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tanaquiljallTitle: Tailspin
Fandom: Jericho
Rating: General
Warnings: None
Words: 34,820 words
Summary: On his return from Texas, Jake tries to fit back into a Jericho gearing itself up for continued resistance to Cheyenne control. But he finds everything has changed—and that everywhere he goes, he runs into Beck.
Disclaimer: This story is based on the Junction Entertainment/Fixed Mark Productions/CBS Paramount Television series Jericho. It was written for entertainment only; the author does not profit from it nor was any infringement of copyright intended.
Author's Note: This story is part of Awesome!Jakeverse, the shared post-season 2 verse being written by Scribbler (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scribblesinink) and Tanaqui (tanaquific). It follows on from events in Home Brew and Past Recall. Thanks to Scribbler (scribblesinink) for the beta.
Part One of "Tailspin"
oOo
Hurrying away from City Hall, Jake tried to convince himself, not very successfully, that Emily and Heather hadn’t seen him. Even if they had, though, it wasn’t as if he had anything more to say to Emily that he hadn’t said last night. How could he explain the sense of suffocation and rising panic he’d felt—that he was still feeling—without hurting her even more than he already had? He couldn’t even explain it to himself. No, he just needed to give it some time and everything would work out okay.
He let out a snort of bitter laughter as it struck him that Emily seemed to be the only person who wanted him around. With everyone else, he was just getting in the way of their well-oiled arrangements and their cozy alliance with Beck. Even his efforts over the past hour and a half or so to help Dale had proved less useful than he’d expected.
Taking themselves to the meeting room upstairs in City Hall, the two of them had pushed together a couple of tables and spread out maps they’d borrowed from the mayor’s office. Leaning forward, Dale had traced a line that along led along the edge of Stanley’s farm and then out into the neighboring property. “It wasn’t too hard to get out,” he explained.
Jake nodded, recognizing the route was the same one Dale had been using when Stanley had caught him on his land a few weeks earlier.
Dale tapped a couple of points on the main roads that ran out of town either side of the dirt road he’d indicated a moment before. “Hoffman had checkpoints here and here, about a mile further out than Beck’s. Lieutenant Goodman warned us about those before we left. Said Hoffman seemed to be mirroring the major’s set up, right down to the timing of the patrols. All we had to do was lay up until a patrol went past, wait ten minutes to make sure they were far enough away they wouldn’t hear our engine, and then sneak through.”
Jake frowned at the map. “Eric said this morning Hoffman had the place sewn up tight. That doesn’t sound—.”
“Yeah, he does now.” Glancing up, Jake saw Dale grimacing in frustration. “We had a hell of a time getting back in last night. By the time we got back from making the rounds of a few of the trading posts out east, seems like there were checkpoints on pretty much all the backroads as well. And when we started trying out the farm tracks, we found there were a hell of a lot more patrols, too. Nearly had us twice before we decided to hide the truck in a barn and hike in on foot.”
Jake rested his hands on the table and went on looking down at the map, running his gaze over the network of fine lines that criss-crossed the paper, pondering their options. Though it would be a rough ride, there were plenty of routes that would be passable even for a truck as long as the weather stayed dry. But a truck wouldn’t be able to outrun a humvee if it was spotted or—more likely—heard. Even something quieter and faster, like a car, likely wouldn’t stand much more chance of sneaking through if Hoffman had stepped up his patrols as much as Dale was claiming.
No, they needed silence more than speed. A sudden memory came back to him: telling Heather a horse is slower than that and her telling him a horse is less likely to explode. And then…. He shook his head, forcing away the memory of what had happened next. No good thinking about that now.
Clearing his throat, he looked up at Dale. “We could use horses. Won’t—?”
He stopped when one of the double doors at the end of the room opened and a soldier hesitantly stepped inside. Jake thought he recognized him as one of Beck’s staff officers who’d been based in City Hall during Jake’s brief tenure as Sheriff. His nametape identified him as Goodman; wasn’t that the name Dale had mentioned a few moments ago? Jake guessed that meant he was Beck’s intelligence officer.
“Mr Turner, sir?”
Dale straightened. “Yes?”
The soldier cleared his throat. “Sir, Major Beck wanted me to debrief you on your reconnaissance of Colonel Hoffman’s lines. If…?” The soldier glanced in Jake’s direction.
“Sure. Come in, Lieutenant.” Dale waved him further in before Jake had a chance to disagree. Not that he really had any real reason to object, except a slight feeling of resentment that, yet again, Beck seemed to somehow be managing to hijack the conversation.
Half-listening to Dale repeat to the lieutenant what he’d already said, Jake went on studying the map. He realized he and Mack and Chavez has been even luckier than he’d thought on their trip back into Jericho. If they’d left a day later or been delayed en route, they would have almost certainly run into one of Hoffman’s new checkpoints or extra patrols, and there was no way they would have been able to outrun the ASA once they’d been spotted. No way they would have been able to get back to Jericho….
“Would you be able to mark the new checkpoints on the map?” The lieutenant’s question broke into Jake’s memory of the way his heart had lifted as he’d driven the last mile into town. Not that he was so sure any more why he’d been keen to hurry back. Seemed like they’d been managing just fine without him.
“Only the couple we nearly ran into last night.” Dale pointed at the map again. “There was one about here and another one…” His finger hesitated before settling on a point to the south of the first. “…here, I think.”
Jake shook his head. “No, it’d be here.” He tapped a spot about a quarter mile further out. “Road runs over a bit of a ridge, plus closer to town there’s woods either side.” Much to his surprise, he found himself adding, “I could probably give you an idea where the checkpoints are likely to be on the other roads. If it would help.” He looked up at the lieutenant, eyebrows raised.
“Yes, sir, it would.” The lieutenant dipped his head gratefully. “Should help us scout them without exposing our own men.”
Almost an hour later, the map was ringed with crosses. Jake rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead—his head was starting to ache—and stared ruefully at the small gaps in between the marks he’d made. If Hoffman did have checkpoints on all the backroads, then they really were boxed in. “We’ll definitely have to use horses if we want to get in and out,” he warned Dale. “There’s no way we can get a truck past that lot.”
“Yes, sir. I think you’re right.” The lieutenant gave him a grim smile. His hand hovered over the edge of the map. “May I take this? To have it copied? We'll let you have it back as soon as we can. And, of course, we’ll let you know when we’ve verified exactly where the checkpoints are.”
“I guess.” Jake watched the lieutenant begin to roll up the map, feeling a little resentful that Beck was about to benefit from the local knowledge that had kept him from taking complete control of the town while he’d still been in charge. He sucked in a deep breath, reminding himself that the reason he was sharing what he knew was in order to keep the ASA from taking over again, and that he and Beck were supposed to be on the same side now. It still wasn’t an idea that sat easily with him.
“Wait a minute.” He put his hand back on the map, to stop the lieutenant from finishing rolling it up. He turned his head in Dale’s direction. “Where did you say you left the truck?”
Dale leaned over the map, his hand resting lightly on the rolled-up part, and squinted at it for a moment. With a frown, he unrolled the sheet a few inches and took another look. Finally, he indicated a spot on the map to the south-west of town. “Place is abandoned. As long as Hoffman’s guys don’t go poking around too much, it should be OK. There’s nothing in it that won’t keep, either.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Plenty we could do with bringing in, though. Gas, food, a dozen boxes of stuff like Coleman lamps and camping stoves folks out there think they don’t need any more now the power’s back on….”
“Okay.” Jake peered at the spot Dale had marked, and then let his gaze track back in toward town, past where he’d thought Hoffman would have his new checkpoints. He reckoned they could probably stay out of sight of Hoffman’s patrols if they followed Shaw Creek west until they were past the ASA perimeter and then turned south and headed cross country. “We should get some horses, put together a team and see if we can pick up what’s out there and bring it back in.”
“Sir, I’ll need to run that past Major Beck first.” Lieutenant Goodman had pulled himself a little straighter. His posture wasn’t quite openly challenging, but it warned Jake against arguing.
Jake, also straightening, bit back the retort that he didn’t give a damn what Beck thought about it. Instead, he pretended to play dumb. “Isn’t this town business? I thought Major Beck wasn’t going to interfere.”
The lieutenant met his gaze steadily. “Yes, sir, but you’d be operating within our patrol lines. There’s standing orders anything like that needs to be cleared by both sides. To avoid misunderstandings.”
“Lieutenant Goodman’s right, Jake.” Dale flashed him an apologetic smile. “Mayor Anderson and Sheriff Green’ll want to know as well. We can’t just take off and do stuff, you know?”
“I’ll talk to Major Beck about it as soon as I get back to camp with this.” Goodman was once more rolling up the map.
“I’ll go find the sheriff and the mayor.” Dale gestured for Goodman to lead the way.
“I’ll—.” Jake watched them leave, realizing he had no idea what he was going to do—and that probably neither of them would have much cared to hear even if he had.
oOo
Jake still had no real plan as, a short while later, he marched away from City Hall. His only objective at first was to put as much distance as possible between himself and Emily. But after a few minutes, slackening his pace, he remembered he still hadn’t visited Darcy Hawkins to pass on the messages her husband had entrusted to him and to reassure her that, though his injuries had been serious, Hawkins was recovering just fine.
He redirected his steps toward the Hawkins’ house, reckoning Darcy would have moved herself and the kids back from the hunting cabin once Jericho declared its independence. He was right: Allison answered the door when he knocked.
“Hey.” He smiled awkwardly at her. “Is your mom home?”
She took a step back, inviting him in, while she yelled “Mom! We’ve got a visitor!” over her shoulder. As he hesitated on the threshold, she retreated further, hovering by the dining table.
A moment later, Darcy appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Jake. Come in.” She waved him further into the house and toward the couch. “What can I do for you?”
“I, uh, I promised your husband that I’d come see you when I got back. Make sure you were okay and that you knew he was okay.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and smiled at her apologetically as he settled himself on the edge of the couch.
Darcy perched on one of the other chairs and gave him a curt nod, her hands busy with carefully folding the dishtowel into quarters. “Chavez came to see us. He told us Robert was injured but said he’s going to be fine. That he’ll make a full recovery. And Major Beck paid a visit a few days ago, as well, to let us know Robert isn’t under investigation any more, and that he was sorry for all the trouble he’d caused us.”
