8:45 pm

Henry just dove straight into the deep end and shit all over rule #1. He may not have known he was breaching the mother of all rules, don’t mess with the Rage’s family, but as they say in court, ignorance of the law is no defense. The Rage is anxious to explain the rules to Henry… in detail.

Our Op went a little bit sideways, but the Rage is always ready to improv. He actually tried some stand up comedy on open mic night and it went about as well as the Karaoke did… Kicked out again… Anyway, forget those humorless bastards, the Rage is ready to try some stand up on Henry…with his golf shoes on. All those little spikes, this could be fun. I’m sure the results will be far better than they ever produced on the golf course. Give the Rage a metal club and hitting a little white ball is the last thing that comes to mind. Let’s just say his membership to the country club was denied.

Henry turned out to be a not so dear friend from my distant past. It turns out he was complicit in the death of 2 members of my former team when I played for the guys in the black hats. It also turns out that Henry was in bed with the leader of our team. They used their combined resources to set up one of the biggest drug operations ever. If you think the cartels in Mexico and south America have a corner on the drug market, you would be dead wrong. Dead being the operative word once I catch back up with Henry.

With the fall of communism around the world, lots of highly trained special forces soldiers were put out of work. Some found legitimate work with the new governments or security jobs but lots of them went the other way. Henry found several of these directionless men and made his own little army of do badders. They chose to make their living peddling the powder of mass destruction known as cocaine and heroin. They left a wake of dead bodies and ruined lives behind them. Didn’t they know they were in a No Wake Zone? The penalties for violating are severe to say the least.

D is in trouble and the team is on their way here. Henry is about to find out that he is playing way out of his league, we don’t play by the rules either.

11:55 am

Virginia Beach, VA

Dante and Simon had just finished setting up video surveillance around the high end liquor store that Simon had found. There was an outstanding order for 4 bottles of Lordanov Vodka under the name, Hector Alvarez, that was supposed to be filled today. Simon had searched Hector Alvarez and was unable to find a legitimate person with that name so he was pretty sure it was a fake ID that Razin was using. With the money he was making and the Director’s contacts, Simon was sure he could create false identities very easily. Virginia Beach was also in proximity to where they found the drug ship so it was a pretty good possibility that they would cross paths with Razin when he came to pick up his vodka. They were not planning on taking him out here, they wanted to find out more about the current operation and shut it down for good.

Dante had made his way inside the store last night and installed a new state of the art tracker Simon had developed under the label of 2 of the bottles and to be safe, 2 went  into the caps on the other bottles. You just can’t be too careful. They were now in a restaurant across from the store having lunch. Simon had his tablet on the table with the video feeds playing and their server had just dropped off their food. Without looking up, Simon said in a low voice,

“Coming from the east, jeans, black jacket, blue ball cap, backpack over his left shoulder.” Dante took his cell phone and opened the camera app, turned the aspect to selfie mode and positioned his phone so he could see Razin approach from behind him without looking in his direction. Razin was trying to look nonchalant, all the while scanning all around him. He paused and turned in the direction of the restaurant for a second and then continued into the liquor store.

Dante rose from the table and headed to the exit while Simon continued with his lunch, studying the video feeds the entire time. 16 minutes later, Razin exited the store, slung his backpack over his shoulder, obviously fuller than when he went inside, and headed off to the west, away from the direction he came from. Simon picked up slight movement that looked like a shadow and smiled to himself, Dante was so much better at this than anyone he had ever seen. The boy was almost invisible. Almost….

Very quickly, Razin moved past the last security camera they had set out so Simon got up and left the restaurant, after leaving cash to cover their meal, and he headed to the chase vehicle. Dante was on comms and was whispering locations to Simon as he followed Razin. They were a few blocks away when Dante started describing a car that Razin was about to get into when Simon heard a thump and Dante grunted. He could hear some jostling around and then a trunk slam. He heard an engine start and then the sounds of the car traveling, nothing from Dante. Simon tried raising him several times but had no response. He quickly activated the tracer that was part of Dante’s comm package, that he had implanted behind his left ear, to make sure he was going the same place as the trackers in the vodka bottles. Dante wore his hair about shoulder length so no one would see the small scar. All of them wore the same implant, it saved a lot of time in the field and Simon developed them for these situations specifically. After Nikki was abducted by the Panty Snatcher, he wasn’t taking any chances with his family.

