The Jared Chronicles | Book 4 | The Devil's Bastion, page 39
part #4 of The Jared Chronicles Series
More rifle fire close and to her left rocked Shannon, and she could smell the rich earthy scent of the fertile soil she pressed her face against.
“There he goes,” shouted Devon to Shannon’s right.
Shannon raised her head ever so slightly in time to see Devon unleash a five-to-seven-round rapid-fire hail of bullets somewhere to their front. She pushed hard on her elbows, raising herself above the grass in time to see a man not more than one hundred and fifty yards away, running down the side of the hill they were on.
Without thought, Shannon hefted her rifle in the direction of the fleeing figure and fired several shots. The man running from them was carrying a backpack on his back and held a larger than normal rifle, much like the one John had taken from Ray the SEAL a few months prior. As Shannon poured lead in the direction of the fleeing man, she saw him stumble and then toss the large rifle to the ground as he disappeared over the curvature of the hill and out of her view.
A person’s defining moment isn’t always a singular act of courage in battle. More often that moment comes in the form of organizing a group of people during or after a disaster in a manner that serves to save additional lives. Shannon had no formal training in this field of expertise and hadn’t really given it much thought, but the moment the man she’d been shooting at left her sight, she began to organize her group of people.
“Devon, get over there and see how Raul and Carlos are. If they can walk, bring them back here,” Shannon ordered. She then turned her attention to a white, yet determined-faced Stephani. “Tell Cody to stay put. We’re all coming to him in a second.”
Stephani gave Shannon a thumbs-up.
Shannon pulled out her binoculars and scanned the area the fleeing figure was last seen, but saw no indication he’d remained in the area. She desperately wanted to push forward while they had the bastard on the run, but also needed to assess her team’s health. Her thoughts were interrupted when Devon called for her, his voice telling her she’d be the newest member in their group to have someone killed while following a plan she’d devised.
After Shannon ordered Devon to check on Carlos and Raul, he ran through the tall grass to where he found Raul lying on his side, butt in the air, a large dark stain growing under his body. Devon’s mouth dropped open at the sight of a fellow member of their community in such a grotesque position. Devon had seen the dead, but he retained enough of the old world not to want to touch the lifeless form of Raul.
Devon hesitated for only the briefest of moments before scrambling past Raul and sprinting the forty yards to where Carlos lay flat on his back, half his throat torn out by the sniper’s bullet. For whatever reason, finding Carlos was not as impactful as first finding Raul had been. Devon called out for Shannon, not knowing what else to do with two of their party down and very dead.
Shannon hustled through the grass, meeting Devon at Raul’s body. “Ohh no, no, nooo,” Shannon groaned, dropping to her knees, her head held in her hands. “Jesus, Devon, what were we thinking coming out here?” Shannon asked Devon, not expecting an answer.
Devon stood uncomfortably over Shannon, waiting for her to give some direction, and when she didn’t, Devon spoke. “We should go find that guy, Shannon.”
Shannon looked up, her eyes moist and glistening after having just lost a third of her unit in a single clash. “We’ll come back for them,” she said, getting to her feet and running in a crouch back toward Stephani.
Shannon ran until she linked up with both Stephani and Cody, who were waiting wide eyed for her to give them an order.
“Ten yards apart, we move to the edge of the hill, a little offset to the right, and see what we can see,” Shannon said, not waiting for feedback as she turned and hurried in the direction the shooter had taken.
“I think I wounded him,” Cody called out from behind her.
“Good,” was all Shannon could muster in response.
As the four peeked over the crest of the hill, they could see the figure far below them in a full sprint. The distance was in the neighborhood of four to five hundred yards, making Shannon wish she’d gone after him immediately instead of checking on her two dead partners. Unexpectedly, Shannon bent at the waist and emptied the contents of her stomach onto the grassy ground.
