The Last Marine : Book Two (A Dystopian War Novel)

by T. S. Ransdell

  “Yes, sir.” Stewart stood up, presuming his dismissal.

  “And, Gavin, do whatever it takes to catch those boys alive. Don’t kill them unless they know too much. I see a real opportunity in the media circus we can make out of their arrest and trial. It’ll provide us with a nice distraction. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Stewart replied. “But I’ll remind the general, they’re Marines. They probably won’t give us the choice in taking them alive.”

  “We don’t give them a choice,” Mythers scoffed. “We’re the government.”

  Mythers’s mind raced as he read the report Pankhurst gave him. The Arizona wildfire no longer seemed to be a needless distraction to him as it had twenty-four hours earlier.

  The fire, another crisis to exploit? Mythers pondered. How many ranches can we confiscate in the name of protecting citizens? The environment? In shutting down radical treasonous activity in Arizona?

  He knew a sizable fortune would be made from the real estate deals emerging out of the breakup of Camp Pendleton. Mythers now wondered if Arizona offered the same possibilities.

  Stone Bison was in on that deal, Mythers thought. I could call him in on this.

  Feeling high on adrenaline, he jumped up from his desk chair and began to pace around his office.

  Why not? Mythers asked himself. Who can stop me? Hell, even the president ain’t shit to me now.

  Hiding in a San Clemente dumpster, Lance Corporal Joseph Boucher was patient in his anger. The smell was sickening, but he suppressed his urge to gag and vomit. As a distraction, Boucher focused on the fourteen-inch piece of rebar he’d scrounged from a nearby construction site. He needed to be comfortable with its weight and feel.

  The only reason I have to leave this dumpster, Boucher told himself, is to kill.

  For Boucher, fighting had always been an emotional response. It was how he dealt with the stress of chaos in battle. Instead of retreating from the chaos, he threw himself into it. He relished charging full speed into what he feared, to emerge victorious or dead. His personal safety was not important to him, only the feeling of control such action gave him. Far from his reputation as a “cold killing machine,” combat for Boucher was hot-blooded and intoxicating, although coming down from battle always left him hard-eyed and apathetic.

  Long ago, Boucher accepted his bloodlust would ultimately kill him. Now, the irony that it had saved his life was not lost upon him. Feeling an emotional frenzy to kill, Boucher had chased a retreating DSF officer into the hills separating Horno from the Pacific Ocean. After watching the incineration of Horno and 1/1, Boucher lost sight of the officer he was chasing after. Driven by the adrenaline of his bloodlust, he’d spent the morning daylight crawling towards the ocean, avoiding detection by the FedAPS helicopters. After all, what could be more chaotic than the government, and people you’ve fought for, wanting you dead? More than ever he wanted to kill, and this desire drove him on.

  As if in answered prayer, he caught sight of the FedAPS officer crawling through a wash and heading north. Boucher had an opportunity to kill him then and there. It would have been an easy shot, but Boucher didn’t take it. Not for fear of being seen or heard. Instead, Boucher wanted to make the man’s death bloody and personal. Enough so that he endured fatigue, thirst, and hunger pursuing him through the hills, the washes, and the sewers into San Clemente.

  Now he waited in an apartment dumpster with a catty-corner view of the house where the FedAPS officer had entered. Boucher planned to wait until the officer left the house, follow behind him, then beat him to death.

  Shortly before sunrise, the front door opened, and the officer emerged with a white trash bag. Boucher had not counted on the man actually walking towards the dumpster, but decided the situation would suit his end. However, the FedAPS officer never got close enough to the dumpster. Instead, he threw the trash bag into the dumpster’s open top, turned around, and went back into the house. Boucher started to climb out but stopped, instead turning his attention to the contents spilling out of the trash bag: a FedAPS officer’s uniform. Boucher held it up; the name tape read Osmanović. A wide smile spread across Boucher’s face.

  Huso dozed off on the sofa despite drinking three cups of coffee. The stress and fatigue of the last twenty-four hours had caught up with him. At first, he ignored the knocking, thinking it was part of a dream, but then bolted upright as it persisted. Groggy, Osmanović mentally slugged through several possibilities of who could be knocking.

