No Sanctuary Box Set: The No Sanctuary Omnibus - Books 1-6

by Mike Kraus

  “Do what you’re told unless you want to find yourself face-down in a ditch. Got it?”

  The guard nodded numbly and jogged to the back of the truck to speak with the men in the back. Omar’s hand fell on the pistol that he had stuck into his jacket pocket and he pulled it out, his lips twisting into a sneer. “Shey’taan,” he whispered, “this isn’t the end of things between you and me. Of that, I promise you.” He slipped the pistol back into his pocket and walked toward the safe house, determined to do something about what was going on.

  Chapter 10

  “They had a weapons depot right under our noses! How the hell did this happen?!” Frank and Jackson stood off to the side next to the truck they had taken while Linda stormed around the vehicle they had been pursuing which was still dripping gasoline from its tank. “A weapons depot, Jackson! How did no one realize they were setting this up? Is the entire US government inept?!”

  Jackson wisely chose to remain quiet during Linda’s rant and rampage, choosing to look at the ground and wait for her to calm down before figuring out what to do next. Frank, on the other hand, was more impatient and spoke up. “Linda, I know this is bad, but shouldn’t we be focusing on finding Omar right now instead of worrying about a weapons depot?”

  Linda stopped her pacing and stared at Frank for a long moment, her jaw working furiously even as she remained quiet. Finally she took a deep breath and nodded at him as she sighed. “Yes. You’re right. Sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” Jackson replied, walking over to the other truck and peering into the front cabin. “And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unless you managed to punch a hole in whatever vehicle’s gas tank that they took from here, I don’t know how we’re going to find them.”

  Linda glanced at Frank. “That part’s easy. Frank? I need your backpack.”

  “My b—”

  “Backpack, not twenty questions.”

  Frank turned and grabbed his pack from the floor of the passenger seat in the truck and held it out for Linda. She took it and set it down on the ground, unzipped it and began rifling through its contents while mumbling to herself. “If you dumped it on the ground… swear I’ll skin you… ha!” She grabbed at something near the bottom of the pack and pulled it out. “Here we go!”

  Jackson looked over at the device in her hand and shook his head. “A tracker? Are you… you put a tracker on their truck? How is that going to help us? And how did you do it in the first place? And why weren’t we following that instead of a freaking trail of spilled gasoline?!”

  Linda chuckled and shook her head as she opened the device to reveal the screen and controls. “Jackson, I’m still half as high as a kite. It slipped my mind. But in answer to your other question, no, I didn’t get a tracker on their truck.” She pushed a button and the screen lit up, and she began turning the device slowly in her hands. “Omar did, however, take all of my things that were in my pockets. My knife, gun, flashlight and the tracker that was in my pouch.”

  A wide smile spread across Frank’s face as he knelt down next to Linda and saw the indicator on the screen begin to flash. “There it is. To the north.”

  “Mhm.” Linda tapped a few buttons and frowned. “Only problem is that it’s way out there.”

  “How far?”

  “No way to tell without moving around a bit to get some triangulation of the signal. It’s to the north, probably a long way out of the city. Maybe at some safe house or another depot or something.”

  “You still want to go through with this?” Jackson stood over Linda, looking at her with a concerned expression. “We could fall back, get reinforcements and then go after him.”

  “No.” Linda shook her head as she closed up the tracker and stood up, cringing from a sudden pain in her chest. “We’re already falling further behind. The longer we wait, the more distance and time he’ll have to figure out a way to get away or to get the codes. No, we’re going after him right now.” She bent down to put the tracker back in the bag and couldn’t stifle a groan. Frank took the device and the bag as she leaned against the truck, taking a long, slow breath.

  “Meds starting to wear off, eh?” Jackson eyed her closely. “If they’re far outside the city you could be coming down off the high and the meds right as we arrive.”

  “There’s a reason why the speedballs come in threes, Jackson.” Linda replied with her eyes shut as she tried to regulate her talking and breathing to minimize the pain.

  “You’re not taking another one of those things, Rollins!”

  “We’ll discuss it when we get there.” Linda arched her back and pressed lightly on her chest, feeling the thick layers of bandages wrapped around her. “I’ll get in the back seat and take a rest while you two get us to wherever he is.”

  “Linda,” Frank replied with a concerned voice, “I think he might be right. We don’t know how many men Omar’s got with him. It could be us three against dozens of them. I think we should at least try to get a call in to the city, see if we can reach anyone and get some reinforcements sent up after us.”

  “I’m not wai—”

  “I’m not saying we have to wait for them. But let’s at least try to make a call, okay? See if we can get some people heading our direction as backup?”

  Linda hesitated a few seconds before nodding. “Fine. Just do it fast.” She opened the rear door on the vehicle, climbed inside and pulled the door closed, leaving Frank and Jackson to stand out on the pavement watching as she tried to find a comfortable position to rest in.

  “Well, you heard the lady.” Jackson nudged Frank in the side. “Let’s see if anyone’s still listening down there.”

  “I’m pretty sure I saw a radio setup inside the warehouse. It’ll probably work better than the handheld units we’ve got.”

