Revenge Story
©2015 by Julia Broussard
Kindle Edition
Published by Adventure Books of Seattle
www.adventurebooksofseattle.com
‘The Small Press from the Great Northwest’
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including digital or electronic storage formats, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Country of First Publication: U.S.A.
Cover art and interior book design and images © 2015 by Adventure Books of Seattle.
Cover Image: Courtesy of the U.S. Army main website.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
April 28, 2003
Fallujah, Iraq
The smell of dust was thick in his nostrils and his mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage. Ray Morris unslung his rifle and peeked out a window to see what was happening next door.
A crowd was gathering near the front of the al-Qa'id primary school just up the street. He estimated the size of the crowd at a hundred already, with more people drifting in from everywhere. Women and children were among them. Some of the children were shouting in Arabic while the women made the high-pitched ululations Morris had heard so many times before. Their angry epithets echoed off the stone buildings.
“Corporal Jackson!” Morris snapped.
“Yes, captain?”
“Do you just read Arabic, or can you speak it, too?”
“I can speak it, sir.”
“Good. Can you tell me what the hell those people are bitching about out there?”
Jackson pulled off his helmet and cautiously stuck his head out the window. Some of the soldiers behind him were muttering in loud voices, making it difficult for him to hear anything. “Shut up back there!” he yelled at them. They went silent. Jackson listened for a few seconds, and then pulled his head back inside and turned to Morris. “Sounds like they want our guys to leave the school, sir. That’s the best I can make of it, anyway.”
“What the fuck are they planning to do,” said Morris, “open for classes again? They’ll probably get bombed by the insurgents.” I shouldn’t have said that in front of the men, but what the hell, he thought. They’re probably thinking the same thing anyway. “Sergeant Cummings!”
Ben Cummings remained sitting against the far wall, working his way lazily through an MRE ration pack. He didn’t look up. “Yeah, captain?”
“I want you to take a squad and go around to the back of that school. See if Charlie company needs any help with crowd control.”
Cummings dug out a bit of ham from the MRE and dropped it into his mouth. “I wouldn’t recommend that, sir.”
“I didn’t ask your opinion, sergeant. That was an order.”
Cummings kept eating. “We’ve got a hundred and fifty guys from Charlie company holding the school, sir. There’s only twenty-two of us in here to hold this position. If anyone sees us creeping around outside, the whole thing could escalate. I think we should stay here.”
Morris passed a hand over his eyes and spoke in measured tones. “Get your ass up, get a fucking squad together, and head over there – now.”
Grudgingly, Sergeant Cummings got to his feet. He tossed the remainder of the MRE pack into the corner and grabbed his rifle. “Yes, sir.” He pointed to several of the other men in the dusty little room. “Johnson...Chadwick...and you...Spencer. You three come with me. And do an ammo check on that SAW, Spencer.”
“Take a full squad, sergeant,” said Morris.
Ben Cummings headed out the door with the three men behind him. “Don’t need that many men, sir!” he shouted back, ignoring the order.
Cummings led them out the back of the two-story building and headed down toward the school. He stopped at the corner of the building and went to one knee. He peeked around the corner. The school occupied by Charlie company was right next door, with about ten meters of open ground between them and the school. The crowd had doubled in size and some were now picking up rocks from the ground. He thought he saw a rifle or two among them, but he couldn’t be sure. The shouts from the crowd grew louder. Rocks flew through the air and toward the school. A window shattered with a crash.
He heard the familiar poompf of tear gas canisters and the street out in front of the school started filling with white vapor. Ben waved a hand over his face. “Put on your gas masks,” he ordered. “Charlie company’s firing tear gas at the crowd.” He set his rifle down and dug his own mask out, slipping it over his head.
Choking and screaming emanated from the crowd. In the confusion, he could see some people had started to run. Shots popped and he recognized the distinctive sound of AK-47 rounds being fired. As the tear gas started to clear, he saw two or three Arab men with rifles walking among the crowd and shooting into the air. Cummings turned around again and held out his hand. “Spencer!” he shouted through his mask, “give me that SAW and take my rifle!”
The young man’s eyes were wide with fright behind the mask. His hands shook as he handed over the heavy weapon and snatched Cummings’ M-16.
Cummings paid no attention to the kid. Spencer had only arrived in Fallujah the day before and the closest thing to action he’d ever seen was hunting squirrels back on the farm. Cummings took aim at the crowd with the SAW and squeezed off a short burst. Someone dressed in white robes fell to the ground. The crowd screamed even louder and let fly more rocks at the school. Some of the soldiers holding the school began shooting on the crowd as well. Cummings stepped out from around the corner of the building and sprayed the crowd heavily with bullets. No use letting Charlie company have all the fun, he thought. Bodies crumpled into the dirt like puppets cut from their strings, their flowing robes flapping gently in the hot wind.
