The Warrior Code

The Warrior Code

by
Ty Patterson

Copyright © 2014 by Ty Patterson

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Books by Ty Patterson

Warriors Series

The Warrior
, Warriors series, Book 1

The Reluctant Warrior
, Warriors series, Book 2

The Warrior Code, Warriors series, Book 3

Coming soon, The Warrior’s Debt, Warriors series, Book 4

Acknowledgements

No book is a single person’s product. I am privileged that
The Warrior Code
has benefited from the inputs of several great people.

Christine Terrell, Jean Coldwell and Donald Hoffman, who are my beta readers and who helped shape my book, my launch team for supporting me, Donna Rich for her proofreading, Pauline Nolet (
http://www.paulinenolet.com
) for her proofreading and editing.

Dedications

To my wife and son, who made room in their lives for my dreams; all my beta readers, my launch team and well-wishers.

Chapter 1

The sound of an approaching vehicle broke the silence. It grew louder and then faded away.

Zeb lay still in the deep shadow under the boughs of trees.

The night light had given up the battle to reach the ground and his camp ‘fire’, a few feet away, was bathed in darkness. He had made a cold camp and had a small stack of firewood, in case he needed to light them.

He had been stalking a grizzly all day, a large female, just under seven feet and easily over five hundred pounds.

He hadn’t seen a female bear this large, and when he’d spotted her snuffling for roots, he’d stopped and stared, forgetting momentarily that he was visible. Luckily, he was downwind from the bear and she didn’t notice him.

He’d followed her all day, her and her cubs, watching the cubs frolic as their mother searched for food. If he was honest with himself, he was following them to also test his stalking skills.

He was in Yellowstone National Park, a vastness of almost three thousand five hundred square miles spread across the three states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and home to Old Faithful Geyser. A vastness that put man in proper perspective.

He’d done the touristy double-loop attractions and had quickly tired of being around people and had broken out to the southeast corner of the park, one of the most remote areas in the United States.

He’d parked his ride in an isolated spot, covered it, and had set off hiking, breaking away from the usual trails.

He’d been there for over two weeks, making his way through the remotest parts of the park and hadn’t come across another human being – which suited him just fine.

Stalking the grizzly had brought him to where he was now.

Patches of shrub at chest level competed for air and sunlight, while taller foliage ruled the skyline. There was ample undergrowth, which provided the bears with green fodder. There was a stream a klick away with the purest water and best fish he’d had in a long while. The stream was half a mile away from a potted track road where the rare vehicle passed.

He’d felt the vehicle first before hearing it, its presence so unusual at that time of night that he’d stayed awake for some time trying to track its progress. The sound died about a mile away from him, and silence fell over the park.

He tried going back to sleep, but when that proved elusive, he gave up and decided to head to the stream for wildlife spotting.

He didn’t have much to pack, a bedroll, a backpack that contained all that he needed, which wasn’t a lot: water, rations, his guns, spare magazines, a Ka-Bar, binoculars, NVG – night vision glasses – and his sat phone. He checked his phone, didn’t expect to see any messages, and there were none. It was just past midnight when he set out, with a light backpack.

A shot rang out.

He paused, peered through the darkness and saw nothing. He let the silence of the park become natural and listened above it.

He thought he heard voices, but couldn’t be sure.

Another shot rang out.

He ran.

Dimly he thought, 
I should mind my own business.

But then life would be boring.

He became another shadow in the darkness of the park, moving from cover to cover, his feet rolling over the ground the way a panther’s did.

He hoped the bears hadn’t woken up and wouldn’t be as curious as he was. Luckily, they had been heading south and he was heading in the other direction.

The U.S. Army had stats for everything, and one of those stats was for various age groups running a mile. Six and a half minutes placed the runner in the top one percentile for that age group.

There didn’t seem to be stats for running the remotest part of the park at night while at the same time keeping an eye out for grizzlies.

Zeb ran the mile in five minutes.

He heard the thrashing in the brush ahead, about two hundred feet away, before he heard the voices.

‘Stop shooting, Steve. You want to get everyone’s attention?’ a male voice cursed.

‘I’m trying to slow her down and scare her. We should’ve killed the bitch when we had the chance,’ another male panted.

‘You shit, all you had to do was bring her out of the back of the truck and into the open where we could question her. Now we have to chase her tail in the darkness.’

‘She kicked me in the nuts and took me by surprise. Once I get my hands on her–’

‘Shut up. Stop. Do we even know which direction she’s gone?’ the other hissed angrily.

Zeb drifted closer, a hundred feet away from them, and could hear their harsh breathing as they tried to listen over themselves. It was too dark for him to make them out clearly, but they seemed to be about five feet seven in height, dressed in dark clothing and obviously out of shape.

He turned his attention to the woman they were chasing, laid the map in his mind, calculated time and distances, and visualized how it might have gone down.

Four hundred feet away was an open patch where a truck could come in, and he guessed that was where it was parked now. The woman had given the two pursuers the slip there and headed toward the denseness of the park.

