The Finisher Series: Genesis

By Bert Marshall

After hitting rock bottom, Tag finally finds solace in the arms of his beautiful Army councilor. In her mission to stop his endless nightmares, she finds him a job through a friend. Little does she know that the friend is an ex-Air Force Intelligence officer working his own version of the war on terror – the terror of human trafficking and rampant illegal drugs.
Set near Houston, Texas, Tag Taggart takes up the path of a Finisher in the war on drug cartels, MS-13 gang-bangers, and the network dealing in illegal aliens and the human flesh sex market. Battling severe post traumatic stress disorder along the way, he finds relief in the adrenaline and violence his new trade affords. The financial rewards are incredible, but he lives a simple life and rubs shoulders with a few beauties along the way.
The Finisher Series is book one, titled Genesis and features reoccurring characters along with a bevy of bag guys and gals and adult situations. Tag lives in the violent underbelly of society and will take you along with him, if you dare to follow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bert Marshall
• Release date: Mar 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310422782

Bert Marshall

Bert Marshall lives in Baytown, Texas and is a Baytown Sun Columnist, Blogger, martial artist, geocacher, PC repair specialist, Jeeper, hiker, indoor cycling instructor, past Texas State Emergency Care Attendant, Hunter education instructor, and a USAF Vietnam Veteran with two tours (651 days in-country).

Book preview

The Finisher Series – Genesis

By Bert Marshall

Published by Bert Marshall at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Bert Marshall

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The violently rapid rolling series of crunching explosions busts windows for two city blocks and beyond, and so great is the sound wave that Jonathan Marcus Tag Taggart IV feels the thumps and sees the blinding flashes in his rearview mirror as he drives his Ford pick-up truck onto the freeway. He feels nothing in the way of emotion. Nothing at all. He probably should…but he doesn’t. After all, the guy had it coming. He had it coming in spades.

Carlos Cienfuegos has a rap sheet that filled four computer screens at the Harris County DA’s office and has lived openly and securely above the law… until today. The law that snared him is the law of diminishing returns and the eight six-gallon cans of gasoline in the central large closet of his plush and opulent River Oaks neighborhood compound nailed his coffin closed. What set them off was a well-timed and detonated series of Czech-made blocks of Semtex 10 which have never failed to make a spectacular demonstration of destruction, at least not in Tag’s extensive experience.

Tag ducks his closely shaven head down and looks in the rearview mirror at the giant black cloud a half mile back and says what he always does after a Finisher job, It don’t mean a damned thing…. Pushing his favorite Tractor Supply ball cap back on his head, he smiles.

----

So you think you want to be a U. S. Arm-EEEE Ranger do you? the sharply dressed Sergeant First Class obstreperously enunciates each syllable, speaking it clearly instead of screaming it for a change and Tag, fresh from jump school and training as a Explosives Ordinance Disposal expert, or simply MOS 89D, screams out Sir yes sir!" It began thirty-nine weeks of Advanced Individual Training at Fort Lee, VA and he graduated second in his class behind a female soldier, who he competed against, but could never outscore or perform. Her name is Chloe Henderson and she has a body to eclipse her incredible mind. To Tag’s knowledge, no one got in her camo green panties during the months of training – and the truth is, he was intimidated by her, as were the other soldiers.

Tag is shocked to see her in ranks in the row ahead of him. Her BDU’s are stretched tight across her hips and he senses he is not the only one checking out her exquisite rear display.

The Sergeant First Class tells them they are the cream of the crop and only one of this group will be selected to go to officer training school – if they manage to pass with top honors. The formation breaks for them to settle in and Tag is again shocked to find out he is bunking in the same room with Chloe, as in Ranger training there is no distinction of sexes. Everyone is expected to live the sixty-one days of training and all of its phases as soldiers and gender has nothing to do with it.

Conversation between the two soldiers was nonexistent in AIT, not that it was avoided, but Chloe kept mainly to herself, roomed with another female soldier, and only spoke when spoken to. Tag is naturally quiet and so their first evening in the same room results in neither speaking nor acknowledging each other. Training starts in the morning, but tonight they are unpacking and readying themselves for the grueling and exhausting schedule ahead of them.

Chloe Henderson has an Anglo father and a Cuban mother and has short thick and very black hair and without a moment’s hesitation, she strips down naked and walks into the tiny room shower, making no effort to cover herself.

Tag played seven years of football as a running back, from Optimist sixth grade, through his senior year at Madison High School in Houston, Texas and subsequently lost his virginity in the seventh grade to a sophomore cheerleader. From the eighth grade on, he had ample opportunities to score both off and on the field, but Chloe’s unabashed nakedness instantly causes him to become aroused; aroused to the point that when she comes out drying herself, he is reluctant to shed his clothes.

