The Merc Series
“So then I said, that was the shark mate!”
A roar of laughs went up around the bar as a half-dozen off duty Marines enjoyed the joke by one Trevor Fritz.
A former Australian SAS, Trevor had been putting his considerable skills to use as a mercenary and a pirate for many years now. Those in the know, knew he wasn’t someone to pick a fight with, as his talents were right up there with some of the best in the business today.
The off duty Marines didn’t know who he really was. They suspected him to be a private contractor looking to be buddy buddy with them to sign them up with whatever company he was representing. Seeing as how none of them were older than twenty-two, that wouldn’t be happening for a while. They were however, more than happy to drink the beers Trevor was paying for and to laugh at his jokes, which were in fact, hilarious.
None of this bothered Trevor in the least. In fact, he much preferred for these young Marines to view him as some old washed up headhunter, for if his real identity were to become known, he might just have to put a bullet in these kid’s heads or break out his old English style bowie knife with a walnut handle. The ten-inch blade had claimed many an opponent’s life over the years.
He hoped it didn’t come to that, for while he enjoyed a good fight as much as anyone and could be the most ruthless bastard you’ve ever met, Trevor tried not to kill just for the sake of killing. He was a firm believer in a code of honor and respect between fellow mercenaries and rivals. That code was the main reason he hadn’t yet killed one Clive O’Connor,
O’Connor was a former British SAS, giving him and Trevor something of a thing in common. That would be the extent of that though, as Trevor was a more in your face kind of fighter, while O’Connor was an expert marksman, who chooses to use a bow and arrow as his primary weapon.
Trevor remembered mocking him on their first encounter, until he watched two of his hired hands in full body armor dropped from a single arrow each. Their Kevlar being no match for the razor sharp arrows. Now Trevor just saw him as a talented, but cocky ladies’ man, who needed to be smacked down every few months when he gets in his way while on a job. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit to having a scar or two from that SOB and his arrows.
“All right mates. Next round is on me, so long as you’re drinking a Foster’s,” Trevor bellowed throughout the bar. More laughs went up around the place and Trevor peeled off several hundred dollar bills and handed them to the bartender.
“Can I get three Foster’s for me and have one of your cute girls bring over a couple pitchers of beer.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’m also going to need a dozen house burgers and a dozen steaks.”
“Um, sure,” the bartender replied.
Trevor peeled off several more hundreds and put them on the counter. “All cooked medium,”
The bartender picked up the hundreds and said, “You got it.”
Trevor smiled then looked at his nails while he waited for his beers. He was in serious need of a long hot bath and maybe even a massage while he was at it. They were in paradise after all. Might as well enjoy it.
“Here you go sir.”
“Thank you mate.”
Trevor took his three bottles of Foster’s back to his team’s area of the bar. They had just come off a big payday from hijacking a Saudi freighter and with a huge job on the horizon, Trevor thought his team, The Corsairs, deserved a vacation. They had set sail for Hawaii and arrived a few hours ago in Waikiki on Oahu island.
“Yeah, I’m not drinking that crap,” Cooper said as Trevor sat down at one of the four tables they had pushed together.
“Well, good thing none of them are for you mate,” Trevor replied before twisting the cap off one and drinking half of it in one long sip.
Cooper was a former paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne Division and was usually the first one on the ships they hijacked to clear a path for everyone else. His skills in close quarter combat were amongst the best on the team and he brought a lot to The Corsairs. Unfortunately, he also liked to talk a lot and was always chasing skirts.
Cooper thought Trevor picked Waikiki because it had the best surfing and Cooper loved to surf. Trevor was all for his guys having hobbies but he didn’t care enough about
Copper’s interest to let that decide his vacation spot. He picked Oahu island and Waikiki specifically because it was home to this bar.
The bar’s name, Ho’okomo Koa, roughly translated to ‘come in soldier’ and it was right on the beach, offering a 180 degree view of the ocean. Trevor still remembered when he helped the original owner build it, a long time ago, in what was a different lifetime. Back when he’d have been considered one of the good guys.
“So was there a point in you making friends with the jarheads over there?”
