The Wizards 1: Combat Wizard

  COMBAT WIZARD

  A Paranormal Thriller

  Book one, The Wizards Trilogy

  By Jack L Knapp

  COPYRIGHT

  COMBAT WIZARD

  A Paranormal Thriller

  Book One, The Wizards Series

  Copyright © 2013 by Jack L Knapp

  Second edition, Copyright © 2014 by Jack L Knapp

  Cover Art Copyright Mia Darien

  Stock Images from Fotolia.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work.

  Disclaimer: The persons and events depicted in this novel were created by the author’s imagination; no resemblance to actual persons or events is intended.

  Product names, brands, and other trademarks referred to within this book are the property of the respective trademark holders. Unless otherwise specified, no association between the author and any trademark holder is expressed or implied. Nor does the use of such trademarks indicate an endorsement of the products, trademarks, or trademark holders unless so stated. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark, registered trademark, or service mark.

  For Patricia

  Who has been in my life, through good and bad, for half a century

  I’m grateful

  Contents

  Part One: Soldier Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Interlude

  Part Two: Fugitive Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Excerpt, Darwin’s World

  Books by the author:

  About the Author:

  Part One: Soldier

  Chapter One

  The blast shook the ground.

  The thump hit my boot soles just before my bubble formed. The shock wave arrived just behind the ground shake and tumbled me across the track.

  Bouncing off the mud wall disoriented me for a moment, then I realized what had happened. My protective bubble had saved me again. The top was covered with a layer of dust, everything around me was covered with dust, all of it churned up by the IED's blast. It showered down on me when I collapsed the bubble, making me sneeze.

  Finally able to move, I stumbled across the road and took cover against the wall on that side; if this was an ambush, I couldn't do anyone any good by standing up and making a target of myself.

  Listening, all senses alert, I waited. But I heard no shooting; there would be no follow-up attack today.

  My hearing was fuzzy; I heard only a kind of crackling, ringing noise at first, but after a few moments I heard muffled moans. My people were hurt, maybe dying. Shaking off the effects of the explosion, I began functioning.

  The radioman was down, hurt but alive. The radio was dusty but undamaged, so I tried the handset and called in a SITREP. First priority, get help; that would soon be on its way. Then it was time to do what I could for my men.

  The nausea got me first. Perhaps it was a delayed reaction from being tumbled over by the blast, maybe I was shaken after looking at two bloody things that had been members of my patrol. I swished my mouth out with water and felt a little better.

  Doc, the medic, was also alive. The others were too badly shocked to help. I was shocky too but able to function, so I did what I could to treat the wounded. I gathered up usable bandages from the two dead men, used them on others. My own combat dressing got used too, as did the dressings in Doc’s pack. Even the dressings from walking wounded found use. It wasn’t enough, but it was all we had.

  After that, it was time to gather up the bodies of the two who'd died. They were lying in the road, the QRF would need the road, so I moved them against the eastern wall that lined the track.

  My paranormal Talents helped with that, at least.

  Most of the time, they're almost useless.

  #

  The rest of the patrol recovered enough to be marginally effective, taking over bandaging and moving the severely-wounded behind cover. But this time there had been no follow-up attack after the explosion. Fortunately for us, because the explosion had been powerful, probably improvised from a salvaged artillery shell or mortar bomb.

  The reaction force finally arrived, bringing another medic. They had an up-armored HMMVW, a Hummer, to evacuate the casualties; the medic stabilized the wounded man, then examined the others. As he finished with people, we loaded them on the truck. Five of us were able to walk, so we headed back with the driver, walking along behind the slow-moving truck. The rest of the relief force remained behind; they would wait for the truck to come back, then evacuate the bodies.

  The HMMVW carried the wounded to the surgeons, the squad leader took his remaining troops back to their company area, and I reported to the S2 for debriefing. That took more than half an hour and I still had reports to write, but except for the paperwork the patrol was finally over.

  #

  Writing notes took another half an hour; I wanted to list events before I forgot them, but I wasn’t yet ready to write a final report. I was exhausted, there's just no other word for it. This last patrol had been bad, but I'd been doing things like this for more than a year now, and it showed. There had been other patrols, some of them commanded by others while I learned how, then gradually assuming more responsibility as I gained experience. I’d been leading patrols for three months now, most of them routine but not always. Too often there had been enemy contact in one form or another, IED’s or ambushes. The IED’s were common, ambushes rare, but most casualties were the result of IED’s that had gone off too close to us.

  And too often there had been casualties, men killed or badly wounded.

  I also gained other things, leading patrols, hatred for the jihadists and PTSD.

