The Divide

by Scott B. Williams

  FERAL NATION

  The Divide

  Feral Nation Series

  Book 4

  Scott B. Williams

  www.scottbwilliams.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and events are all products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Scott B. Williams

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Cover design © Scott B. Williams

  Editor: Michelle Cleveland

  12.13.18

  This series is an ongoing serial. Each book is an immediate continuation of the earlier story, so for the best reading experience the books should be read in order, starting with Book 1.

  Here are the links to the current books in the series:

  Feral Nation - Infiltration: Book 1

  Feral Nation - Insurrection: Book 2

  Feral Nation - Tribulation: Book 3

  Feral Nation - The Divide: Book 4

  Feral Nation - Perseverance: Book 5

  These links will be updated as new books are added to the series. Be the first to know what’s coming next in this series as well as my other books by signing up for my New Release Updates

  One

  ERIC BRANSON STUDIED THE scene before him with his night vision monocular as he sat drifting in the Klepper kayak, its matte black hull invisible in the dark shadows of the tall pines standing atop the steep bluffs of the lakeshore. He could clearly see the stolen military gunboat he was looking for, tied up alongside a raft of empty barges moored to the bank at the head of the cove. A man with a rifle slung over his shoulder hurried by it, walking the deck of the adjacent barge with his head down and covered by his jacket hood against the rain. The man was obviously on guard duty, but at the moment appeared more annoyed by the weather than concerned with any possible threat. The cold drizzle Eric had paddled through for nearly two hours showed no sign of letting up, but despite the chill it brought to the night, it was a welcome cloak that along with the darkness, would greatly increase his chance of success.

  Several other vessels were tied up in front of and behind the gunboat, the barges apparently serving as a floating dock for the operations ashore. Most of the others were small, outboard-powered runabouts and fishing boats, but there was a large pontoon houseboat among the fleet too, and it was towards that particular vessel that the lone man was walking. A dim light was glowing through its lower level curtains, indicating that the houseboat likely served as a guardhouse of sorts, while the gunboat itself was dark and unoccupied, having no real living quarters, just a pilothouse for the crew. Eric watched as the man boarded the houseboat, where he glanced one more time out to the blackness of the rainy lake before disappearing to the comforts inside.

  If this was the extent of security here, Eric knew the first part of his operation would be easier than he expected. This cove on a narrow arm of the big lake was several miles south of the lock and dam at its outflow, and since the occupants controlled that entrance as well as the connecting waterway to the south, it was unlikely they were expecting a threat from the water at this hour on a nasty night such as this. Eric would use their complacency to his full advantage.

  He’d planned to leave the kayak some distance away and complete his approach to the former campground by circling around through the woods on foot, but what he’d just seen presented new possibilities that might be far more efficient. He wasn’t sure if the man he’d seen was the only one aboard the houseboat or not, but what he was sure of was the lack of professionalism on the part of whoever was in charge. It would make getting the information he sought that much easier.

  Eric put away the monocular and picked up his paddle again, quietly dipping it in long, steady strokes that would quickly close the gap to the barges. Lieutenant Holton had tried to persuade him to bring one of the soldiers from his post along with him in the kayak, both to help him paddle and to provide back up, but Eric had refused. His chances of success were better alone than with an unknown companion, especially one with no experience in this particular type of operation that was truly Eric’s specialty.

  He was fortunate to have the kayak available at all. It was perfect for what he had to do tonight and the only reason he did have it was because it was his own boat, the one he’d used for his covert entry back to the U.S. after a drop off from a tanker ship near the Florida coast several weeks prior. He’d only brought it along for the journey up the Mississippi in order to stash it somewhere in case he needed it later, as unlikely as that might be. When he was offered the prospect of a faster means to complete his journey west to Colorado by agreeing to a mission proposed by Lieutenant Holton, Eric immediately knew he could put the kayak to good use. The target was on the shore of a lake that was part of a larger inland navigation system, and since he was going in without the benefit of a squad of fellow SEALs and the more sophisticated delivery systems that had been available to him on those missions, the kayak was better than any other option he had. Besides, Eric only had to use it to cover the last few miles, as the lieutenant had been able to arrange for an airdrop from a helicopter in a different isolated cove on the lake that was far enough away its approach wouldn’t be heard. If things went as planned, he would rendezvous with the same helicopter crew at another extraction point at 0400. So far, everything had gone as planned. There’d been no sign of activity near the LZ upon approach, and the pilot hovered low over a gravel beach just long enough for Eric to dump the disassembled kayak and hop out after it. When the UH-72 Lakota had disappeared, and all was quiet again on the lake, Eric had worked quickly to set it up, and then he carefully worked his way along the shoreline, keeping to the shallows and close to cover as he paddled to his objective. But there’d been no sights or sounds of movement on the dark lake other than his own, and he attributed that to the nasty weather, which he hoped would hold until he was finished with what he had to do here.

