The John Milton Series Boxset 2

by Mark Dawson

  “We’ll be fine,” Ellie said.

  “You feel okay?” Mallory asked. “Your head?”

  “Just a bit dizzy. It’s not a problem. You should both try to get some sleep.”

  Mallory waited for Arty to settle in beside her. He lowered himself so that he could rest his head in her lap, and she stroked his thick, dark curls. She said again, “We’ll be fine,” although it was under her breath and for her benefit as much as for his.

  The trouble was, she didn’t believe it.

  She wondered where John Milton was.

  Chapter 26

  SETH OLSEN had two big barns near the house. The Stanton kids and the FBI agent were in the one where he kept his old equipment. They had the spare nitromethane and fertiliser in there, too. The other barn was where Seth usually kept the hay bales, silage and feed, but they had emptied it out two months ago so that it could be used as the militia’s gathering space and armoury instead.

  Lundquist took Seth and Magrethe to one side. He told them what had happened to Lars. Seth clenched his jaw, the crinkles that appeared around his eyes the only indication of the impact the news must have had. His wife sobbed, just once, Seth reaching out to take her shoulder, but she shook him off. She snapped that she was fine, but the colour had drained from her face and her eyes were filmed with tears that didn’t spill. Magrethe was tough. They both were. Lundquist knew the news would set them both implacably to the cause. He led them in prayer for a moment and then made his way inside.

  THE BARN had been decorated. A mural of a crowned sword bisected by a Z-like slash, the emblem of the Sword of God, was emblazoned on the wall behind his pulpit. A Nazi battle flag was hung on the facing wall. This church’s crucifix was a sword with an Iron Cross on its hilt, the handiwork of a disciple named Kenny Woichek. A portrait of Saint George and the Dragon hung from the pulpit. One of the dragon’s horns was topped by the Star of David.

  Lundquist had needed a headquarters for the militia, and the farm had been perfect. It was out of town and impossible to approach without giving good warning first. Seth had eight hundred acres of land, a huge expanse that meant that there was plenty of space for them to train without any fear that they would be seen or heard. Lundquist had worked his men and women hard, preparing them for the role that the Lord had prophesied for them. He had turned it into a guerrilla training camp, complete with firing ranges, stockpiles of weapons and ammunition, and accommodation for everyone who needed it. They had built a facility they called Silhouette City, where his soldiers could fire at targets of Barack Obama, Jeh Johnson, and Janet Yellen. There were checkpoints, and a log cabin served as a guardhouse along the only road that offered access.

  When the time came, when the final trumpet was sounded, the farm would be an Ark for God’s people.

  The men and women of the militia were all gathered inside, bundled in ragged clothes and military surplus jackets. The barn was lit by lanterns that Seth had hung from the rafters. The light was warm and golden, the flames flickering this way and that, sending dancing shadows against the walls. He climbed into the pulpit and looked out at them all.

  There were thirty of them, and they had turned out with impressive alacrity. That was some good discipline right there, Lundquist thought, complimenting himself, damned impressive. He had drilled them well, made them understand how important it was that they operated as an effective, cohesive unit. He used the things that he had learned himself during his career in the army, and his lessons were being learned. The word of God he had been working to fulfil demanded unswerving, absolute loyalty and obedience. This was as good a demonstration as any that they were on the right track.

  The night ahead would present further opportunities to prove that.

  He cleared his throat and raised his voice to address all of them. “What we have here is our first real test since the Lord spoke to me. The first test since we started to work on delivering the Word of the Lord, working towards His prophecy to take our country back. We’ve had the federal authorities in town for a week, and we just about saw them off. We would have done it, too, until a fellow who was passing through got involved, went up into the woods, and brought our boys back down again.”

  “The Englishman?” Barry Forshaw asked.

  “That’s right, Barry. The Englishman. His name is John Milton.”

  “Who is he?”

