American Survival (DeLeo's Action Thriller Singles Book 5) Page 3

  He fought off the frenzied greetings from Wolf, and checked for life in his prisoner. After confirming life, Jack smashed the stock of his AK-47 savagely down on the man’s temple. He wanted the man alive, but cared little at this point. Jack grappled around in the back of the shed, and uncovered a false door in the floor, from which he pulled a long narrow case out and an ammo box. Taking Wolf with him, he began a sweep of the area. Jack headed into the area where Sarah and Jake were without backup. Jack marked a spot in between, and set down both the case and the ammo box. Wolf, a veteran of other hunts, stayed low to the ground, ranging widely ahead of Jack. He glanced up occasionally to check his spacing with his master.

  Jack followed confidently behind, letting the dog do his work. A short burst of automatic weapons fire brought Jack up short, and then Mitch’s voice rasped, “We took another down over here, Jack. You were right. He couldn’t see shit. He was moving quiet, but blind. He came right to us.”

  “Roger that. Take the kids into a new position, and get quiet again.”

  “Copy that.”

  Jack met Wolf's questioning glance, and the dog moved out again. They had worked carefully all the way around the clearing, and were drawing near to Mitch's original position. Wolf shot forward, head down, and a low hum issuing from his throat. Jack ran straight for his dog, and watched Wolf crash into a hulking figure, Jack could see near a large fallen tree. Another figure jumped up to help his downed friend. The short burst from Jack's AK-47 raked him from top to bottom. Jack knew they wore Kevlar, but not on their legs and heads. He hurried to the dog's position. Wolf had the soldier in a quiet gasping war of position. Jack walked in on him from the side, and shot him in the head. Wolf shook the now twitching body for a few seconds longer, and then started his search again. Wolf streaked right into Mitch's new position, tail wagging, and the resulting giggles caused Jack to whistle Wolf back to work. The rest of the sweep went uneventfully. Jack approached his kids’ position, radioing a warning.

  “Stand down kids. Wolf and I are coming in.”

  “Come in, Dad,” Jake replied.

  Wolf went in first, and was lying full on Sarah's lap, with his head in Jake s. Jack chuckled at the sight, and the irony of it, compared to the scene fifty yards away. Jack sat down tiredly, and picked up his radio again.

  “We’re done with the sweep. I’m sending Wolf out in a circle, so stay put for a little longer. I’m going into the clearing to see what kind of gear they brought.” Jack listened for the rasping clicks of acknowledgment and then made a circle in the air with his finger, sending Wolf tearing off into the darkness once more. Jack leaned against the built up ground, waiting for Wolf to get back from the final check. He knew the chances of there being anyone alive in the clearing; but with Wolf along with him, he could concentrate on checking over the bodies. He glanced up at his kids to see them watching him intently. He stood, and grabbed the corpse he had killed earlier by the neck, he dragged it out of their position. After returning, Jack sat down opposite his kids, and watched them as they gathered up the nerve to speak. He had a good idea what was going through their minds.

  He finally grinned and said, “I know what you two are thinking. You’re wondering if I’ve reached bottom yet, or maybe when I run out of enemies, I’ll start on you guys. I can’t say I blame you for thinking it after all this tonight, but I’ll be damned if I know how to answer you.”

  Chapter 3

  The Escape

  “Dad,” Sarah said haltingly, “we know you’ve been doing this stuff for a long time, and so have we. You told us from the beginning what to expect... we...”

  “Sarah.” Jack leaned towards them. “I know you had no idea how bad it would get, even after three years. The guys on the front lines have it worse than us, but most of them are older than you two. None of this is normal. I try to keep it simple in my mind. I have a couple of goals I would die to try and bring about. Keep you two, and your uncles, and cousins safe as possible, and get our country back. I will kill and maim every son of a bitch that gets in the way of those two goals. I almost got here a split second late with that piece of shit I dragged out of here. I damn sure missed the boat, when I let my wanting supplies get in the way of keeping our base from getting compromised. Those guys arrived here because I wanted those trucks, and now we’re forced to move out in the dead of night, and freeze our asses off.”

  “You two react as well now as any soldiers I ever saw, and so do your cousins. All of you are just kids, but you do what you must to survive. Hell, five years ago they brought kids into psychiatrists if they looked at another kid cross-eyed at school. Here you bunch are, sitting here quietly, after annihilating a well-armed enemy force, and blowing them to pieces. Yep, I’m a killer - maybe not by choice, but surely by deed, and God help me, so are you two. Will we ever get out of this shit in one piece and go back to a life like we had? I pray it be so. Until then, we have to suck it up, keep our goals in mind, and put the rest aside. You two are the greatest, and I’m proud to be your father. I love you with all my heart.”

  “Is it wrong... I mean if I... you know... don’t feel anything anymore when I shoot,” Jake asked, looking away from his Dad.

  “I had hoped you looked at it like a soldier does, and I guess you do. Either you shoot and live, or your enemy shoots and lives, simple as that. All the soul searching, and gnashing of teeth, and pounding your chest in sorrow, ain’t going to change any of the facts. They are here to kill us, or enslave us, and take our country. We’re here to see they don’t.”

  “Do you think we’ll get out of here, Dad?” Sarah asked. “Will they ambush us on the way to the base?”

  “We have Wolf,” Jack reminded her. "He can’t be everywhere, but I think an ambush with him in the lead, will be a tough thing to pull off. I’m more worried we’ll get frostbite before we get there. I think we should all pick out a better pair of boots down there, and whatever else we need.”

  “What about a couple of lone shooters, with those sniper rifles like you have, Dad,” Sarah persisted. “You said yourself no one would know what hit them in a place like this.”

  Jack shook his head at Sarah, annoyed he had even told her about the rifle and snipers. “I guess I can’t say anything in front of you two. Wolf and I will be a mile out in front on scout, and your Uncle Mitch will be about half a mile back, watching our trail. We’ll meet up every two hours and take a break. Even snipers need some open space for a shot, whether they have night scopes or not. We will be staying in the trees from now on. I like your thinking though.”

  Just then Wolf slunk into the camp right behind Jack, and put his now frigid nose on Jack’s bare neck. Jack nearly launched into orbit. He had his AK-47 trained on Wolf’s head in a split second. When he saw who it was, he swallowed hard, and relaxed. “You dirty, mangy, no account piece of cat shit. I suppose you think that was funny, don’t you?”

  Wolf sat back, grinned, and put his right paw in the air, which Jack batted away in disgust. Wolf promptly lifted his left paw, and stuck it out, much to Sarah and Jake's delight. Jack sighed, grasped the proffered paw, and hugged the dog to him. He shrugged at his two kids, and shook the dog gently. “As you two well know, this flea bag remains the main reason we’re not down in the clearing dead. Someday, maybe we can pay this mutt back a little; but in the meantime, I think he enjoys it out here anyway.”

  Wolf suddenly lifted his head, and whined a little. Jack jumped to his feet, and used his hands to hush his two kids. He listened only for a moment, and yanked the field radio out. “Paul, Mitch...”

  “Hey, I thought you said no names, I…” Paul began.

  “Both of you grab the kids, and head towards Sarah and Jake’s position now. No more talk. Get here now.”

  “Rodger that,” Paul replied.

  “I’m there,” Mitch acknowledged.

  By the time they arrived, no questions needed answering, because the sound of helicopters in the distance droned steadily louder. “These are
state of the art, or they would be a lot louder than they are, which means they carry enough fire power to level these mountains, and everything in them. They know we took care of their people, and now they don’t care if they get us alive or not.”

  “Paul and I will stay, and keep them busy, while Mitch takes you all out, but in a different direction. Go to our other base cabin. Do not start for the main base, until I find out if they still exist. No need for silence. Take Wolf, and go now. Paul and I will follow when we can.”

  Mitch nodded, recognizing the urgency in his brother’s voice. Sarah started to speak, and then turned away with her brother and the rest following. Mitch waited until the last of the kids started out, and then waved his goodbye, falling in at the end. Jack grabbed Wolf’s head between his hands. “You too, butt-nugget. Go with Mitch.”

