Josh finished pulling on his gear before grabbing his long gun, an Mk 21 made by an outfit called Barrett located somewhere in Tennessee. The weapon was topped nicely with a variable-powered scope manufactured by a company called Nightforce Optics out of Georgia, and Josh absolutely loved the clarity the scope brought to the table. No matter how far he zoomed in, the scope always delivered a sharp picture and an accurate shot. Although Josh hadn’t logged as much time on this newer weapon as some of the older ones in his former unit’s arsenal, he had fired nearly five thousand rounds through the gun, so he was a little more than just familiar with it.
Before Josh left the small living quarters, he slung his H&K 416 over a shoulder. He wasn’t too keen on bringing the extra weapon since he had a pistol, but Josh knew all too well things in the field could and would go wonky, and not having his trusty H&K could spell disaster. He’d figure out a way to secure the extra rifle to the bike, making life a little easier on himself during the ride portion of his upcoming mission. Josh went straight to where the motorcycle was gassed up and waiting, climbed aboard, and kicked the engine over. The bike started right up. The soldiers watched, but no one uttered a word as Josh revved the engine a couple of times, grinned widely at the pissed-off cluster of mechanics, and sped off toward the hangar. Most of the men and women from the base were already waiting as Josh cut a swath through their ranks and slid to a stop in the center of the hangar.
Josh parked the bike, dropping his gear next to it before moving to the front of the group. “Raise your hands if you were part of the mission last night.”
Several joyless-faced men and women raised their hands.
“Good.” Josh nodded. “You’re on this next mission along with a few others.” Before he got the pushback Josh knew would come from an unprofessional group of weekend warriors who’d just had their collective asses handed to them, Josh continued, “You have the most experience of all your mates. You’ve seen the lion, faced him, and learned some valuable lessons. Now, I need you to go out and distract the lion for me.”
The soldiers’ looks of distaste at the mention of interacting with the very force that was directly responsible for the killing and wounding of several of their comrades faded as Josh pushed through his briefing.
“I want everyone going out to understand exactly what you’re dealing with so no one else gets hurt. If we all follow my plan, we can damage them. First off, I do not want anyone at any time getting closer than five hundred yards from these guys. We have the drone up, and the pilot can vector you in to the area. Once you have eyes on the target, remain five hundred yards or farther from them at all times. They got a couple of you with that Goddamned M203, and well—it only has an effective range of less than five hundred yards, so you see where I’m going with this, right?”
Some of the brighter soldiers slowly nodded their heads as the realization of what Josh was telling them began to sink in.
There was a pregnant pause as Josh allowed his last statement to relieve some of the tension the soldiers were feeling, knowing they were being thrust right back into battle. “There’s a second issue out there in the way of their sharpshooter. Now, he can reach out and touch you, so never stop moving, and don’t stay in that turret more than a couple of seconds at a time. If for some reason you find yourselves stationary, stay the fuck out of the turret. We are leaving right after this briefing, and I hope we can catch them in the open where you can hit and run. This will all be coordinated by me. No one is to engage until I give the green light. My hope is to set up, have them drive into my kill zone, and then call you all in. Once you’ve fired on them, they should stop and set up a defensive position, and that is when I will go to work.”
Josh smiled wickedly while searching the faces for questions. There were probably hundreds, but not a single soldier voiced one. The remainder of the briefing consisted of Josh assigning duties to team leaders. Radio frequencies were sorted out while ammo was loaded on the last Humvee. After the mission’s logistics were completed, Josh ensured the Humvee’s team leader was in contact with the drone pilot.
Josh gave a terse order that after he leave, the Humvee was to wait thirty minutes before departing the base and moving south along Highway 5 toward the SEALs. The drone pilot would then vector them off the highway and into a position to the east, where they could commence their part of the operation once Josh was in position.
Josh entered an on-ramp leading onto the highway and accelerated down the shoulder in order to steer mostly clear of the abandoned vehicles littering its two southbound lanes. When the slower Humvee left the base, it would have to do the same. Taped across the top of the motorcycle’s fuel tank was a map, which Josh referred to every few minutes. At one point, Josh turned off the highway and followed a road to the west. Two miles later, he turned the bike south again and paralleled the highway.
Josh was getting regular updates from the drone pilot as well as listening in on the conversations between said pilot and the team leader in the Humvee. The information received from the drone pilot informed Josh the SEALs were moving at the pace of their slowest man, who was on foot, making it much easier for the Humvee to close on the group. By yesterday’s standards, the soldiers in the Humvee were making terrible time, but when your quarry was making even worse headway, well, it wasn’t more than two hours before the drone pilot issued a warning to the team leader in the Humvee, letting him know they were within five miles of the SEALs.
Based on the last checkpoint the team leader announced, Josh knew he was well past both groups and in a position to start seeking a suitable spot to ambush the SEALs from. With the land mostly flat, Josh waited to order the soldiers into action. Josh could see hills in the distance that he felt would place him in an elevated position of advantage. He would work his way into the hills, set up, and then wait. When the SEALs were within range, he’d call in the cavalry, who had slowed and were keeping pace with the SEALs from a distance of two miles.
