Lines in Shadow: Walking in the Rain Page 16

  “So I’ve learned,” Sarah replied drily. “Of course, that theory of yours doesn’t take into account the atomic bombs used to knock the Japanese out of the war. Otherwise, what was the slogan? Golden Gate by ’48, I think it was.”

  “Wow. You really do know your history,” Scott whispered back. “But you didn’t come out here to discuss topics of the 20th Century, did you?”

  “No, not really,” she admitted. After another long pause, she continued.

  “I want you to teach me more, Scott. To be a scout, and to be able to move unseen in these woods. I want to be able to do what you do.”

  “You’ve already got most of the training,” Scott replied, puzzled by her request. “Why do you want to add to that?”

  “Same reason I talked Sergeant Barden into teaching me about mortars, or Corporal Arness into showing me how to operate the M240s. I want to know everything, Scott. Everything I can learn, so I can do a better job of protecting our home.” Sarah said matter-of-factly. Then, she added, almost below his threshold for hearing, “so I can protect my girls against anything that comes.”

  Hearing that, Scott felt his heart break a little for the woman. He knew what had happened, better than just about anybody, and he wished he had the power to punish beyond the grave.

  Instead, he decided on the spur of the moment to share something with the woman, something that no one else in world knew about him. He couldn’t say why, but it felt right.

  “I have nightmares about killing my daughter. About killing Isabella,” he admitted, speaking so softly his voice didn’t reach his own ears. But from the way he felt Sarah flinch, he knew she heard.

  “Scott, you would never!” Sarah hissed fiercely. “I know you love her. You might have trouble expressing it, but there’s no way you would ever hurt that little girl. You have to get that out of your head.”

  “I know,” he replied simply. “It has nothing to do with her, actually. I realized that almost from the start. The nightmares have been there for years, but after she was born, they began to change and now I see Isabella in them. That’s why I sleep in the barracks, Sarah.”

  “But why? What happened?”

  Scott found that it was easier to talk to Sarah, to someone, about this horror when he couldn’t see her face. Couldn’t see her disgust at what he was admitting.

  “You know I was shot, right? I’ve seen you checking out the scars on my side when I’ve changed shirts out in the field. Hell, everybody’s seen them.”

  “Yeah,” Sarah admitted. “I’ve wanted to ask, but you’ve never talked about it. I figured either when you were in the Marines or later, as a game warden.”

  “Marines,” Scott said tightly. “A long, long time ago in a land far away.”

  “Iraq? In the First Gulf War? That’s when you were in, right?” Sarah queried.

  “Good guess, but no. I never got off the ship in that dustup. No, this was a few years before that little scuffle.”

  “I knew it!” Sarah almost shouted. “You were some kind of commando, weren’t you?”

  Scott had to fight to stifle the laughter despite the somber mood. He’d heard the rumors and fought to stomp them out, but only his family knew the whole story. Well, almost the whole story.

  “No, Sarah, I was just what I’ve always said. I was an airframe mechanic. I had the training to work on a variety of rotary wing craft, but I spent most of my time in the Corps working on UH-60 Blackhawks. The thing is, I was single back then and bored, which is a dangerous combination in the Marine Corps. So, when a temporary assignment came up, I jumped at the chance for a little excitement. I was such a dumbass. Ended up spending two months swatting bugs big as bluejays at an airfield in Columbia. Seems the DEA was there, again, to help out the government with their little cocaine problem, and the cowboys needed some worker bees to keep their Blackhawks in the air and functioning.”

  “Did the cartels attack your base? Is that how you got wounded?”

  Scott snorted, then hastened to explain for fear of hurting the woman’s feelings.

  “No nothing as simple as that. No, there was a bird, a Blackhawk, that was deadlined at one of the bases near the Peruvian border. Just a little outpost, a dot on the map. So, a team of mechanics were detailed to go down and check it out. See if we could get it operational. Supposed to be there overnight. Two days, tops.”

