The Finisher Series: Leviticus

By Bert Marshall

Dustin Anderson Barton was nicknamed Dab by his uncle when he was 3 years old and it stuck. At first it was Little Dab, then The Dabber, and now at 28 years of age, his college and U.S. Army days behind him, he’s just known by everyone as Dab. A lot of his acquaintances don’t even know his real first name.

Dustin was the go-to man in 4 different sports in school, excelling in everything he did. He had his choice of classes and cheerleaders and lived the life of the privileged, even though his dad was a drunk and his mom, basically a whore. He was so good at sports that at the age of 14, the local city councilman teamed up with a church and bought him the finest of clothes to match the image of success they groomed him for. They planned early on to make Dustin a poster child of success. A rags to riches promo story for his small home town.

Although he doesn’t physically appear to be impaired, his highly tuned body is a road map of cuts, healed bullet wounds, permanent abrasions, and surgery scars, including a wicked line that runs from the left corner of his mouth up behind his ear, or what is left of it. TB, as his friends call him was discharged not for his physical injuries, but the sociopathic mental state four tours in the Middle East left him.

This is book four in a series where justice is meted out in a sanctioned vigilante style. The anti-hero is allowed to plot and plan to accomplish the goals set forth by his emplyer, the Harris County, Texas District Attorney's Office.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bert Marshall
• Release date: Nov 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311579942

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).

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The Finisher Series – Leviticus

By Bert Marshall

Published by Bert Marshall at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Bert Marshall

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Dustin Anderson Barton was nicknamed Dab by his uncle when he was three years old and it stuck. At first it was Little Dab, then The Dabber, and now at twenty-eight years of age, his college and U.S. Army days behind him, he’s just known by everyone as Dab. A lot of his acquaintances don’t even know his real first name.

Dustin was the go-to man in four different school sports, excelling in everything he set his sights on. He had his choice of classes and cheerleaders and lived the life of the privileged, even though his dad was a drunk and his mom, basically an out of necessity woman of the night. He was so good at sports that at the age of fourteen, the local city councilman teamed up with a church and bought him the finest of clothes to match the image of success they groomed him for. They planned early on to make Dustin a poster child of success; a rags to riches promo story for his small home town.

His home life reflected just the opposite, but being an only child and one gifted athletically let him lead a life apart from it. At the age of fifteen, he moved in with the councilman and his wife and being six feet two and strong as a grown man, not only got him a promise of a scholarship to Texas A&M; it also got him in between the silky thighs of the good councilman’s insatiable and curvaceous wife.

Dustin could do no wrong and being schooled by the preacher and both the councilman and through his bitchin’ hot wife, he learned the art of diplomacy… and how to deceive. He perfected the smile which he learned to use at the right time and how easily women dropped their panties when he did it. His prowess on the football and baseball field were unequaled in the history of Northshore High school and that is saying a lot.

He also learned to fight. If you go after hot girls, you will learn to fight and Dustin liked girls – a lot of girls and this included black and Latina girls, thus the fights. His reputation as a fist man equaled his prowess on the field and anyone who decided to brace him, usually felt they needed a couple of friends in attendance.

Graduating at seventeen, he made the varsity football team at Texas A&M his sophomore year and was slated to be red-flagged when he decided to graduate and join the U.S. Army after the World Trade Center disaster occurred. After five tours in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq and three Purple Heart medals and twice as many scars, he resigned his commission as a captain and was honorably discharged with special recognition.

While in the army, he studied Song Moo Kwan Taekwondo and at the ripe age of twenty-two earned his first degree black belt after two years of intensive study. His second degree came just a year later and at twenty-seven, his third degree. His sixth degree Korean master has never seen anyone advance as fast as he has and videoed him to prove to the World Taekwondo Federation and the all-controlling Kukkiwon that his skills are real, or they would not have registered his rank test scores.

Diagnosed with extreme anti-social behavior by the US Army, Dab surprisingly manages an AutoZone auto parts store in the Houston, Texas area known for volume and service. He has sixteen employees on staff and it earns him a whopping hundred grand a year plus profit sharing.

He manages to keep his anger issues in check by running six or more miles a day, but every once in a while, he boils over.

