Published in 2020 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover and book design by Zena Kanes
Based on series and book design by Djamika Smith
Copyright © 2020 by Mark Edward Langley
E-book published in 2020 by Blackstone Publishing
Based on series and book design by Djamika Smith
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental
and not intended by the author.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-5385-0777-3
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-5385-0776-6
Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
31 Mistletoe Rd.
Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com
For my wife and first critic, Barbara.
And for Chappy.
The strength of the pack is the wolf,
and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
3rd Light Armored Recon
1st Marine Division, USMC
CHAPTER ONE
There was always something he liked about the stillness of a high-desert night, black as pitch and scattered with stars. Its stillness seemed to allow other people’s minds to run wild with all sorts of imaginative notions. Either the night was cool and magical, filled with the serenity people dreamed of attaining, or it was inhabited by a litany of creepy-crawlies, ancient ghosts and demons that terrified the mind into a kind of supernatural rigor mortis. But that, he imagined, depended on which godforsaken sandbox you were being forced to play the game of survival in and in what clusterfucked part of the world it was located.
He navigated his way through the sandy terrain’s juniper bushes, buckwheat tufts, and uneven footing, creating his own path leading from the vehicle he had tucked safely away in a small wash a few klicks away. Sprouts of Mormon tea and rice grass crunched under his boots as he made his way toward a tall sandstone ledge he had determined would give him the best viewpoint and angle of fire. He climbed over large chunks of rock that remained where they had fallen centuries before, picking his hand- and footholds carefully, as he lurched his way up the craggy wall, all the time trying to keep the battle rattle to a minimum—not that these kids would even know what that was or what it sounded like. Hell, they weren’t even old enough to enlist. But they were old enough to be a problem.
When he reached the top of the ledge, he let his biceps carry all of his weight as he lifted himself over. He flung his right leg up in one fluid motion and steadied his boot on the rough sandstone surface. The strength of his leg took him the rest of the way before he crouched and ran quickly across the top of the shelf. As he hit the edge of the incline, he dropped silently and belly crawled the rest of the way, the night vision attached to his helmet doing everything it could to keep his field of vision green.
Sprawling himself out on the sandstone ledge, he thumbed each button to release the legs of the rifle’s bipod, listened for the recognizable clicks of their mechanisms, and locked them into place. Reaching up with one hand, he lifted his optics into the upright position and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He removed his helmet, laid it on the ground to his right, and replaced it with a tan recon ball cap that he pulled from his combat desert jacket. Since leaving the ranks, he had been looking for something that would satisfy his itch for combat by utilizing his training and finely honed skills. After all, he reasoned, what else did he know how to do? He had become a kind of problem solver, an exterminator of unwanted pests. And selling himself to those in need of his services was capitalism at its finest.
Turning the cap’s bill to the rear, he shut himself off from the surrounding world, letting his fingers flip up the lens covers on both the objective and ocular ends of the rifle scope. He rested his right cheek against the folding buttstock, its cold familiarity cupping his face like the caressing palm of a woman’s gentle hand. His fingers nimbly navigated the dials of the scope, clicking in the windage and elevation. There was no need to utilize the rifle’s BDC; a bullet drop compensator wasn’t needed to take out two teenagers. This was New Mexico not Afghanistan.
His eye focused quickly as the boys moved with a juvenile purpose around the dancing campfire that silhouetted them behind his crosshairs. Keeping his breathing steady and controlled, he lay silent on the rocky hide of the rise four hundred yards away from them. He raised his head away from the long scope for a moment to watch the yellow flames flicker in the distance halfway up the sandy slope that led to the rock towering over the boys. Their elongated shadows danced up the slope and onto the wall of the formation looming behind his primary and secondary targets. His eyes darted around the blackness that surrounded him, one last operational evaluation of the field of fire. He glanced up to see the sky lit now by only the waning light of a last quarter moon and a smattering of stars that dotted the night sky during the witching hour.
He felt no breeze against his face, smelled no aromas floating on the chilled night air, so there would be no need to consider wind as a factor. But, as always, there was that undeniable smell of sand and rock—a fragrance he knew he could never delete from his olfactory hard drive. It had been formatted long ago along with the sounds of the crowded streets and the stench of outdoor markets and food cooking over an open flame.
He was grateful he hadn’t felt the need for the bulky drag bag tactical case for this op. He always preferred to carry his weapon using the sling strap and his hands, even if it did chafe his neck. It held the weapon close to his body and, for him, it simply felt more natural and comforting after all his years in the combat zone.
