Warlord: Dervish — Tony Monchinski

When public employees and their unions came under attack, Jason lost his job. When the bank foreclosed, he lost his house. When his wife split with the kids, he lost his family. And in the sweltering desert sun of an American war in the Middle East, Jason lost his sanity… and a civilian family lost their lives. Jason breaks under torture in a CIA-operated black site. He is recruited for a secret mission involving similarly disgraced individuals, including: Bronson, the stage-name of an aspiring rapper/Army volunteer; Deirdre, a British muckraking journalist; a beautiful but deadly Israeli commando; and a group of independent contractors who relish nothing more than the next brutal battle. They think they're heading into Pakistan to hunt terrorist big wigs. What Jason and his fellow impressed men and women fail to realize is that they are actually test subjects for an advanced weapons system that combines alternate universes, inter-dimensionality, and time travel. In the swirling sands of time, they will be pitted against armies of the past (Roman legionaries, Medieval knights), present (African boy soldiers, Islamic insurgents), and future (mechanized cavalry, genetically enhanced uber-soldiers). Their task: to fight and live, when surviving means letting go and giving in to the vortex of the dervish. Tony Monchinski, Ph.D., is a high school teacher in New York State. His other novels include the Eden series (Simon & Schuster and Permuted Press) and the I Kill Monsters series.