by Mike Kraus
“Do you have a flight for us?” Linda shouted over the roar of the engine as Jackson accelerated sharply around a corner.
“They’re sending five hundred soldiers and Marines along with some supplies in fifteen minutes,” he shouted back, not daring to take his eyes off of the road. “We’ve got three seats in the cargo section if we can make it there in time!”
“Drive faster, then,” Frank mumbled as he clung to his seat and braced himself against the door.
The drive to the airfield took just under ten minutes and when they arrived Jackson stopped the truck on the tarmac and jumped out. “Hurry up! Get your gear and let’s go!” He threw a backpack on and grabbed his rifle from the back of the truck. Frank and Linda jumped out and grabbed their backpacks and rifles from the back of the truck as well, then ran after Jackson across the tarmac.
A pair of C-17 Globemasters were parked on the tarmac with both of their cargo doors open as dozens of soldiers and crates of supplies were loaded in. The energy on the airfield was electric as troops from all branches ran back and forth on various assignments. Jackson, Frank and Linda ran up to the rear C-17 and Jackson had a brief conversation with the loadmaster.
“Airman Bradley! I’m Lieutenant Jackson and this is Linda Rollins and Frank Richards. I’m escorting these two to Washington. I radioed in a few minutes ago; you have three seats for us, correct?”
“Absolutely, sir!” Bradley nodded and glanced at Frank and Linda. “Seats are in the front, ahead of the cargo. We need to get you on board right now, though; we’re on a tight schedule and need to get in the air within minutes.”
“Absolutely; just point us there and we’ll get seated.”
“Follow me, sir.”
After following Bradley to their seats, Jackson, Frank and Linda secured their weapons and bags before strapping themselves in. A flurry of activity continued around them as crew and cargo continued to pour on board in preparation for takeoff. While Jackson and Linda took the opportunity to drink a full bottle of water each, Frank sat slack-jawed at the coordinated chaos before a tap on his shoulder drew his attention.
“Here,” Linda said, holding out a bottle of water to him. “Hydrate up. It’s going to be a long flight.”
“How long?” Frank took the bottle of water and unscrewed the top.
“Four hours, give or take.”
“Holy crap,” he choked on the first sip of water and coughed loudly. “Are we even going to be in time to do anything?”
Two seats down, on Linda’s left, Jackson leaned forward and looked at Frank. “They’ll hold out, don’t you worry. There’ll be plenty of fight left for us when we get there.”
Frank nodded as Jackson sat back in his seat, then he turned and looked at Linda, wanting to hear her opinion. She leaned in and spoke quietly to him. “We’ve got zero intel on how things are going up there. You saw how it was before we left, though. The place was practically a warzone already.”
“So you don’t think they’ll hold out?”
Linda shook her head. “I didn’t say that. They’ll hold out, yeah. But if Omar’s really directing the assault and he’s got a decent-sized fighting force, they’re going to be hard-pressed to hold out for more than a few hours without getting in reinforcements.”
“Surely there are more troops from closer cities going there, though, right?” Frank had to speak up as the whine of the engines and sound of the closing cargo doors began to grow louder. A few airmen ran down the line of people seated on the sides of the aircraft, passing out hearing protection in the form of earplugs and earmuffs.
Linda didn’t answer for a moment, then she shook her head. “I don’t know. We’re going to be one of the only cities sending troops, and that’s because we verified that the device here was dismantled and our jammer is down. The cities that are still searching for their devices aren’t about to give up on that search—hell, they won’t have even heard about Washington if their jammers are active.” Linda took a deep breath and sighed in exasperation. “Who knows what we’re going to find up there or how we’ll find Omar if he’s in the neighborhood. But we’ll try. We’ll try our damnedest.”
Frank nodded and sat back in his seat as he put on his earmuffs. Further talking was impossible as the whine of the engines turned into a scream as the Globemaster accelerated forward, taxiing toward the runway. Designed for short takeoffs and landings, the Globemaster lurched forward as soon as its sister aircraft was in the air, the four massive jet engines propelling the craft forward and upward into the sky. Frank closed his eyes as he was pushed around in his seat, moving only half an inch or so back and forth as his restraints kept him from flying out of his seat and turning into a pink smear on the far wall.
His last flight on a military aircraft had been stressful enough, with the assignment of heading out to California to try and locate some mysterious devices that had been smuggled into the country. This flight, though, was different in a whole host of ways. The devices had been found, some had been detonated, he had been through firefights and car wrecks, Sarah was missing and the District of Columbia was under siege by a force led by Linda’s nemesis. He cracked his eyes and turned his head to look at Linda. She sat still in her seat, the large black earmuffs covering half of the side of her head. Her hair was still tucked away in a neat ponytail that seemed to never come undone. Her face was a mask, betraying no hint of emotion to the normal observer. Though Frank hadn’t known her for long, he knew her well enough to know that it was a face of raw determination. The same face that had taken them into the depths of hell and back. The face of a friend whom he had never dreamed he would have and someone who he would do anything to protect—and knew that she would do the same for him.
