The Never Army
Page 1
Copyright © 2020 T. Ellery Hodges All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Damon Za www.damonza.com
ISBN-13: 978-0-9907746-5-5
Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
CHAPTER EIGHTY
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
CHAPTER NINETY
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWO
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIX
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TEN
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN
EPILOGUE
DEAR READER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
To my wife,
Not a single word could have made it to manuscript had she not allowed me to abandon her to our merciless children. If the roles had been reversed, I don’t know that I would have emerged with my sanity intact . . .
I have my doubts.
PROLOGUE
IRELAND | 1877
AS A CHILD, he’d climbed the hill whenever his parents had given him freedom from his chores. Their family’s estate shared a property line with the O’Sullivan’s. Their daughter Johanna was the only child his age for miles and she’d been his best friend since before he could remember.
Today, Thomas was a young man.
There had been a slight chill in the air when he’d slipped outside that morning, but it no longer touched him. The sun was high enough overhead now that he felt himself sweating from exertion. This slope he was on, it felt steeper than he remembered.
Most folks in town avoided the O’Sullivan farm on account of . . . what happened. Thomas had been abroad at the time, but he’d heard the rumors.
Demonic possession, some said.
Contracts with the devil, said others.
He hadn’t believed any of it—all superstitious nonsense about a family he’d known his entire life. The sort of malignant garbage that gets spread in whispers after a few drinks in small-town taverns. Though, he had to admit, he often found it troubling that he’d heard some of those stories from folks he would have thought better of.
Thomas had been a hundred miles away, at school, on the night those rumors started. Johanna had written him many times. She left what the town said about her out of the letters. Thomas’ mother had been less discreet, though not out of any desire to do the O’Sullivan’s reputation any harm. Rather, she just didn’t want Thomas to be surprised by what he would hear upon returning.
Thomas believed the truth wasn’t much to gossip about. Johanna had grown sick. The illness had nearly killed her. She had managed to pull through. Now, perhaps it was true that the sickness had left a mark on her—changed her a bit—as bad illnesses can sometimes do. But anything more than that was just the town’s ignorance manifesting itself. Still, Thomas hadn’t seen Johanna since he had come home. He’d asked after her—with as much subtlety as a man his age could—only to learn that she was never seen in town anymore. Those who visited the O’Sullivan farm said they seldom caught a glimpse of her.
As he crested the hill and stepped into the faint shadows cast by the tree line, his boots began taking the familiar steps for him. He walked at first, but soon felt the need to run. Just as it was when they were children—he couldn’t wait to see her—and soon he was sprinting through the woods with a grin on his face and the wind in his hair. He would have felt ridiculous had he not been alone.
Thomas supposed that most anyone with a happy enough childhood had a Johanna. That girl or boy they grew up with, whose name brought back memories of warm summer days. A face belonging to someone who, only after his body matured to need things he hadn’t as a child—would come to haunt his curiosity.
Could she be as I remember?
Did she know then? Did she know what took me so much time to realize?
Does she think about me? More and more often, just as I find I t
hink of her?
He could little remember of what it was, in any specific way, that he and Johanna had talked about or why they were drawn to one another as children. Rather, his memories were filled with days when they swam together in the small pond tucked away in these woods. He remembered laughing as they lay on the shore to dry.
But mostly, what brought her back to his thoughts so often, was what they had shared as children. That thing all adults seemed to lose along the way. He had been able to look into Johanna’s eyes—hold her gaze—and never feel that he should look away. It was only years later that Thomas discovered just how hard a thing this was to have with anyone.
His sprint slowed as he came to the clearing by the pond. He began to walk and let his breath return. He found himself taking in the silence that followed. He knew it had been a child’s hope that he might have found her here, at the very moment he’d chosen to come—but he was still disappointed to find her absent.
He sighed regretfully as he turned in the direction of the O’Sullivan farm, then barely managed to hold back what would have been a rather embarrassing squawk when he saw Johanna was standing behind him. How long had she been there? How had she come up behind him so quietly? Rabbits made more noise in the woods.
