And We All Fall (Book 1) Read online

  “Careful, methodical action.”

  “I’m not sure we have time for any kind of action but the quick kind. I’ll call over to the CDC and let them know you’re coming.”

  “No. Don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Might be better if I just show up. Less time for them to prepare for me. Hide anything.”

  “Jesus, Jamie. Do you think they’re hiding things? From us? The CDC?”

  “I’m not sure what to think. The damn CIA is involved. There is definitely something Dr. Bigsby wasn’t telling us about the disease. I intend to find out what it is. I won’t leave the CDC until I do.”

  “Be careful.”

  He sounded just like her father the first time she went out to ride her bike by herself.

  “You too, Franco.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, looking as though they might never see each other again. The CDC dossier made sure of that. The first and second in command of the regional FEMA office rarely touched each other aside from a hand shake.

  Today was different.

  They could feel grimness lingering in the air, all around them. The blade of the reaper’s sickle was against their necks, shimmering beneath the fluorescents. They held each other tightly once again, though Jamie could barely get her arms around her supervisor’s bulk.

  “I want you to do something about this when this is over,” Jamie said to him as she patted his belly.

  “If I’m around to do anything.”

  “Don’t say that! You will be! You have to be.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do! What’s the next step for us now? FEMA, I mean.”

  “I will make some calls. Look for some of that spray for the bug trucks while we wait for word from the oval office.”

  “Good idea.”

  Jamie rushed to her desk where she sat restlessly for a moment and checked her voicemail. She had one message that began to play.

  “Hey, beautiful. Just wanted to let you know that Jax and I are heading out now. I hope your meeting is going well. You are the love of my life. Everyone woman in the world to me,” he sung into the phone, drawing the start of a tear from Jamie’s eyes. “We’ll hurry back. Promise. Bye.”

  The message ended.

  Jamie moved her index finger to the seven button to delete the message, but stopped herself. She found herself staring at the photo on her desk. Her whole world; Jackson, Jax, Jumper and her, all together many years ago at the public park down the street from their house. Jackson’s father took the picture.

  She picked up the frame and brought it up to her face. She gently kissed the glass and then slowly placed it back on her desk. She pressed the number two button on the phone to save the message and then hung up the phone.

  She stared at the photo and then at the phone screen that blinked a little red light once to show one saved message.

  She turned her attention to her FEMA identification affixed to her lapel, adjusted it, along with her jacket and skirt after she stood.

  She looked at the photo once more, and then again at the blinking button on the phone screen. She hated the blinking light, never saved a message for another time. She always called the person back right after she pushed the seven button.

  She did plan to call Jackson back from the car on the way to the CDC. She didn’t know why she saved the message.

  She just had a feeling she should.

  Chapter 12

  Jackson leapt out of the truck and raced down the hill towards the massive oak at the bottom of the hill with Jax and Jumper chasing behind him.

  “Hold on!” Jackson screamed to the woman inside as he finally approached the mangled, metal dinosaur that was seeping oil and gas. Fumes saturated the air along with smoke. The two thousand pound car had rolled onto its side against the old tree, making it impossible to get inside of it.

  He grimaced as he pushed with all his might until the Gremlin began to fall away from the tree, crashing onto its tires. He yanked on the driver’s side door handle until he finally managed to open it. The driver’s head had slumped against the dashboard. Jackson choked on the thick, mixed colors of smoke that began pouring out of the engine.

  “Ma’am! Can you hear me? Ma’am! Jax!” Jackson yelled behind him as he continued battling the smoke. The nine-month-old baby girl in the passenger seat was still secured in her car seat, but she cried, gagged, then passed out just before she threw up on her little pink dress.

  “Jax, go around to the other side and get the baby out! Hurry!”

  Sirens approached in the distance as other drivers collected at the top of the hill, a couple of them making their way down to the smoldering wreckage.

  Jackson struggled to unbuckle the woman’s seat belt as sweat poured down his face.

