Awards

Last at Bat

Fat Girl

Last at Bat

Fat Girl

Answer Man

Golden Reich

Stats

Answer Man

Golden Reich

Stats

Answer Man

Golden Reich

Stats

Excerpt from Golden Reich

“He didn’t know how to speak properly, how to walk properly, how to comb his hair, and she felt embarrassed for him as he shouted about restoring jobs and national honor, about a better and splendid Germany. The mob applauded, shouted. Did people really believe that he wanted what was best for Germany?” –Ursula Hegl, Children and fire

PROLOGUE

Scottsdale, Arizona Public Library- 2015

BEN SMITH AND HIS DAUGHTER, Samantha, known as Sam to family and friends, were giving a presentation at the Scottsdale Public Library on local Indian culture. “You don’t have to have Indian blood in your veins to realize the connection between the Earth, the sky, and the things we feel or sense as human beings. It’s just that my Navajo ancestors cultivated those feelings more than the white man did. You know what they say, ‘use it or lose it.’” Ben said.

An audience of about fifty local attendees literally leaned forward in their seats, and hung on Ben’s words. While her father spoke, Sam operated a computer generated overhead projector that showed images of the Indian culture of which Ben spoke.

Off to one side of the large well-lit room, a plainly dressed woman in her eighties hugged a tattered leather binder against her chest, while she sat quietly and listened. She also watched as Ben and Sam smiled patiently as they spent nearly an hour responding to a myriad of questions from the rapt audience that their presentation had elicited.

After the last question had been answered, and the audience gone, the father/daughter team gathered up their presentation materials and did not at first see the old woman who approached cautiously.

“Mr. Smith?”

“Yes ma’am, please call me Ben. You have a question?”

The old woman hesitated. “Well, I read about you and your daughter and how you study the history around these parts, and wanted to talk to you about something my husband left me.”

As she spoke, Sam noticed the old woman wore a faded, blue cotton dress, with a worn leather belt that was cinched tightly around her thin mid-section. The woman’s gray hair was pulled up in a bun, and her tanned leathery hands tightly gripped the binder that contained faded yellowed papers, that stuck out haphazardly from its edges.

“I guess Sam and I could be called local amateur historians. What did your husband leave you that you wanted to chat about?”

At first it appeared the old woman was going to walk away. Sensing her discomfort, Sam approached her. “Hello ma’am, my name is Samantha Smith, but you can call me Sam. If you’d like to sit down, my dad and I would be happy to answer any questions you have.”

The old woman appeared relieved, smiled warmly at Sam, pulled out a chair, and sat down at a large circular oak table. Sam and Ben sat on either side of her. In a clear strong voice the old woman said, “My husband, who disappeared almost twenty-five years ago, left me this here book. It’s kind of a diary, I guess. I can’t prove everything he wrote in this book is true, but I know one thing, he weren’t no liar, and he weren’t one to make up no tales neither. I think maybe you two might want to take a look at it. At my age, I could drop over tomorrow, and no one would ever see this, and try to figure out what it all means.”

The elderly woman slid the binder to her right toward Sam who gently accepted what was clearly very old and precious, at least to the gray haired octogenarian who sat next to her. The binder was worn and browned with age like the old woman’s hands. The papers that stuck out were ragged and some torn at the edges. The binder smelled old.

Carefully, Sam opened the binder and began reading, while Ben and the old woman chatted. As she slowly turned the pages, Sam’s eyes narrowed in concentration, the space above her nose furrowed and her cheeks flushed.

After several minutes she turned to Ben and said, “Oh my God, daddy, you’ve got to see this. We were right!” Ben rose from his chair and made his way to the seat on Sam’s right. Sam moved the binder in front of Ben and said, “Look at the dates.”

As Ben gently turned the pages, he too became immersed in what he was reading. For the next hour Ben and Sam poured over the old binder, entranced by the tale that unfolded in front of them.

Finally, Sam and Ben looked back at the old woman ready to ask a thousand questions. Maybe a million.

She was gone.

