The Mercenary: The Savage Seven. Katherine Garbera

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      Kirk didn’t care what their beef with the current government was. He did care that he got this job done and kept moving forward. After a while he realized that when he stood still the world didn’t make sense to him.

      “I’m lined up now,” Kirk said.

      “You are good to go,” Jack said.

      Kirk was not the only member of the team in-country. JP “Laz” Lazarus was downstairs in a car waiting for a quick escape. Laz and Kirk had done this same job many times and worked together like a well-oiled machine.

      “Laz?” Kirk asked.

      “I’m ready when you are.”

      Kirk took a breath and held it, letting out half of it he lightly squeezed the trigger as Karzon—his target—stepped away from the table where he had been sitting. He stood and leaned over the table pointing at something on the map he had been studying with his men.

      Kirk exhaled and pulled the trigger. He watched as the bullet struck his target between the eyes and the man fell back into his chair. He was dead. Kirk always struck true and lethal. He watched for a moment through his sight to confirm his target was dead.

      “Tango down,” Kirk said.

      “Copy that,” Savage said. “Now move.”

      Back in the Corps he would have had to get a DNA sample to affirm he’d hit the right target, but with Savage there wasn’t really any paperwork trail. He packed up his Barrett .50 sniper rifle. Kirk grabbed his bag as the men with Karzon scrambled to their feet, firing bullets toward his location. But he suspected they didn’t really know which apartment building he was in because none of the bullets came close to him.

      Kirk was down the three flights of stairs, out onto the street, and into the waiting car in less than sixty seconds. As soon as Kirk was in the back, Laz took off, driving not like a man with escape on his mind but slowly through the light traffic. They kept moving away from their target toward the airport. Kirk didn’t look up or around, but concentrated on putting his weapon away.

      He was a weapon of war and had been for the better part of his adult life. He was a tool that was used for the purpose that it had been made. Hammers didn’t think about the nails they put in the wood and Kirk Mann didn’t stop to think about the man he’d killed. But sometimes, Kirk felt all those deaths added up.

      “How’d it go?” Laz asked.

      “Same as always. Sweet and clean.”

      “You okay?”

      “Perfect, why?”

      “I don’t know. Just checking. This is our third operation in a row…”

      The very last thing he wanted to do was discuss how much time he hadn’t taken off with Laz while Jack was on the line. “Yeah, so this is what we do—keep the world a safer place.”

      “Hell, yeah,” Laz said. “But everyone else has had a few weeks off—

      “And you want some, too?”

      “Yes. I’ve got a sweet little piece waiting for me Stateside, but I can’t get back to her until you take a day off.”

      “Am I cramping your style, loverboy?” Kirk asked.

      “Screw you,” Laz said.

      “Boys,” Savage said.

      “Yes, sir,” Kirk said.

      “Laz’s love life will have to stay on hold. I need you two to head to Johannesburg ASAP.”

      “I’m surprised. I was thinking we’d hit Somalia next,” Laz said. “All those pirate attacks off their coast.”

      Kirk was, too. Lately there had been a lot of attacks on shipper freighters and yachts in the Indian Ocean.

      “Not yet. I’m in talks with our contacts in the area,” Savage said.

      Kirk wasn’t surprised. The pirates operating off the coast of Somalia were out of control and the governments who were being affected there were all trying to put an end to it. But jurisdiction and fuck-all stood in their way. So men like the Savage Seven would be the ones to restore peace there. Ooo-rah. The companies that were trying to ship oil and other freight through the region had to be good and pissed at the hijackings that had taken place over the last six months.

      “Why Jo’burg?”

      “Anna’s on the horn with a high-profile witness to a murder. It happened on Onyx Diamond Group property, so the local authorities have no jurisdiction.”

      “What do you want us to do?”

      “It appears the shooter was the woman’s fiancé,” Savage said.

      “Bodyguard and extraction duty?” Laz asked. God, he hated doing that kind of thing. “We aren’t babysitters. We are guns for hire.”

      “I know that,” Jack said.

      “Why can’t Liberty Investigations handle this?” Kirk asked. He really didn’t want to have to go to Johannesburg right now. “Send her to her embassy and tell them to keep her safe.”

      “Liberty doesn’t have anyone close enough. Look, she’s scared and freaking out and she’s a friend of Anna’s. Just keep her safe until we can get there,” Savage said.

      “What’s her name?” Kirk asked.

      “Olivia Pontuf. She’s an American but recently lived in London. She’s been in Johannesburg for the last six weeks with her fiancé, Ray Lambert, managing director of Onyx Diamond Mines.”

      “Do you have mission specs on this?”

      “I’m sending a file to you both right now.”

      Kirk received the file on his satellite smartphone and opened it up. The woman was beautiful. Breathtaking, really, even on the tiny display screen of his smartphone.

      “Well, hello,” Laz said. “Forget about my needing time off.”

      Kirk laughed. Laz was always on the make. Of all the guys on the team, he was the closest thing they had to a playboy. Most of the men were like Kirk, more interested in the job.

      Kirk didn’t know if Olivia Pontuf was anything like Anna Sterling. If she was, then Kirk could understand Laz getting excited over her. Anna was one of the few women Kirk had met in the last few years who had held his interest.

      Looking at that woman, he wondered why she’d thought about getting married. She didn’t look like the wife-and-mother type. But then who was he to judge someone by their looks? He remembered his sweet little wife—Abby. He’d once wanted a family, but that desire had died with his young wife and stillborn son more than twenty years ago.

      That event and the USMC had shaped him into the man he was today.

      Chapter Four

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