Patriot Son

by T A Walters

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You forgot about the communications gear in Kat’s vehicle!”

  Scuba Bill ignored Penny and walked passed her as if she wasn’t there. Penny turned her attention to Kat saying, “Is he always like this?”

  Kat shrugged her shoulders. “Depends on what you mean?”

  “Well, at times he seems content, while other times moody and rude.”

  Kat watched Scuba Bill walk off while in the distance before him, a couple of people were hobbling his way. Soon it became clear to Kat it was Mitchel with his arm around Jess. “Look at it this way Penny. Commander Bill has a lot on his mind. He chooses the time and place to socialize with us troopers if you know what I mean.”

  Penny bowed her head. “Yes, of course. Professional ethics that go with the job I suppose.”

  Kat placed her hand on Penny’s shoulder. “He appreciates us all, especially you Penny.”

  “As a physician, I’m sure he does.”

  “Not altogether true Penny. I feel he likes you as a person … just the way you are.”

  “How’s that–I mean he called me a skeleton girl, remember?”

  Kat paused opening her mouth to say something but hesitated.

  “I would just assume he did apologize about that,” said Penny.

  ~~~~

  Jess and Mitchel stopped; in her right hand, a milk crate that she dropped for Mitchel to sit on. “I think he’ll be ready for that crutch,” said Jess, rubbing her lower back as Scuba Bill closed the distance.

  Scuba Bill broke a serious expression by putting on a grin. “Well, great news! Maybe we can get one of the boys to make you a crutch when we get to the reservation. So what brings you out?”

  “Exercise,” said Mitchel

  “Therapy,” said Jess correcting Mitchel.

  Mitchel squirmed and straightened his posture a bit, “You ah, ran completely out of fuel?”

  “Yep.”

  “So the engine died from insufficient fuel?”

  Scuba Bill smiled. He knew what Mitchel was getting at, “No Mitchel, I shut off the engine before that happened.”

  Mitchel blew a sigh of relief. “Good—nothing like a diesel engine becoming air-bound.”

  Jess glanced over to Mitchel and began to giggle, “Yeah not like you.”

  Mitchel looked confused. “What, me air-bound?”

  “I would have worn a gas mask last night if I had one.”

  Mitchel laughed. “I knew it! Brussel sprouts do it every time. I have got to find the ham and Brussel spout MRI again.”

  “Are you shitting me, you dumb-ass? You mean you knew about this, and you ate it knowing you would damn near kill me?”

  Scuba Bill heard the unmistakable sound of a chopper coming in overhead. Mitchel followed it with an eye to the sky, “Wow a gunship!”

  Jess knocked Mitchel off his plastic milk crate and covered him with her body. “Hey, you dumb bitch!” Mitchel yelled.

  “Oh so I’m a bitch now huh?” cried Jess

  Scuba Bill spoke, “Relax you two, it’s a friendly.”

  Mitchel had rolled Jess under him, “You don’t sacrifice yourself for me; you got it?”

  “I’m your nurse you asshole!

  “I’ll just leave you two alone to roll in the dust,” Scuba Bill said.

  The chopper settled down 25 yards from the lead vehicle, and as Scuba Bill walked toward it a man dressed in military fatigues exited from the cockpit door and met him halfway.

  “Lieutenant Echols sir,” he said, saluting Scuba Bill.

  Scuba Bill sized up the soldier. He appeared to be of slender frame, yet he had s slight belly bulge typical of a man, presumably in his sixties; his hair almost entirely white except for a mix of darker streaks near the top of his head.

  Scuba Bill walked back toward his troop carrier truck. Standing there were Kat and Penny, their hair in a whirlwind from the swirling rotor blades washing down on them from the UH-1 helicopter twenty yards away.

  Morris idled-down the power to the Rotomisson coupling to the disc, bringing the noise level to a tolerable state. Starboard crew member Major Morris opened his door and slid himself down to the ground. He stood there at attention next to his cockpit door as Scuba Bill approached him. At that point, the major raised his right arm and held a salute. Scuba Bill returned the salute and told Major Morris, who he was.

