The Jared Chronicles | Book 4 | The Devil's Bastion, page 29
part #4 of The Jared Chronicles Series
As the sun actually crested the eastern hills, Josh’s breath caught as the optics happened across eight little outboard boats just like the one the two were motoring about the reservoir in.
“John,” Josh whispered, knowing now his nemesis was nearby. Only John would find nine working boats and make sure no one else could use them against him and his people. Only John would have the discipline to keep the motor at an idle in order to reduce the engine’s sound signature. Any other civilian would hold the throttle wide open so as to get where he or she was going as fast as possible—like the old days, people were impatient travelers. Not John Buckley though, he would be patient, and he would be smart about everything he did. This last little part sent a shiver up Josh’s spine.
Was he stalking Buckley, or was Buckley stalking him? John would know a long shot across water at a moving target would be no easy feat, even for a professionally trained and experienced sniper. The boat on the water, if indeed it carried John, would never stop. John would keep the craft in constant motion, making him a much more difficult target. Josh was sure Buckley would operate under the assumption he was being watched at all times; it was the way men in their previous units operated if they wanted to stay alive.
Josh reminded himself to do the same so as not to have any thread of an advantage he might hold evaporate suddenly. He watched the two shadowy figures in the boat make their way all around the south end of the reservoir, never coming closer than twenty-five hundred yards from Josh and his lethal long rifle. From what Josh could tell, the men caught four fish over the course of an hour before returning to the cluster of other boats and walking south into the vegetation, disappearing from Josh’s view.
Josh waited thirty minutes after the two men left before he crawled backward out of his OP. Once Josh was on his feet, he gave the marina and campsites a wide berth on his way toward the south end of the reservoir. He stopped on the hour and updated his soldiers, who hadn’t heard the little boat. When Josh’s information dump was complete, he continued making his way slowly through the grassy hillside country. Josh slowly began formulating a plan as he went, thinking of how he could get close enough to identify the two boaters.
He frowned when the thought crossed his mind that Buckley might not be one of the fishermen. The thought so pissed him off he vowed to shoot whoever was in the boat no matter what. On one of his security stops, Josh sought council with his map. The area the two fishermen headed into was perfect, in Josh’s opinion, as a defensible position. His map showed a creek fed into the south end of the reservoir, and the road accessing the area crossed a bridge, which Josh was sure Buckley controlled.
There was a campground complete with a store and several cabins on the far side of the bridge, which were set deep in a ravine with access being either from the back side, which wasn’t an option; the bridge, which also was a no-go in Josh’s humble opinion; or down the sides of the ravines, which by the contour lines on his map, Josh guessed were too steep for people, let alone any vehicles. Sniping Buckley was Josh’s only real option considering what he was reading on the map.
Chapter 25
As John and Jared pulled the four fish out of the boat on the second day of fishing, John shot an anxious glance out across the water.
“Let’s get the fuck back to camp,” John growled, turning and heading toward the trailhead at a much brisker walk than the morning before.
Jared grabbed his two fish and jogged to catch up as the two entered the thicker foliage of the creek bed. “What’s going on?” Jared bleated, concern bleeding through in the tone of his words.
John kept his pace, not bothering to look back. “Someone’s out there watching.”
Jared stole a look over his shoulder before hastening his own pace. “How do you know?” Jared sputtered, not really needing the answer to know this was for real. He’d seen John’s intuition at work in the past and knew to trust it now, but the words someone’s out there watching so unnerved Jared he needed more in the way of an explanation.
John never slowed until they reached the cabins, where both men dropped the fish off on an outside barbeque. When the others heard Jared and John’s return from their matutinal fishing trip, they began to stir. Jared stood waiting for an answer from John while John stared around their camp, his eyes narrowed, probing the steep country surrounding their enclave. With his lips drawn tight and his jaw set, John turned to Jared.
“I don’t know, I just got the feeling when we came in, someone was out there—watching. I’m alive today because I listen to those warnings, man,” John added.
“Did you see anything or just a feeling?” Jared pressed his friend.
Still looking around, John gave a slow shake of his head. “Just a feeling, man, just a nagging feeling there’s another predator out there.”
Jared suddenly felt very vulnerable standing out in the open when just a few minutes ago he’d been thinking only of eating the fresh catch of the day and all the joy it would bring to his palate. The day before, Margie had somehow convinced Cody to return to the herd and bring back a small amount of milk, which they’d used to make butter. The butter had been placed in a plastic dish and left in the cold water of the creek, where it could be retrieved when more fish were caught.
Jared’s mouth was no longer watering as thoughts of fish slathered in real butter and cooked over a barbeque were replaced with worry and concern for his and everyone else’s safety. Slowly, anger began to well within him in the form of frustration brought on due to the continued badgering by Carnegie and his soldiers. After hearing what John and the SEALs did to and for the soldiers a few months prior, Jared had held hope the soldiers John helped save would desert the colonel.
The fact that this hadn’t occurred became evident when the soldiers showed up at the ranch. Jared figured John and the SEALs had done just a little more damage than good to the soldiers, causing their ethical scales to remain tipped in the direction of the colonel. Jared understood they hadn’t been at the reservoir long, but the place had felt safe, and after the discovery of being able to feed the group fresh fish, their cabin hideaway seemed more like home than the Thackers’ ranch had.
It had been a long time since Jared laid his head in a place he could truly say he considered home. Even looking back, his apartment before the solar flare lacked a feeling of security after everything went to hell. Homes were places men and women felt safe and secure once they were inside, and this place had held that title until about ten minutes ago when John ruined it all with those four words, someone’s out there watching.
“So, what now?” Jared finally asked.
John wagged his head as if all the answers coming to his mind weren’t the right ones. After a moment, he jerked his chin at the fish. “Get someone on those, but have ’em clean them at the back side of the cabins. Everyone else stay inside for now. I’m going up to the OP and get whoever is up there to dig in, get a little cover.”
Jared shot a look at the slimy reservoir catch, then looked back at John. “The colonel?”
John rubbed the palm of his hand against each of his eyebrows before smoothing them to the outside of his head. “There’s a feeling you get, hell, a deer gets it, when someone is watching you. No one was close enough to us to be using the naked eye, so I’m thinking Josh is out there. The only reason he didn’t take a shot is we were probably too far out, which places him on the east side of the reservoir, if I were to make an educated guess. That won’t be the case next time and—he’s alone, which means he’s trying for a long shot, probably wants to remove me from the game and then call in backup to mop up the rest of you,” John finished, his face awash in worry.
John left Jared standing next to the pile of fish and retrieved a small shovel from the front porch of his cabin. Jared watched John move up the side of the hill in the direction of the OP until he lost sight of John. Jared tried remembering who was sitting on watch, but couldn’t recall the previous night’s schedule. He took one more look at the fish, feeling saddened that the joy of a hot tasty meal was being dashed by a threat to their safety.
John climbed the steep hillside to the road, sprinted across the openness of the paved roadway, then again climbed the side of an even steeper hillside, making his way to the OP, where Stephani sat with her rifle held across her chest, a questioning look marking her fair features.
“We’ve got trouble brewing.” John huffed as he reached her.
“Is everyone alright?” Stephani demanded.
“Yeah, everyone’s fine, just got a feeling we’re being watched and, well—I’m usually right when I get that tickle in my gut,” John disclosed. “We need to dig in up here so you have cover if anyone tries crossing the bridge. We’re fucked if it’s the Humvee, but if dudes try on foot or come in trucks, we can do a lot of damage from up here before they ever get near this side of the bridge,” John explained.
“What’s going on, John?” Stephani implored. “You’re starting to scare me.”
