CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THE PRESIDENT OF THE United States of America held his head in his hands as the Joint Chief of Staff and his top military leaders sat waiting for a response. There was no way out of this and he had to make the most important decision of his career. For that matter, his life.
Martial law, and a war that would be fought on American soil. How did it come to this? He didn’t know if the people could take another war. They had just gotten out of the Middle East, and now it seemed every enemy was coming to the U.S. Reports were coming in from China, Russia, and Iran, to name a few. It looked like they were banding together to put an end to the self-declared police of the world.
He finally gathered his thoughts enough to speak. His advisers leaned in.
“When I took that sacred vow to serve the American people, I knew that one day, we would stop policing the world and just take care of our own. I’d hoped to do it in stages and teach the nations we aided how to live without their hands out, and how to turn their countries around. But it seems the countries we have helped and fought for have grown tired of our presence. Hospitality is a fickle thing, ladies and gentlemen. I knew this day would come, I just hoped it would be in some other lifetime.”
The president was exasperated, and his tie was torn off and balled up on his desk.
“Look, we can argue all day about what we should have done. The problem is, what do we do now? We can’t fight three countries at the same time. We all agree on that?” The room muttered with approval and a few nods. “Okay, then. We have a few options. One is to fortify and defend. I know it’s not in our nature, but why not let them come to us for a change. Let them kill their economy and pick them off one at a time. Or we can pull out the “N” word, hit hard and fast, and settle the problem in a week.”
“Sir?”
“Go ahead, Jim.”
“Thank you. The people are too soft to bear the responsibility of another nuclear strike. The media would have our heads, and the spirit of the people would be destroyed.”
“Noted. But sometimes, Jim, a traitor and a murderer, in time, is seen as a hero. What do you think will happen to the morale if we have to fight a war on our own soil?”
A tall blonde in her twenties stepped into the room and handed the president a folded piece of paper. He opened it up and his eyes widened. Picking up the phone, he said. “You sure? Thank you very much. We are in your debt.”
Placing the phone back in its cradle, he looked up and a smile crossed his face. “Looks like one of our biggest problems was solved for us. That was Carson from the FBI. Taras Karjanski is dead!”
* * *
TWO HUNDRED MILES OUTSIDE of Incirlik, a covert team of fifty-five Iranians drove through the mountains in armored Humvees. The mountains of Turkey proved to be not only treacherous but, literally, a wasteland.
Hours later, they crested the ridge that overlooked the Incirlik Air Base. From here, the United States housed thousands of military families and deployed servicemen. The base was its own little city. It had a movie theater, supermarkets, and a medical park. Soldiers flew in from Iran, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries on their way to the United States, using the base as a stopping point.
A short, stocky man spoke into a headset in Arabic. “We are in place. We will paint the target, send in the fighters!”
The base had a very high level of security. Fighter jets within the base perimeter wouldn’t go unanswered, but the F15 Eagle that carried a special passenger was still a thousand miles off. “Paint the target!”
The fifty men had moved up and down the mountainside, taking refuge in the rocks and behind large, spine-covered cacti. They each held a brand new Russian “Electronic Target Enabler,” or E.T.E., that sent an invisible beam of infrared light over the base. Each soldier had a specific target. Hospital, airplane hangars, and the command center. Forty-five different targets, and in less than five minutes, they would all be a pile of rubble.
The headset sounded. “Package is away.”
The “Ghost” dropped from the F15, and two tiny wings shot out from its side as a burst of fire ignited and rocketed the device forward. It housed a nuclear tip on fifty separate missiles. Each rocket had an onboard computer that would read the exact signal from the locked-in corresponding E.T.E.
As Ghost came within two hundred miles of the base, it split apart, and the fifty missiles shot forward as they dove for the ground. Just before impact, they turned like fingers and raced toward the air base only twenty feet above the ground. The base didn’t even see them coming.
* * *
HEIDI MILLER HAD NO time for the now very upset five-year-old in the back seat of her minivan. “Joey, I said no! We’ll go to McDonald’s another day.” The yelling for a Happy Meal continued without even the slightest recognition of his mother’s authority. Heidi sighed and decided to ignore her son. It was hot and the air base was not her home.
This was a far cry from Texas. Heidi had blonde, straight hair, and her five-year-old had his daddy’s dark eyes and brown hair. She was a beauty queen back home, and now all she seemed to be was eye candy for all the soldiers, except her husband.