  The final approach to the moored boats would expose him to view if the guard he’d seen or anyone else happened to look in his direction, but Eric doubted that would happen before he reached cover again. With smooth, quiet strokes of his Greenland paddle, he made the crossing in less than ten minutes and reached temporary safety when he slipped under the bow the first barge in the lineup. Just as he’d expected there would be, there was enough space between the landward side of the steel hull and the ten-foot-high clay bank to create a hidden passageway sufficient for his kayak to pass. Eric used it to slip quietly towards the middle of the raft, in the direction of the houseboat. From his low perspective in the seat of the kayak, the bank above him blocked any view of what was ashore here, but Eric knew he would find out soon enough. Rather than waste the remaining hours of darkness sneaking around with no solid intel, he hoped to get the answers he needed through more expedient means.

  When he reached the third barge in the line, the one he knew the houseboat was tied to, Eric stopped paddling and grabbed hold of one of the mooring cables, pulling himself to a standing position in the cockpit so that he could get a look around. He was still too low to see over the top of the high bank, but he could hear generators running in the distance somewhere in the darkness beyond the lakeshore. He scanned what he could see of the barge decks with the monocular and seeing nothing that moved, pulled himself aboard, keeping low as he lined the kayak into the narrow gap between the barge he was now aboard and the stern of the next one, where he secured his bow painter to prevent it from drifting out into view of anyone who mig
ht happen along.

  Lieutenant Holton had provided him with most of what he needed, although Eric sorely missed his personal Glock 19 with its precision trigger work and the Trijicon red dot sight mounted low on a Suarez custom-milled slide. In its place now was a standard issue Beretta M9. The M4 he carried was more or less the same as the 3-round burst model he’d surrendered when he and Shauna and Jonathan had to give up their weapons to get past Simmesport and onto the Mississippi. He had a few hand grenades in case they were needed, as well as some other fun stuff in the kayak that he intended to use before he was done here. But for this first move, crossing the decks of the barge, all he carried was the rifle and pistol and the custom blade that never left his side.

  The light was still on inside the cabin of the houseboat, and Eric guessed that even though the sentry wasn’t dedicated enough to stand out there all night in the rain, he was probably making the effort to at least stay awake. It was possible too that he had a companion aboard, and maybe they were passing the time with conversation or a deck of cards. Either way, Eric was as careful in calculating the risk as he would be knowing they were seasoned pros. He quietly boarded the houseboat from the barge and then climbed the ladder leading to the upper sun deck where he would be out of the line of sight of anyone exiting the cabin. He didn’t have time to wait up there indefinitely, but he wasn’t planning to kick the door in either and risk alerting their friends on shore with an action that might result in gunfire. Eric knew the guard he’d seen would come back out after a certain interval to have another look around, but if he waited for that he still wouldn’t know whether the man was the only one aboard. For that, it would be best to create a good reason for him to come out, a minor diversion of some sort that would draw any occupants outside, preferably not with guns at the ready, but to investigate an unexpected sound that couldn’t be ignored.

  Looking around at what was available to him, Eric decided that a really big splash would probably do the trick. Such a noise wouldn’t automatically be connected with an enemy threat, but if it were big enough, it would arouse curiosity, even if they thought it was just a big fish or some other aquatic creature. Eric sliced through the webbing strap holding them down and freed a stack of metal patio chairs that were stored near the aft end of the deck. He threw the first one so that it hit the water just outboard of the rail near the cabin entrance, quickly following up with a second and third that splashed and sank behind the first. Sure enough, it was only a matter of seconds before he heard the cabin door open, and Eric watched and waited, pressed low on the fiberglass roof out of the line of sight of whoever was about to exit.

  He didn’t hear voices in reaction to the disturbance, and it was a lone man that came to check it out, probably the same one he’d watched from a distance before his approach. Eric lifted his head just enough to see the guard looking over the rail, rifle in hand now, as he pondered the source of the commotion. The concentric ripples caused by the splashes were still visible but beginning to diminish as the dark waters of the lake once again became calm and quiet. If the man wasn’t alone, Eric knew this was the time he might speak out to let whoever was inside know there was nothing to see outside. When he didn’t however, and instead moved to step back inside out of the rain, Eric felt sure he was indeed dealing with only one guard. He waited until just before he closed the door, and then he sent another chair sailing over the rail, this one hitting the lake several feet forward, near the bow.

  The splash immediately drew the guard back out, and Eric followed him, crouching low on the roof above until his unsuspecting target was exposed on the open forward deck. Setting down the M4 to keep his hands free, Eric leapt quietly to the lower level just behind his quarry, pulling the man down and slamming him to the deck in one smooth motion as he absorbed the momentum of the jump with his legs. The guard’s rifle clattered against the rail as they went down together, and Eric helped it over the side with a nudge of his foot. Before he could cry out or struggle, Eric had a hand clasped over his mouth and the point of his big blade bearing against the soft underside of his chin, so that there could be no mistaking that he meant business.

