The Finisher

By Bert Marshall

Tommy Morris was medically discharged from the US Air Force after numerous tours in the Middle East as a decorated Pararescueman turned sniper. Overcome by nightmares and PTSD, he seeks counseling, and on his road to recovery, he takes a clandestine job as a finisher for the Harris County DA's office. The adrenaline and fantastic money lead him

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: May 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781648953873

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

1

I feel nothing but pride in my work watching the lifted Ford F-350 slam into the concrete pole on Lake Robbins Drive here in the rapidly expanding city of The Woodlands, Texas. The heavy truck is no match for the solid forty-foot-tall stationary satellite stanchion, and the entire front end wraps around the base of the pole with so much force, the driver’s head is sheared off when he passes through the windshield. It’s amazing what your brain can record in a split second.

I gun the motor of the rental truck and take a hard right and drive off, carefully keeping under the speed limit.

I am only partially responsible for the forty-three-year-old Hispanic man’s death, but I feel nothing negative except a gnawing in my stomach. I’m hungry for adrenaline and combat, hungry for the things the money will buy me, and yes, I’m hungry for good Mexican food. This last job paid very well, as Mr. Guerrero Tio Hernandez was a very bad man, and his death will earn me forty thousand dollars in used American currency, payable when his death is confirmed. I took ten thousand up front, and the remaining thirty is as sure as if it was already in my safe.

The reason I say I am partially responsible is I have to shift the majority of the blame to Tio, as he’s the one involved in selling women and children like they were onions or avocados.

I am four blocks away, entering the feeder road of I45-S, when I hear the first siren, and a smile spreads across my face. "Adios, pendajo!"

****

The Houston Chronicle newspaper obituary summed up Tio’s death as The angelic hands of the holy virgin Mother Mary took him from the loving arms of his family and friends, and I chuckle to myself as I count the large stack of green bills and light up a celebratory thin maple-flavored cheroot. Throwing my Tony Lama boot-clad feet up on the pine table in front of me, I ease back and look out across the field. My field. Just one of the things I can now afford.

I’ve never seen myself as being an emissary of God, but that might just be what I am. I blow a smoke ring then pop two quick ones through the middle of it, and taking up my stash of bills, I walk inside to my strong room and place them in the large safe next to the other stacks of cash, weapons, and stacks of match-grade ammo.

I thumb on the radio and am surprised to hear a fire-and-brimstone Cajun preacher screaming about the fires of hell for sinners. God correct me, but I might just be doing his bidding, preacher. I chuckle at my own words. You are a heartless asshole, Tommy. A real piece of work.

I’m partial to the assault-style rifles and the Beretta 92F pistol that I used in Afghanistan and Iraq with the US Air Force as a PJ, or what officially is known as a pararescue jumper.

Our motto of That others may live still holds true in my line of work, even though I bring a reign of judgment on bad people and a world of pain and anguish on their loved ones. To be honest, about the killing of these people, I just don’t give a good gol-danged about it and feel nothing but satisfaction when I take one or more of them out. I do, however, take exception over collateral damage, which has only happened once in the two years I’ve been cleaning up in Harris County, Texas, and surrounding area.

It was a six-year-old girl, and she drowned with her bad man daddy in a bar ditch, just north of Jacinto City, Texas. I didn’t know about it until the paper ran a story, and I got good and drunk afterward. My thirty-thousand-dollar payment came in as usual, and I let it sit in the package for a week before I counted it. I’m not a monster; things happen. I just have a job to do, and frankly, I do it well. I also sleep like a man with a clean conscience because it is—except for an occasional hellish nightmare.

As I sit and smoke my cheap cigar, I sip an ice-cold Blue Moon beer and peer out over the flat land on my property a few miles north of Baytown, Texas. "It is my duty as a pararescueman to save lives and to aid the injured. I will be prepared at all times to perform my assigned duties quickly and efficiently, placing these duties before personal desires and comforts. These things I do, that others may live," reads the diploma on the wall, and for the hundredth time, I read it. Hell, I could be fifteen sheets to the wind and recite it verbatim.