  The dog waited until Jack let him go. He then grabbed his master’s boot, and yanked him off his feet into the snow. Jack scrambled into a sitting position. “Why you rotten, stinking…”

  Wolf had already caught up to the rest, taking the lead into the moonlit night, leaving a now silent Jack, and a bent over howling Paul in his wake.

  Jack stood. “If you will try to enjoy this a little less, maybe we can plan a rear guard action we might have a chance of surviving.”

  Paul regained a little of his composure as they listened to the slightly louder noise of approaching helicopters. “We have plenty of rockets, but they’ll zero us quick after the first one hits. I guess there’s more than one, huh? His brother nodded. Well what comes after I dust the first one.”

  “I get the second from the other side of the woods, and then we run like hell for the woods, in the opposite direction as the kids. We have to assume they have stuff to pinpoint our body heat, so we keep running and firing. I will meet with you in the middle. We keep leading them away; until we get them, or they get us, understand?”

  “If that’s our escape plan, I wish Wolf had finished you off before he left,” Paul replied. “Are you picking a weapon from our scrap heap in the clearing, or what?”

  “I know what I want, and I already stashed a long range weapon towards the middle. If we can slow them up, I can cause them a lot of grief down the road. I have to wait until you splash one, and they return fire. Then I open up. We have to move or they’ll fry us for sure. Adios.”

  __

  Paul grinned, and started setting up the rocket launcher, as his brother tore through the brush for the clearing, pausing only to grab up another launcher and ammo before moving through. When the first of the helicopters appeared, Paul blessed the night’s bright moon, or he would not even have noticed an outline. He knew the rocket would take out anything with a heat signature, but now at least he knew which way to point. He fired immediately upon coming set. Without waiting for evidence of a hit, he heaved his equipment to his back, and lumbered quickly towards a point splitting his and Jack’s position. He shielded his eyes as he heard the explosion, and kept going. The whole area behind him, for fifty yards in diameter, erupted in noise and fire, knocking him flat into the snow. A blast of searing hot air washed over him, stealing the oxygen right out of his lungs. He stuck his face deeper into the snow, as he heard Jack’s rocket hit with a thunderous explosion. Paul regained his feet. He moved again in the direction he wanted. After another few yards, he knelt down and reloaded the launcher. He saw Jack's position burst into flames as he fired again into the night. This time after his rocket hit its target, he ran on without incident to where he figured to intersect with Jack. When his brother failed to appear, Paul headed toward Jack’s firing position. He could hear two more helicopters, or possibly three. They were firing blindly into the positions already vacated. He found Jack a hundred yards from the targeted area, and far too close. He rolled his brother onto his back, and gave his chest a couple of hard pushes with the heels of his hands. The coughing gasp for air from Jack’s mouth gave Paul a blast of relief. Jack looked up into Paul’s face in the hellish light, and then flailed around until he could feel his launcher. He rolled over groggily to his knees.

  “Help me, Paul,” Jack rasped, “mine’s loaded. I passed out before I could fire again.”

  Paul helped him get it set. As Jack fired, another blast threw them both into the air, and Paul felt something smash into him, and then nothing. He awoke in the middle of a furnace, with Jack dragging on the back of his pack. He reached up and grabbed his brother’s hand. “I’m back. How we doing?”

  Jack stopped. “Shitty… can you kneel down on the ground, and help me prop this gun?”

  Paul looked up at the big bore, bolt action rifle Jack carried. “What about the rockets, I still have?”

  “The launchers are ruined, and we would be too, if not for the vests. I can toast this last one if I can use you as a prop.”

  Paul painfully turned onto his knees, and braced himself, as Jack readied the gun into position on his back, and took aim. The first round deafened him. Paul stiffened his stance, with the pain in his side keeping him conscious. The following two rounds knocked him to his stomach; but as he tried to get back on his knees, his brother shook him gently. Jack stretched out next to him tiredly. Paul heard the whack, whack, whack of a helicopter propeller blade as it hit the trees. A whump of an explosion followed, as the night lit up once again. The silence following the explosion gave Paul the energy to roll over once again, and sit up. The landscape was awash in small fires, but no more explosions.

