Shannon caught Essie’s eye and realized the little girl wasn’t awash in fear like she would have expected Essie to be. Shannon allowed herself a split second to contemplate whether her new norm was Essie’s always norm based on the child’s age and the fact that Essie was growing up under conditions like the one they were currently struggling to overcome. With no time to ponder such things, Shannon grabbed Essie just as the Humvee began to roll forward, throwing her onto the horse, then climbing awkwardly on after.
Those on horseback outpaced the Humvee across the uneven field, following in the general direction John and Jared had followed after they’d departed in an effort to flank the hostile force on the mountain.
John and Jared held the horns on their saddles as the horses climbed the steepening hillside. Jared leaned across his mount’s neck, hugging the animal’s sides with his knees. Ahead, Jared watched John rein his horse to the left as he flung his left leg over the animal’s neck and stepped off the upslope side of the horse, gun up and legs coiled like two great serpents. Jared shot a worried look up the hill just in time to see a flash of white streaking through the tall grass.
Before Jared could process whether what he was seeing was a threat or not, he’d slid off his own horse on the downhill side, where he felt the animal provided at least a little cover from any hostiles above their position.
“Dev,” John called out.
Not being tall enough to see over the back of his horse, Jared maneuvered to the animal’s rump in time to see Devon and Crank racing down the mountain in their direction. John continued to keep his rifle leveled up the hill, waiting for whatever had Devon on the run to appear. Devon’s face, which was ashen as he raced down the hill, flushed with some color at seeing his friends.
The teen came sliding to a stop in front of John, breathless with eyes wide. John didn’t take his weapon down; instead he spoke while searching feverishly for a threat behind Devon.
“Jared, get that rifle up here. Watch our flanks. Devon, what are you running from, and what’s going on up here?”
“I shot a guy who was shooting at you guys,” Devon gasped, still catching his breath.
“Where is he now?” John shot back, assuming the impotent .22-caliber hadn’t finished the job.
“Dunno,” Devon said, his voice a little steadier now. “I was waiting up here looking for you guys, and I saw some dude with a rifle. When you all got here, I could tell he was going to shoot at you.” Devon struggled to finish, staring at the ground, his lips moving but no words coming.
“Just one guy?” John asked, still watching the mountain, his rifle sweeping to the left, then back again.
Devon licked his lips as if a quick lube would help. “I only saw one guy. I should have done something sooner, but he shot first, then I shot him, I think in the butt.” Devon glanced at Jared for a moment. “Did he hit anyone?”
Jared nodded with pursed lips. “He got one of the SEALs down there.”
Devon’s face fell. “Is he dead?”
Jared shrugged, shaking his head. “I have no idea. Everything happened too quick. He got shot, and we took off up here before his guys even got started on him.”
John glanced down at the Humvee, which was slowly making its way across the same field he and Jared had used to access the mountain. “Let’s link up with those guys and get to some high ground so we aren’t all sitting ducks.”
The three moved in a direction John and Jared hoped would intersect with the Humvee. At one point, John waved wildly at the men in the Humvee, and they began waving back. Soon the group was reunited and moving along the base of the mountain range toward the road that led to the homestead. The fact that Ray lay in the back of the Humvee and no one was tending to him told John one thing—the man hadn’t survived his wound.
John held his tongue, neither commenting nor asking about the third fallen SEAL. John was acutely aware of the psychological effect losing a brother-in-arms took on the men of such a small and specialized unit, not to mention the fact they’d lost a quarter of their number in less than one day’s time. After thirty minutes of silent movement, the group came to the road leading west into the hills that would take them to Clarence’s former home.
After clearing the top of the finger and scrambling down toward his waiting motorcycle, Josh stopped and took a few seconds to assess the bothersome wound in his backside. The bullet had entered his left butt cheek and exited his hip on the same side. The wound bled steadily, already having soaked Josh’s trousers down to the knee. Josh would have preferred taking the time to at least pull his pants down and inspect the wound, but with the shooter still in the area, he wasn’t about to take that chance. Instead, he climbed gingerly onto the motorcycle and coasted down the side of the mountain until he had the speed to drop the machine in gear and turn the engine over.
