Serve & Protect

by L. J. Breedlove

  “So, we were just saying that they seem to be looking for trouble this morning,” Mac said. “More so than yesterday. Riled up by what’s to come?”

  Rand shrugged. “They’re assholes,” he said. “They’re mid-level managers who think they should be Khan with their own fiefdom, pretty women at their feet, and an arsenal behind their throne. They get out here and get jazzed by thinking they’re survivalists now.”

  “Jeez, man, tell us what you really think,” Mac said, laughing now.

  Rand sighed. “Yeah, I shouldn’t be saying things like that,” he said. “They’re bringing in the money for Bryson, and that means money for me and the other crew members. But I prefer any other group besides these jokers. And that’s no lie.”

  “So, what’s on the agenda next?” Angie asked.

  “For me? Dishes. And then prep for lunch,” he said and grinned at her. “But I think they get to shoot guns at targets nailed to trees. You know, as opposed to targets at a range.”

  “It is different, though,” Mac conceded. “A range is straight lines. Out here? They have to line themselves up. How bad is their aim?”

  Rand shrugged. “Haven’t shot anyone by accident yet.”

  Mac studied him for a moment. “Shot anyone deliberately?”

  Rand didn’t answer. He just got up and took his plate back into the crew area.

  Angie looked after him. “Odd man,” she said. “I like him. I even think I trust him. But....”

  Mac finished his breakfast. “But he’s not what he’s pretending to be.”

  “Is that what I’m picking up on?” she asked. She looked after Rand as he walked away. “Maybe.”

  Mac watched them shoot and talked with the men waiting their turns, collecting their stories. He leaned against a table that had an assortment of weapons on it — a couple he wouldn’t mind owning. Targets were tacked to trees at various distances. A couple were partially obscured by other trees. And he watched Angie who moved around taking pictures, smiling and joshing with some of the men. She was easy to watch, he thought.

  The men weren’t very good. But Craig moved around, correcting stances patiently. Apparently getting a certificate on a gun didn’t require accuracy. Mac shook his head.

  After about an hour, Craig looked his way. “Hey Marine!”

  “Yo!”

  “You bring a rifle? Wanna show them how it’s supposed to look?”

  Mac laughed. After watching this long, hell yeah, he wanted to shoot. He got his Remington out of the back of his 4-Runner, locking it back up carefully. He didn’t want the curious to realize the weaponry he had back there. Wouldn’t that be a clusterfuck? He probably should have left it all home. But Lindy’s lover and friends were the artsy-fartsy dippy-shit liberal crowd, and they’d be horrified to realize there were guns in the house. He didn’t want to deal with their outrage. He liked them all, but Jesus, those damn liberals could get outraged and yap!

  So, he’d converted the wheel-well and bed of his truck into a large gun safe shortly after he moved in. And he didn’t want to deal with inexperienced people handling them either. There were a couple of weapons tucked discreetly around the house for defense. And he had a couple in a lockbox under his bed. But the real firepower was in his rig.

  He brought the Remington back to the table, and looked at Craig. “Call it,” he said.

  Craig called out a target number. Mac brought the rifle to his shoulder and shot.

  Another number, another shot.

  And another. Mac felt the tension in his back and shoulders subside as he let everything go except the feel of the tension in the trigger, the scope of the rifle, and the target.

  There was silence when he stopped shooting. He grinned at Craig. “So, soldier,” he called back. “Think you can match them?”

  He couldn’t beat the six shots he’d taken: they’d hit the center of the bullseye of each target.

  Craig laughed, and grabbed a rifle from the table. “Maybe not,” he said. “But I’ll give it a try.”

  Craig put a bullet through each of the holes Mac had made. “Guess so,” he said.

  Mac laughed and held out his fist for a fist bump.

  “OK men,” Craig called out. “Let’s see if you all can at least hit the targets by lunch.”

  Mac snorted. For some of them he thought that was an unrealistic goal.

  Chapter 20

  While everyone ate lunch, Craig Anderson went over the afternoon plans. They’d be divided into three teams. Ken Bryson would lead one. Two of his crew would lead a second, and Craig would lead the third. Mac and Angie would go out with him. Mac suspected he was worried about Angie after the breakfast shenanigans. But Angie had taken her turn at target shooting and good-naturedly accepted their teasing at her failure to hit the targets. And when she finally did, and did a little victory dance, they cheered her. She was turning them around.

  Most of them. And Mac was watching the holdouts closely.

  So, each team had a list of coordinates, a camera, and a compass. The task was to find the marker at the coordinates, stand on it, find the target and shoot. Take a picture of the shooters on the marker. Grab the target, hopefully with multiple holes in it, and move to the next set of coordinates.

  The last set of coordinates was the pick-up site to bring them back for supper. “There are prizes for the best performance,” Craig said cheerfully. “But the real prize? If you’re successful, you eat supper. If you aren’t? Well, we’ll come find you eventually.”

  People laughed. Mac gave Craig credit. He ran a good program and made it fun. And so far, he hadn’t shot anyone. Mac didn’t think he’d be able to say the same if he was in charge.

  Mac got the small Ruger out for Angie. She stashed it in her camera bag. He pocketed his Glock, then picked up the Remington and slung it over his shoulder. Added extra ammunition for both to his own backpack and was ready to go when Craig headed out.

  Craig handed the set of coordinates to one man, the compass to another. “Lead on,” he said good naturedly.

  “Who made the lists?” Mac asked as he waited for the two men to figure out what direction they needed to take.

  “Ken came up during the week since this is a different staging spot than the one we usually use. It’s not a small task. Three different routes. Five sites with markers and targets. And the routes have to be in completely different directions so no one shoots someone. Because God knows we can’t depend on them to actually hit the targets.”

  Mac snorted. The team was finally moving out along a trail that was heading S-SW he thought. It occurred to him he might want to be able to backtrack to camp if he needed to. He started to ask for the coordinates of the camp when he noticed Angie pull out a compass of her own. He grinned.

  Craig noticed too. “She’s something else,” he said with admiration. “I’m impressed. When you asked to bring her along, and I asked Norton about her? I expected some princess who would be a pain in the neck. Norton’s got some weird hang-up about competent women.”

  “Believe me, she noticed,” Mac said with a laugh.

  They fell quiet as they followed the trail. The men slowed to a stop, and the two navigators were arguing. Craig grinned, but he didn’t intervene. Finally, they resolved the dispute, and turned off the trail onto a small animal trail through the underbrush. Mac caught Craig’s small nod of approval. Apparently, this had been the right way to go.

  “If they’d waited, they would have had to cut trail,” Craig murmured. “This is easier, but it required them to realize that, and be willing to leave the trail while it was still headed in roughly the right direction.”

  Tricky, Mac thought, and realized the exercise wasn’t as easy as it looked. He scuffed an arrow in the dirt by the trail when they left it. Craig looked at him curiously, but didn’t say anything. Mac was getting edgy. He wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t sure if it was because he was hiking through a lot of undergrowth with a bunch of trigger-happy amateurs, because God knew that
was reason enough. Or if there was something else? Something subliminal that his subconscious was registering? He trusted that itch. It had saved his life in Afghanistan more than once. But he didn’t know what it was trying to tell him now.

  He thought Angie might be sensing something too. She’d dropped back to walk in front of him when they’d left the main trail. She was silent, and she wasn’t taking photos. Her camera hung around her neck, but she kept her hands free now. He wondered why but didn’t ask.

  In fact, all of the men were silent now. Interesting, he thought. There was always some chatter, he realized now that it was missing. He looked at Craig and frowned slightly. Craig shrugged and shook his head. He could feel it too, Mac thought.

  The Cascade forest was a dense one. The canopy of conifers. The sub-canopy of birch and aspen. The ground layer of shrubs: salal, salmonberry and Oregon grape. And under that a layer of plants and ferns. He could identify them after the morning hike, he realized with some satisfaction. At least the shrubs. He knew the big devil’s club plant, and the two dominant ferns, Christmas fern and the lady fern.

