Read Reflexive Fire - 01 for Free Online Page B

into a dive.  The three Americans were weightless in the aircraft for one strange moment before slamming back into the floor.
       “What the hell is going on?” Pat asked, sliding the door shut.
       They were dumping altitude fast, the valley floor quickly rising up to meet them.
       “I don't fucking know,” J-Rod yelled back.  “The pilot speaks fucking Arabic!”
       “What?”
       “No,” Deckard sputtered.  “He speaks Kurdish.”
       Pat blinked, confused, physically and mentally exhausted.
       Deckard wiped some of the blood from the side of his face, looking surprised at the sight of it.  The bullet had struck his sub-machine gun, the splash catching him in the face and causing some shrapnel wounds.
       Trying to untangle himself from the arms and legs of the two other men, he snatched a headset off a fastener from above and slid it over his ears.  Readjusting the microphone, Deckard said something to the pilot.
       “Fuck,” he muttered, as they continued their decent down into the valley.
       “What?”
       “Johnnie says we're coming in hard.  He's got some weird feedback in his pedals.  Thinks we ate a few rounds on the way out.”
       Pat and J-Rod looked at each other.
       “Hold on,” Deckard said, listening over the head set.  “He sees a soccer field he thinks he can get us to before we drop out of the sky.”
       J-Rod's eyes were like saucers.
       Sitting up, he began fastening his seat belt, his companions following suit.
       “Hold on,” Deckard repeated, looking out the window for the field.  “Yeah, there it is.”
       The helicopter was dropping fast, the skids passing just meters above some electrical lines.
       “Where is that coming from?” J-Rod blurted.
       “Where is what coming from-” Pat said turning from the window.
       The entire cabin was filling with black smoke.
       “What the-” Deckard coughed.
       The pilot pulled on the collective pitch control, making a final push toward the soccer field as the helicopter went into free fall.

Three
     
    Twenty four hours later:
     
       “I can't hear you,” Deckard screamed with a finger stuck in one ear, the other pressed up against his cell phone.  “I can't hear shit!”
       The firefight in the mountains had left him hard of hearing for the time being, and the whining jet engines on the airfield weren't helping.
       “I said, I need you in California tomorrow.”
       “What the hell for?”
       “A recent job opening,” the voice on the other end of the line said.  “We were tracking the guy who was to take the job, but he had a nasty run-in with some Chechen separatists in Ardahan yesterday.  It was over a woman, from what I understand.  I want to dangle you out there to see if you can't get hired to do the job in his place.”
       “Hired by who?”
       “I already created your cover and managed to get you a meeting with Chad Morrison through one of my contacts.  You ever hear of him?”
       “No,” Deckard said, looking back at the C130 transport aircraft.  The pilots were waiting on him.
       “He runs a black bag PMC,” he said referring to a Private Military Company.  “At the moment he is looking to recruit some fresh meat.”
       “Recruiting for what?”
       “People to protect certain industrial interests.  People like you.  Oil fields in Nigeria, alluvial diamond deposits in the Sierra Leone, Coltan Mining in the Congo, that sort of thing.”
       “Wet work.  He wants trigger pullers who don't mind getting their hands dirty.”
       “You got it.  The resume I put together is fail-safe.  You have backstops for backstops, solid covers, references with people I know personally waiting on the other end of the line if they get called.  Besides, I know he won't be able to resist your charms once he meets you in person.”
       “Fuck me,” Deckard yelled into the phone.  “You already put my name in the