A little over a year ago, Dab did something that he believed was unknown to everyone but him – he killed a gang-banger and his whore after they tried to rob him. The guy and his woman, both pulled guns on him. Dab always carries a suppressed Glock Model 30 .45 ACP in his truck and convinced the guy to let him get his wallet. Dab shot them both in the forehead, then a second time in the chest.

He casually picked up the four spent shell-casings and drove off. Twenty minutes later he was eating a burger and fries with a beer and had all but forgotten about it. In other words, he felt no different when he squashed a mosquito or stepped on a roach.

Before going to war, the thought of taking a human life was unthinkable. Now? He doesn’t think about it at all and that is what bothered him after he once again shot a thug down on the far end of Montrose after the bars closed. Dab was walking to his Corvette and the man appeared as if my magic and pointed what looked like a pistol at him.

Again, before Dab had been to war as an infantry officer, he would have begged for mercy, but before the man could get the gun completely into play, Dab shot him twice in the forehead and once in the heart. He was white trash and had a black woman with him who lunged at Dab with a knife. Dab pushed her aside and punched her hard in the side of the head. The aggressive woman hit her head on the curb with a sickening squashing sound and he figured he fucked her up. He didn’t really give it further thought, as they were both bottom feeders.

Later that evening when replaying the scene in his mind is when he decided it was time to go to the VA for counseling. Hell, he thought killing was done in his life and the fact is, killing these people probably was the wrong thing to do. He better go in and talk to someone.

Now, a year later and many monthly visits, he is living a dual life of a veteran getting therapy and that of a trained killer, practicing what the army taught them. If he could only stop the panic attacks he occasionally has. They started on his third tour and steadily got worse until he resigned his commission. His company commander begged him to stay on and he did, albeit reluctantly. It’ll save your record, Barton and it did, but it didn’t stop the sudden panic attacks and nightmares.

Through therapy, he came under the scrutiny of USMC Colonel Jasper Jewel Lewing, who has a peculiar alliance with the Houston District Attorney’s office. Jewel is a recruiter of Finishers; a peculiar group of usually ex-military men who are trained killers of untouchable mobsters. He doesn’t come right out and say this, but it is what it is and Dab reads between the lines.

We’ve been watching you, Mr. Barton… he says and smiles.

Dab feels a cold line of sweat form at the base of his neck at this confession. And?

And I have a job for you if you are interested and I might add that it pays better than your AutoZone job… he says this with a smile and pushes a piece of paper toward Dab. It is his earning statement from last week. There is no sense in asking how the man got it.

I’m interested.

We know of, shall we say your extracurricular activities… and we approve to a point.

We, as in who? Dab is a master at interrogation and knows this is a tit for tat conversation.

My employers.

Okay, I see. On which side of the law do your employers live? Dab is wary, but sees a glint in the black man’s eye.

My employers ARE the law.

Dab looks at the wall and the many military awards and honors bestowed upon Jewel. Tell me more, Colonel.

----

Dustin Dab Anderson Barton is on his first assignment for the Houston DA’s office and has a bead on the head of a fat Mexican pimp dealing pills to the neighborhood kids as they exit the Galena Park, Texas high school bus. The man’s history shows he’s been illegally in this country for nine years, paid no taxes, and is a parasite of the worst ilk.

The 5.56mm bullet traveling at just under twenty-two hundred feet per second hardly expands, but drills a hole through the side of the fat man’s head like a Black and Decker drill bit would make. On the other side is a jagged hole the size of a plum and the same color.

Dab is so far away that there is no sound and the fat man slumps forward onto the chest of the varsity cheerleader like he’s trying to mount her. By the time she begins to scream, Dab is already on his bicycle, riding along the ten foot wide hike and bike trail for his car two miles away. The rifle is neatly tucked away in a vinyl sleeve under an overgrown Chinese holly tree and will be recovered by his team.

When he awakens the next morning, he checks his Fitbit and is amazed to see he slept nine hours without one disruption. The Mexican was a monster and Dab had no trouble blowing his ass to hell and gone. The thought of the mental impact the killing has on the kids isn’t apparent until he sees their lawyer being interviewed on the local news channel the next morning. He realizes it was a mistake to watch the interview. Some things are better left alone.

Best to forget about it and eat breakfast.

