Brothers In Blood: For Country

When the Point Hits Home...

Two weeks later, everyone in the country though they knew the whole story. A rogue group of deranged Soviet leftovers had drugged the majority of New York City, and attempted to hold it hostage, but a group of civilians had miraculously discovered the plot and saved the city. The heroes wished to remain anonymous. There was no mention of the house a few miles north, shot to pieces by a helicopter. Or the neighborhood kids who had vanished in fire and smoke.
For months afterwards, everyone was camped out at Mac’s house, just trying to recover. Whip was gone, a Judas who was killed instead of killing himself. A Benedict Arnold. Mac locked himself in his workshop for three days, refusing to come out even to eat. Rachel and Jennie regularly chased GD around the house with wooden spoons, trying to lighten the mood, but the three who needed it had squirreled themselves away. Mista D had Jack help him force their way into the workshop to make sure Mac was still alive.
The thick wooden walls had protected anyone sitting on the other side from serious harm. Screw drivers and chisels were embedded deep into the boards, slammed with enough force to have shattered drywall easily. Nails had been pounded into the floor, so thick in some places, that it looked like a single sheet of metal. A ax hung out of the wall, its wooden handle splintered and cracked. And in the middle of the chaos, Mac was huddled on the floor, sobbing in his sleep. Jack picked up a bottle that had been smashed in a corner and sniffed it. Nothing, the bottle had been empty for a long time.
Mista D nudged Mac, then shook him. Mac tipped over and pulled into the fetal position before he opened his eyes. They were the eyes of a very spooked animal. Without thinking, D put his hand on Mac’s bare shoulder. He jerked his hand away from his friend’s gnashing teeth before they could reach his flesh. It didn’t stop him from trying. “Mac’ brotha, is juss me. You know me, doncha Kev’?” They tried for two days to get him to talk.
then, he mumbled something. Jack leaned closer. “What was that, Kevin? Whatcha say?”
The animal they knew as Mac turned his head to look at them. “Joe’s dead, everybody’s dead,” The words came out slowly, English forced out through the snow globe of thoughts. “Kill one, its like they all gone... I... killed Whip... The whole tribe’s falling apart... just like in the war.” Humanity leaped back into his eyes. He fell into a kneeling position, his hands out like a beggar. “They dying, Jack, can’t you see it? Just like the War, people start dying and... things start crackin’ up.” Mac’s eyes drifted back to the floor. “Not like the war, though. not like that at all.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced at Jack, kneeling down next to him. “It’s okay, Mac. Why ain’t it like the war? Can you tell us that?”
“This must’ve been what people felt like during the Civil War.. shooting down their friends if they were under the wrong flag... Good men dying, going crazy and trying to kill their friends.” Tears glistened in the darkness. “Not like shooting those whacks in the jungle, not at all. All dead now, dead inside.” He stopped then looked at Jack and Mista D again. His face lit up. “But you aren’t dead, are you, Jack? D? You aren’t dead! You’re here ain’t ya?” His face started to sag again. “All thats left of the tribe, three and thats it. Everybody else run off like in the jungle, Jack? Or did they go out fighting, like real blue-blooded Americans?”
Mista D rose and opened the door to the workshop. GD stuck his head in, Scud pushed it open. Flash tried to snap a picture, but Jennie slapped him across the face. “Not the time, Flash.” The men filed into the room, staring at the tools stuck into the walls and the floor. Rachel and Jennie waited outside.
Rachel’s voice pricked Mac’s ears, sending a cascade of memories back through his jumbled mind. Like lightning, he remembered everything that had happened since Whip had died, in almost painful detail, the colors and synapses crackling inside his brain. It came so fast he thought he would explode as everything came back. He stood and wrapped his thick arms around his friends, pulling them all in close. Before he could say anything, there was a rap on the window. On sheer reflex, Mac hurled the broken axe handle at the glass, shattering it and barely missing the Suit standing outside.
GD hurried outside while Mac got his bearings. He found three Suits standing on the front stoop, their hands in their jacket pockets. “Sorry about that gentlemen,” he said, “Just one of those things. One of the boys went a little crazy, we just snapped him out of it... You understand.” They all nodded. Kind of nervous, GD ushered the men inside. “Boys, the Feds here, an’ I think they want to debrief or something.”
When what was left of the crew was arranged around the kitchen, one of the Suits, one of the ones GD had seen in the car he had jumped into, opened his briefcase. His eyes were kind of listless, not really focusing on anyone or thing specifically. He handed some papers around. “This is no debriefing, soldiers, this are executive orders that you are to continue in your mission.” A look of mixed ‘here-we-go-again’ and excitement passed from man to man. Jack held up his hand to speak.
