“Pretend to Be My Grandson,” Old Farmer Whispered — Then the Navy SEAL and His Military K9..

He stood on the porch of a dusty farmhouse. A decorated Navy SEAL with a combat-hardened German Shepherd by his side. The old man trembling before him didn’t ask for help fighting terrorists or rescuing hostages. Instead, as the roar of heavily modified pickup trucks echoed down the gravel road, the farmer grabbed his jacket and whispered five words that would plunge them into a deadly conspiracy.
“Pretend to be my grandson.” What happens when a ruthless rural crime syndicate targets a vulnerable old man only to find a Tier 1 operator and his lethal K9 waiting for them? Listen closely. The road through Owyhee County, Idaho, was nothing but a ribbon of cracked asphalt baking under the relentless July sun.
Charles Wyatt gripped the steering wheel of his beat-up 1998 Ford F-150, his knuckles white, his eyes scanning the horizon out of pure, unyielding habit. 10 years in the Teams, three tours in Afghanistan, two in Syria. The Navy had given him a chest full of medals, a medically discharged knee, and a mind that refused to turn off.
In the passenger seat, panting softly, sat Titan. A 90-lb purebred German Shepherd with a coat as dark as burnt timber. Titan wasn’t just a pet. He was a retired multi-purpose K9, MPC, trained in explosive ordnance detection and combat tracking. Titan had saved Charles’s life in a narrow alley in Raqqa, taking a graze from an AK-47 round that was meant for Charles’s chest.
They were two broken soldiers looking for a quiet place to disappear, but peace, Charles was learning, was an elusive target. The truck’s radiator blew with the sound of a dying animal, hissing steam over the windshield. Charles guided the smoking vehicle to the shoulder, the gravel crunching under the balding tires.
He killed the engine. The sudden silence of the high desert was deafening. “Looks like we’re walking, buddy,” Charles said, his voice a low, raspy baritone. Titan gave a short whine, his ears swiveling. He hopped out of the cab the moment Charles opened the door, his posture instantly alert, nose working the dry, sage-scented wind.
According to the rusted road sign they had passed a mile back, the nearest town, a speck on the map called Oak Haven, was still 10 miles away. But Charles’s trained eyes caught the faint geometric lines of an agricultural fence leading off to the east. Where there was a fence, there was a farmhouse. Where there was a farmhouse, there might be a phone and some water.
They walked for over an hour. The heat was oppressive, but both man and dog had endured far worse in the deserts of the Middle East. Eventually, the silhouette of a weathered two-story farmhouse emerged from the heat distortion. It sat on a sprawling, neglected piece of acreage surrounded by half-collapsed barns and rusting silos.
As Charles unlatched the front gate, Titan’s body went rigid. A low, guttural rumble started deep in the Shepherd’s chest. The dog positioned himself slightly ahead of Charles’s left leg, the classic protective stance. “Easy, Titan,” Charles murmured, though his own senses immediately heightened. Sitting on the sagging front porch in a rocking chair was an old man.
He looked to be in his late 70s, wearing faded denim overalls and a flannel shirt rolled up at the elbows. His face was a map of deep wrinkles weathered by decades of sun and wind. But it wasn’t his age that put Charles on edge. It was the 12-gauge pump-action shotgun resting across his lap, his trembling fingers hovering near the trigger guard.
“That’s far enough, stranger,” the old man called out, his voice cracking but desperately trying to project authority. “We don’t want no visitors. You turn around and walk back the way you came.” Charles stopped at the base of the porch steps, keeping his hands visible and away from the concealed 9-mm Glock tucked into his waistband.
“Sir, my name is Charles. This is Titan. My truck overheated a couple of miles up the highway. I just need to use a landline to call a tow and maybe get some water for my dog. Then we’ll be out of your hair.” The old man squinted, his pale blue eyes darting from Charles to the massive German Shepherd. He seemed to recognize the disciplined stillness in both of them.
He slowly lowered the barrel of the shotgun. “Water’s at the spigot around the side,” the old man said wearily. “Name’s Gabriel. Gabriel Vance.” “Appreciate it, Mr. Vance.” As Charles moved to the side of the house to fill a rusted metal bowl for Titan, a new sound cut through the quiet afternoon. It was the heavy, aggressive hum of large diesel engines.
A cloud of dust was rising rapidly down the dirt driveway leading to the farm. Gabriel’s face drained of color. The shotgun in his hands shook violently. Panic, raw and unfiltered, seized the old farmer. He looked at the approaching dust cloud, then at Charles, who had stepped back to the front of the house, instantly assessing the tactical situation.
Two black lifted Dodge Ram trucks skidded to a halt in the yard, kicking up a storm of dirt. The doors swung open. Gabriel practically stumbled down the porch steps toward Charles. He grabbed the sleeve of Charles’s jacket, his grip surprisingly strong, his eyes wide with a terrifying desperation. “Please,” Gabriel whispered, his voice trembling so violently Charles could barely hear him over the idling engines.
“Please, son, pretend to be my grandson.” Charles didn’t have time to ask questions. The survival instinct that had kept him alive in the world’s most dangerous war zones kicked in. He didn’t know who these men were, but he recognized predators when he saw them. And Gabriel Vance looked like prey. Four men stepped out of the trucks.
They weren’t standard farmhands. They wore heavy steel-toed boots, tactical cargo pants, and had the thick, tattooed builds of men who spent time in prison yards. The man leading them was tall with slicked-back graying hair, aviator sunglasses, and a silver belt buckle the size of a dinner plate. He chewed on a toothpick, exuding an arrogant, aggressive confidence.
“Well, well, Gabriel,” the lead man drawled, spitting the toothpick into the dirt. “Look at you, greeting us with the scattergun. You know that ain’t going to do you any good against us, old man. Your time is up.” Charles stepped smoothly in front of Gabriel, placing himself between the farmer and the four men. He widened his stance slightly, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.
At a subtle hand signal from Charles, Titan stepped forward, the fur on the dog’s spine standing straight up. The German Shepherd unleashed a vicious, bone-chilling bark, snapping his jaws. The four men flinched, instinctively taking a half step back. Even the arrogant leader halted his advance.
“Call off the beast, Gabriel,” the leader said, his hand dropping closer to the heavy bulge under his untucked shirt. “Who the hell is this?” Charles locked eyes with the leader. His voice was dead calm, devoid of any fear, a sharp contrast to Gabriel’s trembling. “I’m his grandson.” “Derek?” Gabriel gasped softly behind him, but stayed quiet.
