Jess came to the corner of the building where she had heard the gunshot, and peeked around the corner. She saw a woman bleeding out at the feet of a burly man in a flannel shirt. He was going through a backpack, which Jess figured belonged to the woman now dying on the ground. Jess laid her rifle against the building and removed the pistol from her holster. She tucked it in the small of her back, then stepped out from around the corner.
“Can I have some of that?” Jess asked the man, who quickly turned around, as if startled.
He was surprised to see a female as attractive as Jess walking alone at night. The man took one look at Jess, then walked toward her. As he walked, he was donning the backpack, and walked about two steps past Jess, looking around the corner to confirm that she was alone. He saw the rifle and looked back at Jess. He then grabbed her and thrust her against the building in a way only a sexual sadist would enjoy. He had one hand on her face and neck and the other controlling her shoulder. Two shots rang out, and with them, bright flashes from Jess’s .45 S&W. The man let go of Jess and stepped back. She watched as he fell to the ground and she quickly went to the aid of the other woman, checking her carotid artery. Jess knew she was now deceased.
Jess returned to the man, who was not yet dead, and removed her Leatherman from the sheath. He was groaning as she cut one shoulder strap of the backpack so she could more easily remove it from the dying man. She patted him down and found a Walther P22 pistol. She put it in the pack and stood back up and ran back to retrieve her M4. She shouldered it and stepped over the dying man in the dark alley. Jess headed southwest toward camp, unsure what awaited her in the night.
CHAPTER XVI
East Saint Louis, Illinois, October 27
Buchanan and his men found themselves in the notorious East Saint Louis area. They had tried to avoid the route altogether, but were funneled onto State Route 3 due to road blocks and street violence. They lost a heavy gunner plowing through the area. They did not waste their ammo to return fire, but instead continued southbound, with the sound of plinking bullets hitting their convoy until they were out of the area.
Looking overhead, Buchanan and the rest of the men could see Reynolds in his Black Hawk. He was now using the same frequency to communicate.
Choosing to move off of a popular state route, Buchanan gave the order to move down along the Mississippi to a small county road that followed the river south. He knew for certain that the UN was utilizing the Mississippi to enter the Midwest United States. That would mean their avenue of transport would be the Mississippi River coming from the Gulf of Mexico. What Buchanan didn’t know was where the UN shipments were being unloaded. Were there specific points? Were they random? He realized he needed some UN POWs to get any answers.
Buchanan, looking at his map, saw that the next probable location to secure a shipment would be from the bridge over the river in Chester. That would be another fifty plus miles down the road. To get there meant they would have to traverse back to a popular highway. His map revealed that Route 3 would take them directly to the bridge.
Buchanan thought hard about it as they traveled. He didn’t daydream like most do as they travel, but thought strategically about where they were, what they were going to do next, logistics, etc. He thought it would be both prudent and wise to secure that bridge and control it. The only problem was, he didn’t know the size of his enemy or how long his supplies would last. Would he and his men be like the brigands and raiding parties before the end?
“Seven Romeo, Seven Romeo, Bravo One,” Buchanan said on his PRC-77 radio.
“Bravo One, this is Seven Romeo. Ready to copy,” Reynolds replied.
“Find a safe place to nest on runway. Over.”
“10-4,” Reynolds returned.
Buchanan thought to himself that it was time to organize a static base and the bridge was a key logistical point. Trade routes between Illinois and Missouri could be guaranteed, and UN movement over and under the bridge could be restricted. It all made sense to Buchanan, but he wanted to include his senior staff because he knew that down the road, he may need to appoint them field commissions and give them their own control points.
Buchanan looked at his driver and said, “If we can’t have a free America right now, then we’re going to have a free trade zone.”
“Baby steps, sir,” his driver replied.
“That’s right. Baby steps.”
The District
General John James and Admiral Belt McKanty barely slept that night. They had been enjoying the hospitality of their host cab driver, but feared it would be short lived. They thought it best to keep the cab driver home from work, for fear he would give them up. Instead, they nervously stayed in his apartment and became familiar with the cab driver’s two sons, Aaron and Gideon.
The two young men had plotted out a detailed plan and presented it to the two military heads. They had the plans on paper and spread out across the kitchen table. They spoke in clear English, although their father had a clearly Israeli accent. All five men stood around the kitchen table when there was a sudden and unexpected knock on the front door. Everybody in the apartment stopped moving and stared at each other.
“Flush the plans,” Belt said to Aaron as both he and John were pulling their silenced 9mm pistols from their waistbands.
Belt and John each ran to a separate closet door and hid themselves from view.
John looked at Joshwa and said, “Whatever you do, do not open these closet doors.”
Aaron sat on the couch and Joshwa went and lay down in his bed while his wife ran to the kitchen and started with dishes. Gideon was in place at the door, with his hand on the knob, waiting for everybody to settle in their spots. Once they were settled, Gideon opened the door, revealing two UN soldiers speaking rough English.
“Where is your father?”
“He’s sick in his bed. Can I help you?”
The two men, hearing that Gideon had a Jewish accent, pushed the door open and walked into the house.
“We will tell you if your father is too sick to work.”
