Read Chapter One of our upcoming novel, ALPHA STRIKE

So far in our series of posts on the background of Alpha Strike, Book 2 of The Third Option series, we’ve talked about why we chose the deserts of Mali as the setting, introduced you to a man so evil that he forced us to write a Prologue, and explored the uncomfortable link between avocados and Mexican drug cartels.

We also posted an advance review of Alpha Strike from our husband-wife review team. They both enjoyed the book, but for different reasons, which makes us very happy.

Dr. Samantha Fremont—Sam to her friends—is a child of privilege. The finest education money can buy, access to powerful people of elite society, and money to spare.

She’s also a child of loss. Her mother to malignant illness, her father to benign neglect, and her husband to narcissism. For all the advantages in her life, Sam Fremont has never really lived on her own terms.

Blow it up and start over, of course.

When we meet Sam in Chapter One, she’s divorced her husband, cut off all ties with her father, and is working at a field hospital in Burkina Faso, on the border of war-torn Mali.

And for the first time in her life, she’s happy.

Many of our characters choose a life of service. The armed forces, first responders, intelligence agencies, to name a few. These ordinary heroes serve their country or their community.

Dr. Sam Fremont answers a higher call: she serves humanity. While most people flee a war zone, volunteer civilians like Sam—doctors, humanitarian aid providers, war correspondents—run toward the danger. They try to save lives.

The irony is that by trying to save the world, Sam saves herself.

You can read Chapter One of Alpha Strike right here on Substack. Members of the BORG—that’s the Bruns-Olson Readers Group—can download it to their ereader.

Download Chapter 1 of ALPHA STRIKE now

Alpha Strike, Book 2 of The Third Option series, releases in ebook, print, and audiobook on July 21, 2026.

Preorder ALPHA STRIKE now

Dr. Samantha Fremont leaned closer to the mangled flesh shrouded by blue surgical material.

“More light, please, Rama,” she said.

Nurse Ramata Kabore complied, angling the surgical lamp so the illumination shone directly on the patient’s upper arm. “Is that better, Dr. Sam?”

Sam grunted a reply and dropped the surgical loupes over her glasses. The exposed flesh leaped into sharp focus. It was not a pretty sight.

The dark skin and muscle were a pulpy red mess of coagulated blood and swollen tissue. Amidst the chunks of dirt and rock, Sam could pick out bone fragments glinting in the light. Another crushing injury from the manganese mine a few miles away—her third this week.

“Can you save his arm, Sam?” Rama asked quietly.

“I can try.” Sam held out her gloved hand. “Saline irrigation and forceps.”

She lost herself in her work, moving millimeter by millimeter, cleaning and debriding the flesh. The injury was horrific, but as the forearm and hand were undamaged, she believed the limb was salvageable. The man would need a pin in his humerus, and even after a skin graft, he would have a hideous scar, but he would still have an arm.

Sam straightened up, stretching her spine, rolling her shoulders.

She snapped the loupes up and winked at Rama. “We can rebuild him,” she announced.

The young black woman’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “I don’t understand. Does that mean you can save his arm?”

“Sorry, Rama.” Sam felt a flush of embarrassment creep up her neck. Why had she said that? That’s what he used to say, the arrogant prick.

“Yes, we can save his arm. I’m going to do an internal fixation procedure to stabilize the damaged bone in his upper arm. There’s a tray in the supply closet with a selection of sterile stainless steel rods and screws. I’ll also need the drill.”

Rama’s eyes brightened. “Right away, Doctor.” She busied herself retrieving the supplies.

A gust of wind buffeted the side of the tent, making Sam wince. They had briefed her about the harmattan before she arrived in this remote northeast corner of Burkina Faso, but words did not do justice to the seasonal phenomenon in this part of the world.

A week ago, the weather pattern changed suddenly, and a hot, dry wind roared in from the Sahara, dropping the moisture to single digits and filling the air with desert dust. In the space of a day, everything she owned, ate, or wore was infiltrated with ultra-fine grit. Trying to keep anything clean, let alone a sterile operating room, was a daily battle. Worse yet, the constant wind put her nerves on edge. The gusts constantly surprised her, leaving her with a sense of unease about her surroundings.