Simon picked up his cell phone and dialed Nikki, not wanting to have the conversation he was about to.

10:50 am

I haven’t seen a decent question for our Q&A in a good while so I am just going to get right into the chronicle of George. It’s a short read. I have another project in the works so I didn’t have time for anything elaborate and poor George didn’t even get a stay at the Farm. We performed his intervention in the field….Or roadway to be more exact. There was going to be no emails requesting a change of behavior, when he raised his hand to a woman, his fate was sealed. It would behoove all of you men Ragers to remember that! You just don’t hit a woman. George got the message, I think. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, it all sounded like a blood curdling scream to me. Remember when I said I enjoy repaying the sins onto the sinner….

It was nighttime and I was following George until we got to a semi deserted, straight section of road. There was a stop light up ahead so I made sure to close the distance behind him to an uncomfortable distance, hoping to elicit the exact response I got. When the red light turned to green, George just sat there. I could see his eyes looking at us in the mirror, a smirk on his face. That’s the photo he should use for his headstone. Unfortunately, it will be a closed casket service.

Knowing what would happen, I hit my horn to get him to move. He moved, and then slammed his brakes on. I hit my bright lights and he proceeded for a short distance and then slammed them on again. I hit him this time. Hard enough that he would stop. He jumps out of his car cussing at me and I opened my door, slid the brass knuckles on and smacked him right in the mouth. Down goes George.  

I told you nothing elaborate, but for someone who is this big of a douchebag in a vehicle, we will just use that. I have handcuffs with about 6 feet of chain between them. I slipped them over the rear axle and affixed them to George’s feet, I figured his hands might come off before he truly understood the error in his ways. I placed a brick on his accelerator and before I shifted the car into gear, I put a rag in the gas tank and lite it.

Have you ever seen the cans flopping around behind a car that was decorated for a wedding, “Just Married”….. Mrs. George will be writing on her back window, “Just Widowed”. George bounced way better than any cans ever did. At least until the car exploded. Closed casket.

Anyone else want to try and road rage the Rage himself? I have work to do and it is going to require some travel. You have been warned.

2:35 pm

The Farm

It had been a long night dealing with George, but Dante had to admit that George’s demise was well deserved after witnessing him in action first hand. Simon was clicking away at his keyboard, humming what Dante thought was Kevin Rudolf’s song “Let it Rock”. The Rage found his music on Pandora and has been playing nothing but his songs for 2 days straight. Nikki had just laid the baby down and they were starting the video conference with the FBI team about Ivan Razin.

The IT guys, along with the accountants, had gone through the director’s laptop and they found the money trail from Razin to the director. After the Miami execution of the drug lord, Razin took over the business with the director as his new partner. With the assets under the director’s control, they had free access to any port on the eastern seaboard and their business has been thriving. That was until Simon had taken out the director. After analyzing the location they found the ship and go fast boat, it was apparent that they were trying to find new ports of entry for their drug business, assuming the old ones compromised after the director’s death. The team was throwing around ideas on how to track down Razin. After the interaction with Simon and the go fast crew, they assumed he would have changed boats by now.

The team had maps up and were speculating on locations where they may try to offload the drugs around where they first saw the ship. The IT team had been tracing the ownership of the ship to see if they could find a location for Razin that way, but so far they were hitting one wall after another. Whoever set up the dummy corporations, knew what they were doing and there was little confidence that this would lead anywhere. They had been searching the entire seaboard for traces of Razin or any of the aliases that they were able to uncover for him and were drawing a blank. They were even searching using his mother’s maiden name and the names of any known relatives.

The team had been hard at it for several hours and were getting frustrated. One of the IT guys remarked,

“My eyes are crossing from staring at this map, I could use a stiff drink.” Simon’s head came up suddenly and he looked around the room as a smile started creeping up his face. He winked at Nikki and said,

“Vodka….neat”. The entire team stopped doing what they were doing and they were all looking at Simon. The smile now overtaking his entire face, he continued,

“Lordanov vodka to be precise. Razin has an affinity for this brand and at a cost of a little over $4000 per bottle, it can’t be that hard to find him.” He turned and walked back to his workstation, humming to himself, while the other team members just looked between themselves. Finally, Rob dismissed the meeting with everyone having their own direction to look for Razin. Dante smiled as he was walking up the stairs to go find Eve, Simon never failed to amaze him.

