Mike Sloane cooled Special Forces training, but Sergeant Phipps chewed his ass like prime meat.
“Sloane! Get it together, shithead!”
“But . . .” Mike retaliated, “my weapon’s clean—real clean.”
One day in Vietnam, their patrol exposed a small village. Mike, on point, went in first. Someone darted from a hut. Mike’s M-16 spouted death. He emptied four magazines into panicked villagers.
Sergeant Phipps ran up. “Sloane! What the fuck you doin’?”
Mike’s stony eyes froze. Whirling his bayonet, he slit Phipps’s throat. The remaining squad advanced.
“Trap!” Mike shouted, surrounded by the bloody carnage. “Can’t trust anyone!”
“That your bayonet, Sloane?”
Twenty-eight years ago, Stan Parker and Angela Carpenter broke off their engagement when each wanted to go their separate ways.
Stan became a sheriff’s deputy, married a dispatcher, and had a daughter. His wife died 7 years ago leaving him l
