The Jared Chronicles | Book 4 | The Devil's Bastion, page 38
part #4 of The Jared Chronicles Series
Shannon thought about this for a moment and was introspective enough to realize she was in over her head in this hunt for professional killers. The more she thought about what Devon said, the more Shannon understood her first impulse in a dangerous situation was to be in the company of as many of her friends as she could, but Devon’s words opened her mind to the reality that in order to win out here, she would have to remove herself from her comfort zone.
Seven people could cover far more ground than a cluster of seven people could. Spread out across the landscape, the entire group could not be pinned down by a single gunman. Spread out, a gunman could pin one or two of the group down, but the remaining members of Shannon’s group could then maneuver on the threat. What Devon was suggesting seemed plausible the more Shannon ran through the pros and cons of both staying together and splitting up.
“We can spread out in a line and comb the hills, stay within fifty yards of each other. That’ll cover probably three or four hundred yards, maybe more depending on line of sight,” Shannon proffered.
Devon used a stick to dig at the dirt as Shannon talked, never making eye contact with her. When she finished, Devon smiled crookedly in agreement. It had taken a lot of courage to bring up the subject of spreading out, and when Shannon embraced it, Devon felt both relieved and embarrassed, hoping she wouldn’t tell everyone it was his idea. On the flip side, when John got back, Devon prayed Shannon would tell him of Devon’s tactical think-tank moment.
Shannon moved back to the group clustered a few yards below her and Devon. “Devon thinks we should spread out so we can’t all be pinned down and so we can cover more search area, and I for one think it’s a great idea,” Shannon presented.
Stephani scooted closer to Shannon on her knees. “How spread out?”
“I was thinking half a football field?” Shannon answered in question.
Stephani bit her lower lip at the thought of being alone out here with Josh, a guy John had spoken of as a man not to be underestimated and extraordinarily dangerous. The more Stephani examined the tactical aspect of their situation, the more she began to awaken her mind to the fact that staying together was akin to a herd of cattle. A hunter might not take the entire herd, but they always picked off one or two from the edges, and the cattle never killed a hunter. Stephani surmised they needed to act more like hunters and less like herd animals if they wanted to rid themselves of Carnegie and his cronies.
“I think you’re both right,” Stephani announced after mulling over the possibilities.
Shannon lumped the group into two groups, sending one to the east and one to the west. As each group reached roughly fifty yards from the last person, one of them would drop off until Shannon and her friends were spread across the rolling hills in a jagged and not quite even line. Shannon and Devon shored up the center of the line and controlled its movement and direction of travel. Devon knew where they were going, and Shannon was sort of leading the motley crew, so together, they were the moderators of the group’s movement.
Before Shannon parted ways with Devon, she grabbed his sleeve. “Hey, Dev, do you really think those guys are going to be in the same spot after you smoked ’em out like you did?”
Devon stopped; his arm pulled away from his body in Shannon’s grasp as he swung his head around. “Nope.”
“Neither do I,” Shannon admitted. “Guide us in the general direction, but let’s make sure to cover any ground you think they may have moved to.”
Devon nodded quickly, then dropped his eyes to his sleeve still clutched in Shannon’s grasp. Shannon held it a moment longer, then released the teen, a determined look in her eyes. They were going into battle, and Shannon was without the aid of either Jared or John, which, when she stopped to think about it, scared the hell out of her. For the first time, Shannon felt the pressure Jared talked about when making decisions that could easily result in people getting hurt. If Devon or any other member of this group ended up dead or even wounded, the fault would fall directly on Shannon’s shoulders.
A person’s death could result superficially from an error made in battle, but the fact that Shannon had brought them out here made her uniquely responsible if something were to go dreadfully wrong. Shannon remembered hearing John talk about putting the reality of war out of one’s mind in order to be able to function. If all one did was worry about what could happen, nothing would ever get done.
Shannon knew she needed to find a middle ground where she wouldn’t be obsessed with the what-if factor. This sought-after middle ground had to be something that wasn’t reckless in her attempts to rid herself and the rest of their community of the threat that continued to haunt them since the day Josh Talley had flown into their original little ranch house and kidnapped John. Once Carnegie and Josh were gone, Shannon thought errantly, they wouldn’t have a worry in the world. Had Shannon been able to foresee the future, she might have dropped everything and simply run.
After losing contact with his soldiers, Josh moved with increased caution. He wasn’t frightened, just better to be careful than dead was his age-old motto. After seeing the teen earlier in the day, Josh saw no one else even after darkness wrapped its nightly arms around him. No longer able to see without the aid of his night-vision goggles, Josh decided to bed down for the night. Without the aid of night vision on the long gun, Josh saw little use in moving any farther south.
Had he enjoyed the luxury of a thermal scope, there was no doubt Josh would have performed a night stalk on the bridge in an attempt to remove Buckley’s security measures—whatever they were. Alas, Josh was destined to day and low-light shooting with the high-quality scope atop his rifle. The shot, if he had a choice, would be made at dusk, giving him the cover of darkness to move while Buckley’s people tried figuring out what happened, but Josh would take what he could get.
