Black Talon: A Jessie Carr Novel #3

Prologue

It’s 6:30AM January 15, 2003. I’m sitting in a God awful pile of rocks about six miles south of Spin Boldak, Afghanistan. Spin Boldak is located on the Pakistan border. It’s cold and windy and miserable. For the life of me I can’t figure out how I got myself into this mess. I’m fifty three years old and should be on the deck of a cruise ship in the Caribbean playing shuffleboard and sipping on a drink with an umbrella in it or wearing some ridiculous colored golfing pants. But of course, I’m not.

I’m lying in a rocky hole on a cliff wearing desert camouflage and a flak vest. Four hundred meters in front of me is a two man sniper team from the Afghan Army I am supposed to be protecting. I still haven’t figured out which side these clowns are on. They are watching a foot path leading into Afghanistan from Pakistan, we were told it is used by the Taliban to move men and equipment. From my vantage point I can see the two troops I am to protect and the pass they are scouting. I have seen twenty one groups of men move through the pass in the last three days, all armed, none of which they chose to engage.

Just to get out of the cold and miserable conditions I considered shooting them, but of course, I’m not supposed to do that. I have been in this shitty country for twenty three days and it feels like years. I look at Shelby, my spotter and partner; he is either frozen to death or asleep. His face is coated with ice, and frozen snot is running down his chin. I have to laugh, what else can I do? My elbow in his ribs startles him awake, What, what, shit. I look at him I thought you were my spotter, hard spotting through your eyelids. He shakes his head trying to clear the cobwebs Man fuck this shit, shoot those two assholes and let’s get the hell out of here; them two douche bags ain’t gonna shoot anyone. Even if they wanted to they couldn’t hit um.

He’s right, at four hundred meters in this weather the best in the world would have less than a sixty percent chance, and these two surely ain’t the best. What the hell, we got seven more days and we heading home, if I shoot them I will have too much paper work. He nods in agreement, Yea, I guess. I still think we should shoot them on general principle. I laugh and remind him that he is the cause of us being here Hey don’t forget, you got us into this mess. You and your damn get rich quick schemes. The only thing we’re getting out here is frostbite.

In truth, Shelby isn’t responsible for me being here; once again common sense has been trumped by the need for that rush. That need has got me in trouble before, many times.

I spot movement from the sniper hide in front of me; well at least they are awake. I grab my binoculars and see one of the men shoulder his rifle, it’s the first time I’ve actually see him do that. I look toward the path and spot a cart pulled by a donkey. One person is sitting on the cart and one is walking. From this distance I can’t make out details, but neither appears armed.

The crack of his shot sends the people on the path scrambling, then I realize; the person in the cart is a woman. I can clearly see the burka she is wearing. He fires another round, missing again. I am trying to make sense of what I am seeing. He hasn’t fired on any armed men before, but now chooses to fire on an unarmed woman. Shelby is watching through his spotter scope What the fuck is that fool doing? That’s a woman on that cart.

The shooter fires again and I see the donkey go down. I can hear laughter from the two shooters. I look at Shelby, I have no idea, sounds like they having fun though. This is bullshit man.

I shoulder my M40 Sniper Rifle. Looking through the scope I can clearly see the shooter taking aim again. I aim two feet to the left of him and fire, hopefully a warning shot will stop this. I see the round strike a rock to the shooter left, he turns and looks back at me, clearly anger on his face. Then he makes the mistake of his life, he reverses himself and takes aim up the mountain at Shelby and I. He fires; I see the flash from his rifle and hear the round strike somewhere behind me. I put the drop compensator on his forehead at the four hundred meter mark, and gauge the wind strength and direction by looking at the range markers I had placed when we arrived. I pulled the trigger and watched his head explode in a cloud of red. His partner dropped down below the rocks.

Before I can say anything Shelby is on his feet and moving downhill toward their hide Cover me. I watch through the scope as he carefully moves downward, ArmaLite Model 15 at the ready. When he is less than one hundred meters from the snipers hide the second man pops up, and fires wildly in Shelby’s direction. Before I can take aim Shelby drops to one knee and empties his magazine at the second sniper.

I head downhill and join Shelby by the two dead snipers. The guy I shot is missing the top of his head. Shelby’s guy is hit four time, I can’t pass it up I need to give Shelby grief. Jesus, you emptied a forty round polymer magazine and you hit him four times, great shooting. He looks at me and grins, Fuck you, musta been the wind.

I gather their weapons and ammunition and head toward the pass. The woman and other person are still hiding behind their cart. We approach them carefully and Shelby using the few words of Farsi he knows tells them to come out with their hands in the air. They hesitate but do as they are told, then I realize, with the woman is a small boy.

I may not know the politics of Afghanistan, but I know shooting these two wasn’t in the cards. There is gonna be hell to pay, but I been there before.

Chapter 1

Six months earlier.

