The Embattled Road (Lost and Found Series) Read online

  The Embattled Road

  by

  J.M. Madden

  The Embattled Road

  Copyright 2012 J.M. Madden

  Cover by Viola Estrella

  Editing by The Comma Cabal

  Formatted by IRONHORSE Formatting

  Kindle Edition

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  Any logistical, technical, procedural or medical mistake in this book is truly my own.

  Acknowledgements~

  My deepest thanks to Bruce McDonald for the insightful information that has made this book as true to life as possible. You’ve brought a dimension to the story that may not have been there otherwise. THANK YOU.

  Donna and Robyn, you’re awesome cheerleaders and perfectionists. You guys rock! Kally, thank you for the idea of the prequel itself, not to mention the tips and encouragement.

  And most importantly, to all the service members who have given up any part of themselves to serve this glorious country, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for securing our safety and that of my family.

  A Note from J.M.~

  I’ve had the idea for this series for a long time. But I had a lot of doubts about whether I could convey the message I wanted to.

  As we go about our daily grind, it’s easy to forget that there are men and women dying every day as they fight to ensure our freedom. When they come home, no matter what shape they are in, they deserve our utmost respect and appreciation for doing the job they volunteered for.

  Every soldier that has served overseas will carry some type of scar, either internally or externally. It’s our responsibility, as their support, to make sure that those scars are seen as marks of courage, not something to turn away from when you pass them on the street.

  I sincerely believe there is a soul mate for everybody. The external package doesn’t matter when it comes to the heart. The same goes with friendship. There are people you come across that you just click with, and know they will be a part of your life forever. When men serve together in combat, there’s a special bond created that surpasses everything.

  That bond is what I tried to at least touch on here. There are no heroines in this book because the men had to be solid with each other before I could introduce the girls in the coming books. I hope you’ll be patient as we follow all of their journeys.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Note from the Author~

  Embattled Hearts,

  About the Author~

  Also by J.M. Madden

  Chapter One

  June 2007

  Duncan could not wait to get the fuck out of this sand pit. He had grit in his junk, his armpits, the creases of his eyes. It didn’t do any good to try to rub it away because all you did was scratch yourself.

  Fucking desert.

  Jungle fighting would be welcome right now, and that said a lot. He hated the jungle.

  Three more months before he reached the end of his tour and could go home. His last tour. He’d already decided to go on drill instructor duty when he was done, so he could train recruits at Parris Island in relative comfort instead of here. He’d served his time. Perhaps he and Melanie could actually build a life together.

  The Humvee rattled over a rock, bouncing him in the seat.

  “Monroe, you gotta hit every damn rock on the road?” Bates groused. “My ass is killin’ me.”

  The driver grinned and glanced behind him at the other two Marines. Bates always complained. “Dude, you’ve been here long enough to know the damn rocks breed like crazy. Scrape ‘em off and they’re right back with a new layer. I’m following the tracks exactly.”

  The men snorted in the back and Duncan looked out the window. The monochrome, hilly landscape stretched for miles, leading to the mountains in the distance. Rocky outcrops dotted the land, interspersed with scrub grass clumps, perfect ambush points they had to pass to get to the northern base, where they were due to relieve the current MP force rotating out. The convoy had been traveling for hours. It was slow going through this rough terrain. Driving in Iraq wasn’t like driving in Colorado. You had to be aware of everything and follow in the path of the truck in front of you. Too many men had died already by IEDs this year, and more died every day.

  Beauchamp had been the most recent. Blown to hell by a young Iraqi on a motorcycle that pulled alongside his window while he was talking to a group of kids. Three of the kids had been blown away as well, but insurgents didn’t care about them. They were supposedly blessed by Allah for dying a glorious death. He wondered if the mothers felt the same way as they gathered up pieces of their children.

  The radio squawked to life with men yelling. His ears were hit with a reverberation of sound and he knew immediately that an IED had been triggered. Duncan gripped his weapon, ready to jump to the ground as he searched for the source of the explosion. Monroe slammed on the brakes, sending the Humvee skidding in the loose gravel. Duncan glanced in the side mirror. The vehicles behind them had disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire. Burning debris rained down in chunks on their vehicle. Black smoke swirled upward. Duncan saw the vehicles were still there, but heavily damaged, all shoved akilter. The men’s screams reached his ears before they were drowned out by rifle fire.

  “Out of the vehicle! Bates and Clark, cover fire! We’ve got men down!”

  He threw himself out of the Humvee and shouldered his M16. There was a copse of rocks several hundred yards to the west. The attack seemed to be coming from there so he fired in that direction. Smoke obscured his vision as he took cover behind the truck, but he could still hear men screaming. “Monroe, get on the horn and make sure we have air support coming!”