  Scott paused, catching his breath. Old memories drifted to the surface, and he fought to keep them at bay as the words tumbled out of his mouth.

  “We caught a ride with some DEA boys rotating into the base. Me and Sergeant Gutierrez, along with an older agent and three new guys in decked out in what looked like African safari attire. Including the hats. Marty and I shared a laugh, but the leader of the little group, Special Agent Ritter, made a point of shaking our hands and thanking us for volunteering to check out his sick bird.”

  Scott stopped again, and Sarah waited.

  “We didn’t know the cartels had the base zeroed, or that they’d gotten their hands on a ZU-23. We were about four miles out from the base when that thing lit us up. The ZU-23 is like a twin barreled machine gun, and shoots 23mm cannon shells like some airplanes use.”

  “Like a 50 Caliber?” Sarah asked softly.

  “Yeah, but bigger. Made by the Soviets, so not exactly the most accurate thing in the world, but with that rate of fire, didn’t need to be. Opened the fuselage up like a can opener, and dumped us out into the jungle to burn. Everybody died, either from the cannon fire or the crash. Everybody except me.”

  Scott paused for a long time, reliving the spinning, shrieking seconds as the shattered bird tumbled though the air. He suspected one of the pilots lived long enough to start an autorotation maneuver, but didn’t survive to see it through. At some point, Scott must have blacked out, because he could distinctly recall coming back to his senses as the flames began to lick at his legs.

  “I tried to get the others out, but everyone was dead. I never did find Gutierrez, or one of the new guys. I was just exiting the burning wreckage as the first of the cartel gunmen arrived on scene and started shooting at the chopper. Covered in other people’s blood and carrying weapons I scrounged off the dead, I ran away into the jungle. Within a few minutes, they had men on my trail.”

  “Did you make it to the base? Where you were originally headed?” Sarah asked in a hushed tone, caught up in the two-decade old drama.

  “Tried to make my way there first. Wiped out. Nothing but a smoking hole in the jungle. The trackers, they were hot on my heels by this time, so I did the only thing I could think to do and headed back deeper into the trees.”

  “How long?”

  “How long did they chase me? I don’t exactly know. Weeks, for certain. The days, they were all jumbled together. Just running and trying to hide, waiting for the shooting to start. They ran me to ground a couple of times, but somehow I kept moving. They had guides with them, local hunters who knew the game trails and the watering holes. Masters of their terrain. But I learned, and whenever I had my back against the wall, I would fight. I knew they would eventually capture me, but I decided to make them kill me instead. That’s when I got shot, in a gunfight with their jungle hunters. Either locals on the cartel payroll or Shining Path guerillas, if there was a difference.”

  “How long before you got home, Scott?”

  “I was missing for four months. With what happened at the base, as well as the chopper being shot down, the DEA or the CIA or whoever was pulling the strings reported us as lost in a helicopter crash. Anyway, after I killed the last of my pursuers, I was lost for a bit. Wounds got infected, and I was wandering around, out of my head, for who knows how long.

  “Finally, I worked my way along, and eventually across, the Amazon. Eventually I beat the fever, and figured out what I could eat, so I just kept heading south. Eventually, I came to a road, a logging trail really, and then walked to into some small town on the Peruvian side of the border. I was pretty sick by that time
, eaten up with parasites and my clothes were rotting off me, but the local cops heard me speaking English and put me on a bus to Lima. Then, I had to practically fight my way into the embassy. Probably still be there if the Marines guarding the gate hadn’t bought my story. Still had my dog tags, you know.”

  “Wow,” Sarah exclaimed softly, “that’s some story, but it doesn’t explain your nightmares about Bella.”

  For over a minute, Scott lay there, wrestling with his memories, his fears, and the darkness that threatened to envelope his world. He was back in that jungle, scratching and clawing to last one more day. To live for one more hour at a time. But then he gathered up all that old terror, neatly stacking it up in a pile, and returned the emotion into the appropriate box in his head. Compared to what he’d seen since the lights went out, and after forcing himself to count the bodies, living and dead, at the compound in Lowell, his old terrors seemed mild in comparison.

