The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny

by Tippins, Rick

  Once John and the SEALs left the concealment of the surviving landscape, they were basically walking down the sidewalk for anyone to see who might have been in the area. After the recent loss of two of their group, to say the SEALs were on edge would have been a gross understatement. John felt naked and knew the rest felt the same based on the uptick in their pace as they approached Highway 5, with half their weapons aimed up at the overpass while the other half scanned in a 360-degree circle, searching for any sign of a threat.

  After the team passed beneath the looming structure, they all let out a collective sigh of relief. There wasn’t a man in the group scared of a fight, but there also weren’t any fools amongst them. John’s input had paid off. Carnegie’s soldiers were likely still covering the river crossing in hopes the SEALs would blunder into another ambush. The battlefield was always like a fluid fast-moving game of chess, with the win going to the player able to grasp the clearest view of future events. Reactionary combat was a game played by men who seldom lived to see the following day.

  “Ammo count,” Matt said louder than John was comfortable with.

  One by one the men updated Matt on their ammunition situation. Most of the men originally carried seven to nine rifle magazines, which held up to thirty rounds, but were usually loaded with twenty-eight or twenty-nine rounds. Ray, the team marksman, carried only four rifle magazines, but had two hundred rounds of .300 Win Mag for his Mk 13 sniper rifle. Ray carried the Mk 13 while a shorter-barreled rifle, or SBR, was cinched tightly across his back.

  The rest of the SEALs had on average seven fully loaded magazines, having fired very few rounds before Rip ended their conflict with the guys who’d killed Dale and Ty. Each team member had all their pistol ammo, while Rip and another SEAL named Vic carried the team’s M203 count. They had exactly eleven rounds apiece after reorganizing their ammo between the two after Rip had expended a single grenade on the Humvee on the bridge. Lastly, a SEAL named Billy, but who affectionately went by the moniker Goat, carried the team’s squad automatic weapon along with most of its ammunition.

  Goat carried the Navy Special Warfare’s Mk 48 machine gun. The weapon was belt fed, chambered in 7.62 x 51 mm NATO, and fired from the open-bolt position. Goat carried the weapon loaded with a hundred-round drum, or bag as many called it. This drum housed the belted ammunition, making it easier than having the ammunition swinging beneath the weapon during a scrape. In Goat’s pack were three additional drums of ammunition. The rest of the team each carried one single drum for Goat’s weapon. No one complained about the added weight because they all knew when things got really bad, Goat’s machine gun would be voted most likely to save all their asses. When Dale and Ty were killed, John had taken both men’s ammunition for Goat’s weapon and was feeling it now as his shoulders screamed for relief.

  After passing under Highway 5, the team found they were greeted with more open ground. There was a large open field, bordered by roads on all four sides, they were forced to cross before they would be rewarded with the sanctuary of the neighborhood. Matt guided the group directly down the middle of the field. His thought process was the soldiers searching for them were using vehicles, and therefore they would be using the roads. If Matt and his men were in the middle of a field, the vehicle would always be half the distance of the field away if they were contacted.

  It boiled down to time and distance at this point, and Matt found this his only friend in a very friendless world wasn’t that great of a friend at all. The only sound in the night’s air now was the rustling of the men’s uniforms as they trotted across the open, but surprisingly uneven ground of the field. Matt knew if one of his SEALs twisted an ankle, no one would be the wiser. No man in this group would admit to any injury unless it were life threatening at this point. Pride was alive and well not only in the Special Missions Unit, but in the SEAL teams as well.

  Combat had a way of damaging the men who participated in it. A warfighter could be shot, blown up, or otherwise injured by those he competed against on the battlefield, and if that warfighter were lucky enough to survive the combat aspect of life, there were always what Matt called the sports injuries. Men routinely tore muscles, ripped ligaments, and broke bones both during Naval sanctioned training as well as training the men did on their own to stay fit. The men who escaped with their bodies intact often found their minds damaged after years of fighting in foreign lands for wealthy men and women back home who neither understood nor cared about the toll their orders took on the young men and women of America.

  Matt internally slapped himself in the face for even contemplating injury in the middle of a very serious situation. It was not the SEAL way to dwell on the fact one could be killed at any time doing what they did for a living. As is the case in combat, Matt’s mind cleared when the deep diesel sound of a Humvee resonated across the quiet night air. Every man looked in the direction of the sound, but no one changed a thing they were doing. They had nowhere to go but forward toward the sanctuary of the neighborhood.

  Every man in the group was thinking the same thing as they jogged doggedly across the rough surface of the field. If they were contacted, each man knew his job and would perform until he was either out of harm’s way or lay dead in this Northern California field. Matt’s mind wandered as he thought about dying right here in California instead of some shithole country thousands of miles from America. Life was strange in that Matt always felt it would have been a horrible thing to die lying facedown in a foreign land, thousands of miles from his homeland, but now faced with the same possibility right here at home, the concept seemed somehow worse.

  As Matt jogged along, John caught up to him.

  “Bro, we need to step this shit up. Can your boys hang if we pick it up?” John asked breathlessly.

