The Jared Chronicles | Book 4 | The Devil's Bastion, page 15
part #4 of The Jared Chronicles Series
“After the first volley, the surviving soldiers would go to ground, and Carnegie would implement a counterattack although I doubt it would come quickly considering the level of training his soldiers seem to have.” John finished by lifting the cup to his lips and draining the vessel of its contents. “Oh, and then we would do a sort of leapfrog back to the ranch, covering each other as we went.”
John placed the cup on the tabletop next to his empty breakfast plate and looked around the room at all the faces staring at him. Faces belonging to people, it seemed, who expected more from him than he’d just given. More than half a plan, these folks wanted John to lay out a foolproof plan they could look at, feel good about, and not worry about the operation being half baked and inexecutable due to the absence of radios. John was truly at a loss, hampered possibly by a former life of reliance on support technology and firepower.
John was beginning to fear his prior existence was just now starting to show its weakness in the form of his inability to wage war as his great-great-grandfather had. Wars fought with swords and other sharpened bits of metal or stone, wars that when started took their own natural course, carrying men and beast alike to either their deaths or victory. Wars also fought without the luxury of advanced communications equipment and air support.
John might not possess a great understanding of war stripped of all its modern-day accoutrements, but he knew enough to understand if fifty or sixty well-armed soldiers descended on the ranch, he and his friends would be overrun. They would all fight, and they would all die at the ranch, and that would be that, unless John or someone else in this group came up with a better plan or the other half to John’s half-baked plan.
Jared suddenly got to his feet, walked across the house to the bathroom, and disappeared inside. A second later he reemerged carrying the mirror that had until a moment ago hung over the purposeless bathroom sink.
“Come on.” Jared beckoned the group, walking past everyone, heading toward the front door.
Outside, the group gathered on the porch as Jared descended the steps and walked out into the driveway. He glanced at the heavens briefly before angling the mirror up and slightly in the direction of his friends on the porch. When the sun’s redirected rays blasted their eyes, everyone’s hands flew to their faces as people both covered their eyes and turned away.
“You got your radios, John,” Jared proclaimed.
John’s face remained like stone as he began working this new piece of the puzzle into its proper place.
Without warning, Jared slammed the mirror to the ground, shattering it into countless shards. “High noon, that’s when we have to attack, that way the sun is straight up, and everyone will have the ability to signal each other. The person left at the house will not signal until it is time to shoot, no need to tip our hand.” Jared tilted his head down and gave John a raised-eyebrow look that told John his friend was looking for input.
John wagged his head, gesturing with a hand for Jared to continue.
Jared was excited now as he plucked a piece of the mirror off the ground. “We can wrap the edges in duct tape, give all the teams one, send ’em out at night, and get them close enough to make a shot on these guys. When the sun comes up, the teams, which will have to be two people each, will have to acquire a target. Once this has been done, they signal the ranch, which the soldiers will not be able to see. Once all the teams have signaled their readiness, the person back here can perform a sort of countdown. Three flashes and everyone shoots on the third flash of the mirror.”
John stepped off the porch and stared out to the north before stooping to pick up a signal mirror from the pile of shards at Jared’s feet. “That’s when Rip tears into ’em. If we coordinate this whole thing, I think we can really hurt them. Rip works left to right while each team puts suppressive fire on their original target so none of these guys can get a weapon into the fight.” John pivoted on one foot to face the porch. “Rip, I’m guessing between eight and twelve positions. How long will that take you?”
Rip thought about it briefly, bringing his weapon around to his front and pointing it out to the north, then performing an imaginary reload of the M203 before swiveling back to John. “A minute maybe if all goes smooth.”
“You got enough grenades?” John queried.
“Yeah, but that’ll pretty much wipe us out,” Rip replied with a shrug.
He and John both knew the grenades were there to be used, and now was probably the best time Rip could think of to use them.
