Story excerpt...

[Pro A.]

Total crap, I know, but humor me. This is from one of my books that is currently going through a re-write.

Prologue
Monte Carlo, France
Kurt Newman climbed over the fence that separated the narrow stretch of road from the docks. His nostrils picked up the faint whiff of fish and he took it in for a moment. Newman reached the top of the gate and he saw one guard standing near the far end of the docks. He had a FAMAS rifle slung over his right shoulder like a lady’s handbag. Newman scratched the side of his face and he climbed down. When he hit the ground he pulled out a small stainless steel box. He opened it and found his lockpick. He took it and walked towards the nearest building. It was a two-story building that was rusted on the side and the panels looked like they had been part of the fixture for years. Newman heard voices to the right. He shivered. Not much time.
He walked to the door and checked the knob. Locked, just like he knew it would be. He inserted the lockpick and he started to work it through the crevasses. He was only halfway done with the procedure when he heard voices nearby. They were shouting. His right eye turned. He saw two men.
They were shouting at him.
Newman pulled the lockpick out and he ran to the corner. The two guards opened fire. Their rounds made the sounds of leaves being stepped on. The tracer rounds sprayed the edge, just missing Newman. Newman moved behind some boxes and he heard them barking orders to one another.
“Take the boxes. I’ll work along the side,” one guard said.
“No, you do the boxes. You’ve got the legs.”
No more argument. Kurt looked for a way out of this. His mind raced for options. None were coming for the moment. He gritted his teeth, wondering what he could do to salvage the situation. He looked to the left. The guard walking alongside the boxes was making his way towards him. He was short with a nasty scar running down the lower lip on the right side. He carried a silenced MP5. Kurt wondered what the chances were of him getting his hands on that weapon. Not high, he concluded. The other guard would be able to put a bead on him before he even had a chance to turn around. Kurt turned to the right. He was coming closer. He carried a silenced FAMAS rifle. Kurt thought about trying to take him. He looked a little more casual in his approach and that would serve him well for his next move.
Kurt was about to pull out his gun when he heard a voice behind him say, “Don’t move.”
Kurt winced. He froze his muscles and he raised himself to an upright position. He looked out through the corner of his eye. His peripheral vision told him there was a guard pointing an MP5 for the base of his spine. He sighed and watched the second guard come out into the open. They frisked him. They took the lockpick. He didn’t have anything else on him. He looked at Kurt and then his partner.
“Better dump in the sea.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have a lot of time. Better make it quick.”
The guard behind Kurt grabbed him by the back of the neck and dragged him towards the edge of the dock. The guard he had seen initially with the FAMAS looked at Kurt and he sneered. Broken yellow teeth showed underneath the glee. Kurt was thrown to the far edge of the dock near the speedboats. Kurt heard them say that they would use the boats to get out. Kurt looked around, hoping for a witness. None to be found. This was the seedy side of Monte Carlo. Nobody ever saw that side. Kurt sighed and he waited for the inevitable to happen. The guard with the MP5 shot him three times in the chest. He was thrown off the platform and into the sea. His body hit with a loud splash. The guard was about to shoot him again, but he was restrained.
“No need. He’ll be dead soon anyways. Look, he already driftin’ off to sea,” the CO said.
“Should be a while fore’ someone finds him.”
The CO nodded. “Let’s get back.”
In the distance, Kurt Newman’s lifeless body floated out into the open sea. The three men grabbed their equipment from he warehouse and they disappeared into the night.

Part One: Tracking
Chapter 1
Mediterranean Sea
Kurt’s eyes opened about ten minutes after the incident. He felt the burning sensation in his ribcage. He wanted to reach out and touch where he had been shot, but he knew that he wouldn’t be floating if he did that. He knew that he would have to trust that his backup plan had worked. He turned his head to the left and to the right. He couldn’t see much. He saw straight ahead. He knew he was in the Med, but he didn’t know how far he had gone. It depended on the waves. He didn’t care how he got back. He moved his body to a floating position and looked ahead. He could see the faint outlines of the docks. He took a deep breath and he felt a sharp jab of pain in his side. He checked the bullet wounds and he felt the ends of the shells that had been fired.
He let out a sigh of relief. Three bullets. Three marks. Three shells in the flak. He had been worried that one round would get lucky and pierce something that wasn’t protected by the flak jacket. It had been a gamble, entrusting the guard to shoot him through the chest, but it was a gamble he knew would pay off. He started swimming to the shore, hoping to get there inside of thirty minutes, if he could manage it.
It wound up taking more than ninety minutes. Part of the problem was that his body felt bruised and battered after being shot. The other part of the problem was that he was fighting against the current and that forced him to use more energy than he would have desired. When he did reach the dock, he spat out some water on the wood platform and coughed, his body close to spasms. When he recovered enough, he got to his feet and nearly fell down again. He got to his feet again and was able to keep his balance thanks to a wood spike. Kurt let his sense of balance return before he removed the flak jacket. He tossed it into the sea and he walked down the dock, continuing to feel the blows that had hit him in the chest. He walked to the edge of the dock and stood for a minute. His legs continued to feel like they were made of rubber. He surmised some of that had to do with swimming. He looked at his watch. The waterproof guarantee held up after all.
His clothes didn’t survive much of the abuse. He knew that he would need to get a new change. Not here, though. He thought about going to the hotel. His mind rejected that thought right away. Kurt knew that they would be tearing it apart by now. He was glad that most of his vital materials were in a car that was inside a garage a half-mile away.
He made the trek to the garage. He took in some of the nightlife in this area, which extended to the seedy parts. It wasn’t as classy as going to one of the many fine casinos, but it did manage to retain its own rhythmic beat along the way, which was important for the economy and for the well-being of the denizens. Newman walked to the garage, which was run by a 70-year old man that was troubled by the way France was going these days. He told Kurt on the way out that they were just asking for another invasion like the one that Hitler had launched against them during WWII.
Kurt half-listened. He didn’t really care about the ramblings of the old man, even though some of what he did say held some merit. Kurt walked inside and told the owner that he was here to pick up his car. The old man eyed his clothing and frowned.
“The hell happened to you?”
“Little game of Marco Polo got pretty wild.”
“I say it did.” He handed him his car keys. “Here you go. You get back to yer hotel and take a nice hot shower, ya hear?”
Kurt nodded, ambling his way to the second floor of the garage. He found his car, a red Citroen CV. He got inside and started the ignition. He drove out of the garage, beeping to the owner on the way off. He made a left turn and started to head back towards the downtown area. He knew that the hotel wasn’t safe. He knew some people that would help him, though. People that would help him get things back in order. He headed East. At this rate, he would be in Munich by the middle of tomorrow.
When he got there, he would sort everything out. For now, he would settle for staying awake until he found a decent hotel.

