Chapter 29
The sky behind me was growing lighter as dawn approached. Any minute now, the sun would appear over the mountain ranges bringing with it a new day. Instead of watching for the new dawn, I stood on the top of a hill that provided a splendid view of Diamond Valley. The tree I rested against was one of the few that weren’t pine trees most common up here. Twinkling lights filled the valley, a drastic change from three years ago.
Three long years ago, the President had authorized the creation of a command to handle covert operations in South and Central America. The small base that had been constructed before that grew very quickly, and within a year had begun to expand into the farmland on the other side of the highway. Now it stretched almost to the church and parsonage that had been my first home here. Where the edges of the base ended, a new subdivision had sprung up, eating up even more farmland.
Further south, the old county airport was now an Air Force base with two paved runways capable of handling small transport aircraft, helicopters, and the F-16 fighter. Even as I watched, I could see the glow of afterburners from two of those fighters as they took off for the morning Combat Air Patrol. Eight of them were stationed there now, along with a veritable fleet of transport and attack helicopters.
All together, just over twenty three hundred active duty personnel lived in the valley along with another two thousand dependants. Back in Eureka, the town was filled to overflowing with the town’s schools now being so overcrowded the County Board had just approved construction of another elementary school and a new high school. The old high school would now be a junior high school for the seventh and eighth grades only.
I had set foot in that school twice in the last three years – both times were to attend a basketball game my friends were playing.
Forty miles away, the brightest lights were from the power plant that had been completed two years ago. It provided power for the base and the new community forming around that base. The plant would also provide power for a secret project buried a hundred feet below the surface of the valley. Despite everything else, the people in the world who knew about that project numbered below one hundred.
Below me, at the foot of the hill I stood upon was the reason for my being out here. For the past two years I’d joined my family and friends at a new Church Summer Camp that had been built in the small valley nestled in the Diamond Peak mountain range. It was little more than a small series of A-frame lodges around a central grass area with mountain trails leading further into the range. High desert sagebrush was the primary vegetation, with scattered pine trees that were too sparse to qualify as a ‘forest’.
If anyone was watching me, all they’d see was a tall, lean figure dressed in rugged jeans, standard-issue black army boots, sheep-skin lined jean jacket, and a black sock cap covering my short blond hair. My hands were in the jacket’s pockets, trying to stay warm because despite it being the middle of August, it was cold this high up in the mountains. The backpack I took with me wherever I went was resting on the ground on the other side of the tree. Another two thousand feet up, there was still snow on the top of the mountain range, snow that hadn’t melted through the long summer.
This morning, like every morning of the last year, I’d woken up long before sunrise. Since I’d arrived at camp, I got my exercise hiking up into the mountains instead of running a few miles and I had found that this spot was one that allowed me to reflect on the bad taste in my mouth and wonder just how much longer I’d have to keep going.
The bad taste in my mouth was the taste of defeat, and it was one that hadn’t gone away in over a year. Defeat wasn’t something I was use to experiencing, and this one was all the worse because no matter how much I thought about things, there was little I could see that we could have done otherwise to achieve a different result.
An outside observer would see me as a young man, barely approaching manhood and still shy of reaching the age most people considered a person to be a legal adult. Inside, I was old. I was old and tired and wondering how much longer I could keep going through all the defeats life had handed me over the last few years. This was my third lifetime and I was ready to lay it down and find out what lay on the other side of life. Hopefully, when the new Do Over project went active in the next few months, I’d be able to do just that as we sent the President’s handpicked man back into time.
I’d flatly refused to reconsider being that man and was just as happy as Sean to see someone else take up the burden.
One week of church camp had done me some good, allowing me to spend time with my father, my sister, my aunts, uncles, and cousins that lived here now, as well as with several of my friends. Fortunately, David and Sam weren’t here. No matter that it had been a full year since David had broken up with me, there was still too much tension in the air between us every time we saw each other. Brian was here, though, and the germs of friendship that had been laid down the day of our fight three years ago had paid off. Trevor, Brandon, and Derek were here as well, all of us ‘counselors’ for the younger children.
The failed relationship with David wasn’t what left the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth, but it had come during the same week as the events that had caused the bitter taste. For the first year of our operations, General Powell and I had done a good job at establishing the basic foundation of an extensive operation to counter Communist Russian and Chinese efforts in both South and Central America. We’d managed to contain the fall of governments to communist dissidents, and had even firmed up pro-democratic or at least pro-United States governments (in a sad irony, it was the dictatorships that were easier to keep favorable to the United States – when democracies were given a choice, they often elected pro-communist leaders who promised them a comfortable life and plenty of food on the table).
