Jared adjusted his rifle, bringing it around from his back where the sling was digging into his neck, and laid it across his lap. He drew a breath and rested his callused, dirty hands out flat across the weapon. Jared sat studying his hands, hands that not so long ago were used to create, but now were mostly used to destroy. “I’d never touched one of these things before Bart handed me this one.”
Shannon laid a hand on top of Jared’s hands. “I am sure when that rifle is no longer needed, you’ll lay it down and move on with your life.”
Jared stared down at the weapon. Then as Shannon lifted her slender hand from his, he slid his own hands up and down the surfaces of the weapon, his eyes closing briefly as he felt the hard, cold surface of the black rifle, and still he could see the weapon and all its components as though his fingers were pouring the images into his brain like a blind man’s hands would read braille.
Jared wondered about the day when a man didn’t need to carry a weapon, whether he would be able to lay his down and pick up where he’d left off before the solar flare. The body armor, magazine carriers, and the weapons themselves had become so much a part of his life, it was as though his cellular phone had simply been replaced by all this tactical gear. He felt naked and vulnerable without the equipment and rarely even thought of his phone or laptop.
“I sure hope so, Shannon—I sure hope so,” was all Jared could muster.
Shannon stood over Jared for a moment, then laid her warm hand on the back of his neck. The feel of her warmth in concert with her feminine touch felt better than anything Jared could remember in recent history. Looking down at the rifle in his lap, feeling Shannon’s touch, the recent adrenaline dump, combined with all the other chemicals that came along with combat, caused a stir in him he hadn’t experienced before. The feeling was animalistic, almost more than Jared could control. The fatigue from being awake since the previous day instantly left him, and he reached for Shannon’s hand, pulling it down and across his chest.
Shannon did not resist as her hand was clamped tightly in Jared’s. Jared stopped, content for now to hold the woman’s hand against his now heaving chest. The rest of the group were either sitting or tending to tasks, unnoticing of the kinetic exchange transpiring between Jared and Shannon just a few feet away. Jared turned his eyes up to meet Shannon’s, his face a mask of impassioned seriousness.
“Soon,” he croaked through dry lips.
Shannon’s mouth dropped open ever so slightly before her look of surprise was substituted by an impish grin. Jared held her hand for a moment longer before releasing her. As Shannon turned to leave, her gaze lingered just a second longer than Jared would have deemed normal, as if she had slowly and seductively dragged it across him like the trained stroke of an artist. As he sat gawking at her retreating figure, Jared realized Shannon was walking with a little more movement in her hips while taking slightly smaller steps, which did nothing to quell the raging physical enthusiasm he was feeling toward her. Jared released the rifle, realizing he was squeezing the handguard so tightly his knuckles were white as printer paper.
“Jeez,” he muttered under his breath.
Matt sat, feet hanging out the side of the Black Hawk as it raced north following Highway 5, which was littered with abandoned vehicles. He glanced over to where Josh lay on the stretcher with Doc Kramer, the team’s corpsman, sitting next to him. Matt was sure Josh had been wounded in combat in the past. Most guys operating at Josh’s level were injured numerous times over the course of their careers. Josh didn’t appear overly concerned with his current injuries, and neither did Doc Kramer for that matter.
Matt wished again it was anyone else but Josh who had survived the crash. When the Black Hawk rolled slightly to the right, Matt knew they were close to the base. He leaned out, craning his neck, just making out the outline of the airport’s runways off in the distance. Matt steeled himself internally, knowing his interaction with Carnegie wasn’t going to be a pleasant affair. Matt assumed with Josh being whisked away to sickbay, Matt would absorb the brunt of the colonel’s rage over the loss of yet another helicopter. Matt was fairly certain the good colonel wouldn’t give two shits about the loss of life the failed mission constituted, and would only focus on the loss of equipment.
