by Jennifer Haynie @JenniferHaynie1

Blogger’s note: This week, you’ll hear from Lieutenant Colonel Sal Torres, the antagonist in No Options. While appearing to be an upstanding officer on the surface, dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that’s not necessarily true.

Means. Motives. Opportunities. We who are in law enforcement live by this when investigating a crime. But it can also apply to anything else we do, like advancing in our careers. At least I look at it that way. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Salvador Torres, or Sal to my friends and family. I command a battalion of MPs headquartered at Quantico. I come from a family of wealth passed down through the generations from the old aristocracy in Spain that migrated to Mexico and what is now Texas. We’re destined for great things. That’s what Papa always said.

I’m the same way. I know I’m destined for something great, though my path has been different. You see, when I was preparing to go to college, I wanted nothing more than to go to West Point, do my five years on active duty, and enter civilian life. After graduation, I moved to my first posting. As I got into my stint, I realized one thing. I wanted to make the Army a career. Rita, my bride, supported me. So did my extended family. Their support came because of two very different reasons.

For Rita, she wanted to see me happy. She enjoyed being a military spouse and was fit perfectly for the role. She was independent and able to care for our twin daughters without my worrying out her. And my extended family? You see, they are a cartel functioning just south of the border near El Paso. Their main trade is guns for heroin. And they’ve witnessed my rise to lieutenant colonel with colonel very close on the horizon and general just beyond that. They see the potential to place a mole in the power corridors of Washington one day.

Means, motives, opportunity. I have the motive and the means. And I had the opportunity.

Except for what happened last year. The debacle with the Athena file the year before threatened my cover when Abigail Ward, one of the officers under my command, recovered the file. I had no choice but to replace the file on the Army’s servers. That jeopardized the ties my extended family had with Shamal Khan, a poppy grower in Afghanistan.

Since then, I’ve laid low. Any communication I’ve had with my extended family has ceased, and I want nothing more to do with them. Abigail has gone on to bigger and better cases.

But still, I worry. What if something else happens? I’m determined that nothing—and I mean nothing—will thwart my rising star. And if it does, I’ll stop at nothing to remove the threat.

Question: Have you ever seen someone who will stop at nothing to achieve what they want?