Facing the Storm (Brice Bannon Seacoast Adventure Book 1) Read online

  He was one year into a three-year tour of duty when he met Douglason and Sadler. He and his team were assigned to provide security support for the Coast Guard Redeployment Assistance and Inspection Detachment (RAID) personnel traveling overland with the 112th Transportation Battalion. They were vacating Iraq to return to Kuwait Naval Base, or as the U.S. forces called it, Camp Patriot.

  Douglason stepped away from the car and scrutinized Bannon as he approached.

  He wagged his finger at him as a smile touched his lips. It was starting to come back to him. Then he snapped his fingers. “The Coastie. Lieutenant, don’t tell me, I’ll get it. Bannon. Lieutenant Bannon. You got that funny first name—Byron, Bryson, Brice.” He grinned. “That’s it. Lieutenant Brice Bannon, United States Coast Guard. Hot damn.”

  “Commander now,” Bannon said.

  They shook hands.

  “Commander, huh? So you’re still in?”

  “Reserves. Pads the pension and keeps me out of trouble one weekend a month.”

  “Good for you,” Douglason said. “I thought about the reserves after I got out, but when the old lady heard how units could still get called to active duty she put the kibosh to that.”

  “Happy wife, happy life,” Bannon said.

  “Yeah, something like that.” Douglason put the tablet on the hood of the car and leaned back against the fender, folding his arms over his chest. “I don’t know if I ever told you, but when word came down from command we’d have a detail of Coasties with us on them runs out of Iraq, I’ll be honest, I figured we’d be babysitting your candy asses. But, you guys? That DAS force you ran—”

  “Direct Action Section.”

  “Yeah. That,” Douglason said. “Sweet lord, you guys knew what you were doing. I keep thinking about that time coming out of Kalsu. You guys were like the SEALS, Special Forces, and Airborne Rangers all rolled into one.”

  Bannon recalled the incident well.

  Their fifteen-truck convoy was ambushed by insurgents after they’d left Kalsu, the U.S. forward operating base in the Babylon Province. As they drove through a mountain pass, an IED exploded under the lead two-and-a-half ton truck. The force of the blast shattered the glass from the vehicle. The under carriage had been reinforced, but the driver was knocked unconscious.

  With the truck skewed at an angle, blocking the road, the convoy was pinned down by cross sniper fire from insurgents embedded in the foothills of the mountain pass. The lead vehicle was fired upon again, this time an RPG attack.

  Raining hellfire, as one soldier put it later.

  Douglason began to maneuver the convoy half off the paved road and around the disabled deuce and a half. Richie Sadler dismounted from one of the rear trucks and pulled both the injured driver and his passenger from the burning lead vehicle, still being pounded by small arms fire and mortar rounds.

  Bannon and his team had been flanking the trucks in Humvees. They returned small arms fire with the insurgents concealed in the mountainous topography.

  Bannon turned his Humvee-mounted .50-caliber machine gun over to a team member while he and Tara, and seven others, headed into the rolling hills on foot to deal with the insurgents.

  They’d used the machine gun cover fire and the berms and contours of the landscape to hopscotch their way toward the dug-in enemy positions. With the aid of an escort Apache helicopter, and Tara’s expert swordsmanship, Bannon’s unit managed to take out enough of the attack force—nine insurgents were left dead—the remainder abandoned their effort and retreated into the mountains.

  “’Specially that Middle Eastern gal of yours. The dark-skinned one,” Douglason said, bringing Bannon back to the present.

  “Tarakesh Sardana. She’s Egyptian, actually.”

  Tara was not and never had been Coast Guard. The best Bannon could describe her role in those days was as a civilian consultant. In truth, she was a freelance mercenary with a bitter hatred for al-Qaeda following the murder of her parents in the late nineties at the hands of Al-jamāʻah al-islāmīyah. Loosely translated the name meant the Islamic Group, a pro-Sunni terror organization operating in Egypt and Croatia at the time.

