BARE HUNTER

* GREG *

Thank God this shit was almost over. I hated lying to Ted for my bosses. I felt like Sisyphus. Their demands changed every day, and I was caught in the middle of rolling that stone up the hill, then had to backtrack. If it weren’t for the regional manager promotion they were dangling in my face, I never would have agreed to this crap.

Tom Murray had an inside source at the Pentagon. Before General Howard had been fast-tracked to the Joint Chief’s position, the Marines were about to investigate his actions in Afghanistan. While he was in command there, dead locals had begun to pile up near his unit, with no other explanation from him than, “collateral damage.” When Tom dug deeper, he found out about an opium route that passed through the provinces and villages near where Captain Howard had been in command, noticing that most of the extra-judicial killings had been in those areas. With a few witnesses, who knew firsthand what the Captain had been up to, the *DCSA had begun piecing together a troubling dossier on Howard.

For a career Marine commander, who could never have afforded it, General Howard lived in a pricey neighborhood in Silver Springs, Maryland. His kids went to private schools, and he was a member of an elite country club. DCSA was determined to get all the facts and indict General Howard before Amnesty International stuck its nose into it.

America didn’t need more bad press concerning the Middle East war, and the voters needed to forget about our sickening defeat before election day. So, General Howard had a string of drug runners in Afghanistan that needed to be kept in line. Marines supplied him with snipers and enforcers for free. Marines following orders. His orders.

I flipped the switch on Ted’s burner phone bug under my desk and continued with the company’s real business until four o’clock when I got a message from the guys in the surveillance van. “Hey, Ted’s line went dead. You wanna come out and help us get it back on?” These guys were all but useless despite their claims of being electronics specialists. I locked away the confidential paperwork, grabbed my briefcase and jacket, and hiked to the elevator.

When I arrived at the parking garage exit I turned the elevator off with my key card. The lights were out on all the levels of the garage. I’d have to call maintenance in the morning. My footsteps echoed hollowly off the concrete walls and barriers as I walked to the darkened fifth level. I knocked on the van’s sliding door, and Joe opened it. Except it wasn’t Joe.

I had no idea who these two guys in the van were. Before I could wheel around and run, the fellow who had opened the door grabbed me by the arm and pulled me inside. “Your guys made quite a mess. The rental company will be thrilled to see this returned,” he laughed coldly. In the far corner of the van were two black industrial-sized garbage bags. I surmised that was where my guys were.

A stocky, young blond guy was sitting behind the wheel and the bigger, dark-haired thug was standing at the door, preventing me from jumping out. Thinking quickly, I pulled a hockey maneuver on my guard at the door and head-butted him in the belly. He doubled over and cursed while I swung open the door and began running for my life.

I made it two levels before I heard the van squealing away from its parking spot. Jumping onto the curb near the outside wall of the garage, to make it harder for them to run me over, I sprinted for the elevators. Twenty yards from the elevator doors, the van swerved around the concrete barriers of the level above and bore down on me.