by W. J. Lundy
At the fence, John raised his rifle over it, watching the front of the home. Bobby slid over the top of the fence and made a quick dash to shrubs in the center of the yard. He waited for the man to be set then pushed over the fence himself and moved in next to Bobby in the shrubs. He looked at the front door and could see shadows behind the glass. He knew they would have a guard there.
Looking toward the garage, John saw that the doors were all secured. There were bright lights lighting the driveway and a camera mounted over a pedestrian door. John reached out and touched Bobby’s shoulder. “Camera on the garage,” he whispered.
“If they have one, they’ll have more,” Bobby answered.
John investigate the house, considering backing out and circling to the back. At the corner of the home, concealed in shadows, he saw a bundle of material under a tarp. Looking up, he could see the roofline of the house was missing the fascia. “They are doing work over there,” he whispered. “I’ll take lead.”
The soldier moved out, moving back to the fence, and staying in the shadows, following it around to the corner of the ranch house. He found the bundle covered with a tarp. Underneath were cans of roofing tar and bundles of shingles. Along the side of the house, lying on the ground, was an extension ladder. He pointed at it and looked at Bobby. “What do you think?”
“Let’s do it.”
Together they left cover and ran to the ladder. Quickly, they climbed up and stepped onto the roof. John knew that most home security systems covered entrances and driveways to the home. But he had never seen one that monitored movement on a roof. John prepared to step off, when a hand grabbed his arm. He turned back and saw Bobby looking out over the front yard with his rifle up. A guard was standing in the yard, looking toward the driveway. “Someone is looking for his buddy,” Bobby whispered.
The man walk to the garage, checked the knob, then turned and walked toward the driveway. Bobby tracked the guard with his rifle as the man turned and began following the log fence along the outer edge of the yard. The man dropped into the shadow of a tall tree, and Bobby fired twice, the clack, clack echoing off the roof. The guard spun to the left then rolled back over the top rail of the fence.
“Clear,” Bobby whispered.
John stepped off, cautiously moving over the peak of the roof, looking into the back. The yard here was lit bright, flood lights shining over a pool and a large low-cut backyard. On a patio just below them, two guards stood together. One held a pair of binoculars and was looking out at the rear fence hundreds of yards away. John aimed his rifle to the guard on the right. “You have the one on the left in three, two, one.” A pair of clacks, and both men fell to the ground.
John moved to the edge of the roof and looked down. There was a window with a pair of French doors propped open. Not waiting, he grabbed the lip of the roof and dropped down. He scrambled so that he could see down the hallway then paused, waiting for Bobby. He felt the tap on his shoulder, letting him know the man was there, and he moved to a screen. He reached out and slid it back.
Once inside the home, they immediately heard it: the sounds of battle being played over a speaker. Gunfire, helicopters, and explosions. Men under fire were shouting orders and reporting contacts. John stood with his shoulder to a wall and moved down a hallway. He could see the front door with an empty chair beside it, probably vacated by the guard Bobby shot in the yard. He moved to a corner and cautiously peered around it. There was a large living room filled with overstuffed white furniture. A kitchen was to the left with the lights off, a half empty coffee pot sitting on the counter next to a mug.
At the end and on each side of the living room were two dark hallways. Radio sounds were coming from a door at the end of the hall on the left. Off to the right of the living room was another open hallway, possibly leading to bedrooms. John pointed, and Bobby split off, headed in that direction as John moved to the hall on the left. Moving through the living room and into the dark hallway, the radio reports grew louder. He heard reports that the helicopters had found it impossible to land on the Gap and were forced to deposit their assault teams by fast rope. Once in a hover, they had taken heavy fire from the ground, losing one Black Hawk.
Two of the air assault teams spread out over the terrain but were quickly pinned. A third team managed to evade contact at the top of the valley and were slowly working their way down the slope. The remaining helicopters flew a high orbit, trying to command the attack from above. John slid along the wall, listening to the reports come in. He was near the door now, the light shone out, lighting the carpet in thin line. He lifted his rifle and pulled it close to his chest, preparing to enter.
