The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara (11 page)

At 1300 hours, after a brief lunch break with the team, Rosie punched Ryan softly in the shoulder and said, “Get your ass in the truck. We’re going to the demo range.” Ryan was happy the morning session was over. Now maybe he could get what he’d come out to the range for in the first place.

Ryan gave no hint about his intentions. As far as Rosie and the other operators were concerned, he was just hanging out with an old friend and watching the others train. The last thing he wanted was for any of the operators to be implicated in any wrongdoing if his plans fell through and resulted in a court-martial.

Ryan and Rosie pulled into the demo range and were met by the range safety master. The range safety greeted Rosie and then broke into a broad grin when he saw Ryan. “Well, if this don’t beat all. When the hell did you pop in, lad?”

Ryan recognized the voice but didn’t connect it to the face at first. After several seconds, though, he made the connection. He smiled. It was Navarro Rhodes. The two of them had gone through ranger school together when they were just young pups and had served in the Seventy-Fifth for several years before Ryan went to the Special Forces.

“Hey, Ryan me lad, how about we go out and take a hike up to the top of Mount Yonah after the range closes down?” joked Rhodes.

“What’s this shit about Yonah? That godforsaken place is in Georgia. We here in the Mojave Desert and
no Mount Yonah be out here. So what gives? You two know each other or something?” Rosie asked.

“Yes we do, my friend,” Ryan answered. “This is Navarro Rhodes, aka Catman. A top ranger and a lover of felines. The only macho gunslinger I know who would rather have a Siamese cat than a German shepherd. But then we all have our quirks now, don’t we?”

“Well, well, well. I’ll be damned. I didn’t know you was a cat lover, Rhodes. Kind of knocks you down in my esteem. Here I thought you was a big, tough, Clint Eastwood type and you turn out to be Catwoman.” Rosie laughed.

“You little son of a bitch, Ryan, I told you not to tell anyone about my cats,” Navarro joked. “As for you, Top, I’m not the one they call Rosie.”

After waiting for the back and forth to die down, Ryan continued, “Navarro and I served together in Third Battalion and had some wild times as we worked our way up from private to sergeant on our first hitch. Endured a lot, especially the night we pretty near froze to death on Mount Yonah while in ranger school. The temp was a minus five degrees with wind chill figured in. Had to be one of the worst nights of my life, and that includes all the combat I’ve been in over the years.”

“What combat, you little leprechaun? You bailed out on us before 9/11 and missed all the fun. Shit, man, the Seventy-Fifth’s been on so many deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, you’d have to be a mathematician to count the number of times they’ve had their asses in the way of flying lead and ordinance,” Navarro jested.

“Rosie can vouch for me, Catboy. He and I have had our own excitement and it doesn’t much matter to a
bullet whether the skull it’s heading for is under a green or a tan beret, now, does it?” countered Ryan.

Navarro paused a moment and then replied, “Naw, I guess it doesn’t. It’s just that I would have liked to have had you with us when Bravo Company hit the Haditha Dam. That was quite a show. Went on for a couple of weeks. We endured everything Saddam’s army could throw at us, including artillery, mortars, and rockets. We were outnumbered several times over and the enemy never seemed to run out of men. They just kept coming at us. No matter how many of them we killed, more came. A few times we had to call in air support and dump ordinance almost on top of our own positions. When all was said and done, though, we walked out of there with several hundred enemy KIAs to our credit and the Euphrates River valley was no longer in danger of being flooded as a means to hinder our progress.”

Pretending to be serious, Ryan replied, “I would sure like to tell you about all the adventures Rosie and I have had, but as you know, we are the ‘silent warriors.’ Can’t tell you where we’ve been, what we’ve done, or where we’re going. If I did, then I’d have to shoot you.”

“Horseshit,” Navarro countered. “You seem to be forgetting who you’re talking to. You’re still spewing the same line of crap you did when we jumped into Panama. You were full of bull then, and you’re still full of it. But hell, even so, my brother, I still love ya, and it’s damn good to see you.”

“Right back at you, Catwoman,” replied Ryan.

