Solomon Folly: Secondhand Warriors, #3

By Joe Greer

Guadalcanal is still the stepping stone of empires to the prize of Australia.

 

 Marguerite with her infant son in tow embarks on a dangerous mission to ignite an insurgency against the oppressive Chinese Colonial Party. The stakes are high, and the freedom of the Solomon Islanders hangs in the balance.

 

Kitty LeBeau becomes the seductive honey-pot spy and finds herself at the center of the conflict. More than just a pretty face, she is a pivotal force in the clandestine war. When she's not changing diapers.

 

Meanwhile, Mack and Tamara find themselves marked by the elite. Cryptic invitations pull them into circles of power and intrigue at the highest echelons. Will Mack forget where he came from?

 

From the bustling streets of New York to the treacherous jungles of the Solomons, Sonnet Wrenly's life transforms as she is thrust into the heart of the insurgency. As she navigates the treacherous world of espionage and war, she catches the eye of a handsome Australian intelligence officer. Will their connection help her uncover the truth, or will it lead her down a dangerous, deadly path?

 

As the world watches Sonnet's reports, the fate of the Solomon Islands rests in the hands of secondhand warriors that a down but not out FLEA is still trying to eliminate.

 

Join Marguerite, Herman, Kitty, and the rest of the cast in this fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled geopolitical thriller as they fight for the future of the Solomon Islands. Solomon Folly is a tale of courage, love, and the indomitable spirit of those who dare to stand up against tyranny. Get your copy today and immerse yourself in a world where the stakes have never been higher.

Warning for the sensitive; this series contains violence, intimate scenes, and bad language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Greer
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224111015

Book preview

Solomon Folly

Secondhand Warriors

Book Three

Joe Greer

Copyright © 2024 by the author

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's vivid imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in longhand writing from the author.

Published by Distributed Sensing Solutions

First edition: March 2024

Cover Design by: selfpubbookcovers.com / RL Sather

Hello Earthlings,

It is only a few dollars, please don’t steal.

If you get this any other way than via an e-vendor or bookstore, go to one and buy a copy. An old retiree thanks you.

Joe Greer

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

More Books from Joe Greer

Secondhand Warriors series

Hey, Mack

Chinese Mambo

Portals of Yahweh series

Roswell Boneyard

Ghosts of Atlantis

Muturi Deception

Warriors and Spies

Wheel of Giants

The Phaux

Deusdia, In the Portals of Yahweh Universe

Deusdia, Cats and Raiders

Deusdia, DeeDee Finds A Cat

Multiverse Bomb Squad series

Blake Spiral

Dearth in Norway

Forward

I don’t normally include this type of forward, but I think it is important in this case. The Solomon Islands have just gone through an episode of Colonialism that many had thought a thing of the past. Exploitation of weak countries is now a wholesale problem. China has resurrected many of the exploitation practices shouldering none of a colonizer’s responsibilities. It is all Grab Hand for them. An election took place last week which I pray will go a long way toward the expulsion of corrupt officials. A partial result unfortunately shows some left over old corruption in place. We shall see what their future brings. In any regard, this is a cautionary tale for many other countries in the world less fortunate in their strategic value. Many languish in their obscurity.

Don’t take my word for it. Listed below are some of the reports that you can find with your favorite search engine.

How Chinese money is buying Solomon Islands | Four Corners

Malaita and the Provincial-National Divide in Solomon Islands

How Constituency Development Funds Undermine Solomon Islands’ Democracy

The Voter as Commodity: The Phenomenon of Cross-border voter Registration in Solomon Islands

The Geopolitics of Deep-Sea Mining and Green Technologies

Loggers defy protections to take Solomon Islands' rare Tubi trees.

Logging is corrupting these islands. One village fights back—and wins.

GLOBAL ORGANIZED CRIME INDEX: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, SOLOMON ISLANDS

Transnational Organized Crime in the Pacific: A Threat Assessment

Australia urged to intervene as China tries to buy a strategic Solomon Islands port.

Clive Moore, a Pacific expert from the University of Queensland said, in the longer term China could use its economic outposts in the Solomons for military purposes.

I think we have to look with new eyes at the way that bases can be developed for Chinese interests in the Pacific, he said. China has interest in minerals, it has interest in timber. They are interested in developing situations where in the future they may be able to be used for other purposes.

Contents

Long Way To Holler

Mondays

Escape from the Mundane

Scores, Old and New

Nauru

Indigenous Forces

What A Riot

Deep Thoughts

Story Spinner

Ask Me Again

Cooperation

CUNT Inc.

