Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) (70 page)

Banks walked away.

Nathan signaled for Denny and Tori.

Jess saw that she was not being called over to the van. Once again, she was feeling a tinge of jealousy, but reassured herself that it was just business.

Tori and Denny joined up with Nathan. The van’s door was still open.

“Aaron, we’d like to have a word with the captain, please,” Nathan said.

Aaron looked over at Troy, who nodded his head in agreement.

There was a separate door for the compartment the captain was being held in. Aaron stepped down and opened the swinging rear door, where he was being held.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Denny asked his best friend, Nathan.

He handed Denny the laminated list of frequencies, who then leaned in close to Tori.

“What do we need from him?” she asked.

“See if you can find out which of those freqs he used last and what time it was used.”

Tori looked the man up and down. His hands were bound behind him, but she couldn’t see how well he was secured.

“Get out, big guy,” she commanded.

The Iranian man was clearly not cooperating with her command. She didn’t ask him a second time. It was his culture to have authority over women, not the other way around. She could have barked commands at him all night, but he would never listen. Perhaps Tori knew this about him, or perhaps it was her new nature not to take chances. She started to step into the van with him.

“Be careful, Tori,” Denny said.

Tori looked back over her shoulder at Denny and felt a warming in her heart. It only lasted a minute.

She only barely took a step into the van. It was just enough to reach into it and grab his six-inch beard. Her thin fingers parted his facial hair. He tried to jerk away, but she had tightly clinched her fist. She pulled him down, and he was reluctant to resist.

Once his face broke the plane of where the door would have been, Denny and Aaron grabbed him by his armpits and pulled him out of the van. He tried to stand up, but Denny knocked his legs out from under him and placed his hand on his shoulder to force him onto his knees.

Denny checked the man’s restraints and his wrists were tightly wrapped with 550 cord.

Tori reached behind her back and pulled out her 1911 pistol. “I’d like you to meet my friend Bubba.” She didn’t hesitate to point it in his direction.

Nathan said, “Look, Captain, this lady killed my last prisoner. The only reason I’m letting her point that thing at you now is because I know she’s very influential.”

“I don’t know anything. You’re wasting your time, American,” Munsaf said.

Tori put Bubba away and pulled out her tanto blade.

“Uh-oh, now you’ve gone and made her mad,” Denny said.

“You won’t let her hurt me. You have rules, you Americans. You cannot hurt prisoners of war. The Geneva convention forbids you,” he said with a smirk.

Nathan, Tori, and Denny all smirked back at him and then at each other. Tori reached behind the man to grab a finger. He tightly clinched his fist, but Tori pried it open with the blade. The man struggled, but Nathan face-planted him onto the hard paved roadway. Tori proceeded to cut off the man’s right pinky.

Munsaf screamed in agonized pain.

Nathan cringed and said, “Now, I know exactly how that feels,” holding up the nub that used to be a finger.

Nathan had lost it to Cade Walker, a sadistic killer that had beheaded their longtime friend Ash and tortured Nathan.

Munsaf was now singing like a canary. He was fully willing to assist them in translating the radio chatter and in identifying the last known communications frequency. It only took a couple minutes of switching the tuner before they identified a signal.

Munsaf was actively translating everything that came from the radio.

“Requesting … immediate … support at … interchange 294 and …”

The whole group was listening to Munsaf and the source signal. The sounds of gunfire were heard when the request for help came to an abrupt end. The voice was in panic, and everybody that heard the transmission was able to put it together.

“294 is just thirty miles north of here,” Troy said.

“Get him up and back to Aaron. We have to move now.”

Denny, Aaron, and Troy lifted the man off the ground and resecured him in the van. They could already hear the engines revving up as they were preparing to depart.

Northwest of South Holland, Illinois

Rory was next to Captain Richards. Both men were lying prone in a ditch, returning fire at what was left of the UN convoy. The armored personnel carrier had been dropped by a Javelin. The ambush was a success in that it took out the heavy-hitting armored vehicle and stalled the rest of the convoy. Unfortunately, the two rear HMMWVs were loaded down with UN soldiers. Several blue hats came flooding out of the back and began their counterattack.

