He skirted the shore of some unknown lake and cut through a neighborhood, a horseshoe-shaped arrangement of single-story houses with stone facades and angular tapered columns better suited to Montana. The smell of death hung like an invisible fog.
Homeowners fertilizing their front lawns—literally, he thought, pinching his nostrils.
Overgrown crabgrass gave way to a sea of empty lots, mounds of sand choked with weeds and trash. Floating in the middle, there was a solitary house, green with white shutters. DJ hastened his stride, irritated by the sight of an American flag snapping in the wind.
He tramped up the driveway past a black Jeep Cherokee, left hand fumbling in the pocket of his jacket. He plucked the flag from its perch and flicked his lighter until a steady orange flame licked at the Stars and Stripes. Mesmerized, he watched the fabric disappear before his eyes, magically erased from existence.
Just like the United States, he thought.
As he flung the burning flag onto the driveway, a bullet pinged against the Jeep, six feet to his right.
DJ ducked and reached for his rifle with sweat-soaked hands. Behind a front-porch column, a man in his thirties extended a snub-nosed .38 special.
Stupid infidel, DJ thought. Couldn’t hit an elephant with that thing.
He fired three short bursts. Bullets chewed through the wooden column, and a spray of blood doused the white shutters. He approached the body and removed a wedding band from the dead man’s finger, mumbling words from the Hadith.
“All income that comes by the point of the sword is a gift from Allah.”
Understanding the wife to be one of the dead man’s possessions, DJ entered the house, whispering, “Honey, I’m home.”
Emboldened by the sound of a terrified female voice, he swaggered into the family room. He grabbed the woman by her long brown hair, yanked her toward him, and ripped at her clothing.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, choking on sobs.
“Because,” he hissed, “you are an infidel.”
“B-b-but I thought the Koran was about peace and love.”
“There are a hundred and fourteen verses about peace, love, and forgiveness. But the principle of Naskh erases all that,” DJ told her. “Later revelations override earlier ones. As if they never existed. So, all that peace and love was replaced by the Verse of the Sword. Fight and slay the infidels wherever you find them.”
She tried to break free of his grasp, and with a closed fist, he knocked her to the floor. “A cheap rug is more valuable in a man’s home than a woman,” he said, spitting the words at her. “Guess who said that?”
153C
RYAN ANDREWS INHERITED an M4 assault rifle and six full magazines from his former captors. He retrieved his stolen Kevlar helmet and night-vision gear from a dead savage, wrists aching as though he had sprained them both.
It doesn’t make sense, he thought. Rope rash shouldn’t cause this type of pain.
He gathered the helmets and night-vision gear that had belonged to Juan and Victor, suddenly struck by the senselessness of their deaths. They would be alive if Captain Rodriguez had listened—if he had launched an investigation—a point Ryan was hell-bent on making emphatically clear, even if it cost him two more levels of rank.
Sighing, he watched his rescuers pitch the last of the AK-47s into the lake, then they retrieved their backpacks and trudged into the woods. Unanswered questions hammered through Ryan’s mind. The younger one was a wiseass, confident and disciplined under fire, even when his rifle jammed.
Definitely not his first firefight. He has to be military. Enlisted at eighteen out by twenty-two? Or AWOL?
The older guy, Kyle, seemed familiar, but Ryan couldn’t place his face. He didn’t carry himself like a hunter, a cop, or a Soldier, yet he had managed to wipe out four well-armed savages.
Were these the guys who kicked ass in Astatula and Haywood Field?
Curiosity overwhelmed his urge to track down DJ.
I can settle that score later—at Camp Sunshine, Ryan decided, breaking into a jog. His leg muscles and groin ached, courtesy of that tug-of-war split and DJ’s boot. He felt light-headed. Was it a side effect from the tranquilizer? Or lack of food? Ryan couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten.
As he closed the distance, Kyle glanced back at him. Neither man broke stride, and Ryan fell into step behind them. Two miles to the north, they hunkered down behind a cluster of cabbage palms.
