Landshark

by Brian Tormanen

  Brian Tormanen

  Landshark

  Copyright © 2019 by Brian Tormanen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  First edition

  ISBN: 978-1-7336627-0-3

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epitaph

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE - TWO YEARS LATER

  Thank You

  About the Author

  Dedication

  For the dogs and to those who serve.

  Epitaph

  Landshark: Dog handler slang for a military working dog (MWD) with great speed, strength and skill at biting.

  ONE

  It was midnight in downtown Seattle when Jake Decker began making his rounds. The alarm on his watch beeped to confirm he wasn’t a minute early or late. To Jake, he wasn’t just a security guard; he was a professional asset protection specialist. Being a professional was a mindset, and as such, punctuality mattered.

  It was a warm August night, technically morning, and the concrete still radiated heat from the previous day’s scorching sun. The air smelled of earth and fresh lumber. Seattle was booming, and construction cranes dotted the night sky. Some of the cranes were lit up with green and blue lights, the colors of the NFL Seattle Seahawks. Others hung giant number-12 flags to honor the team’s fans.

  His limp no longer bothered him—at least he no longer needed the cane. After the injuries he had sustained in Afghanistan, a career in law enforcement wasn’t in the cards. Fine, he thought, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to live his life kicking back in a recliner. He believed in the dignity of work, even as a minimum wage slave guarding downtown construction sites.

  Jake stopped to look up at Seattle’s latest addition to its skyline. It was nearing completion and soon it would be time to move on. The building, 555 Westlake, was a massive high-rise with street-level retail shops and million-dollar condominiums with insane views. While his job was just to pound the ground and keep the vagrants out, he still enjoyed seeing the day’s progress every night.

  There were times, like now, when he thought about getting into the trades, building something with his hands, but being a thirty-something apprentice didn’t sound too appealing. He’d heard of the apprentices being yelled at or being a journeyman’s gopher, and the thought reminded him too much of boot camp.

  He had to admit, though, he’d developed a strange fondness for the building as he watched it grow from a muddy hole in the ground to a gleaming skyscraper. The bones of the structure were made of concrete and steel, but the shell had been fancied up with red brick and silver tinted glass. After witnessing so much death and destruction in Afghanistan, it was good to see anything being built again.

  Jake made his way around the huge construction site, which took up an entire city block. Some of the guys, his boss in particular, referred to the job site as the Rez, after the large swaths of land given (back) to the Native Americans who owned it in the first place. He stopped to check some chain-link fencing, making sure it was secured to its post, when he heard the first signs of trouble.

  “Bitch, what I tell you?”

  Jake turned to the source of the voice, already knowing what he would see. At an alley entrance, two disheveled-looking thugs were threatening a grungy homeless man sitting on the ground. The man held his hands as if he were about to be struck. The bigger of the men kicked the homeless man in the leg.

  His partner laughed. “Fuck it, Dre. Let’s go.”

  “Nah, man. This bitch in my spot!”

  Jake noticed the white plastic cup in front of the homeless guy. There weren’t many people out at this time of night to panhandle and beg to, but he’d been trying. Jake sized up the two thugs. They appeared unarmed and not so tough if they were threatening the homeless.

  Reluctantly, Jake turned and went about his business. It wasn’t his problem and he’d seen worse things downtown. During his shift was when the real crazies came out: the drunks, the meth-heads, but the worst were the mentally ill, yelling at demons real or imagined while slapping themselves silly. Jake couldn’t help but wonder how the hell a construction boom ended up with more homeless.

  “I said get up!” Dre yelled at the homeless man and smacked him in the head. The sound carried across the street like a firecracker.

  Jake’s adrenaline kicked in. He stopped and threw a look over his shoulder. The homeless man on the ground covered the side of his face and rocked back and forth. Just as Jake thought of calling the police, Dre began pounding on the guy.

  “Damn!” Dre’s partner laughed. “He gonna feel that shit!”

  The guy was getting messed up bad. Jake went back to help, then remembered the warning his boss gave him on his first day: “Don’t go off the Rez, Jake. No matter what you see out there, never go off the Rez. Some tweaker will come in here and steal shit the first chance they get. Got it?”

  Jake didn’t like it, but he understood. It was also against policy to get physically involved for liability reasons. All he could do was call 911. Jake reached for his cell as the man on the ground was being pummeled. There was no way the cops were going to get here in time. Jake ran back toward an access gate.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  Dre and his partner didn’t hear him. They were like two sharks smelling blood in the water, focused on consuming their prey. Thudding fists and feet pounded on the man like a bass drum. Jake was almost at the gate and yelled again.

  “Hey, asshole!”

  This time Dre and his partner stopped and turned around. Their faces were hard and angry, dripping with bloodlust. Jake held his cell phone up in the air.

  “That’s enough,” Jake yelled, limping toward them. “I’m calling the police.”

  Dre and his partner exchanged looks and busted out laughing.