Captain Richards had a clear line of sight on the two HMMWVs in the rear. They had pulled off of the road and taken a defensive position of their own. The line of trucks was long, and this meant taking the time to produce long-range accurate shots.

“We don’t have time for this, preacher.”

“Do you have anything planned? We need to advance or retreat. We can’t sit here and wait for them to call in reinforcements.”

Richards looked across the street at one of the sergeants also lying prone.

“Sergeant,” he yelled. The gunfire exchange meant loud communications.

The sergeant looked across the street back at his captain.

Richards motioned for him to move to his location.

The sergeant picked himself up and ran to his captain, sliding into the ditch.

“Lay down suppressive fire,” Richards said. “We’re going to advance on them and end this before their help arrives.”

“Roger that, sir.”

The sergeant ran back across the street and called a squad together. Each of them took word back to their positions and began laying down a concerted effort to suppress the blue hats so that they could advance on the enemy positions.

As Captain Richards’s team advanced, many of the blue helmets ran south on foot. Looking in the direction they were headed, it seemed they were going to take additional cover behind several small wooded areas. To many of the soldiers present, it looked as though the blue hats were retreating. Many of Richards’s men sacrificed their cover and concealment to get a good shot off at the retreating foes. Rory, being unfamiliar with military tactics, made the same sacrifice. He stood up from his cover and pointed his rifle at the back of one of the running UN soldiers. He carefully aimed down the rifle’s barrel, taking care to align the front sight tip in the rear sight aperture. He already knew that shooting from a standing position was difficult, but now he was aiming at a moving target while in a standing position.

As he aimed his rifle, his conscience got the best of him. Captain Richards, who was shooting from a prone position, looked up at Rory and said, “What are you doing? Take the shot.”

Rory looked down his rifle and had perfect sight alignment and sight picture on his intended target, but he could not bring himself to pull the trigger on a fleeing man.

Richards took the shot instead.

Rory watched through his rear sight as the target fell out of sight alignment and went limp onto the ground. He lowered his weapon and stood there in disbelief.

“I thought I could do it,” he said in a low volume.

“Shoot or get down,” Richards yelled at him.

Rory looked down at Richards and then looked back at the retreating enemy. He took off in a sprint toward the enemy forces as if to prove himself. Richards stood up and followed after him, as did Richards’s remaining soldiers.

The UN soldiers were now being tailed by the rogue US military unit. The UN retreat seemed like a victory, but they had reached the tree line and taken cover from their pursuers. Looking back at their ambushers, they could see their options for cover were now limited. They began firing at Richards’s men, who had sacrificed their positions for a better shot and to give chase to a fleeing enemy.

The only cover in sight was a broken-down old house.

“Fall back,” Richards commanded.

The men that were once pursuing found themselves in full retreat. Rounds were flying from the tree line, and they had limited cover of their own. Each man grabbed a random tree for cover, but it could only shield one, maybe two soldiers at the most. The others ran into the house and hid themselves from the eyes of the enemy.

Return fire was given where appropriate. It was enough to keep the UN soldiers hidden in the trees, but Richards’s concern turned toward the sound of incoming vehicles.

Richards was one of the men taking cover behind a tree. With his back to the tree and the incoming enemy bullets, he looked outward, back toward Route 6, where all of the vehicles were still parked. From the east, five black armored FEMA trucks pulled in behind his convoy. Each one unloaded eight armed FEMA security forces members. They were garbed in black vests labeled FEMA across the front and back, black BDU trousers, and Kevlar helmets. Each was armed with a Colt-style rifle.

The gunfire from the tree line behind them had ceased when their reinforcements had arrived. Richards took the moment by the horns and ordered his men to retreat west. He knew neither group could shoot at them without catching each other in the cross fire.

His men ran on foot, and the combined UN/FEMA forces gave chase. They sent a barrage of bullets after them and killed three of Richards’s men in the pursuit. Once Richards had entered a tree line of his own, he gave the command and his men went into defensive positions and returned fire at the advancing enemy group. Once the UN-FEMA group saw they were being shot at, they returned to cover of their own.

“We’re sitting ducks,” one of the corporals said.

“Smoke,” Captain Richards called out.