Jake felt thoroughly pre-empted—and a little annoyed that Beck had been running around town, making out like he was the good guy in all of this, while he’d been stuck in Texas. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Yeah. Sorry it took me a while—.”
Darcy’s face softened a little. “No need to apologize, Jake. I’m sure you had a lot on your mind. And Chavez passed on Rob’s messages just fine.”
Jake nodded silently, still feeling he should have made more effort to get here sooner.
“Is Dad really going to be okay?” Allison had taken a step forward.
“Now, Allison. Don’t bother Mr Green—.” Darcy’s remonstration was cut short by a wail of “Mom!” from somewhere upstairs: Sam. She rolled her eyes and got up. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”
“Of course.” Jake got to his feet as well. As she headed for the stairs, he turned to Allison, who had a slightly sulky look on her face. Jake knew that look: he hadn’t much liked being told to keep his nose out of grownups’ business at her age either. He smiled at her and dipped his head. “Your dad’s going to be fine. He lost quite a lot of blood, but the doctors in Texas say he’ll be good as new in a few weeks.”
Allison pressed her lips together, her gaze boring into him, like she didn’t quite trust him to be telling the truth. For a moment, she looked so like her father it was startling. Then she smiled. In a sudden rush, she crossed to where her mom had been sitting and took her place. “And now everybody knows who the bad guys are, thanks to him?”
Jake laughed and took a seat again. “Well, the Governor of Texas is convinced that Tomarchio and his friends were behind the bombings, yes. And he’s talking to the government in Columbus. But it’ll take a while to get everyone on board. But yeah, your dad did what he set out to do.”
Allison was silent for a moment, her gaze resting on him. “And all that time, before the bombs, when he was away? He was undercover?”
Jake suddenly realized that apparently no one had really told Allison what her father was up to or what he did for a living, even now it didn’t matter that she knew. And for all his own father had often been distant and unavailable, at least Jake had known why. It sounded like Allison had been left completely in the dark. He gave her an encouraging nod. “Yeah. Pretty deep undercover. I know he even spent some time in prison so he could get close to the bad guys and get them to trust him. So I’m sure he wanted to see you and your brother, but it would have been too dangerous, for him and for you.”
Allison nodded slowly. “Mom was really mad at him, but I always knew he was one of the good guys. I—.” Whatever she’d been going to say was interrupted by another rap on the door. She shrugged a shoulder in apology and went to answer it.
Jake, relaxing back in his seat, was startled to hear his brother’s voice asking, “Is your mother in?”
Looking up, he caught Allison glancing in his direction, wry amusement on her face. “Yeah. Come in.” She turned away from the door and yelled up the stairs. “Mom! Another visitor!”
Eric stepped inside and then checked as he caught sight of Jake. “Hey, brother.” He grinned at him. “Guess it’s visiting day for the Greens.” He turned his attention to Darcy coming back down the stairs and dipped his head at her. “Mrs Hawkins.”
Darcy did a bit of a double take as well, looking from Eric to Jake and back again as if she suspected them of orchestrating some kind of tag-team sneak attack. Eric took another pace forward and lifted his hands defensively. “Pure coincidence, me and Jake being here at the same time, I promise,” he reassured her. “I just dropped by to ask you a favor.”
“Okay.” Darcy halted at the bottom of the stairs, looking apprehensive.
“Nothing bad.” Eric rested a hand on the back of a dining chair. “It’s just that now that the Army’s no longer running things, we could do with some more help in the Sheriff’s office. Jimmy said you did a great job over the winter, so I was hoping we could persuade you to come back.”
Darcy was already shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think—.”
Eric tilted his head and gave her a persuasive smile. “Major Beck spoke very highly of you as well. And Margaret said she’d be happy to take care of Sam while you’re at work. Or you could just work school hours.” When she still seemed uncertain, he added, “We really would like you back.”
After a moment’s more hesitation, she nodded. “Okay, then.”
“Great!” Eric’s face broke into a broad smile. “If you can start tomorrow…?”
“I guess….” She sounded a bit like she still wasn’t quite sure how she’d found herself bounced into agreeing.
“Great! I’ll see you then.” Eric nodded and turned back toward the door.
“Wait up, Eric.” Jake got to his feet. “I’ll come with you. Unless,” he dipped his head in Darcy’s direction, “there’s anything else I can do?”
Darcy shook her head, still looking bemused. “No. I don’t think so. But thank you.”
Jake felt he hadn’t really done anything to be thanked for, but he let it go.
Once outside, he fell into step beside Eric as they headed back toward the center of town. “So, do you need a hand in the Sheriff’s department?”
“What?” Eric gave Jake a startled look and then shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. “No. It’s okay. Now Darcy’s agreed to come back, I think we’re covered.”
“Okay.” Jake huffed in a breath, wondering where he was needed.
“Anyway,” Eric glanced across at Jake with a raised eyebrow, “I thought you were busy with the turbines.”
“Yeah.” Jake shrugged. Not that Heather and Harry had seemed to need much help, once they’d rounded up a few other guys. “But then I went to talk to Dale about how we can get in and out of town. He said he had to leave most of the stuff he brought back this time on the other side of Hoffman’s lines. I thought we could put together a rescue party and bring it in on horseback. Scout around a bit at the same time.” Jake hesitated, still feeling resentful that they now had to clear everything with Beck. “He and that lieutenant, Goodman, they said they’d need to run it past you and Beck first, though.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll be sure to talk to Dale about it.” Eric sounded like his mind was still half somewhere else. Jake guessed he was a pretty busy man, with a lot to take care of. Unlike his brother. Sighing inwardly, he supposed he ought to see if Heather and Harry did need any more help. Just as long as he didn’t run the risk of bumping into Em again….
They carried on, not speaking, toward the center of town, until Eric once more shook himself. “Anyway, I got a couple meetings I need to get to. Catch you later, okay?” He gave Jake a slap on the back and strode away briskly. Jake stopped and looked after him, wishing he had that much purpose and sense of where he was supposed to go next.
oOo
Heather glanced across at Jake as they drove out toward Beck’s camp in one of the cars belonging to the Sheriff’s Department. They were on their way to connect the last of the four turbines they’d managed to get set up during the day. The fifth one, out at the pumping station, would have to wait until tomorrow: the sun was already dropping quickly in a fiery ball over her left shoulder.
She felt it was rather ungrateful of her to be wishing Jake wasn’t the one driving her out to the camp. She would have been much happier driving herself in Charlotte, but he’d pointed out that it would be dark by the time she set off home and that Charlotte had broken down just the previous day. Heather had tried to convince him she’d be fine, but Gray and Eric had both stepped in and sided with Jake, and she’d given up the fight as a lost cause. And she knew Jake was only trying to help, and that he was a bit frustrated no one else seemed to need him around. She just wasn’t particularly looking forward to him glowering at Edward the whole time they were out at the camp.
She also felt guilty that she was spending so much time with Jake now she’d found out from Emily—and seen the evidence with her own eyes—that he was avoiding her. He’d turned up again after lunch, when Harry and the rest of the crew had moved on to putting up the turbine at City Hall. She’d been on her own at the Med Center, finishing making the connections and testing them, though they hadn’t thrown the switch to start feeding power into the clinic until much later, after Hoffman had made good on his threat and the power had gone off at six o’clock. Jake had asked her how he could help, and listened to her instructions, and then gotten on with what needed doing without arguing or trying to change things. It had been such a refreshing change from dealing with Harry and the others that Heather had felt like hugging him.
Which was another reason the afternoon spent together had made her uncomfortable. Jake was with Em now, even if things were… complicated between them. So hanging around with him was only setting herself up for more heartbreak and humiliation. Especially as, despite her best efforts, there didn’t seem to be much she could do about her own feelings: the way her stomach fluttered when Jake gave her one of his crooked smiles, or how good it had felt when he’d held her and comforted her the other night after they’d argued. It didn’t feel right to spend time with Jake knowing she felt like that, however careful she was to maintain a purely friendly facade. At least he seemed blissfully unaware of the effect he was having on her, and she’d managed not to babble at him like she usually did when she got nervous. Or at least she thought she had.
No, it didn’t feel right. Particularly because she knew how badly she’d been hurt herself when Jake had ignored her for a month, when all they’d shared had been that one brief, impulsive kiss on Main Street. Jake and Emily had a lifetime together. Listening to Emily talk about Jake—about how he was pushing her away—while they’d collected the ASA flags from City Hall, taken them back to the Greens’ town house and gotten Emily started on converting them, Heather had squished down hard on the spark of disloyal hope that had flared inside her at the possibility Jake might soon be unattached.
Sneaking another glance at him as he drove them across the Tacoma bridge, she wrapped her arms around herself and said carefully, “Emily’s been doing a great job making the flags.”
Jake didn’t react for a moment. Then he huffed quietly and shot a cynical look in her direction that suggested he knew exactly what she was up to.
Suddenly Heather felt too tired to try and act as peacemaker between Jake and Emily. Today had been difficult enough as it was: messing about with the turbines had dredged up memories she’d worked hard to forget. So she wasn’t in much of a mood for talking Jake round when he clearly wasn’t ready to be talked round. Shaking her head and letting out a sigh, she turned and stared out of the window at the Richmond fields passing by outside.
Leaving the car at the camp gate, they made their way to the command tent. Edward, with Lieutenant Goodman at his side, was studying a map spread across the table when they were shown in. His face had lit up when he looked up and caught sight of her, only to darken a little a moment later as he spotted Jake following her inside. Not so much that Jake would have easily guessed how unwelcome his presence was, but enough that it was clear to Heather. She wondered when she’d learned to read Edward so well.
To her relief, Jake and Edward managed to both behave themselves in the short time before Edward handed them off to a Sergeant Tran from logistics. As they made their way through the rows of tents, to where the turbine had been set up near the perimeter, the sergeant explained they were planning to use it to charge a battery array, which would be able to provide a steady supply to the comms tower and the command tent even when the wind dropped. He’d already made the necessary connections, but didn’t seem to mind Heather checking everything over before they threw the switch. He was also happy to answer questions about how he’d connected the batteries, and whether they could rig up something similar using car batteries for the turbines in town. Glancing over her shoulder at one point as the two of them talked, Heather caught Jake stifling a yawn.
