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

by L. Douglas Hogan

  “That’s it!” she said excitedly. “I was like, whatever!”

  “If only you had been a believer.”

  “He lives, or lived, about a half hour from here. Maybe the stuff he kept in that cabinet can be of some use to us?”

  Felicia saw James’s face light up at the idea.

  “That would be great, but I have one question. By a half hour you mean driving for a half hour?”

  “Well, let’s grab our rucks and get moving.”

  Nathan, Jess, Anders, and Henderson made it safely out of the Biocontrol zone and back to the bivouac area where they had concealed their vehicles and equipment.

  Nathan, remembering that Blake had exposed them to an unknown sickness that was ravaging the area, made the decision to stay isolated from the others until he was confident they were not contaminated. The last thing he wanted to do was to wipe out everybody with a bioweapon that they could not defend against.

  It was now late morning and they were awakened by the sounds of laughter. Nathan and Jess maintained their body heat by sharing the same sleeping bag. It was a tight fit, but southern Illinois winters were nothing to trifle with.

  Nathan was lying still and listening to the Marines telling jokes and cutting each other down with insults. Nothing had changed since his time in service. The Marines were still a brotherhood, and while many non-Marines found it difficult to understand the esprit de corps, theirs was a brotherhood that bound them unto death.

  Jess’s head was nestled against Nathan’s chest. The way they embraced one another as they slept was not only necessary to survival, but was heartwarming. Nathan couldn’t see that Jess’s eyes were open, but her embrace was enough for him to know she was awake.

  “Did they wake you with their laughter?”

  “No, I was already stirring a bit.”

  “Are you about ready to get organized? We have missing friends in that town.”

  “Yeah, I guess. How much did we lose last night?”

  “You mean people and equipment?”

  “No, weight! Of course people and equipment.”

  Nathan gave her a squeeze for being sarcastic. “I think we lost six HMMWVs and seventeen men. That’s not counting the ones we were separated from. Denny’s in there somewhere and we have to find him.”

  “We’re going to have to go in together, yet separate, if we’re to keep from exposing the others.”

  “I know. About that, how do you feel? Do you feel any different?”

  “Not really,” Jess said as she began pulling up and out of the sleeping bag.

  Once Jess was exposed to the frigid morning air, she took in a deep breath and that shocked her lungs, causing her to cough.

  Everybody that was apart from them stopped what they were doing to look at her.

  “Relax, it’s just a cough,” she said.

  About the time Ash saw that she was awake, he walked within ten feet of Nathan and Jess.

  “Where’s Denny?” he asked.

  Nathan sat up to join Jess. “I don’t know. Denny came to our aid yesterday and ended up getting hit with some kind of energy weapon that punched a hole through a brick storefront wall. It almost killed everybody. I was saved by a couple Recons and I grabbed Jess. I lost Denny in the rubble and the fog of combat.”

  “I never got to thank him for saving me.”

  “Yeah, well, if you were to find out what he had to do to save you, you might not be thanking him.”

  “Typical Denny stuff, eh?”

  “For sure.”

  “I thought you guys might be hungry, so I brought you a couple MREs.” Ash threw them to Nathan.

  “Thanks, man. This is how I remember the Corps.”

  “How’s that?” Jess asked.

  “Waking up in frigid temperatures and eating frozen food that was prepared over a decade prior.”

  “I just lost my appetite.”

  Nathan smiled at her and stood up. He began packing his belongings and taking inventory of everything he had. When he was done, he looked at the train track and noticed the train was gone. Calling over to one of the Marines, he asked, “What time did the train head out?”

  “It headed out last night, sometime during all the shooting.”

  Nathan looked back at Jess and said, “There has to be a loading area or some kind of zone where they’re putting people on that train.”

  “You’re not thinking about going back in there, are you?”

  “I already told you, Denny’s still in there and I’m not leaving without him.”

  “I get so sick of all your Semper Fi.”

  “Are you coming?”

  “Well, somebody’s got to pull you out of the rubble. Might as well be me.”

  While they were packing their belongings, the others were watching them. None of them seemed to be doing anything that would give the appearance of a search and rescue mission. Nathan stopped long enough to look at them and asked, “Are any of you guys coming? We have men in there.”

  Ash stepped forward and said, “We were going to push through with the heavies. We just kind of figured that anybody else that was in there still was probably dead.”

  “Are you serious? We have all this meat and we’re going to just push through?” Nathan yelled, pointing at all the Marines and national guardsmen.

  “Listen,” Ash said, “I heard the guys talking about what was going on in that town. It’s infected with something. Prolonged exposure could contaminate all of us.”

  Jess looked at Thor, who had just walked up to Ash and kneeled by his side.

  “What about Thor?” she asked. “He’s been walking freely around the camp, probably being petted by everybody. Have you had an eye on him this whole time? Is he carrying any contagion?”

  Ash took his hand off of Thor’s head.

  “Look,” Nathan said. “You guys push through and cause a distraction. That’ll buy us time to search out Denny. We already lost Morgan and Blake. I’m not going to rest until I have my best friend back.”

