The Peacekeepers. Books 1 - 3.

by Ricky Sides

  “That’s not just a rumor; it has happened in Chicago a couple of times already. But, just keep in mind that Tim isn’t in Chicago. He is stationed in Fort Polk Louisiana,” Pete reminded.

  ”Do you think the conditions there are better than the conditions in the Chicago area?” Jim asked.

  ”Oh, I’m sure of it. From what I have been able to learn, the worst of conditions seems to be in the north. That’s probably because they have a denser population in the north. By the way, try to avoid the larger cities whenever you can. The level of violence in those cities may not be as high as it is in the larger cities of the north, but it will still be high enough to cause you problems.”

  ”I know. In fact, I have been considering going to look for Tim and I’d already decided to avoid the larger cities as a precaution,” Jim explained.

  ”That’s good. I guess I taught you well, didn't I?” asked Pete.

  ”Yes, you did. I really wish you were here. I could use the help, but thanks to your training, I have the abilities to make it on my own. I understand you’re needed more there.”

  An awkward silence settled over the line as the two men thought about their friendship. Finally, Pete said, “Jim, I'm going to have to let you go in a minute. I have places to go and a million things I need to do. But before I hang up, there’s something I want to say.”

  Again, there was a pause as Jim waited for his mentor to continue. “Of all the men that I have ever taught, trained, and worked with, you are the best. Just remember that. Remember what I taught you and you will come out of this mess alive.”

  “Thanks, Pete. Coming from you that means a lot.” replied Jim.

  An outside observer would not have considered their conversation very meaningful. Yet to Jim Wilison the conversation meant a lot. Having come from a split home, Jim had never really known what a father was until Pete Damroyal had taken him in as a student in the art of survival. Had Jim not been an adult when he began that training, he would have probably been better able to express how he felt about Pete. Yet somehow, without the words being vocalized, Pete seemed to know. In the same manner, Jim seemed to understand that Pete thought of him almost as a son. The fact that Pete was only ten years older than Jim was made no difference at all to either of the two men.

  Pete said, “I'm afraid this might be the last time that I'll be able to contact you for quite a while since I'm moving to my retreat today.”

  “I understand. I'll probably be doing the same thing soon, but there are a couple of last-minute Details I want to take care of first.”

  “Don't wait too long,” Pete warned.

  “I won't. Don't you worry about that,” replied Jim.

  “I hope to see you next year. I’ll meet you at the place we always planned to use as a linkup spot should we ever need one. Hopefully I’ll be there by June.” Pete said.

  “I understand and I'll try to be there waiting for you.” Pete knew that the only thing that could keep Jim from being there was death. Jim's next words confirmed that when he said, “If I'm not there you can have all my supplies and gear. You know where they will be. I'll probably be there though, so don't get your hopes up,” he finished with a chuckle.

  “My hopes are to find you still alive and doing well when I get there,” Pete said with a serious tone.

  “I know. I was just joking with you, but if something should happen to me you are welcome to my stuff.”

  “I appreciate that. You know I would like to have the twin to the blade that you gave me.” Pete responded.

  Jim knew what he was referencing. Three years earlier, Jim had made a matched set of daggers. They were sixteen inches long with double-edged blades and mahogany handles. Jim had worked on the blades for three months before their quality finally met his satisfaction, then he had given Pete his choice of the two blades.

  He remembered the expression on Pete's face as he had examined the two daggers. He had looked at the small bronze dragons inset into one side of the handles and nodded his approval. Then he had examined the brass guards that would protect the hand of the user. Next, he had checked the two weapons for balance and noted that they were well balanced. Last of all, he had checked the finish of each dagger. One of the daggers had a small defect in it near the base of the blade. It was not a large scratch but Jim had opted to leave it rather than buff it out so as not to jeopardize the balance of the blade by over working it. The other blade was perfect.

  When Pete had made his selection, Jim felt a brief moment of regret. Pete had chosen the flawless blade that Jim had wanted to keep for himself. Yet, Jim had known all along that Pete would take that blade. Somehow, he had just known.

  Pete had looked at the double edges of the dagger and said that he thought he wanted a bit better edge on his. Jim had agreed that the edges needed a final sharpening. “I just wanted you to approve the finish of the blade before applying the final edge,” he’d explained.

  Yes, Jim remembered the day that he’d given Pete the dagger, so he said, “If something ever happens to me, the blade is yours.”

  After that, they each said goodbye and hung up.

  Jim hung up the phone. He was disappointed because he had been counting on Pete's return to Alabama. Now, he knew that Pete wasn’t going to return for at least a year, and that bothered him more than he cared to admit.

  Chapter 2

  Pete hung up the phone and turned around slowly. He had been aware that someone was standing behind him for the last two minutes. He hadn’t worried about the presence because he had sensed no danger from whoever it was. He had a sort of sixth sense that enabled him to sense hostility or hostile intent.

  As he turned around, he saw it was Reggie standing behind him. Reggie was a twenty-three-year-old man who had joined Pete's survival group only recently. Pete wasn’t sure if he liked the man. He had a bad attitude about some of the things he taught the group. He had never said anything directly to Pete. He had just mouthed off to some of the other people in Pete's company of survivalists.

