The Jared Chronicles | Book 4 | The Devil's Bastion, page 20
part #4 of The Jared Chronicles Series
Chapter 18
John twisted his wrist slightly, looking at his watch’s readout. The timepiece indicated 1730 hours. John glanced up at the sky. The sun was still fairly bright, but had begun its descent into the west, where it would disappear beneath the Pacific Ocean, none of which John would be able to witness from his position in the countryside nearly seventy miles from the rugged Northern California coastline. It was time to light the candle, he thought, wishing again for the thousandth time they all had radios for better communication.
John pulled his binoculars to his face and caught sight of Rip, who lay in the prone position, rifle facing his target. Good, thought John, at least Rip is ready to go. John swung the optics to the north, stopping on the two soldiers less than four hundred yards from his position. John drew a deep breath, letting it escape through his nostrils. His shot would be deadly; he had the luxury of knowing exactly when it was coming while the rest of his group did not. The more he second-guessed himself, the more he wished he’d placed Stephani as the first shooter.
John, Rip, and even Jared were more capable shooting under duress than Stephani and Quinten would be, but what was done was done. With some luck, John’s shot, far to the left of the soldiers, would elicit curiosity, bringing their heads out from behind cover to see what was happening. Hence the term curiosity killed the cat, or soldier in this case. For no reason in particular, John glanced at his watch and then the sky before inching forward. He’d chosen a spot much the same as Jared’s, a trail compacted by years of cattle plodding along the existing fence line, causing one side of the fence to sit at a slightly lower elevation.
John sighted through his electronic sighting system, catching the soldiers in their OP, one actually facing away from John while the other sat facing John. The two men appeared to be chatting in the waning hours of what had been a long day for them as well as the men and woman in the field who were about to make their day markedly worse. John fought the urge to look in Rip’s direction as his right index finger touched the cool steel of his rifle’s trigger. John’s thumb instinctually pushed down on the safety, bringing the weapon into a state of readiness.
The red dot of John’s sight danced on the chest of the soldier facing him as his finger drew in some of the trigger’s slack, but he stayed the shot for a moment. The man with his back to the battlefield should be the first to pay the price for his carelessness, not the soldier who, although not acting all that vigilant, was facing in the proper direction. A slight adjustment, almost more of a thought than an actual movement, set the dot on the negligent soldier’s back directly between the man’s shoulder blades.
The soft suppressed crack of John’s weapon sounded deafening in the quiet afternoon air. The buffer spring driving the bolt back into battery sounded loud enough for the soldiers to hear, in John’s opinion. A ragged series of shots sounded down the line to John’s left as he searched for the second soldier. John found the man up and running away from the fight, leaving his comrade somewhere facedown on the grassy ground of their OP. The soldier wasn’t weaving, but ran straight up a small hill as John held the bouncing red dot high on the man’s back and pulled the trigger a second time.
John watched the man fall face-first onto the ground, draw up like an inchworm, then roll slightly onto his side, where he lay still. John contemplated a second shot, but chose to leap to his feet and race toward Rip’s position instead. John hadn’t taken more than five steps when a muffled womp sounded off to his right. Rip was working the M203 launcher now, John thought. All was going as planned, or so it seemed from John’s perspective.
Forty-five seconds later, John arrived at Rip’s position, not bothering to stop as Rip leaped to his feet and followed John toward Jared’s shooting spot. Suddenly several alarmingly accurate incoming rounds snapped at the air around their heads and waists as they ran. Either someone hadn’t got both their soldiers or wasn’t keeping their targets’ heads down so John could make the rather lengthy trek across some pretty open ground. As John and Rip approached Jared’s position, John became aware of a slow but constant rate of fire coming from Jared’s weapon.
“Rip, hit ’em with the 203,” John hollered, sliding to the ground next to Jared.
Jared stopped only long enough to make eye contact with John as he and Rip dropped to the ground next to where Jared was battling both the soldiers in the OP, he’d been tasked with hitting. Jared had missed his first shot, and the soldiers had responded at first with horribly inaccurate return fire that had increased in accuracy when Jared re-engaged the soldiers, giving away his position.
John pulled his rifle back into his shoulder and scanned Jared’s OP, seeing both soldiers hunkered behind a fallen oak. “You didn’t get a single one?” he asked, exasperated.
Jared’s answer came in the way of more shots directed at the elusive soldiers. When John didn’t hear Rip let loose with the M203, he turned to see Rip holding his mangled left arm, trying to wrap a strip of gauze around it, but failing miserably.
“Oh, shit, Rip,” John blurted out, seeing a parabola of blood arc up out of Rip’s arm before succumbing to gravity and falling back to earth, where it had begun to pool about his side. John scrambled over and tore Rip’s tourniquet from his vest; the bleeding was not going to be stymied using gauze. This wound, although close to the wrist in the forearm, would kill Rip if they didn’t get the blood flow stopped and quick. John roughly shoved Rip’s right hand out of the way as he unraveled the straps of the tourniquet.
Rip, seeing what John was doing, rolled onto his back, laying his destroyed arm across his chest. John placed the tourniquet just below Rip’s elbow, gave Rip a get ready look, and then pulled the straps tight. Although Rip didn’t scream, he groaned so loud, Jared stopped shooting and looked over to see what was happening.
Jared’s eyes went wide at the sight of all Rip’s blood on the ground, on John, and covering Rip’s clothing. “What happened?” Jared asked, his voice trembling slightly.
John rolled Rip over, checking for other wounds as he answered, not bothering to look in Jared’s direction. “He got shot. Now kill those fuckers before one of us gets it.”
Jared turned back to his rifle and continued the exchange of gunfire with the two soldiers behind the fallen oak. Meanwhile John wrestled Rip out of his rifle sling, taking command of the M203, causing Rip to protest until John pulled the man’s pistol out of his holster and handed it to him.
“It’s in condition one, bro, be careful. We don’t need any accidents. This is in case this whole fucking ambush goes more pear shaped,” John said with a grimace.
Rip took the pistol, swallowing hard. He was slipping into shock and would need medical attention not available to the folks at the ranch and most likely not even to Carnegie’s people. John took a moment to identify the two soldiers Jared was shooting at before flipping up the leaf sight on the M203 and steadying the weapon against his shoulder. A pop and the grenade was away, landing on a crossbeam of the downed oak tree and showering both soldiers with white-hot shards of metal shrapnel.
“Can you run?” John shot in Rip’s direction.
Rip gave a chin-close-to-his-chest nod that told John the man was in bad shape, probably only able to function because of the adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream at the moment.
“Move,” John ordered, getting to his feet and sprinting in Stephani’s direction. John looked back once and saw Jared running at a fevered pace while Rip stumbled along, white faced and slightly unsteady. John fell to the ground, motioning Jared past him as he waited for Rip to catch up.
John actually saw the bullet exit Rip’s left side, pulling the fabric of the man’s top out slightly and bringing with it a pinkish spray of blood, flesh, and bone particles. The bullet dropped into the grass not five feet after exiting Rip. Time slowed as John processed what he’d just seen. It wasn’t unbelievable; John had seen bullet wounds where the projectile failed to exit a man, poking out slightly against the interior of his skin. Bullets were magical things when unleashed, and one never knew where or how they were going to end up.
John’s thoughts were interrupted by Rip pitching headlong onto the ground, the type of fall only dead or very drunk men take. John crab walked back to the fallen SEAL, rolling him onto his side first and seeing the man had been hit in the right shoulder, but the bullet had exited through Rip’s rib cage on the left side halfway between his armpit and beltline. As Rip’s head flopped over, John knew instantly the young SEAL had died before his body careened onto the rough ground. Still, John grabbed Rip by his intact wrist, checking for a pulse; there was none. Next John loosened the tourniquet before removing the bloody strap and stuffing it in his own pocket.