The second year of our operation had not gone quite as well. Brush wars had started between several of the client states; wars that had caused the death of several dozen American ‘advisors’ to friendly governments. That had managed to blow wide-open the ‘secret’ operations we were engaged in and the full Congress had gone into a tizzy over what we were doing. Fortunately, we’d kept to the law on things and Congressional Leadership of both parties had been fully involved. Eventually we were able to resume operations with full Congressional approval, but the damage had been done during the period where we were on hold while Congress conducted its investigations.
That damage became quite evident to everyone in America when the Mexican government fell on New Years Day of 1986. The communist leaders who took over announced immediate Mutual Defense Treaties with the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China. Within two months they had fortified the border with the United States, but had surprisingly allowed their citizens to sneak across without too much hassle.
The reason for that had been abundantly clear when we began finding spy rings amidst the wave of illegal alien camps throughout the Southwestern United States. There’d even been a significant increase of illegals here in Eureka and Diamond Valley. Due to the sensitive nature of the base area though, most of those were closely monitored by the base’s security forces.
Mexico wasn’t the only government to fall that year, though. Columbia fell, as did Bolivia and most of the other major governments in South and Central America. Panama, Brazil, and Belize were the few governments that were still friendly to our country. The vital country of Panama, with its control of the Panama Canal was only on our side because of a brutal military dictatorship, though, and a hastily increased garrison of US forces.
America was under siege, and everyone knew it now.
That was why every two months I flew back to Washington and gave detailed reports to the Vice-President on our operations to change things around. Then I’d have dinner in the White House and give a similar briefing to the President. Hopefully, the Vice-President was still unaware that the most important part of that briefing was about the Do Over project and the push to have it ready before the communist alliance launched its invasion of our country.
Just last week they’d completed Naval, Air, and Ground training exercises in Southern Mexico. Nearly two hundred thousand communist forces had taken part in the exercises a few hundred miles south of the United States itself. We’d observed them carefully via not only satellite and reconnaissance assets but through agents we’d carefully placed inside their forces. When I returned to work at the end of the week, there’d be an initial analysis on my desk waiting for me to review, but I knew what it would say.
Within two years they’d be ready to invade if they wanted to do that.
If they knew another time machine was almost completed, they’d likely throw everything they had at us to stop the project. Fortunately that secret was sealed tight. More than likely they’d never invade, the threat of nuclear retaliation was still as strong as ever. However, surrounding us with pro-communist nations was having a severe impact on our economy and there might be a likelihood that unless we started a shooting war with them, our own economy would collapse in a decade.
Most of Asia wasn’t even friendly to us anymore. The Philippines had fallen to communist insurgents four months ago, and we’d had to hastily abandon our bases there. Thailand was now under an elected communist government and very unfriendly. Taiwan’s days were numbered, as evidenced by their petition last month to consider reintegration with the rest of China. In Europe, Italy flirted with full-blown Communism, rocking the very foundations of NATO.
It would all come to naught though, as soon as the time machine was ready and the President gave the order. Sean and I would send a time traveler back to 1981 and then shut down the machine once we’d verified the future had been changed back to something closer to the original, first time-line. Once we’d made that confirmation, the machine would be shut down and we’d disappear forever as time corrected itself and erased this current version of us from existence.
“Thinking about the end of the world again?” Brian’s voice from behind and to my left caused me to jump slightly. He laughed as I turned to him with a scowl on my face and my heart beating like mad. I hadn’t even heard him come up the hill and I could see he was still breathing hard from the steep climb. He was laughing and wheezing at the same time.
“Shit, Brian!” I fumed. “You fucking startled me!”
“That’s a first.” Brian wheezed out as he tried to regain his breath. “The Great Davey Jones so lost in thought he doesn’t hear someone coming!”
“What are you doing up here?” I asked sharply, trying to steer away from my being surprised.
“Just came by to say ‘hi’ and pull you out of a brooding sulk.” Brian said with a wry grin on his face. In the past three years, he’d grown some more, and matured more into the man I remembered from the last timeline. Gone was the sullen, angry boy I had first met and fought with three years ago. His parents had really sat him down in those first days after our fight and had helped him become a better man. Now, he had finished growing up physically and come a long way mentally. The outfit he was wearing today was similar to mine, jeans, sheepskin jean jacket, but he wore cowboy boots and a gray sock hat. The tight jeans showed off legs that would have set me going wild in the last lifetime, but this time around they weren’t mine to claim so I carefully kept my hormones under control.