It hit her all at once. Carlos being killed made an orphan of Salvador; now there were two orphans in their group—she retched again and again. Even as Devon and Cody opened fire on the nearly out-of-range man running below, Shannon continued to dry heave, her mind unable to block out the totality of what had just happened. When both teen’s rifles went silent, Shannon spat on the ground, her mouth tasting like bile as she tried ridding herself of the horrible taste.
“We go after him, fast, but not too fast.” Shannon looked at Cody and Devon. “Kill him if you get the chance, or he’ll do it to one of us.”
Jared was picking his way through the heavy brush and springtime grass that grew thickly around the reservoir when a shot rang out in the distance. It was a single shot followed a few seconds later by a second shot. Jared stopped, his mind not too worried due to the distance of the shots, but then rapid fire ensued. Fire from what sounded like several rifles, and then all was quiet again.
John’s voice exploded in Jared’s earpiece. “You see anything?”
“Negative, just heard all the shooting,” Jared responded.
“We need to step it up, but be careful, those first two shots were from a large-bore rifle, and our people don’t have any of those,” John announced, leaving the rest for Jared to speculate on.
Jared didn’t bother answering as he forged forward, his heart pounding in his chest like a drum. Jared fought to control his adrenaline-charged nerves as he picked his way around trees and bushes, casting the occasional glance up to ensure he and John remained at least close to being in line with one another. They moved this way for several minutes when another cacophony of gunfire erupted ahead of them. The latest racket seemed closer, Jared thought, but couldn’t be sure of it.
“Nice and easy, bro,” came John’s soothing voice through the earpiece. “Sounds like it’s heading our way.”
Jared keyed his mic. “What do you think?”
“Don’t know, man. Maybe someone took some potshots at someone else, and now they’re in a running gun battle—maybe,” John answered, his voice filled with speculation.
Jared refocused on the land in front of him, searching for a position of cover in the event he was fired upon, and so it went. Jared chose something that afforded cover, moved to it, and chose the next one. No matter where he was, Jared could either move forward or backward to the safety of cover without wasting precious time to locate it.
Jared and John were approaching the boat ramp they’d originally taken all the fishing tackle along with the boats from, and still there was no sign of the shooters. When they were within fifty yards of the little marina, John called for a halt. Due to the variants in the terrain, their stopping point left Jared in an elevated spot overlooking the boat ramp while John was off to Jared’s left and nearly at the same level.
“Do you have line of sight on the little store there?” John asked over the radio.
“Yeah, perfect, and I can see the reservoir and the boat ramp,” Jared declared into his mic.
“Stay put. I’m moving up a little further. In case we have to engage anyone, we’ll have them in a sort of L-shaped ambush,” John stated.
Jared sat tight as John moved slowly forward along the edge of a ridge one hundred yards above the parking lot that previously catered to the marina’s needs. Ten minutes of movement and John was in position.
“We wait and see what floats by,” John’s voice announced over Jared’s earpiece.
Josh had made up his mind to reduce this threat by two members when he pulled the trigger the first time, dumping the Mexican guy furthest to the west. When Josh fired, the man dropped in the grass where Josh could no longer see him. Shouts came from the second man, and as Josh had expected, they came in Spanish. The second man was running in the direction of the downed first man when Josh captured him in the rifle scope. Josh steeled himself, stopping his breathing as he tracked the running man through the lush grass. Josh struggled to hold the sight on the moving target, gave up, pushed the reticle out in front of the man, and initiated an ambush-style shot, allowing the man to run into his reticle instead of trying to track the guy.
Josh’s next shot sent the second man into the grass just like the first, and that was when the snap of incoming rounds buzzed about his head like African killer bees. Well, that answered one question; there were more of them up there, thought Josh as he rolled sideways, grabbing his pack and scrambling downhill. The first tug at his left shoulder made Josh groan internally as he felt a round make contact. Another burn in his right calf and Josh tossed the sniper rifle, maintaining only his pack and the H&K 416 strapped to its side. Josh was officially running for his life at this point. He was wounded and pursued by a force with superior numbers.
