“Hello? My name is Tori Cunningham,” she began to yell. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking for some friends of mine. Maybe you know Nathan Roeh, Denny Ackers, or Stephen Gill? Nathan used to live around here, up the road, I think. We were supposed to meet here if martial law was imposed.”
It seemed like no one was listening, when a little girl came peeking around the corner of a burned-down trailer.
“Hello there,” Tori said as she stooped down. “My name’s Tori. Can you help me?”
The little girl just shook her head no and stood there. About that time, Christina came calling.
“Sydni.”
The little girl took off running and Tori stood up and walked towards Christina’s voice. She saw the little girl run to a tall lady that she assumed was the girl’s mother.
“Excuse me,” Tori said as she walked towards the lady. “My name’s Tori. I’m looking for some friends of mine. Maybe you know them? Nathan Roeh, Denny Ackers, or Stephen Gill?”
“What do you want with them?”
“I’m a friend of theirs. I knew them before the Flip and I’ve left my home in Belleville to search for them.”
Christina took notice of the pistol she had tucked in the front of her pants, the Remington 270 she had slung over her shoulder, and her rugged appearance. She had a black eye and a busted lip that looked to be scabbed over.
Tori took note that Christina was looking at her weapons.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tori said. “This was a gift”—Tori touched her pistol—“and I captured this from a thug in Chester,” she continued, touching the shoulder strap of her rifle. “I don’t mean to scare anybody.”
“Are you a soldier or something?”
“I was in the Marines with Nathan a few years ago. He got out and I extended.”
“Well, they’re not here anymore. They’ve headed north to save some people from the FEMA camps.”
“I see. Did they happen to say which route they took?”
“No, I’m sorry. I watched them drive off in that direction.”
Christina was pointing east.
“That’s not north,” Tori said. “I wonder why they headed that way.”
“I’m not sure. Would you like to come inside, out of the cold, to warm up a bit before you leave?”
“That won’t be necessary, ma’am. I need to keep moving.”
“Okay, but stay safe out there. Our boys are with a group of Marines, so keep your eyes open for them. They might be able to help you.”
“Thank you very much. Your kindness is appreciated.”
“You’re welcome.”
Christina was not being honest with Tori. She knew that the group were heading to Chicago to overthrow a fortress full of American prisoners.
“Oh, by the way, if you see my husband, Rory, with them, tell him that we miss him and that his wife and daughters love him.”
“I will Mrs…”
Tori hesitated and waited on a name.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Christina Price.”
“Alright, Mrs. Price. I’ll give him the message.”
As Tori was getting back on her bike, Christina was overwhelmed with guilt that she had lied to Tori about the group’s destination. It was against her morals as a Christian to lie, and her conscience was now weighing heavily.
“Tori, wait,” she yelled, but Tori had already started the motorcycle and couldn’t hear Christina over the engine.
Tori left Gorham on her motorcycle and headed towards Murphysboro, not seeing or hearing the FLIES drone overhead.
CHAPTER II
Springfield, Illinois
In Springfield, a small command post had been set up by the UN and was commanded by Captain Zacharov, a Russian military man with twenty years’ experience. He was a tyrant and cared little about America’s status in the world. He cared only for Russia and would be a fine example of Russian patriotism, if not for his evil tendencies.
“Captain Zacharov, the Cunningham girl was followed to Gorham, where the suspected southern Illinois resistance was once located,” the junior sergeant said in Russian.
“Good, continue to follow her. She is the only remaining RFID-chipped survivor of the Southern Illinois Home Guard. What of the other resistance groups?”
“They are still actively repelling our forces. They know their areas and have the advantage, being their homeland.”
“Continue your surveillance and report to me immediately when you have something actionable.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Main Core program had been a growing conspiracy theory since the 1980s. Originally started as a way to monitor extremist groups, the government ran with it and it grew into a shadow government type of program that placed Americans, specifically veterans, on a watch list for the most simple of reasons. If you were government trained, you were eligible for placement; if you were outspoken and had opposing views to the government, you were placed on the list. Eventually the list became unmanageable and a new high-tech way of storing data on these extremists became necessary. In the two decades following September 11, 2001, the NSA’s program grew exponentially and became the melting pot of data collection for everyone the government wanted to watch.
Through spy programs, the Chinese were able to hack the Utah Data Center and collect information on everyone included within the list. Most recently, the Chinese started the FLIES drone program and synched the drones with the data center, essentially giving FEMA and what was left of the federal government unprecedented access to information.
For the last decade leading up to the Flip, the US was including RFID chips as part of the inoculations routine for all government employees, especially the US military. This data was linked directly to the UDC and provided exact whereabouts and whether or not the individual was living or dead. The RFID chip was powered by electrical currents emitted by the human heart. If the chip was somehow removed or the body was deceased, the chip would discontinue to function.