The leader pulled down his sunglasses, eyeing Charles up and down. “Derek? Derek Vance?” “Bullshit. Derek is a scrawny, twitchy little meth head who owes us 50 grand. You don’t look like Derek.” “People change,” Charles said coldly. “I’ve been away. Military. I’m back now. And from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re trespassing on my grandfather’s property.
” “Trespassing?” The leader laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “I’m Boyd Hastings, and I own the paper on this dirt patch, Derek. Your real granddaddy took out a loan with my associates to cover your little gambling and powder habits. You didn’t pay. He can’t pay. We’re here to foreclose informally. Boyd gestured to his men and they began to fan out attempting to flank the porch.
Titan, off passen. Charles commanded in sharp German. Titan lunged forward to the edge of the steps, lips curled back exposing two rows of lethal ivory teeth. The dog didn’t just bark, he roared. It was the terrifying focused aggression of a military working dog trained to tear armed insurgents apart. The flanking men froze.
Boyd swallowed hard, his bravado slipping. “You take one more step.” Charles said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper that across the yard. “And I let the dog off the leash. If you survive him, you deal with me. I don’t care about the paper you think you hold. You have exactly 10 seconds to get back in those trucks and leave.
10.” Boyd looked at the dog, then at Charles’s unflinching cold eyes. He saw something in Charles’s stare, the hollow empty look of a man who had taken lives and would not hesitate to do it again. “Nine.” Charles said. “All right, tough guy.” Boyd sneered, backing up toward his truck. “You want to play the returning hero? Fine. But the debt stands.
50 grand plus interest. We’ll be back in 48 hours. If we don’t get the cash, we’re taking the deed. And a dog isn’t going to stop us next time.” They climbed back into the trucks, slamming the doors, and tore out of the driveway leaving a thick cloud of dust in their wake. Charles watched them until they were completely out of sight.
He let out a slow breath, his muscles relaxing. “Titan, hier.” The dog instantly stopped growling and sat by Charles’s side looking up for approval. Charles turned around. Gabriel had collapsed into his rocking chair, his face buried in his calloused hands weeping quietly. Charles walked up, uncocked the shotgun on Gabriel’s lap, and set the safety.
“Mr. Vance, I think you owe me an explanation. Who is Derek and why do those men want to kill you over him?” Gabriel looked up, his eyes bloodshot. “Derek is my real grandson. He He fell in with a bad crowd a few years ago. Started running drugs for Boyd Hastings and his boss, a man named Ray Miller. Derek got greedy.
He lost a shipment, or so they say. They came after him and he vanished three months ago. Left me holding the bag. They forced me to sign the farm over as collateral under threat of violence. I haven’t heard from Derek since. I thought I was a dead man today.” Charles looked out over the sprawling desolate farm.
He was a transient, a ghost passing through. He had no obligation here. He could fix his truck and drive away leaving the old man to his fate. But as he looked at Gabriel, he saw the faces of the village elders in Helmand province, people caught in the crossfire of brutal men unable to defend themselves. He had spent his life protecting the defenseless.
It was a hard habit to break. “You’re not a dead man, Gabriel.” Charles said, pulling up a wooden chair and sitting across from him. “But I need to know everything because for the next 48 hours, I am Derek Vance and we have work to do.” The next morning broke with a crisp, deceivingly peaceful chill. Charles was up before the sun, slipping on his boots and heading out to the porch with a steaming mug of black coffee.
Titan was already awake, pacing the perimeter of the farmhouse, his nose occasionally dropping to the dew-covered grass. Charles had spent the night listening to Gabriel recount the history of the Vance farm. It had been in the family for four generations, a proud 500-acre spread that once produced the best alfalfa in the county.
Now it was a graveyard of broken tractors and overgrown fields. Gabriel had mentioned that before Derek disappeared, he had been acting increasingly paranoid, spending days out near the old dried-up irrigation canal at the far south end of the property. Charles didn’t buy the story that Boyd Hastings and his syndicate simply wanted the land as repayment.
500 acres of barren Idaho dirt wasn’t worth 50 grand, let alone the time and resources of a violent criminal organization. They wanted something else, something Derek had left behind. “All right, Titan.” Charles said, setting his mug down. “Let’s go for a walk.” They headed south away from the farmhouse. Charles moved with the fluid, silent grace of a tracker, his eyes scanning the ground for anomalies.
He looked for broken twigs, crushed vegetation, or the subtle depressions in the soil that indicated foot traffic. As they approached the dilapidated wooden bridge over the dry canal, Titan’s behavior shifted. The dog stopped dead in his tracks. His tail went rigid and he let out a sharp, high-pitched whine.
He began to quarter back and forth, his nose practically vacuuming the dirt. Charles recognized the body language instantly. It wasn’t the alert for explosives, Titan was trained to sit for those. This was a tracking alert. Titan had caught a scent that was out of place. “What do you have, buddy? Such.
” Charles commanded, using the German word to search. Titan darted into the thick brush near the base of an old, rusted grain silo. Charles followed, pushing aside the thorny brambles. Behind the silo, hidden from view of the main house and the road, the ground was different. Charles knelt down, running his fingers over the dirt.
The soil here was looser, slightly darker than the surrounding hardpack. It had been turned over recently, maybe within the last few months. Rain and wind had smoothed it out, but to a trained eye, it was glaringly obvious. He walked back to the nearest barn, grabbed a rusted wooden-handled shovel, and returned to the silo.
“Sit, Titan. Watch our six.” Charles ordered. The dog immediately sat facing outward, acting as a perimeter guard. Charles began to dig. The earth was stubborn, packed with rocks and roots, but his powerful shoulders made quick work of it. Two feet down, the blade of the shovel struck something that wasn’t a rock.
It gave a dull, synthetic thud. Charles dropped the shovel and fell to his knees, clearing the dirt away with his bare hands. He unearthed a heavy-duty, weather-resistant black duffel bag. It was wrapped tightly in thick industrial plastic and sealed with duct tape. He pulled a tactical knife from his pocket and carefully sliced through the tape.
As he peeled back the plastic and unzipped the bag, the sharp chemical stench of acetone hit him like a physical blow. He didn’t need a lab to tell him what it was. The bag was packed to the brim with vacuum-sealed bricks of crystal methamphetamine, easily 10 kilos. On the street, this wasn’t worth $50,000. It was worth nearly half a million.
