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Jesse dragged himself with his upper body further into the bamboo, about ten yards from the path that led to the compound. Their orders had been to ambush and obliterate everything alive within the compound and destroy all weapons. They were to kill the rebel guerilla leader and take his picture as proof he was dead. He didn’t know who’d done it, but the insurgents had known they were coming. They were all over the outside of the compound and practically lining the path that led to it. He had gone crazy killing every bastard who came near him until he was out of ammo.

He’d been hit in one leg but stood leaning up against a clump of bamboo, when the clouds shifted. The moon lit up a shiny sweaty black face standing on the path with a gun site up to its eye. Jesse instantly reacted by throwing his Bowie knife, imbedding it directly in the guerilla’s right eye ball at the same time as a shot shattered his un-hit leg. He slumped to the ground. Now he’d been hit in both legs and the last one had hit bone.

The bone was sticking out through his skin and he was struggling to stay conscious. He pressed the button on his radio to try and reach Rocco or Blaise again. He whispered, “Midnight One, Midnight Three this is Midnight Two, over.” No answer. He’d been trying every three minutes for the last fifteen minutes and nothing. Afraid they might be being monitored, he gave up trying to contact help. Blaise was supposed to be monitoring the radio at the base camp they’d set up eight miles from the insurgent’s compound but the radio was silent.

Jesse was wavering on the edge of consciousness so he gritted his teeth, moved himself deeper into the bamboo and started covering himself with dead leaves and debris from the jungle floor. He covered his head with netting, and then pulled his emergency kit out and swallowed a morphine tablet. A glance at his watch told him it was 3:00 a.m. He would just sit here covered for a while until he could reconnoiter the place in daylight.

He cursed himself for not listening to his instincts when he’d first met Blaise. Old Grandfather would be disappointed in him. He always told him that it was a good warrior who chose his battles wisely and put off a fight until the proper time. The project had started to go wrong from the beginning. Even after Jesse knew that joining Blaise had been a bad move he’d felt such a need to go off to war that he’d not listened to his heart. Now he had to figure out how to fix the predicament that he’d gotten himself into way over in the Dark Content among enemy territory.

He’d seen the advertisement in Soldier of Fortune Magazine that said,

-- EX-MILITARY --
67-69 Nam vets. Ex-DI, weapons specialist-jungle
warfare, pilots, M.E., high risk assignments, U.S. or
overseas. Men of action willing to go anywhere and do anything.

He’d called the drop number and was put in touch with a Frenchman named Blaise who was preparing for a mission he’d taken on in Africa. The pay was outrageously good and Jesse thought that this might be the life for him as a warrior with no place in the white man’s society. Jesse was hired as Blaise’s liaison with the men. It held the same responsibilities as a Sergeant.

The planning had been one fuck up after another as Blaise struggled to organize the mission they were hired to carry out. They were supposed to hit the compound where the main insurgents who were rebelling against the regime that had recently taken over in a Coup d'état, were hunkered in. This particular compound was where Lenka, the leader of the guerillas was known to be. He was actually the cousin of Colonel Dingane, the right hand man of General Baruti, the military leader who had taken over in the coup, and it was an embarrassment that Dingane’s cousin Lenka was thwarting General Baruti’s every move and plan. Lenka was becoming more than a threat to Dingane’s job; he was becoming a threat to his life. He knew that General Baruti loved to torture his enemies before the kill and if he didn’t do something about his cousin sooner rather than later, he would die a terrible death.

Dingane’s answer was to hire professional soldiers to remove the threat. His men were mostly a rag tag bunch of local losers playing soldier. Some had only recently walked into civilization out of the jungle. They were too incompetent and unskilled to carry out the mission. He made a call to a secret connection he had from the old government, who owed him his life and the life of his family. The man gave him the name of someone who could help a situation such as this for the right price. He had finally hooked up with Blaise, a French Mercenary who had formerly worked for the famous Leroux. Leroux was known to be the cream of the crop of mercenaries. Blaise had done a couple of jobs under Leroux but had a falling out with him. Convinced he was too good to work for someone else, he was now freelancing on his own.

