In an act of self-preservation, he’d given up and kept mostly to himself. Devon was picked on by the school’s bullies, and that was how he’d learned to blend in to his surroundings, being present but not seen. His father hadn’t been the type to see a black eye on his son and march the lad down to the local martial arts studio, so Devon had handled his position in life by becoming invisible.
This little art form of his was paying off hugely now that the bullies were all mostly grown men with firearms, who wouldn’t blacken an eye, but instead kill you. Devon’s mind wandered back through his past as he walked. Realizing although he missed his parents, he didn’t really feel their absence was something life altering. When Devon was twelve years old, he’d overheard his parents talking about him being a mistake and how they had been stupid to have started a family before both of them reached the pinnacle of their prospective careers.
This, coupled with Devon’s parents’ constant absence from the home due to work obligations, eroded Devon’s dependence on both his mother and father. In retrospect they’d played a pivotal yet unknowing role in preparing him to survive after the solar flare. Devon did not need people, he liked John and Jared, but he’d lived most of his life keeping to himself. Consequentially, when the world died off, Devon was greatly unaffected.
The seemingly flat landscape of California’s Central Valley wasn’t quite as flat as it might appear at first glance. Devon used the gentle undulations of the terrain to his advantage as he wound his way south, using clumps of trees and shallow depressions in the earth to mask his movement. His greatest concern was being seen from anyone on the highway off to his left. Highway 5 would be a natural choke point for anyone wanting to set up an ambush, and anyone out looking for a free meal would gravitate toward the highway. Naïve and innocent folks traveling through the area were more likely to use the road rather than stumble through the surrounding fields, but not Devon. He would always choose the path less traveled.
People were smart, but they were also suffering from the past, which had offered everyone the path of least resistance in every facet of life. With all the luxuries gone, people would continue to gravitate toward an easier path, and this was where morally corrupt animals would lie in wait.
When the sun hung low in the western sky, dabbing the clouds with hints of pinks and warm oranges, Devon began looking for a place to lay his head for the night. An hour later he found what he was looking for in the form of an irrigation culvert that stretched under a service road connecting two fields, and would serve as his and Crank’s bed through the darkness of night. A ribbon of water wound its way through the bottom of the culvert, which Devon overcame by placing two pallets across the floor of the culvert, which he’d dragged from a nearby pumphouse. Devon was dressed warm enough to counter the lack of bedding, while Crank helped by curling up close to his master in his own best effort to steal as much of Devon’s body heat as possible.
In the morning, Devon woke when the entrance to the culvert turned gray in the overcast morning, which presented its depressingly bleak gloom masquerading as daylight. He didn’t move for several minutes, allowing himself to reacquire the sights, sounds and smells of his surroundings before blundering out of the culvert and possibly into trouble. He gently stroked Crank’s neck as he waited, alternating his attention from the culvert’s opening and the dog. Devon would rely on his own senses of hearing and sight, but also hoped to supplement this with Crank’s senses as well.
Dogs in the world before the solar flare had been constantly lambasted with sights, sounds and scents to the point they disregarded most of it while in public. Back home a dog was more proactive in making a fuss when something around their owner’s property was out of place. Now that people, cars and other things that made noise and smells were for the most part absent from the world, Crank remained constantly vigilant, and Devon used this to his advantage. It was as if the reduction in odor-emitting contrivances, along with their organic brethren, pushed Crank’s olfactory senses into overdrive in a futile attempt to match the heavenly intake of smells he remembered from days gone by.
Eventually, Devon got to his hands and knees, trying his best to make as little noise as possible as he crawled out of his cold, damp sleeping quarters. The low, gray, ominous clouds obscured the sun, dashing any hopes of warming his inelastic muscles caused by the biting chill in the culvert. Devon rolled his smallish shoulders as he surveyed his surroundings, ensuring he and Crank were the only living souls in the immediate vicinity. When he didn’t see or hear anything of concern, and after Crank was finished with his own inspection, Devon relaxed slightly. Crank sniffed at Devon’s pack, where the dog possessed empirical knowledge food was kept, telling Devon the dog wasn’t picking up any sign of danger wafting their way on the prevailing winds.
Devon still carried his rat bag, but had taken to hefting a backpack around as well after John suggested it. The rat bag was more of a sentimental item he didn’t want to let go of rather than a piece of truly serviceable equipment. Devon rummaged through his pack and withdrew a small can of Vienna sausage, which he opened, feeding the entire contents to Crank. It wasn’t much by yesterday’s standards, but everyone and everything were surviving on less these days.
Devon dumped the remaining items from his pack and assessed the dismal assortment that lay before him. The small pile of food and gear looked more like something a fisherman would find in the belly of a shark, rather than items a human was using to sustain his life with. With a sigh, Devon put everything back in his pack, hefted the little Ruger, and began moving south through the fields as he scanned for something he could shoot, cook, and eat.
It wasn’t long before Devon shot a rabbit, much to Crank’s delight. With no anti-pest efforts being waged on the rodent population, they’d occupied the fields, where they were decimating what was left of the crops. Unless the local predators stepped up their game, the smaller animals would soon be overpopulated. This would bring either starvation or disease, which would cull their numbers; such was the ebb and flow of mother nature.
Devon found an irrigation ditch where he could cook the animal while maintaining a water source in case the fire needed to be extinguished quickly. He kept the fire small, and within thirty minutes he was devouring the buck’s white meat. It wasn’t much, but Devon found he didn’t need much. He did, however, clean every leg bone, leaving only a tendon or two for Crank to gnaw on. Like all dogs, Crank seemed thankful, showing nothing more than a little impatience as Devon finished the rabbit before tossing the dog the scraps.
Once Devon kicked the remnants of his fire into the water, he and the little terrier continued south. Devon jogged much of the time, which didn’t put a great strain on him, mostly because of the cooler weather. He drank often and made sure Crank was showing no signs of fatigue. Devon figured he was a couple of miles ahead of Jared and the group by noon on the second day, but wanted to press harder and make it five miles by the time he reached Clarence’s homestead.
Late afternoon on the second day, Devon cut west into the hills, knowing the exit leading to the homestead would be coming up shortly. He didn’t want to take any chances using the roads and planned on entering the area from the back side of the hills surrounding Clarence’s former homestead. Just before nightfall, Devon crested the last hill and looked down on the mess formerly known as Clarence’s home. The blackened outline of the Black Hawk was still discernable in the burned-out wreckage of the living room, as were the detached main rotor blades that lay scattered about the property.
Devon found a cluster of bushes ten yards down the face of the hill in the direction of the homestead and secreted himself along with Crank inside the thick vegetation. Devon’s position afforded him an unobstructed view of the entire property, including the barn where Devon knew John hoped the Humvee would still be parked.
When it was good and dark, Devon slithered out of the bushes and moved like a shadow in a very light breeze, down the hillside toward the buildings
below. He didn’t have the Ruger held at the ready like John would have. Devon relied on stealth and not what would have been a false sense of apriorism that he could handle himself like John did. Instead the teen stuck to what he was best at, being less than an airy figuration in the darkness.
Devon did not bother with the main house, knowing all he’d find there were blood trails, burned gear, and broken helicopter parts. Conversely, Devon moved to the rear of the barn, seeking access through means other than the front doors. The barn was buttoned up tight, forcing Devon to slide around to the giant front doors. The two barn doors were secured with a large iron latch, which Devon lifted. The movement elicited a grating sound of metal on metal that froze Devon in place. In the silent cold night air, the grating sounded so loud Devon nearly divorced himself from the mission and fled back to his bush sanctuary.
After a few tense moments, Devon slid the latch completely out of the locked position and pulled the left-side door open a few feet. Inside, a darkness blacker than the moonless sky outside welcomed Devon’s squinting eyes. Quickly he slipped inside and pulled the door shut behind him. If someone were casually watching the place, Devon didn’t want to be caught standing outside in the open, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Devon heard Crank’s soft padded feet on the floor, reminding him of the dog’s presence.
