TYRANT: The Rise (18 page)

“Put the gun on the ground,” Denny commanded.

The stranger bent down and placed the gun on the ground.

“Now put your backpack on the ground,” Denny ordered.

“Who are you?” Jess asked again.

“My name is Thomas,” he answered as he maneuvered his pack from his shoulders.

Jess remembered the name. Her memory went racing back to Murphysboro when she was alone in the dark dank basement, as a prisoner. She heard Scott talking to a man named Thomas.

“He’s a scout,” she managed to say just as he pulled another pistol from an open pocket of his pack.

Zig, not remembering the teaching and training he had received from Denny and Nathan, ran out in front of the pack in an attempt to stop the man from shooting his friends.

Zig thought he could beat the man’s draw speed and catch his arm before he shot. The others could not save Zig or shoot Thomas, due to Zig being between them. Two shots rang out. One was Thomas’s pistol, and the second was a distant rifle shot that impacted Thomas’s side from the north and exited Thomas’s other side to the south. Both Thomas and Zig dropped to the ground. Zig had been shot in the chest.

Jess, Ash, and Denny turned their attention and aimed towards a man standing in the distance with a high-powered rifle. Both his hands and rifle were in the air, as if he was surrendering himself.

Denny bent down to nurse Zig, who was reeling in pain.

“Go get that guy,” Denny yelled. “I’ve got Zig.”

Ash and Jess ran towards the man, guns aimed. Once again, Jess found herself resisting the urge to kill the stranger. But this time, the urge was stronger than she could bear, because of what had just transpired. As a result, when Jess was within fifteen yards, she pulled the trigger, shooting the man in the abdomen. He grabbed his stomach with a free arm and pointed his rifle with the other, as if he were shooting a pistol. Ash reflexed his rifle to his shoulder and sighted in on the man, center mass. Both the stranger and Ash pulled their respective triggers and two more high-powered rifle sounds shot through the air.

Nathan came running up from behind everybody and quickly surmised what had happened. His only question was one that he kept to himself. He mentally asked himself,
Why wasn’t I included?

The stranger with the high-powered rifle was flopping on the ground, still not dead from having received two gunshot wounds. The stranger had missed his shot and a stray bullet landed somewhere in Gorham.

Jess and Ash were still aiming their guns at the stranger as they cautiously approached him. Nathan saw that his rifle was no longer in hand, but was, in fact, three to four feet from him now.

Nathan pushed Jess’s pistol down and placed his hand on Ash’s rifle, as if telling him to lower it. Ash lowered his rifle and Nathan stepped in front of the crew and walked up to the man.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

The man, holding his gunshot wounds in both hands, said, “My name is Mark. I’ve been tracking Thomas all day. I had to stop him…”

The man’s voice began to fade.

Nathan dropped his rifle and picked the man’s head up and placed it on his lap and asked another question. “Where did you come from? Why are you here?”

Mark was fading out quick. Cade had sent him to do one thing, and that was to make the people think they were good guys and to kill Thomas if he did anything stupid.

With Mark’s dying breath, he said, “Murphy. Had to stop Thomas.”

Mark’s hands went limp and fell to the ground. His wounds were bleeding through his flannel shirt and onto Nathan’s knees.

For a moment, they had forgotten that Zig had been shot.

“Guys,” Denny shouted.

Jess, Ash, and Nathan ran to Denny and Zig.

“We need to get him to my place ASAP,” Denny commanded. Nathan jumped on Zig’s horse while Ash, Denny, and Jess assisted in hoisting Zig onto the horse with Nathan. Once he was firmly secure, they all rode together back to base camp.

Once they had reached Denny’s place, they cleared a place on the bed.

“Go get Zig’s wife and kids, now,” Nathan commanded, looking at Jess.

Jess jumped up, ran out the door and bumped into ten men in camouflaged utilities. They were decked out in full combat attire, including Kevlar helmets, flak jackets, M4s, radios, grenades, and more.

Jess didn’t take her eyes off of them. She just backed up into the trailer.