The Corporate Office of Black Talon Global Security and Protective Services are located on South Dupont Parkway in Dover, DE. Since I am one of the owners of it I figured I should at least see what I paid two million dollars for. To be honest, the headquarters building is nothing more than a one thousand square foot leased office space, the secretary is impressive, long blond hair and a great body, but not two million dollars worth. What’s impressive is the files we acquired with the purchase. We have certifications from the Federal Government allowing us to train and deploy armed security agents wherever and whenever we see fit. We also have the names of over one hundred former military special operations soldiers willing and able to travel anywhere needed. Not a bad deal all in all.

I am with my son Walter for this visit. Walter is twenty nine years old and until six months ago, I had no idea I had a son. He is tall and handsome with jet black curly hair and piercing black eyes, his mother’s features. As we enter the building he makes an immediate impression on our secretary, her eyes light up and she stands to greet us, well, greet him mostly. Her name is Morgan Ramsey, and somehow she looks like a Morgan. As she stands I see she is very tall and even more beautiful than I realized. After brief introduction; she gives us a tour, which last for about two minutes. Not much to see, the company has only one full time employee, Morgan. All the others are contracted on an as needed basis. She explains she has been with Black Talon for three years and had a problem with the last owner and CEO. This I already knew since I had to pay her off to drop the lawsuit and free up the company so I could purchase it.

Her day to day responsibilities are answering the phone and handling the payroll. If the company has no current operations the payroll is one person, Morgan.

I need to find out what makes this company tick, or not tick. I ask Morgan to sit with us and go over some details from last year’s contracts. She explains last year Black Talon had sixteen contracts, requiring ninety six operatives. Black Talon paid the operatives a total payroll of three million eight hundred forty thousand dollars. The sixteen contracts were worth twenty three million dollars. Morgan’s salary and operating expenses amounted to another one point six million dollars.

So what happened to the money? The company took in twenty three million and paid out around seven million. I’m not an accountant, but that don’t square. No wonder the previous CEO and owner took our offer and ran. Their offshore accounts must be fat.

But that was the past, and now Shelby, Carl, and I own the place. Question is could we actually make money with it? Morgan turned out to be a great source of information; she had previously worked for another much larger security company. She explained the difference between Black Talon and the competition was not just size, it was quality. A large company would put hundreds of operatives in the field on multiple projects; Black Talon would specialize in smaller operations where very special skills were required. The list of operatives we had contained specialist in many areas.

Since the old CEO had left six months ago Morgan had taken calls for several lucrative contracts, but with no one to run the show, she was forced to turn them down. It was a great learning experience, she showed me the specification for some of the contracts we would bid on and how they were controlled. You could bid and make a fortune, or lose your ass. I suddenly wanted to get involved; this seemed like an interesting proposition.

But I had one more question for Morgan before we went any further. I didn’t want to spend time away from my home, I wanted to move the headquarters to New Orleans, would she move there? She looked directly at Walter I’m single and have no attachments here, when do we go? So with that, Black Talon became headquartered in New Orleans.

Chapter 2

In truth, I had no idea how to run a business, any business. I had been a mid-level manager for a company; that was it. Now I was contemplating running a multimillion dollar affair. At least I wouldn’t be alone, Shelby Wilson, one of my partners, had a good business head. Carl Rome, the other partner, was a worker bee. And me, well, I was a schemer, I came up with dumb ideas and the others just did them, never could understand why.

It’s strange the way things work out; back in New Orleans we rented a suite in One Shell Square. It turned out to be the same office on the 22nd floor where I had killed a man years before, talk about irony. I had negotiated with Morgan and agreed to pay her moving and travel expenses to New Orleans; she would arrive the following week. I also agreed to rent her an apartment for one year, I should have made Walter pay for that, I had a feeling he would be using it soon enough.

I met with Walter, Shelby, and Carl in our new office space. None of us had any idea what we were really in for, so I explained as much as I knew; which was what Morgan had told me. At the old Delaware location we also had a warehouse to store equipment, mostly guns and ammunition. We located an old bank building on Erato Street and leased it for use of the vault. Expenses were piling up; I was hoping we could get some type of contracts to start bringing in money.

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon so I decided to take Rachael, my wife, out to dinner. She had only been out of the hospital for a month and was still weak, but we were lucky she was alive. The bullet had nicked an artery and she had lost a lot of blood, fortunately no permanent brain damage had occurred. Although some might argue that marrying me was proof enough of brain damage. At dinner I explained the business venture we were going into. She had a lot of questions and honestly, I had very few answers. I explained I had purchased the business while she was in the hospital and needed protection. I felt that my friends were the only ones I could trust with that assignment.

I had one question for her that I had been putting off for fear of upsetting her, but now I felt it was time. Rachael, I love you and always have, but why didn’t you tell me about Walter? Her eyes began to tear but she answered Baby, you left to go to Vietnam before I realized I was pregnant. I didn’t want you to be distracted with problems from home, I was afraid you would be killed, so I was waiting till you came home. I was going to tell you then I heard you and Julie were going to get married, Julie was my friend and I was so afraid of hurting her. I married Walter Kleinberg and he said he accepted our son as his own, but that wasn’t true. He always treated him as a bastard. I know you, and I knew you would confront him. He was a mouse, you would have killed him. So I kept quiet. They moved away and you and Julie were a couple, I saw you occasionally, and I was happy with that.