“Military life,” she muttered. If she’d known what was in store for her life, she would have never married Bill. But too late now. He was a good man, but all the moving and the long tours were killing her. She couldn’t take much more, but what could she do?
The sound of a jet engine was not an odd noise on the base, but this particular sound made her look up. Just as she pulled onto Fifth Avenue, she saw a rocket blazing a trail right for her minivan. She screamed as the impact tore through the van and hit the gas station behind her. The building rolled with a huge fireball that consumed everything in its path.
* * *
I COULD HEAR THE faint sounds of a familiar voice. It was like being underwater, when everything is muffled and only the bass sounds come through. There was a monotone beeping sound, what was that? I opened my eyes to see K leaning over me with tears in her eyes. I gave her a weak smile. The beeping was gone.
I could feel her body shaking as she sobbed in my shoulder. I hurt all over, and memories flooded back from the time I’d spent in the hospital after the explosion that had killed K and Sam. Then again, that turned out to be a dream, but I still could feel the glass and metal as it cut into my skin.
I opened my mouth to tell K that it was okay, but all that came out was a deep mumbling sound. She looked up at me with her big, beautiful eyes, and spoke in a slow precise manner. I only heard bass rumblings, but I read her lips.
“Mark, you lost your hearing.” She held her hands up to her ears then touched mine. I couldn’t even hear the soft sound her hand made when she touched my ear. “They think it will come back. I love you, baby!” K kissed me with her sweet lips, and I tasted the salt from her tears. I pulled her close and kissed her neck.
K sat up as Isis and Kirk walked into the room. I suddenly recognized the room I was in. It was in the infirmary at the Merc building. Isis smiled and waved at me. Kirk walked up, looked me over with a stern expression, and then shook my hand. A grin crossed his face, and he put his arm around Isis.
The television monitor hanging on the wall showed a white screen, and Isis handed me a wireless keyboard. She had one too, and as she typed, I saw it up on the screen. “Welcome back! And don’t ever do that again. We filled K in, and may I say, she is lovely.”
I pulled myself up on my elbow and got into a comfortable sitting position. My head throbbed, and the room spun for a few seconds, but then it all went back to normal. I typed. “Thanks for coming after me. K, I love you so much. I’m taking some time off so you can have me all to yourself.”
K took the keyboard from Isis and said. “I love you too, baby. They want to watch you tonight, and then in the morning you can come home. I’m just glad you’re alive. They told me who you were with. I’m just glad it’s over.”
I tried to hide my fear behind a big smile. But de
ep down inside, I had a funny feeling that it was just getting started.
* * *
MAC HAD A GOOD job with UPS, and with the changing times he felt as secure as he could in a job. He figured that if the federal government went south, then his job would, too. But everyone would be in the same mess and his job would be the least of his worries.
He pulled on his brown socks. They would always slip down, and he liked them up high to complete the uniform. Brown hat, brown shorts, and a brown shirt. He never told anyone, but he even had brown underwear.
Mama always said to be proud of who you were if you had something to be proud of. He looked one last time in the mirror before he left the driver’s seat and hit the elevator button. He was a track star in college, and after getting his degree, he opted for the call of “Brown.” His mama never asked why, but he knew that she suspected the truth. He went to college so he could prove he could, and graduated with honors.
The doors to the elevator opened, and he smiled at the tall blonde he saw just about every time he went to the Merc building. “Hello, Stacie, I see you look stunning once again this fine morning.” Mac let the words spill from his mouth unashamed, as Stacie blushed and hit him on the arm.
“Mac, you flirt.”
Mac let his polished white teeth show his delight, and he pretended to be shy.
“Will I be enjoying your company this evening at, shall we say, eight?” Mac had tried to get a date with Stacie for a year now. One day, he would get her to say yes.
“My, my, Mac. You are not one for mincing words, are you? Let me see…” She looked up at the ceiling like she was deep in thought about what she would do. “Ask me next week, and I may just go out with you.” With that, the doors opened to the fifth floor where Stacie got off with a flip of her hair. Mac stood staring after her and shook his head. One day, one day.
Heading back down to the first floor, Mac entered the lobby of the environmental magazine and smiled as he approached the front desk. “Miss Molly!”