  One of the Marine sergeants said, “Even at the price of jeopardizing the rest of us?”

  “We don’t leave anybody behind,” Nathan yelled back at him. “If you guys can at least do that—push through, cause a distraction—we’ll search the area and meet you on the other side.”

  “I’m all about tearing up those blue helmets. Let’s do it.”

  “Great, give us a thirty-minute head start, since we’re on foot, and start gunning through.”

  Nathan had never been accused of jeopardizing his men. He had to constantly remind himself that these men and women were volunteers and free Americans. Each one of them would die defending that freedom. It just made more sense for him to talk out the issues and differences of opinion until a common consensus was brought to the forefront. In this case, he reminded himself that these Marines, although left by Buchanan with a specific mission, were not his men. Nathan wasn’t a Marine Corps commander and couldn’t force them to do anything, but made it seem reasonable to find common ground. That common ground was moving forward with as many people as possible. Nobody knew what was waiting for them on the other side of this town, but it had to be better than the open interstate. The UN had learned early on that flying over urban America was not a wise action. Many armaments had been confiscated by the resistance, some of which was antitank and air-defense weaponry. The risk outweighed the mission for the foreigners.

  Nathan and Jess had taken an alternate route back to the area where they had last seen Denny. The railroad train, which ran south to north, was on a track that ran adjacent to Railroad Street. Using the cover of buildings, they made their way to a position where they could see the Federal Courthouse, which was being used as a junction for human trafficking. The railroad track made an intersection with East Main Street, which was the position where they had a third of a mile view west, towards what the locals called the square. The courthouse sat in the center of the square and was considered the seat of Franklin Coun
ty. It was becoming painfully clear to Nathan and Jess that the UN occupation was bigger than they had anticipated.

  From their position, where they were lying prone, they could see that a security fence had been erected with concertina wire above and below. The fence formed a rectangular shape around the center of Benton, engulfing East Washington and East Church streets, all the way west to South Du Quoin Street, where the fence’s perimeter ended on its opposite end from their position near Railroad Street and East Main. Nathan and Jess could not see the end of the fence’s structure, but knew it was immense. Their eyes could follow the security line a third of a mile to the courthouse, but beyond that, they had no idea that it continued on another half mile to Du Quoin Street.

  They had to be careful not to give away their position. They were lying dangerously close to UN security guards who were working the eastern gate. Guards were patrolling the fence line from their positions on the ground. Nathan noticed there were no towers, but troops patrolled the rooftops.

  “Coming this way wasn’t a good idea,” Nathan said.

  “How could we have known?”

  Jess was saddened by the people she saw being herded into the tail end of the train that had apparently been loading people through the night.

  “Well, there’s the train,” she said.

  “I think they’ve been loading the people into the cars as they round them up, then pull the train forward a bit to load more.”

  Nathan saw at least one loading area. They had constructed lateral fence lines that connected to the main security fence, but protruded outward towards makeshift loading docks.

  “Look,” Nathan said. “There’s one of the areas they’re herding people into and then loading them onto the train.”

  “Well, our boys in green will be coming through any minute now.”

  “When they do, we can’t go inside the fence. Denny’s not likely to be in there. He would never be taken alive.”

  “So which way we gonna head?”

  “I think we should head northwest, along those buildings. The men on the rooftops will be distracted by our guys. Once we hit the other side of those buildings there, we should be good, providing no more superweapons are shot at us.”

  Nathan and Jess were startled when one of the rooftop UN guards suddenly began shouting in Russian. Their instincts told them to stand and run, and Jess had started to, but Nathan grabbed her by the shoulder and said, “Don’t move.”

  The only word they could make out was “American,” and the second word he shouted was not understandable. It soon came to their minds what he was yelling about when other guards came running to their position and were setting up a firing position made up of sandbags. The guards were frantically building it when the sound of HMMWVs and various other military vehicles came within earshot.

  Nathan could hear the team rolling in like thunder and watched as the UN crews brought in their heavy anti-armor weapons. So far, Nathan couldn’t spot the powerful direct energy weapon that had laid them to waste the day before. His hope that the weapon was still on the outside of the fence proved to be a bad wish when he saw it pulling up and facing towards the incoming Marines.

  Nathan and Jess began to fear the worst.

  “Oh no,” Nathan whispered.

  “We have to warn them,” she said.

  “There’s no way to warn them, Jess. If we take off towards them, we’ll be spotted and gunned down like wild boar.”

  “Then what?”

  Nathan thought hard about what to do next. The thought of sacrificing himself entered his mind, but not only would he be giving his own life, but Jess’s also, and Denny’s, if he was still alive.

  “We stay on mission,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  They stood up while the guards were distracted and took cover alongside the buildings that led them back to where they had last seen Denny.

  Entering the building where the direct energy weapon had blasted a hole in the wall was frightening to them both.

  Nathan and Jess began digging through the rubble.

  Jess was tossing aside large chunks of wood when the other side of the room went quiet. Wondering why Nathan was no longer digging, she turned around and saw him holding Denny’s rifle.

  “Oh, Nathan, I’m so sorry!”

  “He doesn’t go anywhere without his rifle.”