He stopped at a hotel at the other side of the France-Germany border. He took a room with a view of the town. It was a small stereotypical German village with plenty of festivals going on in the square. They would last well into the night. He had taken a shower and had dressed himself in clean clothes. The effect was beyond anything he could have guessed. Kurt sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. He thought about what had brought him here so far.
His mind went through the whirlwind. It had only been two weeks since his little odyssey had started, but it seemed like a lifetime in comparison. Kurt thought it over.
3/13/2006: DGSE asked him to kill Judas, the most wanted terrorist/assassin in the world; wanted for at least thirty murders, including four DGSE agents. Current price: $10,000,000.
3/16/2006: Information file given to him mentions a shipping manifest in Monaco.
3/20/2006: Further investigation reveals that there is a dock that is run by a Theroux.
3/25/2006: Theroux, after a thorough background check with the DGSE/NSA/Interpol files, is believed to be an associate with Judas.
3/27/2006: Supposed to check out Theroux’s office. Ambushed and left for dead. He knew that the office had been taken care of. Theroux was gone. Long gone. He had to backtrack and look for new ways for getting what he wanted.
Munich seemed like a good place to start.
Any place with lifelong friends was a good place to start.
He drifted to sleep. He thought of his friends. He wondered what their reaction would be.
Mostly, he thought of Judas.

[GeekyGmrChic]

Pro,

If you send it to me in a Word Doc. I can take a better look at it. I guess I'm old-fashioned, or more like 1 too many wworkshops in college. But I need a hard copy to write my comments on and stuff like that.

Trust me I know what you're going through, as I'm writing a new short story before getting ready to re-write my old one s to be sent off once again to "Asimov's" and the such.

[Pro A.]

Actually, this is part of a novel, not an s. story. I only write those three or four times a year, depending on whether or not I get an idea I like. As for the word doc, just PM me your email address and I'll move it along from there.

[Pro A.]

Another story excerpt, this one from my current book, which has managed to tally 500 pages in thirty days. This takes place early on in the book. This crew of Marines is assigned to a special ops job to shut down a silo that has a top-secret project led by General Tu, one of many villains in the story.

