I looked to my team and said, “We have to get to higher ground. On my count we’re making a break for the lookout. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see these bastards from there.” My men all nodded their assent. I waited until there seemed to be a break in the gunfire and yelled at them to go. They all ran, sucking in the thick, contaminated air and still hacking and spiting as they moved.
We were like ducks in a shooting gallery as we ran across the open area. I was relieved not to hear any gunfire until just before the last man in front of me ran inside. I fired back, drawing the fire in my direction. I felt the first bullet rip through my side when I was about six feet from the door of the building. I only had enough time to register that it was probably only a flesh wound before the second bullet caught me in the left shoulder. The adrenaline kept me from registering the pain, but watching my shoulder explode was surreal.
I pushed on and ran up the stairs. My breaths were getting shorter, and the pain was fighting through the adrenaline mask now. I could hear bullets bouncing off the roof and the side of the building when I got to the top. I paused and waited for another break before I moved again. I ran toward the corner of the building where there was an Iraqi soldier. My men covered the other three corners.
The gunshots continued, and I pressed my M30 into my non-injured shoulder and sighted it. I still couldn’t see anyone. I looked at the Iraqi soldier and asked, “Who are we shooting at? Where the hell are they?”
He shrugged. He didn’t know either. They were probably holed up in one of the buildings down below, but they had to have a sniper somewhere up high, too. I laid flat and scooted on my belly to the edge and looked over. With my gun perched against my shoulder, I placed my finger over the trigger and looked through the sight, as I moved it slowly across the seemingly deserted base. It took some time, but finally just slightly east of us, I saw him, the sniper. He was inside the open window of a room on the top story of the administration building.
“Sniper!” I yelled. I turned to fire and….
I woke up to the sounds of my own blood curdling screams…again. I was on the couch, and my body was bathed in sweat. It took me several seconds to remember where I was. I was home, sort of. When I was forced to retired from the army, I bought a small farmhouse in South Dakota. Every time I woke up like this, I was once again grateful that my nearest neighbor was three miles away. Otherwise, I’d have neighbors calling nine-one-one almost every time I closed my eyes. I hated this shit!
I pulled myself up and went into the small bathroom that connected the living room and bedroom. I’d stripped down to my underwear earlier, planning to have one more beer and then go to bed, but I hadn’t made it that far. I spent my days working on the farm from sun up to sundown, anything to keep from remembering, or dreaming. I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink. The scar across my left shoulder was deep and huge. Even underneath the tattoos that now covered it, it was visible. I let my eyes follow the tats down along my side to the next scar. That one wasn’t as big as the one on my shoulder, but as it turned out the bullet had nicked my liver and part of that had to be removed. The scars across my abdomen were remnants of the accident with Brandon, and I didn’t cover those out of a morbid need to remember. I didn’t remember the days I spent at the military hospital in Germany. Go figure. My mind held onto all of the crap leading up to it instead.
I leaned down and splashed water on my face. As soon as I stood up and reached for the towel, the image that my brain had fought off while I was sleeping, flashed before my eyes in the mirror. I’d yelled sniper and opened fire. To this day I can’t figure out why, but Mac stood up. I yelled at him to get down just before the bullet ripped through the side of his head just underneath his crooked helmet. The image of his head exploding haunted me continuously. Everything and everyone I touched seemed to die. I couldn’t stand to look at myself any longer. I pulled back my fist and let it fly and land in the center of the mirror. I watched it shatter even as thick pools of blood were already gathering in the sink.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TYLER
After I completely destroyed the only mirror left in my little house, I leaned into the sink and hyperventilated. Sweat dripped off of me again and my entire body shook. That should have been my last mission. The doctors in Germany tried to send me home after that. The other staff sergeant that had been out on foot patrol that day was sent home. His entire unit was wiped out, and no matter how much he dug his heels in, they wouldn’t let him stay. Me however…they didn’t realize how disturbed I was at that time. I stayed to try and make up for Mac getting killed.
I shook off those thoughts for the time being and took several deep breaths until I got my breathing back under control, and then I grabbed a towel from underneath the sink. I ran cold water over my hand, watching as the blood mixed with the water and swirled down into the drain. I held it there as if in a trance until the water finally began to run clear. Then I took the towel and wrapped it around my hand. I left the mess in the bathroom for later and headed back across the small living room and into the kitchen. I poured water into the coffee machine and added the coffee grounds. While it dripped into the pot, I rested my head forward on the cupboard and tried to still the thoughts in my head, but it was pointless. They invaded my brain when they wanted to—and not even the medications I took could stop them. I poured a cup of coffee when it was done and took it out on the front porch. As I sat there and looked at all of the beauty around me, my mind went back to that ugly place.
Fifteen years…I’d given fifteen years of my life to the United States Government, Special Ops in the Army. It had been my way of escaping my life. After I’d given Mom that last dose of morphine and after I’d gotten Brandon drunk, effectively causing the accident that killed him and finally after I looked into Ariana’s beautiful, accusing eyes, I thought it was my only choice. The fact might have been that I was looking to do something to make up for all of the mistakes I’d made. It may have been that I thought that I could make up for the deaths I caused by preventing others, or maybe I was just suicidal. I didn’t know any longer—and I didn’t care. I’d lived…because I was good at what I did, one of the best. I’d been a sniper…a killer…it was the one thing I found early on that I was good at, death.