His eyes were half closed when he started speaking. “Listen, Agent Whatshit, we’ve had two weeks of recovery and no training prior to the mission. now you expect us to run back out and fight again, to cover your ass, just because you said so?”
Mac stood up. “We don’t got no problem serving our country, doin‘ whatever Uncle Sam needs us to do, but this is says you need us to do recognizance. I’m sorry, but most of us here haven’t even touched a wiretap. Flash the only one whose dealt with that stuff, and he’s never planted a professional one.” Flash started to object, but Mac shushed him. “Flash, buggin’ your girl friend’s house to make sure she wasn’t cheatin’ on you wasn’t a professional job. Get over it.”
The agent glared at them, frustrated with the lack of progress. Training had been so much easier than this. Go in, talk to the recruits, they agree, you leave. Plain and simple. now, he was dealing with war veterans who weren’t going to fold easy. “The future of your country is resting on your shoulders. We need this team to gather information on the New World plans and to sabotage it any way you can.”
“Hold up, mista.” The reverend Mista D interjected, “Dis ain’t goin’ anyweya’s fast, an’ deya ain’t nothin’ you can say ta change our minds on dis. It not what we been trained fo, an ain’t anything like we’s used to. If I rememba right, dis sort of thing was more your line of work, back in one o’ dose three-letter things, not Marine work. We ain’t holdin’ nothin’ back, didn’t in New York, won’t in da next fight. We heya to fight, you boys heya ta get da information we need to kick the devil out o wheyaever youse send us. Why ain’t none o’ your boys getting this stuff?” That comment was met with rousing cheers around the room. “besides that, they already knows who we is, thanks to da media and Jack heya on their hit list. We crazy, mista Suit, but we ain’t ‘at bad.”
Scud kicked in his two-cents worth. “You guys are idiots if you think we can show our faces ‘round the UN again, they had us all pegged before the mission even was a twinkle in some Pentagonman’s eye. GD got mugged in his own freakin’ house! They tried gunnin’ me down on the slopes! Jack got chased out of the UN and had to buy some bum’s clothes to escape! Mac and Rachel got nailed on the highway! They know who we are, and have it out for us, one way or another.” The agent gripped the seat of his chair, his face turning red with exasperation. If he couldn’t get these men to do this, it meant the CIA would end up sending in its own agents, risking them instead of these, as he considered them, soft, decadent, sleaze-bags.
After he had said as much, he found himself and his buddies sitting in the stream behind Mac’s house. Mac and GD were standing over them, having proved their physical superiority and fighting prowess over the government men. Scud came around the house with Mac’s shotgun and handed it to him. “You gentlemen have ten seconds head start before I start chasing you off my mountain. Comprehend?” He fired a shot over their heads, sending them scampering for the trees. Scud counted to ten over a bull horn, then Mac gave chase.
He could here their labored breathing over his own thundering footfalls. Scraps of their tailored suits were stuck in briars and branches, marking their trampled path. Then, everything was quiet. Mac roared into a clearing, and found all three lying on the ground. Blow darts stuck out of their necks. His eyes got wide, his senses on high alert. Using one of the bodies as a shield, Mac swung around, searching for the silent killers. The edge of a boot led to a shadow in the tree. Thirty degrees to the left, a branch was creaking. directly across from the boot, he caught a flicker of movement, a blink in between the leaves. A pile of leaves next to a boulder had a bit of camouflage netting showing.
Turning so that none of them were behind him, Mac backed slowly away from the other bodies. he hoped he had enough shells to at least wing all of them. He focused on the leaf pile, watched the boot out of the corner of his eye. The report destroyed the silence and threw the leaf-covered sniper into the rock. Mac spun and squeeze off another shot into the tree. A dart whizzed from the creaking branch, throwing off his aim, slightly as he dodged. The sight of a body falling through the foliage satisfied him. The blinker had loaded and was starting to aim. Buckshot shattered the blowgun and ripped open the man’s skull. The last shot clipped the creaker, embedding hot lead in his leg. He screamed, the noise echoing after Mac as he sprinted up the mountain.
He grabbed Scud and GD, who had been waiting outside and hurled them through the door. He slammed it and locked it, putting a chair up against the knob. Jack tried to get something out of him, but the only thing he said was, “Their here, gotta be ready.” He repeated it like a mantra while he nailed plywood over the windows. Two inches thick, no light from the outside could penetrate the lower floor. It was late afternoon, the sun was starting to drop into the west. He sensed that they would strike after dark.
