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“Cap, someone was definitely here,” called out Zuka. He was across the airfield by an open hangar. The small airfield was evidently for private planes only—the hangars were far too small for even a single-seater fighter jet.
Captain Alston walked away from the burned husk of the stolen Apache and the body of the female Apache pilot laying on the ground. Judging by the flies on her corpse, she’d been dead a while.
Captain Alston had been happy to track the transponder on the Apache thanks to the geeks at NORAD, but the trail went cold here in Iowa. It’d been a long journey from Salmon Falls, jumping from civilian airport to civilian airport with a couple Ospreys and a squad of Marines on loan. But they were getting close to finding where Chad went. He could feel it.
“Look,” said Deuce, holding up an empty ammo can. “Russian.” He tossed it to the captain and went rummaging around inside the hanger.
“All kinds of maps and shit in there, too. Definitely Ivan,” said Zuka.
Captain Alston looked up from the ammo can in his hands with Cyrillic letters and watched the squad of Marines enter the adjoining hangars looking for clues. The two Ospreys assigned to his mission by the Commandant himself were idling at the far end of the runway, the flight crews already hooking up fuel tanks for their next jump.
“Captain! Think you ought to hear this…” said Deuce from inside the darkened hangar.
As he approached, Captain Alston could hear the radio Deuce was playing with broadcasting a speech. “You are hereby authorized to use whatever force you and your officers deem necessary to get home. Do what it takes and destroy anyone or anything that gets in your way. If you can hear my voice, know this: You are on your own until you reach American soil. Just get home!”
“The hell is that?” asked Zuka.
“New president,” said Deuce.
“Turn it up,” said Captain Alston.
“I want to urge the good people of America to heed well President Denton’s dying wish to rise up against Mr. Barron and his European allies. As much as we appreciate the generosity and support of our European friends, we as a nation grow more and more apprehensive over what is taking place in our cities.
“The United Nations is sending more and more security personnel to patrol American cities—cities where the Constitution of the United States no longer is the supreme law of the land! Yes, I said it! It is abundantly clear that the United Nations is and has been in an alliance with Mr. Barron for some time.”
There was a dramatic pause and Captain Alston found himself holding his breath. When the new president’s voice returned, it was quieter, more constrained. More dangerous. “It is unthinkable that a bloated and incompetent organization such as the United Nations could have acted with such speed and coordination as they have shown, without extensive preparation in advance.
“Now—I know—you and I have heard all the excuses—the riots in the cities are forcing World Health Organization doctors to ask for military escorts. Food distribution locations have been mobbed. People are stealing from one another. While there have been disturbances in many of our larger cities, it is clear to me that these are merely thinly veiled excuses to increase a military presence. For truly, this large an international operation could not have been anything but premeditated. In my book, my fellow Americans, that’s an invasion—an act of war.”
“That President Harris?” asked a Marine lieutenant, trotting in from outside. “We’ve been picking up his speech out there—well, the pilots have. It’s on every channel for public broadcast.”
Captain Alston raised a hand for silence.
“You good people of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and all the other occupied cities, fear not—we will not forget you, we will not fail you, will not give up until we have pushed all the invaders—from whatever country they hail—back into the Atlantic…”
“Sir!” cried Zuka, behind an overturned crate. He stood up, holding a partially unfolded, well-used map.
Captain Alston took the map and looked at the title: Street Map of Charleston, South Carolina. He looked up at Zuka. “This is it,” he said.
“How you figure, sir?” asked the Marine.
Captain Alston turned around. “You know those little towns the Russians have been assisting in the south? They’re all marked on this map.” He held it up and showed the Marine the little red circles around the cities unfortunate enough to be under Russian control.
He spun his hand over his head. As his Rangers began to file out and run for the Ospreys, he called in the news.
“Overwatch, Hammer 2, Actual. The package is being delivered to Charleston, South Carolina. I say again, the package is being delivered to Charleston, South Carolina! We are moving to intercept, requesting immediate assistance…”
Denny put down his rifle and picked up his binoculars. He was lying on a ridge to the north of town, peering down on the scrub brush that dominated the landscape north of Salmon Falls. After the battle, the last of the Russians had fled north, hoping to escape the wrath of the citizen-soldiers in the wilderness of Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains.
“Picked the wrong town to fuck with, Ivan,” Denny muttered, watching the small figures jump and run into the bushes. He shook his head.
Damn near the entire town hunts big game here. We can track and shoot, probably better than the Russians. You don’t stand a chance, now that we’ve got momentum.
He squeezed his throat mic, a parting gift of Captain Alston and the Marines who came to hunt down Chad. “I got my group. Just north of town. They’re heading toward the river.”
“Okay, Denny. We’ll come west and head ‘em off,” replied the voice of Anse Johnson. “Oh, you might want to turn on your radio. New president making a speech. Right up your alley.”
“Okay,” said Denny. He turned on the small radio in his pack and inserted the earbud. He really only carried it for entertainment should he get stranded somewhere on a hunt. It only needed one AAA battery and was about as big as his pinky finger. He had no trouble finding the speech—it was on every station that was still broadcasting.
“To the Sons of Liberty, to the good people of Salmon Falls, to anyone out there who is struggling under the yoke of oppression, I have a special message: do not give up the fight! We will support you in any way possible.”
Well, that’s cool. At least someone out there knows about us now…
Denny picked up his binoculars and went back to watching the Russians flee for their lives. One suddenly jerked sideways mid-jump and fell, lifeless, into a bush. A few heartbeats later, the echo of a rifle shot rolled across the valley floor and reached his ears.
“Got one!” called out Anse.
“You have my blessing as President pro tem, to do whatever is necessary to defeat the invaders and secure the freedom of yourself, your family, and your country. Look to the skies, my friends. Where we cannot send active support in the form of military personnel or jets, we will make every effort to airlift supplies to aid you in your fight for freedom.”
Denny glassed the rest of the Russians. Two were throwing their hands up in surrender. One of the men, his hands up, suddenly clutched his chest and fell over.
“We’re not taking prisoners,” Denny muttered. “Sorry about the inconvenience.” The other one fell into the brush at his feet. Two rifle shots cracked through the air.
“Citizens who find themselves in the unhappy situation of living in the occupied West, I say to you: fear not. Your fellow Americans are coming. I urge you to resist the Communists in any way you can. Take back your homes, your cities and join the cause. Be merciless! This is our land, not theirs! If you can make your way to the new border, military personnel will be there to assist you.”
Denny smiled at the new president’s words. It was as if Grandfather had written the man’s speech. He keyed his mic. “All right everyone, that got ‘em. Now let’s go get that other group that ran west.”
A well-manicured hand gently picked up a crystal tumbler half-full of Glenfiddich 1937 single-malt and swirled the walnut-colored liquid just so. The gold-rimmed crystal was raised to a chiseled, aristocratic face and the man closed his eyes at the first touch of fire on his tongue. He inhaled and savored the hint of cinnamon and cloves as the subtle flavor played its way through his mouth and spread warmth down his throat.
“Exquisite,” he murmured in a cultured, well-trained voice. He looked into the crackling fire just beyond his slippered feet and pulled the mink bathrobe tighter around his athletic legs.
“These northern winters can be so brutally cold—but this helps,” he said, examining the play of the fire’s light through his glass.
The large man in the business suit on the far wall next to the door nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He ignored the Swedish guard and looked out the frost-covered window, where the snow fell incessantly. “Ah, to be back in the summer sun of my youth.” He turned his attention back to the large screen mounted into the stone wall. The new President of the United States—such as it was—had been giving a fine speech. Quite entertaining.
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