The Jared Chronicles | Book 4 | The Devil's Bastion, page 8
part #4 of The Jared Chronicles Series
Jared awoke to a room full of long shadows that told him it was well into late afternoon. He hoped it was the afternoon of the same day he’d fallen into the comfort of the bed he lay in. He’d been so damned tired; it could very well be the following day. The saliva in Jared’s mouth was thick and viscous as he pulled himself to a seated position; he’d forgotten to brush his teeth before bed. Jared sat on the edge of the old mattress with his head in his hands for several minutes, trying to bring himself as close to a fully wakened state as possible before he stumbled out into midst of the rest of his friends.
Finally resigning himself to an evening fogged with the lingering effects of the previous seventy-two hours, Jared got to his feet and walked down the hall. He found Calvin, Stephani, Shannon, John and the Thacker elders seated in the living room as he passed through the connecting kitchen. Devon was most likely out in the barn with Raul, Carlos and Salvador. Jared figured the Thackers’ son, Cody, was out checking or tending to livestock while Jared maintained no idea where Rip the young SEAL was.
“Hey, sunshine,” John called out jokingly as Jared appeared.
“So, what’s the plan?” Jared said, mustering a halfhearted smile.
“We fight,” John announced half-jokingly, holding his fist in the air in a mock charge.
“We’re not leaving our home because some criminal thinks he can come in here and take what’s rightfully ours. I won’t stand for it,” Quinten said forcefully as his wife laid a reassuring hand on his leg.
Jared glanced around the room and caught Shannon’s eye. Hers was such a pretty face to gaze on, Jared thought. He hadn’t really interacted with her since his return, eating, cleaning weapons, and then going straight to bed. Seeing her pleasant face with the twinkle of affection in her green eyes sent a warm feeling through him. Jared was aware the upcoming days, weeks, maybe months were about to be very busy, but he was determined to make some time for Shannon and himself. How that would happen, he’d have to figure out later.
“I’d suggest a vote, but I get the feeling you all would stay no matter the outcome,” Jared directed at the Thacker couple.
“You’d be right in your assumption, son,” Quinten said in a firm fatherly tone.
“Okay, and I for one can’t just leave you all here, knowing what’s coming,” Jared responded.
John leaned forward, staring over his interlocked fingers. “I think everyone here understands no one is leaving. We have a little time; even Carnegie can’t wage war like before. He’s been reduced to moving around in scavenged old trucks and one Humvee. Problem is, we don’t know what they have in the way of heavy weapons, rockets or whatever. This means we must prepare for the worst-case scenario, which will be a lot more work.”
John was interrupted by Rip coming through the front door, wearing his BDUs and a black T-shirt. His rifle was slung under his right arm as he dropped his body armor on the floor just inside the door, where he also leaned his rifle. Rip was still the new guy in their little community, so he scanned everyone’s faces, making a small gesture at John, whom he felt the most connected to.
“Come on in. We’re talking about what needs to happen before Carnegie moves on this place,” John said.
Rip found a seat amongst the rest of the group, sitting on a couch end. “Lots,” he said, taking a breath as if for dramatics.
John nodded his head gravely. “Yeah, we have a ton of work ahead of us, but we also need to start running recon patrols. Carnegie can’t just drive fifty or a hundred guys out here and mount an attack. I just don’t think he has the mechanized assets, or he would already have done it. Wars are going to be fought differently now minus the transportation we had a year ago.”
Jared was no historian, but he’d read enough about past events to understand where John was going with this line of thought. “You’re saying he will have to basically establish a base camp or a beachhead—so to speak?” Jared asked.
“Yep, he will first initiate a reliable surveillance team operation in the area, not only to watch the ranch, but to make sure we aren’t aligned with another threat to him and his.” John shot Rip a look for input, and when the SEAL gave him an approving look, John continued, “These surveillance teams will choose a spot where Carnegie can build a base camp. I’m not sure exactly how far out or where this will be, so we have to be proactive in locating it.”
