The Handyman

By Michael Bronte

Jake Blackwell wasn’t always a handyman. As an Army Ranger and part of the elite 75th Ranger Regiment, he’d done four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, only to be taken out by an IED while closing in on a sniper nest outside of Ramadi. The result? Traumatic brain injury, otherwise known as TBI. His life as a close combat and special operations specialist was over. What was not over, however, were the lingering effects of his TBI. Seizures, blackouts, and memory loss were all part of the problem, and no one wanted him on their payroll after ten years of fighting for his country. For Jake, there was no choice but to go into business for himself.
His last job seemed normal enough: spackling, painting, nothing he hadn’t done a hundred times before for other wealthy clients who lived in prestigious Potomac. It didn’t turn out to be normal after all, however, when he stumbled across a package containing what appeared to be blueprints of some sort. But what kind of blueprints contained the word detonator? What was he looking at? He answered his own question when he discovered that the plans were for a W54 nuclear device, known otherwise as the backpack nuke. It was one of ours, it weighted just fifty-four pounds, and the implications were mind-boggling. Someone could take out the Empire State Building with this thing, along with several other city blocks, and if the blast didn’t kill you, the radiation would. Literally tens of thousands could die with one detonation, and there would be no way to stop it from happening. What could two of these devices do, he wondered. Or ten, or fifty!
Why were those blueprints in that house? Who was the owner, and why did he possess plans, our plans, to construct a miniature nuclear device? Jake pursues the answers to those questions, risking not only his own life but that of his daughter who is kidnapped by the terrorists as part of their plan to get the blueprints back from Jake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Bronte
• Release date: May 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463627099

Michael Bronte

Michael Bronte is a graduate of Union College in Schenectady, New York, and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and lives with his wife of 38 years in New Jersey. "All of the heroes in my novels are everyday people," says Bronte. "Any of them could by your next door neighbor. None of us really know what we're capable of until the time comes for us to reach beyond the boundaries of our everyday lives. Remarkable feats of courage are performed everyday, by everyday people. It's amazing."​ As a young teenager I remember reading paperback mysteries under a huge oak tree outside my parents’ neighborhood grocery store in Dalton, Massachusetts, a small town located in the heart of the Berkshires. I can recall pulling a book from the rack and getting locked in to those novels as the fragrant summer breeze of Berkshire County tried to turn the page before I was done reading it. I don’t know why, but I was greatly affected by a book titled The Fan Club, by Irving Wallace. When I was done reading it, I can still recall thinking that someday I’d be able to write a book like that on my own; I knew I could do it.Well, the idea stayed dormant for over thirty years while I did what I thought I should have been doing for a living (looking back, it all seems so trivial sometimes) until I rekindled my infatuation with writing novels. Now, many years after that, and many mistakes and many failures later, there are several Michael Bronte novels available for those of you who like mystery, suspense, action-oriented stories with true-to-life characters.

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The Handyman

by

Michael Bronte

Copyright ©: Michael Bronte 2018

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Part One

Nazarov

Chapter 1… Discovery In Potomac

I like to work with my hands. I always have. That’s what made me valuable back in the day, which is not to say that I no longer have skills. The ones I used back then were quite different that the ones I practice now, however. Back then it was get in and get out undetected, the only evidence that we’d been there being the dead bodies and the smell of C-4. Now, people are actually glad to see me. My last operation as an Army Ranger was my last—an interesting way of saying it—as evidenced by this plate in my head, the ultimate result of one too many close-combat missions. Those missions ended for me after we closed in on what we thought was a sniper’s nest protecting an Al Qaeda compound on the outskirts of Ramadi. When we realized that access to the nest was too easy, we were already inside the trap. Two of us were taken down by small arms fire, with two more taken out by IED booby traps that lined what looked to be an escape route. I was one of the two taken down by the IEDs. One of us didn’t make it back at all.

