Jefferson Scott

Operation: Firebrand

I remember the moment this series was born in my mind.

In 2000 I saw an article about a mass grave that had been discovered in Kosovo during the war there. The grave contained hundreds of bodies, including the bodies of at least thirty children. Children. Murdered. With their parents.

I thought, Why didn't we save those children? I realized that we probably wouldn't have intervened militarily because it simply wasn't an important strategic location.

I wasn't upset at the thought. The military conducts humani-tarian missions when they can, but military objectives have to come first. That's what they exist to do.

I remember thinking, There ought to be a privately funded paramilitary group that would rush to areas like this to conduct covert missions of mercy in the name of Christ. And ba-da-bing, the idea for Operation: Firebrand was born.

Operation: Firebrand

In the opening scene we meet Navy SEAL Jason Kromer on a routine mission in Indonesia. As you can see in this little movie trailer, things very quickly cease to be routine.

As a result of this mission gone bad, Jason leaves the Navy. He finds himself on the street, disillusioned, and wondering where his new Savior is in all of this.

That's when he's approached with a very strange offer. Someone wants him to use his military skills to lead a team of highly trained specialists in a paramilitary outfit funded by a Christian billionaire.

Doubtful about the team's use of only nonlethal weapons, but nevertheless excited to be part of a squad again, Jason agrees to meet the team.

And a more motley crew you're not likely to meet: three men and two women, all with either military experience or carefully chosen specializations. The women are deadly and beautiful. The men are just deadly. Except Lewis, who is basically just a geek, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Jason has to decide if he's even going to join this group and, if so, he's got to pull the team together quickly because there's a crisis brewing in Kazakhstan and a girls' orphanage is at the center of the bloody ethnic conflict.

You can see where that idea came from, can't you?

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Operation: Firebrand—Crusade

In their second novel, Jason and the Firebrand team travel to Sudan to rescue one Christian girl who has been kidnapped by Muslim slavers  and sold as a concubine.

Once in-country, however, the team sees the true situation. Brutal slave raids by Muslim militia, armed and encouraged by the government, continue unabated in the Christian south of Sudan.

As they conduct their primary mission, Jason finds himself attracted to both of the women in the team: flirtatious knockout, Rachel, and peaceful Asian supermodel, Trieu. Without even seeing it happen, these three become an accidental love triangle.

After returning the Sudanese girl to her family, Jason and the team begin to feel that they can't simply rescue one child and leave, not now that they're in a position to do something about the larger situation.

And so they decide to stay. They decide, in fact, to conduct their own private little crusade.

You won't believe the harm they do to the enemy, the fear they instill into those all too accustomed to causing fear in unarmed villagers.

Right up until the moment when the Firebrand team finds itself in the middle of a modern armored battlefield.

The climactic moment of this novel is perhaps my favorite in all my books.

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Operation: Firebrand—Deliverance

Jason and the Firebrand team are dealing not only with the injuries they received in Sudan but also with the heightening tensions caused by the love triangle.

It gets worse when Chris, former Marine Force Recon and the face on the cover, throws his hat into the ring for Rachel.

Just as Jason and Chris come to blows, the team is summoned to prepare for a mission to the China-North Korea border.

Kim Jung Il's poverty-stricken people know nothing of Jesus Christ. They know nothing of freedom or even basic nutrition. Yet somehow they hear that things would be better for them across the border in China.

And so they risk death at the hands of North Korean border guards and the raging rivers separating the two countries.

One family makes it across the border and is greeted by a Chinese-American pastor who has committed his life to helping these refugees and introducing them to the gospel.

But Chinese officials learn of his mission and crack down on his operation. He comes to America to enlist the aid of the Firebrand team.

Jason and the team make it to China and recover the family—only to lose them to North Korean officials, who send the family back to North Korea for the concentration camps and, most likely, execution.

Now the team has to decide whether to go into North Korea on an almost hopeless rescue mission or to leave their new friends to their fate.

Meanwhile, the love triangle has intensified and threatens to tear the team apart.

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More in the OF Series?

My original idea for the Operation: Firebrand series was that it would contain six novels. One for each of the six mem-bers of the team.

Then I thought it could probably go to eight to in-clude Eloise, the group's financier, and Chimp, the group's tactical coordina-tor.

The series stands at three now and may never ex-tend beyond that. But I'd love to see it continue.

Maybe one day the Fire-brand team's mission will continue. Lord knows there's a never-ending need for them.

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