Nathan saw her coming back in and said, “What are you doing? Go get Zig’s family!”

The men came flooding into the trailer and everybody that was helping with Zig stood up, all but Zig. They stared at the men until one of them broke the silence.

“We’re US Marines, and we’re here to help.”

Back at the former Menard Correctional Center, Buchanan was receiving radio traffic from Franks. The Recons and Rangers had located a community several miles up Route 3. They had set up a Recon sniper and had watched for some time and determined the community to be peaceful and still practicing free trade and travel, with the exception of an incident involving the shooting deaths of two questionable outsiders that came armed into their community.

The sniper and Rangers provided overwatch from a large natural bluff on the south side of the town.

The Recon Marines had made seemingly friendly contact with the community and were actively assisting a US Navy field medic veteran in lifesaving trauma care for a gunshot victim.

Buchanan felt that he was spread thin and didn’t want to send anybody else out of the area. He contacted Captain Riley on the radio and put him in charge of the prison. Buchanan hatched a plan to ride out to the community. After refueling a heavy-gun HMMWV, he geared up with a gunner in the .50-caliber turret and headed towards Gorham.

General John James and Admiral Belt McKanty were held up in the mini bunker prepped by a group of people who were friends of Aaron and Gideon, the sons of Joshwa, a District cab driver. John and Belt had spared his life so that they could get out of the District. The guard towers had armed men in them, and they had their food, guns, ammunition, and their leader in the bunker with them.

“How long do you plan to keep me prisoner down here?” Michael asked John.

John looked at Michael and said, “I’m sorry it came to this, but you weren’t cooperating with the plan.”

“Maybe if you would have shared your plan with me, we could have worked something out,” he replied.

“Doubt it. You seemed pretty cozy here and reliant on yourself. I don’t see how this could have went any other way.”

“So, what’s this plan of yours?” Michael asked.

“It’s classified. So is our identity,” John said, looking at Joshwa and his family. They were all in the same room, some sitting, some standing.

“But I will tell you this: Any moment now, a group of angry UN soldiers are going to come through those woods with dogs. They’re going to shoot at your guards. Your tower guards are going to return fire. While the Blue Helmets are occupied with your towers, we’re going to make our getaway with food, guns, and ammo. You’re welcome to escape with us, but that’s where our story ends and our paths separate.”

“So you used us!” Aaron said to John.

“Like I said, I’m sorry it came to this. I really was playing this by ear. When I heard he wasn’t going to help us, the plan had to be altered,” John said as he looked at Michael.

Michael was genuinely scared at the thought of what was coming through the forest. John had said something that had triggered a flood of fears in his mind. John and Belt could read the fear in his eyes and knew he was about to suffer from some kind of emotional breakdown.

Michael didn’t have to say anything with words. His body language said it all. John looked at him and said, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be saving your tail before it’s all said and done.”

No sooner than General John James had said that, they heard the muffled sounds of gunfire coming from the outside world.

“They’re here,” Gideon said with a loud and fearful voice.

“If you guys want to survive this, you’ll need to work with us. The UN doesn’t take POWs and they don’t accept surrender. They believe their god grants them access to heaven for dying in battle. They’re here to convert you or to kill you, and judging by your nationality, option one isn’t even on the table,” John said as he looked at the Jewish family.

“What about Michael?” Joshwa said.

“What about Michael?” John answered, looking at Michael.

“If I have a choice between dying with my hands tied behind my back and dying trying to live, I’d prefer to take my chances with a gun in hand,” Michael answered.

Belt cut the bootlaces that were used to bind Michael’s hands.

“Lock and load,” John said as he chambered a round in his rifle. Everybody followed suit as they piled next to the exit hatch behind John and waited for the word.

John opened the hatch and everybody approached the back door under the sounds of gunfire outside.

“We don’t have time to waste. The longer we idle, the more time they have to surround us and lay siege,” John said.

“Let’s do it,” Aaron shouted.

Everybody jetted out the back. They ran as fast as they could, maintaining a low profile as they ran.