His surprise quickly turned to awkwardness as he took in the details of her.
If it were possible, Johanna was more beautiful than he remembered. She had a graceful stillness about her, a glow of the skin that made her vibrant and alive. Though all of that was secondary to the fact that she was barely clothed.
She wore only a white shirt. It was too big and nearly reached down to her knees—looked as though it belonged to a man. Yet, despite so loose a fit, the fabric was clinging to her. She was soaking wet. Her skin goose-bumped from the cold, her long red hair dripping as though she had been swimming.
Thomas felt himself turn a shade of red. He was a colossal fool. He’d come sprinting through the woods like a child. A grown man running with a big stupid grin on his face. She must have been swimming when she heard him crashing through the trees. He’d scarcely given her time to get out of the water and cover herself.
“Johanna, I . . . I . . . I’m so sorry.” His words came out stammered. He occasionally glanced at her eyes to see how she was taking the situation. It took him a number of those worried looks before he realized there was no embarrassment on her face. She stood, head tilting easily as she studied him. She seemed entirely unaware of the way her shirt clung to her skin.
Meanwhile, Thomas could not ignore that the water had turned so much of the fabric nearly transparent. It seemed every curve of her skin taunted his gaze for its fullest attention.
Finally, he closed his eyes altogether, and said, “Please, accept my apology.”
Johanna was quiet for a long moment, but he heard her whisper, “Yes, I’m sure.”
Thomas did not reply. He got the sense that she wasn’t talking to him but to herself. As though her words were answering a question she’d only asked in her thoughts.
“Look at me, Thomas,” Johanna said.
He opened his eyes as she took a tentative step across the forest to meet him. That strange look of study that she had held on him at first was gone. Now, it was as though she could not hide her joy at seeing him after so many years.
Suddenly aware of himself, he cast his eyes down at her bare feet. “Jo, I don’t know what I was thinking. Charging through the woods like this. I should have knocked on your door.”
She came closer. He felt her hand on his chin, her face drawing so close that his eyes would have to strain to see anything else—and finally he realized she did not want him to look away.
“This has always been our place,” Johanna said.
LIBYAN DESERT | 1984
The sun was setting on the horizon when Douglas Tibbs turned toward the sound of Holloway snapping his fingers. He was pointing at a large rock formation sticking out of the sands. “I’ll volunteer for first watch.”
A glance at Evans and Turner, their faces tired as they brought up the rear, and he knew there would be no protests if they took a few hours to rest. As far as shelter went, the rocks were as good as they were going to find out here, and he’d wanted to get out of the wretched hot wind for hours.
“Not gonna make it back to the rendezvous point tonight anyway,” he said. “All goes well, we’ll move out before dawn and still be on schedule.”
With a grin Holloway turned for the rocks.
The site wasn’t bad, more ideal than a distant glance could have told them. The stones made a crude horseshoe; tall enough to block the wind but not steep enough to box them in if they had to be scaled in a hurry. Apparently, they weren’t the first to spend a night there either. The desert was quick to erase the signs that someone had been through, but at some point, someone took the time to chisel a message into the rock.
He spoke a bit of Arabic but couldn’t read it. “Any idea what it says?”
Holloway stepped closer, squinting as he tried to make it out. “Oh yeah, says . . .”
He trailed off, his face going deadpan. “I’m gonna miss Knight Rider because I’m stuck in the desert again.”
Douglas closed his eyes and sighed.
It was a sigh of good-humored annoyance. Holloway hadn’t complained about it for the last few days, but now that they were nearly home and a decent way from danger, he was back to taking every opportunity to complain about missing his damn TV show.
“Forever with Knight Rider,” Evans said, as he joined them and dropped his gear on the ground. “You’re worse than my grandmother when she misses her soaps.”