Of my initial class, just two of us completed the three years of training, and he was killed within two weeks of our first deployment to Iraq. It was my first real hurt. Two tours of Iraq and two in Afghanistan, two Bronze Stars, a Silver Star, and six Purple Heart medals, and I was honorably discharged on full disability as I could no longer physically or mentally continue to do my job according to my discharge papers and a grateful nation. I do, however, still carry my card, which will get me on any military facility at any time.

Now after a couple of years as a civilian, the nightmares have finally become infrequent – well, three times a week infrequent. I have one person to thank for my recovery and indirectly my present occupation, although if she knew about the second, she would be horrified, to put it mildly.

She is my VA evaluator, a retired army colonel, and maybe the best physician I’ve ever met—and I’ve met a whole bunch of them. I have the physical and mental scars to prove my need to see them. Lt. Col. Miranda Fisk is a no-nonsense forty-five-year-old medical officer with more degrees than a thermometer. I came to her a wreck of a human being, and she showed no pity or sympathy on me, and six weeks after my first visit, we went at it on her desk like clumsy teenagers, scattering everything.

My name is Thomas Nguyen Morris, and I look nothing like my triple heritage should suggest. My dad was a very light-skinned black man and a Green Beret, who died in the Philippines when I was three, and my mom was a first-generation half-white, half-Vietnamese American who also died when I was three. I was raised in a Catholic mission for boys in Mississippi, and I hated it so much, I refuse to divulge the name or details to anyone—ever. Only the army security checks show the truth.

Frankly, folks think I am Italian or possibly Indian, but I simply see and call myself an American man. I see nothing about my looks that makes me a standout, but women seem to find me attractive. I’m tall, being about six feet two and having a runner’s physique, being long and lean muscled, but not heavily so. My hair is kept very short and is very dark, and I have no facial hair. I wear no jewelry, but I have the dual green footprints of a PJ on my right bicep and the state of Texas on my left.

I don’t talk much, and I rarely laugh and am almost never without sunglasses, as my eyes are very sensitive to the sun. I see very well in the dark though, and consequently, I do the bulk of my present duties in the dead of night.

One night after a particularly heated lovemaking session, Miranda lay in my arms and brought up the subject of me finding a job to speed up my recovery. Don’t get me wrong, honey, you have made remarkable progress since I first met you, but as your doctor and your friend, I have to be honest—you need to work. It is in your system, and hell, you just proved five minutes ago that physically, there is not a damned thing wrong with your fine body. As she says this, she runs her hands over my many scars, feeling their lines and marks.

Secretly though, she knows if I don’t occupy my mind with duties, it’s only a matter of time before my mind implodes, and violence will surface.

Her touch is so soft and tender, and I know her feelings for me are deepening. I say nothing for a moment and get up and shower. Later she brought up the subject of work again. I know someone, someone you can trust.

Chapter

2

Captain, I’ve heard a lot about you. The man across from me could be my father, except he is darker skinned than my dad—what little I remember of him. My name is Marcum Stanley. I am ex-Army, former Green Beret, and now the district attorney of Harris County. I understand from Lieutenant Colonel Fisk you are an ex-PJ needing work.

Before I can object, he holds up his hand and pours us both two fingers of Johnnie Walker Blue Label whisky.

The powerful-looking black man takes a sip and stands, removing his expensive suit jacket in the process. Without saying a word, he removes his tailored shirt. On his forearms are Special Forces tattoos, along with a couple of ugly bullet exit scars. He doesn’t stop there, and removing his T-shirt, I see the scars equal to my own that come only from combat and pain. He raises his eyebrows, and I nod in acknowledgment to his service.

He takes another sip of whisky and redresses, replacing his shirt with a fresh one. I have a need, or shall I say, Harris County has a need for someone with your special skills. Someone, shall I say, who can get the job done without being seen. Interested? He asks the last question as he looks at me and smiles. Yeah, he knows who he is talking to.