  Reggie reported, “The men are all ready to go, Pete.” Then Reggie made a big mistake with Pete when he said, “I've been hearing a lot about this Jim Wilison that you taught in Alabama. I hear he's a real shithead and...”

  Reggie never finished his sentence. As soon as he had uttered the insulting remark, Pete had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him hard against the wall.

  Two men burst into the room with drawn pistols. They were the first men Pete had recruited and trained when he had returned to Chicago. They weren't the best men that he had ever trained, but they were two of the most loyal.

  They saw Pete holding Reggie up against the wall and they knew Reggie must have really done something to get Pete that mad because he never manhandled the members of his group, outside a training session. They also knew that they’d never seen Pete that angry before.

  Pete glanced in their direction and jerked his head to tell them to leave. They both reluctantly went back outside to await further orders.

  When the door closed behind the men, Pete glared at Reggie. His eyes narrowed as he growled, “Let me tell you something, you little shithead. If you ever insult Jim Wilison again, I won’t hesitate to cut your heart out myself.” As if to prove the point to Reggie, Pete deftly removed his dagger from its sheath with one hand while his other still held Reggie pinned against the wall. He plunged the blade into the wall beside Reggie's head.

  Reggie was scared, really scared. He looked at Pete's angry face and in a trembling voice said, “I didn't mean anything by what I said. Honest I didn't.”

  Pete let go of Reggie and recovered his dagger. He said, “You know nothing about Jim Wilison, boy. You had better be glad he isn’t our enemy because if he were, I doubt that you would live very long. He could kill all of you new guys and never even break a sweat.”

  “Is he really that good?” asked Reggie.

  Pete slid the dagger back into its sheath and replied, “He’s one of the best me
n that I’ve ever seen when it comes to a fight. That’s true whether the fight is with guns, knives, or even empty-handed and I’m proud that I am the one who trained him.” Then Pete said, “Go, get out of here, now! I’ll be out there in a few minutes.”

  Reggie wasted no time in getting out the door. He was glad to get away from Pete and he was just thinking that it would probably be in his best interest to avoid Pete for the next couple of days when someone grabbed his arm. He turned to face the two men who had come rushing into Pete's office earlier.

  He looked into the angry faces of the two men and belligerently said, “What do you two clowns want?”

  One of the men barked, “I’ll tell you what we want! We want to know what you did to Pete to make him so mad.”

  The other man narrowed his eyes and demanded, “Did you attack Pete?”

  The man was fingering a knife and Reggie knew instinctively that he’d better tell these men the truth. “Pete took what I said as an insult to some guy in Alabama named Jim Wilison. That's all there was to it.”

  The man on the right said, “Maybe you don’t know it, Reggie, but Jim is a bit of a legend to us older troops. Hell, if I ever hear you insult the man, I'll break you in half myself.”

  The man on the left said, “Take that as a warning from me too. All the way through our training, Pete talked a lot about Jim. He even told us about the things the two of them did in Alabama. If you insulted Jim then I ‘m surprised Pete didn’t beat the crap out of you. Now you had better get to your post. We'll be leaving soon.”

  Reggie couldn’t believe the loyalty that these two men were showing for a man they’d never even met.

  Inside his office, Pete sat at his desk and thought about his friend in Alabama. He was tempted to say to hell with it and just head down to Alabama to make sure that Jim would be all right in the trying times ahead. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do that. There were too many people here who were depending upon him. These people were not nearly as prepared to deal with the challenges ahead as his former student and friend.

  For the hundredth time, he cursed the job that had caused him to relocate back to Chicago. Now he was committed to helping these people, and couldn’t just walk away from them and the strong emotional ties that had formed between them. Not now, just when he felt, they needed him the most.

  Pete sighed deeply and stood up. In a year, he was sure the men in his survival group would be able to make it without him. For one year, he was committed to helping these people. He would just have to do the best he could to ensure that it didn’t take any longer.

  Pete stepped out into the hall and headed for the front entrance at a brisk pace. As he headed down the hall, his two friends stepped in beside him matching his pace. The one on the right said, “The men are all assembled and ready to go.”

  “Good,” he said, then he asked, “Have the women and children been taken to the shelter and are all our people accounted for?”

  “Yes sir. They arrived there ten minutes ago, along with the guards that you sent to pick them up.”

  “Let's move out and you need to pass the word for everyone to be careful. We need to get the food and water supplies inside the shelter without any incidents. We have to try our best to get there without getting into any fights.” Pete explained.

  Chapter 3

  Not long after Pete’s call, Jim decided to check on some old friends he had not spoken with since the disasters had begun. He looked their number up in the back of his old phone book. “Henry and Sharon Gordon,” he said to himself. “I should have called them sooner. Of course, they may have left by now.”

  Laughing to himself, Jim said, “I've got to get out and socialize more. I'm starting to talk to myself.”

  “That's ok as long as you don't answer yourself,” spoke a feminine voice behind him.