  “Come on! Come on!”

  With one final jerk, he broke it open. He lunged in and bear-hugged her torso. He pulled her body out of the car that had now caught fire. He dragged her five feet away and laid her down in the grass.

  “Jumper!” Jackson yelled and motioned with his hand the command to retrieve as he ran to the other side of the car. His faithful companion limped as he ran toward the woman’s lifeless body.

  “Dad!” Jax yelled out as he desperately tried to unlatch the baby’s car seat harness as he gagged. Facing backwards only increased the difficulty. “I can’t get it open!”

  The four-legged retired war hero latched his powerful jaw onto the woman’s shoulder and dragged her further away from the burning car while firefighters ran down the hill yelling.

  “Get away! It’s gonna blow!”

  “Step back,” Jackson ordered Jax as he arrived at the passenger side door and began pulling on the buckle while he struggled to overcome the smoke. “Go help Jumper with her mom,” he said to Jax with superhuman calm.

  Jax ran towards Jumper and helped him pull the woman further away.

  Jackson fumbled with the harness as he felt the radiant heat from the fire his skin.

  “Come on, kid. Got to get you out!”

  Finally!

  The baby was loose!

  Jackson carefully lifted her out of her car seat and held her snug against his body with one arm as he turned and lunged away from the fiery car. He tumbled to the ground as the relic exploded into a giant fireball of assembly line forged shrapnel.

  The blast shook the ground and sent the first responders and citizens that had just arrived to the ground for cover, all shielding their faces.

  Jackson, covered in black soot, turned to his back after the blast’s impact, still holding the baby against his chest, this time with both hands.

  “Are you okay?” a female EMT asked him alarmed as she knelt beside him a moment later.

  “The baby,” Jackson replied as he lifted the baby towards her and coughed hard trying to clear his lungs. “She took on a lot of smoke. She’s not breathing!”

  The EMT took the baby from Jackson and ran back up the hill while a firefighter that arrived put an oxygen mask over Jackson’s mouth. He felt disoriented as he looked up to the sky, his ears still ringing from the explosion.

  He gathered himself staring up at the angelic sunlight that gleamed through the branches of the grand oak tree. So thick, it reached high into the air, enjoying its tranquil place in the world for over five hundred years.

  Now burning.

  Jackson sat up as he pushed the mask aside.

  “Don’t fight us sir. Take some oxygen.”

  Jackson struggled to his feet, refusing to comply, barely able to stand. He frustrated the emergency worker.

  “Jax! Where’s my son?” He turned around twice, trying to spot him. “Jax!” He ran up the hill with the firefighter following behind, lugging the oxygen tank.

  The female EMT stood compressing the baby’s back as Jax stood by the ambulance at the top of the hillside.

  “Jax!” Jackson yelled again at the top of the hill, looking around with blurred vision. He
looked like he had just crawled out of the sixth circle of hell.

  “He’s fine,” the female EMT now yelled at Jackson who was on his knees heaving. “Now suck on some oxygen before you die of smoke inhalation!”

  Jumper hadn’t left the driver’s side until he saw his master walking towards them and began to bark. Jackson rose to his feet and hurried to him; pet him vigorously. Then he hugged Jax tighter than he ever remembered hugging him in his life. He saw the baby crying, now in the back of the ambulance being poked and prodded by the EMS team that seemed to triple in size in the last minute.

  Jackson smiled the biggest smile Jax ever remembered his father smiling.

  “We did it, dad,” Jax said with a proud grin.

  “Yeah, we did,” Jackson agreed, coughing again, still disoriented.

  “This is what happens when you refuse oxygen you stupid, stubborn…” The female EMT stopped short as Jax walked away. Jackson continued his coughing fit.

  A fire crew on a pumper truck unfurled their lines as they raced with the nozzle down the hill and stopped close to what was left of the burning car. The majestic feat of nature that had lived to see the birth of humanity and the modern world was engulfed in flames and leaning at the weak spot where the one ton American Motors creation had barreled into it.