It was fully dark by the time they were ready to start the turbine. Heather manually set the blades to roughly the right angle to the breeze, now blowing steadily from the west, and then released the brake. Slowly, the blades began to spin. As the turbine head automatically swung round to catch the wind better, the blades sped up, until they settled into a steady rhythm, their ghostly whirr barely audible against the background noises of the camp.
At Heather’s side, Sergeant Tran let out a low, approving whistle. “That’s some damn fine work there, Miss Lisinski, if you don’t mind me saying. Especially given the resources you musta had.”
Heather blushed. “Well, we had the brake factory in New Bern to do the machining, of course. And, umm, a few different people helped with the design.”
“But you made it happen.” Jake’s hand on her shoulder made her jump. She’d almost forgotten he was there, watching from a few paces away. He was looking up at the turbine, but then he turned and smiled down at her, his eyes crinkling. She felt herself grow hot, suddenly very aware of him, and fought the urge to take a step back.
His smile faded a little. “Could you have done it in Jericho? If you’d—if you’d had a bit more support. From Gray and Harry and—?”
She shrugged slightly, biting her lip as she looked up at him. “Maybe. But Ted helped a lot. And we didn’t have the machining facilities….”
He nodded, not looking particularly reassured. She wondered if he was blaming himself for letting her go. Wondered, too, how things would have turned out if she hadn’t gone.
On her other side, Sergeant Tran cleared his throat. “Ma’am, I need to report back to Major Beck. And check—.”
“Yes, of course.” As Heather turned to nod at the sergeant, Jake dropped his hand from her shoulder. Following Sergeant Tran back to the center of the camp, with Jake at her side but no longer touching her, Heather felt both relief and a slight sense of loss. She sighed inwardly and decided that being around Jake was much too complicated.
When the sergeant showed them back inside the command tent a few moments later, they found it much more crowded. A corporal was hovering while Edward checked something on a clipboard, and Captain Clark had joined Lieutenant Goodman in studying the map on the table.
Edward glanced up at them as he marked something on the clipboard—his initials, Heather guessed—before handing it back to the corporal. “Sergeant?”
Tran saluted. “Turbine is operational, sir. I was just going to confirm with Corporal Harrell that the radio is operating correctly.”
“Very good, sergeant. Carry on.” Edward acknowledged the report with a nod of the head, before turning to Heather with a smile. “Thank you. And please pass on my thanks to Mayor Anderson. It was a very generous gesture by the town.”
Jake was close enough behind Heather that she could feel him bristling. Half-prepared if need be to step back and “accidentally” tread on his foot to shut him up, she returned Edward’s smile. Before any of them could say anything further, Harrell spoke up from his place in the corner by the radio set. “Sir?”
Edward turned toward him. “Corporal?”
“Sir, the Jericho salvage party reports they’ve passed ASA lines undetected and are proceeding to the barn.”
“Thank you, corporal.” Edward gave him a nod.
“What Jericho salvage party?” Jake took a half step around Heather and she instinctively put out a hand to stop him. She could feeling the tension thrumming through him as her fingers touched his arm.
Edward gave a slight shrug. “Mr Turner and some of the Rangers are attempting to retrieve the supplies he wasn’t able to bring in last night. Sheriff Green and I agreed that tonight was as good a time as any, since Colonel Hoffman may be expecting us to be too distracted with shutting off the power to try anything else.”
“Using the intelligence I gave you,” Jake spat, jerking his head in the direction of the map spread on the table.
Edward pressed his lips together for a moment, apparently taken aback by Jake’s tone. Then his face relaxed a little. He dipped his head. “My apologies, Jake. It was remiss of me not to thank you earlier. We’ve found the information extremely valuable. My scouts have already been able to confirm several of the checkpoints are where you suggested they would be, without risk of discovery themselves. I’m sure the information will be invaluable in ensuring Mr Turner and the rest of the party are able to return safely.”
“They’d be a lot safer if I was with them.” Jake took another half step forward, throwing off Heather’s hand.
Again, Edward hesitated for a fraction of a second, either unsure how to respond or weighing the possible responses to find the one that would best soothe Jake. Then he gave another quick dip of his head. “Perhaps that’s something you should take up with your brother. He chose the party, I believe.” Though he kept his tone level, there was a warning in it that Jake should drop the subject.
Which seemed like the last thing Jake was going to do. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something else. Thinking quickly, Heather faked a loud yawn. “Sorry,” she apologized to the tent at large. “Long day. Jake, would you mind taking me home, please?”
Jake shot another black look in Edward’s direction but, as she’d hoped he would, gave her a curt nod of agreement. “Of course.” He gestured for her to lead the way.
oOo
An hour later, Jake was cutting through the quiet streets toward the edge of town, heading for a dirt track running parallel to Route 6 that would take him out to the ranch. He’d left the car back at City Hall once he’d dropped Heather at her house, knowing they couldn’t spare the gas for him to run himself in and out of town while Hoffman’s blockade was in place. Eric had been right when he’d said it would be easier for Jericho if Jake was still living in town. Just not easier for Jake.
Was that why Eric was leaving him out of things? To show him he needed to move back? Jake shook his head, dismissing the idea. He suspected his brother wasn’t putting that much thought into it. It was simply that Jake wasn’t needed; while he’d been in Texas—and before that, when Beck had him imprisoned out at the hog farm—everyone had learned to get along just fine without him.
Jake drew in a deep breath, trying not to feel aggrieved about that, and caught the cloying scents of roses from a nearby garden. It reminded him of another walk home, when the air had been filled with the sharp smell of earth freshly turned for spring planting. It was hard to believe that was less than three months ago. Since then, they’d fought a war and Dad had died; he’d gotten back with Em; thought Heather was dead and then discovered she was alive; and Beck had arrived, looking like their savior, only to become their nemesis. And now, apparently, was back to being their savior again….
Jake sucked in another deep breath, picking up his pace a little without noticing as his irritation propelled him forward. He knew they needed Beck and his troops: Cheyenne would have just sent someone else to crush the town if Beck had withdrawn. Yet the moment he got in Beck’s presence, it was like he couldn’t think straight. This evening, even though he’d known it was right to share the map with the likely positions of the checkpoints, he’d wanted to snatch it up from where it lay on the table in Beck’s command tent and march out of the camp with it. He huffed a laugh to himself. Probably while adding something about taking his ball home as he stormed off. He knew he was being childish, but seeing everyone else cozying up to Beck and deferring to him after what he’d done, like it had never happened, just made him see red. And it made it so damn hard to keep his promise to Heather.
That was the worst of it, maybe. She hadn’t said a word when they’d gotten back into the car at the camp gate and set off back toward town, but she hadn’t needed to. Her silence, the way she’d sat with her arms crossed, looking out the window, had been enough rebuke in itself.
His anger with Beck had fallen away, withering under Heather’s unspoken disapproval. Instead, he’d quietly cursed himself. Making the turn on to the highway at the end of the track from the camp, he’d cleared his throat and said quietly, “I’m sorry.” When Heather had turned her head and looked at him, eyebrows raised, he’d jerked his head back toward the camp. “For what happened back there. I know I promised—.”
She’d put a hand on his arm and given him a wan smile. “It’s okay. I know it’s hard. If things had worked out when Eric talked to Constantino and I was being asked to work with him, I’d…. That would be tough.”
“Yeah.” Jake had swallowed down the lump in his throat, doubly determined now to try and behave around Beck for Heather’s sake. He didn’t want to keep on having to ask for her forgiveness, even if she seemed ready to give it. After all she’d gone through for Jericho’s sake, and after she’d risked everything to help Hawkins, she deserved better.
Now, passing the last house on the edge of town, and striking out into the fields, he felt another flash of irritation as he admitted to himself that Beck had been right: if he was going to be mad at anyone for sidelining him, it should be Eric. He’d have to talk to his brother about that tomorrow. Once he’d managed to make it through the morning meeting without getting in Beck’s face again.
oOo
The mid-morning sun was hot on Beck’s back by the time he ducked back into the command tent the following day. After the morning meeting in town had finished, he’d met with Eric for a while, and then made a stop out at one of the checkpoints, partly to confirm with his own eyes the reports he was receiving and partly as an attempt to keep morale up by showing the troops that their commanding officer was taking an interest. The soldiers manning the checkpoint had seemed cheerful enough, but with everything that had happened over the past few months, and especially the past few weeks, they were probably all feeling a little at sea, himself included.
“Anything to report, Lieutenant?” Inside the tent, Beck acknowledged Posey’s salute before taking off his helmet. Laying it down on the table, he headed for the coffee pot. He’d drunk too much already today, but he suspected that it was all that was keeping him going. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a decent night’s sleep. The coffee was making him jittery, though. Or maybe that was just dealing with Jake.
Posey had sat back down. “Yes sir. Lieutenant Goodman reports that the scouts have confirmed the position of Colonel Hoffman’s checkpoints nineteen through twenty two and twenty four. Twenty three is about a hundred yards further out than estimated.”
Beck nodded to show he’d heard and took a sip from his coffee. He couldn’t fault Jake’s knowledge of the area, at least, and it would have taken them a lot longer, and exposed his scouts to a lot more danger, if they’d had to determine the position of Hoffman’s troops without it. And Jake had spent this morning’s meeting merely glowering at Beck and not trying to argue with him, which had been an improvement on yesterday. But Beck had still been on edge the whole time, and he reckoned everyone else had been too. Right now, he wasn’t sure if having Jake back in Jericho was more trouble than it was worth.
Posey was speaking again. “Also, Lieutenant Serrano would like to schedule a meeting to discuss supplies—.”
He broke off as Corporal Harrell at the radio spoke up. “Sir? Corporal Adams is reporting an incursion. Two Apaches at low altitude approaching his position and heading for the center of town.” Harrell put a hand up to his headphones for a moment, clearly listening to another transmission, and then said. “Corporal, Major Beck is here. I’m going to put you on vox.” He reached out and flicked a switch. “Say again, Corporal.”
“Major Beck, sir.” Adams’ voice over the radio crackled with static as Beck strode toward Harrell. “We’ve targeted one of the birds with an M781, as per orders, but bogeys have not changed course. Repeat, bogeys have not changed course. The Apaches are still heading toward Jericho.”
