“I thought the SAD had their own special ops guys—paramilitary types and whatnot,” Alan remarked.
Fred cocked his head. “Are you telling the story, or am I? How much do you know about the SAD?”
Alan grinned. “Only what I’ve read…in The Gray Man novels.”
Fred chuckled. “I’m an admirer of Mark Greaney, myself. So, as I was saying. There’s been a host of atrocities levied on the people in the Congo. It’s an unfortunate thing, really, but it’s been like that for decades, and the rest of the world either doesn’t know about it or doesn’t care. The country’s leaders have always been rather nefarious—using the force of their military to rape, murder, pillage, and plunder villages all over the place, for no other reason than to persecute and restrict freedom and political involvement. Human rights were never a part of the plan, but genocide was—and from what Dave has told me, he still has nightmares about what he’s seen over there.”
“A government attacking its own people?” Alan posed, his tone hinting sarcasm. “I can’t imagine such a thing.”
Fred’s expression hardened. “I’m guessing the United Nations had something to do with this Congo op, but I’m not one hundred percent certain. The original plan was for Dave’s unit to drop in along with a direct-action SEAL team. They were to go kinetic and provide the government with a warning. Several key targets and points of interest were set to go boom in a very loud, obscene fashion—think shock and awe. The regime was expected to deescalate the violence as a result, or suffer more damage if they chose not to heed our warning. The strategy has been used for centuries and has always seen a decent return on investment.
“But along the way, some shitbird with too much authority for his own damn good got a wild hair up his ass and decided to send in a group of unarmed, barely trained UN investigators instead, their intention being to find a peaceful resolution and draw up a treaty of some kind. With that plan in motion, Dave’s orders were placed on permanent standby, and the mission was aborted not long before those same UN investigators got their heads lopped off on a live internet video. Supposedly, it was posted on YouTube, along with a warning for us to mind our own business. Three of those investigators were Americans, all in their early twenties, I believe.”
“I think I remember hearing about it,” Alan said.
“It was a damn shame…twenty young men and women on a peacekeeping mission, just doing their jobs—doing what they thought was right for the cause. It’s been my experience though, if you get sent into a lion’s den, you chance getting eaten by the lions.”
Fred paused and rubbed his chin. “Anyway, Dave’s unit received a new set of orders about a day later, and they were brought in country with the objective of securing a village in a strategic location along the border with Angola. Once secured, they were to arm and train the villagers. After that, they’d reroute to the next objective on the map, rinse, and repeat.” Fred hesitated. “Anyway, as luck would have it, someone screwed the pooch, and the LZ ended up being thirty klicks away from the village. Dave’s unit had to ruck it in, and when they finally made it, they were too late. Everything was gone—destroyed—burned to the ground. They’d shot the livestock dead, along with dogs, cats, etcetera. And every adult man and woman in the village had been slaughtered.”
Alan turned his head, his attention now focused on Fred. “I detected a speech anomaly, Fred. You said every adult.”
“It wasn’t an anomaly,” Fred said. “They even stacked the bodies together like a pile of sandbags so they could be burned easier. They must’ve decided to leave in a hurry, though—because they didn’t bother lighting the fire. They were kind enough to spare the children, but Dave believes…and I can’t say I disagree, that they were left there to fend for themselves, like some sick form of natural selection. I’d wager each of them had the equivalent of a snowball’s chance in hell of living to see their next birthdays.”
Alan’s expression grew dismal. “How old were they?”
“There were a few infants in the mix. Most of the children were as young as five or six…the oldest, probably around Lauren’s age.”
“Jesus.”
“With no shelter and no one to protect them from the forces of nature, my guess is they would’ve lasted a week or two at most before the weakest succumbed to exposure or dehydration. A few weeks later, others would starve to death, and disease or other nasty things would take the rest. The African jungle isn’t exactly the most benevolent place in the world—and I’m quite sure whoever made the decision to put them in that predicament had been well aware long before doing so.
