by J B Black
REB’S RAMPAGE
A Reb Rogers Thriller
J B BLACK
http://jbblackauthor.com/
Copyright © 2017 by J B BLACK
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed, or electronic form without express written permission of the author.
Please do not participate in, or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
NOTE FROM AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
Veracruz, Mexico
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Reb Rogers was strapped into the front passenger seat of Big Bertha—the nickname given to the heavy-duty expedition vehicle owned and operated by the FBIS. Big Bertha was lashed to a severe-duty metal pallet that was secured to the deck of the cargo bay of an Air Force C-130J cargo plane. The C-130J was flying just a few feet above ground level over a plantation owned by the Vicario drug cartel, located in the State of Veracruz, Mexico.
Jake Gant, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau for Internal Security (FBIS) and one of Reb’s closest friends, was in the driver’s seat next to Reb. Seated in the rear of Big Bertha’s four-seater crew cab were Justin Beauregard, Quartermaster of the FBIS, and Justin’s assistant, Rich Carson, who had formerly been an eavesdropper with the NSA. All four men were wearing crash helmets that were connected to the C-130J's intercom system.
Just minutes earlier, the Loadmaster—standing at his station in front of them—had given them the heads-up that he was about to open the rear door and lower the ramp. When the door was opened and the ramp was being lowered, Reb could hear the whine of the hydraulics over the roar of the four 4,000 horsepower engines spinning the plane's propellers.
Reb turned around to see how Rich was doing in the back. Rich had a big-ass grin on his face. He was barely able to contain his excitement at the prospect of having two big parachutes being popped open behind them and suddenly jerking them out of the back of the airplane.
Rich noticed Reb was looking at him and gave Reb a big thumbs-up.
Once they were out of the plane and on the ground, the pallet they were lashed to would be moving in the same direction the plane was traveling in and at the same speed—initially. In addition to pulling the pallet and its cargo out of the C-130J, the purpose of the parachutes was to slow the pallet to a stop once it hit the ground. It would start out traveling forward at 100 mph and come to a dead stop in less than a football field's length, if everything worked according to plan.
It was obvious to Reb that Rich was oblivious to the potential hazards involved in this type of operation and was treating this as something no different than a roller coaster ride at the amusement park.
Which was probably just as well, Reb thought to himself. Why should Rich worry about the parachutes failing once they were on the ground going 100 mph and the pallet not stopping until they ran into a tree or a boulder? Why should he worry about the pallet hitting some large rock just barely sticking out of the ground and flipping over while they were still going 50 mph? Or the plane crashing downrange from their exit point and the pallet running into the fireball?
Reb looked out of the expedition vehicle’s windshield at the digital displays on the forward bulkhead of the C-130J’s cargo area. The displays indicated the propeller driven aircraft was currently flying at an altitude just six feet above ground level and traveling at a speed just a tad over one hundred miles per hour.
Reb thought to himself that the pilots had some mighty big stones to be flying this low to the ground and going this fast without planning on landing. He could just imagine the plane’s automatic ground collision avoidance system announcing to the pilots in the cockpit that they should “Pull Up, Pull Up.”
The Loadmaster announced over the intercom, “Ten seconds to go,” just as the digital countdown display on the forward bulkhead of the cargo area flashed a big red 10.
“All right, you guys, brace yourselves,” Reb heard Jake say and he cinched his four-point restraint system another notch.
As he sat there with the good sense to be scared shitless—unlike the younger man in the rear seat—waiting for the jolt that would come when the parachutes deployed, Reb recalled the events leading up to the necessity for him to exit a plane in this fashion.
CHAPTER 2
Perdido Pass Bridge
Orange Beach, Alabama
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
12:15 a.m. CDT
15 DAYS EARLIER
Billy Morris, Chief of the Seaside Beach, Alabama Police Department, was standing at the railing on the north side of the Perdido Pass Bridge. He was looking out over the water down below back toward nearby Ono Island. It was a dark night with little moonlight to see by and there was a thick layer of fog covering the water and the bridge. Billy was having a difficult time making anything out under the circumstances. The section of the bridge where he was standing was right above the main channel of the narrow waterway known as Perdido Pass. Perdido Pass connected Perdido Bay—and the surrounding waters of the coastal lagoon—to the Gulf of Mexico. Any boat from the surrounding area that was headed out into the Gulf would have to pass directly under him.
Earlier that evening, Billy had been playing poker with some of his neighbors at Seaside Tower, the beachfront condominium complex where he lived in Seaside Beach, Alabama. Every Tuesday night, Billy and his friends—Reb Rogers, Dave Foster, and Rusty Gordon—would get together at Rusty’s condo and play low-stakes poker.