John gave Rip a pat on the shoulder, hating what he was about to do, his lips pursed tight as piano wire. Between Jared’s fading figure and John were small intermittent puffs of dust where bullets were striking the pasture. John was less concerned about his impending race through hostile gunfire than he was leaving a fallen comrade behind. It didn’t sit well with John, leaving Rip behind to be found and stripped of gear by Carnegie’s men. John spotted the pistol in Rip’s lifeless hand and retrieved the weapon, thinking it would be one less thing Carnegie got to take from Rip.
Without further hesitation, John sprang to his feet, leaning into a hard sprint to the west. John saw Jared pull up in the distance and knew his friend had reached Stephani. John ran hard, hearing the snap of a bullet close by as his eyes witnessed countless impacts in the dirt ahead of him. Both Jared and Stephani realized John was coming alone and thankfully possessed the presence of mind to hammer the OP to their front.
When Stephani had fired on her target, she’d wounded one of the women, striking the female soldier in her rifle and causing multiple wounds from bullet shrapnel. The wounds were horrifying, but not life threatening. Soon after the soldier fell to the ground—bleeding from the hands, arms, and a couple of smaller cuts to her neck—she returned to the fight. The strike to her weapon hadn’t put the gun down, and now she fired at John as he ran.
When Jared saw John running alone, he knew their operation was not going to be without loss. Jared remembered the words of his old friend Bart telling him there would be times when a battle would batter one’s being with such chaos that the world would seem to be coming to an end. Bart told Jared the men who survived these experiences were the men who brought to heel the disorganization of the battle and were able to view their predicament through conventional goggles.
Jared actually closed his eyes for a split second, bringing back into focus what absolutely must be done before John fell on the battlefield just like Rip had. Opening his eyes, Jared found himself riveted to his rifle’s sights, one of the soldiers clearly silhouetted beyond. Without conscious effort, Jared pulled the trigger, the rifle bucking slightly as the projectile departed the end of his rifle. His vision had never been clearer as he watched his enemy drop straight down and out of view. The other soldier’s fire ceased as Jared’s rounded dropped her partner.
Fifteen seconds later, John slid to a stop next to Stephani, who stared past John, a puzzled look etched on her concerned, but still pretty face. John gave a grim shake of his head before moving past her toward Jared. Stephani took a quick look back the way John just came before low crawling toward Jared as well.
“What happened?” Stephani asked, not content with a grim shake of John’s head as her answer.
“They killed him,” John said, the anger rising in his voice at being forced to utter this statement before the fight was at an end.
Stephani’s mouth gaped slightly as she looked at Jared for confirmation. Jared’s face was all she needed to see to know she was smack-dab in the middle of a very bad situation. Before Stephani could respond, bullets raked the area where Rip lay, bullets from a heavy machine gun.
“We gotta go now,” John yelled as he scrambled to his feet and ran toward Quinten’s position. In his mind John knew what had to be done, a leapfrog of sorts, covering each other—only he and the others hadn’t trained for this maneuver. Like most other things in a post-solar-flare world, Jared and the rest would have to learn on the go.
Twenty yards out, John turned, dropping to a knee and scanning the tree line at the base of the hill the soldiers were set up in. As Jared and Stephani approached, John screamed orders. “Go another twenty yards, stop, and cover me.”
Both Jared and Stephani slowed, but only for a moment before continuing past John, heading to the west. John caught movement on the hillside as three men ran down toward one of the observation positions more than six hundred yards out. John lobbed a half dozen rounds their way before getting to his feet and running to where Jared and Stephani were already firing back at the soldiers to their rear.
Coming to a stop, John huffed, “Go,” then turned and fired another half dozen rounds at a fleeting figure five hundred yards to his right. More heavy machine-gun fire rained onto and around his position, driving John to the ground as Jared and Stephani made their way farther west. John searched with his low-magnification sight for the machine gun, but was unsuccessful in locating it.
