Carnegie would coax at first, and if this didn’t work, he’d default to brute force. The people in this area could either work for him and enjoy the umbrella of security he would provide, or they could live like prisoners. Additionally, Carnegie needed vehicles in order to conduct operations outside the wire. After recent events, his inventory of weapons and vehicles was dismal at best. One working helicopter with few to no spare parts and three Humvees in relatively good working condition.
When the first two M203s slammed into the windscreen of the Black Hawk, Carnegie leaped to his feet. Although the colonel was nearing fifty years of age and worked in an office, he was no admin pogue. Carnegie could tell by the close proximity of the explosions they were inside the wire. The follow-up screaming and yelling from his troops confirmed this piece of trivia. Who in the fuck is attacking us? Carnegie wondered as he ripped open a wall locker and pulled out a plate carrier along with his rifle.
Before Carnegie performed a function check of his rifle, an even larger and closer explosion rocked the office, causing many of his ceiling panels to fall to the floor. The blast was so close it shook the colonel to the core, forcing him to re-evaluate just charging out into the common area of the hangar for that matter. Carnegie took the time to ensure his body armor was strapped in place and his weapons were properly loaded before he cautiously moved toward his office door.
Carnegie pulled open his office door, rifle up and scanning. He couldn’t see out into the main hangar, so he moved quickly but carefully through the building into the hangar. Carnegie could see his ad hoc armory from inside the office complex, and it looked nothing like it had the last time he saw the structure. Now it was a smoldering pile of rubble in one corner of the hangar.
Carnegie moved carefully forward and soon came into view of the smoldering hulk of his last Black Hawk listing slightly to the left on the tarmac. Seeing this nearly resulted in his head blowing clean off his shoulders. His temper flared so far into the red he almost shot a soldier running by, knowing full well the man was not a threat. Carnegie stopped short still inside the hangar, trying to rein his temper in so he could formulate a rational thought about what was occurring on his base, and bring it to an end.
It came to him in a flash; the SEALs were responsible for this. There was no one else in the region with the firepower or the balls to attack this facility. He stopped himself there, thinking about the helicopter that just a day prior had been destroyed by an unidentified force. Carnegie waved the thought from his mind, remembering what he’d been told about the incident. Those people were guerilla fighters, and guerillas did not invade bases. They harassed bases, ambushed patrols, and performed other simple sneaky operations, but they rarely ever took an opposing force on head-to-head.
One could argue the TET Offensive contradicted Carnegie’s line of thought, but the reality of TET was the North Vietnamese had been a conventional army at the time who conducted guerilla warfare when needed. TET was a highly coordinated attack of over a hundred cities in the country in an effort not so much to drive America from Vietnam, but to incite rebellion throughout South Vietnam and further erode support for the war back in America. It was a Hail Mary, and it had eventually worked after great loss of human life.
There were no longer conventional armies here, so Carnegie was pretty damn sure the SEALs were the ones making all the racket. The Navy men would need transportation if they planned on leaving, so Carnegie turned and sprinted toward the Humvees parked outside the hangar to his left. As he ran, Carnegie’s lips curled back in a wicked smile.
Out of fear of deserters taking the Humvees, Carnegie had ordered their batteries removed nightly. Drawing closer to the crippled Humvees, Carnegie yearned to find a couple of SEALs bumbling around trying to figure out why the Humvees wouldn’t start. Carnegie needed so badly to kill someone tonight it was making his trigger finger ache.
When he arrived at the Humvees, he found no SEALs. He did, however, find a beat-up, limping former Special Missions Unit operator.
“Josh, get some men and have them put the Goddamn batteries in the trucks,” the colonel barked.
Josh hollered at a nearby soldier, who summoned more men and women.
Carnegie stared seething at the wrecked helicopter for a moment, then turned back to Josh. “Come get me when the trucks are up and running. I’ll be in my office.”
Josh gave a quick nod as Carnegie turned and hurried back toward the front of the hangar. Inside his office, Carnegie grabbed a radio and keyed the mic. “Base actual to all sentry posts and base personnel, no one is to leave the base perimeter. Anyone seen outside the wire is to be shot. That is a direct order.”
The transmission was followed by so many responses, Carnegie turned the little unit off. Next, Carnegie grabbed several maps and hurried to the conference room next door, where he laid the maps out on the tabletop. Carnegie pulled a pen from his uniform pocket and began marking X’s wherever a road crossed the San Joaquin River. Carnegie knew two things: SEALs loved water, and he didn’t have the man or vehicle power to set up any semblance of a perimeter looking for these sons of bitches, who in his mind had committed something worse than treason.
Carnegie hoped he could get out in front of the SEALs and let them come to him instead of embarking on the dangerous task of hunting the SEALs. Carnegie could say what he wanted about the SEALs’ loyalty deficiencies, but he also knew they were all capable fighting men. Suddenly, Carnegie stormed out of the briefing room and into the main reception area, where he found men and women beginning to cluster. Untrained troops all acted the same in a crisis. They waited to be told what to do and rarely took any initiative.
“Two of you get over to the SEALs’ barracks and see what’s going on. Do it fast and get back here,” Carnegie yelled at the two soldiers nearest him. “The rest of you split into four-man teams and wait in the hangar.”