John drove the little spade into the earth and tossed the load of dirt on the ground in front of Stephani and himself. “I think Josh is out there trying to get a long shot on me,” John stated. Over the next thirty minutes, John relayed to Stephani his theory on what was going on while they took turns digging a nice little square hole in the ground large enough for two people to fight from.
All the dirt they removed from the hole was piled up in front and to the sides of the opening, adding additional cover to the defensive position. An hour after starting the digging, the fighting hole was finished. Most military fighting or foxholes were completed only when they were outfitted with a grenade sump. A grenade sump was a smaller hole in the bottom of the main hole, dug to a depth of roughly eighteen inches. Its purpose was in case a hand grenade was to drop into the main fighting hole, its occupants could kick the grenade down the smaller hole and move to the sides of their fighting hole until the grenade detonated a foot and a half underground, the earth absorbing most of the explosive’s energy and shrapnel.
Stephani still had an hour to sit on watch, but John wanted two people up in the OP until they figured out what they were going to do.
“I’ll send someone else up here. We need two up here until I can sort this out,” John announced before stepping out of the hole and heading back down to the cabins. John left the little shovel with Stephani, knowing from his own experiences how each individual person liked to tinker with their fighting hole, making it just right so they felt comfortable with the end result.
At the cabins, John found the four fish already cooked, but the usual excited gathering around the steaming hot fish was not the same as it had been the morning prior. Margie and Cody were the only two outside their cabins. Margie was finished preparing breakfast and appeared to be waiting for John’s return before summoning everyone for breakfast.
John beckoned everyone from their cabins, ushering them to the back side between the embankment leading up to the road and the rear walls of the five structures. This at least took everyone out of any sort of line of sight an assailant might have from the opposite side of the creek. Jared had filled everyone in, and there was no pushback, the group having spent enough time together to trust John’s gut feelings.
When the group was finished eating breakfast, John asked Carlos to augment Stephani in the OP. After Carlos inhaled his meal and was gone, John and Jared sat down with the group and hashed out a watch rotation minus Jared, John and Devon. When Devon didn’t ask why, John transitioned into what the three of them would be doing. Before John started, Devon visibly started, his mouth opening slightly as he leaned forward to speak.
Devon wasn’t one to talk, so when the teen seemed like he had something to say, people were more than a little interested.
“What?” Jared pried when Devon didn’t immediately speak.
“Um.” Devon hesitated as if what he was about to say might have ill consequences. “I saw Barry.”
Now it was everyone else’s turn to have their mouths drop to the floor.
“When?” Jared gasped.
“Where?” John demanded, cutting Jared off.
“I thought you guys would be mad at what happened,” Devon murmured shamefully.
“No, no, no,” Jared pushed. “Tell us when and where this happened.”
“At the ranch after I got back, before I came out here. They beat him up and shot him in the hand. He was at the ranch, using a first aid kit. His ear looked like they might have cut it off.”
“And?” John blurted out, his hand flitting up to show his palm as a sign for Devon to not only continue, but finish.
“I shot him too,” Devon said before hurrying to explain why. “The only reason they let him go was to find us and then go back and tell that colonel, so I shot him in the foot so he couldn’t follow me up here.”
The entire group stood flabbergasted at what Devon just relayed to them all. Shannon turned an open-mouthed face to Jared, seeking more in the way of further information, more clarification or anything that would assist her in understanding what Devon had just told them.
A grin spread slowly at first across John’s face as he leaped to his feet and bear-hugged the stunned teen. “Hot damn, boy, you shot that traitor so he couldn’t follow us up in the hills.” John took a moment to shake his head in disbelief, then laughed heartily. “You crazy kid, you shot Barry in the foot. Well, good—he deserved at least that.” John laughed out loud.
“I didn’t want to, but…” Devon swallowed hard, looking uncomfortable after admitting to what would have amounted to a serious felony assault before the solar flare.
Jared stepped forward and laid a hand on Devon’s shoulder. “That’s a good thing, Dev, that’s a very good thing. None of us should want to hurt anyone, including Carnegie. We only perpetuate violence when it serves to stop someone from doing it to us,” Jared consoled.