“Sir, they are taking heavy casualties. If this keeps up, we will have to pull back,” a man said.
Then he heard Nohrs’s distinct voice. “It’s Warren. He is the ringleader. If we take Warren, the rest of them will surrender.” There was rush of movement in the room. “Give me the damn radio.”
John looked around the corner, slowly pushing the door open. A man was in a chair, looking over a long panel of monitors filled with live combat camera footage. A fat man in a white pressed shirt was leaning over the radio man. He pushed the tech to the side in his chair, took the radio handset, and said, “All units, check your fire. I want Warren alive.”
John stepped into the room. “Well, I’m right here.”
Both men spun back at the same time. John popped a pair of rounds into the radio man’s chest, knocking him out of the chair. Nohrs jumped to the right, looking for an escape, when Bobby pushed into the room and shoved his rifle barrel in the man’s chest. “Not so fast.”
Nohrs looked at the armed men, his eyes darting back and forth. His gaze then moved to the handset, and his hand twitched. The speaker was loud with reports.
“I think I just stepped on a mine.”
“Sit tight, EOD is enroute.”
There was a loud explosion over the speaker and several of the combat cameras’ green screens washed out and went black.
“Command, this is Helo Two, we just lost Team Six.”
John stepped forward and lashed out with the stock of his rifle, crushing the man’s nose and knocking him to the ground. “This is kind of depressing, don’t you think, Nohrs?” John said, reaching over the console and cutting the volume to the speaker.
Nohrs writhed on the ground, covering his face, his hands filling with blood.
“Bobby, take care of that,” John said.
Bobby grunted and grabbed the man by the back of the neck and hoisted him into the radio man’s chair. In seconds, he was restrained with zip ties. John was pulling open drawers and pushing away monitors until he found what he was looking for at the end. Using a keyboard, he flipped the screen to a login panel then grabbed a device at the end of a cable and placed it in front of the manager’s hand.
“Your finger please,” John said.
Nohrs balled up his fist.
John nodded. “Bobby, cut off his finger.”
The man’s head jerked side to side, and he opened his hand with his fingers outstretched. “Thank you, sir,” John said.
He collected the scan and watched the system log in. After removing the memory card from his pocket, he looked and the side of the monitor and inserted it into the slot. “Do you know what this is, Nohrs?”
The man looked away.
John shrugged. “That’s okay. You don’t have to watch.” He worked a mouse and clicked a play button. The video of the shooting of Aaron Newsome played. “This is the body camera footage of the murder of Aaron Newsome,” John said.
“That’s a fake video. Homeland agents don’t wear body cameras on home visits,” Nohrs said.
John laughed. “This video is from Sheriff Ransom. Good thing he gave it to you for distribution, right?”
John clicked on the keyboard, and the manager’s email application opened. He looked back at Bobby, who handed him a small slip of paper. John took it and held it up. “The address of every major
news agency. But don’t worry, Nohrs, we’ll make sure your chain of command gets a copy.” He turned to Nohrs. “So, how do you prefer that I word your email? Admission of guilt? Resignation letter? Suicide note, maybe?”
“It changes nothing,” Nohrs said. “That video doesn’t mean a thing.”
John finished typing in the addresses then dumped in all the contacts from Nohrs’s address book. “You didn’t think that was all, did you?”
He opened the man’s sent folder, dragging the entire folder into the body of the message. He then opened his documents folder, filled with classified memos. He compressed it and added it as well. He hit send and watched the progress bar. As it loaded, he logged onto wikidump and dropped the entire batch there, then posted a link to it on Nohrs’s social media account with the comment. I can no longer hide from the truth. When he looked back at Nohrs, the man’s face was green.
John grinned. “You think all of that will make a difference, or should I continue?”
“You’ll never get away with this,” Nohrs blubbered.
John shrugged and looked at the green screens behind him. Most had gone dark now. The Legion was holding the pass. The ground was filled with hundreds of white dots. He knew they would be militia fighters on the helicopters’ infra-red cameras. “You were going to kill me, anyway, Nohrs. I didn’t want to join the Legion; you took that choice away from me. I know it doesn’t end here, but I don’t care anymore. You took everything away from me worth caring about.”
