Cache Money

Chapter 4

It was two years later.

Me and Jerry were at the funeral. Echo and Charlie had been killed in action, and Tex was the only survivor of the blast. When they were all on a mission, the chopper had gone down, and when Charlie jumped out, the rotors caught him and shredded him right through his armor. And though Echo survived the crash, he didn't survive the enemy finding him passed out and putting a bullet in the back of his skull. Tex was lucky, he'd bailed out first with a 'chute and had gotten to safety, and saw it all happen, and solemnly recovered their masks.

Tex was at the funeral too, and I swear, I saw some tears in his eyes. The man who I'd thought to be tougher than steel had broken down, but they were not tears of sadness. They were tears of rage. He hated what had happened, and he wanted out. But I saw the wheels in his head turning, and he knew that he needed to help more. The people that Charlie and Echo had died fighting were some of the worst terrorists in the world, and it was a contract we'd gotten from the US Military. They were dissatisfied with the results, but they paid us and gave their sympathies for the sacrifice we'd made.

I took their masks and placed them over their headstones, and gave my sympathies to the families, and to my surprise, they didn't blame me or my company for their deaths. They knew that Charlie and Echo died doing what they loved and died helping everyone from the terrorists, and that they knew their sacrifices would not be in vain. And they were right about that: we'd avenge them, but we had neither the men, nor the resources to track them down and kill them. We were forced to put it on the back-burner for now, and that pissed me off, but Jerry saw this and assured me that we would get them, but not to kill myself worrying. We told the same to Tex, and he immediately knew. He told me that he had a friend who'd just gotten out of the Canadian Armed Forces and wanted to join us. I told him to bring him in.

The next Monday afternoon, the guy came in to my office.

"Hey there." He shook my hand.

"Hello. So, Tex told me he knew you from when you guys served in Afghanistan?"

"That's right. I was a Can-Loan to the American soldiers, and that's where I met him. Name's Chris."

"Good to hear it, Chris. Mine's Andy, but I guess you already knew that. Nickname's Scooter, and you're gonna need one for yourself. Any thoughts on that?"

"Yeah, actually." Chris handed me a slip of paper with a drawing on it. "I want my name to be Hawk. I even designed my mask, if that's a doable style?"

I looked it over. He'd drawn one of our masks very well, and it was colored. It was black all over, with the sides at the top of the mask having flaming wings.

"Yeah," I said, putting it down, "I can do it. Have you thought of your partner at all?"

"Well, since we served together, I think it's appropriate that I work with Tex, right?"

"Guess so. I'll give him a call." I extended my hand to him, and he shook it. "Welcome to Cache Protection, Hawk."