Joe finally caught him and sat him down long enough to get the whole story. Everyone listened intently, especially after he showed them the body he had brought back. Flash pulled out the architectural plans for the house, and began marking probable spots where the boys could defend from. Custer looked at the plans, then called Scud over to check and make sure they could work. “Dammit, why did Whip have to turn on us?”
Mista D commissioned Rachel and Jennie to sew dummies, that would be set up in the windows to provide a silhouette and outside for the enemy to shoot at. They used Mac’s clothes, stuffing them with fiberglass insulation and scrap wood. Scud pulled all the gear they still had from the New York fiasco, and handed it out. D slipped on his armor and hunkered down in Mac’s observatory, which had been left unobstructed. He watched, intent on any movement. Joe joined him shortly. They stared out into the blackness, silent spectators as nature closed herself up for the night.
In the workshop, Mac was pounding railroad spikes through four, thick sheets of plywood. The plan was for the women to hide in there and stay out of the fighting. None of them wanted anything to happen to Rachel and Jennie. And no one told the girls that was the plan, until Mac was done. Jennie followed GD as he hauled in a cooler, filled with precooked stuff and drinks, just in case the siege lasted longer than... who knows? Mac carried Rachel in, and shut the door on her protesting, saying “It’s for your sake, babe. See you when its all over.” She continued to pound on the door, tears running down her face. Rachel calmed her down, just in time for the fireworks to start.
Jack was sitting on the roof, his massive sniper rifle pointed towards some bushes that Mac wasn’t particularly fond of, due to their size and proximity to the house. ‘God, forgive me for the men I’ve killed and for those I am about to.’ He heard rustling in the leaves, and prayed desperately that it was the wind and that whoever Mac had shot at had left the mountain. A blackened face peered back at him through the leaves. He felt the eyes on him. On sheer instinct, he swung the whole assembly and fired.
Scud had set up a machine gun on the weather vein, and was set on an improvised gun turret. One of Mac’s custom-made stargazing platforms had been stripped of its optical equipment and fully fortified. Shadows moved on the ground, moving against the wind-blown shadows of trees and leaves. Something heavy crunched in the brush to his left. Scud swiveled the turret towards the sound. His supersilent Magnum fired at the noise, and was rewarded by a muffled grunt and a strange crack. Then he heard Jack open fire on the opposite side of the house.
Mista D crouched in the doorway, watching three bushes inch closer and closer to the house. he guessed the tubes they were aiming towards the wood pile were flamethrowers. Quietly, he thanked God he had the inspiration to bring the water guns out to his post. He tapped his foot to alert the others that something was coming, when he heard something crack off to his right. Then Jack started shooting off to his left. Flames erupted from the bushes, D battled back with water and hot lead. The bushes stopped moving and the flames died.
Custer watched at least three men move from tree to tree towards the house, coming down from the summit. They were trained in desert maneuvers, he realized, after watching them crawl through a shallow gorge and peek up over the ridges. they moved like they weren’t used to moving on solid, stick-covered earth. He heard gunfire high above him and stepped out from hiding, guns blazing. The men tried to stand, but their training betrayed them and set them off balance as they overcompensated for the give in the earth. A flash of light caught his attention, and a bullet caught him in the calf, twisting him around and crippling him. He kept firing as they closed in on him, the bullets from the old guns finding their marks each and every time. They staggered under the assault, and finally fell. Custer scrambled to reload. ‘Dear God, don’t let them win.’
GD slammed down the phone. The hotline number they had been given for the Pentagon was busy, and the police suspected a prank call and refused to come. He had been set inside, against his will, to protect the women if any one got inside. He also had a makeshift surgical theater set up in the living room, Exacto-knives and tweezers sat boiling away on a portable stove, sterilizing. He carried a loaded pistol, just in case anyone did get through the defenses. he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.
Joe waited for someone else to provide cover noise for him to set up his explosive defenses. Simply timed incendiary devices and shrapnel grenades, they had been extremely effective in the War. When Jack and Scud started firing, Joe ran to the tree line and set them, throwing them at indefinite intervals into the foliage. He saw D pull spray the moving bushes and watched Custer go down. He looked up just in time to see a squad race through the trees, making a break for the house. There was too many of them to take himself, and Custer was in no shape to help out. He screamed for Mac, wherever he was.
Mac appeared behind the running men, matching them pace for pace, to an unknowing eye, he appeared as one of them. They pulled into the open and Mac began shredding their rear line. On the roof, he heard Jack shooting at the other line. He saw Joe firing at the front of the strike force. His knives flashed in the night, slicing into the unprotected necks of the commandoes he was stalking. One turned on him and pistol-whipped him before he had a chance to make a stab. Mac tumbled over and over, coming to rest against a tree. he heard something beeping nearby and shot off towards the house, probably the safest place on the mountain. He ran into an ambush, the men he had been following had caught him. he prayed the body armor would hold up as he dived into their attack.
