Savage Son (James Reece #3) - Jack Carr Page 0,110

police working dogs, animals who would otherwise be quietly put to sleep. He set up an entity called the Warrior Dog Foundation to give them a beautiful place to live out their lives in dignity. Though he still had it, the VW Bus had been retired in favor of a new Mercedes 4x4 Sprinter Van, custom built for moving dogs to and from the airport in Kalispell.

“Edo’s doing great, buddy. I think he knows something’s up and it’s time to come out of retirement.”

“Can I pet him? Does he remember me?”

“Go ahead. He won’t kill you unless I tell him to,” the dog-man said only half in jest.

Reece knelt and ran his hands down the back of Edo’s head, remembering just how many dogs had saved his life over the years. Without multipurpose canines and dog handlers like Devan, more than a few operators would never have made it home.

Standing, Reece turned to the last man in line. Barefoot, he wore dirty jeans and a gray T-shirt depicting half the face of a Sioux warrior, eagle feathers dangling from his braids. Reece knew the meaning of the feathers, as did the man who wore the shirt. Lawrence Chiaverini was one of Reece’s favorite people. No one called him Lawrence, or even Larry. Even fewer knew he was actually Italian, most guessing by the dark hair that fell to his waist and the name of his custom knife company that he was Native American. Despite the fact that he had no Native American ancestry, he’d been called Chavez y Chavez after the Young Guns character since first crossing the quarterdeck at Team Five ten years before.

He had grown up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where his father had the interesting distinction of being the go-to attorney for the bars lining Main Street and the pop-up clubs that appeared out of necessity to handle the overflow drinking traffic just outside of town. He had the respect of the community because he wasn’t just some white-collar lawyer there to make a buck; he also ran a motorcycle restoration and mechanic shop specializing in bikes from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. The law firm paid the bills, but his heart was in the bikes. Young Chavez learned engines and the art of motorcycle restoration and maintenance at the hands of a true master.

His dad never talked about the war, but every year when thousands of leather-bound bikers descended on the small town in August, a group of aging special forces veterans would make a pilgrimage to the shop. Chavez recognized the SF crest with its motto De Oppresso Liber, free the oppressed, on many of the men who passed by to share a drink with his dad. He heard “Project Delta” mentioned more than once but the war was something not discussed in the Chiaverini house, perched on the hill overlooking the Black Hills National Cemetery.

The machines in his father’s shop led to an early interest in knife making. Working on bikes provided young Chavez enough money to slowly acquire the equipment that would one day define him as one of the country’s most sought-after knife makers: grinder, files, drill press, sander, forge, and anvil. Though he worked long hours on bikes, and pursued his passion for the traditional skills still being kept alive through a select few Native Americans in the Badlands, his mother still managed to ensure that he would be able to survive in polite society. She taught him to cook, about the subtleties of fine wine, and instilled in him a knowledge and love of Renaissance and Baroque art, all skills and areas of knowledge that would cause more than a few to scratch their heads in wonder.

On his fifth deployment in as many years, he was shot multiple times during a room entry that turned out to be an ambush. Before being airlifted to Balad and on to Landstuhl, Chavez escaped from the FOB medical facility and was found naked, knife in hand, on his way to the Iraqi side of the base, threatening to scalp the Iraqi commander he suspected had set them up. The culture of senior-level leaders in the SEAL Teams was shifting. What was acceptable, and even normal, at one time was now grounds for “medical retirement.”

After the medical board cut short his time in uniform, Chavez returned to the Black Hills, adrift. By this time the reality show frenzy had long since hit but cameras still followed more than a few “stars”