John felt the team’s options were running low as a new day approached. In the light the team would be in danger of being spotted, and if this happened, Carnegie could maneuver the other Humvees with great speed to the team’s position. Once Carnegie boxed the SEALs in, he would wear them down to a point he could have his soldiers overrun the SEALs’ position. If this happened, it would be a bloodbath John wanted no part in.
One could not easily slip away in broad daylight on terrain as flat as a bread board, John thought as he realized the map showed the river curling up north and around the large suburban neighborhood they were all passing through.
If the team continued straight through the neighborhood, they could pick the river up on the west side. As much as John hated to admit it, the river was their best option considering the lack of earthly obstacles available to place between themselves and Carnegie’s search teams.
John traced his finger straight across the map toward the western boundary of the neighborhood, then tapped the thin blue line on the map that represented the river. “Hate to say it, but the river is going to be our best bet.” John sighed.
Matt nodded, still staring at the map as if it might at any moment reveal an alternate and decisively better route to him. The sound of more than one Humvee engine caused Matt to stuff the map back in his pocket and give John a jerk of his chin, telling John to take the lead for right now. Wordlessly John got to his feet and began picking his way through the sprawling cluster of middle-income homes. The homes and yards appeared as though they’d all been cloned. The houses were basically all two-story gable-roofed homes complete with two-car garages, while every backyard was host to a few kids’ toys, a barbeque, and some lawn furniture.
John remembered there was a high school on the eastern edge of the neighborhood and made sure he steered clear of this educational institution, which would be wide open and offer little in the way of concealment. As John led the SEALs through yards and over fences, they could hear the Humvees racing around the surrounding streets. The soldiers were inside the neighborhood now. The soldiers were obviously being vectored in on the residential neighborhood after the short and violent contact with the SEALs in the field. Carnegie would be trying to cover all avenues of egress from the neighborhood with the limited personnel he had at his disposal.
Rip had sworn he’d hit the soldier in the turret after Dale and Ty went down, and John hoped Rip was right. So far, the soldiers were acting like every other poorly trained military unit John had ever exchanged unfriendliness with, and he was thankful for their battlefield incompetence. The death of a comrade in arms usually scared the living hell out of the untrained soldier, while it lent resolve to the professional warfighters. John mentally willed the former to be the case here tonight. He wasn’t a superstitious man, but any help he could bring himself and the SEALs, he’d gladly take.
The soldiers were all gung-ho as long as the bullets were heading downrange. The moment return fire was introduced, things usually seemed to fall apart for Carnegie’s boys and girls. Add a casualty to the mix and the proverbial wheels would leave the war machine. The problem was John and the SEALs were badly outnumbered, lacked proper transportation, and were living on a fixed income of ammunition. Maybe if they got lucky, they could destroy one of the Humvees and loot the vehicle for ammunition, but John wasn’t going to count on any maybes as he mentally tallied his own ammo count.
John moved the team in the general direction of the river on the far side, but now and again he deviated in order to move away from the sounds of a Humvee. John figured Carnegie had ordered at least two of his vehicle-borne assets into the residential area, if not all three of them. If he was only hearing two Humvees, John told himself they’d better be careful not to walk into a third and static vehicle with its heavy machine gun.
Matt caught up to John as he was about to move the team across a street and into the yards. “Hold up, man,” Matt hissed.
John turned and gave Matt a what’s up look.
Matt and Denver crouched next to John. “Hey, we need a diversion before we try for the river,” Matt suggested.
John’s mind raced. “Like what?” he wondered out loud. This thought had already visited John’s tactical mind, bounced around inside for a while, and was dismissed based on John not being able to come up with a viable way to distract their pursuers. If things like the utilities had all been working, John could have caused a gas explosion without much effort, but that wasn’t the case.
As if to answer John’s question, Denver held up two handfuls of C-4 plastic explosives. “We can set this stuff to blow in an hour. That should give us enough time to make the river, right?” Denver offered.
John’s face broke into a wide grin. “Why didn’t you fellas tell me it was that kind of party?”
They hadn’t gone more than a few blocks into the neighborhood when Matt and Denver brought up the idea of creating the diversion. This, in John’s opinion, was the best-case scenario since the diversion would be on the opposite side of the development from the SEALs when it blew. After showing John the C-4, Denver rushed off to place the explosive and equip it with a time-delay fuse, which meant thy needed to step up their pace yet remain unseen, or the diversion would be for naught.
Denver was back within two minutes, and the team moved out again. John and Rip led the group, working well together. John watched the younger SEAL move alongside him and was impressed with the SEAL’s focus and initiative. Not once did John feel like he wasn’t working with an absolute professional. John was also impressed with Matt’s leadership as well. The man could have felt intimidated by John’s input, but he seemed to be fully accepting of John’s guidance and involvement in the team’s movements. These were a bunch of good guys in a shitty situation, thought John. Hell, every failed military operation involved a bunch of good dudes trying their best to overcome insurmountable odds, just like he and the SEALs were doing tonight.