Tori had stayed in the Marines an additional four years beyond Nathan’s time of service. She had the chip imbedded in the fatty tissue of her buttocks, but like most people, she didn’t know it was there, even though it had been leaked to the media through government defectors. Most people didn’t want to believe shadow government conspiracy theories when they heard them. When these types of leaks were made public, most chucked it off and some listened but didn’t let it bother them. Tori was the latter; she listened, but didn’t seem to let it bother her.
The Russians had used the Chinese FLIES drone to follow a faint signal to her whereabouts. The RFID chip was like a homing beacon to the FLIES drone once it was in range. They worked in unison once it was on target. It could read heart rates emitted from the electrical signal of the RFID chip, and the UDC could receive visual and audio signals from the drone. The person’s location, which was approximate to GPS, combined with the capabilities of the FLIES drone, made triangulation possible and exacted a location.
There were a few thousand of these drones flying autonomously across a vast American country, searching for veterans. When one was located, all they could do was watch and relay data back to the UDC.
Marion, Illinois
The combined forces group had amassed a couple hundred more members from the Illinois National Guard unit in Marion. They had a discussion on which route would be safest to take to the next National Guard armory. Everybody was in agreement that the interstate was just too dangerous. They had agreed to take a state highway, but to get to that road would mean doubling back a ways and then rerouting north towards Mount Vernon.
Nathan had learned quite a bit about tactics from Buchanan. As was now customary for Nathan, he had the Army Rangers and the Force Reconnaissance units ahead of the group. Sending a small group of elites ahead of the bulk of fighters provided them with intelligence of what was ahead of them.
As they had traveled, they ran into small skirmishes of raiding groups and individual fire, but noth
ing unmanageable by the now seasoned grunts.
Before the scouts had a chance to completely leave Marion’s borders behind, they stumbled upon a train that was on the roadway blocking the convoy’s route. As FORECON approached the track and looked down the length of it, one of the Marines noticed that it had been knocked off the tracks in an apparent ambush of sorts. Several of the front train cars were smashed and off the tracks.
As the Marines and Rangers approached the train, the group stopped their HMMWVs and exited onto foot patrol, but not without first relaying back to the convoy what was happening.
Back in the convoy, Nathan and the rest of the Posse came to a stop on the state route they were traveling, and waited on the FORECON and the Rangers to relay back some intel.
Meanwhile, at the train wreck, the lead scout threw up a hand signal for get down and column formation.
Hand signals were a universal type of sign language across the branches of the US military and offered silent communication in wartime.
All the scouts lowered their profiles, went on high alert, and waited on the leader to see what was happening. There was a rifle pointing in every direction as they shifted into a staggered column along the roadway. Tensions were high because the front man had seen something and hadn’t communicated to the team what it was yet.
Everybody waited patiently for the signal.
See , one, enemy was signaled by the leader.
He had seen the motion of a running pair of feet on the opposite side of the tracks from where they were positioned. The train was blocking the view, but relaying an enemy was erring on the side of caution for the leader.
The team formed up along one of the train cars and proceeded to cautiously clear all of them. Every car door was open and they could clearly see human shackles attached to the walls of the cars. There were steel bars running the length of the cars from front to rear along the walls, both near the ceiling and low near the floor. The shackles were attached to them. High shackles for hands and low shackles for feet.
Once the team leader knew there were no immediate threats present, he radioed in to Nathan.
“November One, November One, this is Echo Four Juliet. Over.”
“This is November One. Go with your traffic. Over.”
“November One, we have stumbled upon a block in the highway. A transportation train, similar to the shipping containers on Big Mike. Over.”
“10-4, Echo Four Juliet, secure the perimeter. We’re coming in. Over.”
Nathan stepped out of his vehicle and out to the side of the convoy and gave the hand signal for rally on me.
Every member of the combined forces group rallied on him. Nathan, Denny, and Jess stayed tight together as the crew bunched up around him.
“Okay, listen up. The scouts have stumbled upon a roadblock ahead. It’s blocking our route, so we’ll have to figure a way around it. Apparently, it’s not a normal freight train. Evidently, the train was being used for the transport of human beings in shackles. I told them to set up a perimeter and to wait on us. I want us to take a look at this. Your input could be vital. When we get there, stay on guard. We don’t know what could be waiting in the wind. Mount up.”
After Nathan gave his instructions, everybody started walking back to their vehicles.
“What do you think?” Jess asked Nathan.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. Are you going to be okay with seeing it, since you were… you know…?”
“Taken? Yeah, I’ll be fine. You know, not to brag or anything, but I’ve been taken twice! I’ve got my guard up.”
Cade was eavesdropping on the conversation between Jess and Nathan. His suspicions that this was the Gorham group were already high. Now he was confident that he had the people that had destroyed his organization and pulled the carpet out from underneath his little empire.
Denny was also hearing the conversation, but took a mental note that Cade was especially attentive to what they were saying. Denny couldn’t help it, he was a very blunt man and also tactful, but this time he blurted out what he was thinking.
“Hearing everything okay?” he asked Cade.
“Oh, ha-ha, it’s cool. Just being nosey. What happened to Jess?” Cade asked Denny.