Trevor looked over at the other person sitting next to Cooper, Jean-Paul LeDuc, a French-Canadian mercenary just as seasoned as Trevor and served as his unofficial third-in-command. Jean-Paul was a heavyset guy in his early forties and despite having only a stump where his left hand should be, he was not one to piss off. He had barked orders in combat to hundreds of men throughout his career and they had all done as he said. That most of them were dead was less a problem with his orders and more the lack of skill in those men following said orders. Or at least that’s what Jean-Paul told everyone.
Over the years of working with him, Trevor had learned bits and pieces of the story of how Jean-Paul lost his hand to rival mercenaries on a mission years ago. Crazy psychopaths, that was how Jean-Paul always described them.
“Just enjoying my shore leave mate. Nothing wrong with making friends.”
Jean-Paul remained silent.
“Oh relax mate. They have no clue who we are.”
“Let’s hope that theory holds up,” Jean-Paul replied just as four more members of The Corsairs walked into the bar.
The heaviest member of The Corsairs by far was their engineer. A rather slothful Czechoslovakian name Nemec ‘The Butcher’. He had a full black beard was that as unkempt as his greasy, frizzy hair. If odor was considered to be the deciding factor as to who was the most pirate-like, then Nemec won that hands down. Only the mercenary Eddie Finch had ever come close to smelling as bad as him, but with Finch it was straight up BO as oppose to Nemec’s swamp ass stank.
Fortunately for Nemec he happened to not only be an excellent mechanic but could speak and read several languages including Russian, English, Mandarin and Arabic. The latter two very useful when taking over one of their ships and everything is in their language.
His nickname came from the butcher knife he always carried on himself. Even though he was the least trained in combat among The Corsairs, primarily because he sat on his ass all day when they weren’t on a job, it still didn’t make him any less dangerous. He had raked up quite a body count with said butcher knife. After some members of The Corsairs found out that Nemec would also use it when making dinner, he was promptly taken off the boat’s cooking rotation schedule. Something Trevor figured was part of Nemec’s plan all along. He much preferred to eat then cook.
Behind Nemec was Riggs, perhaps the creepiest member of The Corsairs, which was saying something in its self. Trevor still wasn’t sure if that was a first name, last name, or nickname. Jean-Paul had worked with him years ago doing various illegal jobs during Hurricane Katrina. He to sported a beard, but unlike Nemec’s, Riggs kept it mostly well-trimmed and years in the sun had given his white skin a permanent tan.
Several things combined together are what gave Riggs his creepy factor. The most obvious was his long brown hair that he put into thick dreadlocks. Next was his lack of talking. And when he did, it was mostly in grunts. His eyes were next. Trevor had stared down many men in his lifetime and Riggs’s eyes were the look of a stone cold killer. Despite not having any military training, Riggs made up for that by being a vicious killer. The rest of the team put up with him because he cared the least about money. So long as he was kept well fed and given first pick of the women, he was content, which meant larger shares for everyone else.
Walking beside Riggs, was the big guy of the team, the Samoan, Maru Sefa. Riggs was no slouch at 6’4 but Maru beat him by being 6’5. Maru had long jet black hair that always looked wet and was a beast when it came to strength and muscle, sporting the biggest arms on the team. This strength also allowed him to bring the heavy firepower. His aim with an RPG-7 had become almost legendary, no small feat considering the RPG’s lack of guidance system. Depending on the job, Maru had been known to carry five more rockets on his back, this was in addition to the M249 SAW machine gun he used to sweep aside any armed resistance.
Should one survive all this firepower and get into hand to hand with Maru, they then had to contend with his brute strength. Trevor had seen first-hand the Samoan charge and smash guys right through walls. Seeing the sight of his own blood only fired the big guy up more and the fight usually ended soon after.
Being one of the younger members of The Corsairs at twenty-eight, Maru hadn’t yet been jaded by the years of the business and had no problem kicking back to enjoy a beer and a half-dozen burgers when not on the job. He was a good kid and Trevor saw a bright future for him.