Charles sat back on his heels, his mind racing, putting the tactical puzzle together. Derek hadn’t just lost a shipment. He had stolen it from Ray Miller and Boyd Hastings. He buried the stash on his grandfather’s property, planning to come back for it when the heat died down. But the syndicate must have caught him.
That’s why Derek vanished. Boyd wasn’t harassing Gabriel for $50,000 in debt. Boyd was using the debt as a legal smoke screen to foreclose on the property so his men could bring in earthmovers and tear the farm apart looking for the stolen half-million-dollar stash. If they found out Gabriel knew nothing, they would kill the old man and take the land anyway.
Suddenly, Titan let out a low warning growl. Charles snapped his head up. Through the brush, about a half mile away on the ridge overlooking the farm, a flash of sunlight caught the lens of a pair of binoculars. They were being watched. The syndicate hadn’t left. They had set up overwatch. And they had likely just seen Charles dig up the very prize they were looking for.
Charles zipped the bag shut in a fraction of a second. The 48-hour deadline Boyd had given them was a lie. The war was coming to the Vance farm today. Titan, fuss, Charles commanded, grabbing the heavy duffel bag and hauling it over his shoulder. The dog fell into a perfect heel position. Charles didn’t head back to the house.
Going to the house would trap them and put Gabriel directly in the line of fire. Instead, Charles headed towards the densest part of the property, the overgrown wooded ravine. If Boyd and his heavily armed thugs wanted their drugs back, they were going to have to come into the trees to get them. And in the trees, they weren’t dealing with a scared old farmer or a twitchy meth addict.
They were dealing with a ghost from the shadows and a hunter that never missed its prey. The tree line swallowed Charles and Titan, offering an immediate dense canopy of shadow that blocked out the harsh afternoon sun. The ravine was a treacherous scar carved into the Owyhee County earth, heavily choked with thorny blackberry bushes, deadfall timber, and towering ancient cottonwoods.
For a normal man carrying a 50-lb duffel bag of narcotics, it was an impassable nightmare. For Charles Wyatt, it was an armory. He moved with an eerie silence, his combat boots rolling softly from heel to toe to avoid snapping twigs. Titan shadowed him perfectly, mirroring his master’s stealth. Charles found a deep, natural hollow beneath the exposed root system of a massive fallen oak tree.
He shoved the black duffel bag deep into the cavity, covering it with decaying leaves and heavy stones until it was completely invisible. But hiding the drugs was only phase one. Charles checked his heavy diver’s watch. 2:15 p.m. If the syndicate spotters on the ridge had seen him dig up the stash, they were already calling it in.
The 48-hour grace period was dead. They would be coming in force, and they would be coming soon. [clears throat] He had to secure Gabriel. Using a dry creek bed as natural defilade to stay out of the spotter’s line of sight, Charles and Titan circled back toward the farmhouse. They approached from the rear, slipping through the rusted remains of an old tractor shed, and coming up to the back porch.
Charles opened the kitchen door to find Gabriel frantically loading a battered .30-30 Winchester lever-action rifle, his hands shaking so badly he dropped two rounds onto the linoleum floor. “Gabriel,” Charles said, his voice low but commanding enough to break the old man’s panic loop. Gabriel jumped, spinning around.
“Derek, I mean, Charles, they’re up on the ridge. I saw the glint. They’re watching us.” “I know,” Charles said, stepping inside and pulling the shades down. I found what Derek left behind. 10 kilos of crystal meth buried behind the south silo. They saw me dig it up. They aren’t waiting 2 days.
They’re coming to tear this place apart today.” Gabriel slumped against the kitchen counter, the Winchester slipping from his grasp. The last remnants of color drained from his weathered face. “Lord almighty, 10 kilos. Derek, what did you do? They’re going to kill us, Charles. Ray Miller doesn’t leave loose ends. You need to take your truck and run.
Go on foot if you have to. Leave me.” “I don’t leave people behind, Gabriel. That’s not how I was wired,” Charles replied, his tone leaving absolutely no room for debate. “Does this farmhouse have a root cellar?” “Yes,” Gabriel stammered, pointing a trembling finger toward a heavy oak door near the pantry. “Old storm shelter built into the foundation.
Show me.” Gabriel led them down a flight of steep, creaky wooden stairs into the pitch-black basement. The air was damp and smelled of earth and old preserves. At the far end, behind a wall of dusty masonry, was a heavy steel-reinforced door. Charles inspected it. It had a solid deadbolt on the inside. “Perfect.
Listen to me carefully, Gabriel,” Charles said, locking eyes with the terrified farmer. “I need you to grab whatever water and food you have down here. Get inside this cellar and lock the door. Do not come out, no matter what you hear upstairs, no matter if they threaten to burn the house down. You stay completely silent.” “What about you and the dog?” Gabriel asked, a tear slipping down his cheek.
“You can’t fight an entire crew of cartel thugs.” Charles checked the slide of his 9-mm Glock, ensuring a round was chambered before slapping the magazine back in. “I’m not going to fight them in the house. I’m going to make them chase me into the woods. They think they’re hunting a scared farm boy and his grandfather.
I’m going to change their minds.” Leaving Gabriel safely bolted inside the subterranean cellar, Charles sprinted to the barn. He didn’t have his SEAL team armory, but a working farm was filled with lethal improvised materials if you knew how to look at them. He grabbed spools of heavy-duty baling twine, rusted logging chains, a box of 3-in galvanized nails, and two heavy steel bear traps he found hanging covered in dust on the back wall.
He moved rapidly back to the tree line, his mind shifting seamlessly into the cold, calculated arithmetic of guerrilla warfare. He was alone, outgunned, and outnumbered. But he had the terrain, he had the element of surprise, and he had Titan. In the span of 30 minutes, Charles rigged the perimeter of the ravine.
He strung tripwires made of the nearly invisible baling twine across the most obvious entry points, hooking them to heavy suspended deadfall logs held back by tension knots. He buried the bear traps under a thin layer of dirt and pine needles along a natural choke point. He was just finishing the second snare when Titan’s ears snapped forward.
The dog let out a barely audible huff, a silent alarm. Charles froze, dropping into a crouch behind a thick wall of brush. He listened. Down the highway, the roar of multiple engines echoed through the valley. It wasn’t just two trucks this time. It was four, and the deep rumble of an armored SUV. Ray Miller had lost his patience.
