Soldier

From the author of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and the Invasion trilogy.

From the War on Terror, a world crippling bioweapon is released. The US scrambles teams of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control. America's top field agents are tasked with collecting samples and developing a cure. In a national laboratory, scientists race against the clock searching for a cure. Borders are closed, martial law and soldiers deployed across the homeland.

Thus begins the greatest outbreak in the history of humankind; a disease so deadly it pushes humanity to the brink of extinction. Entire populations and regions of the US quickly wiped out, millions falling victim to the primal virus. In the wake of the fast-spreading pandemic, state and local governments, desperate for answers, rush to provide relief to the devastated and overwhelmed communities. Experts in biomedical research are desperately summoned to Atlanta and military facilities across the country.

On a cold morning, the men of India Company, Second Platoon, are alerted and rapid-deployed to Virginia. Their mission: to recover and escort experts in biomedicine, specifically in the development and production of vaccines. With faulty intelligence and half-truths, Second Platoon moves forward. What they find is worse than anyone could have predicted. What was a rescue mission turns into a struggle for their own survival.

Author's note: Torment is a story I first began writing in 2014 shortly after WTF 5: Something to Fight For was completed. I wanted to tell the story of how things unfolded back in the States and have it be a stand-alone work from the rest of the series. Because of the popularity of the primary story line, I kept shelving Torment and driving on with the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot primary band of characters. But then came the Invasion trilogy, and then Donovan's War. Torment fell further and further down the to-do list.

Eventually, I adapted some of the early chapters of Torment into a short story and released it with Amazon Publishing's Kindle Worlds under the title Battle for Orchard Hill. That was a decision I immediately regretted because I knew then the story may never be completed. Then something happened, Kindle Worlds is gone, and with that, those chapters went back to the bench.

That motivated me to get back into the original manuscript and finish Torment, a story I always enjoyed and thought needed to be told. Torment is not a rewrite of the Kindle Worlds novella Battle for Orchard Hill. Torment is the original imagining and telling of that story the way I always intended it to be.

As always, thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoy.