Now here he sat, a changed man in so many ways his own father would have a tough time wrapping his head around who Jared had been able to evolve into in the name of survival. His mother and her softer touch would recognize the old Jared through his eyes. A man’s eyes told the world a lot about who he was and what he’d done in his life. Jared wondered if his mother would see his eyes and be ashamed of the man her son had become. Jared knew he would feel no compulsion to explain things to his father, but his mother was a different story altogether. Emotion welled in his throat as he thought of his parents. Before he could think the worst, he pushed the thoughts from his mind and refocused on the present.
While Jared refocused, any noise from the military or whoever was out in the night ceased, leaving the dark night along with the barn’s denizens at peace. Jared listened as the members of his group murmured softly for a few moments before settling back into fitful slumber. The cold was beginning to take its toll on Jared as time marched through the earliest hours of the morning. Finally, Jared could take the chill no longer and crawled over to his sleeping bag, dragging it back to the opening. He unzipped the bag to its halfway point and slid his legs inside. He pulled the rest of the fabric up his back and over his shoulders before pulling the material closed across his chest. His rifle, he pushed down the side of his right leg so it was readily available should the need rear its head.
Jared’s head hurt from the NVG skull mount, as John called it. The system required Jared wear it fairly tightly in order to keep the NVG in a position to fall directly in front of his eyes when he pulled them into place. The pressure over time gave him a headache, so he detached the headset and laid the goggles on top of his sleeping-bag-clad legs. Jared folded the skull mount into his pack and went back to doing nothing other than wishing he had an ibuprofen for his head.
Before the solar flare, Jared could have counted on a single hand how many sunrises he’d witnessed in his life. Since then, he couldn’t even make an educated guess on the vast number he’d sat freezing through. As usual, Jared marveled at how much colder it got right before the sun rose in the east. One second Jared couldn’t see a thing below him, and then as if magically, the little property was lit by the first scouting rays of a sun gone, but returning to lay claim to the previous day stolen by night. The arrival of the sun’s scouting party left Jared with no need for the goggles, which lay in his lap.
Jared stiffly pulled his pack over and fished about inside for the NVG’s case as he stared out across the tops of the neighboring buildings. Once the NVG were safely back in his pack, Jared pulled the sleeping bag tighter around his quivering shoulders. He knew the sleeping bag at the very least blocked much of the wind, but he remained quite cold, barely able to feel his feet.
Jared was thinking about grabbing an hour of sleep when an alarmingly close explosion crashed into Jared’s ears, causing him to drop the sleeping bag off his shoulders and bring his rifle to bear. The rest of the group was awake as well and getting out of sleeping bags as they looked to Jared for an answer since he’d been on watch.
It was a single crunching explosion, which almost sounded as if it were partially muted in some way. Before the blast, Jared was beginning to relax, but now he sat fully awake and completely outside the sleeping bag, having extracted himself an instant after the explosion. Jared had never spent time on a rifle range much less a demolition range, so he had no measuring stick for distance in relationship to explosive sounds. This, however, didn’t stop him from internally labeling the explosion really fucking close.
Shannon crawled up to Jared’s side, peering over his shoulder out into the dimly lit morning. “What do you think is going on out there?” she asked in a husky voice that told Jared she hadn’t been ready to wake up yet.
Jared searched across the tops of the orchards, seeing nothing but treetops. “I haven’t the foggiest,” he replied distantly.
Shannon tugged his shoulder. “Should we get going? I mean, that sounded really close, Jared,” Shannon urged as if Jared wasn’t taking the whole thing seriously enough.
Jared looked up at Shannon’s pretty face and saw the worry. “They’ve been moving around all night, fighting. I don’t know where they’ll be next, so staying put might be the best bet. Plus, this land is all flat, and if we get caught out in the open and they have vehicles, we’re finished.”
“So we just sit here and hope no one comes by?” Shannon continued in a tone telling Jared she wasn’t all that comfortable with inaction, but also didn’t have a better plan.
