Chapter 1

Who would have believed everything that had happened during the last year? I, me, Chuck Johnson, had become a dad. Not once, but many times. I even fathered twins. The crazy thing is that neither of the two women I felt closest to were mothers of my new children.

I sometimes felt that it was as if all of these other women wanted me to abandon the two that I wanted to pay the most attention to, or it was as if they wanted me to become their slave. That really wasn't their nature, and I know it really wasn't how they felt, but it sometimes seemed to be that way to me. The women also loved the two who I was closest to, and probably paid more attention to them than they did to me.

Even stranger yet, I loved each and every one of these women. Each had their individual special appeal that warranted my attention. Was it a feeling of superiority, or my sense that I knew what they really wanted or needed? They all had a certain appeal to me, but Lisa was the most special.

I would somehow escape the masses and be with this special person in my dreams. I knew each of the women and children was my responsibility, and that they had to know of my devotion to each of them, as well as to the special one. Was it just the music connection I had with her, or was it a feeling of community? Who knows, but all of those feelings were there.

Then there were the weird dreams; dreams of being in another universe where aircraft were being bought by the dozens, and doing crazy things with people from all over the globe. One of the early dreams even had Steve being sucker-punched and no one did anything about it. That wasn't happening in this lifetime; sucker-punch my buddy, and I'll hunt you down and treat you like the rat you are.

Steve said he also had some of those strange dreams when I talked to him about it.

They were dreams of another universe, maybe another dimension not of this world. Sitting with Steve, drinking some coffee, made what we had at that moment real. The other dimension may have bought a thousand more aircraft, but they weren't real. I was here now with those that were real.

Who is Chuck Johnson? I'm a Marine, now a civilian, since the Corps feels it can't use a guy with only half of his right leg. I lost the bottom half to an RPG while playing in the sand, you know, the war that never ends. I've become a U.S. Deputy Marshal and an operative for the Secret Service since then, and have more recently also been used and valued by the NSA. Being a Deputy Marshal in a supervisory capacity has put me in a lot of hot situations that have often resulted in dead people. That wasn't my choice, but dead guys became the result when they fired at my people, and me, of course.

I hadn't noticed that I was becoming an adrenaline junkie while all of this was going on. It became almost imperative that I join in every high-intensity confrontation there was. Give me a bunch of shooters who were threatening friendly civilians, and we were in my habitat, me and Lisa, my special sidekick.

Lisa is also a Marine in civilian clothing. She had gone from fighter/bomber pilot to Secret Service backup pilot for the big guy. The problem was that she didn't get to do anything except surf the Internet and work out while in that position. She opted for an undercover observation job that brought us together. She was assigned to observe me, and if necessary, come between me and bad guys, but we found each other and made some music together.

Yep, that was the thing; along with being adrenaline junkies, Lisa and I are also both music addicts. We can hole up in the studio, play twenty-four hours straight, and then wrestle on our big bed. Lisa loves all of my female friends, and I think she may have a stronger attraction to them than to me. That's fun to observe, but the important part of this is that Lisa and I are soulmates when it comes to music. We're both down and dirty blues freaks.

Lisa is a great guitar and piano player, and can also sing with a voice so pure, soft, and sweet (unless she's doing a Janis J. impression) that she will twist you around her finger the way Eva Cassidy can. That was how Lisa found her solitude. She'll isolate herself, play, and sing those gentle ballads that pull at your heart. Thank goodness our sound guy knew how to capture the moments when she did; we have them all recorded.

Me? I'm a bassist; I play some decent guitar, enjoy the piano, and even do a respectable job pounding the skins. My voice is decent, so I end up singing lead and/or backup all the time. I can sound like some of the greats, but I really love to imitate the blues guitar masters. My passion is to copy a master and add my own interpretations with those special notes that let the true discerning listener know this is different. But then, let me give you a solid soulful bass backup that sings. Now that is distinctive. Like I said, Lisa and I are true blues junkies.

