On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1) Read online

“Okay, okay, you win. I’ll get dressed.”

  He walked away, and looked over at the dogs. There was no way they would be asleep with the smell of eggs and sausage in the air. He could see the soft, pleading eyes in the kennels, “Looks like the girls are awake.”

  “Babe, when you get some clothes on, can you let them out into the backyard? They probably need to pee.”

  “Yep, I’ll get that done.”

  He walked to the couch, let the towel drop, and put on the clean clothes. He put on khakis, a polo shirt, and work boots. He put his belt on, then walked over to the cabinet and pulled out the holstered Sig P220 .45 and threaded it onto the belt. On the other hip he put two spare magazines. The brown leather belt, brown leather holster, and brown leather magazine holders with the basket weave design had been his birthday present from Jo.

  When he was dressed he let the dogs out of the kennel and carefully herded them to the back door so they wouldn’t get too excited and pee on the floor. The drugs in their systems made that possibility a little more likely. The dogs went outside, walked around sniffing, then did their business and came back to the house hoping to get in on the breakfast scraps. Mike left them outside so that he could have breakfast in peace. He could hear Fiona whine.

  Mike sat down at the table and put butter and jam on the biscuits. The eggs were scrambled with onion and peppers. Jo sprinkled cheese over the top of the eggs, and he put pepper and salt on the eggs.

  “You know, you should at least taste them before you season them.”

  Mike nodded contritely, “I’m sorry, chef, it will never happen again.”

  “Yes it will,” Jo stated as she kissed him on the top of the head. She placed a brown bag onto the table.

  “What’s that,” he asked.

  “For the road. I put biscuits with butter, sausage, and cheese in there. There are six of them.”

  Mike grabbed her hand and kissed it. He tucked into the breakfast and polished off the food pretty quick so he wouldn’t be late. He finished his coffee, stood and turned to Jo.

  She melted into his arms, and put her head on his chest, “Are you going to call me when you get there?”

  “I’ll if I’m allowed to, it shouldn’t be a problem. You know how it is.”

  “Okay,” She rested her head against his chest. She definitely knew how it was. She was always fearful when he left, and grateful when he came home. This was the part that she hated. She knew that in his line of work, there might come a day when he walked out the door, and never came back.

  They stood there for the better part of two or three minutes, just holding each other.

  “You take care of you and the baby until I get back.”

  “Okay, I will. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” reluctantly, he loosened his grip and gave her a kiss.

  She returned it, and then let him go. She walked with him to his pack, watched as he picked it up. She held his hand, and then at the front door, she grabbed him, turned him, and fiercely pulled him towards her. She gave him a passionate kiss, surprising him with the intensity. She pulled away, “So you don’t forget me.”

  He smiled at her, “As if.” He leaned in, and light as a feather’s touch, kissed her on the cheek, turned and walked out the door. She watched through the door as he went to the truck, put in his back pack, hopped into the front seat, and fired up the engine. He waved at her, pantomimed a kiss, and drove away.

  She sighed, and closed the door. She walked back to the kitchen, then noticed the dogs outside. She walked over to the door and let the dogs back in. They were both moving slowly, but they seemed to be doing okay. Jo grabbed some bread, opened up a bottle of pain medication that the vet prescribed for the girls. She started wrapping the bread around the pills, and dipped the bread in the grease in the skillet.

  “That should get them to eat the pills,” she thought. Moira was looking expectantly at her. Jo couldn’t see Fiona. She looked around. Fiona was standing at the front door. Her tail was wagging.

  “Oh, baby, Daddy’s gone.”

  Jo fed them the pills, checking to make sure that they didn’t spit the pills back out. Then she put on coffee, cleaned the table, and put the plates into the sink. She waited until the dogs were done with their food, and she put them back into their kennel.

  It was too late for her to go back to sleep, so she grabbed some of the sausage biscuits and filled a cup with coffee. She watched the morning news while she ate. One of the dogs, probably Fiona, whimpered as she sank into sleep. The morning stock market news was on, but she wanted to listen to something light, so she turned the channel until she found some news personalities on a couch talking about the latest Hollywood gossip.

