Excerpt from All the Ruined Men by Bill Glose, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Rambali steps into the ring and uses a piece of cardboard to scoop the small scorpion into a Tupperware container. After sealing the lid, he pulls a small notepad from his breast pocket and marks down the fifty dollars he's owed. Then he hands the pad to Mueller, who signs it at the bottom. Around the circle, other losers mark similar IOUs in victors' notepads. They won't see any actual cash until they get back to the States, then everyone will settle tabs that have been running for months.

Hey, Rambo, Berkholtz says, where's your squad leader?

Rambali points over to the middle Humvee, and Berkholtz walks over. Staff Sergeant Payne is sprawled in the shade puddled on the side of the vehicle, an olive-drab net draped over his face to ward off flies. Berkholtz lightly kicks one of Payne's heels and says, C'mon, you lazy turd. Time to go to work.

Payne pulls the net off his face and gives a sour look. He stands up and makes a show of stretching. Was wondering when you were going to get here. Any longer, we were going to fire off your shit as well.

Not a chance. My boys need this.

I hear you.

Both squad leaders are thankful for today's familiarization exercise. All of Alpha Company is rotating through the range one squad at a time, firing the heavy weapons belonging to Delta Company. The WWII-era M2 Browning .50-cal machine gun. The chain-fed MK19 grenade launcher. And the wire-guided TOW missile, which only the top marksman from each squad will get to fire.

Here's the skinny, Payne says. He points east with the blade of his hand. The range stretches out for three klicks in a fan shape. Delta platoon did the safety checkout to double that before parking their vehicles up here. They also marked the left and right boundaries.

He indicates a row of posts plunged at fifty-meter intervals into the sand and topped with white flags. Then he swings his rigid arm to the other side and points out that line as well. Centered between those boundaries are two bullet-ridden Toyota trucks. Tendrils of white smoke ribbon up from both of them. Beyond those is a blue-and-white Volkswagen van.

The left truck is about nine hundred meters, Payne says, and the right is eleven hundred. Both well within effective range of everything we've got here. The van is at twenty-five hundred.

They fist-bump and Payne gathers up his men and loads them into the jingle bus. As it drives away, Berkholtz lines up his guys and gives them a safety brief. Then he points to the Delta platoon soldiers leaning on their Humvees. Listen to these guys when they instruct you on the weapon systems. Remember, they're the experts; you're just tourists.

It takes some of his boys a little while to get used to the butterfly-style triggers on the heavy guns. They have to depress these triggers with both thumbs instead of pulling with a finger. But after the first few shots, they get the hang of it.

Mueller fires long bursts from the .50 cal mounted on the left vehicle. Sand erupts ten meters away from the left Toyota, so Mueller swings the gun's long barrel to correct his aim, the splashing impacts stitching a path toward the target. When he connects, bullets punch through the pickup's skin, the punching thump of metal on metal resounding across the range. Yeah! Mueller yells from the turret. Get some! Get some!

Atop the right Humvee, Bradshaw fires three-to-five-round bursts from the grenade launcher. Compared to the jackhammering thunder of the M2, the MK19 sounds no louder than knuckles rapping on a tin door. But the results are spectacular. A series of fiery explosions engulfs the right Toyota from the hail of 40mm grenades.

When they finish firing, Bradshaw and Mueller dismount the vehicles and get fist-bumps from everyone in their squad. Man, I tore that shit up, says Mueller. Bradshaw just nods.

Excerpted from All the Ruined Men by Bill Glose. Copyright © 2022 by Bill Glose. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.