Stryker plunged his spoon into the MRE and continued eating.
“Why are you such as asshole?” Edwards finally asked?”
“I’m an asshole and you are a crazy bastard. Tell me why it matters?” Stryker mumbled between mouthfuls of food.
“Well, I don’t want to die here.”
“Guess you’re not as crazy as I thought.” Stryker continued eating and looking at the horizon.
“Are you really OK with the shit we are getting from the navy?”
“No.”
“But, you don’t want to get it fixed before we continue?”
“Don’t really care as long as we got Erin.”
“What happens when she has to sleep?”
“Guess you’re not as crazy as I thought. We need to go back there and sort all that stuff out I guess.”
“Well, yes.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, we’ll sort it out and finish the mission.”
“I’m not sure I want to do that.”
“Sure you do,” Stryker replied. “That’s why you are a crazy bastard. You love combat, as weird as that is, and you love being knee deep in the shit. We’re in knee-deep, so you leaving is about as likely as an actor walking out the Academy Awards prior to the Best Picture being awarded. Stryker stabbed his spoon into the MRE again, glanced at Edwards, and chuckled.
“Asshole,” Edwards muttered before laughing briefly, and then dug into his own MRE.
“Seriously,” Stryker said, with a grave expression. “If you want to leave, we can get a helo in here now and get you out. I wouldn’t blame you for doing it.” Stryker paused, and then added, “I would always rather have you with me in battle. But, if you and Elle need to move on, I get that.”
“Why don’t you call Erin and ask her what she thinks I should do?”
“I know the answer to that already. She would say you should go and she should replace you.”
“So you won’t do it?”
“Nope. I would rather have you with me on this gig. I love her to death but this is not an operation for amateurs, no matter how good they are. I want to keep her safe and sound back at the base.”
“You going to call her?”
“After we eat.”
“She’s going to need sleep.”
“We’re going to be down for a few hours anyway.”
Edwards looked away, and then glanced back at Stryker. “I’ll stay, but only if we straighten out this shit with the Navy. We need to get that fixed.”
“Deal.” Stryker extended a hand and Edwards shook it briefly before returning to his meal.
CHAPTER TEN
“Look, I’m sorry,” Stryker said to Erin. “But, we need to stay out a few more days and I need to talk to Thomas and find out why their communications are a cluster fuck.”
He was talking to Erin on speaker phone with the sat phone on a log between him and Edwards.
“Well, I can tell you the answer to that,” Erin replied, her voice sounding disembodied thorough the sat phone speaker.
“And?”
“They are changing techs so often that they lose track of who is where and they don’t know where you are half the time.”
“That needs to get fixed.” Stryker replied slowly. “Can you handle it on your end, or so we need to come in?”
“Let me try.”
“Okay, go for it, but if it doesn’t get better, let us know and we will call for a helo, and get back to sort it out ourselves.”
“You know it’s our first anniversary?” Erin said.
“Yep, almost twenty-four hours now.”
“You feel like an old married guy yet?” She said it with a sly tone.
“Nope, I’m feeling like a lottery winner and I’m going to double down on the bet.” Stryker paused for a moment, and then added, “We need to start hunting again. It’s getting close to sundown and we got a good six hours of sleep, so it’s time to shove off. Just watch our asses and don’t be a stranger.”
“You got it.”
“Good, I’ll see you soon and, don’t worry; this will be over in a few days.”
“You’re the eternal optimist,” Erin replied.
“Doesn’t cost anything.”
“Call me before you close on the enemy and let me know that you are okay. Can you do that?” Erin voice sounded worried.
“Sure. We’re going to move out in a bit, and I’ll call when you tell me we’re close to the next bad guys.”
“They are camped around four klicks west of you and they aren’t moving yet.”
“No problem. We will move to them and, when I call, try to get Thomas on the phone if you’re having problems with the comms people. I want to sort that out while it’s still fixable.
“Love you.”
“Me too.” Stryker stared down at the sat phone after he disconnected, sighed, and looked at Edwards. “You ready?”
“Always.”
“Did you hear that stuff about Erin sorting it out with Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“You on board with this?”
“I guess,” Edwards shrugged.
Both men put on their vests, checked their mags and loads and then double checked their rigs. Stryker nodded, satisfied, and Edwards followed suit after adjusting the strap on his holster.
“Just another day in the park,” Stryker said.
“It kind of looks like a park.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we are in a forest, with trees all around us and the ocean is off in the distance.” Edwards paused for a moment, and then added, “I always thought that battle zones were ugly, dirty, and just kind of nasty. It never occurred to me that we would be fighting in someplace so beautiful. It’s kind of perverse.”
Stryker glanced around, thought it over, and then replied, “Never thought of it that way, but you are right. It does seem sort of screwed up that we are fighting in a place that is paradise to most people. I don’t really get why it seems odd, but it does.”