I was released from the hospital four days after the incident on the roof with the doctor’s recommendation that I be discharged home. I was considering it, right up until I made it back to Iraq and I was told where the rest of my team was. They’d pulled out of Iraq, but then they’d been sent on one last mission…to the mountains of Afghanistan in the Ghazi Province. It was early fall when I arrived and rendezvoused back with my team.
The mission had been to go into the mountains and bring out the last man standing from another team who had gone up to intercept supplies from the infidels. They’d been attacked by the Taliban before they’d even made it to their rendezvous point and the entire team had been wiped out…except for one man. He’d been able to maintain radio contact up until two days ago as my team searched for him…but for the past two days there had been nothing but silence. My first two days there, I reassumed command of my team…Timber was gone and so was Mac. We were down to six once I rejoined them. We were six men who’d done over twenty tours between us. We were six men that were told that we had one more day to find the lost soldier and bring him home, or the operation would be shut down and he would be left on the side of a goddamned mountain in the middle of hell. My men and I were determined not to let that happen.
We were perched high up on a snowy ridgeline surrounded by scenery that would have been fitting on the front of a Christmas card. That night none of us had the capacity to find the beauty in it. It was just hovering around twenty degrees Fahrenheit, and our hopes of finding the soldier were dwindling.
Night operations were our specialty. The conditions didn’t matter. The location was irrelevant. Ranger battalions were always combat ready. We were mentally and physically the “toughest
” of the lot. We were prepared to fight the war on terrorism at any cost, in any place and any conditions. The Regiment was a volunteer force, but only those who could pass an intensive screening process and even more intensive combat-focused training were selected. Unfortunately, for those of us who craved action so badly that we’d become the elite, the watching and waiting was a huge chunk of our job. It was excruciating at times, but like the rest of it, we handled it like the professionals we were.
It was just after two in the morning, and I was about to call it a night and order my men to shelter for a few hours until we set back out. I picked up my radio just as it crackled into life. “Staff Sergeant…” Crackle. “We have hostiles at our six o’clock…one point five miles out…” Crackle. Gunfire. The radio went dead. I was already on my feet, weapon in hand. The two men with me did the same. No questions were asked as they followed me over the rocky outcropping to the other side of the hill, towards where the other three of my men had been posted.
We were about half a mile out when we heard the gunfire. Rapid pop-pop-pop. Just before we came to the top of the hill, the deafening sound of an approaching jet drowned out everything else. Jesus! What the hell are they doing here? It was one of ours, I could tell by the sound of it. I knew what was about to happen before it happened. I yelled at my men to take cover, but I kept running. I had to make sure my other men were okay….
I shuddered hard at the memory and sloshed the hot coffee over the side of the cup and onto the hand that I hadn’t beat up this morning. “Damn it!” I threw the mug over the porch railing and watched as it smashed into a million pieces against the cottonwood tree in my front yard. This has to stop. I was teetering on the edge of losing my mind. I had to make some changes…
That time when I woke up in the hospital, they didn’t give me a choice. I was being honorably discharged. I would leave with a Purple Heart and a Distinguished Service Cross…two of the highest honors the military bestows. I tried to fight it. I had no idea what I was going to do when I left the army. It had been my life for half of it. The life that I knew before was so far in the past and I’d been so young and so innocent…I couldn’t go back there, but I also couldn’t imagine any other options. After that night on the mountain, I had metal in my hip to repair it. I had ribs that had been shattered and replaced with titanium. My body was riddled with scars…but the biggest concern the doctors and my commanders had were the scars that my mind would never be able to get rid of.
I came down off that mountain carrying the only two living members of my team…and the hypothermic man we’d been looking for…back to safety. When we were picked up by the medical transport helicopter, the medics couldn’t believe that I was still on my feet much less that I’d carried others to safety. That part was a blur to me. I remembered refusing to leave until my men were all out, even the dead ones. By the time I was discharged from the service, five of my eight-man team that I’d fought with for four years were dead. I’d watched them all die. I had over a hundred confirmed sniper kills and that didn’t count the unconfirmed ones. I was a killing machine, and although that was never a title I’d grown proud of or comfortable with, it was all I knew. When I put my boots back on American soil, I felt instantly uneasy. I felt like I was in a foreign land, and I didn’t know where to go or what to do.