5
The Black Hawk UH-60A made the difficult trip from Tokyo to Hong Kong in a little under seven hours. By the time they had arrived, it was midday and the mercury on the thermometer was pushing past one hundred degrees. The troops got out of the chopper, where they were greeted by a Navy Vice Admiral. He looked like a jolly fellow, in his early fifties, with a rotund belly and a thick brown beard. Oder couldn’t help but wonder if he played Santa Claus for the kids every year. He shook Lusher’s hand and then everyone else’s, working his way down the line. Everyone did their best to look enthused to see him. Happy was probably out of the question right now, especially after such a grueling flight with plenty of turbulence.
They were on the U.S.S. Nevada, which was docked in Hong Kong harbor. The Admiral went on to explain as they went down the stairs that it was one of the few locations that they had legitimate control of right now. The Triads were making a fortune doing contract kills for the Chinese and their interference was making issues far more complex than they needed to be. Lusher asked how many had been killed so far by the Triads. Vice Admiral Johnson said he didn’t know the exact number, but it was around twenty so far. They were launching RPG’s, Molotov cocktails, anything that they could use for a virtual guaranteed kill.
The troops were given the compliments of some lunch and then they went down the stairs to their cabins. They would be brought to the battlefield later in the day. For the moment, major combat operations were being conducted and the Admiral, along with the field commander, Brigadier General Horowitz, were worried that bringing the troops in all of a sudden would disrupt the tactics. In regards to the dam, the Admiral promised that they would be launching an assault in due time. If this location was as important as touted, then the priorities would certainly shift for these six men who were asked to do the almost impossible.
The six men were holed up in the barracks and they started to analyze the new intelligence coming in. There wasn’t much from the NSA outside of several garbled messages that didn’t seem to make much sense. The CIA was able to give them access to architectural blueprints and schematics that showed the basics of the dam, which was now marked as hydroelectric. The facility was one of the major stations that provided power to the entire complex.
Lusher went through the intelligence and told the men that they would sneak in through the side gate, which was located on a tall hill, and they would sneak in to the main section of the dam and make their run at capturing Tu before he could get the missiles out of the installation. If they were indeed ballistic missiles, then there was a good bet that they wouldn’t have time to get them out of the facility to begin with. They were there to stay and his men would be more than willing to fight this one out tooth and nail.
When they were finished with the initial briefing, Levy leaned back and he tapped away at his computer. He was sitting in the top bunk along the NW corner. The ceiling was just six inches from his head and he seemed to realize it because he kept checking to see if he was in any danger of whacking his head a good one on the way up. The answer, of course, was always yes, and that further encouraged him to keep trying this until he fulfilled the lingering question in the back of his head. Levy looked at his computer and said that he got an email from his girlfriend back in the states. She was asking where he was and what he was doing.
“Great,” hr said. “I get to lie about three things.”
Lusher turned his head from the report and he stared at him with probing eyes that still looked intimidating, even though he was several feet below him. “I understand the first two, what’s the third?”
“That I don’t love her.”
Lusher took off his reading glasses, a frown embedded on his face. “If you don’t love her, then why is she your girlfriend?”
“Because I get to fuck her whenever I want.”
“Did you ever love her?”
Levy shrugged. “Yeah, but then she bored me. Since I can’t find anyone else, I’ll rope her along and get my rocks off.”
Lusher grimaced at the idea, but he didn’t chastise him for his decision. “Does she know?”
“Of course not. She’s too oblivious.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ…”
Levy didn’t say anything. Levy knew what he was doing. He had planned everything out with his girlfriend. This was just another step in the process. Not like any of his compatriots would bother telling her what was really going on. Even if they did, he could just write it off as nothing more than slovenly drunken behavior by a bunch of soldiers having a really good time at her expense. Not the best explanation, but at least she would be foolish enough to keep a dead relationship going on. He smirked at his own brilliance and he started composing the e-mail working on it in between puffs of his cigarette as his fingers slammed into the light keyboard.
At sundown, they went to work. Lusher brought them out of their lull. He talked to Paulson over the phone while they waited for the chopper to get ready on the stern.
“Looks like we’re going to be out of here soon. I don’t know what’s going to happen when we land.”
“Have you picked a location yet?”
“Yeah, near the front lines. Looks like there are a few routes that can take us the eight miles we need to travel to get to the dam. I don’t know how many enemy soldiers they’ll have out there, but I am confident that we can hold them off.”
“Your approach route?”
“The main way is impossible. Several tanks and a couple hundred soldiers are protecting the front gates. The other way takes up the hills and then back down to the dam.”
“All right. I’ll leave that in your hands.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’ll be on channel 6. You know that.”
“Yes, sir. I have informed my men to wire that into their headsets.”
“Good. Have they told you if you’ll be working with any specific unit?”
“The 11th armored brigade.”
“Okay, good. I’ll be able to let the Commander know what’s going on.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good luck, Jack.”
Lusher acknowledged this and he cut the line. He looked at the other soldiers. All of them looked anxious. Schifler was standing in front of them, handing each one a silenced MP10 machine gun that had a tiny silencer attached to the barrel. He explained that when they squeezed the trigger it would sound a lot like a brief pop. Most people from ten yards away would not discern it for anything else, unless of course they were looking at it. The German gun, he added, was also very good for medium shots since the M29 would be used in most cases for the longer-range shots. There weren’t any questions from the peanut gallery. Schifler had gone over everything that they needed to hear, or wanted to hear, for that matter. Each had been given an SMG along with three clips each. Everyone went home happy. There weren’t any problems to speak of. It was either that or no one wanted to bring up these problems. They just wanted to sit back and remain in blissful ignorance because there was little danger there, or so the delusion went.
