“He left after you guys went out to see if the windows were good,” Calvin said.
“Yeah, I thought he went with you guys,” Stephani added.
John got to his feet and went to the back of the house. He returned a few seconds later and shrugged his shoulders. “He’s not inside.”
Jared got up and started to pull his jacket on when John held up a staying hand.
“Hold up on going out. The kid likes to be out there. We just have to teach him to let us know when he goes,” John elucidated, waving Jared back into his seat. “No need to go out and wander around in the dark. He’ll be back.” John finished with a wink in Jared’s direction.
Jared dropped back into his seat, studied the whiskey for a moment, then decided he would take John’s advice. What the hell, Jared thought, I’m not driving. Without further ado, Jared took a long pull off his plastic cup. Devon was without a doubt learning the area around the ranch house and could warn them if anyone came sneaking up on the house, so maybe his being out was a good thing.
Devon was back the following morning, and John had a fatherly talk with the teen about letting him know if he was going to slither off. John explained that if someone went looking for Devon and got hurt, the fault would fall on the teen’s shoulders since he hadn’t told anyone where he was going.
Devon stared at the ground, kicking at a clump of grass, nodded his agreement, but didn’t say a word. John left it at that, knowing the kid wasn’t much for words.
John just hoped Devon maintained enough gray matter between his ears to understand the importance of letting them know if he was going to disappear. Time would be the only way to tell if he got it or not.
As Devon was walking away, John called out to him, “Hey, did you find anything interesting out there?”
Devon turned halfway around, looking sideways at John, and shook his head. John screwed his mouth into a tight knot. “Oh well, if one of us were going to find something out there, my money is on you.”
When Josh got back to the Stockton airport where the base was located, he showed the SEALs to the briefing room where Josh’s boss was waiting, arms folded. Josh’s boss was Colonel Leroy Carnegie, a legend within the special operations community. He was also the only man on the planet Josh feared.
“All ya had to do was pick up my SEALs, but instead you fuck up one of my helicopters. May I remind you I have exactly three other helicopters. After that, you and your people walk,” the colonel barked.
“I wasn’t flying the thing,” Josh countered lamely.
“Ah, shut the fuck up. You’re the mission leader. Anything goes wrong, it’s on you,” Carnegie growled angrily. The SEAL commander stood awkwardly in the door while the colonel lambasted Josh, not wanting to get caught up in the colonel’s tirade. Carnegie caught sight of the SEAL in the doorway and frowned. “Nice of you to join the shit show. You bubbleheads enjoy riding the first ninety days out in the comfort of that submarine?”
The SEAL commander looked like a deer in the headlights. “Ah, you ever been on a sub, sir?” he responded a bit hesitantly.
“Ah, you shut the fuck up too. I need helicopters to conduct operations, and instead, this dipshit wrecks one. I need men, and all I get is the Navy’s swim team. Jesus H Christ, mother and Mary.” The colonel threw his hands in the air. “Both of you sit the fuck down.” The colonel pointed directly at Josh. “Go.”
Josh knew the drill. “Flight in was standard, no incidents. Made radio contact with Captain Kemper’s radio guy and confirmed the extract location.” Josh shook his head, heaving his broad shoulders. “Then the fucking pilot short stroked the approach and clipped a tree with the tail. We landed, and he shut down in order to check out the bird. They couldn’t see what they were doing, so we spent the night and flew out this morning,” Josh briefed.
Carnegie shot Kemper a sharp look, got an affirmative nod from the SEAL, and turned back to Josh. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, we saw a working vehicle. It was towing a trailer full of solar panels, it looked like.”
Carnegie’s face grew even more serious. “Go,” he barked for the second time that morning.
“We were transitioning through San Jose when the pilots spotted a car. It turned out to be a VW bug dragging a trailer with a bunch of solar panels on it. Two people in the car, maybe men, couldn’t really tell at the speed and altitude we passed. Unknown if they were armed, and we didn’t see any other people who appeared to be associated with it,” Josh finished, scratching the back of his head.
Carnegie leaned back in his chair and clasped his large hands behind his head, thinking about what his operator just told him. While the government tried to get back on its feet, the people were doing the same thing, he knew this. He was okay with this, but he couldn’t have any group of people growing in numbers and stability to the point of being a threat to him and his operations. He knew one car towing a trailer wasn’t much, but all great things germinated from a small seed. Carnegie needed to find out if these men and their solar panels were a germinating seed or a dying flower.
Carnegie kept a single drone in his arsenal of assets, but hadn’t found a need for it to date. Carnegie’s issue was he lacked spare parts for the aircraft. The drone pilot had been flown in from Nevada, but, with nothing to do, the man had been reallocated to standing a post on the base’s perimeter. Now, Carnegie needed to know where these people
