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The Hard Core
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CONTENTS
Copyright
Chapter - 1
The Hard Core
Chapter - 2
Chapter - 3
Chapter - 4
Chapter - 5
Chapter - 6
Chapter - 7
Chapter - 8
Chapter - 9
Chapter - 10
Chapter - 11
Chapter - 12
Chapter - 13
Chapter - 14
Chapter - 15
Chapter - 16
Chapter - 17
Chapter - 18
Chapter - 19
Chapter - 20
Chapter - 21
Chapter - 22
Chapter - 23
Chapter - 24
Chapter - 25
Chapter - 26
Chapter - 27
Chapter - 28
Chapter - 29
Chapter - 30
Chapter - 31
Chapter - 32
Chapter - 33
Chapter - 34
Chapter - 35
Chapter - 36
Chapter - 37
Chapter - 38
Chapter - 39
Chapter - 40
Chapter - 41
Chapter - 42
Chapter - 43
Chapter - 44
Chapter - 45
EPILOGUE
Danger Close - Chapter 1
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The Hard Core
by Allen Manning & Brian Manning
Cover by Allen Manning
Copyright © 2019 Allen Manning
All rights reserved.
CHAPTER
1
Central America
Five Months earlier
Dust swirled in tight spirals over the parched dirt and yellow grass. Roland Forrester pressed the trigger, leaning forward as his rifle bucked, spitting a tight three-round burst. The rate of fire was so high, the recoil felt like a single shot. He fired again, and watched his target crumble, like the shoddy wall the enemy used for cover.
Roland ran forward to the husk of a burnt out car during the momentary gap of enemy fire. Gravel rolled under his knee pads as he slid to a stop, leaning against the blackened steel frame. He shouldered the rifle, sighting through the vehicle’s nonexistent windshield, searching for more targets.
Another man on his left let loose a burst, before moving ahead, his boots crunching in the dried out dirt underfoot. The enemy lost their will to fight, shouting out in surrender. Or at least that’s what Roland thought they were saying since he didn’t speak Spanish, much less the dialect they used.
His fire team leader issued commands to Roland and the others. They advanced, rifles at the ready, shouting for the opposition to lower their weapons and raise their hands. Even with the language barrier, Roland knew they would understand what he and his team wanted.
The fighters threw down their guns and surrendered. A mix of stamped metal rifles, old shotguns, and beat up relics from wars long forgotten in this region lay scattered around. The fire team leader pulled his shemagh down and turned to face his men.
“This sector is secured. Forrester, take Dyer and head to the primary objective to provide support.”
“Sir,” Roland said with a salute. He slapped another man in the chest with the back of his hand. “You heard him. Let’s roll.”
The soldier wore the same armor as Roland. The same as the rest of the team, signifying their affiliation to International Security, known as INSEC. He knew what the name sounded like. He and his brothers-in-arms heard all the comments. Swarm, hive, infestation. All that mattered was when INSEC boots hit the ground, it was the enemy scattering like cockroaches.
Roland clutched his rifle to his chest and moved to the objective, Dyer following close on his heels. The dull pops grew sharper and louder as they reached a road leading into the small town.
Roland pointed to a rock wall at the far end of the yard where they stood. The house was on a hill, which would give them an elevated position to put fire on the enemy. The two INSEC mercenaries jogged to the stone barrier, kneeling to brace their bullpup rifles.
Thunder shook the air and rattled the loose wood and stones nearby. Another boom echoed. Roland and Dyer looked over the wall.
“Is that the strike team?” Dyer asked. “Captain Hawke?”
Roland paused, watching the battle escalating below. He wanted to reply, but what he saw left him speechless.
Captain Donovan Hawke, leader of a special operations strike team for INSEC, fired his weapon as he advanced, keeping the enemy suppressed while he pressed forward. Hawke reached the cracked and ruined wall of a house as his rifle bolt locked back, empty. He took cover casually, reloading as he shouted something to another man.
Obie Rhino Gray charged forward now, his AA-12 fully automatic shotgun roaring and tearing the opposition to pieces. Rhino gunned down two men and planted a massive boot into the chest of a third.
Just as the fighter’s body hit the dirt, A woman dropped from a nearby rooftop, plunging a blade into his chest.
Tanika Sloane was an expert in close quarters combat, specializing in melee range with blades. Her speed with edged weapons earned her the nickname Flash. She pulled her knife free, wiping it on the dead man’s pant leg before sliding it back into the sheath on her thigh.
Roland and Dyer flinched as gunfire rang out nearby. At the base of the hill, several enemies had gathered to flank Hawke and his team, but someone slipped into their ranks, engaging the threat up close with her carbine.
Marci Burst Driver carried a more compact version of the bullpup rifle that Roland and the others had been issued. Even though their weapons were quite agile, her configuration granted even smoother movement and faster target acquisition in tighter environments.
“Whoa. They’re all here,” Dyer said.