Kyle upended his backpack, its contents spilling over the ground. He tossed a bottle of water and a can of food to Ryan, then he grabbed the first aid kit. “Bradley, let’s see that wound.”
Ryan noted the name, and as he guzzled the water, a plastic spoon bounced off his chest. Mumbling, “Thanks,” he yanked the pull tab from the can of beef ravioli and dug into the best tasting food he’d had in weeks.
Bradley’s injury looked more like a burn than a gunshot wound. The raw, fluorescent pink gash was three inches long, blistered and oozing blood, but the bullet had not penetrated muscle. “You got lucky,” Ryan told him.
“I got lucky?” Bradley repeated incredulously as he blotted his wound with an antiseptic wipe. “How exactly did you get captured?”
“Why exactly are you AWOL?”
Although Bradley’s expression remained flat, Kyle’s supplied the confirmation Ryan had been seeking. “It makes my job tougher when assholes don’t report for duty.”
“Well, if he had reported, you would be singing castrato. How fucking tough would that make your job?” Kyle asked.
Ryan smirked and downed the remainder of his water. He hadn’t enjoyed a good ball-busting exchange since losing Dannel, Marcos, and Mike. “Your father plays hardball. I see where you get it from.”
“He’s not my father,” Bradley told him. “But you got the hardball part right. He’s Kyle Murphy, hall-of-fame shortstop.”
“Get the hell out of here,” Ryan said, genuinely surprised. “That’s why you seemed familiar. When I was a teenager, your face was plastered all over the tabloids. You were banging that female pitcher—”
“Yo, that’s his wife,” Bradley said. “Mrs. Murphy to you.”
“No disrespect intended.” Ryan offered Kyle an apologetic smile then turned toward Bradley. “You planning on introducing yourself?”
He gave a slow nod, remorse evident in his expression. “Lance Corporal Bradley Webber, Marine Corps Sniper.”
Now, things were starting to make sense. “So how did you end up at that campground?”
“We tailed the savages. It’s not every day you see a hog-tied Army Ranger, dangling upside down from a pole.”
Ryan grinned at the ballsy twentysomething, unafraid to taunt a Soldier of superior rank, even while admittedly AWOL. “I got nailed by a tranquilizer dart,” he said, finally understanding why his wrists ached. “Did you shoot up that warehouse in Astatula?”
“The guards,” Bradley said, “not the teens.”
“Right, they were shredded by an IED.” Ryan studied his face for signs of deception, but found none.
“Americans have been getting attacked by savages and showered with poisoned food,” Kyle said as he looped a gauze bandage around Bradley’s injured arm. “And where the hell were you? And the U.S. military?”
“Who the fuck do you think shot down those aircraft? And destroyed the Iranian bases launching that shit?”
Kyle’s green eyes bored into him. “The same idiots who let the savages steal a Patriot missile battery?”
“So you wreaked havoc at Haywood Field too?”
“No, I sat that one out,” Kyle told him, stuffing water, food, and survival gear into his backpack. “That was Bradley and my daughter.”
Ryan’s lips parted. His eyes teetered between Bradley and Kyle. “Your daughter?”
“She’s an NRA competition shooter,” Bradley said. “Not your average sixteen-year-old.”
This was why he had been kidnapped and nearly tortured?
For i
nformation about an AWOL Marine, a senior citizen, and a teenaged girl?
154C
“ZAAKIR, WHY DO YOU have such an allegiance to strangers?” Eliza smacked her palm against the granite-topped kitchen island. “Your family is starving—”
“We’re hungry, Eliza. Not starving,” he corrected her.
She rambled on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Your daughter had an asthma attack this morning; and instead of leaving for Tavares—where there’s medical care, food, and safety—we’re sitting here, awaiting the permission of strangers!”
“Strangers?” he shouted back. “They saved us from extremists. Without them, we would’ve known true starvation.”
“Kyle told you he wasn’t the sharpshooter; he denied giving us the food. If you won’t believe me, at least believe him!”
“We’ve been over this. He wants to remain anonymous to avoid inviting an attack. He asked us to respect those wishes.”
“You’re putting your faith in a man who lied to you.”