One of the UN soldiers got rough with Gideon by grabbing the shoulder of his shirt. That made Aaron stand up. When the soldiers saw Aaron stand up, they pointed their rifles at them.
“Please, give us a reason to shoot you, you Jewish pig,” one of the soldiers said, taunting them to do something that might be interpreted as an act of treason against the government.
“I’ll go looking,” one soldier said to the other.
“Stay here and watch the pigs, so they don’t do something foolish.”
The soldier then proceeded to conduct a search of the house, first looking in every room. When he saw the wife of Joshwa doing the dishes, she stopped and turned her back to the sink, rather than to the unwelcomed UN soldier.
Hiding in the kitchen pantry and watching through the wooden blinds was General James. He watched the soldier creep up towards Zamora. The soldier had all but forgotten about the shakedown and was inspecting the beautiful lady with a dish towel in hand.
John gently nudged the pantry door open, which was positioned about seven o’clock to the soldier’s rear. It was quiet in the kitchen and almost nothing could be heard except for the nervous breaths of Zamora as she began to slide along the sink toward the kitchen door, but was grabbed by the soldier and flung back to the sink. Zamora heard a thud and blood splattered on her face. The man’s body fell limp, but was caught by John, who didn’t want to alarm the other soldier. John had shot the soldier in the head.
He laid him on the floor as he heard the other soldier call out, “Hamad?” He had heard the thud from the kitchen and was now heading in their direction.
John put his hand up toward Zamora, signing for her to stay where she was. John then stepped between the counter and the refrigerator and waited.
The other soldier stepped into the kitchen and saw Hamad lying dead on the floor with a pool of blood under his head. He then looked at Zamora and pulled his rifle about ha
lfway up when John dropped him with a headshot, as well.
Aaron and Gideon walked into the kitchen and saw the two dead UN soldiers. “All clear,” they sounded. Everybody came from their hiding positions and entered the kitchen.
“We can’t stay here any longer,” Belt said.
“I agree,” John replied. “We’ve been compromised. I suggest you and your family leave with us,” he said to Joshwa.
“Very well,” Joshwa said as he turned toward Zamora and his sons. “Go pack some belongings.”
“Keep it light,” John said. “Your world, and everything you know about it, is about to turn upside down.”
Somewhere Between Gorham and Murphysboro
Jessica took her time heading back to base. She had learned a lot about herself and the state of rural southern Illinois in the time she was away. She had killed two men, saving herself and attempting to save another. She had a new definition for tyranny. No longer could she put a face on it, but understood it to be a much more complicated issue. She had learned that preserving freedom meant spilling blood, whether hers or the blood of tyrants. She knew that the status of this new world was something she could not deal with alone, but justice, liberty, and domestic tranquility depended on patriots and their willingness to sacrifice.
Jess kept hearing gunshots in her mind and screams for help that went unanswered. These were fresh memories from Murphysboro, a small town in southern Illinois.
If Murphy could be that bad , she thought to herself, I wonder how bad the cities are? Jess had made it to the tracks successfully and followed them to Gorham.
Gorham, Illinois
Nathan was up early in the morning and had everybody pitching in, in preparation for an evacuation. He wasn’t sure which would come first, either an attack from an unknown foe or the evacuation to safety. Denny had called everybody together the night before, at Nathan’s request, and they all agreed that their position was compromised by an unknown enemy. The hard choice, for now, was where to go from here? That was the thought that kept Nathan up all night, his mind trolling back and forth from Jess to the prison he wanted to spy out. He was confident he wanted to stay. This was their home and they had earned it through groundwork and readiness.
Nathan was helping others pack when Zig came walking up to him.
“Nathan, you’re gonna want to come with me,” Zig said.
His attention captivated, Nathan stopped what he was doing and followed Zig to the tracks, where he pointed toward a lone female silhouette walking toward the camp. He knew that strut to be Jess. He handed his rifle off to Zig, who agreeably took it, and took off in a sprint toward her. Jess, being too cool to run, maintained her steady stroll down the tracks. Nathan, now winded, ran headlong into Jess and picked her up off the ground, spinning her in a 360-degree turn.
“How cliché,” she said to Nathan. “That was lame.”
He just laughed, but she grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him in for a first kiss.
“That’s how you welcome someone you have feelings for,” she said.
“I’m sorry I came up short,” Nathan replied. He felt Jess was kind of forward with a kiss, having only known each other for a short while, but he welcomed it anyway.
“We have a lot to discuss,” Jess said as she continued on her way toward camp.
“You wanna start by telling me what happened the other night?” Nathan requested.
“Sure, it was a simple breach in our security.”
“Some of our people believe that you took the armory.”
“Well, I didn’t. There was this guy; he said his name was Scott. I had never seen him before. I’ve been seeing plenty of new faces ever since we saved the prisoners. He must have followed me to the bus and nailed me in the back of the head. I still have a goose egg to prove it,” Jess said as she reached up to rub the knot on her scalp. “When I woke up, I was bound in some room.” Jess stopped talking.