  “We’re looking into that.” He stared out at the sea of expectant faces, all of them hanging on his words. “Now, I’m not happy with how easy our boys made it for him to bring them back, but that doesn’t mean we should underestimate what this fellow is capable of. From what Private Callow and Private Chandler have said, he’s extremely proficient. He knows how to operate in the wild, and he knows his way around firearms. That’s about all we have on him right now, except to say that he’s caused us a whole heap of trouble.”

  “Is the sheriff dead?” Vernon Smith interrupted. “I heard that he was dead.”

  “Milton delivered the boys to Lester, and the FBI agent was about to call the marshals to come and pick them up. That would have been an end to our chance of bringing God's word to fruition. Couldn’t have that happen, so I took action. What we are doing is more important than one man and, like we all know, there was no way Lester would have understood us and what we are doing. So I shot him. God have mercy on his soul.”

  One of the men, Percy Fisherton’s boy, let out a loud whoop, a few of the others sniggering at it.

  “Quiet. Lester was a good man, and what had to be done gave me no pleasure. The Englishman should be dead, too, but he killed Private Sellar, Private Sturgess, Private Olsen, and Private Pelham.”

  The atmosphere changed as if at the flick of a switch. Some of the men went slack jawed. Others mouthed “four” with disbelieving expressions.

  “That’s right, four. That’s how serious this is. How serious he is. He’s killed four men, and then he got away into the woods. And we can’t let him stay out there. We need to find him.”

  There were murmurs of angry assent.

  “We know he’s tough and resourceful, but we also know that he’s injured. I put a shot in his shoulder. Now, a man with a wound like that isn’t going to be able to cover long distances, plus it’s night, and he doesn’t know the woods like we do. So, you ask me, what he’s going to do is find himself somewhere to shelter from the storm out there, hunker down, try to fix his arm, and then make his move tomorrow. The state police will have a cordon in place by the time he can get to the boundaries, so he’s not going to find it easy to get out. He’s going to be hiding in hills and woods no more than twenty square miles across. And we’re going to have thirty armed men and women who know those woods going in there after him. Bearing those things in mind, you want to tell me how in God’s green earth that son of a bitch is going to get away from us?”

  No one demurred.

  “That’s right. He isn’t.”

  “What about the police?”

  “What about them?”

  “If they get him first?”

  “Wouldn’t be a problem if they did. I put out the APB, called state, said that he killed the sheriff, Private Olsen, Private Pelham, and the agent. As far as they’re concerned, this is a multiple cop killer. Most likely, they shoot him on sight and solve this for us. If they don’t, if he somehow manages to surrender, he doesn’t know anything about all this”—he waved his hand at the armaments at the back of the barn—“or the truck and what we’re going to do with it, so he can’t do anything about that. If he denies he killed those men, then it’s the word of a drifter who ignored Lester’s instructions to stay out of town and then beat up two tourists in Johnny’s against the word of the local police. No, sir. How’s that going to play out for him?”

  “Badly,” Forshaw called out.

  “That’s right, Barry. It’s going to play out badly.”

  The men and women nodded in agreement. Lundquist could see that they were impressed. They knew that he was cl
ever and cunning, and they knew that he was a strong leader. They knew that he was filled with the spirit. They all knew it. Lundquist got a thrill of excitement from seeing their reaction, just like he always did. God had chosen him for this responsibility and the spirit had filled his soul, like water pouring into an empty vessel. He was overflowing with it.

  “What about the VP?” Paula McMahon called out.

  “What about him?”

  “It’s soon, right. Three days he’s coming. This has got to affect it?”

  “No,” Lundquist said. “It does not.”

  The vice president was campaigning in Minnesota over the course of the next week. Lundquist had gotten hold of his schedule from a buddy over in the Minneapolis PD and knew that he was going to be stopping for a photo opportunity at a little truck stop on the outskirts of the city. Mom-and-pop kind of place, lots of open space around it, difficult for the secret service to lock down. The kind of place where it would be almost impossible to stop a man who was full of the Word of God and not afraid of dying.

