Page 1 of A Dead Man's Pulse
Part One
Chapter One
First Sergeant Logan “Cowboy” Reese slammed his eyes shut so he didn’t have to see his friend’s face . . . his dead friend’s face. Danny “Clutch” Coleman had been bullwhipped for over two hours by the fuckers holding Logan’s team hostage, but it’d seemed longer. Much longer. An eternity.
Coleman’s screams of unimaginable pain had been impossible to evade in the adobe building the two remaining teammates were imprisoned in. When the cries eventually died down and were replaced by celebratory gunfire and shouts of praise and worship to Allah, Logan had known what would be coming next. It was the same thing that had happened after the other members of his MARSOC (United States Marine Corps Special Operations Command) Raider team had been tortured—they were beheaded. Then one of those fucking murdering bastards would bring in the dead man’s head and taunt the remaining prisoners with it.
Out of the original seven Marines who’d survived an ISIS ambush, which had them out-numbered about nine to one, and left five teammates dead, Logan and Joe “Stash” Moretti were the last two left alive. One of them would probably be inhumanely brutalized and slaughtered sometime tomorrow, and the last man would likely be dead within forty-eight hours—unless a miracle happened. But Logan had stopped believing in miracles two or three days ago.
The tango was yelling something at them, and although the words were in a local dialect he wasn’t familiar with, Logan was pretty sure the bastard called them fucking pussies. Well, if being human enough to mourn the loss of his friends made him a fucking pussy, then so be it. At least he had a conscience and a soul, something he doubted the men partying it up outside had ever heard of.
When the wooden door slammed shut again, Logan dared to raise his eyelids. He blinked away the tears in his eyes and heaved a sigh of relief. This time, they hadn’t left the decapitated head sitting on a shelf for him to stare at. But the metallic smell and taste of blood still hung in the air. It mingled with the stench of urine and feces. Each cell had a hole in the ground that would make even the worst porta-potty seem like it was in a five-star hotel. There was just enough slack in the shackles and chains for him to use it. The one-hundred-plus heat of the day was making every smell and sensation ten times worse than it probably was.
Clutch’s screams and the crack of the whip as it sliced the air and human flesh still resonated in Logan’s mind. His buddy had screamed and cursed the bastards who’d tortured him, but he had never begged for death like they’d wanted him to. Logan hoped when it was his turn, he’d be able to draw on his teammate’s courage and grit.
Part of their training to become Raiders had been how to withstand torture and resist giving the enemy anything beyond your name, rank, service number, and date of birth. But until one experienced the worst an enemy could do to them, no one could fully comprehend what their breaking point was. Although there had been many questions asked about the US military, what their plans were, and where their troops currently were, the main objective had been to inflict as much pain as possible before killing them.
Shifting on the dirt floor, he swallowed hard and glanced between the steel bars at Moretti in the cell next to him. The Marine was unconscious, having succumbed to the effects of the fever he’d been running the past thirty-six hours or so. His skin was still flushed and covered with a sheen of perspiration—he had to be burning up. Logan had no idea what had caused it, but in this hellhole, it could have been from anything—an infection from a wound, a virus, or a reaction to the swill and foul water they’d been given for sustenance. Maybe it would be better if Moretti never woke up. At least then, he wouldn’t suffer as the others had.
At first, they’d refused to eat anything that had been thrown at them, but their Gunnery Sergeant had ordered them to ingest what they could, no matter how nasty it was. They would need to be hydrated and strong enough to escape if the opportunity arose. Unfortunately, Brent “Gunny” Sherwood hadn’t made it past the second day. He’d managed to yank his restraints from the wall and then jimmied the lock on his cell door with one of the crooked nails that had fallen loose. He’d just gotten out of the cell when two tangos came in and peppered his legs with bullets from an assault rifle, ripping them to shreds. Sherwood was then dragged outside, tortured, and killed the same way Kevin “Moonshine” Mooney had been the day before.
The day after Gunny was murdered, Gavin “Flipper” Pruitt was the next to be slaughtered like no other animal on earth should be, followed by Phillip “Kandy” Kane. Five good men—good Marines—had died at the hands of these psychotic terrorists, and although their families would be told they’d been killed in action, no other details would be given. While it might sound cruel to leave them guessing, in this case, they were better off not knowing. Logan didn’t want his parents or sister to ever know how he’d met his maker if this was where he died.
Logan pulled on the chain that connected the shackles on his wrists to the wall behind him. After Sherwood had gotten free, the tangos had added several more spikes through the chain links into the adobe, ensuring no one else could get loose. Maybe Logan should have fought the assholes when they’d come into his cell despite the threat of the three guns pointed at him. A death caused by a hail of bullets would have been preferable over what awaited him on the other side of that door when his time came. But a part of him had held onto a sliver of hope that a rescue would come. Now as each hour passed, that sliver got smaller and smaller. Even if a rescue came, he was a dead man. He would never recover from this nightmare, maybe physically, since he hadn’t really been injured up to that point, but definitely not mentally or emotionally. Each time one of his buddies’ heads had been brought in, another part of his heart and soul had died.
