The Lonely Hearts 06 The Grunt 2 Read Free

wanted nothing more than to prove to his wife that he would always be the man for her and he wanted to prove to her family that she had chosen someone worthy of her, especially since he had such bad blood with his late wife’s family.  Lord in heaven knew that he was glad to be moderately rid of them and all their racist right-wing rhetoric.  But the Lawless family was something different.  He really cared to be accepted by them.  After all, they were all the family he had left.  For him, such a large task started with the simplest step – doing his job. And he was good at that. In fact, he prided himself on it.  He was a lifer in the Marine Corps, destined to retire after 25 years and spend his days tinkering on his truck and making love to his wife. 
    “Good evening, Marines,” Brett said, scanning the room to make sure everyone was present.  His authoritative, scratchy baritone echoed and boomed, waking up nodding men who slouched over in their seats, from a long day in the exhausting heat.
    In that exhilarating moment, he transformed from father and husband Brett Black to Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Brett Black.  They were two very distinct personas of the same man.  One was designed to love and protect his family.  The other designed to be the swift and accurate arm of the military. 
    “Good evening, Staff Sergeant,” the men answered nearly in unison.  Everyone snapped to immediate attention. Heads shot up. Backs went erect.  All eyes faced forward.
    Something that never changed - not in 244 years, not in a million men, not on seven continents - was the sounding off of well-bred, elite, human killing machines.  It was the first thing that was taught in boot camp, one of the main things that Marines carried with them to military occupational specialty or MOS school, and it was the thing that bonded them during grueling trainings – cadence .  He loved the sound - could never get enough of it.  It motivated him, mobilized him, and reminded him yet again, why he loved the Marine Corps.
    Sergeant Morales, aka Rusty, a 23-year-old baby faced Latino in charge of all things technical, turned on the PowerPoint presentation on cue as the men picked up and opened their dossiers to follow along with the mission briefing.
    A satellite photo popped up on the projector screen of a white stone house in the Helmand River Valley.   As Rusty zoomed in on the house sitting along the waterway, near a mix of patchy grass, rocks and sand, Brett rubbed his temples and cleared his throat.  He could feel a headache coming on.  They had become more frequent lately and lasted longer and longer, but for the moment, he had to ignore it. 
    His rasping voice carried across the room without effort.  “At 0-8 hundred hours, we received orders to raid this location exactly 250 miles due North from our base.  Intel has indicated that this location is of key importance to our boys who are taking the fight a little closer to the locals than we have to.”  He paused to give Rusty time to move to a ground view of the house.    “As you can see, the home appears a little more modern than homes in this region, so you can’t miss it .  It was built with the sole purpose of housing computer servers that feed intelligence and funds to local and regional cells of the Jihadist.” His eyes widened slightly, mostly due to dull pain starting in his left temple.  “We believe this house holds over 20 computers, stores, bank account numbers, files on real property in the area, contacts within the Afghanistan government who are providing protection and aide to cells both in this region and throughout the country, locations of munitions and other very important counterintelligence.  Our goal is to acquire that information tonight at 2200 hours.  This is a last minute operation, but we have painstakingly prepared the most optimal strategy we can in the short period of time given.”
    Captain Lawless finally stepped out of the