Blaise had a grating personality that annoyed and caused everyone to buck him at every turn. To add insult to his personality, he had a slight lisp that got worse when he was agitated. He began to give all of the chores that required speaking to a vendor over to Jesse as he was having problems procuring even the smallest supplies required, let alone the fire power they needed. Then, as soon as they landed in Africa, the military was swarming the plane and pretending to scrutinize the paperwork for the flight. They pushed them all around, trying the patience of the men until Jesse had to intervene to keep the situation from boiling over. He managed to get one of them to take Blaise to Colonel Dingane so he could handle the pay off. Dingane, having lived his entire life in the world of graft, suddenly decided he wanted more than Blaise had been told it would be. After a half hour of arguing that he didn’t have any more money, Blaise finally paid the extra.

Meanwhile, the men had been left waiting while the soldiers treated them like the intruders that they were. The only words in English the soldiers seemed to be able to speak were fuck you and no. They were also illiterate. The soldiers pretended to be able to read; Jesse’s forged passport was held upside down by a soldier with no rank markings on his camouflage uniform. The man’s eyes were hidden by dark glasses, but his head kept looking up, and then back down at the Portuguese passport under the name of Carlos Tiago. Instead of handing it back to Jesse, he slipped it into one of his many cargo pockets. Jesse looked at him, smiled and shrugged. The men had plenty of passports stashed in safe places around the world, French, Belgian, German, you name it. These were throwaway passports; professional forgeries able to pass scrutiny in most countries, but when they exited this country after completing their mission they wouldn’t be worried about collecting them back. Their plan was to storm the airplane as it touched down on the tarmac at the airport and took off five days from now.

When they took a van, provided to them by Dingane, to the Quonset hut warehouse where the weapons were supposed to be waiting, there was nothing there except for two more of the camo-clad sunglass wearing soldiers leaning against the outside tin wall smoking stinky cigarettes. Jesse and Blaise walked past them and peered inside. It was empty.
Jesse turned to look at Blaise’s confounded look in disgust. He was losing what little respect he had ever had for the fool. “Jesus Christ, Blaise, first the fiasco at the airport and now this. I don’t see any fucking weapons. When are you gonna handle something right? How we gonna pull this off with nothin more’n our cocks in our hands?”

Blaise stared at Jesse with eyes narrowed to slits. He knew he wasn’t handling things well and it was making him defensive. This was his first solo operation and he was botching it. He was furious and his pasty white French face was grimaced with hate. This fucking Indian thinks he’s a fucking superior warrior and his shit don’t stink. He needs to respect his leader more. He spit out, “Don’t you worry about it you blanket ass Indian.”

Jesse slowly folded his arms and stared at him without moving.

“Yeth,’ Blaise began to lisp like Elmer Fudd, spitting out his words at high speed. “I know you’re no Porthugeeth. Duthin’t matter to me, though, a God Damn Porthugeeth is just as greathy ath a God Damned Indian. Get your wagon burning ath over there and get theeth guyth briefthed and go over the map. I’ll take care of thith”

Jesse’s smile never broke. He continued to stand there silently with arms folded over his chest, as still as death. Blaise turned and tripped in his haste to walk into the Quonset hut.

Come to find out, the weapons were being held pending the proper inducement to be handed over. When they finally got them, they were so old that some were dated back to WWII. The men grumbled their asses off as they uncrated the weapons that were supposed to aid them in completing their mission and get them out of the country alive.

“Sergeant Tiago,” said Rocco, an Italian Upstate New Yorker who’d been in the business since he first separated from the Marines after Viet Nam. “These Night Vision Goggles are First Generation. They only work in moonlight. How’re these gonna do us any good when we’re planning to go in under cloud cover?”

Jesse liked Rocco and felt comfortable with him as a fellow warrior. He’d argued with Blaise over him until Blaise conceded to appoint Rocco third in command. “They won’t, Rocco, but if we’ve got the room we’ll take em anyway. We’re gonna have to go in the dark. I’m sure you’ve all done it before. Use your ears and your nose. You stare in the dark long enough your eyes will adjust.”

“Rocco stared at Jesse. “Yeah, well if you say so, Sarge. If you say so.”

