Corps Justice Boxed Set: Books 1-3: Back to War, Council of Patriots, Prime Asset (2 page)

Instead, he hefted the now excruciatingly
heavy mallet and heaved it at the fourth man. Instead of watching
whether the mallet hit its target, Cal followed right behind, knife
blade once again leading, and bowled over his target while plunging
the blade into the man’s gut.

The man squirmed, screamed and struggled to
get away from his attacker. Cal left the gutted gang member and
turned to look for Dante. The fearless leader was now
half-staggering and half-running towards the opposite end of the
alley, glancing over his shoulder as he ran.

Cal suddenly noticed the presence of a
quickly growing crowd at the entrance of the alley. He stumbled for
a step and fell to his hands and knees.

CAL:
Jessica!

He screamed as he crawled towards his fiancé
who was now lying in a large pool of blood.

CAL
:
Jess!

He reached her side and painfully pulled
himself so that his face was next to hers. Her eyes were strangely
clear as she looked at him. He’d seen people die in war and by the
look of her wounds he was sure Jessica was on her way.

CAL
(whispering): Hey, baby. It’s gonna be ok.

JESS
(smiling and barely audible): Don’t you lie to me, Cal. You
know I always know when you lie.

CAL
: Ok,
Jess, but I’m here with you.

JESS
: I
love you, Cal. I love…

CAL
: Jess?
Jess!

Her breathing stopped and her eyes lost
their spark. Cal’s world stopped. Nothing mattered anymore. As he
faded to blackness his thoughts were of Jessica and war. Two things
he needed and could never seem to avoid.

I
mages swirled in Cal’s mind. The dry air of the open desert.
Bloody comrades screaming for help. Friends, family, enemies…
Jessica in a blue gown at the Marine Corps Ball. Jessica walking
down the Lawn at the University of Virginia. Jessica crying as he
slipped the sparkling engagement ring on her finger. Jessica
breathing her last breath. Jessica, Jessica, Jess…

Vanderbilt University Hospital, Intensive
Care Unit, Nashville, TN

Cal Stokes slowly opened
his swollen eyes. His body felt completely immobilized.
What the hell?
he
wondered.

Slowly and with no small difficulty, he
tried to focus on his surroundings. He was obviously in a hospital.
The writing on the door still looked like a grayish blob so he
decided he’d figure out the particulars later.

He remembered the attack in the alley. He
remembered Jess dying. The pain in his heart returned.

When he thought about that last moment with
his dead fiancé, he tried to focus on her beautiful face and her
tranquil eyes. He’d always felt that her eyes were what really did
him in that first night they’d met six years before. Those
beautiful eyes would always haunt him.

As he pondered his misery, the door swung
open and a young Hispanic looking hospital staff member walked
in.

BRIAN
: I
see you’re awake. How you feeling Staff Sergeant?

Ignoring the question and the comment about
his prior military rank, Cal answered with a croak.

CAL
: Where
am I?

BRIAN
: They
brought you over here to Vandy after the attack. You were pretty
damn beat up. Haven’t seen anything like that since I was in
Iraq.

As he talked, the nurse busied himself by
taking notes from the machines Cal was hooked up to.

CAL
: How
long have I been here?

BRIAN
:
About a week. You were full of holes and in critical condition. You
got lucky though. The bullets missed anything vital. No permanent
damage, mostly blood loss. By the looks of your other scars, this
isn’t the first time you’ve spent in a hospital. The docs wanted to
keep you sedated for a bit so your body could heal.

CAL
: When
can I leave?

BRIAN
(chuckling): Just like a Marine. Staff Sergeant, you’re not
going anywhere for a few days. Why don’t you kick back and let us
pamper you a bit?

As the nurse continued
around the room in what looked like a practiced habit of checks and
rechecks, Cal wondered how he’d found out about his military
service.
I guess you can find pretty much
anything on the internet these days
.
I’ve gotta get out of here and talk to Jess’s
parents.

BRIAN
: Can
I get you anything, Staff Sergeant?

CAL
: Call
me Cal. I left that Marine stuff behind. What do I call
you?

BRIAN
: My
name is Brian Ramirez. Or you can call me nurse-man.

CAL
: You
said you were in Iraq. Who were you with?

BRIAN
: I
was with you jarheads. I was a corpsman with 1/2. You were with
3/8, right?

CAL
: Yeah.
How about I just call you Doc.

BRIAN
: No
problem. Takes me back to the days with my platoon. You dumb grunts
can never remember anyone’s real name. You need
anything?

CAL
: I’m
good. Thanks, Doc.

Brian nodded and left the room.

Cal was surprised to have a corpsman taking
care of him. Maybe he was paired with Brian once they found out
he’d been in the Marine Corps. Whatever. He just wanted to get out
of the hospital.

DANTE
(screaming into his cell phone): What do you mean that
motherfucker’s still alive?! I pumped that boy full of
lead!

He listened intently as the speaker on the
other end of the conversation relayed more information.

DANTE
: Well
you tell that bitch she better keep her eye on things and tell me
as soon as that fucker get’s released!

Dante stared down at his phone seething with
rage. How the hell had everything gone so wrong? A week ago he’d
had a crew of promising members and a highly profitable business.
Now he was left with a crew full of worthless bitches.

