Highest Law: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by R. J. Pineiro

  In the stillness of the room, I consider his original question: what’s in store for us?

  The injuries we have sustained are certainly a disqualifying condition for the teams, but there are a number of options on the table for experienced warriors like ourselves. At the top of the list is becoming a paramilitary contractor, meaning a mercenary, selling our skills to the highest bidder, as long as, of course, those services don’t break any laws or personal moral codes.

  I know many former team members who have gone this route and done quite well for themselves. I could also go into the private security business and perhaps become the bodyguard for some Hollywood type or music star.

  I frown at the thought of spending my life following some diva to parties and concerts. Or even worse, protecting the rich and famous from the paparazzi.

  There’s also the option of starting a business. SEALs by nature—and by training—are risk takers, and I also know a number of guys who chose this line of work. They usually lean toward shooting ranges, firearms shops, fitness centers, or even become personal trainers for the rich and famous.

  There’s also the GS contract route, as in General Schedule federal government contractor, which would allow me to double down on federal retirement. The snag is that I would lose the privileges that come with my rank, but I would still be helping Uncle Sam in its War on Terror. This route, however, is a dangerous path toward Special Access Programs, SAPs, the dark side. And with all due respect to my beloved Uncle D., who is deep in that netherworld, at the moment that would feel like working for the devil.

  Of course, being in the Navy also means opportunities in agencies such as the NCIS, or perhaps teaching at Annapolis, or even becoming an instructor at BUD/S. The latter would keep me in the SEAL environment training a new generation of badasses. The NCIS route could be helpful in my cause to get to the bottom of the attack.

  And speaking of that, I have a video call with Colonel Granite in the morning. I’ve been trying to get an audience with the man ever since he emailed me two weeks ago with the joint report from Lieutenant Brooks, Central Command, and the crew of the AH-130J detailing what happened. And while it was informative, I found some inconsistencies I need to clear up. Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to be able to get past the colonel’s assistant.

  Funny how I could get the man’s ear within the hour when I was under his command at KAF, but the moment I was forced out of the rapids, he was suddenly unavailable.

  Anyway, his assistant finally confirmed me for a 10-minute Skype call tomorrow at zero nine hundred. Perhaps the good colonel can help shed some light into what the hell really happened.

  “Maybe,” I say into the darkness, lifting my leg to stare at the void where my foot used to be.

  Meanwhile, Murph, who’s lost both his feet, wheezes away without a worry in the world.

  I shut my eyes, trying to will my way into sleep. But just as has been the case ever since I regained consciousness in this place, the images of the blast fill my mind. I just can’t seem to get them out of my head. And it’s bad enough during the day, but it gets much, much worse at night, when the demons crawl out of their shadowy corners. The good doctors here tell me it’s a form of PTSD, but they believe that the meds they’ve prescribed will at least take the edge off of my nightmares.

  Of course, for them to have any effect, I actually have to start taking them, which I’ve yet to do. I’ve always had an aversion to pills. Hell, I haven’t even taken any of the pain meds prescribed to help me get through the recovery periods after very painful surgeries for fear of getting hooked on them. I’m even more wary to down pills meant to screw with my noodle.

  But I know it’s useless to resist.

  Night after night, the images; the smells; the sounds. They all come back as I keep my eyes closed, as I feel the ground shaking beneath my boots while making our hasty getaway.

  I feel the air rushing past me to fill the void of the explosions behind me.

  I smell gunpowder hovering in the air.

  I taste the desert dust in my throat, along with the coppery bitterness of my own blood.

  But above all, I hear their voices.

  Run, Chappy! Fucking RUN!

  Wait up, Murph! What the hell’s happening?

  Just run, man! On me! NOW!

  Call it off, Brooks! Now, Goddammit! NOW! You’re killing us!

  You’re—

  And then there’s silence.

  Complete.

  Overwhelming.

  Silence and darkness.

  But I can feel their hands on me. I smell the gunpowder in the air, feel my body bent in half as someone places me over their shoulder to take me away.

  And suddenly, there is light around me.

  I see our broken bodies, bleeding as we’re being hauled down the mountain. I see Murph and Chappy and Dix, each being carried away by a uniformed figure as flames engulf the mountain above us. I feel the heat on my back and hear the groaning of the Marine beneath me.

  The groans of a woman.

  Kate?

  Is that you?

  It couldn’t be her. Kate wasn’t on that mountain, plus the figure beneath me has dark skin.

  Murph?

  Impossible. I see him next to me, screaming in agony, the bottom of his legs a mess of shattered bones and bloody tissue.

  But before I can get a closer look at my savior, the terrain washes away. White canvas walls and gurneys replace the rocky landscape, the surrounding scraggy trees and boulders. Figures in scrubs and surgical masks supersede the uniformed warriors as they circle a gurney with a body that no longer looks like a body. The poor bastard has bilateral lower extremity trauma from an IED blast, devastating soft tissue and bone injury to both arms, plus severe bowel and groin injuries. And man, is he bleeding. Plus, he’s missing an eye.

