After twenty minutes of walking through the dense trees, the five came upon a clearing where a small cabin was situated at the opposite side a little more than a hundred yards away.
Cooper held up a hand to signal the other four to stop. He stood just inside the tree line staring across at the cabin as the others gathered behind him.
“Something’s not right. Brando should be here. He should be waiting for me right in front of the cabin like he always does.”
Dark clouds gathered above the trees as the temperature had become noticeably cooler than it was just an hour earlier. Rain was coming.
Mac, who had holstered his weapon, took out a set of binoculars and stood next to Cooper as he looked toward the cabin.
“Can’t see anyone in there but the windows are too dark to tell for certain. No movement though.”
The sound of Brando’s bark echoed off of the trees behind them. The bark then turned to a growling yelp.
Cooper’s eyes widened in alarm and he ran back into the woods, his gun already removed from its holster. The other four struggled to catch up to the rancher as the intensity of Brando’s agitated growls increased. There was something in those woods the dog felt very threatened by.
Reese, Dublin, Mac, and Bear reached Cooper Wyse who was kneeling over Brando to make certain the Doberman was not harmed. Brando in turn stood motionless, his eyes fixated somewhere inside the forest. The Doberman’s lip curled back in a menacing snarl, his teeth snapping down hard as the dog continued to warn off whatever it thought was in the woods.
Mac stood with his gun drawn next to both Cooper and Brando as he peered into the trees trying to see what was bothering the dog so much.
“You see anything, Coop?”
Cooper shook his head.
Large droplets of rain began to fall above them, though few actually made it past the branches and to the ground, which remained almost completely dry.
Finally Brando’s snarling barks began to lessen, and within a few more minutes, the dog was happily licking the side of Cooper’s face.
Mac remained concerned over what had spooked the dog so much.
“He normally get that upset over something?”
Cooper stood up and looked into the woods again.
“No – he doesn’t. Maybe he came across a bear. That would do it.”
Dublin’s voice called out from behind the two men.
“Do you smell that, Mac? Like…like something is rotten. Or dead.”
Mac, Cooper, Reese and Bear sniffed the air around them. Only Bear confirmed what Dublin was smelling.
“Yeah, like there’s something dead. Like that but…kind of different too.”
Cooper shrugged.
“Whatever it was seems to be gone now. Let’s get to the cabin.”
The give made their way back to the clearing and looked out toward the small cabin. Brando sat to Cooper’s right staring as intently across the clearing as everyone else. Cooper Wyse issued a short low whistle as he gave an abbreviated chopping motion with his right hand in the direction of the cabin.
“Go!”
Brando took off across the clearing and within seconds was circling and sniffing along the cabin’s perimeter. After doing so twice the dog stopped in front of the cabin door and lay down, waiting for Cooper and the others to join him.
Grabbing the four remaining horses, Cooper was the first to begin crossing the clearing. Reese and Dublin followed close behind the rancher, while Bear and Mac trailed slowly behind. Both Mac and Bear had drawn their weapons and were looking behind them and then into the sky above. The rain had lessened some, though the clouds indicated there was more to come.
“There was something not right in those woods, Mac. I smelled it. Just like Dublin did. Had the dog freaking out whatever it was.”
Mac’s eyes continued to scan upward as he responded to Bear.
“Could have been an animal of some sort, but I know what you mean. Coming off that hill I was feeling nervous. Then the drone attack and whatever was in those woods with us. Now we’re stuck out here in the middle of wherever the hell this is, I don’t much like not being in control of the situation.”
Bear looked ahead toward Cooper Wyse who was almost to the cabin.
“Yeah, wish we were all back in Dominatus.”
Mac gave a small smile as he looked over at Bear.
“Me too. I miss it every damn day. The tavern, the Old Man - all of it.”
All five now stood just outside the entrance to the cabin. Like Bear and Mac, the other three had unholstered their guns as Cooper removed a single key from a pocket and inserted it into the large padlock that sealed the front door shut. He returned the key to its pocket inside his vest and slowly pushed the door inward. Mac scanned the door and noted it looked to be far more heavy than it appeared from the outside.
“That thing steel?”
Cooper nodded.
“Half inch steel on the interior of the door. Not just the door – the whole cabin. Runs right in between the log framing, including the roof. The windows have a security laminate over them. Makes them bullet resistant. Come on in.”
As soon as the rancher stepped into the cabin’s interior, two overhead lights came on. Cooper quickly turned behind the door to input a code into a small box attached to the wall.
“We have motion sensor lights, and a full on security system for not only the cabin, but once we are inside here, I can activate the perimeter sensors. Anything crosses the clearing and we’ll know about it.”
Mac pointed upward.
“How about if that drone comes back and drops a missile on top of us?”
Cooper glanced briefly at the other four.
“Nothing much we can do about that, Mac. Drones aren’t allowed inside the Canadian territories – at least that’s my understanding. We’re far enough from the border now we should be ok.”
Mac scoffed at Cooper’s words.
“We’re talking about the New United Nations. They’ll do whatever the hell they want. If that means blowing us up inside this cabin, then that’s what they’ll do. We’ll spend the night here, but first thing tomorrow we need to be on our way, wherever that is. I’ll assume you had some idea of where we were going to go from here?”
Cooper Wyse looked out one of the windows of the cabin and then back to Mac.
“Expecting a visitor soon, the guy I’ve been working with for the last ten years or so. He brings in the goods, leaves them here at the cabin for me, and I take them across into Alaska. If anyone would know the best way for us to get all the way over to Manitoba it would be him.”
Reese moved next to Mac, speaking with the same growing sense of apprehension the other three Dominatus survivors now felt.
“This partner of yours, can he be trusted? Couldn’t he have been the one who tipped of the New United Nations about when we were leaving? The one who helped send the drones after us?”
Cooper let out a long sigh and shook his head.
“I suppose that’s possible, yeah. Then again, I know this man better than I know any of you. He’s good people. I trust him - absolutely. Whether or not you trust him, or you trust me, that’s up to each of you. He’s no more a friend of the New United Nations than any of you. It would make no sense for him to give us up to them.”
“When is he supposed to be here?”
Bear’s question remained unanswered as Cooper Wyse was again looking out a window at the four remaining horses he had tied up just outside the cabin. Finally he turned back to Bear.
“First thing tomorrow morning, he’ll be walking in from the south end of the clearing. His name is Imran.”
Again it was Reese who voiced the concern the others felt.
“Imran? Is he Muslim? I thought you said the Muslims who took over Canada were to be avoided - the radicals, the killings, Sharia Law?”
“What I said was that the urban areas should be avoided. I didn’t say every Muslim in Canada was bad. Imran isn’t
one of those radicals. In fact, I don’t ever recall him mentioning anything about religion. He’s just a businessman. No more. No less.”
Cooper’s response did nothing to lessen Bear’s agitation.
“This is bullshit, Mac. We ain’t been out here a day and I’m almost blown to hell, and we are sitting around here waiting for some Muslim to arrive and show us where to go? That’s the plan?”
Before Mac could respond, Dublin intervened.
“Stop it. Sooner or later we are going to have to trust each other. Either we do that, or we turn around and go back. I don’t want to do that. I’m not going to do that. So, Mac, Bear, Reese…you need to decide if you are going to trust Mr. Wyse or if you want to give this up. I’m tired of this. Somebody obviously knew we were crossing those hills. Ok, fine. But that doesn’t mean Mr. Wyse had something to do with it, or that this Imran had something to do with it. Unless I get information that says otherwise, I’m not going to just sit here and accuse someone of something they didn’t do.”
Nobody spoke following Dublin’s rant.
Then the perimeter alarm sounded.
Someone, or something, was outside.
IX.
For a man just over thirty years of age, Imran Senturk had done remarkably well for himself given the challenges of attempting to make one’s way in a world gone mad under the rule of the New United Nations. Born in a small seaside village just outside of Antalya, Turkey, Imran’s family had enjoyed a reasonably comfortable existence due to his father’s ownership of an apartment complex. Imran was well educated, enjoyed both his studies and sports, and was regarded by family and neighbors as a boy blessed with wisdom and insight beyond his years.
That life though was irrevocably altered shortly after his fourteenth birthday in the year 2020. That was the year when the Muslim Brotherhood consolidated its control of every aspect of Turkish politics and culture. Any who publicly opposed the takeover were jailed, or killed. For months, tens of thousands were put on trial, and brutal public executions became a daily occurrence.
Soon after, government officials from the Sharia Compliance Office arrived at Imran’s home, demanding his father no longer charge rent to any tenants who were members of the newly formed Sharia government. They returned days later to question not only Imran’s father, but his mother, two sisters, and himself about their devotion to Islam, the books they read, the Internet sites they visited, and if they were willing to participate in what was described to them as the Global Jihad program.
Unknown to Imran’s family, Turkish authorities had already been in negotiations with leaders within the then emerging New United Nations. These negotiations were built upon a relationship that the then American president had forged with Sharia leaders inside Turkey years earlier – a relationship that had played a significant part in events involving Libya, Iran, Egypt, and Syria. Events that would eventually lead to Israel’s near total isolation from all other nations by 2021.
The man who became the second in command at the New United Nations was Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s former Prime Minister. It was Erdogan who was given near absolute authority to crush any opposition to the New United Nations throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and eventually, Europe.
In 2022, a vast immigration of Muslims into Canada was initiated by Erdogan’s Sharia Compliance Office. It was this forced immigration that uprooted Imran’s family from their village in Turkey and placed them in a massive government housing complex in Vancouver, British Columbia. Their neighbors within this complex were hundreds of other families from throughout the Middle East.
Just days after arriving in Vancouver, Imran’s family was visited by yet more officers of the Sharia Compliance Office and given direct instructions on how they were to be a part of a massive Islamic insurgency within Canada, an extension of the Global Jihad program they had been informed of already when still living in Turkey. Imran’s father was promised a larger home as well as a possible position of authority within the Sharia Compliance Office of Vancouver if their work to help Sharia become the dominant authority throughout the area was done well.
Most of the newly transplanted Muslims, as well as Muslims already living in the city complied with the orders, and the streets of Vancouver were witness to repeated acts of brutality and chaos. This chaos quickly spread to other cities throughout Canada – cities that also had seen a forced immigration of thousands upon thousands of radicalized Muslims.
Non-Muslims were the first to flee these cities, finding homes in the less urban areas of Canada. Then the moderate or non-practicing Muslims soon followed. What was left in those cities then were the most authoritarian Sharia Muslims who were allowed to rape and murder any who opposed them. The new global government did nothing to stop the carnage, but rather was the one to encourage that brutality.
The New United Nations had promised Recep Erdogan vast nations within which he would be allowed to freely promulgate his Sharia Law beliefs. What happened in Canada was duplicated in Australia, Sweden, and Spain. These former nations then became places ruled by the most fanatical of Muslim warlords who in turn fought amongst themselves for further power and influence. The only condition placed upon these warlords by the New United Nations, was that they supplied the global government with the very things it had banned throughout the world - things ranging from the fossil fuels that powered the airliners that only the ruling class within the New United Nations could use, to the drugs government officials had declared immoral while they themselves consumed them in ever increasing quantities.
Canada had become a brutal and dangerous place, and it had been Imran’s home for the last seventeen years of his life. His father and mother were dead, the location of his siblings, if still alive, long unknown to him. Imran had come to quietly support a growing movement within both Canada and the United States by those that had once called themselves citizens of those former governments, to overthrow the tyranny of the New United Nations. He had begun to cross the border into what had once been the state of Alaska to trade goods with others like himself who hoped to do the same. It was during one of those trips he had met a man some had taken to calling the Irish Cowboy – Cooper Wyse. Like Imran, Cooper had also been looking for a way to help others obtain things needed to defy the authority of the New United Nations. The two men had been working together for nearly a decade now. It was to the drop cabin they both used to deliver goods from Canada into Alaska that Imran now found himself walking toward. This time though, Cooper had told him they would be delivering the goods from Alaska into Canada, and Imran’s help was needed to make that happen as quickly, quietly, and safely as possible.
So lost was he in his thoughts about how he would go about accomplishing Cooper’s request, as well as the difficulty in seeing more than a few feet around him due to the darkness, that Imran failed to notice the large figure that loomed behind him with a gun pointed to his head.
“Don’t you move, little man. Stay right there.”
Imran’s hand instinctively reached for his own weapon holstered inside his jacket.
“Don’t want to do that. Keep your hands where I can see them or your brains will be outside your head a lot faster than you can reach for whatever you’re reaching for.”
Imran could see the outline of the cabin some fifty or so yards ahead, though no light was on inside. He found that odd given Cooper had indicated to him earlier they were to have arrived by now.
“You got a name, little man?”
Imran held both his hands up and asked if he could turn around slowly. As he did so he heard two more people approaching from his right.
“No turning around. I asked you if you have a name.”
“Yes, but might I ask who you are as well? I am not accustomed to meeting uninvited guests out here. What is your purpose, my friend?”
Imran could hear two more approaching from his left as well. He was surrounded.
Then he felt something nudge his crotch.
X.<
br />
“Brando! Here!”
The Doberman immediately responded to Cooper’s order, sprinting away from Imran and sitting to Cooper’s right.
Imran felt a wave of relief at the sound of Cooper Wyse’s voice.
“Glad to know it is you, old friend. And hello to Brando as well, of course!”
To his left, Imran could now clearly see Cooper, along with a very large, bearded man. To Imran’s right were three others – an older man with short cropped grey hair and glasses, and another man in his late thirties or early forties of medium height and build standing close to an attractive dark brown-haired woman of similar age.
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