During that time, Josh figured he could work out who was getting shot first, second, third and so on and so forth. The SEALs’ sniper would have to be the first unless the guy was inside the Humvee, in which case, Josh would have to choose a new number one. Once the shooting started, he knew the SEAL sniper would want to get into the action as soon as possible. With any luck, Josh hoped to sneak his first shot in with the first wave of harassment fire the soldiers would deliver. If the SEALs didn’t realize immediately they had a sniper problem, so much the better, thought Josh. He wasn’t banking on this since his shot would come from the west while the soldiers would be slinging lead from the east.
Leaving the paved road, Josh slowed considerably as he rode across open fields, through irrigation ditches, and finally began to climb the lower portion of a two-thousand-foot mountain in search of a hiding spot that would afford him the fields of fire he required. Josh either outright crashed or dropped the bike no less than five times during his struggle up the side of the mountain, causing his shoulder and hip to pain him greatly. After the last crash, he propped the bike against a rock and grabbed all his gear, setting out on foot, limping the last bit before he reached his final destination.
Josh approached from the back side of the hills so anyone traversing the floor of the valley would be none the wiser to his presence. Cresting a small finger just over halfway to the top of the mountain, Josh turned east, skirting along below the top of the terrain feature. His hide would be quick and simple. He didn’t have the time to dig or create any false screens, so Josh lay twenty yards to the rear of a large clump of brush, slightly offset a couple of feet. If for some reason he were to take accurate fire to his position, Josh could get up and move back over the top of the finger, effectively shielding himself from anyone’s fire from below.
When Josh was fully set up, he familiarized himself with every aspect of ground in front of him. He ranged multiple objects, committing their distances to memory. This would come in handy when the shooting started. If the battle mov
ed, Josh already possessed all the range information he needed to make precise and accurate on-the-fly adjustments to his rifle’s scope.
Josh wouldn’t be able to see the SEALs until they rounded the end of the finger he was perched on, but the constant updates from the drone pilot would ensure he was ready when they arrived. The highway was twelve hundred yards from his location, and with the elevation adjustment, he was shooting with nine-hundred-yard dope. With his hip ailing him like it was, Josh didn’t want to be anywhere near these Navy men if things ended up getting out of hand. The shot was not an easy one, but it also wasn’t all that difficult as long as the wind didn’t kick up.
Thirty minutes after Josh finished settling in, the call came that the SEALs were leaving the highway and traveling along a frontage road. Josh listened to the grid coordinates given by the pilot and realized the SEALs were still moving south and nearly right below him, only now Josh’s adversaries would be three hundred yards closer than if they’d continued on Highway 5. This news meant Josh’s situation was better in the sense of easier shots and worse because the SEALs were closer to a not-100-percent Josh Talley. Now he wished he’d staged the motorcycle facing downhill for a more expedient escape should that become necessary.
Chapter 34
Jared rode next to Shannon, stealing glances at her pretty face and winking at Essie as they rode in relative silence through the quiet graveyard of automobiles. Once the group passed the 205 highway leading west toward San Francisco, the hills rose up into a mountain on the right. If it hadn’t been for the company of the SEALs and the fact that the Humvee wasn’t always able to negotiate all the obstacles the horses were able to, Jared felt he would have turned the group west and hugged the mountains. They were to him a place of refuge in the case the group was set upon by hostiles.
After hearing what John and his Navy friends had gone through the evening before, Jared cast glances longingly at what he considered the safety of the mountains. This wasn’t lost on John, and after a couple more miles of dodging vehicle husks, he pulled Devon’s horse close to Jared.
“You think we should be closer to the mountains?”
Jared aimed a sideways look at his friend and nodded. “Yeah, but whatever. I mean, these guys seem like they know what they’re doing.”
The two rode in silence for several minutes, with only the low rumble of the Humvee’s diesel engine and the rhythmic clopping of the horses’ hooves disturbing their thoughtful silence. John turned in the saddle and stared back the way they’d come. He saw nothing, and quite frankly he hadn’t expected to see anything after the beating he and the SEALs had recently delivered to their opponents from the base.
When he returned to face forward, John saw Jared’s face was creased with the lines of a man worried about the future. The lines weren’t those of a man concerned about his own welfare, but instead they were the same lines John had seen on commanders harnessed with impossible missions who knew for a fact they would lose men in an upcoming battle. It was more often the stress over others’ health and safety that wrought havoc on a man’s nervous system. Sure, a man or woman could fear for their own life, be so frightened they soiled their trousers, but that stress paled in comparison to the rigors of ensuring every man, woman and child survived in a world filled with such uncertainty.
John was also acutely aware that Jared’s statement regarding the SEALs knowing what they were doing was wholly inaccurate in comparison to Jared and the women. The SEALs had been fortunate enough to ride out the first few months of the disaster in the relative safety of a submarine, after which they’d been living the life of Riley on base, when compared to the rest of the world. Only now, when they’d decided to part ways with Carnegie, were the SEALs truly being put to task under the new conditions brought on by the solar flare. Yes, John thought, Jared and the women probably weren’t trained to fight like the SEALs, but they damn sure had a better grasp on what was going on outside the wire of that base.
