Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) (66 page)

The Iranian man said, “If I talk to you about him, he’ll kill me.”

Tori laughed at his comment. “Can’t you see? I’m going to kill you if you don’t.”

“His name is Abdul Muhaimin. His reach is long, he hears everything, and I’m sure he sees you coming.”

Tori pressed the gun to his head even harder, causing him to cry out.

“I’m telling you what you want.”

“What else can you tell me about Abdallah Mammon?”

“It’s Abdul Muhaimin. He was a captain in the Iranian Jihadist Wars. He won many awards to be promoted to general of the UN forces in America. When the US president died, he announced himself executive commander of America and UN forces in America.”

“The president is dead?” Sergeant Banks asked.

“Did he say the president is dead?” Nathan shouted to Tori.

“Yeah, he said she was dead. Now he’s going to tell us how she died.”

“I don’t know how she died. Nobody knows and nobody asks.”

“What are your long-term orders?”

“To move all citizens from these US cities to the trains and barges, for transport to the Human Handling Centers. From there, they are separated into categories.”

“And what categories are those?”

“Vital and invasive.”

“Elaborate.”

“Vital citizens are interned until Relocation Protocols are initiated.”

“And what of the invasive citizens?”

The man was beginning to feel faint and was having difficulty speaking. Tori caught on to this and unshackled the man’s first wrist, letting him dangle by one arm while she unshackled the second. The man fell to the floor and Tori jumped off the train. She walked over to Jess and said, “Your turn.”

Jess rolled her eyes at Tori.

Nathan looked at Denny and said, “Can you patch him up? He’s got more to tell us. Maybe he’ll open up more later, seeing how we were so nice.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

Nathan hadn’t heard that from Denny for a while and it reminded him of more peaceful days.

Sergeant Banks looked at Nathan and said, “That was a lot of information. We need to sit down and talk about it.”

“What’s to talk about? The president is dead, the United States has been invaded by the UN, and our people are being called
invasive
and shipped to certain death.”

“You forgot the part about the UN forces being reassigned to Independence, Iowa, for some kind of support.”

“That means Illinois isn’t going to have as much opposition,” Jess said.

Nathan, returning a look to her, said, “They left him behind; they’re sure to have more spies lying around.”

“I think they left him accidentally,” Banks said.

“How can you tell?”

“Well, would they really leave him with no ammo? I bet they took off without a roll call.”

“I got something even better out of all that,” Tori said. “If the UN is pulling all their manpower to Independence, Iowa, then there must be a sizeable resistance there.”

“We haven’t heard a peep out of the UN communications systems we have; otherwise, we might have heard what’s going on,” Nathan said.

“Perhaps that’s because they’ve changed their tactics, and we don’t know what they are, but I bet he does,” Banks said, pointing to the Iranian man.

Denny hollered down from the train car. “He’s going to need some blood.”

“What type?” Nathan asked.

Denny searched for the man’s ID or service tags, in search of his blood type. “I can’t find anything.” Denny thought for a moment and tried to remember his training. “He’s going to need O negative.”

Banks turned around and started shouting, “Do any of you have O negative blood?”

Most of the Marines were shaking their head no.

“Okay, then, it’s hardball. Let’s see those tags. Take your tags out and hold them up.”

Banks walked around to each Marine and inspected their dog tags. When he came up to Lance Corporal Jones, he saw O negative on his tags.

“I’m not willing to donate to a blue hat.”

“This isn’t about saving him, Jones, it’s about saving us. It’s about saving America. He’s got information we need.”

“Fine.” Jones started rolling up his sleeve.

Digging into his medical pack, Denny found that he only had one field blood-transfusion kit. Rethinking his plan, he asked, “I only have one of these, Nathan, are we sure we want to waste it on him?”

“I can’t think of a nobler reason than to save priceless and life-saving information for the American people.”

Denny had Jones relax on the edge of the train car door while he tied a tourniquet around his upper arm. Using the blood-transfer device and the blood-pack unit, he collected 450ml of blood from Jones and tried to give it to the Iranian man, but he was cold and Denny couldn’t find a vein.