The syndicate had arrived. Dust plumed high into the air as the convoy tore through the front gates of the Vance farm, not even bothering to slow down. They crushed Gabriel’s wooden fence to splinters, fanning out aggressively across the front yard in a tactical formation that suggested they had done this before.
From his concealed vantage point 200 yards away in the tree line, Charles watched through a small gap in the foliage. 10 men piled out of the vehicles. They were heavily armed. Boyd Hastings was there, looking nervous, but he wasn’t calling the shots anymore. A new man stepped out of the black SUV. He was built like a cinder block, wearing a tactical vest over a black long-sleeve shirt, carrying a suppressed short-barreled AR-15.
Charles recognized the type immediately. Private military contractor gone rogue, cartel enforcer. This was Garrett Shaw, Ray Miller’s notorious right-hand man, a ruthless fixer brought in when a situation needed to be violently resolved. “Spread out,” Garrett barked, his voice carrying clearly over the dying engines.
“Hastings, take three men and clear the house. The rest of you, fan out around the barns. The spotter said he saw a guy with a dog head toward the tree line with the package. Nobody shoots the bag. Find the old man, find the kid, and find my property.” Boyd and his crew kicked the front door of the farmhouse open, their weapons raised.
Charles felt a tight knot in his stomach, praying Gabriel would keep his nerve and stay dead silent in the cellar. 10 agonizing minutes passed. Charles watched Garrett pace the yard, barking orders into a handheld radio. Finally, Boyd emerged from the house, shaking his head. “Place is completely empty, Garrett.
” Boyd yelled. “Coffee on the stove is still warm, but the old man and the kid are gone.” Garrett spat in the dirt, his eyes scanning the horizon before locking onto the dense woods at the south end of the property. “They didn’t evaporate.” “The spotter said they went into the ravine.” “They’re trying to hide the product.
” Garrett racked the charging handle of his rifle. “Form a skirmish line, 5 m apart.” “We’re going into the woods. Shoot the dog on sight. Wing the kid if you have to, but I want him alive to tell me where he stashed it.” Charles smiled coldly. They were playing exactly into his hands. “All right, buddy.
” Charles whispered to Titan, patting the dog’s muscular shoulder. “Showtime. We are the shadows now.” The seven men, led by Garrett and Boyd, entered the tree line. The transition from the bright, blinding afternoon sun to the dark, heavily shaded woods caused a momentary disadvantage for the syndicate thugs. Their eyes hadn’t adjusted.
But Charles and Titan had been in the dark for an hour. The thugs moved loudly, snapping branches and cursing as the blackberry thorns tore at their cargo pants. They were street enforcers, not light infantry. They had no noise discipline. Charles positioned himself 20 ft up in the broad branches of a massive oak, perfectly camouflaged against the thick trunk.
He had left Titan on the ground, hidden in a dense thicket of ferns 50 yd to the left. A point man with a shaved head and a tactical shotgun was the first to push too far ahead of the skirmish line. He separated from the group, pushing through a patch of tall ferns, his eyes scanning the ground for the duffel bag, completely ignoring his upper periphery.
He stepped directly onto the tripwire Charles had rigged. The baling twine snapped tight. A retaining knot gave way high in the trees. Before the point man could even register the sound, a heavy 100-lb deadfall branch swung down like a pendulum. It struck the man squarely in the chest with the sickening crack of breaking ribs.
The man flew backward, the shotgun flying from his hands, landing in the dirt with a choked gasp, completely incapacitated. “Contact!” Boyd screamed from somewhere to the right, raising his pistol and firing wildly into the trees. “We got a trap. Watch your step.” Panic rippled through the syndicate line. Garrett Shaw yelled for discipline, but the illusion of an easy hunt had shattered.
“Keep moving forward!” Garrett roared. “It’s one guy. Push!” Two men broke away from Garrett’s side, flanking to the left, trying to find a clear path through the brush. They were moving fast, their weapons sweeping the shadows. Charles gave a sharp, ultrasonic whistle, a sound pitched so high human ears could barely register it as a passing bird.
From the dense ferns, a 90-lb black missile launched itself into the air. Titan didn’t bark. A barking dog is a target. A silent dog is a nightmare. The German Shepherd hit the trailing man dead in the chest. The kinetic energy of the attack knocking the thug entirely off his feet. As the man hit the ground, Titan’s jaws clamped down with bone-crushing force on the man’s gun arm.
The thug shrieked in agony, dropping his pistol as Titan’s teeth pierced deep into the muscle. “The dog! Get the dog!” The second man yelled, spinning around and raising his weapon toward Titan, but Charles was already there. He had dropped from the oak tree with the silent grace of a predator. Before the second man could pull the trigger on the canine, Charles lunged from the shadows behind him.
Charles’s left arm wrapped around the man’s throat in a flawless, inescapable blood choke, while his right hand pinned the man’s weapon against his body. He dragged the struggling thug backward into the deeper shadows of the brush. Within 6 seconds, the man’s eyes rolled back and his body went limp. Charles lowered him silently to the forest floor.
“Titan, aus.” Charles commanded in a harsh whisper. Titan instantly released his grip on the screaming first man and melted back into the shadows beside Charles. In less than 3 minutes, three of Garrett Shaw’s men were down. The woods fell dead silent again, save for the moans of the man with the broken ribs and the sobbing of the thug clutching his mangled arm.
Garrett Shaw froze, his rifle raised, his breathing suddenly shallow. He looked around the darkening ravine. His men were terrified, pointing their guns at shadows, jumping at the sound of falling leaves. “Hastings.” Garrett whispered, his voice completely devoid of its previous arrogance. “That ain’t the twitchy meth-head farm boy in there.
” “And that sure as hell ain’t no junkyard dog.” Deep in the brush, Charles wiped a streak of dirt from his forehead, his eyes locked on the remaining targets. The syndicate had come looking for easy prey. Instead, they had walked into a meat grinder, and the Navy SEAL was just getting started. The sudden, catastrophic loss of three men in under 3 minutes sent a shockwave of terror through the syndicate’s ranks.
The remaining enforcers huddled behind the thick trunks of ancient cottonwoods, their eyes wide, weapons trembling as they pointed at every shifting shadow. The ravine had transformed from a simple hunting ground into a claustrophobic nightmare. Garrett Shaw, however, did not panic. His military contracting background in the bloody urban sprawl of Fallujah overrode his fear, replacing it with a cold, terrifying clarity.
