Denver was still squatting over Carlton as Matt finished. “What do you mean? You’re leaving—and going where?”
Matt shrugged. “Anywhere we want. I will always be a SEAL, so I’d like to be near water.” Matt looked down at the two soldiers and felt a sadness for the men. They were not trained or conditioned for what lay outside the base’s wire. They were clinging to the colonel in order to survive.
Denver moved through the SEALs and propped Sanders up. “You and you,” he said, pointing at two SEALs, “get these guys stripped and get their uniforms on, then get out front.”
Matt smiled, knowing he would have at least one SEAL brother coming with him. Within two minutes, two SEALs stood guard in front of their living quarters, wearing the stolen uniforms of Sanders and Carlton, their covers pulled down low in case anyone passed by.
Once the faux house arrest guards were positioned out front, Matt turned to the remaining team members. “Carnegie will treat any of you who follow me as traitors. I want everyone to know that up front. I personally don’t think there is a United States of America as we knew it, so I am of the opinion that if we move against Carnegie, we would not be committing an act of treason. I also think Carnegie will not bluff on this matter and won’t hesitate a second to hang or shoot any of us who he deems a threat or uncooperative.”
Denver stepped over a wide-eyed Sanders. “Let’s get the hell outta here, Matt. I’m with you.”
The remaining six SEALs nodded, signaling they were throwing their hats in with the senior SEALs, but otherwise stayed silent due to the two men lying tied up at their feet. Matt’s mind was racing now. He hadn’t devised a plan to this point and really wasn’t too overly worried until his team decided they would accompany him. Now Matt felt the pressure of leadership return. He and Denver would need to quickly concoct a plan to leave the base within the next couple of hours if not sooner.
Matt’s decision to move on the two guards had been bred from a life of experience. Most people who experienced a bad situation waited, failing to react in hopes things would improve. In combat and now after the solar flare, bad situations rarely if ever improved on their own. They were only upgraded when men took action to turn the tide. The difficult part about taking decisive action for most people was they were tethered to their actions, forever married and fully exposed to their consequences, and they knew it.
“Alright, everyone, get your gear prepped for a fight. I’d prefer we avoid fighting with anyone, but be ready. Denver, you and I will get something together while the boys finish up.”
Denver dipped his chin in acknowledgment and waited to see where Matt wanted to plan out the escape and evade plan.
Matt and Denver chose a corner of the barracks, where they sat and wrote out a hasty operations plan. Matt was adamant they not kill any base personnel if they could help it, which Denver agreed with.
Once Devon seemed like he had enough food and fluids on board, Jared suggested they move out. The group was pushing thirty hours without sleep, but Jared knew they could not stay this close to the homestead after what they’d done to the helicopter and its crew. Clarence and his family decided they would take what livestock was left and head for the Thacker ranch in hopes of a warm welcome. They would not be coming with Jared to Stockton, which Jared had never expected of them.
Jared warned Clarence to stay off the roads, even dirt roads. Using roads would make him and his family easier targets for the military goons from the airport. Jared was secretly happy to be heading into the lion’s mouth rather than in the direction he was sure the military men would assume someone would go after an attack like the night before. This feeling caused him to realize something about himself. He’d rather be on the offensive than running like a rat.
The two groups said their goodbyes, turned, and rode in opposite directions, one acquiescing while the other advanced on the enemy. Jared never once turned in his saddle to look back after hands were shaken. He rode with renewed intent now, planning his next move that would place him close to where he hoped John was still held captive. Jared had not yet formulated a plan in his head other than he would like to attempt John’s release while the remaining helicopter was off on the business of seeking revenge on the source of its partner’s demise.
Before the groups parted ways, Jared had taken the time to study two maps he’d hauled out of his pack. It seemed to Jared the San Joaquin River could be reached if he and the ladies headed due east. He would know they were getting close when they crossed Highway 5. After that, the river would be the first water they would encounter. Jared planned on following the river north, where it again crossed under Highway 5 before veering west slightly and then curling back around toward the Stockton airport. Jared intended to use the winding ribbon of water as a sort of homing beacon to reach his destination.
