2

As we crossed the lobby to the Las Vegas Venetian casino, another gaggle of bearded men went by, all wearing cargo pants and baseball caps with Velcro patches. Half of them toted some form of corduroy nylon backpack, which also sported a variety of gun-porn patches, depicting things like ISIS Hunter or a Punisher skull.

I said, “I have never seen this many supercommando ‘operators’ in one place in my life.”

Knuckles laughed and said, “Yeah, this event brings ’em out of the woodwork, no doubt. But make no mistake, the real deal’s running around in here as well. In fact, keep your eyes peeled. The odds of us running into someone we know are pretty high, so be prepared to throw out the cover story.”

Working in cover was the worst when you did it in an area where the locals potentially knew you. Whenever that happened, the nastiest thing that could occur—besides getting your fingernails pulled out by the enemy—was running into someone who knew who you were in real life. It was the surest way to blow the hell out of what you were pretending. An FBI agent infiltrating an outlaw motorcycle gang would be in dire straits if he bumped into a friend from law school.

In this case, Knuckles was still active-duty Navy and I was retired Army. In the world of the Taskforce, when we were out in the badlands earning our ISIS Hunter patches for real, he was a civilian employee of my company, but if another SEAL from his past saw him here, they’d know that was bullshit, so we’d created a story that was plausible should that happen to either of us.

It was my first trip to the fabled SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the largest gun show on earth, and the interior of the Sands Convention Center was literally stuffed with booth after booth selling various weapons, accessories, and outdoor gear. It was Mecca to people like me, and the Taskforce sent a contingent every year to prowl the halls looking for anything new that we could incorporate into our mission set. Back when I was on active duty, as the team leader, I’d always let a junior member of the team make the trip, and Knuckles, my 2IC, had been a few times before.

Given how he was dressed, I was surprised they let him in.

In contrast to the bearded ones, he looked like he had come to protest the convention, with his long hippie hair, Che Guevara T-shirt, and lack of any tacti-cool paraphernalia. He was even wearing a leather necklace with a bronze peace sign the size of a fifty-cent piece—either as irony or as a challenge. With him it was hard to tell, but if someone took it as a challenge, they’d be sorely wishing they hadn’t. Unlike a lot of the posers at the convention, he was most definitely an Operator.

While the trip was a little bit of a boondoggle, we did have a specific mission. We’d just come from a booth manned by a company called ZEV Technologies—a maker of high-end aftermarket components and custom frame/slide work for Glock pistols—and had sealed a deal to test some pistols for our specific applications.

Although we already had our own armorer support that we used to hone our combat weapons, Kurt Hale—the commander of the Taskforce—was wondering if we weren’t just reinventing the wheel and wanted to see if it would be better to simply farm out the work. After talking to ZEV, I was beginning to believe he was right, only our wheels were something from a Conestoga wagon while ZEV was racing around on run-flats.

We pushed through the crowd and entered the cavernous Venetian casino, working our way to Las Vegas Boulevard. We exited into the sunshine, leaving the commandos and gamblers, only to be hit by Guatemalan refugees trying to hand me cards with hookers offering their services. One of the strangest things about Vegas.

Knuckles said, “What did you think?”

“Seriously? I think we should have flown here with the entire team’s Glocks. No question they can do better than our internal armorers. Nothing against them, but did you work the one they had on display? Better trigger than ours by far.”

Knuckles took a left toward Caesars Palace, passing the gigantic Venetian hotel, saying, “So forget about any other vendors?”

He had a point. While we didn’t fall under any official DoD rules about contracts, it would be stupid to latch on to the first one we found. We had a list of potential companies that could meet our goals, and it wouldn’t be right not to at least check them out. But I was pretty sure where I would end up on my recommendation to Kurt.

I said, “Naw, we should hit ’em up as well, but we only get two days out here, and I want some Vegas time. I’ll send Retro and Jennifer to go hunt them down.”

“Retro isn’t going to like that, and Jennifer’s not exactly an expert.”

Retro had been a teammate of mine since Jesus was wearing diapers, but all things come to a close sooner or later. He was set to retire from the military at the end of the month and had truly come out here for vacation. Kurt knew he wasn’t needed but had let him come along as a little retirement gift. Unbeknownst to me, in all our time together, he absolutely loved playing craps, and his wife frowned on gambling. I learned he had planned on spending his entire time in the casinos betting away his per diem like a drunken sailor.

As we were planning to leave for the trip, he’d begged to come along, getting a seat through Kurt, then had turned around and told his wife he was desperately needed for national security, which she bought. As they say, “What happens in Vegas . . .”

I said, “It’s not going to kill him to take a break for a few hours, and as far as Jennifer goes, she could learn something.”

Jennifer was my partner in Grolier Recovery Services—our company—and, outside of some serious weapons training I’d given her, had no military experience. She wasn’t qualified to judge whether a vendor was worthy and wasn’t needed on this trip either, but I’d paid for her to come along out of my own pocket because, well, she was a partner in more ways than one. She’d planned on spending her time at the pool—or, if the weather was too cold, in the spa.

I felt my phone vibrate and saw it was her. I said, “Speak of the devil.”

I answered, “Hey, we’re on Vegas Boulevard headed home. What’s up?”

“Kurt wants to talk on the VPN. Secure.”

“About what?”

“Apparently, about a mission. In Vegas.”