Call me a son of a bitch for not telling her the truth from the start, call me shit for brains, call me anything, but I’m not sorry. I love that woman too much to give a flying fuck about fair play or what anyone else thinks. Even if the rules I was sworn to uphold allowed me to tell her what I was involved in, which by the fucking way it didn’t, I was not about to lose the one thing in my life that was pure and perfect.

So, yeah, I’m a selfish prick, but news flash, I never claimed to be a saint, and if I had to do it all again, I’d do the same fucking thing. Why would I take even the smallest risk of her walking away? This way I got through her first line of defense, and won myself a chance to fight another day. Whatever happens now, she loves me and it’ll be that much harder for her to keep resisting me. I’ll fight for her until she breaks down and takes me back, or I’ll be camped outside her front door because I ain’t no quitter.

I forced myself to stop thinking about Lara. I shouldn’t. Not if I wanted to get out of this alive. My focus had to be on survival. For me and the eight guys who came on this assignment with me. One small mistake and I was never seeing that angel face, or tasting her sweet flesh again.

I was lying down on a bed of wet leaves in the middle of a Columbian jungle wearing night vision goggles and black fatigues with no insignia. Anything goes wrong and I get discovered, there would be no blow back. We were men who didn’t exist.

Something slimy crawled onto my hand. Oh fuck. That’s all I need, another leech. I can’t light a cigarette here, so I’m gonna have to let it feast until this scenario is over. I squinted my eyes and looked down the sight of my sniper gun.

I was looking at a big ole warehouse painted green to blend with the jungle. It was protected by a tall electric fence and, at last count, eight security guards trained to kill. Probably hired guns, mercenaries. Inside the warehouse was the biggest cache of illegal weapons and high grade cocaine. One day I would make Lara understand.

Someone has to do this.

If we didn’t take care of this tonight, tomorrow morning a long convoy of trucks would appear at the gates of the warehouse. One at a time, the vehicles would back up to the building, and men would forklift out boxes upon boxes of cheap television sets stuffed full of cocaine. They would fill up one truck after another, then the trucks would be off to a port, where money would grease hands, men with families would look the other way.

The shipment would land in my country where hordes of people would maim, steal, and kill for it. That’s what was supposed to happen tomorrow, but tonight, I was here, and what was going to happen just became a whole different story.

My team and I were the difference.

A black 4x4 drove up, the headlights cutting through the dark. The guards rushed to open the metal gates. The vehicle stopped in front of the warehouse door. I shifted my attention to the vehicle door closest to the entrance. A man’s dark head emerged, then his body and one of his legs followed. I trained my crosshairs on an imaginary orange dot on his back.

The instant kill shot.

In a few days, I would think about him again. I would be halfway through a bottle of whiskey, and I would wonder why there were so many like him. How had humanity come to a place where it was men like him who had all the money and ruled over the rest of us?

But deep thoughts and covert activities were like work boots on a poodle. They didn’t mix. Tonight, I wouldn’t consider anything more than the straightforward fact: he was standing between me and my objective.

The voice in my earpiece whispered, “We’re a go.”

Before his other leg could touch the ground, I pulled the trigger.

The man sagged and fell out of the 4x4. My shot was true; he was done before his head hit the ground. A man rushed out of the front passenger’s seat. I had him before he could get to the door of the warehouse. There was shouting and screaming. The car began to reverse with a panicked screech.

I pulled the trigger again.

The wheels began spinning. Armed men came rushing out of the warehouse. Their deaths came from the other side of the building. That was my buddy, Roger, with his sarcastic smile and his perfect aim. I counted eight.

The sudden peal of an ear-piercing siren caught me off guard. “Shit!”

Lights facing out into the jungle went on around the entire compound, lighting up the night as if it were day. I blinked.

Ah, not the first time. Wrong intel. Our careful plan had just gone to hell in a damp jungle. Now we were in the thick of it, well before we had intended to be. Still, the momentum was on our side. I watched the warehouse for any signs of life.

There was the glint of a rifle from an upstairs window.

I aimed and fired. The first bullet chipped through the stucco. The second bullet shattered the window, and whoever was in there screamed loudly enough for me to hear him. A bullet came flying my way, thudding into the soft ground two feet away from me. That was too close for comfort.

Here we go, champ. Let’s play.

I rose up and started a quick trek along the ridge, running hard. He was still trying. I could hear the whoosh and thump as the bullets missed their mark. He wasn’t leading, which told me he wasn’t a sniper. He was just somebody who almost got lucky.

I knelt behind a tree and waited. I was at the right angle to see him make the stupid, rookie mistake that they all make. Only this time, he wouldn’t be lucky enough to get out of it alive.

There was the glint of his gun. I waited. There was his hand, clear in my sights. Still, I waited. Then his head came forward, and he put himself in the line of fire in order to see where I was. It was nothing more than a second, but hey, that’s all a decorated sniper needs, my friend.

My weapon kicked in my hands, what was left of the window shattered, and upstairs guy was toast.

And that’s when all hell broke loose.

Hidden trapdoors all around the compound opened and shots rang out. Apparently, there was far more security than our intelligence had shown – and now that the shit had hit the fan, there was nothing to do but fucking get splattered. Rifle fire followed me down as I threw myself from the cliff onto the ground twelve feet below.

