Chapter 31

31

The two helicopters were slick six-seater luxury Sikorskis and it was 8:45 p.m. when they landed at something called the Robertson Airport in somewhere called Plainville, Connecticut.

"Beach house, here I come," Shaw mumbled as the wheels touched down.

He'd been at the Manhattan heliport, about to be flown home to Long Island, when the office had told him his night wasn't over yet. They were going to do an actual full-spectrum FBI circus con job up in Connecticut and guess who was to be the ringmaster.

He couldn't believe his luck. The bigger the hit, the higher the price tag. And it looked like the hits were going to keep on coming tonight.

And it was a circus all right. A three-ring one. Even though there were only two other mercs in Shaw's helicopter, you could hardly move it was so packed with all the gear.

The three of them plus the two in the other craft added up to five and they were all already draped in their FBI Hostage Rescue Team tactical regalia.

He lovingly patted at the famous patch on his khaki plate vest.

Nothing like the old G-man hero cover to snow any of the little people who took a questioning little peek at what was going on.

"Just like old times, boys, huh?" Shaw said, smiling like a movie star at the two men across from him.

If the two short pitted-faced Middle Eastern men smiling back at him looked like they could have been brothers, it was because they were.

Their names were Azar and Shahu and though Shaw wasn't the actual goat herding father of the two young Afghanis, they were his boys nonetheless.

He had raised them himself back in the shit of Afghanistan. Took them out of the translator section and put them through the paces of the sweep and clear program he ran.

That they were brothers was key. He could see that they already worked as a team. Soon they were working as his team.

On the in-theater off-the-books jobs that enlisted Americans might not have the stomach for, he needed some good local yokels, and Azar and Shahu had fit that bill and then some. They'd been like his right and left hands.

How many night raids had the three of them been on? Helicopter in like midnight angels of death, blow a door, throw all the military-aged men out into the dirt yard and start popping everyone before anyone knew what hit them.

Night after night after night, they would employ the most relentlessly vicious and brutal tactics possible then get the hell out of there.

Once it got started, anyone likely near a target's cell phone took a dirt nap. As in anyone and everyone. Gender, age or anything else need not apply. The brass up top had said send a message, and so Shaw had followed orders. In village after village, he and his men had sent a nightly news flash that no one would ever forget.

When that war had come to an unfortunate close, of course Shaw had brought the two brothers back with him. He was smart enough to know not to leave that kind of finely honed talent behind. It was he himself who had gotten them their jobs at Vance Holdings, the private merc firm.

His boss Vance had thought they were too green still. But Vance didn't know his ass from his elbow. Shaw had put his foot down that they be brought aboard. He had insisted.

So it was a no-brainer that Shaw include them here on this clambake.

He glanced over at his two little hunting dogs, Azar and Shahu, in the chopper light's yellow-greenish glow.

"You ready to kick some ass, boys?" he said.

"Sir, yes, sir," they replied in unison.

Good dogs , he thought.

Oh, yeah , Shaw thought.

The old tingly feeling was coming back.

This is going to be fun.