“I feel really bad even though I know what he did, and he probably deserves whatever happens to him,” Devon said, his voice conveying his dislike of what he’d done.
John was so delighted with what Devon had relayed to the group; he couldn’t help himself. “Dev, you’ve shot two high-value targets in less than a year. Now far be it from me to judge, but can you start killing a couple of these guys in the future?” John chortled, his eyes twinkling, betraying his absolute exhilaration at hearing what Devon had done.
Jared didn’t feel it was the time nor place to continue his counseling session with Devon, so he dropped the subject although the entire thing was odd. John made a few more expected comments on the matter before continuing to lay out his plan of attack. John and Jared would go out as a team of two, looking to gain the high ground, and begin the problematic task of finding a single, highly trained man who wasn’t interested in being located. Additionally, this quarry was lethal and very capable of reaching out and touching both of them if they were careless.
John wanted Devon to circle the reservoir in search of anyone else who might be supporting Josh and operating in the area. If Devon found someone, he was to light a fire in the general area, then continue his search. John and Jared would presumably see the smoke and focus their attention on finding the reason for Devon’s fire. If Devon were at the far end of the reservoir, John told him not to bother since neither he nor Jared would be able to see that far.
“What about the rest of us like Essie and Salvador?” Shannon asked as if the menfolk had forgotten something.
John pointed at the cabins. “Stay here, pull your watches, don’t let the kids run off, and keep a very low profile. I don’t think Josh would just shoot one of you before he knew where I was. He won’t want to alert me he’s in the area, but don’t take any chances.”
Shannon looked at Jared in alarm. “What if someone comes down here?”
“There’s four of you here capable of defending this place,” Jared offered.
“I’ll kill anyone who comes near us,” Cody stated flatly, causing everyone to turn in his direction.
Cody stood with his scoped deer rifle slung over one shoulder, his face darker than Jared remembered it being in the past. It was the opposite of what Devon had portrayed just moments prior. Cody didn’t appear to have any reservations about bringing down violence on any humans who might happen on the cabins. Jared didn’t blame Cody and even understood where the hate stemmed from. His father had recently been murdered, Cody was angry, and with anger came an errant feeling that revenge would extinguish the negative emotions, pushing them back and keeping the roiling sea of hate at bay.
Jared glanced at Calvin, who stared solemnly at Cody. Jared knew when this was over, Calvin would want to discuss Cody’s mental health after what had happened with Claire. Jared, however, wasn’t all that concerned with Cody since the two situations couldn’t have been more different. Claire had been soft, a product of the world before the solar flare, and when her world was eviscerated, Claire had been in no way prepared to go forward.
Cody was cut from different cloth, having been raised on the ranch, working hard, and feeling many of the post-solar-flare discomforts long before they arrived en masse. For the most part, the loss of most everything tethered to the electronics world hadn’t impacted Cody all that much. Being a kid at seventeen years of age, Cody still enjoyed the flexibility most kids keep until they’re adults. It came from being at the mercy of your parents and having to do what you were told, which changed only when a boy transitioned to manhood.
Cody was angry now and likely wanted some level of revenge or justice, which, as Jared was learning, could often appear very similar if not the same to the inexperienced eye. The line between justice and outright revenge seemed to have been severely blurred after the removal of the American judicial system. Although the justice system no longer existed, people continued to commit what amounted to be crimes.
These crimes could not go unpunished, so wasn’t what Jared and John were doing a sort of justice? Jared thought about this and came to the conclusion that as long as the action taken against a criminal was not wildly out of the ordinary or obscenely cruel, the condition in which they found themselves required unorthodox actions in order to preserve some likeness of order in the region. Were Jared to sit back and allow Carnegie to oppress, murder, steal, and enslave the people within his reach, Jared’s life would have been much easier, but as John always said, if you want to do the right thing, you have to fight the good fight.