Lusher reminded them of the headsets and how to reach the Colonel in case anything went wrong. He doubted that there would be any problems for this sort of mission. Besides, everything was up to them. They had been trained in how to fight, how to live on the battlefield. Now, it was time to put the information to good, practical use.
The chopper lifted off from the heliport and made its drive to the middle of the city, staying below the radar so they wouldn’t be seen by the Chinese radar installations that were still floating around. That had been one of the top priorities after they had established a foothold, but the enemy seemed to realize this. Their troops had heavy defenses waiting for them. The Black Hawk arrived in the middle of the city and landed at an intersection. The troops got off and met their escort, who was waiting in an armored humvee. Lusher took care of the usual introductions, which lasted under five seconds. Behind him, the chopper lifted off and made its way back to the Nevada. Lusher turned his head and he saw everyone else but Schifler looking out at the helicopter as it faded from the horizon. The one link to the civilized world had just left them and now they were all alone. Nothing else mattered.
Lusher said, “All right, all right. Let’s go, let’s go. Get in the trucks.”
They marched into the two vehicles, single-file formation. Lusher took the middle seat of the back truck. His escort, Colonel Brian Sanders, shook his hand when they were inside.
“How we doing so far?”
Sanders, a short, wiry man in his early forties, shrugged. “Not bad. The enemy forces don’t have a strong concentration right now. For the moment, the enemy soldiers seem content to hide in buildings and wait for soldiers to pass by.”
“I take it you’re going through the usual door-to-door routine.”
“In a way. We’re bombing the crap out of the buildings.”
Lusher was surprised by the casualness of his tone. Sanders had been another of Paulson’s prized pupils, or so the story went. Actually, they had been in Force Recon together, but Paulson had taught the younger officer much of what he knew. Legend was they met out during an operation in Iraq in 91. That was the story, anyways. Most of what Paulson had done was classified for the next century, well after he was long gone. Hell, most of the files were likely to be burned as a safety precaution. He had never seen the file for himself, but there were those stories, and they seemed so strange and obscure that it was likely all of them were true.
“How is Scott doing these days? Man, he’s got his own hit squad and everything.”
“He’s fine. You know what we’re doing, right?”
“Ken told me a little bit. Something about a dam. Got anything else to tell me?”
“No. You have the location?”
“Mm-hmm. It’s on the computer.”
“All right. Just make sure your forces distract the enemy at the front gates.”
“You taking the back route?”
Lusher looked surprised. “You know about that?”
“Well, there are several, actually, but yeah, I did. Which one are you taking?”
Lusher pointed at it, third from the left. Sanders nodded and he illuminated the path with his cursor. “Great. Still not gonna tell me, huh? That kinda blows.”
“Nothing I can do about it,” Lusher said. He wanted to end this conversation right here while he still had a chance to, but it seemed like Sanders was intent on poking and prodding with his pick. When the truck stopped near the front lines, Lusher got out and he led his men closer to the front lines, Sanders staying a couple of paces behind them. He explained the enemy forces had a couple of tanks causing problems up ahead, but otherwise the satellite data showed that they were good to go all the way to the dam. His men would be able to push the enemy back because most of the forces had been exhausted to almost nothing.
Lusher nodded. He thought about his next move. He had outlined everything as far as operational procedure, but transportation had never really bubbled to the top of his mind until now. He said, “You got any Chinese trucks?”
“Uh, no, but there are plenty around. You need a humvee, right?”
“Mm-hmm. We won’t become a big bulls-eye this way.”
“I’ll check intelligence real quick,” Sanders said. He ran back to his truck with his bodyguard. Most of the trucks were parked off to the side of the road, under half-lit neon signs promising good times at night clubs. The lights had been shot out by gunfire during the initial battles. Many of the buildings also had mortar and crater holes in the sides, meshing well with the bombed-out windows and bodies lying on the streets, most of them civilians with no say in what was going on here. Lusher and his men took position in one of the nearby buildings and they waited for Sanders to return. When he came back, he said that they didn’t have anything nearby. It looked like they would have to do this the hard way. Lusher nodded and said that if they did find one along the way they would fish them out. Sanders nodded and said that they would start moving the front lines towards the front gate of the dam.
“What’s the ETA?”
“Five minutes,” he said.
“Make it three, if you can,” Lusher said.
Sanders nodded and he walked to his truck to give the command to the field units up front. The rest would follow suit like the ant hive receiving orders from their queen to bring food. The six soldiers walked to the trucks. Sanders said that his own truck would be taking them up to the front soon. He told Lusher that the trucks would take them wherever they needed to go. Their resources were at his disposal. Anything he wanted, they would grant. Lusher likened it to having a genie. Too bad this genie couldn’t end the war, but he would, in a way, make his own small contribution to the cause.
Everyone got into the two trucks; Lusher took the passenger seat on the front truck. His driver, a young Private named Scaldar, introduced himself for a moment and then hit the wheel. Before long, they were barreling down the street, going around thirty, thirty-five miles an hour or so. Scaldar explained that if you wanted to live on the battlefield, you had to drive as fast as possible. Made it tougher for the Chinese RPG’s to lock on and hit a truck that way. Lusher could appreciate the sound logic behind that. In a way, that was what their little operation against the Chinese was about. Grab the missiles before anyone else could realized they were gone and then run like hell all the way back to the home base and laugh the whole occasion off with a couple of cigars.

