Free Undeclared War by Dennis Chalker Page B

in Detroit,” Reaper said. “Good to see that the security is starting to work.”
    â€œYeah, well you better change into something a little cleaner than those clothes before you head to see Mary and Ricky,” Deckert said as he rolled past the kitchen of the house and into the office that had originally been the dining room.
    â€œThere’s an idea,” Reaper agreed as he laid the sword case on the kitchen counter and headed to the stairs leading to the second floor. He had been living in the shop/house for some months now—ever since he had separated from Mary, his wife of fifteen years. Times had been hard since he was forced to leave the service, and he knew that he hadn’t treated his family the best way that he could in the intervening years.
    Losing his career and being forced to leave without any retirement or benefits had been hard—both financially and emotionally. He had gone out with his buddies from the Teams a few too many times while the family lived down in Imperial Beach in Southern California. It was when his old friend andTeammate Bear, who had now retired from the Navy, had looked him up that things had seemed as though they would improve.
    Bear had said that there was a friend of his back in Michigan who could use some help. Being that Reaper had spent more than a little time working in the armory, and had learned metalworking in high school, Bear thought he would be a great addition to his friend’s gun shop. It was the chance for a good job doing something Reaper would like.
    Going out to Michigan, Reaper met Keith Deckert for the first time and the two men hit it off well. Mary and Ricky were tired of moving across the country as they had so many times when Reaper was in the Navy. But he had sworn that this would be the last time. The bulk of the family’s savings had been spent in making the move.
    Things had improved a bit in Michigan for the Reaper household, at least the cost of living was a hell of a lot better than it was in Southern California. Mary had been able to do part-time teaching, which she had always loved. Ricky was making friends in school now. He even was starting to like winter sports, not exactly the sort of thing he could have done in the San Diego area.
    In spite of the good things, there was still a lot of hardships. Reaper wasn’t making much money at the gun shop. It was grating against Reaper that his family was living more on what his wife made as a substitute teacher than on his earnings. The lack of his retirement pay was keenly felt at least once a month. But he was working hard to change that.
    Months earlier, Reaper had put forward the ideaof making his friend’s small custom gunsmithing shop into a larger business. The production rights were available for the Jackhammer assault shotgun and Reaper felt he had the contacts to make it a successful seller. The big growth in Homeland security, customs, and police response units looked to be a good source of revenue. Deckert agreed and had put in his savings to expand the business. They secured the rights to the Jackhammer shotgun and had built a number of prototypes. These had been displayed and demonstrated by Reaper at a number of police, military, and trade shows.
    The new shop had missed out on the market that had boomed just a few months before with the outbreak of the Iraq war. The Jackhammer had not been picked up by any of the services yet. Losing that business had put Ted Reaper back in the dumps, especially since his friend Keith Deckert had risked his farm and home as collateral to expand the shop.
    That depression had resulted in more than one argument in the Reaper household. Finally, he had separated from Mary, moving into one of the mostly unused upstairs bedrooms at the farmhouse. Deckert had told him that the rooms weren’t a lot of use for him right now, he had already converted the downstairs family room into a bedroom to keep from having to use a lift