After four and a half days on the road, the team had gotten pretty lax at properly storing their gear, and backpacks, flak jackets, old magazines, camelbaks, and a pair of towels hanging on coat hangers fell, landing atop his body, covering him in a misshapen heap.
The second blast proved to be too much, and Mason felt the vehicle’s engine beginning to lose the battle against the road, slowing steadily, like an injured runner trying to finish a race on torn hamstrings.
Finally, almost mercifully, the engine quit, and a massive cloud of steam burst forth from under the armored front end of the Stryker.
Suddenly, a heavy ‘thunk’ came from directly in front of A.J.’s spot in the driver’s seat. Looking through the reinforced glass, he found himself staring at the business end of a grenade launcher.
A voice called out. “Open the fuckng door.”
Shit.
There was no chance that the glass, though reinforced, could withstand the force of a grenade fired at close range.
The chase was over. Escape was lost.
They were done.
The grenade launcher was lifted and then brought back down on the metal of the vehicle again. “Open, or we’ll blast a hole in this fucking window and toss in tear gas!”
“Okay!” he yelled in response. Turning around in his seat, he unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up from his chair. As he worked his way into the passenger compartment, the men outside began banging on the door at the rear.
Looking at Logan and Reed, he shook his head. “Sorry. I tried.”
“I know.” Reed replied.
“You did your best,” Logan added, as he put his arm around Isabella, who had moved closer to him.
Swallowing, Mason reached out and unlocked the door. At the sound of the lock disengaging, the door was yanked open roughly. Five heavily armed men, all in Army uniforms stood there, pointing their weapons at the interior of the vehicle.
A man wearing a patch with two bars on the center of his chest and a name tape that read “Cotton” stepped forward. “Get out.” he ordered.
A.J. got out first, followed by Reed, then Logan, and finally, Isabella. A.J. looked back towards the Stryker, expecting Paul to get out, but Logan caught his eye and gave him a barely noticeable shake of his head.
“Alright,” the man named Cotton began, nodding as he looked at the four of them, “which one of you was driving?”
“I was.” Mason replied, staring at the man.
Bringing a pistol up, Cotton pointed at Mason’s head and pulled the trigger, ending his life.
Isabella screamed, then turned and buried her face in Logan’s side. Putting his arm around her, he could only grimace at the man’s death. It had happened so quickly, they hadn’t even had a chance to plead with the Major.
“That’s for killing my man,” Cotton said, staring down at the young man’s corpse. Looking back at the others, he said, “Alright. So you’re the girl,” he said, pointing at Isabella, “and you’re the doctor,” he finished, pointing at Reed. Looking at Logan,who stood there in his blue t-shirt and jeans, his eyes narrowed. Bringing the gun up once more, he pointed at Logan as her asked, “So who the fuck are you?”
Logan stared back at him impassively as he tried to think of an answer that would keep him from being shot.
Luckily, Isabella stepped in.
“He’s my Father.”
“What?” Cotton asked skeptically. “But he’s White.”
“My biological father left my mother shortly after I was born. She remarried. This is my dad, Lo-rence,” she said, catching herself.
“Lawrence, hunh?” Cotton replied, staring at Logan.
Still keeping Isabella under his arm, Logan nodded. “That’s right. Raised her with her mom,” he said, staring back at the man.
Lowering the gun, Cotton stepped forward. “I guess having the girl’s dad might come in handy if we need to, I don’t know,” he said, shrugging, “motivate her.” Without warning, his fist shot forward, catching Logan in his right eye and rocking his head backwards.
Isabella cried out.
Logan’s grip on the girl fell away as he dropped to one knee. He bought his hand up to cup his abused eye. He’d have a shiner for sure.
Shaking his hand slightly, Cotton grinned as he watched the man’s discomfort. Without turning his head, he spoke to the men behind him. “Alright, cuff ‘em, fellas. Let’s head back to the All Star,” he said, referring to the service center/convenience store they’d staged at earlier that day.
Turning to look back towards where the smoking husk of the first Humvee was, he saw a small, dark shape on the road, approaching at a high rate of speed.
‘Sommer,’ he thought. ‘Man, this guy creeps me out.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Oklahoma City Protective Zone, Oklahoma
Day 5
Pacing back and forth on the polished wood floors of his office, Colonel Walters found himself alternating between looking out the picture windows and looking at himself in the mirror. For what initially seemed like no reason whatsoever, he’d chosen this day to wear his Service Dress Uniform, and he’d had one of the workers (he didn’t bother learning the young woman’s name, it, like her, was unimportant) press it and shine his shoes that morning so that he’d look sharp.
It was after he first slipped it on and admired his appearance in the mirror that he’d realized his desire to wear it was based on the fact that today was the day. The day he’d let the country, and possibly the world, know that he was running the show from here on out.