  All the undergrowth made for slow going.

  And it made for a wet passage as branches and leaves slapped at them. It hadn’t rained last night, but the undergrowth was still damp. He doubted it ever lost that moisture, except during August and September — fire season.

  There was a shout of victory from the front, and Mac grinned. Apparently, they’d found the first marker. And then there was a gun shot and a scream. Craig started to run. Mac pulled Angie behind him and ran too.

  A man lay in the small clearing, sobbing and holding his arm. The other two men had moved back into the shrubbery, which was good, but the dumbfucks had left the injured man exposed, Mac saw with disgust. Craig stopped, still in the protection of the woods, and surveyed the area.

  “Who shot him?” he asked in a low voice that wouldn’t carry far.

  The man carrying the compass shook his head. “None of us,” he said softly. “It came from up there, I think.”

  Mac followed the direction of the man’s nod. “Probably,” he agreed. It was a small rise that overlooked the clearing. He raised his rifle and peered through the scope. “Nobody there now.”

  Craig nodded, and he squat-walked out to the injured man. He pulled a first aid kit out of his backpack, and put a tourniquet on the man’s arm. He talked to him in a low voice, and the man nodded. Craig helped the man stand up, and pulled him back toward Mac and Angie.

  Angie had her camera out again, Mac noticed.

  “What the fuck?” Mac asked Craig. “Is this part of the field exercise?”

  “No, we try not to shoot our paying customers,” Craig said with sarcasm.

  “And you’re sure someone from another team wouldn’t cross our path?” Mac asked.

  “Does Ken Bryson strike you as an incompetent man?”

  No, he didn’t, Mac conceded.

  “So, we’ve got hostiles,” Mac concluded. “We’re not alone out here.”

  Craig nodded his head once. He’d come to the same conclusion, apparently.

  “Craig?” one of the other men called. “Should we go ahead and take our shot at the target? We can make it quick and move on.”

  Mac started to say something scathing, but he reconsidered. Truly there was nothing to do but continue on. Or backtrack. And if they were going to continue on, they might as well take the target.

  Craig nodded. “Take one shot, and for God’s sake hit the thing on the first shot, will you?”

  The man laughed. He stepped out to the marker. Everyone held their breath, but there was no second shot. His partner took his picture. He took the shot, and ran to get the target. And screamed. The scream stopped mid-way, and Mac grimaced. That was never good.

  “Fuck,” Craig said. He moved the injured man toward Mac, and started to make his way toward the target.

  Mac shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll go. You’ve a better chance of getting Angie and these men out than I do. You know the region. You know the plan for the routes. So, I take the risks.”

  Craig took a breath as if he was going to argue. But then he nodded shortly. “Go.”

  Mac handed his rifle off to Angie, and shrugged out of his backpack. He pulled out the knife and sheath from the backpack and strapped it around his waist. He saw Angie’s startled look. “Doesn’t every journalist carry one in their kit?” he asked teasing. She smiled at him.

  He looked at Craig. “You got a rope in that backpack?”

  Craig opened it back up and handed it to him. “Sling? Med kit?” he asked. Mac considered it, and shook his head. He wrapped the rope around his waist.

  He tucked his Glock in the pocket of his sweatshirt. Then he took a deep breath and centered himself. Found the stillness inside. It always sounded hokey even in his own head, so he’d never tried to describe it to someone else. But he had noticed that others who worked stealth did something similar. His breathing slowed.

  He studied the terrain, and then took three steps forward and one to the left. And effectively disappeared into the undergrowth.

  Angie looked at Craig. “How did he do that?” she asked softly.

  “He wasn’t just a grunt,” Craig answered with barely any sound. “He was recon.”

  We are betting on him, she thought but didn’t say out loud. She didn’t need to panic herself. Craig was looking grim. “And you?” she asked. “He called you soldier.”

  “Army,” he confirmed. “But it was decades ago.” He looked at her consideringly, and sighed. “Before you were born.” He shook his head, his eyes still focused on the target. “And I was just a grunt. Cannon fodder who survived it. I never had those kinds of skills.”