When tonight’s game broke up, instead of going home to his condo unit on the sixth floor, Billy had taken the elevator down to the parking garage, gotten into his official police vehicle (a four-wheel drive SUV), pulled out of the condo’s parking garage onto Perdido Beach Boulevard, and headed east toward the Alabama/Florida state line.
The previous Wednesday, Captain Charlie Walker—a local charter boat operator—had informed Billy about seeing what looked to him like a small submarine being escorted by four fishing boats. Captain Charlie told Billy that at the time he had seen the boats—sometime around 3 a.m.—they were about a mile out in the Gulf heading straight toward Perdido Pass
.
Billy was standing here on the bridge this Wednesday, shortly after midnight, in hopes of catching sight of the drug submarine as it made its way out into the Gulf of Mexico. Billy figured it would probably rendezvous not too far offshore with a cargo ship carrying a shipment of illegal drugs.
On his way to the bridge, Billy had pulled into a 24/7 convenience store and filled his thermos with black coffee. When he arrived at Perdido Pass Bridge a short time later, Billy pulled over and parked in the emergency lane in the section of the bridge between the second and third support pylons, right above the main channel of the pass.
Billy lifted the coffee cup his six-year-old daughter had given him on Father’s Day from the beverage caddy and poured himself a cup of coffee from the thermos. After taking a sip of the hot coffee, he exited the vehicle, and, out of force of habit, checked both ways for any oncoming traffic. Billy wasn’t at all surprised that there was absolutely no traffic about at that early morning hour on a Wednesday, during the off-season.
Because the bridge had no lights, Billy turned on his flashlight. He strolled across the two east bound lanes, then across the median, then across the two west bound lanes, and then across the emergency lane to the railing on the north side of the bridge. When he got to the railing, Billy turned off his flashlight, looked out over the side of the bridge, and discovered he had no night vision and couldn’t see much at all because of the fog.
By the time Billy finished his cup of coffee, his eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he heard the sound of outboard engines somewhere in the distance. Billy looked north past the tip of Ono Island toward Perdido Bay—where the sound was coming from—trying to spot the boat’s running lights, but he didn’t see anything.
Several minutes dragged by, with the sound of the motors getting closer, when Billy was finally able to make out the shape of a large boat—running with its lights—coming around the western tip of Ono Island headed toward the bridge. Just off to each side of the large boat and slightly behind it, Billy saw two smaller boats. Billy looked at his watch and saw it was a quarter past midnight.
I wonder if this is what I’m looking for, Billy thought to himself. Not wanting to chance being seen by anyone on the boats, Billy turned around and ran back across the bridge to the other side where his SUV was parked. He ran up to the railing and looked down at the water below. As he watched, the first boat came out underneath the bridge. It was a big sportfishing yacht. Billy estimated its length was 75 or 80 feet.
Then Billy saw what had to be the drug sub Captain Charlie had told him about. He could make out a clear plexiglass canopy sitting in the middle of an almost invisible shape that was making a wake, following a good 20 feet behind the first boat.
As Billy continued looking over the side of the bridge, the two smaller boats he had seen accompanying the big sportfishing yacht came out from under the bridge. One was on the left side of the drug sub and the other one was on the right side. As the three vessels became fully exposed, Billy could see the drug sub was about 60 feet long and the two smaller boats were about 40 feet long. Billy noticed the escort boats were each powered by triple outboard motors. Then, just as Billy was about to return to his SUV, he saw another escort boat come out from under the bridge, bringing up the rear.
Damn, so Charlie Walker really did see a drug sub after all. Billy continued watching until the convoy of vessels traveled on through Perdido Pass and out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Based on what Captain Charlie had told him—that it had been about three o’clock in the morning when Captain Charlie had spotted the drug sub about a mile from Perdido Pass—and, figuring it would take at least 3 hours for the drug convoy to make its way out to the rendezvous point, load the drug shipment onto the drug sub, and make the return trip back in from the Gulf, rather than wait around at the bridge, Billy decided to drive back to the Waffle House in Seaside Beach and get something to eat to kill some time.
It was around 1:30 a.m. when Billy returned to the bridge from the Waffle House. This time he decided to park just off the western end of the bridge and not take any chances the drug traffickers would spot his vehicle parked on the bridge when they came back through the pass. He set the alarm on his smart phone for 2:45 a.m. and then dozed off.