That was in 2006 and I’ve been fighting with the VA ever since on the extent of the traumatic brain injury I suffered as a result of that IED. According to them, the level of TBI severity was to have been determined at the time my injury occurred and not on the basis of current symptoms. Yeah, well, if I’m not suffering from increasingly severe residual effects, then let them tell me why I have sinus headaches so severe that I can’t think straight. Or why my nose drips twenty-four hours a day. A month ago, I went two whole days without being able to remember my wife’s name. While it’s possible that the VA or anyone else can’t do anything about the actual injury, the fact that the VA is not yet recognizing these residual symptoms affects my disability rating, which affects the amount of disability compensation I get. That’s why I have to work, and the TBI is one of the reasons that I work on my own. Very few employers want to take on the liability of hiring a disabled vet with an injury like mine, you see. They think I can snap any minute. Truth be told, the way things are going that might not be far from the truth, but I think I’d rather work alone anyway; I got enough of taking orders from people who didn’t know their ass from their elbow when I was in the Army. Do it with me, now: this is my ass, this is my elbow. My name is Jake Blackwell, and I’m a handyman.

* * * * *

Monday, April 14th, 11 a.m. "Yes, Whitney, I’ll schedule it next as soon as I’m done with the job I’m at right now. I should be able to get there day after tomorrow. You owe me for this."

Thanks Jakey. When would you like to collect?

I knew what that meant, and I gotta tell ya’ there were times when I was tempted to do just that from Whitney Valentine, but that wouldn’t have been right. That, plus the fact that there’s no way I could have hidden it from my wife. She has radar when it comes to things like that. I’m a married man, Whitney. Text me your client’s contact information and tell him I’ll be there day after tomorrow like I said.

Will do. Lucky woman that wife of yours. Bye Jakey.

Whitney was pretty hot for a lady closing in on forty and she played that card for all it was worth, which in her line of work could be quite a lot. She’s one of the many realtors that circle over Potomac, Maryland, like the predators that they are. All you see when you look at Whitney are high heels, tits, and teeth, and she’ll hunt you down if she has the slightest inkling that you’re shopping the market. She’s nobody’s fool, however, and she sells a lot of houses which is why she sends me a lot of business. There’s always something that has to be done before a house is ready to be listed, or something new owners want done before they move in, and I’m Whitney’s go-to guy for jobs like that. Someone told me she used to dance at the Cheetah Club back in the ‘90s but I think that was just a nasty rumor. My wife doesn’t like it that she calls me Jakey.

There’s a lot of money in Potomac, and I mean lots of it, and the place is full of the idiosyncrasies and weirdness that comes with it. And you’d be shocked at the number of people who work from home. I mean, they run mega-million dollar businesses from their kitchen counters—in their pajamas, or, occasionally, even out of their pajamas. I’ve seen women sunbathing out of their pajamas when they knew full well that I was there doing some work; I’ve seen housekeepers vacuuming in garter belts and black leather boots; I’ve even seen people exercising naked with their personal trainers, but if I see one more hairy-backed fat guy looking at his stock portfolio out of his pajamas, I swear I’m going to open the gas valve on him and stick a magazine in the toaster.

Luckily, the job I was doing in Potomac before I could move on to Whitney’s thing didn’t involve any nudity—on anyone’s part. I had gotten a text from the guy saying I was referred to him, and could I do the work? That’s how everything is these days: texts. I could run my entire business and never even speak to anyone if I wanted, but my fingers are too thick for texts, so I just generally call people. This guy seemed normal enough for Potomac, some brainiac with four cars who owned a software company. He wanted to convert two of the rooms in his massive house into a home business office so he wouldn’t have to travel into his regular office in Silver Spring every day. See, there’s that work at home thing again. The guy definitely wasn’t American, but that also wasn’t unusual for Potomac; there’s plenty of foreign money floating around town. If I had to guess, I’d figure he was from one of the –stan countries, as in Kazakhstan, or Uzbekistan, or somewhere around there. After all my time in the Middle East the hair on the back of my neck would stand up if I recognized someone from that area as opposed to Central Asia—which has plenty of crazy bastards of its own by the way, but nothing like where I served my four tours. Anyway, he’d had some cable strung into his walls and floors by his IT guys, and he needed some plastering and painting done to repair the areas they’d torn up. Easy enough for me and it was $2,500 bucks for three days’ work, to which he didn’t blink an eye.

