Borderline Crazy

By Scott Summers

Ill-tempered former Navy SEAL turned small town Sheriff Deputy, Jessica (Jessie) Peltier, struggles to maintain her sanity following a horrendous tour of duty in Afghanistan. Her return to a peaceful, civilian life is shattered when forces unknown frame her for killing the son of a Mexican drug lord. Evidence exposing a vast government conspiracy is left at the murder scene. Desperate, the killers abduct Jessie’s best friend, Nadine, and sentence her to death unless Jessie embarks on a suicide mission into darkest Mexico to return the evidence. At her wits end, Jessie calls on former Navy SEAL teammate, Nash Garza and her elderly Native American uncle, Daniel Peltier. From their base in a Mexican brothel, Jessie and her team play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the ruthless Baja Norte drug cartel, using only aggressive tactics, archaic weapons and their wits. From the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Baja California desert, they teach a hard lesson to those who oppose them: You picked the wrong patsy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Summers
• Release date: Sep 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370096138

Book preview

Chapter 1

June 2014, 18:00 Hours

Navy SEAL Lieutenant, Jessica (Jessie) Peltier

Somewhere in Afghanistan.

MOVEMENT FLASHED IN HER PERIPHERAL vision. Navy SEAL Lieutenant, Jessica Peltier, angled her sniper rifle toward it and peered through its high-powered scope.

A head appeared wearing a flat Afghan tribal hat; a man … sneaking like a rat.

Taliban fighter?

The man moved low and slow then disappeared into the scrub.

Tom, she whispered into her combat mic. I’ve got a sneaker coming down the hill. One so far.

Copy.

Jessie stared at the hillside for several seconds. Two more hats popped up, then disappeared. An obvious reconnoiter, three men up to no good. Tom. Two more sneakers now.

Copy.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, all three stood and hiked down the hill toward the mud-hut village she’d observed all day. Jessie tensed. Shit. She keyed her mic. Their arms aren’t swinging. They’re carrying something under their robes. 

AKs?

Hold on.

One of the men stopped, whipped his dick out and urinated on a rock. As he jiggled the last drop, a rifle barrel poked through the folds of his robe.

Affirmative on the AKs. They’re Taliban fighters. All were legitimate targets. Jessie scanned their facial features with her scope. None of them matched Willie, the high-value target they were searching for. Looks like thumbs-down to me. You have them, Tom?

Roger. No joy from here. The search continues.

Copy. Jessie sighed, peering through her scope. C’mon, Willie. Show yourself.

Sniping Islamic radicals had become routine. Easy in fact. Relentless training can do that. It bothered her a little. Not the killing part because those fuckers had it coming. She never thought it would become easy, but it had. A human form would appear in her scope holding a rifle or grenade launcher; a squeeze of the trigger and a jolt of recoil followed by the words, Tango Down. All had been far away. No bad breath or sweaty faces. Could she kill a man up close with her bare hands? After what she’s seen … easy peezy.

On a dry brush-covered hill, Jessie lay in a pool of her own sweat, sweeping her sniper rifle across a distant Afghan village; its mud-huts popped like pimples from the earth. Directly in front, a small poppy field bloomed pink and white next to a river. She glanced at her watch. 18:00. Damn. I’ve been lying here for twelve hours.

Finally, the sun fell behind the jagged spires of the Hindu Kush Mountains to her far right, giving slight relief from the heat. Aiming at a wooden cart centered in the village bazaar, she checked the distance on her laser range finder. Three hundred twenty-five yards.

Resuming the search, peering through the magnified lens, she judged each villager who walked into view like a Roman emperor at the games, awarding a thumbs-up or down. Thumbs-up meant a violent death by way of a large caliber bullet to the chest. So far, thumbs-down all around as none of the villagers she’d seen so far matched the photograph taped to the butt of her rifle. None of them knew that for a moment, their lives were in her expert hands.

A bead of sweat escaped the band of her boonie hat and slid past her brow into the corner of her eye. She cleared the sting with her trigger finger and removed the hat to brush away strands of moist brown hair stuck to her face. She wiped the sweat from her forehead; readjusted her hat and sucked a drink of water from her Camelback straw.

