The Guardian Collection (End of the Sixth Age Book 2)

by Col Bill Best

  “Ma’am?” intoned the news anchor’s voice.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just so horrible. We were still at a distance, but it was like everyone had the same idea at the same time, that this might be an attack. Everyone started to run away. But it was too late. The drone copter and the balloon thing started sinking to the ground. Then it exploded…”

  Cindy clenched her fists. Hydrogen for lift, then they released a canister of oxygen and ignited it. Like a mini-MOAB!

  The newswoman continued:

  “Thank you, ma’am. I know that must have been a horrific thing to witness. We are starting to get reports of at least twelve casualties, and many additional injuries, possibly hundreds, from shrapnel that apparently blew from the dirigible out to several hundred feet…”

  Cindy muted the audio. “No! We couldn’t have been that wrong!”

  She quickly maximized her live video feeds and minimized the news story, scanning hard as she donned her Commando Suit and armored sneakers. She slipped into her dual consciousness mode.

  Cindy #1 turned the audio back up and listened to the news audio, even as she continued searching on her multitablet for more information from official channels. Not what they shared with the public; what she was able to hack in and intercept.

  Cindy #2 watched her own live camera feeds even more intently, while also considering possible traffic backups around the city in case she needed to get somewhere fast. She quickly reviewed her pre-departure checklist:

  Her Chevy Ultra Volt was fully charged and loaded. She could secure the Vehicle Light Bar in seconds.

  She had disabled the vehicle’s data reporting functions and GPS; she didn’t need to alert officials if she had to bend or break some traffic rules.

  She was suited up and could grab her helmet on the way out.

  The reconstitution kit was securely pre-positioned, and there was nothing left in the apartment she would need to come back for. She just had to make sure to take her multitablet with her.

  Check, and check. She could be on her way in less than ninety seconds.

  There was nothing of immediate concern on the news feeds or live video feeds. The twin streams of consciousness rejoined and Cindy quickly went to the bathroom.

  Could be a long time before I get another potty break, she thought. If ever.

  + + +

  It was time. Taylor started the car and drove the last mile to his destination.

  Normal extracurricular school activities like extended band practice had to be over by 6:00 pm. All faculty, staff, students, and teachers were cleared out by 6:30 and the gates locked. Only janitorial services were allowed in and out after that, except for scheduled sports and other activities where the school board brought in extra armed guards. Security was far more visible and intense than anyone could have imagined at the turn of the century.

  “It won’t be enough.” Taylor said to himself, as he gripped the steering wheel, gritted his teeth, and glanced again at the meticulously packed duffel bag in his passenger seat. “Definitely won’t be enough.”

  + + +

  “What…?” Cindy exclaimed, and expanded the video feed from Camera Ten. Four cars were driving quickly toward the main entrance of a school, and three pulled up to the front with no effort to park normally. The fourth car appeared to be going behind the complex. Men quickly got out of the cars carrying large bags. Cindy quickly took control of that camera, panned, and zoomed in closer…

  “Lord, God, help us!” she prayed.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard:

  “Sam, all a diversion! Attack in progress at Charleston County School of the Arts. Four men, full length coats, beards, carrying duffel bags. On my way.”

  In seventy-five seconds, her Chevy Ultra Volt was power-sliding out of her apartment complex near the Citadel. The Vehicle Light Bar was emphatically illegal for a “civilian”—and would be the envy of any police cruiser that happened to get near her. Its Micro Acoustic Hailer screamed out a warning that could be heard half a mile away.

  In two more minutes, she was on I-26.

  Her multitablet was streaming police bands to the Bluetooth 6.0 headset in her helmet. As she drove through rush-hour traffic at speeds up to 100 miles per hour, she monitored the feeds for any calls to try to intercept or block her. From what she heard, she probably would not even see a police cruiser.

  “They planned well,” she said sadly. The overall attack, so far, was in four layers. First, the attention-getting unmanned submarine explosion. Then the aerial explosion that killed or maimed dozens. All available emergency workers converged on the scene.