Nathan didn’t want to pry any further than Jess was willing to share. He figured when she was ready to talk, she would talk. Nathan looked into her eyes and saw something different. He feared the worst, and that angered him exceedingly. Her face was still reddened, and gluey residue from the duct tape still adhered to her face in patches. Most of it was covered in grime from her trek home, through the dark.
“I’ve asked everyone to pack essentials to survival in case we have to leave in a hurry. We believe we’ve been compromised by this Scott fella,” Nathan informed her.
“You’re probably right. We should find another place before he comes back with a group next time.”
Nathan had a pretty good sixth sense. He couldn’t tell when someone was necessarily lying, but he could sense when something was off. He knew Jess was hiding something, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Did you happen to find out where the cache of weapons was taken? Or how many people are in Scott’s group?”
Jess didn’t want to talk about Scott, because she was nervous that if people found out she had killed him, she might have a tarnish on her reputation with the people in the camp. She was concerned with the way people perceived her. Her work as an oath taker carried over into her daily life. The way she was viewed by people was important. She wanted to be seen as someone that could both lead and be trusted, and those things are hard to find in one person.
“I’m sorry, I never saw the cache or the bus after I went black.”
“We found the bus,” Nathan said.
“What do you mean?”
“The morning after you were taken, we set out to recover you. We followed the tracks to the bus, but you weren’t with it anymore.”
“I’m not sure where it stopped,” she said, “but if you know where it’s at, we can go retrieve it, right?”
“I’m not real concerned with that bus. My concern was for you,” Nathan said.
“Well, as you can see, I’m just fine. I think that bus should be taken back. It’s armored, and if we’re planning on a move, we could use it.”
“That’s a valid point,” he said. “How do you feel about that prison reconnaissance mission I suggested before you took off?”
Jess thought for a second. “Well, I know that place well, but it’s full of people and we don’t know anything about them. Are they friendlies? Are they hostiles? We know nothing!” Jess said with authority and a hint of frustration.
“I’m not suggesting we walk in and ask them to leave. It’s a spy mission. You know, ‘black ops,’” Nathan said sarcastically, using his hands to sign quotes.
By the time he had finished that sentence, they had entered the camp and Denny met them first. He shook her hand and said, “Welcome home.”
“Thank you. It’s good to be back,” Jess replied.
Jess was being surrounded by people that had taken a liking to her. Nathan stepped away from the crowd and leaned over to Denny.
“Keep an eye on her. Something’s not right,” he whispered in Denny’s ear.
“Roger that,” he said.
Nathan put his hand on Denny’s shoulder and said, “I need to see the Posse ASAP,” and then walked away to the old firehouse. Denny looked back at Jess and wondered what Nathan could see that he couldn’t. He just saw a dirty Jess.
Denny rounded up all the Posse members and headed to the old firehouse. Nathan was standing at the front of the room when Jess walked in.
“Sorry I’m the last one,” she said.
Nathan looked at her and said, “I was going to let you rest for a while. You’ve been through a lot.”
“I’m good. I’ll get rest when sleep comes.”
“I insist,” Nathan rebutted.
“And I said I’m good,” she repeated.
Jess could already sense tension. Maybe not telling him the whole story is causing mistrust, she thought to herself. Jess was trying to weigh the cost of telling the whole story against the cost of discretion. She decided she was going to tell Nathan and his best friend Denny. But sh
e would have to wait because Nathan was preparing a strategy that should be heeded carefully.
Ash was paying special attention. He knew his last blunder was ground zero. If he was going back to the place where Todd had died, he had better have an “A game.” Ash listened intently as Nathan spoke.
Nathan began drawing a map of the environment surrounding the prison on the blackboard. He understood the risks involved in reconning an armed maximum-security penitentiary. What he didn’t understand was why it was still operational and to what extent were the United Nations using the prison? In Nathan’s mind, if the prison was filled with innocent Americans, he could take out the UN soldiers and use the people to help build a free community in Chester. If it was filled with inmates, his conscience was torn.
Nathan’s map was complete with the Mississippi River, which flowed in a southeastwardly direction, a railroad track with stationary train cars that sat elevated off of the river, a seven-to-eight-foot wall that stood between the train track and Kaskaskia Street, and a drawing of some surrounding woodland.
“What I was thinking, if we can pull it off, is one man”—Nathan glanced back at Jess—“or woman”—then went back to the board—“proceeds along the riverfront, here.” He pointed to the blackboard as he gave instructions. “Using the elevation and foliage to conceal yourself, you can make your way to a cozy and concealed spot out of sight from the tower. The rest would traverse ahead of our lookout, through the woods, and stand by in case things go south, and there needs to be cover fire for him or her to jettison the reconnaissance. Essentially, we would be acting as an overwatch.”
Jess raised her hand.
Nathan looked at Jess and said, “Not now, Jess. I’ll speak with you alone, after the meeting.”
Nathan had confirmed Jess’s sense of tension and distrust by not letting her speak, as he had previously. She now knew that not being completely honest with Nathan was a mistake. Now she had to prove her loyalty to Nathan by telling him exactly what had happened in Murphysboro. That meant reliving what she had gone through in detail, especially the part about killing two men. She would have to make her case and prove to him that she wasn’t a murderer or a loose wingnut.
Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) Page 22