Three bearded men appeared in her optic as they exited an alleyway. They sat together at a table under an awning next to the village shops. One of them opened a game board and spread a box of tiles on the table and another shuffled them around. The men drank from teacups, smoked cigarettes and played the game.

Backgammon?

They wore long white tunics, appeared to be mid-fifties and laughed like old friends. Relaxing in the open in this neighborhood? Risky. The shoppers in the bazaar didn’t loiter. They scurried around the food carts, purchased what they needed and dashed to the relative safety of their huts. Were these men insane or stupid? Perhaps they didn’t give a damn anymore. Men their age had seen war and oppression their entire lives. In a perverse way, their cheerfulness made sense, considering the circumstances. You’re old, tired and screwed no matter what you do. You might as well have fun with your friends because tomorrow you might be dead. If you die, at least you’re not in this shit-hole anymore, and that’s a good thing.

Jessie placed the crosshairs on each man, one-at-a-time and studied their features. Thumbs-down boys, you get to live. Her target was an older man, late-sixties with a graying beard and a scar running down the left side of his face. The higher-ups code-named him Willie Nelson for no particular reason, other than it sounded distinctive over the radio.

Originally from Egypt, his real name was Al Fayad. Booted from the Muslim Brotherhood for psychotic tendencies, Al Fayad had not endeared himself to the locals. His knack for using crippled children as human shields, and leaving a wake of butchered young bodies wherever he went, had preceded him. Her pulse spiked and her fists clenched tight as the briefing photos flashed in her mind. She dreamed of ripping off his beard and stuffing it down his throat, before putting a bullet in his head. No doubt, he was a prick that needed a special kind of killing. She would not leave the SEAL Team until she added his notch to the grip of her SIG-Sauer 9 Millimeter.

Killing Al Fayed was all she thought about and his demise would be the cherry on top of her groundbreaking career as the Navy’s first woman SEAL. Would the old man be proud of her? Yes. She smiled. Her Uncle Daniel Peltier, A.K.A. the old man, had raised her to be the tough woman she was. She scoffed. Who was she kidding? The powers-that-be would bury those mission details between the man on the grassy knoll and the Ark of the Covenant then swear her to secrecy. Besides, how valuable a resume item was: Expert Sniper with thirty-five confirmed kills. There was little demand for that skillset in the private sector, unless of course, she joined the Mafia.

The air shifted and a putrid stench enveloped her. Holy fuck, she sputtered and spat the taint from her mouth; unsure if the smell was from goat shit littering the area or her own body odor. She sniffed her armpit. Toss-up.

Flies swarmed overhead, no doubt, attracted to the smell. A fat one swooped down like a fighter-jet on a strafing run. It stopped, hovered in front of her briefly, and darted in for a landing, touching down on the tip of her nose.

To the buzzing pest, Jessie’s camo-painted face must have looked like a yummy turd. Crossing her eyes, she bore down on the bug, trying to kill it with her thoughts. Failing at that, she smashed it against her face with her palm. Great. Now she had fly guts on her nose, mixed with face-paint and sweat. Yep, I’m sexy. Another day in Afghanistan.

Jessie pulled her head back to the scope and a wave of dizzy fatigue washed over her, as if she’d tried to stand up too fast. Her head rolled from the rifle butt onto her shoulder. Her eyes closed

I just need a minute.

She cracked a single eyelid. The distant village blurred into a mirage of windless air, flowing back and forth in the rising waves of heat. Darkness circled her vision and pushed in from the edges to a pinpoint.

Just one … damn … minute.

A random squawk from her headset shocked her back into awareness. She wagged her head to get blood flowing then moved her eye to the scope. The backgammon table. Shit. Now there were four men. Where had the new guy come from? She re-examined each man, placing them one-at-a-time, center-mass in her optic. First man, nope; second man, nope; third man, there you are. The new arrival faced away from her. C’mon fucker, turn around, smile for the camera.

Keying her mic, she whispered, Tom. You got eyes on the new guy at the backgammon table?

Hold on. Static followed. Roger that, said Tom Strickland. I have eyes on him. Might be Willie, but I’m not a hundred percent. Can you confirm?

Jessie stiffened and prepared to fire but a possible match wasn’t proof enough to pull the trigger. If she killed an innocent, she wasn’t certain she could live with the burden.

Tom’s voice crackled through her earpiece. I see a scar on backgammon boy. After a pause, his tone grew excited. I think it’s Willie Nelson. The new arrival turned his profile to her.

