Hard Trauma Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Franklin Horton

  Cover by Deranged Doctor Design

  Editing by Felicia Sullivan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Also by Franklin Horton

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Also by Franklin Horton

  The Borrowed World Series

  The Borrowed World

  Ashes of the Unspeakable

  Legion of Despair

  No Time For Mourning

  Valley of Vengeance

  Switched On

  The Ungovernable

  The Locker Nine Series

  Locker Nine

  Grace Under Fire

  Compound Fracture

  Blood Bought

  The Mad Mick Series

  The Mad Mick

  Masters of Mayhem

  Brutal Business

  Stand-Alone Novels

  Random Acts

  About the Author

  Franklin Horton lives and writes in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia. He is the author of several bestselling post-apocalyptic and thriller series. You can follow him on his website at franklinhorton.com.

  While you’re there please sign up for his mailing list for updates, event schedule, book recommendations, and discounts.

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not have been possible without the folks who help produce the final product, including my long-time editor Felicia Sullivan and my cover team at Deranged Doctor Design.

  I would also like to thank my proofing team: Dawn Figueiras, Carrie Bartkowiak, Randy Cornell, and Laura Keysor.

  I had some dear friends who reviewed the accuracy of the military scenes: Angie Heath, Steven Heath, and Wynn Parkinson. Any mistakes in that department came from my own imagination and not from their efforts to keep me straight.

  Finally, I’d like to thank the veterans who inspired this book. No one better understands the idea of public service than those willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the people back home.

  1

  Two Years Earlier

  Tyler Stone was running a five-man team in the northern part of the Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Their mission was to conduct reconnaissance on a village where the Taliban was rumored to be stockpiling weapons. They’d been in position for three days and pinpointed a cave with a lot of suspicious traffic. Ty was fairly certain the crates being hauled into the cave didn’t contain cases of beer and bags of pork rinds.

  Sometimes their job was to find the weapons and call in an airstrike. They’d paint the target with an infrared laser and air support would blow it back to the Stone Age. This mission was different. They were there to collect photographs and coordinates, then transmit the data back to command. Supposedly, folks higher up the chain would use that data to extrapolate a more complete picture of the supply chain in the region.

  The mission was going smooth as glass, which made everyone jittery. Once they transmitted their data, they were ordered to return home. That was when they paid the price for the previous lack of complications. They were rucking out on a goat trail when their mission was blown in the same way so many other covert ops in the Afghan hill country were compromised.

  Shepherds.

  Up until that point, they’d done everything right. They’d gathered their intel, avoided detection, and sustained no casualties. The two teenage shepherds wore drab pajama-like clothing and carried herding staffs, looking like two kids who’d just wandered out of some biblical tale.

  "Keep moving," Ty ordered his team. “Kamran, handle this.”

  Kamran, their “terp”—interpreter—approached the boys and gestured wildly, warning the young men to remain silent or they’d be killed. Perhaps it wasn’t the approved, politically-correct method of requesting cooperation from locals but it was often the most effective. Ty kept his team moving while Kamran assured the shepherds that men would come back and wring their necks like scrawny desert chickens if they sounded the alarm.

  The terp made a good show of it but you never knew how those threats would work. Sometimes the locals resented the Taliban for some atrocity they’d committed on their village and they’d keep silent. Other times, more scared of the Taliban, they’d raise hell, sounding the alarm as soon as you were out of sight. Ty thought they’d actually pulled this one off until they hit open terrain and he chanced a look back at the village thorough his M151 spotting scope.

  "Son of a bitch,” he growled.

  “What is it?”

  Taco, a weapons sergeant, shaded his eyes and tried to make out what he was looking at. He was a tall dude, wrapped in tattoos and muscles, the man just as battle-worn as his gear. His nickname had nothing to do with ethnicity but instead came from his last name, which was Bell. “Please tell me that’s just a dust devil.”

  “That’s a negative, Taco. I’ve got at least two dozen armed riders headed in our direction. Those fucking shepherds sold us out.”

  Taco shook his head in disgust. “Why am I not surprised?” He threw up his rifle and studied them through the scope.

  Ty packed up his spotting scope. “We need to haul ass.”

  “Should we engage?” Taco asked. “If I can’t drop them, I can at least scatter them. Slow them down.”

  “Negative on that. While we’re engaging, the rest will close around us and we’ll get penned in. Then we won’t be going anywhere.”

