Save Him Read online

  Save Him

  Published by William M. Hayes

  Edited by Kate Schomaker

  Cover by Graphic Design by Pam

  www.graphicdesignbypam.com

  Contact the Author

  [email protected]

  William M Hayes on Facebook

  Copyright © 2019 William M Hayes

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the written permission of William M Hayes. Any violation of the international copyright law is subject to criminal prosecution, fines, and/or imprisonment.

  This book is licensed to the original purchaser and for personal enjoyment only. It 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 reader. Please do not participate in piracy of books or other creative works. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. While reference may be made to existing locations, the characters, incidents, names, and places are products of this author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is completely coincidental.

  Early Praise for Save Him

  “…Hayes blends a lethal fusion of science fiction and faith in this gritty, military, science fiction novel.”

  ~ V. Dublado, Readers’ Favorite

  “…an original story…I thoroughly enjoyed reading…a thriller packed with action, packed with discovery and one that has a nail-biting finale”

  ~A. Reynolds, Readers’ Favorite

  “…author very creatively depicted many unimaginable events…made me wonder what he was going to think up next in what I believe is an amazing book… the ending was extremely exciting.”

  ~Team Golfwell Book Reviews

  Acknowledgements

  Tom Balderrama and Bob Springett, thank you for your insight. Both of you went above and beyond.

  A huge thanks to my editor Kate Schomaker for all the work you had to put into this book—doing it in such a professional manner and with an awesome sense of humor.

  Matt DeMazza at Reedsy, thank you for the proofread.

  Pam Cunningham at Graphic Design by Pam, the front and back cover are everything I envisioned.

  And Beth Werner from Author Connections…I really enjoyed our conversations on how to reach readers with this book. You made the business part of selling a book enjoyable.

  Table of Contents

  Church

  The Genesis Lab

  Afghanistan

  Camp Constellation

  Mountains of Kabul

  Rydel Working off the Clock

  Deathbed

  The Discovery

  Back to Genesis

  Fourth of July

  One Year and One Week Later

  Japan

  Upstate New York

  Karen

  The Return

  Rydel's Whereabouts in Time

  Rydel in the Past

  Brothers

  Sending Them Out in Style

  Rydel in the City of Jerusalem

  Countdown

  The Messiah

  The Arrival

  Camp

  Clopas

  The Overlook

  Dawn over Jerusalem

  The Healed One

  The Road Back

  Hunted

  A Meal Shared with the Mother of Jesus

  The Gathering of the Believers

  Jesus and Lazarus

  The Other

  The Road to Jerusalem

  Todd

  The Storm

  Ultimatums

  Three Return

  The Peace Offering

  Home

  A Meeting with the General

  Backyard Party

  Connect with William M. Hayes

  Church

  The married couple entered the empty church and, hand in hand, walked past the cherrywood pews. Ahead of them, red votive candles burned at either side of the altar.

  The man took his time walking ahead. The black T-shirt, black cargo pants, black boots, athletic build, and strong, clean-shaven jawline screamed military man. He dropped to his knees in front of the altar, as did his wife, both facing Christ on the cross. The two bowed their heads and prayed. The woman—in her late thirties, curvy, with black hair and light-olive skin—turned toward her husband, touched his wedding band, and slid her index finger back and forth over the ring. She then gently touched the gold crucifix hanging from the chain around his neck.

  "He's always looked after you. He will again. I'll be outside." She made the sign of the cross, rose to her feet, and left the church.

  The sound of the doors closing behind him made the man lift his head. He stared at the cross once more. Before every mission, he took this time alone to be with Jesus Christ, eyeing each wound carefully. Always the same feeling of sorrow, tinged with anger, surfaced at each nail driven into his Savior. Ray Catlin stood, made the sign of the cross, and walked away.

  He was ready.

  __

  Two hours later, Ray was in the back of a black civilian Humvee driven by a young officer who neither looked at nor spoke to him the entire hour it took to reach the military base. Outside of the twenty-foot chain-link fence around the base, the Humvee and its occupants were searched and their IDs verified before entering. At a helicopter hangar, the Humvee pulled up alongside a pair of wide double doors that were slightly parted. Ray stepped out of the Humvee and slipped through the narrow space the doors provided. Inside the surrounding walls of gray, the hangar was empty of any flying machine owned or operated by the military. In front of Ray, only his boys and girls stood waiting: ten operators clothed in black cargo pants and diverse black combat shirts.

  For three years, in some of the most hellish circumstances, Ray had kept them safe. If it came down to their lives or his, he would die for any one of them, just like any good father would.