John glanced at his watch, 12:45 a.m. Five, maybe six hours before their security blanket of darkness was foreclosed on. When John increased the team’s pace, no one complained, and Rip stayed at John’s side, moving like an apparition through an inky side yard and into a rear yard before slithering over a fence like a great cat.
At what John guessed was the halfway mark of their journey, the team came upon another cement wall. Peering over, John could see a giant utility easement complete with a bike trail running through its center. The easement was easily a hundred yards across and offered a goose egg in the way of cover or concealment. Matt sidled up next to John, studying the easement lying in their path.
“Shit, that sucks,” Matt whispered.
“No more than two minutes here, and we cross in pairs,” John replied.
After the allotted two minutes of searching for any sign the soldiers were watching the easement, both John and Matt were satisfied they were safe to cross the easement. The sounds of the Humvees had disappeared, which should have been reassuring, but caused the opposite effect. The roar of their diesel engines definitely wasn’t therapeutic for the SEALs, but not knowing where a lethal threat was turned out to be far worse on the men’s nerves.
Two at a time, the men raced across the hundred yards of open area until the entire team was on the western side. John and Denver were the last to cross, and as they reached the cement wall on the opposite side, most of the SEALs were already over and set up in security positions. Once John and Denver joined Matt and the rest of the SEALs, Matt assumed the lead while John fell in with the rest of the team. This transition was done wordlessly and without complaint from John, who knew true special operations men had to be fluid, able to lead one moment and take orders the next.
The team made good time with Matt at the helm, and John was beginning to think they might make it out to the river without incident when Matt recoiled right as he was about to step out to cross a street. The line of SEALs behind him came together like a giant sweaty and exhausted compressed snake. Before John
could make his way to Matt, the calm of the night was shattered by a cacophony of rifle fire in the distance.
“Come on,” John muttered under his breath as he pushed past Denver to where Matt crouched near the rear of the residence. “When it rains, it pours, bro.” John laughed softly.
“No shit,” Matt croaked as he pulled his bite valve to his lips for a much-needed drink. After wetting his mouth, Matt gestured back the way they’d come and the way the latest gunfire sounded from. “What the hell was that all about?”
John shrugged. “They’re probably shooting at shadows. Why’d you stop?” he countered.
“Humvee down the street, all blacked out, just sitting. Motor ain’t even running,” Matt answered with a shake of his head.
“They’re learning.” John grimaced. “Let’s help ’em along.”
John asked that Ray take his Mk 13 and set up on the Humvee so he had a clear shot of the turret, which at the present time was wisely unoccupied. Next Rip and a SEAL named Connor moved laterally through the yards until they were positioned at the back side of the Humvee. The plan was for Rip and Connor to harass the vehicle with small-arms fire only, no lobbing grenades or anything crazy, John warned. John thought they could deal with the soldiers in the Humvee without wasting valuable M203 rounds and only expending five or ten rounds from the SEALs’ M4 rifles. Additionally, there was no need to waste the batteries on their radios, so the radios remained in the off position for the time being, with everyone in the group knowing full well the radios would soon be useless and have to be discarded when the batteries failed.
When Rip and Connor let loose on the soldiers, there was no doubt the rest of the SEALs would hear the skirmish. John expected that when the ineffectual small-arms fire pitter-pattered the outside of the vehicle’s armor, the gunner would pop out of the turret and attempt to engage the source of the harassment. John wanted the soldiers to perceive the SEALs’ attack as weak and pathetic, thus empowering the soldiers to man the gun in the turret. If John’s plan worked, it would draw the snake from its hole so Ray could cut the head off—literally.
John didn’t have long to wait as the night air shook with Rip and Connor’s sudden shots. John was staring at the Humvee in the distance and could see the sparks dancing off the Humvee as the SEALs’ bullets bounced harmlessly off the vehicle’s skin. Although John’s and Rip’s positions weren’t at opposite ends of the compass, John flattened himself on the ground, not wanting to be struck by a stray ricochet and have to deal with an injury right in the middle of fighting for his life. As if in slow motion, John saw the doomed turret gunner’s head appear from below. The man rose from the interior of the vehicle, grabbing hold of the limp weapon hanging from its mount, but before the young soldier had a chance to make the weapon operational, his body convulsed. John saw the man flop to one side in the manner a human body only does when every ounce of its living spirit has been removed.
The soldier had not buckled his helmet, which rolled off his head, exposing a shock of blond hair that shone through in the darkness momentarily before the man’s head was bathed in the darker color of his life fluids. For the first time in John’s military career, the killing of an enemy combatant sickened him nearly to the point of vomiting. The man in the turret had done the same thing John did as a teen, joined America’s military in order to serve or give back to a country that offered so much more than the rest of the world.
The American-on-American violence had been taking a toll on John, he knew this, but now he was reaching a point where he wasn’t sure how much longer he could suppress the sickening feeling and continue doing what he’d been doing to survive. The fighting had to stop. People needed to come together and work to build something. John wasn’t thinking anyone was going to rebuild the country to her old glorious self, but they needed to build something and do it sooner than later.