By the end of the day - heck, within the next few hours - he’d have the girl and the last remaining expert in his control, and from there he’d be calling the shots. Sure, the President and her ‘yes men’ would balk at his move, and they’d certainly threaten him in an attempt to make him acquiesce, but aside from their words, there would be little that they could do. While the establishment of the Protective Zones made sense from the point of protecting citizens, the establishment of the OKC P.Z. afforded him the opportunity to stockpile weapons and build a private army right under their noses.
Even with the opportunity to do so right there in front of him, he hadn’t even considered it. Why would he? To what end?
But then the man who called himself Judas contacted him.
I have an opportunity for you.
The email was short, to the point, and yet somehow enticing.
If it had come to him at any other time, and/or if he’d received it in his personal email, he’d have ignored it immediately.
But this had come to him via official channels, arriving in his military email account at a time when those with access to email were few and far between.
‘Who is this?’ he’d responded.
The response had been received almost immediately, telling him that the sender had anticipated his confusion and had prepared his response in advance.
Colonel Sam Walters, United States Air Force.
That part was easy to find out, so I won’t pretend that my knowledge of that information convinces you of anything.
What I’ll say instead is that you were born in Mishawaka, Indiana, just outside of South Bend.
Your mother committed suicide when you were just seven, and you were the one that found her hanging from the overhead storage rack in the garage when you came home that day.
Your father raised you and your younger sister, Savannah, and never remarried.
Although you were accepted to Notre Dame, you turned the University down when you were informed that you’d been accepted to the Air Force Academy.
Your father lived long enough to see you graduate from the Academy, but he died a short time after, of a heart attack while you were on basket leave, touring Europe that summer.
Sadly, your sister never got to see you graduate though. She passed away at the age of twenty after being hit by a drunk driver as she was walking back to her dorm on the campus of University of Cincinnati after a party at the
Sigma Alpha Epsilon frat house.
Your losses have made it hard for you to let people in, which probably explains why you’ve never gotten married or even had a serious relationship.
I know you, Colonel, and I know what makes you tick.
Right now, as you read this, you’re both angry and confused. You’re wondering how I could possibly know these things, and you’re furious over the fact that someone would share your pain and sadness so casually and openly.
I mean no harm, Sam, and I certainly mean no disrespect. I simply want to connect with you, and I need you to know that this isn’t some random stranger contacting you.
None of those losses were your fault, and none of them change the fact that I have the opportunity you’ve always wanted.
Hear me out, Sam.
The email closed with instructions on how to establish the secure Virtual Private Network and which encryption program to use for sending future emails.
Walters read the entire email three additional times, absorbing the painful details over and over like punches to the gut. The first read had left him shocked over the sender’s in-depth personal knowledge of his life, including details that no one should have had access to. By nature he was private, and that characteristic had made him keep his emotions and the things that caused them to reveal themselves tightly locked up.
The second and third reads filled him with fury, as the sender anticipated, over the invasion of his privacy. (The fact that the person had predicted his anger seemed only to intensify his fury.)
The fourth and final read was the rational one, and one the sender must have anticipated as well, for by the time Walters was done, he knew he’d be contacting the man, asking for more information about the opportunity.
Several email exchanges followed, and as more and more information was provided by the contact, the level of trust grew.
It’s all coming to you, Sam.
‘What do you mean?’ He’d asked.
I mean it’s ALL coming to you. You just have to take what falls in your lap. Take it and use it. Control what becomes yours.
The next day, President Martinez and General Manning told him about the plan to send the doctors and the girl to Oklahoma City so that they could expedite the effort to develop a vaccine before the country reached a point of no return.
From there, the emails between him and the contact were frequent, as details were worked out and passed back and forth, until they had a clear-cut, well thought out, well defined plan. The introduction of the freelance soldier made Walters nervous, but by this point, he trusted the contact’s decision making.
‘I’m embarrassed to ask this,’ he wrote one evening, ‘but I never thought to ask you your name. We’ve just forgone formalities all this time, and for the sake of brevity, it’s worked, but at this point, I feel like I need to ask, what should I call you?’
There was a longer pause than what he’d become used to during their email exchanges (they essentially used the email as a text communication), but finally the contact responded with one word.
Judas.
A knock at the door shook him from his reverie. Glancing at himself in the mirror again, he paused and used a hand to straighten his uniform jacket.
“What is it?” he asked.
The door opened and a young man in camouflage stuck his head in. “Sir, the, uh, preacher is here. He’s got a woman with him. He says they need to speak to you about something urgent.”
Walters sighed. If Jeremiah came the next day, he’d tell him to go to hell without hesitation. By then there would be little the man could do in retaliation. He’d be a slave to Waltyers’s will, just like everyone else. But for now…
“Fine. Send them in.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Walters went to his desk and sat down, taking time to smooth out his jacket as he did. Seconds later, Jeremiah entered, followed by a pretty blonde woman in her late twenties. The woman walked stiffly, guided by Jeremiah, who kept an arm around her shoulders and a hand on her elbow. He brought here to the closest of the two seats in front of Walters’s desk, ensured she was seated, then reached over and pulled the other chair closer, so that he could hold her hand as they sat.
Walters cocked his head in curiosity. “What’s going on, Jeremiah?”
Jeremiah sighed deeply before shaking his head. “This is Miss Kristen Maxwell. Her daughter’s gone missing, Colonel. I”ve done what I could to try to help her find the child, but my efforts have been unsuccessful.”
Walters’s mouth fell open in shock.
Kidnapping? Here, in the P.Z.?
Jeremiah nodded guilty before adding, “I know I said I would handle the issues related to the welfare of people, but I’ve been unable to help, and I promised Miss Maxwell that if I felt like I’d exhausted all of my efforts, we’d come to you for help.
“So here we are,” he finished, shaking his head once more. “I am sorry that I failed you both.”
Amazingly, the woman squeezed the tall man’s hand and looked at him. “Don’t be sorry, Jeremiah. I know you’ve done what you could.”
Walters sat back in his chair, unable to say anything as his mind reeled. Control was everything, and maintaining control without a complete, overpowering military domination meant that he had to provide people with those most important levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - physiological and safety. He didn’t believe people expected him, as the P.Z. Commanding Officer, to provide more than that, but if he couldn’t provide those things…
Say something, Sam.
Sitting forward, he said, “I’m so sorry Miss. Let me pull together a team and we’ll begin an investigation. If we need to, we’ll go door to door, building to building to find your daughter - ” He paused as he noticed that the woman’s face had gone pale.
He was about to ask her if everything was okay when the door burst open, this time without the customary knock.
It was the young man once more. “Sir, Major Cotton is on the radio. Needs to speak with you.”
Please tell me this is the news I’ve been waiting for.
Looking back at Jeremiah and the young woman, whose eyes had gone wide. ‘What the hell?’ he wondered.
“I’m sorry, Miss, Jeremiah. I need to deal with this.”
Jeremiah nodded. “Okay, Colonel. We understand. You have your priorities.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, we understand. Actually, I’m not feeling well. I think I need to go lie down for a bit.”
“Thank you,” Walters said, standing up. “You’ll come back later?”
Jeremiah spoke up. “We’ll come back, Colonel.”
There was something off about the way the preacher said what he did, but Walters didn’t have time to analyze it. Hopefully, the update he’d been expecting would be provided.
It will all be mine…
“Okay, thanks again,” he said, moving to the door ahead of the pair. “Please, just close the door behind you.” With that, he left his office, headed for the communications center.
Jeremiah said nothing as he led the woman from the office and ultimately the building. When they exited the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion, Whitney Maxwell slowed her pace to a near crawl. Not wanting to rush her, Jeremiah allowed her to set the pace. After a few more steps, she stopped on the sidewalk. Turning her head, she looked back towards the Mansion, then back at him.
“Jeremiah, I need to tell you something.”
“What is it, my dear?’
“I saw something,” she said, her eyes filling with tears once more.
Reaching out, he gently rubbed her arm. “It’s okay, dear. What did you see?”
“I saw Whitney’s Disney Princess watch on the floor under the Colonel’s desk.”
Jeremiah recoiled in shock. “What? Oh my...goodness! Are you sure?”
The distraught woman nodded. “I know it was hers because I had to fix the band with one of those white wire ties that companies use to tie up cords.” Crying openly,
she added, “I puh-puh-promised that I would use nail polish to make it pink like the rest of the band so it wouldn’t be obvious. I never got to it!” She stepped forward and buried her head in Jeremiah’s chest, breaking down completely.
Putting his arms around her, Jeremiah held her close as he tried to comfort her.
“It’s okay dear. It sounds like we have the lead we’ve needed.”
With her face pressed against his midsection, she was unable to see the sly grin that crossed his face.
“Let me take care of this,” he said, looking back towards the mansion.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Outside of Sayre, Oklahoma
Day 5
Standing under the carport area in front of the All Star Service Center convenience store, Major Adam Cotton took a long sip from the bottle of warm soda, feeling remarkably content as he did.
Honestly, it was no surprise that he felt that way. He always had when he’d led a team to the successful completion of a mission. The fact that as a Logistics Officer, this had been the first time he’d led men into battle was irrelevant, as was the fact that their targets had been a group of American servicemembers who hadn’t expected an attack on U.S. soil.
None of that mattered.
What mattered was the fact that they’d been successful.
Further analysis was not required.
In fact, his mind had already put an invisible barrier around the image of Sergeant Carlson, the man who’d died instantly when the 18 ton Stryker had driven over him.
What loss?
Success was what mattered, and standing in front of the small group of prisoners, looking at them with a lopsided smirk, he felt good.
Surviving Rage | Book 5 Page 39