  “Man, fuck you, rent-a-cop!” Dre yelled back.

  Dre’s partner puffed out his chest and began aping Jake’s limp. They laughed and resumed beating their victim. Jake clenched his jaw. Fuck this. He couldn’t just stand there and watch a man get beaten to death. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his set of keys. The silver dog tag jingled on his key ring, reminding him of his former MWD, Koa.

  With one word, his military working dog would have put another hole in their asses, making it hard to sit for a month. Jake unlocked the padlock to the gate and stepped outside the fence. His hands s
hook and his body buzzed from fight or flight cortisol, a sensation he hadn’t felt since the war. Although physiologically deconditioned for combat, Jake had done it anyway.

  He’d just gone off the Rez.

  The two punks drilled kicks into the man’s back and head, oblivious to Jake’s presence until he knocked Dre’s partner to the ground. Dre nearly tripped over the prone body of the homeless man but caught himself and spun around. He smiled at the sight of Jake’s security badge pinned to his shirt. The man had several missing teeth.

  “Look what we got here. A new sheriff in town.”

  Jake stepped closer, his free hand balled into a fist. He glanced at the homeless guy, who’d managed to curl himself into a fetal position. The man was still breathing, but hard and raspy. Jake reached down to help him up while keeping an eye on Dre.

  “That’s enough,” Jake said. “Get the fuck out of here before the cops show up, man.”

  Just as Jake pulled the man to his feet, someone smacked his cell phone from his hand. It hit the ground with the sound of plastic bouncing and skidding across the pavement. Sonofabitch! Before Jake could go for his phone, Dre’s partner kicked it down the alley.

  “Hey! What the fuck’s your problem?” Jake yelled.

  He dropped the homeless guy and went after his phone. It slid behind a dumpster. He was just able to reach it, grabbed it, and stood up. The screen was cracked. Shit! Mother—

  Jake whipped around to find the homeless guy standing in his face. The man reeked of stale piss and held something in his hand.

  “Thanks for the help,” the man said, and struck Jake in the head.

  Jake fell to his knees. The thugs laughed, kicking Jake in the face, knocking him flat. He rolled over, fending off kicks pelting him like rocks. A hard shot blasted his ribcage. Vicious laughter echoed in Jake’s ears as the star-lit sky blurred and faded before he blacked out.

  * * *

  The police and paramedics finished with Jake a while later. A witness had contacted the police, who called paramedics. Jake had no idea how long he was out, but luckily, he was hard-headed and there wasn’t any serious damage—other than to his pride. Being a good Samaritan didn’t make getting his ass kicked any easier. Jesus, what the hell was wrong with people?

  The cops took Jake’s statement and promised to find the perpetrators. Jake wasn’t going to hold his breath, but at least his ribs hurt less when he tried. His only concern now was getting back to work and keeping this incident under wraps. Since the assault didn’t happen on 555 Westlake property, the cops had said, property management wouldn’t be notified. Nobody at work would know what had happened unless Jake filed an incident report. No way would he do that—going off the Rez would risk his job. The ambulance pulled away and the paramedics waved as they left.

  Have a great day.

  Jake limped back across the street to the job site. The gate was wide open. Damn, not good. He didn’t remember leaving it that way as he rushed across the street, but his adrenaline had been raging and his body ached too much to question his memory. A migraine was coming on, a stress-triggered residual effect from the IED. Getting kicked in the head sure as hell didn’t help.

  Jake closed the gate, wrapped the heavy chain around the posts, and locked it shut. He checked his watch. About four hours left in his shift. He waited for his watch to hit 0200 and then finished making his rounds.

  TWO

  Under a white-hot sun, Jake and his platoon arrive at the desolate mud-brick village. War-ravaged dirt walls lie in waste, crumbling to the ground in chunks and pieces like earthly body parts. Remaining houses wear scars from rocket fire and pockmarks from large-caliber bullets. Rising beyond the village like giant white-capped ocean swells are the snow-covered peaks of the Hindu Kush. A strong wind kicks up swirls of sand along the dusty road. The hair on the back of Jake’s neck rises from a sense of dread and a feeling of being watched.

  Koa, his black and tan German shepherd, walks ahead of him, stops, and lifts his head to scent the air. Jake watches his dog closely for signs, a change in behavior. He squats next to Koa and pours him water from his canteen. The dog laps at it with his long pink tongue. Jake splashes the rest into his eyes, washing his grime-caked face.

  Jake gazes into what is left of the sprawling village and spots ambush points and sniper hides everywhere. He adjusts his IBA armor closer to his chest and rubs the St. Christopher medallion at his neck for luck. Jake stands, and they continue down the road, passing blast craters and burned-out husks of cars.

  The rest of Jake’s platoon follow from behind in the relative safety of diesel-clacking Humvees. Atop the heavy-metal beasts are gunners with white-knuckled hands holding fifty-caliber machine guns or M40 grenade launchers. The stench of open sewers and rotting garbage permeates the air. Vultures pick away at a bloated corpse lying near a street gutter.