Jack almost tripped on the shells when he stepped back from the machine gun. They covered the floor of his turret to the depth of at least three inches. Jamming a splintered piece of wood into the trigger, he crawled down the roof to where Scud was holed up. he threw himself over the wall, barely dodging a spray of bullets from below. Scud pointed out into the yard, now strewn with battered enemy bodies. And Custer. Jack leaped over the wall again and crawled as fast as he could to one of the shattered skylights. he dropped through and dashed back outside, to where Custer was valiantly trying to load and fire both of his guns at once. “Bastards! You’ll never git me!” Jack grabbed the old man’s hand and dragged him back to the relative safety of the porch. Mista D appeared behind him and helped him haul Custer into the house. A shot grazed the side of Jack’s head, but he quickly shook it off.
Arms. Legs. Pain. Guns. Fists. Knives. Mac’s only reality. Two massive punks grabbed his arms while another started working him over. His thick black beard and Middle eastern features were marred by blood, discolored by bruises. He pulled a long dagger out of his armor and slashed Mac across the face. The blood slowly filled in the thin cut, then flowed down his face. Inside Mac, fire was rising in his chest. A surge of inhuman strength allowed him to shrug off the men holding him and draw another of his own knives. The Arab motioned for his men to continue on in the assault of the house. This infidel would die, Allah would be pleased. They circled, feinting. They studied each other. Mac looked worn and hurt, like he would collapse at any second. His opponent was relatively fresh and only flesh wounds around the face and head.
Joe watched as the forest lit up and a dozen bodies were thrown into the air, engulfed in flames. He turned around and found himself face to face with a man wearing a white mask with Arabic writing across the forehead. A rather sophisticated detonator was in his hand, a snub-nosed pistol in his left. This white man was in his way. The suicide bomber shot Joe at point-blank range in the chest and strode past the prostrate figure towards the house. The bombs he carried around his waist were dirty bombs, loaded with radioactive elements, in order to ensure that the Cause could continue without any more interference from these meddling infidels. America would die and these men would be the first to die at the hands of the World United’s elite berserk squad. They would not be the last.
Mista D saw the man coming through the door, and Custer rubbed his eyes, thinking he was hallucinating. The bomber stepped through the door and put his finger on the detonator. A bullet somehow managed to split the connection before the signal could be given, another blew a gaping hole in the bomber’s chest. GD glared at the corpse with complete disdain. “Nobody blows up one of our boys. Damn Hadji.” he kicked the man and picked up Custer and pulled him into the living room. Mista D helped lift him up on the table and started cutting off Custer’s pant leg, six inches about the wound. Blood had soaked the material and some of it was missing, carried into the leg by the bullet. In order to avoid infection, they had to work fast and remove the bullet.
When the fire bombs went off, it had distracted the Arab just enough for Mac to gain a distinct advantage. he dove in, hammering his forearm into the man’s knee, hyper extending it and crippling him. The Arab screamed and swung wildly at him, catching him across the arm. The blade cut through the fabric and sliced deep into Mac’s arm. The pain unleashed a monster, something so incredibly powerful that the Arab couldn’t believe that he was fighting a human being. Mac threw back his head and screamed, his eyes sparking. His neck bulged, the tendons trembling visibly even in the dim light. he leapt at the Arab and tore into him with complete abandon, his teeth taking off as much flesh as his fingers. Bones cracked and collapsed as the animal waged its war. The feeling subsided slowly, as humanity crept back into Mac’s mind. He looked at his bloody hands, the flesh trapped under his torn finger nails. He looked at the body strewn across the road. tears dripped from his eyes, horror and the pain from his injuries finally taking its toll.
The flash and ensuing fires from Joe’s explosives lit up the forest around the house enough for Scud to pick off the remaining soldiers. he did it without thinking, cold efficiency. he used up the last of Mac’s ammunition and pulled himself out of the turret, covered in wood splinters and concrete dust. A bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his hand, and now it needed attention. He walked over to the door to the stairs. He tried to open it, but something was wedged against it from the other side. he pushed, and whatever it was finally gave. He heard it tumble down the stairs and looked down. It was Flash, a single bullet hole in the side of his head. The body was cold when he checked it. A hole in the door confirmed that he had been shot from the outside, probably one of the first from the attack. he reverently carried the body to the kitchen table and laid him down. Then he fell to his knees and wept bitterly.
