The other person kicked me in the chest. I tried to absorb the kicks without making a sound. He then shined his light on me looking for a gun. I had none and lucky for me he didn’t see the knife in my vest probably due to its black handle which was covered by a vest cloth. He saw my ID card on the shiny metal chain and yanked it off my neck. Now they knew who I was and they started to argue with each other.
I could hear Tommy far off in the distance faintly yelling for me. I had gained some time to clear my head. I could move my hands but I broke a couple of fingers on my left hand, good thing I am right handed. I slightly opened my eyes to look and there was a dim light on the ceiling of the room. They were standing at my feet.
I mentally scanned each part of my body for damage, arms, legs, feet, neck, all seemed to be moveable but my left side hurt like hell. Maybe I broke a couple of ribs. I could function in a fighting mode and knew if I didn’t try, it would be the end. I was thinking; I don’t want to die in a black hole in the ground at the hands of al-Qaida scum. They still thought I was knocked out.
As they talked to each other I thought I need to make a move now and kill these dorks before they kill me. It was just a matter of time before they would kill me and I am not going to let that happen without a fight. I was trying to physic myself up, getting ready to make the move. I planned the attack in my mind. I have two assholes to kill so I need to be fast and accurate.
I slightly opened my eyes again watching them; both men took off their Arabic head scarves called a Keffiyeh. I thought, good now I have a clear spot to cut their throats. I slowly raised my right hand putting it on my knife handle. A tall man had his back to me while taking to the other person whose view of me was blocked.
I pulled my knife out and when it was clear of the scabbard and firmly in my hand, I jumped up as fast as I could while at the same time shoving the 8 inch blade of the double edge Cold Steel knife into his back right below his left shoulder blade, hoping the blade would go in and puncture his lung.
I pushed it in his body with all my strength up to the hand guard. I quickly pulled it out and slashed him across the juggler vein on his neck. He let out a big moan and fell to his knees holding his neck trying to stop the blood from flowing out of his body.
The other shit head went for his AK 47 lying on the ground but I kicked it away from him and it slid about 10 feet. The little shit pulled out a knife and started to quickly slash at me swinging his knife hand back and forth while backing up to the wall yelling something in Arabic. I thought I heard him say my name. He was inching closer and closer to his gun. I had to make a move to stop him.
I decided to press forward thinking I have on two vests; one is my bullet proof vest and on top of that is my combat vest with pockets full of ammo and tools. To stab me in the chest and penetrate the vests would be very hard to do. Looking at his knife it wasn’t big enough. I stepped forward he slashed out lunging at me and then I felt his blade pressing on my chest.
I instantly wacked at his knife arm with my Cold Steel Black Bear, all most cutting it off, he screamed as my blade hit his forearm, I heard his bone snap. With a back swing of my blade I sliced his neck wide open and warm blood squirted out at first, spraying all over me, then it began to flow freely from his throat like water.
He grabbed my right wrist to stop my knife but suddenly let go and held his neck to stop the bleeding. I was getting ready to slice him again when the door was kicked in by Tommy and Ron. Tommy promptly shot him in the head. He dropped dead on the spot. The whole thing was over in two minutes but it seemed like it lasted an hour.
The tall dork was on his knees still holding his throat trying to stop the bleeding. Ron had his Glock pointed at his head and was going to shoot him but he said something.
He was bleeding out slowly but surely, he was as good as dead, but managed to ask in a thick Arabic accent, “Are you Jack Gunn?”
Bending down grabbing him by the hair I twisted his head up so he could see my face and looking closely in his eyes I replied, “Yes I am Jack Gunn.”
I let go of his hair then he fell over dead on the cold cement floor, into a puddle of his own warm blood. I pried my ID card out of his dead hand.
I know how to knife fight. I was taught by one of the best a Navy Seal named Mike. He was a knife expert and once told me he killed more men with a knife than a gun. In knife fighting you never hold a knife over hand or over head. You never stab downward but jab and slice. It takes a lot of practice to learn proper knife fighting methods. I also trained with my buddy Russell. Russell was a retired Marine who loved knifes and hand to hand combat.