  The guard seemed to realize the futility of putting up a fight after being taken down so efficiently and with no warning. His eyes were wide with fear and he nodded and remained quiet when Eric removed his hand from his mouth, believing the warning that he would taste cold steel if he uttered a sound louder than a whisper in answer to the questions that followed. He assured Eric that he was indeed alone on the boat and alone on waterfront guard duty until his watch ended at dawn. Eric searched him for additional weapons, removing a large folding knife clipped in his pocket before securing his wrists behind his back with one of the heavy plastic cable ties he’d brought for the purpose. Then he got the man to his feet and led him aft to the open cabin door. Once inside, Eric forced him to sit before securing his ankles with another cable tie. Then he set about getting the answers to some of the other questions he came here to resolve. He couldn’t be sure he was getting the truth, but none of the guard’s replies seemed particularly far-fetched.

  “It wouldn’t have happened, and they’d still be alive if they hadn’t come here and started shooting first,” the man said when Eric asked him about the gunboat and its missing crew and learned that only the sergeant in command had survived. “They didn’t leave the men at the lock any choice. They were under attack.”

  Eric doubted that part of the story, figuring it was actually the other way around, and that the gunboat crew had been fired on first. “They were here to investigate the closure of the Waterway,” he said. “They have federal authority to be here, as do I. Now, I want to know where that sergeant is being held, and if what you tell me isn’t the whole truth, I’ll be back before I leave to make sure it’s the last lie you’ll ever tell.”

  “I’m not lying, man. He’s in the compound, but you’re crazy if you think you can get him out. You might have gotten the drop on me out here, but you’ll never get through our camp perimeter. You’ll end up dead just like those other federal thugs.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Eric said.

  Before he left him, Eric gagged the man so there’d be no chance he would call for help. While it was probably more prudent to finish him then and there with the knife, Eric was here for one purpose and this time it wasn’t to kill as many of the enemy as possible. As far as he was concerned this man wasn’t his enemy anyway unless he was an active threat, and at this point he no longer was. With the guard unable to sound a warning, Eric wasn’t overly concerned about his ability to recon the encampment undetected. Tonight’s weather was perfect for that sort of thing. Besides, with the diversion he intended to create soon enough, stealth would be totally irrelevant before he was done here.

  Eric quietly exited the cabin of the houseboat and checked the line of barges again before climbing to the roof to retrieve his rifle. Then he made his way back across the adjacent barge to climb back into the cockpit of the kayak, leaving it tied there out of sight in the shadows while he crouched in the seat and pulled out the canvas bags he’d stashed under the decks fore and aft. The explosive charges and remote detonation system inside were sorted and ready to go, he just had to place them into position and so they’d be all set when he was ready for the fireworks.

  When he had everything ready and close at hand in the cockpit, Eric paddled out from under the barge and made his way down the outside of the line to the gray steel hull of the gunboat, working quickly to place his magnetic packages on the topsides just below the waterline. Getting out of the lake with the government vessel intact was out of the question with the exits from the lake blocked at both ends by locks, so an essential part of his mission here was to destroy or disable it so that it was no longer available for unauthorized use. He had more than enough C-4 to take care of that, and enough time when he was finished to set about disabling the other boats tied up to the barges by opening any drain plugs he found accessible and removing or
slashing their outboard fuel lines.

  Finished with those preparations, Eric paddled swiftly to the south along the lakeshore until he was a quarter mile past all the barges, where he secured the kayak beneath a clump of low-hanging bushes growing out from the bank and stepped ashore. He was carrying the M4 and a load-out of spare magazines for it and the Beretta, as well as the hand grenades and the RAMS detonator for the explosives. If the man he’d interrogated was telling the truth about the time of the next watch change, Eric didn’t have to worry about anyone finding him on the houseboat before the action started. If he moved quickly there’d be more than enough time to reach his objective and figure out a way to get the sergeant out. The steady rain had fallen long enough to thoroughly soak the ground and the leaf litter of the forest floor, making it easy to quietly wind his way among the trees in a hurry. Eric didn’t know what kind of security measures might be in place at the compound but finding just one man watching the waterfront indicated to him that whoever was in charge here had confidence in the remoteness and inaccessibility of this location. Considering that they controlled the lake and no doubt all the roads leading into the area, that was understandable, but nevertheless unprofessional and whoever was responsible would realize his error soon enough.

  Fifteen minutes later, Eric had reached the edge of a large, parklike clearing and was scanning the former recreational campground through his night vision monocular. More than a dozen motorhomes and travel trailers occupied the main campsite pads along the loop road, just as one might have observed here most any night before everything changed. But in addition to the recreational vehicles, there were numerous enclosed cargo trailers and even portable buildings of the type normally used for storage sheds or workshops in the backyards of suburban homes. Pickup trucks and SUVs of all descriptions were parked everywhere amongst them, and a tall fence with 6-foot high mesh and several strands of barbed wire above that defined the outer perimeter.