  “Yeah, that one,” Douglason said. “What a total badass she was. Anyhow, you guys saved our bacon that night, and a few others. Just wanted you to know. If I hadn’t said it before.”

  Bannon smiled. “As I recall, you did. With more whiskey than was necessary.”

  “Well, good,” Douglason said. “Needed to be said. Now, what’s left of that cynical, old NCO tells me this isn’t some random, how the hell you doing, chance encounter, is it?”

  “It’s not.” Bannon told him about Richie Sadler.

  “Damn.” Douglason wagged his head. “I liked that kid. Was rooting for him, you know.”

  “You guys keep in touch?”

  “Some. A little. Not much. We both rotated out about the same time. Richie, coming back,” Douglason looked at Bannon, “things never seemed to go his way. Over there, guys like us,” he slapped the back of his hand against Bannon’s chest, “could handle it. Bob and weave. Roll with the punches. Adjust. Not Richie. It was too much for him. Turned him inside out.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to him?”

  “Oh, shoot if I can recall. Nine months ago, a year.” Douglason rubbed a finger across his chin thinking. “Yeah, I’d say almost a year ago. He and I, we’re the only ones from the unit live here. One guy, Oscar Oaks, lives in Mass, or used to.” He shrugged. “I’ve lost touch.”

  “How was Richie the last time you saw him?”

  “Not good. Pretty down on his luck. We met over a couple of beers. Some Irish pub in Nashua, the Peddler’s something or other. Nice place.” He waved a hand, dismissing the comment. “That’s neither here nor there. Richie was low. Thought he’d had a chance to get back with his girl, um, Cindy I think her name was.”

  “Cindy McKinnon.”

  “Yeah, that was it. Wasn’t the first time that girl broke his heart. I spent the night sitting in the back of a grounded Blackhawk helicopter with him when she gave him the old heave-ho. We finished off a bottle of Old Crow Kentucky bourbon over it.” Douglason laughed. “The next day wasn’t good for me. For Sadler, I imagine, it was worse. Broken hearted and hungover.”

  They stood in silent reflection for a few minutes.

  “What was it you think got to Richie so bad? You guys get caught in anything really bad?”

  Douglason pressed his lips into a flat line as he thought. Slowly, he shook his head. “All of it was bad. The whole thing was a crap sandwich from start to finish. But honest, not really. We were transportation, didn’t see half of the really bad stuff, not like we were combat guys. What we went through with you Coasties—that was the worse it ever got for us. But all of it was bad for a guy like Richie.”

  “Like Richie. How do you mean?”

  “You know, the sensitive ones. Richie was a cool kid, I liked him, but prior to joining up, getting over there, the kid hadn’t experienced much. Naive, and good-natured, but not good soldier stock. You know what I’m saying? Kid took everything to heart, couldn’t shake it off.”

  “Let it eat at him,” Bannon said.

  “Yeah, get to him.”

  Some people could handle it and some people couldn’t. The funny thing was Bannon didn’t remember Richie that way. He’d handled himself under the gun. Bannon thought again about him dragging those two soldiers from their deuce-and-a-half, under fire.

  But, Douglason would know better. They’d served together for years. Bannon had only spent a couple of months in the sandbox with Richie. And there was no denying it. The Richie Sadler that came home wasn’t the same young man Bannon met in Kalsu. Something had spun him around. Bannon had seen that for himself.

  “Sad to say,” Douglason said, “the weight of it must have finally gotten to be too much.”

  “You’re probably right.” Bannon offered his hand and they shook. “Thanks for giving me the time, Sarge.”


  “Good to see ya again, Coastie.” He handed Bannon a city DPW business card. “You hear anything about arrangements or whatever, give me a holler.”

  “Count on it,” Bannon said and left.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BANNON LEFT DOWNTOWN Manchester with little idea what to do next. Wondering if there was anything he could do.

  If Richie had committed suicide as Tennant seemed to believe, that left Bannon with nothing more than grief and recriminations. Why hadn’t he kept in better touch with the young man? Why hadn’t he realize how bad off Richie was? Why didn’t he follow up with Richie after their last get together? He should have made sure Richie was doing better. If he had…

  Should of, would of, could of.