  They shot water at it all through thick hoses as Jackson saw his son talking to the child’s mother who was now awake and being secured to a spine board on the stretcher at the back bumper of an ambulance, also getting oxygen.

  Another firefighter,, Nick, walked up to the ambulance with his right hand out. “What’s your name, fella’?”

  “Jackson,” he replied as he shook the firefighter’s hand. “Mills.”

  “And what’s yours?” the man asked Jax.

  “Jax. Jackson Mills, Jr., but I go by Jax.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  They shook.

  “And what’s your name?” Nick knelt down and pet Jumper. “You’re a good boy,” he said gleefully as he stroked the animated dog’s head as his body jiggled from the force of his wagging tail.

  “His name is Jumper,” Jax replied.

  “Look out!” the other firefighters down the hill yelled in unison as the Oak tree had succumbed and was falling over as water blasted it.

  The firefighters dropped their hoses and scurried away as the behemoth bent in half and crashed on to the lines being used to douse the flames that were consuming it, ensuring its end.

  “Great,” one of the firefighters said as he struggled to pull one of the hoses that was trapped underneath the fallen Oak. “Let’s get the status of that other rig before the whole woods goes up.”

  “That was a close one. I have to say,” Nick commented as he faced the trio. “Never seen such heroism from civilians in such a dangerous situation. You all are brave. A little crazy. But brave still. I commend you.”

  “Thank you,” Jackson replied as he knelt down to pet Jumper, finally feeling better.

  “You saved that woman’s life.” Nick looked over at the woman. “Her baby too.”

  An EMT was tending to the bite marks Jumper had left in the mother’s shoulder as she lied on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance, still parked on scene. Nick noticed Jackson staring at her with a weird look on his face.

  “She’ll be fine. Barely got her. Small price to pay to be alive. Say, where did Jumper learn to do that? Amazing.”

  “Good boy,” Jackson said softly, seriously as he gently stroked Jumper’s furry head. The firefighter kept talking, but Jackson didn’t hear anything else he said. His mind was far away in Mogadishu, remembering the way it felt in that blurred moment when Jumper sunk his teeth into his shoulder, the same way, to save Jackson’s life.

  Chapter 13

  The bombed out five story mass of crumbling gray concrete had no glass left in the two windows. There was plenty of desperate, militant graffiti everywhere the eye could see. Jumper released his jaw and left the wounded soldier he’d just dragged into the shell-shocked structure well covered behind a wall, a trail of blood in their wake.

  For just three crucial seconds, Jumper’s hind end was visible through one of the glassless openings in the building. The armor piercing bullet whizzed through that space and entered Jumper through the armor covering his right hip.

  The shot from the roof of the building across the road was fired from a German Blaser 93 Tactical rifle in the hands of a determined Somali warlord’s flunky. The round stopped an inch short of exiting through Jumper’s left hip amid the sound of ear-piercing yelps from the canine.

  The wounded German Shepherd quieted as he laid down on his side next to his injured commander and best friend. He and Jackson were sheltered by a wall, but the damage was already done.

  Jackson quickly lost track of time and reality as he drifted in and out of consciousness behind those defaced, ramshackle walls, littered with messages of war and hate.

  He could hear the crossfire outside escalating.

  The rest of his team was doing what they must to eliminate the threat to the convoy the team was in charge of protecting. Jackson was unsure of anything else that was happening as blood leaked out of the hole in his punctured chest. He knew the hollow point round went through his Kevlar vest, but wasn’t sure how deep into his body it traveled, or if it even came out his other side.

  He reached blindly to his right, trying to find something to stuff in his wound. He knew there were things on the ground that might be helpful now, recalling some of the things he saw when he walked through the building earlier.

  Instead he felt matted, bloody fur, followed by that spirit-crushing hole.