John felt a cement truck’s worth of weight lifted from his shoulders as Jared’s addition to the plan seemed to dovetail seamlessly with John’s original ambush scheme. Both Jared and John were excited after fleshing out their plan of action and wanted to hammer the rest of the details out, but Quinten reminded them there was still work to do on the ranch’s defenses.
Chapter 14
Early morning the day after John and Barry’s recon of Carnegie’s area of operation, a light breeze drifted across the hillsides, the grass bowing dutifully to the force of this unseen energy. The breeze was just enough to bring a slight chill to the air as the base camp began to stir. Men and women emerged from tents, some of whom disappeared back inside, then reappeared wearing an additional layer. Those who stepped out tugged at their clothing, ensuring zippers were pulled to their top, and collars rose around their throats like protective armor.
Carnegie, however, had been up since before dawn, standing in front of his tent, rifle hung off one shoulder, holding a steaming cup of coffee in his left hand, watching the men and women under his command slink about like they were at Stalingrad in the dead of winter. Carnegie wore only his BDUs with a green T-shirt under his blouse. His collar was not turned up, and his hands weren’t thrust into the depths of his trouser pockets, no—Carnegie was unfazed by the cold and stood out in the open, hoping to be an example to these weaker humans. As a pair of soldiers tried passing the colonel without being noticed, Carnegie could take no more.
“You’re dressed too warm. Something happens and you have to run or fight, you’re going to overheat, ladies.” The two soldiers were men, who glanced nervously over their shoulders as they scurried off.
Hearing Carnegie’s voice from inside his own tent, Josh stepped out, dressed and fully kitted up. He walked casually over to Carnegie, thought about asking if the colonel had any more of the coffee he was holding, then thought better of it.
“How close are we?” Carnegie asked in a gruff no-nonsense tone.
“I can’t account for any unforeseen, but we still have a couple of weeks of work to get everything we’ll need. Ammo, food, water, all that stuff needs to be here when this thing starts, and we need enough for a while in case for some reason it drags on.”
“The cattle?”
Josh rolled his shoulders. “Fuck if I know. I have four guys dedicated to looking, but they can only be out for so long before they have to resupply. John could have moved the herd twenty miles away in any direction, maybe off the roads and into the countryside—tough search.”
“This is moving too slow,” Carnegie groused, scratching his chin, his hawklike eyes oscillating across the landscape as if searching for some elusive answer that would speed up the preparations for his war.
“It’s the new way, nothing can be done as fast as before, including whatever John is doing down there. He’s working on the same timetable as we are, only he doesn’t have the manpower we have,” Josh tendered.
Carnegie spat on the ground, took a drink of the now cold coffee, then swept the cup across his front, gesturing toward the ranch. “This whole thing has turned into a goat rodeo. SEALs are all gone, cattle gone, and no one has even seen Buckley. I should have shot the son of a bitch after you brought him back.”
Josh remained mute, his head churning at the thought of cold-bloodedly murdering John. The colonel had just said he should have shot John, but Josh knew that meant Carnegie would have ordered Josh to perform the deed, and Josh wasn’t all that sure he could have done it. He would gladly kill John in combat or a fight, the fight didn’t even have to be fair, but the thought of shooting another tier one operator like that turned Josh’s stomach.
Josh had killed plenty of unarmed men, but they’d all been bad dudes in dire need of being shot. John had been a brother at one time, and although Josh disagreed with John’s choice to leave, he still respected the man in regard to the caliber of warfighter he’d been.
Carnegie shifted his weight, his eyes darting across the land, his impatience barely contained, pleading to burst forth in a violent display of rage. He held in check these impulses, knowing he’d asked Josh to build him an airplane and given the man only a stick and a stone to accomplish the task. Considering the dismal men and equipment at their disposal, Carnegie relented, they weren’t doing all that bad, but still he roiled inside. He wanted Buckley dead so badly it nearly consumed his every waking thought. Somehow, Carnegie felt the world, his world, would be a much better place once Buckley was permanently removed.
