Before The Storm (The Hunters: Origins Book 1)

by Chris Kuzneski

  For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.

  He figured it would be a good place to start.

  “Excuse me,” Jones said as he jogged toward them. Most of the women glanced up. The few that didn’t were wearing headphones. “I’m sorry to bother you, I really am. But I just ran over a tourist in the parking lot and was hoping to hide the body. Could I possibly borrow your shovel?”

  “That’s not funny,” said a breathtaking blonde in a red bikini who was reading a book on her Kindle. “Tourist lives matter.”

  Jones laughed. “Sexy and sassy—that’s a deadly combination.”

  “But not as deadly as you.”

  “Damn, girl, that’s racist! Just because I’m black doesn’t mean I’m deadly.”

  “True,” she said with a smile, “but you just asked to borrow our shovel because you killed someone in the parking lot. If I’m not mistaken, that makes you deadly.”

  “Good point.”

  “I’ve been to known to make a few. I’m a lawyer.”

  “What a coincidence!”

  “You’re a lawyer, too?”

  “No, but I just killed someone in the parking lot, and I need a good attorney. Let me buy you a drink, and we can discuss my case.”

  She laughed as she shielded her eyes from the sun. “As tempting as that is, I’m here with my friends…”

  “Me, too.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but you’re standing there alone. Does that mean you have no friends?”

  “Wow,” Jones said. “You’re relentless.”

  “I prefer ‘tenacious’, but ‘relentless’ will do.”

  “Hold on. Let me see if I got this straight: you’re smart, sexy, sassy, and tenacious? The hell with drinks. Let me buy you dinner. Or a car.”

  She laughed. “What kind of girl do you think I am? I don’t even know your name.”

  He immediately stuck out his hand. “My name is David Jones. But my imaginary friends call me DJ.”

  She smiled and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, DJ. I’m Nicole, but my friends call me Nicki.”

  He glanced at the group. All of them were transfixed by the conversation. Even the ones with headphones had turned off their music to listen to the banter. To them, it was like they were on an episode of The Bachelor. “Nice to meet you all.”

  The group waved in unison.

  “Unfortunately,” Nicki said as she motioned toward her friends, “it would be wrong to leave a ladies’ day for dinner with a guy. We all ditched work to spend time together, and I refuse to bail on the group. That would be rude.”

  “Then bring them with you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ladies,” Jones announced to the others, “my friends and I would like to treat you to dinner this evening. What’s the best restaurant in the area?”

  A brunette answered, “The Island Way Grill.”

  “Yep,” a redhead agreed. “Great seafood. Very expensive.”

  “Sounds perfect!” Jones said with confidence.

  Nicki stared at him, unsure if he was serious. “There’s, like, ten of us. Plus you, and, um, how many of your imaginary friends?”

  “Two. They’re waiting for me in the Palm Pavilion. You can meet them if you’d like. I swear they’re real.”

  “Unlike Emma’s boobs,” cracked the brunette.

  A blonde, who had been lying on her stomach, immediately sat up to defend herself. As she did, her bikini struggled to hold her massive breasts in place. “Best alimony I ever spent. My ex cheated on me with a stripper, so I got tits bigger than hers. The bastard paid for my boobs but will never, ever get to touch them.”

  Nicki smiled at Jones. “But your friends might, if they play their cards right.”

  All the women laughed while the blonde nodded.

  “I’ll let them know,” Jones said with a wink.

  “Are they cute?” the brunette wondered.

  “Very,” said the blonde as she jiggled her breasts back and forth.

  The brunette rolled her eyes. “I meant his friends.”

  “I know,” the blonde insisted. “I was joking.”

  Jones answered the original question. “That depends, do you like muscular war heroes from prestigious families? If so, you’ll like my friends.”

  “War heroes?” Nicki asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. All of us served.”

  “Where?”