“What makes you think I’m up here brooding?” I asked him before thinking about it. We’d become good friends now, even best friends and he knew me too well.
“You’re up here alone, you’ve got the frown lines still on your forehead and you look like you’ve got a tooth infection.” Brian listed off easily as he moved to stand beside me and leaned back against the tree I’d been leaning against. I resumed my former position except now my left shoulder touched his as we both leaned against the same tree. We weren’t looking at each other; we both stared off into Diamond Valley where we could now make out the headlights of three trucks, most likely towing trailers, head up on the access road that led towards the church camp.
“You know me far too well.” I said with a long sigh and heard him give a snort.
We stood like that for a long time, neither speaking, just enjoying each other’s company. It was different than the relationship I had experienced with my Brian in the last time, but being friends with this Brian was a damn good thing to have achieved. It hadn’t come easily, or quickly. Yet I felt like the time I had spent with this Brian, becoming his friend had been worth the effort, even if in the end it had cost me my relationship with David.
“I saw Sam last week right before we came up here.” Brian said, as if he was reading the direction of my thoughts. Below us the three trucks pulling trailers filled with horses were about ready to reach the point of the access road where they wouldn’t be visible. Golden rays of light were coming over the mountains behind us, signaling the new day had begun for real. “He wanted me to make sure you knew he was sorry he couldn’t make it up this year.”
“Tell him I hope to see him sometime, maybe next time I make it into town.” I said softly. Poor Sam, we’d been good friends both before and while I dated his brother, but his brother’s anger made it all but impossible for that friendship to continue.
“You know, I really am sorry that I caused you and David to break up.” Brian’s voice had a slight hitch to it as he spoke, but I didn’t turn to face him. This was one of the differences in the here and now. Things that were emotional weren’t talked about face-to-face, rather while we both looked out at something. My gaze wandered to the airfield where another two F-16’s were taking off. That was a little odd.
“You didn’t cause it, Brian.” I said while resisting the urge to shrug. “David’s problem was that he couldn’t believe nothing was happening between us on those camping trips.”
“If he knew you as well as he said he did, he’d know you wouldn’t do something like that to him or to anyone.” Brian snorted with derision. “To be honest, I never understand why you two hooked up together.”
“I liked him.” Were the first words out of my mouth, mostly because Brian’s statement really surprised me. My relationship with David was something we never really talked about like this, definitely not such a direct statement about David and I having been lovers.
“Did you love him?” Brian asked further and I almost turned to stare at him in shock. Certainly my mouth was now hanging open.
“I…uh…um…” I stuttered. This was a little too much and I turned to stare at Brian. The sock cap was low on his forehead, touching his dark eyebrows. Those eyebrows were furrowed together, and I was surprised to see that he was looking at me with a quiet graveness that pulled an answer out of me. “No, no I didn’t love him. He was nice, he was a good friend, and the physical stuff… it was great, but it wasn’t love.”
“You’ve never stopped loving him, have you?” Brian asked and I knew he was referring to himself from the other timeline. After that fight three years ago, we’d always talked about my Brian from the last time line as ‘him’.
“No, I haven’t.” I said with a heavy sigh and turned back to face out over the valley. A distant roar shook the atmosphere and I could see two more fighters taking off, making sharp turns to head south as soon as they were airborne. While I stared out for another few minutes, two more could be seen taking off. Unless the two that had been on the overnight Combat Air Patrol had landed after the first planes I saw take off this morning that meant all the fighters stationed here were now in the air.
General Barstow must be running a drill of some kind.
“I almost wish I could be him.” Brian said, shocking me so much I nearly slid down the trunk of the tree to the ground. My legs were shaking as I turned to face him and saw what looked like tears rimming his eyes. This time he met my gaze evenly and I could see the sadness on his face. His hand came up and brushed my cheek with the back of his fingers. Some part of me recognized they were chilly in the early morning cold, but the touch almost seemed to send tendrils of fire through my cheeks. His next words held more sadness to them than I could ever remember hearing before. “I can’t though, Davey. I know being… gay isn’t as bad as I thought years ago, but I don’t think I can do what it takes to… you know. Maybe, if we’d met when I was a lot younger I wouldn’t feel this way about it, and we could be… happy, but I don’t know if I’m brave enough to… well you know.”