“I need a couple of you up here to help me heat him up. He’s cold.”

Everybody stood around looking at each other, hoping that somebody else would volunteer. Tori finally broke the silence, “Okay, I’ll do it, but only if I get to be the one to render him
invasive
when we’re done with him.”

“Done,” Banks agreed.

Tori climbed up into the train car and kicked Denny out.

“Sorry, Den, but this is our private time and you don’t get to peek.”

Tori closed the door and undressed the man. She was disgusted to do so, but it was a matter of survival and saving a dying man. After she had exposed his skin, she bared hers next to his to share her body heat. After a few moments, Denny checked in on him and Tori. He caught her rolling off of him and turned his head away.

“That should be good enough, Tori. Sorry, I should have knocked.”

“I’m just glad it’s over.”

Denny opened the door the rest of the way to let in more light. Then made his second attempt at finding a vein; after a few pokes, he was given blood.

The man’s legs were already patched up. Fortunately, the shots were clean and the bullets didn’t sever any arteries.

By the time the Iranian man had awakened from his sleep, the group had attached one of their portable generators to a small insulated building and warmed the interior. With the man’s vitals now under control, he found himself lying on the floor next to Tori. His hands were zip-tied and his legs were throbbing.

“Good morning,” she said.

“I was hoping this was all a bad dream.”

“It’s a nightmare, dude. We weren’t done chatting. I thought it was rude when you dozed off on me.”

“I really don’t know too much.”

“That’s funny, because I remember you acting like you could barely speak any English at all, and then suddenly, BANG, you can speak perfect English, albeit a little accented, but still…”

“If you promise not to kill me, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

“Can you hold that thought?”

Tori stood up and walked out of the room.

A minute later, Jess walked into the room and sat next to the man. “Okay, now what’s the deal?”

“If you promise not to kill me, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

“I can live with that. Start talking.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Just start talking.”

“My name is Nasrallah Gulestan. I have three children and a wife. I serve in the Iranian army and was assigned UN duty. I just do what I’m told, okay?”

“Okay, so tell me what you were told.”

“We receive shipments of Americans, supplies, and fencing projects. We set up temporary handling centers and put more Americans on each train until they are full. They are then shipped north. I don’t know where they take them, but I do know there are duty stations north of here that keep special Americans, and another duty station that…that…”

“That what?”

The man was afraid to reveal the last part of his comment, but when Jess pressured him to speak, he gave in.

“That processes them.”

“Processes how?”

“UN Biocontrol Units inoculate them. Some of them resist the inoculation, and the others, not so much. Most of these people are sick before they get to the stations.”

“What are you inoculating them with?”

“I don’t know. We get our shipments with tags on the boxes from FEMA Bioengineering and Research. We do what we are told. I’m just taking orders. I’m a military man.”

“One more question. Do you think it’s right to invade another country, capture its people, inject them with unknown substances, watch them get sick and then kill them?”

Jess wired the question in a way the man was not suspecting. She picked up on his verb
processes
and figured they were killing the sick in some fashion. To be sure, and to have him admit to it, meant she had to approach it from another angle.

“I am not allowed to disagree,” he answered, skirting the response Jess was looking for.

Jess took out her knife and the man began to squirm and kick, but the pain was so much that he could barely resist.

“Take it easy. I promised not to kill you.”

She cut the rank from his collar and the UN name strip from his jacket.

“Now you can agree or disagree. I’ve removed you from the bonds of UN and Iranian control. This is America, and in America you can say whatever you want.”

The man looked sternly at her, thinking she was the weaker of the two interrogators, and said, “I am Iranian, not American, I have been killing Americans since I was a small boy. I do want to live, but I cannot betray my country by telling you I disagree.”

Jess stood up and Tori walked into the room. When the man saw Tori, he began to squirm like he did when Jess had the knife.