She adjusted the scopes focus until the clarity was perfect. Jessie examined every detail of the man’s face. His telltale scar was the confirmation. Thumbs-up, it’s him. Al Fayad, she whispered, and keyed her mic. Eyes on Willie.

Copy that, Tom said. Take him down.

Jessie relaxed her breathing as she pulled the butt of the heavy rifle snug into the crook of her shoulder. She placed the reticle on the back of Al Fayad’s head, and flicked the safety catch with her thumb. Her index finger brushed against the triggers grooved metal surface.

Jessie began her firing ritual; three long breaths and the trigger pull on the last exhale between heartbeats. She sucked a long breath and let it out slow. Once, twice. Her heart-rate slowed as it pulsed against her Kevlar vest. She tuned-in to its rhythm, anticipating the split-second between beats. Her lungs inhaled the final breath and with increasing pressure on the trigger, she exhaled steady past tight lips. Her index finger eased away from the trigger as she stared at the man in the crosshairs. Something odd about him nagged her. What was it?

Al Fayad appeared to enjoy himself playing that ancient board game as he laughed with the other men at the table. A vicious killer with a bounty on his head, sitting in the open playing a table game? Laughing?

A quiver rolled through her gut. Something’s wrong with this picture. The man in her optic was an exact match for Al Fayad, and the latest Intel had placed him at the bazaar. Still, something wasn’t right.

A lesson from the past flashed in Jessie’s mind. The old man had drilled it into her, teaching her to hunt Mule deer in the Eastern Sierra Mountains. "You must be one hundred percent sure of your target, Jessica. Anything less, do not take the shot."

Jessie studied the photograph of Al Fayad taped to the butt of her rifle. There it was. The thing that scratched her brain, causing the tiniest bit of doubt. Al Fayad had a small mole next to the scar by his temple. She refocused on the man at the table. Shit. No mole. Her head slumped off the scope as a knot twisted her gut, squeezing the air from her lungs. She gasped for breath for several seconds then keyed her mic. Standing down. It’s not Willie. No mole on his face. She could barely push out the words.

Tom replied. Copy that.

Jessie wiped the sweat from her brow with her shaking hand and sipped from her Camelback. She came within a hair of killing an innocent; just an old man trying to find a little peace with friends in a war-torn hellhole. She cursed under her breath, and wallowed in self-doubt; her confidence shaken to the core. How many missions before she pulled the trigger on a poor bastard whose only crime was he looked like a terrorist?

Shake it off, dammit. Enough with the self-pity crap. I’ll feel sorry for myself later.

A squawk in her radio headset snapped her back to reality.

Jessie, this is Slasher, how copy, over? said the operator of an armed Predator drone, circling five thousand feet above the village.

I read you five-by-five Slasher, go ahead.

We’ve got eyes on Willie Nelson. He’s walking into the building located one block south of the bazaar next to the river. Okay, he’s inside the building now, over.

Jessie angled her scope toward a small mud brick warehouse across the blooming poppy field. No bystanders. Roger that, Slasher. Target is in the building. The area is clear of civilians. Proceed with missile-strike, over. She braced for the impact of the incoming hellfire missile, but kept an eye on the building to savor the bastard’s last moments on earth. Al Fayad, your ass is mine.

Movement caught her eye. A white pickup truck with three little kids in the back drove toward the warehouse along the river road.

Slasher, what’s your E.T.A., over?

Thirty seconds to impact.

The truck slowed and parked next to the warehouse. The Kids in the truck bed jumped out and stood, waiting for the driver to exit the vehicle. He sat in the driver’s seat, talking on a cell phone—oblivious.

Adrenaline ripped through Jessie’s body. No. Break-Break, Slasher. Abort missile. Abort. Abort. Be advised, kids in the target area. She held her breath awaiting a response. Static crackled in her ear. Seconds passed. Slasher!

Copy that, Jessie. Aborting missile strike. Whew, that was close. Be advised, we are two mikes to bingo fuel.

Sonofabitch. So close and now this. She glanced at her watch and back at the kids, and back to the watch again. Move dammit, move.

The oblivious driver chatted on his phone. His kids played on the dirt. Seconds ticked away, and the two minutes were up.