The men and women ambled out to the hangar to wait as Carnegie went back to marking the X’s on his map. A few minutes later, Carnegie heard the roar of the Humvees, as Josh must have got the batteries back in them. The colonel got to his feet and walked back out to the hangar just in time to see the two soldiers he’d sent to check on the Navy boys. They were rushing back and were oddly accompanied by two men wearing only their boxer shorts.
“Motherfuckers,” Carnegie muttered under his breath as he turned his radio back on and keyed the mic. “Base actual to all personnel, if you’re on post, remain there. Everyone else is to report immediately to the hangar for a mission briefing.”
Five minutes later, the hangar was full of men and women waiting for guidance from their leader. Carnegie took five minutes with the group as a whole, explaining he wanted ambush spots established at all the river crossings. When he finished his group briefing, Carnegie took the team leaders aside and made sure everyone knew exactly where they were to assemble their ambush locations. He stressed how dangerous the SEALs were and how important it was to remain in radio contact even while under fire.
Carnegie had only three vehicles, so the men and women crammed themselves inside like circus clowns. They were able to take seven four-person teams out to seven ambush locations, where they dropped four teams off before the vehicle-borne teams headed to their own ambush points. Carnegie jumped into a Humvee, leaving Josh behind to run the base, and left in a cloud of diesel exhaust in search of his truant SEALs.
Chapter 23
In Jared’s opinion, the going was painfully slow due to all the security halts needed for safe passage. Shortly after noon, Jared was scanning the riverbank on both sides, looking for anything signaling danger, when his heart skipped a beat. A man, who until now had remained unnoticed, rose from the brush growing along the river’s banks. Jared watched intently, hardly breathing as the man bent at the waist and appeared to be collecting something from the ground.
When the man stood fully erect, Jared fully expected to see a weapon in the man’s hands. Rather than a weapon, the man held a fishing pole and
a string of white-bellied fish. Jared was shocked, relieved, amazed, and jealous all at the same time.
Jared tracked the man’s movements as he traipsed through the tall grasses, heading away from Jared on the opposite embankment. As Jared followed the man’s retreat, he realized there was what appeared to be a trailer park nestled back under a grove of trees. The man was short, dark and swarthy in appearance. Jared assumed the trailer park must have been a migrant worker housing area, and the man was most likely left over from when the farmers worked these vast flat parcels of land.
Jared’s mouth salivated at the sight of the man’s fresh catch while he tried to remember the last time he’d eaten fish. It was certainly before the solar flare put an end to local fish markets, but he had no clear recollection of a date. The fisherman disappeared into the grove of trees, and try as Jared might, he was not able to acquire a line of sight on the angler. He continued his scan for another five minutes before hurrying back to the group, who were patiently waiting in the cold. The rain thankfully was giving the group a reprieve, but most everyone was either damp or outright wet.
The one thing Jared wished he’d thought of when he’d previously traveled through an area with stores was to scavenge large plastic garbage bags for waterproofing the inside of everyone’s packs.
“There’s a dude across the water,” Jared announced as he reached the group.
The shivering faces, which were already conveying an elevated level of discomfort, grew darker at the mention of other humans.
Jared held up his hand. “I wasn’t spotted, and it was only one guy fishing. From what I could see, he is probably staying in a small trailer park across the river and fishing for food. He didn’t have a weapon that I could see. Not a rifle at least, maybe he was carrying a pistol and I just couldn’t see it, I don’t know,” Jared finished.
The tension eased slightly as the group thought about freshly cooked fish.
“Why don’t we have fishing poles?” Stephani asked to no one in particular.
“Right?” Jared agreed, wondering why they were so prepared in some ways and complete dimwits when it came to things like carrying a fishing pole. Until now Jared had viewed the river as a barrier between himself and the evil military men from the airport. Suddenly with the sighting of this mystery fisherman, Jared saw the river as a possible food source. He possessed no empirical knowledge of the river’s fish life; therefore he understood eating any of its denizens was a low probability, made lower by the fact he lacked the equipment to even mount a fishing operation.
“We need fishing poles,” Jared muttered, looking out at the river’s placid slow-moving surface.
The group mounted the horses and moved several hundred yards west before turning back in the direction they’d been traveling. Jared wanted to avoid any contact with the fisherman at the present time, his aim being to stay on task and not have his rescue mission derailed or delayed. Maybe later if getting John went well, they could try to make contact, and if they were lucky, the man would speak English and Jared could quiz him on how the fish were caught in this general area of the river.
Chapter 24
Once Jared was certain their group was well past the trailer park, he steered his mount east until they intercepted the river again. The detour along with the half dozen security stops necessary to ensure their path was not impeded took most of the afternoon. Every now and again, Jared would come upon a cluster of buildings along the western shore, which served to stall their progress, much to Jared’s dismay. Every time Jared and company were delayed, had to detour, or were in any manner slowed, Jared felt a sense of urgency tugging at his gut. It was as if he were suddenly allotted a shortened amount of time to complete John’s rescue, and that time was running short.