  Matt nodded, then gestured with his chin for John to take the lead, which he did. At first the string of SEALs looked like your typical bootcamp slinky formation. John took off at run, which caused gaps in the line of SEALs as they struggled to match John’s pace. Everything John did in the Special Missions Unit had been done at incredible speeds. Not allowing an enemy time to react had won John and his mates many battles, which were all predicated on speed and violence of action.

  Like most times Matt ran or participated in long grueling marches, he focused on the man in front of him. This wasn’t easy since the new addition to their group seemed to be at least part jackrabbit. Usually Matt would be close to the man in front of him and just watch the back of the man’s feet and lower legs in an effort to take his mind off his own pain. It took a few seconds, but Matt closed the distance John’s initial uptick in pace had created.

  Suddenly Matt realized he’d better be at the back of this little running formation, making sure they didn’t lose anyone. Goat was weighted down pretty good with the MK48 and all its ammunition, which suddenly worried Matt. Matt needed to make sure they didn’t have anyone fall back and lose contact in the darkness. Matt stepped out, slowed his pace, and waited for the men to pass while taking a mental head count as each man flew past him. Denver was at the rear, which eased some of the pressure Matt was feeling. It was good to serve with men who were great at what they did, and Denver was one of those guys. He was already policing the rear of the group, making sure no man was left behind.

  The problem with men like ones found in most all special warfare units is they are such prideful men they remain silent in times of hardship. This was what worried Matt. If a man began to break down and was no longer able to keep up with the group, Matt knew the man would view his weakness as a threat to the team. Matt feared anyone struggling would quietly fall back to deal with his inadequacies on his own, almost as a way to punish himself for not preparing for the moment better.

  Written on the wall of Matt’s team room was a quote made by Winston Churchill which read, “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and
fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

  Matt had read the quote when he first arrived at the teams, and it resonated with him in a way he couldn’t describe. Matt knew every SEAL in this tattered line of men save John had read the quote, and he wondered how many were thinking about its meaning at this very moment. Matt was well aware of every man in the team’s strengths and weaknesses. What he could never know until a time like now was each man’s breaking point. If a SEAL hit that breaking point during BUD/S, they rang the bell and were shown the door.

  Everyone had a breaking point, Matt wasn’t naïve enough to think they were all invincible, but the question was—where was each man’s stopping point? Matt hoped he didn’t see anyone reach their limit tonight as he turned and smacked Denver on the shoulder before racing back toward the front of the line. Matt hoped seeing him doing what a leader should be doing would help motivate the team.

  The rumbling Humvee drew closer until it was racing up the road to the east, approaching the line of SEALs from the rear. The Humvee slowed, then came to a stop as a spotlight came to life, stabbing into the darkness. The light raked the field to Matt’s rear, then flashed out to the west before coming back toward the still-racing line of SEALs. Without hesitation, John changed course, heading to the west in an effort to both create a surplus of distance between themselves and the soldiers in the Humvee while getting closer to the western edge of the field, where he and the SEALs could slip into the neighborhood and disappear.

  The light flitted across Denver and the two SEALs closest to him, went another twenty feet, then halted. Whoever was operating the light had seen something and dragged the beam back across the field, catching the back of the line of men running for their lives. When the Humvee’s machine gun roared to life and the snap of bullets crackled around the fleeing men’s heads, they all knew the drill. To continue to run gave the enemy the advantage of working in a relatively safe environment.

  Accurate return fire would take care of that. People always turned out higher quality work products when the venue was safe and comfortable. On the contrary, work productivity fell off steeply when one’s surroundings became hostile and a worker feared for their very life. John was the first to drop onto his belly and fire several well-aimed shots at the light.

  “Goat, get that fucking gun going,” Matt hollered over the snap of incoming rounds.

  A second later, John’s suppressive fire was joined by Goat’s thundering crew-served weapon. John scrambled to his feet and ran thirty yards in the direction they’d been headed before falling to his stomach and engaging the Humvee once again. The move had many names, like tactical retreat or center peel; either way the SEALs spread out and laid down fire in the direction of the Humvee. When a man was finished, he would get up, turn, and run through the center of the men on the ground. It was a lethal game of leapfrog as the men running were being covered by the men firing, bullets ripping past their heads in both directions.

  Matt and his SEALs had practiced this drill more times than any of them could remember, but had never been forced to use it in a real-life operation. At one point one of the SEALs either shot the light out or the soldiers using it realized they were being targeted because of the light, and it went out. The heavy machine gun atop the vehicle, however, did not go out. Thankfully with the reduced visibility that followed the light’s disappearance, the incoming fire was far less accurate.

  As Matt made his leapfrogging movement back, he found John holding the team in place.

  “Okay, bro, let’s run some more,” was all John said.

  When the battle started, the Humvee had remained stationary while the SEALs along with John performed four or five leapfrogs past one another, putting an additional 150 yards between themselves and the troublesome Humvee. With the lights out and darkness acting as a thin, but welcome security blanket, John was on the move again, with all the SEALs in trail. Even in the black of night, John was beginning to be able to see the outline of the neighborhood’s eastern border.

