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

by L. Douglas Hogan

  “Are we willing to put it to the test?” Mark asked inquisitively.

  “Skippy! I’m thinking potential recruits. We need to find out more about these people and get them involved here. Catch up with Thomas and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  “No problem,” Mark said.

  Mark was about to walk away when Cade had a brainstorm.

  “Wait a second, Mark,” Cade ordered. “Let him do something stupid.”

  “What do you mean?” Mark asked, confused.

  “Follow him and don’t let him know you’re following. If I know Thomas, and I do, he’ll do something stupid. When he does, kill him, make sure the people see it and make it look like you’re the hero. I don’t want any of them to know that we are the Southside Raiders.”

  “I got you,” Mark said. “I’ll give him a head start and follow him to that shanty town.”

  “Before you go, get somebody to cut down these treasons,” Cade said, pointing to all the military personnel that were hanging from street posts. “We need to tidy up around here,” he said with a smirk.

  Mark left Cade’s side and went indoors to fetch some provisions for the trip and then made arrangements with the perimeter security to remove the hanging corpses and hide the remains.

  Cade began plotting in his mind a way to cover up the raid on Gorham. So far, all he had was denial. He would flat out deny all knowledge or involvement with the raiding party. He needed strong members in his group to push his community forward. If lying was the modus operandi, then he was game. As for Thomas, Cade saw it as a necessary loss.

  He served his purpose , Cade thought to himself. Scott’s greed cost him his life and Thomas’s life, he reasoned in his own head. “Tomorrow’s a new day,” Cade said out loud. He was excited at the prospect of having new and fresh possibilities in Murphy.

  “The future is looking good,” Cade said to himself as he walked away.

  Chicago, Illinois

  General Muhaimin’s airplane landed at O’Hare International Airport at exactly 6:30 p.m. on October 28th. The plane was greeted by an entourage of government employees and security services.

  All airports in the former United States were closed by Presidential Executive Order 10999, along with all roadways and channels used for transport. Nobody was permitted to drive without passes, which were issued at checkpoints and only covered transports from point A to point B; stops in between were not allowed. There were no deviations or detours permitted.

  Similarly, there was no need to radio ahead or make sure the airspace was clear of traffic. All aircraft were grounded and nothing went airborne except through presidential order.

  General Muhaimin and his men had a short flight from the District to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. He stepped down out of his plane and was saluted by UN soldiers that met him at the base of the ramp. He was taken to another UN soldier, this one dressed in officer’s apparel. He was a lieutenant general by the name of Michal Durant.

  Durant was a native of France and loved his service to the United Nations. He saw the rigors of serving his country to be somewhat empty and always considered himself a forward thinker. He wanted to be a big name on a global scale, and saw service in the UN as a good choice.

  “Good evening, General,” Durant said as he saluted General Muhaimin.

  “Good evening,” Muhaimin said, returning the salute.

  “Sir, I was not told of your arrival until moments ago. To what do we owe the honor?”

  General Muhaimin looked at Durant and said, “I am not here to deliver pleasantries, Lieutenant General. I am here to get you back on track.”

  “Sir?” Durant questioned. He was intently looking at Muhaimin and was completely taken off guard by his presence in Chicago.

  “You have had a great deal of difficulty seizing control of Region Five. I am here to put you back on track. Once I have done so, I will leave.”

  “Sir, what difficulty?” Durant asked, stopping Muhaimin in his tracks.

  Looking at Durant, Muhaimin said, “You are in charge of Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.”

  “You forgot Illinois, sir,” Durant added.

  “No, you have forgotten Illinois, Mr. Durant! It has been a thorn in my finger since I’ve been in this wretched country. We have lost innumerable attempts at relocation protocol, along with men, ships, and fuel.”

  “I assure you that my men are working hard—”

  General Muhaimin harshly interrupted Durant, “Your men are doing nothing and soon you will be relocated if you cannot meet your quota!”

  “Quota?” Durant asked.

  “I am placing you on a relocation protocol quota. I fully expect everyone south of I-64 to be relocated by January 1st. I want conservation easements, upzoning, greenways, and all invasive species removed by this deadline, or you will be held accountable. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Durant said and walked away from Muhaimin, who was now standing at his convoy.

  As he stepped into his limousine, he told the driver, “Take me to Goose Island.”

  Goose Island was the location of the FEMA camp and headquarters for Region Five. It was quarantined and had the strictest of security. The island sat in the northeast corner of Illinois about one and a half miles from Lake Michigan. Its perimeter was a man-made canal on one side and the Chicago River on the other. Its walls were covered in concertina wire with guard towers at every corner. By the year 2032, there was one way onto Goose Island; that was a bridge on the east side of the island, which was attached to Division Street, a street running headlong from Lake Michigan. It made for the perfect isolated position, providing a direct route to the island from the lake.

  Seated to the general’s right, in the rear of the limo, was the disaster secretary for Region Five. Her name was Lisa Cothe, and she’d served under the previous regional director before his untimely disappearance, which national leaders knew was actually a relocation protocol. She was representing the regional czar, whose office was located on Goose Island.