“There is only one Humvee, and they can only hit us from the rear. The boys are keeping a pretty good watch on that, so I think we’re mostly in the clear,” John said, trying to ease Jared’s trepidation.
Jared nodded his head distantly as he processed what John had just conveyed. It made sense, but there were always roving bands of people out looking for an easy meal off a soft target, Jared thought.
As if reading Jared’s mind, John continued, “No one in their right mind is going to mess with us, bro. Look, man, we are the apex predator out here right now.” John chuckled with a crooked grin.
Jared slowed slightly, allowing Shannon to gain a few yards on John and him. “I know all this, John. What worries me is the one lucky shot that changes all this. I just want to find a home and have some time to live like a man—not a rat.”
John chewed the corner of his mouth, the grin fading as he bobbed his head in mute agreement. He knew Jared was talking about the women more than himself. John was sure Jared wanted to feel like Shannon and Essie were safe in order to rid himself of the tremendous burden of worrying about their safety day and night. They rode for another thirty minutes before John suggested to Matt they get closer to the mountains. Matt agreed, and the group took the next off-ramp, which led them to a frontage road paralleling the highway.
The second day at the homestead, Devon woke, ate a handful of trail mix, and tossed Crank a generous chunk of jerky. Devon cooked food only when it was necessary; otherwise he ate food he could shovel in his mouth without the need for a fire like he’d used with the rabbit. His mornings were considerably less complicated than most of the members of his group simply because he didn’t usually cook. Still munching on his trail mix, Devon got to his feet and moved off away from the homestead, hoping to locate John and company on their way to Clarence’s former residence. Secretly he wanted to see John’s face when he saw the helicopter wreckage parked in the home’s living room. He couldn’t wait to see the exchange between John and Jared, a small smile finding its way across his youthful face at the thought of John’s reaction.
Devon picked his way through the dried creek beds, over fingers, and back down steep draws, always moving east. After several hours of arduous movement, he topped a knoll and looked down across California’s Central Valley. Devon could see Highway 5 and much more perched atop the medium-sized range of mountains that separated the region from the rest of the Bay Area. The only access through these mountains had been Highway 580 along with a disjointed network of smaller mountain roads that amounted to little more than goat trails.
Devon was careful to crouch low, not silhouetting himself as he took a moment to enjoy the view his elevated position offered. From where he sat, Devon saw he was close to a mile north of the road leading from the highway to the homestead and not much more than a half mile west of Highway 5. In this position, Devon was sure he’d see the group as they made their approach, at which time he’d join them. Until then he’d sit, wait, and use the binoculars to make sure his friends weren’t walking into any dangerous, nonsensical situations.
As Devon scanned the land below him, he caught movement in the binoculars and immediately realized John and the rest of his group weren’t far out. He could see them far off in the distance, redolent of ants moving along a well-worn path. The Humvee was in the lead with several of the SEALs walking either beside or behind the vehicle. Behind them were Devon’s friends John, Jared, and Stephani, and he could see Essie seated behind Shannon.
Devon felt a rush wash over him and was marginally bemused by the excitement he felt at seeing his friends. He preferred to be alone, was happiest when he was isolated, only in the company of Crank, yet here he was feeling a bit giddy at the thought of human interaction. Well, they were good people, and Devon hadn’t found his life filled with many of those before the solar flare, so maybe, just maybe, the introvert in him wasn’t his fault, but the doing of the people he’d been exposed to earlier in his life.
John and company seemed to be moving at a glac
ial pace as Devon patiently sat tracking their movement through his binoculars. Once they transitioned onto the dirt road leading up to the homestead, Devon would assimilate back into the group for the short march back. Devon pulled the optics from his face and reached down, stroking Crank’s short hair. The dog lay next to the teen, enjoying his master’s touch while insects buzzed and the light breeze rustled Devon’s longish hair. The breeze wafted gently across the mountainside from Devon’s left, causing Crank’s nose to twitch with every new scent riding the air currents.
Without warning, Crank let out a low growl as the hair on the back of his neck rose like the plumes of a Roman praetorian guard’s helmet. The dog’s ears were standing erect on the animal’s head, and his eyes were fixed to the east, causing Devon to look that way as well. Devon had learned in the previous months to trust the dog’s signals, and right now Crank was lights and sirens. Instinctively, Devon sprawled out until he was lying in the grass, searching for whatever had Crank all aflutter.
Slowly, Devon pulled the binoculars to his face and began searching the landscape to his left. With his free hand, Devon patted the little dog reassuringly, making sure Crank didn’t leap up and give away their position. Devon was armed only with his Ruger .22-caliber rifle, and although both John and Jared preached incessantly about the little rifle’s shortcomings when faced with a human adversary, Devon chose to take only the Ruger when he left the group. It weighed half of what the heavier Colt rifle weighed, not to mention the weight of its ammunition. Hell, Devon thought he could carry a hundred rounds in a front pants pocket. The heavier 5.56-millimeter ammunition had to be carried in magazines, which were bulky and much harder to lug around.
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 33