Devon felt his way along the wall to the right as he moved forward several feet before stopping and waiting for his eyes to make the acclimatization needed for him to safely wander around inside the structure without tearing the skin off a shin on some random piece of farming equipment. Slowly Devon’s eyes began to make out the hulking silhouette of the Humvee backed into the barn. Once he confirmed the vehicle was there, Devon turned and groped his way back to the barn doors.
Devon secured the large doors like he’d found them before slinking back to the bush to wait on the hill till morning. In the morning, Devon and Crank would go out to meet Jared and the group coming in. If the Humvee hadn’t been at Clarence’s place, Jared would have no reason to come to the homestead. Devon, however, would give him a report to the contrary, and the group would enjoy two vehicles.
Chapter 33
Inside the climate-controlled metal container that was the drone’s cockpit, the pilot was running through checks before a flight he felt could be the aircraft’s last. The generator outside, keeping all the systems running, could be heard humming along, sucking precious fuel needed for other things, but the container needed the power, so the fuel was used. The metal container had previously been flown in from Creech Air Force Base when Carnegie was still getting regular and substantive deliveries from whoever was calling themselves the United States government at that time. Most of the time the container sat empty, but now the colonel needed the drone up and looking for his enemies.
In a perfect world, the pilot would have enjoyed a second person assisting with the cameras, but no such person existed. To counter this, the pilot trained a twenty-two-year-old female Specialist as best he could on how to assist in flight operations. The task was made considerably easier by the fact they had no ordnance, therefore weren’t being asked to not only acquire these SEALs, but target and fire on them as well. Had this been the scenario, the pilot and his assistant would have experienced a much higher workload.
As it was, the pilot oftentimes pulled double duty during landings, takeoffs and any other flight characteristic that was even remotely labor intensive. The sendoff and receiving team were also ad hoc in that the pilot had previously given the three men a two-hour class on the startup and shutdown duties before going live. This translated into a very slow, deliberate and communications-heavy operation, ensuring nothing on the drone was damaged during these portions of a mission.
The takeoff took twice as long as it would have under normal conditions, but at last the aircraft was aloft. The pilot ran through a quick check of his craft’s systems before placing the drone in an orbit, offset slightly, south of the base. The last intel he’d received on the SEALs was they were fighting and moving west and then lastly south. The pilot focused on Highway 5 at first, figuring the men would be able to move the fastest on its hard flat surface. Within ninety minutes, the pilot spotted a Humvee moving along the highway along with several people on horseback and still more on foot. There were men on top of the Humvee, which was moving at the pace of the people on horseback.
Josh sat in Carnegie’s office, staring at a small monitor that a soldier had brought in so they could watch the drone feed. Carnegie zoomed in on a man riding a horse and froze the video feed as the man turned his face, giving both Josh and Carnegie a fairly good shot of Jared’s face. Josh leaned forward and pointed at the screen.
“That’s the dude I saw back when we picked John up. He’s the one I was telling you I thought was going to take a shot at us when we were leaving.” Josh adjusted in his seat and tapped the face of a second rider. “And that’s your boy Buckley.”
Carnegie saw and recognized John, but did not know the other man. His mind raced in confusion by what he was seeing along with what Josh was telling him. How were these two back together—again? he groused silently. Carnegie was such a calculating and shrewd son of a bitch he wouldn’t even let his most trusted man know he was at a loss. Finally, the colonel swallowed hard, pulling his eyes from the screen.
“I don’t want them back here. I want them all dead, all of them.” His voice was low and gravelly, a menacing inhuman pitch replacing his normally inhospitable inflections.
Josh raised a brow. “The women and kid?”
Carnegie’s lips curled in an angry snarl. “Do what you fucking have to, Josh.”
“Now?” Josh asked, his eyes widening slightly, but only for the briefest of moments.
“Now,” Carnegie bellowed in such a vociferous manner even Josh recoiled slightly.