Jared thought about their situation and realized he’d been extremely shortsighted by bringing everyone out here. His half-baked plan to rescue his friend had been predicated on fantasy more than reality. Now that they were in the area, Jared realized how exposed they would be, not to mention he and Devon were but two against a base full of an unknown number of men and women who were trained to engage in wartime operations.
“I think if we go out blindly wandering around, we have a far higher chance of running into trouble. We sit here, and maybe they pass right by,” Jared said in a tone lacking the hopefulness of his statement. Jared drew a deep breath, exhaled, and allowed his shoulders to droop. “I don’t know, Shannon. I’m starting to think coming out here was honorable, but stupid,” Jared stated defeatedly.
Shannon didn’t bother responding as the two sat, her leaning on his left shoulder, staring into an abyss of unknowns. After a short time of sitting, gazing out across the land, another explosion rocked the damp air, causing Shannon to start grabbing Jared’s bicep so hard it pained him. This most recent disturbance seemed in the same general direction and distance as the last, and both Shannon and Jared waited for gunfire that never came. What they heard instead was the sound of a Humvee engine in the distance to the south. The explosions emanated from the north, causing Jared to further be confused about just what was going on out in the flat countryside around their little sanctuary.
Nothing followed the explosion except the sound of the Humvee, which now sounded as if it were simply keeping its distance while remaining in the area. The vehicle would fall silent; then Jared would hear its engine revving in the distance as if it was looking for the action, but unwilling to leave the safety of the paved roads. Jared was pretty sure there were no paved roads within the immediate vicinity of the barn, which gave him some solace.
An hour later, the Humvee sounded as if it was on the opposite side of the river and moving north toward Jared and company. Jared wasn’t too worried about this new development. Based on the map he carried, he could see there were no crossing points anywhere near his location. The Humvee could stop across the river and be less than three hundred yards from where Jared sat and have no way of reaching him unless the soldiers disembarked and swam the river. Jared doubted anyone would be inclined to slip into the icy waters of the river anytime soon.
Movement on the northern edge of the property caught Jared’s eye, causing an instantaneous tightening in his gut as fear grabbed him in a bear hug threatening to render him immobile. The fear Jared felt derived more from what could happen to the group collectively than what might befall him personally. He knew to see Essie killed, injured, or otherwise molested in any manner would destabilize his mental fitness.
Jared plunged further into a state of near panic as he identified the source of movement. There were three men dressed in tactical gear moving cautiously out of the orchard toward the outbuilding nearest the far side of the property. The men moved like John, which further pummeled Jared’s self-confidence. Two more men appeared from the orchard, fanning out and heading for a second building just as three additional men swept out of the orchard, heading straight for the house. Watching the men work the property was like sitting in box seats at the ballet, their movements coordinated and graceful if not in a dangerous way.
Jared marveled as the groups moved as one, feeding off each other’s movements. A silent deadly choreography was playing out below Jared as he sat motionless
, frozen in a state of ineffectual inaction. He was so stunned by the sudden appearance of these unwelcome guests he’d failed to warn the others. Without moving his head, Jared swiveled his eyes and saw Shannon had moved off to lie next to Essie while Devon and Stephani were still wrapped tightly in their sleeping bags.
Jared swallowed hard, trying to think of a way to alert them without moving or making a sound. He was pretty much visible to anyone who took a good hard look at the opening in the loft, so Jared was hesitant to make any movements with the men below him so close. The three men at the house entered and within seconds were back outside, making their way toward the barn while Jared continued his state of paralysis. The men completed clearing all the buildings except the barn and two others farther east from the barn, and still, Jared remained statue-like.
Jared now counted ten men moving toward the barn and the other two buildings.
“Contact, top of the barn,” came a booming voice from below Jared.
If Jared could have frozen more, he would have, but the truth was he hadn’t moved a muscle since first seeing the body of men sweep onto the property and begin securing the buildings.