  Exactly twenty minutes later, a rental truck crossing the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge on U.S. 17 slammed into the median and ignited what appeared to be barrels of fuel oil and created a chain reaction pile-up involving several dozen other vehicles. The westbound lanes were completely blocked, along with two eastbound lanes.

  At the same time, another rental truck suddenly stopped in the middle of the westbound lanes of I-526, creating another pile-up, and ignited more fuel oil, kerosene, or some combination. The eastbound traffic was spared from direct impact and fire, but the prevailing winds carried the smoke across to that side and caused numerous accidents and pile-ups anyway.

  Cindy’s eyes welled with tears. It’ll take hours for police to get back across to the school. The terrorists are making sure they have all the time in the world to do everything they want with these children…

  The fourth attack, the one in progress, was against the teenagers involved in extracurricular activities at the School of the Arts.

  How sadistic! They attack anything decent, beautiful, or meaningful…and spread violence, hatred, and perversion. Demonic!

  36. FINAL REWARD

  Bassam al-Jabbar drove around behind the school, off the asphalt and directly up against the rear door blocking any exit. He stepped out and lay his weapons on the hood. If any kids tried to come out the windows, he would pick them off one-by-one. If anyone tried to rescue them from the back, he would fight them off as long as he could. He was the only one who didn’t have a vest. Instead, he bought the best black-market body armor a lot of money could buy. He had his choice of weapons, and he decided to start with a 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun firing slugs. If he needed more range, he’d use a 30-06 with a scope. If the diversions worked and they had enough time to carry out the Imam’s mission, Salim al Mahir would call him in for his pick of the girls before they detonated their vests.

  Taylor, Salim, and Umar stormed through the front door and down the hallways, shooting every adult in sight. If there were any armed guards, they either died before drawing weapons or weren’t in that part of the facility. One reason they chose Charleston, South Carolina was that unlike several other states, South Carolina did not permit any teachers to carry concealed firearms.

  Within moments the men were outside the band room door. By drawing lots, they determined that Umar would remain outside in the hallway and shoot anything that moved. The other men tried to open the steel doors but found them locked. While they duct-taped a stick of dynamite to the latch mechanism, lit the fuse, and ran back several dozen yards, they could hear Bassam firing round after round from his shotgun as students and faculty tried to escape out of other doors in adjacent buildings.

  A deafening explosion brought them back to their mission and a mangled door. The acid stench of the explosive burned Taylor’s nostrils as he ran through the opening and faced the terrified faces and screams from sixty teenagers, ages thirteen and up. A teacher, a woman in her thirties, started to speak. Salim fired two 9mm rounds at her, center-mass. He didn’t miss.

  Several kids passed out. Others threw up. They all had backed as far away against a back corner as they could get.

  Five more shotgun blasts came from outside, and six from Umar’s long gun in the hallway, firing two at a time.

  “Are any of you Muslim? Step forward now!” shouted Salim.

  The kids look
ed at each other, and one young woman shakily stepped forward. Her hair was jet black, her complexion and eyes were dark. She was an attractive sixteen or seventeen, slender, wearing sandals, a short blue skirt, and a collared blouse of a lighter shade of blue. The top two buttons were open, revealing cleavage and just a glimpse of a stylish red bra.

  “You dare call yourself Muslim and defame Allah by dressing as an Infidel?” Salim’s long coat was now open. He quickly drew a sword and, in a flash, decapitated the young woman.

  Taylor felt sick. This wasn’t glorious; it was brutal, vicious. Did this really honor Allah?

  Salim was again bellowing orders. “Line up against the wall, now!”

  The youth scurried to comply, except for the two who had passed out. Stained pants and other clothing revealed that several young men and women had lost bladder control or soiled themselves.

  “Choose quickly! We have a lot to do.”

  Taylor glanced over the girls. Several were extremely attractive, and the thought of being with them appealed to him—maybe he was bisexual? But he didn’t know if he could even rape them under such tension if he wanted to. Could he perform? If he couldn’t, would Salim turn on him? Would Allah be offended, and condemn him to hell?

