Forthcoming Novel

Greetings from Barrio Horseshoe, where the second draft of my novel is finally complete. Now, the real work begins. Authors often identify as either "pantsers" or "plotters." This refers to those who write by the seat of their pants versus those who meticulously plot everything out. Most of us fall somewhere in between. Notable exceptions include John Grisham and, I believe, David Baldacci, who have elaborate storyboards, character bios, and clear arcs before they even write chapter one.

I, on the other hand, typically have a general idea of the major conflict and the story's "engines." I know where it all ends up, but along the way, new characters emerge, and some scenes get ditched. The story takes on a life of its own. For instance, I had no idea until six months into the draft that a character named Jess would appear, piloting a drone on a fateful mission that becomes the inciting incident. Below is the first chapter of the new novel:

Chapter 1 — Creech AFB, Nevada (Six Months Ago)

In the pale Congolese dawn, two boys met beneath a kapok tree just outside the mining concession. Even from six thousand feet, Almanza could see they were barefoot. The taller boy wore a thin T-shirt that hung off him, once printed with something now mostly faded. The smaller boy blew into his hands, then tucked them under his arms. They leaned toward each other, heads bowed, and she watched their breath smoke in the cold as they spoke. The camera provided motion only, not meaning.

A moment later, they turned and joined the slow file moving toward the mine, descending the switchbacks into the broken ground beyond. Slag heaps, tailing ponds, and the hillside cut open and tunneled through, its mouths black in the early light. From above, it looked like an ant colony at work in the raw earth. Closer, there would be coughing, the ring of shovels, and the soft giving way of dirt.

At the tunnel entrance, the smaller boy held out his hands, and the taller one slapped them—once, twice—a ritual repeated every morning. Then someone handed them two lengths of iron rebar, and the earth took them.

Captain Jessica Almanza watched the feed, forcing herself to keep watching until the boys disappeared, until nothing remained but the flow of bodies into shadow. On her screen, the kapok tree sat at the edge of the frame like a splinter. She had tagged it once, early in the deployment: CIV FLOW START. Then she stopped tagging it. Nothing actionable. Patterns, not people. That was the job. You learned to see movement, not faces. You learned to let your mind go blank where your eyes still wanted meaning.

The Rising Tension

For two months, she’d watched this patch of southeastern Congo grow restless. The Mai-Mai, a local militia steeped in charms and superstition, had taken control of the city of Kolweizi and the toll road leading into it. Suddenly flush with cash, they grew increasingly bold. That boldness made them sloppy.

Sloppy was the only thing you could prosecute from six thousand feet. She leaned forward and called the major over.

“Sir, take a look.”

He bent toward her monitor, the blue light washing his face the color of fatigue. Overhead wires ran from a street pole to a brick structure on the outskirts of Kolweizi. It was about the size of a fast-food restaurant, covered by a corrugated tin roof, and lacked any signage. The wires gave it away. Banks and government offices were fed overhead. For everyone else, there were trenches or nothing.

The briefing was at 0400 the next day in a low-ceilinged room that smelled of old carpet and hot toner. Chairs were set in rows with the flat efficiency of a place not built for comfort. A file an inch thick came down on the podium with a sound like a small door slamming shut.

The major briefly looked up to scan the assembled airmen and didn’t waste words. To his right stood a colonel, and beside him, off to one side, a civilian in a suit—no tie, no credentials.

“Almanza. Baines.” The major’s finger tapped a photo on the screen: the tin-roofed building, frozen in grainy daylight. “You’re on overwatch for a Delta element, call sign Specter Six One. High-value target. Sierra-four sector, grid coordinates Charlie-Seven-Niner-Two. Check your briefing cards.”

“Standard kit or low-vis?” Almanza asked. She already knew. She needed to hear him say it.

“Low-vis, Captain.”

No uniforms. Civilian clothing. No tags. No flags. In the event of kill or capture, they’d look like every other private military contractor operating in that part of the world, under plausible deniability and untraceable money.

Outside, Nevada held its nighttime heat like a grudge.

They walked from the main building into the dark and then immediately into the Ground Control Station, a double-wide trailer dressed up as a command center. Inside, it was cool and stale, the air used and flinty. Four other operators sat at their stations, resembling the cockpits of commercial airliners: screens, toggles, switches protected by clear plastic covers you had to lift like you were asking permission.

