Breakout (Final Dawn)

by Maloney, Darrell

  Thirty seconds passed.

  Hannah reported, “No change.”

  Mark relayed, “No change.”

  Finally, John and Bryan made it to their destination. Directly ahead of them, and about fifty yards away, was the west wall of the compound. They were still in heavy brush, and could just barely make out the wall, and only because the late afternoon sun was at their backs and shone its dying beams upon it.

  John turned the Gator completely around, so that it was pointing back toward the way they’d come. They’d need every second they could to make a fast getaway.

  “Okay, we’re in position.”

  “They’re in position, Hannah.”

  “Okay. No change. Still two on the gate, one on the south side of the roof, one in the dining room, the others in their rooms.”

  Mark relayed the information, then added, “It’s a go whenever you’re ready.”

  John and Bryan waited another five minutes, until they were sure they’d have the setting sun at their backs.

  Then they carried the extension ladders across the clearing to the face of the wall, extended them, and leaned them against the wall four feet apart.

  They climbed up the ladders until they could peek over the wall. They knew the sun directly behind them would hide them from anyone looking their way. However, they thought it prudent to maintain a low profile anyway.

  From their position, they had an unobstructed view of the two guards a hundred and twenty yards away, on the opposite end of the compound.

  They took their AR-15 rifles and propped them upon the rungs of their ladders to steady them. Then they sighted in their targets.

  “I’ve got the one on the left.”

  “Okay, I’ve got the right.”

  “Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Okay, three… two… one… fire.”

  Both rifle shots went off simultaneously. Both of their targets fell to the ground.

  John and Bryan dismounted the ladders and laid them down. They had served their purpose for now, so there was no need in trying to take them back.

  Within seconds they were back on the Gator and hauling ass back to the entrance of the mine, while listening to Mark’s words in their ears.

  Hannah said, “One appears to be dead. He was shot right between the shoulder blades and hasn’t moved. The other was shot in the upper chest. He’s on the ground, convulsing but still alive.”

  She paused long enough for Mark to relay the play by play to the shooters.

  Then she went on.

  “The one in the dining room has moved to the hallway and is looking out the window toward the gate. He appears to be afraid to go outside. The one on the roof is still there. Two others came out of their rooms and are now out in the hallway with the other one. I think the second man at the gate has died. He’s not moving anymore.”

  Mark passed the info onto the shooters.

  John responded, “10-4. We’re about five minutes away.”

  “10-4, John. Hannah, let me know if anything changes. John, I’ll open the door as soon as I have you in sight.”

  A few minutes later the Gator came out of the woods and Mark opened up the mine’s overhead door. David and Brad stood by with weapons at the ready during the thirty seconds the door was open. Mark reclosed it immediately after John and Bryan came speeding in and screeched to a halt.

  Mark called back to Hannah and said, “All secure. Everyone accounted for.”

  Then he gave his brother and John each a high five.

  “Two more down. Nice going, guys.”

  The two men on the Gator had each just taken a human life. But they weren’t bothered by it. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Instead of remorse or guilt, they each felt a sense of accomplishment.

  It turned out that despite their initial reservations, guerrilla warfare suited them quite nicely.

  FINAL DAWN BOOK 4: THE SIEGE will be available on Amazon.com and through Barnes and Noble Booksellers in September, 2014.

  **********

  Please enjoy this preview of The Cleansing, available now on Amazon.com in paper and Kindle formats. Also available through Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

  THE CLEANSING

  Ron Bennett was a scumbag. Not in his own eyes, of course. He thought quite highly of himself. As a former President of the United States, he was well known, and people paid him lip service and told him how great he was everywhere he went. But they did that to every former President, simply because, well, how often does the average person ever get a chance to meet one?

  So he was fawned over and made to feel special. But nearly everyone really despised him. He hadn’t been much of a President, after all. He barely squeaked into office after his predecessor finished a very successful second term and couldn’t run again. Bennett, on the other hand, tanked the economy and got the United States into a war with a former soviet bloc country for the worst of reasons. He didn’t like the dictator who ran it.

  So Bennett did what Presidents sometimes do. He misused his power and had his people develop falsified evidence, false testimony, that this nation was developing weapons capable of destroying Israel and the United States. It was all bullshit. But it’s ridiculously easy to deceive a public who doesn’t have access to the truth.

  It’s easy for a crooked politician, whose party controls both houses of congress, to mold the truth into whatever he wants it to be.

  So Bennett did that. He sent American troops into a country that had no plans to attack either Israel or the United States. And had they wanted to, they didn’t have the means to. What they did have, though, was a strong army which was fiercely loyal to its leader. Loyal enough to die for him. And they did, in vast numbers.

  The problem was, they took a lot of Americans along with them. Over 3,000 of them. America’s finest. Our sons and daughters. Dead on frozen battlefields half a world away. For nothing. Because Bennett didn’t like the man who ran that country.