“That’s going to get crowded out there in the hills,” Jared observed.
John looked at his friend Jared. “Yeah, it will be crowded, and I can assure you there will be fighting before the big push. It’s inevitable someone is going to get the drop on another patrol or OP, and someone will get shot.”
“We just gotta make sure it ain’t us,” Rip piped in with a cavalier grin.
Jared was getting used to these special operations types, but Rip was still a rookie to the real world, yet he maintained that Captain America mentality bred into every single last freedom-fighting American from their birth in boot camp until the day they drew their last breath. The problem was, things weren’t as they’d been a year prior. Now they were fighting other Americans, with what amounted to zero medical support in the event any of them were injured. Additionally, the slightest change in their position, like losing a crop or all their livestock, could spell disaster for the entire community.
Rip and John alike had fought in their old units for God and country only in spirit. In reality they were out there fighting for the man next to them. If an entire SEAL team were wiped out, it would have no effect on the country back home, so what these warfighters had done in the past didn’t come close to comparing to what they did now. Were Jared, John, Rip and Devon to go out, get compromised, and be overrun and killed, Shannon and the rest of community would soon follow the men to the gates of heaven or hell, depending on how each had lived their lives.
The stakes as a whole were much greater now, and Jared wasn’t sure Rip understood that fully. Guys like Rip and John had enjoyed combat before the solar flare, while Jared loathed having to fight for his life.
“We can’t go looking for trouble out there,” Jared admonished. “Two or three of us get killed and the whole place falls.”
John knew exactly what Jared was getting at and would talk to him offline. Rip was a young SEAL with more testosterone than any ten male social-media influencers of old, but John also knew the young SEAL would fight to the death for the people he’d known for only a few short months, and that spoke volumes about Rip’s character.
The group sat up late into the night in the flickering light of two small yellowish candles, talking about a strategy for dealing with the coming threat. Suddenly, Jared realized he hadn’t accounted for Essie or Barry.
“Where’s Barry and Ess?” Jared remarked.
Shannon frowned disapprovingly. “Ess is in bed. She was sent to bed early for some indiscretions on her part.”
Jared waited for an explanation that didn’t come from Shannon, but instead from a smirking Stephani.
“Ess told her schoolteacher she wasn’t doing school anymore. School was for people from the old times, and she’d now be hunting with—” Stephani paused, directing her eyes to Jared “—you. When Shannon pushed back, Ess lost her mind, and well, now she’s in bed, and I’m sure she will be in attendance at tomorrow’s school session.” Stephani ended with a comical tilt of her head.
Shannon obviously hadn’t and still didn’t see the humor in having Essie disparage education and then follow that up with challenging her on the matter. “So, she went to bed without supper,” Shannon concluded.
“Oh boy,” Jared said, trying not to smile.
Shannon’s pretty face had darkened, but Jared still found the beauty in her features. Not wanting to be at odds with her, Jared shook his head disappointedly. When he caught Shannon’s eye again, he could tell she wasn’t buying it, but was willing to drop the subject as long as he remained publicly against Essie acting up like she had. Deep down, Jared was acutely aware that had Essie challenged him, he would have felt the same as Shannon, so she had a point in being upset.
The conversation drifted away from the recalcitrant child and back in the direction of surviving the devil in the valley. Jared suggested Cody and maybe Calvin move the cattle out of the area before anything started, and Quinten quickly agreed. Poisoning water holes and killing livestock were a couple of the oldest tactics in the book on war. Remove a water source and starve your enemy and there was a good chance you wouldn’t need to fire a shot.
They’d place a watch on the well, which wasn’t more than a few yards from the ranch house’s front door, so this wasn’t much of a worry to the group. The cattle, on the other hand, were a huge concern to Quinten. John was convinced that Carnegie wanted the cattle, and if for a moment he thought this couldn’t be achieved, he’d go to great extremes to make sure John and the rest of the community also couldn’t use the cattle to grow stronger.
