Excerpt

Although this story contains things from the world in which we live, it should be read as a work of fiction. All characters are fictional and not based on any actual living person. The events that take place in this story are entirely the product of my imagination.

It was likely the nondescript diner had no cameras. If it did, he just had to keep his head down and mind not give it too good a look. He paid the check with two tens, leaving his own requisite 20 percent, got up, and walked out.

The early September night in central Texas was hot and damp. He started to walk back the way he had come, through the now mostly empty and dark lots that separated his motel and the diner. As he got about half way across one of them he saw three figures emerge around the corner of one of the hapless buildings and turn in his direction. Maybe they were heading to the diner. Without thought, he immediately looked down to fix his night vision. He could angle off to the right, but that might draw attention later if these three were ever interviewed. So he kept going on his course.

When they got to about 20 feet of him, they slowed. “Hey man. You got any cigarettes?” Failure to respond would be noted as strange by a future interviewer and might draw a confrontation now. “No. Don’t smoke.” “You don’t smoke?” one said incredulously. “You?” “You got no smokes? Really?” “I wish I did, really.” “”You’re gonnna be wishing a lot more when we get done with you.” As this was uttered, the one in the middle raised an automatic pistol and pointed it at Dahlgren. Dahlgren looked around. No one else was coming. No one was watching. The other two started snickering. Dahlgren just hoped the guy had a full magazine.

Dahlgren was immediately overcome with sadness. The three men accosting him were men just barely. They couldn’t be any older than 21 or 22. Their lives had really just begun and shortly their lives were going to end, one way or another. And this is why Dahlgren was sad.

He sighed audibly. “What’s wrong with you? You bored or somethin’?” said number one with his 9mm Beretta pointed at Dahlgren. And Dahlgren’s sadness was just that quickly tempered. As young as these guys were, this clearly wasn’t their first crime. They had the confident insouciance of experienced young thugs. They had obviously done this before. No one had ever resisted them. No one had ever pulled their punk card.

Dahlgren recalled something his first special-forces instructor had beaten into his head: “No matter how big of a badass you are, there’s always someone who’s a bigger badass.” This, Dahlgren knew from experience, was a fundamental law that was not open to debate. It was like gravity.

There appeared to be no doubt these three punks — who were likely near the top of the street’s food chain in this town — were not aware of this precept. But just as sure as the earth was spinning imperceptibly about its axis, they had just run into it in Dahlgren.

The fact that all three would likely have blown a .20 BAC reading on a breathalyzer certainly didn’t help their chances. The shooter had also given Dahlgren the added advantage of approaching him head on, such that the two were facing each other, and the shooter was lazy: he held the weapon in only one hand and with no bend in his knees. All Dahlgren had to do was redirect the muzzle. The only solution to the precept his instructors had instilled was to act first, and to act as forcefully and as devastatingly as possible.

He knew from training and experience that a fully sober opponent pointing a firearm at you still had to process what you were doing and formulate the decision in his brain synapses to depress the trigger. This had been verified through scientific study to take on average a total of five tenths of a second. And this was if the shooter had already taken up the slack in the trigger and fully intended to actually kill you by firing the weapon. If he had not taken up the trigger slack, and he was also under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the average reaction time went up to nearly 8 to 9 tenths of a second.

This was an eternity if the trigger puller were going up against a person who had real combat or self-defense training and was as sober and alert as Dahlgren. And if the guy really had no intention of shooting you, well, then you pretty much had all day and only had to ensure the guy did not accidentally discharge the weapon while it was pointed in your direction.

The most difficult of these factors to discern was intent, so Dahlgren was overprotective and always assumed an intent to kill. Dahlgren quickly calculated this guy fell into the middle category, and he would have about a second or less to move. When the time felt right, when he knew the initial adrenaline of accosting him had started to wane in their veins, just as they uttered their first snicker, he acted.

He rocketed his right hand up and across in a slashing motion that connected with number one’s weapon and knocked the shooter off balance to Dahlgren’s left. As number one spun away, Dahlgren grabbed his own .45 from the holster hidden under his baggy shirt on the front of his belt. The shooter reacted instinctually and tried to spin back toward Dahlgren, but before he could gain his balance, Dahlgren brought up the .45 while simultaneously stepping forward with his left foot into a textbook Weaver stance and fired two rounds from three feet, center mass, upper chest into number one’s sternum.

As number one fell, Dahlgren calmly slid the sights over onto number two’s chest and fired two more center mass rounds. Number two dropped. Total time elapsed was less than three seconds.

But now number three was sprinting away. Dahlgren had to act quickly. Chase? Let him go? No. It was too great a risk. Dahlgren lifted the .45, sighted in, center mass on number three’s back, and depressed the trigger until the shot broke and surprised him, just as he had been trained. Number three fell. Dahlgren slowly walked over to where three lay motionless, evaluated the situation, and determined no more rounds were needed. Number three was dead.

Dahlgren walked back over to number one, whiped the numberless .45 clean, placed it into the dead number one’s right hand, and fired three more rounds into the distant night. He took number one’s pistol, walked over to number three, placed it in his right hand, and fired three more rounds into the distance. He looked around for any witnesses. And walked away.

Copyrighted material. 2015, all rights reserved.