Free Humanity Unlimited 1: Liberty Station by Terry Mixon Page A

the general collapse of most governments in the Middle East, they saw their chance to create a Caliphate. Saudi Arabia and Israel were islands in a violent sea.
    It wasn’t looking so good for Europe, either. France was the worst off. Paris was more like Beirut these days. Roving gangs of militants kept the police penned into certain neighborhoods. Sharia law was the rule, not the exception. The French government was helpless and she suspected the militants would finalize their takeover before too much longer. How much longer until the rest of Europe caught the cancer, too?
    The situation made her sad.
    Frankly, she believed in the US government’s viewpoint. Profiling was wrong. People should be judged by what they did, who they were, not what they looked like. You couldn’t just label everyone of a specific ethnicity as something and rob them of their rights.
    Only that open-mindedness hadn’t worked out so well. Thankfully, she didn’t have to fix the world. She’d be leaving it soon enough for Liberty Station.
    Huh. His company had the same name as the project she headed. That couldn’t be a coincidence. His father must’ve been making some point.
    “Why call your company Liberty SOG? What does that mean?”
    “Liberty is part of what we do. It plays into every aspect of our work. SOG stands for special operations group. Technically, we’re a private military company. We have a number of teams spread out around the globe.”
    They arrived at a clearing. It looked like the team was setting up the tents for the evening. Good. Her legs felt like rubber.
    She dropped her pack and sat on a fallen log after making sure nothing was waiting to bite her.
    They had the tents up before the light faded. The guy named Rex built a very small fire and cooked some of the food from the dig. It tasted good after a long, terrible day. She turned in early and fell asleep before her head touched the sleeping bag.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Harry took the last watch of the night while Sandra cooked breakfast. Frankly, he wished he could just declare Rex as the sole cook because he had the touch. Sandra made a much better sniper than a homemaker.
    He let Jess sleep in. She’d insisted on him using her first name. Apparently, she thought saving her life entitled him to stop being so formal. That was fine with him.
    Once the food was ready, he tapped her foot through the flap of the tent. She sat up abruptly and blinked at him. Her hair was poking out in every direction and she looked disoriented.
    “What?” she asked. “Are we under attack?”
    “Only if you consider Sandra’s cooking a war crime. Breakfast is ready. We have a latrine set up to the south. Leann will provide overwatch while you take care of business.”
    He returned to the fire and did what he could to salvage breakfast. He handed Jess a plate when she came back. She’d brushed her hair and actually looked awake.
    “Sorry I overslept. That’s two days in a row.” She took a bite of the food and made a face.
    He almost smiled. Everyone did that. “Sorry about breakfast. It was Sandra’s turn. She’s says it builds character.”
    “That’s okay. I’m happy to have it. How long do you figure it will take us to get to the site?”
    Harry shrugged. “No telling. We’ll be in the general area by lunchtime. Finding whatever is there might take days. Or never happen. Look around. There could be a city a hundred feet away and we’d never know.”
    She glanced around at the almost impenetrable jungle. “True. That would be very disappointing.”
    “If we don’t find anything, I imagine my father will send someone else to look. So, all things being equal, I’d rather find it first.”
    “Competitive much?”
    He took a few bites of something that might once have been eggs. “I make it a habit to never let my family get one over on me. Nathan almost captured you, so I have to make up for it by screwing things up for my father. It’s complicated. Even if it takes