“Keep me up to date, and tell the men I will be checking posts today. Let ’em know, Josh, I am in no mood to find some dipshit doing dip shit, shit, sleeping, fucking off, whatever. Make sure they’re squared away,” Carnegie said, his voice menacing, but a little tired at the same time.
“I’ll let ’em know,” was all Josh said before walking down the hill toward the line of fighting positions out in front of the base camp.
John, Jared, Quinten, Rip and Carlos worked all day digging out the area on both sides of the Thackers’ basement foundation. Carlos and Rip took a sledgehammer along with a heavy bar and started knocking a hole in the foundation as soon as Quinten finished with the hole on the front side of the ranch house that connected to the trenches leading out to what would amount to the community’s defensive line.
Jared and John followed Quinten, who was perched atop the tractor, around to the back side of the house, where they all started in on the final portion of their defensive endeavors. The day grew warmer as the men toiled under the sun’s bright rays. Not far from them, other men worked on their own plan for what was fast approaching, a thing that would see men and women come together to bring violence upon one another at the behest of a single man whose hatred for a single man was driving both operations.
By late afternoon, Quinten had fashioned an opening in the basement’s foundation large enough for a grown man to squeeze through, using the tractor’s hydraulic breaker attachment. All the men crawled through, making double sure the hole was large enough for everyone. During the battle would be a hell of a time to find out you were a biscuit too heavy to make it through the opening and into the safety of the basement. John had pointed this out, and no one disagreed.
After the men knocked off for the day, Jared went to check on Devon in the loft. He entered the barn and found Barry hunched over an array of motherboards, circuits, and God knows what else. The interior of the barn smelled of solder as Jared passed by Barry, who never bothered to look up from what he was doing. The man was an odd person, Jared thought. Sometimes he was part of the group, and other times Barry seemed a complete stranger and the type Jared would never have chosen to associate with.
Jared made no effort to consort with Barry as he moved across the barn to the ladder leading to the loft. Devon was looking back expectantly as Jared crested the top of the ladder, hauling himself onto the wooden floor. There were really only two people who came and checked on Devon, Jared and John, and the teen liked them both, so the company was welcome.
“How’s it looking out there?” Jared asked as he approached the teen, walking across the creaking boards of the loft.
Devon, always the awkward youth, wriggled more than shrugged as he averted his eyes from Jared’s gaze. “I seen some people—people way, way out there, probably where John said they have those holes dug.”
“Do you mind?” Jared asked, gesturing to Devon’s binoculars.
Devon pulled the optics from around his shoulders, untangling the strap before handing them to Jared, who took them and peered through the lenses at the lengthening shadows far across the pastures.
“Getting harder to see as the sun goes down,” Jared commented.
“Best time is noon,” Devon said, squinting out the back of the barn.
Jared handed back the binoculars, and then drawing closer to the teen, he lowered his voice. “What is Barry doing down there all day?”
Devon looked perplexed. “I never asked him.”
“He just tinkering all day long with that pile of crap?” Jared whispered, his voice lowering even more and taking on a slightly conspiratorial tone.
Devon shot a furtive look in the direction of the loft’s ladder before replying, “Couple of days ago, he said he was working on repairing some walkie-talkies or something like that. I haven’t seen any of those though. All I hear is him with something down there that makes a clicking sound.” Devon made a quiet squelching sound with his mouth for Jared. “Like a radio type sound.”
Jared remembered they had talked about the need for communications equipment, but Barry had never mentioned anything about a breakthrough. Barry also hadn’t been present at the broken-mirror discussion, so maybe he was just continuing his work to create a way for their community to communicate over distance.
“Alright, Dev, stay alert up here, and let us know if you need sleep.”
Jared returned to the ladder, lowering himself to the barn’s floor, where he studied Barry from the back for a moment before approaching the man. “Hey, man, what are you working on?”
Barry seemed to jump out of his skin at hearing Jared’s voice, which seemed out of character to Jared—one of a few things lately seeming out of the ordinary for Barry.