  Crouching, Duncan ran across the open expanse of ground between his vehicle and the one behind him in the caravan, the M16 barking in his arms. Bates and Clark laid down cover fire as he ran. The first Marine he reached was already gone, a gaping hole in his sternum. Duncan circled the truck, which sat at an odd angle, flipped with the roof to his side. The front passenger’s side wheel was in a hole, but the ass end poked in the air. He tried to follow the sound of screaming while staying under cover. At the back of the truck, he found another young Marine trying to crabwalk around the vehicle. The distinctive chatter of the enemy’s AK47s echoed through the air, and the answering response from the Marines. Ignoring the heat of the smoldering truck, he surged to grab the kid beneath the armpits and drag him around t
he vehicle. Bullets struck the dirt in front of him and he jumped, rolling with the kid out of the line of danger. Monroe was there, then, laying down cover fire as Duncan dragged the Marine out of reach of the bullets.

  The passenger side door of the Humvee fell open just above them and two men tumbled out to the sand. One hustled to the front of the vehicle, raised his weapon and started to fire. The second fell to the ground and didn’t move. Duncan glanced down at the kid he’d just helped. His tag said Fallon. He gasped for air but Duncan didn’t see any obvious blood or breaks. “Hey Fallon, looks like you skinned by with this one. You’re fine, you just need to breathe. Just breathe. I’m going to check on your buddy.”

  Fallon blinked and nodded his head. He still had his helmet on.

  The Marine who had fallen to the ground did not. Duncan scrambled across the sand, ever conscious of how close the little puffs of dust around him reached. Some were within inches of his feet. The insurgents had planned this ambush perfectly. Before he rolled the kid over, he felt for a pulse. There, but faint. Again, he didn’t see any obvious blood but in situations like these what you couldn’t see was more dangerous. The impact of the percussion to the body and then the body against the vehicle could kill a Marine in minutes. Not an easy death. He called for a Corpsman, but all he saw was swirling smoke.

  Pulling the kid over enough to look at his face, Duncan leaned in. Shit. Parker. Newest of the bunch. He’d only been here two weeks. Poor kid had a hell of a dent in his head that Duncan hadn’t seen at first.

  A bullet pinged off the undercarriage inches from his face and he knew he needed to move him whether he wanted to or not. Slinging the rifle around to his back, he grabbed him by the pits and pulled. Parker didn’t rouse at all. Bad sign.

  The Corpsman dropped down beside him as he lowered Parker to the ground, twenty feet from the overturned Humvee. He motioned to the young Marine’s head. “Head wound!”

  Scrambling back to the truck, he pulled his weapon forward and took position behind Monroe, firing toward the rocks. The gunfire slowed and he wondered if the enemy had retreated.

  Eventually the firing dwindled away. Duncan stayed put. Sometimes the enemy stopped shooting and waited till the Marines relaxed, then set in on them again. This time, though, they seemed to be gone. Or dead. Several bodies littered the outcrop.

  He clapped Monroe on the back, impressed that the young grunt had done exactly what needed done.

  The medic shook his head when Duncan returned to him. “I don’t know if he’s going to make it or not First Sergeant. He’s got serious swelling on the brain. I’ve called in a 9-Line Medevac but I’ve got other wounded to eval.”

  In other words, there was nothing more he could do for him.

  Duncan nodded and waved the man away. Monroe helped Fallon over to sit with Parker. Fallon still wheezed and held his gut, but he’d probably be fine. Duncan followed Doc to the next vehicle in the convoy, obviously the epicenter of the blast. Bodies lay strewn behind the burning carcass of the Humvee. The transports were armored, but only to a certain extent. Obviously, this one had been deliberately targeted, fired upon repeatedly after it had hit the IED. Did they think he had been in it? The driver’s side was ripped open like the lid off a can, with its guts strewn everywhere. The men in the fire team were all men he knew and had spoken to hours ago. Now, they were all gone. The gruesome sight was enough to turn his normally cast-iron stomach. It had been his responsibility to get the men in these squads to the camp safely.

  His throat tightened as he went man to man, cataloging names when he could see them. Six dead, total, from two different teams. Six families he’d have to call when he got to base. Sorrow threatened to drop him to his knees, but he had to shove it aside.

  The third Humvee affected by the blast had little to no damage and the men were fine, though banged up. One had a bullet hole through his leg but was conscious and calm as the Doc bandaged him up.

  Duncan sent out a squad to secure their position. A few minutes later he heard the distinctive thwop-thwop-thwop of the Medevac. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he watched the chopper roll in.

  It was a couple hundred yards away when a surface-to-air rocket blasted out of the hills from the west and struck the side of the massive two-rotor machine, sending it floundering in the air. Rifle fire sounded, three shot bursts, but it was lost in the whine of the overtaxed engines as the pilot tried to recover the craft.