One of the soldiers unclipped a colored smoke grenade, normally used for target identification, and pulled the pin. He tossed the grenade upwind, toward the enemy, and it unleashed a screen of red smoke, which blew across their position, concealing their movement. A hail of gunfire tore through the smoke as they ran westward. The sound doubled in intensity, giving the illusion that the number of attackers had more than doubled in strength. This caused Richards to pause his retreat. Continuing to take cover behind the trees, he peered towards the smoke screen while he, Rory, and the others watched and listened as the increased gunfire slowed down and eventually faded into silence.

When the smoke had cleared and Rory had regained his composure, his eyes looked upon several familiar faces; and not only his, but Captain Richards’s also, who looked in awe as his nephew, Nathan Roeh, stepped through the fading smoke screen with his friends and a company of Marines.

The District

“Keep me informed of every movement,” Muhaimin commanded his intelligence officer.

“Yes, Executive Commander,” the man said before he hung up the phone.

Muhaimin’s trip home from Independence, Iowa, was uneventful. He had left clear instructions to his confidants that they were to annihilate the regiment-sized gathering of troops near the base of the Black Hills in South Dakota.

Before the North Korean attack, just off the western coast of the United States, Muhaimin was using Chinese-supplied technology to monitor the whereabouts of post-2018 active-duty troops and veterans. Each of these vets had an RFID chip implanted into their buttocks for satellite monitoring a real-time recording of events on the battlefield. Later this technology would be used to gather intelligence on veterans, even after they had ended their service.

Executive Commander Abdul Muhaimin was not a man to be trifled with. For generations the men in his family had been battle-hardened members of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces. Abdul served in this army during the Middle Eastern conflict known as the Jihadi Wars. He was the captain of a ground forces unit applicably nicknamed
Black Death
, due to their lack of obedience to the rules of engagement and the laws of the Quran, as it applied to Sunnis serving in combat roles.

In the mid-2020s, a religious civil war developed in Iran, which threatened a much greater instability in the Middle East than the West was used to. After years of refusing involvement, the US Department of Homeland Security and many intelligence agencies within the US realized the cost of ignoring the situation had proven far weightier than direct involvement. The US asserted itself, and in doing so, Muhaimin, a Sunni, turned his hatred from his Shiite enemies and redirected his frustrations toward allied forces from the West.

After several months of engaging fellow Muslims and watching the Sunni team with the West to fight against Shiites, he converted. Muhaimin hated the West. He renounced his faith, surrendered his unit to the Shias, and swore allegiance to that cause. After sharing intelligence with his new allies, the Middle East wars took a turn for the worse. Shia rule gripped Iran, and the loosely respected Iranian constitution was abandoned. Muhaimin maintained his commission as an officer, and the war effort turned its focus to the Western invaders. This mishandled war continued until the US went bankrupt. Lady Liberty could not support the overwhelming number of entitlement programs together with the cost of war. Eventually, US forces were called home and martial law was declared, giving a surprise victory to the jihadists.

Muhaimin was now comfortably lying back on a couch in the White House. It was a comfort he was not used to. And to relax, for Muhaimin, was almost unheard of. He had just kicked his boots off and rested his head back onto the arm of the couch when his phone rang. Pulling his cell phone from the inside of his jacket, he answered in Persian, “Yes, Colonel.”

Colonel Artan Mota, commander of the UN forces over FEMA Region VII, was on the other end.

“Executive Commander Muhaimin, our forces are not far from the location of the American resistance in South Dakota. We are requesting the preliminary attack sequence be initiated.”

“Request granted,” Muhaimin said, pushing the
end call
button on his phone.

He touched his finger to a button on the screen and spoke into the microphone, “Dial NORAD.”

The digital voice spoke back to him, repeating his command.

“Dialing Northern American Aerospace Defense Command.”

NORAD was, and had been, located within the Cheyenne Mountain Complex not far from its counterpart USNORTHCOM (United States Northern Command), which was located at Peterson Air Force Base near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Carved from the granite mountainside in the 1950s and activated in the late 1960s, NORAD was hardened against many forms of unconventional warfare.

At the time of the Flip, NORAD’s purpose was surveillance of the skies and reactionary support from anything incoming. Budget cuts decommissioned many of its assets.