John wanted an overwatch on Highway 5, but having no way of communicating with anyone more than a hundred yards away, this seemed pointless. Jared suggested two of them be placed on an OP overlooking the approach from Highway 5, one on foot and the other on horseback. If there came a time or event that the ranch needed to know about, the person on horseback could return and report the situation. The man or woman left on post would continue to watch, take notes, and basically gather as much intelligence as they could before also returning to the ranch when it was safe to do so.
In the interim, they would run patrols in an effort to pinpoint what Carnegie and his soldiers were up to. The patrols would be run in the same manner in which Jared and John had done during the last fiasco. Leave at night, envelop a suspected area of enemy activity, account for it, and RTB or return to base.
“Where’s Barry?” Jared asked again, steering the conversation back to missing persons.
Rip waved a hand in the direction of the front door. “He’s in the barn, dicking around with some electronics. He’s got a little fire thing with a pump for air and is trying to do some soldering.”
“He needs to be here when we meet like this,” Jared stated to no one in particular since it was Barry who needed to hear what Jared was saying.
“Let’s eat—get some sleep, and we can sort more of this out tomorrow. We need a plan by noon tomorrow so we can start implementing the parts we can,” John said under raised eyebrows.
Everyone asserted their agreement with a series of nods, grunts, and Rip’s, “Amen, brother.”
Chapter 8
Carnegie sent for Josh Talley, ordering the operator to meet him in the briefing room. It had been a day since the eyes the colonel had on one John Buckley went dark. This, married with the fact that five of his soldiers had also been mysteriously killed, had Carnegie in a fouler than usual mood. When Josh arrived, Carnegie got right to it. He had outlined on a dry-erase board the framework for the reconnaissance, staging, and logistics, along with a final assault plan.
“Pretty self-explanatory, but take a look at this and commit it to memory. You’re going to be spearheading the entire operation—start to finish.”
Josh studied the board, then grabbed a marker from the bottom of the board. “May I?”
“Have at it,” Carnegie grunted.
Josh scrawled a few notes along with additions he felt would increase their chances of success before turning back to Carnegie. “We need more teams in the initial recon of this place. If my gut’s right, Buckley is the cause for our dead and missing.”
Carnegie leaned forward, placing his large hands palm down on the table, and stared back at Josh from under hooded eyes. The eyes of a man who’d lived a life of violence and now had somehow evolved into the devil himself. Josh wasn’t sure what color the colonel’s eyes were, but at this moment they appeared as black as ink.
“I’m glad you’ve come to that conclusion,” Carnegie sneered. “I was worrying about you. I never fucking doubted Buckley was the cause of all this. I knew it before you went out. He’s been the bane of my troubles since the moment we spotted him with the drone. In hindsight, I should have sent you in alone and just clipped the son of a bitch from a thousand yards out—and been done with it all.”
Josh just listened, knowing better than to prattle on when there was nothing to say. Sure, he wished the same as the colonel, and he was sure the colonel knew it, leaving no need to talk about it.
“What I need from you, Mr. Talley, is to think like Buckley will be thinking out there. This is not a raid, nor is it an operation. What we are preparing for is a war, which requires its leaders to view it in the proper light. Like the ripples a rock makes on a pond, so will your actions make on this war. If you fail to outmaneuver Buckley, we could find ourselves in a very bad way. Do you understand what I’m driving at here?”
Josh nodded, slightly insulted by the colonel’s sudden loss of faith in him. Josh was a little incensed by the treatment, but not enough to make a stink. Pushing back on Carnegie would only make his life harder. No, he would quietly listen to the colonel ramble on about field operations or wartime activities like a good soldier; then he would go out into the field and conduct battle the way he knew how.
“I’m coming out on this one,” Carnegie said, surprising Josh to the point his mouth fell partially open. “Yeah, make sure this war is being fought in the proper manner.”
“Great,” Josh stammered. “Be good for the troops to see you out there.”
