Hard Trauma Read online

  The rain began to pelt them again as Ty stewed on their predicament. The eye was passing and the storm was nearly back upon them. He was not letting this vehicle pass unless he and his men were aboard it. Command would frown on stealing a vehicle, regardless of their situation. They never wanted you to do anything that might end up on the evening news. Ty was struggling to figure out a different approach, a bribe or threat that might make the driver acquiesce when a gunshot split the air.

  Ty flinched and flattened himself against the vehicle, head swiveling for the source of the shot. Then he saw the column of Taliban riders had burst into the eye of the storm as well. They may have looked like a sodden mass of swamp creatures but they were deadly and only seconds away. Ty swung his rifle and tore off several shots in their direction. The rest of the team did the same.

  Negotiations were over. Ty made a command decision, shoving the driver out of the seat and onto the floor. “Get in!” he bellowed, and his team scrambled for the side door, exchanging gunfire with the approaching riders as they piled in.

  The terrified young girl screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Taco pounded the back of the driver’s seat. “Go! Go! Go!” he barked.

  There was the rattle of more gunfire and one of the back windows shattered, spraying the interior with pellets of safety glass. Ty turned the key but it wouldn’t start and his heart sank. They were dead.

  “Go!” Taco demanded.

  “I’m trying!”

  “Wrong gear!” Kamran shouted, leaning forward to place the shifter into the Park position.

  Ty could have punched himself in the head. God, he was an idiot. Apparently he’d turned the key off when the van was in Drive so it wouldn’t start. He tried the key again and it fired right up. Ty stomped the gas pedal and the van slewed, the tires spinning on the mud road. He eased off until they gripped and the van lurched forward. The girl, still in the seat beside him, emitted another bloodcurdling scream. The sound was grating on Ty’s nerves. There was enough chaos without her adding to it.

  “Take her!” Ty instructed her father, the man apparently too petrified with fear to act. He hadn’t moved since Ty shoved him onto the floor between the seats.

  When the Pakistani man didn’t react, Ty shoved him, jarring him from his paralysis. He gestured at the girl. The father’s arms shot forward and collected his daughter. He pulled her to the floor with him and shielded her with his body. Her scream became a keening whine of terror, melding with the general state of chaos.

  More gunfire sprayed the back of the van, punching holes in the sheet metal and remaining glass. Ty had hoped to gain distance from the riders but they lost visibility as they re-entered the storm and he couldn’t go much faster than they could. If he got the van stuck or went off-road and hit a rock, they were dead. Hartsock and Taco were wallowing on the floor, trying to peel off their soaked packs, slippery with mud. Hartsock came out of his gear first and rolled to his knees.

  He aimed through a jagged hole in the rear window and started pounding out controlled bursts of 5.56 fire at the pursuing Taliban. The sound of the automatic fire in the enclosed space of the van was deafening. They all had hearing protection stashed somewhere in their gear but who the hell had time to look for it?

  “Get’em, cowboy!” Taco hollered, finally making it to his feet and joining the fight.

  He ripped the muddy goggles from his head and tossed them to the side, raised his boot, and stomped the shattered pane of glass from the opening on his side of the rear door. The addition of a second shooter only intensified the noise and bedlam in the van.

  “Kamran! Ask him where this fucking road goes!” Ty bellowed, unable to judge the volume of his own voice since he couldn’t hear shit.

  The terp shoved the Pakistani man to get his attention and launched a barrage of questions at him.

  One of the pursuing riders got lucky and swept the rear of the van with another burst of gunfire. Ty had the sensation of being touched on the shoulder. He thought Kamran might be trying to get his attention but he was afraid to take his eyes of the road.

  Taco cried out and collapsed to the deck. The girl screamed and Ty caught a flurry of movement in his peripheral vision. He spun to see what the girl was screaming about and realized the touch on his arm was the sensation of her father’s brain spraying onto the right side of his body. Ty was covered in gore, the dampness going unnoticed due to his already saturated clothing.

