Foreword...

My name is Nick Adams. You don’t know me, and you’ve probably never seen my face. I work for a security firm that provides special services for celebrities. You won’t find us listed in the phone book, and we don’t have a website. Word-of-mouth is how we obtain clients. There are perhaps two-dozen employees, and we are very well-paid. Of course, we put our life on the line for our clients, which explains our pay scale. We’re skilled and well-trained. We have to be.

But I don’t do it for the money. The money is good, but it’s the fringe benefits that make it worthwhile. What kinda’ fringe benefits? Sex. Oh, it’s not like every celebrity wants to jump into bed with me. I’m not that good-looking. Better than average, sure. But it isn’t my looks that get me laid. When you save someone’s life, they often feel a sense of obligation. When you save a celebrity’s life, they often feel a greater sense of obligation because they have more to lose.

These are my stories. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. But not the celebrities’ names. After all, who would care if they were ordinary people?

It wasn’t the typical film that you’d expect to see her in. Not after wowing audiences with her portrayal of Annabeth Chase in Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Sure, she wasn’t going to get an Oscar for her performance, but she’d impressed some producers, impressed them with her acting ability as well as her formidable rack.

Gator Lake wasn’t all that original, being somewhat of a rip-off of Lake Placid ten years earlier and not high budget, but she was going to be the lead actress, and that was good enough to get her to sign on. There were plenty of scenes planned with her in tight-fitting t-shirts that would naturally get wet, showing off her impressive breasts and chill-hardened nipples.

Unfortunately, filming a movie with real animals doesn’t always turn out the way it is planned.

“Cut!” yelled the director, ending filming for another day. I’d been watching from the safety of a makeshift porch attached to one of the many trailers that were on the set. My charge, Alexandra Daddario, had spent the better part of the day on the “island,” a man-made piece of land specifically built within the confines of Alligator Lagoon, a not-so-popular tourist attraction in southern Louisiana.

There was a minor element of danger as there were some 30 or so real alligators within the three-quarter acre enclosure, but since they were all well-fed, and with a half-dozen animal handlers on the island at all times, it was more of a threat than actual danger.

My job was personal security for her. I’d had the assignment for three weeks while she was filming, and frankly, it had been pretty boring. Oh, she was nice enough, a little stand-offish, but that was par for the course for celebrities, especially the women. They were busy; they needed to keep their guard up, so the hired help was, well, hired help. I was fine with that. Not a single incident save for the Key Grip, who apparently had hoped to get a grip on her, so to speak. That didn’t happen, and I made it clear to him that she was off-limits for future advances.

At 6’1” and 215 lbs, I was mostly muscle. It made work easier when I could simply look a guy in the eye and politely but firmly ask him to step away from my client and have him respect the biceps and broad chest. I wasn’t Dwayne Johnson, but I wasn’t Pee Wee Herman, either. Most times, guys would look at my no-nonsense expression and back off. Those that didn’t, well, a little squeeze on their wrist that sent a sharp pain racing through their arm typically ended it. For those rare few who felt the need to exude bravado, well, that’s where the Delta Force training and 12 years of martial arts came into play.

I watched as things wound down. Alexandra and the other actors left the island first via the retractable bridge, then the film crew, and finally the animal handlers. Despite the relatively small budget for the film, the producers seemed to have security in mind, which made my job easier, almost boring. Almost. At the end of every day of filming, someone started blasting some reggae music over the loudspeakers.

Before she got back to her trailer, Alexandra realized that she’d left her iPhone on a table back on the island. Rain was in the forecast, so she didn’t want to take a chance on the phone getting ruined and headed back over the bridge to retrieve it.

As luck would have it, before she turned back, I got a call from the office. It was my boss, and she wanted to briefly discuss an upcoming assignment. I suppose I should have been paying more attention to my charge, but with the music blasting, I needed to go inside to be able to talk to her.

Five minutes later, I exited, reassuming my post on the porch. I looked around and didn’t see Alexandra. That wasn’t worrisome as she often would stop to chat with people at the end of the day, or sometimes the Director wanted to discuss the next day’s shoot. I noticed that the bridge had been retracted and that there were plenty of people milling around. I needed to find the Director to confirm when shooting would end here so I could get back to my boss about that next assignment.

It didn’t take long to find him, and he both confirmed that there were five days of shooting her on location left and that he had not seen Alexandra since filming concluded. Still not concerned, I went to the jury-rigged tiki bar, which was another popular hangout of hers after shooting, but Varisi said he hadn’t seen her either.

At that moment, the power went out. Lights turned off, the music stopped blaring, thankfully, and there was a collective groan from all nearby. It was the third time in as many days that the power had gone out. Apparently, between all of the portable air conditioning and lights and other power needs of our entourage, the power grid was woefully inadequate to handle the load.

And that’s when I heard the screaming. It took a few seconds to zero in on the direction, but in those few seconds, I realized that it was coming from the island and that it sounded an awful lot like Alexandra!

I sprinted across the lot and up to the bridge and then realized that the retractable bridge operated on electricity! The maintenance guy who operated it had shown up.

“We need to get this across to the island. Is there a generator, or can it be moved manually?”

Speed of thought was not his forte, so I started to repeat the statement until I heard him begin to speak.

“No generator. We can move it manually, the crank, but it takes a long time to do so.”

I motioned for him to get up there and start the process as I looked around for options.

The screaming had become more urgent to the point of desperation.

There were no other apparent options. I started running toward the lagoon’s edge and then dove headfirst into the water, noticing a couple of gators lazily floating about thirty yards from my entry point.

The water wasn’t cold, but my blood had run cold at the thought of being in completely dark water with 800 lb reptiles that were far stronger than I.

Swimming freestyle with a Phelps-like determination, I got to the island and quickly made my way up onto it, looking around behind me and not spotting anything. Then I ran into the pseudo-jungle, trying to zero in on my charge, who had not stopped her anguished pleas for help.

Darting along the main path, I quickly came upon the thatched hut which served as a house in the film. There she was, standing on a child’s picnic table, surrounded by a half-dozen full-sized alligators!

She saw me, her eyes wide with panic, but she at least stopped screaming. To her credit, she didn’t even point out the obvious. She was quiet, mouth open, heavy breathing. Under better circumstances, I probably would have appreciated her breasts heaving with each breath, but my mind was otherwise occupied.