Savage Recruit (Ryan Savage Thriller Series Book 8)
Savage Recruit
Ryan Savage Thriller Series | Book 8
Jack Hardin
First Published in the United States by The Salty Mangrove Press.
Copyright © 2021 by Jack Hardin. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Get Notified
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive,
but in finding something to live for.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Prologue
Helmand Province, Afghanistan
April 2012
Time was mocking when you were forced to wait for it.
For the tenth time in as many minutes, Bahar Shakor glanced at the clock on the wall. He felt like he was watching paint dry in a humid room or waiting for water to boil over a weak flame. The nerves in his fingers felt frayed and jittery. His stomach was in knots.
He stood up and slowly paced the floor of the small mud house before stealing another glance at the old clock.
“Why are you nervous, Bahar?”
His grandmother was sitting on the sofa across the room, his sister’s colorful partug in her lap, a needle and thread clutched between her skillful fingers. She had fallen asleep several minutes ago. Even now, her head was still resting back, her eyes closed. Still, she didn’t miss a thing.
He lifted his chin and faked his best smile. “I am not nervous, Bibijan. Just thinking.”
“It is not polite to lie to your elders. You have been taught better than that.”
“I will sell some of the goats this week. I am hoping that Jahir offers enough for them. We need the money.”
It was silent for the better part of a minute. Just when Bahar thought she had accepted the answer and had drifted back to her nap, she said, “It is not that, Bahar. If you do not wish to tell me, then say nothing. Only do not lie to an old lady.”
Bahar felt his face redden with shame, and he looked away. He stepped into the doorway that led to the common room and looked out the glassless window. There was nothing to see but an endless expanse of clay rock and low-lying sand masses: the Dasht-e Margoh—the Desert of Death. One hundred fifty thousand kilometers of barren wasteland. Two kilometers south lay a cool oasis boasting over twenty palm trees and a narrow stretch of water that had provided drink for local shepherds, their flocks, and their families for millennia. But across this last generation, Bahar had watched with his own eyes as the oasis shrank year by year, diminishing from the once plentiful body of water to a shallow, muddy pool a third of its former size. The palm trees had withered away until now only three remained. Those, too, were wilting. Next year, they would fail to fruit their dates.
Just as his country had.
Afghanistan had once been the home to extensive and thriving dynasties, enduring Islamic conquests and the cultural destruction brought on by Genghis Khan and his Mongol army. In the modern era, they had successfully withstood British and Russian occupation, maintaining their ancient heritage as a peaceful people who were content to enjoy a quiet way of life.
But all this evaporated only a decade before Bahar was born, when Daoud Khan brought about the Saur Revolution, usurping the throne and permanently abolishing the monarchy. Five years later, the communist faction in Afghanistan seized power in a bloody coup d'état, the events of which would see Afghanistan change from a peaceful and secluded country to a hotbed of international terrorism.
The country plunged into civil war and became the scene of a brutal proxy war between Pakistan, the United States, and the Soviet Union, destabilizing the entire region. The Soviets finally forced their way in from the north, kicking off the Soviet-Afghan War. The conflict would rage for almost a decade and leave close to 2 million of Bahar’s countrymen dead and as many landmines left behind, all of them inserted just below the sand for young children and animals to stumble upon.
Power abhors a vacuum, and after the Soviets finally pulled out, the Taliban emerged. Their merciless enactment of Sharia law and their scorched earth policy left tens of thousands homeless, starved, and all under a tyrannical regime that cared nothing for human freedom and flourishing.
After that, it was the Americans. They had arrived like a plague of locusts when Bahar was a teenager and quickly dispossessed the Taliban. But like a thirsty goat standing before the water of an oasis, they appeared to have no intentions of leaving any time soon. To this day the region remained destabilized, aggressive factions continued to fight in every province, and peace had departed, seeming to leave the country of his ancestors under a curse of eternal bloodshed and suffering. The very air seemed to be filled with hate and disdain, a weighty anxiety that you could not escape.
The Soviets were bad.
The Taliban was worse.
And in Bahar’s estimation, the Americans were no better.
For Bahar, it had all come to a tipping point five months ago. His beloved father and older brother were working in the market when a gunfight broke out between angry radicals and an American patrol. His father and brother were caught in the crossfire. When the dust and the smoke cleared, both of them were dead, as were seven other locals,