  The two men ran to catch up with the rest of their team. Ty flagged down his commo sergeant, Hoot. “See if you can find us a ride out of here!”

  A chopper could light those Taliban cowgirls up and haul the team back to base. Command was expecting their request for exfil, anyway. Surely someone was monitoring their op and waiting for the call.

  Ty watched Hoot’s face while he talked, and after two minutes of agitated jabbering, he knew there was a problem. He started to get a sinking feeling in his gut. “What’s the hell’s going on?”

  Hoot whipped off his headset, looking pissed. "Everything is grounded. Major fucking storm on our ass. Could be tomorrow b
efore shit settles down."

  “Great,” Ty mumbled. “You tell them we had our own storm to worry about?”

  “Affirmative. They suggested we request the QRF if we needed them,” Hoot relayed, referring to the Quick Reaction Force.

  “Bernie’s unit is on QRF now,” said Taco. “You know he won’t put anyone at risk. They’ll drag their ass and get here tomorrow so he doesn’t take casualties.”

  “Do it,” Ty said.

  Hoot got on the radio and passed on Ty’s request. Ty could soon tell Hoot wasn’t having any more luck with this than the exfil request.

  “QRF says they’ll contact command and advise us when they have their orders,” Hoot repeated.

  Ty shook his head in disgust. He scanned the horizon and in the distance found the storm Hoot was referring to, a dark mass emerging on the horizon ahead of them like some enormous beast. “There’s your dust devil, Taco.”

  “I still say we dig in and engage them. We got this. We can take them.” Taco’s speech was rushed. They were all huffing and puffing from humping heavy gear at a rapid pace, their adrenaline pumping. After sitting in those hills for three days everyone was jacked up and ready for a fight. Running didn’t taste good on anyone’s tongue.

  “Negative,” Ty said. “They pin us down and there’ll be a hundred of them surrounding us by tomorrow. They’ll pound us with rockets and there won’t be enough left to bury. We’re going to outrun them, or at least try to.”

  "You got to be kidding me," Hartsock said. He was MARSOC, or Marine Special Operations Command, and had embedded with Ty’s team before. They got a laugh out of it because his name was Hartsock, making him Hartsock from MARSOC. Sometimes that shit was funny when you had nothing else to laugh at, but at the moment, nothing was funny.

  "I’m open to ideas if you got anything," Ty said.

  “I don’t think we can outrun them. Those horsemen will ride us to ground,” Hartsock said. “We need a defensible position."

  Ty raised his shemagh and mopped at his face. “They pin us down, we die,” he countered. “We’re going into that storm. They probably won’t follow us in there, but if they do, they’ll lose us. Once we get on the other side, we’ll hunker down and call for a pickup. Maybe someone will be flying by then.”

  “If we come out on the other side,” Taco griped. “We’ll be blind in there. We could go around in circles and run into the enemy head-on.”

  “We’re better than that,” Ty told him. “We tighten up and make sure that shit doesn’t happen.”

  Despite any reservations they had, Ty was in charge. They followed orders and ran toward the storm. Ty could see his men glancing nervously at the approaching weather conditions while monitoring the other ominous cloud rising behind them. Ahead was a menacing blizzard of dust and wind. Behind, a band of murderous Taliban intent on torturing them to death and posting videos of it on the internet. This was a solid team, tough men used to suffering, but Ty could tell the ticking clock was wearing on them. No one liked being sandwiched between those two threats. They were truly caught between a rock and a hard place.

  They closed on the great storm as it closed on them. The wind picked up immediately and Ty began to have second thoughts about his decision. This was not thunderstorm wind. This was stepping out into a hurricane wind. Dirt pelted them like a sandblaster, making any exposed flesh burn as it was abraded away.

  Although they had goggles over their eyes and filthy sweat-soaked shemaghs wrapped around their faces to filter out the dust, it was a futile effort. Their ears filled with grit and dirt. Before long, their clothes were covered with so much dust that each man looked like a boulder risen from the barren landscape and marching around of its own accord. It would be perfect camo if they survived, but that was a big ask.

  Ty shouted at his men to stay together but the buffeting wind drowned out his voice. As they finally lost sight of the pursuing riders, the swirling storm consumed them totally. There was the faint sound of rifle fire behind them. Their pursuers were giving it one last college try before they lost sight of the enemy, sweeping the storm with blind barrages of AK fire.

  "Anyone hit?" Ty barked.