The last several months have been spent doing what I was intended to be doing with the Marshal's Service. I had to visit each office to make sure they were in compliance with all the butt-kissing regulations the DOJ thought up by the hour.

If you don't already know, I had become a Deputy U.S. Marshal when a gangster tried to take advantage of a government program around the United States, but the hub of activity was right here in Tampa. I had joined the Federal Employment Group during my "Job Hunt" since I had just medically retired from the military back then with a prosthesis as part of my right leg, and became embroiled in the problem. It all worked out, and I became a Deputy U.S. Marshal in the process. I became a special supervisor for not only the Marshal's Service, but also for the other law enforcement branches, because I was in the right place at the right time.

I kept gaining a reputation after several occasions of being in the right place at the wrong or right time, depending on how you looked at it, until I became a person for bad people to focus on. That's when I had to shoot my way out of several situations, and became known for leaving a lot dead bad guys behind, instead of for the live ones I brought in, or the civilians and law enforcement officers I protected.

You can't do that, I mean terminate really bad guys in this day and time, without drawing a lot of attention to yourself. I almost became an outcast, and the Service even had to make me take an extended vacation that it kept interrupting for me to handle serious problems that suddenly popped up.

Enter another branch of law enforcement. The Secret Service needed someone to hunt down, bring in, or dispose of some really bad men. These were ex-CIA operatives who had turned on society and were working as contract killers. Their successful attempts in killing some medium profile men in various agencies was what brought them to the attention of the Feds.

I was then tasked with attempting to bring them in to be prosecuted. It wasn't happening that way, but let's say that I was able to neutralize all of them so that they wouldn't be causing any more problems. I learned a lot about that agency, the CIA, and how someone could turn bad, so I learned to always look over my shoulder when I thought those guys were around.

I have a lot of history since the military, but that's a whole 'nother story', as they say.

Now some of my travels have let me enjoy capturing one or more of the criminals who make it to our special most wanted list. It's surprising how I can show up at a location a day or two before a special capture occurs. I won't let them use my name in the arrest report, but it will somehow show up on my travel report that I was there except for the fact that I had a part of the final cuffing, or in a lot of cases, resulting in a call to the coroner.

This last time is the best example. I was in Laredo to take down a cartel person of interest as he came across the border. The Laredo office had their men in position and we were watching the gates as a school bus came across. The border inspection wasn't that thorough, as the bus looked like the usual group of day laborers coming across for a day's work. One of the inspectors went into his little hut when he got off the bus and called for help, "I've got a bus load of drugs and about forty men with weapons. There's no way I'm going to hold them up, so get ready and see if you can stop the bus and take these people down."

Lisa heard the broadcast and said, "Shit, we're trying to stay out of this crap and it comes right at us. How are you going to handle it?"

I broadcast over our stakeout frequency, "I'm going to take out all the tires when the bus gets past the last gas station. I want everyone to converge, but stay covered. You don't know how defensive these people will be."

I began almost running toward where I would be in position to do the tires, with Lisa on my heels. Lisa hollered at me, "Let me get on the other side of the road and do the tires on that side while you do here. They should give up as soon as all of the tires are down."

All I could think of was, "I hope that's the way it goes down."

Lisa and I could see all of the other Agents running toward where the take down would be, and bringing vehicles to us as fast as they could.

I dropped to one knee and brought the MP5 up on single shot and blew the left front, then the double set on the left rear. The tires blew, but the bus was in the midst of trying to make a sharp right turn as it happened. There was no balance for the bus and it flopped over on its left side scooting along the concrete roadway.

The back door opened and men with rifles were pouring out as soon as the bus stopped. Men were crawling out the front door that was now up in the air. They also had weapons.

A local Deputy Marshal began broadcasting on a powered horn to lay down their weapons and put their hands behind their heads. It was obvious they could hear the Spanish broadcast as they hesitated, but then looked around and began wildly firing their rifles.