  “We’re glad to have you here with us, sir,” Lisa said with a nervous voice.

  Everybody knew why General Muhaimin was assigned to Region Five. That made everybody especially nervous. His presence meant that they were under the utmost scrutiny, and their mistakes could herald a swift and wrathful retribution. The higher-ups in Region Five knew that the czar was merely a puppet of the United Nations. The real power came from military commanders because the former United States was under a perpetual state of martial law. Muhaimin was merely satisfying the international community by playing the role of regional director.

  General Muhaimin did not respond to Lisa’s attempt at conversation. Instead, he went right to business.

  “Have there been any changes, on the national level, during my plane trip?”

  “Yes, sir. We lost Texas to the Mexicans,” Lisa said.

  “That’s most unfortunate. We cannot afford to lose any more territory to the Mexicans. I want the wall south of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico completed immediately. The Americans never learned how to secure a border, and now we’re having to clean up after them.”

  “About that, sir, we ran into some resistance from the Mexican mafia along the New Mexico border and that set us back about a week,” Lisa said with a perpetually nervous voice.

  “What’s wrong with you Caucasians? Why is it you continue to frustrate me?” he said as he turned his head to watch out the window as they drove through the barricaded streets of Chicago.

  Lisa couldn’t answer the general, knowing that whatever she answered wouldn’t be good enough. Instead she looked out the window and wondered what the future had in store for her.

  Lisa had been working on Goose Island from the time the executive order came to renovate the island into a FEMA disaster site. Lisa began working for FEMA in late 2020. She was the secretary of disaster management when the funds started pumping in to FEMA preparedness. Dur
ing her tenure, she saw a series of red flags that concerned her as an American. She was afraid to say anything or to take any action, out of fear. She held her peace through the following years and saw promotion after promotion until she was in too deep to leave. It was Executive Order 12656 that gave Lisa control over all law enforcement agencies in the United States.

  Most police officers, state troopers, and sheriff’s deputies refused to work, even with government paychecks. They were useless on the local level because almost every aspect of the old economy was dissolved.

  Regarding public safety and security, there simply wasn’t enough help to maintain control of the rioting and mob actions against government employees, on any level. The law enforcement agency personnel, all across the United States, dropped their badges and walked out, blending in with the people. Of course, they had to relocate, because the rural residents could ID their law enforcement officers by face. That was Jess’s story, but Lisa’s was one of shame. She felt the need to resign, but failed to, from an abundance of fear.

  Within moments, the motorcade arrived at Goose Island. This was General Muhaimin’s first visit to the compound. The first thing he saw was a large wall encompassing the oval-shaped island. His limousine was at a large gate entrance. The guards were scanning the drivers’ right hands for the proper clearance.

  Five years prior, the military required all government employees to be implanted with an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip. The chips contained everything about the individual.

  Once the security guard had a read from his handheld reader, he gave the clearance for the motorcade to continue. The gate opened and there was a second barricade of solid steel roadblocks in the center of the bridge that protruded upward, out of the bridge, from underneath. It was an electric/mechanical device that stopped traffic in the middle of the bridge.

  As Muhaimin’s motorcade entered the bridge area, the gate closed behind them. His driver continued until they reached the mechanical roadblock in the center of the bridge. When the motorcade came to a stop, two more guards exited the guard shack that was on the driver side of the bridge. The limo driver lowered all the windows on the limousine. Every vehicle in the motorcade had its windows lowered. The two guards proceeded forward, reading every person’s RFID chip, excluding the general, who was not considered a government employee. He was vouched for by FEMA Disaster Secretary Cothe. For international leaders, the UN had retinal scanners. One of the guards reached into the limo and scanned General Muhaimin’s retina. He was clear and ushered through by security to the final gate. The steel barricade lowered into the bridge, and the motorcade proceeded forward.

  Once the motorcade had cleared the barricade, the steel beams rose back up and the third and final gate opened. This gate was connected to a fenced-in driveway. The fence was both tall and wide, making room for delivery trucks to drive through. The driveway encircled the entire island. As they drove around the perimeter, General Muhaimin was inspecting the security and being briefed by Lisa at each position of interest.

  “As you can see here—” Lisa pointed at a warehouse to their left. The warehouse docking area was connected via fencing structure and concertina wire to the perimeter driveway fence. “—each loading and unloading dock is securely maintained by both guards and security fencing,” she finished.

  Muhaimin noticed that each loading area had a gate that was maintained by two guards.

  Lisa continued with her briefing as they continued around the compound. “Our security is built upon more security.”

  “You seem fairly confident in your security,” the general added.

  “We are, sir. Our security protocols were developed by GITMO detainees. They were hired by the United Nations after the purchase of Goose Island.”

  “Where are the living quarters?” Muhaimin asked.

  “They cannot be seen from the perimeter fence of the compound, and the residents of Goose Island cannot see the outside world, with the exception of the sky.”

