Ranger Manoso tossed the resume on his desk and leaned back in the chair.  He looked around the blank room of the Cameron street building.  It was small, just a desk, three chairs and a phone, with a small bathroom.  It was a beginning.  Soon, he would have his own building with at least 7 floors.  He closed his eyes and took a long, cleansing breath.  He visualized his goal:  A fleet of gleaming, black SUVs in a basement parking garage, adjacent to an underground shooting range.  First floor would be a lobby and conference rooms.  Second floor, would be offices for his senior staff and himself.  Clients would go no higher than the second floor; the rest of the building would be restricted to him and his team.  The third floor would hold a gym with state of the art equipment, sparring area, locker rooms, sauna and an on-payroll massage therapist, maybe two.  Fourth floor would be apartments available to staff or clients who needed protection.  The fifth floor would be Rangeman headquarters command room filled with soft offices and the best-mercenary-could-“buy” computer and surveillance equipment.  The sixth floor would be a mixed-use floor for his housekeeper’s apartment and some larger apartments that he would offer to his operations manager and other higher-ups of his company.  The seventh floor was his.  It would be a penthouse with a private elevator and secured and monitored entry.

A knock at the door roused him from his musings.  “Come in,” he said.  The door opened to a mountain of a man.  His shoulders so wide that he had to step in through the door at an angle to avoid brushing them against the door frame.  He had to duck his head to prevent hitting it on the frame above.  His skin was dark, his head bald.  He was wearing an athletic cut slate-gray suit with a lavender shirt and dark purple tie.  The industrial lighting glinted off the shine on his shoes.  He had a small gold hoop in his right ear.

“I hear you’re looking for some help,” the big man said in a voice so deep Ranger wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. 

“I am.  Have a seat,” he said as he motioned for the single chair across from his desk.  The man walked in confidently and settled himself on the metal seat, the rivets holding it together creaked in protest.  He leaned forward and handed Ranger a short stack of paperwork.

Ranger took the papers and leaned back in his own chair to review them.  Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the man.  He sat there with his hands resting on his thighs, looking straight at Ranger with a blank face.  The resume and references showed that this man was exactly what Ranger was looking for in an Operations Manager. 

“Sherman Clark.  Westpoint graduate, trained at Fort Benning and 4 years in the 75th Ranger Regiment ,” Ranger stated.

“Yes, sir,” the man responded. 

Ranger gave him a raised eyebrow, but continued, “Your doctor’s report says you’re 6’6”, 375 lbs and no health restrictions.  You ever take anybody down, Sherman?”

“Tank.”

“What?” Ranger asked.

“It’s Tank, sir.  Only my mother calls me Sherman.”

Ranger laughed, “I can relate to that.  I go by Ranger unless I’m home with the family.”

“Ranger?” Tank replied warily.  “You served?”  At Ranger’s nod, he asked “What’s your real name?”

“Carlos Manoso.”

A look of recognition crossed his face.  Tank leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling.  “Shit,” he said with feeling.  “I thought you looked familiar.” 

“We know each other, soldier?” Ranger said and he shifted his weight enough to reach the gun at his back quickly.  He was developing quite a list of enemies already and he’d only been in Trenton for a little less than a year.  If this guy was a plant for somebody to get the drop on him, he was going to be one big, dead motherfucker. 

“Yeah,” Tank said, “Although, at the time I didn’t look like this so that’s why you don’t remember me.  First leave out of basic, I went into this local bar for some beers with a few friends.  You were at a table in the middle of the room drinking with some other guy, when a beautiful blonde climbed into your lap.”

A slow smile crept across Ranger’s face as the memory came to him.  “You’re right, I didn’t recognize you.  About 150 pounds lighter and a lot less bulk.  You’ve put on a lot of muscle since then.”  The grin widened on his face, “Didn’t stop you from kicking ass, if I remember correctly.”

Tank returned the grin, “Man, I never saw somebody go batshit like you did when that redneck knifed you in the back for mackin’ on his woman.”  He shook his head slightly at the memory.  “What I saw you do that night…that’s what made me sign up for the Rangers.  I wanted to be able to do that kind of shit.”

“You held your own.  When somebody got in your face about being a black man in a white bar in Georgia…didn’t you throw him out the window?”

The barritone chuckle echoed around the stark office.  “Yeah, too bad we were only on the first floor.”   They laughed together over the memories and how they ended up in opposite jail cells for the night until the XO authorized their release the following day. 

“So, I guess all my questions have been answered.  You’ve got the brains, the muscle and the skill set I’m looking for.  You want a job?”

“Yeah, but what kind of stuff will we be doing?  The ad just said “security firm looking for ex-military men”.  What type of security are we talking about?”

“Bodyguarding, skip-tracing and building security, mostly.  Right now, I’m working for a local bail bondsman as a bounty hunter.  But within the next year, I’m planning to move the business to a whole building and expand to include business security as well.”

“Sounds good.  I’m in.  How many other employees are you looking for?”

“I’ve got about 5 more applications to look through before I’m finished.  You want to sit in?”