His radio crackled in his ear with the voice of the drone pilot. “Targets are moving west along a dirt road.” Josh heard the man ramble off the coordinates, but he was headed back to the base and couldn’t have cared less. He was finished messing around with the bull for the time being. There would be other days, days when his hip and ass felt a whole hell of a lot better.
Josh knew when he returned, Carnegie was going to blow a fuse, but Josh also knew when it was time to regroup, lick your wounds, and rethink what you were doing on the battlefield. He keyed his mic. “All personnel RTB. I repeat, all personnel RTB, and that includes the air asset.”
Josh had no doubt the soldiers in the one remaining Humvee wouldn’t question his order after the beating they’d taken the night before. He wanted to be the first back so he could have a shot at explaining himself to the colonel. Josh resigned himself to the fact that if Carnegie wasn’t listening to the operation, the drone would beat him back, and therefore Carnegie would know the operation had been shut down without its intended results. Oh well, Josh thought, he’d just go to medical when he got back and make the colonel come find him.
Deep down, Josh knew full well he could have been shot through the head and would have garnered exactly zero sympathy from Carnegie. Consequently, lying in medical, shot in the ass, was probably just going to piss the colonel off. As he drew closer to the base, his anger grew at the prospect of being lambasted by Carnegie, who hadn’t even been in the field when the poorly staffed operation failed. Well, it hadn’t been a total failure, Josh thought. The SEAL he’d dumped off the top of the Humvee, if not dead now, would be soon enough without proper medical attention. Only a miracle could have saved the man, and in Josh’s experience there was a shortage of miracles everywhere in the world these days.
Josh hadn’t radioed in his being shot, so he was surprised when the soldier standing at the front doors to the little medical shack tossed him a blowout bag and told him Carnegie wanted to see him before he did anything. Josh stood in front of the man for a moment and thought briefly about just throat punching the soldier and going inside, but thought better of it.
With a heavy sigh, Josh dropped his gear and pants, opened the medical blowout bag, and pulled out the items he needed to staunch the flow of blood soaking his leg. He quickly cleaned the wound before pouring a generous amount of antiseptic into, onto, and around both the entry and exit wounds. This stung, but Josh refused to give the soldier before him the satisfaction of seeing him visibly show pain.
Josh used a wad of bandaging material to wipe his ass cheek clean prior to slapping a bandage over both holes and wrapping it with tape he drew completely around his waist to make sure it was tight. Once his britches were back in place, he hefted his gear with great pain and headed for the hangar, where he was sure Carnegie stewed within.
Josh purposefully kept the radio chatter to a minimum while out in the field so Carnegie would be in the dark as much as Josh could place him there. Controlling the narrative was the oldest tactic in the book, and Josh intended to use as much of it as he could when dealing with Carnegie. He knew the old man maintained a network of snitches around the b
ase who groveled at the colonel’s feet, seeking good favor. Josh refused to call them spies since they were snitching on their own. He didn’t know who they were, but made a mental note to try to find out. Once he’d isolated one, he’d have to deal with the person in much the same manner as he’d dealt with Kemper. Josh would have to be careful in how he dispatched these people, but he controlled what went on in the field, not Carnegie, so it shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for him.
His mind worked overtime as he neared the hangar, thinking of ways to rid himself of these double-crossing sons of bitches. If he’d been honest with himself, Josh would have realized he was simply angry at the world right about now and taking that anger out mentally on people who had nothing to do with what had happened today. Maybe he’d kill the team leader who’d failed to show up in a timely manner earlier today. His thoughts were interrupted as he entered the hangar and was approached by a nervous-looking female soldier.
“He’s waiting for you,” the woman stammered, looking down at Josh’s blood-soaked pants, her eyes widening. Before the woman could comment on his wound, further irritating him, Josh pushed past her, heading toward the colonel’s office.