  He’s writhing and convulsing and—

  Why did you do it, Boss?

  Dix stares at me with his one good eye as a masked ER physician jabs him with pain meds so they can work on him.

  Why, Boss? Why?

  Because you made me promise, man. Because—

  He grabs my wrist, shaking me just as the ER vanishes and he’s in his hospital bed flanked by blinking and beeping machines.

  Why, Boss? he demands as he starts to fall away into darkness. His hand grips my wrist so hard I fear he’s going to crush it while he tries to pull me down with him into this black hole that’s swallowing everything.

  Don’t fight it, Boss.

  Let it all go.

  Let it—

  I jolt awake in bed, breathing in short, ragged gasps, finally managing to jerk my hand free.

  But there’s no one there.

  Sitting up and blinking rapidly, my eyesight clears as the gruesome image of Dix vanishes, giving way to a wan yellow light forking through a crack in the curtains of our room.

  It’s daylight.

  And I just had another goddamned PTSD nightmare.

  Jesus.

  My heart racing, pounding my temples, I try to catch my breath, then reach for the bottle of water next to my pills, and take a couple of swigs.

  I, of course, never saw, heard, or felt anything a second after that cluster bomb went off right behind us. I never saw anyone hauling us down that mountain—and definitely not anyone that sounded like a woman or who had dark skin. And I certainly don’t remember the helicopter ride back to KAF. By the time I finally came around, I was already on a gurney flanked by medics and Kate.

  So, my very own version of a mangled Dix—plus the entire mountainside scene with the Marines hauling us away—is the cinematic production of a mind deep in what’s diagnosed as “acute” PTSD.

  But, hey, at least it’s the lesser of the PTSD evils, compared to “chronic” PTSD, which is supposed to stay with you much longer. But w
hatever label the doctors choose to place on my condition, I have to say that the directing, the acting, and the special effects in my recurring nightmares are Oscar-winning. Quite superb, actually.

  Superbly horrifying.

  And every night is premiere night, with my pal Dix in the starring role. But after what I did last night, my mind has now added that grand finale of him dragging me down into blackness.

  Slowly, as I scoot over to the edge of the bed to strap on my prosthesis so I can get to the bathroom and try to wash up, Murph rolls in bed, stretches, and finally opens his eyes.

  Looking my way, he grins, then says, “Oh, man. Slept like a king. You?”

  After a moment wondering how in the world he could do that after what we’ve been through, I say, “Great, Murph. Just great.”

  Chapter 8

  The screen flickers on the portable computer that Cheech loaned me for this video call Murph and I take in our room after getting some breakfast chow.

  I hold the unit on my lap as I sit on the side of my bed next to my compadre. Slowly, the junkyard-dog face of USMC Colonel Jim Granite materializes.

  The bags under his eyes seem puffier than I remember, as if he hasn’t gotten enough sleep. There’s also a five o’clock shadow on his cheeks that makes his jaws look wider than usual.

  A smaller window depicting the image of Murph and me appears on the upper right corner of the screen.

  “You guys don’t look so bad for getting your asses kicked six weeks ago. What the hell are they feeding you over there?”

  “Anything’s better than DFAC chow, sir,” I reply while Murph presses his right shoulder against me to get a little more in the picture. I give him a look and he mouths a What?

  “Good,” Granite replies, reaching down and picking up what turns out to be his trademark coffee mug. As he takes a sip, the image of the damn pit bull wearing that spiked collar stares directly at us.

  Setting it back down, he asks, “Now, what can I do for you?”

  “We’re still trying to figure out what the hell happened, sir.”

  Granite frowns, then says, “A cascade of errors is what happened. It’s all in the official report. I thought my guy emailed a copy to you a couple of weeks ago.”

  I’ve read the report backwards and forwards while waiting to get the colonel’s assistant to grant me just ten minutes with his majesty. The report basically stated that the AC-130J gunship took off from KAF in a bit of haste due to some USMC emergency twenty miles from our position and neutralized a contingent of enemy combatants firing on our guys, before it was diverted our way. As a result, the crew was not fully briefed on our situation and lacked a list of no-strike targets—meaning the three sets of coordinates where my team resided as well as the coordinates of Brooks and his platoon. In addition, the report revealed that key electronics systems had failed inflight, which prevented the crew from providing the standard video feeds to Central Command. And apparently, it all went to shit when the Ghostrider approached the strike zone and had to take evasive action because of that surface-to-air missile. It forced the gunship out of its planned flight path, which resulted in the weapons targeting system becoming misaligned, expanding the target area by fifteen hundred feet to the east. Which, as Murphy’s Law would have it, encompassed the side of the mountain where my team was located. And since the gunship crew lacked the list of no-strike targets, it mistakenly unleashed its violence on us. By the time Brooks was able to call it off, it was too late.

  I look at Murph, who raises his brows while I frown.

  “What is it?” Granite asks, taking another sip of coffee. “It’s all in black and white, guys. It was a stream of unfortunate errors.”

