Read Fear and Anger (The 47 Echo Series) Online
Authors: Shawn Kupfer
Tags: #action, #military, #sci-fi, #war
Fear and Anger (The 47 Echo Series) (35 page)
“How are we?”
“Surprisingly good. Richmond’s holding on. He’s out of the war, though. Got a dead arm.”
“The Ranger kid?”
“Yeah. He was on our team this time out.”
“Everyone else?”
“Shit, boss. We’ve been riding in air-conditioned comfort for the last couple of weeks. Nothing a few days off and a nice stout lager won’t cure.”
If there was any more to that conversation, Nick didn’t remember it. He didn’t remember opening his eyes again, either – his next memory was of trying to sit up, and having a blinding headache. The pain was bad enough that he felt like he was going to vomit.
“Got an empty ammo can right here, boss. Try to hit that,” he heard Gabriel say.
Nick choked back the bile and waved Gabriel off.
“Stimulant withdrawal. It’s a bitch,” Gabriel chided.
Nick managed to struggle into a sitting position. He looked around the Razor – Christopher was driving, but the passenger seat was empty. Daniel was manning the stealth station, and Anthony was on cameras.
“Where is everyone else?”
“Other Razor for the next couple of days ‘till we make it back to Carbon-4. We haven’t encountered any resistance yet. We’ve been lucky.”
“Help me over to the passenger seat,” Nick said. “Might as well make myself useful.”
As the big medic helped Nick strap in to the passenger seat, Christopher handed his CO a cigarette and lit it for him.
“Good to have you back, boss.”
Nick took a long drag and exhaled. The pain in his head started to subside slightly.
“Good to be back, brother. How are we doing?”
Epilogue
Nick expected to be thrown right back into the fray as soon as his wounds healed, which wouldn’t take long. Christopher had told him about the traitor at Carbon-4 – someone Neal hadn’t been able to ferret out – and Nick thought that was a likely first assignment. Either that, or he and his crew would be asked to go on another balls-crazy no-win mission behind enemy lines.
What he hadn’t expected was to end up behind a desk at an Army base just outside of Moscow.
Nick had been put in charge of the guards at Camp Lancer, a POW detainment facility in Lytkarino. The guards under his command were mostly convicts themselves, Army and Marine conscripts with lesser, nonviolent charges. The official reason for Nick’s transfer was that he would be close to the Army’s 23
rd
General Hospital, also in Lytkarino, for stimulant-abuse rehab. After the first month he was clean, though, Nick started to suspect he was there for another reason altogether.
Rumors abounded about Chinese brainwashing programs, and Nick had been on his own in China for nearly three weeks. Someone several pay grades above Nick and Captain Neal seemed to think Nick was captured at some point, reprogrammed, and dropped in North Korea just in time to link back up with his unit. He wasn’t at Camp Lancer for rehab – he was there for observation.
The rest of 47 Echo had finally gotten their much-needed and long-promised training. Gabriel had spent the past month at 23
rd
General, finally getting some real medic experience under his belt. Most of his crew was training nearby, except for Christopher, who had been rotated back to Quantico in the States to attend the same two-week accelerated Officer Training School Nick had attended almost two years before.
Working at Camp Lytkarino was mind-numbing, and his substance-abuse counselor had released him from therapy with a clean bill of health a week before. So on the afternoon Nick marked the two-month anniversary of his desk job with no end in sight, he was happy to see Gabriel appear at his doorway.
“You busy, boss?” the young medic said, his face breaking into a wide smile.
“Shit no,” Nick said, rising from his chair and pounding fists with his friend. “How’s Corpsman school?”
“Done, I think. They always tell me what time to report the next day, but they let me out early without saying another word today,” Gabriel told him, shrugging. “So I grabbed a ride from your second-shift guys and figured I’d see what you were up to.”
Nick looked out his window to the prison courtyard to see a 7-ton MTVR unloading a fresh batch of gray-uniformed convicts. He knew he should go down and start handing out duty assignments, but he decided they could wait five minutes. He’d rather talk to Gabriel anyway.
“Those aren’t my guys, Gabe,” Nick said, shaking his head. “You’re my guys.”
“No argument there, boss. They tell you when we’re going back out in the field?”