The map showed no actual details about the river, which would have helped Jared greatly in understanding how he could use the snaking body of water to his advantage. The river narrowed as it drew closer to the airport, but how narrow or deep the water actually became was a mystery to Jared. For the time being, Jared held the loose pieces to a vague plan in his head as they rode east, hoping to add additional pieces as they came to him. If a song had been written about his plan so far, it would have been titled, “Out of Touch on a Raincheck.”
Jared’s plan included following the river all the way to where it passed within several hundred yards of the Stockton airport. From there he would become Devon, watching and waiting. Jared was cognizant he was proceeding half-cocked, seeing that his plan only accounted for getting him into the area of operation, but severely lacked a rescue component. Considering Jared’s gross lack of usable intelligence, this half-cocked approach was his only viable option at the time.
Not more than two hours into the ride, Jared caught sight of Highway 5 along with all the vehicles marooned across its surface. For as far as the eye could see, trucks, cars, SUVs, and even a couple of motorcycles sat abandoned. There were hundreds of vehicles, causing Jared to question where all the occupants went after their vehicles relegated them all to pedestrians.
After spotting the highway in the distance, Jared maneuvered the group to the back side of a small slope where they could crawl up and do a short surveillance of the once great highway before crossing its littered blacktop. It pained Jared, but he asked Devon and Stephani to do the sneak and peek while he stayed with Shannon and Essie. When he made the suggestion, Shannon’s face flashed a perplexed look, which she quickly replaced with her usual pleasant and pretty look.
Jared pretended not to see the look and set about securing his horse to a low-hanging branch on one of the many scrub oak trees in the area. Devon and Stephani dismounted and immediately set off up the gentle slope, leaving Jared to secure their horses. Their impromptu OP was not more than a hundred yards from Jared, affording him the ability to watch as they settled in and got behind their binoculars. Jared busied himself searching the area the group recently traversed through, but saw no sign they’d been followed. He turned back and stared at Devon and Stephani as he wrung his hands and rolled his shoulders.
Shannon’s voice nearly caused him to jump. “It’s killing you, isn’t it,” she said softly through half-smiling lips.
Jared turned his head, his mouth partially ajar as Shannon maintained her warm smile. “I need to spread the duties,” he parried.
Shannon’s warm smile turned mischievous. “I just learned something about you, Jared Culp.”
Jared glanced at Essie, who was watching the exchange, and then back to Shannon with a furrowed brow.
“You’re a control freak. Never saw that side of you before today,” she stated playfully.
“I don’t know about all that,” Jared responded, attempting to dismiss Shannon’s observation as inaccurate. At the same time, Jared was well aware Shannon definitely struck the nail on the head. He just didn’t like hearing it aired out in the open like this. He’d been a control freak before the
solar flare and still suffered the same personality trait in the post-solar-flare world. The reason Shannon hadn’t noticed before now was Jared hadn’t been in control much after the solar flare. He was a control freak, but what stayed this characteristic at times was Jared’s ego. He would rather relinquish control than flounder in front of John, or anyone else in the group for that matter, so he’d suppressed his desire to control things until now.
“It’s not a bad thing, Jared. In fact, it is probably what kept you alive all this time—it’s probably why Essie’s alive,” Shannon added, hoping to alleviate some of her unintended insult.
Jared let out a long breath and rubbed the back of his head, feeling his longish hair he was sure could be pulled into a small ponytail now. “Yeah, I guess I was and still am, but it has to be controlled, or it will cause problems. Stephani wants to be treated as an equal, and Devon will be a man soon, so they both have to learn and get used to being—” Jared hesitated momentarily as he searched for the right words “—at the tip of the spear, I guess.”
