Chapter 1: The Iron Horse The air inside the Iron Horse Saloon tasted like stale beer and bad decisions. It was the…
Part 1: The Weight of the Unseen The Permanent Squint Forward Operating Base Chapman, Afghanistan. The makeshift operations center was a tomb of…
PART ONE: The Humiliation Chapter 1: The Weight of an Empty Cart The Mega Mart was usually Robert Chen’s sanctuary of independence. Every…
Part 1: The Full Tank Chapter 1: The Coins of Desperation The desert night was a cold, black canvas, and the…
PART 1: THE TRAP The amber light of the Riverside Grill reflected against the windowpane, turning the glass into a dark mirror.…
The rain wasn’t just falling; it was a presence, a weight. It pressed down on the bill of Captain Rain Kesler’s patrol cap,…
Part 1: The Sanctuary and the Sentinel The Calm Before the Crisis The sun sliced through the front windows of Miller’s Ice Cream,…
The world, for Harold Brener, had mostly shrunk to the size of quiet routines. At sixty-eight, he moved through it like a man…
Part 1: The Invisible Man The thing about being invisible is that you hear everything. You see the things people hide when…
Chapter 1: The Ghost Inspection The California sun was just starting to burn off the marine layer when I rolled up to…