Am I going to have to keep a knife by my bed with you here Taggart? she says without looking up. The shapely twenty-one year old woman is totally naked and rubbing the towel across her impressive chest as she speaks.

I reckon not, Henderson. I reckon not. Tag turns his back and strips out of his clothes, seeing his aroused state was suddenly deflated by the woman’s arrogant cock-blocking remark and walks into the shower. Chloe smiles as she stares at his chiseled glutes and muscular legs and back. She’s had an eye on Tag since she first saw him at EOD, but he never paid her noticeable interest. Chloe entered the army almost a year ago after a disastrous relationship and has used every bit of pent-up hostility to propel her to the top of her classes. Only one person has dogged her physically and mentally and that is this quiet athlete of a man showering naked not twelve feet away.

Since her fiancée' dumped her at the altar, she’s had no use for a man, secretly working out her hormonal needs in private, but Taggart’s obvious state of arousal has her thinking. The first day here at Ranger school ran long on instruction and she shuts off her small lamp and just as Taggart exits the shower, she deliberately baits him by sliding naked under her sheets and rolls over away from him facing the wall. Her last thought is wondering what he is thinking.

Thirty-seven days of Hell and exhaustion later, the two of them stand before the formation and are honored for being the top two students. Only Chloe and Tag know the only reason she took top honors is because of him. In fact, in the Florida phase at Eglin Air Force base, only Tag’s constant steady voice kept her from not only giving up and on two occasions, drowning. The twenty-four days and anemic rations deadened both of them to near exhaustion after the third day and no thought of hanky panky in the privacy of their room ever crossed their minds. The level of physical exhaustion is almost impossible to exaggerate.

The captain over their twenty-nine member platoon or what is left of it announces corporal Chloe Henderson is awarded the Glenn M. Hall award, as is corporal Jonathan Marcus Taggart IV, but only Chloe receives the honor of the SGM Robert Spencer Enlisted Leadership Award. Chloe, not Tag will go to officer training school and after the celebration, she returns to their room to air out the awkward situation.

I’m sorry Tag. This honor is yours and we both know it. In the last month and a half, they’ve trained so hard that they’ve developed a very strong, but unspoken friendship, albeit no more than that. Under any other circumstances, they would have slept together by now – hell, who knows? It might have gone deeper than that.

Tag sits on the chair next to his bunk knowing what she says is true. He worked as hard as she did and although he never faltered, she did. No one knew it either. Now she’s being rewarded and he’s going to Iraq. She’ll be in OCS for what - twelve to sixteen weeks, then another school and another and another and he’ll be in the fricken sandbox as nothing more than a damn bullet magnet.

Tag nods and looks at the floor and Chloe takes a deep breath, swelling out the front of her uniform quite pleasingly, but Tag sees none of it. He stands, nods without looking at her, grabs his cap and steps out the door. He’s going to get good and drunk and forget about the whole damned issue. At least Ranger school is over, he mutters and steps off in the direction of the first bar he can find.

Chloe watches him go and curses at the circumstances. She has no time to lament though, as she is to report directly across post tonight. They pulled strings to get her training accelerated and her classes start in the morning.

Tag staggers back to the room, full of beer and whiskey shots from all his celebrating army ranger graduates, notes her bed is empty, and lowers down beside it. Holding his nose close to the blanket, he breathes in the woman’s scent. Tag, old buddy, that’s as close to her treasures as you’ll ever get.

----

Ruminating back through the foggy three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, it is all a blur and by God, that is the way he wants to remember it – or not. His veterans administration psychotherapist isn’t happy, but she can screw herself. At twenty-seven years old, he has witnessed and caused enough blood and guts to last five lifetimes and he’ll be damned if he will vomit up the details to anyone, especially a straight-leg light colonel who has never seen combat.

The nightmares are why he’s here, not to detail what happened. Hell…what happened is a mystery to him too. All he knows is the nightmare nights outnumber the ones where he drinks himself into a stupor and blacks out dreaming nothing.

Lt. Colonel Lauren Gilbraith has been working with post traumatic stress disorder victims since the war began and she was only a captain. She thought she had seen it all – until she met this veteran. He is locked up so tight, he’s at the point of exploding and his one hundred percent disability checks are basically being consumed at the bottom of a Jim Beam bottle.

Tag, please tell me a little about yourself. I’m not here – or rather you’re not here to feel like you are being forced to say anything. However, for the VA to continue your disability, you simply have to let me talk to you and you - me.

Tag has the haggard look of a tortured soul. He reeks of sour cigarette smoke and cheap bourbon and his clothes are tattered at the cuffs, collar, and the bottoms of his filthy jeans.

When did the dreams begin?

The filthy man looks at the floor and speaks softly, A couple of months after the army threw me out. It is the same old story and Lauren has heard it a hundred times.