“She was taken by a group of bandits a couple months back.”
“That stinks. I guess things ended okay, because here she is.”
“Yeah, she’s a fighter,” Denny said. “Killed a man with a pen.”
Denny was paying close attention to Cade’s replies and interest as he fed him the information. He was suspicious of Cade and, in truth, had always been suspicious of him.
Fortunately for Cade, the one man that could physically identify Cade as the Cade Walker from Murphysboro was Pastor Rory Price, who never had a chance to see Cade. He was in the convoy that picked Cade up off of the side of the road, just two months prior. Unfortunately, he was on the opposite side of the convoy, towards the rear, and stayed in the vehicle when the on-the-fly decision to split up was made.
The decision to split was made in October. It was now December and not much had changed with Cade. His way of manipulation was to take as much time as he needed to build trust, cause division, and then take control. Not only was this his modus operandi, but being with a strong group had been his goal all along. The only thing he would change at this point was to be in control. To get there, he would have to take out a number of strong men and women. He had spent the last couple months sizing up everybody in the group, especially Nathan, Denny, and Jess. He was arrogant enough to believe everybody else would just follow along.
There were other strong members in the group, but he had identified the strongest and had made up his mind that he needed to hasten his plan. The group was growing too fast and soon he would lose any window of opportunity.
“Killed a man with a pen? Now you have my curiosity piqued. Please don’t leave me hanging.”
“You’re going to have to talk to her about it. I’m not sharing her business.”
Denny wasn’t a busybody or a gossiper. He certainly wasn’t going to share details of Jess’s abduction with a man he was already suspicious of.
Cade was now suspicious that Denny was onto him, and made up his mind that Denny had to be taken out. Cade’s ambitions, when combined with his narcissism, provided for a dangerous concoction of overreaction that had led to bad outcomes and, most recently, failure. Realizing that his previous mistakes in Murphysboro and Gorham had cost him everything, he had decided to keep a low profile, with snuffing Denny on the backburner.
The entire group had arrived at the train tracks and were staring intently at the train cars. One of the Rangers rallied on Nathan when he pulled up with the others.
“When we first arrived, we saw movement, so stay on guard. We’re not sure who’s here or what level of hostility, if any, we might encounter,” he told Nathan.
Nathan turned around and said, “Stay in groups of no less than two. Spread out and examine this train. You’re looking for any signs of life or intel that may be able to shine a little light on what we’re dealing with here.”
They acknowledged and broke up in pairs of two or three. Everybody was on high alert.
Cade looked at Denny and said, “Can I tag along with you?”
“I don’t care, but I’m going to be with Nathan.”
Cade looked at Jess and asked her, “Hey, you mind if I tag along with you?”
Jess looked at Nathan and saw that he was preoccupied with Denny and whatever they were talking about.
“Sure. No problem.”
Jess double-checked her weapon to make sure that she still had a round in the chamber and rounds in the magazine. After that, she looked at Cade and said, “You ready?”
“Let’s rock ’n roll,” he replied.
The train was huge. They could see where the trains had collided into something, throwing the engine and lead cars off the track. As they looked back down the track towards the rear of the tr
ain, they couldn’t see the caboose. It seemed like miles of train. There were also about a dozen tracks at this particular space; room enough for several trains to be parked side by side.
The group was now well spread out and headed in opposite directions to examine the find. Denny was at last alone with Nathan.
“I don’t trust Cade.”
“He’s different, but he’s given me no reason not to trust him.”
“Haven’t you seen the way he’s constantly studying everybody?”
“Yeah, but we’re surviving the apocalypse, man. It’s okay to be paranoid.”
“He somehow seems familiar to me, but I can’t place it. Maybe I’m being too paranoid.”
“I’m not sure if too paranoid is even possible, these days. Although, I’ll admit, my sixth sense was tingling when we first picked him up. Not meaning to change the topic, but I wonder how Buchanan’s faring?”
CHAPTER III
Bicentennial Park, Northwest Indiana
Buchanan had amassed a regiment-sized group of veterans, active-duty military, and patriots over the course of the last month. With the UN equipment and radio communications that he had been acquiring, they were able to make contact with large groups and rendezvous at key points. One group in particular had laid siege to most of Kankakee, Illinois, completely ridding it of UN forces through guerilla-type tactics. The urban environment was the battlefield of the times.
When Buchanan found Kankakee and met up with the group, he found that they had an individual they called the oracle. The oracle wasn’t a prophet, seer or any such thing, but he had survived and escaped from Goose Island, a FEMA stronghold, where they were shipping Americans and exterminating them, according to the oracle.
The oracle had no tongue. He was a hardened farm boy, once upon a time, but grew into a man that was paranoid of an overreaching government. He was on a list of suspected terrorists, for being associated with patriotism. The list, titled Main Core, was the government’s compilation of tens of thousands of America’s most patriotic citizens. He was high on the list and was working in Chicago at the time of the Flip, making him easily accessible.
Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) Page 36