Go on. If this man in front of me wasn’t of my ilk, I would walk, but warriors talk when everyone else just tries to blow smoke up your arse, as the Brits say.

First off, the job pays very well, with severe doses of adrenaline to boot. Bad guys, lots of really bad guys, are involved. We know who they are, and they operate outside of the law, thanks to crooked lawyers who keep them safe. If we grab them, they are on the street in minutes, and our families are in danger of retaliation.

You need someone who can finish the job, I say quietly, sipping my liquor.

Exactly. That others may live, Captain. A

And that is how it started. I was living in a rundown trailer, except when I stayed over at Miranda’s house in the Heights of Houston, and now I am living on forty acres on the north side of Baytown, close to the Mont Belvieu salt dome petrochemical storage complex. It keeps the south and east side of my property completely secure. The west side has an extensive security system, as does the entrance—all paid for in cash and monitored 24-7 by the Brinks Security Industrial division paid in full, five years in advance.

One of my lesser-used skills until recently is animal husbandry, learned in AG-Agriculture classes in Mississippi, and I have ten heads of exotic sheep and goats that compliment my property and lower my taxable land bill considerably. I keep to myself and am often seen wearing Lee jeans, a straw hat, and cowboy boots—a common-enough sight around these parts that I draw little attention, except at the Tractor Supply where the cute young women who work there openly ogle me.

Although tempting, Miranda would skin me alive if she found out I had bedded one of them, and she keeps me plenty occupied to ensure my faithfulness. I have one stipulation in our relationship, and that is I maintain my privacy, so our intimate time together is limited to overnight stays and activities inside the Houston city limits. She is my sole lover for the last two years and is becoming suffocating, needy, and clingy. I am good with our established relationship, but she needs more, and lately, the subject comes up nearly every hour we are together.

I can’t go on like this, baby.

I know.

Tommy…

No, I say in almost a whisper, and she begins to cry. It’s over, and we both know it. I’ve been withdrawing from her for weeks. She knows I have a severe problem being close to anyone, as it has hurt too much when they die, and many have died around me. She knows my love for her is real, but she fears if she walked, I would simply move on.

She’s right, of course.

Two days later, I get a phone call from the VA, and a young woman tells me my psychiatrist is now a man named Walter Petrovski. My eyes unexpectedly fill with tears, and I utter a rare curse under my breath.

****

I let two full weeks pass and call Miranda and get a recording saying the line is no longer active. I can’t commit to her, but I need her. She is like a lifeline to me. I decide to drive by her house. It’s vacant with a For Sale sign in the yard. Property here goes for a premium most cannot afford, but this excellent house will sell within the week.

At the VA hospital, I am told she quit two days ago, and they will see if they can get a forwarding address for me, but after fifteen minutes, I get the message loud and clear. She has protection from the other women here, and there will be no forwarding address.

I could easily get it on my own, but to what end?

Except for my quarterly review, I have no intention of seeing Walter Dipstick, and I tell him so when his office calls. They can kiss my ass for all I care. I want Miranda back.

I stop at the Spec’s liquor store with every intention of getting stumbling drunk when two men run out the door with handguns, shooting back inside the store. They jump into a new black Tahoe with dealer plates and peel out, heading for Garth Road and I-10 most likely. One was big and black and other a scraggly white dude, and I get a good-enough look that I think I can identify both in a lineup.

Dialing 911 as I run for the store, I rapidly tell them of the shooting and hang up before I can give up my personal info as I want to check on the owner. His name is Andy, and he’s Persian, according to him, and a very friendly guy. I am armed, possessing a concealed handgun license, but I do not draw my Beretta as this place will be crawling with cops in about one minute. Poor Andy is laid across the counter, and as I enter the store, I can plainly see a bullet hole in the top of his head. His oldest son is on the floor in front of the counter, and his wife is laid across him sobbing.