I’m telling you this because I think I have a problem. It wasn’t the money. Like I said, he cut me a check up front for the full amount and he seemed pretty happy with the work I’d done so far, but sometimes I run into things in other peoples’ homes that I think maybe I’d be better off not knowing about. I mean, peoples’ business is peoples’ business. In this case, it’s something I saw—or think I saw.

I got there early the next morning as I usually do to sand down the spackling on some of the wallboard I had to replace, and I noticed right away that the IT guys had obviously been back to lay in some additional fiber optic stuff for some video equipment. No problem; I hadn’t gotten to that part of the room yet, no sweat off my back. However, they’d shifted several pieces of furniture around in order to do what they needed to do. They also moved an exercise bike and some barbells that were in the corner, and now all that stuff was in my way so that I needed move it in order to get access to the areas I needed to sand. Again, not a big deal, it happens, but I was alone and lifting the furniture off the floor to move it was not possible by myself. I also couldn’t just drag it across the guy’s wood floors or I’d scratch them up and repairing that damage would be on my dime. That meant that with each piece I had to go to one end, lift it off the floor and move it over a couple of feet, then scooch back around to the other end, lift, and move that end over, back and forth, back and forth until I made room to for my ladder and my vacuum and I could lay down a drop cloth. It was a bit of a pain as there were several pieces of heavy furniture including a sofa, a pretty heavy executive desk, a library case, a credenza, etcetera, etcetera, you get the idea, but I managed. Once I had all the stuff moved, I laid some plastic sheeting over everything as sanding plaster with an orbit sander can create a good bit of dust, which, as with the floors, just wiping that off expensive furniture is harmful. Each miniscule piece of grit is actually a tiny rock and dragging rocks across a $10,000-dollar executive desk is not a good idea.

I finished the sanding around noon and was picking up the sheeting and vacuuming up the spackle grit when the guy comes in from wherever he was that morning. He took a minute to check out the work the IT guys had done, then he looked in on what I was doing.

Everything okay? the guy asks. His name was Nazarov.

Just fine, Mister Nazarov. I think the wallboard is done and I should be ready to paint tomorrow unless the IT crew has more cable to install.

They will be coming back later today to finish up, he said as he pointed to a spot which I guess indicated where they would be working. Would you mind making sure the area is clear for them? That’s where they’re going to install the data lines.

Inside my head I said, Oh yeah, sure, no one gives a rat’s ass about my back, but a customer is a customer and whining in front of one is not good business. Nazarov probably had no idea I’d just humped the stuff across the room all by myself. Of course, no problem, Mister Nazarov. How much room will they need?

Just a few feet, he said. C’mon we’ll move it together.

It was nice of him to offer, but I never let a customer do things like that. That’s okay. I got it. It will only take a few minutes.

Are you sure?

I could hear his cell phone going off inside his jacket. Absolutely. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.

Okay then, said Nazarov as he pushed a button on his phone. You do good work, Jake, and he was out of the room and off into phone land.

I packed up my gear and double checked the paint swatches to make sure I had the right color information. I figured a gallon would be enough for the walls and then I’d need some semi-gloss for the trim moldings. I thought I’d grab some lunch and then head off to the paint store and just bring the paint with me the next day. Looked like I might get done a little early, which would give me enough time to mow my own lawn before dinner. Not having to worry about the clock is one of the perks of being your own boss and I take advantage of it whenever I can, especially during fishing season. All I needed to do was to clear the work area where Nazarov had indicated. I repeated the same dance with the furniture that I’d performed earlier, but I only had to move the items a few feet this time. If it wasn’t quite right, the IT guys would have to deal with it themselves, I figured, just like I did. They had hands, right?

One of the items was a credenza, on legs, with a file drawer on one side and equipment storage on the other, with a keyboard tray and space for a computer monitor. It was meant to be positioned against the wall behind the free-floating executive desk, and it had a separate shelving unit that went on top of it. The thing was made of solid oak which made it pretty heavy, and I reached down and clamped on to one end of it, lifted, and moved that side over about two feet. I walked around to the other end and did the same maneuver, but something sharp sticking out of the underside dug into my finger, probably a staple or a tack that was used for the packing material when it came from the factory. Anyhow, I said, Shit, and I dropped the end of the credenza maybe a little harder than normal when I felt that sharp object stab into my finger. I pulled my hand away and saw that blood was pouring out of the puncture hole there. Damn, I thought, hoping I wouldn’t need to get a tetanus shot.