  Soon, she was done with the food and the coffee. There was still nothing interesting on TV, so she stood up, took the dishes to the sink, and put them in. The coffee cup she kept, poured some more coffee, then walked to the bedroom to get ready for the day.

  --------------------------------------

  Mike drove to the back end of the parking lot. He hopped out of the truck, grabbed his bag, locked it, and walked over to the front gate. Everett and Mickey were both standing outside the turnstile, in front of the window where the guard was.

  “Hey guys, do we have a ride over to the flight line?” Mike asked.

  Everett nodded, a cup of coffee in his hand, and his travel bag at his feet, “Yeah, the staff duty driver is going to take us over there.”

  They stood around for a few more minutes and the duty driver came out, apologizing for the wait. Mike, Everett, and Mickey followed him over to the SUV, and got in. The driver started down the road, and ten minutes later they were at the gate to Peterson Air Force Base. Had they waited until later, there would have been a problem getting through the traffic in Colorado Springs to the Air Force base in time for the flight. Mike rounded up their military IDs and passed them to the duty driver. The duty driver pulled up to the gate and handed the IDs to the young Air Force military policeman. He took a look at each of the IDs and then matched them individually to the people in the car. He asked where they were going. The duty driver told him that they were going to the PAX terminal. The MP nodded and let them through the gate.

  They arrived at the passenger terminal and Rob and Tom were there to meet them. Tom’s wife was also there with a fast food bag holding sausage biscuits.

  “Hi, Barbara, how have you been,” Mike asked?

  Tom’s wife was a petite blond with smiling,blue eyes. She looked tired, “I’m doing okay. My sister is in town, so it gave me a chance to bring Tom some breakfast before you guys leave.”

  Barbara was a sweet woman, but God help you if she thought you were being disrespectful to her husband or children. That last bit was of a dig at the fact that Tom had to be out here in the morning for guard duty on the pallet. Mike took it in stride. He knew she didn’t mean any harm.

  “When can Jo and I get you and Tom out to the house for dinner?” he asked.

  She brightened at the idea, “Well, I still have two kids down with chicken pox, but I hope that they’re better by the time ya’ll get back.”Her Tennessee twang came out while she was talking.

  “Maybe you can give Jo a call, and you two ladies can figure something out.”

  Barbara agreed, and then turned her attention back to Tom.

  Rob approached them, “Hey stragglers, you need to show your IDs so that they can verify that you’re on the manifest.”

  Mike nodded, and then said, “I’ll be in,in a moment.”

  The guys set off with Barbara in tow to go inside the passenger terminal.

  Mike was lucky that the light rain had stopped and the clouds were clearing in the east. He loved this one thing about Colorado Springs more than anything else. In fact, he would often get up early just to see it as it happened. It was great in the winter time when the sun came up later in the morning. Slowly the twilight would lighten. Then, the sun hit the high peaks of the mountains, just west of Color
ado Springs. As the sun illuminated the mountains, they blazed a luminous rosy glow. Mike watched, sipping coffee as the sun lit up the day. Finally, Mike could put it off no more. He slipped inside the passenger terminal.

  He walked over to the counter and showed his orders and ID to the airman behind the counter. She checked, verified that he was manifested on the flight. Mike walked to the waiting area, to the seats that the team had appropriated. Tom gave Barbara a kiss, then she said goodbye to everybody, and then left Tom with the team. They started pulling out E-readers, E-media players, and personal tablets to keep busy.

  “How was your weekend?” Everett asked.

  “Well, we took the pups to get them spayed. They were drugged and unhappy all weekend. But they’re getting better,” he replied.

  “If you cut off my lady bits, I’d be pretty upset,” Mickey chipped in.

  Everett replied, “The last time I saw your lady bits was the twenty mile hike we did in June.”

  “It was just of chafing, not as bad as you guys made it out to be.”

  “Yeah, well you may want to lay off of all the damn squats. When your thighs start rubbing together, there’s a problem.”