More sensing than seeing Jared and Stephani stop, John sprinted forward, hearing an increased level of bullet snaps far too close for his liking as he ran across the uneven ground of the pasture. John was singularly focused at this point on getting himself and the other three out of this mess without further loss of life.
“Run,” John screamed as he flew past the two, still not at Quinten’s position.
Both Jared and Stephani didn’t need telling twice as they leaped to their feet and followed John along the compact cattle trail. The proximately of the incoming rounds seemed to decrease slightly as they continued west, and John wanted to sneak a peek in the direction of the soldiers, but held off for fear it would slow his progress.
Ahead, John could see Quinten on a knee, but the man didn’t appear to be firing his weapon as John closed on the man’s location. Fifteen yards out, John realized Quinten was leaned against a fence post, the clothing on his entire right side soaked in dark blood. John’s teeth ground together in frustration as he slid to a stop next to the stricken rancher. Quinten had been struck in the throat by a single bullet that had deflected slightly to the left, tearing a large part of the right side of his neck out as it exited. John took only the time to wave Jared and Stephani past while he wrestled Quinten’s dead body in order to get the rifle unslung.
Before John got to his feet to follow Jared and Stephani, a glint caught his attention. The fleeting gleam came from a necklace that hung from Quinten’s blood-soaked neck. The piece of jewelry had somehow escaped Quinten’s button-up shirt and hung perpendicular to the ground. The necklace was a normal silver chain, the pendant being two horseshoes, one slightly smaller hung inside the larger horseshoe. John could see Cody’s name engraved in the smaller of the two, and assumed Margie’s name adorned the larger horseshoe. John reached for the piece and tore it free of Quinten’s neck, breaking the chain in lieu of taking the time to unclasp it.
John couldn’t explain why he’d taken the necklace, other than he’d never left a man in the field and needed to bring at least part of Quinten home to his family. Rip’s death had happened so quickly, coupled with the fact that John wasn’t going back to face any of Rip’s family members, so nothing like this had even occurred to John when he’d hovered briefly over the young and very dead SEAL.
John left Quinten lying on the ground next to the fence post John had found him propped up against, to pursue Jared and Stephani, who were outpacing him due to the fact he had three rifles slung from his body and had stopped with Quinten for a few precious seconds. John did some quick math in his head, realizing he’d just lost forty percent of his troops in a single operation. This was what books were written about, movies made of, and endless debriefings spawned from. Now he was that guy, the man who’d dragged these people into an unwinnable fight, and the battle wasn’t even over.
John caught up to Jared and Stephani as they were climbing the barbed-wire fence next to the road. As much as they all wanted to run up the road straight back to the ranch, they knew they couldn’t. With all the gunfire, no one was worried about the people at the ranch being caught off guard, but they still wanted to get back in case Carnegie ordered an attack after what they’d just done. Crossing the road, all three scrambled down a steep embankment into a mostly dry creek bed before turning south and paralleling the road.
From time to time, John climbed out of the creek and performed a perfunctory search of the area to their rear in search of possible pursuers. He never saw such a force, so they continued south through the creek bed, unmolested. The sun sank lower, and darkness descended on the three beleaguered humans as they pushed forward, their minds twisting and turning, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Five friends had set out on a journey, and now only three of the five remained, the other two left in a pasture, bloody, broken, and quite dead.
John guided the three to the rear of the ranch and set up an OP. He and Jared watched the ranch for a full thirty minutes while Stephani watched their six o’clock. No one spoke of the two good men they’d been forced to leave behind or the fact that as soon as they landed at the ranch, Margie would want to know where Quinten was. Of all the execrable things needing to be done in their immediate future, telling Margie of her husband’s death was the least looked forward to.
Forty-five minutes of watching and John got to his feet. “Come on, let’s get back.”
Wordlessly the three made their way across the open ground, approaching the ranch house from the south. The ranch offered no indication of danger as the three survivors walked up to the back of the house. The inside was dark as John carefully approached the porch and gave a short low whistle.