Carnegie stood to his full height, crossing his thick arms across his heavy chest. “Cut the bullshit, Master Sergeant. I’m not coming out there for some USO morale-boost circle jerk. I’m coming out to keep an eye on you. Buckley’s bested you and your soldiers at every turn, and quite frankly, Talley, I’m fucking tired of it. You’re an asset, that is a fact, but you’re also a loose cannon. I want an asset—I don’t want a loose cannon.”
Josh thought briefly about telling the old bastard to hug a root, but held off, thinking if he did, there was a high probability he would end up in either a fist- or gunfight with the ornery old curmudgeon. As Josh stood before the colonel, he wondered what would happen if he just smoked the fucker right here. He was fairly sure if he drew on Carnegie, he’d get the first shots off, and with the colonel not wearing body armor, Josh felt his chances were pretty good. Josh also felt if he killed Carnegie, the base would look to him for leadership, which he had no interest in involving himself with.
Today he would go and do his boss’s bidding. He really didn’t mind the work, he had an axe to grind with Buckley, so the mission was solid in his mind. Once Buckley was dead, though, Josh wondered how long this little warlord charade was going to carry on. At some point all warlords were torn from their palaces, shot, stripped naked, and dragged through the streets by those they’d subjugated.
At some level, Josh leaned toward being jealous of Buckley. Buckley seemed to have mates, like the SEAL and possibly others, while Josh mostly hated all the men and women he had the misfortune of working with. If Josh had just one good partner to work with, his life would be significantly improved in the morale department. Alas, he was doomed to do the bidding of Carnegie, working with a stick and a stone, figuratively speaking.
“Alright, Colonel, I understand the basics here,” Josh said, pointing at the board. “What’s your timeline for the final assault?”
“I want a base camp established within the next week, at which time I will run things from the field. I’ll assess timelines once we’re out there and have a better feel for the lay of the land,” Carnegie answered.
Carnegie didn’t appear to be in a negotiating mood, so Josh gave a brisk, tight-lipped nod. “Roger that. You want the Humvee at your disposal throughout the—war?” Josh said, nearly calling it an operation.
“I do,” Carnegie stated as if this was a forgone conclusion Josh should have already known.
The following morning, Josh and three two-man reconnaissance teams departed the base, using the Humvee along with the bullet-riddled Ford truck. The Ford’s bed was still awash with the blood of the last men to use it, acting as a stark reminder to all the soldiers about what they were up against.
Josh’s rifle lay across his lap as the heavy tires of the Humvee hummed along the shoulder of the once mighty Highway 5. The sling of his rifle was folded neatly on the stock and secured with a large yellow rubber wristband. Josh stared down at the raised letters on the band, which read something about living strong. If they were contacted, Josh could exit the vehicle without fear of a loose sling catching on anything, and when he could, he’d tear the sling out of the band and duck into it.
None of the other soldiers wore their slings in the same manner even though Josh had imparted this little bit of knowledge to them all. Some of the men actually had the rifle’s sling wrapped around themselves, so if they were to get caught on a door handle, the soldiers would also be caught on the same door handle. Another soldier sat with his sling draped across three or four things in the Humvee it could snag on were he to try a hasty exit.
Josh gave a simulated internal shake of his head at the pathetic weekend warriors. He turned away from the soldiers, staring out the window at the slowly passing flatness outside his window. For the first time since the solar flare, Josh felt tired of it all. He allowed himself to float in the feeling for only a second before taking a determined breath and grabbing his rifle by the pistol grip.
Josh’s world wasn’t a place where things were allowed to seep inside and corrode the well-oiled innards of the machine. He was like a ship at sea, watertight and floating above all the other wreckages lying below him. If he allowed water to begin seeping in, his ship would sink like the ships sitting next to him, and he couldn’t have that. Josh hadn’t experienced a moment of weakness like this since he’d gone through selection years prior. He hadn’t liked the feeling then and cared even less for it now. Steeling himself, he forced his mind’s rudder in a different direction, trying to sail his ship to friendlier waters.