  “No,” Jackson said. He wept realizing Jumper was lying down beside him, bleeding to death as well. “Oh no, Jumper. Not you too.”

  Jackson reached out with his left hand and found a dirty head rag he’d seen earlier, though he didn’t know that’s what it was at the time. There were assorted grimy linens scattered all over the dirt floor. With the last of his remaining strength, he moved the rag to his right hand and moaned in agony as he stuffed it into Jumper’s wound.

  Jumper whimpered and Jackson was glad to hear it as he begged the dog, “Stay alive, soldier. You stay alive.”

  At that moment, Jackson felt what seemed like a thousand hot matches being pressed against the skin all over his body. Something was crawling all over his skin. He writhed in pain, begged it to stop.

  As he laid there being tortured and dying, he wondered if this was simply punishment for what he just did.

  Minutes before Jackson was shot, he checked in with his team, including the medic that accompanied them for this mission. “Alpha Two, you covered?”

  “Yep,” the then-medic Benjamin McCoy replied casually. “Just sitting here on the corner taking in the aromatics of this God-awful sewer shit-smelling place.”

  He and Jackson forged their friendship while serving on the team. Ben was an African American cowboy from Texas and one of the funniest men enlisted in the United States military.

  “Why couldn’t the convoy go at night? I’d blend in without having to hide.”

  “Funny, Ben. Do you have all your gear ready, Alpha Two? Just in case? We’re expecting a nice, quiet pass through here. Probably.”

  “Course. Are your fingers crossed?”

  “Course. Hope yours are too, Tex.”

  “Nah. My eyes are though. The stench in the air is attacking my orifices. Jesus, it stinks here.”

  Jackson couldn’t help but smile listening to the two banter over the radio as he sat shielded behind a dumpster that smelled of dead fish and excrement. He really liked Ben. They had met for the first time the night before during the helicopter ride into the capitol.

  His smile faded when he saw the Somalian boy walk out of the street market carrying an orange backpack. It wouldn’t have been suspicious but for the color of the backpack.

  Jackson moved away from the protection of the dumpster and targeted the boy
in the 3-9x42mm variable scope attached to his .50 caliber rifle. He followed the boy’s every move through the scope.

  Jackson’s team was positioned along the route that United Nations officials were traveling by convoy after meeting with the Somalian government in advance of what would soon become the 2006 Battle of Mogadishu. It was a futile effort to stop the war, though no one with the U.N. knew that.

  It was only a ten-minute ride to Aden Adde International Airport where the convoy had air transportation waiting to take them away from the treacherous city. Intelligence officials reported chatter indicating a credible threat to the officials on their way to the airport.

  The team’s mission was simple: ensure safe passage of those officials through the city and to the airport, beginning with a sweep of the route for mines. None were discovered.

  Jackson didn’t want to believe this boy locked in his sights would compromise the mission. So young. He held onto hope until he saw the boy stop to talk to a man that Jackson’s team had already identified as a Somalian warlord. A week earlier, a boy about the same age detonated a bomb in the city, blowing up a visiting dignitary, along with himself.

  Now, as this new boy and the warlord spiritedly spoke to each other, Jackson spoke stressed into the radio attached to his shoulder.

  “Alpha Six has target in sight at Ebele Market. Black male. Approximate age ten. On the corner now with Dakarai. 50 yards. Over.”

  “Copy that, Alpha Six. What do you want to do?” Jackson’s commanding officer asked unnervingly over the air.

  “Don’t know what’s in the package, but hating the color, sir. Over.”

  The team leader groaned. “Orange?”

  “Roger that.”

  It was the same color as the remnant shreds of the backpack that still littered the streets of Mogadishu in the aftermath of the bombing the week before, torn apart by the homemade explosive it contained.

  “No room for error today, Alpha Six. It’s your call. Over.”

  “Copy that” Jackson replied as he exhaled the mounting stress he felt inside. It was deathly quiet in Jackson’s ear as he took a few hard chews of his Wintergreen gum.