I stop and step outside the store, so angry I can hardly talk as the first Baytown cruiser comes screaming up. I raise my hands, showing they are empty, and as the cop throws down on me, I tell them I called it in, and that I have a CHL and am carrying. I allow him to roughly handcuff and disarm me and am told to sit by the curb just as four more cop cars arrive. I offer no resistance, knowing the drill.

A few minutes pass, and they uncuff me and take a statement. There is no need for an apology as everyone is suspect at a crime scene. A few minutes pass, and Andy’s wife Atoosa comes out, and when she sees me, she runs to me crying. Why, why, why, Mr. Tommy? Why they kill my Anoush and baby boy?

Her tears tear at my heart, and I feel the salty drops run down my face too as the fat little woman shakes in grief with my protective arms wrapped around her. She suddenly looks up at me, realizing it was me who called the cops, and she drags me into the store and points at a case of very expensive whiskey and pleads with me to take it—which I do, albeit with weak objections.

I took the case of whiskey home, but didn’t drink a drop. Instead, I went for a fifteen-mile run and felt so much better than I would have if I would have drank myself into a stupor.

When I arrived back at my house, inside my mailbox is a letter, which I recognize has a coded series of numbers in it. It will be the GPS coordinates to a secret cache with coded instructions for my next job. It’s how I will get my assignments and first payment. This letter has a commemorative stamp on it, marking it urgent.

Crap! I say softly as I had every intention of showering, grabbing a bite to eat, and spending the evening watching an episode of The Unit. I empathize with Delta as I’ve worked with them a bit.

I walk down the long driveway, reading the letter, and then shower, grab a quick sandwich, my Garmin Oregon 750 GPS unit, and war bag, and head for the cache. It’s out off I-10 East at the JJ Mayes Wildlife Trace, and walking out the second boardwalk, it takes me all of five minutes to find. It is two .50 caliber ammo cans and wearing rubber gloves. I am careful to empty them out and later throw away the Walmart tennis shoes I wore, per instructions. The ammo cans are to be left by a trash can in front and will be excitedly removed by the first person who sees them. My boss is being extra cautious, and I appreciate this.

Safely back at my place, I put the ten-thousand-dollar advancement in my safe without counting it and sit down on the back porch to see what they’ve assigned me.

Chapter

3

I am set up just west of Refugio—pronounced Referrio—Texas, watching a drug deal between four mean-looking bikers and four Mexican nationals, just as the assignment dictated. It’s a shitload of cocaine and thirty-odd million dollars in cash. All eight men are heavily armed, but not as heavily as I am, with a 5.56mm Steyr AUG assault rifle, which I will leave behind along with a couple of misleading items. I learned to shoot this weapon in Afghanistan, and I can write my name with it at two hundred meters.

My job here today is to cover the four Bandidos, who are actually undercover federal agents. They don’t even know I am here and plan to hand over the traceable money and move the drugs to Houston. It’s all going well until the very last second, when one of the Mexicans rolls a hand grenade into the middle of the four faux bikers, and they dive for cover. The resulting explosion stuns the agents, and they come up ready to shoot it out, but the Mexicans are lying where I dropped them.

I am up and moving, grabbing the digital video recorder and my kit and running down the arroyo for everything I am worth. The last thing I want to feel is a fiery sting of bullets ripping through my body by the agents whom I just saved from imminent death. My old 1997 four-wheel drive white Ford crew cab truck looks like a piece, but runs like new and has over four hundred ponies under the hood.

By the time the agents have cleaned up the crime scene and head north in their panel truck, I am driving through Victoria and stop for a burger and fries. I feel nothing but food hunger, having perused the men’s backgrounds that I killed. They were scum, absolute scum bags, and as I eat my burger, I watch a young Hispanic beauty of about twenty wiggle her perfectly shaped butt for my benefit and walk toward the motel next door. It’s just now getting on in the day, and the sun will set soon, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Inside that room are probably three grown men waiting to beat the shit out of me and take whatever is in my pockets.