  Yeah, I've got it, all the classic symptoms; nightmares, survivor's guilt, the thousand-meter stare where my mind drifts and my consciousness wanders, I've got them all. I guess the hatred is part of my PTSD too. Underneath it all, there's a feeling of aloneness that only those who've been here know. Out there in the suck, it’s you against the bombs, you against the bullets. Every one seems as if it’s meant for you, aimed at you alone. And when you’re the leader, it’s targeted at your men. They expect much from their leaders.

  More than I have to give.

  It's hard for me to sleep. The dreams come, then I wake up and lie there in the darkness. I try to go back to sleep but even if I do, the nightmares are waiting.

  The troops, the ones who go out into the suck every day, at least have someone to talk to. I don't; I'm probably the most-alone person in Afghanistan. I work
with people but there's no one I can share things with, no way for me to bleed off the tension.

  The Army's got a new slogan now, An Army of One. Every time I hear that, I cringe inside.

  #

  I finally got it together enough to write, then turned in my reports and checked the duty roster to see when I'd be going out again. Wonder of wonders, my name wasn't on the new list. Had my overdue DEROS orders, the instructions to return from overseas, finally come in? I'd received no notice, but I'd been here more than a year; even though I was an irregular sort of soldier, a kind of misfit dumped on the Army because there was no other place to put me, I was entitled to rotate back stateside at the end of my tour.

  Wasn't I?

  I was too tired to think about it, so I headed off to my CHU.

  The containerized housing unit isn't much, but it's home. I shucked my gear, dumped my dusty BDU's on the floor, and crashed.

  #

  It had been just another recon patrol, then we began taking fire. The jihadists had opened up with a dozen AK’s and a PK-type machine gun, bullets pocking the ground a couple of meters ahead of me. They were on a slight rise just behind scattered houses, a good position but then they got anxious. They opened up early and missed.

  My guys had SAW’s, M4 carbines, and grenade launchers. The attackers were uphill, but we were able to find cover behind the mud walls so their height advantage didn't help them.

  They’d also opened fire just as we reached the intersection where two of the dirt tracks crossed. I was the only one in the open at the time, the rest of the patrol was still ten meters behind me, and the bullets missed. I scampered back behind cover and reported our situation, then checked my guys to make sure they were behind protection. We settled in; the QRF unit would soon come up, so all we needed to do was sit tight and wait. The attack would end and the jihadists would fade into the hills as soon as the reinforcements came in sight.

  Meanwhile, we were on our own. No artillery, no air support; in built-up areas, there’s too much likelihood of collateral damage so neither would be approved. Ground support would get to us, but until then we had to hunker down behind the walls. And wait.

  The AK-47 assault rifles popped just beyond the row of houses. If the jihadists had RPG’s, they hadn’t used them. Maybe they were saving them to use against the relief force. A PK or PKM, the modernized version of Kalashnikov’s machine gun, was on the hilltop above the rifle positions, and between that and the AK's, we weren’t going anywhere.

  Like the AK it's derived from, the PK is very reliable. Even so, that gunner was going to burn out his barrel if he kept putting out the same high volume of fire.

  Fine dust drifted over the jihadists’ positions as well as ours. Bullet strikes stirred up some of it, more came from the muzzle blasts. That happens when weapons are fired near the ground.

  One of my two grenadiers spotted something up the hill and put a 40mm HE grenade on it. The grenade hit a rock, which shifted slightly when the grenade exploded. Since it was less than 50 meters up the slope, close enough to be within range of my PK ability, I rolled the rock away from the hollow it had rested in, helped it roll down the hill. Wasted effort; no one was behind it. More dust puffed up behind the rock, joining the thin cloud.

  We were only about a kilometer or so from the FOB, the forward operating base. Not really a great location for an ambush, and except for the positions they occupied, not well led. Maybe the ambushers had a newbie commander as well as an inexperienced machine gunner.

  Rookies or not, they outnumbered us; the hillside above us was lousy with people, at least a platoon and maybe larger, and some of them were maneuvering to get a better shot at us. Between that PK and their assault rifles, we were taking a lot of fire; the PK would also chew through the dried mud walls, given time.

  One thing in our favor, they had a good position but they'd have to expose themselves if they tried a direct assault. The spaces between the houses formed natural channels, which made the gaps killing zones.

  For the moment, it was stalemate; we stayed under cover, waiting for the QRF, they kept firing. But time was not on their side. They would run low on ammo, we would get reinforced. So they were moving around to find better fields of fire, pretty much all they could do unless they wanted to risk heavy casualties.