He recognized the signature of the violence immediately. “Hold your fire! Stop shooting at ghosts!” Garrett bellowed, slapping the barrel of a panicking thug’s rifle downward. “Look at the traps. Look at the strikes. That isn’t a farm boy. That’s a trained operator, and he’s using the terrain to pick us apart one by one.
” Boyd Hastings, his face slick with a cold sweat, pressed his back against a rotting stump. “What the hell are you talking about, Garrett? It’s just one guy and a dog. We have the numbers.” “Numbers don’t mean a damn thing in a fatal funnel, Boyd.” Garrett spat, pulling a cylindrical canister from his tactical vest.
“He owns the shadows. So, we take away the shadows.” From his concealed position 100 ft away, Charles saw the metallic glint of the canister in Garrett’s hand, an M18 smoke grenade. But as Garrett ripped the pin out, Charles saw the painted red band around the top. It wasn’t smoke. It was an AN-M14 TH3 incendiary grenade. “Titan.
” “Zarooq.” “Fall back.” Charles hissed over his shoulder. Garrett hurled the heavy cylinder deep into the brush. It hit the ground with a dull thud, and less than 2 seconds later, it detonated. There was no explosion, only a blinding, terrifyingly bright flash of white light as the thermite mixture ignited, burning at an unimaginable 4,000° Fahrenheit.
The intense heat instantly vaporized the dampness of the ravine, catching the dry pine needles, deadfall, and thorny blackberry bushes on fire. Thick, acrid black smoke immediately began to choke the air. The temperature spiked, a wave of blistering heat rolling over Charles’s position. Garrett wasn’t trying to flush them out.
He was trying to burn them alive or force them into the open where his men’s superior firepower would shred them. “Move up on the fire line.” Garrett commanded, raising his short-barreled AR-15. “If anything comes out of that smoke, you put it in the ground. Shoot the dog first.
” Charles scrambled backward on his hands and knees, the smoke stinging his eyes and burning his lungs. The fire was spreading rapidly, driven by a slight draft moving down the ravine. He needed to break the line of sight and flank them, but the wall of flames was cutting off his escape routes. Titan was coughing, staying low to the ground where the air was marginally cleaner.
Charles grabbed the heavy nylon harness on the dog’s back. “We go through the creek bed, buddy. Low and fast.” Charles low crawled into the dry, stony depression of the old creek bed. It offered about 2 ft of natural defilade, just enough to hide them if they kept their heads down. The roar of the fire was deafening, masking the crunch of the gravel beneath their bodies.
They moved laterally, parallel to the syndicate skirmish line, letting the fire push past them. As they cleared the worst of the smoke, Charles peered over the edge of the creek bank. Garrett’s men were silhouetted against the bright orange glow of the burning brush. They were looking straight ahead, entirely focused on the wall of fire, completely unaware that their prey had slipped around their right flank.
Charles checked his Glock. 15 rounds. He holstered it and drew his K-Bar combat knife. Gunfire would instantly give away his new position to all of them. He needed to thin the herd silently. He slipped out of the creek bed, moving with the terrifying silence of a ghost. The nearest syndicate thug, a heavy-set man wearing a dirty tactical vest over a plaid shirt, was peering through the smoke, his finger resting nervously on the trigger of an AK-47 variant.
Charles closed the 10-yd gap in seconds. He clamped his left hand over the man’s mouth, simultaneously driving the pommel of the K-Bar into the brachial plexus at the base of the man’s neck. The nerve strike was devastating. The thug’s nervous system short-circuited, his legs instantly turning to jelly. Charles lowered the paralyzed, unconscious man to the dirt without a single sound, gently taking the AK-47 from his limp hands.
Now Charles had a rifle. The arithmetic was changing, but Boyd Hastings, standing 15 yd away, turned his head to cough out a lungful of smoke and saw Charles standing over the fallen man. “He’s behind us!” Boyd shrieked, firing his pistol wildly in Charles’s direction. A 9-mm round sparked off a stone inches from Charles’s boot.
The element of surprise was gone. Charles didn’t flinch. He brought the captured AK-47 up, the heavy stock pulling tight into his shoulder, and flipped the selector switch to semi-auto. He fired two controlled shots. Crack. Crack. The first round shattered Boyd’s right kneecap. The second took a chunk out of his left thigh.
Boyd screamed, a high, reedy sound, and collapsed into the dirt, dropping his weapon. “Contact right!” Garrett roared, spinning around and unleashing a blistering volley of suppressing fire. The air around Charles filled with the supersonic cracks of 5.56 rounds, shredding the bark of the trees and snapping branches.
Charles dove behind the thick trunk of a fallen cottonwood, wood splinters raining down on his tactical jacket. The firepower was overwhelming. Garrett and the remaining two men were walking their fire toward his position, pinning him down completely. “Keep him pinned! I’m moving up!” Garrett yelled, the tactical reload of his rifle snapping crisply in the brief pause.
Charles was trapped. If he stayed behind the log, Garrett would flank him. If he ran, he’d be cut down in the open. Then a black blur launched from the canopy of the smoke. Titan hadn’t stayed in the creek bed. While Charles had flanked right, the canine had flanked left, climbing an angled embankment. Seeing his handler pinned under heavy fire, the German Shepherd executed an aggressive rear assault.
Titan slammed into one of the remaining gunmen from behind, his momentum carrying both of them down a steep embankment. The man’s rifle discharged into the sky as Titan’s jaws locked onto his shoulder, pulling him out of the fight in a chaotic tangle of limbs and fur. The distraction was exactly what Charles needed.
He rolled out from behind the log, bringing the AK-47 to bear. He fired three rapid shots, hitting the last standing thug squarely in the center of his ballistic vest. The impact knocked the wind out of the man, sending him crashing backward onto the forest floor, gasping for air. Suddenly, it was just Charles and Garrett Shaw.
Garrett snapped his rifle toward Charles, but the bolt locked back with a hollow, metallic click. “Empty.” Charles raised the AK-47, the sights dead center on Garrett’s chest. “Drop it.” Garrett looked at Charles, then at the burning woods, the bodies of his men groaning in the dirt, and the massive dog standing guard over a terrified enforcer.