A good fighting knife has a one piece shank and blade. It is made of hardened steel with a softer inner core but the blade edge is hard and sharp as a razor blade. Fighting knifes have a finger hook or sub hilt for your index finger to wrap around and a hand guard to keep your fingers from getting cut off. The nice thing about the Black Bear Cold Steel knife is that both edges are sharp as a razor so you can slice and dice in either direction.
Tommy yelled, “Wow, are you ok Dad?”
“I am a little banged up, I broke two fingers and maybe some ribs, but I’ll be ok. I just need to rest all my energy is gone.”
I pulled out my camel back water hose, took a big drink, and asked, “Hey anyone got some booze?”
Rick said, “Here Jack have a drink and he pulled out a water bottle filled with vodka and tossed it to me.”
Catching it I mumbled, “Thanks Rick”
I took a big double gulp and then drank some more water. Then I taped my broken fingers together on my left hand. I had on combat gloves but didn’t take them off for fear I wouldn’t be able to get them back on with swollen broken fingers.
Trying to gain my breath back I felt sick and puked on the floor. My hands were shaking as always after a physical fight and my legs gave out. Falling to the floor I sat down in a pool of warm slippery blood. My strength was gone; my adrenalin was all used up.
Ron asked, “Jack, are you ok?”
“OK, Bro give me a minute to rest.”
Tommy came over, shined his light on me, and said, “Dad you’re pretty banged up.”
“I’ll be ok in a few minutes Tommy.”
Tommy took out a handkerchief, soaked it in water, and wiped the blood off my head and face for me. That felt really good. I sat there and looked at my vest where the knife stabbed me. Just as I thought it only cut the vest a slight amount. All my men were standing there watching me to make sure I was ok.
I prayed out loud, “Thank you God for giving me the strength to defeat my enemies.
”Hey check these guys out, look in their pockets and see who they are, just don’t stand there. I want to know how that ass hole knew my name. They were going to kill me. I need to get glasses. I didn’t even see the dam hole.”
Jim Bo yelled out, “Bingo look at this! It looks like a wanted poster with your picture. It’s written in Arabic but it has above your picture $100,000.”
“Jim Bo let me see that. Well that dork knows who killed him. It kind of makes me feel good he found Jack Gunn and went to Never - Never land.”
Sure enough Jim Bo was right. I will have to have Rahim translate it for me. I stuffed it into my pocket, while looking around the room which was about the size of a two car garage, I saw a small 20 x 20 picture of Jesus on the wall and told Ron, “Check if anything is behind that picture.”
Ron walked over to it and said, “The picture is screwed to the wall. Hey there is another door here but it is locked, the keys in the door. I think this is a secret passage that goes to the Priest’s house.”
“Well take out your Leatherman and unscrew the picture. But be careful it may be rigged to blow up. Keep your eye on that door if anyone opens it shoot them.”
After a couple of minutes Ron yelled, “Double Bingo here’s a safe.”
Tommy walked over to the safe and checked it out saying, “It’s not locked; I am going to open it hold your ears just in cas
e it blows up.”
Tommy started to laugh as he slowly opened the safe door and we all ducked low as possible and covered or ears. The door opened and there was no explosion.
I yelled to Tommy, “What the hell are you laughing at!”
“I was just joking Dad but when you see what is inside here you will laugh your ass off.”
I managed to crawl to my feet and everyone came over to the safe to see what was inside. There were white money bags inside. Tommy pulled one out and started to dump the contents on the floor. The contents were shiny gold coins along with paper money. It was the loot we were looking for all this time. We all started to laugh. I guess you could say we had the last laugh.
“Dad how much do you think is here?”
“I guess about $500,000 in gold coins and an equal amount in paper money. Let’s grab the money and get out of this shit hole now! Tommy keep an eye on that door. I don’t want to get surprised by al-Qaida again.”
Everyone had a bag of gold coins and paper money as we walked down the tunnel back to the metal ladder to climb out. We made it back to the main church door where Rahim and Eddy were waiting.
Eddy said, “Where have you guys been so long? I tried to radio you but got no reply. What do you have there?”
Tommy told him, “We got the loot Eddy, maybe 1 million dollars.”
“Man what a haul. The Rangers wanted to know why you were taking so long. Things are getting hot out there and they brought in more troops and the Iron Maiden. It is also getting dark so we need to leave.”
I handed Rahim the paper with my picture and asked, “Rahim can you translate this for me? Oh and give me back my Glock, loaning it to you almost got me killed.”
“Sure Jack but you don’t look to good. It says … Jack Gunn … wanted dead … for killing our leaders Aamir and Abdul Aalee. Reward for his head is $100,000 in gold coins. This was issued by Osama Hussein the grandson of their Great Leader Osama bin Laden.”
“Hey, maybe one of the guys I killed was Osama Hussein grandson of Osama bin Laden. How in the hell did they know I killed Abdul Aalee?”
Rick stuck his head outside the door and a bullet almost blew it off, he yelled, “Things are too hot out there to leave now.”
I got on the radio to Willis, “This is Jack we are done here what is the situation out there?”
“Jack, it’s not good. Did you find anything?”
“Good news we got the al-Qaida loot and killed five fighters we found inside the church.”
“Jack, you guys sit tight for now until we get this mess under control. Both your trucks were destroyed by RPGs. We will take you all back to Tocabaga in a Bradley.”
“Ok Willis let us know when we can get out of here.”
Rahim came up to me and said, “Jack I know what Osama Hussein looks like. He is the key man for al-Qaida international and that is a big deal.”
I asked Tommy, “Can you take Rahim to see the bodies of the two men I killed.”
Tommy replied, “Yes let’s go Rahim.”
Thirty minutes later they came back and Rahim advised me, “The bigger man was Osama Hussein and the other man was his body guard. They were very bad men.”
Tommy said, “Look at this I took some pictures of the bodies on my cell phone so we can post them on the internet just to demoralize them.”
“That is a good idea,” I replied.
I called Colonel Turner on my cell, “Colonel this is Jack, we still at the church and are pinned down for now. I have some good news, we killed Osama Hussein the head al-Qaida leader and found about one million of their cache.
“Colonel, we took some pictures of the dead body and Tommy thinks we should post them on the internet to demoralize them.”
“Send them to me and we will do that right away. Sergeant Willis is going to get you back to Tocabaga in a Bradley because it is too dangerous and I understand your trucks were blown up. I have to go now Jack.”
“Roger that Colonel.”
Sergeant Willis yelled, “Come on guys Gun Smoke is here ready to leave.”
We ran out the front door one at a time and jumped into the back of Gun Smoke. I stopped and looked at my smoking burning truck and remembered the kid’s toys. I ran to the truck, opened the back, grabbed the undamaged toy box, and darted to Gun Smoke. I threw myself and the box inside at the same time. Bullets were zipping by me in the air, pinging off the metal sides of the Bradley.
The Bradley Commander Master Sergeant Santelli asked, “Is everyone on board?”
Rick shouted, “Everyone is on, let’s go! The big back door began to close.”
Gun Smoke moved forward with a big jerk. It was noisy as hell and the sound of the bullets hitting the outside echoed inside making everyone duck. Soon we were out of the hot zone. We arrived back at Tocabaga with no further incidents. I lost all track of time so I looked at my watch it was 8 pm. We were all dead tired and hungry.
Walking over the bridge it felt really good to be in a safe place. The guards all greeted us and asked where our trucks were. Ron told them blown to shit. We took Rick’s pickup truck sitting on the side of the bridge where he left it from this morning. We each carried about 10 pounds of gold into my house and dropped it on the floor along with the toy box.
Rick, Eddy, Tony, Ron, Tommy, Rahim, Jim Bo, Chris and I all hugged each other and I told them, “Great job guys, thank you.”
Hemmi came up and gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, “You dummy; you scared the crap out of us. You should have called. Jack you look a mess. Go take a hose shower and wash all that blood off and change your clothes before the kids see you.”
“Sorry Honey we had no time to call.”