The gray-haired woman at the front counter smiled and signed the electronic pad Mac handed to her. “Mac, are you messing with my girls again? I thought I heard some sort of goings-on in the elevator.”
Mac put on a serious look and said, “Well, no, ma’am.” The older lady eyed him and huffed in disbelief. They played the grandma and grandson bit all the time, and she rather enjoyed it. Mac could brighten her day by just walking by her desk.
“Thank you, Miss Molly. Have a good day now.” With that, he turned and strolled toward the elevator. The brown package was the size of a shoebox and was addressed to the Global Advisor. Miss Molly placed it with the rest of the mail on the mail cart, not knowing that inside, something was already working.
The tiny, unnoticeable holes let a clear, unscented killer out and into the air. The little grey-haired lady sitting at the front counter breathed in the invisible virus, not realizing that she would be dead in fewer than two weeks. It filled the main lobby and was sucked up and into the main air-conditioning ducts. They carried it throughout the building, and after it was exposed to every living thing, it settled on the plants scattered through the building and melted away.
In a matter of hours, all the plants in the Merc building were dead. Their leaves curled up and turned brown just before they crumbled to dust and fell to the floor. The package sat on the mail cart waiting to be delivered. Inside, as a last gift to the World Justice Agency, was a small, dead dog.
A red dog.
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About the Author
AARON PATTERSON:
Aaron is the father of three kids: Soleil, Kale, and Klayton. He is the author of the bestselling Mark Appleton thriller series, The Airel Saga, and The Sarah Steele thriller series. Aaron worked in the construction field for 11 years and is now a full-time writer. Aaron was home schooled and has a bachelor’s degree in theology. He loves to hike, snowboard, camp, and drink coconut lattes. He is also the founder of StoneHouse Ink and Co-founder of StoneHouse University. He speaks all over the country on the subject of eBooks, writing and the changing publishing world.
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PREVIEW OF:
In Your Dreams
Book 3 in the WJA Series
CHAPTER ONE
B.C. 2012 Havilah, Arabia
KREIOS RAN THROUGH THE DENSE forest. His robe fluttered around him like a frightened bird. He could hear the things behind him cursing and spitting in fury as they searched for him in the darkness.
Kreios was a big man with strong arms, chest, and legs. He did not hesitate as he leaped over a dead log in his path. In spite of his size, he was fast, and moved through the forest without a sound.
The warm night sky loomed overhead, and a fat, low-hanging moon looked on with indifference. Kreios clutched a book in his left arm and ducked under a branch to avoid a head wound. The two beings behind him crashed through the underbrush like unskilled hunters. Kreios ran without looking back. He knew that he must keep the book safe at all costs, even if it meant his life.
A howl erupted from his flank, and Kreios dove for cover under a huge willow tree root. He calmed his breathing, tucked the leather-bound book tighter under his robe, pulled the hood up over his blond hair, and curled up in a ball. He waited.
A snort and the footsteps of the two attackers came close to his hiding spot; nevertheless, he was not discovered. Two hours passed, and the two beasts gave up their hunt and moved out, heading west, back to their camp. The Seer would be very angry with them and might even take their lives because of their failure. Kreios did not mind. In fact, he hoped they would die and leave him with fewer of their kind to kill.
Working his hand free, he removed the book and looked at it with awe and wonder. Words glimmered as he wrote in it every night, but he was surprised to find that each morning, the words disappeared. However, by just a thought, they would reappear and shimmer like diamonds.
The book had his name on the cover and contained the complete history of his kind and their fall. In the wrong hands, it would mean death and enslavement. Climbing to his feet, he ran into the small creek and ran north. He had escaped this time, but he had many more battles to fight before the book would be safe.
* * *
Copyright ©2009, 2013 by Aaron Patterson
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.
StoneHouse Ink
2013
StoneHouse Ink
Boise ID 83713
www.StoneHouseInk.net
First Hardcover Edition: July 2009
First Paperback Edition: July 2009
First eBook Edition 2009
Second Paperback Edition 2011
Second eBook Edition 2013
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Patterson, Aaron, 1979
Dream On: a novel/ by Aaron Patterson. 1st. ed. p.cm.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010902251
Cover design by Cory Clubb
Table of Contents
Also by Aaron Patterson
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
>
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
About the Author
Preview of In Your Dreams
Copyright Information
DREAM ON (Mark Appleton #2) Page 25