  No one answered. He doubted they even heard him. Ty caught their attention and directed them through hand signals to change course. He didn’t know whether the Taliban riders would charge into the storm or balk at its approach. While he doubted they would risk it, they were dogged fighters and it remained a possibility. The team slogged onward, the men shoulder to shoulder so that no one got lost.

  Just as he thought it couldn’t get any worse, Mother Nature said, “Hold my beer” and they were startled by a bolt of lightning. Thunder shook the ground like mortar fire. If there was anything worse than a dust storm, it was when it intersected with a thunderstorm. The product was what you might expect. It rained mud.

  A torrent of muddy rain slammed into them. It was like being hit with a firehose and they were quickly drenched, their sodden gear doubling in weight. Ty frantically yanked his shemagh down off his face, the damp cloth making him feel like he was being waterboarded. Mud streamed into his mouth, bitter and gritty. He used the back of a glove to swipe at his goggles but it was futile. He couldn’t see shit and they were running blind.

  He was seriously beginning to question the wisdom of charging into the storm. Hell, could people drown while walking upright? It was starting to feel like a possibility.

  Inside the storm, the conditions had not only impaired their visibility but had greatly reduced the amount of light reaching the ground. In those twilight conditions, with mud-encrusted goggles, Ty was placing tremendous focus on the terrain under his feet and keeping his men close. Touch was the only sense still working at full capacity. He noticed the terrain change under his feet and it stopped him dead in his tracks.

  He grabbed Hartsock, the man nearest him, by the shoulder and pulled him to a stop. One by one, the men slowed their companions and circled up.

  “I think we’re on the road!” Ty screamed, trying to overpower the wind.

  “How the hell can you tell in this mess?” Taco demanded.

  “I can’t be certain but the surface feels different. It felt like there was a shoulder at the edge. Let’s head south.”

  Ty could barely see any of his men but he got the distinct feeling that they were looking at him like he was an idiot. That was a fair assessment of how he felt at the moment. “That way,” he said, pointing in the direction his smeared GPS assured him was south. “Move!”

  They resumed their cautious advance and marched through the blinding slurry of desert mud. Ty took a sip from his hydration bladder, trying to rinse out his mouth, and it was vile, the bite valve nearly as muddy as his boots. Then, as quickly as the storm hit them, they walked out of it.

  Except they weren’t completely out of it. Instead, they’d wandered into what appeared to be the eye of the storm. All around, completely encircling them, was the turbulent spinning blackness of the mud storm. They’d somehow landed in an insulated bubble of calm in the middle of it.

  “Dude, this is fucking weird,” Taco said, spinning slowly, watching for the Taliban horsemen to come pounding into their little oasis at any moment. “I don’t like it.”

  “Spooky,” Hartsock mumbled.

  Ty took the opportunity to try to clean his goggles, smearing the mud from a thick coating to a thin veneer that he could almost see through.

  “It won’t last,” Kamran assured them. “A minute or two. The storm is moving too fast.”

  Aware that he was correct, Ty signaled the men to start moving again. They were halfway across the eye, on the surface of the road, when he saw a reflection in the darkness ahead of them. “What the hell?”

  “What is it?” Hartsock asked.

  “I thought I saw something,” Ty said. “A light or some kind of reflection.”

  Then it was on them and there was no time to bolt for cover. They threw up their weapons and leveled them on the black Merce
des Sprinter van. It skidded to a stop in front of them, mud dripping from every surface. Inside, the wide-eyed man and little girl stared out through the smeared windshield at what probably looked like aboriginal mud men surrounding them with guns.

  The terrified driver raised his hands in panic. He was screaming, jabbering, but Ty couldn’t hear a word of it. He moved around the driver’s side, his weapon never leaving the man’s face. Hartsock did the same on the other side. Ty heard the sliding door roll open on the far side as Hartsock checked the rear of the van. Ty pulled the driver’s door open and turned off the ignition. He scanned the driver’s lap and checked around the seat for any weapons but didn’t find any. The driver was frantically trying to explain something but Ty didn’t understand a word of it.

  “Kamran!” he barked. “Get over here!”

  The terp rushed to his side and looked from Ty to the driver.

  “Tell him we need a ride. Now!”

  Kamran spent a moment nailing down a dialect the two shared, then relayed Ty’s request.

  “No,” the driver replied in English

  “Uh, he said no,” Kamran replied.

  “I think I understood that part,” Ty growled.

  “He says he’s Pakistani and here on business. He’s already late for an appointment.”