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- Herausgeber: Valley Publishing Ltd.
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Two years earlier, Erick Fuller, a former SEAL, was severely injured when his squad's truck drove over an antitank landmine. He lost his lower leg and two fingers. He's filled with steel plates and titanium pins…along with the driving need for answers and justice. Six other team-mates were also badly hurt, the seventh dead, in what their team leader Badger Horley realized later had to be a trap set to take them out. After joining the team in England and finding a link to the antitank landmine used in the explosion, Erick heads to Kabul--to the site where the original incident took place--for more intel. What he discovers there blows him away…
Honey Lewis, an innovative leader in the field of dentistry, is invited to a cutting-edge stem cell research conference. The man who issued the last-minute invitation is someone she met at a similar workshop years earlier. While she knows she doesn't have the experience, she nevertheless can't resist attending to learn the industry's latest. Once she arrives in Kabul, she runs into another man--one she never expected or hoped to see again. She met Erick a year ago in New Mexico when she smashed into his beloved, vintage ’69 Mustang. Unbelievably, he's still upset about the accident. If only his overexcitement didn't bring out corresponding emotions in her…
With too many things going on at once--in her life and inside her own heart--the tug-of-war all but blindsides her with the realization that the man who befriended her might not be the man she thought he was.
Author note: For your reading pleasure, this series must be read in order.
SEALs of Steel Reading Order:
1.) Badger
2.) Erick
3.) Cade
4.) Talon
5.) Laszlo
6.) Geir
7.) Jager
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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ERICK
SEALs of Steel, Book 2
Dale Mayer
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About This Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
About Cade
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
Two eight-man military units in separate vehicles were sent out on what should have been a routine reconnaissance mission in Kabul that ended horrifically when one unit drove over an antitank landmine. Badger Horley, leader of the SEALs team, and six of his men were severely injured. The eighth man died. The morning before the incident, the route plans were altered without explanation or information on who authorized the new orders. Until the mine exploded, Badger had been uneasy about the last-minute change but hadn’t attached sinister motives. Now the attempt to demolish his team made things personal. Badger and his remaining squad refuse to rest until they discover what perpetrated the tragedy and took out one of their own. For SEALs of steel, satisfactory revenge will not be denied…
Two years earlier, Erick Fuller, a former SEAL, was severely injured when his squad’s truck drove over an antitank landmine. He lost his lower leg and two fingers. He’s filled with steel plates and titanium pins…along with the driving need for answers and justice. Six other team-mates were also badly hurt, the seventh dead, in what their team leader Badger Horley realized later had to be a trap set to take them out. After joining the team in England and finding a link to the antitank landmine used in the explosion, Erick heads to Kabul—to the site where the original incident took place—for more intel. What he discovers there blows him away…
Honey Lewis, an innovative leader in the field of dentistry, is invited to a cutting-edge stem cell research conference. The man who issued the last-minute invitation is someone she met at a similar workshop years earlier. While she knows she doesn’t have the experience, she nevertheless can’t resist attending to learn the industry’s latest. Once she arrives in Kabul, she runs into another man—one she never expected or hoped to see again. She met Erick a year ago in New Mexico when she smashed into his beloved, vintage ’69 Mustang. Unbelievably, he’s still upset about the accident. If only his overexcitement didn’t bring out corresponding emotions in her…
With too many things going on at once—in her life and inside her own heart—the tug-of-war all but blindsides her with the realization that the man who befriended her might not be the man she thought he was.
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Prologue
Erick Fuller hefted his bag in his good arm and walked toward customs. Cade was only a few seconds behind him. They were traveling together but separate. They’d sat in different areas on the plane so nobody could tag them as being together. As soon as Erick cleared customs and headed out toward the front entrance, he took a moment to adjust to the heat. Being in Afghanistan brought back a lot of memories. It had been one of the reasons for the fast decision to come over here. The longer he stayed home and knew this trip was happening, the worse the nightmares would get. He hated to even let anybody know he was having them.
But his shrink knew. PTSD was a real issue. And nothing seemed to be working for him.