Hemmi handed me a clean pair of pants and a shirt. I ripped off the bloody clothes and Tommy threw them in the dumpster. She held the hose on me and I washed off putting on clean clothes, it felt good.
Amy took the tape and glove off my hand, looking at my fingers she said, “I’ll call Doc. Scott right now to set these fingers. It’s clear you were in a fight your eyes are swollen and are turning black and blue. You have to go to the Clinic right away.”
“Ok I’ll go.”
Johnny and Jimmy came running downstairs giving everyone there a hug and Johnny said,” You got… you got our toy box.” He didn’t even notice my beat up face.
He opened the lid and found his ball gloves, bat, and ball. Johnny handed Jimmy one glove and they were smiling. It was like a treasure chest, Shanda and Kendra just had to look inside. Johnny invited them to check out the toys.
Rick, Eddy, Rahim, Chris, and Tony left to go home, it had been a long day.
Johnny and Jimmy both yelled, “Thank you Mr. Gunn!”
I softly spoke to them, “My name is Grandpa Jack from now on.”
Johnny told me, “We never had a Grandpa.”
“You and Jimmy have one now.”
Jimmy asked, “Who is going to be our Dad and Mom?”
Tommy said to them, while hugging his wife Tonya, “We’ll be your Dad and Mom. Now everyone give a big group hug.”
It brought tears to my eyes, after the group hug I went outside, Jim Bo, Ron, and Tommy followed me out; Tommy said, “Dad lets go get a shot of JD at the bar and have a smoke.”
“Great idea I have to go see the Doc. anyway.”
I yelled to my wife, “Honey we’ll be back soon we are going to the bar for a drink and I got to go see the Doc.”
We all jumped into my other truck and drove to the bar. Walking in we found the rest of the crew with about 50 people there asking what happen. Rick and Eddy were telling the story as all our friends were shaking our hands and slapping us on the back. I had two shots of JD and went to see the Doc next door, taking the whole bottle of JD with me.
Doc. Scott told me, “Sit down show me your hand.”
My fingers were now swollen up twice their normal size. Doc. gave me a shot in each finger to kill the pain. Feeling each finger he pulled them straight while I drank two bi
g gulps of JD. It hurt like hell even with the pain shots. Doc. Scott set my fingers putting on a splint and wrapped them in tape, along with my whole hand. He advised me not to use this hand for about six weeks.
He then looked me over and noticed I had pain in my ribs, feeling them he said, “You have three broken ribs. I’ll tape you up.”
Then he looked at my face seeing my black and blue eyes and the big bumps on my head he commented, “You may have a concussion. So take it easy for a while. What happened out there?”
“I fell into a pit, got knocked out, lost my gun and two al-Qaida fighters grabbed me, it’s a long story but I killed them both with my knife. We found about 1 million dollars that belonged to al-Qaida.”
“No shit, Jack you are one crazy dude. Thanks for what you do.”
“Thanks Bro., see you later.”
I went back to the bar as I walked in everyone came over to shake my hand on killing Osama Hussein. I had two more shots of JD and told Tommy I was going home to rest.
Tomorrow is another day and we will need to weigh the gold and see how much money we obtained and then put it in our bank. I need to review the security situation for Tocabaga. I will ask Tommy and Ron to do an ammo check and gun count.
I have to phone Sessions also to tell him what happen today. I need to talk to Colonel Turner about moving the Muslim women to the Islamic Society in Tampa and the fact we need a chopper to do that.
Work never stops here if you want to stay alive. I am beat up, in pain and ready to rest for the night.
MAY 17, 2025
I woke up and moaned getting out of bed, my fingers hurt, my back hurt, my ribs hurt, and my head hurt. It was not easy to move my body because of the pain. I went down stairs and took four aspirins, a total of 2,000 milligrams.
My wife Hemmi looked at me and said, “You look like shit Jack.”
I replied, “I feel like shit. Give me a shot of whiskey and a cup of coffee.”
THE TOCABAGA CHRONICLES: (BOX SET - PART I - BOOKS #1-5) Page 19
