OASES

Chapter 2

Fort Apache.

Actually the correct name was Camp Ahmad Quwat. But only about three of its thousands of occupants could correctly pronounce it –those Arabic H's were murder on Westerners– so it had been christened with a more familiar moniker.

It had been appropriately nick-named. Afghanistan was the Wild West of the 21st Century. The coalition forces' compound was plunked in the middle of a hostile desert valley studded with thorn-brush and bordered by jagged mountains; the sole access road: the infamous IED Alley.

The Taliban –farmers by day, terrorists by night– were numerous and bold in this area. They had ambushed several coalition convoys along this route, planting their remotely-detonated, improvised explosive devices and then sitting tight in the surrounding hills, waiting for the low-hanging fruit.

Flynn rattled slowly along the fifteen-mile stretch of this pot-holed, rutted track that connected Veerona with Fort Apache. There wasn't much traffic today other than the ubiquitous Afghan lads –a couple of them one-legged– patrolling for scrap, or sticks for fuel.

Flynn wasn't concerned with ambushes. The Taliban wouldn't waste their effort on one beat-up BlackSky Humvee. Besides, the road itself would likely finish him off. He'd swear that engine parts had shaken loose and dropped off on a few occasions when the poor old Humvee had bottomed out. And the abuse wasn't doing his throbbing head any favors, either.

But despite all the dust, heat, pain and bouncing around, there was one thing that refused to be shaken loose. And that was Flynn's memory of the girl of Veerona. Well, woman actually. Initially he had judged Julie McNeill to be a girl. But with the benefit of their close encounter of the pseudo-erotic kind, he knew she was all woman. He had perceived layers of intelligence and worldliness in the depths of those golden eyes that could not belong to a girl. The scent of her, the touch of her hands on his face, those golden irises; they were tormenting his senses and stirring his soul out here on this stark, god-forsaken moonscape. This mysterious Afghan chick had definitely sniggled her way into a mushy patch of his psyche that Flynn hadn't been aware even existed.

He gave his head a bit of a shake, like a fighter trying to recover from a hard shot, admonished himself, "Stop obsessing about Julie McNeill for chrissake. You've got a better chance of hooking up with Rhianna. This ain't a high-school field trip, Jack. You have serious items on your to-do-or-die list."

Flynn forced himself to mull over those items, yet again.

Top of the list: Oasis, his sixty-foot sailing sloop. He had purchased the beauty eight months ago after he and Samhal had been honorably discharged from the French Foreign Legion. He was still in hock for over a hundred grand on his baby. Civilian life was considerably more expensive than he'd remembered, and he had to clear that effing debt before he could pursue his lifelong dream.

And that's where item two came in: Kurtz... or Colonel Kurtz as he insisted on being addressed. He'd also served in the Legion but was dishonorably discharged a year before Flynn and Samhal had been released. Shortly after being kicked out of the Legion, Kurtz had put together a private security firm: BlackSky. His timing had been spot-on. When the U.S. entered Iraq, Kurtz scored a lucrative contract. And that led to his current gig in Afghanistan. When Kurtz learned through the grapevine that Flynn and Samhal were desperate for cash, he was delighted to offer them positions. Flynn had few options, so here they were.

He and Sammy had sailed Oasis through the Suez Canal and over to Muscat –directly across the Gulf from Afghanistan. He was able to convince his older brother, Ethan, to fly over from Canada to boat-sit for a while. And now that he was committed to BlackSky, Flynn needed to find a way to get that asshole Kurtz to set aside personal animosities and work together as professionals... so far, no good.