  Koa moves quicker, following a zig-zag pattern with his nose to the ground. The dog has picked up a scent cone. Koa stops near a pile of trash and debris—the saturation point. Koa alerts and sits, ears going erect. He turns to look at Jake.

  “What is it, boy?” Jake asks.

  Jake holds up a fist, signaling the platoon to stop. He moves closer, his heart thumping like a howitzer. Koa sits in front of a freshly dug pile of dirt. Jake’s pulse quickens. He looks to his right and sees the destroyed shell of a former schoolhouse. They’re straight in the line of sight of gaping holes in its crumbling walls. Shadows of the ruins form the shape of a giant grinning skull.

  The sound of a ringing cell phone comes out of nowhere. Jake looks down and sees the fin of a mortar shell sticking out of the dirt. A cell phone strapped to the mortar shell rings louder, echoing in Jake’s ears like an alarm bell.

  Jake can’t move. He tries to yell out a warning, but his throat is paralyzed, unable to form words. The only sound is the ringing from the mortar shell before it explodes. Koa vanishes in a cloud of dirt and dust. Jake is thrown into the air, finally able to scream. “Koa!”

  Jake’s eyes snapped open. Damp bedsheets stuck to him like a layer of skin as he struggled for breath. His heart was kicking through his chest until he realized where he was: safe in his own bed, but still threatened by the shadows in his mind. Same fucking nightmare.

  His mobile phone rang again on the nightstand. Next to his phone were three empty beer bottles, a digital clock, and a framed picture of him and Koa. In his dream, his phone’s ringtone always triggered the IED.

  His clock showed 0930. Everyone who knew Jake knew that he worked nights, so that meant it could only be bad news or some asshole trying to sell him something.

  He fought off the urge to answer it and let the call go to voicemail. A few seconds later a chime told him a message was waiting. Jake tried to ignore it, but his brain couldn’t let it go. Cursing, he reached for his phone and played the message. It was his boss.

  “Jake. This is Bronson. Need you to come in early today. By two o’clock. Call me if you got questions.”

  Todd sounded like his usual dickhead self: a stressed-out micromanager with a heart attack waiting to happen. But the fact that Todd had called this early in the morning when he knew Jake would be sleeping wasn’t good. That could only mean he was calling about last night. Shit.

  Jake tossed his phone on the table and rolled back onto his bed. As he stared at the ceiling, his mind returned to the nightmare. Chest-crushing anxiety followed. Soon he was having a full-blown panic attack. He began inhaling slow, deep breaths to calm himself. The musty smell of his studio apartment filled his nose as flashbacks came on faster than a freight train. His therapist’s soothing voice entered his head.

  “You can’t stop a thought or image stuck on repeat, Jake,” she said. “You have to try replacing it.”

  He dragged a hand through his dark hair and tried replacing the images in his head with something else, but it was pointless. It always was. During his deployment in Afghanistan, his thoughts were often filled with memories of home. But now
that he was home, all he could think about was the war. Jake wasn’t sure where he had read it, but after his experience, it was true: after combat, he could never really go home again.

  It had been just over a year since the IED attack, but the sudden end to Jake’s military career and the loss of Koa still weighed on him. Kaleidoscope images of Afghanistan were carved into his flesh and memories like the valleys and wadis of the Hindu Kush. Jake rubbed the scar on the left side of his face, feeling his pulse through the scar tissue.

  Jake turned back to the nightstand with the framed picture of him and Koa. The guilt always came on strong after the nightmare. No matter how sharp the surgeon’s knives, they couldn’t cut away this pain. It wasn’t as easy as removing mangled flesh and bone.

  The picture had been taken at the end of a very bad day: his first firefight. Third Platoon had walked into an ambush after visiting a nearby village, a likely setup. An MWD handler’s job is to keep his dog safe—neither is good without the other, so Jake found cover and using his body armor as a shield, wrapped Koa in his arms as bullets snapped over their heads and mortars rained death from the sky. It was the most terrifying moment of his life, where time moved in a slow motion parallel universe, everything surreal and clear as crystal.

  Jake was still wearing his battle kit and sunglasses in the photo, kneeling with his arm around his dog of war. Koa’s favorite chew toy, a red Kong, was lying at his feet. Jake held his M4 rifle in his other hand, but the image of a fearless, badass warrior couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  Drilled into Jake from day one at dog handler’s school was that emotions ran up and down the leash, and Jake had been scared shitless. He had worried his fear would transfer to Koa, but he never cracked, and his dog gave Jake a source of strength the rest of the guys envied.

  Koa had his long tongue hanging out, panting to cool off from the intense summer heat. He wore a black tactical vest over his thick double-haired coat. He had a small round black spot of hair, like a beauty mark, on the right side of his face. He was, quite literally, one good-looking son of a bitch.