Love in any language, p.1
Love in Any Language, page 1
“Hallee writes with such authentic detail that I felt the sweat drip off my brow, heard the buzz of the African jungle, and ran for dear life with Cynthia and Rick. A rich story of courage and seeing the world with new eyes. Riveting, this book will get under your skin and into your heart. Absolutely fantastic.”
Susan May Warren, USA Today bestselling author, on Honor Bound
“Hallee Bridgeman weaves a military suspense with romance for a fast-paced adventure. Word of Honor kept me turning pages all night long.”
DiAnn Mills, author of Concrete Evidence, on Word of Honor
“What a fabulous story with perfectly crafted characters who grab your heart from the opening page. I loved everything about it—from the witty dialogue to the breath-stopping suspense to the tender romance. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down. I highly recommend this book and can’t wait for the next one.”
Lynette Eason, award-winning, bestselling author of the Extreme Measures series, on Honor Bound
“This book has something for everyone—action, adventure, romance, and true-to-life sadness and grief. Hallee crafts a complex story infused with spiritual truth, wrapped around intriguing lead characters with complicated personalities and backgrounds. Phil and Melissa will have you rooting for them the whole way through.”
Janice Cantore, retired police officer and author of Breach of Honor, on Honor’s Refuge
Prequel novella
Love in Any Language
Novels by Revell
Honor Bound
Word of Honor
Honor’s Refuge
Learn more online:
www.halleebridgeman.com/series/love-and-honor-series/
Love in Any Language,
A Love and Honor Series Prequel Novella
© 2022 by Hallee Bridgeman
Published by Olivia Kimbrell Press™
P.O. Box 470, Fort Knox, KY 40121-0470
www.oliviakimbrellpress.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bridgeman, Hallee, author.
Title: Love in Any Language / Hallee Bridgeman.
Description: Fort Knox, KY: Olivia Kimbrell Press™ [2022] | Series: Love and Honor ; 0
Identifiers: LCCN: 2022943914 | ISBN 9781681902128 (paperback) | ISBN 9781681902135 (casebound) | ISBN 9781681902081 (ebook) | ASIN: B09VDPXV1Z
Subjects: LCSH: Special forces (Military science)—Fiction. | Rescues—Fiction. | Jungle survival—Africa—Fiction. | LCGFT: Thrillers (Fiction) | Romance fiction. | Christian fiction.
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022943914
Scripture quotations, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
*Olivia Kimbrell Press™ is a publisher offering true to life, meaningful fiction from a Christian worldview intended to uplift the heart and engage the mind.
Praise for the Love and Honor Series
The Love & Honor Series
Love in Any Language
Copyright Notice
Table of Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Glossary of Military Terms and Acronyms
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
Discussion Questions
Recipes
Excerpt: Honor Bound
Personal Note
About Hallee
Word of Honor
Honor’s Refuge
Meet Hallee Bridgeman
More Books by Hallee Bridgeman
Hallee’s Happenings
This book is dedicated to the men and women of the
United States Armed Forces.
Thank you for your selfless service to our country.
Be devoted to one another in love.
Honor one another above yourselves.
—Romans 12:10
AO: area of operations
Bird: Helicopter
CAC: Common Access Card
CHU: containerized housing unit (a small, climate-controlled shipping container)
CJSOTF-HOA: Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Horn of Africa
DOD: Department of Defense
exfil: exfiltrate (withdraw)
HQ: headquarters
infil: infiltrate (move in)
klick: kilometer
LOC: Logistics Operations Center
LT: Either a first or second Lieutenant.
MRE: meal ready to eat
ODA: Operational Detachment Alpha
OPCON: operational control
PCS: permanent change of station
PR: personnel recovery mission
PT: Physical training, usually organized morning exercises consisting of calisthenics and a two-mile run.
Ricky-tick: quickly and efficiently
Roger: understood and acknowledged
Roger, wilco: understood, acknowledged, and will comply
SCIF: sensitive compartmented information facility (a secure location where classified information can be reviewed)
SFODA: Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (an A-Team)
SIPRNET: secret internet protocol router network (a network the Department of Defense uses to transfer classified information)
SITREP: situational report
TDY: Temporary duty travel (TDY), also known as temporary additional duty (TAD), is a designation reflecting a US Armed Forces Service member's travel or other assignment at a location other than his or her permanent duty station.
Wilco: Will comply
International Waters, Gulf of Aden
The modified Boston Whaler with sound suppressed but astonishingly powerful twin outboard engines cut through the water, slicing its way smoothly toward the fully laden third generation Suezmax container ship that loomed on the darkening horizon before them. Christened the “Bellflower” in 1987, the ship had a hauling capacity of 12,000 TEUs with a length of just under 400 meters, a breadth of 56 meters, and a draught of around 15 meters. From their perspective at sea level, the ship looked like an island.