  Ty roared from rage and frustration, pounding the steering wheel with his palm. He was splitting his focus between the road, where he couldn’t see shit, and the back of the van, where he had no fucking idea what was going on. “Taco? Talk to me!”

  “Thigh wound!” Hartsock barked. “Missed the artery. He’s plugging it now. He’ll live.”

  “Not if we don’t get out of this mess,” Ty countered.

  The girl slipped from beneath the bloody crush of her father’s body and crawled into the passenger side footwell, pressing her tiny body as tightly as she could into the cramped space. She was no longer crying, her eyes squeezed desperately shut, tears streaking her stained face.

  There was a jolt as a wheel rode over the nearly invisible shoulder. He jerked his eyes back to the road and struggled to correct the van without losing control. It slid dangerously, the back end slewing left and presenting just enough of its side to the enemy that they pounded it with 7.62 rounds.

  Ty glanced back and saw holes punched in the van’s sidewall. He also noticed his terp gasping for air, frightened eyes opened wide. “Hoot!” Ty called to the commo guy. “Kamran’s hit!”

  Ty wasn’t sure if Hoot could hear him or not. He had to be as deaf as the rest of them at the moment. He was in the back of the van trying to shoot out of the same holes Taco and Hartsock were but was having a hard time staying out of their way. There was too much flying lead in too small a space. Hot brass bounced in every direction and rolled around on the floor. It was like trying to stand on marbles.

  “Hoot!” Ty repeated.

  The commo guy heard him that time and sprang into action, checking the now-collapsed terp. “Got between his armor!” Hoot yelled. “I think he took one in the lung.”

  Ty whipped his head around in time to see Kamran emit a cough that sprayed a mist of blood onto his already dirty face and gear. “Can you get a chest seal on him?”

  “Look out!” Hoot screamed, gesturing frantically toward the windshield.

  Ty swung his eyes back to the road in time to see they had driven out of the storm and he was about to crash into a HUMVEE stopped directly in front of them. Ty locked onto the steering wheel with both hands and stood on the brakes. The heavy van went into a slide and stopped mere feet shy of the armored vehicle. There were groans and cursing from the back as men fought to get on their feet, hot rifle barrels scorching them through their clothing.

  The second HUMVEE in the column had a roof gunner and his weapon was trained directly on Ty’s window. They had no idea who he was or who the van belonged to. Ty raised his hand as soldiers spread around the vehicle, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “We’re Americans!” Ty yelled.

  When one of the soldiers barked commands Ty gestured at his ears. He couldn’t hear a thing over the persistent ringing.

  They figured it out soon enough. About the time the soldiers realized there was an American beneath the mud and gore, the Taliban arrived on the scene. A soldier threw open Ty’s door and pushed him into the floor, just as Ty had done with the Pakistani driver earlier. The soldier pulled the van around the column and the new arrivals opened up on the approaching riders. Ty grinned as the welcoming committee chimed in with their vehicle-mounted machine guns. They killed several of the Taliban before driving the remainder back into the concealment of the storm.

  Ty knelt between the seats, watching the action. He was finally feeling a glimmer of hope they were going to survive this mission, when he noticed he was crouched on the arm of the dead van o
wner. He glanced toward the man’s daughter, ready to give her an apologetic look for the misery they’d brought upon her. They’d not asked for this.

  He was met with staring, dead eyes. A brilliant stream of scarlet blood traced the dusty crease of the child’s face, her hair matted around an entry wound on her temple.

  Ty had no idea what happened to him at that point. All he would remember later was feeling as if his electrical system had overloaded. He fell over backwards, his head hitting the sliding door. His legs were draped across the dead Pakistani and the wounded, gasping terp. Someone slid open the bullet-riddled cargo door and sunlight hit Ty in the face, blinding him.

  Hands hooked under his arms and dragged him clear of the van. A medic was in his face asking him questions he couldn’t hear to answer. He was covered in blood, mud, and it sounded like a freight train was pounding through his head. The medic put both hands on Ty’s face and screamed a question at him.

  Ty couldn’t hear it but finally understood that he was being asked where he was wounded. He pointed to his ears.