  The last time they’d seen each other had been in late September. Richie had paid him a surprise visit at the Keel Haul. It was still warm out. They’d taken a walk on the beach. They’d talked. The conversation had been good. They’d had dinner at Ron’s Landing. They reminisced and Richie’d even laughed a few times. Bannon had put him in a cab back to Nashua.

  But not before telling him, “Anything you need, Richie. I’m here for you. I’ve got your six.”

  Bannon never heard from him again. If he’d been in crisis, why hadn’t he called?

  Stopped at a red light, Bannon slammed the heel of his hand into the Ford’s steering wheel. “Damn it.”

  The light changed and Bannon hooked the right on Webster Street. As he pulled away from the intersection, he noticed a dark green sedan in his rearview mirror. It was non-descript, ordinary in every way, nothing to call attention to it.

  Except the government plates. They were what caught Bannon’s eye.

  As he drove, the car stayed behind him, at varying lengths—sometimes close, sometimes further back—until he jumped onto the interstate. Then it fell back. When he made the eastbound bend onto 101 East to head back to the sea coast, the government car fell further back, no doubt comfortable with knowing Bannon was heading home.

  He reached his highway cruising speed, set the cruise control, and made a call via his Bluetooth. When the phone was answered, he said, “Hey, beautiful, it’s your favorite ex-Coastie.”

  “I don’t have any favorite ex-Coasties,” Lieutenant Kayla Clarke said, her voice full of ice. “Real men don’t quit the Guard.”

  “Ouch.”

  “And they don’t keeping calling their one-time friends asking for favors.”

  That was not the case and they both knew it.

  Like Bannon, Kayla had been with the Deployable Operations Group before the program was decommissioned. She’d worked for him, been his primary Communications and Joint Terminal Attack Controller. One of the best in the business.

  After the DOG program was shut down, Bannon left the Coast Guard behind and Kayla took her current assignment with the Judge Advocate General. Assigned to the First Division, she was stationed out of Boston.

  “Speaking of favors,” he said, letting the statement hang.

  She groaned. “What is it this time?”

  “A license plate check. Easy-pease.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He gave it to her, ending with the fact it was a U.S. government plate.

  “What sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Brice?”

  “None. I swear. I’m out for a late afternoon drive when these two guys decided to follow me for no reason at all.”

  “Uh-huh, no reason.” She sighed. “I’ll call you back.”

  “Love you,” he said teasingly. Which was true, but not in a romantic sense. He had with her, like Tara, more of a brother and sister relationship. Comrades-in-arms and best friends.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said before hanging up. She sounded put upon. She wasn’t.

  It was part of the deal.

  And while it was true Bannon had retired from fulltime service, he hadn’t exactly left the Coast Guard behind. He remained in the Reserves. But when he’d tendered the resignation of his Coast Guard commission, he was approached by the Secretary of Homeland Security personally. The former Senator from Louisiana, Elizabeth Grayson, tried to recruit him to lead a small team of specially-trained, highly-skilled operatives for unique, sensitive, and often secret missions outside of the normal channels of either Homeland Security or the Department of Defense.

  “Black ops,” Bannon said.

  “Secret, but not black ops,” she said. “Rather a small, efficient, and qualified team able to respond and investigate specific, targeted threats to the homeland, threats that cannot be effectively handled by standard operating means.”

  “Sounds a lot like a black ops outfit to me,” Bannon said, wanting no part of it.

  “No, I’m talking about a single unit that’s small enough and nimble enough to get the job done,” she said. “Maybe actually make a real difference in this scary world of ours.”

  Secretary Grayson continued her pitch, laying out her plan, and after a lot of negotiating, including Bannon’s demand he be allowed to choose his own people without interference or influence, that any and all Homeland Security and DOD assets be made immediately available to him whenever necessary, and her firm assurance there’d be no middlemen, no bureaucracy to get in the way, a direct reporting line to her and no one else.