  It wasn’t the first time, of course, an American President had started a war for his own ideological reasons. Or to meet his own personal agenda.

  It wasn’t until Bennett was defeated by a landslide after his first term that rumors started to circulate. And it wasn’t until the new President stopped the war and withdrew the American troops from the decimated country that inspectors discovered the extent of the fraud perpetrated on the American people.

  UN inspectors discovered no weapons of mass destruction. No nuclear capability. No chemical weapons. No biological weapons. Just millions of rifles, rocket launchers and land mines. Defensive weapons. The kinds of weapons that could be used to ward off a rich, powerful country like the United States for a certain period of time. But not to be a threat to anyone.

  And later, Bennett’s real motives became known. American Times Magazine did an extensive investigation that took two years to complete. They discovered that the whole slew of them- Bennett, his relatives, his friends, friends of friends, all had invested heavily in the defense industry in the months leading up to his taking office. Each one of them made tens of millions. So did the friends and families of the Vice President, the Chief of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. But the investments were so well hidden, so well sheltered in blind trusts and overseas reinvestments, that a final accounting was never completed.

  And there was nothing illegal about it. That’s what outraged Americans most of all. The blood money this group took in exchange for 3,000 American lives broke no rules.

  So even though individually they fawned over him, Americans as a group grew to hate this man.

  Bennett didn’t let that stop him, of course. He did what disgraced politicians always do. He went to ground, stayed on the family ranch for a couple of years, and laid low. He waited for the dust to settle, for the smoke to clear. For people to forget.

  Then he very slowly, very carefully, began to reintroduce himself to the public. He became a client
of the best public relations firm in the country. They were famous for making the despicable appear tolerable. And they knew their stuff.

  They started out by scheduling his appearances at the speaking engagements of other, more popular players. Long-term congressmen who enjoyed approval ratings of over seventy percent in their districts. Senators who were considered up and comers in their political party. Philanthropists who were famous for funding children’s hospitals, or shelters for the homeless.

  And at some point during each of these events, the cameras would record his presence in the group. Because, after all, he was a former President. And with his permanent detail of four secret service agents, he tended to stick out in a crowd.

  And when asked for a comment or interview from a local television station or print reporter, he’d be careful to take the high road.

  “Oh, this isn’t about me,” he’d say. “I’m just here to celebrate the opening of this wonderful new hospital for children’s cancer patients.”

  The goal, of course, was to ease him back into the public spotlight. To make him palatable again. To encourage Americans to forget his transgressions, and bury the past. To let bygones be bygones.

  If, a little at a time, he could be seen less and less as a heartless seller of American lives, and more as a misunderstood good guy, then he’d be able to reintegrate into society. Begin sitting on boards of big corporations again. Start rolling in even more and more millions to add to his already vast fortune.

  And so it was that he came to be sitting in the audience at Mike Allen’s anniversary dinner to celebrate his fortieth year in the United States Senate. He didn’t sit at the head table, of course, although they’d offered it to him. He had a table toward the back of the banquet hall, where he could enter without much fanfare and make an early exit if the crowd appeared to be openly hostile toward him.

  And it was while sitting at this table, while Allen was in the middle of expressing his gratitude for the people who put on the event, that Ron Bennett’s heart exploded. Without warning.

  He was dead instantly, of course. As his head fell into his bowl of soup, a secret service agent was on him immediately. Shielding him from further gunshots. A second agent helped him to the floor, where he’d be a harder target. A call went out on a hidden microphone, and the two remaining agents at the exits went on alert, scanning the rafters for threats. Then the crowd.

  The first agent had the former President on the floor now, assessing his condition. He quickly determined that the President was dead. He had no respiration or pulse. His face was covered with chicken bisque soup, his eyes wide open.

  The agent knew he was dead even before his head slumped. Otherwise his reflexes would have closed his eyes as his head fell forward.

  He also quickly realized that Bennett was not felled by a bullet. There was simply no visible wound. He keyed his collar mike and turned his head to the left.

  “It looks like natural causes and he’s signal 60. Get an ambulance here quickly. No lights, no siren.”

  The cleansing had begun.

  **********

  If you enjoyed Breakout, you might also enjoy The Secession of Texas, available now at Amazon.com in paper and kindle formats. Also available at Barnes and Noble Booksellers.

  “Darrell Maloney’s breakthrough novel, The Secession of Texas, is a must-read. Fast paced, relevant, and ripped from today’s headlines, this one will keep you spellbound.”

  The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2013

  THE SECESSION OF TEXAS

  It had been raining on the capitol of Texas virtually non-stop for three days. Even those with the rosiest of dispositions were starting to feel the effects.

  Rick Perry stood at his office window, deep in thought. It broke his heart, knowing that his beloved state was being torn apart from within.

  The booming voice of Charlie Bennett, Perry’s Chief of Staff, interrupted the Governor’s introspection.

  “Good morning, boss. Ain’t it a damn pretty day out there?”