My faith? Zaakir shook his head at the irony. Jihadists are trying to kill us in the name of Allah while the evil infidels are protecting and feeding us in the name of their Lord.
“Say something, Zaakir!”
The argument had been churning for hours, a carousel of misery, round and round, neither able to persuade or pacify the other.
Mustering his most rigid, authoritative tone, he said, “If the FEMA camp is legitimate, we’ll leave at sunup.”
“But we’re hungry now! Let’s just go!”
Her shrill, whiny voice felt like a piranha nibbling his brain. He couldn’t bear another minute. Exhaling weariness in an audible hiss, he snatched his inherited AK-47 from the kitchen table.
“Finally, you’ve come to your senses. I can be ready in—”
“Eliza!” he snapped. “I’m going hunting.”
155C
BRADLEY WAS GROWING aggravated with Staff Sergeant Ryan Andrews. The guy clearly preferred to be on the asking end of questions. “You can at least separate fact from propaganda. We put our asses on the line to save yours.”
“You guys had my back, and I appreciate it. Thank you.” Ryan eyed him like a human X-ray machine, gauging his trustworthiness, then said, “Tell me what you know, and I’ll try to fill in the blanks.”
“We’ve heard there were Fort-Hood-style shootings on a dozen stateside military bases.”
Ryan nodded somberly. “Affirmative. Terrorists were all homegrown. Fucking traitors.”
“Langden Air Force Base attacked by our own jet?”
“Affirmative.”
Heat radiated from Bradley’s body as if his blood were magma. His pulse felt like a bludgeon against his wounded arm. “Did the U.S.S. Stellate lose a billion dollars worth of aircraft?”
Ryan’s head tilted toward him, eyes penetrating like lasers. “Where are you getting this information?”
“Emergency Broadcast System,” Bradley told him. “I was assuming it was psyops.”
“The most dangerous type,” Ryan said. “The kind where they’re actually telling the truth.”
“What about the nuclear power plants?” Bradley asked. “Are they melting down?”
“Negative. Army and Air Force have been scrambling to secure them and keep cooling pumps running.”
“I don’t understand why you’re not wiping out these cells,” Kyle said, condemnation dripping from his tone. “You’re abandoning the civilians you’re supposed to protect.”
An uncontainable rage flared in Ryan’s eyes. Kyle hadn’t struck a nerve, he had pulverized them all.
“We’re fighting an enemy dressed like civilians, hiding amongst civilians, and our rules of engagement don’t allow us to shoot until fired upon. I intervened once when Americans were being executed on their front lawns, and you know what happened? I got demoted and threatened with court-martial.”
What are they gonna do to me? Bradley wondered, eyes roving left to right, fearful that raised voices might attract unwanted attention.
“So you’re just supposed to watch the slaughter?” Kyle demanded.
“We’re not law enforcement, and the terrorists know it. They smile and recite our rules of engagement, flaunting the fact that they’re untouchable. Bradley, you’ve got the right idea. Stay AWOL because you’re actually making a difference.”
Disconcerted, Bradley took a slow breath. “Is there anything else noteworthy?”
“Besides poisoned MREs and mess hall slop? Ammo spiked with explosives? Traitors stealing our weapons and turning them against us? Preschool suicide bombers? The loss of satellites?”
“The EMP fried military satellites?” Bradley asked.
“No, we lost those to a fleet of satellite-killing drones. No warheads necessary. The kinetic energy alone shredded them. And I almost forgot,” Ryan said, sarcastically throwing up his hands. “While our satellites were being turned into confetti, Iran ambushed Israel; and North Korea attacked South Korea and Japan. The only good news is that China hasn’t taken advantage of the chaos and invaded Taiwan ... Yet.”
Bradley was gnawing his lip. Fighting on multiple fronts overseas in addition to savages on the mainland? Could the U.S. military stretch that far? With no economy to back it?
The hairs on his neck stood on end as he realized there was a new crop of reasons to discourage Abby from enlisting in the Marine Corps.
Kyle broke the prolonged silence. “Ryan, you know anything about a FEMA Camp near Tavares?”
