Conquistadors

by Jeff Kirkham

  Sofia wasn’t ready to give up the role of the innocent. It had paid immense dividends. But, would men follow an innocent into battle? With her lieutenants on the front line and the Catholic faith behind them, she figured they would.

  She’d spent a great deal of time with the archbishop’s abbot and she’d seen to the archbishop being “relocated” to another parish. She had consolidated the full support of the church and the military in the region. While her father had been chasing gasoline, she’d been stacking the building blocks of empire.

  She could hear her mother weeping in the master bedroom. The beans in the sink lay abandoned.

  Sofia geared herself up to play the bereaved daughter. Saúl would probably be in front of the ranch house waiting for her in his Humvee.

  She stopped cold when she rounded the counter to the kitchen. The pool of blood remained, but a giant, red smear tracked out of the kitchen and toward the front hallway. Her father’s body was no longer on the floor. Sofia followed the contours of dried blood as they weaved right and left through the front hallway and to the foot of the heavy, oak door. A single, bloody handprint marred the plaster wall by the coat rack.

  The door had been left ajar.

  Saúl’s Humvee was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 46

  Noah Miller

  US Highway 40, Near Bellemont, Arizona

  Noah had rallied the people of Flagstaff to the threat of the cartel and the decision had been made to evacuate. Most fled toward Phoenix. Some ran into the mountains. A small group had armed themselves to the teeth and moved north up Highway 89 into Fredonia and Colorado City. The mouth of the rugged Utah mountains seemed as good a place as any to make a stand against an armored column. Noah would likely join them there. For now, he was the watcher on the wall; the lone countryman on the sun-scorched ramparts of southwest America. Though it had faltered, it would forever be his country. He had buried his wife and daughter in this soil, and nothing would ever change that.

  The narcos had abandoned Nevada and had scuttled back across Hoover Dam two days after the showdown at the Dry Lake refinery. The nukes remained undiscovered and safely interred in the hinterlands of Nellis Air Force Base.

  Noah now shadowed the narco column as it regrouped at the Navajo Army Depot. He would hang around to find out where they would next seek fuel and conquest; his money was on the refineries to the north, Salt Lake City or Wyoming. Or maybe, the cartel would push east into the gas fields of Texas. Either way, Noah’s ghosts felt as bullish as ever on tracking these sons of bitches.

  Maybe old Bill knew where the narcos were headed, but nothing could be done about that. The old man had surrendered himself to the seductive charms of bitterness. He’d hated so many for so long that he’d lost the ability to hope; at least, that’s how Noah explained the loss of his dad to himself. It gave him another reason to hammer the narcos back to Mexico—so perhaps they’d release his father to come home.

  Noah had to admit, not long ago, hope had been a stranger to him too. But with his ghosts and his crusade, even while the world twisted in chaos, he felt pretty good about the ground under his feet. He hadn’t done the math, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t had a drink in over two weeks. Being a good man in a good fight suited him.

  Noah leaned across the hood of the Land Cruiser with his binoculars and watched the narcos mull about the depot. He was parked high on the side of the Hashknife Mountains, where he could see them, but they wouldn’t likely see him.

  It’d killed him to do it, but he’d scrounged some earth-tone spray paint and had given the Cruiser a new look—flat-sheen camouflage. He added a camo net over the Cruiser as well. So far, he’d been sitting on this mountainside for two days and nobody down in the depot seemed to have noticed. Even so, he’d change location tonight after dark.

  The cartel was far from dead, he reminded himself. Seven dozen main battle tanks wouldn’t just disappear into the desert. Someone would put them to work.

  Noah let his binos hang on their harness around his neck. Over the last two weeks, he’d spent so much time with his eyes buried in the binos that they felt like an old friend. He reached into the passenger door, punched the button on the radio and took a chance on a little music.

  Faith is easier said than done

  It crumples in the light of day

  You're beaten and battered, your dreams all but shattered

  But night, it comes. And the Word, it plays…

  The tune cut the cool air and Noah turned it down so the sound wouldn’t extend past his observation post. He needed to top off his supply of hope and the music never failed to do it for him. Watching tanks had a way of making a man feel insignificant and his wife’s cassette tape reminded him of his role in all of this: the watcher on the walls. The crusader.