  “I know. Everything I said so far is the truth, but not everything that happened. Trust me, I spent weeks being debriefed by men in black suits at the hospital, so I learned to provide complete explanations. But some things, they just didn’t seem to care about.

  “For example, I have no idea how many of them I killed, and none of the suits ever asked. Didn’t care, I guess, since there was nobody left alive to complain. The men tracking me, I mean. But there was one, the hunter that shot me, that I can never forget. She was fourteen years old, maybe younger, but she handled her rifle like an experienced guerilla. The AK-47 was designed to be used by small peasants, after all. She shot me twice before I could get my rifle around, but I took her out. Bullet tore up her head some, but I could still see her eyes. They were a particular shade of brown, like caramel. Like Isabella’s.”

  Scott drifted in his memories again, lost in the days long ago, and Sarah seemed to flinch a little when he spoke again.

  “She was dead, you know, brains on the jungle floor, but her body didn’t know it. I watched her body spasm for what seemed like minutes before she finally stopped breathing.”

  Scott heard Sarah as she sucked in her breath, and then gradually let it out, before she replied.

  “So you’ve been carrying this guilt around for killing the girl, all this time? A girl who was determined to kill you, and looked to have nearly been up for the job? Scott, you’ve got to…you’ve got to let that go. I’m no shrink, but clearly that’s what gives you these nightmares.”

  Sarah said all this, and then muttered, again like she was talking to herself, “and you already know all this. Not like an episode of Dr. Phil.”

  Scott listened, and nearly snorted at her final remark.

  “You’re right, and I know it. I think I was actually getting over all that mess, you know? Hadn’t been waking up screaming in years, at least. All this has just stirred up the mess, though. Funny thing, too, since that time in the jungle is also likely the reason I’m still alive today. Being hunted, and having to learn to move quiet while watching for the hunters, that experience awakened something inside me. When I got back, I found I was able to hang on to that skill and develop it even further.”

  “But what did the Marine Corps say when you just showed up out of the blue? Not the Feds, but your own people?”

  “The Corps didn’t know what to do with me, especially after the Alphabet Agency boys told them the sergeant and I were lost in a helicopter crash. Then I showed up with a pair of nearly healed GSWs and a story that followed me from the Embassy Marines. After I got out of that base hospital in Panama, I got a seat on a military flight and orders to return to my unit and instructions in no uncertain terms to keep my mouth shut. So I did what I was told, and served out the rest of my enlistment. Never did volunteer for anything else, though.”

  “Ah. So you just went back and pretended it never happened?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you mean, you ‘developed your skills ever further’? What did you do?”

  “Well, I was always a pretty good hunter, and I knew my way around the woods here. Way different than the jungle, let me tell you. But after, like I said, it was like I was able to tap into my senses better, and focus like never before. So I practiced, and got some more experience over the years.”

  Scott paused, clearing his throat slightly. As a general rule, he wasn’t much of a talker, and even teaching the young scouts in his charge involved more showing than telling. He felt like he was exceeding his quota of words for the month just here in these last few minutes. More, he found himself saying aloud things he wasn’t usually comfortable even thinking. Must be the effect Sarah has on me, he reasoned.

  Before the pulse, Scott barely knew Sarah Trimble. She was the wife of one of his brother’s neighbors, and that was it. After…after what Sarah had endured at the hands of her captors, Scott first found himself pitying the woman. Then, gradually, over the ensuing months, he’d come to admire and respect her for her hard work, both in helping her daughters recover and in her dedication in making sure they survived to grow up. She might still be a bit abrupt and distrustful with strangers, but Scott felt comfortable with confiding his secrets, and fears, in this woman.