Rama brought her the tray on a cart, and Sam selected what she needed for the operation. She nodded her approval as the young woman laid out the supplies on a sterile tray. Although in her early twenties and with no formal nursing training, she had proved an apt pupil.

It was refreshing how simple Sam’s life had become. She was one of two doctors and two physician’s assistants who had set up a medical outpost in this corner of the world. Their mission was simple: to help people. A twisted ankle, a severed limb, or a child who needed vaccination—it made no difference—whoever walked into their medical tent received the best care they could provide. If they didn’t have the exact right medicine or instruments, they made do with what they had on hand. When the alternative was no medical care at all, the choice was simple.

An operation of this scope back in New York would have had a surgical team of at least six, but here it was just her and Rama. They anesthetized the patient using intravenous ketamine, cleaned the wound, and now she would put the bones in his arm back together so they could heal. With a swell of pride, Sam knew that if she were not here, this young man would lose his arm. And probably his life.

She was making a difference. On her own terms. Without him to measure and judge her worth as a doctor—or a woman.

“The way it should be,” she murmured.

“Pardon, Sam?” Rama asked.

“I said, he should be happy—about saving his arm, I mean.”

Sam could see the wide smile bulge beneath Rama’s surgical mask. “He will be very happy. I know his family. They will tell the story of Dr. Sam from America for generations to come.”

Sam felt the prick of tears. I’m making a difference, she thought. A real difference.

“Let’s get to work, then,” she said, flipping down the loupes and bending over the patient’s arm.

The humerus was broken in two places, so it was a tricky bit of jigsaw work to get the pieces to line up. She had Rama gently put tension on the limb as she fitted the rod into place.

In the distance, over the howl of the wind, she heard a faint popping noise. She frowned at the arm, as if she might will it into alignment.

“More tension, Rama,” she said. “Pull gently.”

There was no response. Sam raised her head, flipped up the loupes, annoyed.

“Rama—”

The girl’s eyes were on the wall of the tent, her entire body taut with tension.

“Rama,” Sam said again.

She followed the young woman’s gaze to where the white wall of the tent interior angled to form the roof. Just below the seam there was a hole the size of a dime. Daylight shone through the opening, and as she watched, a trickle of brown dust filtered into the tent, leaving a faint smear on the sterile material.

“What the hell is that?” Sam asked.

“A bullet hole.” Rama’s voice was distant.

A rattle, like the staccato raps of a snare drum, sounded outside the tent, and she heard a shout. Very close, very loud.

“What is happening?” Sam heard the trembling uncertainty in her own voice.

“A raid.” Rama looked around. “We need to hide. Now.”

The door of the operating room burst open, and the shape of a man filled the doorway. He was easily over six feet tall and broad-shouldered. Dust coated his full beard and his paramilitary uniform, and he held a rifle in one hand. He grinned at them, a burst of white teeth in a dark face, then used his free hand to raise goggles from his eyes. His gaze lighted on Rama, and the grin widened into a leer. He said something in the native tongue.

Sam knew that look. It made her stomach tighten with fear. “What did he say?”

“He’s going to take our medical supplies…and he told me to come with him.”

“No!” The word burst out of Sam’s mouth before she’d even formed a thought. This was not happening. She was not going to let it happen.

Sam stepped between Rama and the soldier. “No,” she said again. “We’re operating on this man.” She pointed to the door. “You need to leave.”

Without taking his eyes off Sam’s face, the soldier pointed the rifle at her patient and pulled the trigger. A three-round burst of gunfire exploded only a few feet from Sam’s head, the sound impossibly loud in the enclosed space.

Sam instinctively dropped to a crouch, hands over her ears. Her muffled hearing made it seem like Rama’s screams were very far away. She turned back to the patient, but she didn’t need her medical degree to know he was dead. One of the bullets had entered his neck and severed his spine. His head was cocked at a hard angle to his body.