  Too close. The thought registered as his feet began moving. He tried to get the men up before the chopper came down right on top of them.

  Even as he started shoving Marines out of the way, he knew it was too late. The monstrous machine hit the ground behind him and blew. For a heartbeat of time, everything stopped- sound, motion, thought. Then the blast struck him in the back, flinging him into the air. It seemed like he flew forever before landing with a sickening crunch on top of one of his men. Heat seared his body from shoulders to toes.

  His burning world went dark.

  Duncan jerked awake, then realized all he did was open his eyes. Reality smacked him in the face as he focused on the beige tile floor. Yep. Still at Walter Reed. Landstuhl Hospital’s floor had been pale blue with darker flecks in it. He remembered that much. Somebody had turned the page of the automotive magazine for him, but he was still strung up like a marionette, arms stretched out to his sides, in the medical contraption immobilizing his spine and protecting his burns. The mattress beneath him was hard. After three weeks in the same position, you’d think he’d remember. But no. Every time he woke up, he wondered why God hadn’t just killed him and gotten it over with. At least then the pain would end.

  One of the nurses squeaked her way into the room. Pink rubber Crocs stopped beside his bed. What was her name? Lacey? Or Lainy? Something like that. He glanced into the edge of the mirror not covered by the magazine. She smiled at him, that professional nurse smile meant to conceal how very desperate his situation actually was.

  “How do you feel today, First Sergeant?”

  He rocked his head as much as he could and closed his eyes. If she was going to ask stupid questions like that he wasn’t going to answer her. She circled the bed and he felt her tug at the sheet over his burnt back. “How is your pain right now?”

  He sighed. She wouldn’t leave until he answered her. “About a seven.”

  She hummed under her breath and moved to the IV stand, adjusting something there. Within seconds he felt a blessed wash of numbing heat roll through his body. Seemed like the only thing that made him happy anymore was morphine. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep his life away.

  August 2007

  “That fucking hurt!”

  The grey haired doctor at the foot of his bed grinned at him. “Good.”

  Duncan reeled against the mattress, in spite of the pain the movement caused his raw back. It had hurt. “Do it again,” he demanded.

  Richards ran the weirdly shaped roller up his foot and for the first time in two months Duncan felt something. “It’s about fucking time. Why did it take so long?”

  The doctor shrugged. “Well, in addition to the spinal shock you had the burns and the cracked vertebra. Your pelvis was broken in two places. It took time for all that to heal. Now the nerves are fixing themselves. I think a couple more months and you should be up and moving.”

  “Months?”

  “Yes, at least. Because I want you to take it easy. We can’t rush this, or it could set you back right where you started. You’ll end up in the chair permanently if we’re not careful of your recovery.”

  Duncan let the information sink in, shocked. He would be fine, it would just take a while. He could stare at the walls a little longer.

  His heart raced at the first glimmer of good happening to him in months. A huge chunk of his company ─those valiant men─ were gone and his career fried, literally. Uncertainty yawned before him like an abyss. But finally, that one little tickle had changed his life.

  That followin
g Saturday, anticipation thrummed through his body as he watched the clock. Sixteen thirty-four. Melanie would be here any minute. He’d debated calling her to tell her the news but decided he wanted to see the happiness on her face when he told her in person. In spite of the doctor’s assurances that she could handle whatever happened, she’d been slowly withdrawing. Maybe this could also be her galvanizing spark.

  As if in answer to his thoughts, the hospital room door swished open and Melanie walked in, looking beautiful as always in the tan coat that matched her hair so perfectly. Her pale cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes glittered. She crossed to kiss him like she normally did but moved away from his side, instead choosing to stand at the end of the bed, hands folded in front of her. She kept her jacket on.

  His gut twinged in warning.

  “Melanie, are you okay? How was your drive from Columbus?”

  “Fine, Duncan. A little busy but not too bad. You’re looking good.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured. He’d shaved the stubble from his face and gotten his hair cut this morning, expecting her.

  Narrowing his eyes, he cocked his head. Obviously she had something on her mind to talk about. Some instinct made him hold his own news close and wait as she fidgeted. Finally, she looked up at him with tears welling in her eyes. “Duncan, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be here for you anymore.”

  Chills rippled over his skin. “You mean here at the hospital? That’s fine. If it’s too much of a drive you don’t have to do it.”

  She shook her head, biting her bottom lip. “No, I don’t think I can be here for you.” She waved a hand at the medical equipment around the bed. “At all. With all of this.”

  Duncan stared at her, hard, until she shifted uncomfortably. She dropped her eyes to her white-knuckled hands. “I know you’ll get better, eventually, but I need to move forward with my life.” Straightening, she stepped to the side of his bed and held out the engagement ring he’d given her a year ago. Dazed, he took the ring, folding it into his palm.