  “You first,” he stalled, dropping his duffel bag and opening it up. He quickly laid out long spikes and a mallet to crucify as many as they had time to. He would start with the dead teacher, dragging her over to a wooden instrument case.

  Several more shots were fired from down the hallway. More slugs were fired outside from the 12-gauge. No sirens.

  + + +

  Cindy turned off the Micro Acoustic Hailer once she got off of I-26 onto East Montague Avenue and prayed that there wasn’t a train at the crossing. There wasn’t. She turned off the light bar and slowed to turn into a subdivision without squealing tires. But there was no time to be elegant; after she turned left onto Luella Avenue, she made another quick left onto Lester Street, then drove across an open grassy area leading up to the Rose Maree Myers Theater. She parked right up against the building and jumped from the car.

  She looked somewhat like an Olympic snow skier, except that she wore sneakers instead of ski boots, no gloves, and she had strange devices conformally fitted to her gray armor suit. Her tinted visor was down, with just a slight glint from the setting sun.

  Another shot rang out from the 12-gauge, hitting Cindy square in the chest as she ran around the corner into Bassam’s sights. The impact of the slug literally knocked her off her feet and backward several yards.

  Bassam smiled and turned back to the other direction as he had for minutes; left, forward, right and back, sweeping the back of the buildings every two to three seconds, firing at anything that moved.

  When he again glanced back where he shot Cindy, she wasn’t there. She was less than twenty yards away, running faster than anyone he’d ever seen. His last conscious thought was how silly it was that she would throw something at him!

  The Incapacitator slammed into his armored chest plate and immediately released a conductive gas, followed in a split second by the equivalent of several Tasers firing simultaneously. The effect was instant and could in some cases be fatal. In Bassam’s case it wasn’t, but the effect of the Blade was. Cindy returned her specially-designed throwing and close-in fighting knife to its sheath; she might need it again.

  “Lord, give me wisdom,” she prayed silently. She assumed there were three men left. Any or all of them would likely have explosive vests, which they would set off the moment they believed they could not fight off an attacker. That would be a far more merciful death than what the men obviously had in mind. Cindy didn’t know how many had already died, but she only wanted three more, and if possible, she wanted them to know they were defeated and killed by a woman.

  Commando Flips. Incapacitators. Blades. Plus a 12-gauge shotgun and a rifle; looks like a 30-06 with a scope. Okay, this might hurt.

  Shouting from a man inside, crying, hammering all helped hide her next moves. Cindy faced the side of the sedan, bent down, placed her hands under the frame, and lifted. She brought it up enough to roll it onto its side, clearing a door at the rear of the building. She tried the door handle; locked. Cindy quickly extracted a locksmith set and was able to turn the handle within seconds.

  Cindy opened the door and casually walked in, hands empty.

  Students had their faces against the wall, except for several terrified girls in their early teens who were in various stages of undress as one man watched them, like he was making up his mind. Another man was struggling to hold a dead woman against wooden shelving, and had driven a spike into one hand, just above the wrist.

  At the sight of the five-foot-six; 150-pound woman in strange gray body armor and helmet, everyone froze. Then Salim raised his weapon.

  Good! thought Cindy.

  She extracted a Commando Flip. The Flip was about the size of a paperback novel. It hinged in the middle. She opened it like she was reading half-way through. It locked into place, and the bottom half formed a grip and trigger. Salim began emptying his 9mm pistol against her armor at point blank range. She aimed the Flip just below his chin to avoid any vest he might be wearing, and pulled the trigger.

  A momentary swoosh. And Salim was slammed back against a wall, breaking the sheetrock.

  The other man had dropped the dead woman and reached for a handgun. He fired at Cindy’s head. The helmet’s visor deflected the round as she leaned against the impact and squeezed off a second shot.