  If it was a fellow jihadist from the AJR, wouldn’t they have a key? It’s their safe house, after all, he wondered. But as he awakened, he realized he’d kept the key instead of putting it back in its hiding place. That’s why they can’t get in, Huso told himself.

  With pistol in hand, he jogged to the bedroom window, with a clear view of the front doorstep, and peeked out the window. The tattered FedAPS uniform with a DSF patch set Huso’s mind at ease. He couldn’t recognize who it was, but he was short and muscular, with dark hair.

  Has to be one of our guys, he thought.

  Surprised by how relieved he felt at having found a fellow survivor, Huso jogged back to the door and opened it.

  “Hey! I–” Too late, Huso realized he’d made a mistake. Before him stood a man with a fourteen-inch club and the most terrifying eyes Huso had ever seen. He wanted to draw his pistol and kill the madman, but his arms wouldn’t move. For an eternal moment Huso felt paralyzed with fear. Finally, some part of Huso’s subconscious mind commanded his right hand to bring the pistol up and fire. His movements felt slow and awkward.

  With what seemed like invisible speed to Huso, the madman brought the length of rebar down on his gun hand, just behind the thumb, where the hand meets the wrist. The pain was as sharp as it was instant, yet Huso remained silent, not having regained control of his voice. The madman struck again, this time at Huso’s left knee. Huso would have collapsed had the madman not grabbed ahold of him. Then, when the madman struck Huso atop his left shoulder, he let Huso drop to the floor in pain.

  The gun! You need the gun! Huso’s inner voice screamed at him. This time, in desperation, Huso’s body responded, but broken bones inhibited his speed. Faster! Huso’s mind screamed again as he crawled towards the pistol less than two yards away.

  In the background, Huso could hear the madman close the front door and turn the bolt lock. “Crawl, motherfucker!” the madman hollered. Huso thought he sounded as if he were trying to keep from laughing.

  Huso focused on the pistol; it was at his fingertips. You must get it, Huso told himself as he reached out.

  “Crawl your way to hell!” the madman taunted and walked over to Huso. He stepped down, hard, on the back of Huso’s left elbow. In a fluid movement the madman grasped Huso’s left wrist and snapped his arm backwards.

  Once again in control of his voice, Huso screamed in pain. He closed his eyes tightly, but still saw flashes of white as the madman repeatedly brought the rebar down across his shoulder blades. Huso found the pain intolerable, but he could do nothing to end it. He was in hell.

  Did my victims feel this way? was the last cohesive thought to run through Huso Osmanović’s mind.

  Harris tossed the last spade full of dirt on McCurry’s grave. He raised the shovel to throw it into a nearby creosote bush, but stopped when he caught sight of bloodstains on the handle left by McCurry when he’d used it as a crutch.

  “It’s a beautiful sunrise,” Edwards quietly stated before lighting his first cigarette of the day. Harris lowered the shovel, surprised by Edwards’s statement. “Going to be one hell of a new day though.”

  “Get a smoke from you?” Harris let the shovel drop and took the offered cigarette and lighter. “Thanks.” Harris spoke as he exhaled, handing the lighter back to Edwards.

  “This time of year, the sun ought to be rising in the southeast. That’s north-northeast.” Edwards stuck his left arm out to indicate the direction while holding the compass in his right.

  “How l
ong you think we’ve got till the feds catch up with us?” Harris asked in a cloud of exhaled smoke.

  “Somebody’s had to have found the bodies at the station. If so, it won’t take long to find the FedAPS vehicle. Or Rivett, for that matter. Hopefully, they’re tracking that false trail we made west. But they’ll figure out we’ve cut east. I guess we’ll know when we start seeing drones in the air.” Edwards scanned the sky, as if one would appear on cue.

  “I’ll bet this FedAPS gear has the same kind of thermal camouflage we had in China,” Harris opined. “That ought to help us a bit with any drones.”

  “Yeah.” Edwards narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Let’s head west again, a mile or so - even split up to create two trails. We can ditch these cigarette butts and some of McCurry’s gear to throw them off a bit, then head northeast again. We’ll be lighter; we can double-time a bit to gain distance.”