As his dominant eye rested comfortably again behind the glass of the scope, he began lining up his primary target. He repositioned his legs, then he let the bipod carry the weight of the rifle as he adjusted the weapons elevation turret a few more clicks. He had removed the muzzle break and cranked on the suppressor before he had left; he didn’t need a dust signature blowing back in his face, nor did he want the sound of the supersonic round bringing anyone nearby out of a sound sleep, especially whoever lived in the small house he had seen back by the open gate as he had driven up the narrow dirt road. Although, at this distance, he figured the decibel level didn’t really matter because it would resemble the soft hum of a kitchen refrigerator. There would be a resulting echo, even from this distance, and would mean he’d have to work quickly. After the first shot, his element of surprise would be eliminated; the next round would have to follow immediately.
He wrapped his right hand snugly around the finger-tooled rubber grip and felt it seal against the dry skin of his palm. Fisting his left hand, he brought it close to his right shoulder and let the bottom of the folding stock rest on it. Instinctively, he slid his index finger gently through the trigger guard and ever so lightly caressed the curvature of its two-stage mechanism. With his eye securely behind the scope, he allowed his breathing to slip into its state of Zen, as he called it. So much so that when his breathing had expelled down to nothingness, his finger felt the click of the first stage of the trigger. His heart began to race as he took another measured breath. Slowly, he let his finger squeeze the second stage of the trigger just as his breath came to an end.
The familiar jolt that rocked his right shoulder and filled his plugged ears with the muffled explosion coincided with the adren
aline pumping through his chest. Instantaneously, the acrid smell of propellant swept through his nostrils. Another aroma he would never forget, but one that satisfied him nonetheless.
He had taken the first of two shots. He watched through the scope as his primary target’s head exploded like a ripe watermelon at a target range. Reflexively, his right hand grabbed the bolt knob, jerked it up and back, then rammed it forward in one quick, fluid motion. With another round from the magazine now chambered, he watched his secondary target begin to run as his newly measured breath again came to an end and the second shot took flight.
CHAPTER TWO
The Whitford Funeral Home sat stately on Red Arrow Highway in Farmington, New Mexico. Arthur’s first reaction was that it wasn’t the type of new conformist brick construction people had grown accustomed to these days, but rather the elevated look of a converted Victorian home, circa 1885, with cream-colored gingerbread that accented well against its mocha exterior paint. Inside, polished walnut pocket doors opened into elegant rooms where back in the day men would have smoked cigars and talked business while women would have been sequestered in a parlor to dish the latest gossip, debate the latest fashions, or even discuss the Statue of Liberty finally arriving from France that June.
The accumulated gathering of somber mourners, Arthur noticed, seemed to have broken off into their respective clusters of family and groups of friends to talk among themselves throughout the main floor. That seemed to be the pattern of most of the wakes Arthur and Sharon had attended over the last ten years, and the funeral home’s third reception room, where Sergeant Joshua Derrick’s body lay, was no different. Derrick’s wife of fifteen years, Kathy, sat in the front row with a few other members of the family, accepting the perfunctory well wishes from the line of people that seemed to stream by at a staggered, never-ending pace.
This is probably the room where the women would have congregated after supper, Arthur reflected, glancing around the room at the tall ceilings and wide baseboards of stained dark wood to match the thick moldings. He let his mind wander because he was trying his level best to think about anything other than the reason he was there. Canned organ music flowed solemnly from the Bose Wave sound system sitting on one of the side tables stationed between two small but tasteful flower arrangements. It had been lowered to a whisper by one of the funeral directors.
Arthur Nakai studied the family members sitting in the front row, sure they were all still trying to comprehend why two weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, the man in the coffin had gotten up from the couch during a Diamondback’s ball game, went upstairs to his bedroom without uttering a word to anyone, and put a 9 mm Parabellum round through his temple.
He had left no note.
Arthur was sitting in one of the white, straight-backed chairs trying to wrap his head around the fact that Sergeant Derrick had become the latest of twelve brothers of the 6th LAR Wolf Pack to commit suicide in as many years. A transient thought tumbled through his mind about how the older he got, the more mass cards he seemed to collect. But at forty-six years of age, he conceded, his stack would only get thicker with all the friends, relatives, and servicemen he had known. Pretty soon, he told himself, you’ll be saying what all the elders say: all my friends are dead. There is no one left from my past. I am alone.
He shook his mind free of those thoughts and into one of how the sergeant’s story had only differed slightly from all the others who had gone before him, but, nonetheless, had ended with the same tragic outcome. He had now officially become just another statistic of the psychological demon known as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Derrick had locked himself inside his own mind, reliving over and over the sights and sounds of the things that anyone who had ever been in combat never talked about. Arthur sighed heavily. Some of us never really make it home, because home is still half a world away, filled with firefights, explosions, and death. Because that’s the only home that seems to make sense anymore.