“Don’t touch your rifle, man,” the voice continued. It was Matt, and he’d spotted a man perched on high ground overlooking his team’s movements. The fact Jared hadn’t fired at the men went a long way in Matt showing restraint upon seeing an armed dude above his team after the night the SEALs just had.
“We have women and children up here. Don’t shoot,” Jared pleaded in desperation. He had but one card to play, and it was a cry for mercy, which he held little hope of getting.
The attention of every man on the ground instantly diverted from clearing the remaining buildings and was directed toward the barn. “How many are you?” Matt asked, keeping his weapon trained on Jared.
“Five,” Jared hollered down.
Matt was positioned at the edge of a piece of farming equipment, which provided him great cover as he kept Jared nicely in his sights.
Jared peered down and found the man calling out to him was also pointing a rifle at him. Several other men moved past the shot caller and circled the barn as if heading to the rear of the structure. One of the men was dressed slightly different than the others, and something about the man sparked a sense of familiarity in Jared’s brain. As the man crossed an open area, his face was turned up toward Jared, as was his rifle.
“John,” Jared shouted, almost breaking into tears of relief at seeing his friend’s face below amidst a sea of unfriendly faces.
John stopped dead in his tracks, squinting up at the loft. “Jared?” came his quizzical response.
Jared raised both hands and stood on trembling legs in the center of the opening. “John, it’s Jared—Shannon, Steph and Essie are here too. Even Devon came. We were coming to get you out,” Jared finished as John lowered his rifle as a smile crept across his face.
“Well, get down here, bro,” was all John could think to say. “Stand down, boys. These are friends,” John admonished the SEALs.
Chapter 30
Carnegie was visibly in control while internally he seriously contemplated shooting his driver in an effort to make himself feel better. Instead he called to the impotent teams in the field who were on foot and ordered them to a pickup location. Carnegie was sickened by the pusillanimous spirit of the men and women masquerading as soldiers under his command. The people Carnegie was used to working with were bred and born to run toward the sound of gunfire, perform herculin tasks under the worst of conditions, including dying if need be, but these people were a far cry from those warriors. As much as he didn’t want to, Carnegie ordered his driver to head toward the burning Humvee.
When they arrived, the area around the vehicle was littered with his wounded soldiers. There was only room for a couple more soldiers aboard Carnegie’s Humvee, so they loaded the man with the tourniquets and one other before leaving the remaining soldiers with the promise someone would return. Carnegie had seen a whipped unit in the past and attended plenty of after-action briefings put on by units that lost badly in battle, but he’d never personally experienced it until now.
Colonel Carnegie did not like losing at anything, especially his chosen trade. The wounded man’s cries as they bounced over uneven ground should have evoked some level of sympathy or at the very least concern on Carnegie’s part—it did neither. Carnegie fought to control his anger as the Humvee cleared the dirt road and accelerated onto a paved and much smoother surface, which quieted the man, much to Carnegie’s driver’s relief. The woman could sense a dark forbidding presence in the colonel, and it seemed to darken with each of the wounded soldier’s cries of pain. Now that the man moaned softly, she could sense the darkness in Carnegie dissipate slightly, but not entirely.
The military man inside Carnegie stayed his hand from lashing out at the men and women serving under him while trying to find a sliver of consolation in reminding himself of all the men in the past who endured impossible circumstances and how they overcame. A machine gunner in some faraway land had been unlucky enough to have his weapon disabled by a mortar, forcing the man to fight hand-to-hand against a superior-numbered enemy using only his E-Tool, which was a small military-issued shovel. It was the stories of Medal of Honor winners that calmed the tiger trying to claw its way out. Carnegie realized he was in an impossible position and would need to rise to the occasion using the inept soldiers at his disposal, which in his mind amounted to little more than the E-Tool the machine gunner used.