  “You think it’ll do much good?” Harris asked. “Why not just make a beeline northeast as fast as we can?”

  “I don’t know.” Edwards slowly shook his head. “We’ve probably got a snowball’s chance in hell of making it to Rivett’s ranch, let alone getting out of this alive. Whoever’s going to kill us at the end of the day, let’s make the bastards work for it.”

  “Work?” Harris grinned and snubbed out his cigarette. “Let’s make the sons of bitches bleed.”

  “We will.” Edwards smiled slightly in agreement. “After the false trail, we’ll cut back in an eastwardly direction. Let’s stay close to those rocky outcrops. Hopefully, that’ll make us harder to track, on ground anyway, and give us some cover when they do catch up to us.”

  “One last stand,” Harris said and picked the shovel back up. They divvied up McCurry’s gear and headed west.

  “It’s perfect!” Mythers exclaimed with joy, hearing his own words read back to him by Colonel Pankhurst. “I can’t wait to see the look on Tang’s face.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pankhurst gushed, caught up in her commander’s enthusiasm. “What I’d give to be there when you tell the president he has to read this statement on national television!”

  Mythers leaned back in his desk chair and kicked his feet up on his desk. The realization of his life’s dreams had him feeling euphoric. He cocked his head to the side and looked askew at Maya Pankhurst. He’d never thought of her as an attractive woman, nor did he have reason to now. However, it was her comment of “what I’d give” that resonated with him.

  What would you give to be there? Mythers smirked as Pankhurst leaned over his desk to answer the phone. Because I now have the power to make that happen.

  “Sir, Colonel Stewart is on the line.” Pankhurst interrupted the general’s salacious thoughts.

  “Thank you, Maya.” Mythers took the phone and waited for Pankhurst to exit his office.

  “What have you got for me, Gavin?”

  “Sir, we’ve located the FedAPS vehicle the Marines stole. Arizona HP found a dead body, one of the Marines. We’re still waiting for a DNA confirmation; but a facial recognition scan has identified him as James W. Rivett, USMC, from Skull Valley, Arizona.”

  “Skull Valley? Are you kidding me? There’s actually a town with that name?”

  “Yes, sir. The Rivett family owns a large ranch in the area north of where the vehicle was found. I can…send agents to the house…but it’s likely to be more noticeable than the others.”

  “You have a better idea, Gavin?” Mythers asked.

  “Sir, there’s no guarantee they’ll go to the house, or even if they can find it. But I think they will head in that direction.”

  “Why?”

  “Lack of options, sir. Local law enforcement is following their trail west, but I think they will ultimately head north-northeast. With your permission, sir, I’d like to order some incendiary drones as well as observation drones. If we start a fire between them and Skull Valley, just to the west of the town, we can have them trapped, sir.”

  “Gavin, I don’t want them burned alive. I want them captured and on trial. That would work very well for what I have planned.”

  “Yes, sir. The idea is to trap them, sir, so as to facilitate their surrender.” Stewart still thought their surrender very unlikely. “Sir, we can have the media report this as a backfire to contain the one farther north.”

  And add to my planned land grab, Mythers thought.

  “All right, Gavin, you’ve got it,” Mythers said. “I’ll let General Hooker know you’ll be putting in a request for ordnance. You be sure these Marines don’t get killed in the process.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mythers hung up the phone and went back to planning his meeting with President Tang within the next few hours.

  “Maya, would you come in here, please?” he called Pankhurst on the intercom.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, Maya,” Mythers addressed his subordinate as she entered his office, “I want to discuss what we can do, you and I, to get you into the meeting with the president this afternoon.”

  “Are you out of your mind, General?” Tang emphasized Mythers’s rank with a tone of contempt with the explicit goal of reminding the bureaucrat of his place. He failed.

  “No, not in the slightest,” Mythers coolly replied. He intentionally dropped the sir as a way of informing Tang of his new status.

  Tang felt his face growing flush with indignity. He looked to Bison and Solak, hoping to see a visual confirmation of their support for him. He got none. They sat seemingly unconcerned. Just as they had done when Mythers had insisted Lieutenant Colonel Pankhurst, a mere secretary, attend this confidential meeting. Now both were absorbed in the prepared statement Mythers had handed out at the start of the meeting.