3:55 pm

Things aren’t always as they seem. It’s an old saying and the longer I live, the more I have come to truly understand what exactly it means. Pretty much everything from my past has turned out to be a bunch of lies and manipulation. The people I swore my oath to help protect and defend used me as a pawn and when my usefulness to them ended, they tried to kill me. Several times now, and all they did was hurt the people in my life. When you are young, you believe what you are told, why wouldn’t you? These are the people in charge right? They are fighting the good fight, protecting our country from all threats, foreign and domestic. I bought into all the hype, hook line and sinker. I became a weapon that the government, or more accurately, certain individuals within the government, used to achieve their goals. I was very good at what I did. What I have come to find out was that I was merely a tool of the corrupt used to further their own interests. Sure, I did some real good and solved several problems that truly were a threat to our country, but not all of them were. My recent interaction while on vacation just drove that point home, but more on that later. I am peeling the layers of that particular stinky onion right now and when I get to the rotten core, I will be sharing the details. Until then, we have George to deal with.

For all of George’s sins, his belligerence is the biggest. While very similar to the dickness known as a bully, someone who uses strength to get what they want from someone weaker, a belligerent person is just hostile, aggressive, and antagonistic. Leaving your car in the center travel lane after a minor fender bender during rush hour would be the textbook definition. The question we have to ask is if belligerence is a part of George’s DNA, or was he just having a bad day. It happens. I don’t want to get the Rage all excited to have a guest come see him out at the farm if George was just having a bad day. We did find out he has a wife so we need to make sure.

I’m sure!

First off, he’s an attorney, that’s strike 1. Second, he beats his wife, that’s strikes 2,3,4,5,6, and lastly, I followed him on 2 occasions and both times, he found some reason to start brake checking drivers behind him. He even pulled around one driver so he could slam his brakes on in front of him. What did the other driver do to deserve being treated like this, he tapped his horn when the light turned green and George failed to pull away from the intersection. The car changed lanes and George pulled in front of him and slammed on his brakes.

I met his wife. She was volunteering at a local soup kitchen that I donate to and I wondered how someone could get involved with someone with this type of personality. The wife is about 14 years younger than George so I am sure she wasn’t experienced enough to be able to spot his type of manipulative personality until it was too late. She came from meager beginnings and when they met, he was a successful attorney so I can see her getting swept up into the lifestyle before she realized she had just made her bed with the devil himself. It’s amazing the stuff you can find out on social media. Eve has a special talent with this stuff and it was all out there. I am still trying to understand why people feel the need to share the most intimate details of their life with anyone willing to click on their profile. Are they that lonely, or did they just not develop any social skills growing up playing video games instead of interacting with human beings. When I was growing up, video games consisted of dad yelling at me to turn the channel on the TV. Yes, believe it or not, there was a dark time in our history where there were no remote controls….and only 3 channels on TV. For whatever reason, Mrs George found herself playing house with the Rage’s version of roadkill. It will make sense soon enough, stay tuned. It’s time to go play Rage Roulette with George….

5:50 pm

The Farm

Nikki was on a teleconference with Rob and the IT guys at the FBI running down the owners of the larger boat. As soon as they had rendered the go fast inoperable, the larger boat took off, but not before they had the name of the boat and port of call from the drone video. They also had a photo of the leader and were running him through facial recognition software. Simon was busy on his computer with Eva tucked up against his shoulder and lines of code were streaming by on the monitors in front of him faster than they should for a guy using one hand on the keys. Eva started fussing and Simon stood up and walked over to Nikki and handed her the baby. He leaned down and kissed her on her forehead and was getting ready to turn around and go back to his computer when a face flashed on Nikki’s monitor that stopped him. He leaned forward and said to Nikki,

