Chapter 1

Characters appearing in the first several chapters:

Maximilian Hardtrick (Max)

Father, retired Major Special Operations Forces; 6’-4’’ tall, 230 pounds, 36 years old, short blond hair, blue eyes, and a powerful Talent.

Son One

Max’s oldest son, Four years old, dark blond hair and gray eyes similar to his mother.

Son Two

Max’s youngest son, Two years old, blond hair and blue eyes like his father.

Colonel Coley

Full Colonel, assigned to Military Intelligence; a tall thin man about 40 years old with short black hair

Dr. Boudinot

Civilian psychiatrist, assigned to Military Intelligence; a medium height slightly over weight man of about 45 years old with brown hair

It was a fine day in June of 2020, and I had taken the kids with me to shop for groceries at the local big box store in our small town to get them out of their Mother’s hair for a while so she could relax for a time. The boys always liked to go shopping and to look at everything in the stores. They were still at that age when children are very inquisitive and attracted by anything colorful.

Like many other small suburban towns, ours had a couple of big box stores. There was one for groceries, clothing, and household items plus another near it that sold hardware and building supplies. Additionally there was a sprinkling of other businesses that shared the large strip mall with them. There were several restaurants of different kinds along with fast food places, other small businesses and a bank. They all shared a huge parking lot with only a few entrances and exits, which caused traffic jams at the more busy times of the day throughout the week.

We had checked out of the big box grocery store, and I had pushed our cart, with both of my sons in it, out to where I had parked. I deposited the boys, one four years old and his brother who was two years old, in the middle seat area of our SUV, but hadn’t strapped them into their child care seats yet as it was a rather hot June day, which is why I had left the doors open also while I loaded the groceries into the back of the vehicle.

“Daddy’s going to put the cart away. Don’t either of you get out of the car. I’ll be back in a minute,” I told them before closing the rear door of the vehicle, and pushed the cart down to where there was a pickup point for them, which was about a hundred or so feet from my vehicle.

I had just pushed the cart into the line of others at the pickup point driving them all together, and had turned around to return to my vehicle, when I noticed the black van stopped in the road near mine. It had passed me on my way to the pickup point. That was also when I saw my children being carried over to the van, kicking and screaming in fear.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing with my kids?” I screamed at them and burst into a run to stop them.

By the time I reached the van, the children were already inside, and it had started to pull away with its doors still open. I reached out and grabbed what I could before they could get away. What I grabbed was the shirt of one of the men in the van, and I pulled him out through the opening of the door which had started to close as the vehicle accelerated. We both fell to the ground, but I was on top of him, and held him down securely.

I’m a big strong guy at 6’-4’’ tall and about 230 pounds, and I’ve kept in shape after the Army retired me for medical reasons on full pay a few years ago.

Quickly recovering, I pulled this guy up from the asphalt paving which had given him some asphalt burns as we skidded along it, and threw him against the side of the nearest vehicle, then grabbed him by the front of his shirt to pull him up close to me, as I cocked back my right arm with my hand in a fist.

“Where are they taking my kids?” I screamed at him and then hit him in the face hoping to shake him up enough to make him talk.

“No hablo.” he comes out with after a few seconds.

“I’ll make you hablo!” I screamed at him and punched him in the gut a few times, but before he could answer, the cops pulled up in their vehicle.

“Step away from that man and put your hands on your head,” the lead cop told me from the vehicle. “Do it now,” he added opening the door of their vehicle.

“This guy is one of the men who just kidnapped my kids,” I shouted at him, as I turned to face their vehicle, still very angry.

“If you don’t step away from the vehicle and the other man, and put your hands on your head, I’m going to fill you with an ounce and a-half of buckshot,” the cop who had gotten out of the vehicle on its far side told me as he chambered a round in the 12 gauge shotgun that he was pointing at me. I moved back further away from their vehicle and the kidnapper as directed while putting my hands on my head. I really had no choice at this point.

The first cop, who had been driving, got out of the vehicle at this point with his gun drawn.

“Move further back,” he told me, and I backed up further while he moved up to the kidnapper.

“Are you all right?” he asked him.

“That guy knocked me down, then threw me against this car before starting to hit me,” the kidnapper told him in very good English. “I don’t know what he is talking about a kidnapping,” he added.

“You’re both going down to the station to straighten this out,” the cop told us before speaking into the mike on his collar.

“You get into the back of our car,” he told the kidnapper next. His partner had already opened the back door of the vehicle.

“Now you,” the first cop said turning to face me with his gun still in his hand. “Move up near the front of the vehicle, spread your legs, and put your hands on the hood,” he directed.

“Aren’t you going to question him about my kids? He’s one of the men who kidnapped them a couple of minutes ago?” I demanded, and that was when his partner with the shotgun hit me in the back with the butt of the gun. I went down like a sack of potatoes on my face while he stepped on my back.

“Put your hands behind you,” his partner directed, and he cuffed my hands behind my back when I did.

“You are going to learn to obey and keep your mouth shut, boy. Do you understand me?” the cop who had hit me demanded, but I wasn’t in any condition just then to say anything. It took both of them to pull me to my feet and then search me.

“Nothing but some money, keys, a wallet and a small pocket knife on the suspect,” the lead cop said into his mike when they had finished and placed everything in an evidence bag.

They put me in the back of the second vehicle when it arrived with my hands still cuffed behind my back.

“Watch him, he doesn’t listen well,” the second cop told the others in the new car before the first car departed ahead of us.

“What about... ?” I started before one of the new pair pushed me into the side of their vehicle.

“Shut up and stay that way,” he told me as he opened the back door of their car and shoved me inside. I wound up on the floor of the vehicle on my chest and was unable to move enough in the cramped space to get up on the seat. At the station, they pulled me out by my feet and weren’t very careful about it. They dragged me into the station and up to the desk where a sergeant asked,

“What’s this one in for?”

“Assault and battery,” the lead cop from the first car told him.

“Where’s the guy who kidnapped my kids?” I demanded after looking around for him.

“Shut up!” three of them shouted at me, and one of them hit me in the back again.

“Put him in cell number 16. We’ll get his picture and prints later. Did he have any ID on him?” the sergeant asked.

“Yeah, here’s everything that we took off of him,” the lead cop told him and handed over the evidence bag. The desk sergeant opened it and looked in my wallet.

“Well, Major Hardtrick, you are under arrest for assault and battery in addition to resisting arrest, and not obeying an officer of the law. You will be fingerprinted and your mug shot taken when we have time,” he told me in a sanctimonious voice.

“I want to call my lawyer,” I told him.

“In due time, after you have been processed,” the sergeant told me before they hauled me off to a cell where I was relieved of my belt and wrist watch as well as my shoes before the cuffs were removed. I sat in there for an indeterminate time before two different guards came to get me.

“Stand at the rear of the cell,” I was told before they opened the door.

“Hands in front of you,” they told me next, then one of them entered the cell and handcuffed me before I was led out to the area where they had an electronic fingerprinting machine and digital photo equipment where I was processed. It wouldn’t have done me any good to ask them questions as they wouldn’t know anything about what had occurred, but I was building up a lot of resentment against the system.