Jesse suddenly became conscious, realizing that he’d been out cold for longer than he'd planned. It was now full daylight and he could hear someone walking on the path. Without making a move, he looked through the heavy bamboo. He saw a slender white woman in an old fashioned house dress leaning over the man who had shot him. She reached over his side where he lay on his stomach and turned him over, then recoiled and sucked in her breath as she saw the knife protruding from his eye. She turned her head sideways as if she heard something and he got a full view of her face.

Why is Kerrie here in Africa?
_____________________________

Peace to you all whatever you may choose,
Nancy Frye-Swope, The Retired Biker Housewife

Nancy Frye-Swope 2010 © All Rights Reserved

Read more excerpts from Ride the Warrior's Fury, a biker fiction novel about The Devil's Deacons MC at

Reposted from [link="http://www.retiredbikerhousewife.com"][/link]

Gunnery Sergeant John A. Goodall walked down the sidewalk on air. He grinned at a skinny guy who kept his eyes down and nearly fell off the curb trying to give him as much leeway as possible. People tended to give a man all the room he needed when he carried 300 plus pounds and his crew cut boulder of a skull, crisscrossed with scars, sat square on his neck. He had separated from the Marines after 20 and thought he’d go lift a few to celebrate his new civilian life.

He entered the Brigand Tavern in Oceanside, California. Brigand’s fried onion, beer and sawdust odor made his nose flare in delight and he stood still for a long ten seconds. His eyes swiveled back and forth in their sockets and found an empty room, save the bartender and a cocktail waitress. He told the bar tender he wanted a cold one as he went to a table. The cocktail waitress brought it to him and then rushed back behind the bar. As he reached for his cold beer, his upper arms strained against his rolled up shirt sleeves. He ignored the handle and grasped the beer by the mug, his hand dwarfing it, took a long pull, and then set it back down, returning his hand flat on the table top.

A hard looking greaser guy came in. John’s adrenaline surged a bit as he sized the guy up. If John had to guess, he’d say the guy ran about 210, give or take, and stood six feet tall. The guy wore his hair greased up in a long duck’s ass, and dark glasses which he did not remove when he entered the darkened tavern, covered his eyes. Over his jacket was a denim vest that had motorcycle club colors on the back, his jeans were filthy and stiff looking and his engineer’s boots were run down at the heels.

Leather crackled as the greaser eased down into a chair at the table next to John, positioned on the other side of a doorway that led into a pool room. John kept him in his peripheral vision, alert for trouble. A burst of laughter from the back pool room made them both tense and the bar maid’s eyes kept darting to the doorway.

The rowdy pool players burst through the doorway and swarmed into the room. There were five of them and they had motorcycle club colors on their backs too, except theirs didn’t look the same as the greaser’s. They had grown bored with their game and were up for something new to arouse their interest. The biggest one of the bunch ran close to six feet, 200 pounds and John decided he needed close watching.

The big guy slammed his hand on the bar and said, “God damn it, the beer bitch ain’t been back there. What’s a guy got to do to get another fucking beer in this dump?”

A little guy trailed the big one, attached to him like a rash. The other three were milling around, surveying the room. John decided those three didn’t amount to enough to worry about, so he tucked them back in his mind where they could be brought out and beat down if necessary. The smallest one looked like a little underhanded weasel and weasels liked to sucker punch or jump on your back when you were busy, so John kept him in mind more than the other two.

The greaser stiffened and sat up straight. John, already tensed for action, edged up even more, but he still kept his mouth shut and minded his own business.

The weasel darted his eyes around the room to see what it offered in the way of amusement. His eyes passed over John and wavered, but kept going. He passed over the greaser and did a double take, then locked eyes with him. He grinned ear to ear and elbowed the big one. “Clyde, look.”

Clyde, occupied with trying to get the beers he had demanded, ignored the weasel.

The weasel gripped Clyde on the arm this time and shook. “Clyde.”

Clyde shrugged the weasel’s grip off his arm, but this time the weasel wouldn’t give up. “Clyde,” he hissed and elbowed him a sharp one.

Clyde whirled around. “God damn you Whitey what the fuck you keep elbowing me for? I’m gonna kick your little ass.”