“Oh, for the love of Jesus. This is getting downright sickening. Why don’t you two just plant a couple of big
sloppy kisses on each other’s asses and get it over with?” Rosie chimed, rolling his eyes in mock disgust.

“Yeah, you’re right. It is getting a little thick. Come on, shit birds, let’s go over to the shed. I want Ryan to meet the rest of my crew.”

Navarro hopped aboard the truck and rode the short distance to the range shack with them, where, after introductions, the three men began examining the materials to be used for breaching and shape charges.

Rosie called to the medic, “Hey, Doc, do you have any extra IV bags of saline fluid available?”

The medic answered, “Roger that, First Sergeant. As a matter of fact, I do. I figured you’d probably want to use a water-impulse charge for breaching through a couple of metal doors. You always do.”

Rosie winked and gave a thumbs-up. He looked at Ryan and said, “I never have to worry about Doc. He’s always one jump ahead of me. Asking him if he has something is like asking him a question I already know the answer to.”

Looking over the inventoried demolition, Ryan was anxious for a chance to grab what he needed. He waited for the operators to leave the shack and watched as they set up to blow their first charge. As soon as he was sure they were fully engaged in their exercise, he grabbed a two-pound block of C-4, split it in half, and placed it in his cargo pockets along with some detonation cord he’d already picked up.

Ryan scanned the area for the remaining materials he needed for the bomb he planned to construct. First off, he’d need a couple of M-81 fuse igniters. He quickly located the igniters and switched them with two
expended ones that he’d brought from the demo range at Fort Campbell. He also needed blasting caps but decided to improvise with 5.56 mm blank cartridges. Ryan knew that blasting caps were irreplaceable after detonation and would show up as missing on any future materials inventory. He didn’t want to risk the probable CID-initiated, 15-6 military criminal investigation and possible court martial that could result from the theft of those items. Criminal law as laid out in the Uniform Code of Military Justice was unforgiving and Ryan had no intention of putting his friends or himself in any more jeopardy than he already had.

Having gathered all the necessary materials, Ryan quickly took a pound of C-4 from the table where the demolition material was located and made what looked like a two-pound charge. He then placed the two “expended” packages into the dunnage pile and marked “expended” on the tracking sheets. The doctored paperwork validated the detonation of the charge and accounted for the C-4, M-81s, and detonation cord that Ryan had in his pocket. Once off the range and back to the housing area, he knew he would be home free and ready to proceed with the next phase of his mission.

Ryan was ready to leave by the time Rosie and Navarro came back into the shack with the rest of the men.

It had been a long but worthwhile afternoon in which Ryan had needed only a brief moment to obtain the necessary material vital to carrying out his plan. The rest of the time had been spent pretending to be interested in what was going on with the various demolition exercises, which he found boring. Having participated
in the same types of exercises on countless occasions, they were old hat and he could have performed them blindfolded.

Ryan said his good-byes and promised to keep in touch with Navarro, who had to take a rain check on Rosie’s invitation to dinner because of his daughter’s soccer match. The two men knew the chances of meeting up again anytime soon were slim, but no matter when or where their paths crossed in the future, they’d just pick up where they’d left off. That’s what rangers did. They were part of a brotherhood, and that brotherhood was sometimes as thick as—and often thicker than—blood. Over and above getting what he needed from the range, Ryan felt that the day had been worthwhile. Seeing his old buddy had made it so.

“So waddaya think of my gig, Irish?” Rosie asked as they headed back to Cracker Jack Flats.

“Not bad for an old washed-up has-been, I guess. A little slow for me, but then I’m a lot younger and in better shape than you are,” Ryan joked.

Rosie didn’t offer a comeback. He just shook his head and chuckled as if acknowledging the joke to have more truth than humor.

Ryan enjoyed another fine dinner and an evening of conversation with his old friends and then turned in.

He was up at the crack of dawn to drink a couple of cups of coffee with Rosie and Monique.

“You sure you don’t want breakfast before you hit the road, partner?” Rosie inquired.

“No, thanks. I wish I could but I have to head out. Lots of people and places to see and things to do. It’s been great, though. I really enjoyed it.”