Garrett slowly unclipped the rifle sling and let the weapon fall to the dirt. He raised his hands, a bitter, grim smile touching his lips. “You aren’t a farm boy,” Garrett said, his voice surprisingly calm. “Navy, Marine Recon, doesn’t matter. You won the battle, friend, but you just lost the war.” Charles kept the rifle leveled at Garrett’s chest, his breathing steady, his eyes scanning the surrounding smoke for any signs of movement.
“Hands behind your head. Lace your fingers together. Now.” Garrett complied, moving with the slow, deliberate arrogance of a man who believed he still held the winning hand. “You’re good. I’ll give you that. You chewed through six of my guys in 10 minutes, but you’re missing the big picture, operator. You think this ends here? You think you just walk away, dust off your jeans, and go back to drinking sweet tea on the porch with the old man?” “Shut up and get on your knees,” Charles ordered, pulling a heavy-duty zip tie
from his pocket. Titan trotted over, his mouth stained with blood that wasn’t his own, and sat beside Charles, emitting a low, continuous growl directed entirely at Garrett. “I’m not getting on my knees,” Garrett said, his smile fading into a cold sneer. “Because if you kill me, or if you tie me to a tree and leave me for the cops, Ray Miller is going to execute Derek Vance, and he’s going to broadcast it.
” Charles froze. His finger, hovering just outside the trigger guard of the AK-47, went completely still. “What did you say?” Charles demanded, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a lethal edge. Garrett let out a short, cynical laugh. “You heard me. You think Derek ran away? You think he just buried 10 kilos of Miller’s crystal out of the goodness of his heart and vanished to Mexico? We caught the little rat 3 weeks ago.
We’ve been holding him in a soundproof shipping container down at Miller’s salvage yard.” Charles’s mind raced, processing the new intelligence. Gabriel had believed Derek was a deadbeat who abandoned him. The entire premise of Charles’s defense was based on protecting the old man and the property, but the board had just reset.
“If you had Derek, why didn’t you just beat the location of the stash out of him?” Charles asked, his eyes narrowing. “We tried,” Garrett said, shrugging slightly. “Kid’s tougher than he looks, or just stupid. He knew the second he gave up the location, Miller would put a bullet in his brain. The stash was his only leverage to stay alive.
So Miller got creative. He sent us out here to squeeze the grandfather. The plan was to bring the old man to the salvage yard, put a gun to his head, and make Derek watch. Figured that would loosen his tongue.” Garrett tilted his head, looking at Charles. “But then you showed up. You dug up the bag. You showed your hand.
And my guys up on the ridge radioed it into Miller before we even breached the property line.” Garrett slowly lowered his hands, despite the rifle pointed at him. “Miller knows you have the product, and he knows his men are getting butchered out here. He’s listening on the open comms in the truck right now. So, here’s the deal, hero.
You can shoot me, but if I don’t radio in a sitrep in the next 5 minutes, Miller is going to put a power drill through Derek’s skull. And then he’s going to send 50 armed men to burn this farm to the ground with you and the old man inside it. Charles stared at the mercenary. The tactical situation had shifted from a defensive holdout to an active hostage rescue.
As long as Derek was in Ray Miller’s hands, Gabriel would never be safe. The farm would never be safe. “Walk,” Charles ordered, gesturing toward the edge of the tree line with the barrel of the rifle. “Where are we going?” Garrett asked, raising an eyebrow. “To the trucks. You’re going to make that call.
” Charles forced Garrett to walk ahead of him, stepping over the groaning body of Boyd Hastings, who was clutching his bleeding legs and sobbing into the dirt. They emerged from the smoke-filled woods into the bright afternoon sun of the farm yard. The four Syndicate vehicles sat idling, their doors thrown open. “Titan, pass off.
Guard,” Charles commanded, pointing at Garrett. The German Shepherd immediately stepped up, his nose mere inches from Garrett’s thigh, his teeth bared. Charles moved to the black armored SUV. He opened the driver’s side door and grabbed the heavy VHF radio microphone resting on the center console. The encrypted channel was humming with static.
Charles tossed the microphone to Garrett. “Call him. Tell him you have the bag. Tell him you have the old man. Tell him you’re bringing them to the salvage yard for the exchange.” Garrett caught the mic, looking at Charles in disbelief. “You’re actually going to walk into Miller’s fortress. There are 30 armed men at that salvage yard. It’s a fortified compound.
You’re committing suicide.” “Make the call, Shaw, or I let the dog take your throat out and I’ll go knock on Miller’s front door myself.” Garrett swallowed hard, realizing the man standing before him wasn’t just dangerous. He was utterly fearless. Garrett pressed the transmission button. “Boss, it’s Shaw.
” A second later, a deep, raspy voice crackled over the radio. “Shaw, the hell is going on out there? I’m hearing automatic gunfire on the open channel. Do you have my product?” Garrett looked at Charles, who tapped the barrel of the AK-47 against his watch. “Yeah, boss. We got it,” Garrett lied smoothly. “It got a little messy.
The kid left some booby traps, but we secured the bag and we got the old man.” “Good. Bring them to the yard and Shaw, if there’s a single scratch on my product, I’ll take it out of your hide. Out.” Garrett tossed the microphone back onto the seat. “There. You bought the kid an hour. What’s your play, operator? You’re going to drive me there and shoot your way through a small army.
” Charles didn’t answer immediately. He walked to the back of the SUV and pulled open the cargo door. Inside were heavy tactical vests, breaching tools, extra ammunition and a crate of flashbang grenades. A grim, predatory smile touched Charles’s face. He wasn’t just going to shoot his way through. He was going to dismantle Ray Miller’s empire piece by piece.
“I’m not going to shoot my way through, Garrett,” Charles said, grabbing two spare magazines and slamming them into his tactical pockets. “We are going to walk in the front door. You’re going to hand us deliver me to Ray Miller.” Charles looked out across the farm toward the farmhouse, knowing Gabriel was huddled in the dark cellar, terrified and alone.
Charles had promised the old man he wouldn’t leave him. He intended to keep that promise, but the only way to protect the sheep was to go into the wolf’s den and slaughter the pack. “Get in the driver’s seat, Shaw,” Charles ordered, his voice cold as ice. “Titan, load up.” The massive canine leapt into the back of the SUV, his eyes locked onto the back of Garrett’s head.