Matt, more than ever, was becoming determined to separate himself from what he viewed as a rogue military commander. Matt was trained to watch, listen, and usually not be seen, and he’d done a lot of that ever since America was brought to her knees right along with the rest of the world. On board the submarine, Matt had quickly realized most of America’s military infrastructure was gone by what he overheard from the submarine’s command. Matt didn’t know for sure, but he assumed the submarine crew, after dropping him and his team off, went looking for food just like every other poor soul in the country was doing.
Unless someone calling themselves the centralized government tasked the submarine with other orders, Matt guessed its first stop would be Naval Base Kitsap in Washington State, where most of the crew called home when they weren’t loitering off the shores of countries unfriendly to America. Matt doubted the submarine crew would find the Kitsap Peninsula, Gig Harbor, or any other town in the Puget Sound area in the same shape they left it. The close proximity to Seattle, with its nearly 800,000 residents, would have undoubtedly exacerbated the smaller town’s already bleak probability of survival.
During the short time Matt had spent with Colonel Carnegie, he was fast forming the opinion that Carnegie was operating alone and without support from a centralized government, just like the submarine would probably be doing. Matt wished he and his team had stayed with their submariner brethren. Dan would still be alive, and Matt wouldn’t be faced with his current dilemma.
With no resupply chain in place, Carnegie had immediately begun strong-arming the local populace under the guise of taxation in order to continue operations at the base. Matt wasn’t at all sure of the colonel’s end game now that his supply chain was gone and there was no one to send Silicon Valley’s brightest minds to. Matt knew military leadership and was acutely aware of their innate ability to adapt to a fast-changing combative environment. Matt couldn’t think of a single theater he’d fought in that wasn’t similar to Northern California in its present-day state.
If Matt recognized all this, he was sure Carnegie had the foresight to know what was coming and was already adapting. Matt guessed the colonel was transitioning from trying to get the country back on its feet to self-preservation through power and control. If Carnegie continued running retrieval missions with no resupply chain, he would run out of fuel, food and other equipment needed to survive. Matt wondered how long ago Carnegie had made the transition. He guessed it was when the man began taxing the locals. Matt was used to dealing with men like Carnegie. He’d seen fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan intimidate local villagers into feeding their men and hiding their weapons from American forces.
Carnegie was no different, and Matt knew he could no longer participate in this madman’s empire-building scheme. Once he was finished debriefing the colonel, he planned on having the talk with his team. After that, Matt would devise a plan and execute it either alone or hopefully in the company of his guys. He was well aware he would not be a welcome sight dressed in military garb outside the base, so he would have to either stay out of sight or amend his attire.
The helicopter rolled hard to the left now and started what Matt knew would be their short and final approach to the tarmac in front of the hangar where he expected to see Carnegie standing, hands on hips with a scowl pasted across his weathered face. The pilots had already radioed the base, letting base personnel know they had wounded on board, and Matt was sure Carnegie would not sit in his office after hearing something like that. The roar of the helicopter’s beating blades deepened as the aircraft lost effective translational lift (ETL), causing the main rotor blades to take a more aggressive angle of attack as their speed decreased. As the Black Hawk slowed even more, it began to re
ly less on clean smooth air to fly and more on recycled air as the aircraft neared a hover.
Just as Matt expected, Carnegie was waiting at the front of the hangar, hands on hips and, from what Matt could tell, an award-winning scowl on his face. “Here we go,” Matt murmured to himself.
Matt’s SEALs knew what to do, so Matt gave them a nod and jumped off the aircraft as it touched down. His men would help get Josh to medical, and then they would clean and stow all their gear. Matt, however, would not be enjoying the peace and quiet of cleaning his rifle until after he dealt with Carnegie. As Matt approached the hangar, he saw Carnegie’s eyes tracking to Matt’s rear at what Matt was sure were his SEALs carrying the colonel’s golden boy off to get patched up.
Chapter 19
The colonel didn’t dally; instead he spun on his heel and marched straight for the conference room. When Matt entered the room, the colonel was already seated at the head of the table, the scowl still etched across his face, only now his large callused hands were folded together atop the table.