“Nope. Every time I ask, I get stalled. Neal tells me he needs to check with Ross, Ross tells me he needs to hear from the SOCOM brass back in Tampa, and SOCOM doesn’t bother to answer.”
“Hope it’s soon, man. Bryce and Daniel just got back from three days leave, and no one’s told them where to go yet, either. And I hear Pete and Mike are coming to Lytkarino soon. I’m choosing to see that as a good sign.”
Nick nodded and attempted a smile, but he didn’t feel it.
Just because they’re getting you all together again doesn’t mean I’m going to be going with you
, he thought.
“So I was hoping you’d heard something, but I guess you know as much as me.”
“Less, I guess, considering I didn’t know the team was on the way back until you told me,” Nick said, sighing.
“All right, boss. Give me a squawk on 1-9 if you hear anything, yeah? I gotta go meet Daniel and Bryce and get them sorted out with a place to crash.”
“Will do.”
“Good seeing you again, man.”
Nick walked Gabriel to the door, then turned to the task of herding his less-than-enthusiastic guards into the prison to begin their shift.
* * *
It was a slow second shift, but one that kept him late anyway. At the end of the shift, two convicts had gotten into a knock-down-drag-out over some stupid gang bullshit, and before Nick had been able to break it up, one of them had lost three teeth and broken four ribs. The loser went to 23
rd
General, and Nick went back up to his office to fill out incident and injury reports in triplicate.
His third-shift relief, Lieutenant Coombs, had come and gone from the office already. Coombs was a prison guard back home, and actually seemed to enjoy the job that bored Nick to tears. The younger Marine was only too happy to stroll the prison, doing his rounds, leaving Nick in the office to deal with paperwork. It was almost eight at night by the time he finished his reports and sent them up the chain to the Camp commander. And just as he was getting ready to leave, a visitor appeared in his doorway for the second time that day.
“Lieutenant Morrow,” the man said, his voice deep and rumbling.
Nick didn’t recognize him, but he was a Navy Captain, about Nick’s height and probably one and a half time’s Nick’s muscle mass. He had short, graying brown hair that was shaved on the sides, and had about four days of beard stubble going.
“Yes, sir? If you need to interrogate a prisoner, Lieutenant Coombs is the current duty officer, sir. I can page him for you.”
“Nah. I’m here to see you,” the large Captain said, walking into Nick’s office and sitting down in the chair across from Nick’s desk.
“Roger that, sir. Can I get you water, coffee, something?”
“Army coffee is bad enough, LT. I’d hate to see what Army
prison
coffee tastes like,” the Captain said, motioning for Nick to sit down. Nick sat behind his desk and saw that the man wore no nametape, only black NWUs that said “U.S. NAVY” over the right breast pocket.
“Name’s Hoppe,” the Captain said, waving halfheartedly. “I’m the SEAL commander for this theater.”
Nick didn’t say anything, just nodded.
“I have a bit of a problem, LT, and the people up the chain from me tell me what I want done is impossible,” Hoppe said, picking up a pen from Nick’s desk and twirling it through the fingers of his left hand. “But I also hear your unit is the go-to for impossible shit.”
“That’s correct, sir. Or at least it used to be. I’m no longer in command of 47 Echo – I seem to be in command of this desk for the foreseeable future.”
“Not anymore,” Hoppe said, tossing a folded paper to Nick. “Orders to resume command of 47 Echo immediately. Your second-in-command is on a flight here as we speak. Trade in the clipboard for an M4, Marine. Time to get out there and work miracles.”
END
About the Author
Shawn Kupfer was born on Ellsworth Air Force Base in the Rapid City, South Dakota area in July 1978. Most of his childhood was spent bouncing from one military town to another, travelling across the United States and the world on the dime of the U.S. Air Force. In his younger days, he had stints working as a semi-professional kickboxer, a defense contractor, a magazine editor, and a general “pick this up and put it over there” laborer.
In February 2009, Shawn anonymously started the Twitter Novel Project, where he posted novel-length works in 140-character chunks. In July of that year, he abandoned the anonymity factor. The second Twitter Novel Project book, 47 Echo, was picked up for publication soon after.
He currently lives in the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex with his wife, Lisa, and their two dogs, Sadie and Edie. In his spare time, he enjoys travelling to Las Vegas and New Orleans.
Copyright
ISBN:
Copyright © 2013 by Shawn Kupfer
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