  Mickey decreased the body building supplements after that misadventure. Now, while he concentrated on strength training, he did a lot of running and hiking to ensure that never happened again.

  “How did your weekend go?” Mike asked Everett.

  “It was good. I like to spend time with Becky and Sam. It’s not like I get to spend a whole lot of time with them.”

  Becky and Sam, or Rebecca and Samantha, were Everett’s twin girls. He had them with his second wife, Vicky. They were going to be heart breakers. They were twelve years old heading for thirty-six.

  “We had a good time. But they’re starting to talk about boys, and that doesn’t sit too well with me.”

  Mike nodded, “Around here, I agree. If you don’t watch it, they’ll be married to a Private First Class, living in a trailer park.”

  Tom started singing a country music tune about a young married couple, with no money, living on nothing but love.

  “You can stop now, Tom. You aren’t helping,” Everett stated.

  Tom chuckled.

  Rob looked at Tom, “Man, that’s just wrong. That’s his little girls you’re talking about.”

  Tom replied, “Look who’s talking, the man who dates a different girl every weekend. You’re the guy that fatherswarn their daughters about.”

  Rob looked offended. “I have never treated a woman with disrespect. Every woman knows what they’re getting into before they come home with me.”

  Mickey snorted, “So you’re telling me, that all of those intoxicated women that you take home, know that you won’t be calling them when you’re done with them.”

  Rob flashed sad eyes at Mickey, “Now you’re just insulting me. I never take an intoxicated woman home.”

  Mike said, “Wait for it. . . ”

  Rob continued, “Because I don’t want to hold a woman’s hair out of the toilet while she throws up. It’s just disgusting.”

  Tom laughed, “The man who esteems the virtuous woman willing to sleep with him, because the non-virtuous woman throws up too much.”

  Rob flashed his white teeth in a smile, “They’re very pleased to go home with me.”

  Mike gestured with his arms, encompassing the room with his hands. “Something seems to be filling the room, pressure is growing, what can it be? Can one man’s ego grow so large?” His hands went to his chest, “Can’t breathe, ego . . . consuming . . . all air . . . in the room.”

  The group laughed at Mike’s theatrics. Mike continued, “you sir, are a slut.”

  Rob replied with a world weary shrug of his shoulders.

  Finally, one of the Airmen behind the service desk came out and yelled the number for their flight. They got up, grabbed their bags, and started walking to the shuttle that would take them out onto the flight line to board their plane. It was a ten minute ride. The pallet was loaded, and locked onto the ramp. The team climbed aboard the C-12 through the passenger hatch and sat down. The plane started taxiing shortly after they fastened their seat belts. As the plane started rolling, the back ramp moved up and locked into place. The load master called over the microphone on his head set, and the plane moved to the runway. The plane started down the runway, lifted off, and the team was on its way.

  The plane climbed steadily after it took off, and leveled into its cruising altitude. There were no others on the flight, so the team had plenty of room to stretch out. The lights cut from white light to green, inducing Mickey and Tom to nod into deep sleep. Rob was listening to music and reading a book. The drone of the turbines and the whine of hydraulics, made the flight a noisy one. C-12s were nice to fly on, because there weren’t that many people that got to ride on them, but they were not known for comfort. They were designed to get soldiers to combat as quickly and efficiently as possible. This airplane was more comfortable than the C-130 that Mike cut his teeth on in the 82nd Airborne. Sixty-four airborne soldiers with gear could fit on a C-130. Jump seats were not comfortable, and when Mike was in the 82nd, there were a few times when his leg went to sleep while waiting to jump from the aircraft. With sixty-four jumpers on board, it was very crowded. Soldier’shad each knee between the knees of two other jumper’s legs sitting across from him. If they had not been wearing ballistic vests, parachutes, backpacks and weapons, they would look like a big, camouflaged zipper from above.