I am as amped up as a buck in the rut though and always am after combat, and she is fine looking, and when she reappears a moment later to flash her eyes at me, I signal for her to join me. I finish my burger just as she sashays up, and I ask her if she is hungry. Up close, she’s even more appetizing than at a distance, but I know a whore when I see one, and I’ve seen my share.

Si, bueno.

You speak English?

Si. Yes, yes, I do, she says, and by gawd, she is cute as pie and showing enough cleavage to hide a pack of smokes.

How much for one hour?

One hour? What do you mean? You look like a cop. Are you a cop, señor?

I show her the butt of my pistol and say, Yup, but I am a horny cop, and I will pay, fair and square, but if there are men in that room, I will turn them over to Immigration and then haul your pretty ass to jail.

She looks at me long and slow and then flips open her phone and says something into it. Immediately four young men run from the room and disappear down the alley behind the motel. One hundred dollars cash, she says, flashing white teeth at me and laughing.

One hundred for the night, and I hope you have a full box of condoms.

****

The next morning, I stand up naked and stretch while Lucinda Perez stares at my many scars. She is all woman, this one, and proved it to me twice last night. She throws open the covers and holds up a third condom. This time it is another hundred!

Deal! I say and jump her bones, and once again, she proves to me why Hispanic women are born to breed.

She asks me to take her to Houston after she learns I am headed that way. I have an aunt who lives in Baytown, and I can get a ride over there, she says as we shower, and I try not to watch her scrub her near-perfect body as I simply got nothing left to give her.

I’ll drive you to Baytown… I say, and she whoops and jumps up and wraps her smooth brown legs around my waist.

An hour later, we cruise north, and she tells me she fell into prostitution after a modeling gig turned sour, and the Mexican Mafia snatched her up. She is in her second year and wants out. Her clothes are of the cheapest crap and a dead giveaway to her profession, not that Hispanic women don’t dress to show what they have, but she looks cheaper than bargain fare. I have so much damned money, I could never spend it all, and I drive her to the Galleria, and by the time we come out, I’ve dropped over sixty-five hundred dollars on the woman I met yesterday. Everything she bought I personally like, and most of it is classy and sexy.

Well, we never make it to her most likely fictitious aunt’s place, and Luci becomes my lover and friend, and I take her to my place. It’s as crazy as it sounds, but she simply does everything right. Everywhere we go she clings to me, turning heads left and right. She is like a panacea to my spirit, and I begin to enjoy life again.

What do you do to make so much money, honey? she asks suddenly over a meal at El Toro’s on Garth Road.

I don’t even bat an eye and tell her the truth. I am a paid assassin for the government.

No…shit? Holy cow, are you serious?

Yes, I’m serious, I say without blinking and observe her gaze of open admiration.

Were you on a job when you picked me up?

Yup, I say and signal the waitstaff for another Blue Moon.

Cool, she says and drinks more tea. Abruptly she changes the subject, and I sit and listen to her talk about how good her life is for the first time. It helps me understand how drug lords can have perfectly normal families, and they look the other way when it comes to how the money is made, as my occupation doesn’t bother her in the slightest. Not the slightest.

****

I will be out of town for a week.

Luci is lying on her back, and I am running my finger in circles around her bare navel. For over two weeks we’ve been laying around the house, eating and screwing.

Take me with you. Please.

I think about this for a minute and say, Okay.

She is delighted and pushes me onto my back and straddles me. Really? I mean really?

I can see the kid in her expression, even though there is nothing childish about her lush and naked body.

Yup. First things first, then we start packing.

****

As we drive, I explain how things work in my line of work, and she expresses the desire to learn to shoot. I’ve never shot a gun, baby, and I want to learn.

If it were not for the bucket seat restriction in my truck, I truly believe the woman would be sitting in my lap.

Okay. I can teach you, I say and pat her blue jean–clad left thigh and marvel how tight they fit her. It would make me very uncomfortable to wear clothing that tight, but it looks so right on her.

Can you tell me about the assignment?

Nope.

Can you tell me where we are going?

Laredo.

