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

by L. Douglas Hogan

  Colonel Buchanan was now strategically placed in and around the vacated town of Provo. It sat on South Dakota Highway 471, which connected to Interstate 71. SD 471 ran west into Provo and then north out of Provo. It was strategic because these were the only two major entry points that a wheeled vehicle could access. The mountainous terrain to the west of the town was not welcoming to anything that could roll. It had long since been a ghost town. It had been abandoned years earlier and forsaken when government-controlled resources made it almost impossible to survive in the remote American wilderness without the use of gasoline for travel. There were remnants of survivors, but they lived, by and large, in the forested areas, where they could escape satellite visuals and live off the land.

  The Marine Corps commandant, General John James, gave Colonel Buchanan command over nearly two battalions, totaling just over two thousand defenders of liberty. Under his watchful eye, he had 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines, which consisted of Weapons, Company C (6th Engineers), Company E (4th Recon Battalion), and some hard-core militia that he had traversed the Midwest landscape with. In addition, he was given 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, which were comprised of the infantry units of India, Kilo, Lima, and Weapons companies. Provo was Buchanan’s assignment. He was to take command in the field and to report any and all factors of the battle back to his commander.

  Provo had a few buildings, abandoned factories (which were on the outskirts of town), small amounts of woodland, and was surrounded by hills and some prairie. It was perfect for the Marines. They were highly trained in this type of environment. It mimicked the appearance and training grounds of Camp Pendleton, California. Buchanan felt at home.

  He called his team together and gave clear instructions to his commissioned and noncommissioned officers. The goal was to ambush an impending attack from UN and FEMA forces. He made it very clear to each of them that the time and direction of attack was unknown. He assigned positions to each of the colonels and allotted them the necessary firepower to repel and destroy the incoming attackers.

  Each of the colonels reported back to their assigned units and briefed them on everything the colonel had commanded.

  North of Black Hills Depot was the larger town of Edgemont. It was not a ghost town, as was its old neighboring community of Provo. It was maintained by pro-constitutional ranchers and patriots who refused to abandon their traditional lifestyle of self-sustainment. They lived off the land and had a strict code of conduct. They welcomed the resistance fighters by joining them in their efforts. Lieutenant Colonel Barker was given this key location with the command over 1st battalion 21st Marines. The battalion consisted of Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Weapons companies. It controlled Highway 18 from the west and the north.

  Southwest of Provo, about eight miles, was the township of Rumford. Like its neighbor Provo, it too was a ghost town. Strategically, the location had oversight of South Dakota Highways 471 and 71 from the north.

  Eighteen miles southeast of the depot sat a ghost town called Ardmore. Strategically, it was a position that gave oversight to County Road 5 and State Highway 71 from the south, which channeled in from the southern parts of Nebraska. It needed to be controlled if the attack was coming from the south. Intelligence pointed to a small city named Ogallala, which was still rich with agriculture. FEMA control over every inch of the American agricultural system proved flawed when it came to facing off with heavily armed ranchers and country folk.

  Lieutenant Colonel Barnes had 2nd Battalion Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, and Weapons companies embedded at Ardmore.

  Lieutenant Colonel Cox was ordered to take 3rd Battalion to an undisclosed location, where it would be a reinforcements unit if called upon. Cox had command of Golf, Hotel, India, and Weapons companies.

  Lieutenant Colonel Howard was placed in the town of Hot Springs. It had a community of one thousand people, who held a board meeting to discuss the current conditions and how they could contribute. They volunteered their resources, locations, and people to help effectuate a resistance. Howard had command over thirteen CH-53E Super Stallions. Each one was fitted with two .50-caliber machine guns and chaff and flare dispensers for antiair defense attacks. The pilots could operate in the darkest of conditions, using advanced FLIR (forward-looking infrared) technology. These helicopters were capable of transporting thirteen tons of cargo and equipment.

  Twelve miles northwest of the depot, Lieutenant Colonel Wright had thirty M777 Howitzers. The howitzers were previously decommissioned and sitting in storage when General John James had them relocated to the munitions depot. Like the 21st Marine Corps regiment, they had gone from a status of decommissioned to active duty.

  General John James, Belt McKanty, Hensworth, and Communications Specialist Sergeant Rick Hammel were waiting from their undisclosed location.

  Kankakee, Illinois

  Troy took the group back to a rusty old state vehicle. The registration plates had been removed, but Jess recognized it for what it was. Years earlier, the state would take bids from manufacturers to supply it with a predetermined amount of vans or cars. This was an older model 2010 van with a caged rear seating area, probably built for inmates or mentally ill patients.

  The Iranian officer was seated in the very rear of the van, by himself. The cage was sturdy looking, and there was a man assigned to watch over him. The guard was sitting in the seat directly in front of the Iranian. He was armed with a rifle, but it was obvious that the prisoner did not have access to the guard.

  Troy slid the large bulky van door open and stepped up into the van. Nathan and Sergeant Banks stepped in behind him. All three of the men took a seated position in the seat directly in front of the guard’s seat.

  “Meet Captain Munsaf,” Troy said.

  Munsaf appeared to be in good health, minus the black eye he had most likely incurred as a result of being captured.

  “What’s your first name, Munsaf?” Nathan asked.

  “He hasn’t said a word since we took him prisoner,” the guard said.

  Nathan looked at the guard. He was rough looking, with a full beard, like most men had. No electricity and no razor manufacturing meant unshaven faces.

  “I’m Nathan.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m Aaron.”

  Nathan peered back at the captive. His name was clearly written above the chest pocket of his uniform coat.

  “When we shook him down, he had this.”

  Troy handed him an eight-by-ten-inch piece of laminated paper. Written beneath the clear laminate were sets of clearly legible frequencies. Nathan carefully and meticulously looked through the list. He noticed that each frequency rotated out every twelve hours. The problem was that the sequenced list didn’t correspond with a time. They would have to systematically go through the list until they found a broadcast. Therein lay another problem; if there was no communication at the time they flipped to the correct frequency, they would pass it up, thinking it was incorrect.

  Troy’s three-percenters group didn’t have the radio equipment that was required to pick up the high-frequency signals. Only recently did the posse have the means to listen in on such transmissions. Taking control of UN vehicles and communications devices enabled them to listen to UN chatter, but unknown to the patriots, Executive Commander Muhaimin had slain the UN’s Russian soldiers and begun using Persian as the primary language. In addition to this complication, the military was using a communications program called “SkyWave” to communicate over long distances. The technology was old-fashioned and operated similar to the traditional skip propagation, which was fancy terminology for the way high frequencies could bounce off of the earth’s ionosphere to gain greater distances with technology capable of receiving such signals. Now that the patriot movement was getting their hands on the equipment and the means to decipher signal changes, all they needed was a translator.

  “Captain, I know you’re not intimidated by my presence, and I’m sure you can understand me, so let me be clear; I have in my company a—uh, how can I say
this?—a very capable interrogator.”

  The captain looked into Nathan’s eyes, as if he understood exactly what he was saying, but then looked back downward, toward the rear of the seat to his front.

  “We’re not doing this again, Nathan,” Banks said.

  “This is not a matter we should discuss in front of our guest,” Nathan replied.

  Troy, Banks, and Nathan stepped down out of the van.

  “You need to leave the unethical affairs to me,” Nathan said, hand quoting at the word unethical as he continued, “I’m no longer in uniform and I need to make the hard decisions, because you’re clearly still under contract.”

  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 o
ut 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.