USNORTHCOM’s role was to provide civil authorities with the necessary military support in the event of a natural or man-made crisis. Nothing forbade it from reacting to a government-made crisis.

NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Outside of the huge mountain complex sat a dozen UN troop carrier trucks, three hard-back HMMWVs, two armored personnel carriers, and a FEMA mobile command unit. General Muhaimin had taken advantage of the intelligence he had gained, becoming the executive commander of the UN forces in America. He had sent the emissaries to Northern Command not long after he had received word of the gathering of troops at Black Hills. Now with the power of NORAD at his command, he was set to dominate any and all resistance on the front lines of South Dakota, and doing so would be his defining moment and set the pace for the fall of American patriotism.

Deep inside the hollowed tunnels and through the labyrinth of rooms and hallways, bodies were littered about the floor, and blood was seeping onto the tiles beneath the dead UN troops and FEMA personnel; all but one.

William S. Dixon, admiral in the US Navy and commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command, had dispensed of the unwelcomed envoy. He was safely nestled beneath the security of the mountains and surrounded by the US Army’s 4
^th
Infantry Division, of which remained six thousand soldiers. Those soldiers were a remnant of the division that existed prior to the Flip. They were once a highly organized unit called a Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT). In their arsenal was more than three hundred Stryker armored vehicles capable of antiarmored support, antiair support, infantry carriers, and other armored emergency situation vehicles. It was nothing Executive Commander Muhaimin wanted working against him.

Admiral Dixon had his pistol planted firmly against the back of the FEMA mobile commander’s head. The frightened mobile commander was leaning over a microphone, which protruded from the desk, amidst all the high-tech gadgets and computer systems.

“Answer your executive commander, Lieutenant, or you’ll end up like your comrades,” Dixon commanded.

The mobile commander’s name was Vadik Sagadeyev. He was a Russian communications specialist and had no love for his executive commander, but was loyal to directives and orders. The last order he was given was to report to the North American Aerospace Defense Command and to relay to the current personnel that he was taking command. Little did he know that the grit of a thirty-year sailor could not be easily overcome by a few empty threats and a hundred UN soldiers. He and his men were welcomed into the facility, where they were ambushed. Admiral Dixon had heard from Muhaimin previously and vowed his unconditional support. His Army division easily outnumbered the Marine regiment, but Dixon had ulterior motives. Dixon kept to himself a Persian translator.

“I’m not telling you again, Captain,” the admiral said, pushing Vadik’s head forward with the muzzle end of the pistol.

“This is NORAD. Identify yourself,” Vadik said, holding down the button that offered him communication to the executive commander.

“This is Executive Commander Abdul Muhaimin, of the UN forces of America. I have dispensed thirty Z-10 attack choppers retrofitted with bunker busters and anti-tank missiles to extinguish a regiment of Marines that are taking shelter in a location north of your position. Your orders are to launch a preliminary attack on Black Hills Army Depot to soften the area and to make the area viable for a follow-up attack. Your men should already be in position.”

Vadik might have been a fluent bilinguist, having learned Persian early in his career as a communications specialist, but there was another language he was familiar with, a third language that most men could understand. It was
violence
, and he wanted no part of it.

“Yes, Executive Commander. The men are in place and they are awaiting your command.”

“Launch the first attack wave, and inform me of the outcome.”

“Yes, Executive Commander.”

Dixon pulled Vadik away from the computer console by the back of his collar and swung him over to Major Devin Hodges.

The major released him into the custody of a squad of infantry soldiers, who took him to the corner of the room and forced him to sit on the floor.

“What’s the plan of attack, Admiral?” Hodges asked.

“We knew the power was down in the west; we knew it was coordinated by a North Korean battleship; we even knew we were supposed to move a few units to South Dakota, but we didn’t know we had a regiment of Marines taking refuge at the old abandoned army depot. How is this possible?”

“Sir, there was no way of translating Persian radio chatter into intelligible English. We’re equipped with all types of technical deciphering gizmos for decrypting codes and even translating software for every known language in the world, but there was nothing handy, until now, to bend a foreign radio wave into English.”

Hodges could see that Dixon was thinking hard about a plan of attack. One that rescued the Marines from impending doom. A joint task force comprised of US Marines and his Stryker brigade was enough to risk just about anything.

