by Schow, Ryan
The line was dead for five minutes. Finally a voice came back on and said, “What is your certainty that Five Falls will be a problem?”
“One hundred percent,” Bronx said.
“What is your certainty that Shao Xiao Chen was killed there?”
“One hundred percent,” Bronx said again. Then: “You need to put in a request at Tacoma if you plan to meet the timeline.”
He released the Uniden’s call button and waited.
“If what you say is true, then our timeline will be stretched, not met,” the voice said some five minutes later. “And so we are clear, someone like you does not tell someone like me what they need to do unless that person wants to have his tongue pulled out with a pair of pliers.”
“Roger that,” he said in English, pissed off and undeterred.
As he stood there on a perfectly beautiful day, he let the silence wash over him. Moves had been made and accounted for, and he had an understanding for his counterparts in Roseburg. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t. It was all he could do to get that frown off his face.
The Chicom two-way came to life again, deepening his displeasure.
Then he heard the voice.
“Is that you, Portland?” a woman asked. He recognized her. Tabitha. Besides having a husky voice, there was only one woman who ever called him Portland.
“It is,” he said, the smile forming on his face reflected not just in his tone, but in his eyes.
“Switch frequencies,” she said. He switched to their old frequency. A moment later, she said, “You there, Portland?”
“Copy that,” he grinned.
“We dreamed of this for so long,” she said, her voice like a love song they once sang together. There wasn’t a trace of stress or agitation, just victory.
“We’re a long way from standing on the streets of Portland with black masks, sticks and mace,” he mused.
“Our dreams are fast becoming reality,” she said.
“Soon,” Bronx replied.
“Soon,” she echoed. Then: “What about Ground Zero? That’s what we’re calling Five Falls, right? Ground Zero?”
Bronx thought about it for a moment, then keyed the two-way and said, “They trust me. I’ll map out the command structure, find the weak joints, and we’ll cut the head off this snake.”
“Be careful,” she said.
Bronx smiled into the two-way and said, “This isn’t the time for caution, my friend. This is the era of insolence.”
“Copy that,” she said in a soft, seductive tone.
End of Book 3
The story continues in Dark Days of the Enclave…
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!
Please take a second or two and leave a review. If you enjoyed this book, a few kind words go a long way with prospective readers! And selfishly, I love reading the reviews…this is the best part of my day and it lets me know what you like so I can write more of that! Thank you for you time, your generosity and your interest. Also, if you haven’t yet joined The Last War Fan Group on Facebook, please look us up! There are lots of amazing people there, I do cover reveals, free audiobooks, free books and advanced reading opportunities. Plus this is where you and I can chat about the books, related subjects, other books and so on. I’m there daily, so don’t be surprised if we end up chatting one day!
Ryan.
Your Voice Matters…
Emerging authors always get that writer’s high reading great reviews from readers like yourself, but there’s more to a review than an author’s personal gratification. As independent writers, we don’t always have the financial might of New York’s Big 5 publishing firms, and we’d never shell out a bazillion dollars to Barnes & Noble for that ultra-prime shelf space (yet!). What we do have, however, is far more valuable than shelf space or movie contracts or all the marketing money in the world: we have you, the devoted reader.
If you enjoyed this series, I’d be immensely grateful if you could leave a quick and easy review (it can be as long or as short as you want). Not only do these reviews help this series get traction and the exposure it needs to grow and thrive, reading your kind reviews has become the highlight of my day, so please be sure to let me know what you loved most about this book!
NOTE: The way Amazon’s review system works is five stars is good, four stars is alright, and three stars or less are just degrees of no bueno.
Thank you – Ryan Schow
FREE BOOK: The Last Light Of Day
America is changing fast. Cities are becoming dangerous. Time to bug out…
Security Engineer, Logan Cahill, and a woman who may or may not be his girlfriend, Skylar Madigan, live together, but only because it makes their conspiring that much easier. Logan, like Skylar, is tormented by the notion that time is running out for America.
As the nation spins perilously out of control and foreign forces make their foothold in the country known, Logan is tasked with investigating the mysterious Harper Whitaker, a programmer he believes to be working under false pretenses. Is she caught up in cyber espionage, or something darker? And how does Skylar fit in with this? Has she been using him to get to Harper?
Things are not as they seem, and the lid is about to blow off the whole city, maybe even the country. The question that plagues Logan is the question of when, and how. When does he bug out? How will he survive a total collapse of society? The good news is, Skylar has a plan and Harper just might be a part of it. Will they be able get off the grid before all hell breaks loose? The apocalypse is coming, which means the end is near…
CLICK or TAP HERE to claim your FREE copy now!
CLICK OR TAP HERE to purchase The Last Light of Day on Amazon!
Dark Days Of The Enclave: A Look Ahead
The newest installment of the best-selling Dark Days series is almost here! Be sure to pre-order your copy now, and have it delivered directly to your library the minute it releases!
The Chicom/SAA war now consumes California, turning the once beautiful state into a battleground for West Coast control. With the Chicom reshaping of California, Oregon and Washington underway, only small pockets of Resistance still survive. Logan, Harper, Skylar, Ryker and the Madigan family make up one of those pockets. While they prepare to hold their ground and survive, a traitor among their ranks puts the once sleepy town of Five Falls, Oregon in the crosshairs of the new Chicom Army.
While a new communist utopia is being set up in Washington, orders from President Hu are to flush out the dissidents and lay waste to Oregon’s southernmost towns. Near the California/Oregon border, Roseburg is the staging ground for such an offensive. There, at the regional concentration camp, Felicity Espinoza narrowly escapes a roundup, forcing her to seek help from a friend, Clay Nichols. Her sole desire is to liberate the camps and stop the depopulation of American families in Oregon before it’s too late.
BOOKS IN THE DARK DAYS OF THE AFTER SERIES:
The Last Light of Day (prequel)
Dark Days of the After
Dark Days of the Surge
Dark Days of the Apostasy
Dark Days of the Enclave
OTHER POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIES BY THIS AUTHOR:
The Complete Last War Series
The Complete Age of the Embers Series
The Complete Swann Series (Urban Fantasy)
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I want to thank my beautiful wife, Anne, who has helped me become a calmer writer, who lets me “sit in the seat” and write for hours and sometimes days on end without interruption, and who continues to be such a strong and supportive influence in my life, especially on those days where I need it most. You truly are the best! Twenty-seven years and still going strong…
Next, I want to thank my Advanced Review Team for all the work they do on such short notice to make this book (and the others) better for me, for you, for all of us. I swear, when I’m not looking, these errors make babies in the dark, and they make as many of them as they can just before fin
al production! But this awesome group tends to fish them out, doing in a few days what most editors take weeks to do. This not only continues to amaze me, it brings me closer to them as people, as readers, and as friends—the best gift of all.
That said, if you see any errors (typos, etc…), just know they continue to show up uninvited and can sometimes get overlooked by even the best sets of eyes (sad face!). If you happen upon one or two, please feel free to either message me on Facebook, or shoot me a quick email at [email protected], alerting me to them. Thank you!
Ryan