  “You name it, we’ve been there. And a whole lot of places you’ve never heard of. One of my friends—Jack—just left the service, and we came to Florida to celebrate his newfound freedom. Hopefully, you ladies will join the celebration.”

  Nicki sighed. “When you put it like that, how can we say ‘no’?”

  “You can’t—which is why I put it like that.”

  She laughed. “Well played, Mister Jones.”

  He bowed theatrically. “Thank you, Miss, um…”

  “Bergen. Nicole Bergen.”

  He bowed again. “Thank you, Miss Bergen.”

  Just then thunder rumbled overhead, much closer than before. As if on cue, all the women started to gather their things.

  “Can I help carry something?” Jones asked the group.

  “Sure,” Emma said as she pulled a T-shirt over her bikini. “You can carry my shovel. I don’t want to get zapped by lightning on my way to the parking lot.”

  “Me, either,” he admitted, “but I’ll carry it for you under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tell me why you brought it.”

  “See!” Emma said to her friends. “I told you no one would notice.”

  All the women laughed at their inside joke.

  “Notice what?” Jones demanded.

  Emma grabbed her blanket and pulled it off the ground with a flourish. Hidden underneath was a twelve-inch trench in the sand. “Ta-da!”

  Jones stared at the trench, completely confused. “I don’t get it.”

  The women laughed louder as they continued to pack up.

  Nicki shook her head. “C’mon, DJ. You were doing so well. Don’t disappoint me now. It’s not exactly the Riddle of the Sphinx.”

  “Which I actually know the answer to,” he bragged.

  “Then this should be simple!”

  Jones crouched and stared at the sand before glancing up at Emma, who had been lying on her stomach on top of the trench. She smiled at him while pointing at her massive implants. He wasn’t sure if she was helping or flirting.

  A few seconds passed before the answer came to him.

  “Oh!” he practically shouted. “It’s a boob tube!”

  Chapter 6

  Payne stared across the table at Cobb, whose body language had changed dramatically during their brief conversation. When Payne had first arrived, Cobb looked as if he were ready to climb a lifeguard tower and start shooting unarmed civilians. Now he appeared relaxed, like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders.

  Obviously the visit had made an impact.

  Cobb had always been wound tighter than Payne or Jones. He had grown up in a strict military household where fun was off-limits. His mother had passed away when he was young, but his father refused to fly home for the funeral because he said he had “more important things to worry about in the Middle East”.

  It was a slight that Cobb would never forget.

  Or forgive.

  Over the next decade, Cobb bounced from one military school to another. Not because he struggled—his grades and behavior were impeccable, no matter where he went—but because his father hadn’t wanted his son to get comfortable in any one spot. According to his father, “comfort led to weakness”.

  Cobb kept his mouth shut and never complained because he knew it would fall on deaf ears. His father was a hard man—a Marine, through and through—who treated Jack like a soldier he was preparing for war because that’s how he viewed the world.

  To him, everything was a battle—including raising h
is son.

  And winning was always his number one goal.

  Cobb had let him have the upper hand until graduation when he finally made his move. His father had assumed Jack would join the Marines. That had been the master plan all along, and Jack had always followed orders, like a good soldier should. But Jack had gone behind his father’s back and applied to West Point, a military academy for the Army, a rival branch of the service. He did this not only to get out from his father’s shadow, but also to hurt him for his years of emotional neglect.

  And Cobb’s decision to join the Army definitely stung.

  His father viewed it as a slap in the face.

  Which was exactly how it was intended.

  Since then, the two of them had barely talked.

  Unfortunately, all of that moving around had affected Cobb. Though he was quite popular, he had found it difficult to make close friends because he was always the new guy in town. It wasn’t until West Point that he finally let some people into his life. Slowly but surely he had bonded with two of his roommates and opened up to them about his upbringing and his hatred of his father. They were from military families, too, and understood him in ways that he never thought possible.

  For once in his life, he didn’t feel like an outsider.

  Sadly, their friendship was short-lived.