[Pro A.]

Another bit from another book. This one takes place as two agents tail a possible domestic terrorist. I rather like the dark commentary, but I'll leave that judgment up to you, dear reader.

Chapter 8
9:53 A.M.; Itasca
“Look alive, Brian. He’s on the move,” Mike said. Their man had just come out of the office walking to his car on the far side of the lot. Mike went to the backseat and he found his computer. He turned it on and dumped the machine on Brian’s lap. Brian had been enjoying a bit of a nap while Mike did some surveillance. So far, nothing extraordinary had come up. Mike was glad that no one from the security at the building they were by had said anything. Not like they could do anything, anyways. All Mike had to do was show off his badge indicating that he was a Federal agent and the guard would stand down in a heartbeat. Mike felt content to showing his fake badge instead of his real one. The fake badge had him as an FBI agent—a terrible lie, but one that everyone swallowed as easily as they did pancakes.
Mike and Brian worked for an agency that almost no one knew about. The agency was called The Cadre. The Cadre operated under the jurisdiction of the U.S. State Department. This gave them the ability to work domestically and overseas on any assignment that was perceived to be a threat to Nat’l Security. The agency had been created not long after the Cold War had ended. The idea was that these people would do the jobs that were a little too open for the FBI, CIA, or NSA. So far, this network had worked very well. Kevin Coleman, their director, had been the Deputy Director of Operations when the agency got its start in 1992. Mike, another one of the first agents to start with the group, remembered the first office and how much it smelled like mold. Being in the basement of the State Department building had been a less than pleasant experience. Now they worked out of K Street. It was a more accommodating experience and very pleasing to the senses, certainly. Mike had worked with the agency in D.C. for several years before moving to Chicago because he wanted to have a posting that allowed him more independence and free rein. He got that much. Using discretionary funds, they gave him his own office in Oakbrook and they took care of the bills and utilities. His job was to keep an eye on the intelligence and report anything out of the ordinary. On paper, it sounded like a mundane experience, but he found it to be rather satisfying one.
Brian had managed to get that much about his past life out of him. As a quid pro quo, Brian reciprocated the level of information, explaining how he had come to be where he was. He talked a little about his life in the Marines and his prior years with the Cadre—none of it very interesting, in his eyes. Judging from the lack of attention he received from Mike, Brian guessed that he agreed with him on this point.
Mike shifted the car into drive and they waited for their man to pull away. He was heading Southbound. Brian looked at the monitor. A small green blip on the map screen started to move down the road.
“When you’d put a tracer on him?”
“Yesterday, while he was working.”
“Any problems with security?”
Mike laughed. “You gotta be kidding me. It’s like a sieve.”
“Well, that explains how you were able to put wiretaps, but that was during the night, not the day.”
“Yeah, well, makes you realize what the country really thinks of terrorism, doesn’t it?”
Brian had never really thought of it in that context, but it did occur to him that yes, this much was indeed true. The United States was supposed to be afraid of terrorism and yet they really didn’t show the true effort that was supposed to come from combating its evil. Brian couldn’t wrap his mind around the double standard that society had placed on itself and there were days when he wondered if he ever could do such a thing.
Mike said, “I wonder where he’ll be going.”
Brian shrugged. He glanced at the blip on the radar. It was still moving Southbound. They remained a healthy block behind. Mike didn’t want to take any chances on a tailing run. He wasn’t likely to notice much a block behind him. Fifty feet away? Yeah, he would notice something was amiss after about two, three miles. Brian looked at the map and grunted. “Well, we’re passing up Wooddale, so I guess he ain’t heading there. I s’pose he’s going for Addison.”
Mike frowned. “The fuck is in Addison?”
“I dunno. They still got the gang problem?”
“Hasn’t gotten any better last coupla years.”
“Go figure, uh? Cheap bastards probably haven’t gotten the hint yet.”
“What hint is that?”
“Be tough on the pricks. Bash some skulls, fer Christ’s sake.”
Mike sighed. “Nothing’s ever that easy. Didn’t they teach you that much?”
“Oh, no, I guess I missed the memo.”
Mike shrugged. His loss. He said, “Well, we just passed the outskirts of Wooddale. I guess he’s gotta be heading there.”