“You’re a dead man,” Garrett muttered, climbing behind the wheel. “I died in Syria 3 years ago,” Charles whispered, shutting the heavy armored door. “I’m just the ghost that came back to collect the debt. Drive.” The drive from the Vance farm to the industrial outskirts of Oak Haven took 20 agonizing minutes. Inside the armored black SUV, the silence was suffocating, broken only by the hum of the tires on the asphalt and the heavy, rhythmic panting of Titan in the cargo area.
Garrett Shaw gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror, trying to read the man sitting behind him. Charles Wyatt sat perfectly still, his eyes locked on the horizon, the captured AK-47 resting across his knees. He had stripped the tactical vest off one of the downed enforcers and strapped it over his own jacket, packing the pouches with spare magazines and a half dozen heavy flashbang grenades he’d found in the SUV’s trunk.
“You know this isn’t going to work, right?” Garrett muttered. The bravado completely bled out of his voice. “Miller’s Iron and Auto Parts isn’t a junkyard. It’s a fortress. He has 10 men on the perimeter, cameras covering every blind spot and at least 15 guys inside the main warehouse. Even if you get through the gate, they’ll chew you to pieces before you take 10 steps.
” “Keep your eyes on the road, Shaw,” Charles replied, his voice devoid of emotion. “And remember the parameters. You drive in. You park exactly where I tell you. You do exactly what I say. If you deviate by a single inch, I’ll put a 7.62 round through your driver’s seat and sever your spine. Clear?” Garrett swallowed hard. “Clear.
” As they crested a hill on the edge of town, the salvage yard came into view. Garrett hadn’t exaggerated. It was a sprawling 5-acre compound surrounded by a 12-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Rusted husks of crushed cars were stacked four high, creating a labyrinth of metallic canyons. In the center sat a massive corrugated steel warehouse.
“Pull up to the main gate,” Charles ordered, unbuckling his seatbelt and moving swiftly into the spacious cargo area, crouching down behind the tinted rear windows. “Tell the guard you have the package. Tell him I’m in the back, dead. The dog, too. Make it convincing.” The SUV rolled up to the heavy steel gate. A guard carrying a pump-action shotgun stepped out of a reinforced sentry booth, shining a high-powered flashlight through the windshield.
He recognized Garrett and lowered the weapon, signaling to someone inside the booth. The heavy electronic gates began to roll open. Garrett drove the SUV into the compound, the tires crunching over broken glass and gravel. “Stop in front of the main warehouse doors,” Charles whispered from the back, his hand resting on the latch of the rear cargo door.
Beside him, Titan was coiled like a spring, muscles tense, waiting for the release command. Garrett parked the vehicle right in the center of the floodlit yard. Almost immediately, the rolling metal doors of the warehouse screeched upward. A dozen armed men spilled out into the yard, forming a loose perimeter.
From the center of the pack emerged Ray Miller. He was a sharply dressed man in his late 50s, wearing a tailored charcoal suit that looked entirely out of place in a grimy salvage yard. He moved with the arrogant swagger of a man who had never faced a consequence in his life. Garrett cut the engine and stepped out of the driver’s seat, keeping his hands visible.
“Garrett,” Miller called out, his voice echoing off the stacked cars. “Where the hell is Hastings? Why are you driving his rig? You said on the radio you had the old man and the product.” Garrett cleared his throat, his eyes darting nervously toward the back of the SUV. “Hastings is Hastings didn’t make it, boss.
The farm boy put up a fight, but I handled it. The kid is dead. The product is in the back.” Miller’s face darkened, but greed quickly replaced his anger. “Half my crew for 10 kilos of ice? I’ll make that trade. Open the back. Let me see it.” “Boss, maybe we should move inside.” “I said open the damn doors, Garrett.
” Miller barked, gesturing to two of his thugs with assault rifles. “Go check the cargo.” The two men stepped forward, grabbing the handles of the rear doors. Inside the dark cargo bay, Charles pulled the pins on three M84 stun grenades, holding the spoons tight against the canisters. He looked at Titan, giving a sharp, silent nod.
As the syndicate thugs yanked the doors open, they expected to see a bloody corpse and a duffel bag. Instead, they saw a ghost from the tactical underworld. Charles kicked the doors fully open, simultaneously tossing the three flashbangs in a wide arc into the center of the gathered cartel members. “Cover!” Garrett screamed, diving behind the front wheel of the SUV.
Bang. Bang. Bang. The three grenades detonated with an ear-shattering 170 decibel roar, accompanied by a blinding million candela power flash. The concussive wave knocked the two men at the bumper completely off their feet. The rest of Miller’s men clutched their ears, screaming, temporarily blinded and entirely disoriented by the immense pressure wave.
The Trojan horse had opened, and hell had stepped out. “Titan, Fass, bite!” Charles roared over the ringing in his own ears. The 90-lb German Shepherd launched out of the back of the SUV like a dark missile, bypassing the two men on the ground and aiming straight for a thug who was blindly raising a submachine gun.
Titan hit the man in the chest, jaws locking onto the weapon arm, dragging him screaming into the dirt. Charles didn’t hesitate. He dropped out of the vehicle, the AK-47 tucked tight into his shoulder. He moved with the fluid, devastating precision of a Tier One operator conducting close-quarters combat. He didn’t fire wildly.
Every shot was calculated. Two rounds to the chest of a man trying to draw a pistol on the left, a pivot, and two rounds into the thigh of a rifleman on the right, dropping him instantly. Charles used the geometry of the open SUV doors as cover, cutting the angles, dominating the fatal funnel of the courtyard.
Within 10 seconds, six of Miller’s men were incapacitated, bleeding on the gravel. The sheer speed and violence of action shattered the syndicate’s morale. They were thugs used to intimidating terrified civilians. They had never faced a man who viewed a gunfight as a mathematical equation. Ray Miller, completely panicked and clutching his bleeding ears, scrambled backward into the warehouse.
“Kill him! Kill him!” he shrieked, shoving one of his own men into the line of fire. Charles pushed forward, abandoning the SUV. “Titan, here!” The dog released his target and sprinted to Charles’s side, falling into a perfect heel position as they breached the massive rolling doors of the warehouse. The interior was a sprawling maze of rusted engine blocks, shelving units, and stacked tires.
It was poorly lit, providing perfect cover. But, Charles was in his element. He moved silently between the heavy machinery, a predator stalking his prey. Gunfire erupted from a catwalk above. A spray of 9-mm bullets sparked against the concrete floor near Charles’s boots. He didn’t flinch. He tracked the muzzle flash, raised his AK-47, and fired a three-round burst through the grated steel of the catwalk.