It was bleeding pretty good, so I ran out to my truck where I had a first aid kit and I bandaged it up tight and went back into the house. I didn’t see any of Nazarov’s cars in the driveway, so I figured he was gone. Luckily, I hadn’t locked myself out. I went back up to the work area and gathered up my equipment and the paint swatches, remembering to look into my notebook for the security code to the alarm system. Homeowners really have no choice but to trust me with things like that seeing as I’m often alone when I do my work. Some of them prefer that I set the code, while others just want me to make sure I lock the door on my way out. Anyway, I was finally ready to leave, but I happened to glance at the credenza and thought I might want to tap down that sharp whatever-it-was underneath so that someone else wouldn’t have the same experience that I’d just enjoyed. I don’t know; I guess I’m funny that way.

My toolbox was in the truck, and I looked around for something heavy, metal, and blunt that I could use to tap down that sharp point, and I noticed some pliers that the IT guys had left behind. Oh well, maybe I could use those to just bend the point to the side; that would be good enough until I came back with my toolbox the next day. So I grabbed the pliers and got down low to check out what was underneath this credenza. I found the sharp point, all right, but I also spotted an envelope dangling there, taped to the underside of the file drawer. I also spotted several drops of blood, my blood, on the floor beneath. I went into the bathroom across the hall and pulled a wad of toilet paper to wipe up the blood, and I noticed that whatever was inside the dangling envelope was now just about falling out of it. I wondered: why was this envelope taped to the underside of the drawer to begin with? So I yanked it out of there.

However, peoples’ business is peoples’ business, right? I went to put it back, really screwing things up when the blood-soaked bandage on my finger left a big soaking blood smudge on the outside of the envelope. Now I’ve done it, I thought. How was I going to explain this? Or did I even need to explain it? Maybe I could just re-tape everything to the bottom of that credenza and just walk away and play stupid, which in my current state of mind wouldn’t have been too hard, I figured. I looked at the blood smudge and knew there was nothing I could do about it; it was there forever. Then, I finally glanced at what I was holding. There were several heavy, oversized pages folded together; they looked like blueprints or schematic plans of some sort. I considered Nazarov’s profession in the scenario. He owned a software company, right? Okay, I was holding plans to some company secret, and that’s why they were hidden under that credenza. I concluded quickly that I should just tell Nazarov the truth, that the envelope had come loose, here it is, I swear I didn’t look at what was inside, sorry about the blood smudge. He might get pissed, I thought, but it was the truth: I didn’t know what I was holding, and no one else had seen it. No harm, no foul; that’s what I would do.

Being careful to not mess up the papers more than I already had, I turned them over to put them back into the envelope and there it was, unmistakable, clear as glass, the word detonator. What? What kind of software had anything to do with a detonator? My mind started spinning with the possibilities. As part of the 3rd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, I’d been on enough missions, and I’d been exposed to enough different types of military ordnance to know exactly what kind of software had to do with a detonator. Was I looking at plans for some kind of bomb? My heart went from tick, tick, tick to klong, klong, klong so that now my punctured finger started thumping like a bass drum.

I put two-and-two together. The envelope was meant to be hidden. Otherwise it would have been inside the file drawer instead of being taped underneath it. Then I thought: how did I know if the plans I was holding actually belonged to Nazarov? I mean, I don’t know if he bought the furniture new, or if he bought it from someone else, or what. Maybe Nazarov had nothing to do with what I was holding. Then, I asked myself: what was I holding? Maybe I was jumping to conclusions. Maybe the pages in my hand weren’t plans for a bomb. Easy Jake. Take it down a notch. I looked around as if I expected someone else to be there, but there wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I’d never even seen anyone else in the house except for Nazarov. I didn’t even know if he was married. Was he?