“Brian… I never… I…” I stuttered out, trying to find words amidst all the confusing thoughts running through my head. Part of me screamed to take him in my arms and kiss him right now, show him how wonderful it could be, and another part screamed at me to respect him and at least be grateful for this much.
“Shhh.” Brian whispered as he put a single finger on my lips. The touch sent more waves of fire running through my body. “It’s not your fault, I know that now, and you should know that I’ve been struggling with this for a while. I was so jealous when I found out about you and David, and I didn’t even understand what I was jealous about until I realized that it was me I wanted you to be with, not him. I can’t deal with it, but at the same time I can’t stand the dishonesty I’ve been practicing by not letting you know what I’m feeling. Dammit! You’re the best friend anyone can want, and I know you’d jump at the chance to be with me again, but at the same time I don’t think it’s fair to you. I’m not him! I’m not the one you fell in love with and I can’t replace him even if I wanted to!”
“It’s okay, Brian.” I whispered as the tears started falling down his face. Without thinking, I reached out and pulled him into a hug. As soon as I did, he started crying into my shoulder, and I had to lean against the tree for support as he put his entire weight against me. He was sobbing and I maneuvered my arms until I could brush the side of his face gently, whispering over and over again that it was okay. Even through the sheepskin jacket I could feel the bark of the tree digging into my right arm, but I ignored the uncomfortable sensation as the other sensation of having Brian lean on me like this was so much more wonderful.
Brian and I stayed like that, with him sobbing into my shoulder and me holding him up for several minutes. Then as quickly as it had started, it stopped with Brian standing back up on his own and turning his back so that he leaned once more against the tree trunk. We stood like that, once more shoulder to shoulder, looking out over the valley in silence until he spoke again.
“Trevor’s picked Stanford for college.” Brian said softly and then sniffled a bit before wiping his nose with a handkerchief he pulled out of a jacket pocket. He put the thing away before speaking again. “We’re pretty sure he’ll get in with the good grades he’s getting. Derek’s said he’s going to apply to Duke and a few others schools. I think he’s wanting to go pre-med, or maybe chemistry or some science shit like that. Sam said he’s going to West Point, thanks to you, and David’s probably going to pick either Harvard or Yale or some big fancy school like that. Thanks to knowing you, everyone’s getting their choice of plum schools.”
“I had nothing to do with that.” I tried to demure gracefully, but he spared me a long look that told me he wasn’t fooled. His eyes were a little red, and the tracks of his tears could be seen, but I resisted the urge to gently wipe them from his face. “What about you and Brandon?”
“Sean’s here, so Brandon’s staying.” Brian answered and then gave me what amounted to a sad look. “You’re stuck here as well, aren’t you?”
“Brian, I might just grow old and die right here.” I said with a wave of my hand towards the valley.
“That’s what I figured.” Brian said with a heavy sigh. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him turn back and face the valley while taking several long, deep breaths. “You know, I always thought I’d know what I want to do with my life by the time I reached my last year of high school. Now that I’m there, I don’t.”
“Brian, very few people know what they want to do for the rest of their lives after high school.” My voice was a little sharper than I intended, and the memories sprang up of my first life. That was part of the curse of this damn method of time travel. You didn’t always remember everything, but if you tried to remember something specific, or you were reminded of something from your past, the memories would come up neat and clear, almost as if they’d been recorded on a DVD (something that had yet to be invented in this timeline). “I never thought I’d be working for a gas company, or an insurance company, and both of those were things I did in my first life time. Last time around, I never thought I’d end up running a multi-million dollar theater chain, which is what happened with… the other Brian.”
“I never imagined me doing that either.” Brian said with a snort, and I looked over to find that he was smiling. That surprised me like most everything else about this surreal conversation we were having. Sure, we’d talked about things before, but never like this. It had never been so… intense. “But somehow, I could see it happening with you.”
“I thought you said you could never…” I started to say with some hurt in my voice, but the expression on his face stopped me. It was so gentle, so sad, and yet so… wonderful.
“I… I just don’t know, Davey.” Brian said as frustration filled his features. He let out a deep sigh and turned to face back out towards the valley. I could see tears filling the corners of his eyes and waited with bated breath for him to go on. “I’m still scared of all this. I know… I know that if I… that if I was with you, Mom and Dad would still care about me. Hell, for that matter I know all my real friends would be okay with me admitting my feelings. Fuck!”