Her headset squawked in her ear. Jessie. This is Slasher. We’re bingo fuel now, heading back to base, over.

Jessie sighed. Copy that, Slasher. We’ll do it the hard way. Damn. So much easier to launch a missile, watch from a distance and scrape up the bad guys with a spatula. She keyed her mic. Bravo-Team, Bravo-Team, be advised, Slasher tracked Willie to the building one block south next to the river. Slasher is bingo fuel. We’re going through the front door. Alpha squad, move into position at the front.

Tom Strickland’s voice crackled in her ear. Copy that, Jessie. Moving now. Tom led a four-man squad.

Delta squad, move to the back of the building.

Copy that, Jessie. Moving now, said Nash Garza who led a three-man squad.

Her hard muscles tensed as her men charged into harm’s way. They exited the relative safety of cover and moved to positions near the building. Now exposed, her men were visible to the locals, many of which milled around the bazaar. Only a matter of seconds before one of Al Fayad’s spies would make a phone call tipping him off.

Damn. She was too far away to cover them effectively. I need to move closer. She jumped up, and ran toward the warehouse cradling the sniper rifle then keyed her mic. Moving closer, she huffed, then sprang from the brush into the Poppy field.

The truck driver still jabbered on his phone then he looked her way. His mouth dropped as their eyes locked. The driver shooed his kids into the truck-bed and sped off in the opposite direction.

About time, asshole. Jessie trudged through the poppies, stopping a hundred yards short of the warehouse.

Tom’s voice cracked through her earpiece. Alpha squad in position.

Nash’s voice followed. Delta squad in position.

Execute, Execute. Jessie commanded.

Tom and his team approached the front door and blasted the hinges with a Benelli combat shotgun. The man behind him moved in and kicked it down. Tom and his team rushed through the smoking doorway. A faint Bap-Bap-Bap-Bap of the SEALs Heckler and Koch rifles echoed, then silence.

Jessie keyed her mic. Alpha squad, sit-rep.

Tom’s huffing voice replied. Two dead tangos. No Willie Nelson. The target’s not here. Alpha squad is okay, no injuries, over.

Thank God, Tom’s okay.

A short burst of automatic rifle fire echoed from a distance.

Where’s that shooting coming from? She keyed her mic. Delta squad report.

Open line static crackled through the speaker.

Delta squad sit-rep.

No response.

Shit. Something’s wrong. Alpha squad, move to the rear of the building. Delta is not responding.

Jessie dumped the cumbersome rifle in the dirt, and jerked the SIG-Sauer from her thigh holster and keyed her mic. I’m heading to Delta. She ran flat-out toward the rear of the warehouse, rounded the corner and froze.

Nash was gone and his two men were down. One convulsed on the ground, his Kevlar vest was shredded. The other SEAL had his throat cut ear-to-ear and was bleeding-out. There was no hope for him as the dry packed ground already held more blood than the human body could afford to lose.

Jessie crouched to the twitching man, and ripped open his shirt to check his wounds. His ceramic chest plate had saved his life, but the bullet impacts left him gasping. She bent down, screaming, Which way did they go?

His eyes bulged as he tried to push the words from his open fish mouth. All he could muster were gurgling sounds.

Jessie grabbed his head, locked her lips on his and blew hard, forcing a rush of air into his lungs.

Fuck! he blurted out with the first lungful.

She clutched his head, glaring into his shocked eyes. Which way, dammit?

The SEAL flopped a hand to the ground and pointed a quivering finger toward the marketplace. That....way....

Jessie ran into the bazaar. The gunfire had scared away the shoppers, leaving it deserted. She stood in the center of the shops surrounded by carts of nuts, spices and odd vegetables. Spinning around, she scanned the area, searching for a sign; anything that might point the way. Past an overturned cart, a young man in a white tunic was helping an elderly man to his feet. Did someone knock him down? She rushed over, hand gripping her automatic. Where did they go? she demanded in the local Pashto dialect.

The younger man snarled and shouted, screw you, woman.

If she didn’t find Nash soon he would likely die a gruesome death as part of a sick propaganda video and this prick knew something. She raised the SIG-Sauer.

The old man cocked an arm and smacked the younger man’s face, then turned to Jessie. His hard weathered face, filled with the pain of too many years of war, softened. He glanced around, as if checking for prying eyes, then nodded toward an alleyway twenty yards away.

