How bad could it be anyway? corrected

My name is Marcus, my friends call me Mark. I spent four years in the Army. I was a military police specialist or MP. I spent two years of my four years in Afghanistan, two years in the states. I barely got my associates degree finished before leaving the Army. When I got out of the service in 2005 I swore I’d never go back overseas. I took a job with the security company in San Antonio Texas. The hours I worked were not too bad; I worked as a gate guard for one of the bases, just checking IDs of the people coming in to base. The pay was actually better than I could make in any other security position like a guard at a mall.

Course I was young and spent my money as fast as I earned it. I stay away from credit as much is possible, paid off up my credit card on each billing cycle. My parents got themselves in so much debt I learned that lesson having to do without while my father paid down his credit cards.

Early in the spring of 2006 I met Nicole, Nikki we all called her. Nikki was a beauty standing 5 foot six with dark hair, dark, dark Brown eyes that seem to be bottomless. I could stare into her beautiful eyes forever. I think that’s what made me fall in love with her, her eyes captured me, and she took a hold of my very soul. When I met Nikki I was surprised to find out she was only seventeen she acted older than that. At the time I was twenty-three and worried of what her father would think of me. I mean she’s barely of age and just getting out of high school. Seventeen is legal age in Texas. But this 5 foot six beauty with 34C cup 24 inch waist, and 34 inch hips had captured my heart. To me nothing else mattered.

I didn’t meet her father until the week before I asked Nikki to marry me. On my first meeting I asked his permission to marry his daughter. He didn’t like me much, but his daughter it made him relent after a couple days. It wasn’t much of a surprise to Nikki; she knew she already had me. Nikki had a fairly large family one older brother Carlos, two younger sisters Maria and Angela and a younger brother Federico.

Her father Carlos was a first-generation American having come from Mexico and he spent four years in service to earn his citizenship. His wife had come from a small village in Mexico as well.

I’m Irish-American and my ancestors settled in South Texas sometime after the Civil War. Nikki usually laughed at my Spanish until I corrected her it’s Tejano (pronounced Tehono in English). It’s a slightly different dialect than normal Spanish. It has a lot more slang used here in southern Texas. The only Spanish Nikki knew was from high school. Her father wouldn’t allow her family to speak Spanish at home. He wanted to Americanize his family as quickly as possible.

I learned to respect him immediately; he truly wanted to be an American. I could never fault anyone for wanting to make their life better for themselves and their children. After all my ancestors immigrated with the same idea, just because they did it more than 100 years earlier it doesn’t change the fact that he and my forefathers had a lot in common.

Nikki and I were married six months after my proposal that was December 21 of 2006. Needless to say the money I was making as a bachelor couldn’t cover the expenses we had as a married couple. Nikki had one part-time job after another hating them all. As our money problems got harder they begin to affect our family. I knew if I didn’t do something soon, I was going to end up losing Nikki. I took a part-time job, but that didn’t help us any. Nikki found a job that she liked, but between her work and my two jobs I didn’t get to see her every day. About three or four nights a week we can sleep together, my work or her work we keep us apart. So this keeps a strain on our marriage. Still the money problems only got deeper.

A friend of mine at the security firm told me about a new contract the company had gotten. It was overseas but a paid more than 150,000 dollars per year, with the first 75,000 tax-free. Although I swore I’d never go overseas again I quickly saw this as a way to get ahead a little. That was more than I would make in four years, in one year’s time. I hate the thought of leaving Nikki, but our money problems were going to have us divorced soon anyway. It’s only year, how bad could it be anyway?

I set Nikki down and discussed it with her. She swore she love me and it didn’t matter she just was frustrated and she hated being apart like we were currently. I told her if I went overseas and took this job I had two two-week vacations during the time, with airfare paid all way back to Texas. So I could see her on the fourth month and eight month of the year. We could talk back and forth over Internet connection during the meantime. With her keeping the job she liked the time will go by faster.

When I get home we would have over hundred thousand dollars to buy a nice house in a quiet neighborhood. I could still keep the same job I had today a slightly higher wage. Without the expense of housing we can make it on just are two jobs. So reluctantly we both agreed that I should take the job transfer. The next day I went into the office I filed the necessary paperwork for the transfer. It was a week later I was informed of my acceptance to the training program for it.

This is a six month school I had to attend before going overseas, it did come with a good raise in pay so that part-time job I had was it missed. Although I was away from Nikki for the entire six months, I got one week of vacation after my school. The school was an intense combat and security force school instructed by ex-blackouts personnel. It was a tough the six months my life. Even though I had a Dan/black belt in jujitsu I learned a lot of mixed martial arts and anyone of my instructors could put me on my ass for the first three months without much trouble. I did finish top in hand-to-hand training in my class. I was never so glad to be finish school in my life as the day I finished that six months training.

Nikki was very glad to see me, we missed each other more than we realized. The first three days we spent together hardly leaving our bed. The fourth day Nikki had to work and couldn’t get out of it. But we still spend as much time with each other as we could. The week went by way too fast and Nikki drove me to the airport to say goodbye on the seventh day.

I slept on the flights as much as I could, the one across the Atlantic was the longest I slept most of it. I had a three hour layover in London and I gave Nikki a quick call got the answering machine so I just left a quick Nikki I love you. The next flight took me straight into the Middle East and two hour convoy ride got me to my new job site. The boss gave me a day off to unpack and draw my equipment and firearms from the company stores and armory. We got much better body armor and firearms that I had when I was in the military. I take a little time after cleaning my weapons to go to the firing range and centered them.

