by H. L. Wegley
Voice of Freedom
Book 2
Against all Enemies Series
H.L. WEGLEY
Political Thriller with Romance
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction, set in a real location. Any reference to historical figures, places, or events, whether fictional or actual, is a fictional representation. Names, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Samantha Fury http://www.furycoverdesign.com/
Back Cover Design: Trinity Press International http://trinitywebworks.com/
Interior Formatting: Trinity Press International http://trinitywebworks.com/
Copyright © 2016 H.L. Wegley
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-0996493734
ISBN-10: 0996493735
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to all the pilgrims who have been deeply wounded as they pursue God in this fallen world—especially to those who trust Him enough to change whenever He exposes flaws in their beliefs, allowing Him to mold them into the person they were meant to be. Such are the hero and heroine of this story, Steve and Julia.
ENDORSEMENTS
Endorsements and Praise for Voice in the Wilderness, Against All Enemies 1
What a powerful and compelling book! And to think it is “only” a fictitious portrait of modern America and things that may actually come to pass unless “We the people” do something to prevent them from happening. Multiple kudos to Mr. Wegley for having the courage to use his talents to “tell it like it is.”
-- Author Roger Bruner
If you're looking for a rich and creative adventure through a dystopian future in the heart of America's powerbase, then Voice in the Wilderness will be a wild ride that you won't forget anytime soon.
-- Author John Staughton
H. L. Wegley has written an action-packed, politically terrifying, hair-raising thriller about the need to guard our freedoms--lest they be snatched away. An edge-of-your seat race to keep one man from taking over the United States--don't miss it!
-- Susan May Warren, RITA and Christy Award-winning, best-selling novelist
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Coming Soon
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks once again to my wife, Babe, for listening to me read to her several drafts of this story and for helping me fill the plot holes and fix the logic as the story iterated through the editing cycles. Thanks to my beta readers, Duke Gibson, Don and Carol Ruska, and to members of my critique group, Dawn Lily and Gayla Hiss, for their suggestions.
Thank you, Samantha Fury, for developing a cover that captures the feel of the story, and of the entire Against All Enemies series.
Thanks to the team at Trinity Web Works/Trinity Press International for their work in preparing this manuscript for publication, including editor, Dr. Caroline Savage, as well as Shawn Savage for web site work and book formatting. Thanks to their leader, Tony Marino, for planning the publishing and marketing of this novel and to Lynn Marino for managing book promotion.
Though I sometimes mourn for all that we have lost in America over the past fifty years, I still thank our Lord for allowing me to be born in the USA. May He bless and challenge us all through the lessons learned and the courage displayed by the hero and heroine featured in Voice of Freedom.
“If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.”
Founding Father, Samuel Adams
When the righteous rule, the people rejoice, but when an evil man rules, the people mourn.
Proverbs 29:2 (paraphrased)
Chapter 1
Week 4 on Israel’s Coast, near Netanya Beach
Oh crud!
A tear tickled Julia Weiss’s cheek. Crying at a wedding would only confirm everyone’s opinion of her. Weiss the wimp, the weak link on this team.
What a wuss she’d become after her narrow win in her battle with Ebola, after being knocked out by a flashbang grenade, held captive by a demoniac who had some really bad plans for her, and after having guns held to her head more times than she could count.
But, putting things in perspective, shedding a few tears was preferable to full-blown PTSD. Besides, this wedding was special.
Maybe Julia should be crying. After all, she had been pursuing the groom only eight weeks ago. Julia grinned through watery eyes. On their mission trip to Guatemala, she had definitely been crushing on hunky Brock Daniels … until she learned about Brock’s childhood soulmate, KC.
No way would she wedge herself between those two. They belonged together. And now, on August 15, at 09:05 a.m. …
“I now pronounce you man and wife.” Pastor Michael, a fortysomething man with a small beard and a large Bible, stood at the end of the long living room, beaming a smile that spread the full width of his round face. He gestured to Brock. “You may kiss your bride.”
Bride? Twenty-two-year-old KC Banning was more than that. With her green eyes and auburn hair highlighted in blazing red from a month in the blistering Israeli sun—sunshine which had also multiplied the sprinkling of freckles across the cheeks and nose of a perfectly sculpted face—KC might have been a Celtic Princess.
No. KC was a Celtic Princess, royalty in every sense of the word. While Julia, two years KC’s senior, was a commoner, a weak, little—enough self-deprecation. Just enjoy the wedding, Julia.
Six-foot-five, two-hundred-thirty-five-pound athlete and writer, Brock Daniels, heart and soul of America—whatever President Hannan hadn’t destroyed—kissed the Irish Princess.
Julia tried to shove tyrant, Abe Hannan, and the problems at home from her mind and simply delight in the union of these two people handcrafted for each other.
KC, dressed in a summer outfit that had some secret, special meaning for the two, returned Brock’s kiss with all the passion of a heart-on-her-sleeve, stereotypical Irish girl.
As Brock and KC kissed, it seemed that a great wrong in the world had finally been set right. The rending of Brock's and KC's childhood relationship by KC�
��s father seven years ago was almost as if it had never happened.
Please, God, let KC and Brock have their time together. Don't let Hannan finish what KC's father started … especially not now.
Julia wiped her cheeks and looked up into the eyes of warrior, Steve Bancroft. The gaze of this handsome Army Ranger had been locked on her, intense and—there was no other interpretation—longing … at the very time Brock and KC were kissing.
Steve hadn’t a clue what he would be getting in Julia Weiss and probably wouldn’t want it once he found out. Regardless, his look of admiration continued, flattering but frustrating, because his warrior ways created a big problem, a problem she would soon have to deal with before it broke two hearts.
Uncomfortable with Steve’s protracted study of her face, Julia looked away, focusing on Jeff and Allie Jacobs. They were the married couple who rounded out the band of six Americans protected by the Israelis in this spacious, fifth-floor suite near Netanya Beach on the Mediterranean Coast.
Beyond Jeff, at the far end of the living room, Benjamin Levy, their IDF Special Forces guard, stood by the main entry door. Loyal, devoted, vigilant, he had been with Major Katz in Oregon when the Israelis rescued the six from Hannan’s thugs.
What was wrong with Benjamin? His eyes widened. He whirled toward the door and grabbed the knob. “Incoming—”
An invisible force cut off Benjamin’s words.
It slammed Julia into Steve.
His arms circled her.
Their bodies smashed into the wall.
Julia collapsed on the floor beside Steve.
Her head throbbed. She rubbed it then tried to stand.
“No, Julia.” Powerful arms pulled her down.
She shook her head to clear the fog, but now it clouded her vision, too.
When Julia drew a sharp breath, she gagged on acrid air, unfit to breathe.
She blinked her burning eyes. Not fog. Smoke!
With a whoosh, a tangle of flames leaped toward them, dancing, engulfing the far end of the living room, threatening their path of escape.
“Stay down, everybody!” Steve's voice. “There might be another incoming …”
Incoming what? Regardless, they had been attacked. That realization jolted Julia. It sent her pulse revving to somewhere near the red line.
Despite military guards and Israeli intelligence, the best intelligence in the world, they had been located and attacked.
KC and Brock didn't deserve this. And coming on their wedding day was beyond brutal. Somehow, President Hannan had found them.
At that thought, molten lava surged inside Julia. It erupted in a string of words describing Abe Hannan and the place she wanted to send him. Her tirade ended in a wheezing, coughing fit.
Brock sat up beside KC and coughed. “Julia's right. Hannan’s doing. I'd bet on it.”
Steve rose to his feet then quickly dropped to his knees. “Air’s getting hot. Stay down near the floor.” He scanned the group then looked across the smooth marble floor toward the door which had been blown off its hinges. “Come on. Let’s—what the—the floor's gone!”
“So’s Benjamin.” Jeff’s voice.
Julia crawled beside Steve. Barely visible through billows of smoke, a dark chasm had opened up in the marble floor. The hole extended all the way to the door. Now flames threatened to engulf their sanctuary in one end of the closed-off living room.
With the flames and the gaping hole, they couldn't reach the door, their only hope of escaping the inferno.
Julia looked at Brock, cradling a wide-eyed KC in his arms, then at Jeff and Allie. They would all die. Brock and KC would have one kiss as man and wife … and nothing more.
Tears flowed again, tears from Julia’s heart, not from the smoke.
Vacillating between tears and another tirade, she prayed that another explosion would come, sending them all quickly into God's presence, heaven. But the menacing orange and red blazes, licking at all things flammable, looked like heaven’s antithesis. Julia’s bare skin already stung from its radiant heat.
Benjamin had disappeared, his fate a mystery. With the living room rapidly becoming a smoke-filled oven, the fate of Julia and her friends was no mystery at all. For them, in a few more seconds, they would experience hell on earth. And burning to death was Julia’s worst—
“Go, go, go!” Steve swept Brock and KC toward the hole in the floor with one stroke of his powerful right arm.
“To the suite below?” Brock pointed ahead to the smoke-shrouded hole.
“Yeah. Then out the door to the stairwell. Meet you there.” Steve shot Pastor Michael a glance. “Go with them, pastor.”
Brock tugged on KC’s arm. “How fast can you crawl, Kace?”
“Faster than you.”
Brock scurried after KC, both slowing as they approached the cavernous hole.
Crack!
Julia gasped.
A large section of floor broke, sending Brock and KC tumbling downward, out of sight.
Pastor Michael reached the edge of the enlarged hole, swung his legs down into it, and disappeared.
Steve’s hand squeezed Julia’s shoulder. “It’s only ten feet. They’ll be okay.” He nudged Jeff. “You and Allie next.”
Near the hole, flames lashed out at Jeff and Allie. Somehow the two dropped into the hole without the fire stopping them.
Julia shrank back against the wall, away from the flames that now danced like demons over the opening in the floor. The thought of burning to death sent a quivering nausea through her gut. As bile rose in her throat, she fought the urge to vomit.
“Our turn, Julia. Stay on the right side of—”
“Away from the flames?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.” Steve crawled ahead.
She didn’t follow. Couldn’t follow.
The fire leaped across the hole to the opposite wall. Now, blazes attacked from both sides of the opening.
Steve spun around on the floor and made eye contact. His eyes widened as he studied her face. He lunged toward her, hooking Julia under her arms with both hands.
She pulled away from him as images of flames licking the flesh off their bodies drove every sane thought from her mind. “Steve, I … I’m not afraid to die, but please, not by burning.”
“We’re not going to die.” He rose to his knees, gripped both of her wrists, and swung her body toward the opening in the floor.
Julia’s body slid across the smooth floor toward the hole and the flames. She cried out as her legs dropped into the hole.
Steve’s hands had clamped on her wrists so tightly her hands were going numb. “It’s okay. I’ll lower you down. Then it will be only a three- or four-foot drop. But roll out of the way. I’ll be right behind you.”
She hung suspended from Steve’s hands in an opaque, gray cloud. Julia looked up at Steve.
Flames shot out from the nearest wall, hitting him.
He winced, and his grip loosened. One hand slipped loose, then the other.
Julia plunged downward, off balance and flailing to control her fall into the smoke-shrouded unknown.
Chapter 2
Julia tried to brace for the impact, but her right foot hit first—an object, not the floor.
The off-balance landing threw her forward to the left.
When she shoved out both hands to protect her face, her left hand hit the floor first, taking the full impact of her fall.
Julia’s left arm screamed in complaint. The muscles in her forearm spasmed, turning her arm into a rigid bar of steel.
Steve. He would be right behind her.
She pulled her injured arm against her body and rolled away from her landing point. When she stopped rolling, Julia tried to flex her wrist. It resisted movement and, once again, screamed a loud complaint that echoed through her nervous system.
Steve's shoes slapped the floor behind her, followed by a loud crack.
Shards of flooring, mixed with flaming debris, pelted the marble floor. Someh
ow, the red-hot rain missed her.
Visibility was slightly better here. In front of Julia, a figure slumped over something large stretched out on the floor. She moved closer.
Auburn hair hung limp, dangling over a body. KC’s hands moved furiously, exploring Brock’s neck, trying to find a pulse.
Julia pinned her throbbing left arm to her body and moved behind KC, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Why isn't there a pulse? There's got to be a pulse.” The desperation in KC’s voice hurt more than Julia’s injured wrist.
Brock dead? That couldn't be. Steve said they would be okay.
At the thought of Brock’s death, and with pain shooting through her arm, the quivering nausea returned. Julia swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit. Could God really be that cruel? Would He let Brock die on his wedding day?
What about Steve? She turned to see how he had fared.
Steve leaped by her toward KC.
Julia inhaled the cloud of smoke Steve brought with him. She coughed and choked until nausea won. Her breakfast splattered across the floor.
She needed to concentrate on something other than her quivering stomach, her throbbing wrist, and the smell of the smoke, or the vomiting wouldn’t stop. Julia focused on Steve.
He slid beside KC, placing his fingers on Brock's neck. Steve took KC's hand and moved her fingers to the place his had been.
“He's alive!” KC gasped. It ended in a coughing fit.
Smoke had filled the apartment over the past few seconds, invading from the billows swirling down through the hole above them.
Steve nodded. “He's alive. But we've all got to get out of here, now.”
More flaming debris rained down on them, sending glowing red embers and chunks of marble bouncing and sliding across the floor.
Steve bent over Brock, sheltering his body.
KC leaned across Brock’s head.