Arthur felt Sharon’s hand gently clasp his. He gave her a sideways look and a soft smile before turning his attention to the Marine Corps honor guard standing at attention at either end of the flag-draped mahogany casket. Their dress blue uniforms were well manicured with crisp, clean, razor-sharp lines and decorated with brass buttons polished to perfection. The whites of their peaked dress caps, gloves, and belts stood out like freshly fallen snow against their long-sleeved midnight-blue coats and the red-striped, sky-blue trousers. The glossy black bills of their caps and wet-polished dress shoes gleamed sharply. Arthur’s chest filled with pride as he gazed upon their silent, statuesque presence. Behind the casket, the American and Marines Corps flags hung sorrowfully on their stands, weeping the same quiet, unseen tears they had for generations.
The room itself was of average size, but still comfortably held everyone assembled to pay their respects. The hardwood floors were a rich, dark maple accentuated by Southwestern designed area rugs, and they creaked with an elegant hint of age whenever someone walked across the room. White folding chairs were set up in two columns of ten wide and fifteen deep and separated by a center path. Arthur took note that the chairs were quickly being filled with sobbing women and introspective men. Sprays of colorful flowers with cards relaying their sorrow had all been carefully positioned throughout the room on stands and tables, while a large portrait of a younger Sergeant Joshua Derrick in his dress blues stood proudly on a large easel to the left of his casket.
Arthur stared at the portrait for a long moment, remembering the excited kid who had just landed in-country a few months before Arthur’s last rotation out of Operation Enduring Freedom. Derrick had enlisted four weeks before 9/11. As he had mentioned in their first conversation after meeting, he “joined during peacetime and came out of basic in wartime.” He recounted how his DI had come into the squad bay, told them all to circle up, and removed his cover. The room was silent. Later that day, the company commander had brought in a TV and shown videos of America under attack. Derrick told him of the anger that had filled him that day after witnessing the Twin Towers fall and that in the days afterward all he wanted to do was exact vengeance upon those who were responsible. Arthur remembered seeing in him both the eagerness to fight and the naivety that had convinced him that he was going to win the fight and change the world. That eagerness always came at a cost, Arthur reflected. And all being in-country ever did for anyone was make them hard or make them scared or, like most who came back, make them love it. Love it so much that you would go back in an instant and climb into the uniform that felt as cozy as a pair of pajamas without even a second thought.
Arthur felt Sharon’s hand squeeze his again, and he turned to look at her. He remembered his father telling him when they were discussing his idea of matrimony that life was about choices. And after a while marriage becomes wondering if you made the right choice. As Arthur read the emotion in his wife’s eyes, he knew his choice had been the correct one.
“I’m going to go over and talk to Kathy,” Sharon said, wiping tears away from her eyes. “Are you coming?”
Arthur shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No, not yet. I can’t just yet. Maybe later.”
Sharon smiled softly and got up, smoothed out her dark skirt that matched the rest of her somber outfit, and left Arthur to his thoughts.
Arthur half smiled. He was glad that both his mind and soul had been strong enough to tackle what he had seen before Sharon and he had even met. Arthur was of the Towering House clan, born for the Big Medicine People clan, and attributed his sanity to his deeply ingrained spirituality, his nights spent in ceremony, and his resolute quest for harmony. Without that, he surely would have fallen victim to the string of sleepless nights that had plagued so many of his fellow servicemen, over and over in their tormented minds, like scenes from some horrific movie. And not a movie one could simply get up and walk out of. Arthur knew there were things he’d seen and done that would have tormented him every day of his life
, much like Sergeant Joshua Derrick had surely endured.
“Fucking sucks, Lieutenant,” a familiar voice muttered quietly. Arthur felt a strong hand squeeze his left shoulder. “We just keep burying our guys. Whether we’re fighting it on the battlefield or in our minds, in the end we’re all just another angel going home.”
Corporal John Sykes, who had overseen one of the fire teams within the squad that was part of the platoon Arthur had commanded, was looking down at him, his large frame dressed in somber attire like all the other guests. The years that had passed since their time at Kandahar Airfield had obviously been hard and had managed to add more rugged lines to his already scarred and worn face. The look in Sykes’ blue eyes gave Arthur the impression that he was barely hanging on to his sanity and could easily end up becoming the subject of the next wake he would attend. Arthur remembered instantly what had shaken the big man the most—Sykes had blown away an old woman in Musa Qala, Afghanistan, who’d been running toward them with an RPG. He saved his squad, but there was no way of burying that one deep enough. Besides, you can’t run away from the things that are in your head.
“It’s just Arthur now, John,” he replied. “That lieutenant stuff is from another world.”
Corporal Sykes bristled. “No, sir. Don’t believe that one bit.” He paused briefly to look around. “You wanna see the rest of the guys? I just came from the mess hall they’ve got set up in this place, and they were down there stuffin’ their faces.”
Arthur nodded and stood. He looked around and quickly located Sharon. She was among the small group of wives that had formed a comfort circle around Kathy Derrick. Knowing he had some time, he wanted a chance to feel Sykes out, see if he needed any help. But he sensed he would have to move slowly with him. “Who’s all here?” he said.
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