His words gave rise to a powerful feeling inside of me. Hope rose again, hope for something I’d long since convinced myself would never be possible again, at least in this lifetime. While we stood there in the silence that followed his last expletive, I could see a single tear trickle down the left side of his face. The urge to wipe it away was strong, but I resisted, knowing my touch wouldn’t help at this moment.
“Davey, it’s not you, it’s not them… I’m just scared.” Brian’s voice was barely a whisper. This admission cost him a lot, I could see, as he hung his head and looked down at the ground around his feet. “Most people still aren’t like our friends. They wouldn’t understand and I don’t know if I’m ready to live my life… as some freak in the eyes of most people. Hell, with your project, I don’t even know how much of a life I have left.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded sharply, totally taken off guard by his comment about my ‘project’.
“Oh come off it.” Brian looked at me with a brief expression of scorn. “I’m sure most people haven’t put it together yet, but we did.”
“Who’s we?” I asked him with no small amount of fear.
“Brandon, Trevor, Derek and me mostly.” Brian answered with a shrug. “Trevor’s Dad is working on your project, my mom is too. They never really said anything, but we were able to put a few comments together, add in what we already knew and it was easy to figure out you and Sean are building another time travel machine. One of these days, you and he are going to go back in time and this will all cease to exist except as some fucking memories in your heads.”
“That’s… Brian… you haven’t told…” I stammered and he actually had the gall to chuckle!
“We haven’t even told our other friends who know about you two.” Brian answered after he’d finished chuckling at my expense.
“Brian, you can’t say anything.” I warned him softly, but urgently. I’d turned to face him squarely. “Not even the Vice-President knows about the project. Hell, less than a hundred people know!”
“We won’t say anything, to anyone.” Brian assured me. “Still, we do have to wonder what’s the use of living life if it’s all going to end someday soon.”
“It may never end, Brian.” I said firmly, deciding he deserved to know a little more since he’d figured this much out. “First of all, the machine isn’t even finished yet. We’re still having trouble with the memory scanning and recording functions as well as with the targeting functions. The test monkeys have all gone through with massive brain damage as a result so far, and we’re nowhere near being accurate in how far back we’re sending them. Until we fix those problems, no one can go back. Next, the President is the only one who can authorize time travel, and he’s only going to consider it if things are really bad, like a nuclear attack on our country. Finally, I’m not going back again.”
“What?” Brian asked in surprise, looking deep into my eyes. It was my turn to take a deep breath and let it out in a deep sigh.
“Brian, this… this timeline has been the worst for me.” I admitted, allowing the pain and hurt of the last few years to show in my eyes. “I lost my grandparents and some of my favorite relatives because I thought them merely being distant from me would keep them safe. Fuck! I almost lost you and Brandon and Trevor. In some ways, I did lose you! I lost the chance to be with you, to not only love you but have you return my love without fucking worrying about the losers who populate this damn place! My own mother has barely spoken a word to me in three years and I can’t even talk to my sister without her hovering over us! Plus, this whole mess with the spread of communism! It should be nearing its last gasp but now it’s fucking thriving all over the world and my best efforts have come to naught in stopping it! If…if there’s another time traveler going back, a new timeline being created, I do not want to be that person. I’d rather have this existence end, here, with you and the others.”
“Why?” Brian asked softly.
“So that the mistakes I’ve made can be fixed.” I answered, looking deep into his eyes. “I know… I know you and I may never be together in this timeline; I know even if we were, you’d want to keep it quiet, a secret like nearly everything else in my life. Still, I don’t want to go through everything again. I’m tired of growing up over and over again, I’m tired of the weight of the world being on my shoulders. If this timeline never ends, I’d be content just to be your friend, and friends with the others. Were this timeline to end, I’d just be happy for it all to be erased.”
“Oh.” Brian said with wide eyes and a look of surprise on his face. I could feel tears starting in my eyes, and was surprised when he reached up to brush them out of the corner of my eyes. He had a look of tenderness on his face that was both familiar and strange at the same time. His hands were warm on my face as his thumbs wiped away the tears and traced the outlines of my cheekbones. When he began to lean in towards me with a look of tenderness, I closed my eyes, wondering if this was just another of the dreams that had filled this lifetime, and I’d spent so much time denying existed.