The fact that Josh was still on his feet gave him some solace as he stumbled, fell, got to his feet, and flat out ran down the hill, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the sons of bitches shooting him to pieces. As Josh ran, the grass he’d stuffed in his shirt, hat, and pants shed away. The cat was out of the proverbial bag, leaving no need for itchy camouflage that no longer served a purpose other than to slow him down.
Josh felt a tightness in his chest he’d only felt one other time in his life. Somewhere in a country where the enemy cut your head off and made videos of the atrocity, Josh had been in a helicopter when it was struck by an RPG. The rocket-propelled grenade detonated just inside the back door of the Chinook helicopter, damaging who knows what. The next sixty seconds of Josh’s life were thought to be the last in his mind as the heavy aircraft spun slowly at first, gaining speed as quickly as it lost altitude.
The pilots were able to arrest some of their descent speed before the giant Chinook struck the side of the mountain and rolled halfway over before it was hung up on a jagged outcropping of rock. Although the boys in the back were banged up and the pilots had likely soiled their flight suits, not a single American perished in the accident.
Now, as Josh fled and bled, he felt that familiar feeling he’d experienced in the back of the Chinook as it made its unscheduled landing on the mountainside. The difference today was there would be no Marine battalion sent into the area as a blocking force while Josh’s own unit came in and rescued the downed men from the crash. Josh was all by his lonesome today and needed to take a minute to assess his wounds to make sure he wasn’t going to bleed out.
The fact that he was on his feet and able to run meant nothing to Josh. He’d seen men mortally wounded fight for several minutes before suddenly crumpling to the ground once their blood loss reached a critical point. Josh was also a hunter and had been witness to the distances a mortally wounded animal could cover before dropping dead. Josh was going to do everything in his power to make sure he didn’t die, just as soon as he could shake his pursuers.
Josh was making for the nearest small knoll, wanting to place an obstacle between himself and his pursuers, when more incoming rounds snapped and popped around his head. Josh could hear the rounds tearing through the tallish grass, but thankfully none of the bullets contacted him this time around. Josh didn’t venture a look back, knowing the people to his rear were several hundred yards back and not wanting to slow his gait. As Josh dropped over the top of the small knoll, he slid to the ground and unlashed his rifle.
Josh performed a quick function check, ensuring the weapon was in condition one and ready to go. Next, Josh peeled his uniform blouse off his left shoulder to inspect the first wound he’d received. The wound was on the back of his shoulder, making it impossible to see whether it was a graze or something worse. Josh didn’t feel like the bullet had entered his chest, feeling his heart still pumping and no nausea. He used his hand to grope the back of his shoulder and found the opening.
The bullet seemed to have torn a baseball-sized chunk off the back of Josh’s deltoid, but didn’t feel as though it had done much else. Josh’s right calf burned fiercely as he gave up on the shoulder wound for the time being.
“Fuck,” Josh breathed as he pulled his hand away from the shoulder wound, dripping with blood. Taking a deep breath, Josh pulled his right pant leg up to inspect the damage done to his calf. Bullets were funny things in that they all had minds of their own. Sometimes they tore off chunks of flesh like Josh’s shoulder, while other times they turned and twisted their way from a limb into a man’s chest cavity, where they almost always were in search of something vital.
Josh’s leg wound turned out to be a clean through and through like someone had shoved a steel rod through his calf, withdrawn the instrument, and been on their merry way. The wound would need to be flushed out and then a couple of round Band-Aids was about all Josh could do after that. Josh felt confident the bullet hadn’t struck any of the bones in his lower leg, so his only concern would be infection.
For the time being, Josh needed to get going; the folks behind him didn’t seem like the death of their two mates had slowed them much. Josh knew deep down, the two deaths were probably driving the people harder in an attempt to exact some level of revenge on the killer of their friends. Had Josh known there was a twenty-something-year-old former schoolteacher with two teens and an attorney tracking him, he might have stood his ground and taken his chances.