  “I don’t want to sound like I’m doubting you, Colonel, but how can you be sure?”

  “It’s not going to be relevant, Paula. Because we’re going to have ourselves a little hunt.”

  He pointed to the back of the room, where Seth Olsen was bringing out the weapons that they had been assembling with the money that the boys had been liberating from the banks. They had a hundred grand’s worth of equipment and ordinance: automatic rifles, carbines, shotguns, pistols. Thousands of rounds of ammo. “Get yourself equipped. We’re going to make three squads. Each squad will be led by one of the best woodsmen we got. Jesse Kay?”

  Kay was a tracker, short and wiry as a speed freak. “Yes, sir?”

  “You take ten men and go west into the woods from South Boundary Road.”

  Kay saluted him.

  “Ben Teale?”

  “Yes, sir?” Teale was a park ranger. No one knew more about the woods than he did.

  “You take the next ten, go up to Little Carp River Road and then cut in to the east.”

  Teale saluted.

  “Walker Price, you and me get the last ten. We’re going in the woods where he went in.”

  He looked out at them again. They were men and women of God, His Holy brigade, and they were going to do great things in His name. Satan had wrapped his arms around their country and, if left unchecked, he would drag them all down with him back to Hell. Lundquist was not going to let that happen. The thought of their glory, soon to be achieved, filled him with pride, and he swallowed down the emotion that had caught in his throat. He raised his voice.

  “In case you need reminding, I’m going to tell you what’s at stake tonight. America has drifted far from the Founding Fathers’ dream of a white, Christian nation. Jews and non-whites are defiling the Promised Land. Life has become bitter. The farms and factories are closing, small towns are emptying, the fabric of society is shredding. Crime goes unpunished; school prayers are unsaid. Divorce, abortion, drug abuse, and homosexuality threaten our way of life. In the cities, people get rich manipulating paper while farmers are forced to sell their crops for less than it costs to coax them from the soil. The Zionist Occupation Government conspires to rule the earth. The media pours out a steady stream of filth and deception. And they have the audacity to accuse people like us of trying to overthrow the government? We just want it back!”

  There were exclamations of “Yes!” and cries of “Say on!” A woman, her arms upraised, looked faint. Lundquist felt the sweat on his face, left it untouched and pulled down his right sleeve to reveal his tattoo. He turned his wrist so that it faced the others, clenched his fist and raised his arm.

  The others mirrored his salute.

  He recited the words of Revelations 1:3 that he had chosen as their mantra: “‘Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein.’”

  The others responded, chanting out the final words: “For the time is at hand.”

  “‘A sword, a sword is sharpened and also polished.’”

  The others joined in with him, their left hands pressed over their hearts, reciting the scripture with lusty enthusiasm. “‘Sharpened to make a dreadful slaughter, polished to flash like lightning. And He has given it to be polished, that it may be handled; This sword is sharpened and it is polished to be given into the hand of the slayer.’”

  “And what did Jesus say?”

  “‘Think not that I am come to bring peace on earth. I came not to bring peace but a sword.’”

  “And who are we?”

  “The Sword of God.”

  “This is the word of the Lord.”

  “Praise be to God.”

  “Amen.”

  “Amen!”

  They took communion after that, passing around a tray of shot glasses filled with grape juice and tiny rectangular wafers. When they had finished, there were cheers and shouts of excitement. Lundquist saw the fire in their eyes. They would do their duty by God. They were like a pack of wild dogs, he thought, and he was about to unleash them.

  Chapter 27

  MILTON HAD entered the forest from a different point than the previous day, and he was soon lost. It was thickly wooded and on a slight incline, a gentle slope that he could soon feel in the back of his calves as he ascended. It was rocky underfoot, ridges that tore out of the greensward and shallow ravines and crevasses that plunged down almost without warning. The land reminded him of Kosovo, of the time he had dropped behind enemy lines with orders to melt into the night until a particular target revealed himself. He would take his shot and be absorbed into the background again.