It turned out he wasn’t heading there. He stopped off in Lombard and checked out on a construction site not far from the interstate. Brian and Mike parked across the street in a McDonald’s parking lot. Brian got out and went to the bathroom. Mike continued watching. Brian went over to the newsstand and he bought a copy of the Chicago Tribune. He paid the lady at the register. She reeked of grease. He went back to the car and he got settled back in. He placed the laptop on his lap and the paper over the keyboard. He could feel the engine starting to heat his legs and it burned a little bit. He winced and tried to adjust his seat, watching out the side of the window.
“What’s the paper for?”
“Natural cover. Besides, I like to play the crossword.”
“Oh. I never could do that. I don’t have the abstract mind fer that sorta thing, ya know?”
“Some got it. Some don’t. Kinda like the people that can whip through Jeopardy.”
“I’m decent at that.”
“You play along at home?”
“No. I’m not a loser.” He saw the frown on Brian’s face. “Why? Do you do it?”
“Yeah. Kinda picked that one up from my dad.”
Mike laughed. “Jesus, I feel sorry for you.”
“Better to have a reason to watch TV, I guess.”
“Not much of a viewer?”
Brian shook his head. “Outside of a few shows, not really. TV has just gotten really fucking stupid over the years.”
“Yeah. All that reality bullshit…”
“Yep. Is a pain in my fucking ass that I don’t need.”
“Well, at least you have priorities. More than I can say about half the people you work with.”
“Priorities are for people with a future.”
“You field spook types don’t have one?”
“Well, considering they’re likely to expire by the time we’re done with a job, no, we don’t have one.”
Mike shook his head. “Feel sorry for you.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. This is the life I’ve chosen.”
Some life. You’re playing roulette with nothing as a bank. How pathetic is that?
They continued waiting for another five minutes. Josh finally came out and he looked at his watch for a moment before getting back in the car. Brian glanced at the clock on the radio and it said that it was close to half-past ten. He shrugged. That seemed to be about right. At this rate, it seemed like they were going to be driving all over the county. He hoped that this came with meal breaks because he could feel the insides of his stomach start to growl at the mistreatment that it had received the last couple of hours. Just having coffee with nothing else of subsistence was not all that appetizing. Brian was used to the gnawing feeling, but it still wasn’t pleasant by any means.
They drove for another ten, fifteen minutes, moving through the side streets and keeping their distance from Josh. Josh appeared to remain oblivious to what was going on. They were running parallel to him right now. Josh made a left-hand turn not far from Glen Ellyn and he moved past the local community college, College of Dupage, which is one of the biggest colleges in the United States. More than 35,000 students attend the halls every single semester. Brian watched as they headed towards Butterfield Road, which is one of the major roads in Dupage County, home of many malls and major businesses. Josh made another left and Mike made a left a couple of minutes later, forced to deal with the student traffic as they made their exodus away from the halls.
Mike said, “Your friend’s a fast driver. Must be clocking sixty, sixty-five right now.”
“He always did have a penchant for that sort of thing. When he was in high school, he thought of it as one of the best ways to be a rebel. I dunno how that worked, but he got his thrill and was happy enough. Scared the shit outta the rest of us, though.”
“I can imagine,” he said.
Brian had his doubts about that, but he didn’t say anything. He just watched their man continue to drive. There was a minor logjam near 355 and that slowed progress down. Some idiot soccer mom had crashed into a Cadillac with two elderly people in it. The soccer mom, of course, was completely oblivious to how this was her fault and blamed the elderly people for being too slow. Brian could see the woman yelling at them and they looked flabbergasted. Brian imagined that the other witnesses to the scene were feeling the same way, as well.
Brian said, “God, I hate soccer moms. Bunch of brain-dead lazy fucks.”
Mike glanced in his direction. “Got any other insulting adjectives you’d like to throw out while you’re on a roll?”
Brian grunted. “When I think of em’ I’ll be sure to let ya know.”
One lane remained open and with time the cars were able to squeeze through while the soccer mom, who had probably turned 25 yesterday, continued to argue about how being on the cell phone chatting at ear-piercing decibels with her girlfriend wasn’t his fault.
Brian said, “That’s Dupage for ya, man,” he said.
“Mm-hmm.”
“Home to a bunch of rich idiots and fucking foreigners.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Foreign population has spiked recently.”
Brian nodded. “Was gettin’ that way just as I left, but I imagine it has only increased.”
“Yep. Lotsa Russians now too.”
“Oh, great. They brought the Ma-FIA with em’ too, I bet.”
Mike sighed. That was the problem with being in the military these days. Any semblance of values was gone. The basic principles had eroded to the point where they just didn’t exist anymore. Mike had never been in the military. Went to University of Michigan for four years and had majored in history. On a lark and some inspiration, he had joined the CIA right out of college and he wound up with the Cadre about ten years after he had joined the agency.
He didn’t know about the erosion that Brian was talking about, but he saw another one loud and clear. This one was eating right through Brian’s soul.