  Nobody might ever know the risks he’d taken and the Hail Mary, long-bomb passes that had turned into unlikely victories. But Noah knew, and his wife knew.

  Hell. Noah didn’t have any idea if the ghosts were real or not—whether God or his girls had put him on this path. It was entirely possible that he’d been carried away in a daydream.

  Were they calling him and guiding him from the Great Beyond? Or was he just a sappy, lonely drunk; imagining things to feel better about his personal tragedies.

  I will make my stand,

  No, I won't stay asleep.

  You found me there,

  and pulled me from the deep.

  He couldn’t give a shit less if it was all fantasy or not. The truth didn’t interest him overmuch. He could feel the ghosts living in his bones: Leah, Katya, and maybe the Ancient of Days too. In the end, accepting them was like watching a perfect sunset. Why dither over the why’s and wherefores? Why fret about tomorrow? Why not just drink it all in and let the beauty have its way?

  A goodness is a goodness. In this new, brutal world, Noah didn’t think there would be many goodnesses lying around for the taking. He was sure as hell going to enjoy them while he could.

  The truth could pound sand, as far as he was concerned.

  Noah tilted the passenger seat forward and searched for a half-drunk water bottle he’d tossed back there the day before. His hand touched steel.

  He pulled apart the detritus of the last few days of surveillance to satisfy his curiosity. Laying in the back of the Cruiser, nestled in a blanket, he discovered a .45-70 lever-action Marlin rifle.

  Bill’s rifle.

  A box of rounds lay on the floor beside it. Noah didn’t know how long the rifle and the rounds had been there, but he guessed Bill must’ve slipped it in the back of the Cruiser when the armored column passed by Hoover Dam on their return trip to Arizona.

  He chuckled and lifted the cowboy gun out of the vehicle, ran the lever and checked the breach. There was nothing in the chamber, but the tubular magazine was full of fat, blunt cartridges. The brass and blued finish of the gun glowed in the setting sun. Noah shook his head and admired the fine piece of weaponry. A true man’s gun.

  “You were easier to understand when you were a ghost,” Noah spoke softly to the gun. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and looked down the sights and smiled.

  “You beautiful, old bastard.”

  “Not only did religion rise as a means to hold communities together, but religion also served to propel criminal organizations to geographical reach not witnessed since Genghis Khan and Hannibal. One of the most noteworthy was the Sinaloa cartel who consolidated the Juarez and Gulf cartels just after the Black Autumn collapse.

  In order to extend power beyond northern Mexico, the new cartel overlord, Gustavo Castillo, christened the criminal organization Los Caballeros Templarios or Knights Templar. Blending macabre elements of Catholicism, ruthless violence and ancient Templar code, Los Templarios either recruited or exiled all Catholic bishops and archbishops in northern Mexico during the months after the collapse, creating a cartel that seamlessly combined religion and violence in one huge organization. In the vacuum that fo
llowed the fall of the Mexican government, dioceses and communities hungered for the Rule of Law and often welcomed the Templarios, especially given their pledge to serve the poor and support the church.

  The Cabellero Templario manual required them to ‘to help the poor, fight against materialism, not kill for money, and not use drugs.’ Of course, none of these pledges blunted the massive and organized campaign of theft and terror the Templarios would launch into the former southwestern United States.

  In an unpredictable turn of events, one young widower—an unknown rancher from the border of Mexico, arose to become the Paul Revere of the American southwest and managed to blunt the Templarios' relentless march north. When later asked how he had achieved such military success during a time of utter chaos, Colonel Noah Miller remarked, ‘It was strange magic. Perhaps the best way to wage war is to arrive at battle with a heart of peace.’”