  “As a courtesy, Mr. President,” Mythers mocked Tang’s condescending tone from moments before, “I’ll reiterate: reading this statement, explaining your order to arrest those individuals, is essential. It is non-negotiable.”

  “But it’s not true. Half of the names on this list are my political allies.” Tang’s cracking voice betrayed the weakness he felt. “Hell, some of them are my personal friends.” Tang shoved Mythers’s list of “suspected collaborators and subversives” onto the coffee table in a feeble show of strength.

  “They’re YOUR friends and allies, not mine.” Mythers bit his tongue to keep from smiling. He was enjoying himself, but a smiling face was not the image he wanted to present at this moment.

  “These aren’t ‘nobodies’ on your list. They’re prominent politicians, businessmen, journalists…” Tang fought to control his composure. “Hell, you’ve got nearly half of Congress on that list! Non-negotiable!” Tang yelled. “As a courtesy, General, I’ll remind you that you serve at my pleasure. I can fire your ass!”

  “Ben, let’s not get carried away. General Mythers has brought a lot to the table. This–” Bison momentarily struggled for an appropriate word “–resistance to government authority has to be brought to heel. The Marine Corps’ mutiny, the riots, these subversive representatives–”

  “Ben, order needs to be restored,” Solak interrupted with the calm authority of a man used to getting his way. “General Mythers is merely doing what we’ve given him the power to do. Let him do the heavy lifting; you’re still the people’s president. Trust me, these arrests will do far more good than harm.” Exceptionally pleased with the recent turn of events, he took a celebratory sip of the scotch Bison had poured at the start of the meeting. Rarely did Solak drink alcohol, but this was a watershed moment. By the end of the weekend Solak would, unofficially, have complete control over a government-regulated media. Not to mention a generous percentage of the land deals that would emerge from Camp Pendleton’s sale and federal acquisitions of new lands in Arizona.

  “Remember, at the end of the day we’re all on the same team here.” Bison attempted to soothe his friend’s hurt ego. “We’re only–” Bison was interrupted again, but this time by Solak’s spastic coughing.

  “Fidal, are you all r
ight?” Tang sounded more confused than concerned.

  The old man tried to stand, but abruptly dropped to his knees. His eyes looked as if they’d pop out of his beet-red face.

  “Henrich, do something! Get my doctor!” Tang yelled to his Secret Service agent in the room. Jaden Henrich stood perfectly still. “Henrich! I said get my–”

  “President Tang,” Mythers calmly interceded, “our dear friend Fidal Solak has obviously died of a sudden and tragic heart attack.”

  As if to object, Solak croaked from his carmine-colored face before falling onto the floor and convulsing.

  Although an accomplice in Solak’s death, Bison watched in horror. He’d never seen a man die before.

  “What a shame.” Mythers couldn’t contain a slight smile. “Henrich, take care of this problem.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jaden Henrich promptly called in other Secret Service agents to fetch the body.

  Before Solak’s corpse was carried out the doorway of Bison’s den, Tang was studying the statement Mythers wanted him to give to the press. He understood now, and would do as he was told.

  In the thickness of short desert trees, Harris lost sight of the mountain ridge to the north. Edwards walked about ten yards in front of him and about twenty yards to his right. A few miles back they’d separated, but stayed within sight of each other, hoping this might make them more difficult to track or be spotted by a drone. Both agreed it was a long shot. Neither had experience running away from an enemy, and they really didn’t know how to go about it. However, the increasing amount of foliage was making their plan more difficult. Their separate trails were in danger of merging into one.

  Edwards caught Harris’s attention and motioned for him to come over, then took cover under a juniper tree. Harris took five steps in Edwards’s direction and froze. He heard the buzzing of a drone. He took cover under the umbrella of another tree and hoped for the sound to fade away. The buzzing grew louder. His heart rate quickened. Harris clenched his jaw until his teeth felt as if they’d shatter. He was afraid to move, and afraid not to. The buzzing grew louder still. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck as a cold shudder rippled through his body. Harris turned around and stared at the mechanical vulture’s lens twisting and turning as it devoured his image from ten yards out.