When his alarm woke him up, Billy walked back to the section of the bridge where he had last been standing as he watched the drug convoy make its way through the pass and on out into the Gulf. After what seemed like forever, as he stood at the railing looking south toward the Gulf entrance to the pass, Billy heard the familiar sound of the outboard engines on the boats as they returned from the Gulf. Within minutes Billy could make out the four escort boats. Not wanting to take a chance of being seen, Billy ran to the north side of the bridge and waited for the convoy to come out on that side. Seconds later, the first boat appeared on the water below the bridge. Then the drug sub came out flanked by two escorts. And finally, the trailing boat emerged out from underneath the bridge as the convoy headed north and then past the tip of Ono Island again heading back to their base of operations, their crew none the wiser someone was on the bridge tracking their movements.
CHAPTER 3
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Monday, April 26, 2010
Retired General, Tariq al-Waheed, was sitting at the desk in his office staring at the contents of the small cardboard box he had received earlier in the day from an emissary of the Saudi government—who had explained, when he had dropped the box off, that the Saudi government had received the box only a day ago from the American government.
Earlier, when Tariq had opened the cardboard box, he’d found two simple bronze urns inside.
Scotch taped to one of the urns, there was a note that explained the recent disappearance of Tariq’s brother, Faisal.
The note was from the Secretary of State of the United States of America—a politician who was believed to be a shoe-in for her party’s presidential nomination in the last election, but had proven to be so incompetent that she had managed to lose to an upstart politician whose campaign managers had outsmarted her campaign managers at every turn. Tariq remembered seeing her break down in tears on television during the nomination campaign leading Tariq to wonder why the current President of the United States would ever consider having her as his Secretary of State. Further leading Tariq to wonder if perhaps there was some truth to what the talking heads of the American right-wing news organizations were saying about the President purposely doing whatever he could to weaken the United States. As someone who hated the United States, Tariq could only hope that was the case.
The note from the Secretary of State was addressed to the Saudi government and stated that the contents of the urns were the remains of Tariq’s late brother, Faisal al-Waheed, and the remains of Faisal’s bodyguard, Mohammed al-Murrah. The note expressed the condolences on behalf of the United States for the loss of the men while on their recent business trip to America. The note concluded with an apology for the unfortunate cremation of the two bodies in violation of Muslim burial practices.
As Tariq sat seething about the loss of his brother and the inexcusable mishandling of his brother’s remains, it suddenly dawned on him that—as Faisal’s sole heir—he was now in charge of Faisal’s financial empire and he was now the leader of the Jihad Brotherhood.
Since resigning his position in the Saudi military, Tariq had been assisting his brother, Faisal, with the day to day management of his financial empire and his terrorist activities.
The last time Tariq had heard from Faisal was shortly after Faisal had arrived in America to check up on the progress of Hassan Younis and the plan to attack the Blue Angels airshow in Pensacola, Florida. Faisal had called Tariq from America and told him about learning that Hassan Younis was romantically involved with an American woman by the name of Megan Gallagher who worked at the State Department of the United States. The Gallagher woman had convinced Hassan to assassinate a former American soldier by the name of Reb Rogers.
In her position at the State Department, she had discovered that Rogers was the notorious Butcher of Lashwan. The Gallagher woman had convinced Hassan that killing the Butcher of Lashwan would be a public relations bonanza for Hassan’s organization and make it easier for them to recruit additional jihadis to their cause. Unfortunately, the attempts to kill Reb Rogers had failed and the loss of several key jihadis in the process had jeopardized the plan to attack the airshow. Faisal told Tariq he was seriously considering removing Hassan as the head of his terrorist organization in America even though Hassan had proven to be an excellent leader—with this one exception.
Now that Tariq knew his brother was dead, he needed to find out what had happened to Hassan Younis and determine if Faisal’s plan to attack the Blue Angels airshow in Pensacola, Florida was still viable.
Tariq called the phone number he had for Hassan’s front, the Institute for Palestinian American Relations and got a message that the phone had been disconnected.
CHAPTER 4
Reb Roger’s Condo
Seaside Beach, Alabama
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
10:45 p.m. CDT
It was Tuesday night and Reb and the boys were at Rusty’s condo, next door, playing poker. Honey had decided to stay at Reb’s condo and watch a rerun of the first ever football game between her team, the Texas Aggies, and the Alabama Crimson Tide as fellow SEC teams. For the occasion, Honey was dressed in a very skimpy bikini halter top, cut off blue jean short shorts, her favorite pair of cowboy boots, and a Stetson cowboy hat.
When the game ended, Honey decided to go next door to Rusty’s condo to see how the boys were doing.
Honey used the key Rusty had given her to unlock the front door to Rusty’s condo. Rusty had given her the key when she had been nursing him back to health after the incident with the jihadist assassin. After closing and locking the door behind her, Honey proceeded down the hallway past the guest bedrooms, past the kitchen, past the dining room table where the boys should have been playing cards, and on into the living room where she found the boys all seated in front of Rusty’s large screen television watching some cartoon show.