Shannon stepped up to Jared and placed a hand against his cheek as she pressed her lips to the opposite cheek. After the kiss on his cheek, Shannon stepped back. “You’re a good man, Jared. The fact that you weren’t married before all this amazes me.”
Jared heard her words and felt his eyes well up. He fought the urge for an emotional release, which angered him. John never cried, and neither had Calvin or Barry for that matter. Jared loathed the fact that there were times when he felt so much emotion built or pent up inside him, he needed to weep in order to get it out of his system. It wasn’t something he could control, and maybe that was what really bothered him. Shannon had just pointed out he was a control freak, so quite possibly his lack of control in the matter was the root of his anger when it occurred.
Sensing Jared’s internal strife, Shannon turned to Essie for the time being. Sometimes men were better left alone to deal with their problems. Shannon had said her piece and did not want to belabor whatever Jared was endeavoring to overcome inside his head. He was a solidly grounded person, and Shannon held no doubt he would never stop wrestling demons brought on by things he was forced to do in the name of his and their survival. Shannon sighed quietly as she tousled Essie’s hair. The fact that Jared wasn’t okay with many of the things required of him to safeguard himself and those he cared for was a large part of Shannon’s attraction to the man.
Chapter 20
Stephani and Devon reached the crest of the little slope on their bellies. Both used binoculars to scan the expansive highway below them. Stephani searched to the south while Devon directed his optics north. After nearly thirty minutes, neither had seen anything more than a few birds flitting about and a single lone coyote weaving his way through the abandoned vehicles littering the highway’s surface. When Stephani turned to Devon, the teen merely shrugged, stowed his binoculars, and began inching his way backward.
Jared watched as Devon and Stephani crawled several yards back in his direction before they got to their feet and marched the rest of the distance on foot.
“Nothing moving out there,” Stephani announced.
It wasn’t that Jared didn’t believe her, but he shot Devon a look, to which the teen shrugged and shook his head. “Okay then,” Jared said to no one in particular. “Water the horses in case we end up having to make a run for it.”
Without hesitation, everyone set to watering the animals. When they were finished, Jared asked that everyone also drink and eat something. Jared didn’t want their group involved in a prolonged chase and have someone fall out because they weren’t fed or hydrated properly. John and Bart had imparted this little bit of knowledge on Jared, and he’d taken it to heart. It took everyone less than five minutes to take care of themselves and the horses. Once the tasks were finished, they mounted and waited for Jared’s directive.
“One last thing,” Jared added as he swung into his saddle and fumbled for the right stirrup. “If we are contacted by land vehicles, we stick together the best we can. We use the terrain to our advantage. Horses can go more places than a truck can. If it is a situation that persists, we head back up here into the mountains. If we get separated, we meet where we left Clarence and his family. If no one is there, you go back to Barry and Calvin at the ranch.”
“What if it’s a helicopter?” Devon murmured in question.
Jared visibly grimaced, biting his lower lip. “If we are contacted by a helicopter, there is no use running out in the open. Again, we stay together and find cover. We fight if we have to, but I would rather not fire the first shot.”
When no one else questioned or offered another additional solution, Jared swung his mount to the east. Within fifteen minutes, they were crossing the mighty Highway 5, the horses’ hooves sounding like clapping thunder on the pavement compared to the relative quiet of plodding through grass and dirt with only the occasional clack of a hoof contacting rock. The entire area to the east of the highway was open, but still Jared felt a sense of relief wash over him as they all cleared the highway and headed out into the softer soil that before the solar flare would have been ripe with crops.
As Jared rode, he was again stunned by the absolute silence that hung thick in the air. The only sound was the dull thud of the horses’ hooves on the hard-packed dirt, accompanied by the creaking of saddle leather. During the first two-thirds of the day, Crank darted here then there, chasing a squirrel, then returning to run alongside Devon’s mount, looking up expectantly as the teen smiled down at the little terrier. Toward the later part of the day, Jared, who was in the lead, glanced back to see Crank in the saddle with Devon. Jared turned back and smiled to himself, wondering how that had happened.
