Set To Kill, Chapter 5

Welcome to more pieces and parts of my upcoming novel Set To Kill.  I'm already on page 56, but the is was a slow week.  Sorry about that.

If you don't remember what Set To Kill is, it's the sequel to my novel It Was Only On Stun.

Thursday, the day before WyvernCon

Sean Ryan finished the SWATting of Colonel Bradley, then looked at Matthew Kovach like the man had grown three heads. “What the hell is this?” he demanded, handing the author back his iPad.

“More or less what happened,” Kovach said.

“Come on, this is so unbelievable, no one has land mines—”

Bradley cleared his throat. “I do.”

Sean's head whipped around so fast, whiplash was not out of the question. “Really? How much of this was real?”

“I don't have any bloodstained crosses,” he said casually. “And I didn't force the SWAT team to undergo training. And I certainly don't act like that around my wife.”

Bradley's phone rang and he immediately answered it. He hopped up and marched off to the side, the last words he heard from him were “Hey, honey. How are you, pumpkin?” in a voice so sweet, he sounded like someone else.

Sean blinked as though he'd been slapped. “Huh. Well, I guess there can be a lot more truth in fiction than I thought.”

“Just wait until you see my books,” Kovach said.

Sean frowned, “I'm almost afraid to ask.” He looked back to the authors. “Now, all of you people have been SWATted?”

Everybody nodded, even the two on laptops.

“Now, did anyone actually die during any of these? Obviously, none of you did, but were there casualties?”

The author on the laptop, in the kilt, laughed. “I only had a few of them bruised. My kids play rough.”

Sean blinked, opened his mouth, and he saw Declan Finn already scrolling through his iPad to find that writeup. “I don't think I want to know just now. Though I must ask, your name, sir?”

“Jessie James.”

Of course you are. “Your parents sure they wanted Jessie? Not William or Henry?”

“Like I haven't heard that one –” James stopped and looked up from his computer for a moment, still typing without looking at the screen. “Okay, I haven't actually heard that one before. They usually ask where my brother Frank is.”

“Glad I can oblige.” He looked over the others. “Anyone other casualties?”

One of the others, who looked like Freddy Mercury (only straight), with mustache and slicked-back black hair, chuckled. “Only scrapes and bruises.”

“Even I survived mine,” Kovach joked. His smile faded. “But, seriously, Sean, the SMURFs have pulled out all of the stops trying to sabotage the livelihoods of everyone here. Check out Amazon sometime, and see how many one-star reviews out and out state that it's because the author is a Puppy backer, and you'll see that this has been a concerted effort. It's a little annoying at this point.” The author smiled. “Let's just say I'm happy that I've kept my temper in check.”

Sean nodded. He'd seen a few of the bodies Kovach had left behind. “Gotcha.” He looked back to the others. “I have to ask, then – why didn't a single one of you ask WyvernCon for more security? Let's say this is all true, that none of you, and none of your fans, made even the slightest threat against the smuts –”

“SMURFs,” a chorus corrected him.

“—then why did only one side ask for help?”

Gary Castelo laughed, once more seeming like the ghost of Christmas Present. “I own a gun range. Figure it out.” He nodded to Kovach. “You read his write up of Bradley's SWATting experience. Do the math.”

The one Sean labeled as “Freddie Mercury” said, “I'm Werner Y. Jefferson. In addition to being an author, I'm a gunsmith, and I make my own swords. As Gary says, do the math.”

Jessie James didn't even look up from the laptop. “Yeah, don't even start with me. Someone else can go.”

Rachel Hartley reached under her chair and brought out a tactical umbrella, with a solid iron core. “I'm good with this.”

“But in all honesty,” Omar Gunderson said, “We don't need it. These guys are, at best, keyboard commados. Sure, sic a SWAT team on us via 9-1-1? Not a problem. But you've met the leaderships of some of our … antagonists?”

Gary chuckled. “Mild annoyances?”

Omar shrugged. “Sure. Like it or not, we're not in a place where they can come and get us. Even if they call a SWAT team on us again here, in Atlanta, there's no way that they would get past the front desk. It's hard to SWT someone in a hotel, you know?”

“And let's face it, there's no way in Hell they'd take us on one-on-one,” Kovach said. “Unless they have some psycho foot soldiers around, of course. Heh. But let's face it, what are the odds of that?”

That's when someone coming up the Hyatt's back stairs and wheeled on the patio with a gun.