  Both men were killed in a training accident shortly after being commissioned as second lieutenants in the Army. The news had devastated Cobb and made him pull inward even further to protect himself. He knew deaths were common in his line of work and decided he couldn’t do his job if he was emotionally attached to those around him. As strange as it sounded, Cobb was more than willing to risk his lives for others, but he wasn’t willing to share his life with anyone.

  He had his father to blame for that.

  “You know,” Payne said, “this is the first time I’ve ever seen you happy.”

  “Screw you,” Cobb said with a laugh.

  “I’m serious, Jack. I’ve never seen you happy before.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Payne relented. “Maybe ‘happy’ is a poor choice of words. I’ve seen you smile—once or twice—but I’ve never seen you with your guard down.”

  Cobb stared at his mug. “I guess the Reef Donkey is working.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe this is the first time since kindergarten that you can actually lower your defenses and be yourself. I mean, when DJ and I flew to Fort Campbell to recruit you, we liked you a lot, but I’ll be honest: you kind of seemed like a robot.”

  “No, I didn’t!”

  “Oh, yes you did. And not a cool robot. I’m talking C-3PO.”

  Cobb laughed. “You were interviewing me! I was trying to be professional!”

  “Well, you came off as robotic. Don’t get me wrong: you loosened up as the night went on, but in our eyes, you never made it past an android.”

  “That’s it,” Cobb announced as he pulled the pitcher of beer out of Payne’s reach. “I’m officially cutting you off. Remember what I said earlier? My beer, my rules. And you just violated our terms of agreement.”

  Payne responded in the voice of a robot. “You violated our terms of agreement. That does not compute. Must protect beer at all costs. Death to humans.”

  Cobb laughed and flipped him off with both hands even though he realized Payne’s humor was grounded in reality. Cobb had been told on more than one occasion that his greatest flaw as a leader was his emotional distance. His troops always respected him—most even revered him—but they were reluctant to befriend him.

  He simply preferred it that way.

  “Granted,” Cobb said, “I’m not gregarious like you. You’re best friends with your second in command and probably still get Christmas cards from all your men.”

  “Not all of them. One guy is Jewish.”

  “And yet both our styles were effective.”

  “Maybe so. But we had a lot more fun.”

  “Which is why your squad’s name was so appropriate.” Cobb twirled his finger next to his head to suggest the MANIACs were crazy. “Do you know what the SEALs and Rangers called you behind your backs?”

  “Awesome?”

  Cobb shook his head. “They called you the hyenas—because you laughed so much on the battlefield.”

  Payne smiled. He had heard that nickname before. He took it as a compliment. “And yet, do you know how many SEALs and Rangers begged to join my squad?”

  “Let me guess. All of them?”

  “Not all, but most.”

  “That’s because you were given the coolest missions.”

  “Only because we had the coolest leaders.”

  “Cockiest, definitely. I’m not sure about coolest.”

  “Coolest, biggest, strongest, sexiest. Pretty much all the ‘-ests’.”

  Cobb laughed. “Truth be told, I’m not sure how you did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Maintained discipline in your ranks while having fun.”

  Payne shrugged. “I didn’t focus on fun. It wasn’t like we were playing Scrabble in a combat zone, but I had to do things differently because our missions lasted a hell of a lot longer than anything you did with the Night Stalkers. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you tended to fly in and fly out. Everything was swift, violent, precise. You could afford to be hyperintense because your missions were over so quickly.”

  “True,” Cobb admitted.

  “I didn’t have that luxury. Sometimes my guys would stay in the field for days at a time behind enemy lines, so we had to blow off steam when we could or we would burn out quickly. In my opinion, the best way to do that was through humor. We might’ve been laughing, but we never lost focus. In fact, laughing helped us sustain focus.”

  “Interesting,” Cobb said, “I’ll have to try that some…”

  His voiced faded out before he finished his thought.

  For a moment there, he had forgotten about his current situation. He was thinking about ways to improve his unit when he realized he no longer had one.