Fairly quickly Jared and company came across a water aqueduct, which Jared errantly thought was the San Joaquin River until he took counsel with his map. While studying the map, Jared realized there were two aqueducts prior to the river. These new waterways posed a problem to Jared and company in that they were concrete waterways, and Jared had no idea how deep they were. He searched the map until he thought he understood how to negotiate these newfound obstacles and then urged the group forward.
The group was able to cross the troublesome waterways by using small utility bridges put in place before the solar flare. The field-workers had needed the bridges for quicker access to pump stations and other farming equipment, and now Jared used them, albeit not to tinker with the now silent pumps. As Jared passed over the last of the canals, he realized with no pumps operating, these concrete waterways would devolve into seasonal creeks or rivers, depending on the severity of the rainfall.
The land along Highway 5 was almost entirely agricultural and ranged from ground crops to nut orchards. Jared liked the orchards because he could see through the bottom of them for hundreds of yards. The orchards also provided him with a level of concealment to a casual passerby who may or may not know there were men women and children on horseback inside the grove of trees. He used the orchards as much as he could during the transition east, enjoying the small bit a security they provided along with their ease of passage.
The trees had been well maintained before the solar flare, and their growth rate wasn’t fast enough to have transformed the orchards into wild unkept groves of trees. In a couple of years these orchards would become overgrown and, in some cases, impassable. Jared took note of the fact that as long as the trees were alive, they would remain a food source. If he ended up at the Thacker ranch, the ride wasn’t so far that three or four of them couldn’t come out here and harvest nuts, even cherries. Cherries wouldn’t rot before a three- or four-day ride back, and fresh fruit was definitely something worth a couple of weeks’ worth of effort.
Several times they ran into a smaller aqueduct with no apparent crossing, and the group would have to either backtrack or move laterally until a bridge presented itself. Oftentimes, the bridges amounted to little more than two large twelve-inch boards laid across the water’s surface. The group woul
d dismount and lead the horses across one at a time when they were faced with these sparse crossing accommodations.
Shortly before nightfall, Jared saw what he knew had to be the San Joaquin River. The waters were moving, which was a departure from the canal waters they’d picked their way across, and there was no concrete. As the tired group dropped off the backs of their mounts, the horses immediately dropped their heads to the water’s surface and drank thirstily.
Jared scouted several hundred yards in either direction for a suitable campsite and found nothing that didn’t cause him angst. In the end, Jared moved the group away from the water’s edge to a cluster of giant eucalyptus trees, where he asked Shannon and Stephani to set up the tent while he and Devon roped off an area for the horses to graze for the evening. Turning to Essie, Jared pointed out toward the river.
“Watch for anything out there, and make sure you have your rifle.”
Essie looked stunned at first, but recovered quickly, clutching her rifle close to her tiny chest and nodding her understanding of what was being asked of her.
Once the horses were secured and the tent was up, Jared stood back, thinking that if they were contacted by a hostile force, their group would have exactly two choices, fight or flight.
Neither sat well with Jared since a fight meant any one of them could be wounded or killed. Flight was only slightly better in Jared’s estimation, since fleeing would be done sans their horses, tent and most of the possessions they needed desperately to survive. Suddenly, Jared felt alone and unsure about what he was doing all the way out here in a region of California he was not familiar with and on terrain that lent itself more to mechanized troops than persons on foot or horseback.
The weight of caring for Essie coupled with the responsibility he felt for the safety of Devon and the two women usually rested atop his shoulders like a weighted pack. Now as he neared some sort of unseen demarcation line in his foray to free John, Jared wondered if he was dragging all these people to their deaths. Would they die following a madman on a fool’s errand? It really was a fool’s errand, thought Jared. He had no real plan to execute once he arrived at the airport. Jared was not in the least bit familiar with the layout of the facility; therefore he was unable to formulate a plan past his getting there.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 19