  When the motorcade had come to the northwest end of the island, they entered through a gate and arrived at a helicopter landing pad.

  The general exited the limousine and walked up to the regional czar.

  Regional Czar Jennings extended his hand to the general and Muhaimin shook it, not out of respect or honor, but because he was playing the role of placating a subjugated government employee. Everybody knew better, but they went along with the ruse.

  The helicopter door was opened for them, and they entered the helicopter. They put on their high-tech helicopter helmets, complete with the best in modern communication and noise-reduction technologies.

  The door was closed and they were alone with the aviator. Muhaimin watched as the motorcade was pulling out and leaving the compound. The whirl of the propellers was becoming deafening until both men turned their helmets on. After that, all they heard was each other.

  “Enough of the shenanigans,” Jennings said. “We both know why you’re here. There’s no need to continue on with this display of subordination.”

  Muhaimin looked at Jennings and smirked. “Your frankness is refreshing, Mr. Jennings. It’s the first I’ve had all day.”

  Muhaimin turned his head to look down at the compound as they were rising into the sky. From this altitude, he could see the housing barracks and the residents being herded into lines, reminiscent of the pictures Muhaimin had seen of the 1930s American Great Depression and its bread lines.

  “How many people can it house?” the general asked Jennings.

  “Five hundred thousand, no more,” he replied.

  “How do you keep them from coitus?” the general asked.

  “No one is left unsupervised. We have a selection process, and through that process, we determine who procreates.”

  The general’s curiosity just kept piquing as he had more and more questions to ask. “And what of disease?”

  “Infections, bacteria, viruses, and such are closely monitored and vigorously controlled,” Jennings said to the general, and then looked out the window saying, “And if we can’t control it, they go there.”

  Jennings motioned with his head toward the old Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal.

  Muhaimin looked out the window and saw a large brown junk of scorched-looking outlands that protruded into the tip of Lake Michigan.

  “The old steelworks, as it used to be called, is where they keep everybody imprisoned that are not ‘sustainable,’” Jennings said. “It’s necessary for smart growth,” he added.

  Smart growth was the language written into the United Nations Agenda 21 initiative for sustainable development. It was initially meant to be a volunteer effort, but with human habitation reaching perpetual new heights, world leaders forced it into motion through pressure on national leaders. Where democracy did not exist, it was simple, but where freedom was, there were also complications in the initiation of the agenda.

  The United States had become a cancer to the global community in the sense that lower economic cities across the world could not compete with US cities. The UN saw the US as having a monopoly on world economic status. The idea was to initiate Agenda 21 and force the US into redistribution of its wealth. Congressional approval wasn’t being met, so President Baker hatched a sinister plan to bring about Agenda 21 through executive orders.

  Agenda 21 was enacted under the guise of martial law. Martial law was enacted under guise of protestors, whether peaceful or otherwise. The primary goal became sustainable development through the control of all natural and man-made resources.

  Resource control was the least of all the evils found in Agenda 21. The word “sustainability” had a more ominous definition when keyed into the context of the agenda. It meant “population control through control of land and resources.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  Chester, Illinois

  Buchanan and Franks stood with a handful of POWs, including a UN captain, at the front gate of the state penitentiary.

  Buchana
n had taken his time interrogating the captain, but he wasn’t telling them anything.

  Buchanan called for a young Marine with a PRC-77 on his back, and used it to contact Reynolds. He asked Reynolds if he could waterboard a particular POW. Reynolds was trained in the technique and agreed to pick up the POW and secure him elsewhere. Meanwhile, Buchanan had gathered enough information to know that there was a combination of state inmates and civilians detained in the prison.

  The other POWs refused to talk while the captain was present, but now that he was away, Buchanan became more rigorous with the questioning. He grabbed a UN soldier and laid him on his abdomen. He took his pistol from the holster and pressed it into his head.

  Buchanan had all the POWs turn around and face away from him. “Now, I know you speak English, so start talking. What am I going to find in there?” Buchanan said.

  When the man refused to talk, he knocked him out with the handle of his pistol and shot a round into the ground next to his head, giving the appearance to the other POWs that he had just assassinated the POW.

  Buchanan grabbed another one and forced him to the ground. This man began weeping and begging and then started talking about their mission. His accent was a strong Middle Eastern one.

  “We are here for the changing of the guard. The old guards were reported as being too incompetent,” he cried.

  “Who’s left inside?” Buchanan asked, with his pistol pressed against the man’s head.

  “Only the tower guards and the armory. They were going to be neutralized after they were relieved,” the man said.

  Buchanan concocted a plan of having his Marines dress as UN uniformed guards to gain access to the remaining security points. The ploy would be that they had just crushed an insurrection outside the gates to cover for the gunfire that the interior guards must have heard.

  The Marines began dressing in the UN uniforms and proceeded carefully with their POW.

  The Marines now boldly walked up to the tower door and gave it a heavy knock. Their radio response came back in broken English. The POW spoke on the radio and told him his relief was here. When the doors were opened, the guards were taken prisoner and lined up with the POWs outside.