CHAPTER 1: THE SLEEPING DRAGON The sun rose slowly over the dusty plains of Rio Seco, Texas, bleeding red across the horizon like…
PART 1 I didn’t park with the other parents. Habit is a difficult thing to kill, harder than a man, harder than a…
Chapter 1: The Gatekeeper The morning sun over Eagle Point, Texas, didn’t just shine; it assaulted you. It beat down on the roof…
CHAPTER 1: THE STAIN ON THE CEILING Three weeks earlier. Captain Rachel “Bolt” Stewart sat in the sterile conference room at Kandahar Airfield,…
CHAPTER 1: The Humiliation The laughter started the moment my first shot cracked through the Wyoming air. To the naked eye, it…
CHAPTER 1: The Old Man on Main Street The morning sun over Thunder Ridge, Montana, didn’t just rise; it bruised the sky with…
Chapter 1: The Essay and the Smirk The Tuesday morning that ruined my life started with the smell of floor wax and…
Chapter 1: The Invisible Breach The border between Texas and Mexico isn’t just a line on a map. It’s a living, breathing…
The world, for Harold Brener, had mostly shrunk to the size of quiet routines. At sixty-eight, he moved through it like a man…
Chapter 1: The Cargo The digital clock on the dashboard of my Peterbilt 579 read 4:37 A.M. when I rolled out of the…