Oh! I’ve never been to Laredo! What’s it like?

It smells like cow shit.

Really?

Yup, I say and pull out a cheroot, which Luci takes from me, trims the end, puts in her mouth to wet it, and lights it up. She hands it to me and jabbers on and on, making the trip seem short. She is really growing on me, and I haven’t felt close to anyone since my days in the air force with my fellow PJs. Not even Miranda made me feel the way I do with Lucinda Perez, even though I was probably Miranda’s fifth partner and Luci’s 250th.

You wouldn’t know it by the way she makes love to me though.

My woman makes love like I am the first man to bed her and with that much sincerity, and in return, I give her whatever she wants, including a just-delivered blue-and-white Shelby Mustang. Her wardrobe is stylish, her nails perfect, her hair is awesome, and I can’t believe how lucky I am.

****

I’m an observant man, a product of my training, and when Luci leaves our table to use the restroom in the upscale Laredo restaurant, she attracts the attention of every man in the place, including two rough-looking Mexican men who act like they bounce the place. When she doesn’t return after five minutes, the alarm bells go off in my head, and I nervously look around. Yup, I am under heavy scrutiny alright, and I too head for the bathroom.

I stop a female waitstaff member and ask her to check the bathroom for Luci, and she nervously looks around and tips her head for the emergency exit. I spin on a dime and head for the side door and am met by a big fellow who has the idiotic idea to obstruct my exit, but down he goes like he bent over to cough, and as I pass by him as smooth as a Juarez pickpocket, I extract a chromed pistol from his belt, which turns out to be a customized Kimber .40 S&W caliber.

Dashing behind the restaurant, I catch a glimpse of an Audi sedan racing away and turn to get my truck, but run into two bear-sized Mexicans who both push about 250 pounds. A quick assessment is all I need, and I fire the .40 cal at point-blank range center mass, twice each. I’m not fucking around, and I don’t want either coming after me, and jumping over one, I place my other foot on the chest of the second and leap past into the clear.

Twenty steps and I crank my Ford, and backing out, I spin both back tires and leap across the parking lot, taking out a mountain laurel in the flower bed before I straighten out the powerful truck. Behind the restaurant is a long lane that runs parallel to the freeway, and I can see the sedan about a quarter of a mile ahead take a left and head south on 85 for the border.

If they cross the border, Luci is history, and my intense concern for her has me in a monstrous killing mood, but try as I might, the car blows through the border without the guards on both sides so much as trying to stop or slow it down. I skid to a stop as the border guards on the American side throw down on me, and I scream that my woman has been kidnapped by the men in the Audi.

Sorry, sir, but that car had diplomatic plates, the swarthy-looking and muscular Mexican American agent explains, and the look on his face says it all—they are as helpless as am I to stop the car.

I call it in. I can’t complete this assignment, and I get an angry scrambled phone call explaining quitting this mission is not an option.

Fuck you, I grumble and hang up my satellite phone. They know and I know I will complete it—I never leave anything undone.

I drive to my room at the Embassy Suites. I am sick as hell, and then I remember the tracking program Luci and I have on our Android-based smartphones and begin to study the screen. She’s heading for Monterrey, and without hesitating, I grab my war bag and head for the border. The hundred-dollar bill talks, and I drive through without a search.

Four hours later, I coast my truck down close to an expansive stucco wall and park. I study the smartphone screen, and Luci’s phone indicates she is about 180 feet on the other side of this wall, inside the dark compound. Sliding out of the seat, I break out my war bag and screw the silencer on my FN P90, which was supplied to me for this mission. With it I have a bandoleer of ten thirteen-round magazines. My assignment is a night mission, and I can see like a cat in the dark, so standing on the roof of my truck, I leap to the top of the wall, just catching the edge with my fingertips.