  “Good eye.” Jackson nodded. “Use those cans and get the truck gassed up, then put whatever extras you can find in the back, along with any and all weapons and ammo you see lying around. I’ll get on the radio and see if I can get in touch with anyone.”

  Fifteen minutes after heading inside the building, Jackson reemerged as Frank was finishing up tossing boxes of ammunition into the bed of the truck along with a couple of spare cans of gasoline. In the back, Linda had her eyes closed, but her facial expression made it clear that she was agitated and wanted nothing more than to get on the road.

  “Everything ready?” Jackson looked in the back of the truck.

  “All set. Just need to secure these cans and we can leave. Were you able to contact anyone?”

  Jackson shrugged. “I’m not sure. I picked up bits and pieces of transmissions from the city but as far as actually talking to anyone? No. They had a nice little setup in there, though, so I set up a repeating loop broadcast. Hopefully our guys hear it and come after us before the bad guys do.”

  “I guess that’s the best we can do for now.”

  “Are you two really going to have that conversation out there?” The door to the rear cab of the truck cracked open and Linda’s voice came from within. “Let’s go already!”

  Jackson and Frank glanced at each other and Frank headed around to the driver’s door while Jackson tried to argue in protest. “Wait, why are you driving?”

  “Because I’m tired of riding shotgun on this little excursion.”

  Chapter 11

  Building and successfully detonating a bomb is not an easy task. There are a hundred different factors at play and a hundred different ways that the entire process can go south. The first obstacle is often in the planning process, before materials to create the bomb have even been acquired. Aspiring bombmakers either give up, end up killing themselves or inadvertently making contact with undercover law enforcement in their quest.

  If the materials can be acquired, the bomb must then be successfully assembled. This offers yet another opportunity capture by law enforcement or death in the process of creating the weapon. While there are numerous guides and resources available for aspiring bombmakers, tho
se that work in isolation—as many do—will often miss key aspects of the process. This can lead to failure or working with someone who turns out to be carrying a badge instead of successfully creating their explosive device.

  If the device can be successfully built without causing the capture or death of its creator, the next problem is just as daunting as the previous ones: how to deploy it. Sophisticated devices involving timers or remote detonators are not only harder to build, but they involve an even greater risk since they have the potential to either be discovered or to malfunction. Deployment of an explosive device is not, contrary to what television and movies seem to think, easy. At all.

  For a single individual, building and deploying explosives in a way that doesn’t involve them getting killed or caught is extremely difficult. For a small group of individuals, some parts of the job are easier while others—such as the risk of getting captured—increase.

  Unfortunately, all of these assumptions apply to situations where a single individual or small group is working in isolation and trying to stay hidden in the shadows while they assemble their materials. For someone who has virtually unlimited resources and connections, none of these assumptions apply.

  It has taken years for Omar’s men inside the United States to build up their cache of weapons and explosives, but they have not lacked for anything even in their isolation. Split up amongst a few dozen safe houses around the country, they have been given every luxury to ensure that they are comfortable while they work around the clock. Hundreds upon hundreds of devices are built and stored, stashed away in places that—even if the safe houses were somehow compromised—they would not lead back to the overarching plan put in place by Omar himself.

  Funds are funneled into the country through shell organizations and charities while materials are either crafted on-site or come from caches that have been slowly built up over a long period of time to avoid any hint of suspicion. Morale is a chief concern for Omar, and he ensures that not only are the operatives paid well, but that their families are taken care of and that they all have every possible convenience at their disposal.

  Once the devices are built, they must be deployed. This ends up being far easier than anyone could have predicted. Truck stops and weigh stations are targeted and devices are secured in place with magnets far enough inside the vehicles that they won’t be discovered unless a full-blown repair was undergone. With as many targets as there are, this is a possibility, but the timetable is kept short between deployment and detonation of the bombs, and none are found.

  Once enough trucks have been outfitted with the explosives over a four-day period, the plan is put into action. Each device is outfitted with a cellphone receiver cannibalized from a “burner” phone. En masse, using a simple piece of computer software, each number is dialed at the same time. The results are catastrophic. When carried out in conjunction with targeted infrastructure and viral attacks, there is no time for law enforcement on any level to carry out a response that can even begin to cope. Panic grips the throat of three hundred and fifty million people as they see millions of their own begin to die in the chaos.

  The death of millions and the collapse of a country’s infrastructure and sense of self was not brought about by a war or by an asteroid or by a solar flare or by an electromagnetic pulse. It was orchestrated by one man whose sheer force of will, drive and determination to seek revenge for his family drove him to commit mass murder.

  One person started it all. And three now seek to end it.

  Chapter 12

  Green grass had long since given up in the face of the cold and the trees that lined the country roads were barren aside from the occasional pine that stuck out amongst the bonelike limbs of the other, leafless species. Asphalt changed to gravel which changed to dirt and then back to asphalt, stirring up stone and dust as a lone vehicle crisscrossed the back roads north of Washington.