I figured it might be good to know that, and I wondered where the master bedroom was located. I was on the first floor; I figured it was on the second floor. Gingerly—as gingerly as a clunker like me can be—I made my way back toward the front door where I knew there was a double staircase that circled up both sides of the foyer area. I stopped at the bottom of the staircase, and I didn’t hear a sound. The door to the garage was off the foyer and I took a look, noting that there were three cars in the garage and not four. That probably meant that Nazarov was gone, and it also meant that if someone else lived in the house with him, that person was probably home. Paying attention to the now noticeable silence, I decided to take a chance and I bound up the stairs two steps at a time. One side of the hallway was lined with doors, all of them closed—bedrooms and bathrooms, I figured—but the other side led directly to an anteroom or seating area, which in turn led to the master bedroom suite. Some residence. The anteroom was as big as half my house. I nosed around quickly and spotted the walk-in closets, discovering that only one of them was being used. I looked into the master bathroom: no makeup, no creams, only one vanity with a toothbrush on it. I opened the door to the medicine cabinet and the only things in there were some shaving materials, some mouthwash, and some ibuprofen. Okay, it looked like Nazarov was single. I was starting to feel that if the plans I’d found weren’t put under that credenza by someone else, they belonged to him.

I didn’t feel good about what I was doing. Yes, peoples’ business is peoples’ business, but the way the world is these days, I know that there are a lot of crazy-assed lone wolves out there. Having been to places that show off the worst of what mankind has to offer, I couldn’t just walk past this. What if he was one of these lone wolves? What if the office I was working on wasn’t a home office for some rich software expert, but a control center for a terrorist cell? Does a home office need data lines, for Christ’s sake?

As long as I was snooping, I thought I’d take a look around the rest of the house and I found my way to the basement level, which was set up like a huge recreation area with a bar, a pool table, a huge home theater room, and an exercise area. Okay, nothing looked overly strange down here either, I thought to myself as I walked around, except that I had to chuckle at the weight bench that was set up with a couple of hundred pounds of weights and another hand barbell set up with fifty pounds of weight. Nazarov certainly weighed less than what was set up on the weight bench, and I hefted the hand barbell and knew Nazarov probably couldn’t do a single rep with it. I wondered who else used that exercise room.

I went back up to the main level and made up my mind. No one knew I had the envelope, and I gathered up all my stuff and I took it with me. I needed to know more about these plans.

Chapter 2… The Blood Smudge

Tuesday, April 15th, 6 p.m. Hi honey.

It was the wife, home from work. Her name is Lisa. Hi sweetie. I made a salad like you asked.

She dropped a grocery bag on the counter and said, Would you mind grabbing the other two bags out of the car while I get the sauce going? Rachel has to be back at the school by seven.

Rachel is our daughter, and she had the final performance of her high school play that night. We had already seen the first four. No problem, I said, and I fetched the remaining two bags, catching a whiff of the freshly cut grass I’d just mowed. I’d learned to appreciate such mundane moments as sometimes the old schnozz didn’t pick up on things like that due to my ongoing leakage issue. Lisa was wrestling with a jar of pasta sauce as I set the other two bags on the counter.

Can you open this? she asked as she slid the jar toward me and pulled some garlic bread from one of the bags.

I noticed that she gave me the once over as I opened the jar. Rather than waiting for the inevitable question to come, I pronounced, None today. Everything was fine. I tried to say it in as patient a tone as I could muster. She didn’t say anything as she poured the sauce, but I could smell the rubber burning. What? I said testily even though she was playing nice.

Blackouts and amnesia are not things you should ignore, she shot back, her palms down on the counter.

That was her fighting pose. She was right, of course, and I was worried about it, but I just didn’t feel like getting into it. I kept my voice even. You’re right, but let’s not talk about this tonight in front of Rachel. She needs to concentrate on her performance.

It only worked to a point. Okay, she said, but we’re going to talk about this sooner rather than later. Lisa is five-foot-one and weighs a hundred and ten pounds with a rock in her pocket, but she could be scarier than a bucket of rattlesnakes when she wanted to be. She looked at me and cut the garlic bread in half like she was sawing a two-by-four.

What she was referring to was the fact that I’d had some sort of blank moment the week before. I don’t know if it was a seizure—a word often associated with traumatic brain injury—or an offshoot of the amnesia thing where I couldn’t remember her name, but I hadn’t called the VA to see if they wanted to see me, or schedule another MRI, or do some other stupid test of which I was beginning to think was a total waste of time. I went over and took her hand and kissed her. She kissed me back, so I knew that she was going to let this go for now, but she held the knife up toward me just to let me know it was only a temporary reprieve.