Two days later a UPS Parcel arrives and inside the package is ten thousand dollars in used twenty dollar bills. Fucking amazing! Ten big ones for one hour’s work? Easy peasy. He opens the paper and sees that there is a big jazz festival in Houston and he got a taste for the genre while in Iraq. One of his roomies was a sax man and many a night as they sat watching the countryside, they kept their nerves intact listening to the jazz greats with ear buds. The only entertainment allowed in the sandbox was music; no wine or women and this differed from almost every other military deployment.

In retrospect, this was the main reason for troops had PTSD returning from this particular war. No wine and no women.

Memorial Park in Houston is a big place of fourteen hundred and sixty-six acres and about a quarter of it has a human standing on it today. That’s an exaggeration to be sure, but there are a hellava lot of people and a lot of prime female flesh. Since returning from the war, Dab has had numerous partners, but his elusiveness caused by war trauma and the fact that he has a rather pronounced scar across his chest from a hellish IED, has made him push back anytime one of his dates has wanted a closer relationship or demanded he take off his t-shirt during sex.

The fact that he refers to women as dates in their presence hasn’t helped his cause either. We’re only dating, doesn’t go very far, especially after the tenth time you fuck a girl and this usually ends it. One twenty-two year old blond with a terrific ass is an exception. Her name is Jessica Newman and she’s a Methodist preacher’s daughter and a first year medical student. Dab can bed her any time he chooses and she eagerly accommodates him. She has the look on her face of a deer in the headlights, but is sharp as a needle. She mistakenly believes Dab will marry her and puts up with his mood swings and finally breaks his cherry on taking off his shirt.

She loves the wicked-looking scar and tells him of the effect it has on her. It makes him appear dangerous and turns her on. In her words, It makes me wet, honey.

Jess is on a field trip with Rice University to Cairo, Egypt and Dab’s balls are turning blue. He scans the crowd trying to decide if danger lurks here before he suddenly relaxes. Old habits die hard and he focuses on the ass of a redhead twenty feet in front of him. Her chestnut colored hair is just past her shoulders and is thick as hemp hawser. Slim in build, but my gawd how she fills out those jeans is like Christmas to a six year old and right now Dab is about at that IQ level.

Dab has always been good at reading people, thanks to numerous observation and interrogation classes he attended in counter warfare school and can instantly tell that this nerdish woman is anything but a push over. Her mannerisms, the way she talks, and interacts with the people around her tells Dab that this is a woman to be reckoned with. As she turns and gestures toward the stage, her eyes meet his and this seals his impression.

Her pinkish glasses, ultra-light make-up and small upturned breasts cause Dab to unexpectedly break eye contact. She continues to talk to the large muscular man next to her and another couple and Dab buys a Lonestar longneck beer from a walking vendor and pretends to look around.

Damn! he mutters, realizing she just disarmed him. Trying to look as casual as possible, he meanders around, but never gets out of her sight, sneaking peeks like he’s a teenager following a hot teacher.

Every angle of her is perfect and she once again catches him peeking at her… and smiles.

Fuck! he looked away again. This is bullshit. I am almost thirty years old and I am acting like I’m twelve and girls have cooties. The next time he looks up, she is gone and now he openly scans the crowd, fearing she has left the festival.

I hope you aren’t stalking me, I might not like that very much. The woman’s voice is coming from behind him and Dab turns very slowly and looks into the eyes of the redhead.

Holding up his hands in mock surrender, he smiles and apologizes. I am not, but if I could possibly have your phone number, maybe we could do lunch, uh, if that is not your hubby or boyfriend with you, that is… Shit! How stupid of me!

There is no give in this beauty at all and she looks deeply into his soul and slowly smiles and holds out her hand. Miki Nakatani.

Dab could be knocked over by a feather at her name and looking closer he realizes she does indeed have Japanese features. Dab Barton. My name is Dustin, but folks call me Dab.

She hands him a business card and he glances at it. Special agent Miki Nakatani is a forensic specialist with the Houston bureau of the FBI. He hadn’t noticed it before, but on her left side is the telltale sign of a pistol under her open hoodie. She’s a lefty.

Does my occupation set off alarms in you Mr. Barton? she says and staring into his eyes, she searches for the truth.

Dab is quite familiar with alpha personalities, including female officers he met in the army, just not one as