Warlord: Dervish
Authors: Tony Monchinski
Copyright © 2011 Tony Monchinski
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1468012916
ISBN-13: 9781468012910
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61916-451-2
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Also by Tony Monchinski
The
Eden
Series
Eden (Simon & Schuster)
Crusade (Permuted Press)
Resurrection (Permuted Press)
The
I Kill Monsters
Series
Fury
The Revenants
Bad Men
Dark Lady
Fright Zone
The Venery
Corregedor Dawn
Barnaby’s Children
Onion Town
Nonfiction
Big Apple English (Chonghab)
The Politics of Education (Sense)
Critical Pedagogy and the Everyday Classroom (Springer)
Unrepentant Radical Educator: The Writings of and Interviews with John Gerassi (Sense)
Education in Hope: Critical Pedagogies and the Ethic of Care (Peter Lang)
Engaged Pedagogy, Enraged Pedagogy (Sense)
For Randy Ramirez
Contents
Been to hell and back/I can show you vouchers
– Lil’ Wayne,
No Love
What will become of you? Will you go back to your people? – May (Sara Kestelman)
There is no going back for me – Zed (Sean Connery)
-
Zardoz
(d. John Boorman, 1974)
When I first conceived of the idea for Dervish a few years ago, I had something in mind along the lines of a mash-up between
The Dirty Dozen
and John Carpenter’s
The Fog
. The novel became something more than that in its planning and execution.
This is a book that involves military men, but it’s not a military book. I am thankful to Sergeant Mike Little and Chief Petty Officer James Remo Jackson for their technical expertise. Anything that rings true is probably due to their advice; anything that doesn’t is all on me. I also found the following martial-themed books helpful: David Bellavia’s
House to House
; Sebastian Junger’s
War
; Bing West’s
No True Glory
; Tim Pritchard’s
Ambush Alley
; David Finkel’s
The Good Soldiers
; and C.J. Chivers’
The Gun
. Equally useful was the History Channel’s
Lock ‘n Load with R. Lee Ermey
and the Military Channel’s
Ultimate Weapons
.
My love of the action genre was sparked by the “men’s action adventure” novels I devoured in my youth: Don Pendleton’s
The Executioner: Mack Bolan
; Jack Hild’s
SOBs
; Jerry Ahern’s
Survivalist
and
Track
series; Gregory St. Germaine’s
Resistance
; Gar Wilson’s
Phoenix Force;
and Dick Stiver’s
Able Team
. My father and my Uncle Mike got me into reading when I was a little kid. They recommended good books and read them with me; my debt to them is profound.
I want to thank my friend, Doctor Greg Dawes, at North Carolina State University. When I was a grad. student, Greg impressed upon me the importance of keeping abreast of developments in the hard sciences. Works by Michio Kaku, Brian Greene, J. Richard Gott, Paul Davies and John Brockman proved particularly germane as I wrote
Dervish
. Another professor and friend, Marshall Berman, finally got me to read Dostoyevsky some years ago and I am grateful he did.
I appreciate the emails I get from readers. They often say something to me like,
if this gets made into a movie, so-and-so should star as
[fill in the character] and
this song should be on the soundtrack
. I definitely had some songs in mind and on my IPod as I wrote
Dervish
: from Drowning Pool (that’s
Bodies
Jason is whispering at one point in the novel) to Eminem, from DJ Khaled to Children of Bodom and a whole lot of Travis Barker remixes in-between. I tried to capture the frenetic desperation that marks the final fights in one of my favorite action-horror films, Neil Marshall’s
Dog Soldiers
, as well as the non-stop in-your-face action of a Hong Kong John Woo film. I trust you, the reader, to let me know if I succeeded or failed ([email protected])
In many ways this is a book about what might have been, about being able to go back into the past to change the future. As such, it’s dedicated to Randy Ramirez, a guy I taught when he was in high school. To paraphrase Jim Carroll: Randy, I miss you more than all the others; this one is for you my brother.