Bringing up the rear was the shortest member of The Corsairs, Chet. It wasn’t his real name but rather the Thai word for ‘brother’. Years ago on a mercenary gig in Thailand, Trevor had been double-crossed by his employer and half the guys he was working with were killed while the other half tried their best to kill him. Had it not been for the help of Chet, an underground cage fighter betrayed by the same employer, those mercs would have succeeded in killing Trevor. Working together, they both got their revenge on the backstabbing business man. Chet beat the guy to death with his bare hands while Trevor was able to transfer more than half of the guy’s available wealth to an off shore bank account in his name. The rest was land and companies the guy owned or had shares in. Trevor was able to use those as chips at the bargaining table down the road for other services. From that day on, Chet had been by his side and when Trevor formed The Corsairs as a permanent team, Chet became his 2nd in command.
When it came to straight hand to hand fighting, Chet was one of the best Trevor had ever seen. Even before they had met, Chet was reigning champ at the underground area he fought at. It didn’t matter if it was his fist, elbow, foot, knee, or head, every part of him was a deadly weapon. Combine that with the firearms training Trevor and Cooper had given him and Chet had become the hunter of the team. Once Cooper had cleared a spot of them, Chet was up next and took off with lighting speed to take out the engineer first, to secure the boat, then went hunting for the Captain of the ship.
“Excuse me, sir,”
Trevor looked over his shoulder to see a cute waitress holding the two pitchers of beer. She was tiny and looked to be struggling to hold both pitchers at the same time.
“Just set them right here. In fact, you better get four more,” Trevor said and peeled off two hundreds.
“Keep the change,” he said as his right hand ran across the red bikini bottom she wore.
“Thank you very much sir,” she said and backed away once Trevor removed his hand.
“Now that is a firm ass,” Trevor said with a laugh and opened his second beer.
“Little young for my taste,” Cooper said and finished his Sam Adams beer.
“You already order the food?” Maru asked as he sat on the same side as Trevor, but at the next table down.
“That I did mate. Trust me when I say you’ll love the house burgers.”
“Where are Kaheem and Raheem?” Jean-Paul asked as he sent one pitcher of beer down to Nemec, who sat at the last table alone.
Kaheem and Raheem, aka the Machete Boys, were two young South African mercenaries that Trevor had been given as payment for a job he did earlier in the year. They earned even less of a share of money than Riggs, as they were still learning the ins and outs of the business. The goal being that by next year they would be able to head back home and create a splinter group of The Corsairs and give tithe to Trevor. They got their nickname because of the machetes they always carried and because they came from a family of actual headhunters.
Trevor didn’t see the point of chopping a guy’s head off but in reality what difference did it make if you shot a guy or cut his head off. Either way the guy was dead.
“They both said they weren’t hungry and were going for a walk,” Chet said and reached for a handful of peanuts out of a bowl on his table. He was across from Maru. Riggs sat next to him but at the third table.
“Their loss,” was all Trevor said and took another sip of his beer.
The waitress came back and put a pitcher of beer in front of Maru and Rex without making eye contact. She came right back with the last two and put one on Chet’s table then the last one back by Trevor.
“Your food will be out in a few more minutes. Can I get you anything else sir?”
“Well I suppose that depends on what else you are offering?” Trevor said, his eyes looking at her ass.
“Um…” she started, her face turning red.
“I’m just playing dear. We’re fine for now. Thank you.”
She nodded and turned to leave, getting a smack on the ass from Trevor as she did.
“I thought you were Asian girls only?” Cooper asked.
“Nothing wrong with mixing it up a little mate. Beside I’m a sucker for cute, tight little asses.”
“Speaking of that. Wow,” Cooper said his gaze looking at the entrance of Ho’okomo Koa, just as a girl walked in.
“Meh, her tits are too small,” Jean-Paul was quick to say.
“You’re fucking retarded,” Cooper replied just as quickly. “That’s the surfer girl I saw when we were walking the beach on the way here. She is fucking hot.”
“Then why are you still sitting here with us mate? Go get yourself some pussy.”
Cooper looked at Trevor and nodded before getting up. He passed several waitresses that were bringing their food.
“I call dibs on his burger,” Maru said as he picked up one of the house burgers. It had all the fixings of a normal burger and was topped with pulled pork and a special sauce. He took one bite, which was followed quickly by a second.
“This is fantastic,” he said, his mouth full of a third bite.
“I told ya. Always trust me mate,” Trevor said with a grin, as he opened his third beer then cut into his steak.
He had a feeling this was going to be an excellent little vacation.
THE CORSAIRS
A Merc Series Short Story