There’s another reason too, Jessie I have to admit I was afraid Walter would follow in your footsteps. You went to war when you didn’t need to, just for the adventure. You reenlisted for the rush you got, I know you, and you still do it. Somehow for all those years you were married to Julie you kept the desire to feel that thrill under control. But when she was killed, the old Jessie came back, and he’s still back. You can’t help it; it’s in your DNA baby. I have no idea how many times you have killed, but I know when you did, you felt nothing for them, no emotion, and no remorse.

I was stunned, but I realized she was right. I kept putting myself in situations normal men would avoid and I didn’t feel anything. I never did, I know that’s not normal and I’m not sure what that says about me. You’re right, I love that rush, I’ve done some horrible stuff, and I would do it again. It scares me to admit it, but I don’t feel any remorse. She took my hand and kissed my fingers, I guess that’s one of the many reasons I love you, and look at Walter. Damn if he didn’t get your genes anyway. Joined the Royal Marines, fought in combat, it’s you all over again damit. I nodded You know Rach, it’s a good thing he knew how to handle himself, Shelby and Walter are the reason you are alive today. He smoked that guy that was sent to kill you. She smiled, realizing I was right Yes, and I heard him tell the police that the guy lying in my room was his mess, but the other one was Shelby’s. I’ve spoken to him, he’s so like you, he just don’t care. He lived, that guy died, end of story.

I knew all this; Walter and I had had a long talk about that night. Walter had been a shooter with the commandos. That’s a take no prisoners gang, I knew the feeling. Well, we’re all together now, I love you and Walter, so all’s well that ends well. I can’t change what I am, and I don’t want to. She nodded, And I don’t want you to.

Chapter 3

One month after moving Black Talon’s headquarters to New Orleans we were up and running. Now all we needed was a customer. That happened five days after Morgan officially opened the office. Morgan called my cell on a Friday evening and asked if we wanted to take a personal protection assignment in Manhattan. It was one week and the money was good, we would escort a high profile Arab while in town for a meeting at the United Nations. In truth, I didn’t know the first thing about being a body guard, but how hard could it be. I soon found out.

I meet with the gang and discussed how we should handle this, we really had no idea, we needed some expertise. Our list of special operators contained six ex-Secret Service Agents. Morgan began contacting them; all of them were currently engaged by another Agency out of the country. Great, well I guess we would need to wing it. Last thing we needed was to screw up our first assignment, that reputation would kill any hope of ever making a go of Black Talon.

I was lying in bed that night trying to work details out in my head when it hit me. I knew someone who knew not only personal protection, but also knew Manhattan. James O’Shea spent twenty years with the New York Police Department, many of those years in Manhattan. James was now a Captain of the Camden New Jersey Homicide Division. I knew James for the last year, as a foe and recently as a friend, at least I hope so. If anyone knew of someone who understood the protection game James would.

I called him on his cell phone and he answered on the third ring Hello I was surprised, normally when I called he had some smart comeback for me. Hello, you’re slipping, I usually get kiss my ass, or bite me, or something, what’s up with you? He had a sound to his voice, he just sounded down and depressed Just not in the mood, crappy life getting me down. I knew his job was getting to him, too many years of seeing bad guys walk because of some minor mistake by the police. Shit man cheer up, you win the ones you can and forget the ones you can’t. Anyway, I need some information from you. I’m looking for an ex cop that knows the personal protection business.

There was silence for a full minute, then he answered Personal protection, you mean like body guard? I laughed, Of course that’s what I mean, what else would you think? Look, I am involved in a business venture where some of our contracts call for high profile personal protection. I don’t know anyone with the police that I can get a reference from except you, and the job I have right now is in Manhattan. I’m looking for someone to supervise a team for one week and the pay will be very good. Plus, that person’s name goes in my database and they get first refusal on any future work. He came back, So you’re looking to hire someone to work, when do you need them? That sounded promising The job is in one month, but I would like the person to come and train for an extra week, you know, work with my team and get them up to speed.

O’Shea chuckled, Well what about me, what am I, chopped liver? I hesitated then answered What are you talking about, you gonna take two weeks off from your job just for this? I mean you miss me that much, you want to come visit me? He laughed again Yes I miss you all right, like the flu, but I quit three months ago. After our little operation in Manhattan I just couldn’t go on. I mean, I worked for years trying to make a case and you solve it in three days. So now I’m a man of leisure. I was really startled, I knew he was talking about quitting, but never figured he would actually do it. So what are you doing, you get that Walmart greeter job or what? That really got a laugh Naw, I wasn’t qualified for that, so I’m drinking beer and eating microwave pizza. So what is this job anyway, is this another of your schemes to whack someone?

I had to laugh now; "No man, this is legit. My partners and I bought a company and are trying to get started. Our first job is protecting an Arab coming to New York to address the UN. I don’t know anything about that, but we need to start somewhere. Jimmy, I had no idea you quit, but now that I know, why don’t you come down here and work with me. I know you