  “Yeah, sure, let’s go with that.” Perry said. “You got any good news this morning?”

  “Well, I heard a new conspiracy theory on the radio on my way in. You want to hear it?”

  “I can’t wait.” Perry said.

  “According to this one, we’re going to secede just so we can attach ourselves to Mexico. Become one of their territories. Wait a minute. Does Mexico even have territories? Anyway, this one is being spread by Marty Jacobs himself, and he sounds pretty convinced it’s true.”

  Marty Jacobs was a far-left winger, a radio hack who made up new garbage every day just to incense the liberals and sell advertising.

  “Yeah,” the Governor stated. “Well, you know I generally don’t give a diddly damn what Marty Jacobs thinks.”

  “You should, Rick. A lot of people take his opinions as gospel. And these days, people are so confused about where this whole thing is headed, that they’ll listen to anybody they think they can trust”

  Governor Perry propped his still-wet cowboy boots on the corner of his desk.

  “Well, the way I see it, Charlie, is that this can end one of two ways. Either we cave to the nut jobs and let them have their damn referendum, and Oscar Nevins writes in his column that I caved because I’m a spineless pushover.

  “Or, I take the hard line and delay this thing until it all blows over, and he writes that I won’t listen to the people and follow the state’s constitution.

  “So I’m kinda damned if I do and damned if I don’t”

  “That’s true enough, Rick, but he’s gonna crucify you one way or the other. And the longer you wait to take an official position, the more he’s gonna tell his readers that you’re a flip-flopper. Might as well tell him what you’re gonna do so he can move on to complaining about that instead.”

  Bennett poured himself a cup of coffee, and carried the pot over to the Governor’s desk.

  “Getting bad press in the Tribune isn’t the end of the world, you know,” Bennett said matter-of-factly as he refilled the Governor’s cup. “There are a lot of other papers, better papers, that are saying you’re in a no-win situation here.”

  “Yeah, well, that doesn’t make it any easier. They’re not the ones whose ass is hanging in the wind. And the Tribune writing such… stuff. That’s pretty much like getting booed by your own home field fans.”

  “You decided what to do yet?”

  The Governor’s only response was a glare and a brief silence. Then, “You too?”

  “Sorry, but if we’re going to give them their referendum we have to schedule it within thirty days of their petition. That’s Saturday. And I didn’t write the damn constitution, but that’s what it says.”

  The Governor put his boots back onto the floor and walked over to the window. With his back to Bennett, and while watching two pigeons pacing back and forth on his window sill trying to avoid the rain, Rick Perry made the most fateful decision of his political career.

  “Issue a press release, Charlie. Say we’re going to schedule the secession referendum for April first. That’ll bring all the loonies out for sure.”

  “Yes sir.” Bennett picked up the phone, then put it back down when the Governor started to speak again.

  “Maybe,” Perry said, “I’ll get to be President after all.”

  He turned to look at Bennett with a slight grin on his face.

  “Don’t put that in the press release.”

  Bennett chuckled and called the governor’s press secretary to schedule a meeting at ten a.m.

  Then he walked out of the office softly whistling “Hail to the Chief.”

  Rick Perry sipped his coffee, still looking out his window at the rain. It had been a rough year for him. The whole primary season, the debates, the media trying their best to make him look like a fool.

  He wasn’t normally a man who carried grudges, but there were a lot of people he learned to despise over the previous few months. And he couldn’t help it, the fe
elings just wouldn’t go away.

  And the phone call from Gingrich the previous afternoon certainly didn’t help much.

  “Hey, I hear y’all are just gonna saw off that big ole state of yours and float it out into the Gulf of Mexico,” Gingrich told him. “Let me know if you can get me a good price on a beachfront near Dallas, would you?”

  “Yeah, yeah, you pompous ass. Go back to building your moon colony and don’t worry about what we’re doing here in Texas.”

  Well, he didn’t actually tell Gingrich that. He wanted to, but thought it better to take the high road and just laugh off the joke even though it wasn’t funny.

  He didn’t like Gingrich much before the primaries, and learned to despise him even more during the debates. Gingrich did everything he could to make Perry look like a buffoon in front of the television audience. It was a slight he’d not soon forget.

  Perry left the window and returned to his desk, then finished what was left of his coffee. He buzzed his secretary and asked her to get Fred Marks on the phone.

  Fred was the chairman of the Republican National Committee. He deserved to know before the public did. Perry owed him that much.

  While he waited he took a pen and jotted down a list of others he needed to call before the press release hit the streets. A couple of the other governors who were close friends of his. Several of his big financial backers. His Attorney General.

  He caught himself reading the writing on his pen. “Rick Perry,” in gold letters. “Governor of Texas” in bright, bold GOP red in slightly smaller letters below the name. He wondered how much longer…

  The phone rang and jarred him back to the task at hand. It was Fred Marks.

  “Fred, you’re the first to know, but keep it under your hat as much as you can. I’m going to give them their damn vote.”