“I have a request,” Tori said. “Tell us how to access the UN communications network. We used to listen in, but they’ve done something different so that we can’t hear radio traffic.”

“They are cycling a list of frequencies,” the man said with a shaky voice.

“What are the frequencies?”

“I don’t know, only the officers carry them.”

“Well then, you’re of no further use to us.”

Tori pulled her pistol up and said, “You’ve met Bubba, haven’t you?”

“You promised me you wouldn’t kill me.”

“No, she promised she wouldn’t kill you, but I was promised I could kill you.
Comprende?
”

The man started to speak, but Tori put a bullet through his mouth as he opened it.

Jess and Tori walked out of the room together.

The group was waiting outside and everybody was standing up after hearing the gunshot.

“What did you find out?” Banks asked.

“They’ve been inoculating Americans with some kind of juice that either makes them sick or has no effect. From what we could tell, they are somehow killing the people that get sick from the inoculation, but doing something else with the people that have immunities against it,” Jess replied.

“What about the radio comm?”

Tori interjected, “They’ve been cycling through a list of designated frequencies and only the officers carry that list.”

Nathan started walking towards his HMMWV. Stopping short of it, he turned around and asked, “How are we supposed to get an officer when we don’t know where they’ve gone?”

“Chicago,” Jess said.

“She’s right,” Nathan responded, looking over toward Banks. “If there’s a Human Handling Center north of us, it’s Chicago. It’s our destination anyway. I’m betting there’s UN officers overseeing the FEMA employees.”

“Get that generator packed and start mounting up. We’re wasting time,” Banks yelled out.

Everybody scurried to a vehicle. A few men ran over to the generator and loaded it into one of the five-ton trucks. After the group was sorted, they headed north, using Interstate 57, being under the assumption the interstates may very well be opened up, due to a recalling of UN soldiers. The highways were vulnerable to teams of brigands, but if the interstate was accessible, this would make for a quicker trip north.

“So tell me about yourself, Mr. uh…” Captain Richards asked, trying to get a name from Rory.

“Forgive my rudeness. I’m Rory Price. I was a Pentecostal pastor before the Flip; now I’m just doing what I can.”

“Where did you preach at?”

“I pastored in Murphysboro, a small town in southern Illinois.”

“No kidding? I have relatives down there, not too far from Murphy.”

“Oh yeah, where at?”

“Grand Tower, it’s a little town on the Mississippi. Even smaller than Murphy.”

“Are you serious? I was just in Gorham a few months ago with some friends.”

“Who are your friends?”

“You probably wouldn’t know them. Our friendship was brief. I was under the yoke of a sick man just before the UN began to establish a heavy presence. This guy named Denny and a few others found their way into my home and got me out of that town. Then I met his best friend Nathan and Nathan’s girlfriend, Jess. I met so many good people.”

“Nathan Roeh is the name of my family that’s from Grand Tower. He’s my nephew on my sister’s side.”

“That sounds familiar to me. Was he in the Marines?”

“Yes, a few years prior to the Flip. He was an Internet coder or something like that.”

“I think we have the same guy here, Captain.”

“Wow, it’s a small world, Rory. You can’t tell it these days, with the invasion and all. Makes things larger than life. What was Nathan doing when you saw him last?”

“He was headed this way to the FEMA Region V headquarters in pursuit of liberating American prisoners. I’ve learned so much since then.”

“Listen, Rory. We’re heading into battle. We captured several bits of intelligence from the blue hats. From what we can tell, they are mounting up a heavy force against a US military unit in South Dakota. We’ve been listening to their comms and communicating with other US military units around the Midwest. We are going to join the fight and hopefully win a decisive battle, maybe even a war. We have the home-court advantage.”

“The Marines I was with were heading in that direction. They were shady about what was going on, though. I was with a Marine lieutenant colonel, Charles Buchanan, when he met the commandant of the Marine Corps just a couple days ago.”

“Commandant? Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. We spent the day with him. Authoritative and stern—I liked that about him.”