[Dorbin]

Looks good to me, although with this line, "Josh finally came out and he looked at his watch for a moment before getting back in the car.", you suddenly refer to "the man" as Josh. Is there a particular reason why you chose midway through to specify him by name when earlier you did not? It isn't like we found out the guy's name via dialogue between Mike and Brian concerning the man, or any other specific turn of events in the narrative, so I just found that interesting.

[Pro A.]

Yea, I did. The story bit I showed is in transit, so there were bound to be one or two small gaps regarding characters.

[Pro A.]

Back for some more. Here's an excerpt from a short story I did.

Survivalism
By: Chris Vavra
I
John Burke didn’t look up when the door opened. He continued to look down at the steel desk, his eyes staring at anything but the man standing in front of him. Burke reached for a cigarette from his side pocket. He lit it using an old Zippo lighter. People asked him if he would ever consider quitting smoking, especially with the work he did. Burke had never been sure how to answer the question. It was always quite awkward. After a while, he stopped trying. He figured he’d live his life and not worry about getting lung cancer. Burke heard the voice say, “Morning, John.”
Burke didn’t say anything. He looked up long enough to see a tape recorder and two microphones come down on the desk. After everything was hooked together, the man sat down. He was in his mid-forties with brown hair that was going gray at the temples. His beard had a mixture of light-brown and gray. Burke looked up and said, “Not surprised you’re in a hurry to get this done.”
The man didn’t say anything. He reached over and he hit the play button on the recorder. Burke put his hands in his pockets and he put the cigarettes on the table. He had a funny feeling that he was going to need them during this procedure.
“This is Kevin Coleman, Director of The Cadre, debriefing John Burke, Senior Field Officer,” he said. His voice reminded John a little bit of those androids in the movies that were incapable of showing emotion. Coleman was capable of emotion, but he didn’t like to let others know he had any.
“Start from the beginning.”
“Two days ago I had been assigned to investigate the disappearance of one of our operatives…”
II
Northern California
John Burke sat in the car, tapping the side of the steering wheel as he looked over the reconnaissance photos that had been taken no more than two hours ago. They had been uploaded to his PDA, but he didn’t want to look at that because it was too hard to make everything out in this light. The full view was much easier on his eyes. Burke saw the enemy sentries marked with a red dot, as per his request. He counted four of them rolling along the perimeter. There was one watchtower near the central base. He imagined that another sentry, armed with a sniper rifle, would be watching from that spot. Burke didn’t like these odds, but under the circumstances he didn’t have much of a choice. This was a Cadre mess and it had to stay that way until he knew what had happened to his agent.
The Cadre was best known in the intelligence community as the State Department’s dirty little secret. Founded just after the end of the Cold War, this agency answered to only the State Department and they could operate both domestically and on foreign soil. Kevin Coleman was their second director. He had taken on the job after working with the Secretary of Defense during the Clinton administration. Coleman was believed to have the right mentality for this kind of work, which was black ops.
The West Coast station for The Cadre had been assigned to look into a survivalist group that had developed a very strong backing. There was a belief going around that the group had, according to classified intelligence, been hoarding illegal weapons. Two military convoys had been attacked in the last three months in California. Six Marines were dead and more than twenty in the hospital. The only accurate description of the attackers was that they wore all black and there appeared to be the emblem of an eagle on their forearms as a jacket patch. Among the items stolen included a cruise missile. The State Department deemed it imperative that The Cadre investigate this matter at once.
The agent in charge of the station, Dave Stevens, took his partner, Charlie Eckhart, to investigate the camp, which was a hundred miles North of Sacramento. They went in and they weren’t heard from again. Then, three days after their last report, the survivalist group, called the New Frontier, released a videotape to the State Department explaining that they would kill the agent unless they were paid, in cash, a sum of thirty million dollars. Eckhart had already been killed, according to the captors, and now Stevens, who looked bruised and battered on the videotape, would be executed at sundown tomorrow unless the ransom was paid.
Coleman knew as well as anyone about the policy with terrorism. Without even thinking twice about it, he sent Burke out to get Stevens back before he was executed. Burke had voiced his concern loud and clear before leaving. Coleman agreed with him on every point, but pointed out that if they didn’t try to do something, the agency would look weak and ineffectual, along with the State Department. If the New Frontier, an anti-government establishment, got the opportunity to humiliate the government, it would be a terrible P.R. blow, among other things, for the government. They had to stop this madness.
Burke agreed with that assessment. Making the government look bad would be a priceless coup and The Cadre, a black box operation for the most part, would be revealed to the American public—that would be a double whammy hit for the government. The Cadre had been relied upon as a solution to untenable situations. If they were revealed to the rest of the world, their usefulness would be altered and hampered.
Burke had been a little surprised that he had been asked to do this job. Compared to most field agents, he was very young, in spite of the successes he had gone through during his time in the field. He had worked with the Marines Special Ops branch, Force Recon, before joining The Cadre. One of their feelers had read his profile—most of which was still off the books—and figured he had the right stuff to be a field operative. They procured his agreement and he quickly moved up the ranks. Coleman liked his ability to make quick decisions and to not let other personal factors weigh in on his mind. Now, at age 25, he had climbed to the number 3 position in The Cadre operations hierarchy.
Burke knew that one day he would be #1 in the operations division. He would be given the toughest, most dangerous jobs because of this ranking. He didn’t mind the challenge; he relished the opportunity to be pushed as hard as possible.
Burke finished his cigarette and he checked over the maps one last time to give himself a better idea of where he needed to go. He had parked his car about a mile outside of the camp, which used to be an old scout camp before the Boy Scouts started doing cutbacks more than a decade ago. More than five cabins along with a central building were outlined in the maps. Two more sheds, likely arms cache dumps, were along the North side. That gave him eight buildings to go through. Sundown was in thirty-two minutes. Considering how long it would take him just to get there the clock was running against him. John, wearing a black jacket with a gray collared shirt and black jeans, walked up the long incline and he weaved his way through the redwood trees, holding a small pair of binoculars in his right hand.
He went along for more than five minutes before he stopped, feeling a little winded. He had gone the last two hundred yards at a dead sprint. He halted his advance and checked his PDA. The guard tower was just ahead. He was pretty sure that the guard wouldn’t be able to see him in this cluster, but it was still a risky gambit. Burke counted three guards on his monitor—two to the left and one on the right. They were fifty yards away. If he stayed low, he’d be able to avoid them. He dropped down to one knee and checked ahead with the binoculars. There was a brick wall ahead in the distance. It was about four, five feet high. From this angle, though, there could very well be another two feet in high because the hill started to slope down as it got closer to the actual site. John put the binoculars away, sticking them in his side jacket pocket. He pulled out his pistol, a Walther P99. He attached the silencer to the muzzle and he pulled back on the safety.
He turned to his left to see if anything had changed. Nothing. The guards continued to move away from him more and more. John moved past the guard tower, using the trees for cover. His eyes drifted back up towards the tower from time to time just to make sure that the sentry didn’t get a brain and start looking in his direction. John reached the fence and he climbed over the top, landing on a small dirt clump when he reached the bottom. He went to a nearby power generator, which was hidden amongst the shrubbery and foliage. He checked out his PDA. He counted more than eighteen sentries in the area. Burke took a deep breath and whistled to himself. Burke had dealt with several guards at once, but this would be different. In a wide open field, the number of sentries one had to deal with did matter a great deal. In his case, he would have problems because their leader, Richard Stone, had apparently trained his men to deal with this sort of situation. Stone, a former Marine himself, had the knowledge and the foresight to realize that dealing with a wide-open environment should be an advantage instead of a detriment.