  With the window of opportunity slowly closing on having children with his wife, Kate, Ray felt the members of his unit were his children to protect. It was a feeling formed on their very first mission together. Personality-wise, while they were all different, they were, at their core, connected. Everything different about each individual operator seemed to draw them together, the familial bond growing stronger over the years. And Ray was the proud father.

  Ray walked closer and addressed his team.

  "We're being flown out tonight to the Genesis lab. We'll prep there for our next mission. We leave in an hour."

  The Genesis Lab

  The ten members of Ray's Unit were led by a man dressed entirely in white down a dark tunnel toward a white door. The members of the unit glanced at one another as they moved deeper into the tunnel, the looks they shared illuminated by the only light available—a narrow strip of fluorescent light overhead.

  All of them had heard of the lab, as being in this elite unit allowed them access to privileged information. Due to the team's status and responsibility, each member was entitled to information withheld from other select groups in the military.

  They were known simply as the Unit, or Unit 10. Their unit did not have a prestigious name like Delta Force or Navy SEALs, although most members came from those parts of the military. The members assembled when missions had to be completed overseas and kept American civilians safe from threats most people weren’t even aware existed. Civilians did not want to know about some of these dangers— unless they never wanted to sleep peacefully again.

  And now here they were, hidden in the woods of upstate New York. The military lab's rumored projects ranged from a better military boot to body armor that transformed soldiers into walking tanks. There were even whispers of
invisibility.

  Campfire stories. Military lore told by out-of-the-loop military men and women with a few fragments of real knowledge about the place.

  Each member in the Unit had no idea which of the rumored projects actually existed. Yet they had all benefited. The Unit got the new stuff to try out first, though some could argue that they were all just military test dummies.

  After being led into a large room, the members of the Unit sat silently on benches attached to long tables, like the ones in high school cafeterias. Everything was sparkling white.

  A door opened, and a man walked in, coming to a stop in front of the tables. He was solid, with broad shoulders his black suit could not conceal. Since being reassigned to supervise the Genesis lab, the high-ranking officer was told not to dress in uniform. His blond hair was trimmed short on top and razor-close around the ears and neck. Formidable. But his eyes were inviting, understanding, warm.

  As Colonel John Adams looked over the operators in front of him, another man in his early thirties, dressed in a white shirt and khakis, walked into the room followed by Ray, who stood and waited near the door. The man in the white shirt and khakis joined the colonel in front of the tables. Will Stevens, with his hair neatly parted to the side and clothes pressed to perfection, glanced slowly over the Unit in front of him, but not in the same way that the colonel had looked over the group. Will was the man in charge of the Genesis lab and could not hide the look of displeasure on his face.

  These were the ones chosen from the best the military had to offer? He was angry to begin with that these operators had special access to information and projects at the lab without his approval. He did not see the men and women gathered in front of him as being close to his intelligence, and they were therefore not worthy of what he had to offer. They were grunts.

  How fast things can change. All because of a few projects and their potential. Just a year before, there was only an occasional visit by military hierarchy, mainly to tell him what a great job he was doing here with the scientists he supervised.

  He was no longer fully in charge of the facility. He did have his say, although not like before. Once the colonel—who had just the slightest background in science—arrived, the way the lab had been run previously was over. Admittedly, though, they still very much needed him with the new projects. The colonel himself told him to keep pushing the scientists like he always did to achieve their best. He would always be needed to run the facility and oversee the scientists.

  It could never fully become the colonel's lab; the man was just not smart enough. Maybe one day there would be an accident at the lab. Maybe one day, the colonel would—

  Colonel Adams placed a hand on Will's shoulder.

  "You okay there, Will?"

  Caught up in his thoughts, Will shook his head as if he had not heard the colonel when he very well had.

  "Sorry, sir, what did you say?"

  "Are you okay? You look like you're upset or something."

  "I am sorry to appear that way. I hope my normal appearance has not offended the talented men and women before me now in any way."

  The colonel nodded at Will to follow him, and the two walked out of earshot of the Unit. Colonel Adams was close to ripping into the little prick for his retort with undertones of feeling judged by his physical appearance, when it was Will who had been looking over the Unit as if they were some sort of biological waste. The colonel decided to let it go for now. The two would have a more in-depth conversation later.

  "Do me a favor, Will. Try to present yourself in a more positive way than you are doing right now. Okay?"

  Colonel Adams got a glimpse of the flat-out contempt in Will's eyes—just a flash—and then it was gone.

  "Of course, sir."

  The colonel turned and walked away.

  That's when Will saw the man from the corner of his eye; he had forgotten about the leader of this elite-of-the-elite special forces unit. Will turned his head slightly and could see the man was not as far behind him as he had thought. Ray Catlin was his name. He knew that much about him—and not much more.

  Ray Catlin was looking at Will with a slight smirk that said, I saw how you looked at them, asshole.