“Stop, can you go back a few photos?” Nikki looked up at him and nodded and then she clicked a few times until he told her to stop. He leaned forward and carefully studied the photo and then said,

“That’s him, that’s the guy from the ship. He’s had some facial surgery, but I thought I recognized him when we were watching him on the drone’s video feed. That’s Ivan Razin, AKA, the Razor. He’s a nasty piece of work that I had the misfortune to cross paths with several years ago. He was Russian Spetsnaz, or was until their government fell. He was on a protection detail covering one of the targets we were assigned to remove. The target was a Russian minister who was actually one of the biggest drug lords in their country and he was expanding his territory into the US. They were in the process of setting up distribution rings from Miami up through New York. We had received intel that he was staying in a hotel in South Beach Miami and our team was sent to eliminate him. Someone tipped off Razin and he set a trap that killed 2 members of our team. He then killed the drug lord and made it look like our team were the ones that had eliminated him. He was then able to flee the country before we could catch up with him and we were eventually called off of him when another target was assigned to the team. The target was down, regardless of who made him that way, so on to the next we went. Looking back now, I am almost positive he was working with someone in our own government. After seeing the drug operation still in full swing, it all makes sense, they used our team to help take over the drug ring.” Simon stopped and was staring at the photo on the monitor for several seconds and then he looked into the video monitor at Rob and said,

“Rob, can you see if there is anything on the director’s laptop linking him to Razin? I am pretty sure he was the one that sold us out.” He stopped, a look of disgust on his face. Rob nodded his understanding and added,

“If there is a link there, we’ll find it. For now, let’s assume Razin and the Director were working together to take over the drug operation for themselves. We need to get all the intel we can on Razin and then we shut him down, permanently.” He then started assigning tasks to the team while Simon walked back over to his computer, deep in thought.  

11:20 am

Have you ever noticed that the Quaker Oats guy looks just a little too happy, for a quaker anyway. I thought they were notoriously grumpy folk, but the guy on the package looks like he just won free tickets to Disney World, or maybe something more nefarious is in play. Don’t blame me, the Rage is suspicious of everyone. Anyway, it was just an observation. Here’s another one. When the Rage is on vacation, leave him the hell alone. The dude almost never gets any good vacation time so when I took my family out on the water for a few days of relaxation, I didn’t expect to have him over for dinner.

He showed up just in time for desert, at the exact same time the boat full of heavily armed thugs was coming to ruin our vacation. There we were, minding our own business when this collection of dick cheese came to ruin it. I’m pretty sure they are regretting that decision, at least the one we left alive.

D has been spending a good bit of time with Dead and Lee, and while I am not a fan of firearms, sometimes they have their place. Not for me, I have the Rage, but D developed some real skill with his rifle. 2 quick shots into the engine compartment and the plume of smoke rising from the boat ensured they would be going nowhere quickly. Then, to add gas to the fire, 2 of the men started firing automatic weapons at us. My daughter and my lady are on board. That was the exact wrong move. When their heads disintegrated in front of their cohorts, the others seemed to understand that it was not a good move on their part and they quickly threw down their weapons. Turns out, that was the only smart thing they did.

We took our dinghy over to find out the size of the coffee can their ashes would fit into and when we gently asked details of their operation, they were reluctant to offer up any details. The Rage was fully awake from his very short nap so I let him have a little chat with the 3 men that were left. He asked the first man, the obvious leader from his posturing and blatant disregard for proper manners, and the man made a rude comment about what he was going to do to our ladies. The Rage took offense. He gagged the man, after delivering a crushing face punch, and then he put a life jacket on him and secured his hands behind his back. He instructed the other 2 men to throw the 2 dead bodies overboard and asked again the details of their organization. The other 2 men were still mute on the subject so when the first fin came slicing through the water, the Rage pushed the leader overboard. Either this guy was not a good swimmer, or he had an allergic reaction to the movie Jaws. I love that movie! He didn’t.

Sharks are remarkably efficient at taking out the trash. In less than 3 minutes, there was only the pink hue to the water around the boat and a couple of patches of life jacket, nothing else remained. Our finned friends did not seem sated yet so we asked the 2 remaining men the details of their outfit. Neither spoke up at first, until I told them that the one who gave up the details would live. They looked at each other and one was shaking his head no so the Rage threw him overboard. He started swimming like Michael Phelps on crack, but you know who’s quicker….