Beck silently cursed as he reached for the handset. What the hell was Hoffman playing at? The last thing he wanted to do was to have to shoot down American pilots. That was why he’d issued orders to the patrols to fire an initial warning shot with a paint-filled practice shell unless there was an immediate threat to life. The impact would be enough to let the pilots know that they’d been hit—and that they could and would be hit with live rounds if they didn’t retreat—without doing any real damage. It would send a message to back off. Sounded like these two pilots didn’t want to hear it, though.
He pressed the switch on the handset. “Understood, corporal.” Handing the handset back to Harrell, he added brusquely. “Radio City Hall and let them know they’ve got incoming. And check if any of the other patrols are reporting activity.”
“Yes, sir.” Harrell turned back to the radio.
Beck swung round to face Posey, who was back on his feet. “Break out the Javelins. Tell the men I’ll be going with them. I’ll meet them by the main gate. I want to be in the center of town in twenty mikes.” He jammed his helmet back on and headed out of the tent, knowing that even if they did make it into town that quickly, they might already be too late to stop the Apaches from destroying half of Jericho.
oOo
Jake and Heather were up by the pumping station at the end of Chaparral, connecting up the final turbine, when they heard the helicopters approaching. They’d walked out there together, Jake carrying Heather’s toolbox. She’d refused when he’d first offered, but he’d put his hand next to hers on the handle anyway. “You could at least let me feel like I’m some use,” he’d pointed out. She’d held on to the tools a moment longer and then relinquished them with a bit of a smile.
He could tell his words had bothered her by the way she kept glancing at him as they walked along, but it wasn’t until they were nearly halfway to the pumping station that she said, “You are being useful, you know? You’ve been a real help getting the turbines up.”
“Maybe.” Jake shifted the toolbox to his other hand. Not that working with Heather was at all unpleasant, but it didn’t exactly feel like the best use of his talents. He was only out here right now because Eric still hadn’t rostered him for patrol or checkpoint duty. He’d given Jake a distracted look when Jake had caught him after the meeting to ask him about it and cursorily apologized—”Sorry, not had a chance to look at it yet.”—before dashing off to talk to Beck.
He was gone before Jake had any chance to bring up being left out of the party that had made Dale’s supply run the night before. Not that Eric would have cared about that either, Jake reckoned. Not after the way the meeting had gone. Trish Merrick had been there, to discuss what Dale had managed to bring in the previous night and how it matched up with what they were using up. According to Trish, they’d only brought in half the truckload, and nearly run into a patrol on the way back in, and she reckoned they’d need to be making a trip like that pretty much every other night to keep the town and the camp stocked. Jake had had a few ideas about how they could do things differently, but every time he’d opened his mouth to make a suggestion, it seemed like someone—Eric or Gray or Beck—talked over him. Eventually, he’d simply kept quiet and watched proceedings, thinking that maybe he could talk to Heather later. They seemed to listen to her, at least, and she seemed willing to listen to him.
He still hadn’t found a way to bring up the topic by the time he caught the unmistakable thump of rotor blades in the distance. There was nothing to mask the noise: the land around them—with the town spread out below, at the bottom of the low hill, and the flat fields stretching out either side of them—was almost silent. There was no far-off rumble of cars on the interstate, no minivans driven by busy soccer moms pulling up or away from outside Gracie’s, no tractors grinding through the crops.
Quickly scrambling to his feet, Jake shaded his eyes and searched the horizon to the east of them, trying to locate the source of the noise.
“What is it?” Heather, kneeling by the pumping station’s switch box a few feet away, peered up at him.
“Helicopters.” Jake had found them now, sunlight glittering off metal in the clear, pale blue of the sky.
“Hoffman?”
“Must be.” Jake’s gaze narrowed as he followed the helicopters’ track. “Looks like they’re heading for the center of town. I should get back there.” He threw the bag of cable ties he was still holding back in the toolbox.
“Me too.” Heather had gotten to her feet and was tucking the screwdriver she’d been using back into her toolroll and wrapping up the cloth as she moved toward him.
Jake shook his head. “No. You should stay here. It’ll be safer.” The words were out before he had a chance to think about them, but he didn’t regret them. Running into danger was all well and good for him, but Heather—.
The look she gave him as she dropped the toolroll into the box and closed it told him what she thought of that idea.
“No,” he repeated, remembering too late how they’d had this argument before, and he’d lost last time as well.
Heather was already turning away from him to put the toolbox next to the switch box and close the door to the pumping station. “What are you going to do? Tie me up?”
“I—.” Jake stopped. He didn’t have any good reason why she should stay behind except—she’d faced enough danger already, hadn’t she? And she was too important to the survival of the town to let anything happen to her.
She gave him another exasperated look and set off down the hill at a trot. After a moment, she glanced back over at her shoulder at him. “Well, come on then, if you’re coming.”
oOo
Jake quickly caught Heather up and slowed his pace to match hers as she settled into a steady jog. Much as he wanted to be in the middle of town as soon as possible, he didn’t want to leave her on her own, just in case the helicopters decided to turn their attention in this direction. He could see them—there only appeared to be two—as they split right and left and each made a circuit around the town, high enough to be out of the range of rifle fire but no doubt close enough to get a good look at what was going on below.
“Are they going to attack?” Heather’s question was a little breathless, but she gave him a nod to say she was okay when he looked across at her.
He peered back up at helicopters, losing sight of them for a moment behind the houses as he and Heather reached the edge of town. When the helicopters came into view again, he saw they were moving inward in tightening circles. “Hard to say. I think they’re just doing recon.”
Or looking for targets. He didn’t think it was worth worrying Heather by telling her they were Apaches and together they could carry enough rockets and missiles to take out half the town.
They were another hundred yards closer to the center of town when Jake saw one of the machines make a sharp turn sideways, and then halt and hover in place. Dropping his gaze down to pick out familiar landmarks—the church spire and the firestation tower—Jake decided it was over City Hall. He unconsciously picked up his pace a little. If Eric and Gray and Jimmy and Bill—.
Along the street, he saw people—mostly kids, with a few mothers—coming out onto their stoops and into their front yards, shading their eyes as they peered up disbelievingly into the sky. The second helicopter was still circling, now heading in their direction.
“Get back inside,” he yelled, flailing a hand toward the onlookers as he and Heather dashed past. Goddammit. They should be down in their basements, not gawking and turning themselves into targets. Why hadn’t anyone made any plans…?
He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or even more scared when, a moment later, he saw the helicopter that was coming toward them change direction again and turn away—only for it to come to a stop over another spot a few hundred yards from where the first still hung. Jake grimaced. He was pretty sure the second helicopter was now right over the top of the Med Center. He ran on.
The closer to the center of town they got, the harder it became to keep both helicopters in sight, so Jake heard before he saw that one of the helicopters was moving again. When he caught sight of them both, he realized that the one that had been over City Hall was now also heading toward the Med Center.
“Dammit!” He gestured to Heather to take the next left. “They’re over the clinic.” He swallowed hard. “Mom….”
Heather didn’t reply, just changed direction and began to run faster. Though God knows what they could do once they got there: Jake might be carrying his Beretta, but it wouldn’t be much use unless he got off an exceptionally lucky shot. Still, whatever the helicopters and Hoffman had planned, they were going to have to go through Jake to do it.
oOo
A mile away, Beck was tumbling out of the first of two humvees as they screeched to a halt in Main Street. Reports coming in from the other checkpoints as they’d raced into town indicated there was no activity from any other quarter. Beck, hearing the clatter of the Apaches somewhere to his right and behind him, supposed that was something to be grateful for.
Eric had been talking to Jimmy outside the front door of City Hall. Now he hurried down the steps and headed toward Beck. “They circled around town twice, then one of them came and took a look at City Hall and the other one headed for the Med Center. Now they’re both over that way.”
Beck nodded. “Let’s get over there. Get in. There’s room in the other humvee.” He caught Eric’s arm as the other man began to head toward the second vehicle. “Your guys know not to fire unless they’re fired on, right? We don’t want to start anything we don’t have to.” When Eric nodded, Beck let him go and climbed back into his own humvee. “Med Center. Go!” he ordered the driver.
As they raced through the streets, Beck weighed his options. Sounded like the Apaches were here for reconnaissance rather than to mount an attack, but he needed to send a message to Hoffman that the ASA didn’t own the skies over Jericho. “Corporal,” he twisted round to look at the gunner in the back seat. “I want you to set up out in the clear. I want those Apaches to know you’re there. But hold your fire unless they attack.”
The gunner swallowed hard and exchanged a look with the private next to him who’d act as his ammo bearer, before he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
As they drew to a halt in front of the Med Center, Beck hoped to hell his gamble would pay off and he’d have a chance to thank the two of them for letting him play Russian Roulette with their lives.
The other humvee drew to a halt next to them. Beck leaned through the window and called across to the driver, “Sergeant, I want you to get under cover across the street and lose yourselves. I don’t want those guys,” he pointed upward to where one of the Apaches was hovering three hundred feet above while the other made a slow circuit, “to know where you are. We’re gonna try and scare them away, but if anything happens to Team Alpha or the town, I want you to take those bastards out. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant hauled on the wheel and swung the humvee round. A few feet away, the first team were quickly assembling their Javelin.
“Sir?” That was his own driver. “You should—.”
“I know, Corporal.” Beck waved to the driver to move off. Much as he wanted to get out and join the fight, he suspected he was the one target Hoffman would have authorized in advance. That was why he’d been careful not to tip his head too far back as he’d squinted up at the Apache hovering over the Med Center roof. It still didn’t sit well, though, to leave his men behind in the open while he scurried for safety.
By the time they’d reached the end of the street and his driver had turned the humvee round so they could watch, the Apache over the Med Center had swung to point its guns at the two men crouched in the middle of the parking lot. The gunner had hoisted the Javelin onto his shoulder and was pointing it right back at the helicopter. The second machine, meanwhile, had cut across toward the block that faced the Med Center, no doubt looking for the other team after they’d disappeared into one of the stores there. Beck hoped Eric knew his town well enough to be able to direct the group to a new location without being seen.
