Collective Retribution

by Edwards, D. S.

  COLLECTIVE RETRIBUTION

  Copyright © 2013 by Storehouse Entertainment

  ISBN: 978-0-9910323-0-3

  ISBN: 9780991032327

  LCCN: 2013952862

  This is a work of fiction. Places, incidents, names, and characters, are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, establishments, locals, or events is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any way without written permission from

  Storehouse Entertainment Group

  P.O. Box 1902

  Prineville, Oregon 97754

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed… .

  But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

  The Unanimous Declaration

  of the Thirteen United States of America

  July 4, 1776

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank God first and foremost. You have blessed me with more than I deserve.

  My wife, my bride, my best friend, you sacrificed many things for the sake of this journey, and your love and unshakeable faith kept me going. I hope to be able to give you everything you desire as we finish our time on earth together.

  To my son Adam, you became my sounding board without complaint, and your creative input was invaluable. My son Lucas, you never doubted me or this book. Thank you for being my biggest fan.

  I would also like to thank my parents for the way I was raised and the values you instilled in every fiber of my being. You made me the man I am today.

  I feel I must also thank the one teacher who saw something in me others did not. Thank you Linda Burton, you pulled the passion to create out of me.

  To my Editor James Lund, I didn’t always like you very much as we waded through the manuscript, but I believe, you sir have made me a better author.

  For Marissa Lynn

  PROLOGUE

  EASTERN OREGON

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22

  THE BLACK-LICORICE AROMA OF PONDEROSA PINES SWIRLED through frost-filled air and mingled with the pungent odor of snow-laden sagebrush. A red-tailed hawk soared across transparent blue sky, caught an updraft, and rode it out of sight. Every sound, smell, and color was intensified by the explosion of golden sunlight flooding over the eastern peaks, waking nature from her late-November slumber.

  Fresh elk tracks crossed a small clearing and disappeared into a dense patch of lodgepole pines. Fifteen-year-old Andy Wells and his father, Martin, followed. Both carried rifles.

  “Stay alert, Andy,” Martin whispered over his shoulder. “We could find ’em bedded down in there. Look in the shadows.”

  They walked slowly into the trees, keeping to the softer, deeper snow beside the tracks. Martin stopped, removed one of his gloves, and bent down to examine a pile of droppings. He picked some up and gently squeezed them between his fingers.

  “Soft,” Martin said. “Still a little warm. We’re getting close, so keep your eyes peeled. We need to move a little quicker. The wind’s starting to switch, and we don’t want them to smell us.”

  Andy watched the trees and tried to keep his breathing steady. He loved the thrill of the hunt, especially when he was with his dad. Martin Wells had been taking his son into the woods for as long as Andy could remember. It was a tradition now, one thing they could yet enjoy together now that Andy was a teenager.

  They picked up the pace, still walking carefully to avoid making noise. A quarter mile into the thicket, they came to a barbed-wire fence with a “No Trespassing” sign nailed to a large fir tree.

  “What do we do, Dad?” Andy said. “Do you know whose property this is?”

  “It used to belong to the Clarks, but it sold four or five years ago. No one in town seems to know who bought it or who takes care of it. I’m pretty sure no one lives out here.”

  Andy grinned at his father. “Should we keep going? We’ve got to be getting close.”

  Martin grinned back. Andy already knew what his father would say.

  “I suppose we could go in just a little ways. If we don’t catch up to them in the next quarter mile, we can back off and try to catch them coming out this evening,”

  Martin handed his rifle to Andy and crossed the fence. Andy handed both rifles to his father and followed him across. They continued along the tracks, eyes focused on the thick trees directly in front of them.

  Andy licked his lips. It had been a long time since he’d tasted elk steak. Not since his dad—

  CRACK!

  The sound of the shot split the crisp winter morning, echoing through snow-blanketed canyons.

  Andy whirled, looking everywhere, seeing nothing unusual.

  “Where’d that come from?” he said. “Do you think somebody else got to them? Dad?”

  Andy turned to his father and sucked in a chest full of frigid air. Fear seized every part of him. A thick, crimson stain was blossoming on the front of his father’s hunting jacket. Blood flowed down his torso like warm raspberry syrup. Thin wispy trails of steam hung in the air as the drops fell and melted into pure white snow.

  All color had left his dad’s face. Through blood-rimmed lips, he hissed.

  “Run, Andy. Run!”

  “Dad, you’re hurt!”

  “Run now, Andy. Don’t stop until you get to the pickup. Get Sheriff Palmer!”

  Andy was about to argue when another shot rang through the trees. His father’s head exploded in a red mist, covering Andy’s face with fragments of his dad’s skull, his thoughts, his memories, his dreams.

  Andy dropped his rifle and ran. Trees splintered around him as more shots echoed. He heard men yelling behind him in a foreign language. He ran recklessly back the way they’d come, vomiting as he went. Tree limbs scratched his face, tore at his clothes. He stumbled and fell, got up, stumbled, got up again. When he reached the pickup, he jumped in and turned the key. The engine roared to life.