With darkness blanketing the land, Josh sought a suitable place to lay his head for a few hours before continuing in the direction of the bridge. Josh’s bed came in the way of a fallen oak in a steep ravine. Wriggling under the oak, then pulling his gear in after him, Josh felt comfortable sleeping for a few hours. If someone were to pass the tree, the steepness of the terrain coupled with the lack of visibility at night would most likely result in a person making quite enough sound to alert Josh to their presence.
Josh drank water and ate a marginal dinner of dried fruit and two MRE crackers with peanut butter spread in between the two. Josh didn’t bother pulling any bedding from his pack, instead resigning himself to a few crappy hours of cold sleep on the hard ground. The cool spring California night did not disappoint, and Josh slept terribly. When he tossed, waking himself for the tenth time, Josh sat up and checked his watch. He’d planned on sleeping during the warmest portion of the night, then traveling during the colder early morning hours. It was time to travel, both by what his watch was telling Josh along with the miserable feeling the damp cold morning air was screaming at him.
He didn’t have much to prep in the way of gear, having slept in his clothes with his backpack staged and resting within an arm’s distance. Before he left, Josh consulted his map, making sure he knew where he was going and how far until he reached his destination. When Josh was content with what he saw on the map, he folded the navigation guide and stuffed it in a pocket, grabbed the drag bag along with his pack, and slipped out from under the mighty oak.
Josh made good progress under the cover of darkness, only slowing when morning began to cast its dim light across the landscape, giving the world a heavily filtered selfie look.
When Josh’s map indicated he was roughly one thousand yards from the west side of the bridge, he became a serpent in the grass. He moved no more than a few yards at a time, constantly glassing the area with his binoculars. Josh had left the long gun in the drag bag he’d brought and strapped to his pack. Josh removed the bag from where it was strapped to the side of his pack and replaced it with his H&K 416. Josh dragged both the pack and the long-gun bag along as he slithered forward toward his objective.
With his face turned to one side, cheek dragging across the surface of the ground, Josh pushed himself forward, one inch at a time. His goal was to stalk to within between six and eight hundred yards from the opposite side of the bridge, where he would seek out a suitable FFP, or final firing position. Pushing with his feet, careful to keep his heels flat to the ground, Josh made painfully slow progress in order to maintain a low profile.
Josh focused on his stalk, but continued to call the missing soldiers over his radio every hour on the hour. Josh held no aspiration the soldiers would magically answer and everything would be okay. Quite the opposite, Josh planned to operate as if he were the only person in a very hostile environment. The missing soldiers didn’t come close to derailing Josh’s mission, but did cause him to rearrange a few of his priorities.
This was a common battlefield occurrence Josh had experienced on more operations than he could remember. A warrior always had a plan, and that plan was nearly always altered mid-mission. Hunting Buckley was no different, so Josh didn’t worry too much about the AWOL support team he’d hoped to use as a blocking force. Josh resigned himself to calling Carnegie once he’d reached his FFP. The thought of making the call turned his stomach. Carnegie would be irate, would demand answers, and completely miss the fact that Josh was calling him for answers.
Josh could already hear the conversation in his head, making things even worse. Josh decided he’d make the call, and if the call wasn’t going well, he’d shut the radio off and tell the colonel his battery died once he returned to the ranch. What Josh wouldn’t do was ask for more troops; he was far too prideful for that. With a sigh, he pushed himself another two inches forward, pulled the drag bag along, and pushed again.
This push, pull thing went on for the next two hours as Josh navigated his way through the lush grasses of the northern California pastoral landscape. The beauty of the land was lost on Josh, as all it offered him were either obstacles or advantages in his endeavors to kill John Buckley. The rugged rock outcroppings weren’t something to pause and appreciate, they were a terrain feature Buckley could be hiding behind or something Josh could use as cover.
Josh made sure he didn’t top the crest of the last hill he stalked up, knowing the bridge would be visible from the other side. Josh wisely slipped to his right, so instead of cresting the small hill, he rounded it. Hiding in a swath of brush would have been fantastic for concealment, but Josh also knew it would be the first place someone looked after he took a shot. No, Josh would make his FFP right in the tall grass, using the vegetation to cover himself and his equipment.
Once he made a shot, he would assess his situation before making his next move. If he was discovered, he’d slide backward and then downhill to his right, escaping any contact with Buckley or his group. Josh hoped the professional job he’d done building his FFP, together with the nearly eight-hundred-yard distance to the target, would lend him a great deal of battlefield capital, and he would not be compelled to leave. This would almost certainly afford him a second and possibly a third shot on Buckley’s group.
Josh knew better than to take more than three shots from the same position. Doing so would be a surefire way of getting himself killed. In lieu of a fourth shot, Josh would move his FFP or pull back altogether, regroup, and set up a new FFP in hopes that Buckley and his friends would come to him. Josh wasn’t sure he could positively identify Buckley from a range of eight hundred yards without the aid of a spotting scope and hoped Buckley’s mannerisms would assist Josh in discerning whether or not he had Buckley in his sights.
Building the hide took Josh roughly an hour before he felt no one from the western edge of the bridge would be able to see him, even with a set of quality binoculars. With the hide complete, Josh set about searching the far side of the bridge, road and neighboring areas. Josh spent twenty minutes searching every square yard of real estate, but found no sign of life.