Resting his elbow on the window and peering up, Beck held his breath and waited.
oOo
Part Three of "Tailspin" | Part Four of "Tailspin"
Fandom: Jericho
Rating: General
Warnings: None
Words: 34,820 words
Summary: On his return from Texas, Jake tries to fit back into a Jericho gearing itself up for continued resistance to Cheyenne control. But he finds everything has changed—and that everywhere he goes, he runs into Beck.
Disclaimer: This story is based on the Junction Entertainment/Fixed Mark Productions/CBS Paramount Television series Jericho. It was written for entertainment only; the author does not profit from it nor was any infringement of copyright intended.
Author's Note: This story is part of Awesome!Jakeverse, the shared post-season 2 verse being written by Scribbler (
scribblesinink) and Tanaqui (tanaquific). It follows on from events in Home Brew and Past Recall. Thanks to Scribbler (scribblesinink) for the beta.Part One of "Tailspin"
Hurrying away from City Hall, Jake tried to convince himself, not very successfully, that Emily and Heather hadn’t seen him. Even if they had, though, it wasn’t as if he had anything more to say to Emily that he hadn’t said last night. How could he explain the sense of suffocation and rising panic he’d felt—that he was still feeling—without hurting her even more than he already had? He couldn’t even explain it to himself. No, he just needed to give it some time and everything would work out okay.
He let out a snort of bitter laughter as it struck him that Emily seemed to be the only person who wanted him around. With everyone else, he was just getting in the way of their well-oiled arrangements and their cozy alliance with Beck. Even his efforts over the past hour and a half or so to help Dale had proved less useful than he’d expected.
Taking themselves to the meeting room upstairs in City Hall, the two of them had pushed together a couple of tables and spread out maps they’d borrowed from the mayor’s office. Leaning forward, Dale had traced a line that along led along the edge of Stanley’s farm and then out into the neighboring property. “It wasn’t too hard to get out,” he explained.
Jake nodded, recognizing the route was the same one Dale had been using when Stanley had caught him on his land a few weeks earlier.
Dale tapped a couple of points on the main roads that ran out of town either side of the dirt road he’d indicated a moment before. “Hoffman had checkpoints here and here, about a mile further out than Beck’s. Lieutenant Goodman warned us about those before we left. Said Hoffman seemed to be mirroring the major’s set up, right down to the timing of the patrols. All we had to do was lay up until a patrol went past, wait ten minutes to make sure they were far enough away they wouldn’t hear our engine, and then sneak through.”
Jake frowned at the map. “Eric said this morning Hoffman had the place sewn up tight. That doesn’t sound—.”
“Yeah, he does now.” Glancing up, Jake saw Dale grimacing in frustration. “We had a hell of a time getting back in last night. By the time we got back from making the rounds of a few of the trading posts out east, seems like there were checkpoints on pretty much all the backroads as well. And when we started trying out the farm tracks, we found there were a hell of a lot more patrols, too. Nearly had us twice before we decided to hide the truck in a barn and hike in on foot.”
Jake rested his hands on the table and went on looking down at the map, running his gaze over the network of fine lines that criss-crossed the paper, pondering their options. Though it would be a rough ride, there were plenty of routes that would be passable even for a truck as long as the weather stayed dry. But a truck wouldn’t be able to outrun a humvee if it was spotted or—more likely—heard. Even something quieter and faster, like a car, likely wouldn’t stand much more chance of sneaking through if Hoffman had stepped up his patrols as much as Dale was claiming.
No, they needed silence more than speed. A sudden memory came back to him: telling Heather a horse is slower than that and her telling him a horse is less likely to explode. And then…. He shook his head, forcing away the memory of what had happened next. No good thinking about that now.
Clearing his throat, he looked up at Dale. “We could use horses. Won’t—?”
He stopped when one of the double doors at the end of the room opened and a soldier hesitantly stepped inside. Jake thought he recognized him as one of Beck’s staff officers who’d been based in City Hall during Jake’s brief tenure as Sheriff. His nametape identified him as Goodman; wasn’t that the name Dale had mentioned a few moments ago? Jake guessed that meant he was Beck’s intelligence officer.
“Mr Turner, sir?”
Dale straightened. “Yes?”
The soldier cleared his throat. “Sir, Major Beck wanted me to debrief you on your reconnaissance of Colonel Hoffman’s lines. If…?” The soldier glanced in Jake’s direction.
“Sure. Come in, Lieutenant.” Dale waved him further in before Jake had a chance to disagree. Not that he really had any real reason to object, except a slight feeling of resentment that, yet again, Beck seemed to somehow be managing to hijack the conversation.
Half-listening to Dale repeat to the lieutenant what he’d already said, Jake went on studying the map. He realized he and Mack and Chavez has been even luckier than he’d thought on their trip back into Jericho. If they’d left a day later or been delayed en route, they would have almost certainly run into one of Hoffman’s new checkpoints or extra patrols, and there was no way they would have been able to outrun the ASA once they’d been spotted. No way they would have been able to get back to Jericho….
“Would you be able to mark the new checkpoints on the map?” The lieutenant’s question broke into Jake’s memory of the way his heart had lifted as he’d driven the last mile into town. Not that he was so sure any more why he’d been keen to hurry back. Seemed like they’d been managing just fine without him.
“Only the couple we nearly ran into last night.” Dale pointed at the map again. “There was one about here and another one…” His finger hesitated before settling on a point to the south of the first. “…here, I think.”
Jake shook his head. “No, it’d be here.” He tapped a spot about a quarter mile further out. “Road runs over a bit of a ridge, plus closer to town there’s woods either side.” Much to his surprise, he found himself adding, “I could probably give you an idea where the checkpoints are likely to be on the other roads. If it would help.” He looked up at the lieutenant, eyebrows raised.
“Yes, sir, it would.” The lieutenant dipped his head gratefully. “Should help us scout them without exposing our own men.”
Almost an hour later, the map was ringed with crosses. Jake rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead—his head was starting to ache—and stared ruefully at the small gaps in between the marks he’d made. If Hoffman did have checkpoints on all the backroads, then they really were boxed in. “We’ll definitely have to use horses if we want to get in and out,” he warned Dale. “There’s no way we can get a truck past that lot.”
“Yes, sir. I think you’re right.” The lieutenant gave him a grim smile. His hand hovered over the edge of the map. “May I take this? To have it copied? We'll let you have it back as soon as we can. And, of course, we’ll let you know when we’ve verified exactly where the checkpoints are.”
“I guess.” Jake watched the lieutenant begin to roll up the map, feeling a little resentful that Beck was about to benefit from the local knowledge that had kept him from taking complete control of the town while he’d still been in charge. He sucked in a deep breath, reminding himself that the reason he was sharing what he knew was in order to keep the ASA from taking over again, and that he and Beck were supposed to be on the same side now. It still wasn’t an idea that sat easily with him.
“Wait a minute.” He put his hand back on the map, to stop the lieutenant from finishing rolling it up. He turned his head in Dale’s direction. “Where did you say you left the truck?”
Dale leaned over the map, his hand resting lightly on the rolled-up part, and squinted at it for a moment. With a frown, he unrolled the sheet a few inches and took another look. Finally, he indicated a spot on the map to the south-west of town. “Place is abandoned. As long as Hoffman’s guys don’t go poking around too much, it should be OK. There’s nothing in it that won’t keep, either.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Plenty we could do with bringing in, though. Gas, food, a dozen boxes of stuff like Coleman lamps and camping stoves folks out there think they don’t need any more now the power’s back on….”
“Okay.” Jake peered at the spot Dale had marked, and then let his gaze track back in toward town, past where he’d thought Hoffman would have his new checkpoints. He reckoned they could probably stay out of sight of Hoffman’s patrols if they followed Shaw Creek west until they were past the ASA perimeter and then turned south and headed cross country. “We should get some horses, put together a team and see if we can pick up what’s out there and bring it back in.”
“Sir, I’ll need to run that past Major Beck first.” Lieutenant Goodman had pulled himself a little straighter. His posture wasn’t quite openly challenging, but it warned Jake against arguing.
Jake, also straightening, bit back the retort that he didn’t give a damn what Beck thought about it. Instead, he pretended to play dumb. “Isn’t this town business? I thought Major Beck wasn’t going to interfere.”
The lieutenant met his gaze steadily. “Yes, sir, but you’d be operating within our patrol lines. There’s standing orders anything like that needs to be cleared by both sides. To avoid misunderstandings.”
“Lieutenant Goodman’s right, Jake.” Dale flashed him an apologetic smile. “Mayor Anderson and Sheriff Green’ll want to know as well. We can’t just take off and do stuff, you know?”
“I’ll talk to Major Beck about it as soon as I get back to camp with this.” Goodman was once more rolling up the map.
“I’ll go find the sheriff and the mayor.” Dale gestured for Goodman to lead the way.
“I’ll—.” Jake watched them leave, realizing he had no idea what he was going to do—and that probably neither of them would have much cared to hear even if he had.
Jake still had no real plan as, a short while later, he marched away from City Hall. His only objective at first was to put as much distance as possible between himself and Emily. But after a few minutes, slackening his pace, he remembered he still hadn’t visited Darcy Hawkins to pass on the messages her husband had entrusted to him and to reassure her that, though his injuries had been serious, Hawkins was recovering just fine.
He redirected his steps toward the Hawkins’ house, reckoning Darcy would have moved herself and the kids back from the hunting cabin once Jericho declared its independence. He was right: Allison answered the door when he knocked.
“Hey.” He smiled awkwardly at her. “Is your mom home?”
She took a step back, inviting him in, while she yelled “Mom! We’ve got a visitor!” over her shoulder. As he hesitated on the threshold, she retreated further, hovering by the dining table.
A moment later, Darcy appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Jake. Come in.” She waved him further into the house and toward the couch. “What can I do for you?”
“I, uh, I promised your husband that I’d come see you when I got back. Make sure you were okay and that you knew he was okay.” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck and smiled at her apologetically as he settled himself on the edge of the couch.
Darcy perched on one of the other chairs and gave him a curt nod, her hands busy with carefully folding the dishtowel into quarters. “Chavez came to see us. He told us Robert was injured but said he’s going to be fine. That he’ll make a full recovery. And Major Beck paid a visit a few days ago, as well, to let us know Robert isn’t under investigation any more, and that he was sorry for all the trouble he’d caused us.”