Excerpt from Stat$

Chapter 1

Iraq Desert–April 2009

THE BLACKHAWK MH-X HOVERED virtually unheard two hundred feet above, and one mile south of its objective. Green images seen through night vision goggles by its Navy pilots, made the objective appear like a glowing Christmas tree in the drab desert terrain.

In the back of the Blackhawk, a heavily armed combined squad of Navy Special Ops and SEAL Team 3 members sat placidly while they inhaled Jet A fuel fumes that mixed with the intoxicating aroma of spent gun powder. The unmistakable redolence of human sweat also wafted through the back of the chopper. The pungent, nervous kind.

All eight stared straight ahead, and awaited word from the pilots to initiate their well-rehearsed and meticulously planned operation. As the chopper hummed through the pre-dawn darkness, there were no thoughts of home or family in the minds of the squad. All thoughts were on the mission. Any other thoughts would be a dereliction of duty and duty mattered.

The yellow-pink glow in the eastern sky foretold of sunrise only minutes away. If weeks of reconnaissance proved accurate and schedules kept, the captives within the objective would be taken outside by their six guards just after dawn to use the crude bathroom facilities dug into the dirt. The two men would then be doused with cold well water from wooden buckets that would serve as their weekly shower.

Near the back of the chopper, one of the SEALs chewed several pieces of Juicy Fruit gum, the man next to him moved his leg up and down like a piston, a third had a tight grin on his face in anticipation of what was to come.

The goal for the team was straight forward; rescue the two American Congressmen who had survived an IED attack on their convoy before those same legislators were publicly executed by their relatively unknown, but particularly vicious, Islamic captors.

The Congressmen had been on a fact-finding mission in Iraq to determine the “truth” about America’s continued involvement in the never ending war and a requested increase in financial resources to further the effort. Among the many truths they discovered was that Iraq was a very dangerous place to be. The men had been taken hostage weeks earlier and held for ransom by a splinter group formed by a dangerous melding of Syrian, Iraqi and Afghani forces. By policy, America would not pay a ransom.

Undeterred, the group had eagerly, and with surprising production quality rivaling a professionally produced McDonald’s TV commercial, posted videos of the capture of the two Congressmen, and promised they would be placed in metal cages, have gasoline poured on them, and then lit to be burned alive in HD living color for all the world to see.

The sight and sound of the infidels being consumed in flames would serve as important propaganda fodder for the group in their world-wide recruiting efforts. The event would also serve notice to other American forces, politicians, and journalists as to what their fate would be if captured by the radicals. The online video event was scheduled to be broadcast within the next 24 hours.

Seven minutes after sunrise, a grainy satellite image of the two captured Americans and six guards in the Islamic compound appeared on the computer screen on the Blackhawk’s control panel. The chopper crew removed their night vision goggles and now relied on what they could see in real time on their screens and out their windows.

The two naked Congressmen had their hands and ankles tied with nylon bands as they shuffled through the dirt to the toilet holes under the control of six armed guards. They were twenty yards outside a group of block buildings that served as a holding location.

“We have a visual.” The pilot said. “We’re moving in. Descending to thirty feet. A.O., you hang back in case things go to shit.”

“Roger that.” A.O. replied.

As the chopper descended, the rest of the team prepared to exit using braided ropes that were tossed out the sliding doors of the Blackhawk. “Go.” The pilot said.

Within eight seconds the team of seven had exited the chopper and sprinted toward the largest of the buildings that was enclosed behind a ten foot high chain link fence topped with razor wire. The plan called for the good guys to surround the perimeter of the buildings in groups of three and four and use wire cutters to silently gain access to the complex.

Once inside they would surprise and then eliminate the Islamic guards as they ate their breakfast. After the guards were neutralized, the good guys would find and extricate the Congressmen, board the chopper, and return to base before 7 AM. It was a simple and logical plan prepared by the best military minds on the planet.

The plan went to sh*t…

Awards

Last at Bat

Fat Girl

Last at Bat

Fat Girl

Answer Man

Golden Reich

Stats

Answer Man

Golden Reich

Stats

Answer Man

Golden Reich

Stats

Excerpt from Last at Bat

Excerpt from Fat Girl

Excerpt from Answer Man

Excerpt from Golden Reich

Excerpt from Stat$