Unfazed as he stripped off his pack, Holloway began reciting the opening credits as though he were imagining what it would be like to be back home in his easy chair. “A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist.”
Evans exchanged a glance with Douglas; they decided to ignore him.
Turner was the last to reach the horseshoe and only caught the tail end of the conversation.
“Hey, how about it, Turner,” Douglas said, pointing toward the writing. “Any idea what it says?”
Turner studied the rock. “Interesting. Says, Airwolf rules and Knight Rider sucks.”
As they all chuckled at his expense, Holloway half-heartedly kicked sand in Turner’s direction.
“Seriously though, can you read it?” Douglas asked.
“Says ‘please, shit somewhere else’.”
“Well, Hallelujah,” Evans said, getting his blanket unrolled. “We’ll all sleep better now knowing that mystery has been solved.”
Holloway shrugged, reconsidering the writing. “Does it actually say please? Least they’re polite.”
Turner and Evans were asleep as soon as the sun disappeared. Douglas envied them; he’d never been a fast sleeper. An hour later, he’d just begun to drift off, but Holloway nudged him awake.
“Tibbs. Come take a look at this.”
“What is it?” Douglas asked.
“There’s someone out there,” Holloway said.
While Holloway sounded more perplexed than worried, they were supposed to be the only ones passing though this desert for miles, so the words would have been like a bucket of cold water no matter how he’d said them. Douglas crawled out of the comfort of his blanket, staying low to join Holloway at the nearby rock where he had a night vision scope on a tripod.
“So, tell me that isn’t strange,” Holloway said.
Douglas looked through the scope and frowned. Maybe three hundred yards out, a woman walked across the sands. Nothing about her belonged. In a long black coat and hat, her clothes looked a better fit for a fall night out in a city. She carried no gear—not even a canteen. Strangest of all, she bore no signs of travel. When his team had come the same way earlier, they had been soaked in their own sweat and crusted in sand. Her entire outfit looked freshly pressed from the dry cleaners.
What’s more, she must have been seventy years old if s
he were a day, but her face showed no signs of fatigue. Before they’d made camp, Douglas would have bet the tip of his left pinky that they were the only people around for fifty miles in each direction. The only exception would have been the way they were headed. This woman might as well have been following in their footsteps. In fact, he would have thought that was exactly what she was doing if he didn’t know the desert winds had already erased them.
“There must be something out here we don’t know about,” Holloway said. “No way Grandma walked through the same desert we just did.”
“Doesn’t look like a native,” Douglas said. “I don’t see a weapon on her. We sure she’s alone?”
“As far as I can tell,” Holloway said.
Their expressions might as well have been mirrors when they exchanged glances. This was too strange for their liking.
“You’re the boss, what do you want to do about her?”
Douglas frowned. “Her being out here the same night as us can’t be coincidence.”
“Thinking she could be a friendly?” Holloway asked.
He shook his head doubtfully. He understood why Holloway would entertain the idea. Thing was, anyone who knew they were out here wouldn’t send some random old lady to contact them. They had a radio. Yes, it was an emergency use only sort of precaution. They were running silent to make sure no one ever discovered they had been through the area. Still, if Command needed to get them a message, and it was so urgent it couldn’t wait until they reached the rendezvous, there were easier ways.
Douglas leaned down to watch her in the scope once more. She wasn’t moving fast, or with any particular stealth. There was nothing about her cadence that indicated a rush to reach any destination. Her gaze traveled over the rolling desert as though she searched for something. When that gaze passed over their position she paused as though she’d somehow spotted him from two hundred and fifty yards in the dark.
Douglas could swear her eyes—flashed.
He pulled back from the scope, rubbing at his eyes. The scopes were a great tool in the dark, but sometimes it was hard to know precisely what you’d seen when everything was a wash of varying green hues.
He quickly forgot about the flash when he took another look. “Dammit, she’s gone.”
“Gone? There ain’t nowhere to go,” Holloway said.