Jake felt thoroughly pre-empted—and a little annoyed that Beck had been running around town, making out like he was the good guy in all of this, while he’d been stuck in Texas. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Yeah. Sorry it took me a while—.”
Darcy’s face softened a little. “No need to apologize, Jake. I’m sure you had a lot on your mind. And Chavez passed on Rob’s messages just fine.”
Jake nodded silently, still feeling he should have made more effort to get here sooner.
“Is Dad really going to be okay?” Allison had taken a step forward.
“Now, Allison. Don’t bother Mr Green—.” Darcy’s remonstration was cut short by a wail of “Mom!” from somewhere upstairs: Sam. She rolled her eyes and got up. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”
“Of course.” Jake got to his feet as well. As she headed for the stairs, he turned to Allison, who had a slightly sulky look on her face. Jake knew that look: he hadn’t much liked being told to keep his nose out of grownups’ business at her age either. He smiled at her and dipped his head. “Your dad’s going to be fine. He lost quite a lot of blood, but the doctors in Texas say he’ll be good as new in a few weeks.”
Allison pressed her lips together, her gaze boring into him, like she didn’t quite trust him to be telling the truth. For a moment, she looked so like her father it was startling. Then she smiled. In a sudden rush, she crossed to where her mom had been sitting and took her place. “And now everybody knows who the bad guys are, thanks to him?”
Jake laughed and took a seat again. “Well, the Governor of Texas is convinced that Tomarchio and his friends were behind the bombings, yes. And he’s talking to the government in Columbus. But it’ll take a while to get everyone on board. But yeah, your dad did what he set out to do.”
Allison was silent for a moment, her gaze resting on him. “And all that time, before the bombs, when he was away? He was undercover?”
Jake suddenly realized that apparently no one had really told Allison what her father was up to or what he did for a living, even now it didn’t matter that she knew. And for all his own father had often been distant and unavailable, at least Jake had known why. It sounded like Allison had been left completely in the dark. He gave her an encouraging nod. “Yeah. Pretty deep undercover. I know he even spent some time in prison so he could get close to the bad guys and get them to trust him. So I’m sure he wanted to see you and your brother, but it would have been too dangerous, for him and for you.”
Allison nodded slowly. “Mom was really mad at him, but I always knew he was one of the good guys. I—.” Whatever she’d been going to say was interrupted by another rap on the door. She shrugged a shoulder in apology and went to answer it.
Jake, relaxing back in his seat, was startled to hear his brother’s voice asking, “Is your mother in?”
Looking up, he caught Allison glancing in his direction, wry amusement on her face. “Yeah. Come in.” She turned away from the door and yelled up the stairs. “Mom! Another visitor!”
Eric stepped inside and then checked as he caught sight of Jake. “Hey, brother.” He grinned at him. “Guess it’s visiting day for the Greens.” He turned his attention to Darcy coming back down the stairs and dipped his head at her. “Mrs Hawkins.”
Darcy did a bit of a double take as well, looking from Eric to Jake and back again as if she suspected them of orchestrating some kind of tag-team sneak attack. Eric took another pace forward and lifted his hands defensively. “Pure coincidence, me and Jake being here at the same time, I promise,” he reassured her. “I just dropped by to ask you a favor.”
“Okay.” Darcy halted at the bottom of the stairs, looking apprehensive.
“Nothing bad.” Eric rested a hand on the back of a dining chair. “It’s just that now that the Army’s no longer running things, we could do with some more help in the Sheriff’s office. Jimmy said you did a great job over the winter, so I was hoping we could persuade you to come back.”
Darcy was already shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think—.”
Eric tilted his head and gave her a persuasive smile. “Major Beck spoke very highly of you as well. And Margaret said she’d be happy to take care of Sam while you’re at work. Or you could just work school hours.” When she still seemed uncertain, he added, “We really would like you back.”
After a moment’s more hesitation, she nodded. “Okay, then.”
“Great!” Eric’s face broke into a broad smile. “If you can start tomorrow…?”
“I guess….” She sounded a bit like she still wasn’t quite sure how she’d found herself bounced into agreeing.
“Great! I’ll see you then.” Eric nodded and turned back toward the door.
“Wait up, Eric.” Jake got to his feet. “I’ll come with you. Unless,” he dipped his head in Darcy’s direction, “there’s anything else I can do?”
Darcy shook her head, still looking bemused. “No. I don’t think so. But thank you.”
Jake felt he hadn’t really done anything to be thanked for, but he let it go.
Once outside, he fell into step beside Eric as they headed back toward the center of town. “So, do you need a hand in the Sheriff’s department?”
“What?” Eric gave Jake a startled look and then shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. “No. It’s okay. Now Darcy’s agreed to come back, I think we’re covered.”
“Okay.” Jake huffed in a breath, wondering where he was needed.
“Anyway,” Eric glanced across at Jake with a raised eyebrow, “I thought you were busy with the turbines.”
“Yeah.” Jake shrugged. Not that Heather and Harry had seemed to need much help, once they’d rounded up a few other guys. “But then I went to talk to Dale about how we can get in and out of town. He said he had to leave most of the stuff he brought back this time on the other side of Hoffman’s lines. I thought we could put together a rescue party and bring it in on horseback. Scout around a bit at the same time.” Jake hesitated, still feeling resentful that they now had to clear everything with Beck. “He and that lieutenant, Goodman, they said they’d need to run it past you and Beck first, though.”
“Uh-huh. I’ll be sure to talk to Dale about it.” Eric sounded like his mind was still half somewhere else. Jake guessed he was a pretty busy man, with a lot to take care of. Unlike his brother. Sighing inwardly, he supposed he ought to see if Heather and Harry did need any more help. Just as long as he didn’t run the risk of bumping into Em again….
They carried on, not speaking, toward the center of town, until Eric once more shook himself. “Anyway, I got a couple meetings I need to get to. Catch you later, okay?” He gave Jake a slap on the back and strode away briskly. Jake stopped and looked after him, wishing he had that much purpose and sense of where he was supposed to go next.
Heather glanced across at Jake as they drove out toward Beck’s camp in one of the cars belonging to the Sheriff’s Department. They were on their way to connect the last of the four turbines they’d managed to get set up during the day. The fifth one, out at the pumping station, would have to wait until tomorrow: the sun was already dropping quickly in a fiery ball over her left shoulder.
She felt it was rather ungrateful of her to be wishing Jake wasn’t the one driving her out to the camp. She would have been much happier driving herself in Charlotte, but he’d pointed out that it would be dark by the time she set off home and that Charlotte had broken down just the previous day. Heather had tried to convince him she’d be fine, but Gray and Eric had both stepped in and sided with Jake, and she’d given up the fight as a lost cause. And she knew Jake was only trying to help, and that he was a bit frustrated no one else seemed to need him around. She just wasn’t particularly looking forward to him glowering at Edward the whole time they were out at the camp.
She also felt guilty that she was spending so much time with Jake now she’d found out from Emily—and seen the evidence with her own eyes—that he was avoiding her. He’d turned up again after lunch, when Harry and the rest of the crew had moved on to putting up the turbine at City Hall. She’d been on her own at the Med Center, finishing making the connections and testing them, though they hadn’t thrown the switch to start feeding power into the clinic until much later, after Hoffman had made good on his threat and the power had gone off at six o’clock. Jake had asked her how he could help, and listened to her instructions, and then gotten on with what needed doing without arguing or trying to change things. It had been such a refreshing change from dealing with Harry and the others that Heather had felt like hugging him.
Which was another reason the afternoon spent together had made her uncomfortable. Jake was with Em now, even if things were… complicated between them. So hanging around with him was only setting herself up for more heartbreak and humiliation. Especially as, despite her best efforts, there didn’t seem to be much she could do about her own feelings: the way her stomach fluttered when Jake gave her one of his crooked smiles, or how good it had felt when he’d held her and comforted her the other night after they’d argued. It didn’t feel right to spend time with Jake knowing she felt like that, however careful she was to maintain a purely friendly facade. At least he seemed blissfully unaware of the effect he was having on her, and she’d managed not to babble at him like she usually did when she got nervous. Or at least she thought she had.
No, it didn’t feel right. Particularly because she knew how badly she’d been hurt herself when Jake had ignored her for a month, when all they’d shared had been that one brief, impulsive kiss on Main Street. Jake and Emily had a lifetime together. Listening to Emily talk about Jake—about how he was pushing her away—while they’d collected the ASA flags from City Hall, taken them back to the Greens’ town house and gotten Emily started on converting them, Heather had squished down hard on the spark of disloyal hope that had flared inside her at the possibility Jake might soon be unattached.
Sneaking another glance at him as he drove them across the Tacoma bridge, she wrapped her arms around herself and said carefully, “Emily’s been doing a great job making the flags.”
Jake didn’t react for a moment. Then he huffed quietly and shot a cynical look in her direction that suggested he knew exactly what she was up to.
Suddenly Heather felt too tired to try and act as peacemaker between Jake and Emily. Today had been difficult enough as it was: messing about with the turbines had dredged up memories she’d worked hard to forget. So she wasn’t in much of a mood for talking Jake round when he clearly wasn’t ready to be talked round. Shaking her head and letting out a sigh, she turned and stared out of the window at the Richmond fields passing by outside.
Leaving the car at the camp gate, they made their way to the command tent. Edward, with Lieutenant Goodman at his side, was studying a map spread across the table when they were shown in. His face had lit up when he looked up and caught sight of her, only to darken a little a moment later as he spotted Jake following her inside. Not so much that Jake would have easily guessed how unwelcome his presence was, but enough that it was clear to Heather. She wondered when she’d learned to read Edward so well.
To her relief, Jake and Edward managed to both behave themselves in the short time before Edward handed them off to a Sergeant Tran from logistics. As they made their way through the rows of tents, to where the turbine had been set up near the perimeter, the sergeant explained they were planning to use it to charge a battery array, which would be able to provide a steady supply to the comms tower and the command tent even when the wind dropped. He’d already made the necessary connections, but didn’t seem to mind Heather checking everything over before they threw the switch. He was also happy to answer questions about how he’d connected the batteries, and whether they could rig up something similar using car batteries for the turbines in town. Glancing over her shoulder at one point as the two of them talked, Heather caught Jake stifling a yawn.