“Go,” Carnegie barked.
Matt almost laughed, but thought better of it under the circumstances. “Complete disaster.”
“I fucking know that much, Goddamn it. How did it happen?” Carnegie roared.
“We should have had a recon team in there ahead of the mission, and—”
Carnegie cut him off, holding up two fingers. “That’s two. Three and you’re out. I don’t give a good Goddamn about anything other than what happened. Give me a debrief and do it now, or I will walk over to medical and get it from Josh, and then you, my boy, can stand the fuck by.” Carnegie’s voice had lowered, telling Matt the man wasn’t messing around.
“We flew into the property; Josh insisted his team do the takedown of the house and delegated my team to set up a perimeter. We were maybe two hundred yards behind the lead bird, and I just got a bad feeling about bombing straight into the front yard, so I had our pilots drop us at an alternate site.” Matt’s mind was a whirlwind as he realized Carnegie would not only talk to him and Josh, but the bastard would certainly want to debrief the pilots. When the pilot’s version directly contradicted Matt’s debrief, all hell would break loose around camp Stockton, and Matt would be the focal point.
Matt tried to calm himself as he continued, “The folks at the ranch hung some sort of cable across the little valley their property sits in, so when Josh and his guys came in, they hit the lines—and crashed into the house. We were at the crash site within a few minutes, and the only survivor was Josh. Total loss, bird, guys, gear, everything.”
The veins on Carnegie’s neck were visibly trying to escape the confines of his flesh as Matt pressed on.
“After we pulled Josh out and confirmed all the KIAs, we burned the house, helicopter and all the bodies. We hiked back to our LZ, and here we are.” When Matt finished, he stood awkwardly, waiting for the storm.
Carnegie was silent for a moment before he spoke. “Let me get this straight, you and Josh co-plan an operation, then you both participate in this operation, only you decide to go off script right before you guys go on target?”
“If I hadn’t aborted our landing, you’d have two birds down in—”
Carnegie’s fist slammed the tabletop. “Don’t fucking interrupt me, you little pissant,” Carnegie snapped. “You go off script because you get a bad feeling?”
Carnegie paused as if waiting for a reply, but Matt didn’t take the bait, remaining stoically silent.
“And now I’m down another helicopter, and”—Carnegie threw his hands in the air—“I don’t even know how many men.”
Carnegie rose, bending at the waist as his hands remained flat on the table’s surface. He stared down at his hands for a long moment before looking up at Matt. “I will be talking to every man who participated on this mission, and if their stories differ from yours even slightly, you and I are gonna go outside and work some things out. From here forward, you and the rest of the swim team are on house arrest. I don’t want you leaving your living quarters, is that understood?”
Matt grimaced in confusion. “House arrest? For what?”
“For nothing,” growled Carnegie. “Until,” he emphasized, “until I get this bullshit sorted out. Now get the fuck out of here.”
Matt spun, not wanting to listen to any more from a man he was starting to think posed a sizable threat to himself and his men.
“Your fucking story had better hold water, boy,” Carnegie fired just as the door was closing.
Matt didn’t respond; instead he quickened his pace. He needed to have that talk with his team, and he needed to do it sooner than later.
The Black Hawk was nearly finished with its shutdown procedures when Matt entered the main hangar area. Both the pilot and co-pilot were still sitting inside the cockpit, while the crew chief was outside the aircraft, staging the various tie-down straps along with their engine-intake plugs. The pilots eyed Matt as he walked across the tarmac, heading toward his living quarters as if he were a condemned man. As Matt passed the front of the aircraft, he lifted his chin in acknowledgment to the pilots as he curled his lips in more of a grimace than a smile.
Neither pilot engaged the SEAL as he passed in front of their aircraft. The crew chief glanced at the passing SEAL, then shot the two pilots a sharp look. Everyone knew what was coming and who it was coming for. Matt hoped the pilots were torn by what had happened, but knew deep down they would tell Carnegie exactly what had transpired, at which time Matt would have big problems.