  Will's stomach let out a sound he hoped only he could hear. A churning in his stomach, his breakfast wanting to be released through one end or the other. Will turned away from Catlin's glare and was able to somewhat suppress the ill feeling he felt. He rushed back toward the Unit as if pleased they were all there.

  "Hello, my name is Will Stevens. I run this facility. A facility built with you in mind. I hope the projects we have developed here can aid you in your job to protect us all."

  With a quick look over his shoulder, Will could see the colonel and Ray now close together, taking in his upbeat speech to the troops.

  The colonel motioned for Will to move to the side so he could take over. As Will stepped away, the colonel and Ray walked over to the tables and stood in front of the Unit. The members of the Unit became divided in their attention. Half faced the colonel and Ray; the other half had their heads tilted toward the man named Will. When the colonel began to speak, they all gave him their full attention.

  "You've been gathered together again because of an intended strike to the homeland. Two separate UAVs have captured evidence of a new extremist group in Afghanistan that has been moving what we have been told are, and what appear to be, disassembled surface-to-surface missiles they designed all on their own. Four to six is the number we are getting. Insurgents, recruited to look like your average middle-class Americans, are waiting in the mountains surrounding Kabul and will be the ones smuggling the missiles out somehow. Their plan is to position the missiles within range of US seaports and to attack, showing the world just how vulnerable the nation is. How they intend to maneuver and then launch the missiles is all a mystery. But as of now, the first part of their plan is underway."

  The colonel regarded the men and women taking on this mission with the look of a man willing to protect his family at any cost—his family being the citizens of America.

  "They have just settled at a new location. The weapons are moved every three weeks like clockwork. You will stop the further transport of the missiles by any means—no quarter for those involved. One of the men traveling with the missiles is believed to be the designer. EOD will take the missiles off your hands, and we'll see what this asshole actually created. The rest of the op will be finding the group waiting on the missiles. Alive if possible. We need to find out exactly how they intended to infiltrate the country by sea and how they planned to launch the SSMs."

  Another man entered the room, a white lab coat draped over his thin frame. He appeared upon first impression to be skeletal, weak. However, once he took two steps toward the Unit, his face and body came to life with an explosion of anxious, almost giddy emotions he’d been trying to hold back. A few in the Unit almost laughed out loud at how this guy from the lab seemed so genuinely happy to see them. He sure wasn't like the other dick named Will—that much was clear to the Unit.

  The man in the white coat started to reach out to shake hands with the members of the Unit but then quickly stopped. He turned and walked over to Colonel Adams, trying to take on a professional appearance while standing beside the colonel. However, to the Unit, he still seemed giddy as a gamer alone inside a testing room with his favorite console, a stack of unknown new games to test, and a cheese pizza on the way.

  The colonel introduced the man.

  "Unit 10, meet Rydel Scott. He is the top scientist here at Genesis. In the last three years, he has been the one who has significantly improved the gear that keeps all of you safe."

  Rydel looked eagerly at Colonel Adams. The colonel smiled and nodded toward the Unit. Rydel tried to restrain the spring in his step while making his way toward the men and women he so obviously wanted to converse with from the moment he stepped into the room. He stood at the head of the table and let it all come out in a sort of controlled blabbe
ring.

  "So…so, how are the new sunglasses and the foot warmers in the cold? How about the I-C helmets—do they meet your standards?"

  The operators nodded at Rydel and then turned their attention to Ray, standing off to the side, all saying with their eyes: Um…what the heck is up with this super-excited guy, Ray?

  Rydel caught their reaction and met the eyes of the colonel, wanting to know if he should continue with his questions.

  "Go on, Rydel. Talk to them."

  Rydel moved closer, quickly glancing over the men and women. "How is the skin armor I designed working in the field?" Rydel asked. "Is it too hot? I'm working on that."

  Ben, dark skin, hazel eyes—and, although he was seated, you could tell he was an extremely tall man—looked at the men and women around the table, their faces softening toward this scientist trying so hard to impress. Ben turned to Rydel and answered for the group.

  "They're a little warm. It's all good. Sal over there"—Ben pointed his thumb at Sal behind him (a thick-bodied guy with longish hair reaching his eyebrows)—"yeah, he took a bullet from a distance that got under the side of his vest. A couple of stitches and he was good to go."

  Sal pointed at Rydel. "You invented that? You're a brilliant motherfucker. Thanks, Doc."

  "You're welcome," Rydel said, his now soft voice just loud enough to be heard. Rydel's eyes drifted down toward the white floor below him. He was quick to compliment others; however, he was not a man able to receive praise himself, something everyone in the room noticed. After a brief moment, Rydel got that excited look on his face once more and continued.