  Andy put the truck in gear and stomped on the accelerator just as the back window exploded in a hail of bullets.

  1

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  6:15 P.M., MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24

  THE FORK WAS NEARLY IN LEVI NIRSCHELL’S MOUTH, THE AROMA of garlic-laden spaghetti sauce filling his nostrils, a noodle already tickling his lip, when his cell phone rang. Dinner, it seemed, would have to wait. He put the fork down and held up his hand, interrupting his daughter’s account of Ken breaking up with Alyssa and his son’s analysis of why his bedtime should change from 8 to 9:30.

  “Hello?” he said into the phone as he slipped into the next room. “Yes, this is Nirsch…Yes…Yes. Yes, sir, I understand. Yes sir, 7:15. Okay, I’ll see you then.”

  Nirsch clicked off the phone. His legs trembled briefly as he walked back to the dining room doorway.

  Jillian, his eighteen-year-old, was diving into the spaghetti. Adam, his nine-year-old, sat at the table with his arms folded. “Yes, Mom,” he said, “it should be 9:30.”

  Nirsch’s wife, Michelle, was also at the table. She rolled her eyes. “Tell me again why it should be 9:30?”

  “’Cause I got a D on my last science test, and Myth-Busters isn’t on till 8 and Billy watches it ’cause his bedtime isn’t till 10
, and he got an A on his test, and Katie, she’s super smart, and she stays up till 10, and—”

  Nirsch walked into the room. Michelle turned to Nirsch and away from Adam’s legal case. “Who was that on the phone? What’s the matter? You’re white as a sheet!”

  “That was Director Morgan’s office. I have an emergency meeting at 7:15 tomorrow morning.”

  “What is it? Has something happened?”

  “No. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  Michelle narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

  “We’ll talk later,” he said.

  It wasn’t like Michelle was ever really angry with Nirsch when duty called in the middle of dinner. She knew when he signed up for this assignment and moved them all to D.C. that the “job” would take him away from his family at times. He forced a smile and looked away.

  Nope, not angry, Nirsch decided. A little irritated, a little put out, kind of sad, jealous of the demanding mistress that was his duty to the United States? Perhaps.

  He looked closer at Michelle. Yep, still jealous. But her eyes were softer, and the wrinkle lines in the middle of her forehead had smoothed considerably in the last seventeen seconds. She was so beautiful: blond hair, creamy-smooth skin, and the clearest, deepest blue eyes God had ever fashioned. Nirsch shook his head, a bit amazed. Even after nineteen years of marriage, he was still hopelessly in love.

  Nineteen years. He suddenly wondered if they would make it to twenty.

  The dishes had been cleared and Adam had stopped begging to stay up later when Nirsch and Michelle sat alone in the living room.

  His job qualified him for the highest levels of security in the government. He wasn’t supposed to discuss confidential material with anyone who didn’t have the proper security clearance. But from his days as a Navy SEAL to his time as a company man to the present job, Nirsch had shared many things with Michelle. Things that were deemed so top secret that not even the vice president was aware of them.

  He looked at it this way—Genesis 2:24 read, “A man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife,” along with something about the two becoming one flesh. That was good enough for him.

  Michelle tucked her legs beneath her on the couch. “Well,” she said, “lay it on me.”

  Nirsch took a deep breath and chose his words carefully. “It’s happened. Our worst fears have been realized. The Pentagon has just received intelligence that Iran has obtained several nuclear warheads. With the help of the North Koreans, and thanks to several million barrels of oil going to Kim Jong Un to help grease the wheels, they’ve completed a delivery system.

  Michelle’s eyes widened. “Didn’t Israel take out Iran’s nuclear facilities a few years ago?”

  “They took out the ones in Iran, but these warheads weren’t built in Iran. These warheads came from North Korea.”

  “So you’ll send in drones, SEALs, or some other forces to take these sites out, right?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “The thing is, all intelligence leads us to believe these particular weapons are headed for U.S. soil.” Nirsch felt his forehead growing warm. “No one knows where they are or how many there are. The CIA and Mossad have reason to believe they’ll be used within the week.”

  Michelle gasped. When she spoke again, her voice was almost timid. “How can they get nuclear weapons into the U.S.?”

  “Most likely will be smuggled across our southern border. Maybe with the help of Mexican Drug cartels. Border security hasn’t been much of a priority for years.”

  Michelle was quiet for at least two minutes. It felt like thirty. He knew better than to say anything. He had to leave her time to process the news.

  “When do you leave?” she finally said. “Where do you think they’ll send you? I assume you’ll fly out tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “And I think you and the kids need to fly out to the ranch first thing tomorrow.”

  “Okay. I’ll keep Adam and Jillian out of school. We’ll be packed and headed to the airport by 9:30.”

  Michelle went to the bedroom to get her laptop and make airline reservations. Nirsch went for his cellphone to call Bill Kennedy. Bill was the manager of Nirsch’s ranch in Eastern Oregon. The property had been in his family for three generations. Bill had been a good friend to Nirsch’s father and had lived on the ranch since he was a small boy. Bill’s father was the livestock manager in the early thirties when Nirsch’s grandfather purchased the ranch. Now that it all belonged to Nirsch, Bill was his foreman. Nirsch was proud to also call him friend.