John looked at Bobby. “Get him out on the porch.”
Bobby grabbed the man by the back of the neck and began pushing him out of the house. John moved to the master bedroom and removed a large goose down comforter from the bed then followed Bobby to the porch. He pulled out a knife and cut the manager free.
“What now? Are you going to kill me? Execute me?” Nohrs shouted.
“Nope, you’ll live to see the result of your actions here.”
John reached down and slammed Nohrs against one of the porch columns then took a roll of duct tape from a pack and began securing the man to it. When he was done, he stepped back and raised his rifle, holding the barrel just inches from the man’s eyes. “You’re a traitor to your country, Nohrs.
“You and Homeland helped start the war that’s coming, and no matter how you spin it, everyone will know the truth now. They’ll know all of the blood is on your hands and on those like you.”
“Go ahead and kill me,” Nohrs said.
Grabbing the down comforter, John ran a knife blade through it, spilling out its stuffing of goose feathers.” He smiled and looked at Bobby. “You remember that pallet of building supplies?”
Bobby nodded. “I know the one.”
“Go grab me that can of roofing tar.”
Epilogue
They were back on the highway, headed north toward Lake Superior. There was no stopping the war now, and John knew he had to be a part of it. He sat in the passenger seat of Nohrs’s pimped out Cadillac Celestiq. He stretched in the seat, feeling the leather against his tired body. The vehicle had diplomatic plates, and any roadblock they encountered opened immediately to let them through.
John yawned and turned his head, watching the terrain pass by. He reached over, pressed on the flat screen display, and opened a telephone keypad. He scrolled through the directory until he found Sheriff Ransom. Then clicked the send button.
The phone rang several times then clicked. “Sheriff Ransom, is this Manager Nohrs?”
“Nope. Sorry, he’s tied up at the moment,” John said. Bobby let out a small chuckle and John held up a finger, silencing him.
“Is he dead?”
“Where are you?” John asked.
“The attack on the mountain was a disaster. The governor just came on the TV. He is suspending all actions by Homeland,” Bill said. “He wants the attacks against the Gap stopped until they can figure out what is going on. People all over the state are taking to the streets.”
“I asked where you were.”
“I’m back at the station. Homeland told me to wait here pending arrest.”
John sighed. “Check your email, Sheriff. You don’t work for Homeland, you work for the people. Get out there and support them,” he said, ending the call.
Bobby pulled off the highway and onto a narrow dirt path leading to a pier. There was a fat ship at the end of it with a single light blinking. “This is it, John. That boat takes you west and links you up with the resistance. If you want to keep fighting, they’ll help you do it.”
Turning to the younger man, John said, “You’re not coming with me?”
“Nope.” Bobby shook his head. “My fight is in Sherman. We have work to do if we are to keep the state free. But don’t worry, we will be holding it down for you when ya come back.”
John tuned and looked back at the green trees and rolling hills. He thought about his home surrounded by police and the body of Aaron lying dead in the driveway. “I won’t be coming back–, I’m going to take the fight to them.”
About the Author
Thank you for reading!
If you want more from John Warren and the ‘The Occupation’, please Leave a Review and tell me about it!
For the latest's news, release information, and to purchase signed paperbacks, check out my website at. www.wjlundy.com
For more like this check out Tommy Donovan and the Clandestine Ground Division in Donovan’s War: A Military Thriller, available now.
W. J. Lundy is the Best-Selling author of Donovan’s War, The Soldier Series, The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Series and The Invasion Trilogy.
WJ Lundy is a current United States Navy Chief Petty Officer and still serving Veteran of the U.S. Military with service in Afghanistan. He has over 18 years of combined service with the Army and Navy in Europe, the Balkans and Southwest Asia. W.J. is an avid writer, backpacker and shooting enthusiast. He currently resides with his wife and daughter in Central Michigan.
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