“You ever wonder why we ended up doing what we did?” Edwards asked.
“All the time. I have no clue. I guess we needed to feel like a part of something special and wanted to be seen as the best at something, but no, I don’t really understand it.”
“Me either. I know I liked being around other Recon Marines, but don’t know why.”
“I guess we should be happy we found something to do that was useful for the country and our people, and we got the bonus of the big bucks along the way. Hell, I could afford to buy a good pickup when I retired.
“And I could buy a condo in Arkansas. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
“I don’t regret any of it.” Stryker looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed.
“I guess I don’t either. We lost a lot of good men along the way, and sometimes I’m not ever sure what we were fighting for, but I know I treasure the time we had with other marines and I don’t think what we’re doing now is bad either. I just want to have something better when this is all over.”
“Hey, we got to do what we did and I don’t mind any of it either and, if you want to be honest about it, there is nothing we can’t have now. The whole damn world is dead so we can take whatever we want.”
“I want a driver and a maid,” Edwards replied. “And, I want to see more shows about the zombie apocalypse. I kind of liked those.”
“Zombies are so wrong.”
“Why?”
“They are all screwed up and ugly and, I don’t know, they gross me out.”
“Well, that explains why you think I’m nuts. I like zombies and you don’t.”
“Let’s just go kill some terrorists,” Stryker replied, after realizing that Edwards was a few acres away from the homestead at any given moment.
“Works for me.” Edwards lowered his monocular, peered through it for a moment, and raised it back to the top of his helmet.
“Let’s roll.”
He slammed a mag
home and gestured with his head. Edwards nodded back.
They left the hide site and went hunting.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The sun was sinking into the ocean on the west horizon when Stryker and Edwards crested a tall hill and set up to glass the area below them. There was still enough light to see below them clearly, although it would shortly be dark.
Stryker looked around him, and saw a green landscape filled with trees and bushes, and rolling hills in all directions. He glanced behind him, out of habit, and saw the same thing. They had crossed a terrain filled with plant life, trails, and large rock formations. It was a perfect landscape for their purpose.
“They are around a klick directly west to you and still not moving,” a male voice from the comms center said. Stryker touched his earbud briefly, and then pressed his throat mic.
“Are they awake?” he asked in a whisper.
“We can’t see any movement, so our best guess is that they are still sleeping.”
Stryker’s sat phone vibrated and he plucked it from his vest and examined the LED display.
“Call?” Erin texted.
Stryker hit the speed dial button and Erin answered.
“What’s up?” he asked in a quiet tone.
“I think we have it sorted out here. I am staying in the comms center and making sure the relievers correctly identify your position. You are now a klick to the east of the next group. Right?”
“Yes. We’re going to glass it and go in. Where is the next group?”
“The one you are close to now is part of the rear echelon. You have another group two klicks to your northwest and another to the southwest around the same distance from you. The lead group is around three klicks to the west of you, and is spaced right in front of the group you are hunting from north to south. Our last count was around 140 terrorists are out there, but they are spread out over an area of around twelve clicks, again from north to south.”
“Make sure we know if any other group responds to our attack.”
“Got it,” she replied. After a short pause, Erin added, “Be careful.”
“Always; out.”
Edwards looked at Stryker with curiosity.
“She said they have it sorted out.”
“That makes me feel better,” Edwards said dryly. “How do you want to play this?”
Stryker glassed the area below in an attempt to find the group they were hunting. “I can’t spot them. They must be in the bushes on the other side of the clearing.”
“We can’t go in without knowing where they are. We might run into them and that could end badly.”
“No argument from me. I guess we wait for it to get totally dark, and then use the NVGs to locate them.”
Stryker lowered his binoculars and then adjusted his NVG monocular and traversed the area beneath their position.
“It’s still too light,” Edwards said. “Another ten minutes or so and we can locate them.
“You’re right. We have to wait it out.” Stryker sighed once, anxious to get back into action but accepting the need to wait until they could identify the location of the terrorists.
Edwards set his M-4 down and pulled his canteen from his assault pack. He pulled deeply on it twice, screwed the cap on, and stashed it again in the pack.
“Where are the closest groups?” He asked as he placed the canteen in his pack.
“We got three to worry about,” Stryker answered. We have to groups at our ten and two o’clock.” Stryker motioned to the northwest and southwest with a pointed finger and continued, “And then we have another forward echelon three clicks in front of the ones we’re hunting.”
“You figure that forward echelon is the leadership?”
“Probably, but we don’t have any way to know.”
“If it is, we could take the rear group out, fight forward, kill the leadership and go back to the base.”
“I’ve thought of that.” Stryker answered with a troubled expression. “But, it’s a guess at best. Maybe a good guess, but still just that. I’m not sure I want to bet on it.”
“You getting timid in your old age?”