“Are thirty attack choppers enough to take out a regiment of unsuspecting Marines?” Dixon asked.

“It depends on how much notice they have of the incoming attack and how heavily fortified they are. There are hundreds of possible bunkers they could be in. There’s not enough firepower on thirty choppers to take them all out.”

“We have the CHAMP missile system. We could launch that above the choppers, and it would render their targeting systems useless.”

Looking across the room, Dixon could see several men hard at work monitoring the skies, each of them waiting for direction.

“Launch the CHAMP,” he commanded.

CHAMP was an acronym that stood for Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advance Missile Project. Its function was to fly over enemy technology and emit bursts of electromagnetic pulses.

One of the second lieutenants at the controls acknowledged with a smile and proceeded to push a button. This gave him access to a panel that opened. Using the information he had heard and a satellite that located the incoming choppers, the necessary information was punched into the relay. It uploaded instantly to the onboard computer system located on the CHAMP missile. The launch sequence started and the CHAMP missile left the Cheyenne Mountains in a northerly direction.

Undisclosed Location East of Provo, South Dakota

“Sir, we’ve just intercepted another transmission,” Sergeant
Rick Hammel
announced to General John James.

“Was it more babble like the rest?”

“I was able to discern
NORAD
and
Black Hills
.”

“They must be coordinating the attack from Colorado,” Hensworth presumed.

“I’d say that’s our angle,” Admiral Belt McKanty added.

“I agree. We’re mostly situated southward from the mountains. There’s nothing much north of us. We know they won’t come on wheels from the north. I want some forward observers south of us, enough to give our howitzers the range they need to be effective and to take the fight to them when they come barreling in,” John added.

“Sir, we’re being hailed on a high-frequency channel,” Hammel shouted.

McKanty, James, and Hensworth ran over to Hammel’s position.

From the radio, they could clearly hear English greetings.

“Warriors of the Black Hills, from Iron Horse, do you copy?”

The military commanders just stared at each other as it was repeated.

“Warriors of the Black Hills, from Iron Horse, do you copy?”

“Sir?” Hammel queried in a voice that emphasized the question.

“Go ahead, Sergeant, but be careful what you say,” John authorized.

Hammel carefully brought the mic up to his face and spoke into it. “Iron Horse, from Whiskey Black, do you copy?” he said, putting a spin on the already cool name.

“Whiskey Black, be advised, you have several tangos flying in from the west. Over.”

“Ten-four, Iron Horse. Whiskey Black copies. Over and out.” Hammel leaned back and looked at General James. “Who’s Iron Horse?”

Belt McKanty, admiral of the US Navy, stood up from his kneeling position and said, “It’s the 4
^th
Army Division, NORAD’s backbone, and we need their help.”

Northwest of South Holland, Illinois

“Doth my eyes deceive me?” Captain Richards jested when he saw his nephew, Nathan.

Equally surprised was Nathan, who was not only looking into the face of his mother’s brother, but found himself once again weaved into the life of Rory Price, an old friend from the Gorham, Illinois, days.

Nathan, not knowing what to say initially, told the posse to lower their weapons. Denny and Jess had already lowered theirs.

“Uncle Lewis?” Nathan spoke with a tone of confusion. “Rory?” he continued.

Nathan, Denny, Jess, Rory, and Lewis slung their weapons over their shoulders and walked equal distances until they met in the middle of the two groups. The captain’s men came out of the tree line and lowered their weapons. They owed that much to the group that had saved them.

Nathan and his uncle, Captain Lewis Richards, embraced one another with a quick manly embrace.

Nathan pulled away from his uncle and gave a quick hug to Rory, who in turn gave hugs to Denny and Jess.

“Where’s Buchanan?” Nathan asked Rory. He spent no time getting down to the important questions.

“His plans changed.”

“Changed, how?”

The tone in Nathan’s voice had changed to frustration. Rory picked up on his change in demeanor.

“Once we got far enough north, we received some radio traffic from a bigwig Marine and a unit of Marines out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. They requested we meet up in Valparaiso, so we did.”

“Who was the bigwig, Rory?”

“It was the commandant of the Marine Corps.”