White Wasteland by Jeff Kirkham (best color ebook reader .txt) 📕

her peril. There could be other risks. Risks she hadn’t yet considered. Based on her past experience on a raft in the middle of the sea of recklessness, there might be consequences she never imagined, consequences far greater than disappointing her father.

Emily pulled her hair back and tied it off with the rubber band she kept on her wrist. When she did, her hand brushed a sheen of sweat on the back of her neck. The biting cold of the winter afternoon attacked the moisture, and the chill coursed all the way down her spine.

Orchardview Boulevard

Oakwood, Utah

Jeff had given Ross a day and a half to get the Mormon Church MRAP situation handled, but the two black MRAPs with the blue flags remained parked at forty-five degree angles in the middle of the street like giant, armored, burrs under Jeff’s saddle. They were tying up his men and screwing with his chi.

Time’s up.

“QRF One and Three, move to close perimeter around the MRAPs. I’m going in.”

Jeff climbed aboard his OHV, checked his magazine, double-checked the load in his vest, and breach-checked his Robinson XCR-M rifle. As he pulled away from his overwatch position, the QRF’s both checked in over the radio and confirmed Jeff’s order.

Jeff drove straight up to the Blue Army roadblock, causing the armed men to launch into a frenzy of activity, scrambling for their rifles and diving behind cover. Jeff counted six men.

“I want to speak to your commanding officer,” Jeff bellowed.

A telling pause followed. Any pause, in Jeff’s experience, indicated weaknesses in command structure. They should’ve approached and secured him immediately.

“Put your weapon on the ground. Raise your hands. Lay down.” Someone yelled from from behind an armored vehicle.

Enter the cop, Jeff guessed.

“I’m not going to do any of that. Get your commander out here, now.”

Another long pause. “I’m not saying it again: put your weapon on the ground. Raise your hands. Lay down.”

Hands on his hips, rifle slung, Jeff stood his ground. “Forty of my men have your position surrounded. Keep your fingers off your triggers or you all die. Don’t think for a second these tin cans will save your lives. We’ll pour fire on you and burn you out. Get your commander, now, before someone gets shot or barbecued.”

After another brief pause, one of the men behind the MRAPs took off at a run down the street. The cop who’d been giving Jeff orders went silent. Jeff waited in the middle of the street.

He thought about all the ways he might talk these police officers into joining his own security force. He’d lead many men in battle, and cops had proven even better than rank-and-file military veterans when it came to spooling up to fight. Still, they tended to be loyal to their clan, particularly when religion was involved.

Three minutes later, two men walked briskly toward the roadblock. One was a huge guy with blond hair, and a police officer’s aggressive stride.

“Who the hell are you?” The big cop glared at Jeff as he approached.

“Jeff Kirkham, commander of Homestead forces.” Jeff reached out his hand. The hand hung in the air, as the big man eyed Jeff up and down.

“What’s a Homestead force,” he demanded, ignoring Jeff’s handshake.

“It’s the force that has forty guns pointed at you, including two snipers with 7.62 rifles.”

The big cop reached out and unenthusiastically returned Jeff’s handshake. “I know who you are. You’re the guys who got your butts handed to you two weeks ago by a mob.”

“And yet here I am, telling you how it is.” Jeff smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his wind-burned eyes. “You need to move these MRAPs out of our AO immediately. Don’t run our barricade again or we’ll fire on you.”

The big cop shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re here by order of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Jeff sensed the men behind the armor steeling themselves. None of them had climbed inside the MRAPs. Jeff’s men could end this conflict in less than ten seconds and he would walk away the proud owner of two new pieces of armor, assuming he walked away. At the moment, four guns were pointed at his chest. “Sounds like the president is the commanding officer. Take me to him, then.” Jeff drilled the guy eyeball-to-eyeball.

In truth, Jeff only pretended to be unimpressed by mention of the Mormon prophet. He’d spent his younger years as a Mormon, and he’d never even met the President of the Church or any of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. They’d been mythical figures in his formative years, and Jeff couldn’t shake the conviction that a Mormon prophet would be an exceptional person. You could take the man out of the Mormon Church, but you couldn’t take the Mormon Church out of the man, it seemed.

Big Cop wasn’t going to make it easy. “Who are you, again? Show me some ID.”

Jeff didn’t budge. “I’m Master Sergeant Jeff Kirkham, United States Army, retired, and I’m not showing you doodly-squat. Take me to your CIC.” Jeff made a point not to ask the cop his name. Manipulating officers was nothing new to him. He’d met a thousand officers who outranked him and he could count on one hand the number of officers he’d met with more field experience. He knew it and they knew it. There were a hundred ways to respect rank and still not give an inch.

The big cop hesitated. “My name’s Jack Vanderlink and I command Blue Army. I’ll take you to President Thayer, but you must disarm first.”

“Not going to happen. I’ll leave my rifle here, only because it’d be impolite to bring a rifle into a man’s home. I keep my handgun.”

Jack Vanderlink huffed, turned and walked up the street, presumably toward the Mormon prophet’s home. Jeff leaned his Robinson XCR-M against the MRAP and followed. He spoke into his radio as he walked. “All stations: hold position.”

The two men walked in silence toward a luxury condominium.