  He was finishing up with Bill when Michelle returned.

  “Yes,” Nirsch said, “bring the heifers into the pasture by the house, and move the bulls into the feed lot. Might be a good idea to check the feed stock for the chickens. Make sure we have at least two years set aside. I paid the feed bill at Chuck’s, so you should be able to get whatever we need. It’s also a good idea to close the spillway from the lake. We need to stock as much water as we can.

  “And Bill, one more thing. If you could grab a couple of generators, put them in the back of the blue pickup, and pull it into the vault with a couple of the ATVs and the small tractor, I’d appreciate it.”

  The vault was an underground parking structure that Bill and Nirsch had built in the nineties. It was six hundred square feet, made from reinforced concrete, surrounded by continuous wire mesh, and buried eighteen feet under a barn. They’d started stockpiling electronic equipment and batteries in it as soon as it was built.

  Nirsch signed off with Bill and turned to Michelle. “Bill will send Kathy to pick you up at the airport. I should be able to get away and join you by Saturday.”

  Michelle had that look again. The worry lines had returned to her forehead. Her eyes narrowed.

  “What do I tell Jillian and Adam?”

  “Tell them we’re taking an early Christmas vacation,” Nirsch said while attempting an innocent smile. “They love it at the ranch, and it won’t bother Jillian at all seeing the Hansons’ oldest boy.”

  Michelle clearly wasn’t thinking about how well Jillian and their Oregon neighbors’ son, Brett Hanson, got along. She swallowed and her lips began to quiver. She was on the verge of tears.

  Nirsch walked over, wrapped his arms around her, and let her put her head against his chest. He held her close for several minutes, neither of them speaking.

  “How long do … I mean, when will we…what if you can’t find the nukes?” Michelle said. “What will happen?”

  Nirsch shook his head. “These aren’t dirty bombs that fit in a suitcase. These are thirty-kiloton masters of destruction, three times the size of the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. If we can’t stop them, possibly Washington D.C., Los Angeles, New York City, and I’m certain other major cities will be no more. The world,” he added in a whisper, “will be forever changed.”

  Michelle gripped him tighter. “Why, Nirsch? How could we have let this happen? Who hates like this?”

  Nirsch held her close and gently ran his fingers through her hair. He didn’t have an answer.

  2

  NOGALES, MEXICO

  8:25 P.M ., MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24

  HIDDEN BY SHADOWS, ESHAN FAEQ LEANED AGAINST A BLACK locust tree outside a warehouse. He pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket, removed his hat, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. It wasn’t really all that hot, but Eshan was still feeling queasy after his journey on a cargo ship across two oceans. He’d always hated the water. He’d avoided it his whole life. Even as a child, when the other boys from his village went swimming in the Indus River, Eshan always came up with an excuse not to join them.

  Eshan returned the handkerchief to his pocket and glanced down. He thought he looked ridiculous. He wore Caborca cowboy boots, faded Levi’s, a red and white plaid western shirt, and a white, straw cowboy hat. The clothes had been provided in Guaymas by Carlos Montoya, head of the Meta drug cartel, as soon as his
ship had docked. Montoya had said he would blend in better in the outfit. As soon as Eshan reached American soil, these clothes were coming off, to be traded for a T-shirt, tennis shoes, and a comfortable pair of shorts.

  Eshan glanced at his watch. Montoya had said his people would open up the warehouse at eight. Now they were nearly a half hour late. He frowned. They had to start driving soon if they were going to make it to the house in Peoria, Arizona, by 2 A.M. This part of his journey had cost him four million U.S. dollars and five thousand brand new AK-47s, along with two million rounds of ammunition. So far he had not gotten his money’s worth.

  He kicked the toe of his boot into the dirt and swore under his breath. Leaving the safety of the shadows, Eshan turned and started to walk toward the dirty, white Ford box truck he’d driven from Guaymas. If Montoya’s men didn’t show up soon, he would find another way to get his precious cargo into America. Everything that was planned depended on him for its success or failure.

  He was reaching for the truck’s door handle when three Mexican army pickups tore into the gravel lot, sliding sideways in a cloud of dust. Soldiers poured from the trucks, pointed weapons at Eshan, and started shouting in Spanish. Eshan put his hands over his head and knelt in the dirt next to his truck.

  As one of the soldiers cautiously approached, a black Cadillac Escalade pulled up to the warehouse. Three Mexicans got out. The soldier near Eshan hesitated. One of the Mexicans spoke sharply to the soldier. The soldier shouted to the others. They lowered their weapons, returned to their trucks, and drove away.

  Eshan stood and brushed the dust from his knees. The driver of the Cadillac approached him and held out his hand.

  “Sorry we are late, señor. I am Aden Romero. I will be your tour guide.”

  Eshan shook his hand.

  “I was beginning to wonder if I’d wasted Allah’s money,” Eshan said.

  Romero turned and walked toward the warehouse. “Come,” he said, “let’s get you on your way.”