Ray’s second shot blasted John’s ears, reminding him he hadn’t even registered the kill shot on the soldier in the turret. Ray’s shot smacked the Humvee’s windscreen directly in front of the driver. John heard the Humvee’s engine roar to life, the transmission clanked, but the large armored truck didn’t move. John wondered if the panic in the vehicle was due to Ray’s second shot splashing inches from the driver’s face or the blood that hemorrhaged through the open turret like seawater from an open submarine hatch. A few of the SEALs in a position to engage the Humvee did so as the vehicle sat static in the street.
“Hold your fire,” John yelled to the SEALs.
Matt, who was lying next to John, shifted slightly, studying the Special Missions Unit man in the darkness for a moment. “Good call, man,” Matt murmured softly.
After the Humvee’s engine roared to life, the vehicle sat stationary as the bewildered soldiers inside likely wondered which way to go after being shot at from both ends of the street. After a few seconds, the driver placed the vehicle in drive and raced toward John and the rest of the SEALs.
John rolled over so he could face the SEALs around him. “They’re trying to get the hell out of here. Don’t give away our position.”
Every warfighter held their fire as the Humvee raced past them no more than five yards from where they lay in the side yard. As the vehicle passed the men and rounded a corner on throaty, screeching tires, John leaped to his feet before turning to Matt.
“Let’s get across the street. Leave someone here to receive Rip and the other kid.”
Matt nodded in agreement, then gave Denver a gesture with his chin, telling him to sit tight until the diversion team returned. In groups of two the men sprinted across the street and into the yards of the homes on the far side. When Matt reached the safety of the opposing yard, he began a quick head count before turning back toward where he’d left Denver to wait for Rip and Connor. Matt didn’t have long to wait as all three men broke from cover, sprinting across the deserted street like weaponized Olympians.
Once the team was accounted for, John moved in the lead again, with Rip close on his heels. John liked these guys, but he really liked this guy Rip and wondered what the man’s real name was. He made a mental note to ask them all what their real names were when they got out of this mess. He was pretty sure Goat wasn’t the man’s given name, as was probably true with Rip. Ray might be their sniper’s name, John didn’t know.
Wordlessly the team made its way over fence after fence along with the occasional low stone wall or wrought-iron gate. As John moved through the dead neighborhood, he smiled to himself in spite of the horrific act they’d just perpetrated on the man in the turret. Carnegie has to be an absolute maniac right now, John chuffed internally. The soldiers would be lucky if the colonel didn’t shoot one of them, in John’s estimation. The poor bastards were caught between a true rock and hard place, trying to find the SEALs and having to perform this task under the command of a madman.
John’s mind flashed a warning in giant red letters, cautioning him against feeling too badly for the men and women out there trying to kill him and his newfound Navy buddies. He could exercise restraint and compassion when it didn’t mean getting any of them killed, but until such time, the gloves were off. John’s view was the soldiers were scared, many were young, and the colonel took advantage of these things along with the lingering and as of yet unknown fact that there was no longer a military command. This meant Carnegie held no real power over the men and women, who would need to collectively come to that realization or continue following what in John’s assessment amounted to be a warlord or regional dictator. Call it what you wanted, Carnegie was an oppressive cancer looking after his own interests above all else.
John wished he could have ten minutes with the base personnel, letting them know what was really going on. He’d seen the warlords of the world, and they were all the same. They promised peace and stability, which people crave and need to make a living, but the warlords John had experienced only brought more violence and oppression in order to maintain power. They lived lavish lifestyles upon the backs
of their countrymen, and when threatened, they murdered entire villages in the name of peace and stability.
Chapter 28
Jared sat quietly just inside the opening at the front of the barn’s loft, studying the landscape through the NVG. He was grossly inexperienced with the devices, but remembered John telling him if there was even the smallest amount of light, such as gunfire, a cigarette or any instrument that emitted light, the goggles would amplify the source of light greatly. Search as he might, Jared saw nothing to indicate the presence of humans, but knew full well the explosion was all he needed to hear to know someone was out there in the darkness.
Jared didn’t see a reason to move or even keep the rest of the group up, so he’d told Stephani and Shannon to go back to bed. The women did get back in their sleeping bags, but Jared wasn’t all that sure they would be able to slip back into a peaceful sleep after being awoken by the explosion. Some time passed after Jared’s sleep had been disturbed, when he heard the rattle of a fully automatic weapon in the distance. The weapon emitted a deep baritone din that reverberated across the wet, cold flatlands of Northern California like a waterless tsunami.
The deep throaty rumble of the first weapon was immediately contrasted by smaller snappier rifle fire. Jared was not an expert, but he surmised someone with a big gun was trying to kill someone with a smaller gun, and that was about the amount of thought he put into it. Jared was learning that if it didn’t concern his immediate health and safety, he shouldn’t waste a lot of valuable time or energy on a matter. That being said, Jared remained vigilant, not wanting to be dragged into a disagreement between two complete strangers.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 26