Fuck those guys, thought Matt. I saved their miserable lives, and they’re gonna be my undoing. He covered the remaining distance to his living quarters and saw two of his SEALs lounging nonchalantly out front, which put a smile on Matt’s otherwise solemn face. The two junior SEALs returned Matt’s grin as he approached.
“Good job, boys, keep an eye out. Things are about to go sideways for us.”
Matt’s statement stripped the young SEALs of their smiles as Matt continued past the two and through the door, where he found the remaining SEALs cleaning weapons and stowing gear.
“Keep cleaning ’em, boys, but gather around,” Matt said in a serious tone.
The SEALs rearranged seating positions, moving so everyone was in a semicircle around Matt.
“What’s up, Matt?” Denver asked. Denver was a fairly senior SEAL who’d gone through the Navy’s Basic Under Water Demolition School (BUD/S) just one class after Matt attended.
Matt pursed his lips as his brow furrowed with concern. “Things are worse than we thought and about to get downright dangerous for us—or at least me.”
The SEALs were all professional fighting men and knew when the time to stay their tongues was, and that time was now.
Matt drew a deep breath and studied the faces of all his brothers-in-arms as he felt a great sadness wash through him. “Carnegie is operating as a warlord in my opinion…”
Every SEAL in the room let out a breath at once.
“Jeez, man, we thought it was just us,” Denver interjected as the men all looked relieved at once. “I think we all can agree Kemp’s death stinks, and that mission last night was nothing more than a revenge op,” Denver added.
Matt nodded in unison with every man in the room. “We have some hard decisions to make, boys. It’s my opinion the colonel is no longer in contact with any semblance of a centralized government. I think he realizes what is happening and is trying to maintain control of this area through force and fear. I also think this tax thing he’s implemented is two pronged. Taking from people out in the area keeps them hungry, which means they don’t have time to come banging on the gates, wearing masks and carrying torches. It also ensures the colonel’s troops are fed, strong, and ready to fight should the need present itself.”
Matt paused as the door opened, and one of the young SEALs keeping watch poked his head inside.
“Got company, man. Two dudes heading this way.”
Matt moved to the door and saw two
men dressed in BDUs walking toward the SEALs’ living quarters. “Fuck, this is happening quicker than I anticipated, fellas.”
No one answered as the two men walked past the lone SEAL out front and straight into the SEALs’ living quarters. The lead man’s name tag read Sanders, while the second man’s name tag read Carlton. Sanders was slightly older and appeared to be in charge, and he stopped just inside the doorway.
“The colonel sent us over here to make sure you guys didn’t leave your barracks. Guess you’re on some type of house arrest or something,” Sanders stammered, obviously uncomfortable with his most recent assignment.
Matt nodded almost imperceptibly toward Denver as he got to his feet, feigning concern. “House arrest?”
Sanders straightened his frame in an attempt to convey at least a little command presence. “Colonel said you knew. We are just here to make sure you comply.”
In a flash, Matt covered the short distance between himself and Sanders, driving the man to the left before smashing him into the wall. Matt pinned the man’s rifle against his chest for a split second before sweeping the man’s feet out from under his erect frame and landing atop the stunned soldier. As Matt fought to control the man’s hands, he heard a muffled thump next to him and knew Denver was doing the same with Carlton.
Wordlessly, the other SEALs joined in, and in less than fifteen seconds, both soldiers were trussed up like Christmas turkeys.
“What’re we doing here, boss?” came Denver’s concerned voice.
Matt got to his feet, his nostrils flaring as the adrenaline surged through his body. It hadn’t been the fight, but the course he just plotted that had his adrenaline glands working overtime. He ran his hands through his longish hair and filled his lungs with air as if this would clear his head.
“Boys, I did this, no one else has to suffer for what just happened, but I am not going to participate in the colonel’s bullshit another day. I am leaving, and I hope you all come with me, but if you don’t—I get it.”
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 18