Enclave - part three - an action thriller in progress

There was an even dozen of us, so far as I knew.  Groups of three scattered around the country, ready to deploy or defend, or so the legends went.  I had four in my “class” as it were.

        New York.  California.  Washington.  Florida.  Three persons assigned to each region.  Mine was Florida.

        I was born for the tropics.

        Humidity never bothered me.  Where some people shut down in hot weather, I just got better.  That may come off as conceited, but I worked hard to supplement it with a self deprecating sense of humor.

        Trust me, I was the funny one.

An aptitude for solitude.  It was a nice way of saying something sad.  Well, sad by conventional standards or by the norms of society, but not so sad to me.

To be honest, I take comfort in knowing there are others out there like me.  Men who have spent their lives in solitude.  It bound us into a brotherhood.  So how could you be lonley if you knew that others were out there?

Webb had Miami as his base of operations.  Brill settled north of Orlando, not too far from me, though I still roamed.

        Couch crasher they liked to call me.  A new call sign.

        We went through together, four young boys with old souls, around the same time as a popular move inspired all young boys with the need for speed.  Call signs inevitably followed, though that’s a pilot’s term.  Nicknames would be more accurate.

        Webb was Spyder, which now seems creatively juvenile, but has been around for two decades, so he’s stuck with it.

        We called Brill Snowman.  It was a carryover from High School.

        I was Crocodile, or Croc.

        I could list all the ways in which we were similar, closer and more alike than brothers.  Three men from the same mold, Snowman, Spyder and the Crocodile.   Characters from the scariest children’s story ever told.

        That we all ended up in Florida is serendipity.  The fact that we survived to retire at all is a miracle.  Webb was still doing undercover work for several NGO’s or so the rumor went.  Brill was too quiet about what he did, though visions of Robin Hood often sprang to mind.

        And me. Retired.

        Extremely Dangerous.

        Extremely Despondent.

        Extremely Desperate.

        We weren’t the only ones.

        On my giant to do list was more research on the company we once worked for.  So far, I was afraid of digging too deep or other more pressing matters pushed it further down the list.

        I heard rumors of a biologist over on Captiva that was a generation ahead of us, and an ex SAS guy working out of Tampa.  Both were absolute legends, real ghost men.

        I suspected there were others scattered around the States, ready to save the world.

        Or a small piece of it.

        Like I was now.

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