Josh knew better than to push the old man, rising to his feet and exiting the colonel’s office. As he walked through the office portion of the hangar, his mind was literally at a loss on how to approach Carnegie’s order to kill nearly a dozen highly trained meat eaters with the assets at his disposal. He was being asked to cure cancer with a leaf and a dirt clod, in Josh’s opinion, which gave him great angst. Although he felt sick to his stomach about the odds of his mission, Josh was a Special Missions guy, and he only knew one thing, and that was to charge forward and win at all costs or die trying, although Josh didn’t plan on doing the latter.
The colonel’s order had not specified a time by which Josh was to complete the eradication of the SEALs, so as long as it appeared he was moving forward, Carnegie would hopefully leave Josh to his own devices. The only way Josh could see dealing with the SEALs was from a distance. He was aware that one of the SEALs had a long gun, and that man would be his first victim. Josh would use the soldiers and the remaining Humvee as a sort of harassing element while he worked his way into a position of advantage and began whittling away at the SEALs’ numbers one by one.
He knew where the SEALs were, along with the direction they were headed in. This gave him the luxury of a little bit more time to prepare. Josh was mindful that the soldiers he’d ask to harass this group would all be killed if he didn’t give them strict limitations on how to conduct their mission, which basically boiled down to a distraction operation. Josh needed the SEALs preoccupied with the annoying soldiers so he could work unmolested.
Josh was not kidding himself when it came to the clash between the soldiers and the SEALs. Had he been, he might have hoped for the soldiers to get lucky and kill one or two of the Navy men, but Josh knew all too well it would most assuredly be the soldiers getting unlucky when it all started. Josh felt a pang of sorrow, not for the soldiers he’d send in harm’s way, but for himself not having more capable partners in the upcoming battle. As Josh worked through some of the finer points of his plan, he walked toward the east side of the hangar where a smallish building acted as their motor pool. Josh knew one of the mechanics had resurrected a Kawasaki motorcyc
le and had seen the men riding the machine around the tarmac.
The machine was a four stroke and could be started by either using the kick starter or by push starting the little machine. Josh wasn’t a motorcycle guy by nature, but he’d been to a school and even ridden them a couple of times during operations. The guys at the mechanics shed were in a perpetual state of tinkering. If they weren’t working on an actual piece of equipment needed for base operations, they could be found bringing back from the dead things like the motorcycle Josh planned on taking from them.
Carnegie had so far turned a blind eye to the men’s side projects, even though he saw no value in a working Weed eater or a ridable lawn mower, but nevertheless, he allowed the men to continue their hobby as long as it didn’t interfere with their jobs. The men were all huddled around a handheld, motorized auger when Josh arrived.
“Hey, boys, I’m gonna need that motorcycle you all got running a while back,” Josh said by way of a greeting. His words didn’t fall on welcoming ears, he could tell.
One of the soldiers stepped forward and wiped his greasy hands on a rag. “What do you need it for?” he asked, obviously not happy with the thought of giving Josh their pride and joy.
Josh dipped his chin and squinted at the soldier, who stopped rubbing his hands. “Have it gassed up and out front here in fifteen minutes, guy.” Josh didn’t wait for an argument, spinning on his heel, leaving the mechanics to grumble amongst themselves. They’d complain to one another, Josh knew, but that was all they’d do. Everyone knew that to run afoul of Josh was tantamount to running afoul of the colonel himself. Yes, they’d gripe, but the bike would be gassed and ready to go when Josh returned.
As Josh hurried toward his living quarters, he keyed his mic and made an all call to the base personnel, ordering everyone not on duty to muster inside the hangar in five minutes. Once inside his quarters, Josh began pulling on gear for his mission. He wanted to be as light as possible so piloting the motorcycle wouldn’t be as hazardous. Driving any overloaded vehicle was dangerous, not to mention one with only two wheels. Rubber side down, shiny side up, Josh thought to himself, internally repeating something an instructor used to preach to the students at the off-road riding class all those years ago.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 32