Violence of Action:

A Mercenary Tale

After multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Team of former Army Rangers and Force RECON Marines perform ‘community service kills’ as they take out drug dealers from the Deep South to the Pacific Coast. They profit in their newly chosen profession. Gradually their crosshairs aim toward higher payoff targets. They upgrade their weapons, tactical capabilities, and thus their own lethality.

Their newfound wealth also reveals a moral divide amongst the Team. Yet a blood oath binds them all to a common purpose; a simple document signed by extremely harsh and unpleasant men. It is a pledge severely crafted. It disregards lines on maps-is deaf to excuses-and certainly has no expiration date; it is a death certificate for any transgressor.

Unbeknownst to the band of mercenaries, a lone FBI agent is slowly identifying their tactical signature and gathering a Strike Force of her own. The Team’s strained cohesion is tested in a battle royale. As they engage a Drug Lord’s small army, the FBI’s Strike Force commander decides that it is time to kill two birds with one stone. 

It should have been the perfect time to strike. It really should have been.

“Violence of Action. Eliminate the enemy with sudden, explosive force.”

- TC 3-21.76, The Ranger Handbook

In the Absence of Orders:

A Cautionary Tale of War

In late 2003, a duffle bag of Saddam’s treasure was buried by an American Soldier. A decade passes, and the US military departs Mesopotamia. A small Squad, remnants of old and new battle buddies, return to unearth the loot from the confines of the dilapidated Osirak nuclear compound. They find the facility no longer abandoned but rather a fortified strong point of an ISIS splinter group.

Undeterred, the Squad attacks. The ensuing battle reveals the true reasons they had individually agreed to return to Baghdad. In this Squad, each has an unspoken agenda; none are aligned with another. Redemption, revenge, unsettled debts, and pure greed all clash in a blood-soaked firefight that mirrors the Iraq War itself; there is no common goal.

From the shores of Somalia to the train-up in Texas, across the arid wasteland between Jordan and Baghdad, to the high mountain jungles of Burma, In the Absence of Orders, A Cautionary Tale of War realistically examines the rush of combat, the crash as the adrenaline fades, and the reasons that some Veterans vow never to go back while others can’t get enough of the phenomenon called War.

“In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it.”

- Field Marshal Erwin Rommel