained to do. His job now was to withdraw quickly and quietly. Stealth was essential to his mission.

Of all the primates, the human being is the only one that cries. In fact, only one other land animal cries—the elephant. On this field of battle, there were no elephants around to grieve, and the only tear shed was Link McGraw’s.

What do a trigger-happy bootlegger with pancreatic cancer, an alcoholic helicopter pilot who is afraid to fly, and a dead guy with his feet in a camp stove have in common?

What are the similarities between a fire department that cannot put out fires, a policeman who has a historic cabin fall on him from out of the sky, and an entire family dedicated to a variety of deceased authors?

Where can you find a war hero named Termite with a long knife stuck in his liver, a cook named Hoghead who makes the world’s worst coffee, and a supervisor named Pillsbury who nearly gets hung by his employees?

Sequoyah, Georgia is the answer to all three questions. They arise from the relationship between A. J. Longstreet and his best friend since childhood, Eugene Purdue. After a parting of ways due to Eugene’s inability to accept the constraints of adulthood, he reenters A.J.’s life with terminal cancer and the dilemma of executing a mercy killing when the time arrives.

Take this gripping journey to Sequoyah, Georgia and witness A.J.’s battle with mortality, euthanasia, and his adventure back to the past and people who made him what he is—and helps him make the decision that will alter his life forever.

ISBN# 9781933836386
Hardcover Fiction
US $25.95 / CDN $28.95
Available Now
www.raymondlatkins.com

Hotshot pilot John Hardin has a dark history.

He and his beautiful Cherokee girlfriend, Kitty Birdsong, are enjoying life in the Great Smoky Mountains when Nolan Rader, a former BATF agent, emerges from John’s violent past and demands help to save his younger brother, Clint Rader, from the vengeance of an outlaw motorcycle gang known as the Satan’s Ghosts.

A warped genius called Brain controls the Satan’s Wraiths, an elite cadre of trained hitters within the worldwide gang, and Brain is privately conducting psychological research on Clint prior to killing him.

John must agree to help Nolan Rader or face exposure about his past—and the only way to find out what he must know to save Clint Rader is to infiltrate the biker gang. This leads him down a lethally dangerous path between the law and the outlaws, ranging from Canada to the Bahamas.

As events close in and the execution draws near, can John find some way to save Clint Rader before time runs out?

ISBN# 9781605420608
Mass Market Paperback / Suspense
US $7.95 / CDN $8.95
Available Now
www.philbowie.com

Be in the know on the latest
Medallion Press news by becoming a
Medallion Press Insider!

As an Insider you’ll receive:

• Our FREE expanded monthly newsletter, giving you more insight into Medallion Press

• Advanced press releases and breaking news

• Greater access to all of your favorite Medallion authors

Joining is easy, just visit our Web site
at
www.medallionpress.com
and click on the
Medallion Press Insider tab.

medallionpress.com