A body slumped over the railing, a pistol clattering to the floor beneath. “Clear out!” someone yelled from the back of the warehouse. The remaining enforcers were breaking. They were dropping their weapons and running for the side exits. They didn’t sign up to fight a shadow. Charles ignored the runners. He was looking for one thing.
At the far end of the warehouse, cordoned off by heavy plastic sheeting, sat a rusted red shipping container. The heavy steel doors were chained shut. Charles moved toward it, his weapon at the high ready. As he rounded a stack of oil drums, a voice echoed from the side of the container. “Drop the rifle, operator.
Drop it, or I’ll blow the kid’s brains all over this steel.” Charles stopped. Ray Miller was standing near the container, his tailored suit covered in dust and grease. His arm was wrapped tightly around the neck of a young, terrified man whose face was beaten to a purple pulp. Derek Vance. Miller had a silver .
45 caliber 1911 pressed directly to the temple of Gabriel’s grandson. Miller was shaking violently, his eyes wide with a mix of terror and desperate rage. “I don’t know who you are, but you just destroyed 10 years of my work in 10 minutes. Put the gun on the ground and kick it away, or the Vance bloodline ends right here.” Derek sobbed quietly, his eyes pleading with Charles. Charles looked at Miller.
He evaluated the distance, 20 ft. Miller was using the kid as a human shield, keeping his head tucked tight behind Derek’s skull. There was no clear shot for the AK-47 without risking the hostage. “You’ve lost, Miller.” Charles said, his voice a low, terrifying calm that echoed in the quiet warehouse. “Your men are dead or gone.
You have nowhere to run.” “I don’t care!” Miller screamed, pressing the barrel harder into Derek’s head. “Drop the damn rifle, now!” Charles slowly lowered the AK-47. He detached the magazine, letting it fall to the concrete with a loud clatter. He pulled the bolt back, ejecting the chambered round, and tossed the empty rifle to the side.
Miller let out a breathless, manic laugh. “That’s right. You military types always bound by the rules of engagement, always trying to save the hostage. I’m not bound by anything.” Charles said. He stood perfectly still, his hands resting at his sides. He subtly shifted his weight to his right foot. “Get on your knees!” Miller commanded, loosening his grip on Derek slightly to adjust his aim toward Charles.
That microsecond of adjustment was all Charles needed. “Titan, schlag, strike!” Miller had been so focused on the man with the rifle that he had completely forgotten the dog holding perfectly still in the shadows by Charles’s left leg. Titan didn’t run, he flew. The German Shepherd covered the 20 ft in a blur of black and tan muscle.
Miller tried to snap his gun back toward the dog, but he was far too slow. Titan hit Miller’s gun arm with the force of a battering ram. The silver 1911 discharged wildly into the ceiling before spinning out of Miller’s hand across the floor. Miller screamed, releasing Derek as the canine took him straight to the concrete, 75 lbs of crushing bite pressure locking onto the cartel boss’s forearm.
Charles crossed the room in three strides. He grabbed Miller by the lapels of his ruined suit and dragged him upright, hauling him off the ground. He drove a devastating right cross into Miller’s jaw. The bone shattered with a sickening crunch, and the cartel boss’s eyes rolled back in his head. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious before he even landed.
“Titan, aus!” The dog released Miller and sat by the unconscious man’s head, panting happily. Charles turned to Derek, who had collapsed against the shipping container, weeping in disbelief. Charles pulled a combat knife from his belt and cut the zip ties binding the young man’s wrists. “You Derek?” Charles asked, his voice softening just a fraction.
Derek nodded weakly, rubbing his raw wrists. “Yeah.” “Who Who are you?” “I’m your grandfather’s new farmhand.” Charles said, hauling the kid to his feet. “Come on. Gabriel is waiting for us, and we have a farm to clean up. 2 hours later, the beat-up 1998 Ford F-150 pulled back up to the Vance farm. The sun was just beginning to set, painting the Owyhee County sky in brilliant streaks of orange and purple.
Charles led Derek up to the back porch. He knocked three times, heavy and slow, on the cellar door. The heavy bolts unlatched. Gabriel Vance stepped out, pale and clutching his Winchester. When his eyes adjusted to the light and fell upon his bruised, battered, but very much alive grandson, the old man dropped the rifle.
He fell to his knees, wrapping his arms around Derek, both of them sobbing openly. Charles watched them for a moment. He walked over to the truck, reached into the cab, and pulled out the heavy black duffel bag holding half a million dollars of crystal meth. He dropped it on the dirt in front of Gabriel. “The local police are going to find a lot of tied-up, broken men at the salvage yard tonight,” Charles said quietly.
“Miller won’t be bothering you again. Take this bag out to the deep desert tomorrow. Burn it with gasoline. Leave no trace.” Gabriel looked up, tears streaming down his weathered face. He reached out and grabbed Charles’s hand, squeezing it with all the strength he had left. “How can I ever repay you, son? You saved our family.
You saved my life.” Charles looked out over the sprawling, quiet acreage of the farm. The war was over. The adrenaline was fading, leaving only the familiar, hollow quiet. He looked down at Titan, who bumped his wet nose against Charles’s knuckles. “You gave my dog some water, Gabriel,” Charles said softly. “Consider us even.
” Without another word, Charles turned and walked back to his truck. He climbed into the driver’s seat, Titan hopping faithfully into the passenger side. As the engine roared to life, Charles put the truck in gear and drove away down the gravel road, disappearing into the fading light, just another ghost passing through the wind.
What an absolutely incredible conclusion to the story. Charles and Titan proved that you should never underestimate a quiet man and a disciplined dog. From turning the woods into a tactical nightmare for the syndicate to using the cartel’s own enforcer as a Trojan horse, Charles systematically dismantled a violent criminal empire to save a grandfather and a grandson he barely knew.
It’s a powerful reminder that there are still sheepdogs out there, standing in the shadows, ready to protect the flock when the wolves come knocking. If this story got your heart pounding and you loved seeing Titan in action, hit that like button right now. Don’t forget to share this video with someone who loves military K9s and subscribe to the channel for more intense, action-packed stories like this one.
What was your favorite tactical move Charles made? Let me know down in the comments below. Stay safe, and we’ll see you in the next one.