  “Nice shootin’ Tex. Does this mean we get to walk out of here now?”

  “As soon as I can stand, which ought to be in about three days. By the way, are you whispering?”

  “Hell no, I thought I was shouting,” Paul replied. “I can just barely hear you, and my voice sounds just about the same to me. Where the hell’s the silencer for that cannon? You used to have one.”

  “I’m damn lucky I had enough time to get it together at all. Man, I am beat. I guess I’m just too damned old for this shit. This makes me wonder about our choice in lifestyle, Paul, but considering the alternative, I guess I’ll have to quit whinin’ and start walkin’.”

  “Yep, that would be my take on it,” Paul replied. “Think you’re ready to catch up to the kids and Mitch?”

  “We better get any holes and scratches sealed up before we start out, or we won’t have a chance in hell of making it in this cold. Have you got anything serious?”

  Paul sat up slowly, and worked his arms and legs carefully. “I’m okay, if you don’t count the blood still foaming out of my ears, and this slice I feel down my back. You’ll have to help me out with that one.”

  “Let’s get you back to the shack, pull off some of our stuff, and see how bad we are. The Med kits are there anyway, and we can get out of this cold. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and have the time to throw together some more supplies to take with us.”

  “Do you think maybe there are more on the way besides these guys?”

  Jack laughed. “Hell, I don’t know Paul, but we better grab up a couple more launchers out of the clearing before we get to the shack. My night goggles are gone too. I’ll grab up the launchers, and you hunt us down some more goggles. Man, I wish we had Wolf with us, just in case.”

  “My goggles are still in one piece, so let’s go slow and easy with me in the lead.”

  “I’ll be on your six.”

  Working carefully out of the brush, and into the clearing, the two brothers stopped often, to allow Paul to scan the area for movement. Jack found only one more usable launcher, but plenty of ammunition for it. Paul found a pair of replacement night goggles within minutes, and they made it to the shack without incident. Paul looked down at the dead soldier on the floor of the shack, and then dragged him out of the way. Jack took out the medicine kits. Both men stripped down to a point, where they could take stock of any serious injuries, and bandage them as needed.

  Paul’s back looked worse than they had imagined. Jack cleaned away the blood, and found only the slice down his spine,
which still oozed blood. Jack laughed, and Paul whipped around to look at his brother.

  “What the hell are you laughing at shit-head?”

  “This looks like a situation where I have you lie down on the floor, and pour gunpowder down into your wound. I’ll light the gunpowder and cauterize your slice like in the movies.”

  “Fuck you! Get me bandaged up before I cauterize your mouth.”

  “Okay, but you’re going to need another jacket before we go. I’ll get you one after I dress the wound. Then we’ll get going.”

  Jack applied a tube of first aid cream into the wound, and quickly stuck coated gauze pads over it. After adding strips of adhesive tape, he wrapped a roll of elastic bandage around the wound as tight as he could safely do it. Jack anchored the bandage in place with adhesive tape, and then got dressed to look for a new coat for his brother.

  “Hey, this feels pretty good,” Paul remarked as his brother started for the door.

  “I hope you still feel that way when we take it off and change it. You may not have the same feeling then. Anyway, get ready. I’ll be right back.”

  Chapter 4

  The Journey into Night

  Paul loaded the packs they would have to carry with as many supplies as he thought they could manage hauling on the trail. He cleaned the weapons quickly, and lubricated them lightly. He checked the launcher for damage, attaching the rounds they had left from the fight to the side of it. As he finished taping the ammo in place, Jack came stamping in through the door. He went over to the propane heater they had lit when they came into the cabin, and propped a blood stained coat over a chair near it, inside out. The two brothers ate and drank then without comment, as they waited for the jacket to dry. Neither one had to mention the obvious danger of staying any longer than absolutely necessary; but without a meal, and dry clothing to start out with, they would be in even more danger from the elements. After checking the coat, Jack grabbed up his pack and turned to let Paul check the load. He then taped a pad in the small of his brother’s back to lift the pack away from Paul's wound.