He was hoping answers would help. While he waited for Cade to join him, he texted Badger that they had landed safely. Confirmation came immediately. Badger would be at the end of his phone at all times, to run control in case they needed anything. This could be a twenty-four-hour trip, or it could be much longer. They were renting a rig and driving out to the area where the incident occurred, would talk with the local villagers and then come home. Okay, so maybe two or three days tops.
But he didn’t expect it to be any longer than that. Longer would mean they either ran into big trouble or found a big lead. After two years he doubted there were big leads to find, and there was way too much trouble in this part of the world already. He’d like to avoid that if he could.
They were meeting up with an old connection. Somebody who would supply them with the weapons for the trip. He didn’t want to take the chance of crossing borders and getting stopped. He could have, but it was risky. He traveled under his own passport too. He hadn’t been flagged in England; that had been Badger who had popped up. But then he’d had a few issues, and MI6 always seemed to keep tabs on him. Erick chose to travel under his real name and see what came of it. If anybody asked, he’d tell him this was a nostalgia trip.
And that was the truth, in part.
The hot sun beat down on him. Then what the hell did he expect? There was just such a different smell to the air here. He preferred traveling through places like Canada and Siberia. There was a freshness to the coldness there. It brought its own chill but killed off any of the old heavy air that seemed to settle in hot places. And when the wind did come through the hotter climates to clean out the old air, it brought with it sand and dust that choked your throat and filled your lungs and made your nostrils snort futilely for weeks. He couldn’t believe he was back here. It was so not where he wanted to be.
A hard hand landed on his shoulder. He turned to see Cade. He nodded. “Ready?”
“Almost. I know you said you wanted to run this with just the two of us. But, before leaving, I got a text from Talon.”
Erick raised his eyebrows. “I guess we should have expected that after England.”
Cade nodded. “He wants in.”
“Not sure that’s a good idea. You heard the audio file yourself.”
“I know. But I can’t believe Talon, or any of us, had anything to do with the incident.”
“I’m with you there. I just wish the audio was clear enough to be sure it wasn’t one of us who made the call that gave away our location.”
“I hear you.”
Just then a shout sounded from behind them, and Erick turned to see Talon walking toward him. “Wow, he’s fast.”
“He was already here. Well, close to here anyway. He got in a few hours ago. He’s been waiting for us to land.”
The men exchanged greetings. Talon smiled at Erick. “I hope this isn’t a problem. I know Cade didn’t get a chance to talk to you before he okayed it for me.”
Erick shrugged. “We’re always glad to have you around. We do need to get answers. It just sucks the audio file appeared to come from inside our truck.”
“I was wondering about that.” Talon motioned toward the parking lot. “I picked up your rental early. I hope that’s okay.”
“If they gave it to you, that’s fine. But we still have to go meet Shadowbox.”
Talon chuckled. “Is he still around?”
“He is indeed. And his prices went up too.”
“Of course they did.” Talon’s voice turned grim. “I hear you on that audio recording. There’s a part of me that wants to think it’s a fake. Did you even consider that?”
“I don’t know how they would have done it, but Tesla’s hoping the same thing. She’s doing an analysis of the tape. Chances are, we won’t find anything for a while. She said it didn’t look good. As far as she could tell, it was authentic, at least at this point.”
“Shit.” Talon shook his head. “Well, I sure as hell didn’t do anything to get our asses kicked.”
“Neither did we.”
“And I can swear there’s no way Laszlo would have anything to do with it. He was as loyal as anyone.”
“Was?” Erick turned to look at him. “Do you know something I don’t know?” he asked in alarm.
Talon shook his head. “No, Laszlo is fine. I shouldn’t have been speaking in past tense, but I was thinking of back then. I know Laszlo is loyal. He’s gone home to his family in Norway for a while. But, if we need him, he’s there.”
“He doesn’t know anything about this though, does he?” Cade asked.
“No, but honestly he approached me over a year ago because he felt somebody had betrayed us too.”
“What?” Erick stopped and turned to look at Talon. “You never mentioned that.”
“You were just heading under the knife for another major surgery. Cade here had his back half split open and was lying with traction on both legs at the time. Badger was a huge mess. He’s had how many surgeries, lost his spleen, his leg… No way I could do that to you guys. Now that you’re all back on your feet, and every one of you has the same idea, hell yeah, we need to know. It’s all I could do to hold Laszlo back. If he knew we were here, he’d be here.”