Ever since Roland joined INSEC, he heard all the stories about Captain Hawke and his strike team. They were like superheroes, celebrities in the ranks of the enlisted.
“Clear,” Rhino said.
“Clear,” Flash added.
* * *
Hawke and Burst strode into the middle of the street to meet them. A group of INSEC soldiers exited the house nearby, signaling to the rest that the fight was over. Roland and Dyer slid down the hill, and Burst whirled around, carbine up and pointed in their direction.
“Whoa whoa,” Roland said. “We’re on your side. We were sent to help.”
Flash smirked. “Just in time, I see.”
“Captain Hawke,” Roland said, snapping up a salute. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
Hawke raised an eyebrow, looking Roland up and down. “Relax, kid.”
Roland dropped the salute and thought about offering his hand to shake, but Hawke had already turned away.
“Real smooth,” Dyer said. “Maybe they can autograph your trading cards when we get back to base.”
“Shut up, Dyer.”
The two men helped the rest of the INSEC contractors round up the prisoners, binding their hands with flex cuffs, and lining them up against the wall of a nearby house. It wasn’t until that moment that he noticed everyone that fought back was either too young to join the military back home, or too old to have to.
Had all the able-bodied men fled? Did they die in previous conflicts? The rest of his fire team arrived, with their captives in tow.
Captain Hawke spoke with Roland’s team leader. They spoke in lowered voices, and Hawke kept pointing to the men and women they had captured. The other man nodded and turned, calling someone on the radio.
Obie slipped a bag over her head and pulled her from the line. Roland watched, trying to figure out what they wanted with her. Moments later Captain Hawke grabbed a younger man by the back of his neck, pulling him toward the woman. Hawke leaned in close and said something in his ear. He continued talking as the young man’s face grew ashen.
With a sharp slap on the back, the team leader shoved the boy ahead. He knelt at the matriarch’s feet, pleading with her about something. She was talking over him, shaking her covered head, not willing to give something or someone up.
The young man continued pleading, grasping her hands as she protested, pulling them away. In mid-sentence, Hawke pulled the sidearm from his holster and placed the muzzle against the man’s skull. His body jerked a split second before Roland heard the pop from the pistol’s report.
Roland flinched, wanting to turn away as Hawke grabbed the woman by the throat, speaking through gritted teeth. Her body wracked with sobs as she fell to her knees, grabbing hold of the INSEC soldier’s pant leg.
He yanked free of her feeble grasp and yelled something in Spanish. She repeated what she had been saying, satisfying the sadistic man.
Hawke turned to his team. “We got it.” He walked to a small group of men hovering over a map spread out across the hood of the smoking husk of a pickup truck.
He stabbed a finger onto the page. “It’s right here. She says this is where the guerrillas' leadership is hiding.”
“Excellent work, Captain,” Roland’s fire team leader said, wiping a handkerchief over his forehead and across his neck.
Captain Hawke barked out a series of orders to the other operatives. He turned as his team joined him. Roland kept his feet planted, rifle clutched to his chest. He watched the strike team climb into a four-wheeled all-terrain vehicle.
A thunderous roar of automatic fire behind him caused him to recoil. Roland turned, already knowing the sound of the INSEC rifles before he saw the soldiers mow down the line of prisoners. His own teammates were executing all of the villagers.
Roland’s hands shook. He tightened his jaw, grinding his teeth to hide his fear and confusion. The old woman cried, clawing at the earth, the bag still on her head.
One final crack rang out as her head snapped back. Roland felt the warm spray hit his face as his shoulder flinched upward. Still, he didn’t dare move or speak. He watched Burst flip her weapon back to safe and sling it over her shoulder as the strike team vehicle lurched to life and took off, the rumble of its motor fading in the distance.
The Hard Core
The Manning Brothers
CHAPTER
2
Now
Great Falls, Montana
John Stone pressed his fingers into his temples. “So we’ve got nothing so far?”
“The opposite problem, actually. We’ve got everything and no way of figuring out how it all connects.” Parker Lewis slid a few sheets of paper around on the table. “This would be a thousand times easier on the computer. I feel like we’re old-time detectives. Gumshoes wrapping red strings around thumbtacks on a cork board.”
John took another swig of beer from his mug. “I can’t wrap my head around endless walls of text on your screen. I need something tangible. It helps me think.”
“Fair enough. But we’re going to need every table in this place for what we’ve got.” Parker pulled another stack from his bag and dropped it in the middle of their puzzle.
Over the past weeks, the two dug deeper into the information they found when they took down a power-hungry monster that kidnapped John’s goddaughter. Warren Ratcliffe ultimately paid the price for bringing harm to John’s family, but before that, Warren accessed some prototype military-grade software to acquire data on some of his own bosses. With Ratcliffe gone, the data was now in the hands of John and Parker.
John laced his fingers behind his head as he stretched back. He turned his head side to side, feeling the popping ripple up his vertebrae. He looked around the dimly lit bar noticing the thinning crowd.