We got the info I wanted out of the last man and true to our word, we left him alive. Kind of. He was set adrift in his disabled boat, no electronics, food, or water. But alive nonetheless. After a WAY too short vacation, we are going to back to work…

12:15 pm

Somewhere in the Atlantic ocean

Dante and Eve were on the foredeck of My Butterfly, Simon’s motoryacht, while Simon, Nikki, and Eva were up in the flybridge. They found the secluded anchorage yesterday afternoon and had spent the day snorkeling and playing in the water. During the evening, they sat together telling stories, learning more about each other and just relaxing. It had been quite some time since they were able to enjoy the boat together and they had picked up 2 new members of their crew since the last time they were out. Simon had surprised everyone yesterday morning when he declared it was time for a vacation and both he and Nikki love that old boat so they packed up and headed out for some R&R. Eve and Nikki were both still convalescing and the time out in the salt air was doing wonders for both. Eva was a natural sailor and hadn’t fussed much at all since coming on the boat.

Dante was just finishing putting another layer of sunscreen on Eve’s pale skin, a task he didn’t mind much at all, when the sound of a high powered boat split the silence of their little cove. Dante couldn’t see where the boat was coming from and when he glanced up at the flybridge, he saw Simon signaling him to come up there. He quickly jumped to his feet and went up the steps into the helm area where Simon was looking out over the water through some high powered binoculars.

“What is it Simon?” Dante asked, straining to see anything out over the clear water past the entrance to the cove. Simon pulled the binoculars from his eyes and looked over at Dante,

“Go get the drone and get it up in the air. There is a large boat anchored about 2 miles out to the southeast of our position. The go fast boat is heading that direction. From the looks of the guys on the go fast, they aren’t pleasure boaters.” He pulled the binoculars back up to his eyes and Dante turned and went down into the cabin and pulled the large case out from the engine room and went to the cockpit where he quickly had the drone out and released up into the air a couple of moments later. He walked out to the foredeck with the remote and squatted next to Eve and handed her the sheath containing her favorite knife. She nodded at him, tucked the knife underneath her and laid back like nothing was happening. Dante made his way back to the flybridge and sat next to Simon who was still watching the 2 boats. When the drone was in position, they both started watching the small screen on the remote. Nikki had laid Eva down for a nap about 30 minutes ago so she went out of the deck and sat on a towel next to Eve.

As the go fast passed the mouth of the cove, they could see one of the occupants looking into the cove with their own binoculars and they saw him get the attention of the driver, pointing at My Butterfly. The boat slowed for a few seconds and then sped back up and continued on to the larger boat. Once it was tied up to the larger boat, they saw the men go below into the small cabin where they began pulling square packages up on to the deck. They then transferred them to the larger boat where several men took them through a door into the ship. When the transfer was finished, they saw the men from the boat speaking with someone from the larger boat that they assumed was in charge from his demeanor and the way he carried himself. They pointed over at the cove a couple of times during the animated conversation and when they were finished, the leader yelled something and 2 more men armed with assault rifles came over and got into the go fast with the other 3 men. They quickly untied their lines and once clear of the larger boat,  they turned and headed straight for the cove.

6:15 pm

Q&A: This is probably one of my favorites of all time, “Simon, is there something you can do to eliminate telemarketers?” I tell you what, if I could eliminate them, I would be the richest man on the planet. How much would you pay to stop the madness? I am working on a couple of really nasty viruses now and will have to test them first so I guess I will open the back door to the Sprint servers I left when they were so gracious to offer a donation to one of the victims of our guests. The Rage never forgets and he certainly doesn’t understand the concept of forgiveness, so it’s probably best to use a different carrier for your cellular service…. if you aren’t stuck in their contract.

Talking about Sprint puts me in a bad mood so you know what happened don’t you, I met George today. I was out running errands, minding my own business. We had just wrapped up a difficult gig and I was enjoying a little downtime. Again, I refer to Nickelback’s wisdom when they said, “Something’s gotta go wrong cause I’m feelin way too damn good.” Prophetic!

I’m on the main drag going through this particular town, 3 lanes of traffic going in my direction, 45 mph zone, when traffic comes to a crawling stop. Slow traffic at that time of the day was normal, but this was almost stopped. The Rage poked his head up to see what was going on and that is never a good thing, if you are the one causing the delay. It took 26 ½ minutes to get to the cause of the stoppage, some douchebag in a Honda got tapped from behind and was stopped dead in the center lane, refusing to move his vehicle out of traffic. That behavior, by itself, would almost certainly grant you a reservation at the farm, but George just didn’t want to just leave bad enough alone.  Nope, he wanted to make an application for permanent residency. Problem is, the only permanent residents make their way through the incinerator before being granted that status. We’ll explain all this to George in due time, for now, this is what got his application fast tracked.

We finally got up beside the G man and rolled down the window and said, “Excuse me sir, as the many signs along the way clearly state, “In Case of Fender Benders, Remove Your Vehicle from the Roadway.” Your car is clearly driveable and you are stopping everyone on the roadway when you could pull off the road to conduct your business.” I even smiled. I don’t want to offend anyone so I will simply tell you that his response was not something that momma Rage would have approved of. If that wasn’t bad enough, he exercised even more bad judgement and gave us the one finger salute. He’s probably not going to like where the offending digit ends up.

I did something I had never done before, I picked up the cell phone that I had reluctantly started carrying and took a photo of George. I also got a nice shot of his license plate. We’ll be in touch G man, and when the Rage touches, there is no doubt he was there.

9:45 am

The Farm

Eve is now a resident of the farm. Once they got her patched up, they had brought her back to the farm and moved her in with Dante to the little house that they had fixed up for him when they first moved out there. Nikki and Simon were both keeping an eye on her, but Dante was by her side almost constantly. He was in the main house getting some food when Simon pulled him into the Ops center for their call with Rob McShay. The FBI had spotters at the PA compound and they saw the effects of the disease tear through the compound. Several members left and sought treatment in town and it was learned through questioning them that Marcus Tolliver had passed away 2 days ago. The disease tore him apart from the inside out and was doing the same to the rest of the members still refusing to leave the compound. The FBI had assured them that they had a vaccine to counteract the virus, but they refused to leave. No one was shedding any tears over their loss. The message boards and other militia sites never brought up the incident so they considered the mission a massive success. Rob promised the team at least a little bit of down time since they just completed back to back missions. He wasn’t thrilled with the addition of Eve to the team, especially after she was wounded, but he understood when they explained her background and how they found her.

When the call ended, Simon looked over at Dante, who had his head down and lines of worry were creasing his face. He looked over at Nikki who nodded back,

“It’s not your fault Dante, you know that so let it go. When you got shot when the stooges tried to take the farm, I felt just like you do now. I should have been able to do something to have kept it from happening, but the truth is, there wasn’t anything I could have done. You chose this life here with Nikki and I, it was your decision. Did we like it, no. But we accepted it because you are a man and it is your life to lead. Eve is the same Dante, we met her and she is just like you are. I’m sure that is why the two of you hit it off so well and there isn’t anything you could have done to stop her. Had it not been this mission, she would have kept pressuring you until you let her in. She loves you and wants to live in your world. You need to decide, just like we did, whether you can live with her in our world. We live in harm’s way all the time and if she stays, so will she. If she doesn’t want to be part of this, then she can choose where she wants to be and we will make it happen.” He finished speaking and they all just let the words sink in.

Before anyone could say anything, Eve came down the stairs into the Ops center and walked over to Dante. She stood in front of him and looked into his eyes,

“I want to be here with you Dante, I love you.” She put her hand on his arm and he pulled her into a hug. When they pulled apart she looked between Simon and Nikki and said,

“You saved both my sister and I and I want to be part of something that can do that kind of good for people. I know what you do and if you will have me, I would like to keep working with you.” She kept looking between the 2 and finally, Simon nodded. Nikki got up and pulled her into a gentle hug, both of them still nursing their bodies back to health. When they were done and the kids were walking up the stairs, Simon turned back to his computer and started typing, a smile crawling up the side of his face. It didn’t matter how they had all come together, this was his family now.