I had mailed off to myself some equipment that wasn’t standard but my instructors had suggested I get. I found our mail office and retrieve my package. I had two buoy knives, military hatchet, and a laser pointer for my 9 mm pistol all waiting for me.

I settled into my job and it turned out to be as boring as any other job I’ve ever had. We didn’t try to interact with the locals, and they kind of ignored us too. Nikki and I e-mail back and forth, it was two weeks before I got a call in the due to the time difference it was hard to catch her at home. Her schedule had changed and I ask her why over e-mail. She tells me she lost that job but just found a new one. Although the new one had different hours it paid a lot better. She was pretty vague what it was in her e-mail. The next time I got a call through and was able to speak to her should always change the subject if I asked about the job.

My four months was coming up and I had a two-week vacation coming. My boss called me into his office, he informed me that due to insurgent activity elsewhere in country that my vacation had to be canceled. The company would reimburse me $10,000 for the inconvenience. He also informed me that my shift would be extended to twelve hours instead of the eight it had been.

Two days before I was due to arrive I finally managed to get a call through to Nikki. I wasn’t going to tell her by an e-mail or leave a message this is too important. I told her the company had canceled my vacation time for the time being but did give me $10,000 for the inconvenience. Nikki was a little mad but the money helped. She finally said, “We can use the $10,000 for furniture.” I agreed that she could use it on any furniture she wanted. I’d rather have spent this week with her.

Twelve hour shifts really suck, it seems like it takes all the rest of the day just to have two meals and a little rest, before you’re right back at the job. A month later everything calms back down and we went back to eight hour shifts.

During this time we still have a lot of high-profile insurgents, some with large bounties on their heads. The company I work for didn’t stop us from looking for these people, but they certainly didn’t encourage it. On convoy duty one day I noticed the man just stepping out of a small building near the edge of our town. I knew his face immediately he was one of the insurgents that had nearly $1.25 million bounty on him. I talked to three of my friends at the company added a fifth member before setting out after him. The warrant wanted him alive, if possible. So we brought along a few tasers that someone had mailed to themselves. We hit the compound during evening prayer, we knew we had the best chance of getting in and out without causing a major disturbance.

Turns out we not only got him but to others with quarter million on them as well. After turning them in, we collected $350,000 per member of our little group. I didn’t tell Nikki about the $350,000 I knew she would be angry that I risked my life. Our boss was irritated that we hadn’t included him, but when we brought back some of the Intel showing that we were going to be there next target he quickly got over it. We spent the next month and a half on twelve hour shifts.

When it came time for my next vacation again I was informed and reimbursed, but no vacation. Nikki didn’t seem to mind this time.

The week that I was post be on vacation I spotted another insurgent of those smaller bounty on this one, I went to the boss this time and he got the four others that we used the last instance. This was much easier with support; but this time didn’t go so well. There were six insurgents in a different compound and they were constructing IEDs we managed to get five of them went the sixth unknown to us, set off the IEDs instead of being captured. The explosion wounded two of our crew, in nearly killed one of the insurgents that we had captured and destroyed most of the Intel. We still made almost a half million off that raid. And the two guys we got injured were not all that bad off a few stitches and one piece of scrap metal removed. They were back to work in a week.

The rest of my time went by quietly, although it seemed harder to get a call in to Nikki. Her excuse was a job was getting to be a pain and she would quit it shortly. She wanted to spend as much time with me as she could once I returned back home.

I told her, I had a big surprise for her when I got back home. That was two weeks before I was due to leave two days later we spotted another group with bounties. All five of us plus the boss work this group we did a bit of Intel just two days’ worth that saved us a lot of trouble. We hit them fast and hard when they weren’t ready for it, none of them got hurt and just importantly none of us got hurt. We even got a bonus for the Intel we collected. The six of us collected $500,000 total off that last raid. So my year in the sand got me just over 1.5 million, most of it tax-free because the bounties were tax-free.

I shook my boss’ hand that day I left. He said if ever I needed to come back he would greatly appreciate my help in the bounty hunting. The others that left the same day I did all headed for home. When I landed in New York I try to call Nikki from the airport with my arrival time, but all I got was the answering machine. From our last conversation I thought she would be free not having a job at the moment. I called her mother hoping she was there. Nikki’s Mother answered and when she recognized my voice she started to cry and couldn’t talk to me. Nikki’s sister Maria came on the line and she said. “I don’t know how to tell you this but Nikki is dead.” My world crumpled in that instant. I was in shock as I boarded the plane headed home to San Antonio.

Nikki’s family met me at the airport, I had been crying the entire trip from New York to Atlanta to San Antonio, so my eyes are red and puffy which really looks strange because I’m about 6 foot two with 48 inch shoulders at 36 inch waist and about two hundred and ten pounds of solid muscle. Nikki’s father and mother hugged me and help me to their car. They drove me to a hotel room. I didn’t want to go back to the apartment I just couldn’t stay there without Nikki. They tell me try to get some sleep and they come by tomorrow.

The next day a police detective comes by to question me in the morning, I tell him all that I know. That I spoke to Nikki sixteen days ago and she was going to quit her job before I return. Nikki been killed four days ago by someone stocking her.