Prologue
Carter
“I’m tired of killing people.” I looked up from the fire pit that was burning in the middle of our campsite and took a long pull of the beer I held in my hand.
“Tired of killing people?” Andy peered at me over the blaze, eyes wide. “How the fuck can you get tired of all of this?” He held his arms wide, glancing around at the trees behind us and the vast ocean that sat in front of him. We were on a beach in Southeast Asia on reprieve for a few days.
“This,” I waved my hand around in the same manner he had, “will end in less than forty-eight hours. Then it’s back to scoping out our next target, and catching the next terror cell leader because there’s always one more down the line.”
“We do that shit to protect our country.” Andy pointed at me, hand wrapped around his own beer.
I tilted my head. “Granted, but what about the wailing mother who lost her child in the firefight? And the brother who witnesses death after death of his family members and grows up to become a terrorist because of his bitterness?”
“We fucking kill him, too.”
“See,” I pointed. “Never fucking ends. Shit just keeps going and going. I’ve done this for eight years. Since I was eighteen. It was fun when I first started. I was still pissed, three years after nine-eleven. We’ll get those motherfuckers, I thought.”
“And we did. Bin Laden’s dead. His cell is on the outs.”
“And Iraq is a fucking wasteland. Afghanistan is still a mess. Northern Africa is recruiting and growing more dangerous by the day. Shit keeps going.” I shook my head, and stared back into the fire.
Andy was silent for a few moments before speaking again. “You’re the best 18C anyone in our unit has ever seen. You’ve gotten us outta shit we never thought we’d be able to get out of. What’re you gonna do with all that knowledge once you leave the Army? A fucking desk job? Work for you father?”
I grunted, my head jerking back, but my eyes remained on the fire. I’d been thinking of it for over a year now — leaving the Army. I enlisted at eighteen and never looked back, basically giving the middle finger to my father, my brothers, and the life I was supposedly born to live. I wanted more than a life of business dealings, but I still wanted to be the best of the best, which was why I applied for the special forces division of the U.S. Army. The training was grueling. Not only was it physically exhausting, but intellectually challenging. I came out on top, however, and had been a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant for the better part of my military career, or as it was mainly referred to by the guys, a 18C. But this wasn’t for me anymore.
“No,” I shook my head, “definitely not going to work for my father at Townsend.”
“Sometimes, I still can’t believe you walked away from all of that.” Andy gave a disbelieving chuckle, before taking another swig of his beer. “You need this shit just as much as I do. You get off on the adrenaline of it all. You’d fucking hang yourself if you had to sit behind a desk for eight hours a day.”
I smirked in agreement. He was accurate on that account. “Exactly why I’m not going into the family business. Aaron’s got that covered anyway,” I stated, referring to my brother who was in serious running for taking over at Townsend Industries once our father retired.
“Then what the fuck are you gonna do?”
I slowly allowed my eyes to roll up to meet Andy’s over the fire. “Firefighting.”
He angled his head, silently asking a question.
I stretched my arms out in front of me, before planting my elbows on my knees. “Williamsport has one of the best and highly trained fire departments in the U.S. Their rescue squads are top tier.” I peered back up to Andy. “I figure they could use a guy with my skills.”
He sat back in his beach chair and gazed out over the ocean that was barely visible due to the late hour. “It’s definitely not sitting behind a desk.”
“That it is not,” I replied.
“And you wouldn’t be killing anyone, hopefully.”
We chuckled at that.
He pondered a few more moments before finally replying, “I could see it.”
I nodded. So could I. Which was why I’d already sent my application in and had arranged a videoconference interview for the following month when I was scheduled to be back on base in Germany. The application process to become a firefighter could take months, which gave me enough time to get through it all and to officially be discharged from the army.
My life would be my own again. Don’t get me wrong, I’d thoroughly enjoyed my service in the army. The guys I’d come across reminded me of my own brothers back home, even though most came from entirely different walks of life than I had. I’d heard of the term courage under fire, but they embodied it, and every day I did my damndest to make sure I lived up to and exceeded the standards my commanders set. However, it was time to move on. It can become easy to get too jaded in this type of world. One in which we were constantly looking over our shoulders, seeing good friends who’d become family, blown up or severely injured. I’d carry these experiences with me, but I wanted to serve in another way now.
I rose from my beach chair, the sound of the ocean behind me loud as the waves crashed the beach. Andy stood as well, holding out his beer.
“To the newest Williamsport firefighter.”
It wasn’t a done deal just yet, but it might as well have been. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing wasn’t mine for the taking when I made up my mind.
“Salute.” I held up my bottle, saluting Andy, and then we both poured the remnants of our beers onto the fire, causing it to surge. Neither one of us even took a step back. We’d made friends with the fear of death or injury long ago. Even in the face of a raging fire, I didn’t flinch anymore. I knew at that moment, fighting fires was my next calling.