“When Dave’s unit reported what they’d found back to HQ, they were ordered to abort the mission and immediately exfiltrate. But as I said earlier, Dave is a…well, he’s a good man, you see. A gentleman. And not only did he directly disobey the order, he told the CIA station chief to go to hell—not necessarily in those words. He wasn’t going to leave those kids after seeing what they’d been through, and knowing full well their lives all depended on his next move. Dave gave his men the option to leave or stay, too…but they all agreed to remain and finish the mission and deal with any consequences at a later date. If they ever made it out of there.”
“So they stayed?”
Fred nodded slightly. “They stayed.”
“And did what?”
Fred smirked. “They completed the mission, Alan. Dave and his unit armed and trained the villagers—to become guerilla fighters.”
“Dave trained a bunch of children to fight in a war?”
“Affirmative,” Fred said with a nod. “He damn well did just that. Taught them survival skills, too. I think he told me he ended up teaching a few of them English. Could’ve sworn he said he taught one little girl how to play the piano—but he might’ve been embellishing.”
Alan’s mouth went agape. “That’s…unbelievable.”
“The odds were more than against them. Thirty or so kids versus an army of trained soldiers? Dave knew they were doomed to fail, but he stayed anyway and taught those kids tactics that would hopefully give them an advantage of some kind.”
“Whatever happened to them?”
“I’m…not sure. And truth is, neither is he,” Fred said, hanging his head. “Unfortunately, as these things tend to turn out, I imagine it ended badly for them. That’s just the world we live in, the way it was designed…smaller weaker organisms don’t endure very long on the food chain. I think he tries to forget all that stuff and just concentrate on the present and the future, but a past like the one Dave’s had has a tendency to haunt a man.”
“I have no doubt,” said Alan. “Thanks for telling me this, Fred. I take it he got into some trouble?”
“He was reprimanded and lost command of his unit,” Fred stated, followed by a long moment of silence. “I give Dave a lot of shit, but I respect him for what he did. It takes a real man to put his own life on the line for a bunch of people who were most likely going to wind up dead anyway, but he just couldn’t leave them—he couldn’t walk away when he knew they needed his help.”
Fred paused and cleared his throat, changing his tone. “Now, I know he could use a bath, that skin of his is in dire need of some moisturizer, and he definitely needs to make friends with a razor, but get past that rough exterior and delve into the deep, dark recesses—you’ll find a huge heart hidden in there. So, I repeat my last—don’t worry, he’s not going to hurt her. Dave has a reason for everything he does. He doesn’t do anything for his own edification.”
A grin formed on Alan’s face. “He does sound like someone who’s inhaled exhaust fumes way too many times over the span of his life.”
Fred nodded. “Yeah. Smells kinda funny, too.”
When Dave and Lauren’s heated chat finally reached its end, Dave didn’t waste any time returning to the exercise. On the ball and more alert this time, Lauren immediately dropped back into a fighting stance, awaiting his attack. When she noticed hesitation, she decided to strike fir
st, going for his knee with a low kick. Several minutes of increasingly intense sparring followed before Dave somehow managed to twist her up again, sending her flying to the ground.
Lauren howled loudly as the pain from the repeated falls began rearing its ugly head. She held her breath, wrapped her arms around her sides, and curled up into a fetal position.
Dave moved closer to her and nudged her rudely with his boot. “Come on, Janey. Shake it off.”
Lauren howled a mouthful of anger-soaked expletives at him.
“Why don’t you give her a break, Dave?” Fred called from the sideline, elevating his voice. “I think she’s had enough for now.”
Dave twisted his head in the direction of his brother-in-law. “Is that your way of saying you wanna be next, Fred?”
Fred laughed. “Careful what you wish for, snake-eater. You come at me half-cocked and I’ll put your dick permanently in the dirt.”
“You’re full of bravo sierra…but I’ll take that as a yes,” Dave said, pointing his finger. He returned his attention to the young girl on the ground in front of him and softened his voice. “Okay, Janey, let’s go. Break time’s over. Get up.”
Lauren let out a guttural snarl and cursed liberally under her breath. She slowly made her way to a sitting position and began pulling her hair behind her head, tying it into a makeshift bun. “I’m sick of this shit. I swear to God—I’m going to kill you when I get up.”
Dave smiled, took a few steps back, then clapped his hands and rubbed them together as if warming them over a fire. “Well, come on—let’s get it over with, then.”
Lauren rose and, without pause, hotfooted quickly toward him. When she was within a few feet, Dave raised his hands in an untraditional guard and tilted his head, giving off a scornful gaze. “Ah—careful, there. You’re within the critical distance. Better get that guard up—protect your head.”
Lauren moved in with her hands to her sides, causing Dave to backpedal to maintain distance from her. Then, unexpectedly, she went on the attack, delivering a salvo of punches, kicks, elbows, and knees in every combination imaginable. Dave reacted to all of them, but some of her efforts managed to elude his defenses.
When one of Lauren’s punches struck his chin, Dave smirked, admiring that her spirit had finally shown up to the fight. As his guard faltered, he received another stout punch on the opposite side of his face, and Dave’s smirk transformed into a full-on smile.
“Atta girl!” he yelled.
Lauren kept coming, and Dave moved fully to the defensive. He had gotten what he wanted—seen what he had wanted to see—and now thought it best to de-escalate and bring the exercise to a close. The only problem was that Lauren had other ideas.
Dave began reaching for Lauren’s hands, trying to grab hold of them as they flew toward him. He attempted other methods of slowing her momentum down, all of which seemed to only make matters worse. He had gotten her worked up, and Lauren had fallen face-first into an embittered stupor and seemed to have no intention of stopping or even slowing down.
With nothing left in his toolbox to fix what he’d broken, Dave Graham grabbed both of Lauren’s flailing arms, pulling them outward to her sides. Her eyes protruded and she lunged, trying to bite his face. Then Lauren attempted to head-butt him—one such attempt making its way distinctly close to Dave’s nose, an appendage that had already seen its share of fractures over the years.
“Okay—that’s enough, Lauren,” Dave said, this time using her given name, knowing his chosen nickname for her wouldn’t serve his efforts. “The drill’s over…give it a rest.”
Lauren ignored his pleas and just kept coming at him. Exhausting his options, Dave did the only thing left he knew to do—he put her to the ground again. Hard.
Absorbing the shock once more, Lauren appeared as though she was truly hurt this time around. She sat up slowly, wincing, her arms wrapped tightly around her sides.
Dave instantly felt regretful for the amount of force he’d used. He moved closer, kneeling several feet away. “I’m sorry, Lauren. But you didn’t give me much of a choice just now. Are you hurt?”
Lauren shooed him away through her tears. “Leave me alone.”
Dave pled with her. “Come on. I need to know if you’re injured or not. This wasn’t a part of the plan today. If I hurt you, you need to tell me so I can do something about it.”
“Go away. You’ve done enough,” Lauren said through clenched teeth. “Tell my dad that I’m ready to go home now.”
“You don’t mean that,” Dave said, taking a second to glance up, noticing Alan and Fred had arrived in a hurry. He rose, and with his hands on his hips, he started backing away, only to stop after a few paces. In the delay, he’d considered allowing Alan to handle things from here, but decided against the notion. He went back to her instead, holding out a hand. “Come on.” Dave’s raspy voice had become sullen. “Let me take a look at you. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, and I know you don’t mean what you’re saying. This isn’t over yet, Lauren. We still have a lot of work to do.” He paused. “You’ve…made a believer out of me. I was…counting on you.”
Dave inched closer and reached out, placing his hand compassionately on her shoulder. When Lauren felt his hand, she unexpectedly came to life. Twisting her body around, she punched him squarely in the crotch, then watched as Dave keeled over, groaning, then fell limply to the ground in a tensing ball of anguish.
