The A-10 was commonly called ‘a gun with an airplane attached,’ and for good reason. That Gatling-style Avenger delivered powerful, precise destruction that was, right then, raining hell on the ass who’d killed Abdul Ikram. It took Tripp’s breath watching the killer bedecked with phony medals, run for his life, only to disappear in a gray plume of pulverized concrete.
After one pass, the coup was over. Nothing remained of Khan’s attempted take-over, nothing except smoking carcasses, ash, and a runway that needed repair. For the most part, Morehead Commando Training Center was safe. The A-10’s pilot dipped his wings in a brotherly salute as he flew over the rumbling line of deuce-and-a-halfs. Talk about righteous kills. This take-down was the perfect revenge for the death of a frightened, hungry, Afghan boy.
“I fuckin’ love America!” Tripp declared as he hoisted himself aboard. “Let’s go home, guys.”
Chapter One
Three Years Later
Junior Agent Tripp McClane stood in the shadows near the entry gate to the Winkler Botanical Preserve in western Alexandria, Virginia. Dusk came early in autumn. This was his second night back on the streets since he’d returned to the East Coast. He was anxious, ready to continue the late-night masquerade he’d begun in Seattle. Here, within spitting distance of the nation’s capital.
Like last night and those before, he’d camo-painted his face and purposefully darkened the skin around his eyes for his graveyard shift. Dressed in midnight black, from his leather jacket to his steel-toed work boots, he was one with the shadows. No one who knew him during the day would recognize him now. He intended to keep it that way.
This was his mission, his purpose in life. Protect the weak. Destroy those who would harm or do them wrong. It had begun at the stroke of one damp, chilly midnight in Seattle, the emerald gem of the great Pacific Northwest, and the site of Tripp’s last job. All he’d wanted was a cup of Seattle’s famous coffee. Instead, he’d come across two stout morons assaulting a five-foot-nothing blonde who shouldn’t have been on Pike Street so late nor so alone. They’d cornered her in an alley, between a delivery truck and a red-brick building. They’d already slapped and pushed her around. Her winter coat was on the ground at her feet and her hair was undone. She’d been crying, pleading with them to take her briefcase. To just let her live.
And Tripp had seen red. Gawddamnit. No woman should have to plead for anything, least of all to be allowed to live. The breeze off Elliot Bay was brisk and bitter that night. As was Tripp’s response. Without thought or strategy, he’d tossed his coffee and roared to her rescue. Knocked both men down and out before they knew what they were up against. He’d saved that woman’s life, possibly her virtue. Maybe her mind. All those things he hadn’t been able to do for a skinny Afghan teenager on the other side of the world.
When all was said and done, Tripp had called the police, then begged off into the shadows once their blues and reds flashed onto the scene. With her safely in good hands, Tripp stepped away from what could have been notoriety and applause. Instead, he opted for anonymity and the reward of knowing that a man could still do good in the world, more if he kept his identity hidden.
A vigilante was born that night. Well, not born. Make that revived. Tripp had always had an overprotective, zealous streak. After saving that one woman, he became more of the same. A man in the shadows. A punisher and a savior. A warrior.
Did that make him a lawbreaker? Absolutely. Did he care what his new boss would say if he found out? Nope. Tripp might work for Mr. OCD, aka Alex Stewart, during the day. But he worked for the blind Lady Justice after dark. The scales of truth in her right hand had proven faulty for too long. Too many bleeding hearts over the years had set enough scumbags, perverts, and murderers free, and, in the process, allowed more innocent deaths. Tripp meant to change those dynamics. He was the sword of vengeance in Lady Justice’s left hand, the swift, final end of the road for all who got in his way.
He paid—visits—to local miscreants and bastards. He dealt brutal, if not healthy, doses of comeuppance, but only to those who had it coming. Back in Seattle, he’d prevented two assaults of women in dark parking lots. He’d thwarted a bank job in progress, the looting of a street side ATM, and a bloody home burglary. Tonight’s work was cut out for a guy like him. He pulled a pair of black gloves over his already tender knuckles. It was time to get down and dirty.
The two college-aged young men he’d been following, had just skirted the CLOSED sign to the Preserve. They should’ve known better than to enter the shadow-filled park after dark. Yet Tripp understood. Young people were full of angst and raging hormones, and that combination made them stupid.
That anyone believed these two should hide their feelings, pretend to be like everyone else, or spend their lives lying to themselves just to get along, annoyed the shit out of Tripp. Which was why he’d been following them since they’d left their adjoining apartments on Seminary Road, just north of the Preserve. All because of a convo he’d overheard in a local biker bar last night. A plan to torture and kill this specific couple. To make an example of ‘those people’. To remind the world what the Bible said about ‘them’ and the self-righteous ‘us.’ As if the bastards hunting these two tonight had ever read the Bible.
But when the leather-clad, gin-guzzling, big-mouthed biker named names to go with his despicable plan, well, that cinched Tripp’s