  Milton was comfortable in this kind of terrain. His history with the regiment had included weeks spent living off the land. He had trained in the jungle in Borneo. There was nothing here that was unfamiliar or daunting to him.

  He kept running, his legs burning and the pain in his left arm pulsing every time his feet struck the earth. At least it had stopped raining, and above him, the clouds had parted to admit a little silvery moonlight. Not much, but enough for him to see where he was going.

  He followed the terrain as it led upwards. He needed to climb, to get as high as he could before he stopped. He needed to gain his bearings. He needed to work out how far he was from the field and which direction he should take.

  He could feel the blood against his skin, a wet slickness that had soaked through his shirt, the curtain that he had wrapped around his arm, and into the lining of his jacket. Branches slapped and scraped, brambles gouged him as he ploughed between bushes, his face soon lacerated by a network of tiny cuts. He broke free from the tree line into a space that had been logged, a collection of stumps and trunks that had been stacked, ready to be collected. Ahead of him was a steep rise up to a plateau, a climb on a shifting trail of loose rocks and gravel. He sprinted at it, managed the first few steps until his momentum was halted, and then bent to power up, pushing his feet into the unreliable give of the surface, his hands pressed into the sharp stones to help keep him upright. He churned upwards, an avalanche of scree scattering behind him. The footing became firmer the nearer to the top he climbed and, eventually, he was able to stand again. He stopped, his muscles burning and his breath coming in hungry gulps.

  He turned and looked back in the direction he had come from. The forest stretched out beyond him to the east and west, as far as the eye could see in each direction. He knew from his earlier journey that there were fire breaks and small roads cut into the trees, but they were impossible to see from here. The terrain continued to climb to the north, the trees becoming ever more sparse the higher the ground rose. He turned to the south and saw the beginning of the forest, the field of corn beyond it and, behind that, the line of the railroad and the hazy lights of Truth. He squinted to the southeast, but it was too dark to make out the Stantons’ Winnebago.

  He waited for another minute, his hands on his knees as he fill
ed his lungs with oxygen. He turned and looked north to the shallow hills and peaks that characterised this part of Michigan. He needed to keep moving. He needed to put some distance between himself and Lundquist and his men. He needed to get as far away from the field of corn as he could.

  He saw the line of a stream, five hundred yards away to the northeast. He headed for it. The clouds rolled in again, and soon all he could see were the outlines of the larger rocks and the bunched trunks of the trees. The stream was small, little more than a trickle, maybe even run-off that had found its way into an old winterbourne. He stayed close to the water, stopping every now and again to listen, but all he could hear were the noises of the natural world around him: the chirping of crickets, the shrieking call of a nocturnal predator high above, the gentle tinkle of the water as it passed over bedrock. He wondered whether Lundquist would have access to dogs and, assuming that he might, he ploughed through the water, hoping to mask his scent. He leapt out on the opposite bank and pressed ahead.

  The terrain descended into a low open hollow, and gravity pulled Milton down in a headlong plunge, his feet sinking to the ankles in the loose shale. He raced at speed into the base of the depression, catching his right foot in an uncovered branch, thrusting out his left and barely managing to scramble away without falling. He was sweating heavily, and his arm throbbed. The stream wound its way through the hollow, and he followed it, the ground becoming soft and boggy underfoot. It turned this way and that until it led up the opposite slope. The incline grew steeper and steeper until the water was passing between two steep shoulders of rock.

  There was no point in continuing. This would do. Milton walked to the edge of the water and splashed it across his face for a moment. He was already sodden from the earlier rain, but the water was fresh and invigorating, and it washed the sweat, blood, and muck away.

  He looked at his surroundings. The angle of the ravine was steep, but it looked as if there was a trail that picked a path along the more accessible portions. The path ahead was hemmed in by trees, mountain ash, beech and oak, and the cover from the leaves was dense. He walked to the rock face on his side of the river, followed it up and, after twenty paces, found an outcrop that reached out to provide a natural ceiling.