A man near me yelled and grabbed his side, so I leveled at all of the men now outside the bus with rifles. They were in the open and easy targets. I was knocking them down one after the other when the bunch began organizing, and then attempted to run toward Lisa's position. She didn't have any help over there as she was by herself. I began picking off the armed men running toward Lisa, and got up to chase after them in order to continue to have targets and to help her stay as safe as possible.

I was knocking down the last of the men running toward Lisa, when she hollered, "Behind you, there's another one."

Diving to the ground and turning at the same time gave me a view of two men at the rear door of the bus trying to find me in their scopes. I rose to one knee and began firing. Lisa was firing at the same targets, so it's anyone's guess who made the hits. I did a quick 360 degree swivel to see if there was anything moving in a threatening way.

Lisa walked up on me and smiled, "Guess we took care of that one, didn't we?"

I told Lisa, "We need to take that bus apart to find out what was so important. We also need to make sure we got that cartel guy we were looking for. Let's check out this bus."

Deputies and DEA guys were running toward us as we kept kicking weapons away from either very still men or those moaning from injury. The Deputy Station Chief came up to Lisa and me and said, "You two need to get out of here before someone gets your name and unit. I know you have all the trouble you can stand, Chuck. I'll try to clean this up without you being involved. Thank you both for doing the dirty work. It seems you two are always right in the middle of something like this."

Lisa and I shook his hand and left for our rental vehicle. We didn't even bother breaking our weapons down before we dumped them into the back seat and took off. We always wonder about how many of the men we had worked with before would recognize us and possibly give us away.

As we sped toward the airport, Lisa said, "That was crazy. They must have had some heavy weight to try to defend that bus the way they were. They knew we wouldn't hesitate to defend ourselves once they began firing, and that is how you can get hurt."

I made the comment, "They seemed to know that we would fight back, but they were determined to save whatever it was they were guarding. I'll be interested in hearing what we recovered."

So as you see, we don't try to get in the middle of a fight, but we always seem to be where the action is and have to protect our people.

DC was stupid, but not that blind. I was summoned. Since Lisa was my partner or backup, she went to DC with me for a spur of the moment meeting. You have an ominous feeling things are going to be bad whenever you're called in like this with little notice.

I let Lisa put the aircraft into its slot when we landed at Andrews. I was nervous about this visit for some reason. Sam had even become distant with me as the wheels of DOJ were closing in on what they considered non-conforming Deputies. I had always performed to the best of my abilities, and only used deadly force when necessary. I had been wounded on a recent capture, but had not fired back. Had I shot the man, I might have killed the person he was holding in front of him as a shield. Who knows what they wanted, but that wasn't it.

No Fed vehicles were there to pick us up, so we commandeered a Marshal's car that was being used to watch for us. I outranked them, so we were delivered to our destination in time for the meeting.

The meeting went about how I expected since there was no one in the conference room that I recognized. Because of my service and more recent injuries, I was given a year to recover before being re-evaluated for service. A year, twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred and sixty-five days, to figure out how to be a wimp and suck up to who they thought I should.

One of the conditions was that I had to meet with a stress counselor to evaluate my progress once a month. I looked for Sam, but he was conveniently out of town. I looked for the Marshal whom I had the most faith in, and what do you know, he was somewhere within his domain, but not in DC.

A couple of guys I knew came up to me and told me, "You really need to get out of here, Chuck. You're very much persona non grata around here. You've done too much during this group's admin and they don't like to be shown up. Go do something other than for them for a while. All of them are jealous because you've been able to mix your duty life with a social life and still be successful. Trust me; I'll be knocking on your door for some kind of position when I'm free here. Everyone I know thinks you're one of those chosen few who we all need to follow."

I looked at the guy and nodded, thanking him for his frank and genuine warning.

It took me a half-hour to locate Lisa in one of the cafeterias. She was being hit on by several of the locals who looked at her as being fair game. She smiled at me when I showed up and stood to the side. She told the lothario trying to woo her, "Get lost, Buster. My guy, who has the biggest damn gun you've ever seen, is right behind you, and he isn't enjoying you hitting on me."