Maybe two minutes of wrestling with the men, five minutes of running through the open patch… he turned a full circle and set out cautiously in the two o’clock direction.

He stopped every ten feet and listened, and at his third stop he felt her.

A presence at first, different from the surrounding park, and as he went closer, he could feel her moving softly away from all of them.

Her movement became faster as the pursuers stepped up their chase, and then she gave up the stealthy movement as the two pursuers heard her.

‘I can hear the bitch now,’ one of them grunted to the other.

‘Wait, we just want to talk to you,’ Steve called out.

That will make her stop.
Zeb almost laughed.

He was in the middle angle of the triangle formed by the three moving parts, and he stepped it up and closed the gap on the woman.

Zeb had worked out three things about the men chasing the woman.

At least one of them had a silenced gun, which meant a degree of professionalism.

They weren’t out to kill the woman. They might molest her, but not kill her. If they wanted to kill her, they’d have done that by now.

The one who had berated Steve was the leader of the two, though it was highly unlikely he was the one behind all this. The one-who-was-not-Steve turned on a flashlight and aimed it ahead, trying to catch the woman in its glare.

One moment the woman was fleeing in panic, darting rapid glances over her shoulder, and the next a hand was clamped firmly over her mouth; she was lifted in the air and carried sideways, twenty feet away, behind a dense thicket.

The pursuers didn’t see anything. All they heard was her rushing through the park and the next moment, silence.

Zeb felt the woman draw a deep breath, and he squeezed, one hand an iron band around her waist, trapping her hands, and the other pressed deep against her mouth, not allowing her lips to move. The deeper she breathed, the tighter he squeezed, till she relaxed finally realizing that screaming was not only futile, it was impossible.

He held her there, made sure her pale face wasn’t visible, and watched the flashlight disappear along with the soft thudding of the two men. He hoped they didn’t come across the bears.

He didn’t want to be the one to wipe their remains off the park.

Three hours later, they were still there waiting silently and saw the flashlight come back swinging in short movements, the anger and frustration in the two apparent in their tread.

He waited till he heard the vehicle start in the distance and drive away.

They’d be back in the daylight. He’d known hunters of their kind before.

‘Will you scream if I remove my hand?’ he asked the woman softly.

She kept stubbornly silent.

He waited patiently. He could outwait the Sphinx. After ten minutes he felt her nod.

He still didn’t remove his hand. ‘If you scream, chances are they’ll hear and come back, and then you’ll be in deeper trouble.’

She nodded again, and he removed his hand.

He stepped in front of her and looked at her closely for the first time.

She was a young woman, black or brown haired – too dark to make that out – and about five feet seven. She was slimly built, but he thought he could detect athleticism and muscle structure in her build.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Who the hell are
you
?’ she countered, her voice trembling but strong.

‘I am the man who saved you,’ he answered her simply.

She went silent for a long while.

‘I don’t know who I am.’

He waited for her to elaborate.

She said finally, in a small voice, ‘I’ve lost my memory.’

Chapter 2

Zeb stood there silently, as he digested it.
Didn’t see that one coming.

She read his silence correctly and mocked him scornfully. ‘Of all the zillion reasons I could toss out, don’t you think there’s a reason for me to give the most outlandish one? It’s true.’

She waited a few seconds for his answer and, when none came, said, ‘Thank you for stepping in. I need to go now.’

She turned away in the darkness, and he shot out a hand and held her upper arm.

She whirled; her right hand came up in an open-palmed strike, aimed for his open throat, her body coiled tightly behind the blow.

She met open air and stumbled as her simultaneous groin kick cut through the air.

Some Krav Maga moves there. Self-defense classes probably
. He’d seen her body telegraphing the move in the minute movements of her head and shoulders, and had taken a long step backward.

He stood there silently; his hands loose at his sides, and watched her recover and met her wary glance.

She gazed at him for a few seconds and turned and ran.

He made no effort to stop her and called out, ‘Not that way. Not unless you want to meet a grizzly.’

He heard her curse, but she swerved and changed direction.

Her sounds muted as she started moving more stealthily, probably realizing that he could follow her progress. Stealthy was fine with him.

Four hours and frequent stops and starts – her way of checking her back trail – later, they reached the edge of her camp. In the distance, he saw her hunkered behind stunted trees as high as her, as she peered cautiously at the camp.

The sky was tinged with the first streaks of gold, a vast mural stretching from horizon to horizon, painted every day regardless of whether those below appreciated it or not. Whether it had an audience or not.

The camp was empty but for a solitary tent.

That section of the southeast corner saw traffic – hikers and campers passing through – and the camping ground was well located, with a watering hole not far away and enough open space for tents or sleeping bags to be laid out.

He saw her pale face flash as she looked back, and he detached his mind, let it roam free and become part of the earth, the air and the sun. It took an exceptional operative to detect his presence when his ki, his life force, was this low.

She was probably lifted from this place and now is making sure the men haven’t returned.

He nodded mentally in approval. She was no tenderfoot.

He studied the camp in more detail. Just the one tent there, which begged the obvious question – a young woman alone in the park?