  She nodded and focused on the woods around the target. If she’d been looking at the target directly, she doubted she would have seen him at all. Mac was crouched down below the normal eye range. She saw him lay down — at least she assumed that was what made him disappear again. And she reminded herself to breathe.

  Mac glanced back toward Craig and Angie and the injured man. They were still where he’d left them, and they were quiet. He was relieved. The other man was kneeling down about 10 feet from Craig. He had the compass in his hand. He studied the area around him, looking to see if anyone had remained behind to watch. He didn’t see anyone. Didn’t sense anyone. Good enough.

  He looked at the ground in front of him. Someone had set a bear pit. He’d thought as much. He lay flat on the ground and used his elbows to inch his way forward. He watched the ground ahead carefully. He didn’t know where the rim was. Reach out, pat the ground. Inch forward. Reach and pat. It was slow. But he planned to survive this.

  He felt the earth give beneath his hand, and he stopped. “Scott,” he called softly. He heard a moan. OK, then, he thought. He unwound the rope, looped it around a sturdy tree, and tested it. And then he backed away from the tree, and felt the earth give beneath his feet. His arms absorbed the shock of his weight. When the earth resettled, he backed up again. And then again. His feet touched something pointed, and he looked down.

  Whoever had built the pit had only gone down two feet, and the sticks took up most of that. A layer of some thatching and a pile of dirt. Simple, effective. Deadly if someone wasn’t around to rescue you.

  “It’s Mac,” he said quietly. “Scott, can you hear me?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Good,” Mac said. “Can you see me?”

  “Your back? Yeah.”

  “Can you reach for me? Grab me around my waist?”

  “I can’t move, man,” Scott said. “One of the sharps went through my calf. But I’m about 18 inches from being able to reach you.”

  “OK,” Mac said trying to project reassurance. He did not want a panicky man grabbing him. “You need to pull the stick out of the ground. Leave it in your leg, you got that? Pull the other end out of the ground.”

  Or you’ll bleed out like a stuck pig, he thought but didn
’t say. He let out some more rope and backed a bit further toward the voice.

  “Fuck,” Scott said. “That hurts!”

  Mac closed his eyes. For a moment, he was afraid he’d pulled his leg loose. “Still in your leg, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know that much.”

  “Good,” Mac soothed. “So, can you reach me?”

  “Six more inches?”

  Mac belayed the rope out a bit more. He wished he had a bit more rope to work with.

  “OK,” Scott said. “But I don’t have anything to stand on. I’m going to grab on to your sheath belt, and then I’ll try to leverage myself onto your back as a carry. Can you do that?”

  Mac considered it. It only had to be for a few feet. Once he was on solid ground, he could reverse position and get the man under his arm and they could get out of here on three legs. “The leg the only problem?” he asked.

  “Scrapes and sore spots,” Scott said, dismissing them.

  Mac braced himself. “Do it,” he said.

  He felt the pull on his belt, hoped he’d secured it tightly, and he started to work his belay rope to pull himself forward, an inch at a time. Scott was working forward, too; he could feel him. And then Mac felt Scott’s weight on his back and he lurched forward onto solid ground. He fell flat, Scott on top of him, and he gave a sigh of relief when the ground held them both.

  “Shit, man,” Scott said. “I thought I was going to die there. I didn’t see how anyone could get me out safely, and figured you all wouldn’t be able to try if that sniper was around.”

  Mac just lay there and took gulps of air until his heart stopped its hammering. “Wasn’t sure we could get you out either,” he confessed. “But we had to try. Not in me to leave a man behind.”

  “Once a Marine, always a Marine?” Scott said with a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob.

  Mac laughed. “Something like that,” he admitted. “Can you roll to one side, carefully? Don’t roll back in OK? And careful of that leg!’

  He felt the weight move off his back, and he rolled over and onto his knees. He looked at Scott’s leg and winced. “All right,” Mac said. “I’m going to coil up the rope. Leverage you up. Drape you over a shoulder and we’re going to hobble out of here. Got it?”