So often we give a man or woman the measure we attach to them based on the social stature. The veritable quality of a person's character may be best revealed in their ability to remain faithful and to possess the capacity to remain so even under great duress and bedlam. Just as the man at the top must never reveal the war of nerves going on in their guts, so also, remaining faithful in times of great personal and maximum danger was what Colonel Fisher Harrison was all about. His mind was wrapped and wound tightly with resolve to kill whatever enemy vermin was trying to kill them. His mind and his actions worked together simultaneously, with out flaw as he found who who wished their demise. It was then that all the training became in vain.
Read this portion of Patriot Acts and feel the the characters' intensity and disbelief of who was trying to kill them.
"Friendly Fire" A Chapter from Patriot Acts
(A Work in Progress)
“Thump! thump! thump!” Those sounds crept up into his ears again as they always had each time. The racing rotors and twirling the blades turning in a circular motion so fast and forcefully that they propelled him and his seven comrades through the air over the desert of Southern Iraq. He looked out and saw the emptiness in all its petrifying rich bareness and the beauty of the savage dry field of gold made him realize that he was there again, ready to feel the impact, the tumble downward force of his life flashing before him and the lives of his friends being yanked from them and from the eyes of their children who would be told that their fathers were heroes who were torn down by an evil force that was constituted of their own kin.
“It’s really beautiful somehow.”
“You think so, Fish? I think it all sucks the big one! I just want to get back to terra firma and hold the little one and attack their mommy, with passion. We’ll make another one for sure, cause she is all I can think about these days and she’s always naked when she comes to my mind!”
“You’re a bad man, Flash!” Fisher answered.
“Yes, guess so and ready to be ‘badder than hell’ when I see…”
“Brothers! Something ain’t right here!” The pilot shouted. “Flash, check the radar. Maybe it’s chucked full of sand?”
“Sir, it’s working fine.”
“What’s going on?” Fisher asked. The pilot did not respond to Fisher.
“Flash, look over the history on the radar. Does it show any missile batteries in the vicinity?” the pilot ordered with a lot of stress in his voice.
“Tell me, what the hell’s going on!?”
~~~
“General, Baker, we are locked on the target and…and…”
“Captain, why have we not carried out our orders?”
“I request to be relieved, Sir!”
“Hell...NO! You will stay at your station and…”
“…kill some of our own, Sir? I did not sign up for this!”
“The hell you didn’t! You signed up to do whatever I tell you signed up for! I do the same. Now get back to your seat and launch the mission!”
The captain sat back down and picked up the phone.
“Engage! Engage!”
~~~
“What was that?” Flash asked the pilot.
“Engage countermeasures!”
“Countermeasures?” Fisher shouted in confusion.
“Colonel Harrison, we’re locked on by a SAM of some kind, and our maps and records show no such weapons out here. So…”
“It’s the world’s worst oxymoron!”
“Sir, what’s that?”
“Friendly fire! We are being eliminated? Cain is about to kill Abel?”
The pilot looked back at Fisher and said nothing until the warning light started shouting!
“They’ve launched!”
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
“What’s the ETA?” the General asked briskly.
The technicians at the various terminals were sweating and shaking with tears flowing down their faces. The General was calm, dry and ready to carry out the orders.
“Tell me what the hell’s happening?”
“Predator’s in the air!”
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
“Preditor? They sent the predator? Where’s it at.”
All eight aboard the chopper scanned the sky out to the horizon in every visible direction. Fisher saw it out his right side window.
“I got it at your three o’clock, about four hundred yards, and tracking!” Fisher shouted.
As Fisher and Flash saw the small unmanned craft rise into the sky, suddenly Fisher saw a bright flash followed by another and yet another.
“Missiles aloft! Buckle up!” the pilot shouted and moved into defensive and evasive maneuvers.
“ETA?...”
~~~
“Thirty seconds, General?”
Everyone in the control room turned and stared at the General who had just ordered them to kill eight of their own! The General felt the stares and the hatred issuing out of their eyes toward him.