  A powerful spring in the next chamber released a projectile out of its barrel. Once it was three feet from the gun, solid rocket propellant ignited and increased velocity to just under the speed of sound. The spinning projectile could travel straight and true for hundreds of yards. The front of the projectile was a penetrator that could go through plate steel. The back had a small amount of softer mass, and as the front began to slow, the middle of the projectile mushroomed out. So, unlike a hollow point bullet that would expand upon impact, the Flip would penetrate—almost anything—and then expand. The projectile was about the size of a .270 Winchester bullet. There was no case, as the entire projectile burst through the thick foil cover on the Flip’s front face, with less recoil than a high velocity .22. The Flip carried eight projectiles, each in its own non-reloadable chamber, and had three times the impact of the 12-gauge slugs Bassam had been shooting.

  The projectile knocked Taylor off his feet. His dead body slid backward across the floor and slammed into the opposite wall. Cindy had again shot just above his vest. She motioned for the youth to go out the back door. Several of the nerdier-looking boys left last, helping two of the girls who had fainted.

  Cindy faced the mangled door to the hallway, just as a man swung into view and leveled his assault rifle. Before he could pull the trigger, Cindy launched a third projectile from her Flip. This time, center mass. The hallway exploded. What was left of the steel door caught some of the blast, but the residual force still knocked Cindy all the way to the back wall. She stumbled to her feet, folded her Flip and secured it to her suit. She glanced around the room. All the students were outside, safe. The sight of the teacher hanging on the wall was revolting.

  Sprinklers began to spray water to douse the fire spreading from the hallway into the room. She quickly ran through the fire and carnage and down the hallway to a restroom, removed the armor suit, weapons, and helmet, and placed all of them into a collapsible bag she pulled out of a pouch in her suit. The modest but tight-fitting clothing she had worn under her armor made her look the exactly like a young-thirties mother on her way to pick up her kids.

  As she walked through the school away from the area now in shambles, she heard the increasing noise, confusion, shouts, crying, and other pandemonium, and even a few sirens as police finally arrived from other areas not blocked by traffic jams. For days she had memorized every traffic route to every school, every school layout inside and out, and knew exactly how to get back to her car. She q
uickly put her bag in the back seat along with the vehicle light bar.

  Within minutes she was on the interstate, heading toward her reconstitution point. She would go through her routine of changing aliases again, and Cindy Jacobs would never again be seen in Charleston, South Carolina. All her belongings and the car—this time she really hated letting it go—would go to a worthwhile charity she had already selected within a few weeks of arriving almost a year earlier. The crew from the charity would no doubt marvel at the modified exercise equipment and weights they would find.

  The school survivors would need a lot of love and counsel. On the one hand, they would have incredible, unbelievable stories of how a single woman had prevented what was meant to be a brutal bloodbath against America’s youth. The ISIS attack on Charleston that had been so successful up to a point, completely lost credibility when its primary objective was foiled by a single person—a woman.

  On the other hand, the youth, their parents, and the world once again had to comprehend how anyone could be so cruel, so vicious and brutal.

  The twilight was fading. Cindy took a long, slow breath. “Thank you, Lord Jesus. I don’t have to die to prove anything to you or anyone else. You came and died for me.”

  She thought of the children, and again felt a tug at her heart that she could never have her own. Nor could she adopt and put children at risk as she constantly had to avoid Matthews and, at times like these, put her own life in jeopardy.

  + + +

  Cindy made her plans to leave South Carolina—and possibly leave the United States.

  Roger made his plans to conduct a test flight with the altered Guardian hypersonic manned interceptor. He actually looked forward to seeing what it could do in its new trans-dimensional state.

  Justin’s plans centered on how to build, test, and field Guardian System Two within six months, and what his relationship with Tamika should be now that he was a Christian.

  Taylor al-Amriki? In a fraction of a second after Cindy pulled the trigger that ended his life, he realized that he had been wrong. Very wrong. About everything. So had Bassam al-Jabbar (one who smiles / the irresistible), Salim al Mahir (peaceful / skillful), and Umar al-Muntaqim (name of one of the first caliphs / the vindictive, or avenger). It was the same for Demon Dad who had died several years earlier. He had also instantly realized that his legalism and religions had been very wrong.