  One of the structures down the hill from the machine gun was a kind of duplex, two mud huts sharing a common wall. It stood about five meters to the side of the machine gun’s line of fire, meaning the front was protected, but the assault rifles were firing from different angles. They covered the approach to the duplex if we should decide to move up against the MG. I’d glanced at the duplex as soon as I reached cover, but saw nothing of interest. We weren’t going to charge that MG, I’d just get my guys killed for nothing. I went back to watching the hilltop where the machine gun was. Maybe the gunner would decide to shift his firing position too, as the riflemen were already doing. If he did, I would try to neutralize him.

  He not only had good cover, for the moment he was too far away; there was nothing I could see to use my psychokinetic ability on, and at that distance it's too weak to do much anyway.

  I had two SAW’s, two grenadiers, and nine riflemen on this patrol; the ambushers had numbers but I had firepower, enough to cover the approaches to our position. A SAW machine gunner and grenadier could sweep each approach as soon as the ambushers left cover; if there were any left over after the MG’s and the grenades got through with them, the riflemen would clean up. If they got past that, I could take a personal hand.

  Still, some might get through if they were willing to take the losses. I could only target one insurgent at a time by using my psychokinetic ability. The machine guns were much more effective, the grenades were area weapons too. So much for ‘wizardry’ in combat.

  We waited. An ambusher would occasionally get tired of waiting and run out, screech “Allah akbar!” and empty his magazine in our direction. Stupid, but yeah, they really do that. If the rifles didn’t put him down, he would stumble before he could get back to his hiding place. Just call me tanglefoot; reach out with my Talent, not strong but strong enough to make him trip. I grabbed a foot and held it for a moment, the runner thumped into the dirt. My guys would see him, the bullets would peck away. Two of them lay on the hillside now. Give Allah my regards, dipshit.

  And then, in the middle of the firefight, the little girl walked out in front of the duplex. Three years old, maybe four, she was rubbing her fist against her face. Strange how you notice details like that. I only got a glimpse, but it was enough.

  She was probably asleep when the shooting started, that’s what the fist meant. Her mother, visiting next door, was trapped in the other side of the duplex when the ambush began. The girl was alone, sleeping, but then she woke up, scared by the noises...

  I didn’t see her open the door but suddenly she was there, toddling uncertainly toward the next doorway. Did she know that's where her mother was?

  I sprang up, trying to run toward her, but my boots slipped. I couldn’t get traction, I couldn’t get to her. I was still trying when she went down, thrown backward to lie ripped and broken in the dirt.

  I screamed…

  And woke up tangled in a sweat-soaked sheet.

  More than once I’d fallen out of bed, thrashing around, trying to get my legs to move.

  It’s not your nightmare. This one's mine alone. I had seen her as soon as she’d walked through that door, known what was coming, but had been unable to keep it from happening. I watched the little girl die.

  I couldn’t reach her. The duplex was around fifty meters up the hill, no more than that. But as soon as I stood up, the bubble field snapped into place; it’s part of my Talent and my subconscious did what my rational mind wouldn’t. I chose to expose myself, that lizard brain that rules the subconscious overruled me.

  I lived. My boots couldn’t touch the ground, I couldn’t get to her, so the little girl died while I watched. Helpless, r
aging inside as it happened, but not even able to turn away.

  I lived it when it happened, now I live it again and again, each nightmare a reminder of my failure.

  Nightmares, sleeplessness, guilt trips, I had them all. It's PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder; combat soldiers understand. Some deal with it better than others.

  I wasn’t dealing with it at all.

  PTSD; if you’re a combat infantryman, it’s waiting.

  #

  She was just a baby when she died. The jihadists had seen movement and fired; God would correct their aim. Insh’allah.

  I don't know if they cared, but I did. I began to hate after that. They had been enemies before, but it became personal after that patrol and it still is. I have suppressed that hate to an extent, but when I see murder done for political objectives it infuriates me. I see troops piss on dead enemies, it doesn’t bother me. I understand.

  It's the stuff of nightmares, those memories of what the insurgents did. Even with my Talent there had been nothing I could do, and too often the same thing has been true since. Rationally I know my limits, but knowing doesn’t help.

  My Talent might even be making the nightmares worse. I kept trying to reach the child, knowing that if I did I could get back inside the duplex. I tried again and again, and still I couldn't move. That’s the way it is in the nightmares too.

  Dreaming about the child was the worst but there were other dreams, dreams of men I’d lost while they were under my command. Were they trying to tell me the casualties were my fault? Not necessary, I already knew. I survived, they didn’t. Despite the paranormal ability, I had been just as helpless as they were.

  Useless, useless...I'd give the ability back if I could. But it's as automatic as riding a bicycle; you can't unlearn it because it becomes part of you. The hours when I’d been connected to the computer had changed me forever. There's no going back now, no ending short of death.