  “I could tell,” he replied. “Your reputation precedes you. Second command Wyatt told us all about you sir. We came to take you to the reservation.”

  “But the chopper–how did you raise it from underground storage major?”

  “It only took one hour for our mechanics to rig up the AP you brought us to do the job.”

  Scuba Bill raised his eyebrows, “I’m impressed.

  “Everything is being prepared for your inspection, sir, and in the meantime, the men are repairing the AP back to its original shape.

  Fuel trucks are on the way and should be here in less than an hour. Our general officer has sent us to bring you back immediately. He is eager to meet you, sir.”

  “General officer?”

  “Yes General John Pennock, retired but eager to be recommissioned, sir.”

  Scuba Bill bit his lower lip. He was taken aback by such respectful camaraderie. “Well Lieutenant,” he said with all the best of authority in a voice he could muster. “I must bring along my chief medical officer if you will.”

  Echols held a salute while Scuba Bill trotted back to the troop carrier vehicle. He slung open the door and told Penny she was going with him. Seeing Kat sitting idly behind the wheel smiling like a Cheshire cat, Bill barked, “What are you looking at?”

  He took Penny by the hand, and they trotted off toward the chopper while Penny stole a brief glance back toward Kat and smiled.

  Once inside the troop compartment, Scuba Bill was surprised to see Penny hop inside on her own without using his outstretched hand for a hand up. Situating himself in his jump seat LT. Echols introduced his partner to Penny. “This is Major Morris, and I’m Lieutenant Echols. Hang on!”

  Bill and Penny watched the ground swiftly fall away while the chopper slowly spun a complete 360 degrees gaining altitude as it did. They felt the nose of the chopper dip slightly as they pitched forward, picking up speed. The trail to the reservation could now be easily seen as well as the compound where the better half of Scuba Bill’s convoy was.

  “If you look real hard,” Bill said to Penny, “under that camouflaged netting is the residence living quarters. Off to the left is an entrance ramp to an underground armory. Look, you can see several men working to haul an old tank and a plane from the archive below.”

  Lieutenant Echols looked over his shoulder, “They may be old sir, but they function like new.”

  Two F4 jets with their wings folded back were seen sitting off to the side while several other members of the community worked setting them up for business. “This old Iroquois is over 40 years, old sir.”

  Penny turned a glance to Scuba Bill, “What’s he talking about?”

  He drew close so she could hear him, and in her ear, he said, “He’s talking about this helicopter gunship.”

  “Good grief, it’s as old as my father,” she replied.

  She grabbed Scuba Bill’s hand with the feeling of butterflies in her belly when the chopper dropped altitude over an area marked for helicopter landing. Lieutenant Echols noticed the hands clenched together and announced their general officer will be expecting Scuba Bill and his lady for dinner tonight.

  Penny turned a glance toward Scuba Bill. His face turned beet red, and he stammered a reply. Never had Penny known him to be caught speechless before. She smiled and drew a finger to his lips. Taking over the response, she said, “We’d be honored of course.”

  ~~~~

  A silver-haired man rushed over to a man struggling to yank a bundle of wires through a length of conduit that disappeared through a wood beam; but before he could assist,
the bunch of wires slipped out of the man’s hands and slid back into the conduit.

  Through grit-teeth, the older man exclaimed, “You idiot boy–and you call yourself an electrician?”

  “You’re right,” countered the idiot boy, “I’m an electronics tech, not an electrician!”

  The silver-haired man looked down and shook his head, and then looked at Idiot Boy who was grinning back at him. He then flipped his thumb from his fist to point at the conduit, “Hey Mo, no wonder da water don’t woik. These pipes are clogged wit wires!”

  “Shut-up and pull that conduit apart and let’s start over.”