Michael led them to a bugout bus that his group had spent time prepping. It had metal shields, bolted and welded in place, upon the windows. They had also spent some time syphoning gasoline from other vehicles to make sure this one stayed prepped and ready to roll.

Michael jumped into the driver’s seat and started the bus. John sat directly behind him and Belt ran to the back and provided a nervous watch for everybody on the bus, except his friend John, who he had known and trusted for years.

Belt figured he could make sure there would be no retaliation or change of plan by keeping everybody between him and John.

John had his pistol pointing into the back of the driver’s seat of the bus, but nobody was seated where they could see it. Everybody but Belt was watching through the windshield. They all wanted to see what Michael was seeing.

The bus door closed and Michael put his foot on the accelerator.

“Turn your lights off,” John yelled at Michael.

“But I won’t be able to see.”

“You’ll see just fine in a few moments; just don’t drive like an idiot. The moon is bright enough to light the way and your night vision will come back shortly,” John said.

John was nervous about letting him come along, but knew he needed the firepower in the event they ran into a bad scenario.

The UN soldiers were looking for a family of Jews that killed two UN soldiers. They did not expect, nor come with enough firepower, to stop a bugout bus or as many men as they had at the compound. John and Belt knew this, but spent the last several hours bluffing the amateur civilians.

John and Belt figured that by now the guard tower snipers had killed the UN search party, but that encounter only complicated matters. Now that the UN had most likely contacted their superiors, a larger more battle-ready group of UN fighters would come in and destroy them, maybe even attack them from the air. Either way, John and Belt were now safely on their way to South Dakota. Their passengers consisted of four Jewish men and a petite Jewish female.

As they traveled along the empty back-country road, John began thinking about the strategy. The men were capable fighters, but inexperienced. The female didn’t have any use that he could think of. She would only be an extra mouth to feed and resources were limited. John had to check himself. Sometimes his survival instinct overpowered his humanity. He needed to talk to Belt about the situation, but understood why it was tactically responsible to keep everybody in sight.

“So where are we going, again?” Michael asked.

John’s mind snapped back to Michael’s question. “Just keep heading west. Stay on back roads and avoid major highways and interstates.”

“There’s going to be several smaller communities on these back roads that we’re going to need to deal with,” Michael said.

“Tell us what you know,” John said.

“Well, I don’t mean to insult your knowledge, but I know this area better than you. There are rough people that are trying to survive out there, and they will do whatever it takes to do so.”

The District didn’t pay much attention to smaller communities. In their naivety, they figured they would just get hungry and march into the nearest FEMA camp for food and shelter. That might be how the liberal cities operated, but these backwoods communities had a different mentality grafted into their being. Almost like a spirit of resistance. They would never surrender their God-given liberties for the government’s definition of peace and security.

John had found a use for Zamora. If they were going to be taking chances in rural America, they would need a pretty face. John felt she would soften their abrasive appearance.

“We’ll deal with that when we get there,” John said. “There’s no use trying to lay out a strategy before we even have the intel on them.”

“We’re not going to be able to avoid major highways, though. This is Virginia, it’s full of woods and back roads, but most of the time, the only way out is straight down a major highway or, better yet, an interstate,” Michael said.

“The interstates will be full of checkpoints and UN soldiers looking for travel passes. Highways will be full of brigands and street thugs. None of this is a good sitrep.”

“Sitrep?”

“Situation report,” John said.

As John answered, he realized he had given too much away about his identity. He didn’t want to be sold downriver. His paranoia had served him well in the District, but now John was realizing that even he would have to improvise, adapt, and overcome his new situation. All of America was doing it. The possibility that America would never recover from this tyrannical usurpation was becoming all too real for General John James. It hit him like a freight train.

“Pull over,” he shouted.

“What? Why?” Michael probed.

“Pull over now,” the general commanded.

Michael pulled the bus over and put it in park. The general stood up and grabbed Michael by the back of the shirt and pointed his pistol at his head.