His warm, moist lips touching mine told me this was no dream. For several long moments our lips touched lightly, but that changed as he moved closer towards me. The pressure of the kiss mounted until I felt his hands leave my face and wrap around my torso, pulling me closer into him. A faint movement announced that his tongue was now exploring my lips, and I opened them slightly, drawing in a slight breath of surprise and wonder at the same time as his tongue moved deeper to meet mine.
A moan escaped both of us as his tongue and mine began to wrestle each other, exploring the breadth of my mouth. My legs were quivering and I shivered, not with cold but pure delight at the familiar yet strange dance that was taking placing in my mouth. Our heads moved slightly in that peculiar motion known to lovers experiencing the deepest of kisses. His hands roamed from my back down lower until he clasped my butt in a grip that was filled with both strength and tenderness. My jeans were suddenly far too tight as I got hard, harder than I could remember being in this timeline, even at the highest of passionate moments with David.
My legs nearly gave way at that point, and it was suddenly Brian bearing the weight of both of us. He shifted slightly, as a bright light flooded through even my closed eyelids. He shifted us slightly so that my back was pressed once again to the trunk of the tree we’d been leaning against. Between his tight grasp, the trunk of the tree, and the connection we refused to break between our mouths, there wasn’t the slightest danger of me falling.
Even the tremendous booms that washed over us a few moments later didn’t break that wonderful kiss.
A distant part of my mind registered those booms, and knew what they were, but I couldn’t think with Brian’s tongue laying claim to territory it had always owned. When the taste of blood filled my mouth, I wondered for a moment who had bitten who, but Brian’s low grunt caused me to open my eyes. Instantly my gaze locked onto the clear blue of his eyes, and registered the surprise there. Then it was all I could do to keep him upright as he slumped against me, and another bit of blood trickled out of his mouth with his next exhalation.
“Brian?” My voice asked, but another part of my brain was screaming what was happening. The rest of me was frozen though, struggling to hold him upright. It was a losing battle though, and I switched to trying to soften his fall to the ground. The sudden movement saved my life again, as a bullet bit into the bark of the tree, exactly where my head had been.
Three lifetimes worth of training took over at that moment, and all emotion fled from me. While some part of my mind gibbered in fear, anger, outrage, helplessness, my body reacted as the intensely trained soldier. Another part of my mind had registered out of the corner of my eye the way the bark flew from the bullet’s impact, giving me a very rough direction of the shooter. The tree wasn’t a thick one, but it might just be enough. With one hand, I reached down to drag Brian as far behind the trunk as possible. A plume of dirt where he’d been a moment before I dragged him out of the way told me I was right both about the direction of the shooter and the tree barely providing enough cover. Brian having been moved to a safer position, I ignored for a moment the blood spreading through his jacket and down the corner of his mouth. With one hand on him, the other reached for the backpack that had been leaning on the tree trunk. Grasping it with only a little stretching, I pulled it towards me and ripped it open with the hand I’d used to pull Brian to safety. The first thing I went for was what would bring us the most safety.
The radio was turned off, but I switched on the large hand-held device and twisted out the antenna. It had plenty of range to reach the base and was automatically encrypted. The .45 pistol in the bag would have helped if I could see the attacker, but this sniper was too well hidden, and most likely far out of range of the powerful handgun. Instead, the radio would bring reinforcements from the church camp in the valley below us, and from the airbase.
Or it would have, if it wasn’t being jammed.
As another bullet chipped off a piece of the tree trunk, I reached back into the backpack and pulled out the standard issue knife I kept there. Silently cursing the arrogance that had caused me to not pack a standard combat first-aid kit, I opened my own jacket and cut off a piece of my shirt to use as a bandage. Carefully moving Brian, who was looking at me with fear and pain in his eyes now, I figured out that the bullet had entered his back. More than likely, when he had held me up and braced me against the tree trunk, he’d messed up the sniper’s aim and put himself in the path of the bullet.
I was ruthless in suppressing the surge of guilt at that thought.
“Stay calm, love.” I whispered to him as I pushed the shirt scrap into the wound and set him back down. Another cut yielded another strip to place over the hole on his front side. In some ways, that was good news, because it meant the bullet had passed through him, but in other ways, it was bad news because the blood soaking his front was aspirating. The bullet had gone through at least one lung.
A quick check revealed that it had indeed gone through Brian but not hit me. It might have lost enough velocity that it couldn’t penetrate the sheepskin jacket, hit a button, or who know what, but at least I wasn’t wounded and as long as I was alive, Brian would stand a chance. I had to eliminate that sniper, get Brian to safety, and then get a helicopter to take Brian back to base where the doctor could operate on him.
