Gregg slumped in his seat and clenched his jaw. “They’re so concerned that somebody in the Prime Minister’s office is working the blackmarket, they should just send somebody in to make a buy.”
Steve slipped out of the workman’s coveralls and pulled his tactical vest back on. “I think that’s why they wanted the computers bugged. They can narrow down who it is and then try to set up the sting.”
Deric raised his voice to be heard over the engine, “You know it won’t be us doing the buy. I’ll lay two to one odds they pack us out as soon as we get back.”
Gregg gave him a dirty look. “Just because I wouldn’t drop a secretary?”
“Negative, Sir Slippyfist.” Deric slowed the van and prepared to pull into the warehouse they were using as a base. “Because we already know too much about what the hell they’re doing here.”
He stopped the van and watched as the overhead doors rolled shut. Before he could open the door to the van, a man in full tactical gear pulled it open and handed him an envelope. Deric raised a brow and gave him a lopsided grin. “Let me guess…marching papers?”
“You have three hours to be out of Turkey.”
Gregg moaned from the back of the van. “I’m getting sick of this crap.”
Deric shrugged. “I told you not to unpack.”
Steve pulled open the side door and stepped out. “Kiss this duty goodbye.”
As he and Gregg walked away from the van and toward where their gear was stowed, Deric trotted up beside them. “You know, that offer from Jim and Jay is starting to sound pretty damned good right about now.”
Gregg shot him a sideways glance. “Merc duty? No fuckin’ way.”
Deric shrugged. “Hey man, the money is real and there should be a lot less bullets.”
Steve paused and turned to him. “That offer still stands?”
Deric nodded. “As long as we have heartbeats, the offer stands.”
Gregg sighed. “Make the call.”
1
Present Day
North Texas
BOBBY BRIDGER STARED at the television, his eyes bloodshot from too much alcohol and from staring at the screen in the dark. Angry young Middle Eastern men raised an American flag into the air while a young boy held a match to it. The flag went up in flames and the men all appeared to be cheering while hefting the burning flag above their heads, marching through the streets.
Bobby lifted the remote and turned the volume up again as the talking head’s voice was being drowned out by background noise. “…another anti-American protest here in Libya as American forces prepare to move into areas where militant extremists have dug in and prepare to face the occupiers. The freedom fighters…” Bridger clicked off the television and tossed the remote to the side. He was adept at reading body language and he knew from years of experience that the commentator on the scene was having all kinds of difficulty choking out the “politically correct phrase of the day” that the American politicians had previously approved.
He reached across his end table and lifted the bottle of cheap whiskey only to find it empty. With a grunt he tossed it into the small trash can beside his recliner. “This is fucking nuts.”
Bridger pushed up out of his chair and stretched, his body protesting from the lack of sleep. He looked to the laptop sitting on the desk in the corner of the room. With a deep sigh, he trudged over to the chair and plopped into it. He lifted the lid and waited for the little computer to wake up. When it did, he clicked on the desktop logo that took him online. He hit the favorites button and dropped down to the online chatroom he had been spending so much time in lately. It was already alive with armchair commandos giving their play by play of the events unfolding overseas.
Bridger ran a hand over his stubbled face and clicked on one extremely busy chatroom. He scanned through a handful of the comments and yawned. These guys were something else. He was certain that ninety percent of them had never served, but nearly every one of them claimed to be ex-Green Beret, SEAL, or Marine Force Recon. With so many special forces online, who’s fighting the damned wars? Bridger chuckled to himself as he scanned the comments.
A few caught his eye and he quickly highlighted and copied them to a Word document, along with their user names. He’d been asked by a friend who now worked domestic terrorism with one of the alphabet soup groups to take a look at some of the chatrooms for anything that they should be aware of.
Bobby really didn’t want to get involved. Hell, he made it a point to not be online or even have a cell phone that was traceable. He didn’t trust the government anymore, and the idea of working for them simply didn’t set well with him. But when Roger Wallace tracked him down and asked him to do this, he couldn’t say no. Roger had been a friend since they both wore uniforms and did things they shouldn’t. Roger was one of the few people that Bobby trusted, no questions asked.
“Don’t you guys have, like, a supercomputer complex that does that crap for you?” Bobby watched Roger, looking for any telltale signs that he was lying.
Roger nodded as he sipped his coffee. “That’s the NSA, of course. But buddy, it’s not the same as actually being in there and seeing how these guys interact.” Roger didn’t give off any indication that he was less than truthful. “The computers are set up to track key words and most of these nuts know what those words are, so they avoid them. Rather than say ‘president,’ ‘POTUS’ or even ‘eagle,’ they’ll use a code word. Heck, it might be Humpty Dumpty. You just never know from day to day what