“What time is it?” he asked, squinting to see his watch in the low light.
“A quarter till two,” Parker said. “They’ll be kicking us out of here soon.”
“Son, they won’t be kicking me out of my own establishment.” John stood to work some of the stiffness out of his legs.
“Wait, you own this place?”
“Co-owner.”
“Ah, Fox Hole, I get it now.” Parker chuckled at the name of the bar. “Clever.”
John shook his head, smiling. He scooped up Parker’s glass and walked over to the bar to refill their drinks. Parker noticed the top page on the new stack he had dropped onto the table.
He riffled through the sheets, brows furrowed as he searched for something he saw earlier that it had reminded him of. “He was gathering dirt,” Parker said.
“Who? Ratcliffe?” John settled down into his chair, handing Parker the sweating glass of cola.
He accepted it, taking a sip. “Yeah. Look at this.” Parker set the glass down and held a couple of pages up.
“Can you help me out?” John asked. “I just see a list of names.”
“Right here,” Parker said, tapping his finger on the page, where it was resting. “This name right here, Damien Blanchard.”
John took the page, reading the information. It was a list of various connections and business deals in the works.
“We know Warren Ratcliffe ran these searches for a reason. He wasn’t just using the PEST and Guardian prototypes to pull up random account information. This all had to mean something.” Parker shuffled through another stack of pages until he found what he needed. “This Blanchard guy had a few interactions with Ratcliffe, but most of those deals were for someone else.”
“Pryce Windham,” John said, his eyes locking onto the man’s name on the page in his hands.
“Bingo.”
John could hear Parker’s words fading to a buzz in his head as he fought to control the flood of emotions. A pang of sadness for the loss of his friend Frank Colt. Anger at Windham, the man ultimately responsible for his death.
“—find out who, right?” Parker asked.
John blinked and shook his head. “I’m sorry what did you say?”
Parker rolled his eyes. “Ratcliffe has all of this information because he felt it could be used as leverage. We just need to find who he’s implicating.”
“And how do we do that?” John wiped his eye with a weathered fist, exhaustion finally creeping into his muscles.
“The easy way,” Parker said, gathering up the pages on the table. “It’s late, just let me follow this angle on my computer in the morning. We’ve already got a couple of names, Blanchard and Windham. I’ll just figure out how they’re connected and that should give me a pattern to apply to the rest of all this. I’ll be able to work up a few algorithms to—”
“You’re right, Parker. It’s late, and I don’t have the energy to fight off your machine gun jargon.”
* * *
Detroit, Michigan
Roland Forrester bolted up from his bed, sucking breaths in rapid gasps. A thin sheen of sweat coated his dark skin. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest.
Kicking free of the tangled blankets, Roland swung his legs over the side of his bed. He rested his elbows on his knees, head cradled in his hands, as he tried to regain control.
Breathing in deeply, he blew the air out through his mouth in an extended exhale. Roland squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push the memories from months ago deeper down, hoping to avoid them for only a few hours at least.
He rubbed his eyes, reaching over to turn the alarm off before its shrill chirp started. The cold floor helped drive the weariness away with each step toward the kitchen. The sky’s dark pur
ple hue slowly faded, growing a warmer orange as the sun rose between the buildings across the street.
Roland filled a glass halfway with water from the tap and gulped it down. He refilled the glass and set it on the counter, fishing around the cupboard for the small orange plastic bottle.
The pills inside rattled as he shook the sertraline into his hand. Generic Zoloft, the doc called it when filling out the prescription. Roland didn’t understand half of what she told him it was for, but it helped to smooth things out, if only for a small part of his day.
The coffee maker on the counter clicked to life, bubbling and hissing. 5:45 AM. His contact would have replied by now, for sure.
Roland opened his laptop, waking it from its untroubled slumber. Fingers hovering unsure over the keys, he stared down at the letters, pecking the password and looking up for confirmation that it had been typed out correctly.
Ever since returning from his mission in Central America five months ago, Roland had been searching for the truth. Or a truth that would let him accept what he signed his life away for. He joined INSEC sixteen months earlier, when the deal seemingly dropped into his lap in a moment of personal darkness.
Roland was in the middle of a 5-year bid for armed robbery, serving his sentence at Silver Creek prison. After an altercation with a couple of inmates, he was facing another nine months tacked onto his stay. But then the opportunity to join a private defense contractor, and make a difference, came along.
It would shorten his stay, adding the additional time to a four-year service contract. Too good to be true, Roland thought, scrolling through his recent messages. In his time back home, he still reported to the INSEC facility outside Detroit, but he filled his evenings with a search for answers.
It wasn’t until that deployment, crossing paths with Captain Hawke’s strike team, that Roland questioned the legitimacy of the deal he had signed. The brochures, training videos, and lectures painted the opportunity as a way to serve his country. Making the world a better, safer place, all while living a life of excitement.