As Frank sat on the loud, bumpy flight, his eyes closed and his thoughts a swirling mess, he felt a small, calloused hand wrap around his, clasping it tightly. Opening his eyes he looked down to see Linda’s hand in his, her fingers gripping his so tightly that her hand was turning white. He squeezed back, feeling a warmth spring up in his chest that radiated peace and tranquility through his whole body. The feeling filled him with something that could outshine the terrible darkness, bring order to chaos and transform his swirling mind into one that was calm and relaxed.
Hope is a simple, ordinary-seeming thing. But it can change the world.
Sitting there, squeezing tight the hand of someone whom he had never imagined he would meet in a situation he never imagined he would find himself in, Frank Richards had hope. Fierce, determined, unwavering, unflinching hope.
And that would be enough to turn back the darkness.
Chapter 11
Dressed in casual winter clothing with a tan scarf wrapped around his neck and leather gloves protecting his hands from the bitter cold, Farhad Omar stands tall on the bow of the riverboat as it motors slowly up the Potomac River. The intense precipitation for the past few weeks means the river is deeper than usual, an unexpected bonus for the man planning the most daring operation ever to occur on United States soil. He had been concerned at one point about the eleven riverboats behind him, as running even one of them aground would compromise his already fragile operation beyond repair.
Everything is running smoothly, though. He smiles as he looks out across the darkened city, basking in the fact that most of the area is without power. Its residents are displaced and in no small amount of discomfort—if they are even alive.
Omar takes one last deep breath of the frigid air before opening the door to the cabin of the riverboat and stepping back in. He casts his gaze across the men seated in the boat, each of them wrapped in a thick coat and long pants. They are all cold in spite of this and they are shivering uncontrollably, as are the men seated in the other eleven boats farther down the river. It is a necessary discomfort, though. Thermal imagers are undoubtedly in use by the patrols and keeping the boats as cold as possible will reduce the chances that someone spots them sailing slowly up the river.
“Report, please.”
Omar’s voice is smooth and steady, the cold having no effect on him.
“Spotters report all clear. One foot patrol is nearby, on the port. They’ll be passing by in two minutes.”
“Have the spotters ready. Take them out if they look like they’ve spotted us or if they’re alone.”
The man seated near the pilot of the boat nods and speaks into a radio. Lying on top of each of the boats, pairs of men dressed in black shift positions, turning their long suppressed rifles in the direction of the approaching patrol. Six men and two women dressed in Army camouflage walk near the bank of the river, speaking quietly as they keep their eyes open for threats. It’s been days since they last encountered looter activity, though, and they are at ease as they talk and crack jokes with each other.
Four of the eight die within the same half-second as fifty caliber rounds enter and exit through their skulls, turning their heads into gelatin and a fine pink mist. The other four only have enough time to realize that something has gone horribly wrong before they, too, are executed. Two die to gaping chest wounds, one bleeds out in under a minute after losing her leg and the final man takes a round to his lower spine as he tries to run to cover.
The sounds of the rifles are loud across the water in spite of the suppressors, and Omar flinches internally with each shot. There are no other patrols close enough to hear them, though, and the man seated next to the pilot looks up at him with a nod. “The patrol is down. We’re clear all the way through to Hains Point.”
Omar pats the man on the shoulder and smiles. “Excellent. Give me the radio and patch me through to the boats.” It takes a moment for the man with the radio to prepare things, but once he does he passes a microphone to Omar who takes it and begins pacing at the front of the boat.
“My brothers, our path is clear. In less than one hour we shall arrive at our destination. We shall disembark and dissipate into the city as instructed, setting up safe houses and staging grounds for the eventual assault.” He feels the next words catch in his throat as he continues.
“The assault on our people shall be returned in kind very soon, my brothers. The torment and misery and degradation felt by our people shall be visited back upon those who call this place home. Many of us will die. But we die with honor and truth in our hearts, knowing that we are performing a worthy deed and executing a finishing blow upon those who desired to do the same to us.” Omar’s voice grows louder and more emotional as he finishes his speech.
“So lie in wait, my brothers. For days or weeks if necessary. Pick at their flanks, find their defenses and then—when the time is right—we shall rain down upon them with hellfire! None of them shall be considered worthy to be spared our righteous wrath! For our vengeance is mighty and our cause is just!”
Muted by the thick walls and windows of the riverboats, the cries of joy and agreement from the men on the twelve craft are nothing more than shallow murmurs to anyone on the banks of the river. The dark craft wind their way forward, carrying nearly one thousand soldiers ready to lay down their lives for their cause. Their leader is a man filled with darkness. A swirling storm of hatred and retribution who will take nothing short of vengeance as a satisfactory answer to wrongs both true and perceived.