To make matters worse, the media and the
police had picked up on the bloody attack and now Dante was on the
run. Never in the same place two nights in a row. He’d done it
before down in Louisiana, but this was different. He felt like the
whole world was looking for him.

Maybe it was time to head back to New
Orleans? No. He had to stay in Nashville and finish what he’d
started. Besides, if he went back south he’d be laughed at as he
ran back into town hiding from the authorities. He’d worked too
hard to let everything go bad. He had too much raw talent.

No. He had to finish things with this damn
Marine.

Damn Marine! How the hell could they have
known that Shorty was about to attack a Marine hero?!

It was plastered all over the news about how
the returning Navy Cross winner and his fiancé had been brutally
attacked in the middle of busy downtown Nashville. Local
authorities and veterans groups were in an uproar. Roving bands of
retired military and their supporters walked the downtown streets
just waiting for provocation.

The Marine veteran had turned into a folk
legend in a matter of days. Stories varied as to the exact chain of
events from that night (the police were being unusually
tight-lipped), but what no one could deny was that somehow this one
former Staff Sergeant, in self defense, had killed three men,
blinded a fourth and wounded the only one to escape: Dante
West.

What seemed like a simple initiation at one
point had now turned into a complete nightmare for Dante and his
crew. Just over a week prior his hookers could peddle their wares,
his pushers could sell their drugs and his boys could walk the
streets sporting their colors. Now the police had identified the
once silent gang. Shorty had helped their efforts by squealing like
a pig and unloading anything and everything he knew about Dante and
N.O.N.

Other than Dante, the blinded Shorty was the
only other gang member to survive Cal Stokes’ wrath. Shorty had
been taken to the hospital, where he’d been pronounced healthy save
the loss of two eyes, and remained under the supervision of the
police and hospital staff.

Under very basic interrogation, a scared and
defenseless Shorty had divulged the entire plan for the night’s
attack, including why the couple was picked and who N.O.N. and its
members were.

Shorty had outed Dante and his entire crew.
It was a complete and total disaster for Dante who’d spent the time
since his move to Nashville carefully choosing new recruits and
keeping his base of operations under the radar of the local police
and other rival gangs.

Now N.O.N. was national news and he’d
already felt the pressure from his rivals. Hell, the media had even
taken to making fun of the gang’s name. Enough was enough. It was
time for Dante to take back control. He hadn’t worked so hard to
let it fall so fast.

He would push the envelope and show that
damn Marine how bad things could really get.

I
t
had been two days since Cal had regained consciousness. His mind’s
sharpness returned, he focused on exceeding his doctor’s
expectations of recovery so he could get out of the hospital
sooner.

His only companion and now friend was the
nurse, Brian Ramirez. Over the preceding two days Brian filled Cal
in on what was being televised about the investigation into the
attack that killed Jessica.

CAL
: So
you’re telling me they know who led the attack and they still don’t
have him in jail?”

BRIAN
: Yep,
this guy Dante West is supposedly the leader of this little
transplanted gang. They say he’s a pretty mean sonofabitch. Came up
here from New Orleans after Katrina. They interviewed some of his
extended family down south and they were all pretty tight-lipped. I
think they’re afraid of him coming after them. Cops say he was
apparently into drugs and running with local gangs by the time he
was twelve. Has a long record including attempted murder and
battery.

CAL
: If
they know who he is why can’t they find him?

BRIAN
: The
cops I’ve seen on TV say he’s hit the streets. They’ve got a huge
manhunt out for him. Word is the military vets on the police force
can’t wait to find him and hope he’ll go down fighting. Nobody
likes the way things went down with your girl.

CAL
(absently): Yeah.

Part of him hoped and prayed he would be the
one to find that piece of shit. To put a couple rounds into his gut
and watch him die might make his despair a little more
palatable.

BRIAN
: So
what do you wanna do today?

CAL
: What
are you--my nanny now?

BRIAN
:
Let’s just say the hospital staff has decided no one else has the
patience to deal with a grumpy grunt.

In fact, Cal knew the real reason Brian
seemed to be his now constant companion. He had a feeling Brian had
requested the crap duty of babysitting him. He’d even heard a
heated conversation between Brian and one of the head nurses the
previous night. Apparently it was the end of Brian’s shift and the
head nurse had pushed him to go home.

BRIAN
(half-yelling): If you’re so worried about me why don’t you go
get me a cup of coffee and let me do my job?

HEAD NURSE
(calming): Brian, you know we can’t pay you for the overtime.
Hospital policy is pretty strict on that these days.

BRIAN
: I
don’t give a shit about the pay. I’ll clock out but don’t tell
Staff Sergeant Stokes about it. He’s one of my Marines and I’ll be
damned if he sits here all alone after losing his fiancé. Hell,
didn’t you hear that even his parents are already dead?!

The head nurse had relented and Brian
strolled into Cal’s room as if the altercation had never occurred.
Cal decided to play along and didn’t mention overhearing. Sometimes
it was good to have even a swabby corpsman on your side.

BRIAN
: So
what do you wanna do today?

CAL
: Let’s
get some of this rehab out of the way. I’ve gotta get the hell out
of this place.

BRIAN
:
Alright, Cal, but don’t forget what your doctor said. You’ve gotta
take it easy for a while.

CAL
: Yeah,
yeah. Look, I’ve been through this shit before and I’m really
getting sick of the crappy hospital food. I’d rather be eating MREs
right now.