Thank you. She tipped her head in gratitude, and bolted toward the alley. He might have lied just to prevent her from killing the younger man, but it didn’t matter. She had nothing else to go on.

Jessie ran into the alley looking for any sign of Nash. Dammit. Where was he? She made it all the way to the end of the alley. Nothing. Shit.

Her earpiece crackled. Jessie, what’s your twenty, over?

I’m in an alley at the bazaar, twenty yards in, and to the right side. Jessie doubled back, trying to stay calm, but her anxiety level had redlined. She stopped. Calm down dammit. Think. Breathing in, she held her breath, then exhaled slow. Okay, what would the old man do? The tracking lessons from her uncle Daniel, a full-blooded Piute Indian, flashed in her mind. Of course, look for a sign. Focus. She scoured the alleyway for anything out of place.

The ground was dirt covered stone and the adjacent walls were mud brick. Three wooden doors were spaced out along alley. What’s that? A slight drag mark on the ground. The wall next to it? Nothing. The wood door? A knot tightened her gut as she spotted a small blood smear on the doorknob.

Nash. Adrenaline flooded her vein’s as a rush of raw energy lifted her mind from her body. She lost control. Waiting for Tom’s team never entered her mind. She jiggled the knob. Locked. Raising a boot, she smashed the door open and glimpsed a man at the end of a hallway. Time slowed to a crawl as every detail of his attack flashed in her mind.

The attackers AK-47 fired in a steady rhythm; a yellow flash, a sharp crack, brass pinging into the acrid, smoke-filled air and repeat. A confident snarl betrayed his certainty he would kill her, as he shot the rifle from the hip like an amateur. No doubt, he’d seen too many cheesy Hollywood movies and didn’t know better.

Heavy slugs ripped into her ceramic chest plate, slamming her body into the doorjamb.

Jessie raised her automatic in a fluid motion of muscle memory at the attacker’s head, and fired.

A chunky pink mist from the headshot spackled the wall behind him. The attacker crumpled to the ground, still sporting the confident grin.

Jessie charged forward, hopped over the dead attacker then stopped at a door at the end of the hallway. She stepped aside and jiggled the knob. Dammit. Locked.

An angry roar of machine-gun fire erupted from behind the door. Large caliber bullet holes popped through the wood, shooting splinters into her face. A frantic voice rang out from behind the door. Help!

Nash, hold on. She kicked the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

A misplaced shot from the enemy gun exploded the doorknob, sending metal fragments hurling past.

Now was her chance. She kicked again at the weakened lock.

The mangled mechanism released, and the door flung open.

She tossed a flash-bang grenade into the room and turned around, shielding her eyes and ears.

The cylindrical grenade ignited into a flash of blinding white light and nauseating sound.

With her SIG pointed forward with both hands, she charged through the doorway.

A shrieking man stood in her way, doubled over, holding an AK.

Jessie pointed the SIG to the crown of his head and fired.

He flopped, face to the floor, spread-eagle.

Jessie hurdled over the body and charged into the smoky mayhem

Another man appeared through the haze squinting fury beneath a red and white checkered headdress. His snarling mouth twisted into a wild mash of yellow teeth and beard as he swung a long bladed scimitar backwards in a high arc.

Jessie did the last thing he expected and charged straight at him, ignoring the guillotine about to drop.

The man’s snarl collapsed below widened eyes as he hesitated, clearly not expecting the aggressive move.

Jessie aimed, and fired and blew a hole through his left eye socket.

His head snapped backwards into a cloud of his own pink mist. The scimitar slipped from his limp hand and clinked to the ground as he collapsed next to it.

Through the haze, Jessie spotted Nash, covered in blood spatter from the man she shot. The image she’d studied for months, taped to the butt of her rifle, scowled back at her. Al Fayad crouched behind Nash, holding a long machete to his throat. On the wall behind them was a black banner with Arabic writing on it. A video camera stood to the side, perched on a tripod, ready to record Nash’s execution.

Duck!

Nash struggled to move but couldn’t. The monster had him in a chokehold and used Nash as a shield. Al Fayad appeared shaken by the flash-bang explosion but his rolling eyes leveled as he gripped the Machete, preparing to kill one last infidel. The