I rolled at the landing to save my knees. I might be a badass, but that didn’t mean I was not getting old. At thirty-two I was no spring chicken. I didn’t have time to survey the lay of the land. I was being hunted. Covered by the friendly fire, I shouldered my rifle, pulled my sidearm, and headed toward the back of the warehouse.

I blew the lock on the door and slammed it open, surprised that it went so easily, and started my way up the back hallway.

Roger’s voice was crystal clear through my earpiece:

“Breached three o’clock, two friendlies.”

A man in a suit swung around the corner and raised his gun. His shot went wide, into the wall. Mine went into his chest, and he stumbled back. The bastard was wearing a vest. My second shot went into his head. It exploded backwards like a watermelon.

“They’re armored,” I said into my radio.

“No shit,” came the reply, along with the sound of distant gunfire.

I have always hated close quarter ops, because there isn’t any time to think. The second it takes you to decide what to do, is the second the other guy takes you out.

I worked my way through the back rooms. There were more guards than we expected, there weren’t nearly enough to stop us. Our guns were silent. I listened as the gunfire slowed down, then ceased completely. I quickly surprised and dispatched two more guys as I cleared my way through to the basement.

The basement opened out onto the hill. There was a large landing pad painted green on the hill. It was empty right now, and there was probably no helicopter coming. Not now that our presence had been revealed way before the operation had a chance to really start. So we might not have got the main guys, but we got the shipment.

Oh, yes.

I stared for a moment at the boxes of guns. They formed a wall across the entire basement. It was a lot more than we had anticipated. How many were there? Well over a thousand, at least. Our job would be over when we torched everything and watched the inferno as we flew away.

Roger came into the room, clearing as he went. He saw me and relaxed. His low whistle cut through the silence when he saw the cache of weapons. He pointed to some boxes at one corner.

“Holy Fuck,” he breathed.

I looked. Holy fuck indeed: rocket launchers!

The surprise of it knocked us off our game, just for a split second, but that was all it took.

The shot came from behind Roger. I didn’t see the shooter, only his eyes bugging and the sudden gush of blood from his neck as he clutched it, and fell to the floor. I turned in the direction of the fire, and unloaded what I had left in my sidearm, switching to the rifle as I moved behind some boxes. A man dropped with a grunt, his gun clattering to the floor. Rage surged through me and I didn’t think as I buried seven shots into his prone body. He was gone to wherever he came from.

But Roger was on his way out too.

“Goddamn it! Medic, we need medical here,” I hollered, praying they would get here in time, knowing there was no way they would. I fell to my knees in the blood that was already spreading across the concrete and pulled Roger onto my lap. He looked up at me with those big, brown eyes with their sweep of lush eyelashes. We used to laugh at him. At his girl’s eyes. They were filling up with tears now.

“Motherfucker got me,” he gasped.

I put my hand on his neck to stem the bleeding. It helped a little, but not half enough. There was no way to save him.

“Roger,” I said, “Just hang on.”

He grabbed my arm. “Shut up and fucking listen,” he whispered, his voice already going.

I shook my head. “The medics are on their way.”

“I’m gone, man. I ain’t stupid.” He started to choke on his own blood.

I lifted his head. “Don’t talk,” I ordered.

“Listen to me,” he rasped, his hands grasping at my shirt. “It’s time to get out. We always said we would retire together, remember?”

Roger’s eyes filled with tears. “So we’re going to. We’re going to keep that promise, you fucking hear me, man? I’m leaving the service today. Right now. And when you’re done here, you are going to hang up those boots and that gun and you’re going home to live your life, man. We’re doing this together.”

“You’re not checking out,” I said, holding my hand against his neck, and watching the blood seep out, pooling underneath his head.

He took a breath that rattled in his throat. “It’s the beauty of wet work. One day you become it. Promise you won’t die like me. Like a fucking dog. There’s a reason those fraudulent cocksuckers don’t send their own sons to do this work. Promise me!”

By now the tears were running down my face, too.

It’s my dying wish,” he insisted.

I swallowed the stone in my throat. “Okay, Roger, I promise.”

He smiled and coughed. Fuck, a whole cup of blood. It went all over my arm and clothes.

“You deserve something good and sweet, man. You deserve to have a little something for yourself. Remember … remember when we used to say we wanted to retire to a beach … and drink beer and hit on girls half our age?”

I nodded.

“Today’s the day, my friend. The beer will be so cold it’ll fucking hurt, and the sun will always shine, and the women will always think I’m way sexier than you.”

I took a deep breath and watched his eyes drift closed. “I’ve got a woman,” I whispered.

His eyes opened slowly. “No shit?” he asked faintly.

“She’s beautiful.”

Roger gave me the sweetest smile. “You give her a kiss and drink a beer for me.”

“I will.”

“Tell Marla the truth. She deserves to know why I did what I did.”

“I will,” I promised.

“Yeah, I should have told her. Tell her I love her.”

He closed his eyes.

“You can’t sugarcoat shit, man,” he whispered, his hands letting go of my shirt.

There was no fanfare. There was just one more breath, and then a silence that stretched on too long … far too long. And just like that, my best friend was gone.