It was fully dark by the time they were ready to start the turbine. Heather manually set the blades to roughly the right angle to the breeze, now blowing steadily from the west, and then released the brake. Slowly, the blades began to spin. As the turbine head automatically swung round to catch the wind better, the blades sped up, until they settled into a steady rhythm, their ghostly whirr barely audible against the background noises of the camp.
At Heather’s side, Sergeant Tran let out a low, approving whistle. “That’s some damn fine work there, Miss Lisinski, if you don’t mind me saying. Especially given the resources you musta had.”
Heather blushed. “Well, we had the brake factory in New Bern to do the machining, of course. And, umm, a few different people helped with the design.”
“But you made it happen.” Jake’s hand on her shoulder made her jump. She’d almost forgotten he was there, watching from a few paces away. He was looking up at the turbine, but then he turned and smiled down at her, his eyes crinkling. She felt herself grow hot, suddenly very aware of him, and fought the urge to take a step back.
His smile faded a little. “Could you have done it in Jericho? If you’d—if you’d had a bit more support. From Gray and Harry and—?”
She shrugged slightly, biting her lip as she looked up at him. “Maybe. But Ted helped a lot. And we didn’t have the machining facilities….”
He nodded, not looking particularly reassured. She wondered if he was blaming himself for letting her go. Wondered, too, how things would have turned out if she hadn’t gone.
On her other side, Sergeant Tran cleared his throat. “Ma’am, I need to report back to Major Beck. And check—.”
“Yes, of course.” As Heather turned to nod at the sergeant, Jake dropped his hand from her shoulder. Following Sergeant Tran back to the center of the camp, with Jake at her side but no longer touching her, Heather felt both relief and a slight sense of loss. She sighed inwardly and decided that being around Jake was much too complicated.
When the sergeant showed them back inside the command tent a few moments later, they found it much more crowded. A corporal was hovering while Edward checked something on a clipboard, and Captain Clark had joined Lieutenant Goodman in studying the map on the table.
Edward glanced up at them as he marked something on the clipboard—his initials, Heather guessed—before handing it back to the corporal. “Sergeant?”
Tran saluted. “Turbine is operational, sir. I was just going to confirm with Corporal Harrell that the radio is operating correctly.”
“Very good, sergeant. Carry on.” Edward acknowledged the report with a nod of the head, before turning to Heather with a smile. “Thank you. And please pass on my thanks to Mayor Anderson. It was a very generous gesture by the town.”
Jake was close enough behind Heather that she could feel him bristling. Half-prepared if need be to step back and “accidentally” tread on his foot to shut him up, she returned Edward’s smile. Before any of them could say anything further, Harrell spoke up from his place in the corner by the radio set. “Sir?”
Edward turned toward him. “Corporal?”
“Sir, the Jericho salvage party reports they’ve passed ASA lines undetected and are proceeding to the barn.”
“Thank you, corporal.” Edward gave him a nod.
“What Jericho salvage party?” Jake took a half step around Heather and she instinctively put out a hand to stop him. She could feeling the tension thrumming through him as her fingers touched his arm.
Edward gave a slight shrug. “Mr Turner and some of the Rangers are attempting to retrieve the supplies he wasn’t able to bring in last night. Sheriff Green and I agreed that tonight was as good a time as any, since Colonel Hoffman may be expecting us to be too distracted with shutting off the power to try anything else.”
“Using the intelligence I gave you,” Jake spat, jerking his head in the direction of the map spread on the table.
Edward pressed his lips together for a moment, apparently taken aback by Jake’s tone. Then his face relaxed a little. He dipped his head. “My apologies, Jake. It was remiss of me not to thank you earlier. We’ve found the information extremely valuable. My scouts have already been able to confirm several of the checkpoints are where you suggested they would be, without risk of discovery themselves. I’m sure the information will be invaluable in ensuring Mr Turner and the rest of the party are able to return safely.”
“They’d be a lot safer if I was with them.” Jake took another half step forward, throwing off Heather’s hand.
Again, Edward hesitated for a fraction of a second, either unsure how to respond or weighing the possible responses to find the one that would best soothe Jake. Then he gave another quick dip of his head. “Perhaps that’s something you should take up with your brother. He chose the party, I believe.” Though he kept his tone level, there was a warning in it that Jake should drop the subject.
Which seemed like the last thing Jake was going to do. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something else. Thinking quickly, Heather faked a loud yawn. “Sorry,” she apologized to the tent at large. “Long day. Jake, would you mind taking me home, please?”
Jake shot another black look in Edward’s direction but, as she’d hoped he would, gave her a curt nod of agreement. “Of course.” He gestured for her to lead the way.
An hour later, Jake was cutting through the quiet streets toward the edge of town, heading for a dirt track running parallel to Route 6 that would take him out to the ranch. He’d left the car back at City Hall once he’d dropped Heather at her house, knowing they couldn’t spare the gas for him to run himself in and out of town while Hoffman’s blockade was in place. Eric had been right when he’d said it would be easier for Jericho if Jake was still living in town. Just not easier for Jake.
Was that why Eric was leaving him out of things? To show him he needed to move back? Jake shook his head, dismissing the idea. He suspected his brother wasn’t putting that much thought into it. It was simply that Jake wasn’t needed; while he’d been in Texas—and before that, when Beck had him imprisoned out at the hog farm—everyone had learned to get along just fine without him.
Jake drew in a deep breath, trying not to feel aggrieved about that, and caught the cloying scents of roses from a nearby garden. It reminded him of another walk home, when the air had been filled with the sharp smell of earth freshly turned for spring planting. It was hard to believe that was less than three months ago. Since then, they’d fought a war and Dad had died; he’d gotten back with Em; thought Heather was dead and then discovered she was alive; and Beck had arrived, looking like their savior, only to become their nemesis. And now, apparently, was back to being their savior again….
Jake sucked in another deep breath, picking up his pace a little without noticing as his irritation propelled him forward. He knew they needed Beck and his troops: Cheyenne would have just sent someone else to crush the town if Beck had withdrawn. Yet the moment he got in Beck’s presence, it was like he couldn’t think straight. This evening, even though he’d known it was right to share the map with the likely positions of the checkpoints, he’d wanted to snatch it up from where it lay on the table in Beck’s command tent and march out of the camp with it. He huffed a laugh to himself. Probably while adding something about taking his ball home as he stormed off. He knew he was being childish, but seeing everyone else cozying up to Beck and deferring to him after what he’d done, like it had never happened, just made him see red. And it made it so damn hard to keep his promise to Heather.
That was the worst of it, maybe. She hadn’t said a word when they’d gotten back into the car at the camp gate and set off back toward town, but she hadn’t needed to. Her silence, the way she’d sat with her arms crossed, looking out the window, had been enough rebuke in itself.
His anger with Beck had fallen away, withering under Heather’s unspoken disapproval. Instead, he’d quietly cursed himself. Making the turn on to the highway at the end of the track from the camp, he’d cleared his throat and said quietly, “I’m sorry.” When Heather had turned her head and looked at him, eyebrows raised, he’d jerked his head back toward the camp. “For what happened back there. I know I promised—.”
She’d put a hand on his arm and given him a wan smile. “It’s okay. I know it’s hard. If things had worked out when Eric talked to Constantino and I was being asked to work with him, I’d…. That would be tough.”
“Yeah.” Jake had swallowed down the lump in his throat, doubly determined now to try and behave around Beck for Heather’s sake. He didn’t want to keep on having to ask for her forgiveness, even if she seemed ready to give it. After all she’d gone through for Jericho’s sake, and after she’d risked everything to help Hawkins, she deserved better.
Now, passing the last house on the edge of town, and striking out into the fields, he felt another flash of irritation as he admitted to himself that Beck had been right: if he was going to be mad at anyone for sidelining him, it should be Eric. He’d have to talk to his brother about that tomorrow. Once he’d managed to make it through the morning meeting without getting in Beck’s face again.
The mid-morning sun was hot on Beck’s back by the time he ducked back into the command tent the following day. After the morning meeting in town had finished, he’d met with Eric for a while, and then made a stop out at one of the checkpoints, partly to confirm with his own eyes the reports he was receiving and partly as an attempt to keep morale up by showing the troops that their commanding officer was taking an interest. The soldiers manning the checkpoint had seemed cheerful enough, but with everything that had happened over the past few months, and especially the past few weeks, they were probably all feeling a little at sea, himself included.
“Anything to report, Lieutenant?” Inside the tent, Beck acknowledged Posey’s salute before taking off his helmet. Laying it down on the table, he headed for the coffee pot. He’d drunk too much already today, but he suspected that it was all that was keeping him going. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a decent night’s sleep. The coffee was making him jittery, though. Or maybe that was just dealing with Jake.
Posey had sat back down. “Yes sir. Lieutenant Goodman reports that the scouts have confirmed the position of Colonel Hoffman’s checkpoints nineteen through twenty two and twenty four. Twenty three is about a hundred yards further out than estimated.”
Beck nodded to show he’d heard and took a sip from his coffee. He couldn’t fault Jake’s knowledge of the area, at least, and it would have taken them a lot longer, and exposed his scouts to a lot more danger, if they’d had to determine the position of Hoffman’s troops without it. And Jake had spent this morning’s meeting merely glowering at Beck and not trying to argue with him, which had been an improvement on yesterday. But Beck had still been on edge the whole time, and he reckoned everyone else had been too. Right now, he wasn’t sure if having Jake back in Jericho was more trouble than it was worth.
Posey was speaking again. “Also, Lieutenant Serrano would like to schedule a meeting to discuss supplies—.”
He broke off as Corporal Harrell at the radio spoke up. “Sir? Corporal Adams is reporting an incursion. Two Apaches at low altitude approaching his position and heading for the center of town.” Harrell put a hand up to his headphones for a moment, clearly listening to another transmission, and then said. “Corporal, Major Beck is here. I’m going to put you on vox.” He reached out and flicked a switch. “Say again, Corporal.”
“Major Beck, sir.” Adams’ voice over the radio crackled with static as Beck strode toward Harrell. “We’ve targeted one of the birds with an M781, as per orders, but bogeys have not changed course. Repeat, bogeys have not changed course. The Apaches are still heading toward Jericho.”