Rage overcame her. Sam snatched up a scalpel from the surgical tray and spun around. She rushed at the soldier, holding the blade like a dagger.

His open hand, the size of a bear’s paw, came out of nowhere, smacking the side of her head with enough force to lift her off her feet. She heard a pop in her right ear, then everything went silent.

Sam tasted blood in her mouth. Dust in her eyes blurred her vision. She tried to get up and her head spun like she’d just gotten off a wild carousel ride.

Rama appeared over her, tears streaming down her face. “Stay down, Sam. He will kill you.”

Then a huge black hand appeared on the shoulder of her blue scrubs, and Rama was tossed aside like a rag doll. The man bent over her, tried to grab her by the neck, but she shrank back, and he came away with her surgical cap.

The soldier stared at her, a look of fascination on his face.

My hair, she realized. He sees my red hair.

All her life, her fiery red hair was Sam’s most prominent feature. In this part of the world, where fair-skinned people were a definite minority, her hair color was beyond rare. For surgery, she always plaited her long hair into a thick braid, which now spilled out on the floor next to her head.

The soldier clamped his hand on the braid and hoisted her head off the floor. For a moment, he marveled at the thick rope of red hair in his big paw. He looked Sam in the eyes and bared his teeth.

Then he cocked a fist and punched her in the face.

* * *

Her whole world was dirt and darkness and movement.

But the ground beneath the side of her face was soft and warm.

Sam tried to open her eyes, but they seemed glued shut. She groaned.

“Don’t try to move, Sam.” Rama’s voice, cool and soft. Sam felt gentle fingers probe her cheekbones. “Your face is very badly bruised, but I don’t think your nose is broken.”

It all came rushing back to her then. The soldier, the dead patient, the look on his face when he saw her hair…the punch that knocked her out.

The ground shifted beneath her, and she realized they were in the bed of a moving truck.

“Where are we going?” she croaked.

“I don’t know,” Rama said. “North, I think.”

Mali was north. She tried to recall the details from her country briefing, but her head hurt too much. All she could remember was that Mali was bad.

Don’t go into Mali. Under any circumstances had been the final statement in the country briefing before she started her work in Burkina Faso.

She remembered laughing along with the rest of her cohort about the danger that had seemed so far away at the time. What else had the State Department briefer said?

It came back to her in bits and pieces. The country was in the grip of a military junta supported by Russian-backed mercenaries, the Africa Corps. Outside of the major cities, Salafi jihadist groups fought for control of territory, ruling like medieval warlords.

Her stomach turned and Sam dragged her head off Rama’s lap to vomit. Fireworks cartwheeled across her vision. Her head felt like a throbbing bass drum.

“I think you might have a concussion.” Rama carefully placed Sam’s head back on her lap. The soft flesh felt wonderful under her bruised cheek.

A new worry spiked in her brain. She’d seen the way the soldier had looked at Rama. “Did he…hurt you?” Even now, Sam couldn’t bring herself to say the word rape.

“No.” Rama’s delicate fingers stroked her cheek, but Sam could hear the unsaid words. Not yet.

Sam nodded her head and a fresh wave of pain burst like a strobe across her vision.

“Just sleep, Sam. We’ll worry about him when the time comes.”

When the time comes.

No, Sam vowed. She was here to help people. It was why she’d come to this godforsaken corner of the world, and she was not going to let anything happen to Rama. Whatever it took, she would keep her young friend safe.

“Sleep, Sam. Your body needs to heal.”

As she drifted off, the words of the man from the State Department returned:

Whatever you do, don’t go into Mali. Under any circumstances.

Preorder ALPHA STRIKE now

Copyright © 2026

by David Bruns and J. R. Olson. All rights reserved.

PS – Are you looking for the FREE download of Death of a Pawn?

PPS - This email is free, but it’s not cheap. If you’d like to show your support, here’s where you can find all the Two Navy Guys’ books.

PPPS - If you enjoyed this post, you can get it delivered to your inbox every week for free.