Am I picking Scotty up from baseball practice, or is he getting a ride with the Wilsons? I asked. Son Scotty was two years younger than Rachel, and was playing second base on the JV baseball team.

We don’t need to worry about him. He figured we’d be going to the play again so he’s catching a ride with Jared. Are you going to the play, by the way? Lisa asked.

I replied, Do you think Rachel would mind if I missed this one? I think I got the idea with the other four performances.

She’s fine with that, but I think there’s some sort of party at the school afterwards and I’m pretty sure she wants to go. Are you okay with that?

Is that Wahler kid going to be there?

I think that’s why she wants to go, Jake. Hello?

Are you going to be there?

Yes.

Then make sure that meathead keeps his paws off her.

Lisa made a face. So you’ll make sure Scotty does his homework and stays off the video games?

Roger that, boss. I’m on it.

Is there a ballgame on tonight?

I suppose, I said. But I’ve got some plans I need to review before tomorrow.

* * * * *

I got Scotty fed and cleaned up the dishes and made sure he at least made an attempt at his homework before I went out to my truck and retrieved the envelope. I poked my head into Scotty’s room and said, I’ll be in the shop for a while if you need me, okay?

Do you know anything about English literature? he asked.

Only that it’s supposed to be in English. It didn’t look like the book he was reading had a lot of laughs in it.

Then I won’t be needing you, he confirmed.

I made a point of telling him where I’d be because my workshop is in our garage, which is detached from the house. We live in a semi-rural part of Montgomery County in Maryland in a little place called Dickerson which is off the beaten track from the Washington Beltway and the I-270 corridor where most of the almost million people of Montgomery County live. We live in what used to be the main house of an old family farm and we have some additional buildings on the property, including a pretty good-sized old barn that we plan on rebuilding someday, and the garage, which used to be a blacksmith shop back in the day and is now my workshop. The shop is my sanctuary, and the kids could run go-cart races inside the house and I’d never know it.

I got the envelope from my truck and went to the shop, illuminating one of two drafting tables I have in there. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the folded-up papers from the envelope and spread them on the drafting table, leaving them stacked just as they came out. Unconsciously—I guess—my eyes didn’t converge on them initially as they acted like an out-of-focus camera lens. I looked away into the darkness beyond the architect’s lamp that suddenly seemed as bright as a welding spark, and debated if it was wise for me to do what I was about to do. Peoples’ business is peoples’ business, and I was particularly sensitive to the notion of not sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. I’d fought and killed for the freedom we enjoyed, and I knew that I’d be pretty pissed off if the reverse were true someone tried to monitor my sense of right or wrong. But then I thought again: what if this was some nutcase? What if this was someone trying to take away the very freedom I’d just contemplated? If I was one of those people who knew a terrorist was in our midst, and, worse yet, if I knew this terrorist was planning on blowing up the Lincoln Memorial or something and I did nothing about it, how would I feel then, huh? No, I could live with the guilt of being a busy-body, but I couldn’t live with the guilt of people dying because I got hung up on a point of libertarian political correctness. I’m not big on political correctness. I believe there is definitely a right way and a wrong way of doing things, and if you don’t like my way, well, I guess you can just go screw yourself. As such, the right way of handling this was to make sure it wasn’t a situation where people were going to get hurt, regardless of how I came across the information or whose right of privacy I might have impinged upon.

Okay, I sucked down my apprehension and focused on the page in front of me. It was certainly official-looking, signed and sealed as they say in the construction trade. As soon as I started reading I began absorbing terms I thought I’d heard before. As a Ranger, my main training was as part of the 75th Ranger Regiment which was proficient in airborne light infantry combat. We specialized in rapid deployment missions such as airfield seizures, combat search and rescue, special reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, hostage recovery, or basically anything, anywhere that involved quick strike, close combat special operations. The term special operations meant we played keepsees. A lot of those missions involved blasting our way in or out of parties we weren’t invited to. That meant us grunts, as we were called, got to know a lot about