I called Sam. Sam had been the last person that I spoke to before I left. Actually, Sam had been the one who helped me get enough money together to leave town after Mom and Brandon’s funerals. Sam was surprised and happy to hear from me. We’d met in a restaurant in a place in South Dakota where Sam was attending a real estate conference. Sam was thrilled to see me and urged me to go home. Home was as foreign to me as not being in the army was. Instead, I convinced Sam to hook me up with one of his colleagues who sold real estate in South Dakota. I spent several months looking for the perfect place before I found it. The little farm sat on half an acre, and it was pretty much self-contained so that my trips into town wouldn’t have to be frequent. My neighbors lived miles away and I could have the solace that I craved. For the past two years, I’d managed to keep it that way. I loved the peace and quiet. I loved the fact that there were no screams other than my own. There were no gunshots and on the rare occasion that I had to go into town, there were only a few people that I had to interact with. Most importantly of all, there was no one here that I cared about. There was no one here for me to watch die.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TYLER
I cleaned up the broken cup around the trunk of the tree and threw it away before getting dressed for my run. The farmland stretched out for miles in every direction and it was beautiful. The early morning June sun spread out across the open fields and gave the green fields somewhat of an ethereal glow. The ruts and potholes that the weather and the farm trucks left in the dirt didn’t bother me, they only added to the challenge of the run. In a few weeks, the wildflowers would bloom across the open meadows and the slightly yellow grass would begin to turn green again. This was the one place where I felt like the past was behind me. I could breathe. I was free. I occasionally felt the pain in my hip where the bullet had torn through muscle and bone, but for the most part, my legs burned to run. I ran fast and far, and by the time I got home, my lungs were on fire and I was exhausted, but it was a good tired. It was the kind of tired that would help me sleep through the night without dreaming. Without dreams, there was no pain and no waking up screaming.
When I got home from my run, I went into the garage and popped open the hood of my ’69 Challenger. I’d bought it when I returned home. Mine had been completely totaled, and even if it hadn’t been, I wasn’t going back there to get it. This one was in bad shape when I bought it and in need of restoration. The good memories I had of my dad all seemed to be around working on the Challenger together. Working on this one helped me to recapture some of those good feelings. I’d already replaced the engine and rebuilt the transmission. All I had left now were the small things like adding chrome and other little details. Today, I was putting in new speakers that I had ordered online. I flipped on the Bose speakers on the shelf behind me, and as the sounds of country music wafted out, I cleared my mind of everything except the Dodge and worked.
I didn’t know how much time passed before my cell phone started ringing. It took me several minutes to process what the sound was. I didn’t get many calls.
I was even more surprised when I picked it up and heard Sam’s father saying, “Hi Tyler, this is Michael Dupree.” My mind suddenly went to the worst-case scenario. Something happened to Sam. Why would his father be calling me otherwise?
“Mr. Dupree? Is Sam okay?”
“Yes, he’s fine Tyler. I’m actually calling you in the capacity of your father’s attorney. I hate this part of my job. I’m afraid your father has passed away.”
I was silent. It wasn’t that I wasn’t feeling an entire flood of emotions, I was. I was feeling so many all at once that I didn’t know which one to grab onto, and I had no idea what to say. Guilt that was the first one. I hadn’t seen my father for seventeen years. I left, and he died alone, but wasn’t that his own doing? I didn’t know anymore.
“Um…thank you for letting me know.”
“The funeral is Friday afternoon at two.”
Damn! Of course I’d be expected to go to the funeral. I hadn’t been home in so long. I hadn’t seen or talked to anyone from there except Sam. “Okay, thanks. I’ll see what I can do.” Before Mr. Dupree could respond to that I hung up. I stood there and stared at the wall for a long time. I thought that I had my mind made up…that I shouldn’t go. If my father was still alive and had a say in it, I was sure he wouldn’t want me there. But he was not alive.
I turned towards the Challenger. For a minute, I pictured myself as a kid. My father was trying to make amends for something he’d done when he bought the car, but I liked to believe that after spending the time fixing it up with me that it became more than that. I’d been beside myself with excit
ement, not only because of the car, but because—for the first time in my life—I felt like bonding with my dad. We shopped for parts together and looked through magazines together for ideas on interior and exterior colors. We talked about chrome and wheels and everything in between—and in the meantime we bonded without even noticing it. Then, less than a year later, Mom got sick…just as I started to think there was hope for him and I. My constant, seething anger at him festered into something that bordered on hate, and as much as I didn’t want it to be that way, it just was. Sometimes I wondered if I had tried harder to be there for him, then things would have been different, but I just keep coming back to this: He was the parent, shouldn’t he have been there for me? Or at least for my mom?
I tried to put all of that out of my mind, but that niggle of guilt was present and growing. Didn’t I at least owe him the respect of going to his funeral? Was he a good father? No. But he was a good provider, and for most of my life I benefitted from that. Damn it! Louisiana is the last place I want to be, but I was afraid if I didn’t go that it would be just one more thing I’d have to learn to live with. Some days I thought one more thing would just be too much, and I’d dive off that bridge I’d been standing on head first into the deep end of insanity.
I picked up the phone and called Michael Dupree back. “Mr. Dupree, it’s Tyler again. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be there for the funeral. Is there anything else I’ll need to take care of regarding the estate?” I had no idea if Dad had a will, or if he did if I was even a part of it. I could care less about the money, but I would love to have some pictures of my mom and some of her things. After seventeen years, I had to wonder if my dad saved them. Was he remarried? Did he die sick and alone?
TYLER (Blake Security Book 2) Page 7