Like a storm, Farhad Omar descends upon the vulnerable like a ravenous lion, ready to carry his plan forth to the end, no matter what that end may be.
Author’s Notes
December 23, 2017
First off, I want to thank you for reading yet another book in the No Sanctuary series. This series has turned out to be like nothing I first imagined, and I’m overwhelmed by the positive response to it. Thank you so very much. :)
If you don’t already know, this is the penultimate book of the series. Book 6, which will be out in early 2018, will be the final book of the series and will wrap up all of the loose ends, cliffhangers, twists and turns that we’ve taken so far. I’ve mentioned before that this story is one that first started out as pure post-apocalyptic, but soon moved into half post-apocalyptic and half thriller/adventure. Book 5 is a great example of that and is a result of my trying to combine the feel of a 24-esque thriller with the gut punch of the characters being in a radically changed world. I hope that I’ve been able to maintain that balance relatively well.
Writing about nuclear weapons—including so-called dirty bombs—is always risky because of the science involved. In reality, a lot of people who are nearish to a nuclear weapon going off won’t die immediately unless they’re within a certain radius and die from the initial effects. Radiation is largely misunderstood, and unless it’s delivered in extremely high doses, won’t kill as fast as a lot of folks think. This poses a challenge when writing fiction that involves nukes because unless you have huge nukes going off in a story or there are enough to absolutely blanket an entire area with them, reality is going to be substantially different than what reads well in a story. That goes doubly so for a dirty bomb, which doesn’t have the same initial blast power of a “real” nuke.
This balancing act of reality versus what works well for a story applies to other areas, too. For instance, no experienced warrior like Linda would mess about with a suspected nuclear device without checking it for triggers that might set it off early, and the same goes for the team in Phoenix with the second device that Linda and Frank help to secure. This is another one of those times when reality and fiction are at odds and a choice has to be made over how to serve you, the reader.
In my stories I try to take a very clear, logical and sensible path with everything I tell, even if the particular storyline has an above-average amount of science fiction involved (see my series Final Dawn for an example of this). In cases where I have to choose between two extremes, I tend to go right down the middle and weave a path so that the story makes as much sense as possible while also keeping it moving along at a good clip. There’s also the overall goal of making the story as awesome as possible and sometimes certain things in the story have to be pushed and twisted a bit to make that happen.
In The Gauntlet, that’s precisely what I aimed to do with the dirty bombs. No, they most likely wouldn’t kill as many people as I described unless the terrorists had planted more than one bomb per city. No, Linda and the group she was with wouldn’t have charged in to trying to disarm the devices without analyzing them first. But you know what? I think those inconsistencies are okay because they keep the story moving and they’re not so far off the spectrum that they completely break the willing suspension of disbelief. I know not everyone will agree with me on this, but you know what? That’s okay, too. I can’t make every single person happy, but I can do my best to write stories that entertain as many people as possible. I hope you’re one of those people. :)
If you enjoyed this story and/or any of my other stories, you should really sign up for my newsletter. I send out quick messages a few times a month and I take a totally different approach to my newsletters than other authors. Where other authors see a newsletter as a selling tool first and foremost I see it as a way to connect with my readers first and foremost. I've met some terrific people (like my AWESOME beta readers) and really enjoy talking to folks who email me.
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Catch you in the next book!
-Mike
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Books from Mike Kraus
Final Dawn: The Complete Original Series Box Set
Clocking in at nearly 300,000 words with over 250,000 copies sold, this is the complete collection of the original best
selling post-apocalyptic Final Dawn series. If you enjoy gripping, thrilling post-apocalyptic action with compelling and well-written characters you’ll love Final Dawn.
Final Dawn: Arkhangelsk: The Complete Trilogy Box Set
The Arkhangelsk Trilogy is the first follow-up series set in the bestselling Final Dawn universe and delivers more thrills, fun and just a few scares. The crew of the Russian Typhoon submarine Arkhangelsk travel to a foreign shore in search of survivors, but what the find threatens their fragile rebuilding efforts in the post-apocalyptic world.
Surviving the Fall
Surviving the Fall is an episodic post-apocalyptic series that follows Rick and Dianne Waters as they struggle to survive after a devastating and mysterious worldwide attack. Trapped on the opposite side of the country from his family, Rick must fight to get home while his wife and children struggle to survive as danger lurks around every corner.
Prip’Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl
Two teens and two Spetsnaz officers travel to the town of Prip’Yat set just outside the remains of the Chernobyl power plant. The teens are there for a night of exploration. The special forces are there to pursue a creature that shouldn’t exist. This short thriller set around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster will keep your heart racing right through to the very end.
THE GAUNTLET
No Sanctuary Series
Book 5
By