  Unaware of Morris and Echols standing there with Scuba Bill and Penny watching the antics of the pair of luckless repairmen until idiot boy said, “Hey boss, we got’s company!”

  Morris and Echols straightened up at attention as the silver-haired man turned to discover they did, in fact, have company.

  A grin broke the angst-ridden face of the retired general as he clapped and shuffled the dirt from his hands. Reaching out to Scuba Bill to shake hands, he said, “I’m John … John Pennock retired, and this is John Kehoe.”

  Scuba Bill smiled, “William McGregor.”

  John Kehoe aka idiot boy reached across to shake hands with Scuba Bill. “My pleasure, and who might your lovely lady be?”

  “Penny,” said Bill. “She is an MD and our chief medical officer.”

  Penny beamed with pride when she looked up to Scuba Bill and said, “I sure hope he doesn’t keep me around just for that ….”

  Scuba Bill turned and backed out of the doorway of the bunker where both Johns was working.

  General Pennock (JP) gave a half smile and a wink at Penny, “I’m sure he doesn’t.” He then nodded to both Morris and Echols. “Show the McGregor’s to the guest quarters and dinner will be at Eagle Hall picnic pavilion at 17 hundred hours.”

  Scuba Bill stopped briefly and then began walking without looking back. Penny ran up to him and took his hand while John and idiot boy looked on. “What was that all about?”

  Hearing the wind whistle past the doorway of the munitions bunker where they had been working, JP’s eyes narrowed. “That was William Moore.”

  “I thought he said, William McGregor.”

  “Before retiring, I was an assigned officer to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps or JAG.” With a smile, JP rubbed his chin, knowingly, “I had his file, pictures – everything, and I while reviewing his case; days preceding his trial, he escaped his bonds and fled justice.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “Extremely.”

  John Kehoe’s happy go lucky charm fell to the floor, “And you don’t appear worried?”

  JP smiled, “Why should I, or we for that matter … we’re not the enemy. And besides, what he did before branding himself a wanted soldier, any man with a backbone would have done. It’s just that the political correctness has rules regarding how and when you should kill the enemy. William chose to hose down a bunch of Pakistani irregulars with a flamethrower while they guarded a compound of US personnel to be later executed or sold off in a human trafficking network.”

  John Kehoe shook his head, “Holy moly! I’m beginning to get the picture.”

  “William found out they were the ones who raped and murdered Sargent Moore.”

  John grew quiet for a moment. “His sister?”

  “Nope.” JP drew a sigh, “Of course being his next of kin, or rather, his wife put her into a different fighting unit, and so it took him nearly a year to hunt them down, and all the while being considered by the military as MIA and then later AWOL.”

  “I guess that stands to reason JP. I mean, being those murdering pack of irregulars would have been considered friendlies; bringing the bastards in for trial would have been impossible.”

  “Everyone seemed to know that except the blind eye of the court.”

  Kehoe sighed and shook his head, “I suppose you’re right about that.”

  JP glanced at his wristwatch, “Let’s get this job done before Christmas gets here.”

  “What you getting me for Christmas, Dad?”

  “Shut-up and pull.”

  Chapter 10

  ~Savannah Georgia~

  Hunter Airforce Base

  General Gregor Alexei Pestro surveyed his airbase landing runways. Once again, his Arab allies neglected the fine details of their raid on this airbase. Sloppy, very sloppy. The Americans bombed their own runways from here or elsewhere, leaving gaping craters in the asphalt every few hundred meters on either side. He knew Russian support teams did not come prepared for this. As he and his son motored down the runway in a tram tractor, his mind became troubled with the decision to delay his SU24 fighter jets aboard the carriers until repairs could be made.

  The idea that someone would have to supply the materials and labor to make the necessary repairs to the runways brought about a sense of depression in him. Viktor heard his father thinking out loud, “Now I must appeal to Moscow for materials and experts to repair runways–this will take weeks, maybe months!”

  “Relax Father,” said Viktor nonchalantly. “I will go out and bring back American paving people whose business it is to make the repair.”