Beck silently cursed as he reached for the handset. What the hell was Hoffman playing at? The last thing he wanted to do was to have to shoot down American pilots. That was why he’d issued orders to the patrols to fire an initial warning shot with a paint-filled practice shell unless there was an immediate threat to life. The impact would be enough to let the pilots know that they’d been hit—and that they could and would be hit with live rounds if they didn’t retreat—without doing any real damage. It would send a message to back off. Sounded like these two pilots didn’t want to hear it, though.
He pressed the switch on the handset. “Understood, corporal.” Handing the handset back to Harrell, he added brusquely. “Radio City Hall and let them know they’ve got incoming. And check if any of the other patrols are reporting activity.”
“Yes, sir.” Harrell turned back to the radio.
Beck swung round to face Posey, who was back on his feet. “Break out the Javelins. Tell the men I’ll be going with them. I’ll meet them by the main gate. I want to be in the center of town in twenty mikes.” He jammed his helmet back on and headed out of the tent, knowing that even if they did make it into town that quickly, they might already be too late to stop the Apaches from destroying half of Jericho.
Jake and Heather were up by the pumping station at the end of Chaparral, connecting up the final turbine, when they heard the helicopters approaching. They’d walked out there together, Jake carrying Heather’s toolbox. She’d refused when he’d first offered, but he’d put his hand next to hers on the handle anyway. “You could at least let me feel like I’m some use,” he’d pointed out. She’d held on to the tools a moment longer and then relinquished them with a bit of a smile.
He could tell his words had bothered her by the way she kept glancing at him as they walked along, but it wasn’t until they were nearly halfway to the pumping station that she said, “You are being useful, you know? You’ve been a real help getting the turbines up.”
“Maybe.” Jake shifted the toolbox to his other hand. Not that working with Heather was at all unpleasant, but it didn’t exactly feel like the best use of his talents. He was only out here right now because Eric still hadn’t rostered him for patrol or checkpoint duty. He’d given Jake a distracted look when Jake had caught him after the meeting to ask him about it and cursorily apologized—”Sorry, not had a chance to look at it yet.”—before dashing off to talk to Beck.
He was gone before Jake had any chance to bring up being left out of the party that had made Dale’s supply run the night before. Not that Eric would have cared about that either, Jake reckoned. Not after the way the meeting had gone. Trish Merrick had been there, to discuss what Dale had managed to bring in the previous night and how it matched up with what they were using up. According to Trish, they’d only brought in half the truckload, and nearly run into a patrol on the way back in, and she reckoned they’d need to be making a trip like that pretty much every other night to keep the town and the camp stocked. Jake had had a few ideas about how they could do things differently, but every time he’d opened his mouth to make a suggestion, it seemed like someone—Eric or Gray or Beck—talked over him. Eventually, he’d simply kept quiet and watched proceedings, thinking that maybe he could talk to Heather later. They seemed to listen to her, at least, and she seemed willing to listen to him.
He still hadn’t found a way to bring up the topic by the time he caught the unmistakable thump of rotor blades in the distance. There was nothing to mask the noise: the land around them—with the town spread out below, at the bottom of the low hill, and the flat fields stretching out either side of them—was almost silent. There was no far-off rumble of cars on the interstate, no minivans driven by busy soccer moms pulling up or away from outside Gracie’s, no tractors grinding through the crops.
Quickly scrambling to his feet, Jake shaded his eyes and searched the horizon to the east of them, trying to locate the source of the noise.
“What is it?” Heather, kneeling by the pumping station’s switch box a few feet away, peered up at him.
“Helicopters.” Jake had found them now, sunlight glittering off metal in the clear, pale blue of the sky.
“Hoffman?”
“Must be.” Jake’s gaze narrowed as he followed the helicopters’ track. “Looks like they’re heading for the center of town. I should get back there.” He threw the bag of cable ties he was still holding back in the toolbox.
“Me too.” Heather had gotten to her feet and was tucking the screwdriver she’d been using back into her toolroll and wrapping up the cloth as she moved toward him.
Jake shook his head. “No. You should stay here. It’ll be safer.” The words were out before he had a chance to think about them, but he didn’t regret them. Running into danger was all well and good for him, but Heather—.
The look she gave him as she dropped the toolroll into the box and closed it told him what she thought of that idea.
“No,” he repeated, remembering too late how they’d had this argument before, and he’d lost last time as well.
Heather was already turning away from him to put the toolbox next to the switch box and close the door to the pumping station. “What are you going to do? Tie me up?”
“I—.” Jake stopped. He didn’t have any good reason why she should stay behind except—she’d faced enough danger already, hadn’t she? And she was too important to the survival of the town to let anything happen to her.
She gave him another exasperated look and set off down the hill at a trot. After a moment, she glanced back over at her shoulder at him. “Well, come on then, if you’re coming.”
Jake quickly caught Heather up and slowed his pace to match hers as she settled into a steady jog. Much as he wanted to be in the middle of town as soon as possible, he didn’t want to leave her on her own, just in case the helicopters decided to turn their attention in this direction. He could see them—there only appeared to be two—as they split right and left and each made a circuit around the town, high enough to be out of the range of rifle fire but no doubt close enough to get a good look at what was going on below.
“Are they going to attack?” Heather’s question was a little breathless, but she gave him a nod to say she was okay when he looked across at her.
He peered back up at helicopters, losing sight of them for a moment behind the houses as he and Heather reached the edge of town. When the helicopters came into view again, he saw they were moving inward in tightening circles. “Hard to say. I think they’re just doing recon.”
Or looking for targets. He didn’t think it was worth worrying Heather by telling her they were Apaches and together they could carry enough rockets and missiles to take out half the town.
They were another hundred yards closer to the center of town when Jake saw one of the machines make a sharp turn sideways, and then halt and hover in place. Dropping his gaze down to pick out familiar landmarks—the church spire and the firestation tower—Jake decided it was over City Hall. He unconsciously picked up his pace a little. If Eric and Gray and Jimmy and Bill—.
Along the street, he saw people—mostly kids, with a few mothers—coming out onto their stoops and into their front yards, shading their eyes as they peered up disbelievingly into the sky. The second helicopter was still circling, now heading in their direction.
“Get back inside,” he yelled, flailing a hand toward the onlookers as he and Heather dashed past. Goddammit. They should be down in their basements, not gawking and turning themselves into targets. Why hadn’t anyone made any plans…?
He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or even more scared when, a moment later, he saw the helicopter that was coming toward them change direction again and turn away—only for it to come to a stop over another spot a few hundred yards from where the first still hung. Jake grimaced. He was pretty sure the second helicopter was now right over the top of the Med Center. He ran on.
The closer to the center of town they got, the harder it became to keep both helicopters in sight, so Jake heard before he saw that one of the helicopters was moving again. When he caught sight of them both, he realized that the one that had been over City Hall was now also heading toward the Med Center.
“Dammit!” He gestured to Heather to take the next left. “They’re over the clinic.” He swallowed hard. “Mom….”
Heather didn’t reply, just changed direction and began to run faster. Though God knows what they could do once they got there: Jake might be carrying his Beretta, but it wouldn’t be much use unless he got off an exceptionally lucky shot. Still, whatever the helicopters and Hoffman had planned, they were going to have to go through Jake to do it.
A mile away, Beck was tumbling out of the first of two humvees as they screeched to a halt in Main Street. Reports coming in from the other checkpoints as they’d raced into town indicated there was no activity from any other quarter. Beck, hearing the clatter of the Apaches somewhere to his right and behind him, supposed that was something to be grateful for.
Eric had been talking to Jimmy outside the front door of City Hall. Now he hurried down the steps and headed toward Beck. “They circled around town twice, then one of them came and took a look at City Hall and the other one headed for the Med Center. Now they’re both over that way.”
Beck nodded. “Let’s get over there. Get in. There’s room in the other humvee.” He caught Eric’s arm as the other man began to head toward the second vehicle. “Your guys know not to fire unless they’re fired on, right? We don’t want to start anything we don’t have to.” When Eric nodded, Beck let him go and climbed back into his own humvee. “Med Center. Go!” he ordered the driver.
As they raced through the streets, Beck weighed his options. Sounded like the Apaches were here for reconnaissance rather than to mount an attack, but he needed to send a message to Hoffman that the ASA didn’t own the skies over Jericho. “Corporal,” he twisted round to look at the gunner in the back seat. “I want you to set up out in the clear. I want those Apaches to know you’re there. But hold your fire unless they attack.”
The gunner swallowed hard and exchanged a look with the private next to him who’d act as his ammo bearer, before he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
As they drew to a halt in front of the Med Center, Beck hoped to hell his gamble would pay off and he’d have a chance to thank the two of them for letting him play Russian Roulette with their lives.
The other humvee drew to a halt next to them. Beck leaned through the window and called across to the driver, “Sergeant, I want you to get under cover across the street and lose yourselves. I don’t want those guys,” he pointed upward to where one of the Apaches was hovering three hundred feet above while the other made a slow circuit, “to know where you are. We’re gonna try and scare them away, but if anything happens to Team Alpha or the town, I want you to take those bastards out. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant hauled on the wheel and swung the humvee round. A few feet away, the first team were quickly assembling their Javelin.
“Sir?” That was his own driver. “You should—.”
“I know, Corporal.” Beck waved to the driver to move off. Much as he wanted to get out and join the fight, he suspected he was the one target Hoffman would have authorized in advance. That was why he’d been careful not to tip his head too far back as he’d squinted up at the Apache hovering over the Med Center roof. It still didn’t sit well, though, to leave his men behind in the open while he scurried for safety.
By the time they’d reached the end of the street and his driver had turned the humvee round so they could watch, the Apache over the Med Center had swung to point its guns at the two men crouched in the middle of the parking lot. The gunner had hoisted the Javelin onto his shoulder and was pointing it right back at the helicopter. The second machine, meanwhile, had cut across toward the block that faced the Med Center, no doubt looking for the other team after they’d disappeared into one of the stores there. Beck hoped Eric knew his town well enough to be able to direct the group to a new location without being seen.
Resting his elbow on the window and peering up, Beck held his breath and waited.
Part Three of "Tailspin" | Part Four of "Tailspin"