Second Lieutenant Jorge “Pina Colada” Peña lead the team with Sergeant Daniel “Pot Pie” Swanson, Sergeant Travis “Trout” Fisher, Sergeant Gerald “Jerry Maguire” McBride, Sergeant Wade “Commando” Chandler, and Sergeant Eric “Gilligan” Gill in the boat.
The cool, salt-scented air rushed past them, and the occasional spray of salty water made droplets form on Jorge’s goggles.
He glanced at the Boston Whaler to starboard loaded with Team Captain Rick Norton, aka “Daddy”, Chief Warrant Officer Three Zachary “MMMBop” Hanson, Sergeant David “Mr. Miyagi” Morita, Lieutenant Philip “Doc Oz” Osbourne, and Sergeant “Honest Abe” Ibrahim. Even though he knew they were there and could almost perfectly pinpoint them, he couldn’t actually see them in the dark.
Suddenly, a pair of flat gray SH-60 Seahawk helicopters swept past their small boats at an altitude of perhaps five meters off the deck. They operated without running lights, or lights of any kind, and looked effectively invisible to the naked eye. Only the propwash in the air, the ground effect on the seawater, and the noise of the General Electric T700 turboshaft engines combined with the chop of the rotors identified their presence. Within seconds the aircraft began their attack runs on the objective and their door gunners opened fire exactly on time, strafing the cargo ship’s bridge, providing cover for Jorge and the five men in his team. The occasional tracer round gave him his only notion as to the positions of the aircraft in the moonless night sky.
He made out muzzle flashes from the ship. The bad guys had responded much more quickly than he would have estimated. The loud ping of a bullet ricocheting off the armored bow of his vessel made him want to duck even further behind the shields.
Closer to the ship, the noise of the small arms gunfire and rapid automatic fire from the helicopters made him glad for his earplugs. As soon as they made contact with the hull, Jorge shouted orders to tie off and climb the ladder. His radio operator, Sergeant Eric Gill, kept in contact with both Captain Norton, Headquarters, and their naval air support.
Jorge paused only a fraction of a second before grabbing the rung of the ladder and pulling himself up. This was his first mission as intel officer in this Special Forces Operations Detachment Alpha, or A-Team. This was his first combat mission since accepting his commission as a Second Lieutenant. He didn’t realize how different it would feel compared to combat missions as a noncommissioned officer in a regular infantry unit. He could feel the weight of the lives of the men he led resting on
Training pushed the nerves down. Hand over hand, he climbed until he slid over the side of the railing and rolled smoothly on the deck with his weapon instantly in operation. He held his weapon ready, crouching and watching for enemy combatants to appear. Norton and his team boarded the ship from the other side and nearer to the bow. Before he knew it, he heard the whisper-shouted affirmation from behind him, “Last man.”
Keying the microphone integrated into his gear, Jorge confirmed all aboard by subvocalizing, “Six. Four. Set.” Norton offered his own confirmation in Jorge’s earpiece in the form of two clicking noises. Norton’s group would head down into the belly of the ship. Jorge’s group would sweep the bridge and upper decks.
He gestured toward the bridge with a bladed left hand, fingers extended and joined. His right hand never wavered on his weapon. From the center of his group, he led his team across the deck toward the bridge. The two men diagonally in front of him with “Pot Pie” Swanson to his left and “Gilligan” Gill to his right kept their weapons high and low alternately. Jorge kept his weapon trained in the direction of travel. The three men behind him—“Trout” Fisher, “Jerry Maguire” McBride, and “Commando” Chandler—looked like a mirror image of Jorge and his pair as they walked backward, training their eyes in the direction of their deadly rifle muzzles.
They moved as a single unit, gliding across the deck like a six-pointed starfish with their upper bodies moving only slightly and their legs absorbing the motion involved in the swaying ship and the act of walking. To an outside observer, they would look like a twelve-legged animal whose upper body floated above a dozen skittering legs.
They reached the bridge hatch without incident and the men pulling rear guard stacked, “Trout” Fisher and “Jerry Maguire” McBride dropping to a one-kneed crouch while “Commando” Chandler remained standing. All of them swept the surrounding area prepared to fire. “Pot Pie” Swanson tried the bridge door and found it locked. He made a dismissive gesture with one hand before returning his grip to his weapon.
Jorge tapped Swanson on the shoulder and gestured with his left hand making a cutting motion, then stepped back with his spine against the bulkhead beside the hatch.
As Swanson affixed a tetrahedron shaped pinch of composition four, or C-4, along with a foot of detonation cord on the hatch handle, they all moved to the side for cover from the blast. “Fire in the hole in three,” Swanson quietly announced into his mic. After a slow count to three-Mississippi, Swanson detonated the charge.
Jorge went high and Gill went in low as they swung through the now open doorway, weapons ready. A man in red and white ghutrah and a black vest with bandoliers crisscrossed over his chest raised a Kalashnikov AK-74 toward Jorge, who fired two shots, dropping the man before he could even fire a single shot. The other man on the bridge, wearing a brown ghutrah with his blue suit jacket held both of his hands up and stepped away from his fallen comrade. While Jorge kept his gun trained on him, Chandler moved forward, quickly searching him before zip-tying his hands behind his back.