  She agreed and he accepted.

  Then, operating from a position of strength, Bannon pressed for one more demand.

  He would only do it if he and his team operated on an on-call, as-needed basis.

  He’d had enough of sitting around bases and on ships with nothing to do, waiting to be called into action. He’d spent too much down time playing cards and endlessly training, not for the purpose of staying sharp, which he believed in, but to fill up the monotonous hours between assignments when command had nothing better for them to do.

  “What did you have in mind?” Grayson asked.

  Thus the Keel Haul, a dream of his since he was a kid, became a reality. As was his private investigations business, part-time and only for those people he chose, people he believed truly needed his help. Government funded, of course.

  To his surprise, not only did the Grayson agree, she endorsed the idea wholeheartedly.

  The existence of Bannon’s little group of Homeland Security troubleshooters was known to only a few. Besides Liz Grayson in her role of Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Defense was on board, and the President of the United States.

  Kayla Clarke was one of those in the know, too. She often worked with them, usually behind the scenes and doing intel-gathering mostly, but she’d accompanied them in the field on more than one of their escapades, as she called them.

  Bannon pulled into the small gravel parking lot behind a row of storefronts along Ocean Boulevard facing Hampton Beach, of which the Keel Haul was one. He took his time putting the truck in park, pretending to gather up his things, waiting until he saw the government car slip smoothly into a parking space down the street.

  With it being March there were plenty of spaces closer to the beach and the few bars and restaurants open on Ocean Boulevard during the off season. But they parked several blocks away.

  The spot had an excellent line of sight to Bannon.

  He got out and re-arranged some things inside the diamond-plated tool chest in the bed of the truck. He didn’t need anything from the chest. He just wanted an opportunity to observe his observers.

  Two men, white, wearing dark sunglasses. He couldn’t tell much else, but they screamed government agents even more than their car did. Still, he racked his brain trying to figure out which of the alphabet-soup agencies’ attention he’d attracted, and why?

  He slammed the lid of the tool chest closed and strolled like he didn’t have a care in the world toward Ocean Boulevard rather than use the rear entrance to the bar. As he did, he wondered if whatever was brewing would boil up into one of Kayla’s so-called escapades.

  Yeah, probably.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  O
NCE BACK INSIDE the Keel Haul, a calming sense of normalcy washed over him.

  Surrounded by the familiar, it felt like home. Bannon grew up a military brat, moving from post to post, state to state, country to country. The concept of home was a furnished place with someone else’s furniture they stayed in for a while, never more than a couple of years, and never to return to again.

  That was one reason the Keel Haul was so important to him. Not only was it his, something he owned, along with the second floor apartment above it. But it represented stability. Something, some place, to come home to. To call home.

  He checked his watch, an Omega Seamaster dive watch. It was after seven and the bar was in full swing. For a Thursday night in March, in a seaside resort town, that meant eight people, including Tara, Floyd, and Bannon.

  From the jukebox, Eric Church sang about putting a drink in his hand. A young couple sat arm in arm at a back booth. They were nursing a couple of drinks and what was left of a basket of fries. Behind the bar, Tara was serving a group of three twenty-somethings in winter quality neoprene wetsuits, the top halves draped from their waists and wearing Hobie surfboard T-shirts. A couple of surfboards stood propped up in the corner.

  This time of year, water temperatures could be as low as thirty-eight degrees. Bannon shivered. As a Coast Guard surfman performing rescues he’d been in water that cold. He wouldn’t do it recreationally.

  “Everything okay?” Tara asked Bannon as he joined her behind the bar and twisted the cap off a bottle of Coors Light.

  “Yeah. No.” He accepted the offered beer. “I don’t know.”

  “You want talk about it?”

  He drank. “You remember an Army specialist named Richie Sadler? He was with the 112th Transportation Battalion. We escorted them out of Iraq during the drawdown.”

  She shrugged. “Name’s familiar. He’s why you raced out of here? He’s in trouble?”