  Mike relaxed, reading Ian Flemings ‘James Bond’ novels. Those, plus the ‘Sharpe’s Rifles’, ‘Master and Commander’, and the ‘Horatio Hornblower’ series of books were his favorite novels. He was keenly aware that all of them were about British military, but he liked the flavor of the novels, where men faced with great conflicts mastered the day and had gone on to beat and excel against their adversaries. He worked with British and Australian SAS, and had nothing but great respect for their training, experience, and capabilities. They were a great bunch of ‘lads’ and fun to work with.

  He worked with many of his sister services, to include SEALs, Marine Force Recon, Air Force Combat Air Control, and Para-Jumpers. Looking back on his experience, he had a great career and had done many great things with his time in service. He had six more years, and then he could retire. Then he would be spending all of his time with Jo and their kids, and Jo wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not he would come back to her.

  Jo was a great woman. Had he met her when he was younger, he probably wouldn’t have chosen the life that he was in. He was enjoying it now, though he missed her constantly. He was comforted by the thought that Jo would be taken care of if anything did happen to him. There was plenty of money in the bank with his salary and hers. Plus there was life insurance, just in case. He sank enough money into the house so that the land and house were about half paid off. He knew Jo would be taken care of, but he would always worry, no matter what. His goal was to always come back. That was his promise to her when he asked her to marry him. He told her that he would never leave her, and that no matter where he was in the world, he would always come back to her.

  He pulled out the biscuits and passed some to Everett and Rob. It was chilly on the aircraft, so he pulled a light jacket out of his backpack and put it on. The drone of the plane started to wear on him and he stretched out, then fell asleep.

  The plane droned for an hour, and then finally, they felt the plane turn. Hydraulics sounded as the aircraft banked. They were experienced enough to know the indicators that the plane was about to hit the target area. They roused, and the sleepers rubbed their faces to ensure that there was no drool or sleep lines. The situation wasn’t helped as Rob gestured to Mickey, and kept pointing at his own face, indicating that there was something on Mickey’s face. Mickey kept trying to rub whatever it was off of his face, but Rob kept motioning that he missed it. The fact that there was nothing there didn’t dawn on Mickey until he saw the grins on Mike’s and E
verett’s faces.

  “Asshole,” he grumbled.

  Rob nodded.

  Everybody checked around themselves and made sure that trash was picked up and no personal items had been left. They felt the angle of the plane change and knew that the plane was losing altitude. This pilot was good. He did such a soft landing that they were surprised when they felt the brakes of the aircraft take hold. Then, as is usual with a C-12, the aircraft slowed down quickly, and changed direction as it moved off of the main runway towards the area they would disembark.

  --------------------------------------

  As the C-12 taxied, the loadmaster of the plane went to the back, prepped, and lowered the tail gate of the plane until it was parallel with the ground. The air was cooler here, and the team could smell the freshness of the air as it entered the aircraft. In the distance, behind the aircraft, they could see the buildings of Malmstrom AFB. The plane slowed, parked, and the team could hear the aircraft systems spool down.

  The team popped the buckles on the seat belts and stood to stretch muscles that were stiff from sitting. One of the crew members, the assistant Loadmaster, talked to Mike and told him that they were waiting for an escort. As soon as the escort was available, the team would be allowed off of the plane. The assistant load master went to the passenger hatch right below the flight deck, opened up the door, and let down the stairs. A fork lift appeared outside the plane. An Air Force captain appeared at the front hatch, and walked up the stairs into the plane. As the fork lift maneuvered to get into place to receive the pallet, the Air Force captain walked over and introduced himself to the team. He was taken aback that they were all dressed in civilian clothes.

  “Gentlemen, my name is Captain Bob Dickenson. I’ll be your escort to our operation. There seems to be some mistake. We asked for people with infantry experience. We didn’t ask for civilians.”

  Mike stepped up to the Captain, “And infantrymen you got. My name is Chief Warrant Officer Three Mike Duggins.”He continued with the rest of the team, “This is Master Sergeant Everett Calhoun, Sergeant First Class Mickey D’Inazio, Staff Sergeant Roberto Torres Y Torres, and Staff Sergeant Thomas Milkin.”