  Jim whirled around at the sound of the voice, but he immediately relaxed when he saw Margaret Reese. He knew her from his association with Henry and Sharon Gordon. She was a friend of theirs that he’d met a couple of times.

  He knew very little about her and the only time they had ever had a long discussion it had ended badly. They were political opposites. She had supported many liberal initiatives that he abhorred. As he recalled, the bitter debate they had at the Gordon’s house that day centered on firearm legislation. She supported draconian gun laws and he supported minimal government interference in the right to keep and bear arms. She had countered his pro-gun attitude by saying, “I suppose you are one of those anti choice people too!” He had responded that he did indeed believe it was the duty of the government to guarantee the safety of the weak and innocent, who were in no position to defend themselves. Then he’d asked her if she knew of anything more weak and innocent, not to mention defenseless, than an unborn child. However, that was before the disasters and now he found the prospect of even a liberal visitor a welcome break from the horrors of the daily news broadcasts.

  “Come on in, Margaret,” he invited.

  Margaret opened the screen door and walked into the kitchen. She took a seat at the kitchen table and said, “I can't stay long. I just stopped by to see if you had heard about Henry and Sharon.”

  Jim had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had a feeling that he knew what she was about to say but he said, “No, I haven't heard anything about them. In fact I was just about to try to call to see how they’re doing.”

  Margaret sadly stared down at the kitchen floor and said, “They were killed two days ago in a plane crash.”

  Jim's stomach knotted and chills ran down his spine. He sat down heavily in a chair facing Margaret and asked, “How did it happen?”

  Then Jim noticed Margaret's eyes were quite red and he realized that she must have been crying a lot. There was something else he noticed about her eyes. It was a look that he was beginning to see in the eyes of more and more people. A numb and blank appearance; it was almost as if they had seen too much death and too much destruction for their souls to bear. Jim reached across the table and took Margaret's hand in his own. Gently he asked, “Are you ok, Margaret?”

  She looked at him with tears flowing and said, “Jim, they’re gone. I just can’t believe they are really gone.”

  Jim stood up and walked around the table. He took Margaret's hand in his own again and then knelt beside her on the floor and said, “I know it's hard for you, Margaret, but you have to be strong now.”

  She looked at Jim with a sorrowful expression for a moment and then she fell into his arms, crying softly. She clung to him desperately as he caressed the back of her head and spoke soft encouraging words in an effort to comfort her.

  Finally, she seemed to regain her composure. She said, “I'm sorry. Lately, I just can’t seem to control myself. I just find myself breaking down and I cry a lot.” She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and wiped her eyes.

  “I know what you mean. A lot of people are having that problem lately. It has to be all these catastrophes happening one after another. People just haven't had the time to adjust to one before another disaster strikes.”

  Margaret looked thoughtfully at Jim and said, “You are probably right and it would explain a lot of things that I’ve seen in the past month.”

  Jim shifted the topic back to the Gordons, when he asked, “You live next door to Henry and Sharon, don't you?”

  “Yes” she replied. “Henry got word that his father's home in Kentucky had been destroyed by an earthquake. He was really worried about his dad, so he hired a guy to fly them to Kentucky.”

  Jim understood since he knew that all major airports were so congested with people trying to leave that it would have been impossible to get a flight without waiting for days. Because of the situation, many people had started chartering flights. That would be fine if the planes and pilots were all up to par but that just wasn’t the case. The planes were being overworked and so were the pilots.

  Many people who were not even licensed pilots were now trying to fly c
harters just to get the huge cash advances that most people were willing to fork over for a ride. He said, “So, what happened?”

  “As nearly as I can figure out from what I have heard, the plane stalled on takeoff from an abandoned airfield in southern Kentucky,” she replied.

  “Who told you about the crash?” Jim asked.

  Margaret sighed as she leaned back in her chair. She rubbed her temples with her fingers as if she had a headache. “A state trooper called my house. Evidently, he found my phone number in Sharon’s purse. I guess he thought that I’m related to them. He said the plane had tried to take off from an abandoned airfield after the pilot stole some fuel. He told me that three bodies had been recovered from the wreckage and they found Sharon’s purse about one hundred yards from the crash.”

  “Are the bodies being sent home?” Jim asked.

  “No. The State Trooper told me that they would be buried in Kentucky. He said it would take an act of congress to get a flight for bodies now,” Margaret responded.

  Jim figured the living was probably being given priority now. All anyone could do for the dead now was to bury them. That might seem harsh to some people but he understood that with millions of dead Americans, it was the only sane way to deal with the situation.

  Margaret looked at Jim shyly and smiled. “As you know Sharon and I were pretty close. She used to talk about you quite a bit.”

  His surprise must have shown on his face because Margaret laughed and asked, “Are you going to tell me that you didn't know?”

  Jim just stared at Margaret in confusion. Suddenly she stood up and Jim got up from his kneeling position. She stared deeply into his eyes and said, “I guess you didn't know, did you.” It was not a question.

  Then she surprised Jim by slipping her arms around him in an embrace. She hugged his body tightly to hers, and said, “Please I just need you to hold me; I'm feeling so utterly lonely and afraid.”