  The medic and another soldier began peeling Ty’s gear off, searching for wounds despite his protestations. They poured water on him, looking for wounds beneath the dirt and gore. Ty turned his head toward the van and saw Hartsock stumble off, a bloody Taco leaning on him for support. Hartsock was being questioned by a soldier as he walked. Hoot came out under his own power but he’d taken a shoulder wound at some point and his arm hung at an odd angle.

  The dead were left inside to be photographed. Those photographs would become part of the investigation that ultimately ended Tyler Stone’s military career. Ty would never need to see those photographs to remember the scene that day. It was something he would never forget. It was something that would visit him in nightmares for the rest of his life.

  2

  Ty sat in his truck outside his sister’s house and scanned the streets. Kids were home from school and adults were getting off work. There were too many cars coming and going. It took him a moment to acclimate to the level of activity. Every location, every area of operation, had a vibe and a particular flow. Ty needed to familiarize himself with that flow before he ventured out into it.

  Women parked minivans and struggled with bulging grocery bags, children lined behind them like ducklings. Men straggled in from whatever job consumed their day, looking haggard and defeated. A retiree mowed his lawn from a pristine lawn tractor, a smile plastered on his face like it was the highlight of his day. Ty checked his rearview mirror again, decided this was as good as it was going to get, and jogged up Deena’s driveway.

  He climbed the brick steps and knocked on the glass storm door. The reply from inside was indecipherable, a chorus of both his niece and sister’s voices yelling different things at the same time. He took it as an invitation to go inside. He found his niece Aiden seated at the kitchen island while his sister Deena stood before her in a bathrobe. She was trying to get ready but was being peppered with questions.

  Eleven year old Aiden stopped her interrogation to regard Ty with that same look of disdain that eleven-year-olds give adults. It was eerily similar to the way cats looked at people, reminding them that, if they were larger, they would eat us and take over our houses. In this particular case, it was a look that said Ty had to prove himself worthy of Aiden’s attention before he would be granted any.

  Though she greeted him this way each time they saw each other, she always relented. With him having been deployed for so much of her life, she looked at Ty with the same reserved fascination she might use if some B-list celebrity she’d never heard of showed up at the house. She was intrigued but too cool to show it.

  Aiden understood that Ty had been to a lot of exotic places and he was gone for long stretches of her childhood. She was aware he knew a lot of neat things like how to start a fire, how to tie knots, how to do first aid, and how to say hello in several languages. He could call someone a butthead in those same languages and had taught her how to do it. Her mother had not been as proud as Ty had.

  He was proficient in martial arts and could do push-ups with her on his back. He could do pull-ups while she clung to his back like a monkey. She also understood that Uncle Ty's place was not child-friendly which made her want to visit his apartment whenever she could. She’d been there a couple of times but Deena usually found an excuse to keep her away, preferring that Ty visit her house instead. He didn’t take it personally. It was easier than tidying up his own place, which he preferred to keep functional rather than pristine.

  "Where are you eating tonight?" Aiden asked her mother, her voice firm. She sounded like a parent questioning a teenager about a date.

  "I don't know yet," Deena replied. “We haven’t decided.”

  "Is it someplace good?"

  “I just said I don't know where I'm going. That means I don’t know if it’s someplace good or not, but I would assume it is. I hope my friends wouldn’t take me to some crappy restaurant for my birthday."

  "Is it someplace I’d like to eat?" Aiden continued.

  "If I don't know where I'm going, how do I know if it’s someplace you'd like to eat or not?"

  "I don't want you eating anywhere without me that I might like," Aiden stated. “That’s not fair at all.”

  Deena sighed. "So what you're saying is that you want your mother to have a bad dinner because the only way she’s allowed to have a good dinner is if you're there to enjoy it?"

  Aiden grinned broadly and nodded. "That's exactly what I mean."

  "You apparently take after your Uncle Ty," Deena said, winking at him. "He was exactly like that as a child. If Ty wasn’t happy, no one was happy."

  "Don't believe her," Ty stage-whispered to Aiden. "Your mother is just mad because our parents liked me better."