Jack found Mac sprawled in the dirt, unconscious, spitting up something. Nearby, a body beaten beyond recognition was leaking its fluids into the grass. More bodies could be seen, lying in the road further back. Joe ran up and helped him carry the limp body into the house. They stumbled up the steps and into the living room. Custer practically leapt off the table, spitting out the thick leather pad they had put between his teeth for pain management. “He alive?” Jack nodded and they gently laid him on the table, while GD hurriedly sanitized it and pulled out a needle and fishing twine to sew his friend back up.
They stripped off Mac’s mutilated body armor, and Custer retched. The fight had left Mac’s torso purple. GD felt gingerly for broken ribs, and found none. They carefully flipped him over and inspected his back. Small wounds, a quarter-inch across speckled his back, all with something still in them. They came in lines of four, at least five lines spread out across the bruised flesh. GD grabbed the tweezers and started pulling the glass needles out, one by one. They were an inch and a half long each, and had probably been attached to gloves so they would break off when they hit a body. Once those were taken care of, he stitched up the side of Jack’s head before moving back to Mac.
Custer left to start the truck so everyone who needed it could get to the hospital. He found Scud and took him outside. Mista D slipped out of the room and let Rachel and Jennie out, telling them that they couldn’t see their men right away, as something had happened. he assured Jennie that GD was fine, then returned to the operating theater to pray. Rachel fell against Jennie, hysterical, not knowing the damage that Mac had endured, her imagination going wild.
GD sewed up the facial wounds as best he could, small stitches evenly spaced along the wound. Jack took a pair of fingernail clippers and cleaned up the torn nails, removing the ragged parts then bandaged them up, one by one. They heard a whimpering sound and looked around for the source. Mac was waking up, and he was tearing up. he sat up, grimacing at the pain and looked at GD.
“So what’s the verdict doctor?”
“So what’s the verdict doctor?” GD took one look at the soldier the boys had dragged out of the woods. The Tribe had been on their own for a week now and this was the first American they had come in contact with since the split. They had found him tangled in some vines, dried blood all over what was left of his legs, and small trickles of it still oozing from shrapnel wounds in his chest. The kid had saved himself from bleeding to death by tying tourniquets tight around the stumps. The problem was infection had already started eating away at his body.
They laid him down and put a sack under his head. “What’s your name, soldier?” The kid could barely talk. “Get him some water!” GD ordered, and everyone jumped for their canteens. There were some dog tags in the kid’s hand. GD took them. “These yours, brother?” Water was brought and it did wonders for the kid. He shook his head weakly.
“Ain’t my tags, thems my best friend’s tags.” he was gasping for breath, wheezing and coughing up chunks of blood. “Got the rest of m’ squad’s in m’ pocket. Name’s Mike Scarolla. Been like this for days.” His eyes pleaded with GD, “Think you can patch me up, Doc?”
GD scrambled for an answer. He grabbed some antibiotics from his med kit and handed them to the kid. he smiled, “Take two, kid, and call me in the morning.” The kid took the pills, then rolled his head back. He struggled to sit up, despite the protests for him to lie down from the boys and his own destroyed flesh. he pulled his tags off and handed them to GD.
“Give these t’m’ girl back home in Savannah, Georgia, ifn’ I don’t make it back with y’all. Promise me that, Doctor?”
“You got it, kid, but you’re going home real soon, so don’t you worry. We’ll take care of your buddy’s too. We ain‘t gonna leave you in this hell-hole.” The kid laid back down and started singing.
“The temple veil is torn in two, the way is cleared for me and you to enter in, enter in to heaven's holy place, we can enter in, enter in, only by his blood we can approach his throne of grace...” His voice trailed off and his eyes closed. As life left the kid, he murmured, “God bless American an’ all them boys who servin’ her.”
It took them three more days to make it out of the jungle to the port, carrying the remains of Private Michael Scarolla. Each man from the tribe kissed his forehead and shook his stiff hand before the medics loaded him into a black bag for shipment back to the States. They saluted the corpse and all of their eyes glistened as they watched them take away Georgia’s son. Then they loaded themselves into a transport and followed him back. GD made sure all the tags went where they were supposed to, and hand delivered Mike’s to his girl, in Savannah.
GD smiled and put two pieces of leather between Mac’s bloodstained teeth. “Take two and call me in the morning.” They cut off his pantlegs to examine the knife wounds and found them to be flesh wounds, quickly sealed up by GD’s needle. Then they gave him a pair of gym shorts and a loose T-shirt before hustling him out to the truck.