Tony Monchinski
Peekskill, NY May 2011
Well, we’ve had a tremendous third quarter, sir.
The investors will be pleased.
The investors are
ecstatic
.
For now. But we both know the fickle nature of this beast all too well.
It’s insatiable.
To that end, where are we on the Gwanji Project?
Yes, I was getting to that, sir.
And?
The engineers are working out some glitches—
Glitches
?
Electromagnetic interference.
I imagine it’s nothing I’d want to go around with my pacemaker.
Heh-heh, probably not, sir. But they assure me its nothing to worry about.
Well, good. What’s this I hear about the alpha release being inconclusive?
Yes, well, that
isn’t
incorrect, sir. However—
This better be a really good
however
. We’ve got trillions riding on this.
However
, without subjects, who can ultimately tell?
You’re saying…?
We’re ready to initiate beta release, sir.
That’s
what I like to hear. What’s the hold up?
We’re assembling test subjects.
Has that proven difficult?
Not so much as we’d thought.
The players have a way of presenting themselves, don’t they?
That they do, sir. That they do.
Very well. Keep me in the loop.
Always, sir.
War Taking Mental Health Toll on Frontline Troops, Report Details
By Deirdre Fowler
Forward Operating Base Alamo, Iran
—When Staff Sergeant James Artinian returned from a routine patrol of Mashhad City in the province of Razavi Khorasan, his soldiers noticed something strange. “The Rock wasn’t acting the way he normally did,” Private Sally Nappi recalls, referring to Sergeant Artinian by the nickname bestowed on him by his own troops, a testament to his usual iron discipline and calm under fire. “He went right to his barracks, didn’t say anything.” In the barracks, Sergeant Artinian used his firearm to take his own life, and his suicide has his soldiers and superiors questioning….
A new report from…reveals that there have been a combined 235 suicides in America’s three theaters of war in the past year. A crisis center on Forward Operating Base Alamo where Sergeant Artinian served has been averaging twenty-five visits a week from soldiers seeking help for a variety of issues ranging from suicide and anger management to alcoholism and economic and marriage counseling….
While admitting to a dearth of mental health professionals, Department of Defense spokeswoman Jamie Ober voiced optimism in a Saturday morning press conference. “We’re very excited about some new [psychopharmacological] medications that have been green-lighted for the troops,” related Ms. Ober. “These medicines will alleviate the stresses and anxieties our fighting men and women face without compromising their combat integrity.”
….The next-generation anxiolytics, marketed by Steinbock LLC, a division of Diogenes Incorporated, are expected to start being distributed to troops within the next month. Their use will be mandatory for front-line combat troops, a stipulation that has many critics….
Army Issues More Waivers to Meet Recruitment Needs
By Deirdre Fowler
Washington
– Given a diminishing pool of recruits in an all-volunteer army, the number of waivers given to United States Army recruits with criminal backgrounds has grown 75 percent in the last two years, Department of Defense records show…
The Army has implemented a variety of incentives to attract recruits. It has offered enlistment cash bonuses; made room for greater numbers of high school dropouts in its ranks; once again lowered the acceptable minimum passing score on qualifying aptitude test to join; lessened the physical expectations once viewed as a necessity of boot camp training; and further loosened age and weight restrictions…
The number of “moral waivers” issued to recruits with criminal pasts has also increased, even as the total number of recruits continues to diminish dramatically. Waivers for serious misdemeanors, which comprise the majority of all Army moral waivers, saw the greatest increase. Serious misdemeanors include burglary, robbery, vehicular homicide, and aggravated assault…
There has also been a significant increase in the number of waivers for felony convictions….For the first time in the nation’s history, applicants with convictions for homicide, drug trafficking and sexual violence are being granted admission to the armed forces…
The White House has lately been the target of domestic and international criticism after Vice President Sabian floated the idea of allowing incarcerated felons to enroll and serve in the nation’s armed forces, with their time served effectively diminishing their prison sentences…