“Damn.”
“It would be nice to see him,” Cade said. “Laszlo is a hell of a guy.”
Talon led the way to the vehicle. It was an open military jeep. They dropped their gear in the back, and Talon hopped into the driver’s side. “Hotel first?”
“Yeah. Let’s give the impression we’re here on a holiday.”
Cade snorted. “It is a holiday. At least as far as the world is concerned.”
“The fewer people who know what we’re doing here, the better,” Talon said. “Just make sure Badger is keeping track because, if we run into trouble, we will need a fast hand getting out.”
“We got that taken care of,” Erick said, his voice hard. “Let’s go. I want to get this dealt with and get home again.”
Both men jumped in and said, “Amen to that.”
A few minutes later they pulled up to the hotel. Talon parked in one of the visitor spots. The three men got out and walked into the reception area. Air-conditioning and huge fans blasted them with cool air.
In the waiting area Erick saw a woman on her phone, laptop on her knees, clicking away as she spoke. Obviously Western, she looked impatient and angry.
Cade nudged him with his elbow and motioned toward her. “Don’t you know her?”
Talon twisted to look in the same direction as Erick, who stopped and studied her and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Look again,” Cade said. “I’m pretty sure she smacked into your ’69 Mustang.”
At that Erick froze. “She better not have.”
“I think it’s her.”
Erick turned to study her.
She had her hair up, big sunglasses, almost a generic blonde, good looking, slim. Too attractive for over here—it was a dangerous part of the world for white women, particularly if she was traveling alone.
He twisted to look back at his friend. “Why the hell would you think she’s the one who did that?”
“Look at her name tag.”
His gaze slipped to her chest and caught the name tag he hadn’t noticed before. Honey Lewis. He froze. “Son of a bitch.” His voice was louder than he meant it to be.
Honey glanced at him, and her lips pinched together as she lifted her glasses and stared up at him. Out of her mouth came “What the hell?”
He walked toward her. “Isn’t that my line?”
She tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. “I was hoping to never see you again.”
“You’re the one who smacked into my car.”
“It was an accident, remember?”
He nodded. “I remember. I also remember how, at the time, you blamed me.”
She raised her hands, palms up. “Sorry, I was upset.”
He snorted. “I don’t doubt it. At least I got my ’69 Mustang fixed. What about you? Are you still driving, or did they yank your license?”
She glared at him. “I still drive, thank you very much.” She snapped her laptop closed, stuffed it in a bag, pocketed her cell phone in her khakis and stood. “I shouldn’t have been driving that day. You’re right. And I apologized. And I shouldn’t have blamed you. I wasn’t in a very good state of mind.”
He punched his hands on his hips. “A year is kinda late for an apology, but I’ll accept it.”
She gave him a supersweet smile. “Good. It’s the only one you’ll get.” And she spun on her heels and stepped forward to the reception desk, slipping in front of them, taking their place.
He snorted. “Why the hell is she staying here?”
“I don’t know, but I like this turn of events,” Cade said. “Should make the next few days interesting.”
Erick shot him a look. “Like hell.” And he stalked forward to speak to a different agent at the counter.
Chapter 1
As soon as Erick walked into their assigned hotel room, he dumped his bags on the nearest bed and pulled out his phone. It had buzzed just moments before, but he’d waited until he was inside the room to see what was happening. Reading the message, he turned to Cade and Talon. “Meeting is set for two this afternoon.”
All three men synced their watches.
“That’s good timing,” Cade said. “The sooner we get geared up, the sooner we can head out.”
Talon agreed. “Is there anything else to pick up? What’s the plan? Are we sightseeing today or tomorrow?”
“Considering we can’t get weapons until this afternoon, it’ll be tomorrow morning, I’d say. We also need to get a route mapped out,” Erick said.
“Already done,” Cade said. “I worked on it during the flight.”
“Good. How long a trip is it? How is the route looking?”
“Forty-five minutes. Depends on the weather and the road conditions.”
They all understood. Sometimes storms came up, and all they could do was hide inside the vehicle and wait until it was over. And sometimes the heat was so intense that the radiators couldn’t handle it. They would stop and refill them with water. Erick stared out the window. “Weatherwise we’re not too bad.”
“Sure, but we also know that can change in a heartbeat. We don’t know if anybody is even at the village anymore to talk to.”
“No, but I have to see for myself. After we’ve talked to everybody, if nothing comes up, I don’t know where we go next. This is definitely a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other type of job.” Erick stopped, looked around the room and asked, “How about a bite to eat? We’ve just about got time for that, and we need to pick up some water before we head out to our appointment.”
They locked up the hotel room, returned to the lobby and went to the restaurant. Erick didn’t want to check if Honey was still here, but his gaze went automatically in that direction. Thankfully she wasn’t. He caught up with Cade and Talon as they spoke to the waitress for seating. She took them to the far side of the room where it was cool and where they had a big window.
Part of the reason for joining the navy was to experience traveling in various cultures, but he’d been here enough times that he knew what he was up against, and he’d seen a lot of the tourist attractions already. He also knew it took his body time to acclimate to the temperature. “Do you think we should sit outside?” he asked.
Cade pursed his lips and nodded. “You’re right. We should probably start adjusting. I don’t know how hot it’s supposed to be this afternoon, but it’ll be a hell of a lot hotter than where we were.”
“Depends if you’re talking England or New Mexico,” Talon said. “England was damp. Not hot, just kind of steamy as all the moisture came back to you.”
Erick grinned. When the waitress returned, he asked if they could relocate to the big veranda. She nodded and shuffled them to a new table. As he sat down, he realized there was a negative to this location too. But he wasn’t about to make a big deal out of it. The woman who had crashed into his car sat here too, laptop open. She hid under the big sun umbrella, trying to read her computer screen. She was the one who should have been inside. Laptop monitors were deadly outside.
He motioned to the woman so the other two men would see her. They just grinned, shrugged and sat down. They ordered their lunch, all of them planning a meal heavy in carbs and protein to get them through the afternoon ahead. They also ordered water, large glasses of it. Erick brought out a small notepad and a pen, and jotted down things they needed.
“Shopping list?” Talon asked.
“Yes. Somewhat. We also have questions we should note. They’ve been circling around in my head, but I haven’t really had a chance to get them down.” He took a moment to do it now.
“Do you really think we’ll find something?” Talon asked Erick.
“I’m really hoping we do. I suspect it will be a clue that leads us to another clue though.”
“So, like old times.”
In spite of himself, Erick laughed. “Isn’t that the truth? That was one of the most frustrating things about intel missions. We were just looking for anything that would lead us to something valuable. We didn’t always know what that would be until we heard it.”
“I don’t think that’s changed. Doesn’t matter what country or job we’re on.” Cade nodded toward the notepad. “Do you really need to ask the questions? All we need is to find somebody who was here at the time we had our accident,” he said with emphasis. “And who might have known who planted the land mine and why it was planted.”
“And if there were any strangers in the village at the time,” Talon added in a low voice. “If I was the one who set that up, I’d want to make sure I was around to see it.”
“True enough.” Erick hadn’t considered that. He jotted down more notes. “Between the three of us, hopefully we’ll cover all the ground we need.”
“Well, it’s not like there’ll be markers on the side of the road saying, Find the truth here.”
Erick glanced at Talon. “No, I know that. I wonder what happened to our vehicle after the explosion.”
“Why?”
Erick looked to Cade before speaking. “Because nobody, or at least none of us, had a chance to check it over. Who’s to say what we might find?”
The men contemplated that concept.
“It would take a lot of equipment to haul everything back to base,” Cade offered. “And why? It was an accident. One of many.”
“It’s quite possible it’s still there,” Talon said.
“There wasn’t a whole lot left to it. Does the military clean up their messes, or do they just leave them to be filled in by the sand?” Cade asked.
“I don’t know,” Erick said, “but I assume my cell phone blew up in the accident. I wouldn’t mind getting that back if it didn’t.”
“Why?” Talon asked, a frown creasing his forehead. “It’ll be ruined after all this time. Sand is brutal for electronics.”