No banter. No idle talk. No superstition. Everything was purpose-built. The interior was designed to keep the outside world out. Almanza ran the checklist from muscle memory. Systems green. Comms secure. FLIR calibrated. Laser designation test passed. She pulled on her headset, keyed the channel, and spoke to the men on the ground as if distance were nothing.

“Specter Six-One, this is Reaper Actual. On station overhead.”

A pause. A click. Then the team leader’s voice, hushed and calm.

“Copy, Reaper. Need eyes on dismounts.”

She steadied the orbit, held the turn, kept the wall in frame. “Specter Six One, two tangos on the north wall of the target perimeter.”

On her screen, one guard’s cigarette glowed like a red ember at the main gate. The second had stepped off to relieve himself against the wall, showing up as pale heat splatter on the brick.

“Copy, Reaper. Paint the tangos.”

She tagged them with the infrared laser, unseen to the naked eye, bright as a brand to anyone with night vision.

“Targets marked.”

The Deltas moved.

Three men entered the gate and fanned out, no wasted movement, no hesitation. Almanza heard the suppressed shots through the team leader’s mic.

Thwip-thwip-thwip.

The first guard dropped like a puppet cut loose. The second didn’t even have time to reach for his zipper.

“Tangos down,” Specter Six-One said. “Perimeter clear.”

They stacked on the building, then slipped inside. On her split screen, the imagery blurred for a moment as the metal roof scattered the signal.

A light on Almanza’s console flashed green: data transfer initiated. A Delta inside had connected the hard drive to the uplink.

Upload: 12%.

She let herself exhale. Then something blinked in her secondary threat window.

“Fast mover inbound,” Baines said, voice tightening. “High altitude. Three-fifty miles out. ID—stand by—Voodoo One-One. F-18. Navy wings.”

Almanza’s eyes moved to the sortie schedule. Empty for her sector.

“Flight path,” she said.

Baines’ cursor traced it.

“Bird’s coming straight for target.”

A small, cold weight settled low behind her ribs. Not panic. Not yet.

She keyed her secure line.

“Reaper Nine to Creech Ops. We’ve got a friendly inbound on sector Sierra-four. Requesting confirmation on mission profile.”

Static.

“Reaper Actual,” came the reply at last, too calm. “Creech Ops copies. Stand by.”

The F-18 banked left.

A red light lit on Baines’ console.

“Shit,” he whispered, hand over his microphone. “Missile bays just opened. He’s going to strike.”

Her headset crackled again, a new channel cutting in like a knife. The F-18 pilot.

“Reaper Actual, this is Voodoo One-One. Need immediate laser designation on grid Charlie-Seven-Niner-Two. Request paint.”

Almanza stared at the grid on her screen as if the numbers might rearrange themselves and make sense.

“Confirming targeting support, Voodoo One-One,” she said, buying seconds with protocol.

“Affirmative. Priority strike. Tier-One HVT. Black seal orders, Reaper Actual.” A pause, then the part meant to end discussion. “Above theater command.”

Not through her chain. A Navy pilot couldn’t give an Air Force operator a direct order like that—not legally. Not without someone else on Comms.

She flipped to tasking protocol. Scrolled. No air asset assigned to her AO. Checked again. Still nothing.

“Voodoo One-One,” she said, voice sharpening. “Be advised: Delta element is on site. Reaper Actual in overwatch support. This is not a green box for strike. Hold fire.”

“Negative,” the pilot said. “I’m under OpCon, direct authority. You are to mark the target.”

Almanza switched to Creech Ops again, more force, the words coming clipped. “Creech Ops, this is Reaper Actual. I have a blue-on-blue situation. Inbound F-18 has requested target paint for HVT Charlie-Seven-Niner-Two. Specter Six-One is on-site. Repeat: friendlies in the box. Please advise.”

Seconds passed.

Creech Ops stayed dark.

No correction. No counter-order. No voice higher than hers willing to own the air.

Baines looked at her, eyes wide now, his hand still half-covering the mic. “Fast mover in weapons range,” he said. “Jess. He’s going to fire blind any second.”

On the screen, the upload bar crawled forward with steady indifference.

Upload: 83%. 84%. 85%.

A brief flicker at the edge of the compound appeared in the thermal window—small, low, fast—then gone behind a concrete barrier.

Her mind registered it and discarded it in the same breath.

Interference. Dog. Heat bloom off debris. It slid off the brain like water.

She keyed into the Delta channel.

“Specter Six-One, Reaper Actual. Fast mover inbound with standoff weapons looking to clear the board. Repeat: you are in a green box. Abort now. Repeat: abort now.”

A half second later: “Copy, Reaper Actual. We’re out.”

Movement on her screen: four figures scattering, over the wall, back to the perimeter—fast and controlled. One stayed behind.

Mission first.

Upload: 93%. 94%. 95%.

The F-18 pilot came back in, voice level.

“Reaper. Final call. Paint the target or I drop blind.”

Almanza’s fingers hovered over the laser designate control. She could refuse. She could hold her hand there and let him do it blind, allowing the missiles to find whatever they found, convincing herself afterward that it wasn’t her mark. But she knew that a blind strike meant the compound wall didn’t matter. Blind meant the blast radius didn’t care about her conscience. Blind meant the Deltas didn’t get a choice at all.

She could also do something else—something small, dirty, and human.

Two meters.

She could shift the mark two meters right. Enough to miss the roof seam where the uplink antenna sat. Enough to spoil the strike geometry, maybe, to make the missiles bite wrong, to buy seconds, to spare the man still inside long enough to clear the door. Two meters would also make the target “missed” in a way that would never be forgiven.

Two meters would follow her for the rest of her life because murder was more easily forgiven than disobedience.

Upload: 98%. 99%.

In her peripheral, heat flickered again near the outside wall—small, low, quick. A shape that didn’t belong to soldiers. A shape that felt, in some buried corner of her, like the kapok tree.

She could feel her brow now moist. “Goddammit,” she whispered.

Upload: 100%.

The last Delta bolted for the door. Almanza made the choice that could be defended. She flipped the switch. The Reaper’s targeting laser flickered to life and found the tin roof dead center with a precise and obedient glimmer. For a fraction of a second, she imagined what two meters would have looked like.

Two bright streaks arced into frame.

The compound disintegrated in a flash of white. Heat washed her screen. Debris bloomed upward, then fluttered back down in cooling tones. Dogs scattered down the neighboring streets, the only signs of motion before they vanished into alleys.

“Fuck me,” Baines said, not bothering to cover his mic.

“Voodoo One-One, splash confirmed,” the pilot said. “Target neutralized. RTB.”

Almanza sat staring at the feed as the thermal haze rolled and thinned.

The last Delta hadn’t made it past the compound wall. He lay motionless just outside the blast radius, a bright, still shape against the cooling ground.

“Reaper Actual,” Specter Six-One said. “Copy. One down. Request dustoff. Repeat: one down.”

Two Deltas sprinted back. Each grabbed an arm and dragged him toward what looked like a parking lot. They moved with the frantic care of men trying not to look like they were panicking.

Then, at the very edge of the debris field, something small moved.

A brief heat signature, low to the ground, too slight to be a fighter, too fast to be debris cooling.

A flicker.

A stumble.

Then the thermal haze swallowed it.

Almanza leaned forward without realizing she’d moved, eyes narrowing as if focus could turn uncertainty into fact.

The screen offered nothing.

Just noise. Heat. Cooling metal. Dust.

Her mouth tasted like pennies.

“Staff Sergeant Baines,” she said, her voice steady because it had to be. “Requesting Reaper Nine intel download for after-action reporting.”

Baines turned his head, looked around, then shook his head once and mouthed: No fucking way.

Almanza covered her mic. “That’s a Delta down there,” she said quietly. “And he ain’t going out like this.”

She reached into the top of her boot and pulled out a thumb drive. The plastic was warm from her skin.

She uncovered her mic again.

“Staff Sergeant Baines,” she said, formal now, weaponizing the tone. “Initiate download.”

Baines stared at her, then at the screen, then down at his hands.

“Copy that, Captain,” he said finally. “Download initiated.” He lifted the clear plastic cover over the switch, the motion small and ceremonial, then flipped it forward.

Almanza redirected the data to her own thumb drive instead of the CPU.

In the Congo, morning continued. Lines continued. The tunnels kept taking them.

Beneath a kapok tree no one had tagged in weeks, the earth kept swallowing boys whole, and the people who watched from the sky kept telling themselves they were only watching patterns.

Almanza stared at the cooling ruins until her eyes burned.

She’d committed violations that could land her in Leavenworth for the next thirty years.

She had never felt more certain of what she’d done.

And she had never been less certain of what she’d just started.