A few days from now, assuming he lived through this mission, Jorge would cope with the fact that he had just taken a man’s life. He would let the remorse of that act wash over him and through him and he would pray and get right with the God who he knew without a shred of doubt created him to be a soldier. Right now, he had no time to deal with any of those emotions. Right now, he had a job to do and lives depended upon him doing it well.
Jorge walked over to the zip tied man who crouched on his knees on the deck. He placed the muzzle of his M-4 carbine below the man’s chin so he could smell the fresh cordite and feel the warmth of the steel from the recently fired rounds. Then he used the muzzle to raise the man’s face until their eyes met. He would never fire on a prisoner, but he needed his prisoner to believe, without a single doubt, that he would. So he began his street-theater performance. The look he gave the prisoner informed him that he would not hesitate to take this man’s life as well. “Speak English?”
The man carefully shook his head and said, “La. ‘Ana 'atahadath alearabia.” No. I speak Arabic.
Jorge nodded, maintaining eye contact. He slowly, deliberately, and very calmly slid his finger onto the trigger of his weapon watching the man’s fear increase as he did so. In accented Arabic, he demanded, “How many with you?”
When his prisoner didn’t answer instantly, he gave the man’s chin a little tap with the muzzle of his M-4 carbine and cut his eyes toward the corpse leaking blood onto the deck just a few feet away. “We can just find them and ask them.”
“Khamsa. Khamsa.” The man pleaded. Five.
Jorge instantly removed his finger from the trigger and lowered his weapon. To Gill, he nodded and said, “That tracks.”
Gill gave an affirmation in the radio and said, “Norton’s taking fire near the living quarters below decks.”
Jorge nodded. “Right. We’re good here. Pot Pie, Trout, Jerry Maguire, go lend the boss a hand. Gill, send RSVPs on their behalf.” Gill quietly informed Captain Norton that three friendlies were en route in support.
While they searched the bridge for information, he could hear the chatter of the team as they killed one more bad guy and, after chasing him through ductwork in between the decks, found Haafiz Durrani, one their mission targets. As the intelligence officer, Jorge knew Durrani was a senior lieutenant for the terrorist Kamyar Punjabi, their primary mission target.
Gill glanced at Jorge. “No Punjabi?”
“Maybe he’s hiding in with the crew. He’s slick like a bucket of eels.”
Over the radio, they heard his three-man detachment calling out, “Friendlies. Friendlies. Friendlies.”
Jorge listened intently as his men integrated with Norton’s team and they all began to lay down disciplined—and deadly accurate—suppressive fire. The firefight didn’t last much longer. The pirates surrendered quickly with two dead and one wounded.
Jorge took Hanson’s report while leaning against the bulkhead near the locked hatch of the cabin that contained Durrani. "They shoved the crew into a single stateroom—all twenty-four of them.” Fury dripped from Hanson’s voice. “We counted eighteen able seamen, two cooks, three engineers, and one dead captain.”
With a nod, Jorge said, “Thanks, Chief. Ozzy get a look at them?”
“Yeah. A few minor injuries. Dehydrated, hungry. Exhausted. He’s getting them fed some soup. No Punjabi.”
Norton came down the passageway from the direction of sick bay, and pointed at the other end of the P-way. “She’s here.”
Jorge lifted an eyebrow. “She?”
“Selah.”
Thinking of the stone-faced terrorist on the other side of the door, he wondered what information a woman codenamed Selah could effectively extract. “Sir….”
Norton cut him off, and his beard lifted as he smiled. “You gotta have faith, Pina Colada. Trust your daddy. Father knows best.”
Nothing in Jorge’s entire life led him to trust any other person so blindly—except in the case of Captain Rick Norton, the leader of this A-Team. He actually carried the lives of all eleven men in his hands, and he gave the same kind of trust he expected in return.
Norton walked down the hall and looked up the staircase. “Well, don’t you look a sight, twenty-four-ten.”
“Daddy,” came the reply. He detected a very faint Texas twang in the husky alto voice. “Been too long.”
Jorge watched her walk in his direction. She didn’t bother to duck her head as she entered through the hatch. She couldn’t be taller than five-two with a thin build to match. She wore a pair of black cargo pants and a black long-sleeved button-down linen shirt. In her hand, she held a black scarf.
“Selah, this is Lieutenant Jorge Peña, our new intel officer. Peña, meet Sergeant Emma Selah. She’s the best tactical debriefer I’ve ever seen. I requested her due to our somewhat urgent need for timely and accurate information.”
Jorge couldn’t believe the United States Army’s Special Forces would rely on this tiny woman with her husky voice and deep, dark brown eyes to do anything at all. He raised an eyebrow. “Looking forward to watching you work,” he said.
