Big Brothers
When Bravo arrived at the location Kevin felt was their best bet for finding the boys, they found Metal, Kevin and the leaders of both support teams standing in a four man huddle staring and pointing at a map of the area.
"What's happening, Metal?" Jason asked Alpha One who was currently managing the search of this particular area.
"Everybody is currently out in three man teams searching," Metal said, turning to face his longtime brother, knowing how desperate his friend was to find his lost kids. "Tim and Cody are assigning them grid areas to check out. We're using the radios to communicate because by now the entire area knows we're here looking, so no point in trying to keep quiet. We need to focus on finding them fast and getting the hell out of Dodge."
"This area of holes and caves hidden in the hillside is expansive," Ray commented. "If they can see us coming, obviously they're going to try to signal in some way. But if they went in deep to search for water or they are on the other side of the ridge or in a different area, this could take a while."
"We need to cut that time as much as possible," Trent said. "We know Clay has some kind of injury. They have limited water and med supplies. And we have no idea if Brock is injured as well."
"How do you know Clay is injured?" Tim asked.
"Our smart as hell boys left behind clues at their last location," Jason said, turning to Metal. "And we need Josh back here, asap."
"Josh?" Metal asked, confused. "What do you need him here for?"
Trent handed the ripped book cover with the drawings to Metal who had just radioed for Alpha Four to return to their location.
"What the fuck is this?" Metal said, looking at the drawings. "I see Sonny, and McDonalds. What is this supposed to mean?"
"This told you Clay was injured?" Tim asked, looking skeptical.
"No," Sonny said, holding up the piece of bloody material. "This told us the kid is injured. It's from Clay's sock, and the dog picked up his scent. It was in a hole along with the wacky drawings."
"We think Josh might know something about how to follow these pictures," Ray said. "Trent thinks it's from some kind of map game that Clay has been playing with Josh's kids when he's camped at our brother's house."
"If we're right," Trent continued. "Josh might be able to explain how this whole game works and get us a more specific location to search. Brock left behind this sock because he wanted me to know the kid has some kind of bleeding wound. They're no doubt filthy from the sandstorm and crawling around in these holes and caves. Infection is a likely possibility, and they don't have access to antibiotics or what they would need to properly clean the wound."
"And we could be buried in sand again at any time," Jason said. "We need to find them."
"What's going on?" Josh asked, quickly approaching and making eye contact with Bravo One. "Did you find anything?"
"We did, brother," Jason said. "What does this mean to you?"
Jason handed the book cover to Alpha's bomb tech.
"Our boys left it behind in a hole where the dog picked up Clay's scent," Trent said, turning to Josh. "Along with a piece of his bloody sock. We're hoping you know more about these drawings than we do."
"This is definitely your boy's work," Josh said, confidently. "The drawings are part of a kind of code breaking game the kids have been playing for the past several weeks. It's no accident Clay left this behind."
"Do you know what it means?" Sonny asked. "Because it looks like just a bunch of kid scribblings to me."
"I haven't actually been part of this game the kid dreamed up," Josh said. "But what I know from listening to the kids talk is that it's a coded map. You see all these places? McDonald's, the school, Dunkin' Donuts? They're all places we go or drive by back home."
"Yeah," Ray said. "We figured out that much. But how does it relate to where they are going now?"
"The game is complicated, and requires strategy," Josh explained. "From what I understand, these places back home represent something here. The object of the game is to follow the drawings to find an object or location."
"But none of these places are here in Syria." Tim said. "So how do we follow the clues?"
"It's a substitution code," Kevin said, pointing at the drawing of Sonny. "Look - this is Sonny. I'm guessing the dot under what I assume is Bravo Three's apartment means this is the initial location. Like on a Google map that shows driving directions. The bigger, solid dot indicates your starting point, and this smaller circle that looks like a target symbol is most likely where they were headed."
"The drawing by the target sign looks like some kind of park," Jason said. "That's a baseball diamond, and that looks like a playground, What's that box?"
"It's a snack bar - see the pizza and soda cups above it," Alpha's support team leader said. "There's a lot of parks like this back home."
"Okay," Sonny said, frustrated. "Clearly I don't think like a sixteen year old kid. So someone needs to explain how the hell this tells us anything."
"Relax, Son," Josh said, squeezing his brother's neck. "We are going to find them. This is going to help us - we just need to slow down and analyze what we have here."
"Josh is right," Jason said, in full master chief mode, turning to face his support kid.
"Kevin," Bravo One continued. "My gut tells me you were right about this location. This is exactly the kind of place I have trained both Brock and Clay to seek out to evade capture in this kind of terrain. Take a breath, son, and explain this new information to the grown-ups."
"Yes, sir," Kevin said, looking around the circle at the men the young guys revered. "Clay is smart, and he loves to figure out games and puzzles and codes. We know that. But he knows this isn't necessarily your thing, so he made these pictures pretty clear."