  Nathan desperately continued to move through the rubble. He found no signs of anyone, living or dead.

  “Nathan, we need to keep moving. We can’t stay here.”

  Nathan kept tossing debris around as if he was either ignoring Jess or didn’t hear her. Jess had to walk up to him and grab him by the arm.

  “Nathan!”

  “He was here, Jess. We were here, together. He came back for me and I left him.”

  “It didn’t go down that simple, Nathan.”

  Jess could hear the shooting from the Marines blasting through the fences. Every minute or so, she heard the humming sound of the direct energy weapon just as it fired off another shock wave. Nathan was now standing still. This was the first time Jess had ever seen Nathan indecisive. She was now worried for him and their situation.

  “Let’s go,” she said, tugging on his arm. She was too small framed to carry the weight or the strength necessary to pull Nathan out of the building. A simple tug away from her grasp was all he needed to break free of it.

  “You go on ahead without me. I’m going to keep searching. He’s got to be here somewhere.”

  “Denny didn’t make it, Nathan.”

  “What did you just say?” Nathan turned to square off with her, as if challenging her to repeat the comment.

  “You said it yourself,” she said, stepping backwards. “You said he never goes anywhere without his rifle.”

  “I didn’t say he was dead, either.”

  “I know, neither did I,” she said, stepping closer to him. “I said he didn’t make it. Look, it’s possible he was knocked out and taken prisoner while unconscious.”

  “I’m not arguing that possibility, Jess. That’s why I have to stay and keep searching. If he’s in there, I’m going to get him.”

  “By yourself? Because that’s what it’s going to be. The guys said they would pick us up on the other side, and that’s if they even survive the counteroffensive that we saw them throwing together.”

  “If they tear up enough of that fence and put enough holes in those buildings, yeah, by myself. As crazy as it seems.”

  Jess grabbed Nathan around his waist and pulled him in close, planting a kiss on his lips.

  “I love you, Mr. Roeh. I’ll see you and Denny on the other side.”

  Jess wasn’t referring to the fence. She was referring to the afterlife. She didn’t believe Denny was still alive and thought Nathan was going on a suicide mission. She knew that there was nothing she’d be able to say that would talk him out of going into that battle-torn encampment to find Denny.

  With a deep sigh, she planted her head on his chest and hugged him until she started to cry and then pushed him away, saying, “You better get yourself a plan together if you’re going out there without the heavy guns support.”

  Jess walked away, stopping at the broken door frame to take one last look at Nathan, hoping that he would see her leaving and change his mind, but he just stepped off into the next room.

  Nathan calmed his mind down enough to take a look at his ammunition and food supplies. Water wasn’t a major threat to Nathan. The southern Illinois snowfall provided sufficient provision for that necessity. The problem was that he had one MRE that Ash had given him earlier, and only three magazines of ammo, totaling about sixty rounds.

  He was still carrying Denny’s rifle in his hands, so he dropped his pack and used some paracord to attach it vertically to the side so it wouldn’t catch on doorframes as he walked through them. Once he double-checked his gear to make sure that everything was silenced, he left the building and headed back to where the Marines had slammed through the
fence.

  Two HMMWVs were destroyed in the center of the roadway with debris scattered all over. He could see bodies hanging out of the barely recognizable vehicles, and considered ammunition and food supplies. Looking up at the rooftops, he could see the guard that initially shouted to the others, warning of the incoming assault convoy.

  Nathan slid by undetected into the building that had the guard on the roof. Finding the hatch was still open, he took his Ka-Bar from the sheath and climbed the ladder. The man on the roof was alone and preoccupied with what was going on to the north.

  Nathan could still hear gunfire and, for a moment, considered making a hasty retreat to join them. It was his nature to stay with the pack, but Denny was more than a friend to Nathan, he was family.

  The guard didn’t even have his rifle ready; it was hanging from his shoulder. Nathan reached the ceiling, climbed through the hatch, and onto the roof. He could feel his heart pounding with adrenaline and almost feared the guard would hear it.

  Surely with all the gunshots, it will just blend in, he thought.

  As he started to walk towards the guard, the sounds of crunching snow eventually caught his attention. He turned around to see Nathan charging at him with a Ka-Bar in hand. The guard didn’t have time to unsling his rifle, so he went into a defensive posture, putting his hands forward in an attempt to catch Nathan. Nathan parried the defensive maneuver by using his left hand to throw the guard’s right shoulder to his right. When that happened, Nathan wasted no time sticking the UN guard in the abdomen with his knife. The soldier was wearing a shrapnel safety vest that protects against knives and sharp flying debris.

  The soldier grabbed at the site where he was stabbed, but Nathan had already pulled the knife. With the soldier’s hands down on his abdomen, Nathan’s second stab went into the man’s throat. Nathan held it there and followed the man down to the floor of the roof, maintaining control of the knife and bearing the weight of the man all the way down.

  Nathan held his free hand over the man’s mouth to silence him.

  He then went through the man’s belongings and found some Russian food rations. He placed them in his pack and left down the hatch and towards the Marines that he had spotted dead in the roadway.