A minute later, it was over. Sixty or seventy people lay on the ground. Most of the crowd had fled, although he could still hear the wailing of the Arab women as they knelt over the bodies. A heavy smell of gunpowder wafted through the air. Cummings stepped back behind the building and glared at the three men crouched behind him. “Keep your fucking mouths shut about this. That was payback on those assholes for killing the Blackwater guys and hanging them out over the bridge. Remember that.”
When they reported to Captain Morris, only Cummings had anything to say. He told Morris the mob had attacked Charlie company at the school, and that Charlie company had returned fire.
Morris said nothing, but for a second he thought he saw a small bit of smoke coming from the SAW in Cummings’ hands. He grabbed the weapon and felt the barrel. It was still warm. “Were you shooting at the crowd out there, sergeant?”
Cummings looked him directly in the eye. “No, sir. I fired a warning burst when they started throwing rocks at us. Then we fell back. Sir.”
Morris looked at the other three men who had gone outside with Cummings. “What about it? Is that what happened?”
The three men nodded.
Cummings snatched back the SAW from Morris and handed it to Private Spencer. He retrieved his rifle from Spencer, who still looked like a deer in the headlights.
Morris though
t he detected a slight smile on Sergeant Cummings’ face. “From now on,” Morris said irritably, “you stay in my sight unless I say otherwise. That’s an order. And if I catch you doing an illegal kill, you’ll be facing a court-martial right here in the field. You understand me, sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.” Cummings said casually. “Whatever you say, sir.”
“All right, everyone!” Morris shouted. “On your feet! We’ve got orders to move toward the east side of town. Let’s go.”
Chapter One
Twelve Years Later
He was tall, in his mid-thirties, with short-cropped black hair. His usual good humor was replaced by an angry scowl. Ray Morris’ sharp blue eyes always seemed to be studying something in the distance. The thousand-yard stare, he called it. It was a term from the Vietnam War. At least he thought it was from Vietnam. Now a civilian, Morris had long ago traded in his camo hat for a floppy baseball cap printed with the words Portland Trailblazers. The cap was completely soaked from the rain that had been falling since dawn. Water ran down behind his ears and dripped onto his neck.
What a fucked-up day it is for a move, he thought as he banged down the roller door on the moving truck. He looked up at the incessant rain pouring down out of a black sky and ignored the heavy drops pounding against his face. Taking a deep breath of the freshly washed air, he swept a hand across his eyes to clear the water from his face. Walking up to the passenger side of the big truck, he snatched the soggy baseball cap from his head and pounded it against his leg. “We’re ready to go, honey.”
“You’re all wet,” said Karen. “Get in.” She rolled up the window hurriedly.
Morris went around to the front of the truck and slid in behind the wheel. “Well, that’s it,” he said, slamming the door. “Say goodbye to Oregon.” The rain rattled loudly on the roof of the truck like tiny hammers.
“Come on, let’s get going,” Karen said. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.” She slipped a rubber band through her blonde hair and tied it into a ponytail.
“I forgot something.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Back in a second.” He climbed out and ran to the front porch of the house. Tearing the bank’s foreclosure notice from the door, he methodically ripped it to shreds. He tossed the pieces into a nearby mud puddle. They floated around like little white sailboats and he stared at them for a few seconds. He got back into the truck.
Karen laid a hand on his shoulder. “I saw what you did. Feel better now?”
“If the bank would have given us more time, maybe I could have found some work.”
“There aren’t any jobs around here, Ray,” said Karen. “You tried as hard as you could. We’ll find something in Dallas, don’t worry.”
Morris started the truck and put it in gear. “Maybe so, but we put everything we had into that place and then we lost it anyway.”
“It’s the economy.” She stared out at the rain and then laid her head against the window. “We’re not the only ones hurting, Ray. It’s just the way things are right now.”
Ray gave the truck some gas and pulled out of the driveway. “Yeah, maybe so,” he said, “but it still stinks.” He was silent as they drove over the sodden streets and headed for the southbound freeway out of Portland.
“I’ve got some news for you,” said Karen.
“You won the lottery.”
“Don’t be a smart ass. It doesn’t suit you,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it later when we stop.”
“That might not be until we reach California. We don’t have the money to do too many motel stops, you know.” He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out the window. “I want us to make at least five hundred miles today.”
“It’s already noon,” Karen said. “I thought you quit smoking.”
Ray threw the cigarette out the window, and then the pack in his shirt pocket went out as well. “You’re right. Besides, I can’t afford them anymore anyway.” He shrugged. “Some old ones I found in a drawer.”