"Did you just say the kid tried to make this simple because he thinks the senior members of the most elite, tier one SEAL teams who have been kicking ass and taking names in this sandbox since before either one of you was born -" Metal paused, staring down the clearly intimidated computer kid. "Did you just tell us the blond menace thinks we are too stupid to figure out his thinking, so he dumbed it down for us?"
"No sir," Kevin took a step back and started rambling. He looked over to Tim, his team leader, for support. "That's not what I meant. Clay knows you guys are the absolute best - I mean obviously we all know that. He worships you guys. And I know you don't need a kid to dumb anything down for you. I'm sorry. I was just saying maybe he was thinking to make the pictures clear because, well, I don't know. I mean. Um, I don't really know anything about this game. Clay made it up according to Josh, so he probably always makes the pictures simple. Maybe…"
"Woah, woah," Trent stopped the boy's impending panic attack. Reaching out and pulling the kid over to stand next to him, the medic put his strong hand on the back of the kid's neck and squeezed lightly, offering reassurance. "Relax, Kevin. Take a breath. You are doing great so far. No one is pissed off or questioning your analysis."
Josh shook his head, tousling the kid's hair. "Don't mind Metal the Grouch," the bomb tech and longtime brother of Alpha One chuckled. "This is his twisted idea of humor. No one thinks you are suggesting we are idiots."
"Damn, son," Metal said, looking over at the frazzled kid who looked ready to puke. "You W,X,Y,Z whatever the fuck they call you kids today are high strung for sure. I was just teasing. Don't piss yourself. We're on a timeline here."
"He's right about that," Sonny started growling, catching Trent's evil eye and softening his tone with the support kid. "We are most definitely on a timeline here. And you are absolutely correct that I haven't got the first fucking clue what our kid is thinking in his big brain. But the boss most definitely knows what he's doing. And he picked you to help get us to our boys, one of whom is injured. So stand over there next to sweet ol' Uncle Trent, and explain this map to the old guys."
"Tell us how you think this message Sunshine left us works," Jason said, calm and firm. "I trust your analysis. And we need to find them sooner than later."
"Copy that, boss," Kevin said, making eye contact with Tim who nodded his support. "The concept of the game is complicated. But this map itself is fairly simple to navigate if you can read the pictures."
"How do we navigate the map?" Sonny asked.
"So, it's a substitution code," Kevin explained. "The solid dot is telling me Sonny's house represents the location where you found the map and sock. This target symbol represents where they were heading when they left 'Sonny's House'". The kid made air quotes, looking around the circle.
Kevin took a breath before continuing to explain.
"So if we were back home at Sonny's house, and we wanted to get to this park area," Kevin said, pointing to the drawing of Bravo Three and moving his finger from one drawing to the next until he came to the park. "This is the route we would follow."
"So," Ray said, slowly. "It's like the kid is giving us directions to the park."
"He's saying, 'come pick us up at this park'", Jason said, understanding starting to dawn. "We don't know where the park is, so he's telling us to head left from Sonny's house, which is east. Then make your way up to Virginia Beach Boulevard, pass Dunkin' and keep going until you come to McDonald's."
"That's what?" Metal said. "Maybe three quarters of a mile heading east on VB boulevard. So the runt is saying to start heading east from the location they spent last night. Move approximately one click and then head north. Braniac here is right. This is pretty straightforward if we think about it like we are driving around back home."
"Damn," Sonny said, shaking his head. "No wonder the baby is always on hyperdrive. It's got to be hard to settle down and just relax when your brain is going all the time, thinking up games and codes and shit. I never in my life have thought for a second about creating my own complicated game to entertain my friends. That's why God made Toys R Us and Game Stop."
"Give me the aerial map of the area," Jason said, taking the map from Metal and turning to spread it out on the hood of their humvee. "I need a pencil."
"This is where they were when the storm hit," Ray said, pointing. "The hole where the dog scented Clay was up here, buried in this rocky area."
Jason marked the cave with a solid circle like the one on Clay's picture. The team leaders, along with the slowly relaxing support kid, worked together to calculate distances and substitute the information from their boy's drawing to the map of the area.
Kevin was correct. Once they knew how the game worked, it didn't take them long to decode the drawings and plot the locations on the map. If their analysis and calculations were close to accurate, the support kid was right in his initial thinking. And Bravo owed him big time.
Jason ordered the two support teams to continue searching their current location, knowing his kid's drawings and their own calculations wouldn't be exact. Bravo One and Alpha One took their teams two clicks east of their current search grid to a group of closely connected deep caverns that Kevin estimated were the closest match for the final baseball park location marked on Clay's drawing.
The senior team members searched quickly and efficiently. They had promised never to leave behind or abandon a brother. The older men knew their young rookies depended on them for care and protection, trusting them implicitly. There was not a single brother from either Bravo or Alpha who would ever fall short of their boys' expectations.
Blackburn arrived before the sun went down with Team Three and a group of Marines stationed in the area to set up a small, mobile camp where the men would be able to rest, eat, and regroup during the night. No man from either Bravo or Alpha would be leaving the area until both Brock and Clay were safe in their care and heading home under their fierce protection.