“I had taken a lot of pictures of the eight of us,” Erick said quietly. “Whenever I have nightmares, a phone flying around inside the cabin is always one of those images. I can’t help but think that, whoever the killer was, or whoever betrayed us, maybe his phone was left inside too—if it was someone from our unit.”
They stared at him before sinking back into their seats.
“Shit.” Cade gripped the cup in his hand almost hard enough for his fingers to turn white.
Erick was sorry, or almost sorry, that he had had to bring it up. But it needed to be said.
Talon said, “I guess potentially there could be other personal gear there as well.”
“I suspect, after all this time, the truck has been completely stripped by scavengers of the human and animal varieties, and what’s left is just a broken heap of mangled metal,” Erick said calmly. “But, since I do have PTSD because of the accident, I think it would do my head good if I saw what was left.”
“In that case, we’ll track it down and see what we can find,” Cade said with a nod.
Talon agreed. “Anything that helps reduce those symptoms, I’m all for it. But, if anything has been left out in the desert, you know the desert has worked hard to reclaim it.”
“It’s not so much the desert temperatures but that sand which is pretty unforgiving. But I understand what you’re saying.” Thinking of which, Erick added shovels to his list. “I wouldn’t mind being ready and prepared, just in case.”
Their meals were served soon afterward. That also brought silence to the table as the men worked at getting their lunches down.
Erick’s mind spun and played with both hope and questions. He knew the outcome of this trip could bring them closure or leave them asking more questions. The seemingly never-ending problem was when one question led to another that led to another. When the answers came in baby steps, it took forever to find the big picture, and often a baby step wasn’t enough information to take them anywhere decent. What he didn’t want was to walk away without answers. England had been an interesting trip. And that had led to the audio file that had come from inside the truck bringing them here. “I should text Badger and see if he can find out what happened to the vehicle.”
“Call him instead,” Cade urged.
After finishing his burger, Erick picked up his phone, rinsed his mouth with a big drink of water and then called Badger. When his buddy answered the phone, he asked, “Can you track down what happened to our vehicle? See if it was hauled back to one of the camps?”
“It wasn’t hauled anywhere. There wasn’t enough left to bother.”
Silence. “Right.”
“If there’s nothing else …”
Erick stopped him from hanging up. “Badger? How are you doing?”
There was silence on the other end, and then Badger said, “Surgery is scheduled in two weeks, but I’m supposed to stay off it until then for the swelling to go down.”
Erick wanted to whistle in surprise. For surgery to be scheduled that fast, it meant the leg was bad. In a calm, confident voice, he said, “Good. You know it needs to happen.”
“I know what needs to happen. But there’s no guarantee the outcome will be any better than what I’ve got. In fact, it could be a whole lot worse.”
Erick winced. “They’ll do the best they can for you, man.”
“And I hope it’s enough.” With that, Badger ended the call.
Erick pocketed his phone again and ate the salad on the side of his plate. The others gazed at him with raised eyebrows. “He’s going under the knife again in two weeks.”
Both men winced. They’d undergone plenty of surgeries themselves to get where they were.
They knew Badger wasn’t looking forward to such an event again; none of them would be. Some things you tried to avoid. Surgery was one of them.
Honey picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip. She couldn’t believe it when the men had chosen to come out onto the veranda, close to where she sat. Only they hadn’t seen her initially, based on the guy’s startled glance. Tough. She had as much right to be here as he did. Sure, she had crashed into his vehicle a year ago. But people had car accidents all the time. Yes, she’d been at fault. Yes, insurance had covered it for both of them. She’d apologized. What else could she do?
She shouldn’t have been driving that day. But live and learn. When life blew up, it was much better to stay in the office instead of running away. But sometimes even she forgot the basic tenets of safety.
As she ate her meat and rice, she could hear parts of the men’s conversation. Something about a vehicle that could be in a lot of pieces. She didn’t know what they did, but they had a military look to them. When she’d accidentally hit him, he’d already been injured and in a state of recovery. Missing a lower leg.
And he had looked to be in extreme pain. At the time she’d been horrified, thinking she’d caused all this, but quickly realized they were old injuries, and he was likely recovering from one of many surgeries. As a dentist, Honey had seen many patients in her office, and, on the whole, she saw healthy patients. But she often had traumatic mandible injuries to deal with.