“No, I’m getting smarter. I made a long of wrong bets lately and we need to play the long game here. As long as we don’t screw it up, we got these guys cold. I just don’t want to make any mistakes and cost us more than this has to cost.”
Stryker sat up, lowered his monocular, and saw a heat signature clump directly downhill from them, nestled in the trees on the other side of the clearing.
“Get eyes on that.” He said, pointing to the site.
Edwards lowered his NVGs and followed Stryker’s finger to the point below them.
“That has to be them,” he said.
“Yeah, and they don’t seem to be moving, and that bothers me.”
“Why?”
“They move at night, and now they’re not, so what changed?”
Stryker had spent most of his life observing human behavior and knew that when herd animals changed behavior, there was usually a reason for it. A part of him wanted to just get it over with and move on, but the rational side of his brain, honed from years of training, screamed at him to be cautious and figure out the anomaly before acting. Mysteries seldom revealed themselves in the first chapter, and quirks in behavior could usually be explained, if one had the patience and discipline to let the behavior explain itself.
Both men again looked down, and Stryker saw one image stirring, standing up and then moving away from the group. He turned his back, lowered his hands, and seemed to taking a piss from his hunched posture.
“Guess that is normal behavior.” Edwards whispered with an ironic tone.
“Let’s just wait one and see.”
Stryker again stared down at the scene below him, still wondering why the camp was so quiet, and then saw other members of the group getting up.
All Stryker could see were the thermal images, so he had no means to know exactly what was going on, but it appeared that one man moved to a camp stove and, when he lit it, the NVG flared before settling down to a normal image.
Another man moved to join the first one that was urinating.
The third and fourth men shifted in their sleeping bags and appeared to continue sleeping.
“Let’s go get this done,” Edwards said, his voice edgy.
“Give me a few more seconds. I don’t like the way it looks.”
“When did you get so timid?”
“Well fine, go down there, get your ass shot, and then I can figure out where they all are and kill the rest of them and all I have to do is bury you.”
“I’m just screwing with you.”
“I know. I’ll get this dialed in and we go from there. Right now, all I can see are a few fighters moving around and a few more that seem to be asleep.”
Edwards again lowered his NVG monocular and stared down at the camp.
“I still can’t find the lead element,” Stryker said, his voice filled with frustration.
“They’ll come in for breakfast, and when they do, we can move on them,” Edwards whispered back.
“That will work.”
Both men remained silent, watching the camp and trying to be patient. Minutes rolled by and they continued to glass the area below them.
“There they are,” Edwards said with a note of excitement.
Two more black robed men joined the group from the concealment of the trees, and appeared to be drinking something from cups.
“Let’s move on them,” Stryker hissed back. “Go left, I’ll go right. We try to take them out without making any noise, so use the M-4 and let’s hold off on the grenades unless we have to use them.” Both men threaded their suppressors onto their weapons and fist-bumped before parting to either side of the trail that led to the open area below.
Stryker moved on cat’s feet down the side of the trail, walking heel to toe the entire way down the incline. He moved into a clump of dense bushes around fifty feet from the camp
and waited for all six men to cluster together.
Two more sleeping men stood and stretched and then moved toward the camp stove. They sat in two groups, apparently drinking tea, and then all moved to the center of the camp and laid out prayer rugs. Facing toward Stryker, they dropped to their knees, did a series of bows and started chanting softly.
Stryker squelched his radio once, Edwards acknowledged, and Stryker carefully nudged the suppressed M-4 through the bushes, raised his NVGs and sighted through his thermal scope.
After taking a few deep breaths, he waited for his breathing to return to normal, considered the distance of the shot, and squeezed the trigger softly. A red cloud sprouted from the chest of the man on the far right, but Stryker had already moved on to the next man and saw him clutch his throat before he took another shot.
Edwards heard the chugging sound of the rounds leaving Stryker’s M-4 and opened fire on the men, waiting for them to rise up with their arms extended skyward before firing. He shot from left to right and soon all the men were down.
“You have over watch.” Stryker’s voice rang in Edward’s ear. He squelched once and began surveying the terrain around him with his NVGs.
Stryker moved soundlessly toward the downed men, checked each of them and searched the bodies. He discovered GPS units and small hand held radios. After throwing them in the bushes, Stryker waved to Edwards and began moving toward him.
“Anything?” Stryker whispered.
“No.”
“Let me call in.”
“Go ahead.”
“Sierra to base.”
“Go.” It was a female voice, and Stryker wondered when they changed personnel.
“Anyone moving toward our position?”
“Negative.”
“Any more movement at all?”
“No.”
“We are moving northwest to the next group. Advise of any movement.”
“Roger.”
Stryker sent a text to Erin asking for confirmation of the information. He got one back immediately supporting the comms centers transmission.
STRYKER - OMNIBUS: BOOKS 3-5: A Post Apocalyptic Tale Page 25