Letting his head fall back against the wall, he tried to remember how his life had been a few years ago or even a few weeks ago. He’d been happy. Everything had been going exactly as he’d dreamed it would as a kid. His grandfather and father were retired Marines. Logan had known by age five he wanted to follow in their footsteps, and everything he’d done from that point until he’d enlisted on his eighteenth birthday had been with the goal of becoming a Marine in mind. He’d kept up his grades, gone out for team sports almost every season, and had even been in the Junior ROTC program during high school.
Once he’d finished boot camp, he’d been assigned to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. After his first three years as a Marine and two long tours overseas, he’d applied for and been accepted into MARSOC training. His father had been so proud the day he’d called home and told his family he would be one of the elite Spec Ops Raiders. Not only did the title demand respect and awe, as did the Navy SEALs, it was also a chick magnet. If it was a tossup between fucking a Marine or a Marine Raider, the latter usually won the girl, nine times out of ten.
Upon completing his ITC—Individual Training Course—the intense, seven-month program all candidates had to go through, he’d been an official MARSOC Critical Skills Operator (CSO). The training wasn’t for the faint of heart or the weak-minded. It was physically and mentally demanding, and most candidates dropped out long before graduation neared. Upon completing the course, he’d been assigned to the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, also located in Camp Lejeune, and had been there ever since. He’d been twenty-two when he’d earned his CSO status, and nine years later, he was left wondering if it had all been worth it, knowing how the end of his life was going to play out.
Of course it’s been worth it, asshole. He could hear Clutch’s voice in his mind—the stupid jerk was probably giving him the finger from the great beyond. Think of all the lives we’ve saved. Hell, think of all the women we’ve fucked . . . that’s more fun. Hold out as long as you can, brother. Make it back for both of us. And the first woman you screw when you get back there, tell her you’re me, so there’ll be one more woman screaming my name in ecstasy.
The door swung open again, and two other terrorists strode in, tossing plates of rancid rice through the steel bars onto the floor of the two occupied cells. Logan just ignored them, making no attempt to retrieve the food. One of the men yelled and gestured from him to the plate—from the few words Logan understood, he was being ordered to eat. Well, that wasn’t happening. Just looking at it made him want to throw up, so he closed his eyes again as the yelling continued. Maybe a little competition would shut the asshole up. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall! Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-eight bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall!”
Logan kept singing as the Afghanis stared at him in confusion. His raspy voice was getting stronger with each word and so was his heart. They hated all things American, and what was more American than “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall”? The only things he could think of were apple pie, a freckle-faced girl next door, and baseball. “Ninety-three bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-three bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, ninety-two bottles of beer on the wall!”
The men must have thought he’d finally cracked under the pressure because they left without saying another word. Logan got all the way to sixty-three bottles of beer on that damn wall before exhaustion began to overtake him. Who knew singing that ridiculous but catchy tune could be so tiring?
Logan had no idea how long he’d slept, but he was jolted awake when an explosion rocked the compound. His eyes flew open just as a second, and then third, blast sounded, followed by automatic rifle fire, and deafened the world around him. Struggling to stand on his weakened legs and bare feet, he tried to see through the thin spaces between the wooden slats of the door at the front of the building and the tiny, glassless windows at the sides and rear to figure out what was happening. At some point during his sleep, the sun had set and the moon had risen. A lit oil lantern sat on a shelf next to the door and illuminated the makeshift prison, but it prevented him from being able to see anything in the darkness outside. It was too soon to know if this was a rescue staged by the US military, but a seed of hope bloomed in his gut.
“Stash!” His tone was filled with urgency. “Stash, wake the fuck up, man!” Logan yanked on his restraints, even though they hadn’t loosened all the other times he’d tried to free himself. “Stash!”
More explosions went off as the battle raged on outside. If this was a war between ISIS and anyone other than the US or its allies, Logan and Moretti would be dead sooner than expected. But since they’d be dead in another day or two anyway, maybe this was a better way to go.
Shouts filtered in over the commotion. Some were in Arabic, others in English. And not just the heavily accented English spoken in Afghanistan, but—thank you, Jesus—that of those who could have only been born and bred in the good ol’ US of A.
“Hey!” Logan shouted. “In here! We’re in here! Hey! Americans! In here!”
The door burst open, and to Logan’s horror, an insurgent rushed in, his assault rifle up and ready to blow the prisoners to smithereens. Without conscious thought, Logan dropped to the ground, trying to make himself the smallest target possible as the trigger was pulled.
But nothing happened. The gun had jammed.
The bastard shook the rifle as if that would get it working again just as two dark figures in camo and war paint skirted around the door frame and fired their own weapons. The tango danced unnaturally as his body was riddled with bullets. The gunfire ended when he fell to the ground, his dead eyes staring at the ceiling, seeing nothing.
One of the two men let his rifle hang from the strap around his neck and back while the other kept watch for danger at the door. Occasionally he set off a burst of bullets at someone or something outside Logan couldn’t see from that angle.
The first man retrieved the keys from the dead guy’s body and worked quickly on the metal lock on Logan’s cell. At least he didn’t need to blow it with C4. As the steel door was pushed open, the man finally looked at him. “Lieutenant KC Malone. US Navy SEALs are here to save your sorry fucking Marine ass.”