Dirty War

Clarity

Kinetic

Fallen Angel

Long Way To Holler

Two boys from Kentucky were sitting in a hole. Mosquitoes swarmed around drawn by the breath and stink of the mammals. Two boys from Kentucky were a very long way from home, tired, dirty, and scared.

At least the bombing stopped, Ralph whispered.

I’m a thinkin that ain’t a good thing. Could be there’s a bunch a them gettin ready ta rush us, Edwin guessed in trepidation. The Japanese were supposed to be the best soldiers in the world. Them lil froggies gunna spring rite on top of us.

Yeah, they sit real still then suddenly jump. My dad never did take me frog jigging. Reckon there’s any frogs down in that creek? Sarge was supposed to bring us some rations. I’m starving, a formerly pudgy Ralph declared.

Ye never starved a day in yor life, the tall rawboned man replied without rancor. Edwin peeped over the edge of their foxhole.

See anything?

Hush, I’m a listenen. A whole herd of them be comin, Edwin said quietly, cocking his head. Ralph held his tongue for once. Two, three hunert feet, I reckon, tryin te creep up on their bellies. Another three four minutes they be at the clearin, Edwin said softly then a little louder, They be chargin in a couple minutes, boys.

A series of clacks went down the line as the soldiers took a last check. Tension mounted then a wave of men came screaming out of the jungle, Banzai!!

The marines responded with a firestorm of bullets and shouts of their own. A moment later, grenades went flying in both directions. The lightning storm of war was upon them all.

Edwin stayed up and fired a shot every other second. His job was to keep the flanks of the machine gunners clear. To lose a machine gun position early in the fight would allow this mass into the rear areas and kill the whole platoon on the front line. Edwin had been rewarded a new M1 for having the best marksmanship. He earned it just now by killing or wounding with every shot.

Ralph was sitting at the bottom of the hole screaming in terror with his hands over his ears. Edwin gave him a kick every time he changed clips. On the fourth clip, Ralph stuck his rifle over the edge and started firing. His eyes were closed but he was firing.

Bodies began to pile up around the wire. A single strand had caused the Japanese soldiers to pause for just a moment. The wrong moment to pause in front of a machine gun. The human wave began to ebb until no more came. Suddenly, the machine gun went quiet. Only riflemen were taking occasional shots. Edwin had no more targets and he looked over to the machine gunners to see how they had fared. None were wounded and the machine gun was being broken down for a move.

Hey Sarge, Edwin yelled. You want me to follow them fellers?

Stay in your hole. They will have a creek to block their flank. We need you here, a gruff voice replied.

They heard a huge firefight still going off to their right near the wide creek.

Edwin sat back in the hole watching the edge of the clearing. Ralph still looked anxious and said, I’m sorry.

Fer what?

I’m sorry I froze.

Well, you snapped out of it ta help some. Our line held, Edwin said as he pulled the cotton out of one ear. He shouted, Aw shit, here they come a gain, Sarge,

This wave was lighter and had many wounded intermingled. The same unit had rallied. But the Marines didn’t have their machine gun either.

With no machine gun to sweep them away, the Jap soldiers inexorably came over the wire by stepping on the bodies of their comrades. An officer holding a samurai sword and Nambu pistol was waving his men forward and continually shout Banzai! His waving a sword rattled Edwin and he missed twice before hitting him in the gut. The assault began to falter.

Just as Edwin’s clip pinged out, the officer jumped up and rushed the Kentucky boys’ foxhole. A slash of the sword barely missed gutting Edwin, but it did take out the strap of his ammo pouch scattering clips everywhere. The officer jumped in their hole and was drawing back ready to take off Edwin’s head when Ralph thrust his Ka-Bar knife under the man’s ribcage.

Edwin screamed, his Scottish blood boiling in battle lust having just survived certain death. He scooped up the fallen pistol and sword and jumped out of the foxhole. Awww Hawww, I can be froggy too!! He screamed at the thinning ranks of the Japanese Banzai charge. He then began singing the refrain from an Appalachian children’s song, Ohhhh, froggy went a courtin he did ride, Aww Haw. Froggy went a courtin he did ride, sword and pistol by his side, Aw Haw. And he laid into the Japs with sword and pistol moving forward and singing the same refrain. He got to the wire now held down by a pile of bodies. No more were coming out of the jungle.

Ingram!! Ingram!! Sarge shouted, GET BACK IN YOUR HOLE.