  Cobb cursed under his breath.

  Payne noticed. “That used to happen to me, too. I’d think of a great new tactic to try with my squad, then I’d remember I was a civilian.”

  “How long did that last?”

  “Honestly? It still happens from time to time, but not nearly as frequent as the first year. Back then, I’d think about tactics constantly.”

  “Do you still teach? I remember running into you in K-town. You said you were giving a briefing on advanced weaponry.”

  Payne smiled. He had been in Kaiserslautern, Germany, on one of his adventures when he had bumped into Cobb on the street. He couldn’t afford to tell him why he was there—meeting with a well-known smuggler named Kaiser—so he had lied about his presence to protect his friend. “That’s what I said, all right. Wasn’t the least bit true, but that’s what I said.”

  Cobb raised his brow. “Color me intrigued.”

  “Well, I’d be happy to tell you all about it…cough…unfortunately, my throat…cough… is getting pretty dry from all this talking. If only someone would—”

  Cobb pushed the pitcher of beer toward Payne, who grabbed it and filled his mug before Cobb could change his mind. He patiently waited for Payne to take a large sip of the amber ale before he said another word. “Better?”

  Payne nodded. “Much.”

  Cobb raised his arms in victory. “For the record, let it show that a West Point grad just bailed out a Naval officer in physical and emotional distress.”

  Payne dropped his head in shame. “Son of a bitch!”

  “Call me crazy, but it looks like the coolest, cockiest MANIAC of them all walked right into my trap. Maybe I should be the one teaching you a thing or two about tactics.”

  Payne groaned loudly. “I feel sick.”

  “Well, vomit somewhere else. This is Army country.”

  “Come on, man. You tricked me. How am I supposed to beat a robot?”
r />   “C-3PO, my ass,” Cobb said with a grin. “I’m the fucking Terminator.”

  Chapter 7

  Jones walked into the back room of the Palm Pavilion as Cobb celebrated his victory. The scene confused Jones, who was expecting to see a sad and somber Cobb.

  Perhaps dinner wouldn’t be needed after all.

  Payne spotted his best friend and shouted across the room. “Where the hell have you been? I could’ve used reinforcements ten seconds ago.”

  Cobb turned and saw Jones. He leapt off his chair and greeted Jones with a hug. “Good to see you, DJ. How are you doing?”

  “Great,” Jones said. “How about you?”

  “Better than before,” Cobb admitted. “Thanks for coming down here. It means the world to me.”

  “My pleasure, man.”

  Cobb smiled. “Please, grab a seat. Can I get you a—”

  Payne cut him off. “Seriously, DJ, where the hell have you been? You dropped me off, like, yesterday. What took you so long?”

  “First of all,” Jones snapped, “why’d I have to drop you off to begin with? I’m not your damn driver, and you ain’t Miss Daisy. Or are you, you racist bastard? What, you couldn’t be seen with a black guy in the parking lot?”

  Cobb took a step back and laughed.

  “Secondly,” Jones continued, “you could have told me there was a back room to this place, but noooooooo! Instead, you made me spend ten minutes searching for you outside while Eminem’s tone-deaf cousin butchered a song by Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder, Jon! Blind, brother Stevie Wonder! There should be a law against that—white people singing Motown. It just ain’t right!”

  Payne sighed. “Are you done?”

  “Far from it!” Jones snapped as he glanced at the table. “Finally, and this pisses me off most of all. After flying a thousand miles from Pittsburgh and making my way from the hot-as-Africa parking lot through the douchebag surfers and the torturous wails of Billy Joe Jim Bob, I finally find you guys in the air-conditioned comfort of this back room laughing your asses off. And when I look at your table, I notice two—count them: one, two—mugs instead of three. What, am I not allowed to drink with you guys? Is there a bar out back for us Negroes? Or do you expect me to drink directly from your pitcher? Because I’d gladly do it, if the damn pitcher wasn’t empty!”