Ryan rose and gave Monique a hug. Noticing the tears welling up in her eyes, he said, “Aw, come on now, little sister. Be brave. I’ll be back one of these days and it’ll be sooner than you think.”

Monique choked back the tears and smiled. “You know how much you mean to us. Why, if it wasn’t for you, I’d be a widow today. Not a moment passes when I don’t think of what you did for me when you got my Rosie out of that valley.”

“He’d have done the same for me.” Ryan laughed. “No choice. We’re like Siamese twins. Can’t get away from each other no matter how hard we try.”

Rosie left Monique inside and walked Ryan to the car. “You take care of yourself now, ya heah?”

“Always, old buddy,” Ryan replied.

“Y’all know what I mean,” Rosie countered.

Yes, Ryan did know what his friend meant but didn’t say anything more about it. Neither did Rosie. The two of them knew each other’s body language and could tell when something was about to go down. Their ability to read each other wasn’t all that unusual for men who’d spent time together on dangerous missions and depended on one another to stay alive.

Ryan glanced in his rearview mirror and waved back at his friend, who was standing in the road behind him. He felt empty and sad as he drove out of the housing area toward the main gate. He hated good-byes and always had, ever since the day so many years ago when his dad had left him at the Dawn of Light to be straightened out by Father O’Rourke.

R
yan’s mood improved as he headed east along Interstate 40 and then south on US 95 toward his next stop, the Special Forces High Altitude Low Opening School at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.

High Altitude Low Opening, or HALO, special operators are those who—unlike their brethren who jump near the ground using static lines—free fall from twenty-five thousand feet. It’s a hazardous but effective means of inserting men into enemy territory because they are able to exit an aircraft undetected at extreme altitudes and descend most of the way to the ground before popping their chutes and guiding themselves in
on an objective. HALO is a game of stealth. When an operator graduates from the school, he is one of an elite group of warriors whose skills rank them at the top of the Special Operations food chain.

Ryan was looking forward to visiting the HALO school. It had been several years since he’d been through and he reflected on how challenging the experience had been. HALO was more than just parachute jumping. Static line jumps from twelve hundred and fifty feet were a piece of cake because the time between exiting the aircraft and landing was quick. It required no special preparation or equipment. HALO, on the other hand, was a whole different game, requiring oxygen, thermal clothing, and a forty-five minute pre-jump ritual of inhaling pure oxygen to preclude getting the bends. Yes, it was a different experience all right, and gave the first-time student the unique sensation of flying through the air for an extended period with nothing between him and the ground but his thoughts.

The drive was pleasant and Ryan enjoyed the serenity as he cruised along the freeway surrounded by Joshua trees, cacti, and distant mountains. Before he knew it almost five hours had passed and he was entering Yuma, Arizona. Deciding to drive on, he passed through the city and proceeded the additional twenty-five miles to the proving ground.

The HALO school was only one small part of the overall operation at this enormous thirteen-hundred-square-mile installation. YPG also hosted an array of other schools, including those that taught dismounted and vehicle land navigation, rappelling, and desert survival. It was here that soldiers learned to acclimate to
desert conditions and were tested to their limits with forced marches in situations they would encounter when deployed to the Middle East.

The constant drone of aircraft overhead and artillery in the distance indicated never-ending exercises that tested every conceivable weapons system in the U.S. arsenal. Helicopters, Humvees, tanks, artillery, mortars, and land mines all had to pass muster before they were certified for final entry into the defense inventory. There were no exceptions, and the constant work done at YPG was a boon to the local economy. It furnished jobs to a large portion of the area’s citizens, who enjoyed a friendly and prosperous partnership with the soldiers.

After entering the base, Ryan drove an additional twenty minutes out to the barracks that served as the temporary home for the HALO students. One of his former team members, Crawford “Crawfish” Adams, was running the show out there and he looked forward to dropping in for a surprise visit.

Ryan also hoped he’d be able to gain solo access to the team room, where he could put the finishing touches on his plan. He would need to be alone in order to assemble the components he’d collected at Fort Irwin into a workable bomb. After that and a short reunion with his friend, he’d then be ready to move on and take care of that communist scrote bastard who was vegetating down in Sedona.