  The neighborhood was surrounded by a six-foot wall made of stamped concrete made in the pattern of palm trees. Matt followed and could also make out the wall and tops of houses not more than fifty yards to their front. The Humvee came to life behind them, and Matt heard the rending sound of the vehicle plowing through what he imagined was a fence separating the Humvee on the road from the field. Again, the light stabbed into the night, only this time it flashed about for only a few seconds before the operator wisely extinguished it.

  Damn, thought Matt, these pesky weekend warriors are learning to adapt. This didn’t bode well for the team, but still Matt felt confident if they could reach the neighborhood, the SEALs would gain a weighty advantage. Just as Matt thought they might make the wall and be home free, the team ran into a chain-link fence separating the field from a small easement before the wall.

  Matt watched as John never broke stride, reaching the fence and vaulting easily over its top. On the other side Matt saw John descend into a slight depression, probably a drainage ditch dividing the field from the neighborhood as well as providing a barrier for the homes against any flooding the field might incur during the winter months. One by one the SEALs followed John over the obstacle until they were all headed toward the concrete wall. The light from the Humvee failed to reacquire the SEALs during its intermittent lit sessions, but rounds continued to fly across the field’s surface.

  Fortunately, the soldiers had lost their quarry and were more hoping to get lucky than anything else. Matt realized this and was about to admonish the team to hold any return fire, but realized no one was firing and were most likely thinking the same thing he was. Matt was reminded of his love of working with professionals and hoped after they made it out of this mess, they could all just sit down and have a few beers, at which time he would express this to his team.

  Chapter 27

  When the team reached the wall, John leaned into Matt. “Can you get that big gun on top of the wall to provide cover until all the team is over?”

  In answer Matt turned, calling out, “Goat, Rip, Ray, grab a partner, get over this wall, and set up an overwatch while the rest of us follow.”

  Six SEALs scaled the wall, dropping to the ground on the far side. Three of the men got down on their hands and knees while Rip, Ray and Goat stood on their backs in order to see over the top of the wall. Now the team had a crew-served machine gun, an M203, and a sniper covering the remaining six team members as they began tossing gear over the cement barrier.

  When the light shone bright again, it was close off to their right and sweeping quickly along the wall. A split second before the light enveloped the men on the wall, Goat pulled his trigger. The Mk 48 roared to life in short three-to-five-round bursts that the men immediately heard impact the Humvee’s hardened surfaces. The light was quickly snuffed out as the SEALs heard the vehicle’s engine rev and grow louder as it closed on their position.

  At fifty yards Rip could see the outline of the vehicle as it bumped over the uneven ground. He already had a round in the underslung M203 launcher and brought the weapon to bear on the advancing metal beast. The gun on the Humvee flashed as its gunner let loose a volley of belt-fed machine-gun fire. The bullets impacting the concrete wall was unnerving to anyone close enough to feel the impacts’ violent vibrations. No one out for tonight’s festivities had any doubt that if they were hit, it was almost assuredly a death sentence. Matt realized the Humvee they were currently entangled with was not the same one that killed Dale and Ty. This Humvee was not outfitted with a .50-caliber machine gun, but instead sported a mounted 7.62 x 51 mm weapon much like Goat’s own weapon.

  Thwomp went Rip’s weapon as he launched the round in the direction of the deadly Humvee. The round impacted the vehicle’s hood, whitening the windscreen with the impact of thousands of burning shrapnel splinters. Goat continued hammering the vehicle with his machine g
un as it swerved to the north, engine revving like never before. The vehicle’s deadly machine gun went silent after Rip’s little friend tore up the hood and windscreen, but Matt was sure it would be coaxed back into the fight as soon as Carnegie made contact with its occupants.

  The last of the SEALs cleared the wall while the Humvee’s gunner was either changing his soiled britches or attempting to psych himself up for another go at the Navy’s elite commandos. It didn’t matter to Matt why the gun was off-line as long as he and his people weren’t being shot at. They used this time to move at a sprint, led by John, into the neighborhood.

  John and the SEALs cut through several yards, hopping fences and cautiously crossing suburban streets until they came upon a smallish park. Like most parks at night, this one was dark, the play structures looking more ominous than inviting. The little park was bordered on the south side by a great many trees that John used to mask the team’s movement through an otherwise open area. Before John led the team any further, he stopped and searched for Matt. Spotting the breathless SEAL, John waved him over.

  “Let’s take a look at the map. Make sure we don’t get ourselves boxed in. Figure out how we are going to get out of here and into the mountains.”

  Matt dropped to a knee, rummaging through a pocket and retrieving the map. Matt dropped the map to the ground and spread the navigational guide out at their feet. John’s eyes drank in the details of the map, trying to commit as much to memory as he could. There were other rivers attached and intermingled with the San Joaquin River, and these John studied with the most interest. In his mind Carnegie had outplayed them in the first round of the cat-and-mouse affair, but John planned on putting a stop to that. Do the unexpected and turn that into an advantage, John thought.