  “I’m going to get to that, sir. But first I wanted to get your take on an inconsistency in the report.”

  Now it’s Granite’s turn to frown, then he says, “What’s that?”

  “There’s no mention of the two guests who were tagging along with the platoon.”

  “Guests?”

  “The official count in the report is forty-nine Marines. I had eyes on fifty-one.”

  Granite puts down the mug, slips on a pair or silver-framed oval readers, which he balances on the tip of his Roman nose, and picks up a document that I assume is the official report. He leafs through it quietly for a minute or so.

  “It says forty-nine here,” he finally replies, pointing to a spot in the middle of page two.

  I know the exact sentence as I pretty much memorized the thing in between my very painful rehab sessions with Cheech and Chong.

  “You sure it was fifty-one?” he adds.

  “Definitely, sir. Confirmed by me and my guy here.” I stretch a thumb toward Murph.

  “That’s right, Colonel. Fifty-one,” Murph chimes in.

  “And,” I add, “the extra heads were carrying non-standard weapons. MP7s and a TAC-338 sniper rifle.” I decide to momentarily hold back the fact that those were the same weapons used by Ponytail Jones’ tac team the day before.

  “I see,” Granite says, looking at us over the rim of his readers.

  “Any chance we can connect with Brooks and his gunnery sergeant?” I ask. “Maybe they can shed some light on the discrepancy?”

  Granite sets down the document and glasses, and he leans back, before briefly closing his eyes. He then presses the tips of his right index finger and thumb against them while tightening his jaws. It looks like the pit bull is about to strike.

  He stares back at us a moment later, exhales heavily into the microphone, and says, “I would, guys, but they were both KIA three weeks ago, along with four more, times two wounded. Tali ambush.”

  We let the silence sit there a while.

  Murph finally says, “Sorry to hear that, Colonel.”

  “Yeah. A lot of bad shit going down, including what happened to you.”

  I wait a few more seconds, then try to refocus the discussion since I now have less than six minutes with the man.

  “So, we can’t account for the two extra heads that morning, sir. And there’s also the conflicting report on the no-strike coordinates.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The report stated that only the strike coordinates that Brooks related to Central Command were passed on to the crew, but not the no-strike coordinates. This is damn odd since I know that Brooks provided both sets of coordinates at the same time to Central Command. So, while I waited for your assistant to get me some time with you, I decided to contact a guy I know at Central Command. He did some digging and reported back that the no-strike coordinates didn’t reach the ground forces commander at Central Command until after the strike took place, which makes no sense whatsoever.”

  Yeah. I decided to cash in the favor with Private Finn, who was all too happy to help me out.

  Granite looks away while shaking his head. “Law, that doesn’t make any—”

  “It’s worse, sir.”

  Granite grimaces again. “How’s that?”

  “I tried to get my guy to email me the transcript of the radio conversation between Brooks, Central Command, and the crew of the gunship to prove my point and officially challenge the report. But they were… accidentally erased.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re gone. And now with Brooks and his gunnery sergeant dead, it’s going to be difficult to contest the official report.”

  Granite looks away for a moment, then back at the camera. “That is… strange. But I’ll certainly look into it. Does this guy you know at Central Command have a name?”

  I frown. “I’d rather not say, sir. Don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

  “I see.”

  I can tell Granite is visibly annoyed by that, but fuck him. I’m not about to rat out the only guy at KAF who has actually moved a goddamned finger to help me figure this out.

/>   He takes a sip of coffee, then checks his watch and says, “Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. I was hoping to get some insight into the crew of that gunship but there were no names included in the report. Why?”

  “Not sure,” he says. “But it isn’t unusual given the circumstances. I’m sure the crew feels terrible about what went down, but it isn’t their fault, so no sense in dragging their names through the mud, right?”

  “Just wanted to talk to the pilot and maybe the co-pilot.”

  “Why? The report represents their combined statements.”

  “Just wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth and maybe get a little more elaboration and some color. Especially in light of the conflicting circumstances with the no-strike coordinates. Would be great to know exactly what they knew and didn’t know and when.”

  “Okay. I’ll look into it as well and get back to you. Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir,” I reply while getting this strange little feeling in the back of my head that he’s just playing along, going through the motions. But the man also saved my bacon back in the day, and he took care of me and my guys while we were at KAF, plus he served with my uncle. So, a part of me feels compelled to trust him enough to say, “It’s about the OGA guys. I’m pretty darn sure they’re involved in this. Somehow.”

  Granite closes his eyes for a second, apparently to process that, and then glares back at me. “Where did that come from?”

  I tell him about the two extra heads bearing those non-standard weapons similar to the ones used by the CIA tac team the day before.

  He listens without interrupting, and then says, “That is strange, but like I said, I’ll check into the two extra men in that platoon.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences, sir. And then there’s this Ponytail Jones, or whatever his fucking name is. He threatened me the day before.”

  The USMC colonel leans forward, his massive jaws suddenly filling the entire screen. “He what?”