When nothing presented itself on the other side of the bridge, Josh slowly withdrew his eye from the scope and cast a rearward glance, half expecting to see Buckley standing behind him. To Josh’s great relief, the only things behind Josh were more grass and some birds.
Chapter 33
Shannon and Devon moved forward, crouched low, and walked carefully so as not to make any noise. It soon became apparent that the group’s members on the far side of the on-line formation were having issues seeing when Shannon moved. This resulted in a sort of delayed reaction by the edges of the formation. Shannon moved, fretted, halted, and moved again; her mind awhirl with thoughts of how she could better communicate with her friends out on the edges of their formation.
During one of Shannon’s halts, she briefly entertained breaking a long branch and tying a piece of material to the top so those far to her left and right could see her wave them forward. Shannon quickly scrapped this plan when she realized she’d not only be seen by her friends, but also by any shooter out in front of them as well.
The LA-traffic Slinky effect was just going to have to do, Shannon thought to herself. Shannon made sure she held her stops a few minutes longer so the ends of the formation caught up every time they stopped and no one became separated. Being estranged from the group in the uncertain conditions the world found itself in could mean the end of a person. Losing a member of her group would be harder to deal with than someone being outright killed in a gunfight, thought Shannon, just to add to her already overtaxed mind.
Josh lay in his FFP, feeling the early afternoon sun beating down on his backside. The warmth, which had felt welcoming at first, was now causing sweat to trickle down his neck and back. The only indication Josh gave that the heat was an issue was when sweat ran in his eyes. Josh would slowly draw a finger across his face like a windshield wiper before returning to his statue-like presence on the side of the hill overlooking the south end of the reservoir and all the surrounding territories.
As Josh lay glued to his rifle scope, which was trained in the general direction of the western side of the creek far below, his peripheral vision caught movement at the far edge of his scope’s field of view. Josh fought the urge to swing the rifle to the left quickly in order to identify the sudden appearance of something moving in his scope. Josh breathed out carefully as he slowly shifted the rifle to the left, and his breath caught in his throat.
A man, possibly a Mexican fellow, was creeping along to Josh’s left not more than two hundred yards away. Josh moved his scope’s reticle onto the man’s chest and flipped his safety to the off position. Josh was about to squeeze his trigger when he saw a second man farther to his left.
“What the fuck?” Josh cursed under his breath.
The second man also appeared to be Mexican or some other Latin ethnicity and was moving approximately fifty yards off to the side of the first man. Josh eased off the trigger and began searching the hills to his left, where he found what appeared to be a teen male another fifty yards to the east of the second man. All three people were armed and moving with what appeared to be a great effort to remain unseen. Josh watched the three, swinging the scope back and forth, wondering if there were more members in this sneaky little group.
It wasn’t long before Josh found a woman to the left of the teen. Jeez, Josh thought to himself. He was fairly sure he could engage the first two men with a high degree of success, but without knowing how many armed people he was pitted against, Josh held his fire. Buckley could be in the group, and at two hundred yards, Josh could find himself in a heap of trouble should Buckley organize this group and professionally maneuver on him.
Josh’s only retreat route was downhill, which would take him out of their sights temporarily, but the moment these people reached the crest of the hill Josh currently sat on, they’d own the high ground, and Josh would be down below with limited places to seek cover or concealment. Either way, thought Josh, he was going to need to move across that low area, and these people were going to have the high ground. As he watched them move, he observed they were doing frequent stops and using binoculars to examine an area before proceeding through it.
Suddenly, Josh’s little position of advantage didn’t seem so invincible. Josh had counted on the creek to slow anyone down who might move on him, not thinking he might run afoul of a group already on the east side of the creek. He’d also held out a little hope that if anyone from Buckley’s group pushed toward him, they’d use the bridge, which was the perfect funnel of death from his position. Now suddenly, there were enemy troops in the wire, figuratively speaking.
The time to act was now or never, Josh mused to himself, not at all liking his current position on the chessboard. Josh’s knowns were four armed people moving toward his FFP. Unknowns were how many more if any were tagging along with these folks. One last known in Josh’s opinion was whether there were four or four hundred, two less was better.
Shannon was on a knee when the quiet late morning air was shattered by what sounded to her like a bomb being detonated nearby. The sudden explosion was followed by alarmed screaming to her left in Spanish. Raul was hollering in Spanish, and Shannon could see him running toward where Carlos should have been. Shannon was too far away from Raul to know whether she should have line of sight on Carlos or not. Throughout their morning movement, Shannon had been in and out of visual contact with just about everyone except those directly to her left and right.
Before Shannon could form a thought, a second shot crashed into her eardrums. As suddenly as the second shot sounded, Raul’s hysterical Spanish ceased, leaving an appalling silence to hang over Shannon and the rest of her group. She knew they were in trouble, and although Shannon refused to allow her mind to admit it, Carlos and Raul were likely the recipients of the two shots. Before Shannon was able to come to terms with her situation, a string of fire broke out to her right, causing her to flatten herself to the ground.