“Those are the orders, gentlemen! It is my duty!”
“Well, it’s not mine, SIR!” the direction tech shouted as he stood up and walked to the door.
“Officer! Officer! Get back to your station!”
The General rushed over to the station that controlled the Predator and saw the “Locked On” light flashing. He pressed it and felt immediately like he was going to vomit. The General reached into his vest and pulled out a pistol, and with one full motion, stuck the barrel to his head and before he squeezed the trigger he spoke his last words in the form of a question.
“What have I done?”
~~~
“Fisher, you didn’t do anything! You did what was right!” Flash shouted while holding on tightly to the control board as the chopper made evasive actions.
“No! I saved all those lives back there and have now killed us! How many people must die today, to kill me?”
“I appreciate your sentiment and I’ll kiss you later, but for now, help me out here!” the pilot complained.
The birds are homing in on us and rising rapidly! They’re under us and coming nose up! Go down! Down NOW!” Fisher shouted.
The pilot felt the chopper begin to shutter and knew he had gotten all she could muster. He looked at the radar and heard the warning beacon scream faster and faster. He turned around and looked at his other seven comrades.
“Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure, but I don’t want to die at the hand of my own people. So, shall we?”
They all looked at each other as the warning was screaming out constantly now. They all nodded and the pilot pressed the yoke all the way forward and the chopper’s nose tilted straight down. The missiles screeched forward and the chopper barreled toward the ground.
Fisher tried to turn and look at his men, but turning his head in the midst of the g-forces was like walking into the midst of a raging hurricane. Instead, he kept his head forward and screamed out the last words he was sure he’d ever speak.
“If anyone lives, no rest until they all…”
The chopper slammed into the ground. The pilot had been able to lift the nose slightly before impact, but the sea of gold was too hard to absorb them and the pilot area crumbled like plastic and the pilot was crushed and decapitated by the large shards of glass digging deep into his throat. Flash thought he had survived until he actually moved and blood gushed from his a gash in his abdomen where the yoke had impaled him. The rest were silent. There wasn’t a sound…not until Fisher Harrison suddenly felt a tremendous pain in his head for the second time in one day.
He opened his eyes and looked and remembered what had just happened only moments earlier. He looked at the others and made a decision that they were dead. He unbuckled his belt and fell to the ground on the cabin roof which was now upside down. He felt like every bone in his body was broken, but he could move, and he did. Fisher crawled over to the door and while screaming out in anguishing pain each time he did, he kicked the door three times before it opened. He smelled fuel and knew that the chopper was about to explode. He saw a trail of flames crawling toward him and knew that in about ten seconds he would be toasted! He quickly jumped out of the crushed chopper and rolled as far as he could before the chopper became a seething caldron. Fisher looked back at the blazing Blackhawk and fell back to the sand.
“This can’t be!” Fisher heard something beeping and knew it was his rescue beacon. “They’re all dead?”
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
“No sir, all but one!” the technician told the Colonel who replaced the dead General.
“What? They all have to…Damn it! Which one?”
“Harrison, Sir. He is alive and moving away from the wreckage.”
Get a chopper in the air! And…and I want confirmation! Confirmation, damn it!”
The operations staff just stared at the Colonel and seemed frozen in place.
“DO IT NOW!”
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Fisher fell back to the ground and listened to the beeping sound that seemed louder and stronger as his eyes faded and he wanted to rip it out of the jacket. The sound was too strong and he held his head and screamed in agony as his eyes shot open and heard the blaring sound of his phone ringing next to the couch inside his empty house.
He got his bearings and realized he was safe and wiped the sweat off his face and brow as he reached for the phone. The phone also rang inside a car across the street from his house. Fisher put the file down, looked at the sheets of paper splayed out on the floor and picked up the receiver...
~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~
All of Steven Clark Bradley's novels are widely available all over the net. Here are a few links to help you read these exciting stories that are as really as real as it gets!
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booksamillion.com
powells.com
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barnesandnoble.com
copperfields.com
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