Getting back to his feet, Josh realized the hole in his calf was quite a bit more painful now than it had been a couple of minutes ago. Hobbling upright, Josh swung his pack into place, hefted the rifle into his hands, and shot a worried look over his shoulder before charging north, paralleling the reservoir. The rolling hills that acted as cover flattened soon after Josh started out again, leveling off into the campgrounds of the Del Valle Regional Park. Josh hadn’t accounted for having to move through this area when he moved into his FFP, and was now kicking himself for not devising a better plan that included an FFP with more than this shitty escape route.
Josh dogged it through campsite after campsite as he pushed north, knowing at some point he would come to the marina and then more hill country, where he hoped to slip into anonymity. When he’d ducked the pesky pursuers, Josh could take some time to tend to both wounds before heading back to the ranch, where Carnegie would be waiting. As Josh dragged his bad leg along, he briefly thought about making a call to Carnegie to see if the old bastard would send a truck for him. Josh quickly decided against the call, not wanting to explain the missing soldiers, his two wounds, or having to field any other questions the colonel might fire his way.
Chapter 34
Shannon moved the four remaining members of her little assault team after the shadowy figure who’d killed a third of her force just a few minutes previous. She wasn’t going to take any chances she felt she didn’t need to take, so after the fleeing man crested a hill and vanished from sight, Shannon changed course, moving her group west and in the direction the shooter was last seen. If the shooter set an ambush, Shannon and her friends would be cresting the hill far to the west of where he’d last seen them. This, Shannon hoped, would buy them valuable time to locate and engage the man.
Fifteen minutes later, Shannon and her friends peeked through the grasses on the side of a hill not far from the reservoir’s edge. Ahead was flat formerly manicured grounds complete with cement parking pads and picnic tables. Several hundred yards ahead, Shannon spotted a lone figure limping along at a slow, unsteady jog.
“Shoot him, Cody,” Shannon said icily.
“Yes, ma’am,” Cody crowed, moving forward while taking aim at the retreating figure.
Cody’s first five shots were rapid and low. The target didn’t appear to panic, only deviating his course from one of a straight line to one that zigzagged. Cody fired another five rounds that kicked up dirt around the man, but didn’t appeared to make contact with the subject. Devon stepped up next to Cody, leveling his own rifle, took a moment to aim, and fired three rounds, all of which missed.
“He’s too far out,” Stephani proclaimed. “Let’s keep moving. He looks hurt.”
Shannon nodded her agreement, and together the four dropped down the hill, running when they had cover and moving more cautiously when they didn’t. Soon they were on the same flat ground that gave way to the flatter camping area their quarry had been on the last time they’d shot at him.
Jared squatted behind a large pine tree, the trunk bathed in dripping and slightly crystalized sap. Jared was careful to keep his hands away from the sticky substance, having learned the hard way just how difficult it was to remove from his hands. Jared scoured the grounds in front of him for any sign of movement, but so far had seen nothing. Jared was startled as several shots rang out again, only this time much closer, sounding like they were just a few hundred yards out.
“Get ready,” John’s voice needlessly advised in Jared’s earpiece.
Get ready? Jared thought to himself. Yeah, no shit, get ready. Jared was as ready as he was going to get, sitting behind the tree with a locked and loaded rifle, body armor, extra rifle magazines, and his heart beating at speeds he would have expected at the end of a long sprint. Jared’s eyes flitted across the parking lot and up the road leading in from the park’s entrance nearly a mile to the south. Jared couldn’t see the campsites he knew were beyond the tiny marina, but he trained his gaze in that direction, waiting for someone to appear.
John’s voice popped in Jared’s earpiece again. “Movement on the shoreline. I can’t see from my position; should be pretty close to the store or office there at the marina.”
Jared clicked his mic in reply, but didn’t utter a word. Jared couldn’t see a thing moving, which unnerved him to the core. There was nothing worse than being in a dangerous life-threatening situation with people telling you they have the threat in sight, all the while, you’re unable to acquire a visual reference. Unable to see what John was talking about, Jared scuttled to the right side of the tree, seeking a better angle on the marina below his location.