Honey’s first interaction with him at the accident had been ugly. It hadn’t lasted long, but it had a lasting effect. It was also the only car accident she’d ever had. She wasn’t sure why he was driving, but the vehicle had obviously been modified for him. What was the chance of meeting him over here? It was a big coincidence. She was here for her first special workshop on advanced upper-mandible surgeries, stem cell advances to the pulp of the tooth. An unusual location but the surgeon was from here and traveled little, so those who wanted to learn from him came here.
She’d met him years ago when he’d been a guest speaker at a conference in New York. He’d been wonderful, and so had his business partner and manager at the time, David. She’d kept up communications with him over the years. David was the organizer behind this special conference in Kabul and a dentist as well.
She’d applied several years in a row and had never made the cut. As a newbie practicing dentist, she’d understood but had continued to try. David said, when he could, he’d try to fit her in. However, since her qualifications and experience weren’t up to the level of the other applicants, he felt he needed to accept those people first and foremost. But, over the years, the friendly communication had warmed considerably. Then yesterday he’d called her.
Her shock had quickly given way to delight when he explained he had a cancellation, and no one else on his waiting list could make the trip on such short notice, and did she want the spot?
Of course there’d been more to it than that. Over the years she’d mentioned her love of cutting-edge research, her friend Kat Greenwald’s prosthetic design work, and Honey’s own need to move forward—and just do more. When he’d offered her the open spot, he’d asked if she’d be coming alone, and she’d made a joke about there being no time for anyone else to come, and he’d chuckled and said he’d take good care of her, and he was looking forward to seeing her again.
She’d been worried about the higher cost now to attend the conference, since she had missed out on any early registration benefits, plus the flights were more expensive on such short notice, and the hotel no longer had rooms available at the cheaper rates most likely.
But David had assured her that he’d figure it out. She should pay the deposit, and they could discuss it when she arrived.
It was so David. Generous and friendly.
She’d almost screamed for joy when she’d ended her call, but she had so much to do and no time for happy theatrics.
Now why was he here? She racked her brain, trying to remember his name. Erick. She didn’t know the two men with him but recognized that one man, Cade, had an artificial hand. Maybe they were part of a group dealing with prosthetics, or they were kindred souls, dealing with life after major trauma and physical injury. Either way it wasn’t her business.
Except the thought of prosthetics sent her mind in the direction of Kat. Her business was booming. It was all Kat could do to keep up with the needs of her clients. Did these men know her?
Honey couldn’t stop her eyes from twisting in their direction to see what was going on. At the time of the car accident, she hadn’t recognized how good looking Erick was. She’d been an emotional mess, and he’d been a traumatized mass. But now his injuries had obviously healed to the extent of being able to travel the world. There was a sense of energy to him. To all three of them. Determination. Purpose. As if they’d been given a new lease on life. Hope in some direction. She envisioned they were here for a workshop or at least testing for new medical procedures that would make their lives easier.
“Excuse me, would you like more coffee?”
Honey looked up at the waitress and smiled. She had the coffeepot in her hand, waiting. “Thank you, I’ll take another cup.”
The waitress filled her cup with a thick rich brew that was stronger than Honey was used to. The waitress left cream and sugar on her table. Normally not somebody who liked her coffee with either, Honey added cream, since it took a bit to get used to this Afghanistan version of her usual drink.
She settled in her chair, pushing her laptop off to the side. She was going over the workshop notes, figuring out what questions she wanted to ask. She was still struggling to adjust to her shift in schedule. She’d missed the meet-and-greet from the night before. But was working to catch up.
David had instantly attached himself to her side this morning when she arrived. She wondered how he’d recognized her after that long-ago New York conference, but her photo was on the Dental Clinic website where she worked—but it didn’t really look like her. Still, it made sense that he’d know the attendees by sight. If the greeting was slightly too friendly for her, she put it down to her personal walls and cultural differences. She hadn’t had a relationship in over a year. And wasn’t looking to start one anytime soon. Neither did she want to mar the few days she was here with that overtone. Besides, it was lovely to feel like she was welcome.
So much information had already been presented that she felt out of her depth. The other attendees were more experienced with higher education. She was in preeminent company; it was a little overwhelming.