Lauren looks at the photo of the proud sergeant first class and then at the man in front of her and is shocked when she realizes he was discharged less than fourteen months ago. His photo shows a man of about six feet tall with a chest full of ribbons and more decorations than she could ever hope to earn – and two silver stars. Along with that are three Purple Heart medals, and six army commendations to name only a few.

The guy in front of her looks to be about fifty years old and couldn’t weigh much more than her one hundred and thirty pounds. I want to help you stop having the nightmares.

Tag, as if in a daze, looks up at the blond-haired woman in front of him. Say again?

I can help stop the nightmares Sergeant, but I need your help.

Anything, just say it. The young ex-soldier with the face of an old man shakes out a Marlboro cigarette from a red and white pack and lights it up.

----

Today is my third month without a drink. I sit up on the edge of Lauren’s bed and kiss her morning face. She’s so beautiful in the morning. You had another dream last night, baby, she says sleepily and I nod.

It wasn’t so bad, Lauren. I knew it was a dream shortly after it started and I stepped out of it like you taught me. I walk into the bathroom and pee for almost a minute. She has me flushing my system with four quarts of water every day.

Lauren always marvels at how he survived so many bullet and shrapnel wounds, as evidenced by the marks on his back, butt, and legs. He shows no sign of discomfort when moving around or when he is vigorously mounting her. She’s hopelessly fallen for him, but fears the knowledge of this will drive him away. She’s eight years older than his twenty-seven and since their romance began, she’s religiously hit the gym for two to three hours a day, five days a week, dropping ten unnecessary pounds.

His body is free of excess weight and through her instructions of strict diet and exercise, he’s slowly regaining his former one sixty-five pound weight and all of it is muscle. He routinely demonstrates his might too and is the most considerate lover she’s partnered with. It’s time to run tiger. Maybe momma will reward you when you get back.

I started back running at Lauren’s insistence and by week’s end, am up to two miles. Now, almost ninety days into her regimen, I am pounding out a 10K six days a week and reduced my time to around thirty-seven minutes.

Finishing up the run, I check my time and I've shaved off another ten seconds. I feel great and full of energy. Lauren makes love to me like she means it and I joke she includes this therapy with all her clients and she tells me she does. Both of us know she doesn’t.

Afterward, we eat a light lunch of mostly green leafy vegetables and fruit juice and as she readies for work, she advises me that she wants me to see an agency friend about a job.

Baby, let’s face it. You can’t live on salad, sex, and exercise. You need purpose. You need a job. What are you? Twenty-seven? I’ve set you up with a friend of mine at the employment office and she’ll help you find something you will like. Even with a job, the colonel wants her soldier home and in her bed every night, you understand?

Yes. Ma’am, I say and she pushes my hands away from her breasts and demands I be serious.

Lauren, in dress greens, turns and gives me a sideways glance at her ample chest and touches her butt and making a sizzling sound, laughs, and leaves.

----

Well you certainly have some very peculiar training Mr. Taggart. Let’s see what we have for a macho guy like you, the smiling woman at the keyboard is a cute little button of a Hispanic beauty, who could be a curious cross between a librarian and a pole dancer. She wears glasses and wears her hair up, but in the fashion of so many Hispanic young ladies, is showing enough cleavage to hide a deck of cards.

She looks over her glasses at him and smiles, then at the screen and scrutinizes the many pages. Bingo! I got a hit. She pulls a pad out of desk and scribbles madly. Then looking at him for about five seconds, she scribbles a second number and the name Marci above it.

Lauren would box his ears if he called this little filly and I grin real big and taking the slip from her – she brushes her fingertips across his hand. Thank you Ma’am. I’ll be in touch.

You do that now, will you? Marci coos and I’m a little weak in the knees as I escape to the outside, breathing like I ran a mile. That little woman could wear out a full grown man…

----

Come in, sir. Mr. McDonough will see you shortly. I watch the siren-faced woman's shapely butt as she walks back out of sight and wonder if anyone has an ugly or fat secretary in Houston. A moment later she’s back and her cute mouth tells me, Mr. McDonough will see you", but her eyes tell me more.

Mr. Taggart. Please come in. As I step in, the first thing I notice is the military trappings around the room. I see by your resume you have operator training.

Well not in the truest sense, I offer, which plays down the truth.

The man pulls a copy of my DD-214 and whistles. "No, I’d say you have

Reviews for The Finisher Series

[fish tank · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I thought it was ok BUT...

I read The Finisher and The Finisher Series up to Exedus. The Finisher was reasonable but the rest of the books were simply repetitive with little variation. A different Finisher doing exactly the same things (and I don’t mean his job), the same lines being used and the same plot twists. To be honest, I only read more to see if it would change at all; it didn’t! Read The Finisher and stop there. Try Alpha Mike by the same author.