“Uh, I’m still fiddling around with this heap, trying to, ah—get us something to talk to each other with,” Barry stammered, his eyes bouncing back and forth from his work to Jared.
Barry’s body emanated a twitchy nervousness, perplexing Jared further. Jared was no shrink, but he could read a person as well as anyone else his age, and Barry was off even for Barry, who ran in a perpetual state of slightly left or right of center.
“Anything working?” Jared asked hesitantly.
This question appeared to relax Barry, who smiled weakly, shaking his head. “No not even close. Getting all this junk pasted back together and marrying it to a mic and speaker may take months.” His words came fast, and his voice was slightly higher than normal.
“If it’s not working for now, maybe you should help out with the trenches and some of the other things,” Jared posed.
Barry’s uptick faded immediately. “I was out for two days with John, right in the middle of that lunatic’s camp, I think that counts for at least a few days’ work credit,” Barry huffed defensively.
“Yeah, maybe, but things need to be finished, and our lives kinda depend on them getting done,” Jared countered pleasantly.
“Maybe tomorrow, I have a lot to do here tonight,” Barry replied, brushing Jared off for at least the time being.
Jared recognized a conversation’s end when it was presented to him, so pivoting on a heel, he exited through the barn’s front door, closing it as he left. As he walked across the front yard and gravel driveway heading to the front of the house, something in the far back recesses of his brain tugged at that invisible sixth sense people talk of. A feeling like he was forgetting something before a long trip.
Inside the ranch house, Jared found most everyone sitting at the kitchen table. Some were eating while others appeared to have finished. Margie had not prepared a meal by the looks of everything, since John was chewing on a piece of dried venison while Rip poured trail mix from a bag into his hand, then into his mouth. Jared moved around the table, taking a seat next to Shannon and Essie.
“Can we shoot now?” Essie asked without allowing Jared the time to settle in.
“Not today,” Jared said with a chuckle.
“You’ve said that for a week,” Essie retorted, her face clouding with displeasure.
“We have a lot of things going on right now, and there’s no time, Ess,” Jared said tiredly.
Essie looked to Shannon for backup, got none, and turned back to Jared. “When?”
Jared sat staring at his hands, his body begging him to shut Essie down for the night, but something in his brain told him getting up and helping her with ten rounds downrange wouldn’t kill him.
“Alright, let’s go—ten rounds, ten slow well-aimed rounds, any misses and we stop right there,” Jared said tiredly.
Essie bounded out of her chair, ran to the back door, where her rifle leaned against the jamb, grabbed it, and was outside before Jared extricated himself from the table chair he’d sunk into less than a minute prior. Jared moved slowly through the door, closing it behind himself as he followed the excited eight-year-old out into the backyard.
The shovel was already sticking spade up in the distance as Essie waited at the usual spot they fired the little rifle from. The distance was roughly twenty-five yards, and Essie rarely missed. Jared stopped next to Essie, pulling out a loaded box magazine for her rifle. Essie snatched the magazine from Jared’s hand, then struggled to hold the rifle while inserting the ammunition container.
Jared neither commented nor did he offer to assist as Essie fought to marry the magazine to her little weapon. After a few tense seconds, there was a click, and the magazine was seated in the rifle’s magazine well. Essie, like all children when excited, swung the rifle up hurriedly and was about to fire when Jared laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Slow down, hun, take your time, make each shot count. You can empty that rifle, and if you miss, what’s the use,” Jared counseled in a fatherly voice.
Essie lowered the rifle, staring intently at her target, or more accurately Quinten’s shovel, in the distance. After a brief recess, Essie raised the rifle, her breathing stopped, and her finger pulled gently back on the trigger until the rifle popped. A ting sounded from the shovel, indicating a hit, which brought an immediate smile to Essie’s upturned face. Jared gave Essie an approving look before tilting his chin out toward the shovel.