Inch by inch, I work my way to a lower elevation, and about the time I am challenging my strength, I pull myself up and onto the top. Inside the compound, it is as lush as anything I’ve ever seen, and the dimly lit gardens and pool spread out before me like a dream world. My honed observation skills reveal two guards, both with machine pistols, about sixty meters apart, and I drop onto the heavily mulched flower bed, making a muffled thump. Checking my smartphone, I ramp down the illumination to the point that it is almost not visible, but Luci’s green dot shows she is in the pool house.

Just as I step out of the shadows, a man walks out of the house and yells loudly in Spanish. I freeze, knowing that a nonmoving object is still very much invisible, and a sentry goes into the pool house and brings out my Luci. Her hands are tied, and she’s barefoot. Over her head is a black cloth bag of some sort, and even though the distance is about forty meters, my H&K comes up on its own volition and coughs twice. The man, headshot both times, drops like a sack of potatoes, and Luci, unsure of what just happened, stops in her tracks.

A quick glance in the darkened garden shows the other guard lighting up a cigarette, and the man at the house is nowhere to be seen. Crossing the distance in ten large steps, I pull the hood from Luci’s face and look into her eyes. Her face is replete with bruises, and she begins to whimper as she kisses me.

Quick as a cat, I usher her toward the wall, and looking at her wrists, I see they’ve used a plastic wire tie. Five seconds later, I’ve snipped through it with my multitool, and as I attempt to boost her over the wall, the man at the house yells out again, causing us to freeze. "Juan, prisa!" And he turns and goes back in the house. The other guard is leaning against a pillar, and I realize there is a woman crouched down in front of him, and this is why he isn’t particularly interested in what is holding up Juan.

Instantly, I face Luci and point up. She’s busted up, but it isn’t the first time, and I boost her over the wall. Then in an act straight out of PJ advanced training, I do a three-step corner leap up and just barely attain the lowest place on the fence. Three seconds later, I drop to the dark opposite side, and Luci and I ease into the truck. I coasted into this spot to avoid detection, and I fear starting the powerful truck will alert the presumably still preoccupied guard, so putting the truck in neutral, I get out and push with all my strength until the truck starts rolling.

Fifty meters down the brick paved road, I crank it, and Luci is all over me crying and laughing.

We ain’t across the border yet, baby. Put on some makeup to hide those bruises, I say, not realizing we don’t have her purse.

With what? she asks, looking at me like I’m crazy, and laughs. Bruises or not, she is beautiful to me.

Shit! I say and tell her to look for a drugstore. I want out of Monterey as fast as possible, but going back to Laredo is out of the equation. I go south instead, heading for 40, and we pull into a place that has a diner and an all-night pharmacy, and to no surprise, Luci jabbers in fluent Spanish to the fat old señora at the counter. I took her for Tex-Mex, but she sure can rattle off the Spanish.

What did you tell her? I ask when the woman, smiling at me, packages up all kinds of food and makeup and shoos us off, waving her hands.

I told her you were my husband rescuing me from criminals in Monterrey, she says and, again to my total amazement, begins to cry. She can’t believe I rescued her. I love you, Tommy!

I drive most of the day as she sleeps, taking back roads, and finally I come north and cross the border in Matamoros. The fat Mexican who looked at my passport was bent on retaining Luci, but the three American one-hundred-dollar bills softened him up.

I’ve been in many sticky situations in my eight years in the military, but this one has left me exhausted. Luci and I make it to San Benito and pull into the Best Western and crash on the queen-sized bed after a fast shower.

When I awaken, my phone has five angry messages, all scrambled, but the sixth is civil. They want me to intercept a package in San Antonio by noon tomorrow, and they will have a cache hidden close to the city using a Chirp device to send the actual coordinates.

We got to do this, babe, can you make it? I say, lying next to her on the bed, and she pleads with me to make love to her. She whispers in my ear to give her a baby. I don’t know about all that, but I deliver the mail per her amorous request.

Chapter

4

We have to get within fifty feet of the Chirp and wait to receive the coordinates to the cache, I say, and like magic, they begin to appear on my Garmin Oregon device. There. I ramp out the map view on the device and see it is two miles from our current position and in the back of