Lauren smirked. “Were you counting on that?”
Alan just stood there, staring at his daughter. He was speechless, nothing but total astonishment befalling him.
“Blech,” Fred blurted, offering a smug look of surprise. “That was unexpected.”
As the middle-aged Special Forces vet curled into a fetal position, Lauren rose and nudged him unceremoniously with her boot, just as he had done to her earlier on. “Come on, Dave,” she teased. “Shake it off.”
Alan moved away from Fred and over to his daughter. “Hey, L. I take this to mean you’re okay? No visits to the emergency room today?”
Lauren shrugged her shoulders, still rubbing her sides. “Oh, the last one hurt, all right. But not as much as I let on.”
“What do you call that move you just pulled on ole Dave there, Lauren Jane?” Fred pondered. “Looked a little…unorthodox to me.”
Alan snickered. “Not to mention painful.”
Lauren smiled proudly. “I don’t know. The element of surprise, I guess?”
Fred huffed and produced a sheepish grin while repeating Lauren’s words under his breath.
Lauren elaborated. “I improvised. It’s something I’ve been thinking about trying for a while now,” she said. “Up until a minute ago, I never had the opportunity. I’m just a girl, you know—just a pretty face. I don’t look like much, and I definitely don’t look like a threat to anyone. And from prior experience, I know a girl’s tears tend to go a long way…so I dredged some up on short notice. I just didn’t know if it would work or not.”
“Looks to me like it worked wonders,” Fred said. “What do you think, Dave? Everything okay…down there?”
Dave Graham pulled a hand away to flip Fred his middle finger while continuing to writhe.
Diverting everyone’s attention, a line of assorted vehicles began filing into Point Blank’s parking lot, each finding a parking space right beside the other. A few minutes later, once the road dust had settled, a group of men wearing mismatched military fatigues began their approach.
Lauren looked to her father and inconspicuously pointed to them. “Is that supposed to be Dave’s version of SEAL Team Six?”
“It very well could be, L,” Alan replied, getting a slight kick out of her recalling his playful alias for Dave’s group. “I’m not completely sure, though. I’ve never actually met any of them.”
Lauren shyly watched as they marched closer, paying specific attention to their overall lack of decorum. “They don’t look like SEALs at all, to me. They look more like the A-Team.”
One of the men broke away from the group to join him. He was a shorter man, only a few inches taller than Lauren, appearing in his younger thirties. He had a solid, muscular build, was of far-Eastern descent, and had a strangely calming, friendly disposition. He nodded to Alan and smiled at Lauren as he strolled by before turning his attention to Dave.
“Good morning, Dave,” he said, his voice carrying a mixed intonation of Korean and English. “Are you letting little girls beat you up again?”
Dave held his hand up. “It wasn’t intentional. Then again, how nice of you to notice, Tang.”
“Fred spilled the beans,” the man said, gesturing his head to Dave’s brother-in-law.
“Imagine that,” said Dave. “Here’s an idea—you wanna eighty-six the wisecracks and help me up?”
“Hooyah,” the Asian man said, and held out a hand, effortlessly pulling Dave Graham to his feet.
Dave tipped over a bit after unfolding, his lower body still twisted up from the trauma. He gave Lauren a frustrated look, shaking his head at her.
Lauren only smiled tauntingly back at him.
“Alan, Lauren…meet Petty Officer First Class Jaewoo Tang,” Dave said, holding out a hand in presentation. “He’s one of the chiefs in my unit—a good man—someone I trust with my life. Tang, this is Alan Russell and his daughter Lauren.”
The man gestured with a single nod and a closed-mouth smile, then slowly reached out to shake hands. “Pleasure to meet you both. Please, call me Woo Tang.”
Alan’s face fell out of shape. “Uh, Wu-Tang?”
“Yes,” the short-statured yet well-built Asian replied. “Is something the matter?”
“No. Not at all. It’s just that you’ve chosen a heck of a nickname.”
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