  Gregor turned and grabbed his son by the shoulder and kissed his head, “My son, you do this, and you will be bigger than military rank–you will be a czar!”

  “Keep going Dadeo I like where you’re going with this,” he snickered and looked aside to his father. “How about the president of the United States of Russia?”

  Gregor unleashed a belly laugh so loud nesting pairs of blackbirds by the hundreds took flight from nearby trees.

  Viktor returned a smile, “This country beginning to look like Russia in the summer.”

  The skies were gray and the leaves on most trees nearly gone. Winds were beginning to pick up out of the northwest as Viktor pointed to a darkly approaching system in that general direction. To Viktor, it was as if Russia shared the same sky. He slowed the tram to stop near a large bomb crater in the runway. They both got out of the vehicle and walked around the hole kicking clumps of asphalt and gravel into the bomb crater while seemingly lost in thought.

  Leaves whipped around them, gathering in shifting piles strewn here and there about the runway; Victor glanced over at his father. “I leave at first light.”

  “I will have the debris cleared from this runway, and ready for repairs,” Gregor replied.

  ~~~~

  Viktor rolled out of bed an hour before daybreak, and as promised, drove off into the countryside taking with him the echo of his father’s warning to be careful, and a small brick of cheese and a stick of salami. He drove nearly an hour, occasionally dodging broken down vehicles that littered the road. Seeing areas on the way, apparently well-traveled, he followed along paths leading off the road into the woods and back onto the road until he came to what appeared to be a small roadside diner. Parked in front were two pickup trucks and some men moving about from one vehicle to another as if transferring objects from there to a place behind the diner.

  This, he thought, would be an excellent place to ask for directions, so he parked his vehicle next to one of the pickup trucks. In the front window of the diner, flickering light from a lantern moved somewhere off to an area near the door. By the time Viktor got out of his vehicle, he was alerted by the creaking sound of the front door and the pale face of a middle-aged woman looking out at him. “We’re closed–go away.”

  “Just here to ask direction to a place of paving company,” said Viktor shouldering a backpack with a holster compartment sewn to the left fabric panel.

  Her eyes shift to one side, “Go ask around back,” she replied before shutting the door.

  Viktor rounded the corner to see three men busy at work butchering a large deer hanging on a rack, and the other preparing a barbecue fire pit for cooking. The place was cluttered with various hand tools, firearms and old animal bones. Near the butchering rack were two large drums
, one for fat and the other presumably for scalding the hair off hogs, neither of which appeared ready for business.

  “Not much fat on deer,” said Viktor trying to open a friendly dialogue with the two men at the butchering rack.

  The skinnier of the two butchers never look up from their work, but only sniffed back a wad of snot before replying, “I reckon.”

  “I am looking for directions to a paving company.”

  Silence.

  The men continued with their work, ignoring Viktor like he wasn’t there. “So I presume you gentlemen don’t know of such a place?” said Viktor adding, “And perhaps you might guide me to someone who might know?”

  The one man working at the fire pit approached Viktor. He looked over Viktor with the curiosity of a chimpanzee. “Are you some kinda soldier man?”

  The fat guy standing at the butcher rack swiped the blade of his knife along the inner side of the deer’s hide while the skinny one pulled it free. “Shuttup Willard,” the fat one said to the barbecue man.

  “Ize jus asking.”

  Viktor gave a half smile, “I was just asking too, but if you gentlemen don’t know of a business who conducts paving then I will be on my way.”

  The Fat guy stepped aside from his work on the deer to block Viktor’s retreat. “Yea ain’t going nowhere boy.”

  “Watch it Verlin, he’s got something strapped to his back.”

  “Shuttup Willard,” said the fat guy. “Now you just drop that backpack on the table right there.”

  Viktor looked down and saw the man turn his skinning knife on him and knew he was threatening to gut him where he stood. Pulling from his gun holster at his back, Viktor retracted his weapon and held it up for the fat man to see.