If Stone was around, he would be easy to spot because he was more than six feet tall and had a huge build. Judging from the videotape, he was at least six-five and weighed well North of 200 pounds. The voice from the video had matched his to a tee.
Burke moved to the left side of the generator and he checked the area straight ahead. The middle of the camp had several trees cutting through the roads, creating a lot of forks. He spotted three trucks, all of them being loaded with wooden and steel crates. Burke thought that was a little peculiar. He wondered if they were going to make a quick exit once they had finished what they had set out to do. Burke figured that was likely because Stone was not a fool. Stone knew the second he murdered a federal agent he would be hunted by every single person in law enforcement. They would not rest until he was brought back with his head as a trophy so it could be presented to some official as proof. Burke could appreciate that. He knew if a few foreign governments ever found out his name they would demand the same thing. Perhaps with more blood for drama, but the meaning was still the same.
John rolled past three trees to his left and he reached the first cabin. He looked through one of the windows, which was shattered save for a few shards on the edges. He peered inside and saw a couple of bunks, but nothing more. Up ahead were two more cabins. The entire encampment was made in an informal circle. The main building was on the East side. According to his PDA, four guards were standing around the perimeter. Burke didn’t even want to touch that yet until he had an idea of what Stevens’ status was. John had the strange feeling that he was already dead—Stone couldn’t control his homicidal impulses so he jumped the gun a few hours ahead of schedule so he decided to get it over with. Not like anyone would care when exactly he pulled the trigger. That would explain why they seemed to be packing everything up now.
Burke didn’t waste any more time thinking about it. He moved to the next cabin. He saw one guard smoking a cigarette and checking over all of the remaining contents. Killing time. Burke watched him walk outside. Burke went to the corner. Burke watched him. He was heading his way. Burke aimed his pistol at about knee level. He wanted to be sure he got this right if he did in fact head his way.
The sentry’s right leg came around the corner. Burke reached out and swung his pistol, slamming the butt of his gun right into the shin. The guard yelped for just a minute as he fell to the ground. Burke grabbed his mouth and he pressed his body up against the wall. He said, “Make a sound, I’ll blast your brains on the wall. Nod to me when I ask you. Is the prisoner still alive? Nod yes if he is.”
The guard looked petrified. His body shook as he nodded. Burke showed him the PDA. “Show me where he is.” He pointed to the left shed. Burke thanked him. Using his forearm, he pressed it up against his neck, watching him gasp for air until he went unconscious. His body slumped to the ground. Burke made sure his body didn’t go around the corner. He dragged him near the middle of the cabin and he left him there, figuring he would be out of it long enough for him to finish his operation. He continued working along the circumference, his eyes darting back and forth like ping-pong balls. So far, everyone seemed to be focused on the middle, which was fortunate. Had they not been actually focused on loading up the trucks, he would have a lot of additional issues on his plate.
John reached the shed. He could hear people talking on the other side. Burke leaned against the wall and he looked through one of the windows. All he could see was a guard standing by the window, laughing. Burke went to the side door and he turned the knob, pulling it open inch by inch. He rolled his way inside and looked ahead. There was a door separating him from Stevens and his would-be torturers. Burke checked his PDA again. One by the window and another standing in the middle with another dot. Stevens was marked with a blue dot. All Cadre operatives had a chip implanted in their body to track their vital signs. It came in handy for these types of operations. Burke couldn’t imagine living in a world without this wondrous bit of technology aiding him.
Then again, he had a hard enough imagining a world that didn’t have laptops, either. His mind was often on the fast-track ahead for technology, trying to keep up so he didn’t end up getting lost in the mist. Burke leaned up against the wooden door. He pressed his ear against the lock, hoping to get some snippets of dialogue. It was faint, but he got some broad strokes.
“Ya gonna die, man. Boss is gonna gut ya like a fuckin’ fish,” guard #1 said.
“Yea, man, I bet he gonna hang ya by da flagpole when he finish’d with ya,” guard #2 said, laughing. His laugh was the same one he had heard earlier. Burke knew which one to go after first. Having a voice to match faces and bodies always helped.
Burke opened the door and he stormed through the open passageway. The two guards turned and looked at Burke. Their eyes widened. Their pupils dilated. Guard #2, standing by a pitchfork, reached for his gun, a 9mm Uzi sub-machine gun. Burke shot him once through the heart. He fell back against the wall, his guts spilling out up against the brown-red paint as he slid to the floor, his left hand falling on the pitchfork.
Guard #1 reached for his pistol, a .45 Makarov. Pure Eastern bloc. Burke rolled to his left. Guard #1 fired for his gun. Nothing came out. He tried again. Dry click. Burke smiled. Pure Eastern bloc indeed. Half of them jammed all the time. Burke shot him through the head, just above the right eyebrow. Blood spilled down into his eyebrow and down into his eye. He fell over, falling right at Stevens’ feet.
Stevens looked awful. He looked like he had gone through the full twelve rounds as a punching bag. His face was swollen and purple. His hands looked even worse. He was tied to a chair. His ankles were bound by handcuffs. Ditto for the wrists. They were locked behind the chair. Burke looked over at the two dead guards. He said, “Which one has the key?”
Stevens cocked his head towards the guard to his left.
“Thanks.” Within seconds, he had all of the handcuffs removed. Stevens was slow to get up. He clutched his right hand up against his chest. Burke asked him what had happened with his hand. Stevens said Stone had broken it. Put his hand on a steel crate and he smashed it with a hammer several times until all of his bones were broken. Burke winced at the very image and asked if he could hold a gun. Stevens shook his head. He said he had a hard time closing up his other hand. He was useless. Burke sighed. This was not what he had hoped for. Burke looked at the door. A quick glance at the watch told him they only had a few minutes before Stone and his entourage arrived. There was a good chance that they would be on their way now. Burke tapped his earpiece.
“This is Burke. I have retrieved the hostage. Say again, I have retrieved the hostage. I need a medivac right away. I’ll meet you at the RV. Bring in the military. Shut down this entire place. They’re trying to escape,” he said.
“Roger that,” Kevin Coleman said, sitting from his post in Washington, D.C. He had the second armored division from the Army on another line waiting to move in and kick some survivalist ass. FBI would handle the rest of the cleanup once they were finished with the actual assault. Burke picked up the Uzi from the dead guard and he checked the clip on the machine gun. Ready to roll. He pulled back on the safety and told Stevens to watch his six. Stevens nodded. Stevens followed Burke out of the shed. Stevens asked where he had come from. He pointed to the opposite side. Stevens asked if he had a PDA. Burke tapped his jeans pocket. On that note, he checked his PDA. A cluster was heading his way. 8:00. Stone and his crew. Not much time to get out of here. Burke knew better than to fight it out with this band of lunatics. Coleman would call the military. They would be here inside of ten minutes. They had been told to prepare to mobilize way ahead of time. They wouldn’t be unprepared.
Burke reached the next cabin. Stevens continued to watch from behind. Stevens looked nervous. Stevens looked like he had just been tortured for more than forty hours. His face—the parts that hadn’t been shattered and bruised up—looked deathly pale. The sort of thing you see from a person that hasn’t seen sunlight in way too long. Burke hoped that this guy didn’t become a detriment to escaping. After all, he had been the whole reason for coming out here and risking his life against a bunch of homicidal, sociopath rednecks.

[DankHero]

with the first part when newman gets frisked they say all they find is a lockpick but before that you said newman was going to pull out his gun.

[Pro A.]

Ah, I see. Well, glad you caught that.