Page 69 of Fire for Effect

I cased the Prodigal Sons compound and waited until Trout left. Then, I simply followed him as he went to his home. I had to do a few passes, to make sure that he didn’t see us coming, but this had the markings of a pretty easy get.

Oh, how wrong I was…

I had parked at the side of the road and put some extra magazines in my pockets. Griff walked up with his M4, so I knew he’d be game.

I didn’t talk – I was still mad from that morning! And I wasn’t ready to forgive him.

But my silent treatment ended the moment the first explosion went off, and we both fell to the ground.

“What the fuck?” I yelled over the boom.

“You wanna fill me in, here, baby?” he growled at me.

“It’s… a bail thing!” I lied.

Mike Trout’s junk-riddled yard was apparently a cheap, and effective, disguise for an extreme number of booby traps. The ping of bullets hit the rusted, tin barrel I ducked behind.

Like a real Navy SEAL, Trout’s property was more than prepared for a small invasion - which was generally a strong indicator of wrongdoing.

“Did you have a plan for this one, Psycho?” Griff yelled as debris fluttered down around us. “Or were you just gonna roll up and ring his fucking doorbell?”

I laughed, “I mean… that usually works.”

“Well, it’s not fucking working now, is it?'' The frustrated edge in his voice was tickling my inner sadist, as he rolled behind the cover of an old, rusted car that passed as lawn ornaments in this part of Mourningkill. Not all trailers, or modular homes were trash. But Mike Trout’s home of record would have made the green monster that lived in the trash can on Sesame Street feel right at home.

A snake slithered out of a trash bag full of empty beer cans.

The guy liked to party.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” I asked.

“I dunno, maybe it died a couple claymores ago?” Griff held the M4 assault rifle in his hands, and peered over the hood of the car towards the house to see if it was clear.

Two shots pinged onto the rusted metal trailer house, and he ducked back down again.

“You wanna talk me through who the fuck your bail guy is?” he asked.

“Do I want to? No, not right now,” I admitted.

“Okay… smart ass, can you tell me about the target before you and I get dead?” His growing frustration amused me. It shouldn’t, given the circumstances, but when things between me and Griff were good, life was great. When we were peers, shoulder to shoulder.

It was like the old days, when we were deployed.

“He’s DEVGRU,” I said, as shots pinged overhead, and a tree branch from an overgrown willow fell to the ground. “Though, you wouldn’t know it from how shitty his aim is!”

I pushed up and rolled behind a tree, hoping it gave more cover than the barrel I was behind. I couldn’t quite figure out if getting behind a rusted tractor, or staying behind a thick cluster of cedars would be safer. It was kinda half a dozen in one hand, six in the other type of deal. A real conundrum.

When a small barrage of a semi-automatic assault rifle cut into the splintering wood, I low-crawled over to the tractor, putting my back to it and grinned.

“Jesus, you're smiling. What the fuck does that even mean?” Griff rubbed at his thigh, to the bullet he’d caught for me before Christmas. “You’re just winging it, aren’t you?”

“I have a plan!” The plan was to wing it.

“Care to share it with the rest of the class, sweetheart?”

I shrugged. “The plan was to go in guns blazing, catch the bad guy, and put him in the trunk.”

He sputtered, shaking his head. “Oh yeah, and how’s that fucking going?”

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