The next four months were a nightmare of fighting, suffering, and the smell of death all around as the Japanese tried relentlessly to recapture the airfield and Guadalcanal. His Division was finally relieved and sent to Melbournefor R and R. All except for Edwin, Ralph, and half a dozen hardcase jungle fighters. They were held back to hunt the survivors of the Japanese defeat.

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ED INGRAM STARTLED awake in the pitch black. There had been a swish and flutter that caused a flashback to the South Pacific jungle. The fury of the Japanese officer’s face as he was both thwarted and killed slowly faded in his mind. There was another flutter. The bats were returning from their night’s hunt. He caught a whiff of smoke and smiled. The women folk were already up and stoking the wood stove.

Striking a match, he lit a kerosine lamp. Time to get moving. Squirrels weren’t going to jump in the frying pan by themselves.

The sun had been up for an hour or so when he stepped out of the woods onto the little green around a group of cabins on Millstone Creek in Eastern Kentucky. Ed had five cleaned squirrels in his game bag. That was all they would eat today, and he could always get more tomorrow if anyone cared. A new International Harvester Scout was parked next to Uncle Grant’s cabin.

Wall as I live and breathe, it’s Ralph Gilbert. Thought you were dead already when they carried you off, Ed grinned.

If it weren’t for you, I would have been more than once. You’re a hard man to find, Edwin Ingram. America landed a man on the moon last month and y’all don’t have electricity?

We would have ta pay ta bring a line in and no one got any money. Who’s the young feller?

This is my son Paul. We’re on a little adventure before school starts.

Oh, what adventure is that?

Why, to find you of course. Paul has never been out of the Bluegrass, so we have come to the mountains to find my old army buddy. There isn’t exactly an address to this place of yours. We have been to the County Court Clerk looking up land deeds.

Welcome, Paul. You like squirrel?

Never had them, sir.

Let’s see if the women folk have some taters and gravy. Fried squirrel goes real well with them.

A voice came from out of the kitchen, Ed, them squirrels better be clean.

Yes, they be. Got coffee?

Sit down with your visitors. I’ll bring some out since I’m shore yore boots be muddy.

Ed and Ralph were soon sipping coffee racked back in cane chairs on the porch comparing life on the creek in Leslie County with that of the Bluegrass. Reminiscing about the war soon came up. Young Paul was drinking in all the war stories.

Mondays

Today she did not start the day crying. The night before, sitting in the backyard of her Blueridge Mountains weekend home, looking up at the Milky Way, she had an epiphany. The universe is endless. I can make myself happy in my little piece of it. So what if I’m not the President’s puppet master anymore? The FLEA is mine to do with as I wish. Hundreds of puppets instead of one zombie.

Today she would call for a helicopter instead of waiting in traffic returning to Washington. It was Monday and the ex-Chief of Staff to the President codenamed Pocahontas was energized to take on the world, the whole world. She was going to make her enemies cry.

THAT MONDAY SOME PEOPLE were crying.

It’s only going to be a couple of years, the President’s husband said consolingly rubbing his partner’s shoulders.

I DON’T CARE! When I agreed to be Vice it was to help our cause cement legitimacy and our party win the election, not be the next President.

I don’t like being in the Bubble either. We made history. You liked that didn’t you?

Yes, we did, he laugh cried.

And you demoted that bitch. Now she has to suck your dick... Well, figuratively.

I did and now OUR friends are in charge.

That’s right. Now they will never be able to put the gay boys back in the closet. Or stop our shows to young people so they aren’t prejudiced. Or keep us out of the military. You knoooww people with guns make the rules, he giggled.

After a good cry, I always feel better. I’m going to the West Wing now. Thank you for being so sweet.

That’s what husbands are for. Have an excellent day, dear.

WIVES OFTEN TIMES HAVE the same role on Monday mornings.

The wife of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was sitting on her husband’s butt. If you don’t relax and get more sleep, you’re going to have a stroke, she emphasized with a punch.

Do it again, he grunted.

She pummeled his back. You just woke up and your muscles are in knots. I’ve never seen you like this. What’s wrong?

The country is in extreme danger because the fucking new guy won’t accept the responsibilities of his office. So far, we have been able to hide it, but any major crisis will expose our masquerade. She continued with her massage, just listening now. "The Cuban Crisis happened in the transition. Thank God the Secretary of State poked right back at them in private. They were guilty as sin, and we had a righteous anger. With all the changes in staff in the West Wing, no one is interested in America’s place in the world. The agenda is all culture, all day.

"Maybe you should look back to your origins and just make sure our boys and girls