Cajun Justice(3)

Cain had thought the navy was bureaucratic, but the Secret Service was even worse. It was a draconian agency with strict rules and unwritten guidelines. Cain didn’t like the administrative BS or the office politics, but he didn’t mind the rigorous schedule. He enjoyed seeing new places and found comfort in belonging to a warrior family, even if it was at times described as “dysfunctional.”

As Cain read the notes emailed back to him from the intelligence unit, he heard a knock at his door. He suspected it was the se?orita again. He slammed the laptop shut and tossed it under a sheet on his bed. He opened the door, but it wasn’t the se?orita. It was a face he recognized all too well.





Chapter 3



“Thanks, Cain. I owe you one.” The brawny agent invited himself in. Tomcat was wearing swim trunks and a T-shirt that advertised the Ohio State Buckeyes. Ohio State was his alma mater.

“You coward!” Cain exclaimed. “You were hiding in your room.”

“Nah, man. I swear. I was taking a shower.”

“Bullshit! I didn’t hear the shower. Besides, if you weren’t in there, you wouldn’t know that you owe me one. And it’s not just one, Jackson. It’s three hundred.”

“Tell me you didn’t pay that whore three hundred!”

“Do me a favor. As long as I’m footing the bill, don’t call her a whore.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Always the gentleman.”

“Quite frankly,” Cain continued, “I’m surprised she’d sleep with you for so little.”

Tom laughed defensively while lifting his shirt. “Have you seen my abs? Women pay me.”

“Pull your shirt down. The entire service has seen your six-pack. Plus, your pasty skin’s blinding me without my sunglasses.” Cain wasn’t ready to let him off the hook so easily. “Why the hell weren’t you answering your phone? What if I had needed you for real?”

“I told you, man. I was in the shower. I couldn’t go to breakfast smelling like sex, especially in this nice hotel.”

“The manager came up here with two security guards. They escorted your date out of here. I swear, I’m done covering for you. This was worse than Itaewon—”

Tom smiled. “Korea was a blast.”

“How would you even know? You were so wasted I had to carry you all the way back to the hotel.”

Tom laughed. “You remember too much shit!”

“It’s a blessing and a curse. With you, it seems to be more of the latter.”

“Come join me,” his partner suggested. “They serve great Bloody Marys at the poolside bar, and I’ve got two complimentary vouchers.”

“POTUS is wheels down in less than twenty-four hours. You can’t drink.”

“Twenty-four hours? That’s plenty of time to sober up. Get dressed. Come on. They might even have some grits and those French doughnuts you like.”

“I’m skipping breakfast, and certainly the pool. The local police are coming, and I’ve gotta address some security concerns before POTUS arrives. You’re free to join me and do your job.”

“Nah, I’m good. You’ve got this covered,” Tom said. He turned around and left Cain’s room.





Chapter 4



Cain reopened the curtains and lifted the window. The hot, humid air poured into the room, reminding him of home in Louisiana—except for the saltwater smell. Seagulls squawked as they floated over the beach. It was still early—no beachgoers, just a few dedicated joggers. He wished he were out there running, but his normal schedule had been altered unexpectedly. Just the thought of Tom having a Bloody Mary at the pool angered him. Thousands of people apply each month for the Secret Service, and this ungrateful asshole is taking up a spot—making over a hundred thousand dollars per year and traveling the world on the government’s dime!

Cain placed his pistol on the vanity table and sat down. He focused on his government-issue weapon. He was proficient with all firearms, but he preferred the Italian-made Beretta 92FS. That’s what the navy had issued him as an aviator. That said, if he were ever shot down, he’d be better off with a comfortable pair of running shoes instead of a pistol. Better to flee from captors than battle them with a lone pistol. But now, as the president’s bodyguard, his duty required running toward the sound of gunfire—the opposite of the body’s natural instincts. It had required months of intense training at the Secret Service academy in Beltsville, Maryland.

He unsheathed his duty pistol from its tan-colored Prince Gun Leather holster. He released the magazine and racked the slide, ejecting a bullet from the chamber. He caught the hollow-point bullet midair and neatly placed it on the table. He double-checked to ensure that his SIG was empty. He fieldstripped the weapon and laid out each part carefully, inspecting every piece as if his life depended on its reliability—because it did. And so did POTUS’s. Cain and his fellow team members trusted one another to shoot straight when the time called for it.

He cleaned and lubricated as necessary before reassembly. He function-checked the SIG Sauer .357, and pulled the trigger and dry-fired it several times. He hoped that squeezing the trigger repeatedly would slip into his subconscious and help with one of his recurring nightmares.

Other agents had described nightmares of being chased, or their teeth falling out, but not Cain. He had two recurring nightmares: one was personal, and the other always involved an assassin attacking the president. Cain would always draw his weapon and try to put two bullets into the attacker’s center mass, but his trigger would not budge. He hoped that dry-firing his service pistol several times a day would transfer into his dreams and end that hellish loop.