John O'Brien - Reckoning

Walking to other mutilated bodies that have been torn apart by heavy caliber rounds, she pulls more dog tags from five others. Along with the soldiers, there are also four civilians among the dead.

With a sick feeling, she rises and keys her mic, “Jack, this is part of the team that went with Greg.”

“Are you sure? Never mind, of course you are,” Jack responds. “Have you found any alive?”

“Negative. I’m pulling dog tags now. I can only account for five of them at the moment and there were four others with them. I’m working toward the Stryker now.”

“Copy that.”

Lynn hears the dejected note in Jack’s voice. Backtracking to the armored vehicle, she gathers an additional dog tag from a body lying alongside it. An acrid odor surrounds the Stryker from a small stream of smoke escaping from it.

Rounding the corner of the vehicle, she looks inside. Equipment and gear is strewn about the interior. On one bench, a young boy lies staring blankly to the side, his face pale from blood loss. Discarded, bloodied bandages, wrappings, used IV bags, and other medical supplies are scattered throughout and, underneath all of the debris, pools of blood are drying on the floor. Looking to the other side, she gasps as she sees Greg’s body lying on the opposite bench, one arm and leg draping to the floor.

Tears well in her eyes, not only from seeing Greg like this, but from the loss of the others as well. They’ve arrived too late. Staring mutely at the carnage, her stomach threatens to upend itself. She can’t pull her eyes away nor make the radio call to Jack.

From all appearances, it looks like Greg was spared the mutilation of the others. They were so badly decimated that she didn’t need to check for pulses. She just pulled dog tags, stuck them in her pocket, and moved on.

Ducking her head, Lynn steps in, kicking some of the wreckage aside to make room for her footing. Bending over the still from of Greg, she places her fingers on his large wrist. She leans closer and tilts her head, as if that will allow her fingers to ‘hear’ better. A shot of adrenaline courses through her. Beneath her fingers beats a very faint, thready pulse.

“Get a poncho and see if you can find more IVs,” Lynn orders, turning to Gonzalez who is standing in the open hatch.

Gonzalez sifts through some of the gear lying on the floor and pulls out a poncho. Henderson crawls through the wreckage to crouch near Lynn. With Lynn and Henderson on one side, and Gonzalez and Denton on the other, they manage to roll Greg onto his back, taking care to keep his neck stabilized. Gonzalez finds a single IV bag and needle and succeeds in getting it inserted.

“Jack, we’ve found the remaining team. All of them are dead. We’ve located Greg in the Stryker. He’s unconscious and barely holding on, but we’ve managed to get an IV hooked up. We’re going to need some help moving him.”

“Okay, hold on. I’m sending the rest of the crew to you,” Jack replies.

I feel horrible about the loss of the team, which is only made marginally better by Lynn finding Greg still alive. From the urgency in her voice, I know he has a precarious hold on life. Moving him might upset that shaky hold, but we don’t really have much choice. He needs us to get him to a doctor, and the sooner we can make that happen, the better.

“Robert, do you see anything in the area?” I radio.

“Negative.”

“Do you feel comfortable flying back home without a flight engineer?” I ask.

“I think so.”

“Alright, I want you to set down behind me and send Bri over. We’re going to load Greg into your aircraft with a couple of handlers to keep him as stable as possible. Make a beeline for home and watch switching those fuel tanks. You’re going to have to monitor them yourself,” I state.

“Okay, Dad. We’re coming in now.”

Robert sets down on the road as Lynn and the others slowly carry Greg from the Stryker. They set him up in Robert’s 130, detailing a couple of our ammo handlers to remain with him along with extra IV bags and instructions on how to replace them. I turn as Bri settles into the seat behind me.

“Hey, Dad,” she says, clicking into the intercom system.

“Hey there, Bri.”

With Lynn and the others having secured Greg aboard Robert’s aircraft, they set out across the plain to gather the bodies of our comrades. As they are going about their gruesome task, I raise the ramp and apply the throttles, soon lifting off the highway. I would have just raised the ramp to its level position and taxied forward to give Robert room to take off, but it’s not the safest thing being in front like that. If anything went wrong and he needed to abort, he’d plow right into the back end. That’s a bad thing. Something like that makes for a really bad day.

Circling around to land again, I see dust blowing from the rear of Robert’s aircraft as he powers up and the 130 begins rolling. A short distance later, he lifts off and banks to the northwest, clawing for altitude. I’m nervous about him flying alone like that, but the weather looked clear all of the way home and Greg needs immediate medical attention.

I would have called our mission short and flown back with him, but I know in my gut that this other group had something to do with this. It’s obvious they aren’t going to relent, although I’m still not sure why. If we put our mission off, that will only give them more time in which to come at us. We need information and we need a plan. The smoldering Stryker below and the shots fired have pretty much eliminated any chance of dialogue that we might have had. As I roll onto final, my grip on the control wheel tightens. The guilt and what they’ve done to us builds into a deep-set anger. I know part of that is me feeling responsible for sending Greg out like I did, but fuck it, I’m pissed.

We’ve lost a whole team, McCafferty, possibly Greg—and, indirectly, Drescoll—to these fucks. I want retribution. I want to walk into their place and just start shooting every last one of them in the face. Feeling the wheels contact the surface of the road, I take a deep breath. I know we need to do this right, and letting anger take control will only lead to doing something rash. While calming a little, I still feel a deep, red rage slowly simmering.

Knowing it’s going to take a while to recover the bodies, I shut down two of the engines to conserve fuel. The bodies are eventually recovered and placed in the back wrapped in ponchos. It took considerable time marching across the plain and carrying them back. The sun has passed its zenith and is heading into afternoon by the time we are ready to proceed. It’s a very melancholy group that settles back into their positions.

With our fallen comrades in the back, and those they had picked up somewhere along the way, the Spooky lifts off the highway. I turn toward the north northeast, eager to conduct our flyover before the day gets too far down the road. It will be nice to capture the video with shadows present so objects will show up clearer and we can discern their heights. With only a slight change in heading, our route will take us over the coordinates of the underground facility as we head toward the town of Greeley. It’s there that we’ll conduct our fake rescue operation.

Without the use of the Stryker, which is now on its way back to Cabela’s in the back of Robert’s aircraft, we’ll have to find another method of transportation. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but that’s something we’ll have to cover once we arrive at Greeley.

The long valley that spreads north from where we found Greg and the others give way to a range of mountains that extends past Denver. There are a few gaps in which roads pass through the rough terrain of the Rocky Mountains. Our route parallels this vast ridgeline to a degree, angling slightly toward the upper Colorado plains.