There had been absolutely no radio traffic alluding to bloodshed, so when Josh pushed through Carnegie’s door, the colonel’s eyebrows rose at the sight before him. The brows held their raised arch for only a snippet of time before a scowl replaced any look of surprise the colonel might have let slip.
“What the fuck happened out there?” Carnegie growled, not offering any sort of medical quarter.
Josh stared at the colonel for a second, a scowl of his own darkening his features. “Your team never made it into position. I got ambushed, and I called the whole clusterfuck off.”
Carnegie sat mute for a moment, processing what this parsimonious subordinate was trying to pass off as a mission debrief. Slowly, Carnegie shook his head. “No, not good enough, Talley,” Carnegie said, using Josh’s last name for effect. “Feed me some bullshit like that again, and you’re gonna have more to worry about than that busted-up leg of yours.”
Josh almost corrected the colonel, but realized telling him he’d been shot in the ass and not the leg would just give the old man more ammo. “Like I said, your team of weekend warriors never fucking showed up to the party. Your Navy boys were in the kill zone, and I had no choice but to engage or let ’em roll on down the road. My plan was to engage once or twice and then relocate and hope the weekenders caught up and could help out. I took one shot, and zap, I catch one from behind. Guy on the mountain with me, no idea who he was or where he came from, but he got the drop, punched a hole in my—” Josh caught himself “—in my hip.”
Carnegie leaned toward Josh, resting on his elbows, his hands clasped and his index fingers steepled. “And who’d you hit?” he asked menacingly.
“That Ray cat, their sniper, he was on top of the Humvee.”
Carnegie drew an angry breath and leaned back. “Did you see Carver or Buckley?”
Josh nodded hesitantly, knowing just where this conversation was headed. “I saw Buckley riding a horse, and I think Carver was riding shotgun in the Humvee.”
“Then why Ray?” Carnegie snarled.
Josh’s anger flared, he was hurting, and now being Monday morning quarterbacked was really beginning to piss him off. “Don’t fucking start. You know the battlefield as well as I do. Crew-served weapons and snipers gotta go. My part had to be done by the book, which was made more important due to the fact that my support element no-showed. I shoot Buckley, and yeah, you get your revenge, but I get killed by the guy with the Mk 13.” Josh finished his rant, shaking his head in disbelief at Carnegie’s thirst for revenge, causing him temporary tactical blindness.
In a flash Carnegie grabbed a chair and flung it at Josh, who ducked awkwardly as the chair bounced off his side, landing on the floor directly in front of him. Naturally he scooped up the chair and was about to return the colonel’s favor when he found himself staring down the barrel of Carnegie’s Colt 1911 pistol.
“Get the fuck out of my sight, and don’t you ever lecture me on the finer points of tactics. You do, and I will kill you,” Carnegie said so matter-of-factly, it unnerved Josh slightly.
Josh stood, chest heaving, staring into the deadest eyes he’d ever seen. Three black holes, two were the colonel’s eyes and the third was the subway tunnel at the end of the colonel’s .45-caliber pistol. Josh backed out of the office, still holding the chair as he pulled the door shut. Once the door was closed, he spun and sank the chair into the wall to his left before storming out of the offices.
Chapter 36
When Jared and company arrived at the homestead, they found the Humvee exactly where Jared had left it after his and Clarence’s initial scuffle with the fraudulent tax collectors. On the ride in, Devon had assured them the vehicle was tucked safely inside the barn, or at least it had been before he left earlier in the morning. John stood studying the amalgamation that was once a family home and a multimillion-dollar flying machine, one of very few remaining in a dying world.
Jared walked up and stood beside John, staring at the mess. He hadn’t taken a good look at it in the daylight, and now he grimaced at the thought of the human life lost here not so long ago. His was a life of emotional ups and downs. He could find himself angry enough to kill in order to survive and protect what was his, then minutes later find himself in near depression at seeing the carnage caused by his actions. He wanted stability. He needed the chaos to stop or at the very least lessen significantly.
Jared hated that he’d caused men to die in order to reduce this crazy colonel’s air capabilities. What if he’d found a way to spare the souls aboard the helicopter, Jared pondered, would they not have continued their efforts to brutalize the surrounding people for their own ends? He guessed in the end they needed to be dealt with. He just didn’t care much for the weight it placed on his conscience.
“You know you did something here I’ve rarely seen groups of organized men pull off,” John said in a low voice.
Jared heaved a sigh of frustration at the whole situation. “You know, John, I’d like to make a change in the world.”
John smiled at his friend, knowing Jared didn’t revel in his success on the battlefield, but instead found it troubling, a departure from good into a dark place John knew his friend was not fond of.
“I know you and your military buddies glamourized the fighting,” Jared continued. “I’d like to change that. Not to put a stigma on it because, damn it—sometimes we aren’t given a choice. It has to be something we teach the kids of this new world is a nasty reality at times, but never our first choice or solution to a problem.”
John didn’t weigh in on the matter, as he thought about how darn intuitive Jared was at times. Yes, John and his mates reveled in their success in battle. Hell, he’d participated in outright competitions with the rest of his team on who was more capable by performing a greater number of kills, of killing in a more extravagant manner than anyone else. John guessed it was different now with everyone on the chessboard being American, but at the same time his life before was not just about completing the task, but also about surviving the mission. Nowadays wasn’t really that different. He was just trying to live to see the next sunrise. He could appreciate Jared’s mindfulness of human life, but John refused to allow it to place him at a disadvantage in battle.
Jared turned from the wreckage, staring at John, waiting for his friend to give his two cents.
John felt the stare and smiled. “I get it, Jared; I get what you’re saying. Too much violence and not enough time to just stop and take a breath, eat a good meal, sleep eight hours, I get what you’re saying. Trust me, all this is going to level off at some point. It has to.” John turned, meeting Jared’s eyes, seeing how serious his friend was about the matter. “Plus no one here is cutting off ears or taking war trophies, bro,” John added. “We’re all trying to do the right thing.”
The rumb
le of the Humvee’s engine from the barn caused John and Jared to turn in unison as the big vehicle rolled slowly out into the yard, where it parked next to the other Humvee. The SEALs were crawling through the second vehicle, checking it over, as John and Jared walked up. Matt was just coming out of the barn and stopped when he saw John. Matt had a look of hesitation on his face, and John knew immediately what was happening.
“Let me explain,” Matt started.
John shook his head disappointedly. “No need, man,” he said with a small wave of his hand.
Jared was confused. “Explain what?” he asked, looking back and forth between John and Matt.
“They’re taking both Humvees and, well”—John shot Matt an accusatory look—“they weren’t going to ask permission.”
Matt looked thoroughly ashamed at how things were playing out, but he also seemed determined to do what he was going to do. “Listen, John, I have guys who need to get back to their families, and San Diego is a long way out.”
John stared hard at Matt for a long second before replying. “No one’s going to San Diego, Matt. Do you think that nuclear plant down there in San Onofre was somehow overlooked by all this? Sure, they’ve been shut down, but there is still a ton of waste on site, and I’m gonna bet it was being contained through some use of power.”
Matt hadn’t considered this, which caused his jaw to hang slack for a moment as he searched the faces of his men.
Jared cut into the conversation, bringing all eyes to him as he stepped forward. “Let ’em have it. These things are cursed anyway. The lunatic at that base will come looking for his vehicles, and I for one don’t want to worry about that.” Jared swept his hand toward the horses. “We have our mode of transportation, and I for one don’t think we need a vehicle. Heck, we had one back where we left Calvin and chose not to bring it. Cars, trucks or”—Jared pointed at the Humvees—“these things bring attention to us.”
The Jared Chronicles | Book 3 | Chains of Tyranny Page 35