The man turned, saw my smile, thought about it for a few seconds, and excused himself. I'm not very intimidating, as I just don't have the size, but Lisa says there is something lethal about my appearance and facial expression.

Lisa and I had coffee while I told her of the conversations I had. She nodded in understanding, and said, "The Marshal's Service doesn't usually have many casualties unless it's their own dead guys. They can handle a dead Deputy easier than a live one who just finished shooting a dozen creeps who try to kill everyone around them."

I told her, "Let's get out of here. I'd like to burn some fuel and go somewhere; just about anywhere, but we're going to have to have a talk with the ladies. They won't understand unless we talk to them. Come on, let's go home, talk to everyone, and see what comes up. Either way, I need to get off by myself, or at least just you and me, and let it out. I'll be right back under the gun if I stay around the Service and I'm needed."

We took a taxi back to Andrews, but had to get a ride from the gate to the aircraft. At least someone had been good enough to refuel the Ten (Citation X), so we only had to do the usual preflight before spooling up and requesting to get out of there.

Jimmy, the head mechanic at the charter company, came out when we landed at home and told me, "Your bird is due for a thousand hour teardown. How about we start it now and get it done in less than a week."

I shook my head, thinking that my lady bird was going to go on the rag on me just when I needed her. This was just what I didn't need, an aircraft that needed some TLC. Oh well, I had access to other aircraft.

On the way back home from the airpark, Lisa said, "Why don't you get all the women together and take us all down to the islands for the rest of the week. You and I can do some music in and out of the studio there, and if we're really bored, we can ask our other taskmasters to find some cartels around there or up in Mexico to go mess with. They've been sending teams into places to eliminate some of the most lethal cartel leaders. The NSA and CIA have been targeting some of the groups who kidnap and kill. They think they can bring some of the violence down by giving them some of their own medicine."

I hugged Lisa to me and said, "Just what my life needs, a lady with blood lust after my own heart. I think today would be a good day to go fuck with some bad guys. I'm really on edge and could use some adrenaline surging in my veins."

Lisa hugged me in return; "Let's get our ladies down to the islands first, then we'll see if there are any bad guys we can mess with. The one who also needs some release is Tina. She's been right there on the edge a lot lately. She has a two-week break coming and a little excitement would keep her straight for a while. How about I work with her for a week before we go hunting? You can talk to our contacts and line something up."

I had asked the charter desk if there were any luxury 737s available before we left the airpark. The answer was perfect. "We have two available today and we wouldn't be under the gun to get one chartered if you were to keep it for a week or two."

The mood at home was on the upscale when I began talking about heading to the islands. All of our family was ready except for Jan and Don, and Wanda and John, who had work obligations here. The plan was to stay on the original island and enjoy the peacefulness of the beautiful home on top of the hill. I did disclose that Lisa and I might have to make a trip or two out of the area to take care of some business. That didn't bother anyone since they were used to that. That Tina was also going with us was exciting to the other women.

Our trip down was about as exciting as playing dominoes. You did everything by the numbers taking off, flying the flight plan, and landing exactly within the expected time frame. That was a good thing.

We enjoyed being coddled by the locals and were given an enormous amount of attention that we really didn't deserve when we arrived at the house. All of us enjoyed the extra food, the island drinks, playing pool, and discussing whether or not to go to the resort for some swimming.

The ladies wanted to continue letting the babies swim every day, saying it would make them safer around the pools at home. It was a rip to watch the little ones, barely a year old, giggle in the water as they floated on their backs. A couple of them were really aquatic and had actually learned how to swim. They were motivating around in water far better than anyone could have expected.

Mark, a sort of retired engineer who had relocated down here to help run things, and I had a few conversations about his B200, and found we could probably use it at will as it wasn't the most popular transportation to and from the States.

Chapter 2 »