“Explosion.” Brian’s voice was barely a whisper, and that much effort to say one word cost him a coughing fit that brought up more blood.
“Don’t try to talk, love.” I whispered, putting one hand on his chest while the other dropped the k-bar and pulled out the .45. A magazine was already loaded, and all it took was a firm grip and my other hand pulling back the slide while my thumb switched the safety off for it to be ready for action. Now I just had to figure out how to approach a sniper, armed with a bolt-action rifle (most likely equipped with a scope and silencer), all when I only knew what direction he was in, not how far away, or if he was alone.
The sound of footsteps off to my right caused me to whirl, just in time to see someone pop up on top of the hill, barely visible above the sagebrush. I didn’t need to see him clearly, though. Rough jeans, shirt, and corduroy jacket meant he wasn’t military, and the brown skin meant he was likely one of the area’s many migrant workers. The reason two bullets left my pistol to slam into the man’s chest was the rifle he was carrying.
No friendly would be carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.
Apparently I had moved too far away from the tree trunk because this time the bullet left a searing pain across my cheek. It was just a graze wound, I knew, or I wouldn’t be feeling any pain at all, and I scrambled further into the protection of the tree trunk. My emotions tried to break through from where I’d buried them, but I ruthlessly pushed them back down. I could give in to them later, but for now I needed to be able to think, to react, to survive so Brian could get medical care.
There was a sound from a different direction than the gomer who I’d just shot. It was almost directly behind me and I turned, bringing my pistol to bear just as three figures became visible from behind some sagebrush. These were dressed in the fatigues of military, and I didn’t fire as they approached, keeping low to the ground and providing very little for the sniper to shoot at.
“Davey!” The familiar voice of Kevin Ridgeway called out as they cleared the sagebrush and moved onto the hilltop. I let out a sigh of relief that turned into a sharp intake as a bullet ripped into the man I’d been living with these past few years. A spray of blood lept from the hole the bullet had ripped in his throat, and the two men with him dropped to the ground. One of them managed to bring his M-16 to bear and squeezed off a three round burst in the direction of the sniper. The other soldier grabbed Kevin’s uniform and pulled him in the direction of the tree I was hiding behind.
As Sergeant Lindstrom dragged Kevin closer (I recognized both of the other soldiers now), Corporal Clark kept laying down covering fire from his position. It appeared he’d gotten a good idea of where the sniper was located because there was no return fire as the sniper likely took better cover. Lindstrom dropped Kevin next to Brian and hunkered down to add some covering fire of his own while Clark reloaded and moved forward at the same time.
“We were keeping on eye on you sir, when we saw the explosions.” Lindstrom explained while squeezing off another three-round burst. “Ridgeway spotted the sniper and we moved in after trying to radio for help.”
“We’re being jammed.” I supplied and he nodded his head ever so slightly while firing the last few rounds from the M-16. Clark had reached us and took over the suppression fire while Lindstrom reloaded. For the first time since seeing Kevin’s neck explode, I looked down at his body and accepted the fact that I’d never talk to him over a bottle of Jack Daniels again. The last of his blood was trickling out of his throat. His weapon was still strapped around his shoulder. Moving quickly, I lifted his body up enough to take the weapon off of him and checked it carefully. Unlike the standard M-16 of the other two, Kevin’s weapon had an M-203 grenade launcher under the barrel.
Fortune was gracing me at last because the launcher was loaded and ready to go. The hilltop we were on continued for a ways to the north, and the sniper had set up several hundred yards further up the ridge amidst a small grouping of trees and sagebrush. The spot provided a good hiding place, and partially explained why I had never seen them move in or set up.
Of course the other reason was that I had other things on my mind.
Before the worry for Brian, who I was currently crouched over, could flood my head and distract me from the dangers at hand, I concentrated on the small copse of trees and focused my attention on getting the range just right. As Clark finished firing another magazine and took cover before reloading, I moved into position and fired the grenade launcher. The grenade flew out of the launcher with an ‘oomph’ sound and seconds later a small explosion filled the target area.
“Check it out.” I ordered Clark who had finished reloading. “Lindstrom, Brian took a round to the chest but is still breathing. See what you can do.”
“Got it.” Lindstrom replied as I took his place and readied my weapon if there was any movement from the area where the sniper had been hiding. Clark approached carefully, while Lindstrom began checking Brian and tore open some bandages from his first aid kit. I could hear him mumbling to himself, but didn’t pay much attention, rather focusing on making sure no one could get a shot off at Clark.
