An assassin who is in over his head.
A cabal that wants him to lead a secret army.
A conspiracy decades in the making.
"The hero is everything you could hope for in an action-adventure-intelligent, charismatic, honorable, a combat veteran from an elite unit, and just slopping over with badassity." -Hank Brown, author of Hell and Gone.
As a freelance assassin, Deckard is no stranger to the shadow world of covert operations, but when he is summoned to Bohemian Grove and hired to train and lead a battalion of Kazakh mercenaries, he soon discovers his employer's real agenda: a doomsday plot decades in the making.
"If you're the kind of guy who loves action movies, but grimaces with every technical and tactical fail... you NEED to buy this book." -a combat veteran from a NATO nation.
Now, free humanity's only chance for survival rests with Deckard's renegade Private Military Company. From Afghanistan, to Burma, and beyond, the clock is ticking down to global extinction.
"A military novel, written by a true expert on the subject, just takes the story to another, higher level, compared to books made up by 'civilian' authors with vivid imaginations." -Frank Jones, 15-year military veteran and private security contractor.
"Fiction has a new star in the making. This awesome work of fiction (is it really..?) will rank right up there with 'Dogs of War' and 'The Forever War' in defining a new era in action/adventure novels or genre." -JG Scott
"With Jack Murphy, you know he's been there and done that, so you wonder where the line is between the made up stuff and where he's drawing upon his real-life experiences." -Dan Eldredge
I wrote this book for those of you who are ready for this genre to go to the next level, beyond superficial political messages and stereotypical terrorists wearing turbans on their heads, I hope this book connects with a different breed of reader and action-adventure fan. -Jack Murphy, author, Special Forces veteran.
Reflexive Fire, Chapter 10
The MH-47 helicopters screamed through the night, the dull black finish on their fuselage blending seamlessly with the dark skyline.
The twin rotor blades cut through the air as they flew nap-of- the-earth, following the contour lines of the mountains as they rose and fell just a dozen meters above the surface, the pilots flying by instruments and night vision goggles.
In the belly of the six rotary wing aircraft, the passengers sat on the cold floor, front to back, loaded down with rifles, machine guns, ammunition, and grenades. The aircraft were completely blacked out, no one dozing off, due to a combination of pre-combat jitters and motion sickness as the helicopters rocked up and down.
The flight to the first combat outpost for refueling had been uneventful; now they were in a combat zone where pilots were subject to fire from surface-to-air weapons and small arms fire
from guerrilla fighters from a dozen different factions vying for control over the rugged landscape below.
Door gunners on each side of the MH-47s leaned out into the cool night air, hands never leaving the minigun handles. Thousands of rounds were chained up and loaded through a feed
chute leading to the internal magazine. A separate chute led down and out of the aircraft to eject links and hot brass.
As the foothills and mountains passed by, they spotted only the occasional walled compound, each family household an actual fortress with thirty foot walls and guard towers. There were no visible signs of life, no light amplified even through their image intensifying goggles. It was much too early for morning fires to be lit to warm the first kettle of chai, and electricity had yet to reach within fifty miles on their operational area.
Crew chiefs listened to their headsets as the mission commander in the lead helicopter put his men on notice. They clapped their hands to get the attention of their helicopter's occupants, letting them know that they were five minutes out. Stretching arms and legs, the commandos pitched and yawed back and forth as the transport birds banked, taking evasive maneuvers and leaving nothing to chance. Using the side of the helicopter or each other for support, they pushed themselves up on a knee, preparing to move at a moment's notice, even as they were thrown about the aircraft.
The anticipation built as the rotors began to change their pitch. Some were nervous, afraid of the unknown. Others were eager to get on the ground because they had had to urinate for the
last three hours. A few relished the opportunity for combat but would never speak of it.
Rapidly bleeding altitude, the black helicopters flared over a wadi that hadn't seen water in generations. The washout was created by ancient seasonal rains, creating the only area resembling a suitable landing zone for kilometers.
No one had been available to reconnoiter or secure the drop zone ahead of time, but during the hasty mission planning, the ground force commander had assured the senior pilots that in the event they couldn't land, due to unstable soil or rocky terrain, that his men would simply jump off the back ramp, dropping the final ten feet to the ground.
Leveling out, the pilots began to hover down to the ground. Coming in strung out in a file across the length of the wadi with valley walls rising on each side in pitch darkness required a degree of precision that the aviators had trained their entire lives for. Closer to the ground, the combined power of twelve sets of rotors kicked up a cloud of dust that almost instantly browned out the pilots. Looking below, the gunners continued to guide them down to the ground as the rotor blades chopped at the dust cloud, creating sparks of light that could be seen in the green glow of their night vision goggles.
Gently, the wheels under the belly of the helicopters made contact with the surface of the wadi. Hearing the news from the gunners and getting the okay from the pilots, the crew chiefs gave the order to disembark.
As one, the commandos rose to their feet and stormed down the ramp and into a twisting sandstorm. The dust swirled like a miniature tornado around the troops as they fanned out to security positions, hefting machine guns and mortar tubes with them. Taking a knee and facing out, the troops were stung as sand beat at their exposed necks and faces. The line of MH-47s lifted off, hovering straight up and into the air before their noses dipped
down, charging forward.
With the transport aircraft disappearing into the night, the commandos were left in the moonscape of Afghanistan in an eerie silence.
Platoon sergeants began giving orders in hushed voices, their men organizing into their squads, preparing themselves for movement.
It was going to be a long walk.
Reflexive Fire is available in paperback and as a Kindle e-book at Amazon.