Nearing the end of the day, Jared began looking for a suitable spot to hunker down for the night. The agricultural real estate they were traveling through seemed as flat as any desert Jared knew of, and although there was the occasional depression accompanied by a grove of trees, it was as if the topography had been leveled flat and smooth by the hand of God.
During one of Jared’s security halts, he spotted a bridge spanning the river less than four hundred yards ahead. After ten minutes of studying the upcoming obstacle along with Stephani’s help, the group moved forward. When they reached the bridge, Jared found they could easily pass under it using a smallish dirt road that ran along the river and passed directly underneath the structural span. The road must have been used by field-workers before the solar flare to access fields or orchards on either side of the road. The clearance was enough for a truck and posed no problems for Jared and his group. Immediately, on the far side of the bridge, Jared caught sight of several buildings.
Without a word, Jared guided his horse off the road to the left and into a cherry orchard. The trees weren’t overly large and didn’t offer a tremendous amount of concealment, but it was better than riding right into the middle of all the buildings. Jared slid from the saddle and didn’t have to ask Stephani to follow. The two stealthily made their way to within a hundred yards of the nearest building and found the cluster of structures was actually a home with half a dozen outbuildings, one of which was a large barn.
After fifteen minutes observing nothing in or about a single one of the buildings, Jared moved his mouth close to Stephani’s ear. “You good going in and taking a closer look? We might have a dry place to stay if this place is abandoned.”
Stephani, who clutched her rifle close to her chest more for the retention of her body heat than anything tactical, nodded without making eye contact. Jared didn’t dally, moving quietly out of the orchard and up to the rear of the closest outbuilding. The building was the large rather run-down-looking barn which appeared to have been in in need of a paint job for years before the solar flare hit. Jared hugged the tattered outer wall as he pushed forward along the side of the barn. When he reached the front of the old barn, he had a stellar view of the entire layout of the property.
The parcel of land the buildings were located on covered roughly an acre in size, with the house located closest to the river and the outbuildings, including the barn, to the rear of the little house. Although Jared was no cherry farmer, he surmised the shabby setup was used and lived in by whoever had previously held the title caretaker of the orchard. There were pieces of farming equipment in the immediate vicinity near the barn and other shed-type structures, but nothing gave the impression it’d been lived in or used recently.
Jared was keyed on the house as he stopped near the front of the barn. If anyone was around, the house would be the most likely place they’d be this late in the afternoon. The house did not seem as though anyone was living in it, but Jared was cautious all the same. The lack of lights six or eight months ago meant no one was home; now it meant nothing. No one enjoyed the luxury of lights, and a dark house could be full of people.
Jared sniffed at the late afternoon air, trying to catch any sign of people living on the property, an act he would never have even considered six months ago. Cooking and unwashed people were difficult scents to mask, but all Jared could smell was the musty odor of the barn. The barn gave off no scent of livestock; only the smell of dampness accosted his sense of smell. Jared briefly thought of crossing the open area to search the house first, but quickly benched that idea. He and Stephani were at the barn, so why not clear the barn and other smaller outbuildings before taking on the most likely place someone would be? That way, rear security would not pose as large a danger. They would clear their way to the house, he thought, trying to calm himself before entering the barn. A clear mind and steady hands were far better in a fight than the alternative.
Jared and Stephani had spent time together in dangerous situations, but they’d never trained or rehearsed for entering or clearing buildings. She accompanied him when he went forward to inspect a patch of land the group intended to ride through, but she’d never been in a situation where Jared was required to lean on her like he was
about to. This new revelation did nothing to calm his already sizzling nerves. For a split second, Jared relaxed and wished John were by his side as he glanced back at Stephani, who waited expectantly for Jared to make a move.
Stephani’s willingness to charge ahead into the unknown was born partially from her ignorance of how dangerous clearing a building could be. Jared remembered his own willingness to do things he hadn’t realized posed as great a threat to his life as they had. Jared considered this for a moment and realized it was how life worked. The first to do something wasn’t always one of those who reached the finish line.
It had been that way in Jared’s old business with companies making breathtaking inventions, but lacking the foresight of how to apply those discoveries to life. The largest computer-based companies in the world at the time of the solar flare had not been the inventors of the early computer technology, but they had taken the idea and exploited it to levels that were unimaginable to the original inventors.
Jared almost laughed as he made the correlation between what he was feeling at this very instant and what both Bart and John had undoubtedly felt with him on more than a few occasions. Jared wondered if they too had silently lamented their own predicament as Jared stood nearby ready to accompany them into battle with the gunfighting experience of a nun. At least Stephani was determined, Jared thought to himself. She was a go-getter, and although she could be a real pain in his neck at times, she’d relaxed quite a bit since the time they’d first met.
Jared leaned back while beckoning Stephani closer. “Gonna clear the barn first, then the other sheds. When we go in, don’t point your rifle at me. Keep it pointed down or in another direction. Think of the barn as a box, if I go in to the right, you go left. Split it in half, you are responsible for your half, and I will handle my side,” Jared whispered in her ear. “Steph, I’m not going to help you on this. I will have my hands full taking care of my side—you understand what I’m telling you here?”
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 22