They reached the on-ramp and Ray merged the U-Haul smoothly into traffic. He stayed in the right-hand lane and went with the flow of the other vehicles. The truck bounced occasionally as it hit cracks and potholes in the road. Even the freeway was a victim of the poor economy. There was less money available to maintain it. He eased the truck into the next lane over where the road was better and some of the rattling eased. “Right lane’s always beat up by semi-trucks,” he said.
Karen Morris said nothing. She was depressed over the loss of the house and Ray’s inability to find enough work to pay the mortgage. I’m not telling him that, though. He feels bad enough already, she thought. They had been together for fifteen years and this was definitely the low point of the marriage. She let herself remember the day he had finally come home from Iraq after four straight deployments. Ray had returned with a pocketful of money and dreams of starting a home-building business.
Things had been great for a while. Then the housing market crashed, along with the economy. The business collapsed and when Ray tried to get other work, he found a hundred people applying for the same job everywhere he went. To make ends meet, they started selling things. First came the garage sales, then one of the cars, and finally their prize possession, a thirty-five foot racing sloop they had renamed Santana, after the famous boat owned by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. It wasn’t enough. Without work, the money eventually drained away to nothing. A year later, they lost the house.
She stared at the fields and buildings passing by her window as they headed south toward a new life in Texas. The rain was miserable and gloomy. She decided that leaving Portland for a new life in Texas might not be so bad, after all. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window.
Ray looked over at her and his expression softened. I’ve been an asshole since all this started, he thought. She’s the strong one. He saw her beautifully full red lips he never grew tired of kissing, and that long blonde hair he loved to touch. He smiled and turned back to his driving.
It was just after dark when Ray finally exited the freeway near Roseburg, Oregon. “There’s a truck stop here,” he said. “You hungry?”
“Yes,” said Karen. She stretched and yawned. “How much farther you want to go tonight?”
“I Googled up a list of cheap motels before we left the house,” he said, “there’s one only a few miles out of town for twenty-eight bucks a night.”
“Hope they spray for bedbugs,” she said.
Ray pulled into the truck stop and found a parking spot near the restaurant. The rain had finally stopped, but it was still unseasonably cold for August. He got out and locked the driver’s door.
Karen surprised him by running around the truck and grabbing him around the waist. She shivered from the cold. “You know I love you, right?”
He pulled her close to him. “Love you too, kid,” he said, smiling.
“I’m glad you said that Ray. Because guess what? You’re going to be a father.”
“What?”
Karen watched in amusement as his face changed from a smile to a look of shock. “That’s right. We’re going to have a baby,” she said, grabbing his hand. “I went to the doctor yesterday and he said I’m about six weeks along.” She wondered for a quick moment if his reaction would be panic, but he just drew her into a big hug instead and gave her a kiss.
“I thought it would never happen for us,” he whispered in her ear. “We’ve been trying for how long?”
“For so long I was beginning to think something was wrong with us.” She pulled free from him and dragged him by the arm toward the restaurant. “Come on, I’m hungry!”
Ray laughed. “So am I, honey!”
The restaurant was brightly lit and packed with truckers wolfing down heavy meals of meat and potatoes, followed by an endless supply of coffee. It was cozy, comfortable, and warm with the smell of home-cooked food wafting from the kitchen. They found a seat together in an empty booth and slid in behind the
table side-by-side.
A young waitress came up and laid out a couple of menus. “Hi. You want something to drink?”
“I’ll have a large milk,” said Karen.
“Just water for me, thanks,” said Ray.
“Great,” said the waitress. “I’ll be back with your drinks in a minute and then I’ll take your order.” She jotted something in her order book and left.
“Ray?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not worried are you? I mean about the baby and the money situation?”
He put his arm around her and kissed her on the neck. “Not a chance,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”
“I just don’t want you to worry, that’s all.”
“I’m not worried. There’s plenty of work in Houston and I’ve already got a couple of interviews lined up.”
The waitress returned with their drinks and sat them on the table. “Ready to order?”
Ray studied the menu. “Think I’ll have a hamburger.”
“I’ll have the chicken soup and a salad,” Karen said.
The waitress wrote down the order. “Dressing?”
“Bleu cheese,” said Karen.
“And what do you want on your burger, sir?”
“Everything’s okay. No onions, though.”
The waitress collected the menus and left.
“I thought you were supposed to eat for two,” Ray joked. “Soup and salad sounds pretty light. If my boy’s anything like me he’s going to want more than that.”
“IF it’s a boy,” she reminded him.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot that part. You want to find out? I mean when it’s possible to know?”
She took a drink of ice water. “You’re funny, you know that? If you want to know the sex of the baby, they do the ultrasound when you’re far enough along. Twelve weeks is the earliest I think ”
“Let me think about it. Just don’t blow up like a balloon on me or I’ll dump you flat.” He squeezed her hand to show it was only a joke.
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