Clark moved into the copse warily, and returned to view moments later with his hand held up and two fingers in the air. There had been two men in there and both were now dead. He made the hand motion that told me he was going to do a quick reconnoiter and I relaxed enough to turn to Lindstrom who was finishing up applying some real bandages to Brian’s wound.
“He’s unconscious.” Lindstrom explained softly when he noticed me relaxing slightly. “His left lung is collapsed and I think he’s bleeding into it. Without better care, though, he’s going to die.”
“We need to get off this hill.” I said and he nodded in agreement. The silence on the hill was broken by the sounds of automatic gunfire from the distance, in the direction of the camp and my chest tightened in sudden fear. There was no telling how long that had been going on. A series of explosions preceded by the sound of rocket-propelled grenades came up from the direction of the camp, causing me to hang my head. A lot of innocent kids, not to mention most of my remaining family were down in that camp.
“Heading back to the camp is not an option.” Lindstrom said in a voice that brooked no argument as Clark hurried back to us.
“That doesn’t sound good at all.” Clark said as he hunkered down near us and faced the direction of the camp, most likely searching for enemies heading in this direction.
“We’ll head down the other side of the hill.” Lindstrom said as he moved from beside Brian to Kevin Ridgeway’s body. He quickly began to strip off Kevin’s web gear and handed it to me while I kept looking back towards the camp. A swarm of emotions was running through me now, too strong to be forced back down. “No arguments, Jones. We have to get you away from danger and to safety. It’s ten klicks to the nearest home from here. We can cover that in about two hours moving carefully.”
“I’m not leaving Brian here.” I protested, knowing full well the cost of going back to the camp would be too much if I was killed there. Sure, I didn’t like the concept of leaving friends, family, and innocent children to die, but I also knew the purpose of the attack was to get me, and if I went back down there they would succeed.
I wondered what else was happening in the world and looked out over the valley.
Great plumes of smoke were rising from the direction of the power plant and several other locations on the base. Exactly where, I couldn’t quite tell, but there were almost a dozen locations on fire enough for the smoke to be visible here. Even as I watched, with Lindstrom following my gaze, several plumes of white smoke shrilled into the air.
“Patriots.” Lindstrom stated softly, almost in disbelief as the base’s air defense missiles streaked into the air, hunting either aircraft or missiles. There were several booms and small puffs of gray/black smoke over the southern part of the valley, and then we could see four more explosions on the ground, all centered near the base’s northern end and the power plant there.
“Oh, fuck, it’s World War Three.” Clark muttered. He was right, I allowed myself to admit. For the second time in my life I was stuck in the middle of a World War.
“Doesn’t matter.” Lindstrom said a moment later. “It’s still safer down there, especially once we get you into one of the bunkers.”
“Brian goes with us.” I stated firmly. “As long as he’s breathing, we’re not leaving him behind.”
“We’ll take turns.” Lindstrom said. “Get that gear on and pick up your friend. You’ve got the first rotation.”
“Okay.” I agreed as I shrugged into Kevin’s web gear. It held equipment that could come in handy, not the least of which was extra grenades for the grenade launcher as well as extra magazines for the rifle itself. I’d no sooner picked up Brian when the sounds of helicopters echoed up from the valley. Lindstrom produced a smoke canister and pulled the pin before tossing it to the ground near us. In moments, red smoke filled the air, giving the helicopters a fix on our location.
Two of the air base’s attack helicopters roared overhead, sweeping the area for danger before the Huey transport helicopter came in for a soft landing. Lindstrom didn’t waste time. He hustled me onto the chopper before its skids had come within a foot of the ground. A crewman took Brian’s unconscious body from me as the helicopter headed back towards the valley. Moments after Lindstrom shouted something to the crewmember, one of the two attack helicopters veered off and headed back towards the camp with another Huey following behind it.
That was some relief at least, but even now my thoughts were turning towards what I’d discover when I got back to the base, and just how bad things really were going. Whatever was happening, we had to keep the base operational for two more months, at least. I didn’t know if they were just shooting missiles at us, or if they’d actually sent troops across the border, but either way, there was no doubt that President Reagan would order a Do Over as soon as the machine itself was ready.
There was no other choice now, but to send back the President’s handpicked man to undo the mess I’d made of this timeline.
As with all my stories, E provides immeasurable input, grammar checking, and all those other lovely editing thingies that make the story so much better!
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