  While Omar’s trip to his safe house in the rural hills and plains was relatively quick and painless, the trip carried out by those trying to follow him was anything but. It had been over an hour since they took off from the depot, and they had no solid way of knowing how close they were to locating Omar’s hiding place.

  The tracking device was still giving off a signal, though the unspoken worry between Frank and Jackson was whether or not it would die before they arrived. It still amazed Jackson that Omar had pocketed the tracker, and though he wondered if they might not be driving into a trap, he had to concede that it was altogether possible that the man had simply not ever seen one before.

  “You thinking about the tracker again?” Frank spoke softly from the driver’s seat as he glanced over at Jackson. In the back, Linda had finally fallen asleep and was snoring intermittently.

  “That obvious, huh?” Jackson shook his head. “This is the only lead we’ve got on the man singlehandedly responsible for all of this crap and here I am looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “You’re just doing your job. What you’re trained to do.”

  “What do you think, Richards?”

  Frank snorted in amusement. “I think that questions like that are way beyond my pay grade and skill level. But if Linda thinks that he’s not trying to double-cross us, then I’d go with her gut instinct. She knows him better than anyone else does, I’d guess.”

  “What a hell of a way to live. Spending years hunting someone and he ends up doing all of this. It’s a conspiracy theorist’s best dream and worst nightmare all wrapped up into one.”

  “Heh. I just hope she can handle what’s coming up next.” Frank looked at Linda’s still form in the rearview mirror. “He really worked her over.”

  “Oh, she’ll be able to handle it. His best case scenario at this point is to put a bullet through his brain before she gets to him.”

  “No kidding.”

  A slight smile crossed Jackson’s lips. “What’s the story with you and her anyway?”

  Frank felt his heart rate increase at the question. “What do you mean by story?”

  “How you two managed to link up. I mean, you’re not exactly… well, I mean…” Jackson fumbled with his words.

  “I’m not exactly a soldier or a Marine? It’s okay, Jackson. You won’t hurt my feelings.” Frank shook his head and smiled. “I was an accountant for years. The only trade I knew. Then, when things started going south I was laid off and spent a while out of work before I took the only job I could find—driving trucks across the country.”

  “Was yours one of the ones that they hit?”

  “Oh yes. I happened to be getting a bite to eat—and ruining my driving stats at the same time—when it just… yeah.” Frank shivered at the memory. “I was stuck up in Maine and my parents live in Texas, so I hoofed it to the closest town to try and find a way to get down there. One thing led to another, I saved her from a really pissed-off group of people at a gas station, she abandoned me in the middle of nowhere, I saved her again, yada yada yada, here I am now. Driving a military vehicle around north of D.C. searching for a terrorist.”

  “Not exactly what you’d pictured doing, is it?”

  “It never made my top ten list, no.”

  Jackson chuckled and looked back down at the tracker. “Take a left up here at this next road.” Frank nodded, and as they turned off onto yet another road, Jackson continued. “She likes you, you know.”

  Frank froze mid-turn at Jackson’s words, nearly driving them off of the road before he managed to recover amidst Jackson’s fruitless attempt to stifle his laughter. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Frank kept his eyes on the road, trying to keep his voice level and natural and failing on both counts.

  “She likes you. It’s obvious. Plus I’ve gotten a couple earfuls from Sarah.”

  “I… I don’t…”

  “Hey, you don’t have to talk to me about it.” Jackson turned and looked at Linda, still sleeping in the back seat. “But it’s true. She’s got a thing for you.”

  “This really isn’t
…”

  “There’s never going to be a perfect time, Frank.” Jackson’s smile turned sad. “This whole mess has torn everything apart. We’ve all lost a lot. Just… don’t waste any opportunities. Okay? She may act like she’s all about the mission and the goal but there’s still some emotions buried under those layers of scars and callouses. If you want to say something, then do it.”

  “I…” Frank struggled to find the right words before settling on the best thing he could think of. “I will. And thanks. I appreciate that.”

  “Yep. And hey, look at that!” Jackson jabbed a finger at the tracker’s screen. “Signal’s coming in way louder. I think we can get a proper triangulation on it.” He pushed a few buttons on the device before looking up at the road. “Swing the next right you can. I need to get a few more readings from a different location.”

  “Got it. Taking a right.”

  ***

  An additional forty-five minutes passed, with only the occasional “take a right” or “take a left” punctuating the silence. Each time they made a new turn, Jackson would scribble on a scrap of paper lying on the dashboard, recording the signal strengths from various locations as he worked to figure out the precise location of the tracker. A map of the area was folded over next to him and had red X’s in various spots.

  “Which way now?” Frank eased the truck to a stop at a four-way intersection and looked over at Jackson.

  “Gimme a sec.” Jackson mumbled as he looked between his scrap of paper and the map before closing the tracking device and spreading the map across his legs. He used his red pencil to draw a circle around a point just to their northeast and looked up at Frank. “There. We’re going there.”

  “You sure?”

  “We’ve taken double the number of readings needed. So yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Double? You mean we could have been there by now?”

  “Call me overly cautious, but I’d rather not go in with guns blazing to the wrong address.”