Not for the first time, he wondered if he was destined to become just another aimless, wounded war “hero” in an era when wars and heroes were no longer in fashion. "What’s dat stuff on your face? What is it?" Mark Cahill tried to pretend he was still asleep but the high-pitched young voice was penetrating and persistent. He had already endured two rough connecting flights and even rougher landings. Now this, and it wasn’t...

Natasha and Damon meet and fall in love. Natasha sat at her desk listening to "All I Want to Do Is Make Love to You" by Heart on her iPod. The phone interrupted her reverie, but she did not mind. Cricket, Cal, Stefan and Monica were at an offsite meeting going over her performance under their tutelage. She had been doing well in every subject except assassination. She hated killing people; it ran against her moral upbring...

Cricket and Monica met when Roger and Monica returned to her hospital room. They moved away from Roger to speak privately. Cricket asked, “Has anything happened with my persecutors. I am anxious to get them taken down and put away. They have ruined so many innocent lives with this vendetta against me.” “Not yet, they are still looking for evidence. It is very hard to find anything from outside the company.” Monica replied...

At 1:00 am, Eric warned the group that the van and SUV turned down the road leading to the estate. The van drove up to the estate and blocked the driveway. The team got out and gathered at the rear of the van. Leo got out of the SUV entered the van and distributed the arms and ammunition to the team. Each member got a pistol and a compact machine gun. Some members got hand grenades while others got charges of C-4 with 15-...

Emily and Leo sat with the team, eating a small meal while preparing to leave and go to Cal’s estate. They realized that the loss of two team members hurt, but not as much as expected. The two, Felicity and Christoph were the youngest members of the team and the least experienced. The reason they made the team, was due to their being ruthless and heartless, when it came to taking a life. When Leo and Emily trained at the...

Eric and Erin sat in front of their laptops watching through the windows of the room overlooking the newly rented storefront. They watched and waited for signs of movement inside. The cameras they placed earlier functioned perfectly. They watched the occupants on their laptops and listened to the conversations. About 3:30 that morning, six more people arrived in a large black van at the back door. They brought more equipm...

Breakfast was a noisy affair today, with all the information passed out the night before. A lot of the banter was premature, because Cricket, Eric and Erin knew more than everyone else. Cricket got her information from Roger her ghost lover, Eric and Erin got theirs from the data collected from video, audio and searches of company data. Things happened a lot faster now, but it still confused everyone. Gus and Hans offered...

Here it was 3:30 in the morning two days later and Cricket lay in bed wide awake. Her mind filled with random thoughts of Emily. Was she the one who led the assault on her? Was she out there waiting to attack again? Why was she pushing this agenda? One thought after another cascaded through her brain. She sat up, looked around the room, as she felt the presence of someone else. Ever since the night Roger revealed his spec...

Everyone sat at the conference table in Cricket’s private conference room. The group had grown back to its six members, Cricket, Cal, Stefan, Natalia, Natasha and Damon. Monica and Roger were hanging around hovering nearby. Not much happened since the rescue of Natasha in San Antonio. All the perpetrators who attacked Cal’s estate had disappeared without a trace in the limestone lake with the exception of Natalia. This me...

Things were quiet for the past few weeks. Life for the group returned to normal. Cricket, Cal and Stefan ran the company well and profits were up by 30% for the quarter. Natasha, Natalia and Damon got along in their studies and mixed well together. It was almost boring. One unplanned thing hovered there. Love was in the air. The following is how it began. Natasha sat at her desk listening to “All I Want to Do Is Make Love...

Monica followed the group of four men toward the house. They were clumsy and not very hidden. She sensed something was wrong, but not knowing much about tactics for storming a building, it seemed normal. She left them when they turned toward the house. When she turned to go, another shimmer caught her eye. What was that? She thought. Whatever it was came at her and stopped. It was another specter. She recognized it as som...

The captured team was bound and placed in individual rooms. They yelled for lawyers and their rights. They failed to realize they had no rights. They broke into this house and the group captured them without firing a shot. Now Stefan took over with the interrogations. He was angry about Monica, but he treated the prisoners well. The first prisoner was a petty thief from the local area. This got Stefan thinking, are all th...

The group dispatched for the camera and control retrieval was no ordinary paramilitary force. Instead, it consisted of highly trained thugs and thieves. They belonged to a company called 'Hooligans Ltd.' This company provided surveillance, protection, kidnapping, murder and mayhem for hire. The client paying for the services had very deep pockets and could afford anything that it needed. Right now things struck a bump in...

Cricket, Cal, Stefan, Damon and Natasha stood in horrified shock as they witnessed Mr. Wagner’s rented car explode with him in it. He had left them less than a minute before. The car was a ball of flames. Debris rained down on the lawn of the estate. Cal reached for his cell phone and dialed 911. He reported the explosion and fire to the dispatcher who told him to stay away and wait for the police and fire department to a...

As Cal sat with Cricket and listened to her story about the tragedy, Stefan half listened. His mind and body overcome with grief and the feeling of a great loss. His one true love was gone, ripped from his heart, mind and soul. Why did this happen? Who could be this cruel? He knew he had to find the killer or killers and confront them. He was a trained killer himself. He killed people, supposedly bad people for a living;...