  The American Dark Ages, by William Bellaher

  North American Textbooks, 2037

  A Word From Jason Ross

  Conquistadors and the Black Autumn Series of novels take place during the first seventeen days of the Black Autumn Collapse of the United States. Each novel follows a hair-raising struggle to stay alive in a world plunged into chaos— each book from the viewpoint of a different cluster of survivors. As you know, Conquistadors follows a ruthless cartel genius—and his even-more-genius daughter—across the American Southwest. Black Autumn tracks Green Beret Jeff Kirkham and his family and friends as they battle for their lives while Salt Lake City flips into criminal mayhem. Black Autumn Travelers follows three men trekking across the United States against tremendous odds, each man finding his own version of honor in the new, brutal world. And finally, The Last Air Force One catches a ride with the President of the United States as he struggles between the needs of a disintegrating nation and his own family aboard the presidential jet that will soon be forced to land somewhere inside the fallen United States.

  These novels can be read in any order, as they take place at the same time. Before the end of 2019, we hope to release an anthology of short stories written by Jeff, Jason and other ReadyMen and women. These too will take place during the seventeen days of the Black Autumn Collapse. Watch for the anthology on Amazon.

  Finally, we’re preparing to release the first, full sequel in the Black Autumn series in the first few weeks of 2020. White Wasteland jumps ahead sixty days as winter descends on Salt Lake City and the Homestead survival compound, and the winter brings disease, tragedy and unfathomable acts of violence. If you thought the anarchy and fighting in the Black Autumn series was a little much, strap in. Things get much worse.

  When Jeff and I wrote Black Autumn Conquistadors, we asked ourselves, “what happens when a man’s mind becomes prisoner to the weapons he covets?” Then, we put the biggest, baddest ground weapon possible in front of the most soulless man on the continent and we asked, “would he kill his own daughter to possess a hundred M1 Abrams tanks?”

  My wife weighed in immediately. “There is no effing way that would ever happen.”

  Challenge accepted.

  We hope you enjoyed witnessing a man descend to hell while another man discovers salvation. Jeff and I kicked around the question of how Paul Revere rose to commit the acts of bravery that would cement his role in history. Then we took a wild guess and brought him forward to a twenty-first century invasion of America.

  If you wondered about the music that finally tips Noah over into a life of courage, the lyrics are mostly ours, but the band that inspired them is Third Day—a Christian rock band that could convict any man to seek his higher calling.

  After serving almost twenty-nine years in Army Special Forces, Jeff Kirkham continues to help patriots and friends of the United States. Together, he and I along with other ReadyMen members, traveled twice to Guatemala to train the Kaibil Special Forces and secret service, both times in remote mountain bases. These Guatemalans take up positions on the front line in the war against the drug cartels. Guatemalans take huge personal and national risks to help defeat the drug trade. We have seen it firsthand, and in honor of those sterling friends of the United States, we dedicate Conquistadors.

  Oh, and the Filadelfia Hotel in Antiqua is easily as beautiful as Tavo Castillo says it is. We highly recommend you visit Antigua, Guatemala—so long as you don’t have a devious, criminal mastermind father hiding in Guatemala City waiting to destroy your life and corrupt your children. Otherwise, Guatemala will knock your socks off.

  GET EXCLUSIVE BLACK AUTUMN MATERIAL

  (And help us write our books a bit.)

  Our favorite part of this whole novel-writing-thing is becoming brothers and friends with our readers.

  Our dirty secret: we don’t write these novels ourselves. We collaborate with scores of experts and fans and we get many of our juiciest ideas from readers. The ReadyMen Group on Facebook (join here!) worked through several of the scenes in Conquistadors with Jeff and I and got them humming. We also took a ton of consultation from veterans on the Abrams tank, military unit disposition and the bizarre practices of munitions storage of the U.S. National Guard. We did not make any of that up, by the way.

  Join our newsletter for info on new books and deals—with the understanding that we will occasionally pump you for ideas about The End Of The World As We Know It. We might also throw in a ReadyMan gear deal or two.

  Join today and we’ll send you How to Survive a Black Swan Event at no charge. It’s the leanest, meanest preparedness primer ever written and it’ll help you and your family prepare for job loss, local disaster or even The Big Enchilada (for less money than the cost of homeowners insurance.)

  Join our email list here and get How to Survive too.