Operation Firebrand Series

The world on fire with violence against innocents. In places where the U.S. military cannot become embroiled. If only there was a team that could go in anyway. Now there is. Navy SEAL Jason Kromer is the tip of the U.S. military’s spear…until a sniper mission goes pear-shaped and his friend is severely wounded—thanks to Jason’s hesitation. Guilt consumes Jason and he quits the military, thinking that his days of being a warrior are gone. But along comes a mysterious billionaire who is putting together a very special covert ops team. Its mission: to go into forbidden combat zones on high-tech missions of mercy. And the billionaire wants Jason to lead that team. Two problems with that: 1) The team is honor-bound to use only non-lethal weapons (“Are you insane?”) and 2) everyone on the team is a Christian. Trouble is, Jason and God haven’t been on speaking terms since the accident. To make it worse, not everyone on the team is even former military. Oh, there’s an ex-Green Beret and a former Marine Force Recon man, but there are women on the team—albeit very hot women—and a freaking teenager. This has instant death written all over it. Then again, maybe instant death is just what Jason deserves. So Jason has to whip this team together and get to Kazakhstan, where a civil war has put a group of orphans in danger. Fine. Great. It’s the perfect way to get himself killed. This is book 1 in the Operation Firebrand series. ** Previously published in 2002 under the title Operation: Firebrand. ** Operation Firebrand—Origin Operation Firebrand—Crusade Operation Firebrand—Deliverance Excerpt from Operation Firebrand—Origin Rubble covered the ground as if a giant toddler had come in and knocked everything over. Bricks, upended furniture, burned rafters, discarded weapons, and plain old trash littered the ground exactly as they had in other war-torn cities. Where buildings still stood, most were on the brink of collapse. Some were missing corners, some were blackened by smoke, and some were gone completely. Jason could see stars through the wall of one of the dingy white apartment buildings that lined the street. Jason and Trieu reached the front of the orphanage. It had burned almost to the ground. A brick husk remained to mark the general layout of the building. The walls had five feet of solid concrete at the bottom. The first ten rows of pink bricks remained in places. Jason signaled for Trieu to take cover and watch behind him while he went inside the ruins. She crouched against the wall. Jason stepped through the entryway. The infrared imagers in his goggles gave him a green monochrome view of the destruction. He saw furniture amid the heap of ash and plaster: overturned desks, chunks of couch stuffing, a blackened refrigerator, and dozens of metal bed frames. Jason’s stomach constricted. In his mind’s eye he saw dozens of orphan girls having pillow fights on these beds. The frames were so tiny. Suddenly this wasn’t a cut-and-dried FedEx op anymore: Now it was a rescue mission.  Jason kicked around in the wreckage, half-dreading to find a little human ribcage. As he searched, his mind tried to reconcile this newfound desire to save the children with the demands of his own private plan. Probably there was no conflict. Probably he could still make sure the children got out safely. All along that had been part of the deal, anyway. It was only that, before, the kids were just packages to be delivered. Now they were little girls who slept in little steel beds. It made a difference somehow.

They came in broad daylight. They burned our huts. Killed our men and boys. What will become of my sisters, mothers, and me? Will I live and die a slave of the one who stole me? It’s been only four weeks since former Navy SEAL Jason Kromer led the Firebrand team to Kazakhstan to rescue a group of orphan girls, and already there is a new mission. The world is like that—always serving up a new violence against innocents. This time, Muslim slavers have raided a village in southern Sudan, stealing away a new crop of human slaves and forced wives. Most of the time when we hear about things like this, all we can do is shake our heads. Not anymore. The Firebrand team exists to right wrongs like these. There are Sudanese girls and women sitting in slavers’ homes right now, and Jason and the team go wheels up to take them back. The Firebrand team hit their stride when they were in Kazakhstan. But Africa is different, and Jason’s more than passing interest in the two beautiful women on the team threatens to distract him from the mission. It doesn’t help that they’re going up against Muslim extremists—like the ones who murdered Rachel’s father, which was the thing that made her become a Mossad assassin in her former life. Now she’s face to face with the same sort of man, and she may just go off the reservation to settle the score. The slave situation turns out to be worse than they’d feared, and the Firebrand team decides they need to do more than just rescue a handful of slaves and go home. Between Rachel’s fury and the team’s vendetta against the slavers, this mission is turning into a full-blown crusade. The Operation Firebrand novels are Christian military fiction. Operation Firebrand—Origin Operation Firebrand—Crusade Operation Firebrand—Deliverance ** These novels were originally published in 2002–3. ** Excerpt from Operation Firebrand—Crusade  The scars in the man’s forehead were deep but exquisitely done, Jason saw. Four furrows arched forward from the ears and came together in four perfect Vs between his eyebrows. He was very thin but broad-shouldered and eight inches taller than Jason. He stood solemnly as Jason approached. “Hello,” Jason said. “Um, we didn’t really shoot those guys, not with real bullets. They’re just asleep.” The man wrinkled his brow, constricting the scars. He spoke in a deep voice, but Jason couldn’t know the words. He seemed a little agitated, but not afraid. He pointed toward the soldiers with the stick he’d used for digging. “Jason?” Jason turned toward the voice. It was Rachel, wiping her hands on a bloody towel and trotting toward them. “What is it, Miss Bloom?” “No need for the fake name,” she said, walking forward slowly. “He doesn’t understand and he sure doesn’t care.” She dropped the towel on the dirt. “Would you like a little help here?” Jason deflated. “Please!” She said something that immediately caught the man’s attention. He began talking to her quickly and gesticulating with the stick. Rachel held her hands up and asked a question.

All of them are dead.The whole family.A threat to all the people of North Korea.And now the soldiers will be coming for us.Starvation ravages North Korea, and one family commits suicide to escape the slow torture they see in themselves and their children.  But the little boy survives. His mother’s sister finds him amid the bodies. Word of their plight reaches Jason Kromer and the Firebrand team, and soon they are wheels up to come to the rescue.   The Operation Firebrand novels are Christian military fiction.  Operation Firebrand—OriginOperation Firebrand—CrusadeOperation Firebrand—Deliverance** These novels were originally published in 2002–3. **