Carnegie snorted, thinking not a single troop under his command was worth even a good conduct ribbon let alone a medal validating some act of valor on their part. Carnegie knew all too well that men who won medals in combat were not just brave fearless souls, but also men and women who were decision makers. People who could make difficult decisions under the worst of conditions, like Josh and that son of a bitch Buckley.
Carnegie would prevail and he would be hailed a hero for doing so, he told himself. No one who ever met Colonel Leroy Carnegie would have described the man as someone who sought recognition for his actions. Nor would any one of these people have likened Carnegie to a narcissist or an individualist, but then again, psychopaths were meticulous in their arrangement of manipulative behaviors that benefited them while concealing their real ugliness.
Diagnosed psychopaths were usually found out only after they’d woven such a complexed web of lies and deceit that the weight of their fraudulence was more than the web’s thin strands could bear and it all came crashing down. Right now, Carnegie’s strands were strained to their limits, and he knew he was close to losing control of everything. He also knew if he was left on his own by way of mass desertion on the part of his soldiers, it would probably mean death or a much more difficult life for him.
It was these self-serving thoughts that stopped Carnegie from having the Humvee stopped and throwing the moaning tourniquet soldier out onto the wet pavement, removing his tourniquets, and driving away. For the first time in his life, Carnegie felt it difficult not to explode in violent fashion. He’d fed that beast in the past by yelling, belittling people, and on a few occasions throwing furniture, but never had he killed or injured a serviceman or woman under his command.
Carnegie stared out the window at the passing landscape and wished he had a hundred Joshes and zero of these weekend warriors. He wished he had all three Black Hawks and ten more Humvees. Fuck, Carnegie thought, he was that guy in a fighting hole thousands of miles from home, holding an E-tool on an advancing enemy. As a younger man, Carnegie would have embraced this challenge, but now more than a half century into life, the colonel was enraged at how his efforts were not generating the rewards he’d hoped for.
When Carnegie’s Humvee pulled onto the base, Josh was waiting outside the hangar for him. Carnegie stepped out of the still-moving Humvee and marched past Josh without acknowledging the man. Josh noticed what he thought was a slight tic in the colonel’s left upper lip as he strode by. Josh
shrugged to himself and followed the colonel into his office. Inside, Carnegie stood for a moment with his back to Josh before he turned slowly and dropped into his chair.
“Is it remotely possible to train any of these fucking maladroit idiots to a level close to what you’re at?” Carnegie snarled, enunciating each word very carefully, including the word maladroit, which Josh had never heard, but assumed its meaning based on the context Carnegie used it in.
“No.” Josh snorted. “No fucking way, Colonel. These guys don’t have it up here,” Josh said, pointing to his head. “They joined up to do this shit on the weekend for about two reasons. Either college or to get out of some shitty little town they were raised in. None of them have the mental toughness.”
“I need better troops, and you are going to make that happen. They don’t have to be the best in the world, but they also can’t be the equivalent to a bunch of shotgun-toting rednecks in a Ford pickup truck.”
“We need ammunition to do that, Colonel.”
“And we will get ammunition, but first I need you back in the field. We have two missing Humvees that may or may not be operational. If those Goddamn SEALs destroyed them, then whatever. If they are still drivable, I want them back here in our control and not being driven around the state by a bunch of deserters.”
Carnegie leaned back, realizing his entire plan for the future needed a makeover. Now was the time, Carnegie thought, now, in the privacy of his office, was the perfect time to release it all the best he could. Carnegie got to his feet, grabbed a chair from the corner, and smashed it into the wall with all the strength he could muster. The chair impacted less than two feet from Josh’s head, but Josh never so much as flinched.
Carnegie fell back into his chair, feeling only marginally better, his chest heaving after the exertion. He could have brained Josh right there, having come dangerously close to involving the man in his tantrum, yet Josh remained outwardly unfazed. Carnegie loved guys like Josh, not the brother-type love. He was incapable of those intimate emotions toward another human. No, Carnegie loved Josh because Josh was a useful tool, like a carpenter loves a good hammer.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 29