The Ranger’s head did not move. His eyes shifted upward. “There’s one at Camp Sunshine. That’s up near Gainesville.”
“Well, Tavares is where we’re headed,” Bradley said. “Why don’t you tag along? See if you can make a difference?”
156C
OMID GHORBANI MARCHED forward, determination burning more furiously than the raw sores on his feet. He had smelled the carnage of Haywood Field long before his eyes beheld it. The stench pressed against him, smothering and relentless, like wading into a lake of decaying corpses. Swarms of bugs marked the position of each body, black clouds of failure shaming them even in death. Turkey buzzards swooped in, feasting on bits of flesh, defiling his brethren; and Omid drank in every detail, vowing to make the infidels pay.
With Hamid Khadem trailing after him, he searched each building then slowly circled the remains of the Patriot missile battery. After one lap, he found them—the wires used to detonate the explosives. Omid clasped them lightly, allowing them to glide through his fingers as he walked.
He cursed the grass-covered, sandy soil. It was like a sponge, momentarily absorbing his weight then rebounding to its original shape, swallowing up all footprints.
He traced each wire’s length in a southwestern direction, crossing the runway, passing between deceased paratroopers before locating the spools and detonators.
“We should follow this southwestern heading,” he said, displaying the evidence for Hamid. If the infidels had deliberately unraveled the wires in a direction contrary to their bearing, he stood little chance of picking up their trail. This was his best option.
He discarded the spools and began walking. “There was a severe thunderstorm that night,” he told Hamid. “Perhaps they sought shelter. We should search every structure within sight.”
By one p.m., they had ransacked a dozen houses and ventured into a sparsely populated plot of land west of Lake Apopka. Doubt was beginning to erode his confidence.
Both men hiked in silence until Omid spotted a building two hundred meters to the east. He approached for a closer look.
At the rear corner of the house, branches from a crepe myrtle tree were scattered atop a bed of mulch. One of its half dozen trunks had been sawed off at the base, and judging by the color of the gash, it had been cut recently.
Why would anyone want a segment from that tree? he asked himself. The trunk was two inches thick, too large and wet for kindling, too inconsequential for firewood. Were they attempting to fashion a weapon? A
booby trap? Why overlook a harder, stronger wood like oak?
Omid estimated the length of the amputated limb to be chest high. Had someone used it as a crutch? If so, the trunk might have left an impression, even in this spongy soil.
He searched for nearly an hour before finding a small, circular depression with a diameter that was the perfect size.
Omid marked the spot with his tactical knife then gently combed the grass using a spiral pattern. He found a second imprint about a meter from the first, supporting his crutch theory.
He followed the line defined by the two imprints and located more indentations in the sand. Smiling, he summoned his partner. “I have discovered their trail.”
157C
ZAAKIR TRAVERSED THE woods on the western shore of Lake Apopka, the marital argument still replaying through his mind. What was he going to do if the Assistance Center turned out to be a trap? Could Eliza ever be convinced?
Unanswered questions continued to accumulate. Was the situation better in other parts of the country? When would power be restored? Even more than food, Zaakir craved information.
The breeze is picking up, he thought. Not good for Raeleah’s asthma.
The rustle of leaves wended through the forest, aerosolizing a yellowish film of pollen. Zaakir shook his head, worried about the combined effects of allergens and exertion. Would the long walk to Tavares save his daughter? Or induce a life-threatening asthma attack?
He returned his attention to the hunt, having seen no deer, squirrels, rabbits, or even snakes. Edible insects were plentiful, but his wife and daughter would never eat cockroaches or worms.
Zaakir sunk onto his backside twenty feet from the lake, wondering if he would have better luck fishing.
What could I use for a hook?
He vented a frustrated sigh, feeling utterly unprepared for the perpetual battle of staying alive.
A splotch of gray caught his peripheral vision. Two sandhill cranes were ambling toward him. Nearly four feet tall, the birds had lanky legs with slender necks that jutted from football-shaped torsos. He had seen them many times stopping traffic on neighborhood streets, straggling through yards, pecking at their own reflections in mirrored windows.
Powerless- America Unplugged Page 75
