Chapter One
"
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men."
- Plato
***
Some men deserve to die, but these three deserved to spend the rest of their miserable lives wishing they were dead.
Sean "Recon" Wallace heard the woman screaming as soon as the doors to the van had opened. Noticing headlights in the pre-dawn darkness he had watched the van driving to the remote cabin of his neighbor Gideon James as he was cutting through the woods on his way to his own cabin about a mile farther into the southwest Georgia wilderness. The winding dirt road the van had chosen only had one destination and Sean knew that Gideon neither invited guests to his cabin, nor welcomed them.
Gideon's lack of hospitality wouldn't be an issue, however, because he was currently in Washington, DC arguing a court case on behalf of one of the several Native American tribes that he represented on a pro bono basis.
Gideon James took pride in the history of his cabin and resisted any impulse to improve upon its rustic nature. His great-grandfather had built the cabin out of hardwood logs that he had harvested himself from the land surrounding the site. The fireplace was constructed from stones that had once sat on the riverbed of the Flint River before the Army Corps of Engineers had dredged the channel to accommodate deep-draft vessels. There was no glass in the windows, only shutters to open and close as the weather dictated. There was no running water, but there was a well pump handle mounted over the soapstone sink along the interior rear wall of the cabin as well as one on the side of the outhouse.
Gideon would often be found by Sean using a bow saw to slice strips from a cedar log in order to have replacement shingles for his roof. The effort required to maintain the old cabin wasn't extensive, and Sean knew that Gideon relished the manual labor involved after having spent his professional career behind a desk or standing in a courtroom.
Sean had left his own cabin well before dawn to check his traps. He had retrieved his captured prey and had expected to be back to his cabin before sunrise, but this diversion would obviously delay his plans to leave for the 250-mile drive to Atlanta. Tying his trapped Muskrat carcasses to the branch of a Live Oak tree, Sean had quietly approached Gideon's cabin from downwind as he had learned even before his Marine Corps Force Recon Training had tattooed the skill into his conscious and unconscious thoughts.
Not that there was much wind on this Wednesday morning in the middle of May. Later in the afternoon, as the heat of the day increased, the thunderstorms common to the area would likely arrive and bring with them gusts and possibly tornadoes, although these tended to stay to the north of this location. For now, Sean was comfortable with the temperature in the high sixties and the pre-dawn skies clear.
Establishing an observation spot about 20 feet up on the branch of a Shagbark Hickory that had already sprouted most of its new growth leaves, he was in position prior to the van's eventual arrival, and he was well situated to witness the intentions of the men by both their words and their actions.
Reverting again to his training, Sean assigned 'Tango' designations to each of his targets. Tango One was acting as a leader of the group, giving orders to the other two as he used a knife to start cutting the clothes from the woman. He was just under six feet, in his early forties, with a protruding forehead, dark Slavic hair, and caveman-like features. Tango Two was about the same height and build, but lighter in skin tone and hair color. He was currently using a pry bar to remove the padlock and hasp from the door to Gideon's cabin. Tango Three stood a few inches over six feet, was thinner than his partners, but had the same simian characteristics as his associates. He alternated between holding an automatic rifle on the woman and unloading what appeared to be camera equipment from the back of the van.
The woman continued to scream and struggle, but several brutal blows from Tango One to her abdomen took her breath, and subsequently any sound out of her. Tango One had a handful of her long brunette hair wrapped into one of his fists as he pulled her face to his and yelled at her, "Just because I don't want any bruising or signs of abuse visible before we shoot our little movie, don't think for a second that you won't experience great pain if you fail to do exactly as you are told. Do you understand me, Bitch?"
Tango One lessened his grip on her hair enough to allow her to respond with a nod and then tightened it again as Tango Two got the cabin door open and swung it wide for her to be pushed inside. Sean heard her stumble and fall into the cabin with the tell-tale sound of furniture being overturned in the process. When he saw one of the Tangos was opening all the shutters around the cabin, Sean quickly sought an observation post that would allow him to monitor the situation as it developed inside the cabin. He realized that this "green mission," where he would only need to assess, report, call in support, and evade detection was going to become a "black mission" very soon, with him needing to neutralize the targets and extricate the hostage.
Moving behind a large laurel oak tree on the north side of the cabin, Sean had a clear view through one of the windows. The early pre-dawn moonlight was coming through a west-facing window, allowing enough light for the Tangos to navigate the cabin and for Sean to observe their movements. He watched as Tango Two moved the overturned furniture out of their way while Tango Three began setting up lights and cameras, which Sean found interesting since Gideon's rustic cabin didn't have any electricity. Tango One was still taunting and threatening the woman with his knife, occasionally cutting another piece of her clothing so that it would fall away from her body.
With his advanced training in lethal and non-lethal close-quarter combat, Sean really didn't need a weapon to be able to handle all three of the Tangos. Seven members of an al Qaeda terrorist group had the misfortune of running into Sean while they were attempting to breach the American Embassy in Tanzania. It had been a slaughter. All seven terrorists, each tough, hardened, and armed, were dead within five minutes. Sean never even pulled his gun. He did it all with his hands, elbows, and feet, moving with a speed, precision, and power that the other Marine guards—with all their world travels—had never before encountered.
Sean did have his Sharpfinger hunting knife if circumstances required, but he saw an opportunity to disarm and secure the Tangos without any struggle at all. Picking up a thin but sturdy eight-inch piece of a fallen tree branch about one-half inch in diameter and sliding around the cabin to the front porch, Sean tested the stability of the planks as he stepped lightly on the first one. He detected no sound nor felt any vibration from his movement. Using this same degree of care and skill, he continued up on the porch and waited just outside the open door.
Tango Two had pulled the mattress off Gideon's bed and placed it in the center of the room. Tango Three was moving back towards the door while facing his partners inside the room.
Once Tango Three was positioned with his body fully in the center of the doorframe with one of the cameras and had turned on the bright battery-powered light affixed to it, Sean crouched behind him and pressed the hard piece of the tree branch into his groin from behind. As Tango Three froze at the feeling of what he thought was the barrel of a gun against his privates, Sean quickly pulled the automatic rifle from his shoulder where it had hung by its strap while filming was getting prepared.
Tango One was preoccupied with preparing the woman for their first scene, while Tango Two had begun undressing. Sean put the rifle on "single-shot" and fired one round into the rafters above the room. Pushing Tango Three before him into the room, the camera clattered to the floor where the light shattered and extinguished. Having been behind the camera light, Sean's eyes adjusted to the loss of light much quicker than the others in the room. Sean saw that Tango One had pulled the woman in front of himself as a shield, holding her hair with his left hand as he raised the knife menacingly with his right hand.
With a speed of motion that surprised even Sean, the woman pivoted on her right foot, while at the same time digging the fingernails from both hands into the wrist holding the knife and pushing it away from her. Before Tango One could respond by yanking the woman's hair, she had brought her left knee into his groin. As her knee connected, Tango One grunted and released both her hair and the knife as he doubled over in pain. The woman quickly scurried away from his reach, retrieving the knife from the floor as she stood with her back against the wall brandishing the weapon in a defensive posture.
