Chapter 1

Damn, it's a scorcher today. Those were my only thoughts as I exited my year old Hummer. I was also very glad I had opted for the a/c. Folks don't see many Hummers here in the Ozarks, but they had grown use to my "eccentricities" as they liked to call them. The difference about my Hummer was mine is military issue that I got by pulling some strings with a person in supply. It has the gun mounts on it, but not the weapons. Got a lot of the armor plating too. This is a fairly reserved type of place and nobody much messed with other folks business. Most just noticed who it was and made sure it wasn't an outsider then went about what they were doing. It was that kind of atmosphere that I loved about this place and the main reason I had decided on settling here after I had retired from the service.

I walked into the "Tapped Out" and nodded to Mike, the owner/bartender, as he handed me a Dos Equis. I grabbed it and headed to the table where E. T. was sitting.

"Hey Dude, how was the audit?"

Earl Taber just looked at me like I was speaking gibberish.

"That good, huh?"

"Those assholes wouldn't give one damn inch. They kept insisting that this money was due THEM. Like it was THEIR goddamn money."

"E.T., you know the IRS is not going to give you a break. Why the hell are you so upset? They know you can't do a damn thing about it and your fighting this thing is only amusing them. The more you fight, the more they try and stick it to you. If you keep this up, you'll wind up owing them your life."

"Hell, they tried to take that from me in 'Nam, Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. They weren't successful then and they ain't gonna succeed now."

"Hey, back then, you had weapons you could fight back with. Here, you don't even have an attorney."

"Ya, I know. I ain't gonna pay one of them money grubbin' bastards. Besides, I think they're scared of those assholes and wouldn't put up a fight even if they knew how. If they won, the IRS would audit them next."

I could see that Earl was getting pretty hot and needed a diversion to get this off of his mind. He had been fighting this IRS thing for better than a year now. Earl is one of those guys you don't want pissed off at you. I would not have been all that surprised if he had shown up here with blood on his hands and the guy's ears on his belt. That was one of the ways he kept score in 'Nam.

Earl had been in the Seals and worked with Special Ops and Black Ops. I knew him back then and he was one bad dude. He had two belts full of VC ears, each one of them he had killed with his K-Bar. He had had some close calls, but never left a kill without the guy's right ear.

After our fourth tour, they rotated us out and would not let us back in country. They said we had too many missions and were not sure of our sanity anymore. I was in Special Forces, Green Berets if you prefer, and had worked with Earl on a many missions. Now that I look back on it, they were probably right. Some of the comments the "Suits" and "Shrinks" made were: "Have gone beyond reality:" "This is no longer a job or a mission for them, it has become pure pleasure." Of course, these were statements from a bunch of "Straight Legs" with no real in-theater experience as to how it really was.

And I guess they were pretty much right. We had gotten to the point where we looked forward to our next outing rather than fear it. We were good, damn good. Probably too good for the liking of the powers that be. In our area, we were winning. The VC and ARVN were afraid of us. Never mind that more times than I can count, or want to, we were running through the bush for our lives. Never mind that it took us 3 days of grass and Black Jack to get us calmed down to where we could even stop shaking. Oh, the shaking never came in the bush, only when we got back. Then we couldn't stop the shakes. We both had that 1,000-yard stare. Hell, almost everyone I knew had it, at least in SOG (Special Operations Group).

I held up two fingers and Mike brought us two more Dos Equis. Earl was still going on about the arrogance of that IRS asshole.

"Look ET, what the hell are you going to do. You can't fight these shits, they have the rulebook. Just play the game. How much are they hitting you up for?"

"A little over five grand."

"Shit, you can afford that. If you can't, I'll lend it to you."

"That's not the point and you know it."

"So what is the point? You want to start another war so you can take their ears?"

That was the wrong thing to say. I knew it the instant the words came out of my mouth. He got that "look" in his eyes. The same look I'd seen a million times before.

"No fucking way, Earl. You can't declare war on the IRS. As much as I'd like to, you know there is no way to win that sucker."

"No, think about it, buddy. I could stand back a thousand yards and cap that mother and nobody would ever know where the round came from."