Whitey pointed to the greaser guy. “Uh, look Clyde, look.”

Clyde eased himself around and looked over where the greaser sat, and then he grinned. “I’ll be God damned if this ain’t our lucky day. Look what we got ourselves here.”

He paused and looked around the tavern, then talking to the room as if it were his audience, said, “A low life piece of shit Deacon - sittin down big as he pleases, breathin the same air as us.”

He grinned wider so all of his teeth showed, ear to ear now, and then looked into the greaser’s eyes. “You piece of shit Deacon. I’m feeling real nice today. And what that means is, I’m gonna let you leave here without bustin you all to pieces. All you gotta do is give me your colors so I can take em outside and piss on em - easy as pie, hand em over.”

“Fuck you, Clyde,” said the greaser quiet-like. “You ain’t gettin shit.”

Clyde scowled. “What’d you say? I could barely hear you, you douche bag.”

“I said fuck you Clyde. You got shit in yer ears?”

Clyde’s grin went away. “You a pretty big talkin piece of shit Deacon for bein all by your lonesome.”

“Like I said before, Clyde, fuck you – you ain’t gettin shit.”

Clyde moved away from the bar and started toward the table where the greaser sat. “We’re all gonna fuck you up now Deacon Boy.”

The greaser shoved back his table, knocking over chairs and John saw him suck in his breath. He stood with his legs outspread for balance and let loose an earsplitting holler of, “Semper Fi you motherfuckers. Come and get it. I love to crack heads.”

At the Semper Fi cry, John’s Marine nature kicked in and he jumped up to help a fellow warrior kick ass. “OOH-RAH,” bellowed John as he kicked over his own table and shoved it aside. The advancing bikers were too single-minded with their plan to strip the greaser of his colors, so they didn’t pay enough attention to his newfound Marine buddy.

Clyde started toward the greaser and the others spread like a pack of wolves to surround him as they came across the room from the bar. Whitey broke to the greaser’s left flank to get around behind his back and Clyde went head-on to meet him.

None of them were paying enough attention to John, figuring nobody would be stupid enough to get involved, so he stepped up to way-lay the three who had cut to their left, trying to outflank the greaser’s right side.

With his left arm stretched out rigid and muscles popping, Gunny Goodall stepped left and clothes-lined all three at their necks. One fell back on his butt, choking, but the other two grabbed hold of his arm as if to move it out of their way, to find they couldn’t budge the stiff arm of the large retired Gunny John Goodall.

John put his boots to the guy on the floor without even looking down and using his outstretched arm, swung the two bikers around and down to their knees over his overturned table, which forced their foreheads into the wall. They slumped over the table, knees on the floor and none of them moved.

He looked over at the one he’d booted and thought he might still be moving. For good measure, he picked him up by his jacket front and punched him in the side of the head. This all took less than one minute and when he turned to help out the greaser, Clyde and Whitey were on their backs.

John looked over at the greaser. “That was almost as fun as bustin the heads of a crew of swabbies in a Hong Kong whore house. Too bad it didn’t last longer; I only just got warmed up.”

The greaser grinned and put his hand out to John. “Jim Cornwall, call me Cracker. I owe ya one, buddy.” His knuckles were cut and bleeding where he had knocked Clyde and Whitey in the mouth. He shook his fist back and forth. “It would’ve taken me a bit longer to bust all five o their heads alone – not sure my knuckles would’ve held up, though.”

“Retired Gunny John A. Goodall here and feelin fine.”

Before Cracker could say anything, the cocktail waitress ran over and said, “Jesus Christ, Rick called the cops. He said to tell you to get out of here before they get here.”

Cracker looked at John and then smiled at the waitress. “Don’t have to tell me twice sweet cheeks, we’re out o here. Hey Gunny, let’s go have a drink of somethin better’n the beer I never got here. We’ll go on out to my home away from home.”

“Hell yeah, I’m up for that,” said John.

Cracker walked out of the tavern and John followed him to where his bike had been backed in next to the curb.



Peace to you all whatever you may choose.



Nancy Frye-Swope

The Retired Biker Housewife



Nancy Frye-Swope 2010 © All Rights Reserved

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