  "Oh, that's exactly it," Deena replied with an eye roll.

  "It’s okay, Uncle Ty. I know Mommy isn’t taking me because she’s ashamed of me," Aiden said, wiping at a fake tear.

  She was good. If you didn’t know the kid, you’d think she was truly heartbroken. Ty knew she didn't mean it. Her mother also knew she didn't mean it, but it was the kind of comment that a parent couldn’t leave standing.

  "You know that's not true," Deena said. "My girlfriends are taking me out to dinner for my birthday. It’s just adults and there won’t be any children present."

  "Wow, I never knew there were so many other parents who were ashamed of their children too. Maybe someone will start a special home for us. Someplace we’ll be loved and treated nicely. Someplace with puppies and all the ice cream you can eat.”

  Ty gestured at Aiden. "Come on, devil child, we better get out of here before you get in trouble. Your mom needs to finish getting ready."

  Aiden slipped off her stool. "Okay, let me get my stuff.”

  "We’re going to the movies and to get something to eat. How much stuff do you need?"

  Aiden looked at Ty as if he had no concept of the societal burdens of an eleven-year-old girl. She stalked off and came back with something that was half purse, half backpack.

  "You're taking all that?" he asked. “You planning on camping somewhere along the way?”

  "Come on," she said, ignoring his question. “Let’s go before Mommy says more mean things to me.”

  “I didn’t say anything mean!” Deena exclaimed.

  “Hug your mother,” Ty reminded her.

  Aiden gave her mother an appraising serious look. “I’m not sure she’s worthy at the moment.”

  “She’s worthy. Do it before she makes you stay home with a mean old babysitter that smells funny and makes you play Scrabble.”

  Aiden conceded, hugging her mother and heading for the door. Ty hugged his sister then rushed off before Aiden got too far ahead of him. Even though this was her house, in her neighborhood, he cringed at the way she confidently burst from the door and started down the driveway without so much as a glance at her surroundings. It was like he was on an executive protection detail with a
particularly uncooperative client. Despite the subtle hints he gave her about personal safety, Aiden had no situational awareness at all. He was going to have to work on that.

  He struggled to dial it down a notch and not helicopter over her. People tended to dislike the hovering. Besides, they were in the United States, in the peaceful little town of Abingdon, Virginia. While it was a relatively safe community, Ty wasn’t sure any place would ever feel safe to him again. If he lived on a thousand-acre ranch in the mountains of Montana he would continue to check for bad guys when he went out the front door. He would react the same way if he lived in a one-horse town with thirty-eight people and no stop signs.

  That was how he was wired these days. His little bubble of ignorant bliss had been punctured a long time ago. There would never again be a time in his life where he was as casual and happy-go-lucky as Aiden had the privilege of being. He'd seen too much of the world, gotten his hands too dirty.

  They drove twenty minutes to the shopping center with the movie theater she liked. It was the peak weekday hour. Kids were being dropped off by parents who either wanted them out of the house or were tired of listening to the begging. There were families there to see movies together and groups of teenagers slinking around, enjoying their lack of adult oversight.

  "I'm hungry," Aiden said as they got out of his truck and the scent of popcorn hit her nose.

  Her voice startled Ty. He was lost in the chaos and sensory overload of the parking lot. There was a movement, a lot of people, and too many places to hide. Every situation had a rhythm and he was quickly assessing this one. Was it simply a shitload of people doing people stuff or was there threat present? No matter where he was, he always had to ask himself that basic question.

  “We’ll get you some popcorn in a second,” Ty said. “Enough to fill a bathtub if you can eat that much.”

  Aiden made a curious face as the image played through her head. The movie she wanted to see was a fairly new release, and the afternoon matinee showing already had a line waiting for tickets. Ty expected there would be more lines at the concession stand inside the busy theater. Great. Lines and crowds spelled stress and discomfort for him but he'd agreed to do this. Deena needed a night out. She hadn’t had many since the divorce. He’d promised her he’d do it. He needed to do it. It was a normal thing that normal people did and he wanted to be a normal guy again.