  “You know,” Scott continued, “We get hikers lost in the woods from time to time, so I worked on my tracking skills in the state parks. Got to where the Fish and Game people would start calling me when they had hikers go missing in their jurisdictions, too. A few escaped convicts, too. I developed a reputation for being able to find them, where others failed. And the more I worked at it, the more I learned.”

  “And that’s what I want to be able to do, Scott,” she replied. “I want to be able to stalk in the woods, and kill them before they can kill me. Or get past me and threaten the farm.”

  Scott nodded, unseen.

  “You know, I almost didn’t let Luke come with us, when we went to the camp where you…where the raiders were staying on Saw Creek.”

  Sarah sighed, but spoke before Scott could continue.

  “I wondered about that, later. How did you let him talk you into going? My God, Scott, he’s just a kid. And how can he do what he does? What horrors made him the way he is now? I never heard his story, not from him, but I’ve heard others talk about him since he left. Like what he did at the school.”

  “Yeah, he’s a little scary that way. Not his skills, necessarily, but his willingness to do the hard things. Things some of us were still hesitant to do. We took him along, by the way, because he convinced Darwin and Nick that he could take out the guards silently, and in broad daylight. Something I wasn’t convinced I could do, honestly.”

  “And he did it,” Sarah said.

  “And he did it,” Scott echoed. “Not to mention killing at least eight other raiders in that camp. Maybe more. Four I know he killed with a knife. Then, it was hard to tell when he went all berserker where the raiders made their last stand. He just jumped in and started killing. When he crawled out, I swear he looked like he’d been slaughtering pigs.”

  “I never heard all that story, and I was there,” Sarah commented, a faraway tone to her voice. “I wish I could have seen him kill them. I noticed, later, he was all covered with blood, but I didn’t make the connection. I was still pretty out of it.”

  “The reason you never heard the story is because only Nick, Mark and I were there to see it, and we never talk about it. Not to anybody else outside our little group.”

  Sarah must have sensed something in his voice, for when she spoke next, there was real fire in her voice.

  “Don’t ever say anything bad about that boy, Scott. He came for us, and he got us out. Out of that stinking tent, where I knew my girls were going to die. Yes, I thank God for all of you who came to our rescue, but it was Luke that…” she paused, the strength suddenly gone as she spoke her next words.

  “God sent him to save us, Scott. I’m convinced of that. So I don’t want to ever hear anybody, even you, talking bad about him.”

  “No, ma’am,” Scott quickly replie
d. “As much as that kid would drive me crazy sometimes, I would never have a bad word to say about him. Nick says he’s seen men like Luke before, back when he was in the Army. Mild mannered and polite as can be, then the bullets start flying and they seem to be in their element. He claims Luke has a skill, or talent, for fighting that goes beyond his years or training.”

  Scott paused, thinking about what he knew of the feral man-child. “Maybe you are right, Sarah. Maybe he is God-touched. But it would have to be the God of the Old Testament. You know, the one that slaughtered the enemies of the Israelites. A God of the battlefield.”

  “I can live with that,” Sarah replied, her voice strong again. “Not feeling much like turning the other cheek these days. I want you to teach me, Scott, so I can help keep us safe. And kill our enemies.”

  Scott thought about her words and came to a decision.

  “Alright. Tomorrow, after we get the listening posts set up, you are swapping out with Keith. You can come with me to visit the Copperheads.”

  “What? Sorry, but that is a bad idea, Scott. Those guys are nothing but a bunch of criminal scum. No different than the raiders we are already fighting. I’ll bet they keep their women locked up. No, I don’t know if I can stand to see that again.”

  Scott frowned, but kept any emotion out of his voice when he spoke again.

  “Sarah, this is part of your training, so I don’t want to hear anything more on the subject. They are not what you think, but I need you to see and recognize the skills they can bring to our side. Are you still with me? You still want more training?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, and there was no irony in her tone as she spoke.

  “Don’t ‘sir’ me, Sarah. I’m a sergeant. Like they always say in the movies, I work for a living.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO